Pilgrim 2, p.37
Pilgrim 2, page 37
“Join you on a trip to Diyu?” Shedrup asked.
“Yes. Meet me at the monastery in four days.”
“And what will you do between now and then?” Elder Sonders asked, curious as ever.
“Grow as strong as I possibly can, and I suggest you do the same, Shedrup. This isn’t going to be easy.”
Danzen backed away from the two men. Once he reached the narrow lane outside of Elder Sonders’ mansion, he turned toward Maral’s home.
Jelmay quickly caught up with him, Kudzu not far off.
“Do you think he’ll come?” the bakeneko asked.
“We will see,” Danzen said.
“If he is willing to fight as much as he is willing to help, then he will surely be there,” Kudzu said as they came to Maral’s large home. For once, Danzen couldn’t hear her three sons running around inside and exhausting their mother, and he wasn’t sure if they were even home after the first knock.
It took him several more knocks for someone to actually come to the door, Danzen greeted by Erdene, Temur’s oldest son. The youth with long black hair and acne peppered across the bridge of his nose looked downtrodden.
“I need to speak to your mother,” Danzen said.
Rather than reply, he simply motioned for Danzen to follow. Kudzu and Jelmay stayed behind in the foyer as Erdene led Danzen to one of the spare bedrooms, where the former assassin found Maral resting, her two other sons, Toli and Batu, looking after her.
She normally looked a bit worse for wear because of her three boys, but now it was something else, exhaustion mixed with hopelessness. It looked as if she hadn’t changed clothing in days, her hair matted together, new wrinkles on her forehead.
“Maral. I’m going after your husband in four days,” Danzen told her, not sure of how to begin the conversation.
The woman glanced up to him, confusion first setting in followed by realization, with just a hint of understanding.
“Going where?”
Danzen realized with her next statement that most of the villagers didn’t quite understand what Nomtoi had done.
Maral continued: “No offense, but how would you even do that to begin with? Are you going to retrieve him from Diyu? Is that even possible? It wasn’t his soul that was taken, like last time with Khamdo. It was… It was him. All of him,” she said, starting to choke up.
“Temur is not dead. I will do my best to bring him back, to bring all of them back.” Danzen swallowed hard. “Have faith. It will take me some time.”
“How long?”
“Hopefully not longer than six days. Elder Sonders knows as well, you can consult him about it.”
After a few more words, Danzen left the room and met with Kudzu and Jelmay in the foyer. They stepped out, the bakeneko gently asking how it went, Danzen not replying as they made their way to their next stop.
Danzen knocked on Sarnai’s door, and it wasn’t long before she came, holding baby Leegan with one arm.
“Pilgrim? I’m so… so glad to see that you are better,” she said, her cheeks puffy red.
“I just wanted to stop by to let you know that I am going to bring your husband back. Khamdo’s not dead. I will go to Diyu and retrieve him.”
“He’s not dead?” Sarnai asked, her eye twitching. “Are you… Are you certain? I’ve already started working on funeral arrangements, we all have. The village is… a mess. No one knows what to do.”
Danzen nodded, even though he wasn’t certain what Nomtoi had truly done to the people he’d taken. It struck him in that moment that he was trusting the demon not to kill them, that Nomtoi could simply be lying.
But it was all he had, and he planned to go with it.
Yet again, he felt a flourish within him, Danzen recognizing the Sunyata remnant he had consumed and its power. He wondered if the sensation would go away, if people like Soko dealt with this regularly.
“I’m certain he’s alive,” Danzen said with finality. “Tell the community that I will be going after everyone who has disappeared. I will do my best to bring them back. Elder Sonders knows of my plan as well.”
“I… I know you will, Pilgrim. You care so much about us. I can see it in your eyes, and I have seen it through your actions, from when I first arrived at your monastery to what you did for Khamdo. I just hope… I just hope that you can do it,” she said, starting to choke up.
Her blind faithfulness in the former assassin produced a sense of elation within Danzen, one that he felt he had not earned yet. “Do not worry, stay strong, and I will see that this is handled.” He was just starting to turn away when Sarnai stopped him.
“Are you hungry, Pilgrim? I know it’s getting late, but I was going to cook something soon. Perhaps you and your companions,” she said, looking to Jelmay and Kudzu, “would do well to have a meal.”
“We’re fine,” Danzen said.
“Speak for yourself,” Jelmay said, stepping forward. “We would love to join you for dinner, in fact, Kudzu here is pretty handy in the kitchen,” he said, motioning toward the fox woman, a sly grin taking shape on his face. “And I’m great with the baby.”
“We’re fine,” Danzen said again, with finality this time.
Sarnai waved his concern away. “Nonsense. Let’s share a meal and then I’ll see you off. I’m a firm believer in the power of food. It’s what binds us all. And I want to hear more about what you plan to do… All of it. Will you tell me everything?”
“As much as I’m able to,” he finally said.
Part Nine
.Chapter One.
The sun was setting by the time Danzen and his two yokai companions reached his monastery, Yama and Nama coming halfway down the hill to greet them.
“I can’t believe you would say something like that,” Kudzu told Jelmay, just as the bakeneko plopped down on the hillside.
He placed his hands on his distended belly. “What? If we aren’t able to get Khamdo, I will just become him, and then move in with Sarnai. Easy. I can have her meals three times a day, maybe four, and keep her happy and raise that baby as if it were my own. I’m pretty handy, not as handy as him, but I can learn.”
“That’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever said.”
“What’s so stupid about it?” he asked her. “She doesn’t have to know her husband died. I will act like I have amnesia or something, so she can sort of fill me back in. I’ll be a great husband to her, believe me. You don’t have to worry about that part.”
“You’re not doing that,” Danzen said as he opened the door of his monastery and stepped inside. He went into his bedroom, to his weapons rack, where he placed his glaive, and his two swords. He saw Thane’s two bladed gauntlets; rather than simply observe them and move on, Danzen went for the weapons this time.
He placed the first gauntlet on his left arm, noticing an energy radiating from it. He noticed how it fit over his knuckles, but wasn’t able to figure out how to trigger the blade. Danzen examined the piece further, still not able to discern how his former instructor had used the weapon.
He hadn’t thought about it since their encounter, but it was Thane who had given Danzen’s unique ability a name, Demon Speak, the towering man there for Danzen’s first introduction to his powers.
It was a shame he came after him in the end. Danzen had always respected Thane.
“I sent Jelmay away for the night,” Kudzu said as she came into Danzen’s bedroom, still in her human form. Her gray eyes dropped to the weapons on Danzen’s arms. “How do they work?”
“I can’t figure it out.” He examined them again, and making sure that nothing was in his way, he shook the blade, wondering if that triggered it in some way.
Yet again, he felt a strange pull within him, but he was too exhausted to analyze it, and recognize it for what it was, his echo.
Danzen eventually put the weapons up, hanging both of them on his rack. He could see to them in the morning.
Still feeling weak, he took off his boots and relaxed onto his bed.
Kudzu came to his bedside. “Can I get you anything? Do you want me to get some water?”
“That would be nice,” he told her. “I should check on the chicken as well.”
“There may be a few eggs.”
By the time Kudzu returned with water, Danzen was asleep, his head off to the side, hair in his face. He didn’t see Kudzu tuck him in, nor did he know that she sat by his bedside for an hour to make sure that he wasn’t exhibiting any other symptoms from swallowing the remnant.
The next morning came, Danzen cursed to forget the absolutely amazing dream that revealed something to him he could hardly fathom.
Rebuild Sunyata.
He had been close enough to hell to see what it looked like, but in the dream, he saw heaven too, Sunyata and all of its glories before it had fallen, before it had been dragged down into the muck by Diyu.
Danzen sat up and found Kudzu in her fox form now, asleep before the bed, a cup of water on the small table that Khamdo had built him.
Danzen drank the water and started his day, first going to the well, then checking on Basan, his two lion dogs circling him as he made his way around his property. Sure enough he found Jelmay out front, the bakeneko eating from a bag of dried meat.
“I was wondering when you two would get up. What’s the plan for today, Pilgrim?” he asked, the cat not looking up at him. Instead, he stared out toward the canopy of the Asura Forest, which was covered in a fine blue mist.
“First the shrine, and then wherever the Abbot sends me from there.”
“And you are feeling better today?”
Danzen nodded. “I feel like myself again.”
“Brooding, looking to repent, and also able to kill on a moment’s notice?”
A thin smile formed on the former assassin’s face. “Something like that.”
“In that case, let’s wake up the fox and get this little show on the road. I’m guessing you’re going to make something for breakfast, and I’ll have some of that as well. Plus, I have some snacks here,” he said, showing Danzen the sack of dried meat. “If I recall, they had pretty good food at the fox shrine. Definitely a dining experience I would like to replicate.”
“You don’t need to come with us, you know.”
“Bah! And let you two have all the fun after your brother suddenly attacked the village? Most certainly not. You and the fox are stuck with me, in case you haven’t already figured that out. But I think it’s good for all of us. I like your company, you like mine. Isn’t that right, Pilgrim?”
Rather than respond, Danzen simply turned away, hoping to get a head start in letting Kudzu know that Jelmay was planning to tag along.
“Hey! Pilgrim, don’t you like having me around?” Jelmay called after him.
Danzen stopped at the entrance to his monastery, Yama and Nama coming up alongside him, both of them startling Jelmay.
“I’m not certain how I feel about there being two of them,” the bakeneko told him with a grunt. “One lion dog was enough. And you never answered my question.”
“About what?”
“About having me around…”
“I’m glad you’re around,” Danzen finally said, a smile forming on Jelmay’s face, his whiskers standing to attention.
“Really? You mean it?”
Danzen nodded.
****
Since Jelmay was coming with them, Danzen and Kudzu decided against taking the less complicated route to the Panchen Mountains. As he had before, Danzen traveled with his three blades. He also carried his satchel with him as well, Thane’s gauntlets barely able to fit inside.
The three took the road that twisted around the Asura Forest, Jelmay stopping by his home before they left to grab some more jerky and his sword.
“One can never have enough jerky,” he said as he caught up with the two of them. “Quote me on that.”
What took place over the next hour was essentially a soliloquy on Jelmay’s part, the bakeneko touching on everything that had gone through his mind once Kudzu came to his home to tell him that Danzen’s brother had attacked, the yokai somehow linking this to when Kudzu had slapped him, and how shocked he had been.
“And he looked like what I showed you, right?” he asked the former assassin at some point, Danzen tuning back in.
“My brother?”
“No, Shedrup. Yes, your brother.”
“He did.”
“White robes, red hair, muscled?”
“Yes. Nomtoi could also transform his head into that of a wolf,” Danzen said, recalling that the wolf also had several eyes that ran down its sinister snout.
“A wolf head, huh? I didn’t see that part in my vision. Sounds ugly. Coyotes I can stomach, but wolves are generally big and mean. And don’t get me started on foxes.”
“He was absolutely terrifying, and nothing you could morph into would be able to mirror that demon,” Kudzu said with disdain.
“You’d be surprised what I can do.”
They came to a fork in the road, the three heading toward the right, which would eventually lead to a trail that brought them up into the mountains.
From there, it would be Kudzu’s job to lead the way.
It seemed like Jelmay wanted to speak more, but once Kudzu picked up her pace, there was little time for chatting. High mountaintops with snowy peaks cast deep purple shadows in the distance, Diyu with its red sky on the horizon, the three heading in a northerly direction.
The mudslides that had taken place during some of the heavier storms were ever present, the landscape changed. This caused Kudzu to stop several times and quickly decide on a new path for them to take. Jelmay chided her every time she did this, which only made her move faster.
By the time they reached the bridge that separated the fox shrine from the cliff across from it, Jelmay was half a mile behind them.
“Do we have to wait?” Kudzu asked, catching her breath, the sky above reflecting in her gray eyes.
“We probably should.”
“Fine…” Kudzu sat and looked out on the gorge between their current location and the shrine. It was amazing that the bridge was still standing, and it was clear that the topography of the area had changed, Danzen noticing that some of the stone on the cliff walls looked fresh, as if they had recently been scraped.
He crouched, his tongue pressing against the inside of his lip as he waited for Jelmay to reach them.
“Are you still feeling all right?”
“I am.”
“I still don’t know what to say about…” Kudzu shook her head.
“About what?” he asked after she never finished her sentence.
“About all of this. Your battle with your brother, the villagers being taken, consuming a remnant. I know it’s your body, I just don’t want to see…” Kudzu stood, her nostrils flaring open. “He’s almost here.”
“You were saying?”
She looked up at him with her gray eyes. “I just don’t want to see you injured or crazed. I really thought you were going to bring Eva’s pleasure house down yesterday.”
“It was like I wasn’t there,” Danzen told Kudzu. “I was somewhere else, and there were obstacles in my way. At least, that’s all I can remember from it. It was really strong. I don’t know how people do this regularly.”
“You’ve seen what happens to people that abuse remnants,” she reminded him as Jelmay finally caught up.
“One of you could have carried me,” he said, wheezing as he placed his paws on his knees. The bakeneko sucked in a deep breath and then bent backward, shaking it out.
“Carry you? Who are you now, Usagi?”
“No,” Jelmay told Kudzu, “I’m just saying that there has to be a faster way to get here.”
“We went the easy way.”
Danzen carefully crossed the bridge while they bickered. As soon as he reached the other side, the vines that covered the front of the fox shrine began to unravel. The two fox monks, as well as the seven-tailed Abbot Monpo, stepped out.
“You have returned so soon,” said the Abbot, concern flashing in his eyes.
“Something has come up.”
While Kudzu and Jelmay carefully crossed the bridge, Danzen caught the Abbot up, telling the fox of his brother’s attack, the villagers that were taken, his subsequent battle with Shedrup, the former assassin admitting point blank that he had consumed a remnant.
“And this was prescribed by Dalan?”
“Yes. Something about my brother’s powers injured me severely, internally. I’ve never been hurt like that before,” Danzen said, shuddering now as he recalled just how much his body had ached. He really didn’t feel like he was going to be able to walk away as quickly as he did. And even in that mindset, he had stupidly taken Shedrup’s challenge, only to be pummeled more.
“Sometimes consuming a remnant can help,” the Abbot admitted. “But you won’t be able to go past the Mancer tier doing things like that. It will likely help your subranking, and there are people that mistakenly assume that the powers they have received from abusing remnants have pushed them even to the Divinator tier, but they are mistaken. Believe me. I have met people like this.”
“Abbot Monpo,” Kudzu said, bowing her head as she approached.
“Friends,” said Jelmay. “You’ve got to do something about that bridge, but we can discuss that later. I don’t know if you have anything cooking, but if you do…”
“Of course we do,” said the Abbot. “We will feed you while Danzen and I see what the clay slab has to say.”
“You caught him up on everything?” Jelmay asked the former assassin.
“I did.”
“Everything everything?”
“Why would he lie?” asked Kudzu, who now sat off to Jelmay’s right.
“I’m just trying to make sure that we are all on the same page here.”
“There’s something else I want to see about,” Danzen said, going for his satchel. “These gauntlets belong to a former instructor of mine who tried to assassinate me. They have blades hidden inside them, but I am not able to activate them. I wanted to see if you’ve ever seen anything like this before.”
