69. The Paths We Walk

A Welpakian boy wandered the streets, alone and hungry. His clothes were dirty and torn. He was eight or nine years old, his hair long and unkempt. His swollen belly had not had a meal in some time, and his eyes were hollow and lifeless.

He walked through the streets, towards the palace of new arrivals, and he hoped.

The palace was expansive, with many gates.

He came from the east, and so it was the center east gate to which he came.

“Please sir,” he said to the guard. “I wish to work here.”

His answer was a beating.

When the guards had finished, they dragged him into an alley, searched his pockets but found that they couldn’t rob him, for there was nothing to take from the boy but his dirty and unkempt clothing.

And his life, but neither of those two items were of any value to the guards.

After twenty minutes, the boy pulled himself up and tried the gate to the northeast.

When he had made the full circle around the palace and been rejected at every gate, he collapsed and sobbed for twenty minutes.

Then, abruptly, he remembered who he was.

The little boy turned into a little bird, and it flew off over the gates of the palace which had denied him entrance. None of the guards even noticed.

Di Phon opened his eyes. “There was a boy who was supposed to arrive today,” he commented. “I wish to meet him. Where is he?” he asked.

The palace of new arrivals had never seen such chaos as what followed. Di Phon paid it no mind, watching through the eyes of birds and sipping at tea with Mai Mai.

“When I reach the silver path, will you lie with me?” she asked him nervously.

“Will that make you happy?” he asked her.

“I think it would,” she answered.

“When we stand as equals, Mai Mai.”

She despaired, but sipped her tea and focused. She felt the burgeoning spirituality in her core and she focused on stoking those flames yet higher.

There was no hope if she didn’t try.

~~~~~~~

I had come to my conclusion.

I saw now the path that I had been walking. I saw it clearly, tracing it back to the moment when I first stepped onto it, to the moments where I had nearly wandered off of it.

“Mother,” I whispered. “I’m sorry that I was such a difficult son. When we meet again, I’ll give you the words I should have given you more often when I was younger.”

“Father. You tried so hard. I am sorry for the hardship I caused the family. May you look upon me with pride.”

“Sister. We were children and you didn’t know any better. I forgive you. Little Bug forgives you.”

“Brother. I will see you soon.”

“Pi Phon, thank you for your guidance. You were right, I was too young to set my Dao when we met, and it was wise of you to advise me to hold back. But I see the path now, and I step forward with both eyes open.”

“Di Ram. May you bear the burden you have taken up with poise, but never ease.”

“Hien Ro. Thank you for being the brother who chose me.”

“My Disciples. Make me proud, and be proud. Stand tall and you shall weather the storm that is coming.”

I whispered my farewells unto the wind.

And I crossed a threshold.

There was no going back now.

I stepped onto the golden path. My power surged, even as it narrowed in scope and focus. I had been endless potential, but so much of that was focused now.

“I’m sorry, Nadia. But you can’t have this world. It’s mine.”

The mountain glowed golden as I consolidated my gains.

~~~~~~

His name, which nobody remembered save for himself, was Loshi. But that was a common name, and he had left it behind when he had stopped being common.

Now, he did not know what it was that others called him. It did not truly matter. Everyone knew who he was.

He was the Lord of the Realm. He stood at the apex. Not a god, but so close as to make no difference, his power was endless and his purpose divine.

And yet he had been driven to the brink of destruction seven years ago.

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He sighed. His eyes had been blinded by his accomplishments. He had lost his ambition somewhere along the way, believing that simple mastery over his home dimension would be enough. He had conquered and tamed every world in his home dimension, forming a vast inter-connected array to empower the core worlds.

And himself.

It had allowed him to reach unimaginable heights. He had, perhaps foolishly, believed that he was invincible. That he would reign forever and always.

The ennui had been insidious, but increasingly he had simply found himself … vacant.

He sighed, and the sigh was carefully logged by his observers. Dozens of men and women were informed that he had sighed, and the question of what his sigh meant would cause decades of debate. He would never meet those who debated his every move, his every word, his every action. But he knew they existed.

He had once thought it was fun to play games with them, but he had lost interest in that centuries ago.

He sighed again, causing centuries of work for the watchers and scholars who studied him.

He pulled on the array which fed him power slightly, and he frowned. There was a bitter taste in the Qi he drew in. It was subtle, but noticeable.

“Something has changed,” he declared. “Something corrupts. Find it.”

Pens snapped and scholars feinted as he spoke aloud for the first time since declaring that he was recovered from the battle with the Divine Fates.

If this was the precursor to another attack, he would be ready.

Throughout the dimension where the Lord Loshi ruled, billions of souls began searching for something that they would never find.

But eventually, the source of the corruption would be uncovered.

And then, one way or another, the Lord of the Realm would deal with it as he dealt with everything.

Decisively.

~~~~~~

Po Sana blinked as she heard a whisper on the wind. It was the day after the attack and the sky was bright. The voice had sounded familiar, but yet it couldn’t be. She looked around, confused for a moment, before she continued to sweep the dust off of the porch. Her youngest child was on her hip, yawning and sleepy but wanting to be held right now despite the work that was to be done.

Six miles away, her husband was drinking with the other guards when he bumped into a cultivator on the bronze path. The cultivator, outraged that a common guard would Dare , punched the offending man in the chest so hard that his heart stopped.

Po Sana didn’t find out for three hours that her husband had been murdered.

She wept in the arms of Di Ram when she was told. As a consequence for his actions, the murderer was to be sent north to serve as a scout.

Di Ram seemed apologetic that he wasn’t able to execute the cultivator and make an example, but with the war, every able bodied soldier and cultivator was required to stave off the undead. But with the mortality of scouts being what it was, surely that was enough?

Po Sana listened as this was explained to her. Then she asked a question.

“And why my children ask why their father isn’t coming home?” she asked. “What do I tell them about the man who murdered him?”

Di Ram closed his eyes. “That he will face justice on this earth, or in heaven, for the wrong that he has done.”

“My son, you say my son is important. How can you let this man go when my son is—”

“I must let him go to protect you and the rest of the family. I can justify this punishment. To put him to death, I would have to explain who it was that he slew. Others would know who you are. Who your children are. They would know who to target to make Little Bug weak. I cannot risk that.”

Defeated, Po Sana retired to her room, where she rocked her fussy toddler to sleep.

~~~~~~

I stepped out of my cultivation cave, looking at the world for the first time from my golden path. While my cave had been in my mountain, which had been in the ring which I’d hidden and now wore, I was only a few miles from where I’d trained my apprentices. The missing mountain range stood testament to that time, but already the jungle was growing over the scabs.

Life in this part of the world was voracious, desperate to cover every surface it could.

It was beautiful.

I floated up into the air, looking out at the vast jungle beneath me. I saw the goliath tree in the distance and flew towards it calmly. I flashed my power in greeting, and received an answering call from the Tunrida.

He arrived moments later, the fire and thunder that flew in his wake echoing over and through the jungle. The Tunrida hovered in the air, flapping its wings calmly as it evaluated me.

“You are strong,” it said at last.

“I would not wager myself against you,” I said.

The thunderbird’s echoing laughter boomed. “Why have you come here, Little One?”

“I am setting out on a journey. It seems only right that I should say goodbye to my neighbor, my landlord, and my friend,” I said. “I do not know when fate will bring me back this way again.”

“Ah. In that case, I wish you fair skies and pleasant company for your journey.”

I smiled. “Yes. Would you like to come with?”

The thunderbird frowned. Then he shrank to the size of a robin and flew over, landing on my shoulder.

A moment later, Jumper tried to land on my other shoulder, but the albatross sized songbird didn’t fit.

“I’m sorry, Jumper. You’ll have to fly to keep up,” I said, and then I landed. “I have a thousand and one pilgrimages to make.”

“I shall accompany you on five,” the thunderbird said. “Regretfully that is all the more directions I can split myself at present.”

I nodded. “With Jumper, that makes six. One for each continent.”

“What of the North?”

“I would not risk you in the north. You are too beautiful for that.”

The thunderbird preened. Then the little bastard pecked at my earlobe, just like Jumper did when she was that size.

I sighed and set out on my chosen paths.

I walked a thousand paths at once.

And I walked only one.

But at least I wasn’t walking it alone.

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