Spell, Crook and Handle Pt. 07

"That is the main interface," the Bastet said pointing to the obelisk. "It can guide you to the correct mind to speak with."

"Mind, are you telling me that those jewels are actually living minds?"

"Yes, it is a small Infinity Circuit," she said smiling. "It is how the Elda stores their information. What better way to share and store information than with a being that knows it intimately well?"

"She never told me the name of her race," I said thoughtfully. "Can they teach me about their society?"

"They will be happy to share any and all of their knowledge," she replied as I touched the amethyst obelisk.

"Anatari Baharr, you are a recognized user," the soft voice spoke in his mind. "What do you want to know?"

"I need to know about the Elda, their culture, your culture for a start."

I felt the urge to sit down. So I sat down and placed my back against the monolith. I placed my head against its polished surface. The words and images flowed into my memory and the entire history and culture of this strange and wondrous people entered me. There was so much but my hunger for the past made me a glutton. They had once flourished long before humanity rose from evolution. But their own pride and hunger led to their self-destruction. Now they were wandering nomads trying to survive.

I asked the living minds about my injury eventually. Maybe their advanced culture could find a cure. I was grasping at straws and I hoped it paid off. A new mind presented itself and told me it would run a thorough scan to see what was wrong. While the machinery went to work the woman sang. The song seemed to focus her attention and guide the device on its path. When it reached my upper arm the song changed and a new one began. The first song was simple and easy to remember. This new one was more complicated and involved her singing in multiple octaves at the same time. I had no idea the Elda could do such a thing. It was like listening to a choir but she alone was singing. The song and the scan ended. The hologram appeared quite disturbed.

"I am sorry, I cannot aid you. There is a malignancy at work here that I have never encountered before."

"Can you teach me some of your songs?" I asked and she smiled.

"My songs are quite limited. Perhaps a servant of the Laughing God would be of better use?"

"I leave that to you," I told her and she vanished.

"You wish to learn to sing," a voice said as a figure appeared in a flourish of movement and bright flashes of light.

"Yes," I said. "You seem familiar to me."

"That is a statement that I doubt. We do not normally associate with others of our kind. Our path is our own and where we wander few can follow." He said cryptically. "Stand up and let me see you move."

"Alright, I will do as you ask," I said and the newcomer's eyes narrowed in interest.

"Dance for me," he said his voice cold and cautious now.

I summoned a holographic Bo Staff and went through the first two katas before I was halted by the Elda. He rewarded me with a wry smile. He tossed me an unusually shaped sword. I tested its weight and balance and then showed him the first few sword katas Iyaden had taught me. He clapped and I handed him the sword back. The last test was a sparring match between the two of us. The unarmed combat I had learned was a blend of what Kenji had taught me as well as quite a few techniques Iyaden had passed along. He was blinding quick but I managed to match his speed and ferocity. Neither one of us landed a blow and he called a halt with a smile and a low bow.

"Someone has taught you well," he admitted. "I will teach you to sing. What was their name? Who instructed you in the ways of the dance?"

"She called herself Iyaden," I said.

"There are many solitaires that bear that great name. Hearken onto me and I will teach you our songs for Iyaden's sake."

We sang of gods and demons and the birth of what the Elda called the Great Enemy. We sang of love and loss and legacy. It took me a time but I managed to adjust my vocal cords to be able to create the triple octave voice known only to the Elda. It was an age and a day that he and I sang our duet. At the end he was satisfied that Iyaden hadn't chosen a poor student. Tired and weary I left that place only to return on many occasions to learn about art and magic and combat from a race teetering on oblivion. Their song was a great tragedy that had only a single ending. I opened my eyes and wiped away the tears for a people that were nearly extinct.

I did the comparison and only ten minutes had passed in what I had come to call meat time. I explored the limitation for my right arm. While I still possessed a full range of movement, that movement was slow, awkward and about as smooth as a road full of potholes. I tried to see how fast I could touch my fingers to my thumb and well that was a waste of time. I could do it but my coordination was truly gone. I sat down in the center of the pool and let the hot water do its work. I wanted to feel sorry about myself but I rejected that out of hand almost instantly. I had too many people relying on me to wallow in self-pity. I had to find a way to fix this or die trying.

"So, it is true," a soft voice spoke from the tree that stood next to the pool.

"You have me at a disadvantage," I said as I looked at the tree and there a heat source in the upper branches. "Great, how have I offended the Akhkharu?"

"You are a most gifted archaeologist, to be able to so easily detect the presence of a highly trained member of the Shadow Clan." She said as she dropped the distance to the edge of the pool.

"I have a friend in your clan," I told her. "Leah... and I am sure she would vouch for me."

"We are aware of this physical romance," she said. "I am Nishi Oku and I am here to help."

"Help, I thought you were here to kill me," I said as she stripped out of her silk uniform.

She slipped into the water and began examining my right arm. Her fingers poked and prodded my upper arm. I winced when she found sensitive spots; all the while she made little noises of interest. She asked me how I had been injured and I told her all about the Watcher crushing my arm and the remaining damage.

"Dark Chi," she said at last. "Have you ever heard of Dim Mak?"

"No, I haven't heard of either of them."

"Your body has been poisoned with dark chi and if not treated soon you will die. It is a slow and painful process. The fact that you are still alive is a testament to your strength. I was sent to see if certain rumors were true. Something happened to you London, didn't it?"

I told her all about the dark force we encountered and my near death. The Inquisitor injected me with two vials that had been created by Professor Griffin. I told her about my sensitivity to bright lights and heightened senses. I was dying after all, what did I have to lose. The Akhkharu smiled and nodded as she pondered her course of action for a long time.

"Normally I would kill you where you stand. However, I have no intention of pissing off an Elder in my own clan. I will help you. I cannot guarantee success but if it works the treatment might be as life changing as the attack itself. So you are warned, what do you want to do?"

"I have to try for my family's sake," I said.

"Drink this," she said offering him a small plastic water bottle. "After you drink it I will send a massive jolt of positive chi into your body and we hope for the best."

"Kanpai," I said meaning bottoms up in Japanese as I drank the contents of the bottle.

The woman brought her hands together, palms facing each other and after a full minute she placed both hands on my upper arm. It felt like I had been hit with a defibrillator. My arm went into spasms, the fingers clenching and unclenching on their own. But the spasms weren't limited to my arm. My jaw clenched shut while chest, abdominal and even my back muscles twitched and contracted. She actually kept me from drowning when my knees quit supporting my weight. Nishi Oku held me and was singing a children's song that parents sang to their kids in Japan. The pain in my arm pulsed and worsened as the dark and light chi cancelled each other out. I breathed in and tried to use my own life energy to help the process. I imagined flowing water coursing through my arm and washing away the darkness. The pain subsided and I opened my eyes. The woman was looking down at me and smiling.

"I believe you will survive," she said. "I will inform Leah of your condition. I will return on the morrow and see how you are doing if that will be acceptable."

"Thank you for everything," I said and she nodded.

Just as quickly as she had appeared she was gone. I could have easily chalked the entire event up to a dream but I knew better. I put my arm through some basic movement tests and there was a remarkable improvement. It wasn't up to 100 percent but it was better and that gave me hope. I left the pool, dried off and returned to my room. I found Yuki and Becca there and they looked up at me when I walked in.

"I found out what's going on," I said.

"Louis," Becca said her eyes going wide. "Are you okay?"

"No," I said as my left arm went numb and the crushing pain hit my chest. "It is dark... dark chi... Dim... Mak..."

Yuki swept up from the floor and caught me as I fell. Damn she was fast! Yuki let out a shrill whistle as Becca and her rolled me onto my back and made me comfortable. The entire female staff was kneeling around me and they were told about the Dim Mak attack. They closed their eyes and began performing a technique to channel their chi, it is called Kuji Kiri. The nine hand gestures helped guide and focus their life energy. The pain in my chest lessened but I knew where I needed to go and I tried to convey that to Yuki and the others. The pain rose up again and I cried out.

I felt a stomach lurching sensation and when I opened my eyes I was looking up into the eyes of my former teacher Kenji. He was smiling and telling me to relax. I was able to say the two words, Dim Mak. His features became serious and he nodded. He laid one hand on my arm and the other over my heart. He closed his eyes and I felt warmth spread from those two points to the rest of my body. My eyes fluttered closed and I drifted in the knowledge I was safe. How had he gotten to Tokyo so fast? It didn't matter he was there and I might just survive. If any being could drive out the dark chi it was Master Kenji. He was a tengu after all and a dear friend.

I had been invited for a rare underwater dig off the coast of Japan. There had been a small tremor and when it had been investigated the structure had been found. It was this discovery that had thrilled the University of Tokyo into launching the dig. This dig is what brought Kat and others into my life. Master Kenji was one of those people. The stress of the dig was taking its toll so I sought out an outlet. I had learned from one of the students about Kenji and his shrine. So I split my time in Japan between the dig during the week and Kenji's shrine on the weekends. He had become not just my teacher but a dear friend as well. Kenji had taught me the deeper arts of meditation as well as hand to hand combat. He had nurtured in me a strength I never knew I possessed. I believe he had saved my life.

"Louis," the voice said from a great distance. "Wake up Louis."

"Master," I said through dry cracked lips.

"I hate that title," Kenji replied smiling.

"Oh hey," I said smiling. "I am thirsty."

"Drink slowly," the tengu said grinning his gentle smile.

He placed a shallow cup to my lips and I drank the water from the mountain spring. It had a strong mineral taste to it but I didn't mind. Two cups of water later I felt remotely human. I looked around puzzled and he smiled even wider now.

"Yes, you arrived quite suddenly Louis-san," he said.

"How did I get here, helicopter?" I asked and he shook his head.

"No, Louis you teleported here," he replied.

"Huh," I said and tried to get up too quickly. "Shit... ow... I am going to lie down now."

"Rest... sleep... when you feel up to it we will talk."

I closed my eyes and I was asleep in seconds. There she was in all of her perfect splendor, the Weaver. We were floating in the middle of that same region of space. The Weaver frowned and as she gestured our orbit around each other changed and we drifted towards one another. Her arms went around my neck and she kissed me. I felt her warmth as it entered me. The warmth became a heat, the heat became an inferno and that inferno became sun bright within me.

"Who did this thing to you? Who dares harm my pet?"

"A Watcher... an angel," I replied my lips spewing white hot plasma.

"No angel did this," she replied. "Unless they have fallen from grace, the use of dark energy is forbidden to the light. Let me love you and I will finish what your tengu started."

"Gladly lady," I told her as our embrace became far more intimate.

The memory of our love play was disjointed as my body struggled to repair itself. She whispered dark secrets in my ear and giggled as she took her pleasure from me. I was too weak to do much besides let her have her way with me. That didn't seem to lessen the Weaver's pleasure one iota. I think she liked being in charge. Each orgasm was rewarded by another secret passed onto me. I learned quite a bit as she healed me with her body and energy. Finally sated she kissed me one last time and blessed darkness engulfed me. I drifted on the shadow meridian between light and dark. My anterior was bathed in perpetual illumination while my posterior was caressed by the unyielding abyss.

My mind was blank and I just existed there in that place. Was I in shock? Was I dead? I had never been here before and to be honest I never wanted to again. I thought about those that had helped me. Kenji, the tengu Master, was my teacher and more importantly my friend. While he appeared as an aging Japanese monk he was in fact far older. A tengu is in fact a mountain spirit. This particular spirit was born when the crashing tectonic plates pushed Japan from the ocean floor. He had been born amidst volcanoes and the primordial forces of that era. He had watched life evolve and become more and more complex over uncounted eons. When man arrived, millennia ago, Kenji and the other tengu were interested in them. Their curiosity outweighed their fear and they taught them what they needed to survive. After a few centuries the tengu faded into legend.

Kenji had taken me under his wing, literally. He saw in me a soul in pain and he helped kindle a sense of purpose and self-worth. He was a generous soul and I owed him a debt I may never be able to repay. I smiled when I imagined his expression if I even vocalized those thoughts. The concept of debt was as alien to the tengu as non-Euclidean geometry was to the human mind. Speaking of debt, I thought about the Akhkharu Nishi Oku and how I could repay her. She, like most of her race, was quite attractive and possessed all the qualities I found beautiful in a Japanese woman. Her skin was pale, smooth and flawless. She had the classic almond shaped eyes but hers were the color of golden honey. Her face had that ageless quality of her people. She had a slight build with small breasts and narrow hips. I never got a good look at her ass but I suspected, well hoped, it was nice and round.

"Master, why is he smiling like that," a voice said from a distance.

"I suspect he is having a pleasant dream," Kenji's voice replied. "Ah, he is waking up. Good evening Louis."

"Evening," I said as I opened my eyes. "Man I am thirsty."

"Come and sit with us, we are about to take our meal," Kenji offered.

"Thank you," I said and slowly sat up. "Hey my arm and chest don't hurt thank you sensei!"

"You are most welcome Louis-san," he said smiling. "I am glad that I could help. It was touch and go for a while but you pulled through."

"I wonder how the girl's managed to teleport me here," I said as I walked over to the table that looked out over the village far below.

"Are you sure it was their effort that brought you here," Kenji said as he sipped the mountain water in his cup.

"If not them or you, then who," I asked and he just smiled. "Me, you think I somehow managed a teleport spell?"

"Perhaps, perhaps not," he said in his cryptic way. "Has nothing new come into your possession?"

"Well..." I thought about it for a moment. "My dad did give me a chunk of meteoric metal."

"May I see it?" Kenji asked politely.

"Sure," I said as I took the watch off my wrist and willed it back into its standard form.

"Star Metal, you have a Star Metal weapon! What a princely gift to bestow upon a son!"

"So you have seen something like this before," I asked and he shook his head.

"I have heard of such things. But in all my long years I have never actually seen one." He said and then smiled. "Are you familiar with Chinese puzzle boxes?"

"Yeah," I said and he fell silent after that. "Gods I hate it when you pull that Yoda crap."

Kenji just chuckled as I picked up the smooth black object. I turned it over in my hands and discovered there were no signs of a hidden cavity anywhere. The surface of the rod was mirror bright and without flaw. How the hell am I supposed to open the damn thing, I thought. A moment later a short vertical line appeared on the side I was looking at. The line became deeper and more defined and then it split open. There were six stones socketed inside the rod. Each stone was a unique color and was cut in a particular geometric shape. Whoa, did he know they were inside of this? Of course he did, he had put them there.

I touched each stone seeing if anything happened. The triangular ruby was warm to the touch but nothing else happened. The tear drop sapphire was cool and slick but again nothing remarkable occurred. I touched the rest of the stones and nothing happened. It was disappointing. Did one of these stones allow me to teleport? The amethyst glittered just a little but there it was. I touched the violet colored stone again and thought about teleporting. Nada, nothing... not a damn thing, perhaps I was going about this the wrong way. How would Nightcrawler do it? So I thought about it. You would have to imagine your target location and will yourself there. Of course if you missed, I shivered at that thought.

"How the hell do you work," I asked and to my utter surprise images pop into my head. "Whoa, slow down please!"

The images appeared slowly and I learned that I could not only teleport myself but objects as well. The tutorial, if that what you wanted to call it, showed me step by step how to manipulate space itself. I looked at the other stones and a seriously frightening idea came to mind. I touched each stone and asked what they did. I should have been surprised but each stone explained its form and function. Each seemed to be tied to a fundamental force, energy, time, thought, matter and life itself. Whether I could actually access them or not was a huge question. Why the hell had Jon given this to me? Did he think I would never discover the stones? Or did he hope I would? The final question is where the hell did they come from?

"Any ideas, thoughts or suggestions," I asked Kenji.

"They are pretty stones but I only get a feeling from the pyramid shaped one. It is tied to the earth quite intimately. I would suggest you tread lightly Louis-san. Tread lightly my friend. That kind of power can change a man, even a good man. Perhaps that is why it was given to you. Your father wanted you to safe guard it."

The rod closed on my mental command and then reverted to its watch form. I slipped it back on and pondered Kenji's words very carefully. I finished my meal while I pondered if I should even use the stones or not. I could just ignore them. Oh hell, who was I kidding?