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  Afafrenfere moved to head-butt, but before he even got going, he felt a stunning blow on his face.

  A kick.

  A kick! Impossible, his mind screamed at him. He and Kane were too close! How could Kane possibly have kicked him in the face when they were barely a foot apart?

  He didn’t believe it. He refused to believe it, even when he was sitting on the ground.

  Afafrenfere shook his head, shook the swirling stars out of his eyes, and looked up to find Kane staring down at him, extending a hand to help him back to his feet.

  He took the hand and started up, but slumped back down to his bum, then half fell, half rolled down to his side.

  Sometime later—he knew not how long—Afafrenfere propped himself up on his elbow and looked at his opponent, his dear friend, who sat cross-legged before him.

  “I thought my forward flip and chop maneuver effective,” Afafrenfere said, spitting blood with every word. He had a pretty sizable gash in his lip, he knew, and the ache in his jaw sent waves of sharp fire with each movement.

  “It would kill almost any opponent,” Kane congratulated.

  “Not you.”

  Kane shrugged. “No.”

  “Drizzt?” Afafrenfere teased, for the dark elf had taken his place as Kane’s private student.

  After a moment and a pensive pose, Kane shrugged again, but added no verbal denial.

  “If Drizzt and Afafrenfere fought, on whom would Grandmaster Kane place his wager?” Afafrenfere asked.

  “Grandmaster Kane wants for nothing, so he has no need of wagers,” Kane answered.

  “Pretend.”

  “You may not like my answer.”

  Afafrenfere laughed, then groaned and grabbed at his face. He pinched his bloody nose between his thumb and index finger and pushed it to the side.

  That made his teeth hurt, and he suspected a crack in the bone from the bottom of his nose to his gumline.

  “If you could defeat me, why would you bother challenging the Mistress of Winter?” Kane asked then, and Afafrenfere looked at him with surprise at the change in topic.

  “Mistress Savahn awaits my second challenge?” he asked, a not-subtle reminder that Savahn had defeated Afafrenfere the previous season. The monk tried to keep the eagerness out of his voice. He had been chasing Savahn for a long time now, both before and after his defeat, and had nearly recovered and improved enough to challenge her a second time to become the Master of the East Wind. But Savahn, too, perhaps spurred by Afafrenfere’s surge, had trained hard and had climbed to the next rank before Afafrenfere could formally initiate that second challenge. She was now the Mistress of Winter, and Afafrenfere had attained the unclaimed rank of Master of the East Wind without proving himself in training combat against any of the three monks at the Monastery of the Yellow Rose ranked above him: Savahn, the Mistress of Winter; Perrywinkle Shin, the Master of Spring; and Kane, Grandmaster of Flowers.

  Kane nodded. For now the rank immediately above Afafrenfere was occupied, and there could be only one. For Afafrenfere to become the Master of Winter, he had to defeat the current Mistress of Winter, Savahn. Then he would have to defend his new title—most likely against a resurgent Savahn or perhaps the rising Master of the West Wind, Halavash, who was, by all accounts, also making great strides in his training (and also rumored to be working quietly with Grandmaster Kane).

  “Will Grandmaster Kane bet on that fight?”

  “No.”

  “If he did, would he know which to bet upon?”

  “Yes.”

  “If he did, would Grandmaster Kane think it a safe bet?” Afafrenfere pressed.

  Kane grinned at that, and answered, “Yes,” then started walking away.

  “May we both live long enough so that one day I might properly challenge you,” Afafrenfere called after him.

  Kane stopped and held still for a moment, then slowly turned about. “Brother Afafrenfere, you are my friend. Through you and with you, I and we have accomplished great deeds for the good of the folk. And so I say this, and hope you hear it as my most important lesson of all: this cannot be your goal, to take the title of Grandmaster of Flowers.”

  “I only wish to challenge you and to defeat you because in that victory I will see my own improvement,” Afafrenfere answered.

  Kane nodded. “Your own improvement,” he agreed. “The competition is within yourself, my friend, the striving for physical and spiritual peace and perfection.”

  “And yet we challenge each other to measure that improvement.”

  “What is your goal?” Kane asked.

  “You just said it.”

  “No,” Kane replied. “It is not your goal. Never think of it as your goal. It is your journey. It is how you make sense of your existence and peace with the tumult of the mortal self and the uncertainty of the ending we all know we must one day face.”

  “All in the Order of Saint Sollars strive to be as Grandmaster Kane,” Afafrenfere said.

  “The scribe who undertakes a tome seeking the goal of finishing a tome, pursuing the goal single-mindedly, diminishes the experience of those months of penning, surrenders the joy, emotions, insights, and memories of his journey through the process. So I ask again, what is your goal?”

  Afafrenfere stared at him blankly.

  “You have no goal,” Grandmaster Kane answered his own question. “What is your journey?”

  “To learn, to live, to grow, to move toward the truth,” Afafrenfere answered.

  “The truth?”

  “The truth of myself, the truth of all that is around me.”

  Grandmaster Kane smiled with satisfaction and nodded his approval.

  “Do not lose sight of that,” Kane warned as he departed, “or you will relinquish the title of Master of Winter very quickly after you have achieved it.”

  It took Afafrenfere a moment to realize the implications of Kane’s last words. The grandmaster, so wise and knowing, fully expected him to defeat Savahn. Overwhelmed, he slumped back onto the floor.

  He still had no idea how Kane had kicked him in the face with such force when the two had been practically face-to-face.

  Someday, he would understand, he thought, and he put it out of mind. It would come in time or it would not, along the trails and trials of his physical and spiritual journey.

  Afafrenfere sat on a high rocky bluff, a tight ledge after a difficult climb, and one that held great notoriety with the Order of St. Sollars. For from this place, a century and a half before, the great Kane had transcended his physical body and become one with the multiverse.

  Afafrenfere had his legs crossed tightly before him, his hands on his knees, palms up, thumb tapping his index finger. His breathing was slow and perfectly steady, the exhale and inhale at exactly the same length.

  The monk’s mind was deep inside and far without all at once. He had never been more away from his own body, yet had never felt less removed from it.

  He felt his goal nearing, felt as if he had at last learned the bonds of his physical limitations, the very glue that gave Afafrenfere form.

  He didn’t feel the cold bite of the high mountain wind. He didn’t hear it in his ears, nor the squawking of the great condors that drifted about on the updrafts of the high mountain.

  For the immediate area didn’t matter. His focus was inside himself and all about, everywhere, without.

  He teased at the glue with his will, felt as if he was weakening the bonds.

  He could break them altogether, he was confident, and when he did, he would know eternity. He would transcend his mortal coil. He would become one with everything . . .

  Thinking about it interrupted Afafrenfere’s needed concentration, though. The memory burned within him, for he had done this before—but with help. Grandmaster Kane had been within him, possessing him, sharing their form. When the great white dragon had reared before them, Kane had broken Afafrenfere’s physical bonds, had unglued the multitude of particles that had come together to make t
he collection, the being known as Afafrenfere.

  The beauty of that experience was not easily forgotten, even though it had only been a short journey to the place of everything. For Kane had reformed him almost immediately, as soon as the dragon’s murderous freezing breath had been expended, so that Afafrenfere could then slay the wyrm.

  The monk fell back into his meditation, forced himself to patience, and again settled in that place of deep calm, a place both empty of thought and contemplative at the same time. He searched out the bonds once more.

  He felt the glue and began to disperse it, to disperse himself.

  A hand slapped down on his shoulder, startling him before he could truly begin the process.

  Afafrenfere’s eyes popped open wide. He felt the wind; he heard the wind. He snapped his head to the side to find Grandmaster Kane standing there, slowly shaking his head.

  “You are not ready,” Kane told him.

  Afafrenfere blinked repeatedly, shocked.

  “Come, let us return to the monastery,” Kane said, holding out a hand.

  Afafrenfere shook his head. “This is not your place, nor your choice, nor your journey!” he blurted.

  Kane didn’t blink and didn’t retract his hand.

  “You are the Grandmaster of Flowers, the greatest of the Order of Saint Sollars—ever,” Afafrenfere said. “And with all respect, with more respect than I have ever known for another, I tell you again, this is not your place.”

  “It is my place.”

  “Because you are the Grandmaster of Flowers?”

  “Because I am your friend,” Kane said.

  “I can do this,” the younger monk insisted.

  “I know.”

  “Then . . .”

  “But you cannot yet undo this.”

  Afafrenfere started to reply, but held quiet and just stared.

  “You will transcend,” Kane explained. “You will become as one with the everything. And you will know harmony and beauty beyond anything you have ever imagined. But that will be the end of Afafrenfere.”

  “Death?”

  “Of this existence, yes.”

  “And death is the end . . . of everything?”

  “I do not know,” Kane admitted. “When you first transcend, it is not the end—you know this, too, from our journey together from your body. But the time to return is short—days, not months—and what may come after that period when there is no return, I do not know. For what is after that, we have only faith.”

  “I have faith. Do you?”

  Kane shrugged. “I do not know what I do not know. I do, however, have hope.”

  “Then I will return quickly, before that point where I cannot . . .”

  “No. You will not. You are not ready.”

  “You do not think me strong enough?” Afafrenfere asked, doing well to keep any anger out of his question. “You think I will not be able . . . ?”

  “You will not want to,” Kane interrupted. “Your ties to this place are not strong enough for you to consider turning about once you have initiated that journey.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  Kane shrugged. “It means that you are not yet ready to take this step from your mortal coil. Almost, but not yet. There are several ranks before you. Patience, I beg.”

  “The world is a dangerous place. Perhaps I will lose my chance and will be taken from this world when it is not of my choosing.”

  Kane shrugged as if that hardly mattered. “Not yet,” he said. “As your friend, I beg of you.”

  Afafrenfere winced at that, both disappointed yet truly flattered to hear such concern from this greatest of monks.

  “You came back,” he said, because he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  “I almost did not,” he said quietly, and that startled Afafrenfere. “I almost did not even think to. I was much older than you are now, and much stronger in the ways of our order—though, fear not, my friend, for you, too, will rise to that level of mind-and-body perfection. Of that, I do not doubt. Unless, of course, you follow through with this transcendence, and then you are gone forevermore.”

  Kane held out his hand once more.

  “I wish to make this journey,” Afafrenfere said.

  “I know. And I know why.”

  Afafrenfere’s gaze went from the hand to Grandmaster Kane’s eyes.

  “Because of him, Parbid, whom you loved,” Kane said. “Because he is there, you hope, waiting, and his embrace you wish again, more than anything.”

  Afafrenfere’s mouth hung open. He tried to shake his head in denial but failed miserably.

  “Nothing in the multiverse is more powerful than love, my friend,” Kane said, and he smiled, and moved his hand.

  Afafrenfere took the offered assistance and unwound his legs, easily rising beside his friend. “Do you think he is there, Grandmaster? Do you think he waits for me?”

  Kane shrugged, and Afafrenfere understood that the man had no answer and would not lie to him for the sake of comfort.

  “You already said it,” Kane did reply. “You have faith. And I have hope.”

  The two remained quiet for some time as they picked their way along the trail down the mountainside.

  “I still do not understand,” Afafrenfere admitted when they came in sight of the lights of the Monastery of the Yellow Rose soon after sunset. “You make it sound as if the return to your mortal coil is a great feat of tremendous struggle.”

  “It is.”

  The younger monk shrugged. “When we went together beyond this body of mine in the face of the great white dragon, the return seemed so . . .”

  “. . . easy,” Kane finished. “It seemed easy to you because you did not initiate the transcendence, nor were you even aware of the action, and so you had not even begun to hear the music of the heavens or see the beauty of everything before I pulled you back into the being known as Afafrenfere.”

  “But you did so effortlessly.”

  “Not as much as you believe, but yes, with each ascent beyond the mortal coil, the barriers to and from the place beyond become . . . thinner. In that instance, the danger to us and to our friends was so immediate that it was a smooth return, I agree. We had to be there, or woe to those we loved.”

  “But . . .” Afafrenfere said. He seemed to choke on the word and just shook his head.

  “You will come to better understand,” Kane promised. “Continue your studies. Make of perfection your mind and body. But I warn you, when you think yourself ready—and this could be years from now and I may not still be here to guide you—in that first instance of transcendence . . . Well, it might be your only one, and the utter end of Afafrenfere in this existence.”

  “So you have said, but why, master?” Afafrenfere pressed. “I know that my work here is not done. If I know that I am not ready to experience the next . . .”

  “If there is a next,” Kane put in.

  “If there is a next,” Afafrenfere agreed. “If I know these things, then why do you suppose that I will forsake my mortal existence as a man?”

  Kane paused and considered that for a moment, then offered a kind smile to the younger monk. “You have made love—the act itself, and to completion, yes?”

  Afafrenfere blushed. “Yes, of course.”

  “Then you know the moment when the body demands continuation, demands release?”

  “Master, yes.”

  “The body will not turn back and the mental and emotional discipline needed to deny that call of ecstasy is enormous. When you transcend, you will know such joy, unrelenting, even building as time, which becomes meaningless, passes, yet the time to find the needed discipline, the denial of pure desire, is short, and failure means that you will be forever removed from this existence.”

  Afafrenfere just stared at him, jaw hanging open.

  “I know not how to put it more clearly or bluntly,” the ancient monk answered that blank stare. “You will not want to come back, and so you, as you are
known and as you know yourself, will be no more.”

  Grandmaster Kane waited a few moments as the weight of his words sank in for the visibly shaken Afafrenfere, then asked, “Do you still wish to do this?”

  “I do,” the younger monk answered, “but perhaps not quite yet.”

  “When you are ready,” said Kane.

  “How will I know?”

  “When you are not afraid that you will not return. When you believe that you have learned here all that you wish to garner from this existence. It is not about sadness and weariness with life, no. Such a state of mind would make transcending the mortal form impossible. But rather, it is about fullness—such fullness that you know there is little more room in this existence for anything new!”

  “That is where you are?”

  “That is where I have been for a century and more!”

  “Yet you are still here.”

  Grandmaster Kane shrugged. “Somewhat,” he answered cryptically. “Part of me is still here, part of me is removed forevermore.”

  “Then tell me of the mystery!”

  “I cannot. That part of me which knows is not here.”

  “I don’t understand. Then there is something more, even, than transcending the physical form?”

  Kane shrugged again, prompting Afafrenfere to restate, “I don’t understand.”

  “You do not need to understand. Not now. Not yet. You have much yet to learn.”

  “Then tell me, Grandmaster, what do I need to know now?”

  “That you will not want to come back. That is all.”

  Part 1

  Shifting Fates and Jarring Perspectives

  What place is this that is my world; what dark coil has my spirit embodied? In light, I see my skin as black; in darkness, it glows white in the heat of this rage I cannot dismiss. Would that I had the courage to depart, this place or this life, or to stand openly against the wrongness that is the world of these, my kin. To seek an existence that does not run afoul to that which I believe, and to that which I hold dear faith is truth.