Groups: The Blackstars, The Sevenfold Path
Characters: Master Lurat
Locations: Name of the monastery?
“Strength begins in the mind” - Master Lurat
Hen’s breath comes slow and controlled as the Masters lecture on the knoll in the center of the stone courtyard. His fifth birthday has passed and he knows it is time to begin training, though the Masters claim he is too small. He is holding a bucket of water almost half filled but his arms quake with the effort of it. He thinks of the mantra that Master Lurat gives him every time he fails strength begins in the mind. It does not save him, his arms drift downwards from straight out in front of him to his waist despite his every desire and effort. His breath remains calm, controlled even as his body surrenders to fatigue. No Master sees his failure but Hen knows it deep in his heart. He must be better to make his many fathers proud. From his perch next to a partially cleaned stone wall he looks at the promising young students standing in orderly ranks with their full buckets of water. They hold them straight out while flowing through the basic forms. Masters walk up and down the lines, poking and prodding the students in weak points to test their balance and focus. Hen looks down at his half full bucket and tries to quell the tide of disappointment he feels as his own soapy reflection gazes back up at him. His mind must remain strong even if his body is weak and small. “Master Prenud says I will grow” Hen thinks as he picks up the sponge floating in his bucket. He returns to cleaning his wall, the looping motions of scrubbing the stone carvings almost like the forms of the stronger students who practice. He trusts the Masters as all must, especially after they extended him the mercy of raising him after he was found hidden in a field of briars just outside the monastery. Still, sometimes it seemed that they didn’t know what to make of Hen.
Hen grows over the next few years but not very much. His height is stunted so he looks at the knees of his Masters. His frame fills out but only so he looks skinny instead of starved. Hen practices more earnestly than all the other students who come to learn the ways of The Sevenfold Path. He hones his mind day and night, practicing discipline in all things. Still, he remains as small as the youngest child. He rises early to put more time in physical training, holding his bucket for as long as he can. He jumps, flips, flies through the obstacle courses which were built for legs thrice as long as his, yet can not break the bricks that will allow him to enter the first doorway to The Sevenfold Path. Hen can sense his time running out, the Masters who are all fathers to him look at him with pity, with empathy, and with no pride. His teenage years come and go somewhere in the blur of training, his Masters become more grey and some pass beyond the final doorway never to be seen again. Life on the mountain remains tranquil even as students arrive filled with terror at a world filled with monsters. Hen vows to fight those monsters some day, if he can get his body to emulate the strength of his will.
Hen’s breath comes slow and steadily. It is a counterpoint to the dull thud of his fist striking against the tree outside of the children’s dormitory. He is twenty now, years past the advice given by the Masters to struggling students. He has been relegated to a wall scrubber and an obstacle course tutor but that is all. Thwack, first one fist thwack then the other. Back and forth, over and over again. The drumming sound drowns out the disappointment, tempers the ambition that still burns as hot as it ever has in Hen’s heart. Hen’s strategy is different now, he has stopped practicing the flowing forms of the students in the courtyard. His balance is perfect, the Masters say so even if the words sound like consolation. He must only train his striking power. Each year the stones are placed in front of him and each year he cannot summon the strength to break them. If strength begins in the mind, then what does that make me? Hen’s doubts eat at him as he hones himself into the deadliest weapon he can make, something like a dull kitchen knife.
One fateful day, Hen takes his bucket to the stream. It feels no different than any other morning, the brisk air feels refreshing on skin warm from bed. His bucket is worn now, two faded handprints mark the wood where Hen has grabbed it countless times. It takes three thousand nine hundred and sixty four steps to reach the stream and Hen counts them without thinking. He bends, dips his bucket into the clear flowing water and is careful not to let his robe dip into the stream. A rustling noise in the dense brush next to the stream startles Hen. He whirls, falling into the proper stance instantly, his bucket falls into the water with a splash. Silence. Hen forces his breathing into the proper calm cadence as he waits, patience is a lesson he knows well. The brush parts as a dark shape lunges towards him with blinding speed. Hen strikes with viper fast reflexed but the shape is too massive to turn and knocks Hen aside like a leaf blown in the wind. He flies into the air, watching the shape dart up the path to the monastery. His body crashes into the stones jutting out of the stream, cracking his ribs and head with a crunch. Ears ringing, Hen stumbles through the freezing water towards home to warn them. Another shape darts through the brush, ignoring Hen as if he is helpless. They are faster than Hen, he won’t make it in time to warn anyone. He takes a step and feels a sharp pain in his knee, something is torn there. More shapes, some large and some small. Hen’s vision is dancing with black spots as he tries to see what could be attacking. After the brief blurs of motion there is only stillness, Hen can see the shadows move up the path and he stumbles after them. By the time he climbs up to the children’s dormitory there is only chaos.
Blood spatters the walls and every bed is torn apart in a brutal display. Rend in the stone show where claws had scraped places taller than the tallest monk could reach. The courtyard is silent, but Hen can hear a noise from the hall where the seven doors of The Sevenfold Path lead. Hen approaches, looking for anyone that he can help. There is no one and nothing out in the open air, but there are sounds of fighting past the threshold that Hen has been forbidden to enter all his life. The great silver door he has spent so long looking at has been torn from its frame as is nowhere in sight. Hen takes a deep breath and limps down the now open tunnel, passing the blood splatters of the fallen and torn tapestries holding the tatters of priceless wisdom. Hen crosses the second threshold and the third. The sounds of fighting are dying out when he crosses the fifth, all the doors have been stolen. Whatever gifts they grant are lost forever to Hen Thornmeadow the tiny monk. Hen picks up his pace as much as he can, crossing the seventh threshold into the most holy and fabled place he can conceive of. This chamber is where the Masters come to meditate, to seek out the mysteries of the universe and all of its workings. It is said that miracles have happened here, and now it is littered with the bodies of the Masters. Hen rushes to each one, all thirteen of them and each is lifeless and cold except one. A monster lies dead over Master Lurat, most fond of all of Hen’s fathers. The master breathes but it is feeble, whispers where there should be a storm. Hen shoves the massive clawed paw of the monster off of his Master and kneels, ignoring the twinge of pain that brings him. “Master, what do I do? How can I save you?” Lurat looks up, one eye obscured by the blood coming from a gash in his forehead.
“Hen, is that you?” He gives a feeble smile. “I thought they killed all the children first, yet here you are, our last son.” He shudders and continues “there is no hope for me but do not fret for that, you have lived no doubt because they did not see you as a threat. They shall learn their mistake.” Lurat reaches out a shaky hand, and Hen grasps it, his small hand lost in the masters large one. “Go boy, you have not the strength of a Master but you have the will of one.” Lurat’s hand tightens around Hen and his eyes lock onto Hen’s their grey lightening to a bright green as he speaks. “I charge you with the quest of The Sevenfold Path. We mend what is broken, we close the cracks left by the gods abandonment. You must kill the monsters, so they may not taint any more peaceful places in the world with their bloodshed.”
Hen’s voice almost chokes off as he replies, “Master, all I want is to serve but I lack I strength. You have told me all my life that it comes from the mind but mine must be weak.”
“Do not fret, this is the seventh chamber Hen. In here, the voices of our lost brethren are close. Speak to them, and let them aid you.” With that, Lurat’s labored breathing trails away.
Hen sits with his master until the hand grows cold, his breath does not come in the proper cadence, grief and shock mar his mind. His too weak mind. He raises his head and shouts into the desecrated chamber “please hear me! Help me carry on the Path, help me fill the cracks with the blood of monsters!” His voice drops to a whisper, so low he can barely hear it himself “Lend me your strength, for I have none of my own”
I hair raising chill creeps over Hen as he feels the impression of a hand on his frail shoulder, then another supporting his arm. The barest touch raises his chin, lifting his gaze to the roof. A mosaic covers the ceiling mirroring what Hen feels. A single monk kneels in the center, lost in his meditation while hundred of others lift him up to the heavens.
Hen is still frail, his body a poor vessel for the will that drives him. However, now he channels the strength of his brothers and they have sworn to fill the cracks in the world with blood.