Divine Apostasy Book 7 - Chapter 56

Chapter 56

The mid-morning sun warmed Ruwen’s cheeks, and for the hundredth time, he forced himself to not look down. He stood at the edge of a canyon, but unlike the canyon with the Floots and keys, the sides here were steep. Steep as in a three-hundred-foot vertical drops.

A brisk wind rising from the ravine tousled Ruwen’s hair. The white rock of the canyon’s walls glowed and made the distant boulder-strewn ground below painfully apparent. After discovering this place the night before, he’d fallen three times as he figured out how it worked. The zig-zag staircase of death, that’s how he thought of it anyway, that connected the top and bottom of the ravine is what had attracted his attention in the first place. It hadn’t taken long to realize he’d found the location of the last trial.

Ruwen turned away from the cliff and faced the Adepts. “The final hidden pattern is time. How can time be a pattern when the combinations are endless you might wonder.” He glanced at the sky and the clouds that floated high above. “My whole life I’ve seen patterns others ignored or dismissed. They see a cloud, where I find an appah swinging from a pole.”

“Wow, that explains a lot,” Sift said.

Everyone laughed, including Ruwen.

“My point is, I take what I notice seriously, and I believe the Founders, in our first trip to see them, foreshadowed these hidden trials. They planted a seed in our minds so that decades later, while in the village below, it could sprout.”

“I don’t understand,” Prythus said.

“And neither did I,” Ruwen replied. “Until this final pattern, time, revealed itself. Because this hidden pattern is only visible after mastering your force and breathing. Stop for a moment and appreciate the immense effort and thought that created the Steps you practice. In the beginning I viewed the Steps as a way to protect myself and those I love. As I learned its secrets, it transformed, and reshaped not only my body, but my thoughts. The Steps are a way of thinking, a way of life, and it whispers a single word. One you already know but might not yet fully appreciate.”

Many Adepts muttered “balance” and even Echo mouthed the word, caught up in Ruwen’s words and the impact of his Charisma.

“I spoke of a seed,” Ruwen said. “Our first meeting with the Founders we encountered the viper forest. Remember how the snakes would leap at the slightest vibration? How carefully you needed to walk and remain quiet. Those snakes were responding to the force our bodies created on the environment.”

Ruwen let that fact sink in and after five seconds started again. “If you needed a break or to save your precious minutes, how did we do that? We meditated with our controlled breathing techniques. And speaking of minutes, the Founders didn’t even hide the aspect of time. We received a set amount and were given options like fruit and combat to earn more.”

Comprehension dawned on the Adepts.

“Now you grasp how all the clues are there,” Ruwen said. “Nothing is really hidden. It just requires you to see, not just look.”

Ruwen contemplated that experience again as well, looking for hints to the seventh trial. If the Founders had foreshadowed the hidden trials, they certainly would have included them all.

The most obvious place for clues was the trap filled forest where he’d freed Echo, or the almost impossible climb up the mountain. If so, what knowledge had the Founders hidden there?

Ruwen refocused on the Adepts. “I have walked the path you begin now, and I think it’s important for you to know my knowledge ends here. There is a seventh trial, about which I know nothing. Search your experiences and use that information to reexamine your time there. I believe it will aid you.”

Ruwen let out a sigh and turned to Sift. “Sisen.”

Sift faced the Adepts. “All I remember about that trip was how good the red fruit tasted. I’d still be there now if I hadn’t accidentally stumbled into the end.”

The Adepts laughed, but Ruwen guessed Sift wasn’t joking. He probably had spent the whole time ignoring the point of the test in his search for something good to eat.

“If force is the  pastry and breathing the filling, timing is the frosting,” Sift said. “Timing only makes sense when the other two pieces are in place. Frosting without a pastry is not a meal. Yesterday, I told you the first step was the hardest. I lied. Today’s will be harder.”

Sift waved at the Adepts to gather near the cliff.

“You need to work on your examples,” Ruwen whispered to Sift. “Frosting without a pastry is not a meal?”

“The Sage strikes again,” Sift said with a nod, happy with himself.

The Adepts drew near and Ruwen hid his fear. Taking that first step last night had proved difficult. The canyon walls had retained their glowing light, and he hadn’t even had the darkness to hide the height.

Sift evidently had said all he intended to, so Ruwen spoke. “There is little point it trying to master this pattern until you’ve succeeded with the others, but I encourage all of you to try it at least once. Then you can choose to return to the ocean trial, the bamboo trial, or the beach where Sisen and I will help with your Step forms.”

Ruwen turned his back to the Adepts and stepped up to the cliff. This trial was another marvel of craftsmanship similar in concept to the underwater trial. Instead of bubbles, the holes in the cliff walls threw powerful blasts of air in seemingly random spurts. He could hear the soft puffs coming from below and from the cliff across the ravine.

It had taken Ruwen a few minutes to figure out the purpose last night and twice that to calm himself down. The bursts of air from each cliff always intersected, momentarily creating dense areas of air, like temporary platforms.

One vertical line of holes generated a constant flow of air from each cliff, and they started right below Ruwen’s feet. He knew the Bamboo Jacket of Falling would keep him safe, as it had worked multiple times last night. Even with his expertise and precise body control, he couldn’t mentally get past where he performed the Steps, and it had overwhelmed him multiple times.

Tossing the unhelpful emotions into the third meditation, Ruwen stepped off the cliff, and strode forward confidently. The Adepts gasped and he heard them rush forward toward the cliff.

The dense air under Ruwen supported him surprisingly well. He kept his eyes on the far side of the ravine, avoiding any accidental view of the ground to save his mental state. In the exact middle of the span between the cliffs, air from the distant floor struck the two flows from the cliff sides, creating a firm platform, and he stopped. This is where the Steps began and ended.

To the Adepts, Ruwen knew it appeared like he’d walked on air across the canyon and now floated in the middle of the ravine, and in reality, that is exactly what he’d done.

Ruwen waited until he heard what sounded like the soft hiss of a viper. He’d learned that was the signal to begin the sequence.

Stepping into the first Viper Step, Ruwen ignored the fact he hovered three hundred feet in the air, and moved confidently through the forms, knowing the precisely timed blasts of air from each cliff would intersect exactly where required and support him.

Ruwen knew what the Adepts on the cliff felt, as he’d experienced the same thing that morning when watching Sift: amazement, fascination, and terror. The Adepts gasped and cried out as he moved back and forth across the open air. He scolded himself for letting the height and the Adepts reactions distract him and focused entirely on the flow of his body.

The symmetry of balance within balance within balance provided immense mental satisfaction. Performing the Steps now, had become a celebration of perfection, and he radiated gratification and joy. He fleetingly wondered if this was how Sift felt when he moved.

With a final exhalation, Ruwen ended where he’d begun. He remained standing, three hundred feet above the canyon floor, held aloft by jets of air. Something had changed. As he hung suspended in the air he searched for the source and found it.

Many times before, Ruwen had given himself over to the Steps, removing his conscious mind from the muscle memories. This time had differed because the fear of falling, coupled with an audience of Adepts he didn’t want to disappoint, had required him to force his feelings into the third meditation.

But this time, the joy and gratitude, born from the recognition of perfectly nested balance, had become so intertwined within his forms, that he couldn’t remove it. The Steps had turned from a mechanical exercise into a celebration.

Ruwen’s body flushed and prickled. Memories of the Spirit Realm rose, of Rami and Ruwen in her mental construct, and the first time he’d completed the Bamboo Viper Steps completely.

This had felt the same.

It hadn’t felt mechanical or cold, but alive and joyful. Ruwen had lost that happiness at some point, and discovering it again felt amazing.

Ruwen’s hands trembled, and he remained in the middle of the canyon as he worked to regain control of his body and emotions.

Turning, Ruwen faced the cliff. The Adepts stood in stunned silence. Nymthus bowed deeply, and the other Adepts followed. Sift held out his fist and covered it with his palm, and after a moment, Echo did the same.

Ruwen wasn’t the only one that recognized something had changed, and he bowed deeply to the Adepts.