Landon Banebow finds his Chi
An excerpt from a work in progress.
"Focus your mind, child and find the Chi within your body – that flowing river of energy." Xzala said calmly as she sat cross-legged beneath the drooping branches of a willow tree – barren and brown from the approaching winter.
"Flowing river." Landon mumbled sarcastically. He had been standing in that flowing river for half the day. His feet and legs were numb to the knees from the cold, rushing waters of the stream.
"We've been over this, Landon. Form the flame and cast it out through your mind." She said, ignoring his comment. "The power is yours after all. Within you, child, yours to command if only you would open your mind and let go of those doubts and worries that plague us all. Even demigods such as I." She flashed Landon her always dazzling, nearly hypnotizing smile but he only smirked and threw his hands in the air.
"Then why do I stand in this freezing river if I must learn focus and concentration to even feel this Chi or energy or whatever it is. The cold is distracting me and I can't think of anything else." Landon snapped, frustrated more at his failure than the cold water of which he complained.
For three days since leaving Bane's Glade on their journey west towards Tillamun, Xzala had calmly – and irritatingly – told Landon to "Focus your mind, child. Find the Chi within your body." And for three days he had found nothing. He wasn't even sure what to look for if he were able to clear his mind and completely chase away the hundreds of emotions and worries that resided there.
"You must learn to ignore all distractions whether they're physical, such as your cold legs, or mental, like fear gripping your very soul during the heat of battle. Even mundane emotions and worries, if allowed to penetrate the Blackness, can cause you to lose control over the power and with the Reckoning upon us we cannot risk you being unprepared. Unfortunately, time is not on our side and that is why you're standing in that river. Now, focus your mind, child, and find the Chi within you." Landon rolled his eyes but took a deep breath and sought the blackness of empty thought.
He began the exercise as Xzala had instructed. Focusing on a small flame, similar to a candle, he slowly sharpened and intensified each individual hue of color. Once he had the flame intricately formed in his mind's eye, Landon began – what to him was the most difficult task involved – to burn concerns, uncertainties and emotions from his mind. One by one he sent the candle flame to sear them from the blackness he strived to achieve but instantly dozens more would form anew.
Landon continued extinguishing emotion after emotion, worry after worry for what seemed like an eternity. He burned his apprehension towards killing a man only to have doubts regarding Bo'Chek and Tillamun flood in and douse his small mind-flame. Frantically he seared Akina in irons at Bo'Chek's feet, and then the Reckoning and being a Chosen materialized, then dying. Xzala the Giant. Burned. War with Drakarr'kan. Flamed. Emotions and worries instantly burned and banished to the Blackness only to reappear.
On the point of giving up and stalking back to camp - Faldamn the Chosen one and the Reckoning – a trickle of something flowed from the tiny candle flame in his mind dematerializing his frustration and anger at once again failing to achieve the Blackness. Nothing returned. Landon's eyes widened in epiphany and he focused on the details of the flame again only this time he changed it to his will. A flowing river of flame burst through his mind utterly destroying every worry and emotion. His freezing legs and feet, danger and uncertainty in Tillamun, the Reckoning were but cold understandings outside the Blackness. Not gone but unable to distract.
The mind-flame receded and disappeared replaced by a new awareness. Within his body Landon could sense an intricate pattern of energy – as the tributaries of a mighty river – ebbing and flowing from his head to his arms and feet then centering in his chest. From the flowing rivers energy arced and leaped bridging gaps between hundreds of streams of power racing back and forth throughout his body with the largest feeding his head and all of them meeting at his heart.
Regardless of the form or design he had found his power. He had found his Chi.
Landon explained everything to Xzala describing his new consciousness and the Chi's river like flows.
"Very good, child," She began, "but that was the easy part. Next we begin on the forms." Xzala spoke in her calm tone yet inside the Blackness – his senses heightened and sharp – he caught a sense of extreme relief. And was that a smell of amazement? I can smell an emotion? What else will this Mist allow me to do? He thought excitedly, eager to learn more.
"Which we shall begin tomorrow. We still have nine days till we reach Tillamun. We will work on the basic forms on the way. Finish your chores, child, I will see you at supper." Landon began to protest but was forestalled by a raise of Xzala's massive gauntleted hand as she turned and set out through the woods for their small camp.
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