(As Performed at Naked City)
The Monk from the East met the Warrior from the West at the Bar halfway between worlds. Salutatious conversation shifted respectfully to lives lived and loves lost and battles fought and questions answered until it serpentined onto the subject of their beverages.
“It is unfortunate,” the Warrior said with a semi sardonic grin, “that intoxication is nigh impossi...ble now that my body is tuned to perfection. I could drink this bar and barely feel anything. Tastes good though.”
The Monk nodded, his sagely features fine chiseled by the sands of the wastes about them. “I too find intoxication difficult, though it is because my inner light is focused in perfect harmony to the world around me. Intoxication must come from other sources.”
The Monk and the Warrior’s eyes locked then, each sure that they had inadvertently trapped their opponent in a battle neither of them had known that they were fighting until that moment.
The Warrior smiled, eyes twinkling as he took out a most curious statue, an ideal man and a voluptuous woman back to back, eyes a glitter with faceted rubies that stared in both directions. “This is the Mantle of Karathus Ra. I’ll wager it Monk.”
The silence between them slithered awkwardly, unwilling to be caught in the hands of time, though it ended soon enough. “I take your wager.” The monk’s eyes sparkled like the stones in the statue.
The Warrior laughed, “Excellent.” He placed his hand on one side of the Mantle. The Monk, intuitively sensing the nature of the game, took the other. Instantly, their experience took on new nuances as what had hither to now been conversation now becoming perfect understanding and a linkage.
The Monk felt every wound that the warrior had felt, injuries that would break a lesser man. He felt the rush of death upon a foe and the adrenaline of mortality before battle. He stood on a mountain with a million things that had been and never would be, fighting for their very lives. But then it hit, for the Monk knew Righteous Anger, the absolute certainty of the purity of one’s cause, divine backing from the very heavens eliminating unnecessary thought, victory for the helpless and the needful, a glowing fire that none could truly understand unless they experienced it. Unrelenting, brighter than the sun itself setting the soul aflame in unbasked unabashed unrepentant glory. The Monk had almost never felt anything so pure.
Almost.
The Warrior was impressed with the discipline of the Monk’s life. The patient study over years of disciplines both profane, sacred and esoteric. He knew the wonders of mountains of impossible height and wandering across the echoes of time itself absorbing the abeyances and absolutions of a hundred different peoples. Impressive indeed, but the Warrior’s unshakable certainty was pure until the Monk laid down his final wager. The Monk’s infinite mind included an empathy of such vastness that the Warrior felt each kill he had made through the eyes of the slain. In most instances, despite nuanced adjudication the Warrior was still in the right; for his had been a valiant path, but in a few steps of the journey innocents had been destroyed. The purity of the Monk’s poison was in the shattering of the absolute surety in the Warrior’s cause. Shades of Gray forced themselves into the Warrior’s perceptions most unwillingly.
Righteous Wrath could not hold even the slightest flickering candle to Perfect Love.
And then the joining broke. Defeated, the Warrior slid the statue to the Monk.
The Monk held up his hand and said, “I have no need. I do this every day of my life.”
Chagrined the Warrior nodded and put the statue in his satchel.
The Monk tapped him on the shoulder warmly and smiled, “Come. Let us Wander. For you have taught me something important.”
The Warrior arched a meaty mighty eyebrow and shifted uncomfortably.
“Sometimes, there is still a need for the righteous to Kick the Ass of the wicked. “ The Monk leaned on his staff and began to shuffle towards the door.
The Warrior grinned and held it open, “I think I know just the place.”
