Tales of the Red Panda: The Mind Master (19 page)

The bitter winds of
winter were closer now. Upon the mountain top, the air was cold and bit like a
desperate animal. Within the thin walls of the kuti, August Fenwick drew the
last of his gear together and gazed up at the silent form of the man he had
called Master. At last he spoke.

“Are you certain you
do not need me to stay?” he said with some hesitation that revealed his desire
to be gone.

Rashan snorted, but
smiled. “There is little that I need from any man that lives, young one. And
you have your own path to follow. Soon the snows will swallow up the path and
you will winter in the high hills whether you wish it or no.”

Fenwick nodded. “You
could come with me as far as the village below. I’m certain you would be more
comfortable there. At least until the spring.”

Rashan turned his gaze
impassively upon his remaining pupil. “This mountain is my home. It is my
place. This life is my destiny. Why would you have me leave it?”

Fenwick sighed. “It is
dangerous, Master. You will be alone for months.”

“You leave this place
for your city, do you not?” Rashan questioned. “A place where you will seek out
danger you need never have known. Where you will live a life of many masks that
will have you always and ever be alone. And yet you seek out this existence for
yourself. Why do you do it?”

Fenwick nodded and
grinned a little. “It is my place,” he said with quiet conviction. “My
destiny.”

The Saddhu nodded. “We
are what we make of ourselves.”

August Fenwick was
quiet for a moment. “And what about… him?” he asked. It had been ten days since
the battle, and they had not spoken of his fellow student in that time. “What
will he make of himself?”

Rashan’s eyes remained
firm, but his shoulders fell slightly. “I do not know,” he said sadly. “But
whether good or ill, I have failed him.”

Fenwick protested.
“But, Master… his destiny was his to create as well.”

Rashan shook his head.
“It is not the same.” His eyes met those of his pupil and held them with an
intensity that seemed to look right through the younger man. “There is another
reason why you are loathe to leave me here,” he said. “I wonder if you know
what it is.”

Fenwick cleared his
throat. “Why do you wish to know?” he asked.

His master shook his
head. “I do not,” he said. “I wish for you to know.”

Fenwick held Rashan’s
eye. “I have to leave. I have disobeyed my father’s wish for my return for a
very long time. But if I could return to one father without abandoning
another…,” his voice trailed away. “That would be best,” he said calmly, but
with a smile.

Rashan nodded. “It is
the same reason I cannot allow you to stay,” he said. “I have failed one son
already.”

Fenwick started.
“Master Rashan?” he asked. “He– was he–?”

Rashan held his hand
up to cut off the question. “He was and he is. And he always will be.”

August Fenwick felt a
grip of panic he could not explain in his heart. “Do… do you think he will
return?”

“Yes.”

“But he swore–”

“Sons may swear a
great many things. Fathers may yet hope for the best,” the old man said with a
rueful smile of one who has been both.

The two men spoke not
another word, but walked together to the lip of the valley, where the pass
through the Annapurna Ridge began its lonely descent. Fenwick pulled his pack
onto his back and held out his hand. There was a length of bright red silk
within it which he offered to the older man. Rashan shook his head.

“You keep it,” he
said. “There is little room in my life for the sentiment of objects. Besides,”
he offered a smile to his pupil, “I thought it looked well on you. Like the
face of the shining cat.”

Fenwick arched an
eyebrow. “The shining cat?”

“Some men call it the
firefox. Or…,” Rashan paused, as if struggling to recall. “Or the red panda.”

“The red panda…,”
Fenwick’s imagination seemed to catch the words.

“Yes.”

“But…,” Fenwick’s
brows furrowed, “isn’t the red panda red with a white mask? While I would be
the other way around?”

“Oh, for pity’s sake,”
the old man said with an exasperated smile as he turned and walked away. “I
said you reminded me of one, not that you could pass for one. Try not to be so
literal.” His voice faded quickly into the howling wind. “And try to forgive
your father his failings, as you would have him forgive yours.”

August Fenwick felt
the silk between his fingers one last time before returning it to his pocket.
He resolved to take his master’s advice upon his return. It would be weeks
before he would learn that he would never have the chance… that his own father
had passed away suddenly during his long absence. For him, just as for his
fellow pupil, there would be no final resolution – only a search that
could never be satisfied, and perhaps could never end.

But those were the
sorrows of another day. The man who had arrived in this valley as August
Fenwick and lived there as “Two” strode down the narrow path with new certainty
of who he was, and who he must be.

He was, and would
always be, the Red Panda.

The sky above Toronto seemed to glow with the fires of
sunset. The day had been warm and clear, and there could be no doubt that
spring had come at last. The pavement and the bricks of the city all seemed to
bleed the warmth of the day back into the evening air, and the people who might
have scurried back to home and hearth now lingered once again, spoke to
neighbors they had seen little of in the months before, and felt a rise of hope
within their hearts. It was hope that grew in the rocky ground of hard times,
but it grew nonetheless and every man and woman felt it to some degree.

Certainly the man who stood calmly beside the edge of the
high rooftop felt it. By the dizzying height that might have caused most men to
quake in fear he stood casually and gazed with a possessive pride over the city
– from the great avenues to the slums and at every point in between.

The woman who reclined across the top of a nearby gargoyle
felt it too, and she gazed up at him a short distance away. She smiled to
herself. You could hardly see the bruises under his domino mask now, and she
might be the only person in the world who could tell just by looking that he
was still a little stiff. She flexed the fingers on her right arm, almost
without thinking. There were still some pins and needles, but they would soon
go.

He turned his head slightly and watched her watching him.
She dared him with her eyes to comment. He declined and turned back to the
embers of the setting sun. She would follow him into Hell if he asked, and was
almost sure that he could tell. He could face any danger if she fought by his
side, and he hoped that she knew it in spite of his silence.

The final rays of sunlight dipped below the horizon and
night came to the city once again. From somewhere, down the canyons between the
buildings, came the growing wail of police sirens.

The Red Panda and the Flying Squirrel exchanged the briefest
of looks, and said nothing at all. As one, they threw themselves off the edge
of the building towards the call of adventure and into the growing blackness of
the night.

--THE
END--

About the author:

Gregg Taylor has been creating new stories in the pulp
tradition since 2005 with the Decoder Ring Theatre, for whom he fills the
functions of writer, director, performer and chief bottle washer. The
radio-style adventures of the Red Panda and the Flying Squirrel can be found
for free download in mp3 format at
www.decoderringtheatre.com
,
together with Taylor's detective series
Black
Jack Justice
and other programs.