My breathing became labored, and as the poison worked its way into my heart, I wished that I had begun my quest when I was much younger, before the wars. I also wished I had paid more attention to the robed man who warned me to sweep the path! When key seekers speak, it is never for conversation or amusement.

The sorcerer crossed my mind too. I found it amusing that for once, he was wrong; I would not find the key in this lifetime, and would have to come back one more time.

Leaves rustled all around me, snakes everywhere, but then I heard something else - men running down the path. It was a John with two other key seekers carrying brooms, and they seemed to know immediately that I had been snake-bitten. They frantically swept the remaining snakes off the path and then one of the men drew a needle from his robe and started to perforate my head and shoulders with hundreds of small punctures. The other man removed a vial he had tied around his neck, poured its liquid over my pierced skin, and rubbed it in. Next, they carried me to my hut and laid me on the floor, making me as comfortable as possible with a John sitting next to me. He quickly instructed me that for the next three days, I must drink water continuously and remain awake so that the poison would dilute and circulate, and not have a chance to settle in my heart.

When the other men left, I asked a John how he knew I had been bitten.

"It is important for you to remain awake but not move, so I will try to keep you from sleeping by talking to you and waking you if you doze off," he replied. "You have only a slim chance to live but I will do everything I can to save you. Just in case, however, I will also prepare you for death. To answer your question, I was practicing my inner work as I do most of the night when a point of light came through the window. It looked similar to other immaterial beings in the forest that drop in occasionally, but this one was exceptionally brilliant, growing into a bluish-green, transparent form of a stunning young woman, perhaps three feet tall with exceptional large, dark piercing eyes."

I whispered, "Ariya."

"When she told me that you were going to be bitten by a snake and would be lying on the path, I immediately ran out to find a key seeker with anti-venom. Not knowing what kind of snake would bite you, I did not know which robed man to go to because there are many different types of anti-venom that the villagers prepare for us, and each man carries a different one in his vial. However, I followed the point of light that guided me to a couple of huts where I aroused the men and we came as quickly as we could. Luckily, one of them had the Banded Krait anti-venom, and when we found you, we could tell immediately by the odor that you were bitten by a krait."

Ariya promised when I first entered the forest that she would always be there to help when I had exhausted my own efforts, but I also remembered what she said regarding freewill. I knew that my fate, as the result of this snakebite, was not within her powers. She could only do so much. But I could feel she was in some strange way strengthening me, and I knew if I survived this bite, as I did the fever and the quicksand, it would be because of her.

A John was looking at me as if he was hesitant to say something, and then said, "I must tell you one more thing. Ariya revealed to me that this was no mere accident. Moosawa is trying to kill you. I suspected him from the very beginning and tried to keep an eye on him but he was very clever, stealing into the night with bags of snakes and setting them loose on your path. He is a bounty hunter disguised as a key seeker."

"Why didn't you tell me of your suspicions sooner?"

"Because if I had, you would have killed him."

"But why did he go to the trouble of collecting all those snakes? He apparently has a crossbow hidden somewhere. Why didn't he just shoot me?"

"Well, for one thing," said a John, smiling, "he is apparently not a good shot! Additionally, he would have had a problem explaining how a key seeker could be murdered in this protected community. Only someone who lives among us could have been the killer. Questions would have been asked and suspicions aroused. Moreover, he would have had to get you back to Ayatana to collect the bounty and that would be difficult. It would have been impossible to get a body out of the gate or traverse this country with it without a good explanation. No, it would be much simpler to make it look as if it were an accident. Then he could confess that he knew you were a king, and graciously volunteer to return the body to its rightful subjects."

"Help me up, I am going to kill him right now," I said, as I almost passed out.

I distantly heard a John laugh, saying that I was not going anywhere, and that I was lucky to be alive. He said that I should no longer be concerned about Moosawa; and that he would deal with him in his own way. I was now only to pay close attention as a John was going to give me instructions for death. (To be continued)

Author's Bio: 

E. Raymond Rock of Fort Myers, Florida is cofounder and principal teacher at the Southwest Florida Insight Center, http://www.SouthwestFloridaInsightCenter.com His twenty-nine years of meditation experience has taken him across four continents, including two stopovers in Thailand where he practiced in the remote northeast forests as an ordained Theravada Buddhist monk. His book, A Year to Enlightenment (Career Press/New Page Books) is now available at major bookstores and online retailers. Visit www.basicorganization.com