Juggling!!!#$**&&)))

When you're a writer, nothing moves in a straight line. You are thumped with a second of inspiration, and you give chase.

I've been working on book five of the Daniel Saga for years....

I'm nearing the end, almost dreading because I know book six is going to be harder to write!

Here is the start of book five:

Walter Golding         59,054 words...thus far, not all in this post.

DANIEL, I SEE CHI

A Novel by

W.R. GOLDING

Chapter 1

“Mastering what resides within is the key to everything else.”

Deep breaths heaved. Daniel sprinted.

Sounds great when you’re sitting in a Taoist monastery with Grand Master Yang, tranquilly imparting words of wisdom.

Daniel jabbed his right foot into the ground and sprang left, hurdling a small fallen pine, jerking his feet high, clearing the trunk and dead branches.

Boots hit the forest floor, skidding. Balance was never in question; every muscle and sense in sync as he drove forward up the steep hill.

This Zen stuff’s a little trickier in the real world.

Daniel wasn’t in what most called the real world. He was in his world, and in his world, he was on a quest, a quest to master all within and to control his destiny.

But on this dark night in his forest home, he was also on a mission.

I am a predator. A smile split his face. I’ve chosen my prey.

‘You’ve come years in the last month.’ The parting words from his friend, his mentor, Grand Master Yang.

It had been six weeks since a Chinese thug had put two bullets in Daniel’s back and five weeks since waking in a monastery in western China.

The journey to this moment had been insightful, illuminating, invigorating, inspirational, and intense.

A bramble patch came into view. Daniel shifted his course to the right and picked up speed as he wove between the towering tree trunks.

His breathing paced at sixty per minute, air drawn deep and exhaled through pursed lips, the breaths less than half his 140-heart rate. Sweat soaked his clothes in the mid-July heat. Even in the mountains of western Wyoming, global warming was making a statement.

There it is.

The deer run had been a part of the landscape of his western Wyoming valley for centuries. Daniel had lived there for only five years and had spotted the path four years earlier while exploring. It was hard to believe it was 2012; he was nineteen and, amazingly, still alive.

He angled up the slope to intersect the trail.

Running hurt—the burning sensation in his muscles, the stabbing zaps as raw, unhealed nerves screamed in protest—constant reminders that his flesh had been torn open. It was not the first time his body had been shredded. But flesh was only part of the whole, and the whole empowered his body.

Another part of the whole was his mind, which was more alive than ever. The lessons he experienced with Grand Master Yang and the illuminations of truth shared by an extraordinary five-year-old boy had fundamentally changed how Daniel saw himself, the world, and all existence.

The Taoist monks called the boy “Gift of Wisdom.” Like Daniel, the young boy had the ability to see and perceive things on a superhuman level.

It was the child who enlightened Daniel about his abilities. But no one could predict the limits of those gifts. The door was open, and what Daniel did with the talents he possessed was a choice that he would make.

You love the dark, the ancient spirit keeper of the Walameyapi had told him, but listen to the light. You walk like a man but have the heart of wild creatures. You have died but have returned to live. You are divided, and therein is the danger. Who and what you are will be your choice.

Choice. Control. I have control.

Using that control, he transformed the pain from his wounds into energy. The energy cleansed his body of toxins, both physical and spiritual. The blood rushing through his veins fed oxygen to the muscles, but that wasn’t all.

His essence, his chi, raced through his arteries and veins, merging mind and flesh, bridging the divides that had torn him apart. Now, his chi helped bring him into balance.

He was mastering all that resided within.

His prey on this night were two young mountain lions named after Daniel and his mother, Melinda. The adolescent lions scurried across the face of Little Elk Mountain, more than a half mile away, searching for their mother’s scent.

They understood they needed to reach their mother before Daniel and Samson caught them.

In the blackness of the moonless night, Daniel raced along the deer trail, climbing higher. He had advantages over the young lions. Five years of exploration had engraved every feature of the valley’s landscape into his mind. His experience as a hunter was superior to that of the young cats. He knew their location, and they were ignorant of his. They had the night vision of mountain lions.

Daniel could see in the blackest of nights as clearly as he did in full sun.

I see chi.

That was but one enlightenment granted by the ‘Gift of Wisdom,’ and it had rocked Daniel to his core.

He sprinted as the narrow path topped a ridge, now above the cubs. They expected him to chase from below.

Your prey should never see you until it’s too late.

To his right, boulders were strewn among the pines. Daniel left the trail, heading for Amber’s rock. He’d named it for the love of his life, the one who had brought peace to his storm.

That had been another revelation. She was the yin to his yang, a balance.

‘The calm in the center of your storm,’ Master Yang had intoned. ‘Her spirit will always call to you to be accountable.’

Without her, he had gone insane.

But I must earn her trust. 

He had hurt her horribly, shredding the fabric of their love. But threads remained. Energy streams still tied him to her and her to him. There was hope, and he clung to that slim glimmer.

He sensed for Samson, his brother, his friend. The big mountain lion was pursuing the young lions from below, circling wide to coax them along the path and into the trap.

Samson was skilled and silent, except when he wanted to spook the young ones. Daniel grinned, admiring the skill of his friend.

Control, he repeated the mantra as he dashed along a bluff overlooking the pool where a large flat stone marked the point where the water flowed from the basin and descended toward the valley.

Amber’s rock. The memory and the energy of this place were good.

Leaping from the bluff, Daniel snagged the protruding limb of a pine, swung apelike to the trunk, and shimmied to the ground.

He had arrived early. Crouched against the base of the cliff, invisible even to the eyes of mountain lions. He closed his eyes.

Daniel placed one hand on the stone of the bluff, and his other curled into the bed of pine needles on the ground. His spirit sensed the energy flowing through the world around him. His essence flowed into the rock and ground, and energy shifted from the world into him. Sweat dripped from his chin.

All alive, all connected.

Another lesson from “Gift of Wisdom.”

So much to learn, so much to understand.

But that would have to wait. The lions scurried Daniel’s way. There were lessons to be taught.

Chapter 2 

Amber clicked the webpage link her friend Charley Harper had included in a brief email.

‘You need to see this,’ he’d written. ‘Hugs and love from Alice and me.’

The screen flickered, and images materialized, displaying a darkened room.

Not a room, a cave? The cave! The lion’s den. 

The realization stirred emotions and memories—good memories and regrets.

Amber squinted and leaned closer to the screen. The images looked like those from cameras that see in the dark. After a few seconds, she discerned shapes. The mountain lions sprawled asleep on the floor. Her pulse quickened.

Samantha? Her heart warmed at the sight of the lioness.

Next to Samantha, Samson slept. The cubs were curled together near Samson. She watched in wonder as one of the cubs licked at something hidden from her view by the furry bodies of the cats.

Fingers reached up, gently scratching the cub behind the ear.

Amber’s heart skipped and skipped again. Tears erupted without warning.

“Daniel?” she whispered.

She sat silently, immobile, staring at the monitor. The cub continued licking as the hand and fingers softly stroked and rubbed the head and neck of the young lion.

The cub rolled to its feet. A figure sat up, his back to Amber, but she knew. A chilling sensation stirred deep inside, and beyond any doubt, she knew.

The scars on his back were indelibly etched in her memory. He had taken that image away with a thousand nightmares, but he had returned it and so much more.

“Oh, Daniel,” more tears accompanied the hushed whisper of her heart.

He cuddled with the standing cub. The young lion draped its head over his shoulder as Daniel ran fingers up and down the spine through the animal’s fur. The cat arched its back, and its tail flicked vertically.

Goosebumps erupted down Amber’s arms. Her back spontaneously curved in response to memories of his touch—gentle, passionate.

She smiled. An unanticipated giggle hiccupped.