Carrying a Demon Across the Bardo

von Reynard

166 Seiten, Taschenbuch

Kurzbeschreibung des Verlags

Ascension is a slaughterhouse. Salvation demands descent.In the mercurial expanse of the Sidpa Bardo-the liminal plane between death and rebirth-there is no room for human sentiment. For nine transmigrations, Theodore Walsh has walked its treacherous ridges as an incorruptible ferryman, guiding weeping souls past predatory wombs and illusory lights. In his hollow chest beats no mortal fear, no grief, and no desire; he is a paragon of ascetic detachment, standing on the threshold of radiant Buddhahood.Until the iron strikes.Tearing through the silver mists, a flayed horror named Sebastian Drake erupts from the abyss, driving a rusted hook into Theodore's spinal meridian. Bound by an agonizing astral tether, saint and fiend tumble into the forgotten sub-strata of the afterlife. But Sebastian carries no thirst for indiscriminate slaughter. In his charred grip is a cracked wooden begging bowl-an ordination gift from an ancient lifetime Theodore's memory buried beneath centuries of meditation.The truth shatters Theodore's sacred identity: Sebastian is not an emissary of the hell realms, but Theodore's first, most beloved disciple, ritualistically sacrificed centuries ago to purchase Theodore's initial breakthrough. The monk's revered equanimity was never holy detachment-it was the cold rigor mortis of a soul that died of guilt the moment the blade fell. Theodore is merely a spiritual automaton, animated by the unresolved momentum of a broken vow.As the celestial wardens of the Iron Lotus Citadel descend to purge them, Theodore and his demonic shadow uncover a cosmic conspiracy of horrific proportions. The Living Buddha, Julian Dawson, has built a gilded paradise atop the ashes of a burned civilization, siphoning the merit of transmigrating souls to engineer eternal immortality for an enlightened elite. Samsara has been weaponized into a cosmic harvesting engine.Hunted through subterranean ash fields and collapsing spiritual strata, Theodore confronts a paradox that defies sacred dogma: Sebastian's centuries of demonic fury were never meant to destroy him. The demon accumulated the monstrous karma of wrath exclusively to stay tethered to his fallen master, wielding calculated agony as the only shock sharp enough to keep Theodore's petrified heart from freezing into the void.To shatter the cosmic engine, the ferryman must commit the ultimate heresy: renounce Buddhahood, tear away his golden robes, and discover that true liberation leaves no suffering being behind.Carrying a Demon Across the Bardo is a metaphysical dark fantasy fusing Buddhist esoteric lore with searing psychological horror. A philosophical tour de force for readers who crave the theological audacity of His Dark Materials and the haunting, mythic resonance of dark fantasy.

• Themen: Belletristik Horrorliteratur, Geistergeschichten und Übernatürliches Okkultes / Paranormaler Horror
• ISBN: 9798182769624
• Sprache: Englisch
• Erscheinungsdatum: 11.09.2026
• Größe: 229 x 152 mm
• Verlag: Diane Reynard