The War of the Realms

by C Steven Meldrum

  “ Naraka is felled at last! Praise Vishnu and his brave Queen!” cried Lord Indra and all the devas. They had fought through fire and darkness and poison and evil and were suddenly delighted to see Surya, the sun god, rising in the east on a new morning in creation. And the sky was suddenly filled with flower blossoms and a sweet fragrance to wash away the smell of death and darkness. Indra and the devas, and all the creatures of the world celebrated the end of Naraka's oppression. Lord Krishna and his brave queen, brandishing theKośa Sastra in victory, bade farewell to all who witnessed that great event and returned to their home among the stars.

  Part I: The Rinpoche

  Chapter 1: Tashigang What are beginnings but a point on the wheel at which I say – “I happened – I started here and ended here” – a ring has no beginning and no end; it is one with time and space…

  From “The Teachings of the Bodhisattva” I begin with my earliest memory, being that of the colourful lung ta and long, white katak, whipping about in the cool breeze of a late summer afternoon; the‘horses of the wind’, as they were called, riding high above the sanguineous keep, across pampas of distant clouds, stretching infinitely across the westering sky, the white and red of the cloak of Nechung.

  I sat looking at those same wind-whipped flags, gently and lazily flailing as the edge of the world rushed to overtake the cold, reddened sun. They will always be a symbol of my exile, the last serene sight I had of the keep‘ere our mounts drove out along the road to a future of pity and regret, of malice, death and loss.

  But I am getting ahead of myself. My Aegis have provided me with paper and writing implements and I seemingly have limitless time in which to sit and ponder and record the events of my failures and the end of all things. Who knew that the Great Darkness of Kali Yuga would wash over all creation as it has? There is no-one really left to read it so I am writing this for my own spiritual and psychological expiation. I just laughed to myself – it is forgiveness I require, but who is there left to provide me that?

  And here I sit. I have all the time in the world in which to analyse myself and my failings and to set my thoughts down. If the pain of reliving the horrors I have witnessed provides any kind of catharsis I shall be grateful. If I am wrong and this text somehow survives the mists of time and it is perhaps read by another sentient being, then the tale will be told and that will be a consolation. How much can be learnt from tragedy? How much can be gained from ruin? I shall persist.

  We were now near the end of winter and it had been a clear and sunny, if not entirely warm afternoon. I breathed deeply the fresh mountain air and, looking up, espied the intermittent auroral sparks that flashed from the silvery feathers of the griffons, hawk-eagles and kestrels that wheeled and swooped between the stupas and chortons and the mountainous crags that protected their broods. I marvelled at their size and dexterity. Indeed, it would be after the glorious golden eaglehawk that I would one day be named, carrying my oaken cudgel into manhood, journeying beyond these walls, the massive amur, Vajra at my side.

  From the edge of the curtain wall that surrounded our ancient monastery of Bâm-e Donyâ the setting sun cast a glorious titian hue upon this westernmost wall while the courtyard behind it sank into darkness. The wail and drone of chanting from evening prayers drifted up from below and monks with shaved scalps and thick red robes made from a modern approximation of the sacred wool of the long-extinct gnag moved en masse towards the refectory for the evening meal.

  I would normally have been pushing toward the front of the line but as it was I felt quite sated. Crouching on top of one of the snow-covered battlements, it was difficult to tear my gaze away from the beautiful sunset but I managed to do so and turned to look down at Dorje, bathed in the rufous glare of the dying sun. He was sat upon the outer apron, a yard-wide shelf that extended from the top of the curtain wall, reclining with his hands behind his head and his legs dangling above the snow-covered hillside upon which our ancient keep had been erected. He was busily finishing the last of the fruit and cheese I had earlier liberated from the kitchen and I knew would be intent on having a full meal as well.

  Dorje was the senior acolyte, head of the apprentices: our captain. Grim in appearance and incredibly strong, he was exceptional in combat training, stood perhaps two hands above a fathom in height and commanded the respect of students and masters alike. The proctors used him as an example of what every student should be. But what they didn’t know was that he was also greedy and completely self-obsessed. He wore his stature and ability as a physical shield that hid some significant deficiencies – laziness, poor attitude and intellectual inability, which all too often required that underlings like myself, Yeshe and Lhapka assist him so that the illusion of undeniable brilliance was maintained.

  It was dangerous to broach any of his deficiencies with him as depending on his mood one risked getting dumped in the snow or dangled over the edge of the wall while wolves leaped from below. We, meaning my friends and I, relied on him more than we cared to admit; as one relies on a parent or older sibling, having never known our own. Life as a prentice monk was hard enough, and being close to the captain of apprentices and his second, Rogel, made existence almost bearable. To supplement his academic failings by working harder and each contributing to his eventual success was infinitely preferable to being on his wrong side.

  Dorje’s second, Rogel, was the same age, just as tall, not quite as narcissistic, and more amiable; a joker, and much more academically capable. Actually, in many ways, the antithesis of Dorje. While Dorje clearly struggled with any kind of scholastic concept, Rogel would sit at the back of the class and doodle, only half listening to proctors and sometimes even be fast asleep for most of a lesson. But following exams he would surprise us all with more than comparable results. I often wondered what his potential would be if he actually applied himself.

  Sitting in Master Trisong’s classroom that morning, Rogel showed me the rendering he had completed of himself surrounded by a horde of borsynths, his cudgel flying and sending them hither and thither. I nodded to show it was very good but then nodded back to the front of the class to show that Master Trisong had been talking about something very important.

  Gazing out across the forty students who sat cross legged on the ornate red mats of the teaching room,Master Trisong’s voice continued in its usual grating monotone. He paced slowly back and forth along the front row of students sitting within their individual translucent holo-spheres where each student perused the digital version of ancient texts and played back video recordings and other media.

  At a silent order from Master Trisong, a translucent image from a lightcube danced into life, hovering above the desk at the front of the room. Everyone looked towards the image. In it twirled a rendering of a truly ancient mech, in fact one of the forefathers of mechkind. Its perfectly proportioned humanoid features of head, torso, two arms and two legs made it seem less than human because of its perfection. It phased in and out as the image shifted and danced with interference. Master Trisong hit the machine on the desk with the flat of his palm and the image buzzed and crackled with distortion and then became a little clearer.

  “This is an extremely old recording”, he said. “The light -cube itself is estimated to be over eight thousand years old and since the technological marvels of the golden age that created this no longer exist, we can thank brother Temba for constructing the machine capable of accessing the information within. This is one image from the cube which we can date to somewhere in the third age, within maybe a century or two of the Humanity Wars that preceded the Great Scattering. I have spent months going through the records since it was found in the archives. I think that it contains more information than the entire seven levels of the Master Archivist’s library.”

  Leaning back on the carpeted floor with legs crossed and arms supporting him, Rogel let out a complimentary whistle to show how impressed he was.

  “Yes Rogel, enough information to keep you busily studying for the res
t of your days without even finishing the introduction to the history of Kung Fu.” The rest of the class erupted in laughter and Master Trisong chuckled himself.

  “Now that I have your attention, perhaps you will be just as impressed with learning about the history of the race of mechs rather than drawing for Tashi’s amusement.” Rogel slunk down in his seat, his sunburnt cheeks somewhat flushed.

  Dorje had suggested we head for the break in the curtain wall but with Rogel held back after class and the others on afternoon patrol as part of the monastic defence, it was only the two of us. If we had all been free, we would have escaped the keep, which we often did in summer, to the west and north to the river which was only a league distant. But it had become increasingly dangerous of late with packs of roving wolves and other larger and less savoury creatures constantly on the hunt during the cold days and frigid nights of this oppressively long and bitter winter: the last winter. But to look at the brightness of the sun and the splendid day we’d had you would never guess the last few weeks had been one long howling maelstrom. The snow was thick on the ground around the base of the wall, upon the rooves and walkways and across the expanse of the main courtyard. None of this impacted on our enjoyment however. We were determined to soak up every last photon before the jagged mountains of the western horizon rushed up to impale the sanguineous disc and the long cold of another black winter night again beset us.

  Dorje was slightly older than Rogel and had become our captain when Tenzing had been elevated last year. He revelled in the position and with Rogel as his second, had become somewhat of a benevolent dictator, that is, benevolent to us who knew him best, but somewhat brutish with the general student population. He exhibited some traits one would expect of a leader such as quick, though not always wise decisions, but he did not like detail and did not for a moment like having to deal with personality clashes or having to closely manage the multitude of chores to be done and would react, often violently, if a task was not done according to what he had in mind, although his instructions were often vague and aspecific.

  They were both a year or so older than me but it was only a guess. I doubted any of our group had seen much more than a score of summers. I hardly remembered coming to this place as a youngster but remember the older duo always being there; like brothers. I remember three others that came here with me who I had known all my short life; the girl Yeshe, and the boys Pasang and Lhakpa, and then there was young Pandit (who we called Puk) who had drifted in with hardly anyone noticing about three or four winters ago.

  As young acolytes, we lived according to the rab byungor “monastic way of life” and donned the grey robes that in a spiritual sense put us on the path to become novice samaneri, but in a much more real sense meant lots of hard chores and long lessons. The communal dormitories housed all the monks. I couldn’t reconcile with the knowledge that as enlightened and technologically advanced as the Golden Age ancients were, the histories suggested that they segregated people according to some personal characteristic such as sex, skin colour or religious belief. None of those things had any practical relevance to us except perhaps during the teenage years when the male-female dynamic would see many pairings and sometimes fights and disunity as two fought for the affections of one, but we all survived. I and my friends escaped this period relatively unscathed because the relentless barrage of religious and secular inculcation and the omnipresent and inordinate number of chores that we detested that kept everyone so busy there did not seem time for much else. What drove us of course, outside of our academia and religious studies, was the much-loved weapons and combat training we lived for.

  The progression of our spiritual education required that we each complete annual exams and reaffirm our vows. As young novices, we completed the five dge snyanvows which meant “approaching virtue”. Dorje and Rogel were senior acolytes, who would this summer complete their dge long ordination and become qualified trapa or bhikkhu. Pasang, Yeshe and I were due to complete our dge tshul examinations this year and with any luck would follow Dorje and Rogel a year later and graduate as journeymen monks of the order.

  With the older two on the verge of departing the acolytes’ dormitory, rumours and speculation had begun to run rife on who would be promoted to captain of the apprentices. The mantle of captain of the prentice monks was a much sought-after position. It carried higher responsibilities but also allowed more free time and much more respect from the senior monks and masters.

  At meal times, the communal refectory was abuzz with political campaigning as a short-list of potential candidates jockeyed for position. In my own thinking, while Pasang was definitely older than me, I knew he would defer to me because he was studious, academic and without the physical stature needed to inspire any fear or to deal out justice to the younger acolytes. I was sure Yeshe would become my second and with Puk and Lhapka on my side I felt the beginnings of my own empire.

  It has always amazed me, knowing humanity’s long history as I do so intimately, that we have the capacity as a race to be sentient, intelligent beings capable of great works of universal splendour. Our gifts have borne art, music and incredible works of science that have allowed our race to expand beyond the confines of this one orb. Equally however, and in summing up years of intense historical study, we have demonstrated beyond all boundaries that we are greedy, fearful, cruel, sanguineous, cannibalistic and murderous beasts, capable of atrocities that make insignificant the horrors inflicted by the reaving palladites and sword-toothed praseodyms of the plains or some other off-world monstrosities like the multi-taloned erbites or the giant hemimorphs with goring metallic tusks twice the height of a man. I heard stories of travellers across the plateau killed by the theurgic turgites, whose cantrips create powerful illusions that captivate the unweary, realising too late they are impaled upon hundreds of poisonous spines, kept alive but slowly drained to a dried husk over hundreds of years in a deadly symbiosis.

  I had never thought of myself as power-hungry but there is a very human temptation to abuse a position of authority. Animals cannot seek enlightenment but they make willing servants of the enlightened. This I kept in mind when I and my cohorts rounded up all the acolytes in the training room one afternoon and invited all of them to challenge us for the eventual leadership. It was a mighty battle that raged for what seemed an eternity but in reality was all over quite quickly.

  The younger novices, and most of the females that were convinced they’d be killed or permanently maimed if they took part, crowded around the training mats, yelling and goading us on. The older acolytes, of whom there would have been about twenty, each saw the possible glory and felt they had the numbers. But this wasn’t a democracy. For time immemorial, the captain’s position was won on the combat floor. I was never too sure of why that was but felt that if the strongest was leader, they could not be gainsaid by the rest of the apprentices. Some recent wins in combat class had earned me a tenuous respect from many of the prospective candidates so I was largely bypassed by the younger acolytes but had the older, stronger and taller ones to fight.

  Yeshe and Puk fought back to back and in the end the mat was littered with injured and exhausted students. I sat astride Pumi and pushed his faced into the training mat until the strength left him and yelled “Do you yield!” He was slowly suffocating and after one more brief struggle where he attempted to shake me off, I heard a muffled plea. I rolled off him and he immediately raised his bruised face, gasping for breath.

  Yeshe and Puk helped me up and, trying to regain my breath, said to all present, “Anyone else?” There was no answer. I felt exhausted but triumphant and the pain that wracked my body from the numerous bruises and cuts was suddenly dimmed. I had always been a myrmidon of Dorje and to a lesser extent Rogel, and now Puk and Yeshe were that to me. But I also felt sad in a way that I wouldn’t have the older pair’s combined strength and leadership once they were gone from our level and into the journeymen’s quarters.

  Later, ebon-skinned, deep-voic
ed Master Panuaru congratulated me and legitimised my ascendancy.

  “I knew you’d be the one Tashi. You’re already taller than most of them anyway. You’re mature and smart and will do a good job. Once Dorje and Rogel areelevated, I’ll have them spend time with you teaching you the higher art, not that you need it. Either you’re a natural talent like Dorje, or he and Rogel have been coaching you.” He looked at me questioningly and since I did not answer him he assumed a combination of both and walked away.

  “See Brother Jingbu or Sister Lasya about measuring you up for your captain’s robes”, he called back as he disappeared down a corridor. The captain’s robe, while still the grey of a prentice, was stitched with a red border that differentiated the leader of the Greys, as we called the novices, and marked him or her as one to watch for possible advancement to a uhlan of the House Guard.

  Reading back through what I have written, I can see that I have failed utterly to convey to you, my reader, if this record is ever found (and if it has been found then my thanks to you for it means that we have prevailed), what it is we strove to do in that place. For time immemorial, the ancient monastery of which I write had stood upon the snow-capped roof of the world and trained the thousands of men, women and children that had walked its cloistered halls and wide stone courtyards from the age of infants through to master level. The school, while a much more modern form and possibly less brutal, was named for its primogenitor, the prestigious and honouredAgōgē, which meant nothing our language but which was instead an ancient and venerable reference.

  Our school displayed what might seem an odd triumvirate of specialisations, being first and foremost a centre of religious study. As adepts of an ancient belief our lives were always unquestioningly dedicated to pursuing the noble path to spiritual enlightenment as no doubt many millions of religious schools throughout the scattered galaxy did. But our monastery was not just a religious school. It was also the last repository of all knowledge on this ancient and doomed homeworld of humankind. I never really considered as a young monk why no other religions stayed on Irth. There were the sun cultists of the Intihuatana who had converted the satellite closest to our sun into a planet-wide altar for their god and the Gravimetricists of Arche whose technologies had allowed them to penetrate the great Jovian eye and stand before their god Hyperion.