The War of the Realms

by C Steven Meldrum

  Once we had retired to the dormitory after evening prayers, Yeshe, Puk, Rogel and Lhakpa joined me in the common room at the stairs below the dormitories. The last of the younger acolytes had retired and we gathered around the ornately carved fireplace, bathing in the dimming red glow of the coals, jet shadows dancing across the walls and ceiling, spied upon by the images of the Maitreya decorating the room.

  Rogel’s words of “My friends, this will be an evening to remember! To Kyichu!” echoed in my mind as we made our way out of the dormitory and along the great hall, down the wide, creaking stairs, through the kitchen and out into the cold. The Goddess of Night had come, the broad hemisphere of her pale gown showing in that rim of pink that separates night and day, the hem of her winter cloak draping the western sky, chasing her husband, the Sun beyond the mountains for another day.

  We bypassed the main entrance and those areas of the courtyard able to be seen by the night sentries with their sagittal awl pikes and acicular lances, a lambent chartreuse corposant about the tip, casting the sentries in a ghostly lucency. We were each dressed in our normal grey robes and heavy winter cloaks and carried a cudgel; a heavy wooden staff about four cubits in length that served the dual purpose of both walking stick and weapon. We were each proficient in its use as both protagonist and victim and no-one escaped weapons class without a bloodied nose or swollen knuckles, but for tonight’s escapade they would help us keep our footing on the perilously dark and slippery trail away from the keep.

  We made our way in single file across the outer rear courtyard to the break in the curtain wall. It was not so much of a break as a cleft in the top of the wall which seemed as old as the wall itself. The outer curtain wall had surrounded this ancient keep for thousands upon thousands of years and was so meticulously maintained that students always wondered that this break was never repaired. This wall was all that separated our ancient citadel from all the creatures of the wilderness.

  One reason Rogel picked this night was the perfection of the day that had been and also the cerulean brilliance of the full phase of Lüun. It was surely an invitation from the gods to be out this night. The anthelia-like glare created by fast moving clouds would provide more light for our journey than five blazing torches and hopefully the clouds would clear before long. The space between the keep wall and the curtain walk was taken up by a walkway that ran at the height of the battlements to allow patrols an almost uninterrupted circumference of the compound. This was the same section of wall that Dorje and I had lounged around that afternoon, watching the sunset and throwing stones at the eagles and griffons. Except now it was dark, cold and blazing lances rather than screeching birds of prey would break the silence if we were discovered.

  Yeshe watched for sentries and waved to Rogel who crept up the stairs and, crouching, secured a rope around one of the battlements above the cleft. He lowered it over the far side and gestured toward us to tell us he was ready. Meanwhile, Yeshe, proficient in the art of chironomy, an ancient battle language, stood in shadows at the corner of the block looking up at the sentries. Without looking back at us, she made feverish hand movements that told us to hold and that the guards were moving in this direction along the barbican wall.

  Slinking back into the shadows, we waited for the inevitable discovery. We looked up instead to see Yeshe running back towards us waving us forward.

  “Now, now!” she said in a harsh whisper that threatened to reverberate off the walls and wake every student and Master in this wing. “They turned but will be back in a few minutes.”

  We ran up the stairs and along the walkway to where Rogel waited. We each threw our cudgels over the wall and then clambered towards the cleft where Rogel helped each of us down the outside of the wall. With a firm grasp on the rope, one by one we lowered ourselves down, dropping the final fathom and unceremoniously plunging into the soft snow at the base of the wall. Rogel let himself down and gathered up the rope, tying it at a height above his tall frame so that no animal would tear it down and so leave us stranded outside on the way back.

  We located our cudgels and, crouching low, wended our way through the snow-laden shrubs reaching out from the wall and then over the lip that descended into the Beyul Khenbalung. If we were on monastery business, we would simply have followed the main road that led from the front gates of the monastery to the highway only a mile distant. Butsince we weren’t, the keep’s proximity detectors would have raised an alarm within ten steps of the main gate.

  As we plunged into the valley amidst snow-laden bushes, boulders and outcroppings, I felt an excitement and sense of adventure I had never felt before, a love of the outdoors with the cool night air in my face, a release from months of endless study and bruising training and ran eagerly along with Yeshe before me and Lhapka behind me.

  “What a night”, I called back to him.” This will be an adventure to remember!”

  Somewhere, many leagues below us raged the mighty Drzakar chu, the River of White Stones, and across the valley, the umbral backdrop of the Artemisiae that we would have to partially climb to find the road to Kyichu.

  With Yeshe leading the way and Rogel and Puk bringing up the rear, we plunged downhill along uneven trails, more light coming from the iridescent snow than the covetous mistress above, intermittently obfuscated by a veil of swiftly moving cloud. We ran lightly and silently, watching the treacherous ground for rabbit holes and hidden dells that could sprain an ankle or snap a leg.

  Before long the ground started to level out but our progress was slowed by the changing landscape. Here in this sheltered vale, the climate was more temperate and only a thin covering of snow hid the treacherous ground underfoot, uneven, and constantly shifting, testament to the million-year passage of the glacier of some previous age that had carved out this valley and left boulders the size of castles and slopes of shale and scree that flowed of themselves, like a river of cold rock.

  Before long, the clouds dispersed and we walked along in good spirits, every rock and plant and all the undulations of the twisted landscape bathed in an azure, aethereal twilight. We slowed our pace, strolling as though taking a turn through a delightful garden on a mid-summer’s night. We talked and laughed and shared stories and pointed out the constellations and guessed on which of those tiny specks that littered the heavens were another five youths looking back at us at that very moment, guessing exactly the same thing. Lhapka, a keen student of astronomy, tried his best to hold our attention while he identified the main systems but gave up when our talk shifted to Rogel’s plans for this summer’s elevation to journeyman.

  “I saw your fat lip Tashi. Do you think you can do it once Dorje and I have gone?”

  “Of course I can. I have Pasang, Lhapka and Puk and maybe Pumi, once he forgives me. And besides, Master Panuaru seems to have taken an interest in me. He will be happy when I become Captain.”

  “I noticed. He pulled Dorje and me aside last week after weapons class, asking if we’d been teaching you the higher art. I didn’t know what he was implying so I said we had because you needed all the help you could get if you were going to have any chance of being Captain.”

  “And he was satisfied with that?”

  “Seemed to be. Are you really that good?”

  “No, I got a lucky sweep in on Pumi. That’s all.” I tried to change the subject but Rogel misinterpreted my mood as modesty.

  “Hey, it’s fantastic if you are good. There’s no secret that Dorje will sent straight to the Honour Guard– although that’s for good form only – he’ll be inculcated into the ranks of the Guild before we know it. For myself, I don’t know. I feel that my future hasn’t begun yet. It’s almost like I’m waiting for something, a sign perhaps. I’m looking forward to this lingkhor. It might give me a new direction after being trapped in there for so long.” He indicated by a nod of his head the monastery.

  Puk called back from the front of the group.“Did you see that?”

  “See what?” I called.

 
; “Streaking across the sky – but only briefly. Looked like a shooting star.”

  “Wasn’t a flyer?”

  “Wrong trajectory” interrupted Lhapka, his neck craning upward.

  “Did you make a wish?” taunted Rogel.

  Ignoring him, we carried on. We were now in the lowlands and should have been able to hear the river. The night was very still. My face was cold but with the exercise and the exhilaration of our expedition I did not pay it any heed. Puk had led the way and now stood atop a small rise looking downhill ahead of him.

  “Here’s the river!” he exclaimed as though he’d never thought it possible to find in the dark. He disappeared and we all followed at our own pace. I crested the hillock and stood for a moment marvelling at the frozen expanse ahead of us. The river was a good quarter-mile across and utterly frozen. We had never seen it other than at the height of summer when, while not warm, was refreshing and almost sluggish after the spring thaw sent bracken, boulders and debris running down the river.

  If I were to describe the myriad qualities of the river or the beauty of that landscape I would be caught forever before I have even started and should never end this overlong account. Suffice to say that when I think of our Irth, or in seeing the few of the innumerable other fantastical orbs that I have seen, and am reminded in some way of its mountains and lakes and of the bands of ice around the poles, or the deserts at it waist, I think of that fair country that the gods had preserved so well amidst all the carnage reaped by man over the millennia – our Nirvana on Irth.

  We crossed the frozen foreshore, uncertain where the shore ended and river began. It would normally be flowing past us to the right, gentle waves lapping the shore, small eddies and pools tucked away between large boulders. Rogel bade Puk, the smallest and lightest of us to test it but more out of humour than concern. It was clearly frozen and would support an army without breaking.

  Many miles back upstream there was a suspension bridge about four or five chains above the river that allowed traffic across the valley along the main highway that passed through the village and east towards the capital. It would have been the only way to cross in spring or summer but here in the depths on winter, we had a perfect road across the water.

  “Did you know the river would be frozen, Rogel?” I asked.

  Yeshe interrupted, “We asked brother Trisong after class a few weeks back how they crossed the river before the bridge went up and he very happily provided the answer, although it took half a watch to get it.”

  We crossed easily and then began our climb up the steep paths created by the villagers for the last leg of our trip into town.

  I could hear Lhapka’s laboured breathing as well as my own as we made our way up steep paths, treacherous with ice and snow and bracken from the wind-swept bushes that clung to the arid soil and survived the harsh winters in this more sheltered vale. After what seemed hours I stood at the level of the road. Behind us the path stretched away into the darkness and with hands on knees and drawing great gulps of cool air into my lungs, I noticed the winding road that crossed my path, a quarter-mile in either direction until it was lost around curves. To the left the road headed back to the keep and to the right, with any luck no more than a few leagues distant, stood the little village of Kyichu.

  Puk had been ahead of us and had obviously gone further down the road, scouting the path ahead. “Ready?” he asked, emerging from the semidarkness. We kept moving, glad for the relative flatness of the road. The metallic azure haze from Lüun lighted our path almost as effectively as an intermittent series of dim lights set along the road, the frenetic clouds cantering casually across the night sky.

  Even with the exertions of the climb and the walk, I was having more fun than I had hadin a long time. That afternoon’s repose on the jagged curtain wall with Dorje, and now a midnight excursion with Rogel and the others seemed provident in some way I could not name. I came out of my reverie to see the others disappearing into the dark as the roadway curved off among the bushes and sparse covering of trees ahead of me and ran to catch up.

  “What happened once you reached the highway?” Master Panuaru’s question broke me out of my reverie. The fresh breeze from my memories of that night that had turned my cheeks a ruddy colour was replaced by the burning gaze of the Abbott Tomas.

  “We came to the village Master.” The guard peered down from the barbican and we were blinded by the sudden spotlight that shone down from the tower.

  “Monks! Five monks! What brings you boys out on a crisp, clear night like this? Don’t you know there are wolves on the prowl? The full moon always brings them out. Why, we had a family of them scratching at this very gate not two watches ago, until we shooed them off. You see …”

  “Goodman!” Rogel could see that he wasn’t going to shut up. “We have just travelled a long way from the monastery, and as you correctly pointed out, in dangerous circumstances, at the behest of your village hetman, to entertain the guests of your town’s inn with displays of martial arts, magic and singing. So,if you would kindly open the gate before those wolves return …”

  “We’re not allowed to open the gate after nightfall. You might be what you say you are, andit’s not for me to say, but there have been some strange comings and goings tonight, like that flyer that swooped over the town and then we heard tell of a band of Sid’us raiders that burned the town of Num Ri two months back– and that is only fifty miles from here!”

  Again Rogel interjected, “Sir, do we look like raiders? My apologies that we are here after nightfall but it couldn’t be helped. Please open the gate or else tell your hetman that you turned away the town’s entertainment for the night!”

  “All right, all right,” he said. We heard him fiddling with the locks on the other side of the gate and saw them creak open slowly. The gatekeeper suspiciously looked each of us up and down as we passed through as though we were really raiders underneath our woollen cloaks and would suddenly raze the town to the ground once inside.

  A short way from the gateLhapka asked the group, “Any idea where we are going?”

  Rogel seemed to be the master of ceremonies for the evening and looked around at all the dark buildings as we went forward.

  “It’s called Seven Dragons Inn, Lhapka. I spoke to one of the village traders that came to the monastery a while ago.”

  “There it is!” cried Puk, who rounded a corner and saw the lighted windows frosted with the cool night air, the sounds of music, laughter and conversation emanating from within.

  We climbed the stairs and opened a heavy wooden door onto a scene of rampant carousing as men and women talked and laughed and danced along to the lively tunes coming from a group of minstrels playing on a raised dais at one end of the smoky and crowded room. Bar staff weaved their way among crowded tables delivering food and drink and collecting empty glasses and plates. The clamour did not quieten when we entered. Moreso it increased in volume as the musicians regaled the drunken crowd.

  No-one gave five apprentice monks a moment’s thought as they continued their revelling. We moved around the tables nearest the door and headed toward the back of the room. We found a booth where we could stay out of everyone’s way and still enjoy the atmosphere. Rogel left us so we sat and laughed about the unlikelihood of us being here, in an inn, in the middle of Kyichu, in the middle of winter.

  Rogel reappeared after some minutes had passed with glazed mugs of some strange looking mead and a pot of boiling water. He proceeded to fill each mug to the brim and then inserted a drinking straw into each steaming mug.

  “What’s this?” I asked for all of us.

  “This, my friends, is jaand.” When Rogel looked at us he could see our puzzled expressions and rolled his eyes. ‘Look. It is basically fermented millet. Wait a few minutes and draw out the warm water. Add more hot water to the tongbaand repeat until it’s empty.’

  Soon we were slurping the last of our drinks and feeling warm and relaxed. Rogel was being quite the Master
of Ceremonies and returned with trays of different beverages including chaang, ara and raksi. Before we knew it, we were dancing about as wildly as the townsfolk and having the time of our lives.

  At times, we returned to the table to rest and to talk to each other. Puk sat across from me and I was just about to talk to him when Rogel dropped into the chair next to me and yanked at my sleeve, pointing out Lhapka dancing atop a table with Yeshe. He laughed and shouted out to Yeshe to save a dance for him and then disappeared into the crowd again.

  I turned toward Puk and was about to speak when he spoke to me. “Have you seen that hooded character sitting at the back of the bar?” I tried to turn without looking like I was turning and spied the person he referred to but gave it no thought. Puk was ever the worrier of the group, and I put his nervousness down to the fact that we were far from the usual surroundings of our dormitory. I looked at his glass compared to the rest of them. He had hardly touched his drink and looked intently toward me.

  “Tashi, will we be going soon?”

  “Yes Puk. It is getting late and we have a fair journey ahead of us. Give me a few minutes to locate tear Lhapka and Yeshe away from their revelling and find Rogel and then we’ll go.”

  That night stands firmly in my mind for many reasons but sitting there in that public house, enjoying the dancing and carousing for the first time supplanted those boyish fascinations with running and swimming in summer and, Puk’s apprehension aside, I had more fun that night than I had ever dreamed possible. But we cannot escape our kharma. The gods giveth and the gods taketh away, and then taketh again.

  Chapter 4: Lhapka Riddle: “Who can cross the river to stand upon the farthest shore?”