The War of the Realms

by C Steven Meldrum

  I wanted Tetsuko with me as well, not only because she was a fantastic fighter, but because I needed to learn all she knew about what I faced and to be frank, because I really had no idea about how to proceed. But she would not be parted from Dorje. She said that she had done all she could for me at this point on the wheel and now her efforts were required on the journey back. I did not understand the connection but then thought that if I have met her at some future point in time, and if Vajra’s intervention meant that he would live, then I felt it possible that the fates had decided that Dorje and I would meet again and I would also see Tetsuko again, which pleased me greatly.

  For myself, I was left with a motley crew which included the warriorpriest, the corpulent Pemba, and the two conversely marasmic attendants, one of which had only sustained some superficial injuries when he fell from his mount into one of the highland tarns but railed about it constantly like he should have gone back as well. I suddenly felt now that a smaller group was perhaps best and would not attract the attention that the larger caravan had. I also had some confidence that, even though I had said goodbye to perhaps the finest warrior I had ever seen, the young woman who stood beside me, who was not a young woman at all but the Budhi Pallien, a ferocious combatant in her own right, would be all the protection I would need.

  The smell of burning juniper still assailed my nostrils and the smoke made my eyes water (I convinced myself, anyway). Further away on the other side of town a narrow path led over a small ridge into a small sheltered vale from where we could still hear noisy birds fighting over the carrion that was all that remained of those that hadn’t lived, six in all. Earlier that morning, I had presided over a traditional jhator, or sky burial.

  Amidst the fragrant incense that drifted up from burning juniper bushes, we had gathered around a large flat rock which had been set aside for such as this for thousands of years. In actuality it was a boulder that had at some stage in the long history of Irth broken in two leaving one half of the sphere with its curved edge buried and an almost perfectly flat table-top that measured a good eight feet across.

  I led the townspeople and members of my group in prayer, invoking the rituals and chanting mantra that would speed the souls of those who had fallen upon the world’s winds to their next incarnations in this turn of the Wheel. The old abbott, dressed in his ceremonial robes, carried the fabled and ceremonial kukri blade in his right hand and a decoratively carved kapala, upturned to catch the blood, in his left hand.

  He performed the honoured role of rogyapa or body breaker. With the help of two assistants he diligently cut off the limbs and over the next few hours dissected each of the bodies. While certain townspeople yelled and waved sticks to fend off the chrome-feathered vultures that swooped over the ceremony, the assistants carried large pestles fashioned from the native rock of this land that they used to grind the flesh and bones together into a pulp. By the end of their labours, they had mixed the triturate with tsampa and piled it for the griffons to eat.

  The abbott carried the kapala to me which I accepted in unsteady hands. I looked to him, then at the crowd and lifted the upturned skull above my head, speaking more of the ancient and hallowed text from the Bardo Thodol or Book of the Dead. I slowly sipped the blood that had been collected before it was taken back and passed to each witness in turn.

  Whose skull that had been I would never know, but I prayed for them. I prayed to Dorje Naljorma,“the diamond yogi” that she would prevent any further loss of life on this quest and bless everything that we did so that every activity of our lives might become a holy cause, and I prayed to the Golden Goddess for the chance I had been given– otherwise I, like poor Lhapka, would be no more than a flaccid corpse, probably snagged upon a tree or trapped beneath a boulder somewhere downstream from where I went under, my arms and legs gently flailing in the soft embrace of its frigid waters, entombed beneath cubit-thick ice to be slowly digested by the worms and the fish.

  Once the caravan had totally passed out of sight, we turned and headed from the cliff edge back towards the town. My mind reeled; not on the subject of so many deaths, nor as I might have thought on my talk with Tetsuko, but moreso on the issue of Pemba.

  I wanted to keep him with me. Jigme and Rogel had advised against it saying that they had bad feelings about him, saying that he boded ill for the remainder of the expedition. I disagreed. I had already formed my opinions. But I have gone too far in my story.

  As we got back into town from the jhator, my heart heavy and my thoughts going at the speed of the clouds above us, my hands shot out towards his throat and grasped it in such a way that he fell to his knees and started choking. He immediately brought his arms up to knock me away.

  “Don’t!” I yelled. He froze. “I have you in the karoun pinch. Do you know why it is called that? Because while my left hand holds your windpipe, through the mounds of your corpulent flesh, my right-hand index finger and thumb have hold of your carotid artery, half of the pair large arteries on each side of your bulbous head that carry blood to your neck, face, brain and eyes! Before I crush it and kill you, or at best turn you into a gibbering vegetable, tell me why you betrayed us!”

  He continued choking and shook his head as much as possible spluttering something I could not comprehend.

  “I know it was you. You did not hide your actions very well, brother.”

  I let him go and he sank down onto his knees, coughing uncontrollably and struggling for breath.

  I wiped my hands upon my tunic, feeling that I had somehow infected myself with the sebaceous sweat that clung to them.“Jigme, take him and apply your arts. If you cannot get the truth from him, I leave him to my other friend.”

  Vajra purred and walked casually by him as I left. I did not look back around but heard the grunt as Jigme forced him up and away.

  “Why do you tease me, young one,” mewed Vajra. “There is enough of him to keep me busy for a whole afternoon!”

  In two more days we were as ready as we were going to be. Purba was fit enough, although complained more than was due. I saw through his fear and invited him to stay at Muru but he would not leave the quest saying it would be bad karma for him to abandon the Panchen Lama and he would lose much favour with the gods.

  I helped Jigme load the mounts with food and provisions, which the abbott couldn’t provide enough of. He had been obsequiously sycophantic since Vajra had revealed herself to him, fawning over me and sending his monks to wait on me hand and foot. His servility did him no favours and I could not wait to be rid of him, leaving him to his little outpost and his stories that would be dismissed as the ramblings of a crazy old man.

  He had insisted however on a reading from the village oracle, to which I agreed, more to boost the morale of the attendants – a mistake. That evening, after supper was served in the small hall that had served as a lazaret for so many days, Purba, Sibu, Jigme, Pemba and I sat in a circle with some of the village elders and monks while an elderly looking man dressed in the decorative costume of a bull danced around a fire built in the centre of the floor to the wailing and clanging of drilbu, damaru, rolmo and rGna.

  He started off slowly, performing the ritual cham and chanting and calling upon the gods to guide us and to favour us with their wisdom. I felt it ironic that Vajra was stretched out on the floor in front of me, seemingly enjoying the warmth from the fire, and was unresponsive to the dancer’s pleas. I wonder what he might have said?

  His self-imposed trance grew and he violently shook and shuddered in epiphanous rapture while wailing and screaming. He also carried the same kapala we had used during the jhator, this time filled with a combustive liquid rather than the blood that had run down its sides previously. At times he would skilfully cast a small amount from the kapala into the fire and in the resulting fireball scream and whirl as he danced.

  After an hour or so, exhausted, he fell into the arms of waiting monks and with eyes closed and in an inaudible whisper, pronounced his auguries to the old abbott
who leaned into him so that he could hear.

  “He says … long will be your journey … and … lost in the darkness – Khyunglung!… but … the lake!And … the spear! And then… death!”

  My ears picked up at the mention of a spear and push him as I might I got nothing further from him. But after talking with Tetsuko I was convinced in myself and resolved to leave this place with a high heart and finish this madness.

  Ussuri told me it was a hundred and fifty leagues from Muru to the base of the Holy Mountain and we would use the same highway but diverge at a point on our journey to the ancient citadel of Wat Hariphunchai. In the early hours of the day I had sat in conference with Jigme while Ussuri added her own thoughts. We looked at maps we’d brought with us showing the mountain passes and twisting trails we would take on the roughly southward journey. It had taken us a week to travel the thirty leagues to Muru but that was generally at a comfortable pace, until following the attack when we had ridden as fast as we could over the remainder of the day to get to Muru before the sun died. Jigme was confident that with the smaller group we could cover much more ground, and on the backs of the tireless simulgens he felt we should make our destination in roughly ten days, notwithstanding the travelling conditions such as the road, the weather, the chance of running into wolves or more bandits, and any steep sections we might encounter.

  As the sun climbed higher in the eastern sky, we moved away from the town, back down into the valley along the same trail we had come in on. We were disguised as common nomads with worn grey robes and rough travelling gear but not many peasants rode the kinds of mounts we did. So, while not assuring secrecy, we thought it at least better not to overtly advertise our course.

  Near the banks of the beautiful Lake Dangra, beryl waters lapped gently along the shoreline where we met the intersection of the trail coming from the north-west which continued south. I was, for the time we travelled along its shores, transfixed by the beauty of the lake. I remembered the seer’s exclamation and felt that not all his ramblings were evil in portent. The trail dropped down and away from the margins of the lake and we turned and began the long march towards the Holy Mountain. Several townspeople had accompanied us down the trail for the two leagues from the town to the intersection and then stood waving as we continued along the trail. It was not long before they were swallowed by the horizon.

  Once we were completely on our own, Jigme, riding point, picked up the pace. I did not know how long these creatures could go at the pace we rode at but I knew that it must be longer than me. Even with the hard riding we’d already done, I knew that after a few hours I was going to be incredibly sore, and if I made it for the whole hundred and fifty leagues, I didn’t think it likely I would ever walk again.

  We had breaks when we could, stopping in small townships or in nomadic camps to say prayers and exchange information about the road and the travelling conditions, sharing food and tsampa with those we came across.

  At times we traversed great rocky plains where the wind rushed by crisp and cold, and through wide grassy pampas that were crowned on all sides with the majesty of the high peaks. We would then come from the wild open lands to sheltered vales and deep valleys where herds of wild chauri gua quietly grazed. The adults stood twelve feet tall with enormous horns. Their scorched and brushed metallic hides ground against one another in an eerie screeching as they moved in a close group to protect their young from the prowling metacats of the plains. In another encounter we watched in awe from behind a small ridge as down in a lush valley before us a herd of giant hemimorphs were encircled by a cabal of wolves. Seeing their size and incredible strength and ferocity, I felt sorry for the wolves. We rode higher around the ridge top and a saddle joining a smaller hill to give the combatants wide space and so continue southwards.

  We sat in a cool glade where a fast-flowing stream brought the last of the thawed winter snows and we refilled our botas while we ate some food. It was well into the second watch after dawn and a nomadic clan tended to their flocks while talking with us. This was really the first chance I had had to speak with Jigme since leaving Muru.

  “What can you tell me, Jigme?”

  “Only that he whimpered like a baby and begged me not to hurt him. But he confirmed that he had been approached by one of the Lord Regent’s party on their visit to ourmonastery.”

  “What?”

  “He said he didn’t know what they wanted but he was promised certain favours that would see his family elevated in status with money and increased social standing and his own political aspirations supported if he played his part in ensuring your capture.”

  “I knew it! That was why they didn’t just kill me outright. But why?”

  “He couldn’t tell me.”

  “That snivelling, power hungry …”

  “Yes, he is. And a thick-headed fool. He realised once the attack had begun, and people started dying, that he had been duped. He rode after you trying to protect you but he was soon thrown. He knew he would die also if the raiders won and since he’d lost you, rode back to the valley where he personally accounted for two of the raiders.”

  “And you believe him?”

  “I saw no lie in his eyes. He is a fool, a greedy, idiotic fool, and now he has to live with all those deaths on his conscience. He fears for his family now because since he failed, he thinks their lives are forfeit.”

  “If they are, then that is karma – his, and theirs.”

  Jigme and I walked over to where Pemba was preparing the mounts for the next session of gruelling riding.

  “Pemba, a word with you, if I might?”

  “Yes, your Holiness.” He came around to stand before me with Jigme at my left shoulder.

  “Do you want to go back to your family or stay with us?”

  “I have thought long on that your Holiness. I am not a killer. I did not mean for this to happen. You and I had our differences and in my stupid pride I thought it easy enough to give me what I have always wanted, and my family also, and rid myself of … hmmm, begging your pardon, your Holiness.

  “But I cannot rest now knowing what I caused. I had no ill-will toward Dorje and all those others but now they are all dead. You saw him. I’d be surprised if they haven’t given him to the sky already. And the blackrobe ...”

  I expected some sort of rebuff from Jigme but he stood there, as motionless as ever.

  I felt that if left to go without direction and with being as misguided as he was, he might easily fall in with those that sought to waylay us and concoct some disaster that would cost more lives. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, Master Panuaru used to quote. I intended to. I felt that if I watched him like a hawk, he could do little to disrupt me and I felt that given his combative experience and size, he was a good fighter if we needed him.

  “You have committed great evil Pemba and you must make amends. Pray for the intercession and forgiveness of the Maitreya. If you win the Mother’s favour, your family might be spared. But I tell you this; hear me, if you’ve heard nothing else. This journey is not merely about traipsing round the countryside and coming back to the monastery to then sit atop the dais and hand out kataks to weary pilgrims. I do not have, and have never had aspirations for power or glory. I have never wanted to govern or rule or to be surrounded by supplicants and sycophants! You can have all that for yourself!

  “We are trying to save Mother Irth. And I need to know whether I have you on my side. If you commit to me and give me every ounce of your loyalty, then I will do the same for you, brother to brother. But if you feel that there is something as yet unresolved between us and you wish to test me again, I will take you on again and I will beat you again. And then I will send you back to your family, beaten, broken and with a score of needless deaths on your conscience to live with forever! Understand?”

  “Ye… yes, yes, your Holiness. I would stay with you, if … if you will have me.”

  And then he surprised me. In a show of commitment, he slowly
drew his killing sword from the scabbard he wore threaded through a sheaf tied around that massive waist and dropped to one knee, holding the blade horizontally across both outstretched palms then bowed his head, raising the sword in salute to me. It was the salute of the Ghurka. “If, by my strength or by my life, I can save you and bring success to your mission, then my sword and my cudgel are yoursto command.”

  He prostrated his massive frame on the dirt before me until I bade him rise. I extended my hand and we held each other’s forearm in the countering salute.

  “Strength and Honour,” I said.

  “Strength and Honour,” he repeated.

  After that I had Pemba riding point, a few leagues in front of us, scouting the way ahead. He was happy to be of use and I could see as we passed that he had left signs on various rocks that confirmed his direction and any observations he had made.

  You who read of this small part on Irth’s grand history might think, why did he not turn just him out to the wolves, or leave him at the next town? In truth, I had been ready to banish him, and make it his penance to walk all the way back to the monastery and if he made it, to grovel before Abbott Tomas. But two things swayed my decision; his proclamation of allegiance came from the heart – it was honest and genuine, and from a purely practical perspective I knew that Abbott Tomas would, as surely as the sun set in the west each day, admonish him and then just send him straight back out again to find me.

  I looked hard at Pemba and not knowing whether he would yet be my bane or my saviour, I trusted myself to make a decision that would give me the best chance of getting to where I had to get. In the end I really had no more noble thought than; he either fights with us and I have an extra cudgel, or he does some other mischief, in which case I was confident I could handle it. Knowing where a trap lies is the first step in avoiding it, and if Pemba was in any way in the enemy’s counsel, maybe I could use that to my advantage, even to exposing the spy within the Lord Regent’s ranks.