The War of the Realms

by C Steven Meldrum

  Jigme rode next to me and at the pace we rode it required our knees to almost touch before we could hear one another. He yelled, “Your Holiness, I think we should change course soon. We have covered forty leagues without incident but as this is the highway that leads to the Holy Mountain, I feel sure the enemy will pick a point on the road ahead of us and we will run into another trap before long.”

  “You are right, as always Jigme. At our next stop …” I nearly jumped out of the saddle. Two hands came around under my arms and clasped my belly. I could feel the lady’s body pressed against me and she whispered into my ear.

  “We are coming to the point we will diverge from this road, Tashi. We will ride until sundown and you will tell them the path we will take.” That evening, nestled in the lee of a sharp spur that marked the end of the relatively flat plateau, bathed in the rufescent and sanguineous glow of the dying light of day before the mountains of the western ranges rushed up to impale and consume the reddening sun, we stood in wonderment at having come indeed to the end of the Chang Tang, the great northern plateau. We would go no further that night for the path plunged downwards into a tortured maze of twisted canyons and arroyos that disappeared into the thickening darkness.

  “ If they are waiting for an opportunity to ambush us and capture you, your Holiness, it is in there,” said Jigme, pointing. Pemba, who had got here before us and started setting up camp wandered over to where we stood, arms crossed and staring intently into the yawning chasm before us.

  “I scouted in perhaps ten or twelve chains before returning. It is am impassable labyrinth, your Holiness. If I had not turned about when I did, I might have lost my way back.”

  “What is on the far side of this maze?”

  “I believe it then opens out into the lowlands south of the plateau and then climbs again towards those ranges yonder,” said Jigme, pointing to the sharp, snow-capped peaks that stabbed skyward.

  “Then we will rest here tonight and scout our way through tomorrow. Prepare the camp. I am going to take a short walk.”

  As the others busied themselves with the camp, I wandered into the darkening maw of the canyon. Ussuri stood just ahead of me, hidden in the darkness. I breathed deeply. I did not know if I would ever become accustomed to people appearing and disappearing right in front of me all the time.

  “Ahead of us is the ancient kingdom of Shang Shung. But the citadel I take to you to is not on this Irth.”

  “I assumed that to be the case. But how will …?”

  “There are pathways and doors between the realms, Tashi, if you know where to look. Once you have practiced enough, I think you might be powerful enough to travel between the planes without needing them. But for now, it suits our purposes nicely so we don’t scare your friends too much.”

  “What will it be like on the other side?”

  “Not as different as you would imagine. But there are more horrors to contend than mere raiders, young one.”

  I thought I knew what she meant and said simply, “Then we will need all the help we can get, my Lady.”

  I turned from her and whispered to the darkness,“Me-Khri … So-Khri …”

  “Yes, my Lord,” they said in unison, suddenly fluttering a cubit before me, their fragile and diminutive frames coloured a dull red in the dying light.

  “May I introduce Ussuri, the Lady of Melody? My Lady, these are MeKhri and SoKhri.”

  “We are honoured to make your acquaintance, Goddess.” They said in unison, both bowing.Ussuri regarded the tiny sprites. “You are full of surprises, young one. How very resourceful.” She smiled.

  “You both know where we must come to. Are there any people lying in wait ahead of us that would do us harm?”

  MeKhri whispered, “No people, such as yourself, Lord. But some of the soulless ones are waiting perhaps three of four leagues within. Also, one of the shadow people.”

  I shivered at the thought.

  “How many of these ‘soulless’ ones?”

  “Nine or ten, Lord,” said So-Khri. “Don’t go Lord. You saw what happened earlier when you ran into them.”

  “I must. I want you two to find a way for us to skirt around them and so come to where we need towithout meeting them.”

  “Yes, Lord,” they said in unison again and were gone. I turned to speak further to Ussuri but she was gone.

  Satisfied, I wandered back up the gentle slope away from the mouth of the canyon to the lee of the spur where a small but welcoming fire was crackling away and Jigme and the others were quietly erecting tents.

  “Can you hear that? It almost sounds like a faint tune upon the wind,” said Purba, looking upwards as I wandered back into camp.

  “Yes,” I said, crouching down to my bedroll. “Be thankful that the Lady of Melody has gifted you all with her music.” All of them immediately prostrated themselves upon the ground, the gentle and almost inaudible lilt of the Lady’s tamyen drifting along with the cool evening breeze, and a hint of playful laughter as well.

  At dawn I sat in counsel with Jigme and Pemba. “Do not ask how I know,” I said. “But I know. Do not question me further.”

  I looked from face to face and seeing no more questioning in their eyes, referred back to the rough map I had sketched in the sand.

  “They have an encampment here,” I said, pointing, “and have lookouts here, here and here. The have chosen this narrow pass three leagues into the labyrinth to take us. And they know we are here.”

  “We cannot fight off a numbered force in so tight a chasm,” said Jigme, shaking his head.

  “I know,” I said. “But there is another way through … here. A hidden path. It will be a squeeze for the mounts but it’s our only option. We need to take out this sentry and then pass through this section here within hailing distance of their camp which is only about twenty yards on the other side of this small escarpment. The paths run parallel for about nine or ten chains then deviates, the one they expect us to travel down heading to the south east and the one we will be on directly south.”

  “What is this dotted line?” asked Pemba.

  “There is a section that plunges underground through a large cave.” I knew there was no such cave but there would be. “It should take us more directly to the lowlands and we’ll save much time.”

  I could see that no-one was happy about the prospect of a long journey into the great unknown of the underdark. If only they knew. If only I knew. Smiling, I said, “We may even find some Cittipati.” All except for the blackrobe looked at me in awe. In ancient literature, Cittipati are a pair of spirit skeletons who haunt graveyards. It would be an especially auspicious omen if we were to greet these resident spectres on our journey into the darkness.

  Chapter 12: Shang Shung

  Timidi mater non flet: "A coward's mother does not weep”

  Latin Proverb You might think it in some way dishonest of me to not tell the others, especially Jigme, where our path would come to. But I didn’t really know myself and whileI trusted in the Lady’s advice, I did not have the least understanding of what it would mean to step beyond the edge of this realm.

  I trusted in the knowledge that the gods do indeed, and had already interposed their whims upon us, and most certainly upon me in any event. And in my case, while I railed against it, I believed it had to be for the greater good because I felt that I was a good person. So, to attempt what I was about to for the first time could surely not end in disaster because I was doing what they wanted. To me it was karma. There was a reason the hidden path was there, that it was even available to begin with. If there was some deadly consequence that came from using that path, how was that different to the path that we might have gone down? If a myste, performing the ritual sky dance continually for three days atop a three-by-three foot platform, raised on a pole thirty feet above the paved flagstone surface of his monastery’s courtyard overbalances and falls, does it matter whether he falls forwards or backwards, head-first or feet-first?

  We
left before dawn because of the risk of enemy sentries being able to spy our approach and ready a second ambush. Jigme rushed back towards us through the early morning gloom. He was completely silent and could easily have been no more than a darker shadow within the shadows. He had abandoned the grey robes for this scouting expedition because the black robes pulled close around him made him virtually invisible in the darkness of the pre-dawn.

  We had already been in the close confines of this narrow chasm for a watch or more and it seemed he had found something. I got down from my mount and walked forward to meet him.

  He spoke quietly. “They have one sentry no more than a hundred yards from here perched atop the escarpment. He is in such a position that he can see clearly down both this defile and the wider ravine that we are meant to travelling down. I will take care of him. There is another one as well further on within sight of the first that I would guess is within hailing distance of their camp. It will be necessary for us to take out both if we wish to avoid detection. If we only get the first, they will be warned but will have to travel almost to where our last camp was before they can then come after us down this path, which would give us about two watches head start on them. Unless, that is, they have the power of flight.”

  “I will take the second one.” It was Pemba. Jigme looked harshly at me as if to say, are you sure, he might give us away if he has a chance!

  As if he knew Jigme’s mind he answered, “I am loyal, Jigme. Your Holiness, I can do this.”

  “Go then,” I said. I turned to Jigme. “We will wait here. You have about half a watch remaining until dawn. We will give you until the first watch after dawn and then move on. If you’re discovered, or you fail, we will need that time to get to the tunnel entrance and lose any pursuers in the darkness.”

  As they both bowed and turned to go, I walked to small culvert where Vajra quietly preened herself.

  “Go with him, my Lady. Please.” I bowed low to her. You might think I did not trust him and you might be right. But having experienced his tenacity and ferocity on the combat floor I actually had full confidence in him. And rather than thinking he might seek to reveal us to the hostiles ahead, I felt that he might actually die if faced with a Sidus. I would rather he had succeeded and we could carry on with our mission than yet another needless death and then a panicked flight through the long dark ahead of us, plunging recklessly into Mother Irth and beyond.

  Vajra must have agreed with me because as I looked up she was gone.

  I ran back to where Purba and Sibu stood attentively with the mounts and bade them re-mount and prepare to ride.

  The sun had been up for almost a watch, although I could only guess as deep in this canyon it was still quiet dark, when Jigme came running back down the narrow way before us. He said both sentries had been accounted for although Pemba was injured. He had left him further up the ravine and run back for us.

  “They will know within the next few hours that we are not coming down the path they are watching and will find the dead sentries. Let us go now, your Holiness. We will collect Pembaon the way.”

  He was propped up against a boulder when we found him. It was only a flesh wound along his sword-arm which had been bandaged by Jigme. He looked stunned, as though trying to come to terms with some experience that his mind wouldn’t accept.

  “ It would have killed you,Pemba. Be thankful for the Lady’s help.” He looked up at me dumbly and I helped him stand and then to mount. We carried on, keeping as fast a pace as we could in the cramped and

  twisting space of the canyon. For all of that day we continued along the undulating defile, the path at one moment a chain wide and the next, little more than a half dozen cubits wide. We did not stop, thinking that we would be safer once inside the cave. And as the gloom in the ravine deepened and the narrow band of blue above us turned grey and then black, we came across an opening.

  The walls of the canyon had an ancient, almost sculptured appearance. To anyone looking at it, it would have appeared as no more than a natural depression, but I knew it for a doorway leading to nowhere in this world. In the darker blackness that was the cave entrance, we noted that is plunged steeply downwards into Mother Irth. As we passed slowly within I took a last look at the narrow band of darkening sky above us. The stars were just emerging when then the close ceiling of stone covered them. It filled me with an almost lachrymose sadness to see the beauty of the clear night sky masked by the hillside that marked the entrance to this close and airless tunnel.

  Once we were within, we all dismounted and led our mounts forward by the reigns as the undulating ceiling was too low not to have one’s head dashed to pieces if moving at any pace in the blackness. Before we started moving however, Jigme, carrying something under his arms, turned and headed back to the cave entrance. He returned short while later and waved us onward. As the tunnel was still fairly wide at this point I moved up beside Jigme.

  Without waiting for me to ask he said, “The creature I fought had one of those energy weapons with him up on the escarpment. It looked like it was set for range and I think he planned to pick off all of us as we came down the ravine toward his position.”

  I remembered having used one against the Cimmerii that leaped at me from the wadi when I had tried to save Tetsuko.

  “I set up a welcome for them if they decide to follow us in here,” he grinned.

  I’m not sure if the others felt anything different or noticed a change in air around us. A sulphurous smell assailedone’s nostrils and the air just felt heavier, more clinging and humid. The hint of strange whisperings came to me also: fell voices from the underdark, creatures who may have noticed the presence of those from above.

  We mounted again and moved slowly downwards through the deepening darkness; our only light coming from the lüum-sticks we carried. They were small but brilliant white globes set atop a simple handle about a cubit in length. They worked by drawing certain elements out of the air and via a process involving a kind of low-level cold fusion, converted the captured particles to white light.

  After no more than a thousand paces or so, the cavern, while close and warm at first, began to open out into a wide subterranean hall where the small sphere of light from each torch was lost in the deeper darkness.

  “You stand in both worlds now, young one,” said Ussuri, clinging to my waist once more and mounted behind me. “One is overlaid upon the other. You will see elements from both. Do not fear.”

  I did not understand but forced all thoughts of the preternatural from my mind and concentrated on the task at hand; getting through the underdark as quickly as possible.

  It is said that one doesn’t have to dig too deeply below the surface to uncover some evidence of Irth’s past civilisations; such was their material largess and constructive prodigiousness. As we wandered along, we saw in the shifting incandescence of the torchlight evidence of excavation where the others assumed miners, thieves and archaeologists had delved into the floors and walls of various parts of the caverns and connecting passages over the eons in search of precious metals, gems and iron.

  As we walked, I looked about in astonishment. They had been busy here. At one point the trail led us to one wall of the cavern which became a precarious ledge with the floor plunging suddenly into a pit as deep as the abyss. The surefooted mounts had no trouble in navigating the narrow walkway. Crude structures, now rotten with age, that must once have been hoists for taking miners and their equipment deep within the void, lay abandoned along with the rusted remnants of picks and shovels and pieces of strange machinery, some only a cubit in height and others ten or fifteen feet in height and many rods in length whose purpose I could only guess at.

  I thought back to what Jigme had told me on entering the cave and felt sure that by now our friends, who no doubt would have pursued us, would indeed have met their doom. We looked forward in the flickering ambience to the inky blacknessbeyond. The sisters’ best guess was it would take three or four days for us to reach t
he ancient city we sought.

  Vajra decided to scout ahead and loped along outside of the range of the torches, her senses attuned to anything that may move on the path ahead. Next, Jigme, who thought he was in the lead, crept along at a deliberate and defensive crawl. I cantered along behind him followed by Purba and Sibu and, watching our rear, Pemba.

  The path continued on, never level, always undulating, sometimes climbing steeply, at other times roughly level and then plunging downwards along twisted ways which branched and intersected without plan or order. At moments the tunnel was enclosed on all sides and at other times crossed mighty gulfs over impossibly narrow arched bridges fashioned of the ancient stone that was so regnant here. Having never seen anything like this place in all my days I was filled with both fear and wonderment, as were my companions, each at turns exclaiming in awe and bewilderment some aspect of the cavern around us. We felt at times that we were lost and should retrace our steps but Jigme was confident of the paths that we chose, even where the main tunnel forked and it was more by the quality of the air that emanated from these branching tunnels than from any other knowledge that we chose our way.

  I was astounded as we passed through a forest, if it can be called that, of ancient stalagmites that rose from the ground on all sides. Many had met a fellow stalactite that had casually formed above it for eons and in meeting the two had created a rippling pillar that stretched to the cavern ceiling, an immeasurable distance overhead.

  The forest of stone pillars soon gave way to a massive open area. We could not see the walls and ceiling to determine how large the cavern was but we could tell from the breeze and the lack of echo that it was large indeed. The path started to steeply descend and before long we were plunging down towards a magnificent subterranean lake. It took us more than a watch to descend to the relatively flat area at the bottom.

  We had a break and sat at the edge of the lapping blackness eating some bread, cheese and dried fruit, mesmerised and terrorised by the stillness of the water. We talked and tried unsuccessfully to judge our position.