The War of the Realms

by C Steven Meldrum

  I looked up towards those steely eyes that bespoke of preternatural power and majesty.

  “Why was I chosen, my Lord? Why is this happening to me?”

  “You challenge me not, young Tashigang. But I shall answer thus by saying that while you deny yourheart’s truth, you are indeed one of us and you will come to realise it in time! You will remember!– did not the goddess say that?”

  “Yes, she did, Sire,” I said, looking down. I wasn’t a god! I was a young man! How did this come to me– why me?

  “When your time is nigh, you will know.”

  In the opaque confusion of my mind I suddenly saw the end of all things.

  I didn’t understand anything at that stage. Even with what I’d been through I felt lost and sad. I mourned then my lost freedoms, drawn into a something I knew nothing of and wanted nothing of. Why me? Even with the wonders I had witnessed, I knew with such a certainty that pain and loss and death would follow me like unwelcomed travelling partners and those around me; Jigme, Pemba, Sibu and Purba, would suffer, just as my dear friend Dorje had, just as all those who had lost their lives thus far. I wished with all my heart that I wasn’t the one chosen for this.

  “So do all men faced with such. But that is what is meant by ‘chosen’. Do not lament the wisdom of the gods, young one. It is not for you to argue. It is only for you to choose the manner in which you will serve– for good or for ill. Be comforted. You donot fight alone.”

  I emerged from the water at the place I had entered it. The Nāgī slipped away without so much as a splash. I was surprised to see I still held the metal pail I had gone into the water to fill. Further up the wide stony beach Pemba, Jigme, Sibu and Purba crouched around a small fire. My legs felt weak and the cold became more pronounced as I emerged into the cool subterranean air. I waded through the shallows and then shambled up the rocky slope toward them and could hear the retainers’ excited voices.

  “… just grabbed him and dragged him into the water! I can’t belie ve it! What do we do now?”

  They did not see me approaching until I was barely ten feet from Pemba’s back.

  “We continue the quest,” I sniffed.

  They all jumped in shock, thinking themselves alone on the beach.

  “Tashi!” yelled Pemba. “I mean … Your Holiness! We thought you were dead!”

  They crowded around me but I bade them return to the fire as I was cold and wet and needed to get out of the sodden robe.

  Before long I was stretched out in a spare robe with my other clothing spread about on rocks near the fire, eating food and drinking some warm Tsampa.

  After telling them my tale, I picked up the pail and from it drew the gifts for each that Lord Targo had bestowed upon me. They were amazed. Jigme held aloft the mighty Vel and seemed to grow before our eyes, to be transformed into a mighty warrior of incredible strength and constitution, a fell champion indeed. Pemba swung the mighty war mace Gada around, giddy like a child with a new toy. It was perfect for him as with his size and strength he would be powerful indeed. Along its length a blue sheen rippled and forks of lightening arced from the four cruelly curved iron eagles’ beaks that jutted from its head. Sibu and Purba brandished their magical twin-bladed daggers, called kirpans, and each relished the holy gift he had received from the Lord Targo. On touching the Padma, it transformed into a glowing white-gold pendant which Sibu hung about his neck, swearing fealty to my cause before the infinite Buddha, throughout this life and the next. Purba held the magical conch shell called Shanka and would have blown a note into it but I stopped him saying it was to be used at need. The Lord Targo had told me that by blowing a note on the Shanka, enemies would quail and run about in heedless disarray and in panicked madness unless they be of a power or of a constitution to override the spirit of the conch. Friends and allies would be uplifted and no matter their ills or injuries would be glad of heart, noble and steadfast and would be doubled in their courage.

  “But what of yourself, your Holiness?” asked Jigme. I produced the Sudarshana Chakra from the pail and showed each of them.

  “Now the armies of the black land will surely falter,” exclaimed Sibu.

  “That is my hope also,” I told him.

  Chapter 13: Khyunglung Ngülkhar Not Chaos, not

  The darkest pit of lowest Erebus, Nor aught of blinder vacancy, scooped out By help of dreams—can breed such fear and awe As fall upon us often when we look Into our Minds, into the Mind of Man.

  Ancient text – from a poem: titletranslated as “Excursus” author W. Wordsworth We had travelled in that underdark for so long it seemed that we must surely have traversed clear through Mother Irth’s mantle. For the cavern of the lake soon climbed into a twisted and incongruous maze of rough-hewn corridors and turnings and then plunged into lost networks of vast caverns and capacious halls.

  But I knew where we travelled with certainty. And, more by a feeling than anything, which I am sure none of the others noticed, I knew we had crossed a threshold, of sorts, where the light and air of our world and the paths we trod were no longer those of Mother Irth but had instead become those of the darkest of lands. For the knowledge had grown in my mind of where we must come to before we could then begin the long climb towards the light of our own realm.

  I could feel that the darkness, rather than the light of the sun of our Irth, was the natural order here, and also that the many planes of the land of darkness held at once more that was older and fouler and malignant and loathsome than I could easily comprehend. My hope was that we could come to our destination unscathed.

  “ And we rained on them a rain, and evil was the rain of those who had been warned.”

  “What was that?” asked Jigme.

  “Oh, nothing. A quote from an ancient theological text. Do you smell the whiff of sulphur? One of the old religions of Irth believed that the smell of sulphur – they had another name for it that I can’t remember – was the purifying breath of their god, and that all demons and the ungodly are cast into a lake of fire. The irony is that sulphur doesn’t actually have a smell – what I can smell must be sulphur dioxide. There must be volcanic activity in this cavern, or maybe vents to some deeper chambers.”

  The azoic plane sloped gently downwards and before long the darkness was broken by a point of reddish light in the distance. It seemed a long way away but it provided something to aim for in the darkness.I won’t presume to bore you with the many leagues we covered across that featureless rocky plane but after many tiring watches of traipsing across it, leading our mounts (we would have ridden but in the darkness would have had no warning of an approaching cliff), the first idea we had of what the light might be was the tenuous outline of what seemed a natural splinter that the light seemed to be at the summit of.

  With no way of determining the distance to the rocky splinter we continued on, and on, and on until the spire had grown in height and circumference to something more than a needle of rock. By the time we reached its base, which must have been a hundred paces around and tapering inwards as it climbed, we could see that it was a colossal structure, a magnificently fashioned column that disappeared into the darkness above us. A spiral staircase hewn from the natural rock drove up the pinnacle, inviting us to climb. We stared in awe.

  “A Tower of Seeing,” confirmed Jigme.

  “What?” said Purba and Sibu, simultaneously.

  Jigme turned to me. “In ancient times, many cities built watch towers at

  strategic points many leagues from the city gates that could warn of approaching hordes which would give the city’s commanders enough time to pull their denizens inside and secure the city before the siege started. The modern equivalent would be interplanetary outposts and satellites.”

  “But we are miles underground,” argued Sibu. “What would be the point of building it underground?” I did not want to mention that we were no longer under our precious Manushyas and that the impenetrable darkness above us was not a cavern. I thought that if they kn
ew we were in fact treading the upper corridors of the land of shadow, whose sky is the darkness of never-ending night, and whose paths are the vast plains of cruel and lifeless rock we now trod, I did not think the retainers would keep their wits.

  “I too have read of such things,” I said. “But a watch tower as you describe compares to this as much as Red Hill, on which stands the ancient and venerable palace of our lord and father, compares to the Mother Goddess, Qomolangma.”

  “You are correct, your Holiness. This is different, amazingly so. But I believe it performs a similar function.”

  “Which means that somewhere in the darkness ahead of us is a city,” said Pemba.

  “A city?” exclaimed one of the retainers.

  I looked at them, “It is rumoured that the last capital of the mystical kingdom of Shang Shung was the 'Silver Castle of Khyung-lung'. I remember it as a story I heard as a boy. They looked at me with blank expressions so I explained.

  “It was a great construct of the ancient world. But some cataclysm occurred where the city was consumed in a mighty quake that lasted for weeks and all five hundred thousands of the inhabitants were killed.”

  Jigme continued, “The Lord Targo was credited with building that city; temples, forts, villages and tombs. A terrible tragedy indeed if that many people were killed. The only descendants of Shang Shung now are the drokpa; yak and sheep herders that wander the great empty ranges.”

  My husband, Targo dwells now in the body of a black serpent until the time you have need of him in the kingdom of Shang Shung.

  Thank you, my Lord, I whispered. After a moment I looked up and pointed into the darkness. “We must go that way.” I saw the look of awe on both their faces, thinking of lost cities from the most ancient of times and somewhere ahead of us; the mighty capital of the Shang Shung.

  With nothing but the utter black consuming us and the only solid thing being the rock of the floor we walked upon and the broad base of the tower right before us, we debated then, quite vigorously as it happened, for what seemed ages. Pemba, who could not possibly see himself ascending that many thousands of steps and Purba, who was convinced the red beacon at the top would mean our deaths, wanted to push on towards the city. Jigme and I wanted to climb the structure to see what we could learn from its summit, and in the end, Sibu, who held the pendant he wore as a virtual cloak of courage, gave a tacit approval.

  Pemba would not be moved and in the end we agreed that he and Purba would stay and guard the mounts and the three of us would climb the tower.

  It was a hard climb. After the first thousand steps my thighs felt like rubber. I had fallen a good hundred stairs behind Jigme and poor Sibu languished a few hundred again behind me. There were no level areas at all and the steps were steep– so steep that to sit and rest gave one a feeling of vertigo, even though I could see nothing beyond the beam of my torch.

  At the end of the third watch, panting, thirsty and with legs that I felt might never walk again, I came across Jigme. He was casually resting, breathing deeply and rubbing his own thighs.

  “You are human after all,” I managed to smile.

  “The summit is only another fifty steps above us. The red light is piercing. Do you feel the penetrating evil of it?”

  “I had thought that was just my exhaustion. But you are right. Now that I think on it,something unknown sets its will against us.”

  “There is activity at the summit too, your Holiness. I don’t know what manner of creature or how many but I crept to within a dozen steps of the summitand could discern shapes moving about before the beacon.”

  “Arm yourself then. I would prefer if you and I can deal with them and not have to wager Sibu’s life as well.”

  “Good, that is what I hoped. Rest here. Regain your strength and then we’ll surprise them.”

  Pemba told me later that he and Purba had been ready to flee. All was quiet for the hours they had sat there, quietly talking and sharing some food, and suddenly they were rained upon with cascading bodies that hit the unyielding stone with sickening thuds. After the first had hit they had screamed in fear thinking that one of us had lost his footing and toppled over the side of the staircase but didn’t even have time to investigate before more came crashing down as well.

  Once it seemed safe to venture back towards the base of the tower, they had quickly discovered the nature of the fallen; squat demon soldiers, armourclad, with dark hides and hideous faces. Long, clawed hands held shields or curved swords and many had wings, akin to the bats that we had sometimes encountered in parts of the tunnels closer to the surface.

  “Yes,” I said. “Many tried to flee, flying towards the city to raise the alarm. But the Sudarshana Chakramade short work of them.”

  “Then we still have surprise on our side – but what does that tell us about what awaits us?”

  There is not much to tell about the open space atop the tower. In the centre, upon a raised section, was the point of the red light, a magical fire of sorts that the watchmen obviously had a way of manipulating in some fashion to communicate with perhaps a similar tower in the city ahead of us. What was fascinating, and which I did want to describe, was the floor at the summit of the tower.

  It was not of the natural grey rock that we had become so accustomed to, but instead tiled with beautiful mosaics from some forgotten era. Some parts were broken and in places some seemed to have been defiled by the fell residents of this dark and ancient underworld, but it seemed that under the dust and dirt of eons we could still make out the stories that made up the history of the Silver Palace; stories of battles and sieges and trysts and sagas of love and abduction and revenge.

  Once we had dispatched the last of the demons and thrown its carcass over the edge, Jigme, Sibu and I rested upon what looked to be a scene from the Great War against Narakasura which showed, in a moment frozen for all time, a monstrous black serpent battling a fey opponent indeed; a creature of fire and darkness, something akin to a dragon but with the head of a bull atop a body that could have been that of a winged man with the hindquarters, legs, clawed feet and long tail of a lion. The wings were massive and were of that reptilian look that made it look more like a dragon than an eagle. The two opponents battled each other on the slopes of what appeared to be a mountain of human skulls atop which was perched a twisted throne.

  For one that didn’t know, the mural would have shown two fell monsters locked in truculent combat outside the walls of a mighty stone keep. I knew one as Lord Targo but the other was surely the inspired rendering of a mad artisan given to exaggeration and embellishment. If such a thing truly existed, I did not believe there could be good enough in all creation to balance such evil.

  The others looked at the rendering also and Jigme, who would not put down Lord Targo’s gift for moment, gasped and pointed toward the tiled mural.

  “I don’t think this merely a picture, your Holiness. Look there,” he said, pointing.

  In one of the serpent’s hands, the beautifully recreated Vel shone forth in power and majesty.

  The climb down had been harder than the climb up and a few times I had to catch myself lest I pick up too much speed and topple over the edge. Once reunited with Pemba and Purba on the ground we camped for a few watches and then packed up and carried on towards the city.

  As we moved further through the darkness, it became apparent that we were indeed approaching some mighty city of the underdark. Pinpricks of light, which then transformed into the lighted windows of towers and other structures, sprang out of the darkness. Our feet were sore and Purba and Pemba complained that we should mount up and ride. I yielded, because I was so sore myself. But I made Pemba ride point a hundred paces ahead of us with his mission to ensure that that floor of the cavern remained solid in front of us. I did not intend for any of us to cast ourselves into some shadowy void.

  And then we suddenly saw Pemba ahead us. He had dismounted as was crouching, looking down at something. In a slow canter we edged up to him.
>
  “What is it Pemba?”

  He held his torch up and we could clearly see the line of demarcation where the wide floor of the cavern we had travelled for so long stopped abruptly at a wide curving precipice that dropped into a fuliginous abyss. Meeting the termination of the highway was a lonely span; a thin ribbon of sleek stone measuring a full ten chains across to the other side, without handrails and recurved, no doubt to support its own weight without collapsing into the opacity below it. There was nothing else for it. I motioned to the others and then started along the span which took off at a very steep angle indeed before it started to level slightly.

  The light from my torch was so feeble. There was nothing but the solid rock of the bridge below my feet for the light to refract from, showing the span continuing before me but nothing but the inky blackness on either side. The span was only about two cubits across and any misstep would be disastrous. I hazarded a look behind and saw the others in single file walking along at intervals behind me, Purba coming last leading the mounts all tethered to one another.

  What an amazing defence, I thought. A dozen defenders on the far side could effectively keep a force of thousands at bay as the span was beyond the reach of any common projectiles and no ladders or other such devices for scaling walls would be of much use here.

  Just as I was about to reach the summit, I heard a cry from behind me that in that space seemed to be much louder than it was. I turned just in time to see Jigme grabbing at Sibu, who must have made a misstep and would have plunged over the edge,but for the black robe’s lightening quick reflexes. The glow from his torch raced downwards, downwards into the depths. I could not believe how far it went and I could not take my eyes off it; through the sublittoral, through the bathyal, the abyssal and the hadal and unknown leagues after that and still I perceived that white pinprick in the fabric of the night. As far as I know it falls still.

  Once I had torn my gaze away from it and received a reassuring nod from Jigme that told me Sibu was alright, I turned and continued my way towards the summit. As I reached the more level section of the summit and started along the downward section, the light from my torch was reflected back from something in front of me. I tried not to look, continuing to ensure each step was on stone and not off one side into the void as Sibu had done.