The War of the Realms

by C Steven Meldrum

  And then I was off the bridge and on solid flat rock. I looked up.

  And I gasped. We had found it. As the others descended the bridge and came to stand beside me,I looked to the each of them and said, “Welcome to the ancient realm of gods and men; the fabled Silver Palace and mighty capital of the Shang Shung, called Khyunglung Ngülkhar.”

  The others murmured in wonderment. Above us the mighty walls towered into infinity and before us the main entrance to the broken spectacle that had once been the spiritual and commercial centre of the Shang Shung yawned invitingly.

  Unlike the legends of it being founded on gold and walled in silver, these walls were clearly of stone and even in the dim light from our torches we could see much of the city was in ruins, mostly destroyed in whatever cataclysm had caused it to be swallowed by the Irth a chiliad of centuries ago.

  We, meaning Yeshe, Lhapka and the others, had studied the history of this famous and holy city that had been the abode of both men and gods; this mighty capital of the Shang Shung empire. You who read this from possibly as far away as other side of the gulf of eternity may not realise it, but to look upon the city of fabled legend that I had read so much about and fancied that I knew so intimately, was akin to standing in the very throne room of Lord Krishna himself.

  Importantly, this city was home to the famous Drenpa Namkha, whose father insisted on the best education and surrounded him with eight principal holy men who were teachers of the ancient Bön faith, the predecessor of our own. Drenpa became the self-realized supreme master of the three ancient Bön practices known as Sutra, Tantra and Dzogchen and so became a god. He was in turn the father of Padmasambhava, the Guru Rinpoche, an avatar of the Buddha Amitabha.

  The city had never been breached and there were hundreds of stories we read of where one warlord or another from the desert-lands of the north or the steaming jungles of the southern countries unsuccessfully laid siege to this city, hungry for the promised wealth within its walls and the obvious unique characteristic that this was the one city on Irth where gods and men mingled and co-existed.

  There was a fable that told of the last king of Shang Shung to reside in the holy city of Khyunglung Ngülkhar. He was killed by a demon chieftain, a mighty demogorgon of the underworld and one of Kusunda’s generals, the fell archmage and demon lord Likmigya. The king had tried to take as consort a dakini spirit called Tsogyal that was trothed to the demon lord. Angered, Likmigya called his armies of mountain demons from their lofty palaces and stormed the once blessed city. He took his name, his city and his immortal soul.

  The demon hordes of Khyunglung Ngülkhar became as much a legend of the Shang Shung as the great spiritual power of the realm and they inhabited that city for many times the lives of men. Finally, a young prince from the north called Trisong Detsen brought his armies to the gates of the holy city and sought to wrest it back from the demon hordes that had turned into a place of evil and loathing.

  Alone he could not have done it. But with his extraordinary powers, Padmasambhava, joining with the armies of gods and men, defeated the demon horde and as the legends go, banished the fell demon lord back to the lands of his master. But it was said of that conquest that such was the power brought to bear upon the living rock of Mother Irth that it collapsed and the city sank into the Irth. It was said that Padmasambhava died in that war, consumed by the Irth as the city fell. But it was also said that the city remained whole because, even as it fell, Padmasambhava used his incredible powers to hold the city together. Seeing it now, I found the latter part of the legend to be largely true.

  In this fashion, Trisong Detsen became a king without a city. The Yarlung dynasty was known as the Kingdom under the Stars and all who came to see the Lion Throne noted that it remained outdoors at the top of a hill that overlooked the place where the city used to stand.

  I cannot describe the feeling I had entering the gate of the city. I am not speaking a feeling of joy and wonderment, which I certainly had enough of to fill the void we had just crossed, but also a dire feeling that steadily grew in me the further we went, a kind of dread as though the vehement and awesome powers of the demons and the magicians who fought here so many lifetimes ago had seeped indelibly into the very rock of this city making of it a terrible and hideous place.

  The others must have felt it too for they stopped suddenly behind me. “Come,” I said, looking back over my shoulder. “Did you think that the Lord Targo gave us such wondrous gifts for no reason. There are older and more terrible powers in the universe than any of us would like to believe can exist.” I thought of Tetsuko’s story of her battle with the Witch-Queen of Garbhodaka and of the winged horror depicted in the tiled mural we had seen atop the watch tower.

  They reluctantly followed.

  “Let us hope we can pass through the ruined city without anything being alerted to our presence.”

  I cannot now say whether those ruins drew to it the myriad creatures that had made of it a home because it merely existed there in the deep darkness with its cracked and broken walls that provided so many rooms and holes for whatever slithered or crawled or walked or ran, or whether it was the overwhelming puissance or the feeling of paramountcy that bled from the very rock around us and threatened to drown us all in the maelstrom that was its potency.

  “What is happening to us,” gasped Purba after we had only travelled some five or six hundred steps down the main avenue beyond the gates. I had been looking with interest at the shadowy buildings of ancient design with their blackened windows and uninviting doorways. He sounded like a weight crushed him from above and drove his breath from him. I began to feel it too. We stopped. Sibu sat heavily and the mounts looked about nervously. Pemba, with his enormous size seemed to feel it more than all of us.

  “Vajra,” I managed before I too slumped to the floor. Jigme stood like a pillar of granite and brandished Vel.

  She was suddenly kneeling by me. “They know your power and seek to test you. Look inward and see.”

  I did not understand but did as she bade me. In my mind was a spinning vortex that felt if anything like pictures of the cosmos looked. But rather than the relative peace and stillness one would think of, the whirlpool in my head was a violent coriolis of pandemonium and chaos. I tried to block out the crushing weight and the muffled cries of pain from the others and the sudden panicked screaming of the mounts to concentrate on the perturbation behind my eyes.

  I looked to its centre and with what seemed my last effort I was able to stand in the eye of the cyclone and look at what it was from the calmer centre, and I found that it was me.

  I saw my boyhood, my life, my friends and everything I had ever known, or learnt or done, cast like a shadowy image upon the swirling winds of that inner vortex. And then I saw that the vortex held more; things I had never known and places I had never seen and people I had never met. I saw Abbott Tomas standing in his study, hands clasped behind him as I remembered so well, peering out of the window. But more, I could read his thoughts and while I tried to call to him to tell him it was otherwise, he had convinced himself in despondency that he had sent me and my fellows to our deaths.

  I then saw Dorje, sitting up in the infirmary, bandaged down his face and chest but in good spirits and joking with Rogel who sat on the edge of his bed laughing with Yeshe and Pasang and Puk and there was Master Panuaru putting a ghurka squad through a vigorous training session.

  I didn’t know whether I dreamt or whether I saw across the land but I started to feel that at the centre of the whirlpool I could look out from myself. I recognised this as Lord Targo’s gift and even though I could not focus on each of the abilities, I knew the mahasiddhis that were mine; the Anima, Mahima, Garima, Laghima, Prapti, Prakamya; Ishitva and the Vashitva.

  I won’t presume to bore you, my ever-patient reader with a text book description of all the myriad attributes with which I was suddenly aware of having been gifted (and you who shall be my companion beyond the end of this universal day shall k
now them all intimately in time anyway). But for the sake of our present quandary in which our mounts had died, if they can be said to die, and Pemba, Jigme, Sibu and Purba were but moments from the same fate, I focussed all my will and the tempest in my head toward the magical weight that had descended upon us.

  The last of the powers I mentioned, the Vashitva, meaning“holding in one’s power” I unleashed a small part of, lest I lose control and bring down the entire stone city upon us. I could not stop that terrible gravity that crushed us to the bare stone but I fashioned a shell, a bubble, if you like, that grew, small and fragile at first but then larger and stronger until it surrounded the company and in that effulgent glare I was able to breathe again and to stand and while I had my hands above me and worked the sphere it grew bigger and bigger until the entire city was slowly encompassed.

  I thought in pride and victory that I had won but then I met another mind that strove against me. And as the phosphorous sphere bathed every building and turned it to what must have been its original state so that the walls and ramparts suddenly ran straight and tall and shone with the hue of silver and gold, and pavements were made whole and all the wonder of the ancient city was restored so that a new sun hung in the undersky above us, I met my match and was broken. I strove one last time and screamed with the effort to better I knew not what but the retort was swift and more evil and deadly than I could contend with and on a foul wind came a cruel and taloned hand that shattered my sphere as a child crushes a ball of snow.

  Something cold and hard was pressed against my face and chest and I could hear as the blackness closed over me, “Is he dead?” and a female voice answered, “No, he lives.”

  I lay face down on a soft bed with my arms hanging over the top edge of the mattress. In my slumber I heard voices and thought that the novices were giving Puk trouble. A few more minutes and I would arise and sort things out.

  I continued to hear voices, but now there was a note of desperation. I was being buffeted as though the novices each held up my bed like a gurney and violently shook it trying to tip me off while other novices held my wrists in iron grips over the edge of the mattress and my feet dangled uselessly. The dream changed and suddenly Dorje and Rogel had tied me by my wrists to a bed-head and laughed as they dangled the frame over the edge of the curtain wall, violently twisting and thrashing it while in the abyss below me hungry wolves leaped and snapped at my flailing ankles.

  The dream faded and was replaced again with panicked voices and the sound of heavy breathing and many feet running over stone. As I became more lucid, I managed to open my eyes and saw that I was being carried along draped over Pemba’s massive shoulders, the warmth and musty wetness of his robe pressed against my face and the back of his shaved head moist with the sweat of his exertion. I looked around as best as I could and struggled to recall for a moment where we were or what had just happened.I couldn’t see anything but became aware of another noise as well, as though a thousand monks with metal-soled shoes danced on the spot in the central courtyard of the monastery.

  “Over there!” someone yelled. “That building. Move!” After a moment I heard a door slammed and bolted and then Pemba was heaving his weight and mine up a flight of steps.

  In a moment, as though he had realised I had come around a bit, Pemba placed me down on the ground and my hands were suddenly burning with a thousand pin-pricks as the blood flowed through wrists that had been clamped so tightly for how long I could not guess.

  “What’s happening?” I asked , drowsily.

  “Tashi, by the gods,that was incredible!”

  “What was?”

  “No time now. Can you move, we’ve got to get up to the top to make a

  stand , they’ll be through in a minute.”

  “What’s going on?”

  My head felt like I had been hit with a plank of wood and I looked around

  to see that the others had disappeared up a wide carpeted staircase where decorative balustrades curled about at the lower ends, terminating in this lavish entrance hall where I sat in stunned wonderment. It was not dark and indeed a glorious pale light seemed to filter through the room. I heard a terrible clawing and scraping as though a huge met’y wolf was about to burst into the chamber through the beautifully decorated double wooden doors.

  I roused myself and looked more closely at the room and then at the broad staircase that went upwards. A sudden loud retort from outside signalled that whatever was trying to gain entrance had nearly done so. Shakily, I stood and as quickly as I was able, I ran toward the staircase thinking, how can this be? These were no ruins. The room I emerged into on the next level was a vast hall with decorative pillars and exquisitely flowing hangings and the floors were covered with luxurious carpets and beautifully carved furniture that gave the impression of being a library with desks and settees and shelves that held numerous tomes of different sizes and styles. ornaments depicting animals and buddhas and Elegant and decorative bodhisattvas and other

  creatures of preternatural power and glory took up much space about the room. “Your Holiness, hurry!” came Jigme’s voice from a hundred paces

  toward the centre of the hall. I was suddenly brought back from my admiration

  and exploration.

  I ran past the nearest bookcase and without thinking grabbed a small

  leather-bound book, and from a large desk near the staircase, a small but

  beautifully carved statuette of a bodhisattva and then followed Jigme up

  another broad staircase.

  I heard a final crash from below and the sound of many booted feet

  charging over the threshold. Jigme waited at a door and bolted it as soon as I

  ran through. I followed him down a wide hall and then gasped as this opened

  into a massive hall that rivalled what I had seen in LordTargo’s undersea

  palace. It was so vast the walls and ceiling were almost lost in the misty

  radiance that lighted everything in this Silver Palace. We met the others and

  continued running. I could discern large windows open on our left and right

  and what looked to be a wide set of stairs at the end of this room. The walls

  all around this massive chamber were decorated with large pictures and

  hangings that I could not make out and doors led off to other rooms and halls. I hadn’t given myself time to think about it but I was suddenly aware of

  the titian glow that permeated the hall, the same as a smoky sunset when the

  aging sun is obscured by storm clouds.

  As we approached the end of this hall, I also became aware that the

  staircase I had seen was not to another level but to a dais upon which sat a

  throne. I then took a moment to look behind us and stood rooted to the spot as

  hundreds, if not thousands of hideous, short, heavily armoured creatures

  charged down the hall, smashing and burning everything that was so beautiful. “Come, your Holiness,” yelled Jigme and grabbed my arm. “Wait,” I said. I could see we were trapped. I raised my hands in that

  universal sign that means Stop! The horde stretched back into obscurity and

  there must have been many thousands there, all armoured, all armed with

  cruelly curved swords, long knives or spears, some brandishing shields and

  some swinging maces and long morningstars and leathern thongs loaded with

  spiked balls. Many also had bows drawn and arrows cocked, and some aimed

  crossbows as well. They did in fact stop but shifted nervously and some

  screamed their primitive and blood-curdling battle cries.

  There is a moment in any confrontation when an unspoken argument

  ensues between combatants, are you going first or am I? They were confident

  because of their superior numbers but they had not met our like in perhaps

  eons, if at all. And against such as they, we had never been teste
d. They were fell creatures indeed. To describe them would be like trying

  to describe all the different fish in the sea, yet I felt they were of a similar type;

  clothed in myriad forms and their clothing, armour and weapons so different

  as to show no real uniformity whatsoever.

  Yet they were demons. That much was clear: evil and loathsome. Many

  wore the outer appearance that was particular to their plane of origin– a

  sulphurous iridescence marked those from the plane of fire, a milky

  opalescence those from the plane of ice. But the majority wore the caliginous

  cloak of the abyss that marked them as the teeming armies of the black land. I

  could discern among those dark faces the glowing eyes and teeth-filled maws

  from which protruded the dripping fangs that would rend our flesh and end

  our lives. I also noted storm giants and less than humanoid foes, erbites with

  flailing talons, dragon-like wyverns that screeched a deathly squeal and tried to shake off the handlers that rode them, and mewing palladites that strained

  against long leashes held by brutal frost giants.

  I had just decided that now was a good time to turn tail and flee but before

  thought could become action, the others, who had run on toward the bottom

  of dais looking for another exit and obviously found none had returned and

  stopped short at the sight of the army that greeted us. But also, as if to drive

  home the undeniable hopelessness of our situation, a rhythmic booming

  started. I looked to see the hundreds that had shields crashing their war

  hammers and maces against the wrought metal of each. The growling became