The War of the Realms

by C Steven Meldrum

  “I can fight. I want to fight by your side! Did I not prove myself on the battlefield?”

  She could see I was torn and didn’t know what to say to her.

  “Come with me,” she almost whispered and drew me down a passage away from the lazaret. She led me through a series of passages and eventually came to what I thought to be her abode, which seemed a series of small rooms connected by a common passageway. She pushed aside a hanging and we entered what must have been a lounge. Lüum balls floated at various places providing a dim light. I could see rugs adorning the floor and walls and some chairs and a table, a food locker, a wash basin, a waste reclaimer, a sleeping pallet, a weapons rack and a wardrobe: a soldier’s room.

  “Yes, you did well out there.”

  “And we would have been decimated without your help.”

  “Thank you. But I told Te Waharoa that I could not win this war for you.”

  “We are still alive. That is something.”

  I looked at her, seeing the lines of her face in the dim light framed by her straight black hair.

  “I want to come with you.”

  “Why?” I said. “You can go back to your people. You have gained the love and respect of these people and have your freedom. I go perhaps to my death. Do you want that too?”

  “No, but I want to see what you see. My people are no more. I learned that much from speaking to the other tribes. There is nothing here for me now. I will do more good at your side.” I turned away from her and walked towards the weapons rack. I retrieved an ornate hand gun and marvelled at the design and the lights and dials and switches on it.

  “We call it is hand cannon,” she said. “That one generates its own ammunition. It is special because it causes the machines continuing damage over time. They can be fighting for a short while after you’ve shot them and they suddenly fall over dead.”

  “What about this one?” I said, picking up a long-barrelled rifle. It too was very exotic looking. I hoisted it on my shoulder and looked through the sight. The lüum ball I saw through it was all blurry.

  “A sniper rifle,” she smiled. I had never really used projectile weapons, preferring the cudgel, spear and sword. “Deadly accurate from as much as three miles. It too, draws ammunition from the air.”

  I placed it back into the rack.

  “You have not known a warrior like me. I can help you.”

  She leaned towards me and I recoiled slightly. “You will not be responsible for my death. Every day that I have lived in this place has only delayed my death for another day.” She paused and then reached for my hands. I had never kissed anyone before. When our lips met, I did not know what to expect. I had no experience but then I doubted she had any either. It was the most wondrous experience. What started slowly suddenly built with years of self-denial. Her hand moved from my face to my chest to my groin. I did the same. She guided me to the edge of the sleeping pallet and then removed the rest of her clothing. I took off my clothing and sat down, looking up at her, mesmerised by her muscular yet womanly form, from her piercing eyes and angular face to her pert breasts and sculptured stomach, her athletic hips and the trim triangular shape of the hair that covered her groin, like the fur of a newborn kitten.

  Our lips locked again. She sat atop me and we both gasped with the undeniable pleasure that I had yearned for as a young monk but had never experienced. Her hands balanced on my chest as she moved back and forth, closing her eyes and moaning louder with each movement. We cried out together at the climax of our loving and I clasped her to me; panting and elated. I pulled her down to me, my arms around her as she nestled into me. And then I slept a sleep I have never known; deep, untroubled, peaceful.

  Chapter 20: The Dry Land We have greatly fought, o'er the Goths do we stand By our blades laid low, like eagles on branches;

  Great our fame though we die today or tomorrow;

  None outlives the night when the Norns have spoken.

  Guðrún’s son Sörli remarks on the cruelty of the Fates following their ill-fated expedition to the Gothic king Ermanaric to exact vengeance: The Hamðismál I opened my eyes to see Irirangi leaning over me with a cloth, wiping my brow. A quick glance at my surroundings told me I was still on the pallet in her room. Wirimu, Dorje, Tetsuko and a worried looking Irirangi sat around the bed. I pulled myself slowly up. My throat felt parched and my voice sounded harsh.

  “Are you alright,Tashi?” asked Dorje. I looked at the each of them in confusion and Irirangi pushed me gently back down towards the pillow.

  “The amulet you wear shone with a blinding light and you writhed and screamed. Your skin lost all colour and try as I might I could not wake you. I went to get help and your friends came. When the medics got here, they thought you dead. We would not let them take you.”

  “Where is Sibu? I must speak with him. And I need to see Te Waharoa!”

  “Oh, I am sorry Tashi,” said Tetsuko. “With all else going on I did not want to upset you, but he passed away sometime during the night.”

  Later, I made my way to where all the dead were piled and after asking many people, found where Sibu had been laid with his belongings. I was glad I had found him before the water reclaimers had come for him. I knelt beside him, my palm on his cold forehead, praying.

  “Thank y ou, my friend, for your courage and your loyalty during the long journey through the underdark, and for the many dark days since that have haunted your world. I would not have made it this far without you. Walk with me, one last time. Be my guide on the journey that I must now take and as much as it is mine to promise, you will come through the land of the dead and walk along the clear white shores of the Purelands.”

  I gently pushed aside his long, scraggly beard to reveal the lotus pendant called Padma. It was dull now and looked like nothing more than a decorative gem you’d buy in a market rather than the powerful demon vanquisher it had shown itself to be.

  “Forgive me, but I will have need of this in the darkness that is to follow.” I unclipped it and placed it in a pocket of my robe. I also had Gada with me and from the simple bag that Sibu had brought with him I retrieved the mighty Shanka and the two magical kirpans that Sibu had always carried with him.

  I breathed deeply, approaching the pallet on which the weakened Te Waharoa had been laid. The medics stood back while I knelt down beside him, holding his hand which seemed cold and clammy. Several of his senior advisers and aides looked nervously at me but Wirimu, who also stood there, raised a hand and told them to be still.

  I closed my eyes, placed my other hand on his forehead and began a low chant. I called softly to Te Waharoa trying to find him. I recoiled slightly. This was not simply about healing his wounded body. He was dying and his spirit sought escape. I thought of when I had saved Tuátara and I thought of the Lady’s words to me when I beseeched her to save Dorje. How far does one go to save a life beyond curing an ill? When do you let the dying spirit go to fly upon the world’s winds to stand upon the farthest shore? Those standing around him must have seen the doubt etched in my face but Wirimu would not be swayed.

  "Goldenhawk will save him. You will see." He must also have remembered how I had saved his brother. Seeing the look of hope in his eyes I let go of Te Waharoa’s hand and held the amulet at my neck. With one hand on his forehead, I closed my eyes and began a deep chant.

  I stood upon a rocky plane which was dim, as though in a low twilight. Above me the sky appeared a dark grey as on an overcast day, yet no clouds and no stars broke through the starkness. I looked around and saw the broken plane about me. Nothing grew and no wind stirred the sandy ground or whistled through the rocky defiles. It was deathly quiet. I saw a narrow path before me. I followed it and followed it and it seemed after many watches I would never reach the end of it. I was getting tired and thirsty but then I saw a person sitting upon a rock, clutching a staff. He waved to me but I could not see his face properly in the distance. I was literally three or four yards from him when I finally recognised
him.

  “I hoped to find you here, your Holiness. Do you seek the same place as I?”

  “Yes, Sibu.” Our voices sounded flat and muted in that quiet desert;

  almost as if sound, any sound, was somehow unnatural. “Thank you for

  waiting for me.”

  “There is much work for me to do, your Holiness. Come, it is this way.” I was surprised to see Sibu walking confidently, albeit slowly. He

  sightless eyes could see well in that place. Before long we found the path

  began to widen and I could see in the dim distance a massive gate which stood

  open. On each side an immeasurably high wall disappeared into the distance.

  Two massive guardian statues, each hundreds of feet high looked back to the

  land of the living. They were armoured and bore long awl pikes that crossed

  above the centre of the gate giving one the unsettling feeling that once across

  the threshold, there was no coming back. The arch above the gate was adorned

  with an array of strange glyphs and runes that I could not understand. In the dim light I espied a tiny figure, just as he crossed the threshold

  beneath the massive archway.

  "Te Waharoa!" The deadening quiet took any power out of my voice, yet

  I fancied that he heard me because he paused, if only for a moment. He then

  continued on. I tried to run after him but it was as though something in this

  land recognised that I should not be here and it felt as though I walked with boulders chained to my arms and legs. The closer I got to the gate, the darker was the way beyond, especially once passed the archway. Looking back the way was lighter and I wanted so much to go that way instead, to retreat to the

  light of my own realm.

  Once through the gate the land sloped downwards into a grey and dusty

  realm. I was thirsty and tired but determined. I continued on until the gate at

  the top of the slope behind was lost among the turnings of the road and the

  undulating hills. Turning back towards the path I spied at the bottom of a vast

  grey valley, ringed on all sides by cruel mountainous peaks that stabbed

  toward the flat greyness above, the massive City of the Dead.

  The windowless buildings which housed the denizens of the dry land

  suddenly wreathed and shifted as the souls of the dead came forward to

  welcome home their brother. My plan had been to make my way to an

  outcropping and observe the town from the outskirts. But as I made my way

  forward my consciousness seemed to grow more foggy and without knowing

  I had entered the city and was suddenly moving among them. I stared into their

  vacant faces and unseeing eyes. They moved as though in a dream from which

  they could not awaken. I did not feel as though I was in any danger but it took

  all my concentration to remember what I was there to do and rubbed my

  temples, trying to drive an insidious and nebulous gloom from my mind. I

  caught up with Te Waharoa and put my hand on his shoulder.

  “Come,” I managed to say. “We need to leave.”

  He faced me with a similarly vacant expression. I tried to pull him with

  me but he resisted. It was as I tugged at his sleeve that I looked past him and

  noted with horror in the darkling distance many huge shapes that looked

  completely alien in that strange place. Huge flying machines, like military

  landers were arrayed in ordered rows on a large central court. Into each of

  these, the dead souls formed orderly lines and I realised that when the

  buildings had wreathed it was not because they welcomed their brother. It was

  because they were being called from their eternal slumber. And then I saw

  what it was that called them.

  The mighty Lord Yama, keeper of the lands of the dead, standing many

  times taller than the subjects he governed, ushered them into the holds of those

  strange ships. And as they filled, each carrying many hundreds, they left the

  ground in an almost soundless take-off and headed into that grey sky.

  While the darkness blinded me, I could feel his gaze suddenly turn toward me. In seconds he was upon me and snatched me up as a child grasps a doll. I cannot describe him as anything but the antithesis of Lord Targo. Hooded in black with firey eyes, he carried a noose in his free hand which was skeletal and rotten.

  “He is my friend,” I gasped. “I need him to come home with me.” The lord of the dead lands growled and brought me to with a metre of that putrid face.

  “You have already robbed me of one soul. But I see you have gifted another.” He paused then, as if a decision needed to be made and simply dropped me and stormed away. “You are not welcome here,” he said over his shoulder and then with a wave of his hand said, “First die, and then I will welcome you to your new life.”

  Suddenly those of the dead around him turned towards me. I knew then that I had come too far and stayed too long. I was in tremendous danger. I couldn’t see anything and instead felt many hands clawing at me and pulling at my clothes. I screamed as they bore me down.

  Sibu waved his arms and yelled at them, the precious spirit necklace at his neck was suddenly afire with holy lambency. Many of them suddenly left me and turned on him, but there were still too many for me to deal with. They crushed me and tore at me. I had no room to swing my staff and clawed hands reached for the Kriya-Shakti around my neck. Suddenly I heard a voice calling my name and knew I was saved. I saw a sword flashing through the crowd and saw dismembered limbs and heads flying left and right. The hewn remains of the corpses of the dead piled high and suddenly a strong hand was grasping for my collar. I looked into Tetsuko’s wild eyes as she dragged me from the howling dead. Dorje was swiping at the dead with his broadsword and I could see Irirangi shooting at them with her hand cannon. Each one that she shot exploded.

  I could concentrate more clearly now and spoke silent words that sent out a great rippling explosion of white light that quelled the darkness for a moment and freed my spirit of the depressive weight which made living so hard in that place. We were suddenly alone and turned back towards the path I had come into the city on. I tried to find Sibu and Te Waharoa but they were nowhere to be seen. The dead had melted back into their windowless buildings as suddenly as they had come and the central court area that had seen so much activity was completely still.

  Tetsukodragged at my robes but I resisted. “I must find Sibu!” I yelled.

  “Come!” she said. “We must leave this place! The Lord Yama does not suffer the living kindly.”

  I tore my sight away from the buildings and ran with Tetsuko and the others. We staggered around trying to find the path back uphill but every direction in which we stumbled we descended further. Every step away from the city was the hardest thing I have ever done. The dry land clawed at me and sapped my strength and my wits. But Tetsuko prevailed. She knew where we had to go. I wonder now if Irirangi and Dorje had known, would they have followed? She pulled at my robe and we continued away from the city, and found a path up into the hills. It would have been so easy to turn around and allow myself to be pulled back to the city and to remain in that place forever. I set one foot in front of the other and slowly, painfully, we found the paths through to the Mountains of Sorrow. We could not go back the way we had come. We instead went on and I knew with sadness and pain where we would emerge.

  The torment of the journey of scaling those tortured mountains will never leave me. I will not for a moment try to immerse you, good reader, in any of the horror. Suffice to say, as we came to the end, I turned one last time to look down towards the city, now many leagues beneath us. With tears streaming down my face I said a quick prayer for Sibu and Te Waharoa, and then facing back to the path ahead, we plunged across
the great threshold and entered a new world of pain.

  Chapter 21: The Cursed City "Come, let's away to prison;

  We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage: When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down, And ask of thee forgiveness: so we'll live, And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues Talk of court news."

  Lear in King Lear

  “At last,” something hissed. I slowly opened my eyes and recoiled in horror. A thing that looked like a mech trying to impersonate a human leaned over me. Its face was not human though. All of shiny black, it glowed a strange bluish colour and contained within the boundaries of a tall and ill-proportioned head were hundreds of red glinting eyes, looking in every direction. The roughly humanoid form of the body was a fuliginous black with a cape that hung down from its shoulders and it seemed to contain an endless array of dark panels and rods and different lights that blinked out of sequence.

  I looked around. I was lying on a hard block raised above the floor in a large, eerily-lighted antechamber with strange devices protruding from the ceiling and walls and an open doorway at one end.

  “Where are my fri ends?” I rasped.

  “You will see them soon,” the machine grated. It sounded like it was trying to be cheery and welcoming, in a voice that had never had to be previously.

  “What is this place?” I asked.

  “It does not have a name.” It considered for a moment and said, “If it comforts you to name it, then ‘The Citadel’?” it said, matter-of-factly.I’m sure that if it could have shrugged its metal shoulders, it would have.

  “Am I your prisoner?

  “You are our guest.” I was not convinced.

  “Do you know why I am here?”

  “To help us.” It was not a question but a plain statement of fact. “Come, follow me.”

  I swung my legs around and dropped to the floor.

  My assumption had been correct then. The paths through the Mountains of Sorrow had brought us to where we needed to be. The girls had travelled much further than this and I hazarded a guess that I could well go from beyond here to the lowest city.