Temple of a Thousand Faces

by John Shors

  Several small boats came into view. They were manned by warriors dressed for battle, and Boran felt as if he had tumbled from a high perch. The royal barge came next, immense and brimming with men and stallions. Even in Angkor, Boran had never seen such a craft. He glanced toward their distant home, where his wife would be mending nets, unaware of the impending attack.

  Barge after barge passed within their view. There seemed to be no end to the Chams, and the image of the royal barge began to feel like an old memory. Though Boran was used to seeing formations of warriors in Angkor, these thousands of Chams struck fear into his heart. They seemed more numerous than all the fish he’d ever caught, than all the dawns he’d seen.

  “We have to warn them,” Vibol whispered. “We can do it. The streams will take us to Angkor faster than—”

  “And your mother?” Boran asked. “What are we to do about your mother?”

  Vibol closed his eyes, only then realizing that their home lay in the path of the Chams. “No,” he muttered. “They wouldn’t—”

  “They would,” Boran replied, his voice still low. “And we must go to her. Now.”

  “Put me ashore. I can run ahead. I can reach Angkor faster than the Chams. Those barges are slow.”

  “Not slow enough. So we stay as one.”

  “I can outrace them. And I’ll find you. After I’ve—”

  “After you’ve been killed?”

  “But the city! We have to warn them.”

  Boran clenched his fists, knowing that his son was right, that somehow his countrymen must be warned. But doing so would leave his wife alone and unaware. And he understood what fate would befall her when the Chams reached their home. She would be killed, raped, or enslaved, and no such fate could he endure.

  “Let me go,” Vibol persisted.

  “No.”

  “Put me ashore and let me run.”

  “You’ll stay with me. I need you.”

  “My people need me!”

  Boran placed his hand over Vibol’s mouth, fearing that his words had carried. A pair of Cham barges passed. Sunlight glinted on their armor and weapons. The men appeared to look in their direction, but eyes did not meet eyes. The barges disappeared.

  Cursing himself for wasting too much time, Boran picked up his paddle and carefully maneuvered them out of the sagging branches. He turned their boat away from the Chams, heading for a maze of streams that would carry them home. Though they tried to keep as low a profile as possible, a shout went up in the distance. Boran didn’t turn, didn’t falter. His paddle fell deep into the water and he yelled at his sons to throw their catch and supplies overboard. Vibol and Prak did as he demanded, then began to paddle. An arrow splashed into the water beside them, followed by another. Boran imagined his sons impaled by the shafts, and this image gave him great strength. He began to shout, warning his countrymen of the invaders, hoping that his voice would travel.

  More arrows bit into the water, and he turned down another stream, trying to put trees between them and their pursuers. Glancing back, he saw that one Cham boat was still after them—a fast boat captained by strong men. Though he was tempted to paddle to shore, the thick jungle would slow their flight. They would be overrun. No, wiser to stay in the boat, to live or die on the water that he knew better than the Chams did.

  Though still far from home, Boran began to call out to his wife. He told her to hide, to wait for him. An arrow hummed through the air, nicked his leg, and slammed into his boat.

  Prak shouted an insult at the Chams, and Vibol followed his lead. His sons’ defiance resonated within Boran, and his love for them seemed to double. He couldn’t watch his sons—or his wife—die. Better to cast himself against his enemies and let them hack him to pieces.

  The skin of his palms splitting, Boran paddled as he never had. He smelled smoke. He heard distant screams. And he wondered if this was the moment when his world would collapse.

  The third and final day of her wedding had been Voisanne’s favorite. Already her family and friends had celebrated some of the most important parts of the ceremony—the groom’s processional, the call to ancestors, the priests’ blessings, and the cleansing rites. Now, as the sun climbed higher in the sky, Voisanne and her husband-to-be, Nimith, were in the midst of a ritual that honored their parents, as without parents neither could have been brought into the world, could have favored the Gods, or could one day produce children of their own.

  Voisanne held a silk umbrella over her mother, and Nimith did the same for his mother. The umbrellas meant that after years of being sheltered by their parents, now the bride and groom became their protectors. Married couples formed a circle around Voisanne, Nimith, and their parents. Anyone not married stood outside this circle. As a woman sang about parental duty and the sacrifices necessary to raise honorable children, three candles were passed around the circle, and each time a candle came to a person, he or she pointed it at the bride and groom and silently sent a blessing their way.

  Voisanne was naked but for an elaborate silk skirt cloth. One end of the cloth was pleated and tucked in at the waist. Her skirt cloth depicted jasmine flowers set against a red background. The same flowers hung from her neck. Like the other women present, she wore her black hair up, tied in a tight knot atop her head. Silver armbands, bracelets, and rings encircled her arms and fingers. The soles of her feet and the palms of her hands had been dyed red. To onlookers her beauty had never been so pronounced. Her face appeared soft and feminine, her body lean and sculpted. Women were happy for her, jealous of her. Men were happy as well, though their jealousy was directed toward Nimith, who was only a middle-ranking officer in the Khmer army but had managed to attract Voisanne. He stood, muscled and proud, a sword falling from his waist, holding himself so that his shadow fell upon her.

  She glanced up, appreciating his intention, adoring him. Like most Khmer couples who entered into marriage, they had already savored the delights of each other’s bodies. They’d shared an intimacy of the mind as well. She knew of his desires, strengths, and fears, just as he understood her innermost thoughts.

  As the woman continued to sing about their parental duties and the candles went from hand to hand, Voisanne wondered if and when she would become pregnant. Many Khmer couples never experienced this blessing. In fact, Prince Jayavar and his chief wife had not brought a child into the world, though he’d fathered sons and daughters with his other wives. Voisanne knew that Nimith wanted a boy to train as he had been trained, and she yearned to give him such a gift, yearned so much that every day she went to stand inside Angkor Wat and pray that she would be as fertile as the river, as the nearby fields.

  Throughout her life, Voisanne had known more happiness than not, more comfort than most. And yet today she felt enveloped by a sense of bliss that she had never experienced. She was marrying a good man who loved her. Her parents and siblings were nearby, all watching with smiles on their faces. After almost three days of festivities, they were still with her, as much a part of the ceremony as she was. And their commitment to her, to this union, seemed to strengthen her own belief in the sanctity of what was unfolding.

  The woman stopped singing. A priest began to speak as Voisanne’s mother and father brought colorful ribbons into view. The ribbons would soon be tied around the bride’s and groom’s wrists, another symbol of their approaching union.

  As Voisanne watched her father, delighting in the pride etched in his face, a dog barked in the distance. Such noises were not uncommon, but soon other, odder sounds drifted across the land. Voisanne glanced up, noting the distant but still-magnificent presence of Angkor Wat. Smoke rose from near the temple—the thick billowing smoke of burning wood. It was every Khmer’s duty to help put out fires, and despite the importance of the moment, Voisanne touched Nimith’s arm and gestured toward the temple. His brow furrowed. He shook his head. And then the nearby jungle exploded into horror as warriors poured forth, shrieking in a strange tongue, sunlight glinting off their shields and wea
pons.

  Nimith thrust Voisanne behind him, drew his sword, and called to his men. They quickly formed a circle around the wedding party, but they were a force of ten, and hundreds of Chams burst into the open like bees erupting from a hive. The Chams swept forward, raising their axes, aiming their spears. Voisanne screamed Nimith’s name as he stepped ahead, toward his foes. He ducked beneath the sweep of an axe, thrust his weapon into the belly of a Cham, and was knocked backward by a shield’s iron edge. He rallied though, twisting and thrusting and killing two more Chams.

  A spear flew through the air. Voisanne saw it coming and screamed a warning. But the weapon was faster than her words, and buried itself in Nimith’s chest. He toppled backward. She tried to run to him, shouting his name as her father held her back. Before she knew what had happened her father was dead, then her mother. Her siblings began to fall and Voisanne reached for a younger brother, pulling him against her chest. She tried to shield him with her arms, but another spear darted forward and he went limp in her grasp, like a water pouch pierced by steel. An image flashed in her mind of him holding her hand at night when he was ill. She screamed, still clutching him, telling him that he was safe, that she was with him, and that he would never be alone.

  Rough hands tried to pull her from him, but she continued to cling to his small body even as the Chams kicked and beat her. She called his name, again and again, fighting as she never had, desperate to hold him as his soul traveled forward, believing that if he was thinking of her, of his parents, he would be born again into their same family. She shouted out her love for him and said the names of their family members, still trying to direct his soul, knowing it could go in so many directions at the moment of his death.

  The shaft of a spear struck her forehead. She seemed to choke on her words, to stumble over them. Still holding her brother’s hand, she fell on top of him, her body pressing against his, her thoughts going dim.

  She saw him then. She imagined his smile.

  Then the Chams carried her away.

  For generations, the city of Angkor had flourished. Its temples and palaces stretched from east to west, as if inspired by the path of the sun. Glorious and gold-covered bas-reliefs adorned the sides of the grandest structures while imposing statues lined roads, bridges, moats, and parks. Equally impressive, Angkor’s citizens had populated the landscape with abundance and grace—praying, bathing, and working together.

  Neither the passage of time nor the often inclement weather had ever diminished the wonders of Angkor. And yet now, as stretches of the city burned, the Gods that had protected Angkor seemed to have abandoned it. While remnants of the Khmer army battled the invaders and horsemen galloped away for help, ordinary citizens fled into the jungle—some escaping, others finding only death or despair. Screams rose above even the tumult of warfare—the striking of axes against shields, the trumpeting of the few Khmer war elephants properly mounted and capable of battle. The Chams in their strange, inverted-flower headgear appeared to be everywhere, swarming forward in massive packs. For each Khmer there seemed to be two or three Chams. And while the Khmers fought ferociously for their homes and their families, most were unprepared for conflict. Few wore armor and even fewer had found their officers and formed into proper battle groups. Despite the enormous size of the Cham army, its presence had remained undetected until it was too late to save the city.

  Not far from Angkor Wat and the Royal Palace, at a temple called Bakheng, Jayavar and Ajadevi fought for their survival alongside several hundred Khmer warriors, citizens, servants, and slaves. Though Bakheng stood atop a hill, rising like a stepped pyramid and lined with immense sandstone lions that snarled and stood proud, it was the Khmer warriors who were driven back. Jayavar, naked but for his hip cloth, held a Cham axe in one hand and a Khmer shield in the other. While some of his men had fled to save their families, Jayavar had stood his ground, fighting in front of Ajadevi, struggling to protect his wife as Cham after Cham, goaded forward by the sight of her silver and gold bracelets, lunged in her direction. Ajadevi had since removed her valuables, but the Chams knew that she was highborn and still sought to capture her.

  Jayavar’s axe shattered a Cham’s wooden shield, then bit deeply into the man’s side. Even though the warrior still lived, Jayavar wrenched a spear from his hands and tossed it to Ajadevi. She caught it and then lunged toward a Cham. He deflected her blow with a sword, but her attack had left him vulnerable, and a Khmer warrior cut him down from behind.

  Coughing from the dense smoke that poured out of the barracks near the Royal Palace, Jayavar tried to calm his raging emotions and make sense of the assault. The Chams had obviously come from the river but must have then spread out and attacked Angkor from multiple directions, creating the greatest possible fear and chaos. There were no lines of attackers and defenders, only pockets of struggling warriors. Several dozen Khmer warriors mounted on elephants and horse-drawn chariots were running rampant against their enemies in open fields, but Jayavar saw too few of them.

  “We must leave!” Ajadevi shouted.

  Jayavar realized that she was covered in blood. He looked for a wound, then grimaced as a Cham spear glanced off his shield and impaled a Khmer beside him.

  “It’s not my blood!” Ajadevi yelled.

  “But—”

  “Lead us, Jayavar! Lead us!”

  He glanced at the Royal Palace, the site of the fiercest fighting, surrounded by thousands of Chams. A sudden despair gripped him. He wanted to fight toward his parents, his other wives, and his children, knowing that they would likely be killed in an effort to sever all links to the throne. But he could not get through to them, not with so few warriors beside him. His family was doomed.

  Though Jayavar had never felt the joy of battle, as some men did, he excelled at warfare, and his axe rose and fell in murderous arcs. Seeing their prince take the fight to his foes, other Khmer warriors mirrored his efforts, driving the Chams back.

  But the battle was lost. To confirm his fears, Jayavar forced his way to the edge of the temple. Shouting at his men to protect Ajadevi, he climbed up one of the structure’s main staircases, his bloody hands slipping on the feet of the carved lions as he dragged himself up the steep steps. He made it to the top, looked down, and pounded his fist against the stonework as he watched his city burn. Everywhere buildings were aflame and Chams were cutting down the remnants of the once-mighty Khmer army. Some of his countrymen were fleeing into the jungle. Few were pursued, as most Chams were intent on either crushing the opposition or plundering the city.

  Jayavar hurried down the steps. Rather than seeking the advice of one of his junior officers, he strode to his wife.

  “Angkor is lost!” she shouted.

  “My father—”

  “Would want you to live. So live!”

  “But my children! I have to find them!”

  “They’re dead. I am so sorry, my love, but they’re dead.”

  “No!”

  “You must flee!”

  Horns sounded nearby. The noise was foreign, and Jayavar realized that Cham reinforcements were arriving. He thought about his children, fearing that Ajadevi was right but trying to deny the possibility of such a fate. He closed his eyes, his world spinning. Ajadevi tugged on his arm, shouting at him to think of his empire, his people. Stumbling, he took a step in the direction of the Royal Palace, wanting to be with his loved ones even in death. But Ajadevi must have understood his intent, because she said that perhaps some of his children had escaped and that he could never help them if he was slain.

  Jayavar looked at those who fought with him—perhaps ninety warriors and an equal number of slaves and citizens—and realized that she was right. If he ran toward his children, he would die, and would not be able to save them if they had managed to survive. But neither could he stay here; to linger longer would ensure his demise. Surrounding his people was a single line of Chams, men already anticipating their victory, not the blades of their foes.

 
; “To me!” Jayavar shouted at his warriors; then he ran toward a weak point in the Cham force. The jungle lay behind that line, and Jayavar knew that the trees might be their salvation. His despair turning to rage, he parried the spear thrust of a young Cham warrior, beat an axe strike aside with his shield, and burst into the open. Rather than run ahead, he turned, attacking another warrior, fighting and killing until Ajadevi appeared beside him. Her spear was bloody, and she thrust its point into a Cham’s belly. Dropping the weapon, she headed toward the tree line, her skirt cloth impeding her movements. Jayavar caught up to her and with one stroke of his dagger he cut a slit in the garment from her thighs downward.

  Now she could run, and she did, less fearful of her own death than of his. They entered the jungle—a towering assortment of banyan, ficus, and teak trees that snuffed out most of the sunlight. Jayavar hadn’t expected the Chams to pursue them, but they may have known that the heir to the throne and his wife were among the small group of survivors, and perhaps they were under orders to kill or capture any member of the Khmer royalty.

  Ajadevi had spent countless mornings praying in the jungle and knew which trails to follow. She led the group forward, skirting away from Cham war parties, heading west toward the land of another enemy—the Siamese. She heard fighting behind her and knew that Jayavar would be with the rear guard, struggling against their pursuers. An arrow pierced the arm of a servant beside her, and Ajadevi hauled up the shrieking woman and helped her continue. Though Ajadevi’s feet were as calloused as any, they began to bleed. Smoke thickened the jungle with its ominous presence. Distant screams resonated. Looking for signs of where to go, Ajadevi forged onward, glad for the first time in her life that she didn’t have children, that she wouldn’t bear the burden of loss that her husband must.

  Several hundred paces behind her, Jayavar and his men were fighting a running battle with the Chams. As he thought about his family and people, he was nearly overwhelmed with grief. But he forced his mind to shift to Ajadevi, forced himself to imagine her being raped by the Chams. The image gave him enormous will to fight back, and his men drew inspiration from the fierceness of his assaults. He attacked, retreated, and attacked again. And though he lost men with each onslaught, the Chams were now leery of his blade. They sought to flank his warriors on both sides, and he shouted at Ajadevi to hurry. Then he split his force in two so that each group of Chams could be attacked. Arrows whistled past him, thudding into dirt, wood, and flesh. Men and women fell and didn’t rise. A spear thrown by a distant Cham sliced into the side of his hip, cutting him deeply enough to affect his gait. Still he kept fighting, pausing when he came to a seven- or eight-year-old slave boy who had fallen. Jayavar looked for the boy’s mother, saw that no one claimed him, and so he dropped his shield, threw the child over his left shoulder, and ran forward. The Chams knew that Jayavar was vulnerable and two attacked him at once. Rather than flee, he charged them, swinging his axe so hard that it cleaved through a spear shaft, killing one foe. The other notched and aimed an arrow, and Jayavar turned away, shielding the boy with his own body.