The War of the Realms

by C Steven Meldrum

  “I will”, I promised, smiling to myself.

  “Anyway, a narrow path led to the plateau that allowed enough area to accommodate the pilgrim’s encampment and the land climbed steadily to the temple at the summit. We visited the temple and with a stroke of good fortune met an elderly and scarred former black robe called Wangdue, which I was told meant ‘subduer’, who was known to both Abbott Tomas and Master Jai. He and his three temple guardians, who I suppose were like our honour guard, guarded the pathway and the temple entrance night and day. He didn’t know if you had been there but he said Abbott Tomas’s description of a young monk in yellow robes seemed to accord with the ramblings of a holy man who appeared there regularly to spruke his auguries in exchange for food. He apparently raved about dragons and demons but also of his lost master who was a young monk in yellow robes. We suddenly had hope again. Abbott Tomas knows more. Rogel found out from talking to the pilgrims that the yogin lived in a cave not too far from town. Wangdue, who knew the area, showed us the way.”

  I kept my promise to Kāwharu and went to visit his son. He was in another area of the lazaret and I saw that he was surrounded by medics and other staff. A mess of tubes and other apparatus were connected to various machines which beeped and whirred.

  One of the medics approached me.

  “Can I see him?”

  “Yes, but do not trust to hope. It has forsaken him. He wanes.” I stood by the pallet and look down at his face. It was the same face as

  the friend I had only just said goodbye to, only younger. I saw his pallid complexion and heard his laboured breathing. I held his hand which was clammy and cold and saw that his spirit only just clung to his mortal flesh. He looked worse that Dorje had when he had been hit with the energy weapon.

  I knew now what I had to do. I had started to work a plan in my mind that I knew was not going to be popular with the others, especially given Abbott Tomas had just found me. I must speak to Tetsuko, and to Dorje, I thought to myself. They are the real warriors here.

  “This is madness! I will not allow it!’

  “Please, Abbott Tomas. Listen to my reasoning.”

  “No, I will not hear of it! We have not been through darkness and death

  for you to simply hand yourself over to them.” At my urging, we had gathered in a large, well-lit chamber that contained many boxes and bails of supplies and weapons. Stacked shelves followed orderly rows and many flyers and other strange machines where scattered around a mess of canvas-covered pallets.

  Master Panuaru, who was sat in the side-opening of one of the armed flyers stood up, his arms crossed.“Abbott Tomas is right, young Tashigang. We need to get you and the others back home where you are all safe.”

  “Nowhere is ‘safe’,” interrupted Tetsuko, who had been sitting away from everyone. She got up and walked towards us. “War is upon us. It has been upon us for a very long time. I have seen perhaps too much of it. But this battle was different. That victory was too easy.”

  “Easy , you think that was easy?”

  “They want us to think we can match them. It was a test to see what our resolve is to defend this orb. They usually just mine planetary systems with black holes or aim their planet burners at the core and destroy them with very little effort. But why meet us in combat out on the desert floor. Do you know why?”

  I think I had known“why” for some time but in my heart I denied it because the truth was too shocking. It meant that this scorched wasteland was indeed the home of my birth. There was nothing else for it. Look what they had done to it. I had no comprehension of how far into the future we’d been flung when we left the Silver Palace, but obviously in the tens or hundreds of thousands of intervening years Mother Irth had been decimated.

  While the debate going on around me waxed hotter, my sight turned inwards and the rising clamour subsided to a dull drone. I saw through the veil of time and Irth’s history rolled by me as though I watched one of the Master Archivist’s holo-recordings. I saw the horrifying moment when the homeworld of the mechs was destroyed, casually breaking apart in the cold and deathly void, the enemy having detonated their strategically placed miniblack holes that subjected Lüun to tremendous and devastating gravitational forces. I watched with horror as though I floated in the void mere leagues from the surface. The swirling fuliginous detonations, which seemed a darker black than the nothingness they occupied suddenly combined into one powerful gravitational mass that eventually collapsed in on itself and exploded in what seemed a mini-nova. Tens of thousands of years of culture, development, knowledge and dare I say, life, extinguished in a heart-beat.

  The horrifying documentary rolled forward. With no gravitational drag from her satellite, Irth’s rotational speed had increased. I saw in my mind then howthe planet’s axis had shifted, the climate heating to a point that had stripped the water from the planet’s surface while wild coriolis storms had reshaped the landscape and laid bare to all that was once beautiful. In the far distance I saw tremendous, almost planet-sized spherical ships place themselves at different points around the sun and saw them do something that I did not understand, but could see the heat and light being drained from our sun so that long before he was due to expire, mighty Surya, desperate and aging, sank to his knees. The mighty star burned through its last cycle, turning into a red giant which then grew enormously and casually consumed the inner two planets and their satellites. I now understood the constant red glare and why the sun was so large in the sky, and why I had not thought that I stood upon the same world that I was born on. How do we overcome such power? Inwardly I cried. Though I know not how, I must prevent this.

  I suddenly saw the faces around me again, a small group of mostly ordinary people that had somehow found themselves in this position, faced with the end of all things, and somehow unfairly charged with preventing it. It seemed that while I had been immersed in my sorrow, the debate had hit an impasse. Abbott Tomas performed his usual nervous walk, back and forth across the room, with his hands clasped behind his back. Yeshe stared at me, not sure what had happened to me in the past few minutes. I winked at her to say everything was fine and stared back at Abbott Tomas, as did the others. He suddenly stopped and trained his view at Tetsuko.

  “You might think this just a planet like so many others, my Lady. But that is not what we believe. For us, it is the Axis Mundi, the centre of the universe. The Holy Mountain we just came from is the single point in all of Manushyas that connects it to the other realms; that of the Devas, the Asuras, the Tiryakas, the Pretas and the Naraka.

  “But more than that,” and he suddenly trained that steely gaze upon me again, “and this is why I don’t see the wisdom in your plan, Tashi – I believe they want you.” He waved his hand in the general direction of Tetsuko. “If this girl is right, and this was no more than a test, they know your power, they know what you can do. If you are our one hope in the great war of our time, why would you hand yourself to them? What can you possibly hope to gain?”

  “Peace,” was all I could say. “Look what they have done to our home. Look at all the death. So many thousands upon thousands gave their lives out upon that plane and so many more thousands will continue to die. I must try to stop this nonsense. I must at least try.”

  “Then you will simply die too,” he was almost pleading.

  “Then it will be no worse than what these people have endured for their entire existence. With all that I’ve seen and learnt and with the gifts I’ve been granted I believe I can do more. If I fail and you are right, then it is merely one more dead in the millions who have already died. The gods can continue this fight on their own. In fact, it amazes and saddens me that we have to be part of this at all, but I have seen too much to question things any longer. We fight because to do anything else means we die. And with all that are dying around us, I would save them if I can.”

  He looked sternly at me. I looked from him to the others around the room. “Tell me what other plan any of you can concoct whic
h will end this.” I looked at each of them and finally at Tetsuko. “She knows. Tell them of the future that is to come. You have lived it. Tell them why your skin is the shade it is.”

  She shot me a look that could have killed a legion of daemon-kind.

  “Tell them!” I yelled.

  She sighed, and in her thick accent said, “I come from many millions of years into Irth’s future. There it is a cold barren world, with little atmosphere. The sun is old and weak. It is little more than a distant dwarf-star. The days are dim. You have seen what they, by their arts, have done to the sun in this time. The Irth is dying.

  “You might ask why we didn’t flee. Many did. At the time I am talking of mankind is spread throughout the galaxy. As vast as his army is, those who fled hid themselves in every corner of the galaxy.

  “Hear me well when I say that the lord of the black land is successful in marching upon the Gates of Heaven. He is successful in throwing down Lord Indra and taking the Jade Throne for himself. He has enslaved the Devas and reigns over all the multiverse.

  “Abbott Tomas, you say I think this just another orb and that you alone believe this the Axis Mundi. I am the last of theMurāri, the ones who stayed. We have, for thousands of years, defended this world for the exact reason you mention. I have been to all the places you listed. I have sat in Lord Indra’s presence! I am on your side. I believe as you do. But unlike you, my people and I have lived it. Our entire lives have been spent living with the great defeat and the destruction of all things.”

  “Why do you continue to fight then?” he asked, sounding hopeless.

  “Because his victory is not complete. He believes the Great God must pay also. His final humiliation is Jagadamba, when the galaxies collide and the four pillars of the multiverse collapse and all that once was falls into the endless sea.”

  Everyone gasped and Abbot Tomas staggered backward clutching his chest. Master Panuaru and Rogel helped him take a seat. Tetsuko looked at all of them.

  “That is where I come from. At a time when the fragile bodies of your kind would not survive. Our union with the children of men have made us strong and fast and given us many other gifts. The Murāri are the last thing that stand between him and the end of everything.”

  “But what can one do against so much hate?” whispered Abbot Tomas.

  She pointed to me. “His coming was foretold. He is Amitabha-buddha. He who will transcend the realms and restore the balance.”

  She nodded to me and while Abbot Tomas and all my friends looked at her with questioning glances, a pure ring of white light with no source I could see suddenly formed around me which coalesced into three radiant shapes. I, and everyone there fell to our knees and cried with humility. For standing around me were three mighty kings who I recognised as Lord Indra, the Jade Emperor of Heaven; Lord Mithras, the Sky-Lord and king of all eagles; and mighty Vairochana, the ruler of the mountains and the planes and the king of the lions.

  A fourth also appeared. I was prostrate upon the ground with my eyes shut lest I bring dishonour to the mighty kings of the gods who stood about me in glowing white and translucent raiment. While the three remained silent, the fourth knelt and bade me quietly to rise. It was the Queen Mother and Warrior Goddess, Durga.

  I cried; for everyone, for our pain and suffering, for those who had perished and were lost, and for a thousand other things that I could not put into words.

  “You have done well, young godling. The way has been hard and will be harder still.”

  She stood and moved around the room. Her shimmering dress tinkled and chimed as though it was made of the most delicate crystal. The three kings remained silent but watched her as she moved. “The Lord Targo has gifted thee well, and armed you and your friends for the journey you make. I bring thee a gift also. Hand me the spear and your cudgel.”

  I had not realised I was holding them, but I held out to her the cruelly shaped black spear with which the foul demon lord had fought us, the one that had impaled me and the one that had drunk deeply from its own kin as I brandished it in the unrequited fury of battle upon the desert plain. I looked also at the plain wooden cudgel that had accompanied me for so long, the hole in one end testament to the metywolf’s large canine that had once pierced it. I handed this to her as well.

  The three glimmering eidolons encircled her while she held them. I stepped back and shielded my eyes. A dazzling albedo radiance accompanied by an earthquake-like deep rumbling grew in brightness and volume to the point all detail was lost and I felt the ceiling was going to cave in. I felt the immense power emanating from the four gathered there. I had been burned by the darkness and now I was being blinded by the light. And then the amazing but ephemeral display of the power of the gods was over.

  The Queen Mother and the three kings were gone, but hovering a foot above the cavern floor in a glowing light of its own making with its sharpened tip pointing towards the ceiling was a beautifully crafted spear. It seemed to be made of golden light; pellucid and insubstantial, as though it would disappear in shade. In trepidation I reached for it and grasped it from the air. It was solid, although I could not credit how that was so. At one end, what had been the cruel blackened tip of Likmigya’s spear was now shining white and I felt purity emanating from it. At the other end I grinned to still see the hole in the shaft. Fine, flowing, platinum script blended with the holy white brilliance and I could feel the power flowing through it. In a moment the thaumaturgy faded and I held nothing more than my faithful staff of yew. This was now no simple wooden cudgel however. I could feel the preternatural and anagogic power now bound within it.

  I approached Abbot Tomas, who was on his knees, as were all my friends. “Do you agree with me now Abbot Tomas?”

  He, the most doubting man in the world, could only nod.

  The following day, as the last tribes of the surviving warriors left that place to journey back to their own peoples, and as my mission to take this fight to theenemy’s doorstep formulated in my mind, I resolved to do the same for Te Waharoa that I had done for Dorje. These people needed their war leader, and I was not going to be able to stay with them forever.

  I found Tetsuko sat at the mouth of an elevated cave, looking down over the plane where the battle had raged. An acrid smoke still rose from craters where the silver blood of the machines continued to burn. Many different tribes still worked in the failing light to strip the downed fliers and other machines of useable parts and useful tools to take with them on their journeys back. She turned her strange sword over in her hands.

  I emerged from the cave and sat down across from her. We were both bathed in a sulphurous glare as the western horizon slowly consumed the sanguineous giant. She looked rather sibylline as I collected my thoughts and brushed dust off my dirty and torn robes.

  “How well do you know what is to happen?” I asked her. She didn’t answer immediately and instead offered me her sword which I took in both hands and inspected. It was heavier than our broadswords and indeed drank the light of the day. I could not discern a blade, as it were, only a caliginous emptiness in the shape of a blade that protruded from the solid black hilt. While seeming insubstantial, there was weight in the blade and while straight and perfectly proportioned and balanced, it felt as though it hummed with a presence, or a life of its own. Amazingly fine script covered the dark pommel, which housed a shining black gem the size of an eye, and the grip down through the large and beautifully shaped quillons which curved toward the blade as though they, in a fashion, powered it.

  “That sword, by the arts of my people, opens the same doors for me as your amulet does for you. I searched the Halls of Horology for many years before I found you. I don’t know everything but I know some things from before this point on the wheel and some that are yet to come to pass.”

  “Then you know what I plan to do.”

  “Yes.”

  “So that where I go, you will be able to find me.And you’ll come with

  me?”

&
nbsp; “I will.”

  “There is something I need you to do first.” I paused and looked in her

  eyes.“Save my friends. Take them from here. Take them back to our home.” I paused and looked at the ground, not wanting the burden of the next decision on my conscience.

  “But not Dorje,” she finished for me.

  I looked at her. I could not tell if she was finishing my own thought or telling me hers.

  “I know,” she said. “He would have fought to stay at your side anyway, as would the others. But I know who is needed for this.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I will feel better if some of my friends live full lives and remember what it is we tried to do for them.”

  “Oh, he will live,” she exclaimed. “In fact, I am counting on it.”

  I wandered through the lazaret, now intent on my course of action. The small area that my friends had populated for the past few days was now empty and Tetsuko and Dorje were nowhere to be seen. I knew she loved him and had crossed space-time for him. It was why she did so much to save him when he had been injured and I knew she would do everything she could to ensure he lived. It pleased me immensely knowing he would live and while it would only be a small group, with two such incredible warriors at my side, I believed we would achieve the stealth and speed I needed.

  Deep in my thoughts I almost walked straight into Irirangi. I stopped not a hand’s breadth from her.

  “You are leaving, aren’t you?Do not lie to me.”

  “I am,” I could not be untruthful with her.

  “Then take me with you!” she almost pleaded. I sighed and looked to rough-hewn ceiling of the cavern to avoid those pleading eyes.