KactusPunch
Crown Sage
MarshalSolgriev
SkyeOfStars
princess
ZerothThe Fourth Labour
By @WiseDragonGirl.
The treasure hunt
A young man dressed in the fine clothes generally worn by the noble class was walking through the busy streets of the city Arnheim. His dark brown eyes looked at the people with little interest. These people were all going on with their normal lived and it was boring. He noticed a creature who seemed to resemble a bear more than a human. The two-legged creature with chestnut fur covering it’s body and dressed in nothing more but a blue loincloth was carrying a leather bag. Obviously a messenger of some sorts.
“Looking at the Bardug, Lemitsa?”
The black-haired noble turned around to look at the owner of the voice, his dark-brown eyes met another set of brown eyes, but with a hint of green in them. “Mikhal,” Lemitsa greeted the other young man. “I see you are back in town.” His eyes moved to the lute on Mikhal’s back. “Are you still living off your music?”
“Not only that,” Mikhal said with a cheerful sound in his voice. “I am collecting a bag full of coins so I can ask for the hand of the fair lady Catheryn in marriage.”
Lemitsa nodded and lay a hand on Mikhal’s shoulder. “I will treat you to a drink, my friend. It is good to see you again.”
With a nod of his head Mikhal agreed to that and together they walked to one of the better taverns in the city. It was a tavern Mikhal didn’t visit frequently. While the quality of the drinks was good, they came at a price Mikhal was unwilling to pay, as he had a better purpose for his hard earned coins. And the owner didn’t want simple minstrels playing at his establishment to earn a coin or in exchange for a meal. Only those with name could play there and Mikhal knew he wasn’t among those yet.
As they were sitting at a table, waiting for the waitress to bring them the cider Lemitsa had ordered, they talked. Mikhal told Lemitsa what he had done since they had part ways and Lemitsa filled Mikhal in about his life too. Unlike Mikhal, who told passionately about his endeavours, Lemitsa stated in an almost businesslike way the most notable of events and kept everything that seemed trivial to himself.
It was after each had a glass of cider in front of them when Lemitsa looked at Mikhal’s lute with a thoughtful expression.
“I would say I will give a penny for your thoughts,” Mikhal said with a smile, “but I would rather hold on to it.”
“Would you be interested in a treasure hunt?” Lemitsa asked
“A treasure hunt?”
Lemitsa leaned back in his chair to look at his friend. “Indeed, a treasure hunt. Lady Trialca was bored, so she placed a treasure in a safe hiding place, probably a trinket of some sorts.” He waved the words away, what the actual treasure was didn’t matter. It was the hunt that interested him. “She gave out two clues of the whereabouts,” he continued, “and her servant gives the key to anyone who can solve his riddle. And there is a reward of course, the man who can find her treasure will be paid twelve silver coins.” He smirked when he saw the look in the eyes of his friends. “I thought you would like that. We will share the prize, six coins for you and six for me.”
“Why would you join in this hunt?” Mikhal asked as he reached for his glass. “You are not in need of those silver coins, nor does lady Trialca spark your interest.”
“Boredom,” Lemitsa said with a shrug of his shoulders. “I have nothing better to do and to find a way in is a puzzle that kept me occupied. I do not care for the reward, but it is a challenge and I want to be the one to win in. I have the key and I know where to look, but the final challenge is one I am unable to clear by myself.”
Mikhal drank from his cider and nodded. “I will join you,” he told his friend after swallowing the liquid. “What is the challenge?” After asking the question he lifted the glass to his lips once more.
“Liador guard the entrance.” Lemitsa made an amused sound when he noticed how Mikhal almost choked in his cider and put the glass back on the table while coughing. “I take it you have heard about them?” he inquired with a calm voice as he took his own glass and drank from it.
Mikhal coughed again and nodded to show he knew about them. He knew those monkey-like creatures were deadly, many warriors had been torn to shreds by them. For that reason he wanted to stay away from them as far as he could. If warriors died at their claws, why would a simple minstrel like him go anywhere near them?
“I found a way to get past them,” Lemitsa continued after drinking, “but I need your help to do so. There is a lullaby that should make them fall asleep.”
A sceptical look came in the eyes of Mikhal when he heard that. Making them fall asleep with a song seemed too easy. These were deadly creatures, surely their weakness would not be something trivial like that, right?
“There is no need to look at me like that,” Lemitsa sighed. “I did not come up with this.”
“Are you sure it will work?”
“I am,” Lemitsa said with a confident sound in his voice.
Mikhal drank from his glass as he thought about it and nodded. “Then we will go look for the treasure,” he agreed. “Give me the song and I will learn it. Are the lyrics in our language?”
“There are no lyrics, only a melody,” Lemitsa explained. “I will fend off the Liador until they fall asleep. It should work, but I have not witnessed it myself.”
With a nod of his head Mikhal showed he understood and was willing to go along. Lemitsa slid a piece of paper towards Mikhal, who pulled it further towards him to look at the melody drawn on it. It wasn’t a difficult one, Mikhal thought he should be able to memorize it rather quickly.
***
The next day Mikhal and Lemitsa stood in front of a white marble building, the walls were adorned with carvings of mermaids. This was the entrance to the crypt. Lemitsa held the key in his hand, but he examined the carvings with a frown. Mikhal stroke the wood of his lute nervously, but he stopped when he seemed to recall something.
“This is the place where she hid something?” Mikhal asked.
Lemitsa turned his attention to his friend, his frown even more obvious now. “It is. Why do you sound so surprised?”
“It surprises me she managed to hide her trinket in there.” Mikhal muttered as he looked at the door. “Maybe she had a Bardug with her...”
“A Bardug?” Lemitsa asked as he turned to face Mikhal directly. “For what reason?”
“Liador fear Bardug,” Mikhal said, he seemed genuinely surprised he had to explain that, if Lemitsa had found this song that would put them asleep, the link with the Bardug should have been there to find too.
“That is new to me,” Lemitsa muttered. “How do you know that?”
Mikhal shrugged. “I talk with people, I met a man who went down here a quarter moon ago. He told me he was here a moon ago to retrieve the dagger of G’narv and how the Liador reacted to the Bardug with him. Since the Liador were already there when he entered this crypt, I assume they were placed here to guard the dagger.”
“Was the lost dagger of the old Dwarven king here?” Lemitsa asked and he saw how Mikhal nodded to confirm that. “I wish I would have known that...” He shook his head as if he wanted to clear it from that thought, it was irrelevant to the situation at hand. The dagger had been here, but was gone now. There was no reason to dwell on that. One thought did linger in his mind, if the Liador were already in the crypt before lady Trialca hid her treasure, whatever it was, she must have known a way to get around them too. She must have read the same book as he had and use the song to get through, or there was a Bardug companion. The strength and ferocity of Liador was well known and trying to fight through a hoard of them would end up in death most of the times, unless the warrior was truly great. He knew for sure the lady would have chosen a non-violent way, the two he knew of were almost laughable simplistic. Perhaps this was a test of knowledge rather than muscle, even if most seemed to assume otherwise and saw it as a test of strength. It would explain why almost none of the other treasure hunters had returned and those that did had been badly injured. Unlike others he had taken the time to read up on Liador. As he thought about it Lemitsa looked at the carvings once more. Those carvings were interesting and since his friend seemed to know more about this crypt than he himself, he decided to inquire about that as well. “I was under the assumption lady Trialca “Tell me, Mikhal,” he said as he gestured to the marble walls. “Do you know what the importance of mermaids is? Are these carvings here as a clue?”
Mikhal looked at the carvings and shrugged once more. “All I know is that the crypt was build one decade ago,” he began explaining. “The noble who build it was supposedly remarried to a mermaid after his first wife died and this is her tomb.” Mikhal turned to look at Lemitsa as he continued his story. “When she got ill she asked to be laid to rest here instead of being returned to the sea, as she chose to be close to her love. There should be a statue of a mermaid under which her remains are buried. The man himself was supposed to be laid to rest in this crypt as well, but he was placed in the family crypt in Arnheim instead. It is said that in the night of the blue moon we can hear her sing to her love.”
Lemitsa nodded and opened the door with the key. While it was a nice little legend, it was irrelevant to what they were going to do. He lit a torch and drew his sword. While he did carry one and practice with it, he rarely used it. That was one of the perks of being noble, weaponry was more for show than anything else, but at the same time he was confident in his skills with it.
With the torch in one hand and a sword in the other, Lemitsa carefully went down the stairs, closely followed by Mikhal. A horrible stench came up from below and Lemitsa’s face contorted with digust.
“Should I start playing?” Mikhal whispered.
“Focus on descending these steps first,” Lemitsa answered. “Start playing when we reach the end.”
It only took a few steps more before they reached the end of the stairs and the beginning of the corridor. In the corner were the remains of a man, almost unrecognizable. Most likely one of the previous fools who thought they could take on the Liador. A hissing sound came from the darkness and the sound of claws scraping stone came closer quickly. Lemitsa held his sword ready and he was about to say something to Mikhal, but he heard the first gentle tones coming from his lute.
The first of the Liador jumped up, but Lemitsa hit it with his torch and it yelped in pain as the flame scorched the fur and skin below it. The scent of burnt fur was an almost pleasant change from the stench. Lemitsa looked at the hissing Liador as the melody filled the corridor. He noticed how the creature sat down and swayed gently from one side to the other on the rhythm of the song. “Unbelievable,” he whispered. While he trusted the book he had gotten the information from, a part of him had doubted it would really work. But it did.
Together the two friends walked through the corridor, Lemitsa up front with the torch and Mikhal followed while playing the lute. Every time he reached the end of the melody he just started from the beginning. As the passed the Liador they noticed most had fallen asleep, but some were still awake and swayed to the music. Mikhal felt uneasy about walking here, but so far it seemed it worked. He prayed to the Goddess of music it would remain that way. He tried to be as silent as he could so nothing would disrupt the melody. The last thing he wanted was to wake the creatures while they were surrounded by them and nowhere near close to the exit. He tried to ignore the stench as much as he could, but the penetrating smell was impossible to ignore.
When the end of the corridor came in sight, they stopped and for a moment Mikhal forgot to play, but a poke from Lemitsa quickly reminded him to continue the melody. A Bardug was standing next to a wooden door and he looked at them.
“Only one can enter and claim the treasure,” the Bardug grumbled. “There is no sharing.”
“But...” Mikhal began.
“That will be me,” Lemitsa interrupted him and he stepped forward.
“What?” Mikhal whispered to Lemitsa and once again he stopped playing. One of the Liador close to him opened an eye as the music stopped, but when it noticed the Bardug come closer, it walked back until it disappeared in the darkness of the corridor.
“Surely you agree I deserve it more than you,” Lemitsa said as he frowned at Mikhal.
“I risked as much as you did!”
“There was no risk, the song worked,” Lemitsa retorted. “And be honest, I discovered where the treasure is, I managed to get the key to the crypt, I found the melody that would grant us safe access. I kept us safe from the first Liador before they started dozing off. You did not contribute much, Mikhal. I could have taken any musician with me, or a Bardug if would have known about how Liador fear them. If anyone deserves to claim the treasure it is me. I did most of the work and I will not walk away without anything to show for it.”
There was a moment of silence in which the two friends looked at each other. “If you want the honour of claiming the treasure, fine,” Mikhal grumbled finally. “Just remember we are sharing the reward.”
Without answering to that, Lemitsa entered the room, leaving Mikhal with the Bardug in the corridor filled with Liador.
The Bardug beckoned Mikhal. “Come closer, human,” it grumbled to him. “It’s safer close to me.” As if Mikhal needed more reason to do as he was told, a screech sounded behind him and he quickly went to the Bardug. It seemed the Liador were waking up now he stopped playing. He glanced towards the closed door, he would have liked to enter the room as well instead of staying behind here. Even with the Bardug next to him and the lute in his hand he felt like a prey being surrounded by predators.
Lemitsa looked around in the room, he noticed the statue of the mermaid Mikhal had mentioned, but he also noticed a statue of a warrior with the sword held up. Then there was something that didn’t belong there, a young woman was sitting in a chair. She was dressed in a bright red dress with a wide skirt and black, curled hair reached just over her shoulders. He recognized her as lady Trialca herself and she leaned on one elbow as she looked at him.
“Where is the treasure?” Lemitsa asked, placing one hand in his side as he frowned at her.
Trialca smiled at him. “In the chair,” she said with a sweet voice. “For finding a way in here you will get the privilege of courting me.” She giggled softly. “I can appreciate a clever man.” She moved to lean on her other elbow and looked at Lemitsa curiously. “Now, do you want to claim the treasure, or accept the reward of silver for finding it?”
The eyebrows of Lemitsa rose, but soon a smile appeared. It seemed they would not be able to share the reward after all. While Mikhal was correct with his assumption he had little interest in the lady, that was before he discovered what elaborate scheme she had put up to find a man to her liking. He knew for sure people had died in the attempt to find the treasure, but lady Trialca seemed unbothered by it. This made him appreciate the lady more than he did before. Not that he agreed with leading decent men to their death, but courting this lady could prove to be an interesting experience and he was easily bored nowadays. With a confident smile on his face Lemitsa walked up to the chair and gently took the hand of lady Trialca. This was a treasure he was willing to claim and he would claim it alone. Lemitsa gave a kiss on her hand and looked at her pleased smile. As far as he was concerned, it was bad luck for Mikhal it turned out this way. The Bardug was there, Mikhal would be safe from the Liador. And since he had done everything but play the song to get them here, he deserved this and Mikhal should be grateful to him for being allowed to join in on an adventure like this.
The treasure hunt
A young man dressed in the fine clothes generally worn by the noble class was walking through the busy streets of the city Arnheim. His dark brown eyes looked at the people with little interest. These people were all going on with their normal lived and it was boring. He noticed a creature who seemed to resemble a bear more than a human. The two-legged creature with chestnut fur covering it’s body and dressed in nothing more but a blue loincloth was carrying a leather bag. Obviously a messenger of some sorts.
“Looking at the Bardug, Lemitsa?”
The black-haired noble turned around to look at the owner of the voice, his dark-brown eyes met another set of brown eyes, but with a hint of green in them. “Mikhal,” Lemitsa greeted the other young man. “I see you are back in town.” His eyes moved to the lute on Mikhal’s back. “Are you still living off your music?”
“Not only that,” Mikhal said with a cheerful sound in his voice. “I am collecting a bag full of coins so I can ask for the hand of the fair lady Catheryn in marriage.”
Lemitsa nodded and lay a hand on Mikhal’s shoulder. “I will treat you to a drink, my friend. It is good to see you again.”
With a nod of his head Mikhal agreed to that and together they walked to one of the better taverns in the city. It was a tavern Mikhal didn’t visit frequently. While the quality of the drinks was good, they came at a price Mikhal was unwilling to pay, as he had a better purpose for his hard earned coins. And the owner didn’t want simple minstrels playing at his establishment to earn a coin or in exchange for a meal. Only those with name could play there and Mikhal knew he wasn’t among those yet.
As they were sitting at a table, waiting for the waitress to bring them the cider Lemitsa had ordered, they talked. Mikhal told Lemitsa what he had done since they had part ways and Lemitsa filled Mikhal in about his life too. Unlike Mikhal, who told passionately about his endeavours, Lemitsa stated in an almost businesslike way the most notable of events and kept everything that seemed trivial to himself.
It was after each had a glass of cider in front of them when Lemitsa looked at Mikhal’s lute with a thoughtful expression.
“I would say I will give a penny for your thoughts,” Mikhal said with a smile, “but I would rather hold on to it.”
“Would you be interested in a treasure hunt?” Lemitsa asked
“A treasure hunt?”
Lemitsa leaned back in his chair to look at his friend. “Indeed, a treasure hunt. Lady Trialca was bored, so she placed a treasure in a safe hiding place, probably a trinket of some sorts.” He waved the words away, what the actual treasure was didn’t matter. It was the hunt that interested him. “She gave out two clues of the whereabouts,” he continued, “and her servant gives the key to anyone who can solve his riddle. And there is a reward of course, the man who can find her treasure will be paid twelve silver coins.” He smirked when he saw the look in the eyes of his friends. “I thought you would like that. We will share the prize, six coins for you and six for me.”
“Why would you join in this hunt?” Mikhal asked as he reached for his glass. “You are not in need of those silver coins, nor does lady Trialca spark your interest.”
“Boredom,” Lemitsa said with a shrug of his shoulders. “I have nothing better to do and to find a way in is a puzzle that kept me occupied. I do not care for the reward, but it is a challenge and I want to be the one to win in. I have the key and I know where to look, but the final challenge is one I am unable to clear by myself.”
Mikhal drank from his cider and nodded. “I will join you,” he told his friend after swallowing the liquid. “What is the challenge?” After asking the question he lifted the glass to his lips once more.
“Liador guard the entrance.” Lemitsa made an amused sound when he noticed how Mikhal almost choked in his cider and put the glass back on the table while coughing. “I take it you have heard about them?” he inquired with a calm voice as he took his own glass and drank from it.
Mikhal coughed again and nodded to show he knew about them. He knew those monkey-like creatures were deadly, many warriors had been torn to shreds by them. For that reason he wanted to stay away from them as far as he could. If warriors died at their claws, why would a simple minstrel like him go anywhere near them?
“I found a way to get past them,” Lemitsa continued after drinking, “but I need your help to do so. There is a lullaby that should make them fall asleep.”
A sceptical look came in the eyes of Mikhal when he heard that. Making them fall asleep with a song seemed too easy. These were deadly creatures, surely their weakness would not be something trivial like that, right?
“There is no need to look at me like that,” Lemitsa sighed. “I did not come up with this.”
“Are you sure it will work?”
“I am,” Lemitsa said with a confident sound in his voice.
Mikhal drank from his glass as he thought about it and nodded. “Then we will go look for the treasure,” he agreed. “Give me the song and I will learn it. Are the lyrics in our language?”
“There are no lyrics, only a melody,” Lemitsa explained. “I will fend off the Liador until they fall asleep. It should work, but I have not witnessed it myself.”
With a nod of his head Mikhal showed he understood and was willing to go along. Lemitsa slid a piece of paper towards Mikhal, who pulled it further towards him to look at the melody drawn on it. It wasn’t a difficult one, Mikhal thought he should be able to memorize it rather quickly.
***
The next day Mikhal and Lemitsa stood in front of a white marble building, the walls were adorned with carvings of mermaids. This was the entrance to the crypt. Lemitsa held the key in his hand, but he examined the carvings with a frown. Mikhal stroke the wood of his lute nervously, but he stopped when he seemed to recall something.
“This is the place where she hid something?” Mikhal asked.
Lemitsa turned his attention to his friend, his frown even more obvious now. “It is. Why do you sound so surprised?”
“It surprises me she managed to hide her trinket in there.” Mikhal muttered as he looked at the door. “Maybe she had a Bardug with her...”
“A Bardug?” Lemitsa asked as he turned to face Mikhal directly. “For what reason?”
“Liador fear Bardug,” Mikhal said, he seemed genuinely surprised he had to explain that, if Lemitsa had found this song that would put them asleep, the link with the Bardug should have been there to find too.
“That is new to me,” Lemitsa muttered. “How do you know that?”
Mikhal shrugged. “I talk with people, I met a man who went down here a quarter moon ago. He told me he was here a moon ago to retrieve the dagger of G’narv and how the Liador reacted to the Bardug with him. Since the Liador were already there when he entered this crypt, I assume they were placed here to guard the dagger.”
“Was the lost dagger of the old Dwarven king here?” Lemitsa asked and he saw how Mikhal nodded to confirm that. “I wish I would have known that...” He shook his head as if he wanted to clear it from that thought, it was irrelevant to the situation at hand. The dagger had been here, but was gone now. There was no reason to dwell on that. One thought did linger in his mind, if the Liador were already in the crypt before lady Trialca hid her treasure, whatever it was, she must have known a way to get around them too. She must have read the same book as he had and use the song to get through, or there was a Bardug companion. The strength and ferocity of Liador was well known and trying to fight through a hoard of them would end up in death most of the times, unless the warrior was truly great. He knew for sure the lady would have chosen a non-violent way, the two he knew of were almost laughable simplistic. Perhaps this was a test of knowledge rather than muscle, even if most seemed to assume otherwise and saw it as a test of strength. It would explain why almost none of the other treasure hunters had returned and those that did had been badly injured. Unlike others he had taken the time to read up on Liador. As he thought about it Lemitsa looked at the carvings once more. Those carvings were interesting and since his friend seemed to know more about this crypt than he himself, he decided to inquire about that as well. “I was under the assumption lady Trialca “Tell me, Mikhal,” he said as he gestured to the marble walls. “Do you know what the importance of mermaids is? Are these carvings here as a clue?”
Mikhal looked at the carvings and shrugged once more. “All I know is that the crypt was build one decade ago,” he began explaining. “The noble who build it was supposedly remarried to a mermaid after his first wife died and this is her tomb.” Mikhal turned to look at Lemitsa as he continued his story. “When she got ill she asked to be laid to rest here instead of being returned to the sea, as she chose to be close to her love. There should be a statue of a mermaid under which her remains are buried. The man himself was supposed to be laid to rest in this crypt as well, but he was placed in the family crypt in Arnheim instead. It is said that in the night of the blue moon we can hear her sing to her love.”
Lemitsa nodded and opened the door with the key. While it was a nice little legend, it was irrelevant to what they were going to do. He lit a torch and drew his sword. While he did carry one and practice with it, he rarely used it. That was one of the perks of being noble, weaponry was more for show than anything else, but at the same time he was confident in his skills with it.
With the torch in one hand and a sword in the other, Lemitsa carefully went down the stairs, closely followed by Mikhal. A horrible stench came up from below and Lemitsa’s face contorted with digust.
“Should I start playing?” Mikhal whispered.
“Focus on descending these steps first,” Lemitsa answered. “Start playing when we reach the end.”
It only took a few steps more before they reached the end of the stairs and the beginning of the corridor. In the corner were the remains of a man, almost unrecognizable. Most likely one of the previous fools who thought they could take on the Liador. A hissing sound came from the darkness and the sound of claws scraping stone came closer quickly. Lemitsa held his sword ready and he was about to say something to Mikhal, but he heard the first gentle tones coming from his lute.
The first of the Liador jumped up, but Lemitsa hit it with his torch and it yelped in pain as the flame scorched the fur and skin below it. The scent of burnt fur was an almost pleasant change from the stench. Lemitsa looked at the hissing Liador as the melody filled the corridor. He noticed how the creature sat down and swayed gently from one side to the other on the rhythm of the song. “Unbelievable,” he whispered. While he trusted the book he had gotten the information from, a part of him had doubted it would really work. But it did.
Together the two friends walked through the corridor, Lemitsa up front with the torch and Mikhal followed while playing the lute. Every time he reached the end of the melody he just started from the beginning. As the passed the Liador they noticed most had fallen asleep, but some were still awake and swayed to the music. Mikhal felt uneasy about walking here, but so far it seemed it worked. He prayed to the Goddess of music it would remain that way. He tried to be as silent as he could so nothing would disrupt the melody. The last thing he wanted was to wake the creatures while they were surrounded by them and nowhere near close to the exit. He tried to ignore the stench as much as he could, but the penetrating smell was impossible to ignore.
When the end of the corridor came in sight, they stopped and for a moment Mikhal forgot to play, but a poke from Lemitsa quickly reminded him to continue the melody. A Bardug was standing next to a wooden door and he looked at them.
“Only one can enter and claim the treasure,” the Bardug grumbled. “There is no sharing.”
“But...” Mikhal began.
“That will be me,” Lemitsa interrupted him and he stepped forward.
“What?” Mikhal whispered to Lemitsa and once again he stopped playing. One of the Liador close to him opened an eye as the music stopped, but when it noticed the Bardug come closer, it walked back until it disappeared in the darkness of the corridor.
“Surely you agree I deserve it more than you,” Lemitsa said as he frowned at Mikhal.
“I risked as much as you did!”
“There was no risk, the song worked,” Lemitsa retorted. “And be honest, I discovered where the treasure is, I managed to get the key to the crypt, I found the melody that would grant us safe access. I kept us safe from the first Liador before they started dozing off. You did not contribute much, Mikhal. I could have taken any musician with me, or a Bardug if would have known about how Liador fear them. If anyone deserves to claim the treasure it is me. I did most of the work and I will not walk away without anything to show for it.”
There was a moment of silence in which the two friends looked at each other. “If you want the honour of claiming the treasure, fine,” Mikhal grumbled finally. “Just remember we are sharing the reward.”
Without answering to that, Lemitsa entered the room, leaving Mikhal with the Bardug in the corridor filled with Liador.
The Bardug beckoned Mikhal. “Come closer, human,” it grumbled to him. “It’s safer close to me.” As if Mikhal needed more reason to do as he was told, a screech sounded behind him and he quickly went to the Bardug. It seemed the Liador were waking up now he stopped playing. He glanced towards the closed door, he would have liked to enter the room as well instead of staying behind here. Even with the Bardug next to him and the lute in his hand he felt like a prey being surrounded by predators.
Lemitsa looked around in the room, he noticed the statue of the mermaid Mikhal had mentioned, but he also noticed a statue of a warrior with the sword held up. Then there was something that didn’t belong there, a young woman was sitting in a chair. She was dressed in a bright red dress with a wide skirt and black, curled hair reached just over her shoulders. He recognized her as lady Trialca herself and she leaned on one elbow as she looked at him.
“Where is the treasure?” Lemitsa asked, placing one hand in his side as he frowned at her.
Trialca smiled at him. “In the chair,” she said with a sweet voice. “For finding a way in here you will get the privilege of courting me.” She giggled softly. “I can appreciate a clever man.” She moved to lean on her other elbow and looked at Lemitsa curiously. “Now, do you want to claim the treasure, or accept the reward of silver for finding it?”
The eyebrows of Lemitsa rose, but soon a smile appeared. It seemed they would not be able to share the reward after all. While Mikhal was correct with his assumption he had little interest in the lady, that was before he discovered what elaborate scheme she had put up to find a man to her liking. He knew for sure people had died in the attempt to find the treasure, but lady Trialca seemed unbothered by it. This made him appreciate the lady more than he did before. Not that he agreed with leading decent men to their death, but courting this lady could prove to be an interesting experience and he was easily bored nowadays. With a confident smile on his face Lemitsa walked up to the chair and gently took the hand of lady Trialca. This was a treasure he was willing to claim and he would claim it alone. Lemitsa gave a kiss on her hand and looked at her pleased smile. As far as he was concerned, it was bad luck for Mikhal it turned out this way. The Bardug was there, Mikhal would be safe from the Liador. And since he had done everything but play the song to get them here, he deserved this and Mikhal should be grateful to him for being allowed to join in on an adventure like this.
By @Holmishire.
The dead body of a teenage boy lay before him, unmoving on the dusty stone.
He was thick and a little overweight, but with some muscle beneath the extra fat and a powerful build. Sweaty black hair was plastered at odd angles, sent into disarray during the scuffle. Not a single bruise, cut, or scratch adorned his body. Joshua would have described the scene as serene, had he not just killed the guy himself.
On the boy's wrist was a single, loosely-attached silver band—and upon that band was etched a single word: Invulnerability. Joshua glanced at the band on his own wrist, upon which was written the word Anchoring. Unlike the other boy's band, his was iron.
It was generally accepted that silver-banded contestants had more powerful gifts. Joshua could pull things towards them, attract other objects. The kid he had just killed was unbreakable. Other silvers had immense strength, or could fly, or move at extreme speeds. Ultimately, an iron's only hope was to band together with other irons, and fight as a team.
Somewhere behind him, four other boys were attempting to recover from the battle, each with their own iron band.
Sitting on a large rock was Jackson, a surprisingly tall redhead, whose band had been etched with Reflexes. He was supposed to be their best fighter, able to dodge any attack thrown at him and with the skills to send any enemy tumbling over themselves. Unfortunately, he had been seriously injured in a skirmish with a dangerous silver named Max. He had attempted to help, but only ended up straining his leg injuries further.
His long arm was draped over the shoulders of a much smaller boy, Jeremy, who was desperately trying to calm his frantic breathing. With his Precision, he had thrown countless pebbles with deadly accuracy, but none had done a bit of damage.
Further off, sitting alone, was Henry, a much younger boy with Navigation etched on his iron band. With neither any natural talent for fighting nor a useful ability to make up for it, he had simply opted to cower away during the attack.
Finally, standing still in the centre of the clearing was Marcus. The first contestant Joshua had encountered since awakening in this goddamned tournament, they had quickly become friends—and an effective team. With his Fluid Manipulation, Marcus could redirect air currents and create tiny vacuums. A seemingly useless power, but he had perfected the art of unbalancing his targets at key moments, and was no wimp at hand-to-hand combat either.
None of these boys could remember a thing from before they awoke in the tournament. They had their names, and they had their bands, and they knew of the tournament.
Very little was known of the tournament, but two rules were certain.
Contestants with iron bands were to kill fight until all silver-banded contestants were dead.
Contestants with silver bands were to fight until all other contestants were dead, taking the bands of their foes as they went.
Killing this silver had been difficult. Very difficult. Against an unbeatable foe, it was only a matter of time before a misstep was made, an error taken advantage of, and an ally dead. Only after a long and gruelling fight did Joshua manage to grapple they boy to the ground, and suffering repeated blows all the while, anchor his hand across the boy's nose and mouth long enough for him to asphyxiate.
He reached for the dead boy's band.
"Don't you fucking dare," challenged Marcus, watching him from behind.
"Max has five bracelets, three of them silver. We don't stand a chance."
"He's fought all four of us off before. You can't take him alone."
Joshua's grip tightened on the band. "No, I can't. But he could have."
Tears were now streaming down Marcus's face, and he was having trouble keeping himself from sobbing as he spoke. "We'll kill you. You know we'll have to."
A twisted smile crept onto Joshua's face, and his own eyes started to tear up. "I won't go down that easy."
"Please."
"Your way, we all die. At least now, it'll either be you, or me." He slid the band off the boy's limp wrist, and attached it to his own, feeling a brief surge of power. "Run. Train. Find the others." He turned to face his friend, stumbling towards him. "When—" he mumbled. "When I come back, I promise I won't go easy on you."
Marcus embraced him, attempting—and failing—to laugh. "Truth be told, you've always been an inconsiderate ass."
Joshua grinned, disentangled himself from the embrace, and with a pat on his friend's shoulder, turned to leave. As he passed through the stone entryway, he couldn't help but dwell on that last promise he'd made. When I come back... Truth be told, I lied.
UPGRADE
The dead body of a teenage boy lay before him, unmoving on the dusty stone.
He was thick and a little overweight, but with some muscle beneath the extra fat and a powerful build. Sweaty black hair was plastered at odd angles, sent into disarray during the scuffle. Not a single bruise, cut, or scratch adorned his body. Joshua would have described the scene as serene, had he not just killed the guy himself.
On the boy's wrist was a single, loosely-attached silver band—and upon that band was etched a single word: Invulnerability. Joshua glanced at the band on his own wrist, upon which was written the word Anchoring. Unlike the other boy's band, his was iron.
It was generally accepted that silver-banded contestants had more powerful gifts. Joshua could pull things towards them, attract other objects. The kid he had just killed was unbreakable. Other silvers had immense strength, or could fly, or move at extreme speeds. Ultimately, an iron's only hope was to band together with other irons, and fight as a team.
Somewhere behind him, four other boys were attempting to recover from the battle, each with their own iron band.
Sitting on a large rock was Jackson, a surprisingly tall redhead, whose band had been etched with Reflexes. He was supposed to be their best fighter, able to dodge any attack thrown at him and with the skills to send any enemy tumbling over themselves. Unfortunately, he had been seriously injured in a skirmish with a dangerous silver named Max. He had attempted to help, but only ended up straining his leg injuries further.
His long arm was draped over the shoulders of a much smaller boy, Jeremy, who was desperately trying to calm his frantic breathing. With his Precision, he had thrown countless pebbles with deadly accuracy, but none had done a bit of damage.
Further off, sitting alone, was Henry, a much younger boy with Navigation etched on his iron band. With neither any natural talent for fighting nor a useful ability to make up for it, he had simply opted to cower away during the attack.
Finally, standing still in the centre of the clearing was Marcus. The first contestant Joshua had encountered since awakening in this goddamned tournament, they had quickly become friends—and an effective team. With his Fluid Manipulation, Marcus could redirect air currents and create tiny vacuums. A seemingly useless power, but he had perfected the art of unbalancing his targets at key moments, and was no wimp at hand-to-hand combat either.
None of these boys could remember a thing from before they awoke in the tournament. They had their names, and they had their bands, and they knew of the tournament.
Very little was known of the tournament, but two rules were certain.
Contestants with iron bands were to kill fight until all silver-banded contestants were dead.
Contestants with silver bands were to fight until all other contestants were dead, taking the bands of their foes as they went.
Killing this silver had been difficult. Very difficult. Against an unbeatable foe, it was only a matter of time before a misstep was made, an error taken advantage of, and an ally dead. Only after a long and gruelling fight did Joshua manage to grapple they boy to the ground, and suffering repeated blows all the while, anchor his hand across the boy's nose and mouth long enough for him to asphyxiate.
He reached for the dead boy's band.
"Don't you fucking dare," challenged Marcus, watching him from behind.
"Max has five bracelets, three of them silver. We don't stand a chance."
"He's fought all four of us off before. You can't take him alone."
Joshua's grip tightened on the band. "No, I can't. But he could have."
Tears were now streaming down Marcus's face, and he was having trouble keeping himself from sobbing as he spoke. "We'll kill you. You know we'll have to."
A twisted smile crept onto Joshua's face, and his own eyes started to tear up. "I won't go down that easy."
"Please."
"Your way, we all die. At least now, it'll either be you, or me." He slid the band off the boy's limp wrist, and attached it to his own, feeling a brief surge of power. "Run. Train. Find the others." He turned to face his friend, stumbling towards him. "When—" he mumbled. "When I come back, I promise I won't go easy on you."
Marcus embraced him, attempting—and failing—to laugh. "Truth be told, you've always been an inconsiderate ass."
Joshua grinned, disentangled himself from the embrace, and with a pat on his friend's shoulder, turned to leave. As he passed through the stone entryway, he couldn't help but dwell on that last promise he'd made. When I come back... Truth be told, I lied.
Cintamani stone
Terminal's Note: This entry won the Amaranthine Poise Challenge Accolade for being a winning entry of exceptional quality.UNITED STATES
My name is Thomas Cole. At the beginning of the 20th century, when my story takes place, I was a tenured professor of history at Princeton. This was that golden age of the great American university, during which the young nation’s schools cemented themselves and greatly expanded their philanthropic influence, and in which effort my colleagues of the time considered themselves pioneers of academia. By chance, my professional career aligned itself such that I gained an advantageous position in this movement, being neither too young to shape the future of higher learning in the United States, nor too old to long practice my trade in the new world we sought to create. Thus, it was to the greatest surprise of my compatriots that, in the summer of 1927, I took an indefinite leave of absence in order to pursue a personal interest.
I could tell no one then the story I now relate. Such were the terms of my arrangement with Mr. Paul Mackenny, who solicited my aid in a most ambitious quest. Mr. Mackenny was himself a practical student of history, and an archaeologist with benefactors among the world’s leading museums. He recruited me over the correspondence of several letters, in which he candidly praised my own literature and various cultural aptitudes. Though at first I resisted, by strenuous flattery, Mr. Mackenny at last won me into his excursion. He insisted upon two things – my utmost secrecy, and my haste. “The doors of opportunity,” he wrote, “are closing.” What opportunity lay behind them, he promised only to say in person, though I understood that my knowledge would be essential to the mission’s success.
It was thus that I made my journey to San Diego by train in June, having in my mind the intent to enter into conspiracy with a strange man, whose only identities to me at the time were by reputation and handwriting (each of which were superb). During my trip I guessed in vain to what purpose Mr. Mackenny had called me. I tried also to will myself back to Princeton, but perhaps because I failed in the former task, I was unable to convince myself in the latter. I felt again in myself the spark of youth, and the inexorable lures of mystery and adventure grasping firmly about my heart.
I first met Paul Mackenny in the library of the state university at San Diego. Our first impressions of the other were mutually suspicious. He, of my age and constitution, which suspicions I was at length able to alleviate. I was wary of his furtive manner of dress and communication. The letters, he said, were necessarily vague in light of a competing party, which sought advantage from the federal government. He wore a weathered sailor’s disguise because he presumed this party monitored his activities. He told me he had given them the slip in Portland by sea, and had now to maintain the subterfuge throughout the first leg of our journey.
Here at last he explained his objective. Later, Mr. Mackenny encouraged me to journal the adventure and all its major points, so that we could compare our notes later. What follows is my own recollection of that first conversation, supplemented with Mr. Mackenny’s own notes:
“Doctor,” he said when our introductions at last left us feeling familiar, “You are familiar with the Portuguese missionary, Estêvão Cacella. He appears in your history of Catholicism in Asia.”
I took a moment to recall what I could, and nodded. “He was no Cortez, though he is remembered more fondly.”
“More fondly, but perhaps less often,” Mr. Mackenny agreed. “I believe Cacella was mistaken – but not entirely wrong. There is an ancient kingdom, above the Himalayan mountains. An as-yet undiscovered civilization of fantastic cultural significance throughout all of Asia. I propose, with your help, to find this kingdom, and to recover artifacts of unspeakable value to our shared field.”
(Here I feel I must pause to relate the true history of Estêvão Cacella, who from 1614 to his death in 1630 worked fruitfully as a Jesuit missionary in India. He labored primarily in Kerala but, in 1626, undertook an expedition from Bengal, which took him through a civil war in Bhutan and into then-independent Tibet. There he searched for the newly-fabled kingdom of Shambhala, but was unsuccessful, and concluded that it must have been an odd translation for the kingdom of Cathay. At the time our travels, Shambhala was largely unregarded in the West, though the reader may now be familiar with it thanks to the work of fiction by James Hilton.
These and other negligible details were in my mind as Mr. Mackenny proposed our journey.)
I asked Mr. Mackenny where he hoped to find Shambhala, and what artifacts he expected to recover. I cannot recall the exact wording of these inquiries, but they produced in my new companion a singular air of excitement.
“Cacella was close – very close. In 1921, while chronicling lost settlements in Tartary, I spoke at length with the locals of Hindu traditional teachings. They told me of a mystical chest, containing four divine treasures, which came to earth during the Yarlung dynasty.” (This would have been around the second or third century AD.) “Chief among these relics is the Cintamani Stone, which in their superstition holds tremendous power. It can grant its users power, wealth, and all manner of worldly success. Cacella was probably aware of this story, but he ascribed it only to a religion which he believed, necessarily, to be false. Thus his search took him to high monasteries, where if such icons existed, their existence would be common knowledge. When he failed to find them there, the Catholic Church considered this proof that Shambhala was nothing more than a myth, and they never investigated it any further.”
I felt as if a revelation was nearing, and asked, “What have you found?”
Here he opened his leather-bound and dog-eared journal to a sketch, and indicated with his finger the significance of each carefully-drawn line. “This is Mount Shishapangma, west of Everest. Northwest of it lies a valley, and many smaller peaks.” He traced these with his index finger. “While digging in Nepal, I happened across a peculiar rock fragment, which an expert later revealed originated from a meteorite. The location of this fragment, and the surrounding discoveries, lead me to believe that a significant event did occur, in that region, and in the appropriate timeframe. This meteor shower could have become the basis for the Cintamani Stone. Now, look here.” He directed my eyes to an indecipherable shape on his drawn horizon, then flipped the page. “A native guide drew this. It’s a cave, hidden behind the mountain. And here,” he tapped, “buried in snow, The natives did not know their significance, but this drawing is unmistakable.”
I told him that in this matter, I sided with the natives.
“Craters,” he explained. “Meteoric craters, concealed for over a thousand years by snowfall. I was able to excavate one such crater, to confirm my theory. Do you know what I found?” He raised an eyebrow, and I did the same. “Nothing. The meteor had been removed, with primitive tools, eons ago. The Cintamani Stone fell here, and was taken to Shambhala. But there remains no sign of Shambhala, here or anywhere else in the region.”
I thought very carefully about his evidence, and he allowed me time to consider it all. “The Himalayas are forbidding,” I said at last. “It is possible that Shambhala – if it existed – could be hidden within the mountains.”
“Yes,” Mr. Mackenny agreed. “Possible – and many have searched. No evidence has been found. I believe that the kingdom is not in the mountains at all – but underneath them, in a network of caves as deep and complex as the mountains themselves.”
“And this cave, drawn here, is the entrance?”
Mr. Mackenny’s face became mysterious. “It was.” He paused, and looked over his shoulder before continuing in a whisper. “I convinced one of the natives to take me there and examined the cave for myself. It was caved in.” Here he lowered his voice still further. “Caved in – by human hands, and from the inside.”
At this revelation, I felt I could no longer sustain any thoughts of turning back. Mr. Mackenny had assembled compelling evidence of a civilization long lost to history. We talked a good deal longer about the veracity of his claims, and I was left feeling not only satisfied in the truth of his account, but irresistibly drawn into his endeavor. I promised to offer all my assistance in carrying out his quest, and after compiling a list of supplies to acquire, I was made to understand his plans for how to proceed, which I will relate in the coming narrative. We meant to set sail for Australia within two weeks, but were delayed by weather, and so it was on August 3rd that our journey began in earnest.
AT SEA
I spent the following weeks below decks of the Louisiana, an American merchant ship making for the port in Sydney with a small cargo of spirits and grain. I passed the time carousing with the captain and Mr. Mackenny, who had between them some arrangement each man seemed to find most profitable. While alone, I began several pedantic primers for the various Eastern cultures we were bound to cross, though none of them proved useful for anything but kindling. At times when the captain was preoccupied with matters nautical, Mr. Mackenny and I conversed about our coming trials, and about our personal lives. We also drank, and generally established between ourselves a strong comradery which we hoped would serve us well in the days to come.
On one night, a rolling storm turned us off the notion of drink, and, hoping to distract myself from seasickness, I pried Mr. Mackenny concerning a detail he had seemed reluctant to address.
“In your letters,” I would say, “and when we first met, you spoke of competition.”
“Ah,” he would groan. “It’s nothing.” Or, “We’re clear of them now, pay it no mind.” At last, when it felt as if the ocean storms would never end, and I would ask forever, he relented. “There is another party searching for the Cintamani Stone. Fanatics. They’ll never find it.”
“Fanatics?” I asked. He simply groaned and held his stomach. “Searching for the stone itself – not for Shambhala?”
He sighed. “A Russian. Nicholai Roerich.” I told him I had heard this name before. “He’s a painter. Or an archaeologist. Or…. I don’t know. Leave me alone.”
I did, but I thought about Roerich for several days. I knew him to be involved in both culture and politics – a painter, and a patron of historical sites across Russia. However, no matter how much I strained, I could not fathom his involvement with the Cintamani Stone. Later, before we made our port but after the storms had subsided, Mr. Mackenny decided to reveal the full story, since he had already begun telling it when ill.
“Roerich began as a painter,” he explained, “but became obsessed with the occult. He traveled all over the world, preserving ancient castles and buildings of whatever significance. It seems philanthropic, and I suppose it does serve that purpose. But I think he only does it to protect occult sites from destruction.” I chuckled at the outlandish claim, but Mr. Mackenny made it clear he was very serious. “Did you know he is a hypnotist?” I shook my head no. “His paintings can affect the mind.” Here he provided several supporting statements to which, I am ashamed to say, I paid little attention. “Roerich fled the Bolsheviks when they took power, and came to America with his wife and children. She’s like him.”
“Fanatic?”
“Yes.” There was a silence, but for the creaking of the ship. “Doctor Cole, this may be difficult to believe. The Roerichs are firm communists, as well as eastern mystics and occult practitioners. They are searching for the Cintamani Stone right now, with the full support of both President Coolidge and Chairman Kalinin of the Soviets.” When I asked how he had managed such support, Mr. Mackenny replied ominously, “He wrote them letters.” I was reminded of his supposedly-hypnotic paintings, but quickly I put that out of my mind.
“Roerich fled the Soviets,” I said, and then remembered, “He even wrote anti-communist literature.”
Mr. Mackenny simply shrugged. “In any case, his expedition is currently at large. He means to find the stone and use its power.” I said it was a ridiculous notion. “The point is that he believes it. And he means to find it. We must find it first. And that, Doctor Cole, is our competition.”
We landed in Sydney on September 1st. Wesley Pembroke, a British companion of Mr. Mackenny, met us there. Mr. Pembroke fancied himself a Company man, even though the EIC was dissolved eleven years before his birth. Nevertheless, he carried the old flag as he commerced all across the Indian Ocean, and spoke in boisterous tones through his thick moustache. Mr. Pembroke would carry us to Bangladesh – smuggle us, if necessary, among his foodstuffs – and return to port when summoned. He also saw fit to arm each of us with pistols, knives, rifles, powder and shot, and some additional kit to replace my own gear, which he saw as inferior. It was immediately clear to me that Mr. Pembroke was under the impression that we were marching into Burma. I made no effort to correct him.
Mr. Pembroke also furnished us, when asked, with the news that a party under the leadership of one Nicholai Roerich had passed through Britain on its way to St. Petersburg, or so said his connections in the Royal Navy. Mr. Mackenny, deeply troubled by this, pressed his old friend for details, but these were sparse, as the rumor was only hearsay. As we marked off calendars in our heads, we determined that the Roerich expedition must have a headstart of several weeks. We supposed, though, that they could not possess comparable intelligence on Shambhala, and we considered ourselves still to have the advantage towards finding its entrance. We guessed these matters in private. We also guessed that there was little time to spare, and so we asked Mr. Pembroke to make all haste. Swiftly we were carried to Bangladesh, and our first steps on dry land there took us straightaway to the BR depot, where we purchased tickets for the line heading north.
BANGLADESH
We would travel the third leg of our journey, from Bangladesh north into Bhutan, and there purchase a caravan of camels and labor. However, as the train would not depart for several hours, we decided to capitalize our time in the subcontinent by speaking with various locals, and this necessitated the hiring of a willing translator. Mr. Mackenny had planned to forego such services in favor of discretion, having some contacts in Nepal with whom he preferred to work, but I believe in hindsight, he would profess this deviation was providence of some sort.
We found our man in the local parish, a ramshackle yet somehow very civilized outpost of the Catholics in Dhaka. Mr. Benevici was his name; a strapping youth, perhaps 23 years old, who seemed by appearance to have missed his calling in the military. The lad possessed simply the most brilliant mind for language I have ever encountered, and no small yearning for adventure. He was entirely ignorant of the story of Estêvão Cacella, as with the mystery of Shambhala, but required only a few details before he was soundly convinced to accompany us at any price. He told us that he considered himself blessed by God with the opportunity to explore “the wonders of heaven on Earth,” and refused any share of the findings, insisting instead that we produce a small donation for the upkeep of the parish in his absence.
We put his services to work immediately, returning to the train station by way of the nearest monastery. Mr. Benevici was welcomed there with the highest courtesy, and made introductions for each of us, so that we enjoyed all the hospitality the Buddhists could offer (such monasteries, of course, not being known for any particular worldly comforts). Through Mr. Benevici, I interrogated several persons of varying stature concerning the history of kingdoms in that area. Their accounts agreed entirely with the historical narrative already composed in my mind, so that ultimately our visit offered no new insights about the kingdom of Shambhala. Mr. Mackenny produced a lead by asking about the Cintamani Stone directly. From one of the youths, a converted Hindu, we learned that this stone was associated with what that religion called “Mleccha,” a mountain people said to be very dangerous. Armed with that new information we sought an audience at a nearby Hindu temple, but Mr. Benevici was unable to gain us access. With our time drawing short, we gave up on the Hindus and headed back towards the depot.
“Do you know of the Mleccha?” Mr. Mackenny asked.
I related what I could. It was an umbrella term for barbarians in the subcontinent, although it was possible that at one time the word may have referred to a single tribe or clan. In common parlance, our small company could be considered Mleccha – foreign, impure, a lesser people. Mr. Benevici asked if it would be considered an insult, and I assured him that it would. At this he simply laughed. Later, he related to us that his congregation often referred to the parishioners as ‘the Maleckas,’ and they had always understood it to be a term of endearment, even calling themselves by the same in their letters to Europe.
We arrived at the depot with fresh supplies for our new companion, and thirty minutes to spare before our departure. As I was loading our luggage into the car, I became aware of a commotion on the platform, and a woman shrieked. I had a pistol in my belt, and I drew it as I came outside to see what was the matter.
When I emerged from the car with my pistol drawn, the scene was thus: Mr. Mackenny was positioned in front of Mr. Benevici, with a pistol in each hand. Mr. Benevici, unarmed, had one hand on Mr. Mackenny’s shoulder, and with his other, gestured wildly to the natives, and spoke in their tongue. From his movements I guessed that he was directing them away from danger. At the other end of the platform stood numerous white sailors, each brandishing rifles and blades. There were six guns in total, one of them a blunderbuss, and on the wielder of this weapon I fixed my aim, fearing the collateral damage he might cause if he should fire. For the moment, no one made a move, and we stood there, locked in a standoff against superior numbers and firepower, as the station emptied about us.
At length, a new man stepped onto the platform at the far end, whom I recognized as our ally, Mr. Pembroke, though it was immediately clear that he was an ally no longer. He paced behind the sailors in a manner that emphasized they were his men, and that he could order them to fire whenever he pleased. He did not command us to lower our weapons, and for my part I doubt I would have complied, if he had. Instead, he kept his position, and spoke confidently, in warm tones laced with an unmistakable malice.
“It appears there’s been some mistake, Mr. Mackenny,” he declared.
Mr. Mackenny made a show of brushing it off. “Well,” he said, sounding a bit timid, “we’ll try not to hold it against you.” I smirked at that. Mr. Pembroke did not.
“Have you lost your mind?” he fumed. Then, jabbing a finger at the BR train, he continued, “Unless they’ve moved Burma, I daresay you’re heading in the wrong direction.” Here he took note of Mr. Benevici, who was quietly urging our companion to choose his words carefully. “You there,” he said, pointing with a naval officer’s sword. “You were not on my ship. What is your purpose in all this? How came you to the country?”
“He is our translator,” I interrupted, not wanting to risk our secrecy on untested nerves. “We only met him today. He can tell you nothing.”
“A translator, eh?” Mr. Pembroke asked, not taking his eyes off the lad. “What languages does he speak?”
Here Mr. Benevici spoke for himself – boldly, I might add – in rich Italian words which I imagined to be most unbefitting a member of the clergy.
Mr. Pembroke laughed and shook his head, evidently believing we had hired a translator who spoke no English. “Mr. Mackenny,” he went on, “as you clearly have no intentions of setting foot in Burma, am I wrong to presume you have no intentions of paying me with the treasures you promised?” Mr. Mackenny was silent. “May I remind you that you are standing on British soil, sir. I can have you all arrested for stowing aboard my ship without pay.”
I was certain that Mr. Pembroke had no intentions of entangling himself with the law, as I supposed that he was a routine smuggler. Mr. Mackenny responded on a different tack: “If you do that,” he said, “the Russian will reach the treasure first, and you’ll get nothing.” I thought perhaps the appeal to Mr. Pembroke’s avarice was too blunt, but it seemed to produce the desired effect.
“We discussed a share,” Mr. Pembroke began, but was immediately interrupted.
“I made it crystal clear that there will be no share,” said Mr. Mackenny.
“A price, then,” the sailor said impatiently. “You may consider my price doubled, or you may accompany me to the stockade immediately.”
“Fine, it is doubled. May we board?” Mr. Mackenny seemed the least bit interested in the cost he had just assumed.
Mr. Pembroke, surprised, said, “Fine? Ha!” evidently having expected some resistance on the matter. “Perhaps I should have asked for more.”
“Whatever you mean to extort from me, do it quickly,” said Mr. Mackenny. “Every moment we waste is…”
“Yes, yes,” said Mr. Pembroke, dismissing the warning with a wave of his hand. He gave an order and his men lowered their guns. Mr. Mackenny did not, and so neither did I. “Well? Off with you, then, scamper on,” said Mr. Pembroke.
“You first,” I said, shifting my aim from the blunderbuss to the captain and narrowing my eye. He frowned at me, then laughed, gathered his men, and sauntered off the platform with an insufferable wave of his arm.
“Best of luck!” he cried over his shoulder.
THE BR LINE
The train’s departure was uneventful and we were silent. The tracks ran north along the Brahmaputra river. The season being dry, this grand river delta was somewhat unimpressive; however, to all familiar with the region, it is known to be most fearsome in its floods, which routinely claim thousands of lives at once. That day, it behaved, and we unwound our minds from the rush of the preceding drama.
After some time had passed, the river forked north and the railway followed, and Mr. Mackenny began to rub his temples. He was thinking aloud, although quietly, and we couldn’t make out his words. I supposed that he must be coming to terms with the Englishman’s new fee, or perhaps trying to concoct a scheme by which to avoid paying it. I offered a poorly-formed plan. He shook his head.
“Don’t worry about Pembroke,” he said. I asked if the captain was better known for his bark or his bite. “I’m not concerned about either. I mean to pay him in full.”
“What, then?” asked Mr. Benevici, seeing that our friend was still troubled.
Mr. Mackenny seemed torn, whether or not to include us in his dilemma. At last he relented. “When he left us on the platform, did either of you get the impression that he trusts me?” We exchanged glances. “He must be keeping an eye on us. He must have slipped a man onto the train.”
We talked the matter over and decided that it was probable. In all that commotion, someone could have easily gotten aboard unnoticed. As we suspected to encounter the Roerich expedition ahead of us, we agreed that it would not do to have Pembroke at our heels, and we discussed how best to dispatch the unknown tracker. It was decided unanimously that we should confront him aboard the train, upon crossing the British customs and control checkpoint. Until their inspection was complete, we could not act, for fear of being removed from the train and losing ground on Roerich.
Thus paralyzed by the inspection, we began to discuss the road ahead, for Mr. Benevici’s sake. We meant to make our way to Thimphu, the capital of Bhutan, by rail or road, before setting out west on purchased camels. Mr. Mackenny would manage the materials, while in the meantime, Mr. Benevici and I would probe the area for stories about the lost kingdom. I would compare whatever myths, legends, or relics we could find against the known record of history to evaluate their worth. We would set out as soon as Mr. Mackenny’s affairs were in order, and refine our search area to reflect any new information. The intended course was northwest, following the Himalayas across Tibet, where we expected to encounter and evade the Roerich expedition.
Miles and hours passed, and at last we submitted ourselves and our papers to the British troops who boarded the train. They examined each car in turn, concluded that everything was in order, and sent the train on its way. This took place in the extreme north of Bangladesh, leaving us with several hours during which to locate and remove Pembroke’s man.
“How are you with accents?” I asked Mr. Benevici. He told me he had an ear for them. We outfitted the lad in a crude disguise, involving a moustache, and sent him out into the cars with instructions to note any British still aboard. We had concluded that his skin tone and language, as well as his unfamiliarity with Pembroke’s crew, would allow him to move about somewhat undetected, and this gave him the best chance to locate our quarry. Mr. Mackenny and I awaited him in our private booth.
When Mr. Benevici returned, he was breathless and disheveled. His shirt was torn and his false moustache was in his hand, and he was smiling. “I got him!” he declared, standing in the threshold of our room. He went on to explain that Pembroke’s man had recognized him, and attacked as he moved between cars. Mr. Benevici struggled with him over a linkage, and the enemy lost his footing. Mr. Benevici demonstrated how he’d stood, with a hand and foot in either car, holding on as the assailant grabbed at his clothes and face, trying to avoid falling off the tracks. His last desperate grasp had snatched the moustache from Benevici’s face. As he tumbled backwards, the Italian tried to reach out and catch his hand, but managed only to pluck the moustache out of the fallen foe’s outstretched hand.
He told the story with excited glee. Nervously I asked, “Did he die?”
“I said a prayer for him, he will be fine,” Mr. Benevici replied, in such a casual tone that Mr. Mackenny and myself each began laughing.
Very suddenly, Mr. Benevici disappeared from the open door in a darkened blur. Mr. Mackenny and I sprang into action, taking up arms and rushing out to find a second Englishman had tackled our friend, and now held him captive with a curved knife against his throat. Seeing us gathered in the hall, outnumbering him, the Brit began to make threats. We could not compel him to release Mr. Benevici, and he could not compel us to lay down our weapons. We were at an impasse.
Mr. Mackenny continued to engage the assailant verbally, and seemed to have the lion’s share of his attention. So, gauging the distance between us, and the way in which he held his knife, and judging from his expression that he would indeed kill Mr. Benevici if given cause, I decided to conclude the matter directly. I raised my pistol and placed lead in the attacker’s shoulder. For an instant his grip loosened, and Mr. Benevici jarred the knife out of his grip. The three of us then worked together to overpower him and drag him back into our chamber, where we bound his hands and feet and immediately began treating his wound.
“God, what a shot!” Mr. Benevici declared, and spent several words in numerous tongues thanking me.
“Doctor Cole was once a Rough Rider,” said Mr. Mackenny. “The Army,” he had to explain, as the Italian was naturally unfamiliar with our affairs.
“Infantry, or cavalry?” Mr. Benevici asked. I simply agreed that this was an excellent question, and left the matter at that.
We attended to our attacker, retrieving the bullet from his shoulder and stitching him up with medicine from Mr. Mackenny’s kit. I would have liked to lie him down, but there was no room in our cabin, so he was bound in a corner, and the three of us took turns keeping watch over him with a loaded gun. When at last he consigned himself to his fate as a captive, Mr. Mackenny offered him brandy and said, “If you see him before we do, please assure Mr. Pembroke that I mean to pay every penny he’s asked.” I pressed a flask into his palm as a show of good faith.
We left him bound on the train, and gave strict instructions to the crew that he was to be kept under guard and returned to Bangladesh, where the authorities were free to do with him as they would. Whether these instructions were kept or not, I do not know. We did not hear from Mr. Pembroke or his men again. His vessel ran afoul of the Royal Navy near Sri Lanka, and was sunk, around the time we trekked across Tibet. The captain was rescued from flotsam containing several barrels of smuggled opium, and following an investigation of his logs, he was thrown into a stockade for the remainder of his life.
BHUTAN
The tiny nation of Bhutan is absolutely and singularly beautiful. At the time of our visit, a treaty stood in place between British India and Bhutan which made the small mountain nation a protectorate of the Empire. Thus, it was assumed that we three foreign whites were British, affiliated with that government in some unspoken capacity, and great pains were taken to ensure that our every wish was satisfied. This made our various tasks quite simple – Mr. Mackenny obtained a sort of retinue of police, as well as interested children, women, and even men, fascinated with his every movement. He seemed to enjoy the attention. As for myself and Mr. Benevici, though we were able to gather several distinct crowds, we found ourselves naturally succumbing to the public curiosity about ourselves. The people of Bhutan learned more about this strange pair of white men, who were not British, than we learned of them about Shambhala. Mr. Benevici could not resist his faith, and handed out several small bibles to the children here, though he later confessed that he hadn’t thought of how these children could ever learn to read that text.
When we rejoined Mr. Mackenny, we found that he had been successful in securing a kingly herd of pack animals for our journey. There were also two young men who would ride ahead each morning to scout for camp sites in the wilderness (one of these spoke the same handful of Chinese words that Mr. Mackenny knew, and they could thus communicate a little without Mr. Benevici’s help). We found ourselves turning away more help, although there were several offers. We could not refuse a small feast before departing, at which we enjoyed the meats and fruits of creatures and plants which I strongly suspect are known only to that tiny and forbidden rock in the heart of Asia. Here all barriers of language and culture dissolved; we made and were made merry by our new friends.
We set out the following morning, feeling that we had been excellent ambassadors of Western civilization, and feeling too that Bhutan would forever be remembered fondly.
TIBET
This was our routine as we traveled Tibet:
In the mornings, Mr. Mackenny and I shared the range and prepared a small breakfast from our supply. We would discuss, through Mr. Benevici, our plans for the day with our new scouts. Then they would ride ahead of the party, while we examined the mountains at our south, or compared journal notes, or simply broke camp and followed as quickly as we could, depending on the day and on the environment. The scouts would carry a certain number of white flags on long stakes, depending on how far we wished them to ride (which in turn depended on how much we wished to divert ourselves before following); at each 500 paces, they would place a flag, and when they ran out, they would survey the area for an optimal campsite and forage.
In the rear, we left the trail to examine the foothills and valleys at almost every opportunity. When we did this, Mr. Mackenny and I, or sometimes he alone, would take horses into the hills, while Mr. Benevici stood guard over the camels and supplies. Although we expected to find Shambhala much further north and west, Mr. Mackenny agreed with my theory that we might discover remains of a forward outpost, or perhaps some unrelated antiquity, in these unexplored hills and caves. We were sometimes rewarded with ceramic fragments or fragments of riding equipment, but the crowning find on these diversions was a Shang divining bone, which some ancient person had found and preserved, and subsequently lost while climbing a steep embankment. If we had not set our sights on Shambhala, this discovery alone would have been enough to justify our entire expedition, and though Mr. Benevici did not fully understand its significance, he joined us that night in celebrating the find. Whether for the sake of our friendship, or for its historical value, I cannot say, but he became extremely protective of that relic, and I wish now that I had thrown it back where we found it.
Our sidetracks into the foothills, while fruitful in that regard, bore no clues about the missing kingdom, and eventually began to dominate too much of our precious time. Mr. Mackenny reminded us regularly, and with growing insistence, that the Roerich expedition was likely nearing its goal, and so we must drive ourselves harder with each passing day to overtake them. After two weeks, we sent our scouts home with what gifts we could muster, and abandoned the hills, dedicating ourselves entirely to pushing onwards at the greatest possible speed. By riding from dawn through twilight without rest, we were able to make roughly twenty five miles each day, when the path cooperated, and ten or less when we were forced to blaze our own trails across steep terrain. We encountered no one, and brokered no distractions, until we neared the edge of the territory where Tibet borders Nepal.
That afternoon, on the 30th of September, while Mr. Mackenny rode in the lead, he suddenly stopped when cresting a hill and put out his arm. Then he dismounted and rushed back to us, urging us to keep as quiet as possible.
“A military unit,” he said, and then, to me, “Who controls this region? Are our papers valid?”
I had to think carefully. “China,” I said at last, “but the Tsang province is autonomous, there should be no troops here. Unless….” I thought of the Guomintang. “There is a rebellion in Manchuria, a long way northeast from here. If it somehow reached this far… I don’t know.” What I learned later was that, in Tibet, another uprising had been underway at this time, to drive out Muslim oppressors and re-establish Buddhist control. The unit we encountered was likely either Tibetan Muslims, or a Buddhist militia. At the time, I was not aware of this.
“We need to get off the road,” Mr. Mackenny urged. “Take all the guns, all the powder.” We tried to hide, but quickly realized that it would be impossible to conceal our large herd of camels, and resolved instead to bury our weapons. He had counted twenty men, one – the officer – on horse, the rest on foot. We each concealed a single pistol on our persons, and hid everything else of military use – provisions, maps, powder and shot – in a hastily-dug hole, which we covered with a blanket. There was nowhere to hide our camels, and no time to flee. When the unit came over the hill and saw us, their leader issued an order to his men, in a language which Mr. Benevici recognized.
“I can speak to him,” he said quickly, raising his arms and his travel documents. There was no time to argue.
“Be careful,” Mr. Mackenny urged.
The men surrounded our party and took control of the animals. Mr. Benevici kept his saddle, while Mr. Mackenny and I had already dismounted to dig. The men carried primitive weapons for the most part – swords and spears and shields, though several also held crude grenades made from bound sticks of dynamite. The officer was armed with a submachine gun on a sling, and many other weapons as well. When he approached us, his hand was on the gun, and his finger on the trigger. He spoke very harshly.
“He wants to know if we are German,” Mr. Benevici said. Mr. Mackenny looked at me. I should have nodded; instead, I shook my head. Mr. Benevici gave some answer, which the officer seemed not to like, and they exchanged words for a while before Mr. Mackenny asked what they were saying. “He is talking about other white men, and a white woman, who killed many of his…” He was interrupted by the officer here, and made some apologetic gestures.
Mr. Mackenny and I exchanged glances. Our thoughts were the same. The Roerich expedition had been there, or near there, and they had proven violent. Mr. Mackenny got the attention of the Tibetan officer and of Mr. Benevici. “Tell him,” he said, “that the other white man is an enemy of ours.” When this was translated, the officer looked at Mr. Mackenny as if waiting for more. “Tell him, that man is a wizard. He is evil.” Mr. Benevici paused and was urged to say it just like that. He complied.
“He thinks you are mad,” Mr. Benevici said after hearing the response. “The other white men…. Yes. The other white men have gone into the mountains. He says we cannot follow them. They have many guns.”
Mr. Mackenny narrowed his eyes. “Tell him, I can stop them. Just let us go.”
The officer seemed offended, but did not become violent. He demanded to see our papers, which were backed by the authority in Shanghai. Mr. Benevici at length conferred that the officer would not kill us, because of these papers, but they were not valid in this part of the country and we had to turn back. We argued our case, but the officer was very insistent.
At some point while we spoke, the officer commanded his men to examine our baggage. I positioned myself over the hole, which contained the bulk of our weapons, hoping to make its discovery inconvenient and therefore less likely. The men went through the luggage on our camels, and that is when tragedy struck.
One of the men found my Shang bone, and tossed it away. Mr. Benevici, thinking it priceless, shouted something urgently at the soldier, and in that instant, the officer – perhaps seeing the pistol on Mr. Benevici’s belt, or perhaps simply tired of a conversation he considered beneath him – whirled on our friend and opened fire. He spent his full magazine into Mr. Benevici and into his horse, and killed them both.
In shock, and in rage, my hand found my gun and fired into the officer’s back. Mr. Mackenny did the same. When he was dead, we turned on the other soldiers, none of whom had firearms of their own, and began shooting them as well. I started with the largest and worked my way through their ranks by size, while Mr. Mackenny shot the closest living man, and then the next, and the next, and so on. One of them lit a fuse on his makeshift grenade. I shot him in the chest as he did this, and he slumped down with the explosive in his hand, until it exploded and threw his body careening down into the nearby valley.
When my gun was empty, I pulled back the blanket under my feet and took up a Henry rifle we’d brought. There were ten or so of the Tibetan soldiers left, and though they were pacified by now, I was very upset, and I kept shooting them until Mr. Mackenny at last pulled the rifle away from me. Tearfully I fell to my knees and crawled to Mr. Benevici. He was gone.
“Go!” Mr. Mackenny shouted at the soldiers, waving his arm furiously and shooting into the air. “Bulai! Bulai! Go!” He fired again. The soldiers, terrified of our combat and utterly confused at his commands, eventually understood that they were meant to flee, and they ran.
We could not revive Mr. Benevici. We read from an English bible he carried and gave him a Christian burial. His grave is located at 28°48'N, 86°13'E, where the path crests a ridge and turns south, and overlooks the Shishapangma mountain. From this spot, the furthest reaches of the lost kingdom of Shambhala are visible to the naked eye.
We knew for a certainty now that Roerich’s expedition had already overtaken us, having passed through Tibet from the north by way of the Soviet Union, as Mr. Pembroke had reported. They were before us now, in those foothills, hoping to find the Cintamani Stone and turn it to their own dark purposes. We rode on when we were able. We did not rest that night, nor any other night, until we reached the cave entrance from Mr. Mackenny’s journal. It was now the second week of October, 1927.
THE HIMALAYAS
We spoke little on those days, and the natural beauty of the region was only a distant thought. We crossed under peaks which have never been climbed, through passes which had not felt human feet for centuries, save for the Roerich’s and ours. We gained altitude gradually, keeping off the rocky ascents, but nevertheless crossed above the snowline very soon. Here the air was chilly, but dry, and the sun shone impotent through clear skies, warming little.
We found Mr. Mackenny’s cave in much the same condition he had left it years earlier. We’d brought powder, picks, and other supplies, meaning to clear out the rocks if we could, and we set to work for two days, assessing the rubble. That night we slept was the first since Mr. Benevici’s death, and we woke in foul moods. Our frustrations were only compounded. The cave-in was thorough and extensive. Had we managed to spend all our powder there, without bringing down the surrounding walls, we might still have failed to clear a path. We cleared what we could with picks, gained little ground, and gave it up.
Later that night, we set out all our maps, all our notes, and put our heads together in vigorous study. Mr. Mackenny knew the rocks, and I knew the history. Together we pored over every resource. Of the areas which appeared on our maps, Mr. Mackenny ruled out large swathes of area based on the formations surrounding them, while I crossed out those areas already accounted for by tribes, and those which would have been unreachable to a 3rd century civilization. When we had savaged our maps, we plotted a course which would lead us first through uncharted territory, along the western slope of Shishapangma, and then south, before returning to the map and hooking further west. Only the middle portion of our course was documented, and it was there we expected to find our cave entrance, having no information about the initial area of search, nor the terminal end.
The first two days of this course, once again, were uncharted, and soon we learned why. The morning we set out, we encountered a series of steep, crumbling slopes. After struggling up the first with our caravan, we set our camels loose with most of our equipment, and carried on with only our pistols, picks, and as much food and drink as we could fix to our horses. We resolved to mark any further cave-ins on the map, and return with blasting powder as necessary if we could not clear them by hand. The two days we allotted for bushwhacking became four, and five, and finally we emerged back onto charted territory with nothing to show for our exploration.
We were heading west now, with Shishapangma at our backs and numerous other peaks on all sides. The horizon in this place was thousands of feet overhead on all sides, and the days were short, as the sun seemed to rise and set behind the tops of these great mountains, leaving us with only hours of daylight at a time. In spite of our maps, we became lost here more than once, and floundered for several days. We also shot a wild goat, and replenished our meat supply. We adjusted our expected rate of progress to reflect the challenging terrain. We ate wild goat, and drank boiled snow, and agreed that we could survive thus for as long as it took. We would not fail.
Shortly after crossing back into uncharted territory, we began to hear the sounds of the Roerich expedition. They were some miles off – with the mountain walls, it was impossible to judge the exact range or direction. We could hear their guns; the Roerichs, we soon learned, had assembled a massive party of physical laborers, and hunted virtually every creature that crossed their path in order to sustain their large camp. From time to time we heard their picks at work against rock.
One morning, early, so that the sun was not yet visible to us, even though it had already risen behind some mountain, I directed Mr. Mackenny’s attention to a column of smoke rising beyond a nearby cliff. We talked it over and decided to have a look; he, being the younger man, stripped off his equipment and set to climbing up the sheer rock. I waited below, holding a rope (which proved little use), and stood ready to catch him, as best I could, if he should fall. Tediously he made his way up the face of the cliff, improvising grips and footholds in what appeared to me an impressive display of mountaineering. When he reached the top, he lingered for a short time, then anchored the rope in a crevasse and hastily descended.
“They’re here,” he said, breathless, upon reaching the bottom. “They’ve brought heavy equipment. So many of them…. Thirty, maybe more.”
I blinked, frozen in place. “Thirty two,” I said, placing a hand on his shoulder. He followed my gaze. Two men stood before us, a hundred yards or so ahead, up a smooth sloping rock face covered in snow. One of them carried a pair of small, indistinct creatures, and the other a hunting rifle. Mr. Mackenny was still catching his breath, and I could feel his shoulders slump.
The man with the rifle put a hand to his mouth, and whistled. We were silent, motionless. Then, from behind, another whistle echoed the first. We turned to see another hunter, this one alone, blocking our path. He menaced us by firing a round at the cliff which Mr. Mackenny had just climbed. I heard the shot ricochet, and then the rope we had used came tumbling down, severed at its midpoint by a single bullet.
“Can you get us out?” Mr. Mackenny asked, his eyes on my pistol.
“Not at this range,” I replied quietly. We were weakened significantly from our ordeals, and now stood in the low ground between marksmen. We were fish in a barrel. I tossed my gun aside and placed my hands on my head. Mr. Mackenny, cursing under his breath, did the same.
THE ROERICH EXPEDITION
The Roerich expedition was grand in every sense. His base camp, which moved daily on the backs of fifty camels, buzzed with industrious activity on all sides. Outriders patrolled the surrounding area for game and intruders, like myself and Mr. Mackenny. A rolling munitions depot, packed with ammunition and barrels of dynamite, stood at the edge of camp, surrounded by an artificial bunker of cut rocks and guarded by a detachment of fearsome mercenaries. Mr. Mackenny pointed towards them with his chin and muttered, “Mleccha.” I nodded. We were led past rows and rows of living tents, amply provisioned, and a cooking pit, from which emanated incredible smells of cooking meat and seasonings.
Our captors, whom we so called for the manner in which they walked behind us with their guns, even though we were not bound, brought us to a broad-shouldered man who wore a commanding hat (I know of no better way to describe it – I have not seen its like elsewhere). They spoke in a language that perhaps Mr. Benevici would have understood, and left us in this man’s care.
“Gentlemen,” he said, showing us an open palm. “I am very sorry for meeting you this way,” he went on. “As you can see, it is quite an undertaking we’ve got here, and some of the boys are rather a bit jumpy, I’m afraid. You must consider yourselves our guests.”
“Say nothing,” said Mr. Mackenny, flat and stoic. I had not meant to speak anyway, but I readily followed my friend’s lead.
The hatted man tried to act surprised. “Gentlemen, please,” he said in pleading tones. “There’s no need for any of that. See, here.” He removed his profound cap, and raked his hair to the side with his fingers, assuming a very amiable visage. “My name is Wulf Anderson. I am, what you might call, the lieutenant here. I oversee the operations of the camp, and I can assure you, we are most receptive of guests. Have you smelled that?” He gestured towards the cooking pits we crossed. “The ‘Common Langur,’ or so our zoologist calls them. Devilish creatures. Fantastic in a curry. You must have some with us tonight. The seat of honor, certainly.” He carried on in this manner, endeavoring with cheerful words and generosities to put us at ease, or to elicit any response whatsoever. We were led about, shown which lodgings would be ours, which camels we would ride, had we ridden camels before? Fantastic beasts. And so on. Throughout the tour of his camp, this Lt. Anderson spoke very cleverly, leaving us such opportunities that we felt compelled to speak, and yet, when we refused, he could carry on his own conversation without seeming the least bit awkward. He made no mention of Shambhala, nor of the Cintamani Stone. An unwitting observer might have concluded, somewhat ridiculously, that the whole party had gathered such manpower and such resources in order to walk about the mountains and take the air, and nothing more. We knew better, and to us, his omissions with regard to their objective seemed treacherous indeed.
Only once over the sprawling tour did Mr. Mackenny break his silence. The lieutenant asked, upon showing us to our tents, if there was anything else he could do for us, to make us comfortable. Mr. Mackenny set his eyes, and told him, “Saddle our horses, and let us go.” At this, the lieutenant furrowed his brow for the briefest of moments, before cheerfully remarking that of course, Mr. and Mrs. Roerich would insist upon feasting us first, and that we could speak about such things after dinner. He told us many more wonderful-sounding things, but none of it mattered. Our status was clear to me after that shortest exchange – we were prisoners of the Roerich expedition, and they would never allow us to leave.
At dinner, we were summoned to the head of the dining tent to sit at the Roerichs’ table. This was my first time seeing our rival in person. Nikolai was a spectre of a man – gaunt and dark, with exceptionally pointed features. The muscles in his face seemed to all come together at once, so that there were lines stretching out from his nose in all directions like the points of a star. His gaze was profoundly unsettling, and I avoided it at all times. His wife, who introduced herself as Helena, was charming and almost impossible to resist; full-bodied, round-faced, warm, but with an aura much like Nikolai. I took her hand when she offered it, and tried not to look at her for the remainder of our feast. They spoke, not with us, but towards us; Nikolai would ask Anderson about the readiness of such-and-such, and he would respond happily that they were far ahead of schedule; Helena would mention something she read from some manuscript they had found, and they would laugh. All was, it seemed to me, designed to impress upon us how well their expedition was proceeding. We were meant to conclude – and indeed I could see no alternative – that any effort to subvert them was completely futile; that they had already won the race for the Cintamani Stone, and had only to actually grasp it, which was to the Roerichs a foregone conclusion.
There was one exchange during which Mr. Mackenny actually spoke to our captors. They had asked if we were impressed by the size of their expedition, and wondered how we had managed to come so far with only the two of us. Here Mr. Mackenny told them about Mr. Benevici, and all the help he had given us. I will never forget the pathos which the Roerichs displayed at that moment. The table fell into a solemn silence. Helena could barely contain her tears. Nikolai hugged her, and then, with utmost respect in his voice, offered sincere condolences to each of us. He shared stories of their own adventures in Tibet, which were harrowing, and lamented the loss of “a brother, an explorer, and surely a fine man.” We toasted in his memory.
As promised, I said nothing that night, nor on the day that followed. I maintained my silence for as long as I could, and I lasted for weeks. By the time my vow was broken, it was too late to make any difference. The night after the feast, when we were led back to our tents, Mr. Mackenny whispered only, “We are not alone,” and then climbed into his cot and went to sleep. Without discussing it, whether aloud or in any other form, we separately began to formulate our own plans for escape.
Mr. Mackenny found his opportunity two days later, as the camp moved east, back in the direction from which we’d come. The road was narrow and high, with steep cliffs on either side. The expedition rode on camelback, two abreast; Mr. Mackenny was ahead of me, and each of us was accompanied on our right side by a mercenary from their security detail. I noticed my friend’s posture perking up as we approached the cliffs, and suspected he planned to work some mischief as we crossed the promontory between them. Then, midway across, he slipped his right foot out of the stirrup. I looked down and to the left, but could make out nothing below us. Without warning, Mr. Mackenny leapt off the back of his animal and landed precariously on the ledge, overlooking a drop of hundreds of feet. His escort tried to clamor across and grab him, but was unable to reach my friend in time. Mr. Mackenny glanced at me, and shouted, “Godspeed, Doctor Cole!” Then he threw himself over the ledge.
People were shouting all around. I kicked my camel and swatted at it, trying to make myself an obstacle for anyone thinking to pursue Mr. Mackenny, but the creature would not respond, and it did not matter. No one went after him over that cliff. At the head of the column, someone fired a rifle twice, then put it away as Roerich admonished him. I strained my neck, but could see nothing.
I never saw Mr. Mackenny again.
THE CAVE
The expedition carried on in mournful tone. Mrs. Roerich, despondent, wept often, and made many passionate toasts to Mr. Mackenny in the days that followed, desperately trying to entice from me a word of forgiveness. She fought with her husband, who coldly deflected her accusations. I could see in his eyes that he did not truly believe my friend was dead – he had seen him fall, and stopped his man from shooting. He must have believed that Mr. Mackenny survived his plummet, and escaped into some dark cavern. I clung to this hope – if Roerich believed him alive, I had no evidence to the contrary. I chose to believe that he had found some other passage, and continued his quest alone. Perhaps he was in Shambhala already. Perhaps Roerich feared that he would confound their plans. That, I decided, was why he did not mourn.
It was a desperate hope. But I kept it, as I kept my silence.
We journeyed on, moving only as quickly as the cart of munitions could be hauled. At times, the workers would unload it entirely and carry the explosives, and sometimes even the cart itself, in pieces, by hand. A cartographer worked day and night to map out the route we took, and gathered information about the terrain. Mountaineers would later use this same data in their ascents of the area. The party groaned onwards, a machine without a soul, for days on end. At nights we gathered to eat monkeys and goats, and listen to Lt. Anderson as he tried to cheer up Mrs. Roerich. I ate at their table always, seated across from the enemy, and we took daily marks of the fire in the other’s eyes. He was a driven man. Powerless to stop him, I could only make him feel my will to resist.
We marched steadily towards Shishapangma. One night at dinner, Roerich showed me his own notes, and with a controlled fury, explained that he knew precisely where Mr. Mackenny had hoped to find the entrance to Shambhala; knew precisely what stood inside that cave, and precisely how much powder it would take to clear a path inside. He told me that he wanted to share this discovery with Mr. Mackenny, that his many solicitations for cooperation had been rudely refused. He begged my help – no matter how small, he said, he begged me to participate. I made no reply. He begged me at least not to take my life as that fool had – at this his wife left the table – and I only shrugged, and took another bite of monkey.
When we reached the cave, it was November. The camp was established at its mouth, and work began immediately to clear away the rubble. Everyone had a part to play, and the expedition thrummed with activity both day and night. Once, Wulf Anderson appeared in my tent in the afternoon. He carried a simple pickaxe, and asked me if I would swing it – just once would be enough – and so contribute to the effort. I hadn’t spoken for weeks straight at this time, but I spoke then, and told him what he could do with that pickaxe. He left, looking very sad. Later that evening, before the nightly meal, Mrs. Roerich appeared unexpectedly with wet cheeks. Before I could say or do anything, she wrapped her arms around my neck and sobbed. She pleaded strenuously, imploring me to do this one small thing. Not for myself, she said, and not for her, but for Mr. Benevici, so that his death would have added some small measure to this discovery. I was unprepared, and a little overwhelmed, and I feared that she would not let go until I relented. So at last, I agreed. She made several apologies then, thinking herself complicit in much bloodshed, and I assured her that she was not responsible for anything. We did not speak of her husband.
I found myself unable to swing my pick only once, and so soon I was a regular at the excavation site. They were here, I resolved to myself, and they weren’t going anywhere, and neither was I until this pathway was cleared, so I might as well get on with it. I rubbed shoulders there with various men of science and academia. The zoologist, named Mr. Keaton, of whom Lt. Anderson had spoken once, was among several other things also a paleobotanist. He had joined the expedition primarily to examine sedimental deposits of the many rivers originating in the Himalayas. There were several others: Harold Leavenworth, a medical doctor; Mr. Petravich, an expert in antiquities, and a trio of linguists, who between them, it was guessed, could make sense of any document in the continent, regardless of its age or origin. Though I loathed myself for it, I found in myself a certain sense of pride for standing among such accomplished company, especially in such an endeavor. There were of course brutes in our midst – the mercenaries, and the laborers, on whose account (said Lt. Anderson) the mercenaries were required. Still there stood in the mouth of that cave such an assortment of talent and intellect that, under any other circumstances, I would have called myself quite fortunate.
It took us more two weeks to make our way inside. After blasting, clearing, and framing the tunnel with supports, we were at last free to set foot inside. Nikolai Roerich – with whom, alone, I still did not speak – asked me personally to accompany him on the first journey inside. He said he respected my historical expertise, and that this was a matter on which our personal differences must be set aside. Reluctantly I agreed. He selected the first team carefully. He and I were the first two members, and then Wulf Anderson, Mr. Petravich, a linguist named Jindal, and two mercenaries, who would conduct any physical labor we required inside. We were each given a torch, a fresh journal, and provisions for a three-day excursion, though we meant to return by nightfall. The seven of us went inside at dawn.
SHAMBHALA
The first artifacts we encountered inside were shattered and rotten wood structures. Defensive barriers, we guessed, built with spikes facing outwards. Wulf Anderson made several remarks about what he found, which Jindal scribbled down. We chronicled everything in this first chamber and moved on. To continue, we had to traverse a squat passage. Jindal noted Lt. Anderson’s comments: “Inhabitants were likely short, possibly four to four-and-a-half feet. No sunlight. Pale skin.”
We continued. The passage descended in slow, narrow curves, and it was difficult to maneuver because of the low ceiling. “Walls are smooth,” Lt. Anderson said. “Air is cold, dry. Faint odor of mold. No sign of artificial lighting – no torch marks, braziers…”
“They were blind,” posited Roerich. Whenever he spoke, the others fell quiet out of deference. Perhaps realizing this, he spoke only a little, so that Lt. Anderson could feel comfortable describing his findings for Jindal.
We went on for roughly thirty minutes before we found our first clue that the cave was not entirely natural in formation. Roerich was the first to find it, and called us over. “Wulf,” he said.
Lt. Anderson nodded, and got down onto his knees. “The regular passage continues straight ahead. Here a second passage has been carved out…. Down, straight down.” He fished for something out of his pocket and tossed it over, and we heard the report when it landed. “Between twenty and thirty meters,” he said. “There’s a ladder.”
“Let me see,” said Mr. Petravich. He got down on his stomach, with his head over the ledge, and held his torch so that he could see the ladder, which was cut into the opposite wall. “Resembles the tree-ladders in Mali,” he said of the diagonal-cut steps, which descended in roughly-symmetrical triangles down into darkness. Mr. Petravich asked me if the empire of Mali might have had any contact, and I told him no, that it must have been an indigenous design which happened to look similar, nothing more. He spent a long time studying those steps, and at length we discussed whether we should continue along the natural path of the cave, or take this ladder.
“Shall we split up?” I asked.
“Out of the question,” said Roerich, sounding harsh. “We go down.”
We marked the top of the ladder with a tallow candle, and the bottom, when we reached it, as well. It was exceedingly narrow, built for much smaller bodies than ours, and we shimmied down each step with our backs pressed against the opposite wall. When we came to the bottom, Lt. Anderson guessed the distance at fifteen meters. We found another ladder at the bottom, which he put at ten meters, and another after that, which was closer to twenty. At each landing we left a candle.
The final descent placed us into a small cavern, which in turn opened into a much larger chamber. Presently we found the decrepit remains of a great curtain, which looked as if once it stretched across that opening to conceal the greater chamber within. There was a mat of woven grass, rotted, and a curious rodent, which I sketched for Mr. Keaton, but he could not identify my drawing. In a corner there stood a small chest, roughly a foot wide and square, and eight inches high. When Mr. Petravich had made his notes on its design, he opened it, and found ceramics inside, which interested him greatly.
“Perhaps a ceremony,” he said, turning the objects over while a mercenary held his torch. “A ritual of some sort, involving water or tea. Such traditions exist in the east.”
“A purification ritual,” I guessed. “Supplicants would sometimes be made to drink magic potions – herbs, or animal’s blood – in order to cleanse themselves, so they would carry no evil inside.”
“Fascinating,” said Lt. Anderson. “Shall we… do we drink?”
“We are not supplicants,” said Roerich. “Come. Take a sample,” he told Mr. Petravich.
We continued into the next chamber, which was wide, high-ceilinged, suitable for large gatherings. There was a level path which we followed at the approximate center of the chamber, and to either side, the floor sloped upwards. A congregation could stand here, gathered on either side of the walk, as a newcomer entered. They would have stood along the slopes so that each individual was visible from any point in the chamber. I imagined them standing there now – a choir of ghosts on either side, watching us walk with blind eyes, and hearing the echoes of our footsteps, our breaths, our hearts beating. It was cold. At the far end of the chamber was a promontory, like a small stage that someone had carved flat into the rock. A leader must have stood here, to address his subjects or to receive visitors.
“There is nothing here,” said Mr. Petravich. Roerich frowned.
“The people,” I muttered, and without realizing it, I won the attentions of the whole party. “They would have gathered here. Kings and warlords would come for an audience, seeking favor. They would be received with grandeur – but not with tapestries, or gold, or baubles. The people of Shambhala – that was the treasure here. That was what the lost kings would have put on display.”
Lt. Anderson made his notes to Jindal. “If you had to guess,” Roerich asked me, “what was this place?”
I thought about it. “A temple,” I said. A dark and ominous place of ceremony. We found several tunnels leading out of there. One continued deeper, and we placed our candle there, and made our way further down.
The next level held great interest for Mr. Petravich. Here, for the first time, we found carvings in the walls – a square and mechanical script of large characters resembling those found in ancient Chinese texts. Nearby on a series of stone shelves cut into the walls, there sat a great and diverse assortment of artifacts – small figurines carved out of gold, ivory, and wood; coins, including one Mr. Petravich recognized bearing the face of Darius of Persia. We examined these for a long time, and with keen interest. When Roerich at last called for us to move on, Mr. Petravich insisted on staying there to continue his study. They argued and Roerich at last relented, and detailed one of the mercenaries to remain with him. The rest of us – Roerich, myself, Lt. Anderson, Jindal, and the second mercenary, continued down another ladder.
When we reached the bottom and placed our candle, Lt. Anderson placed the height at forty meters. We were very deep now, and the air – though cold and dry – was very thick. We were deposited in a sort of corridor, with a low ceiling and cramped walls, running beyond the light of our torches to the left and to the right. Roerich led us left, past several additional passageways, until the tunnel ended abruptly.
“It’s a labyrinth,” said Lt. Anderson.
“A network of tunnels,” I replied, echoing the words Mr. Mackenny had used to describe the structure of the kingdom. “They might run for miles, connecting this temple to the rest of Shambhala.”
“No,” said Roerich. He explained the intensity with which they had examined the surrounding mountains. “There is only one entrance,” he said. “This is a maze. And at the end, the prize.”
I reserved my doubts. We worked backwards, and charted the passage and all its connections. Then we followed it the opposite direction, past our candle, and found many more pathways sprouting from there. Lt. Anderson seemed happy to guess at the purpose of each, although there was no indication whatsoever. “I should love to find their crypt,” he said once. Jindal did not write that down.
We returned to the surface, collecting Mr. Petravich and all our candles. That night, Roerich called the entire camp to order over supper, and announced that tomorrow, we would all go down into the cave. A comprehensive effort would be made to map the tunnels, using all hands to explore the depths. We would operate so, until the full extent of Shambhala had been mapped and all its treasures catalogued. Then he and Lt. Anderson left to discuss the details of such an undertaking. I ate with Helena, who seemed very pleased with the decision, and asked me about many of the things I had seen.
THE LABYRINTH
We established our base of operations in the large gathering chamber with sloping floors, which came to be called the Chapel. All our supplies were brought in, save for the remaining explosives and the cooking pits, which were kept out for safety purposes. A few men were left outside to guard these depots. The rest of the camp was set up in the dark chamber. As soon as the cots were in place, we filed down into the labyrinth using the stone ladder in groups of four. Lt. Anderson had arranged the laborers into search parties, which moved about in the tunnels and communicated with a system of whistles. The academics among us were divided into two parties. The first, led by Mr. Petravich, examined, documented, and sampled each of the materials found (beginning with the mat, curtain, and ceremonial chest at the Chapel’s entrance, all of which had to be removed for expediency). Mr. Keaton was his assistant, and from time to time, he would summon me to contradict or support Mr. Petravich’s conclusions.
The chief party was, as before, myself, Roerich, Lt. Anderson, and Jindal. We were joined normally by Helena Roerich, who proved a capable spelunker, and generally made for pleasant company. Roerich spread his mercenaries across the many moving parts of the operation, and kept at all times two or more with himself, and therefore also with me. Our aim in this party was singular. Roerich believed that the Cintamani Stone was kept here, secure in the depths of the labyrinth. He and Helena each recounted stories that fragments had sometimes been given to kingdoms, which had the power to grant prosperity and growth. Those fragments, they surmised, were distributed from the Chapel, and the stone itself must therefore be close by.
I will summarize our search thus: it took many days. We found many items, which were of tremendous interest to Mr. Petravich, and of no significance whatsoever to Roerich. We never did locate the crypt, towards which Lt. Anderson repeatedly expressed curiosity. I was curious too, only because we never could locate any human remains. The search parties delved deeper and further every day, and it seemed impossible that for such a grand domain, there could be only one door. We discovered spartan living arrangements, carving tools, a few weapons (resembling the axlotl of the Americas), and cooking utensils, which suggested a vegetarian diet. Notably absent were any sources of light, which seemed to confirm Roerich’s assessment that the people of Shambhala were, if only in practice, blind. There were no signs of the practice of medicine, nor of burial. How the people were born, and what happened to them after they died, will forever remain a mystery.
Eleven days into the search, as I was assisting Mr. Petravich, a signal came back by whistles that all work was to cease immediately. Word reached me that Roerich had requested my presence, and that no one was to move an inch more than absolutely necessary until new orders were given. Accompanied by the armed mercenary who had fetched me, I followed a trail of tallow candles through the twists and turns of the stone maze until I stood beside Lt. Anderson at the rear of the chief party. They had found something. Jindal scribbled madly, unprompted, and Helena positively bounced in her excitement.
“Stairs,” said Lt. Anderson, pointing with his torch. The squirming pathway terminated in a wall, which sparkled from rich mineral deposits of copper and tin. The floor fell away in a series of monstrously tall steps, each four feet high, and smooth, as if naturally formed. To climb them, the Shambhala must have scaled each step as if leaping up a wall. To descend them was treacherous, as each landing was little more than two feet wide.
Roerich stood two steps down. I could barely make out the shape of his head, and that sinister face. He beckoned me without words, and I made my way down, lying on my stomach and swinging my legs over each lip so that I could lower myself down feet-first. When I reached him, he held his torch near the lip of the rock where I had just descended. “Look there,” he told me.
I looked. “What is that?”
“Blood,” he replied. He was right. A streak of darkened reddish-brown, unmistakable. “It’s fresh,” he went on.
“How?” I asked. He narrowed his eyes at me. “I don’t understand.”
“’Godspeed, Doctor Cole,’” he said. I held my breath. “Tell me everything.”
“Those were Mr. Mackenny’s last words,” I told him honestly. “He is dead.”
“You can see plainly that he is not.” His powerful gaze searched me. “Tell me the truth. Where is Paul Mackenny?” I told him again that he was dead, that I had watched him leap off the cliff. He took hold of my neck. “The truth, damn you! Where is he?” He pushed me close to the edge of the stair, so that only by his grasp about my throat was I spared a fatal fall. “Can’t you see? He is here! He has found some way inside. He means to plunder the stone for himself!”
I could not manage to speak, and so I could not convince him of my ignorance. But as I gasped there at his mercy, he decided at last to spare my life. He threw me back against the rocks, coughing, and put his hands over his head.
“He is stealing the Stone,” he said, agonizing. “He is stealing it from me, and from you, and from your lost companion. From history. He is stealing it, and I cannot stop him.”
“No,” I said, when I found my breath. “You are stealing the Stone. And Mr. Mackenny is stopping you.”
Roerich was vanquished by these words. He slumped against the stair, all the life gone out of him. Soon we were joined by Lt. Anderson, and then by Helena, and the rest of the party, and we made our way further down. Helena asked what had happened – she had seen us struggling together, but it was dark. I told her that I had slipped, and Nikolai had rescued me from falling to my death. This made her happy.
We reached the bottom of the stairs and found a rich chamber. The walls were veined with gold and silver, and diamonds, emeralds, rubies, and countless treasures lay inside. They shone in the light of our torches as they had never shone before, since Shambhala was a kingdom of absolute darkness. On a pedestal made of gold and inlaid with jewels, there sat a withering pillow made of velvet. There was a large crease at its center, where something round and heavy sat for thousands of years. But the stone itself was gone.
THE DARKNESS
That night there was an explosion at the mouth of the cave, while we slept in the chapel. There was a great commotion. I stayed with Mr. Petravich and Helena and Roerich. Later, Wulf Anderson appeared and told us that the cave had collapsed. Someone – I presume Mr. Mackenny – had seized the explosives kept outside, and used them to collapse the entrance by bombing out the supports. No one in the caves was injured, but there had been some mercenaries outside keeping watch and they were presumed dead. In the following days, we made many attempts to clear the passage, but to no avail. The gate was sealed.
“What a friend you have,” said Roerich to me. We did not speak again.
When he was gone, I turned to Lt. Anderson and, feeling particularly callous at that moment, said, “Good news, Wulf. We’ve found your crypt.” He did not speak to me much after that, either.
The search parties worked at maximum speed. Roerich was now convinced that, as Mr. Mackenny had found some way to the treasure chamber, he must also have found a second entrance into Shambhala – one that had eluded him on the surface, but which now represented our only hope of survival.
Over the next several months, all our torches went out. We ate through our reserves, and then became accomplished trackers and trappers of that peculiar species of rodent. Mr. Keaton found an edible moss, and the laborers uncovered an artesian well. Lt. Anderson established a procedure by which we could gather and store this water reliably. Some of the stone ladders, after their paths were explored to their ends, were designated as latrines. Mr. Petravich and I passed the time by going over all the relics we had found, and when we ran out of those, we started again from the beginning. Dr. Leavenworth treated several of the men for illness and psychosis. Three of the mercenaries and two of the laborers took their own lives.
When two months had passed in total darkness, one of the search teams found a draft, and we moved our whole camp out of the chapel. When the draft led nowhere, we moved the camp again, and then again. On the fourth such move, we found our way out. It was a tiny crevice, through which none of us would have passed when we first arrived. We were now emaciated by hunger, and so with only a little effort, we were thus able to escape from Shambhala. Helena was the first outside. I came last. The air was fresh and sweet. The light of the stars was blinding, and the snow felt warm. It was now March, 1928.
CONCLUSION AND EPILOGUE
The expedition trekked north out of the mountains and into Tibet. The authorities there treated us harshly, though the conditions were better than what we found in Shambhala. After a brief detention we were allowed to leave, and made our way south across the pass at Nathu La. I took my leave there, with parting words only from Helena and from Mr. Petravich. The Roerich expedition remained in India thereafter, establishing the Himalayan Research Institute.
I made my own way back to America via Europe by train. I crossed the Atlantic from Lisbon, and arrived in New York, where I was questioned by government operatives about my adventures and about Roerich. They were forceful, and had many questions about the Cintamani Stone. I told them most of the truth – that I accompanied Nikolai Roerich into Shambhala, and that I was absolutely certain that he had not found the stone. After several interrogations I was at last allowed to return home.
I received no contact Mr. Mackenny. I believe that the United States government was interested in obtaining the stone for themselves, and that they kept watch over my correspondence for several years – perhaps Mr. Mackenny suspected this as well, and that is why he did not write. Or perhaps one day, some mountain climber will stumble across him, a cold body in the Himalayan snow, clutching a meteorite to his chest atop some icy peak.
After a decade had passed, I made arrangements to visit Mr. Benevici’s burial site. His memorial is no longer there, erased by the weather or by some passing traveler. I was followed in my travels, I suspect, again, by agents of the government, and thus I did not make any attempt to revisit Shambhala, fearing that I would lead them there. (At the time of this writing, the Roerich’s research institute has produced its own account of our journey, and thus I am now at liberty to discuss its details without fear of revelation).
I have resumed my teaching career at Princeton. Naturally I dedicated a good deal of time to the further study of the mythos surrounding the Cintamani Stone. I would like to believe that, as in those legends, the stone now grants wealth and prosperity to Mr. Mackenny. I do wish him the best things in life, despite the manner in which our paths separated, as I believe him do be a good man, who acted as only he could to protect such a relic from the wrong hands. If in fact the stone possesses any real power, I can think of no one better suited to wielding it. But alas – it is only a stone, and I am only a professor of history, and we will never know the truth of how his story ended.
-Dr. Thomas Cole, 1938
In Memory of Louis Benevici, 1902-1927
This story is loosely crafted around the actual expedition of Nicholas Roerich (here Nikolai) and his wife, Helena. They were, by all accounts, wonderful people and active philanthropists. All other characters are fictional.
Certain historical elements of the story are falsified in an attempt to reproduce the inaccuracies of contemporary academia. This was done poorly. Other elements are intended to be historically accurate; this, too, was done poorly, and I would very much like to revisit the story with more research in order to bring them up to speed. Most locations, technology, cultures, and practices were hastily assembled from a cross-section of Wikipedia articles and google searches. Again, poorly. Stay in school kids.
Most significantly: this is written in a really (intentionally) awkward style. My goal was to make it sound like something a historian might write. It's a departure from how I usually write, and I'd love to hear what you think about it.
A note on the challenge: It should (I hope!) be clear that the character meant to satisfy the Fourth Labor is Paul Mackenny. The narrator, Doctor Thomas Cole, and their friend, Louis Benevici, are the thankless allies who labored in vain so that Mackenny could reach his prize alone.
Certain historical elements of the story are falsified in an attempt to reproduce the inaccuracies of contemporary academia. This was done poorly. Other elements are intended to be historically accurate; this, too, was done poorly, and I would very much like to revisit the story with more research in order to bring them up to speed. Most locations, technology, cultures, and practices were hastily assembled from a cross-section of Wikipedia articles and google searches. Again, poorly. Stay in school kids.
Most significantly: this is written in a really (intentionally) awkward style. My goal was to make it sound like something a historian might write. It's a departure from how I usually write, and I'd love to hear what you think about it.
A note on the challenge: It should (I hope!) be clear that the character meant to satisfy the Fourth Labor is Paul Mackenny. The narrator, Doctor Thomas Cole, and their friend, Louis Benevici, are the thankless allies who labored in vain so that Mackenny could reach his prize alone.