Michael Moorcock - Oswald Bastable 1 - The Warlord of the Ai

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THE WARLORD OF THE AIR

by Michael Moorcock

v1.0

BOOK ONE

HOW AN ENGLISH ARMY OFFICER ENTERED THE WORLD OF THE FUTURE AND WHAT HE SAW THERE

CHAPTER I The Opium Eater of Rowe Island

IN THE SPRING of 1903, on the advice of my physician, I had occasion to visit that remote and

beautiful fragment of land in the middle of the Indian Ocean which I shall call Rowe Island. I had

been overworking and had contracted what the quacks now like to term 'exhaustion' or even 'nervous

debility'. In other words I was completely whacked out and needed a rest a long way away from

anywhere. I had a small interest in the mining company which is the sole industry of the island

(unless you count Religion!) and I knew that its climate was ideal, as was its location-one of the

healthiest places in the world and fifteen hundred miles from any form of civilisation. So I

purchased my ticket, packed my boxes, bade farewell to my nearest and dearest, and boarded the

liner which would take me to Jakarta. From Jakarta, after a pleasant and uneventful voyage, I took

one of the company boats to Rowe Island. I had managed the journey in less than a month.

Rowe Island has no business to be where it is. There is nothing near it. There is nothing to

indicate that it is there. You come upon it suddenly, rising out of the water like the tip of some

vast underwater mountain (which, in fact, it is). It is a great wedge of volcanic rock surrounded

by a shimmering sea which resembles burnished metal when it is still or boiling silver and molten

steel when it is testy. The rock is about twelve miles long by five miles across and is thickly

wooded in places, bare and severe in other parts. Everything goes uphill until it reaches the top

and then, on the other side of the hill, the rock simply falls away, down and down into the sea a

thousand feet below.

Built around the harbour is a largish town which, as you approach it, resembles nothing so much as

a prosperous Devon fishing village-until you see the Malay and Chinese buildings behind the

facades of the hotels and offices which line the quayside. There is room in the harbour for

several good sized steamers and a number of sailing vessels, principally native dhows and junks

which are used for fishing. Further up the hill you can see the workings of the mines which employ

the greatest part of the population which is Malay and Chinese labourers and their wives and

families. Prominent on the quayside are the warehouses and offices of the Welland Rock Phosphate

Mining Company and the great white and gold facade of the Royal Habour Hotel of which the

proprietor is one Minheer Olmeijer, a Dutchman from Surabaya. There are also an almost ungodly

number of missions, Buddhist temples, Malay mosques and shrines of more, mysterious origin. There

are several less ornate hotels than Olmeijer's, there are general stores, sheds and buildings

which serve the tiny railway which brings the ore down from the mountain and along the quayside.

There are three hospitals, two of which are for natives only. I say 'natives' in the loose sense.

There were no natives of any sort before the island was settled thirty years ago by the people who

founded the Welland firm; all labour was brought from the Peninsula, mainly from Singapore. On a

hill to the south of the harbour, standing rather aloof from the town and dominating it, is the

residence of the Official Representative, Brigadier Bland, together with the barracks which houses

the small garrison of native police under the command of a very upright servant of the Empire,

Lieutenant Allsop. Over this spick and span collection of whitewashed stucco flies a proud Union

Jack, symbol of protection and justice to all who dwell on the island.

Unless you are fond of paying an endless succession of social calls on the other English people,

most of whom can talk only of mining or of missions, there is not a great deal to do on Rowe

Island. There is an amateur dramatic society which puts on a play at the Official Representative's

residence every Christmas, there is a club of sorts where one may play billiards if invited by the

oldest members (I was invited once but played rather badly). The local newspapers from Singapore,

Sarawak or Sydney are almost always at least a fortnight old, when you can find them, the Times is

a month to six weeks old and the illustrated weeklies and monthly journals from home can be

anything up to six months old by the time you see them. This sparsity of up-to-date news is, of

course, a very good thing for a man recovering from exhaustion. It is hard to get hot under the

collar about a war which has been over a month or two before you read about it or a stock market

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tremor which has resolved itself one way or the other by the previous week. You are forced to

relax. After all, there is nothing you can do to alter the course of what has become history. But

it is when you have begun to recover your energy, both mental and physical, that you begin to

realise how bored you are-and within two months this realisation had struck me most forcibly. I

began to nurse a rather evil hope that something would happen on Rowe Island-an explosion in the

mine, an earthquake, or perhaps even a native uprising.

In this frame of mind I took to haunting the harbour, watching the ships loading and unloading,

with long lines of coolies carrying sacks of corn and rice away from the quayside or guiding the

trucks of phosphate up the gangplanks to dump them in the empty holds. I was surprised to see so

many women doing work which in England few would have thought women could do! Some of these women

were quite young and some were almost beautiful. The noise was almost deafening when a ship or

several ships were in port. Naked brown and yellow bodies milled everywhere, like so much churning

mud, sweating in the intense heat-a heat relieved only by the breezes off the sea.

It was on one such day that I found myself down by the harbour, having had my lunch at Olmeijer's

hotel, where I was staying, watching a steamer ease her way towards the quay, blowing her whistle

at the junks and dhows which teemed around her. Like so many of the ships which ply that part of

the world, she was sturdy but unlovely to look upon. Her hull and superstructure were battered and

needed painting and her crew, mainly laskars, seemed as if they would have been more at home on

some Malay pirate ship. I saw the captain, an elderly Scot, cursing at them from his bridge and

bellowing incoherently through a megaphone while a half-caste mate seemed to be performing some

peculiar, private dance of his own amongst the seamen. The ship was the Maria Carlson bringing

provisions and, I hoped, some mail. She berthed at last and I began to push my way through the

coolies towards her, hoping she had brought me some letters and the journals which I had begged my

brother to send me from London.

The mooring ropes were secured, the anchor dropped and the gangplanks lowered and then the half-

caste mate, his cap on the back of his head, his jacket open, came springing down, howling at the

coolies who gathered there waving the scraps of paper they had received at the hiring office. As

he howled he gathered up the papers and waved wildly at the ship, presumably issuing instructions.

I hailed him with my cane.

"Any mail?" I called.

"Mail? Mail?" He offered me a look of hatred and contempt which I took for a negative reply to my

question. Then he rushed back up the gangplank and disappeared. I waited, however, in the hope of

seeing the captain and confirming with him that there was, indeed, no mail. Then I saw a white man

appear at the top of the gangplank, pausing and staring blankly around him as if he had not

expected to find land on the other side of the rail at all. Someone gave him a shove from behind

and he staggered down the bouncing plank, fell at the bottom and picked himself up in time to

catch the small seabag which the mate threw to him from the ship.

The man was dressed in a filthy linen suit, had no hat, no shirt. He was unshaven and there were

native sandles on his feet. I had seen his type before. Some wretch whom the East had ruined, who

had discovered a weakness within himself which he might never have found if he had stayed safely

at home in England. As he straightened up, however, I was startled by an expression of intense

misery in his eyes, a certain dignity of bearing which was not at all common in the type. He

shouldered his bag and began to make his way towards the town.

"And don't try to get back aboard, mister, or the law will have you next time!" screamed the mate

of the Maria Carlson after him. The down-and-out hardly seemed to hear. He continued to plod along

the quayside, jostled by the coolies, frantic for work.

The mate saw me and gesticulated impatiently. "No mail. No mail."

I decided to believe him, but called: "Who is that chap? What's he done?"

"Stowaway," was the curt reply.

I wondered why anyone should want to stow away on a ship bound for Rowe Island and on impulse I

turned and followed the man. For some reason I believed him to be no ordinary derelict and he had

piqued my curiosity. Besides, my boredom was so great that I should have welcomed any relief from

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it. Also I was sure that there was something different about his eyes and his bearing and that, if

I could encourage him to confide in me, he would have an interesting story to tell Perhaps I felt

sorry for him, too. Whatever the reason, I hastened to catch him up and address him.

"Don't be offended," I said, "but you look to me as if you could make some use of a square meal

and maybe a drink."

"Drink?"

He turned those strange, tormented eyes on me as if he had recognised me as the Devil himself.

"Drink?"

"You look all up, old chap." I could hardly bear to look into that face, so great was the agony I

saw there. "You'd better come with me."

Unresistingly, he let me lead him down the harbour road until we reached Olmeijer's. The Indian

servants in the lobby weren't happy about my bringing in such an obvious derelict, but I led him

straight upstairs to my suite and ordered my houseboy to start a bath at once. In the meantime I

sat my guest down in my best chair and asked him what he would like to drink.

He shrugged. "Anything. Rum?"

I poured him a stiffish shot of rum and handed him the glass. He downed it in a couple of swallows

and nodded his thanks. He sat placidly in the chair, his hands folded in his lap, staring at the

table.

His accent, though distant and bemused, had been that of a cultivated man-a gentleman-and this

aroused my curiosity even further.

"Where are you from?" I asked him. "Singapore?"

"From?" He gave me an odd look and then frowned to himself. He muttered something which I could

not catch and then the houseboy entered and told me that he had prepared the bath.

"The bath's ready," I said. "If you'd like to use it I'll be looking out one of my suits. We're

about the same size."

He rose like an automaton and followed the house-boy into the bathroom, but then he re-emerged

almost at once. "My bag," he said.

I picked up the bag from the floor and handed it to him. He went back into the bathroom and closed

the door.

The houseboy looked curiously at me. "Is he some-some relative, sahib?"

I laughed. "No, Ram Dass. He is just a man I found on the quay."

Ram Dass smiled. "Aha! It is the Christian charity." He seemed satisfied. As a recent convert (the

pride of one of the local missions) he was constantly translating all the mysterious actions of

the English into good, simple Christian terms. "He is a beggar, then? You are the Samaritan?"

"I'm not sure I'm as selfless as that," I told him. "Will you fetch one of my suits for the

gentleman to put on after he has had his bath?"

Ram Dass nodded enthusiastically. "And a shirt, and a tie, and socks, and shoes-everything?"

I was amused. "Very well. Everything."

My guest took a very long time about his ablutions, but came out of the bathroom at last looking

much more spruce than when he had gone in. Ram Dass had dressed him in my clothes and they fitted

extraordinarily well, though a little loose, for I was considerably better fed than he. Ram Dass

behind him brandished a razor as bright as his grin. "I have shaved the gentleman, sahib!"

The man before me was a good-looking young man in his late twenties, although there was something

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about the set of his features which occasionally made him look much older. He had golden wavy

hair, a good jaw and a firm mouth. He had none of the usual signs of weakness which I had learned

to recognise in the others of his kind I had seen. Some of the pain had gone out of his eyes, but

had been replaced by an even more remote-even dreamy-expression. It was Ram Dass, sniffing

significantly and holding up a long, carved pipe behind the man, who gave me the clue.

So that was it! My guest was an opium eater! He was addicted to a drug which some had called the

Curse of the Orient, which contributed much to that familiar attitude of fatalism we equate with

the East, which robbed men of their will to eat, to work, to indulge in any of the usual pleasures

with which others beguile their hours-a drug which eventually kills them.

With an effort I managed to control any expression of horror or pity which I might feel and said

instead:

"Well, old chap, what do you say to a late lunch?"

"If you wish it," he said distantly.

"I should have thought you were hungry."

"Hungry? No."

"Well, at any rate, we'll get something brought up. Ram Dass? Could you arrange for some food?

Perhaps something cold. And tell Mnr. Olmeijer that I shall have a guest staying the night We'll

need sheets for the other bed and so on."

Ram Dass went away and, uninvited, my guest crossed to the sideboard and helped himself to a large

whisky. He hesitated for a moment before pouring in some soda. It was almost as if he were trying

to remember how to prepare a drink.

"Where were you making for when you stowed away?" I asked. "Surely not Rowe Island?"

He turned, sipping his drink and staring through the window at the sea beyond the harbour. "This

is Rowe Island?"

"Yes. The end of the world in many respects."

"The what?" He looked at me suspiciously and I saw a hint of that torment in his eyes again.

"I was speaking figuratively. Not much to do on Rowe Island. Nowhere to go, really, except back

where you came from. Where did you come from, by the way?"

He gestured vaguely. "I see. Yes. Oh, Japan, I suppose."

"Japan? You were in the foreign service there, perhaps?"

He looked at me intently as if he thought my words had some hidden meaning. Then he said: "Before

that, India. Yes, India before that. I was in the Army."

"How-?" I was embarrassed. "How did you come to be aboard the Maria Carlson-the ship which brought

you here?"

He shrugged. "I'm afraid I don't remember. Since I left-since I came back-it has been like a

dream. Only the damned opium helps me forget. Those dreams are less horrifying."

"You take opium?" I felt like a hypocrite, framing the question like that.

"As much as I can get hold of."

"You seem to have been through some rather terrible experience," I said, forgetting my manners

completely.

He laughed then, more in self-mockery than at me. "Yes! Yes. It turned me mad. That's what you'd

think, anyway. What's the date, by the way?"

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He was becoming more communicative as he downed his third drink.

"It's the 29th of May," I told him.

"What year?"

"Why, 1903!"

"I knew that really. I knew it." He spoke defensively now. "1903, of course. The beginning of a

bright new century-perhaps even the last century of the world."

From another man, I might have taken these disconnected ramblings to be merely the crazed

utterances of the opium fiend, but from him they seemed oddly convincing. I decided it was time to

introduce myself and did so.

He chose a peculiar way in which to respond to this introduction. He drew himself up and said:

"This is Captain Oswald Bastable, late of the 53rd Lancers." He smiled at this private joke and

went and sat down in an armchair near the window.

A moment later, while I was still trying to recover myself, he turned his head and looked up at me

in amusement. "I'm sorry, but you see I'm in a mood not to try to disguise my madness. You're very

kind." He raised his glass in a salute. "I thank you. I must try to remember my manners. I had

some once. They were a fine set of manners. Couldn't be beaten, I dare say. But I could introduce

myself in several ways. What if I said my name was Oswald Bastable-Airshipman."

"You fly balloons?"

"I have flown airships, sir. Ships twelve-hundred feet long which travel at speeds in excess of

one hundred miles an hour! You see. I am mad."

"Well, I would say you were inventive, if nothing else. Where did you fly the airships?"

"Oh, most parts of the world."

"I must be completely out of touch. I knew I was receiving the news rather late, but I'm afraid I

haven't heard of these ships. When did you make the flight?"

Bastable's opium-filled eyes stared at me so hard that I shuddered.

"Would you really care to hear?" he said in a cold, small voice.

My mouth felt dry and I wondered if he were about to become violent. I moved toward the bell-rope.

But he knew what was in my mind because he laughed again and shook his head. "I won't attack you,

sir. But you see now why I smoke opium, why I know myself to be mad. Who but a madman would claim

to have flown through the skies faster than the fastest ocean liner? Who but a madman would claim

to have done this in the year 1973 A.D?-nearly three quarters of a century in the future?"

"You believe that you have done this? And no one will listen to you. Is that what makes you so

bitter?"

"That? No! Why should it? It is the thought of my own folly which torments me. I should be dead-

that would be just. But instead I am half-alive, hardly knowing one dream from another, one

reality from another."

I took his empty glass from his hand and filled it for him. "Look here," I said. "If you will do

something for me, I'll agree to listen to what you have to say. There's precious little else for

me to do, anyway."

"What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to eat some lunch and try to stay off the opium for a while-until you've seen a

doctor, at least Then I want you to agree that you'll put yourself in my care, perhaps even return

with me to England when I go back. Will you do that?"

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"Perhaps." He shrugged. "But this mood could pass, I warn you. I've never had the inclination to

speak to anyone about-about the airships and everything. Yet, perhaps history is alterable...."

"I don't follow you."

"If I told you what I know, what happened to me- what I saw-it might make a difference. If you

agreed to write it down, publish it, if you could, when you got back."

"When we got back," I said firmly.

"Just as you like." His expression altered, became grim, as if his decision had a significance I

had not understood.

And so the lunch was brought up and he ate some of the cold chicken and the salad. The meal seemed

to do him good, for he became more coherent.

"I'll try to begin at the beginning," he said, "and go through to the end-telling it as it

happened."

I had a large notebook and several pencils by me. In the early days of my career I had earned my

living as a Parliamentary Reporter and my knowledge of shorthand stood me in good stead as

Bastable began to speak.

He told me his story over the next three days, in which time we scarcely left that room, scarcely

slept. Occasionally Bastable would revive himself by recourse to some pills he had-which he swore

to me were not opium-but I needed no other stimulant than Bastable's story itself. The atmosphere

in that hotel room became unreal as the tale unfolded. I began by thinking I listened to the

fantastic ravings of a madman but I ended by believing without any doubt that I had heard the

truth-or, at least, a truth. It is up to you to decide if what follows is fiction or not. I can

only assure you that Bastable said it was not fiction and I believe, profoundly, that he was

right.

Michael Moorcock. Three Chimneys, Mitcham, Surrey. October 1904.

CHAPTER II The Temple at Teku Benga

I DON'T KNOW if you've ever been in North East India (began Bastable) but if you have you'll know

what I mean when I say it's the meeting place of worlds both old and immeasurably ancient. Where

India, Nepaul, Tibet and Bhutan come together, about two hundred miles north of Darjiling and

about a hundred west of Mt. Kinchunmaja, you'll find Kumbalari: a state which claims to be older

than Time. It's what they call a 'Theocracy'-priest-ridden in the extreme, full of dark

superstitions and darker myths and legends, where all gods and demons are honoured, doubtless to

be on the safe side. The people are cruel, ignorant, dirty and proud-they look down their noses at

all other races. They resent the British presence so close to their territory and over the past

couple of hundred years we've had a spot or two of trouble with them, but never anything much.

They won't go far beyond their own borders, luckily, and their population is kept pretty low

thanks to their own various barbaric practises. Sometimes, as on this occasion, a religious leader

pops up who convinces them of the necessity of some kind of jehad against the British or British

protected peoples, tells them they're impervious to our bullets and so forth, and we have to go

and teach them a lesson. They are not regarded very seriously by the Army, which is doubtless why

I was put in charge of the expedition which, in 1902, set off for the Himalayas and Kumbalari.

It was the first time I had commanded so many men and I felt my responsibility very seriously. I

had a squadron of a hundred and fifty sowars of the impressive Punjabi Lancers and two hundred

fierce, loyal little sepoys of the 9th Ghoorka Infantry. I was intensely proud of my army and felt

that if it had had to it could have conquered the whole of Bengal. I was, of course, the only

white officer, but I was perfectly willing to admit that the native officers were men of much

greater experience than myself and whenever possible I relied on their advice.

My orders were to make a show of strength and, if I could, to avoid a scrap. We just wanted to

give the beggars an idea of what they would come up against if we started to take them seriously.

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Their latest leader-an old fanatic by the name of Sharan Kang-was their King, Archbishop and C-in-

C all rolled into one. Sharan Kang had already burned one of our frontier stations and killed a

couple of detachments of Native Police. We weren't interested in vengeance, however, but in making

sure it didn't go any further.

We had some reasonably good maps and a couple of fairly trustworthy guides-distant kinsmen of the

Ghoorkas-and we reckoned it would take us little more than two or three days to get to Teku Benga,

which was Sharan Kang's capital, high up in the mountains and reached by a series of narrow

passes. Since we were on a diplomatic rather than a military mission, we showed great care in

displaying a flag of truce as we crossed the borders into Kumbalari, whose bleak, snow-streaked

mountains lowered down at us on all sides.

It was not long before we had our first glimpse of some Kumbalaris. They sat on shaggy ponies

which were perched like goats on high mountain ledges: squat, yellow-skinned warriors all swathed

in leather and sheepskin and painted iron, their slitted eyes gleaming with hatred and suspicion.

If these were not the descendants of Attila the Hun, then they were the descendants of some even

earlier warrior folk which had fought on these slopes and gorges a thousand or two thousand years

before the Scourge of God had led his hordes East and West, to pillage three quarters of the known

world. Like their ancestors, these were armed with bows, lances, scimitars, but they also had a

few carbines, probably of Russian origin.

Pretending to ignore these watching riders, I led my soldiers up the valley. I had a moment's

surprise when a few shots rang out from above and echoed on and on through the peaks, but the

guides assured me that these were merely signals to announce our arrival in Kumbalari.

It was slow going over the rocky ground and at times we had to dismount and lead our horses. As we

climbed higher and higher the air grew much colder and we were glad when evening came and we could

make camp, light warming fires and check our maps to see how much further we had to go.

The respective commanders of the Cavalry and the Infantry were Risaldar Jenab Shah and Subadar J.

K. Bisht, both of them veterans of many similar expeditions. But for all their experience they

were inclined to be warier than usual of the Kumbalaris and Subadar Bisht advised me to put a

double guard on the camp, which I did.

Subadar Bisht was worried by what he called 'the smell on the wind'. He knew something about the

Kumbalaris and when he spoke of them I saw a glint of what in anyone but a Ghoorka's eyes I might

have mistaken for fear. "These are a cunning and treacherous people, sir," he told me as we ate

together in my tent, with Jenab Shah, a silent giant, beside us. "They are the inheritors of an

ancient evil-an evil which existed before the world was born. In our tongue Kumbalari is called

The Kingdom of the Devil. Do not expect them to honour our white flag. They will respect it only

while it suits them."

"Fair enough," I said. "But they'll have respect for our numbers and our weapons, I dare say."

"Perhaps." Subadar Bisht looked dubious. "Unless Sharan Kang has convinced them that they are

protected by his magic. He is known to draw much power from nameless gods and to have devils at

his command.""Modern guns," I pointed out, "usually prove superior to the most powerful devil,

Subadar Bisht."

The Ghoorka looked grave. "Usually, Captain Bastable. And then there is their cunning. They might

try to split up our column with various tricks-so they can attack us independently, with more

chance of success."

I accepted this. "We'll certainly be on guard against that sort of tactic," I agreed. "But I do

not think I fear their magic."

Risaldar Jenab Shah spoke soberly in his deep, rumbling voice. "It is not so much what we fear,"

he said, "but what they believe." He smoothed his gleaming black beard. "I agree with the Subadar.

We must understand that we are dealing with crazy men-reckless fanatics who will not count the

cost of their own lives."

"The Kumbalaris hate us very much," added Subadar Bisht. "They want to fight us. They have not

attacked. This I find suspicious. Could it be, sir, that they are letting us enter a trap?"

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"Possibly," I replied. "But there again. Subadar Bisht, they may simply be afraid of us-afraid of

the power of the British Raj which will send others to punish them most severely if anything

should happen to us."

"If they are certain that punishment will not come-if Sharan Kang has convinced them thus-it will

not help us." Jenab Shah smiled grimly. "We shall be dead, Captain Bastable."

"If we waited here," Subadar Bisht suggested, "and let them approach us so that we could hear

their words and watch their faces, it would be easier for us to know what to do next."

I agreed with his logic. "Our supplies will last us an extra two days," I said. "We will camp here

for two days. If they do not come within that time, we will continue on to Teku Benga."

Both officers were satisfied. We finished our meal and retired to our respective tents.

And so we waited.

On the first day we saw a few riders round the bend in the pass and we made ready to receive them.

But they merely watched us for a couple of hours before vanishing. Tension had begun to increase

markedly in the camp by the next night.

On the second day one of our scouts rode in to report that over a hundred Kumbalaris had assembled

at the far end of the pass and were riding towards us. We assumed a defensive position and

continued to wait. When they appeared they were riding slowly, and through my field glasses I saw

several elaborate horsehair standards. Attached to one of these was a white flag. The standard-

bearers rode on both sides of a red and gold litter slung between two ponies. Remembering Subadar

Bisht's words of caution, I gave the order for our cavalry to mount. There is hardly any sight

more impressive than a hundred and fifty Punjabi Lancers with their lances at the salute. Risaldar

Jenab Shah was at my side. I offered him my glasses. He took them and stared through them for some

moments. When he lowered them he was frowning. "Sharan Kang seems to be with them," he said,

"riding in that litter. Perhaps this is a genuine parley party. But why so many?"

"It could be a show of strength," I said. "But he must have more than a hundred warriors."

"It depends how many have died for religious purposes," Jenab Shah said darkly. He turned in his

saddle. "Here is Subadar Bisht. What do you make of this, Bisht?"

The Ghoorka officer said: "Sharan Kang would not ride at their head if they were about to charge.

The Priest-Kings of Kumbalari do not fight with their warriors." He spoke with some contempt. "But

I warn you, sir, this could be a trick."

I nodded.

Both the Punjabi sowars and the Ghoorka sepoys were plainly eager to come to grips with the

Kumbalaris. "You had better remind your men that we are here to talk peace, if possible," I said,

"not to fight."

"They will not fight," Jenab Shah said confidently, "until they have orders to do so. Then they

will fight."

The mass of Kumbalari horsemen drew closer and paused a few hundred feet from our lines. The

standard-bearers broke away and, escorting the litter, came up to where I sat my horse at the head

of my men.

The red and gold litter was covered by curtains. I looked enquiringly at the impassive faces of

the standard-bearers, but they said nothing. And then at last the curtain at the front was parted

from within and I was suddenly confronting the High Priest himself. He wore elaborate robes of

brocade stitched with dozens of tiny mirrors. On his head was a tall hat of painted leather inlaid

with gold and ivory. And beneath the peak of the hat was his wizened old face. The face of a

particularly malicious devil.

"Greetings, Sharan Kang," I said. "We are here at the command of the great King-Emperor of

Britain. We come to ask why you attack his houses and kill his servants when he has offered no

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hostility to you."

One of the guides began to interpret, but Sharan Kang waved his hand impatiently. "Sharan Kang

speaks English," he said in a strange, high-pitched voice. "As he speaks all tongues. For all

tongues come from the tongue of the Kumbalari, the First, the Most Ancient."

I must admit I felt a shiver run through me as he spoke. I could almost believe that he was the

powerful sorcerer they claimed him to be.

"Such an ancient people must therefore also be wise." I tried to stare back into those cruel

intelligent eyes. "And a wise people would not anger the King-Emperor."

"A wise people knows that it must protect itself against the wolf," Sharan Kang said, a faint

smile curving his lips. "And the British wolf is a singularly rapacious beast Captain Bastable. It

has eaten well in the lands of the south and the west, has it not? Soon it will turn its eyes

towards Kumbalari."

'"What you mistake for a wolf is really a lion," I said, trying not to show I was impressed by the

fact that he had known my name. "A lion which brings peace, security, justice to those it chooses

to protect. A lion which knows that Kumbalari does not need its protection."

The conversation continued in these rather convoluted terms for some time before Sharan Kang grew

visibly impatient and said suddenly:

"Why are so many soldiers come to our land?"

"Because you attacked our frontier station and killed our men." I said.

"Because you put your 'frontier station' inside our boundaries." Sharan Kang made a strange

gesture in the air, "We are not a greedy people. We have no need to be. We do not hunger for land

like the Westerners, for we know that land is not important when a man's soul is capable of

ranging the universe. You may come to Teku Benga, where all gods preside, and there I will tell

you what you may say to this upstart barbarian lion who dignifies himself with grandiose titles."

"You are willing to discuss a treaty?"

"Yes-in Teku Benga, if you come with no more than six of your men." He gestured, let the curtain

fall, and the litter was turned round. The riders began to move back up the valley.

"It is a trick, sir," Bisht remarked at once. "He hopes that in separating you from us he will cut

off our army's head and thus make it easier to attack us."

"You could be right, Sabadar Bisht, but you know very well that such a trick would not work. The

Ghoorkas are not afraid to fight." I looked back at the sepoys. "Indeed, they seem more than ready

to go into battle at this moment."

"We care nothing for death, sir-the clean battle-death. But it is not the prospect of battle which

disturbs me. In my bones I feel something worse may happen. I know the Kumbalaris. They are a

deeply wicked people. I think what may happen to you in Teku Benga, Captain Bastable."

I laid an affectionate hand on my Sabadar's shoulder. "I am honoured you should feel thus, Sabadar

Bisht. But it is my duty to go to Teku Benga. I have my orders. I must settle this matter

peacefully if it is at all possible."

"But if you do not return from Teku Benga within a day, sir, we shall advance towards the city.

Then, if we are not given full evidence that you are alive and in good health, we shall attack

Teku Benga."

"There's nothing wrong with that plan," I agreed.

And so, with Risaldar Jenab Shah and five, of his sowars, I rode next morning for Teku Benga and

saw at last the walled mountain city into which no stranger had been admitted for a thousand

years. Of course I was suspicious of Sharan Kang. Of course I wondered why, after a thousand

years, he was willing to let foreigners defile the holy city with their presence. But what could I

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do? If he said he was willing to discuss a treaty, then I had to believe him.

I was at a loss to imagine how such a city, rearing as it did out of the crags of the Himalayas,

had been built. Its crazy spires and domes defied the very laws of gravity. Its crooked walls

followed the line of the mountain slopes and many of the buildings looked as if they had been

plucked up and perched delicately on slivers of rock which could scarcely support the weight of a

man. Many of the roofs and walls were decorated with complicated carvings of infinitely delicate

workmanship set with jewels and precious metals, rare woods, jade and ivory. Finials curled in on

themselves and curled again. Monstrous stone beasts glared down from a score of places on the

walls. The whole city glittered in the cold light and it did, indeed, seem older than any

architecture I had ever seen or read about. Yet, for all its richness and its age, Teku Benga

struck me as being a rather seedy sort of place, as if it had known better days. Perhaps the

Kumbalaris had not built it. Perhaps the race which had built it had mysteriously disappeared, as

had happened elsewhere, and the Kumbalaris had merely occupied it.

"Ooof! The stench!" With his handkerchief. Risaldar Jenab Shah fastidiously wiped his nose. "They

must keep their goats and sheep in their temples and palaces."

Teku Benga had the smell of a farmyard which had not been too cleanly kept and the smell grew

stronger as we entered the main gate under the eyes of the glowering guards. Our horses trod

irregularly paved streets caked with dung and other refuse. No women were present in those

streets. All we saw were a few male children and a number of warriors lounging, with apparent

unconcern, by their ponies. We kept going, up the steeply sloping central street, lined with

nothing but temples, towards a large square in what I judged to be the middle of the city. The

temples themselves were impressively ugly, in a style which a scholar might have called decadent

Oriental baroque. Every inch of the buildings was decorated with representations of gods and

demons from virtually every mythology in the East. There were mixtures of Hindu and Buddhist

decoration, of Moslem and some Christian, of what I took to be Egyptian, Phoenician, Persian, even

Greek, and some which were older still; but none of these combinations was at all pleasing to the

eye. At least I now understood how it came to be called the Place Where All Gods Preside-though

they presided, it seemed to me, in rather uneasy juxtaposition to each other.

"This is distinctly an unhealthy place," said Jenab Shah. "I will be glad to leave it. I should

not like to die here, Captain Bastable. I would fear what would happen to my soul."

"I know what you mean. Let us hope Sharan Kang keeps his word."

"I am not sure I heard him give his word, sir," said the Risaldar significantly as we reached the

square and reined in our horses. We had arrived outside a huge, ornate building, much larger than

the others, but in the same sickening mixture of styles. Domes, minarets, spiralling steeples,

lattice-walls, pagoda-like terraced roofs, carved pillars, serpent finials, fabulous monsters

grinning or growling from every corner, tigers and elephants standing guard at every doorway. The

building was predominantly coloured green and saffron, but there was red and blue and orange and

gold and some of the roofs were overlaid with gold- or silver-leaf. It seemed the oldest temple of

them all. Behind all this was the blue Himalayan sky in which grey and white clouds boiled. It was

a sight unlike anything I had ever previously experienced. It filled me with a sense of deep

foreboding as if I were in the presence of something not built by human hands at all.

Slowly, from all the many doorways, saffron-robed priests began to emerge and stand stock still,

watching us from the steps and galleries of the building which was Temple or Palace, or both, I

could not decide.

These priests looked little different from the warriors we had seen earlier and they were

certainly no cleaner. It occurred to me that if the Kumbalaris disdained land, then they disliked

water even more. I remarked on this to Risaldar Jenab Shah who flung back his great turbanned head

and laughed heartily-an action which caused the priests to frown at us in hatred and disgust.

These priests were not shaven-headed, like most priests who wore the saffron robe. These had long

hair hanging down their faces in many greasy braids and some had moustaches or beards which were

plaited in a similar fashion. They were a sinister, unsavoury lot. Not a few had belts or

cummerbunds into which were stuck scabbarded swords.

We waited and they watched us. We returned their gaze trying to appear much less concerned than we

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