Loku’s Dream : the Ballad of Light and Darkness

Prologue to a Fog of Ages

For days the traveller had walked the wilderness to reach the desolate sands of the red desert. His only companion was a young khamel, bought from a merchant of Ptaha at the fair of the Crafter god in the temple city of Kayanoor. Ah, Kayanoor! A pearl of the deserts, even if its city-folk were all too haughty, and merchants all the choicest crooks. A city of soaring spires, gleaming golden against the azure desert sky, and only slightly lighter than the sky were the vast globular domes of its grand temples. How had such a rose grown at the edge of the wilderness expanse?

A grunt from the khamel broke him out his reverie.

“Ah, young friend, you yearn for the comforts of a Kayanoor stable too. Soon, my friend, soon.”

The animal had proven to be more rugged than he looked. On the khamel’s back, rolled up, was a rough canvas tent, two cisterns of water and a sack of almand nuts, the most durable food for travellers of long roads, hung on each end of a horizontally balanced wooden staff. The sack was more than half empty.

It had been a long journey but now the destination was near.

The sun was low, and in another hour would be sunk below the horizon. He tugged at the khamel’s rein and quickened his pace. Some days ago, the young beast would have protested, now, days of travel had hardened his sinews, or perhaps exhaustion had withered his spirit.

After half an hour of plodding through the increasingly sandy soil, his foot hit hard ground. A chill ran through him, and seemingly, transmitted to the khamel, who whinnied, too.

“Trod carefully now, young one. We are in hallowed ground,” he whispered to the beast, and it did soothe the khamel’s nerves. “Look!”

Some way off in the distance ahead of them were two vast protruding rocks, dark voids against a rosette sky, which had emerged as if out of nowhere. One could easily have mistaken them for dark spots in his vision but he knew what they were — the barest tips of two monumental statues which had lain buried in the red desert for thousands of years. They remnants of an old age, monuments of the Ayarlords. Now, they were signposts which told him his journey was near an end.

He walked towards them, and in another quarter of an hour, had passed through their brooding bareness, onto a dark, smooth, almost black ground — though revealed only in patches where it wasn’t covered by the sand.

He let go of the khamel’s rein. The beast plodded into a pile of sand thinking perhaps that this was where they would rest for the night. From an opening in the side of the tent-roll, the traveller pulled out a feedbag which had some ground up almand nuts and affixed it on the khamel’s neck. For himself, he unfixed a flask from his waist, taking a moment — like he had done every time he pulled it out — to admire the intricate Trakhanee carvings on its ivory shell which portrayed a group of wilderness riders at a winter-feast. He chuckled, fleetingly seeing the vision of a memory of such a feast in his mind’s eye which he had attended long years ago. One swig of the herbed water from the flask would replenish his wearied body. Well, he knew it was only a way to trick the body into believing it was sated and rested. Trakhanee riders often rode for days when carrying urgent messages taking a swig of the herbed water their flasks contained — but the moment they stepped off their horses they would collapse into an exhausted pile, sleep for days, and sometimes, never wake. He had to be careful, for three days he had eaten nothing, taking only the occasional swig from the flask.

The khamel was oddly uneasy, so the traveller crouched near his moist muzzle, to rub gently behind his ears and whisper some soothing words. The animal calmed, was thankful, and brushed his masters bearded cheek with his moist nose.

But, not a moment had passed, and he began to feel as if he had just woken from a full night’s rest. So, he bent down and got to work, and in a few minutes had uncovered most of the sand from the hardened black ground. What the sand revealed had astonished him, even if he knew exactly what to expect. An intermeshed patchwork of thick white lines was drawn over the ground, covering an area as large as a small field. The design of the pattern was ingrained in his mind, but only the small image he had seen in withered old manuscripts. He had once seen it on a wall hanging as large as a window in the port city of…

“GO!”

The word was whispered in the wind which had risen out of the nothingness.

He froze for a moment, then suddenly, a small inner voice spurred him into action. You have prepared for this moment. For ages.

The Mandala of the Gatekeepers could be opened only by a key mantra, recited as he traced a specific pattern on the intermingled mesh on the ground. He had done it thousands of times on dry and empty fields but this… this was real. But he fell on his knees and began, with the chant muttered under breath, to trace the pattern on the Mandala.

Aham Asur Asra Asreya. Aham Asur Asra Asreya…

“GO AWAY STRANGER! YOU ARE NOT WANTED HERE!”

He stumbled and almost lost the pattern. There was a flash of light. For a moment it seemed to him he was in a vast city yard, or temple square, though the temple was vast beyond imagination with the most monumental giant sky-kissing statues and spires twice as high as Kayanoor’s soaring above into an azure sky. But it was all gone, again, in a moment.

“THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCESsssss,” the wind picked up around him, tugging at him, as if pushing him away. No, but it was hindering him from completing the final lines of the pattern. But thankfully the Trakhanee herbs were working their magic, yet, how much of his inner reserves would he pull on. When the herbs’ magic faded, would it leave him too weak?

Maybe. But he pushed against the wind. It was what he had to do no matter if he died. While his mind was focused on finishing the pattern, from the corner of his eye, it seemed to him there were dark cloaked shapes in the wind reaching out to grab him, just a few inches away, and then… suddenly they were gone.

All was still.

He felt exhausted. Almost broken. His eyes began to close… but suddenly there was a movement behind him. The khamel, he pushed his neck against his fallen master, holding him up.

“It looks like it did not work, young one, let us…”

But, as if the falling night had turned to rising day, there was now an pale glow of light all around. It was the Mandala, the lines on which he had drawn the pattern were glowing like the edge of the rising sun.

“Sssaayy what you mussst sssayyy…,” the wind voice, softer and more distant, spoke again.

It had worked!

“I… I… serve the Lord. I come… I come to pledge.”

“Pledge what you mussst,” the wind voice whispered.

“I pledge… I pledge…”

“A ssssoul. You mussst pledge a sssoul,” the wind voice demanded.

A soul. A soul. He thought. He would sacrifice a goat at the temple of the

Lost Ones when he returned to Kayanoor.

“I do,” he said. It was done. He felt something break inside him. For years he sought this, now that it was done, it was as if, he had betrayed something. No! He had a higher purpose.

“RISE! You now serve a higher purpose. Tell ussss, what you have to sssaaay!”

“The boy. The Gathachakra. He has been found.”

“You are not the firsssst to tell ussss that. WE KNOW! GO!”

Suddenly the light was gone. It was pitch dark around him. It was a moment before his eyes could adjust to the dim glow of the star lit desert sky.

The khamel! He had forgotten all about the poor beast! He turned back to find it and screamed.

Not the animal, but behind him was a rotting carcass of the poor young beast that moments before had been alive. His heart sank, He would carry the burden of this young friend too in his old and weary heart. So old, o’ so old. So weary, so old.

He picked up the staff. Thankfully, the cisterns of water were unbroken, fixed the tent roll on his back and began to walk away. After a few steps he pulled out an oil lantern from the tent-roll, and hung it on his staff, alongside the cistern to his left. After some walking in the lamp-lit darkness, that side was beginning to get a little heavy, and now, the weariness in his legs was beginning to tell. He shifted the lantern to the right. Maybe another swig? As he approached the statue-heads he saw in the din glow of the lantern light that their faces were now revealed, uncovered from the sand — regal, prominent faces, that seemed almost alive in the dancing lantern light. Around their heads were cloaks similar to the the ones he had seen — or thought he had seen — in the ghost figures in the wind.

At first he had thought he would set his camp between the rocks. But now, he just took another deep swig from the Trakhanee flask and began to walk. Away. He had so much more distance to travel yet.

—

Chapter 1

The Fog of Ages

The fog was so thick it was as if some giant pitcher of milk had been poured down from the heavens to flow down the mountain slopes. Down form the heavens it rolled, down and down, sieving through the old forests, streaming through lonely firetrails, rolling over cobble-stone paths which snaked down the mountain sides. It rolled and rolled, onward and down, hiding all things of the world behind its spell of ethereal haze. The fog also hid from the human eye things that were still seen by some birds and beasts, things which dwelled in forest clearings deep in the mountains, in some special places where the old magic lingered still. In these places, sometimes the fog took forms. Here, the fog was alive, and together with the spirits of the forest, it danced, singing a mournful song. The song was heard by some human ears, perhaps by some brave wood gatherer who had wandered too deep, or by some shepherd camped on a mountain slope who had wandered too far. Yet, there were too some old women of the hill villages who knew the words of the ancient song, and they heard too, and sometimes hummed along. It was on old song, and old, old song, from when the world of magic was not far removed from men, and things of the Otherworld were not hidden by the fog.

That time is long past. That time is yet to come.

*

A black wind thundered through the forests of the Ayarpatta Hill, unrestrained and uncontained, like a warrior-king of old, marching with his gathered legions. This king was, yet, only a seven year old boy of the village Upari Beechpar, by the name of Loku. Loku was riding on the back of his dear friend, the black stallion Sahltan through a well known forest trail, accompanied by his pack of wulf-dogs, led by the snow-white matriarch, Sheeni. The sun was fiery red in the sky, th e last burst of flame as the sun-god approached the domains of his westward castle, to rest for the night, allowing his sister-moon her share of rule in the starry realm, as it had been ordained by the mother of all gods, in the beginning of this cycle of the wheel of time, the kaalchakra’s will, by which all existence danced.

Lost in contemplation about the nature of things, Loku did not notice that he had reached his destination. Kaala barked, and Sahltan came to rearing halt, as he loved to do on their evening rides to this particular destination, the streams that flowed off the edge of the mountain, as the sky opened up over a vast extending plain, where flowed all the rivers of the earth, and bustled all the cities of mankind. The horse and the wulf-dogs grew solemn. Loku gazed upon the world, beginning to sing the old song Grandmother had taught him when he was a child, as the darkness overcame him. Something soft broke his fall as he fell from Sahltan’s back.

*

Through haze-curtained eyes, Loku woke. A small fire created an island of warmth in the night, a night shrouded by thickening fog. Grandfather sat by the fire on his old darkwood stool, the one he had made himself, as he never tired of telling, with the story of where he had found the perfect tree and how he had founded the rock with the perfect ore to carve the darkwood — only the ore of the skyrock was strong enough for that.

‘The Fog descends on us again, Loku,’ Grandfather said, his white-bearded face glowing with warmth from outside and his ancient eyes with love from within.

‘For… how long, Grandfather?’ Loku asked.

‘One hour, that was what the Ayee said. We must always heed the Ayee’s word, not that they know best, but you don’t want them to find out they were disobeyed now, do you?’ Grandfather chuckled.

The fades never lasted for more than a few minutes before… before his seventh year. The Ayee had said they would grow weaker as he grew older, but on that she had been completely wrong.

Loku rose and joined Grandfather by the fire, settling on the dry grass.

They would wait, in silence, for the patrol to come up the steep spinal road, to this outpost, of the village watch. On a platform set on a rocky promontory, overlooking a bare descent — not as steep as the other side of the mountain, where Loku had riden to with Sahltan earlier — was a small, wooden tower, with a single room on top, for supplies and weapons. The waters rested below, around the fire-pit, sleeping, one at a time, on beds of straw, at the base of the tower. For Loku, that had been his nightbed, for years.

For days now, the fog had been building up in the distance, and now it was upon them, even in the lower villages. Loku could barely see the other side of the village road, the upward slope was forested with greener, thicker foliage. He sipped on his tea, trying to peer through the lesser haze on the other side. The bare descent from the outpost, was spotted only by a few stunted trees, which Loku knew the exact location of, so he spotted them all one by one through peering eyes. Far in the distance, there were usually the small glowing lights of the cities and villages of the rivers-plains, which usually glowed like fireflies floating in a vast ink-black lake. But now, there was only darkness.

“Keep your ears perked, Little Loku?” Grandfather said, the epithet making him cringe, but for grampa, a giant of a man, he would always be, as many grown men still were. On the mountain, there loved a mountain man, who was mountain of a man himself… went the song the village suta-bards sung for the village hero, a veteran of many wars. War, the thought made Loku shudder, which he hoped Grandfather hadn’t noticed.

“Yes, grampa, of course,” Loku said, slightly embarrassed.

The grand man had noticed something, he spoke softly, but cheerfully.

“Oh, Loku, you know my hearing is not the same. What would I do without you, my little owl! Now, you remember the signals, one long whistle…”

“… followed by two quicks ones, meaning the lower patrols had been met with, and the guards were marching back,” Loku finished with Grandfather, in chorus.

Sheeni, who had been slumbering some way off, had heard the chant, which she knew from every night, and took it as a signal that it was time to come on guard.

She came to Loku’s side, received a quick pat, and ran off some distance down the road. She was followed by two other wulf-dogs.

“You do not have to worry even if your hearing does go bad, grampa, you will still have Sheeni and the wulf-dogs to do your hearing for you,” Loku jested, as the dogs vanished into the fog. “The fog doesn’t bother them, does it?”

“Ah, yes, yes I will. No, no, it doesn’t really. In fact, the fog makes every sound clearer, for them, and for you, if you listen. Listen now, to the night, listen deeply. They say, in the fog you can hear hidden sounds from the deep, deep trails in the forest… but, I would know if my ear-drums hadn’t been destroyed by all that cannon fire. But, listen, listen…” Grandfather whispered. Loku knew despite the jesting about his hearing loss, the old man had his ways to listen.

“Is it not so, grampa, there are some… some things that only come out from their… their places during the days of the fog,” Loku asked, hesitantly.

The old man smiled. There was silence between them. Loku took the last sip of tea from his cup, and as he put it down, a sudden wave of emotion overwhelmed him.

“I will miss you, Grampa,” I sighed. “Do I really have to go?”

“Loku, we have spoken about this, my boy,” Grandfather said, turning to him, his eyes glistening more than usual too, “I will miss you too. And, and… Sheeni, Kala, the wulf-pack… and Sahlman, the village boys, the watch… we all will. But you are a big boy now, my son, you cannot stay here among us boorish folk forever. You need a good education, my boy, the best I can possibly provide for you. It is a duty, mine, and you must always remember, yours too. One turning of the wheel of time had, for you, Loku, turned, and another begins. You must now become a man, my son.”

Loku listened, the emotions within him oscillating between sadness and resolve, dancing, it seemed, to the rhythm of the flames.

The dogs were emerging from the mist.

“Sheeni will be seven years old too, tomorrow… seven years! I still remember the day I picked her for you, for your blooding ceremony,’ Grandfather said to get a different conversation going, to which Loku obliged. No matter what his state of mind, he would never miss an oppurtunity to talk about his beloved Botia wulf-dogs.

“Tell me, grampa, tell me the story of how the wulf-dogs were made.” Loku asked, watching the old man’s face gleam in joy — he loved his stories, grampa, did! And they never got old.

“Ah! Little Loku, but it was in the village of Bot itself where Ayuss created the Botia wulf-dogs, as you must have heard. Bot, your granma’s vilage. Now, they say it is only in Botia that the purest-bred wulf-dogs are found, but that is all rubbish. There is no such thing as a pure-bred animal, each one had their own warrior’s heart and sheepherder’s soul. So, I tell you, Loku, my boy, that Ages ago, long long aeons ago, when the wheel of this age had only begun to turn, Ayuss, the lord of Ayarpatta, he himself created the Botia wulf-dogs

“It was a hard time, when life and death rested on the season’s mood. During a lean and hard inter, following a rainless summer, the earth was barren and man and beast alike were on the brink of starvation. Then, they came from the high mountains.

“Packs and packs, rolling down like a flood of blood, down from the high mountains, came the rock-wulfs, beasts of stone made alive by some dark, dark magic. They marauded the villages, killing all flocks that remained still, before turning upon men. In their misery the Ayarpattans of old did the only thing they could, they prayed and pleaded to Ayuss for aid in those darkest of times.

“Now, Ayuss is the master of man and beast alike, so he could not take sides in this war between the two. But he was moved by the plight of the villagers, and also the many animals that had been slain by the rock-wulfs. So, he appeared one night in Bot, and there, as a vast apparition in the night sky, he began the creation of the wulf-dog, the bane of the demonic rock-wulfs. With the blodd of the Great White Wolf of the Sky, Ayuss’ own, and the breath of Sister Wind, the mother of the clean spring air, he created them, to save all Ayarpatta from the bane of dark-death, and so, by his blessing, we still sleep safe as night, as the wulf-dogs watch for us, the wilderness.”

Two young dogs of the pack, Ger and Ker, brother of last winter’s brood, had cozied themselves, by Loku’s feet. They watched, with rapt attention, and perhaps some deep part of them listened too, the grand man tell the tale of their making. They too were sons of Ayuss, and protector’s of all the two-legged friends.

“The rock-wulfs, grampa, from where had they come?” Loku asked, suddenly disinterested, Ger had begun to snore, and Ker yipped, as if to wake him, but suddenly seeing the better alternative, he cozied up with his brother too, to sleep.

“Hmm, it is said, but it is not ascertained, as they disappeared ages ago,” Grandfather replied, “but some say they roam the highest of the highs still, far above where the tress have never grown, and the hills are covered only in yellow grass and rubble, along the edges of the ice mountains. Even the Botia people rarely venture there, Loku. But those that do, they bring tales of things, strange things, such as rock-wulfs, and even stranger ones, such as…”

“The realms of the Old Man of the Mountains,” Loku whispered.

“Aye, the Old Man’s realms,” Grandfather whispered back. “In the early age of man, the village tellers say, the Old Man, last of the dying race of the First Men, had gathered all the beasts of the Last Age, who had somehow survived the end of turning of the wheel of their age. Like the Old Man himself. He had gathered them all, and led them up, up, far above all, where they were trapped behind walls of ice, walled off from our new world. But, often, those of the new men who wander too high say, some of the beasts escape. In older times, some of them found their way down into the green-hills too and…”

The whistle of the guards sounded in the distance. The first. Loku tensed, waiting for the rest. He did not have to wait long — two short whistles followed. The wulf-dogs barked their own call, and the dogs accompanying the guards barked back from the distance. There were a few other mysterious calls and growls from the forests, from beasts no doubt angry that a prey they had been stalking had suddenly been alarmed. Good hunting, my brother of the forest, Loku whispered a prayer, whose meaning he did not know, but one which he had been taught like every other Upari Beechpar child.

“How long do you think it will take them to arrive, Loku,” Grandfather asked.

A test, of sorts, Loku knew, “They are still some way away, maybe five minutes.” They waited in silence, listening to the firs, Loku’s mind, a commotion of images formed from the things he heard, some of them, as if from memory.

In time, from the haze, following two dogs of the pack, three figures on mean soon appeared. Two of them were Bhura and Gohrab, and the third was an older man, carrying a staff in one hand — also of darkwood Loku noticed — and a bad in another. A stranger! The night promised to be interesting.

“Mahan Sinda Sing,” the traveller excaimed,” my old, old friend, and that, may Ayuss bless your soul is Loku! Why, my boy, you have grown like a willow tree!.”

“My friend, my friend,” Grandfather replied, almost like a yound boy, as he rushed, like a boulder in a mountain stream, to take the stranger in a bear hug. After the two older men had greeted each other in kind, they approached the fire, where Loku was standing, having restrained Ger and Ker, who would undoubtedly have jumped up and down, and all over the place, catching the excitement.

“Come, Loku, meet my old friend, Karahm. He is a traveller, a man with many tales, just returned from the west… your uh… port town, what is its name, ah, Luthal! From Luthal. I knew you were arriving at Nicch-lah today, it is wonderful you decided to travel up from your village.”

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Loku,” Karahm said, shaking the boy’s hand with both of his calloused bear-paws, with a restrained strength almost like Grampa’s, Loku thought. Would he grow up to be as strong as the men of old?

“I know you, Sir, I mean, grampa has told me all about you,” Loku said shyly.

“I know you too, my boy! I don’t know if you remember, but we were very good friends when you were a tiny toddler!”

Bhura, who had proceeded to the outpost to secure his rifle after arriving, came now, into the warmth of the fire.

“Ah, Loku, you have met the famous Karahm Jihnda Sing now, you lucky fellow, the most well travelled man in all Ayarpatta,” Bhura said. I hope you are an Ayarpatta man still, Karahm?” the younger man added jestingly.

“I was and will always be. I have seen the westernmost lands of the rising sun, and the volcano-island off the coast off the eastern coast of Sinan where it sets. I have travelled across Pahunt, seen their old cities where no outsiders are allowed to go, and to Kayanoor on the edge of the red wilds. The grassland tribes I have ridden end to end with the Trakhanees, and the distant sees I have sailed with the Lamarrans, aye, as far north as the frozen seas… but let me tell you, there is no place like Ayarpatta,” Karahm said. As he had spoken, Gohrab had arrived with two chairs, and a stool, while Bhura had set the kettle on the fire-pit steaming for hot tea. The wulf-dogs had settled in a half circle around the men, except Ger and Ker who stayed by Loku’s side.

“Now, you must be specific Karahm! No place like Upari Beechpar,” Gohrab, years younger than his patrol-partner and barely a year as a member of the watch, spoke, settling down on the ground besides a narrow stone trail that led from the road to the outpost. He would be watching the road.

“Bhura here,” he continued, “punched a suta-teller from Nicch-lah earlier this year at the fair for insulting our village.”

“You speak too much, Gohrab, no tea for you,” Bhura said, handing first Karahm, then Mahan SInda and then Loku a cup. Gohrab would get his cup after some time.

“Punching a storyteller at a fair, now that I like. How was the fair this year?” Karahm asked.

“Ours was good, the greatest attraction for the lower villagers is the snow that still sticks to the roots of our trees. The Nicch-lah fair, the usual — fireaters, clowns, sutas, and the likes. But the Madh-lah fair was ruined by the rains,” Gohrab reported.

“The rains were bad this year,” Mahan Sinda said grimly.

“Aye,” Bhura said, “ and by the likes of it, the winter will be even worse,”

“Bah, the seasons come and go, who can control them,” Karahm SIng said, “but no matter how cold the winter is, the Winter’s Veil fair of Pareepar is always something to see. Has your Grandfather taken you to that one, Loku?” The grizzled traveller winked to his friend and guffawed.

“That,” Grandfather said, “is no place for an old man like me, and Loku, alas is too young, still. But Loku will visit Pareepar soon I hope, what a grand city it is, boy! And it ought to be, as it grows on the banks of the Sindana, the greatest river in the world, the mother that feeds all the vast country of the riverplains, into which, all the waters of the Southern Kon are gathered. The Sindan, when young, flows like a dappled mare, and when old, like a warrior kind that has gathered all its legions to march into the world ocean. To war against the realms of the water-gods.”

“Aye,” Karahm said, “the Sindana is grand, as is Pareepar, not the largest of the cities that have grown on its banks, but one or rare beauty. The waters of the Sindana make it so, as descending from Ayarpatta, it breaks into many streams, creating islands, on the largest of which is the Isle of the Parees. The Parees of Sindana, Loku, I have heard their song on moonlit nights, you know some of the women of the city are saud to descend from them and they…”

“Hush, Karahm,” Grandfather interjecetd, and Loku was slightly annoyed.

“Ah, you will be old enough soon, Loku,” Bhura guffawed.

“But he is already a man today,” Gohrab exclaimed.

“Ah, is it your mansday today, Loku! And my old mind forgot! But you do look older than seven, I would have said you are nine years old, for how tall you are. las, I have no great gist for you, but… this, Loku, I offer you this,” Karahm handed Loku his staff.

Grandfather gleamed as Loku received his gift with graciousness.

“And, with that I must be leaving, I have my quarters at dear Bhura’s house tonight, where his sons, he says will receive me,” Karahm said, standing up and lifting his bundle from the ground.

Mahan Sing shook hands with his old friend, who took to the road, with Bhura and two dogs accompanying him.

Gohrab was on watch till midnight, when he would be relieved by Bhura, returning after having supper with his sons, the twins Ansa and Bansa, Loku’s dear friends. Grandfather and Loku retreated to the base of the outpost, where there were two straw beds, and yuksa-fur blankets for them to sleep cozy. Ger and Ker would sit by Loku’s bedside all night.

**

Chapter 2

A Night at Oakwood

Loku woke with the rising sun, which had dissipated the night’s fog. After clearing the fire-pit and storing the beds and blankets in the outpost, he and Mahan Sinda returned to Upari Beechpar.

The village was small, only seven stone houses and about a dozen huts. After washing and cleaning and gorging on the breakfast of radish pancakes and with warm milk, prepared lovingly by the old Ayee, Bhura’s mother, Loku paid a visit to Ansa and Bansa, while Mahan Sing went off to survey the young orchard he had been planting — a necessary visit as the monkeys who were the greatest pest for growing trees thought of him as some sort of a bear and stayed away from their fields, choosing to ravage others. The villagers had considered having big strawmen made in the image of Mahan Sinda to keep the monkeys away, but the old soldier had instead, offered to survey all the village fields on Sahlman’s back, something he did every morning to noon. Grandfather had told Loku though, it was not him who scared the monkeys, it was his gun!

This day would be the last of Mahan Sinda’s tours through the village fields, Loku knews, even if grampa hadn’t told him.

He learned from Ansa and Bansa that Karahm Sing had left early in the morning. They consternated for a while with Loku, and were sad that he would not be going with them for grazing the herds. Bansa had, in fact, begun to bawl loudly when Loku told him he would not see them again for days, but Ansa had promised they would — they would sneak down the hill, to visit him where he was to stay for the rest of the year. In a new school called Oakwood, that Loku knew nothing about except that it was run by his father’s friend. That had softened the blow of leaving home for him. There was much to learn about his father which he hadn’t from Grampa, or from the fleeting visits from Grandma — the few times a year she descended to Upari Beechpar from the monastery of Sha’wud, the sprawling institution at the top of Ayarpatta’s flattened crest.

Ansa and Bansa had, in fact, been under the impression that that was where he was going — to live with his Grandmother — before he told them.

“Who are they, Loku, the Great Ones of Sha’Wud, where your Grandmother lives?” Ansa had asked.

“Oh, they are a bunch of mad folk there,” Bansa said, then quickly realising Loku might be offended by what he had said, but which was only something he had heard, he added, “and some learned Dactars who treat them.”

The twins had spent some time with Loku and set off with their flock. Loku returned home, packed his clothes in a roll, and just as he was finishing things, he heard Grampa return.

“Not one monkey to be seen,” he said. “It’s not that they have been scared off by me, or my gun. But, I believe, the monkey have all gone.”

“Gone? Where would the monkeys go? This is their home?” Loku asked halfheartedly, his mind clouded with the sadness of leaving home.

“I do not know, Loku, I do not know.”

Lunch was special too that day. The most delicious goatmeat curry with barley cakes. The Ayee would just keeping filling Loku’s plate with more and more, and smiled her toothless glowing grin, while not letting Loku leave the table till he had finished everything.

“Now, you do not need to worry about being well fed at your new school, Loku. The Ayee there is a nice old lady like me too! And you do not worry about a think now, you hear me, Loku. I have packed some of your herbs, freshly picked, you don’t forget to take them when you… when you…”

She had begun to cry the poor old things. After consoling her Loku went to the stables. Sahltan was resting after eating his fill too. In the corner, Gahni was feeding her litter, almost three months old now, and oddly born in the fall. So many animals had given birth this fall! It was the strangest thing.

As Loku turned to leave, he felt his legs weaken, and, falling on the soft straw of the stable he faded from the waking world.

After — how long — he had woken to find Grampa sitting on a stool besides him. Sahlman was saddled, and ready to go.

It was time.

*

On the fog heavy road, Loku sat, clinging to Mahan Sindia’s heavy black coat, lodged on Sahlman’s back. The young black stallion was tall and strong, and he trotted at a regular pace, despite the heavier than usual — but insignificantly for him — load. After descending from the village, from some distance below the outpost, they had taken a stony path branching out from the spinal road. Their destination was some way off, closer to the further edge of the mountain.

Loku had maintained a hard face, but despite the small ounce of anticipation of meeting his father’s friend, he wished he did not have to go. How he wished he could spend every night sitting by the fire, listening to Grampa’s tales of wonder that never diminished no matter how many times they were told. And, what of Karahm Sing — there was so much he knew! And where had he gone! To Sha’Wud perhaps?

“Look, Loku, we are almost there,” Grampa’s gentle voice brought him back from his wandering thoughts.

Loku looked up and ahead. The fog had begun to appear even as they left the village in the late noon, but now it was almost as thick as it had been last night. Suddenly he could see, looming behind the haze, as if suspended in nothingness, a looming, big windowed bungalow, with gray stone walls, a slanting tin roof with creepers clinging to the edifice.

Oakwood Cottage, said a peeling sign by the road, both in the Ayaroattan and the rivers-plain script.

Sahlman came to a softly neighing halt. Loku leapt down and Mahan Sinda dismounted in one swift motion. They untied Loku’s luggage from Sahlman’s back, a bundled blanket role which had his clothes and other necessaries, and one book, secretly packed by his grandfather. Loku had seen the old man slipping it in but had said nothing. It was a sketchbook, his father’s. As he turned, Loku brushed his hand along his dear friend Sahlman’s length, knowing it would be long before they met again. The horse, neighed, slightly subdued, understanding the solemnity.

The mountainous grandfather and lean grandson waited a moment before stepping on to the stone path that led to the cottage door, as if preparing to enter a frigid mountain stream.

“Now, you remember, Loku, this is a city gentleman we are about to meet. You have been warned,” Mahan Sinda whispered, taking his first step, with Loku following.

He gripped his blanket roll and tried not to breathe too heavily as they approached the large door of Oakwood Cottage. The heavy door behind a brooding portico loomed at the end of the narrow path, which cit through an overgrown, bush scattered garden, stuuded with small trees and stunted shrubs, with odd wild flower bearing stalks sticking out here and there.

The door opened before they reached it.

From behind it appeared a lanky man, wiry but not too tall, with glossy black hair parted neatly from the side, a pair of golden wire-frame glasses perched on his long nose, and a pencil moustache quivering above his thin lips as he spoke

“Welcome, Sir! Lance Master Mahan Sinda Sing. It is an honour to meet you. I heard you approach! The sound, it carries… in this fog, the fog, yes… it carries the sound. Carries it… so fascinating. My name if Samoran. You can call me Sam.”

The man shook Grandfather’s hand. Despite his mood, Loku had to restrain himself from smiling too ostensibly at the man’s way of speaking. The Master of Oakwood!

“So, this is my… uh, our new ward. Master Loku, yes, yes. Welcome to Oakwood! You will love it here, love it, and learn a lot… yes, that should be our motto!’

“I am honoured, Master,” Loku replied, solemnly.

Grampa had been strangely quiet, Loku noted. Was he having doubts, Loku wondered, hopefully.

The Master of Oakwood led them inside, into a high roofed hall, carpeted and panelled with wood, with heavy books lining shelves along the walls, and, wherever the wall was bare, there was a painting or a sketch, large or small.

Loku was immediately attracted to the largest painting he had ever seen, framed at the end of the hall — a man in a tiger skin cloak, standing on a chariot, holding reins, led by a dozen grand, wild animals: tigers, bears, wulfs, and around him, a cavalcade of wild, vine and leaf clothed boys and girls, and still more animals and birds. Foxes, rabbits, squirrels, and in the sky, birds of all kinds, even eagles and hawks, and there behind, an elephant! The entire company seemed to be laughing and dancing, while the man on the chariot, in his other hand a large jar, was singing!

“The Lord of the Mountain Kingdom. It was made by your father, Loku,” he Master said.

“I… I haven’t seen this one,” Mahan Sinda finally said.

“Of course not, Sir, he made it, and gave it to me for… uh, safe keeping.”

“I could never understand his… his things, his grand ideas. What he made as a boy, I loved. I carried his sketchbook everywhere. Late in the nights, in lonely tents in forlorn places on the frontier, I would wake and look at the paintings by candlelight. They brought me home, to the forests, the fields, the mountain streams. They… looking at them, I always wanted to keep staying alive, to return… home.”

There was a long silence during which they all looked at the masterwork of art displayed before them. Finally, the Master spoke.

“This is the true deathlessness. Art.”

They were interrupted by the sound of footsteps. In a moment, they were joined in the hall by a young woman, her hair, and manner straight enough to ignore the splashes of paint and spots of mud on an apron she wore over a dark dress.

“Welcome to Oakwood, Lance Master, it is a pleasure to finally meet you. I have grown up hearing of your great exploits in the wars. It is an honour to meet a childhood hero!” she said, bowing to Mahan Sinda Sing before shaking his hand.

“Mahan, you are finally here! I thought you would not come,” said yet another voice, which belonged to a plump older woman, beaming with warmth, and though the complete opposite of little shrunken old Ayee, immediately reminding Loku of her.

The younger woman spoke.

“So, this is our newest recruit. Welcome to your new Academy, Loku,” she said.

“Uh… huh,” Master Sam interjected, ‘the Academy he will be joining after two years. This is Preparatory School. Ah, Sir, Lance Master, this is my dear wife, Poh.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Miss Poh,” Mahan Sinda said, seeming slightly uncomfortable with all the attention, but he moved to a more familiar subject. “You have served in the Academy too, Master, have you not?”

“Ah, yes, Sir. In the Scouts. In the Department of the Scouts, not in the field, doing the paper work and all that, writing briefs for the High Command at Fort Town, you know, nothing important,” the Master muttered, somehow, much to the amusement of Miss Poh.

“All necessary work, Sir, all necessary work. Now, I believe, all our things are in order, as per our last meeting. So, here he is. Loku, my grandson. He is now your ward, for two years, before he joins the Academy,” Mahan Sinda said, a hint of pride in his voice.

“Like his Grandfather. And father,” Master Sam said. “That, Loku, your father made that in the Academy, He was a soldier, but an artist too. Here I… we, we have a philosophy of education, so to say. Every mind needs to learn three arts: the art of deep thinking, the art of expression and the art of imagination. Out of these, the third is the most natural and the most difficult for a schoolmaster to nurture, but it is also the most important of all, and key to the others. For the other arts… and, in fact, for all the sciences, and crafts and… uh, occupations… and…”

“Now, now, Sam, will you allow me to have a word too,’ Miss Poh intervened, much to the relief of her husband it seemed. “Here at Oakwood, we endeavour to allow our wards to grow. All a child needs is a good environment, good company, some intellectual stimulation and lots of leisure, to…”

“To grow,” Master Sam intervened.

“Now, now, both of you, Loku is our student, not Mahan Sing!” the Matron intervened.

“Ah! No Matron Grundy, I find this very reassuring, to know I leave Loku in the best hands. Now, the only thing I do not like is the leisure part. A boy must learn to do things, to work with his hands as well as his mind, the two harmonised as one. A boy should be busy! Now don’t you worry about, Loku, he has some of the military discipline in him, do you not my son?” Grandfather asked.

Loku was slightly overwhelmed. He nodded. Grampa was leaving!

“Enough of that! Mahan Sing,” Matron Grundy said, pointing to an open door on the other side, looking into a hall lined with couches. “Come, sit. I will have some tea sent for you. You, young man, you come with me!”

The kind old woman reached for Loku’s bedroll. This was it. The moment of parting.

Grampa squeezed Loku’s shoulder. Loku knew it was good bye. He turned around and gave the old man he loved so dearly a quick hug, and turned back immediately, avoiding his eyes.

“Old Matron Grundy will take good care of you, Loku,” Grampa whispered, bending low. “Just like she did when you were little, from before you were old enough to remeber. You are with friends, my boy. You will never be alone.”

The Matron led him by the hand to a flight of stairs that rose from the far left corner of the hall. As he began to climb, he caught some of the Master’s conversation with his Grandfather.

“Oh, yes, Sir. It is a remarkable thing you are doing, a brave thing. The situation at the frontier, it is … uh, heating up… when do you leave?”

“Tonight,” Mahan Sinda said.

The staircase creaked but Loku had heard enough. He was leaving for the Frontier! Grampa had rejoined the army. If the regiments were now recruiting old veterans again, things must be worse than he thought. He knew, things, From snippets caught from men in the village. Many men from the village watch of Ayarpatta’s villages had joined the army in recent months. But this! This was unexpected! But was it? He knew Grampa. He would never shy from his duty, even if it was officially done. A soldier or a farmer should never die in bed, he used to say. But… but… it was too much for Loku, he felt a tear swelling at the edge of his eye, but blinked it away.

Now, he was angry — yes, that is a better emotion. Not at grampa, but himself. Did his Grandfather not think him man enough to know more — what did a mansday mean if you were still to be treated as a child. Maybe he had failed, somehow. Yes, it was him, it had to be. And with that turn in his train of thought, he began to grow sad again.

Loku was almost without thinking following Matron Grundy up a creeky stairrway, now, almost at its end.

On the second floor was a long hall, also lined with sketches and paintings, and some cracked pots and strange, small clay figurines. Even the sketches looked like they were meant to show broken statues, men and women, sometimes with strange — and funny — hats, with their arms or heads knocked off. Loku’s cheeks began to redden when he noticed that a lot of the figures were unclothed.

“My child!” Matron Grundy cried out, “I hope you are not feeling the… the fades.” She rushed to him, the entire floor — made of wood panels as it was — seemed to shake.

“No, no I… you know,” Loku muttered.

“Of course, I do. I consulted with my mother on everything. I have been for days,” the kind lady said softly, placing hand on Loku’s forehead.

“Mother?”

“Your Ayee, Loku! Didn’t she mention me ever… I do not suppose she did, I am only her seventh child after all! You know what they say about the last one, it is created by scraping the utensil of the womb, but my child… you know I took care of you for two years after your… your…”

“My parents,” Loku finished for her. “I am fine Matron Grundy. Just… tired.”

“Now don’t you worry. The other children are at their prep, in the library. But I have your room all ready, for you.The Master and Miss Poh are very kind people. He is a Dactar of Healing like his father, god bless his soul. Miss Poh is a Dactar too, of some kind, of these things she digs out from here and there. She is in the forest with Raksha — my daughter, you will meet her — for days. And sometimes Bhura — my son — goes along to to haul these… icons. The gods put them in the ground for a reason, I don’t know if it is right to keep digging them out.”

Loku stopped at one sketch, it intrigued him that he recognised something about it. It was a man, sitting cross-legged on the floor — the manner of a lotus in the pond, is what Granmother had taught him to call this way of sitting — and around him, on both sides were animals who seemed to be listening, or bowing to him… it was the Old Man of the Mountain!

“Ah! That is what Miss Poh says too,” another voice squeaked from behind.

“Chick, dear boy, why are you not in the library?” Matron Grundy said.

The boy called Chick was a good five inches shorter than Loku, but seemed as old as him. He took a step towards Loku and held out his hand.

“My name is Chick. Let us be friends,” he said.

Loku shook his hand.

“I am Loku, of Upari Beechpar,” he said, smiling, and instantly liking Chick.

“It is great that we have met, Loku, We are going to be roommates… that is, if Matron Grundy can get the current occupants of my quarters out,” he said pointing behind him. Loku now heard noise coming from an open door. And Chick, he spoke, and even looked like a miniature version of Master Sam.

Matron Grundy hurried to the room with the open door. Loku noticed there were a few more down the corridor.

“Oh, you rascals! You naughty imps! It had to be you! Hara and Dara, out at once! And, Opsy, I did not expect this from you. Out, out, out all of you,” she scolded whoever was inside.

The three boys all identical, so Loku could not tell them apart, except Opsy, he guessed, who did not have a sheepish grin on his face. They walked past Loku and down the stairs, Opsy whispering a soft hello as he passed.

“Oh, look what have they done! The bed is broken for good,” Matron Grundy exclaimed. Chick ahd slunk into the room and Loku had followed. Matron Grundy continued to utter streams of litany under her breath. Then, gathering the sheets, and whatever else she could salvage, she went to the window and shouted out for someone named BIma.

“That was unfortunate,” Chick said, smiling gently. He picked up a book to read.

Loku just stood and watched. He was still wondering if he had said the name of the Old Man aloud.

*

Sam watched the old soldier’s horse disappear into the fog. The father of a man who had once been his closest friend. Before they had drifted apart. Why had they, Sam could not remember. Just the turns life took. He had a job at the Fort Town, and his friend got married to the most beautiful…

Poh had come up besides him. She softly coughed.

“An honourable man, Poh, I had heard a lot about him. I am fortunate to have met him. Now his grandson, if he has his father’s imagination and his mother’s intelligence, he will become a great man. And honour, like the Lance Master. A great man, a great man, indeed… who will have learned his ways at Oakwood!”

“That is the vision, deran Sam. But for now, we have a problem. We need a bed,” she said, smiling at her husband’s soaring spirits, which tended to take these flights very often hand sometimes had to be brought back to the perch of the present moment.

“A…uh… bed?” Sam said, bewildered.

“The triplets. They have been up to no good.”

“Oh my, is anyone hurt. No… no…” Poh had indicated that, so he continued, “good. Ah well, that is all right. Those three they are energy personified, now if we could guide them, mould them…”

“Of course, Sam, but for now we are lacking a bed,” Poh said softly, wrapping her shawl tighter. It was beginning to get cold, and darken.

“Now, where do we get a bed from, Poh! I don’t know. Bima, BIma there you are,” Sam proclaimed.

A man, barely so, more of towering strong boy, had silently walked up to them, besides the road. From the open door of the cottage came Matron Grundy.

“Matron! Do we have a bed?” Sam asked.

“No, Master Sam, but we need one soon. Loku seems to be tired, but I know he is just sad. I have given him some hot goat’s curry in the kitchen. I want to send him to sleep right after. So, we will have to do with the one in the Master’s quarters. Your father’s.”

“The Attic,” Bima whispered, a distant rolling thunder.

“Let us clean up the Attic then, Matron. Bima, please get some firewood. Let us make it nice and warm. And, let us hurry then, shall we. Here comes a drizzle,” Miss Poh said, as the guardians of Oakwood returned to the cottage, closing the strong, thick door behind them.

“The fog might just clear,” came the last strains of the sounds of man in the night, from Master Sam, and thereafter, in the outside, the more mysterious sounds of the forest claimed their domain of the darkening night.

Chapter 3.

Loku’s Dream.

Loku lay in bed wide awake.

The rain had begun, a soft and slow dirizzle, gently descending from the sky in a pittar-patter song in the tin roof of the old cottage, joined in chorus by the wind, rustling through the trees of the mountain forests. A crackling fire, it’s own song rising now and then above the wind, filled the room with liquid warmth. Occasionaly, a drop of water that had crept down the chimney would fall onto hot embers and sizzle.

How strannge it was that at the oddest times sleep would overwhelm him, but when he wanted to really fall asleep, it kept shying away, lingering at the edge of his mind, just out of reach. Maybe it was the bed. This old, large, creaky bed. But, what did he know of proper wooden beds, especially one as dark and heavy as this one. How long had it been since he had slept in a proper bed, and not his straw bedroll at the outpost? A long time, three or four months. When Granma had last come visiting… Oh! Those beautiful days of spring! Granma had cooked all those delicious stews, enriched by the high mountain herbs and roots, Grampa had tended to his kitchen garden all day, taking breaks only when visitors came to him for this or that. It was usually the monkeys. And Loku was free to play, or go exploring with Ansa and Bansa, and taking the other village boys along… and the wulf-dogs! They seemed like a different breed in the forest, almost as playful as the sapniels. Sometimes he would take Sahlman too, the young stallion to enjoyed these outings with the littler humans, who made him tower all the more in his glorious grandness, as Loku rode him up and down like a general. Sahlman had been taught to trot like a war horse after all. And he loved to perform! At night, back in their stone cottage, so much smaller than Oakwood, he would sleep early, knowing he would have to wake only much after the sun was up, shining glorious in the day sky.

The rain had slowed. The wind was only a whisper, Loku felt he was on the brink of sleep, there it was at the edge of his mind. He was on the brink of sleep… but just out of nowhere another strain of thought began to form.

Granman and the Great Ones. What did they really do at Sha’Wud? Where they really all just Dactars who studied the stars? What was there to study about the stars? It was known they were the souls of dead gods, now turned into giant talismic gems, each a frozen picture of the life the god had seen… but that was only what the Nicch-lah story teller had said. Grandfather said they were holes in the dark firmament of the heavens. Others had other ideas. But what of the Dactars of Sha’Wud? What did they know of the stars?

His mind travelled home again. He saw his cottage, the stables at the back, the citrus trees lining the front. He almost saw Sahlman, who almost saw him. And Sheeni and the wulf-dogs. They were at the outpost but Grampa wasn’t there. Had he left already?

Then, suddenly, as if out of nowhere but from a strain of thought which had been lingering at the back of his mind since the evening, Pa’s painting appeared in his mind. And the sketch he had seen the corridor. The Lord of the High Mountain Kingdom… was he the Old Man of the Mountain? But the Lord wasn’t old… or…

Now, sleep overcame him like a wave, and all stray thoughts were washed away. He heard… did he hear… a whisper. Or was it the wind?

Sleep. Lord Loku. Sleep…

*

All was silent, all was quiet.

All except the wind. In and out, in and out it flowed, as if through a mountain pass.

He looked around — if there was a he that looked — but there was nothing. Could one really be looking if there was nothing to see?

Where was he? Who was he?

I am Loku.

And, in the next moment, as moments now came to be, the curtain of nothingness was lifted from around him, and he saw above a starry night sky, and below a meadow of knee high grass stretching out, in a gentle wave, into the distance, where on the horizon was a grand tree.

He laughed.

This was a dream! What else could it be! It was so long since he had had one. Loke began to walk. With too much effort at first, as if he weighed ten times more than he did, as if he was wading in water, as if the very sky was weighing on him… but then, he began to run. And at once he was faster, quicker, stronger than ever. He was running, no! He was flying!

Up into the starry night he rose, higher and higher, faster and faster. Could he reach the stars themselves? Yes, it was a dream, his dream, He could do anything!

He would, Loku would, fly to the stars.

… and, then…

*

… he felt soft grass under his feet.

A bright moon, from a clear night sky, cast a glow over Oakwood’s unkempt garden. All was silent, silent and still. Wisps of fog hung in the air, holding close to the earth, but he could see some small trees, and an overgrown hedge further away… and, softly, glowing, a golden light, like a liquid bubble, suspended in the air in the distance hovering above.

“Hey, who are you,” Loku asked.

I? Who are you and… can you really see me?

“Is this is a dream? It is a strange one,” Loku said to himself but somehow spoke aloud.

Well, maybe. Maybe it is. Logically speaking, it could be. But who am I to tell. Isn’t all life a dream? You must judge for yourself. Who are you anyway?

“I am Loku… bit who are you?”

Well, you just said I am a dream. Then I am, well, I am Loku’s dream.

… and, then…

*

TBC

.