Lhasa
Norbulingka Palace
Afternoon sunlight shone in dusty beams through the window glass. Solid forms of golden mountain light that formed a spotlight tapestry of warmth on the ancient wood of the upper floors of the Norbulingka palace. With the wooden engravings and the gentle wood sheen in the beams supporting the ceiling it was the last place to expect to see the strange sorts of treasures collected here. Left behind since before even the bombs fell on the world, but studiously kept to condition as museum pieces, a graying and browning gramophone sat perched on a elaborate gold leafed table.
With a base like an elephant's foot the century old record player was a testament to the impossible survival of elements of an older world. And so to the remaining disks left behind.
Standing before the record player as if it were a sacrificial altar, with a record in hand like a lamb for the knife Ugyen prepared a song. Although the sleeve of the record was long faded to the same slate gray as the rest he still knew them well, he had played them all at least five-times before. But the collection of ancient hymns collected here by the last Dalai Lama in his youth needed no word or symbol to denote them. Not for Ugyen, who could only dream of someday understanding their lyrical content.
With a gentle hand he pulled the glossy black disk from the sleeve and leveled it on the turn-table. Raising the hair-thin needle so as it would accept it. The gramophone only needed to be wound for it to play. The springs to turn the gears tightened inside as it turned the rough wooden handle plugged into the side of the gray wooden base. With a click, he released it.
There was static at first. It was like the soft brush of rain on the roof of the palace at first. But with a warbling triumph it was joined with the sound of song. Foreign song, exceptionally foreign. It was not only a window in time but a window to somewhere well beyond Tibet. A rising symphony of violin he did not know, or Italian opera he could not grasp.
But he drank it up as he stepped back to sit in a sagging sofa not far away. The once no doubt bright crimson or tasteful orange of its upholstery having faded to gray. Mice had chewed through it, only for the stuffing to be be replaced with downy feathers and raw wool. The holes that were there patched over with strips of yak wool or leather. So much so the Victorian piece of furniture was finished totally anew, save for the brass finishing and trims which had long faded and rusted to a oily brown.
Reclining on the dusty sofa the young prince lay down his head and listened to the music. Though he did not know the words or the language it was spoken in he understood the emotion. He understood the expression underneath the husky uneven distortion of the long dead man's voice. Watching the low gentle dips and rises of the record on its turn-table Ugyen entered into the world of the music.
In essence he meditated not just on it, but in it. Though he had been long taught meditation was to establish an internal silence, a pure realization of one's internal truth there was nothing more comforting and human than to realize the purity of another human's voice. But not just any human's voice: a ghost's voice. This man was no longer a man in a physical sense but one in an ethereal since. His past life having reached an immortal state of preservation free of reincarnation. His soul may not yet be free of that wheel, but this one life had.
There were many curiosities such as this laying asleep in Norbulingka. Ugyen often dreamed he would find them all and reveal them to his father. In a way, maybe he'd be a terton for that.
He lay on that sofa, listening to the dance of the dead man's voice through the scale. As the concert went on Ugyen's eyes grew heavier, and he allowed himself to sleep. A mid-day nap really.
As he napped he dreamed, carried on by the singing of the man. His foreign words cradled his spirit like a dove, pulling his soul on a gilded pillowed chariot through time and space, darkness and light.
As it came to rest Ugyen picked up his head. He found himself no longer in Lhasa but in a heavenly palace. A palace that was an amalgam of the familiar with the foreign found in Norbulingka. Hanging in the air was a soft sepia veil that draped the room and its inhabitants in a golden light.
Lounging on better sofas than the one he slept on he walked among consorts, llamas, and sherpas of all over the world. He saw the ancient suits men wore in the old photographs in Norbulingka, the robes of monks and of princes, and the yak-hide shirts of the peasant herdsmen adorning men and women of many shades as they lay in their couches, heads turned to a single phantom of a man atop a wooden stage gilded in gold as in sung in emotion.
There at the front was an empty couch, he approached it and took his seat. Laying his head on the plush velvet pillow of an arm rest. He lay only feet from the stage the singer belted out his song on. But despite the full clarity of his voice he was faceless. He was without identity as he was timeless.
A servant game, and presented to him a tray of multi-colored fruits that shone clear despite the hazy golden glow of the dream. The servant smiled and spoke to him. But not in word, but in emotion. A language without word or barriers, polite as it was kind and tempting. Obliging the sweet mistress he took a fruit from the tray, and raising the plump fist-sized apple to his mouth to bite something happened.
The dream began to skip.
The singer's voice, once pure as crystal began to hitch and hang on a constant circuit of the same note and a half. The servant mistress never disappeared but repeated the same short action over and over as she rose to move away. The fruit never reached his mouth until the entire dream exploded in front of his eyes.
With a start he awoke, and standing before the gramophone was a middle-aged monk he stood looking down at the sleeping prince. Ugyen's heart pounded in his chest and he felt a sickening tickle in the back of his throat. He swallowed stiffly as he forced it back down and fidgeted uncomfortably as he sat up.
“I'm sorry.” he apologized hastily, standing and bowing before his teacher.
“You are young.” the monk excused apathetically. He set a gentle hand on the gramophone and removed the disk in it. With an equally gentle pass he slid the black dishpan into its sleeve and returned it to where it belonged, “But you shouldn't play with such antiques.” he said.
“I am just...” Ugyen started, he looked up at his teacher with a nervous, anxious frown. He didn't know what to say to him.
The monk's name was Thubten. And standing at six feet he towered over many. Yet he had a face as soft as a rabbit but wrinkled like any aging man. His brown eyes held a careful passive light.
“I wanted to listen to the music.” the young prince admitted. His stomach was twisting in his gut with the guilt. He expected to be scolded. Instead the monk said nothing as he stood over him.
“Another time, perhaps.” said Thubten, with an excusing wave of his hand, “But we must still attend to your lessons.”
Thubten waved his hands, bidding Ugyen to rise and follow him as he walked out through the doors. Even he had to bow slightly to drop below the low headers. Ugyen followed, feeling an adverse reluctance clenching his heart.
Thubten could be a stern teacher when he wanted to be, but he was at times unpredictable. If the prince was not to be scolded for skipping out on lessons then what would Thubten do to him later? The doubt spun his head in circles until it was a stumbling drunk that followed Ugyen as he tagged after the monk through the palace.
Thubten preferred to teach outside, he liked the fresh air and to feel the cool earthly soil under him. In the seven years he had been Ugyen's guide it was that much he was certain about Thubten, he was not a man for the outdoors. He was be the tone of his voice uncomfortable with interior places. He bound himself tight as he walked even the wider halls of Norbulingka Palace.
And as he lead Ugyen out into the clear sunshine of a Tibetan afternoon he released himself, and even seemed to become a larger man at his returning breaths of unrestricted wilderness air. Free of the musk and of the dust, Thubten led Ugyen through the gardens of the palace, both taking in the fresh sweet smells of hardy spruces and lush colorful flowers. There were birds in the trees who tweeted their own song.
“Have I told you that should you become a king, it is your vetted interest to care for all subjects?” Thubten asked as he stood in the shade of a tree.
“You have, many times.”
“Would you consider the plants and the trees to be members of your soveriegn duty to protect and to serve?” he asked again.
Ugyen considered the question. It had not been a matter that he had stopped to consider. It had been well beyond him. Truthfully, he did not think so. “No.” he answered straightforwardly.
“Then the yak is as unimportant to you as a vole?” posed Thubten.
“The yak is the shepard's responsibilities, not mine.”
“But the shepard does not have the scale of influence as you do. And even to things a farmer does not own it goes by law and custom that it is yours. Do you manage this as people, or as a resource?”
“What is the difference?”
Thubten's face was illuminated by a sharp wide smile, “A resource exists to be consumed, recklessly perhaps, but it is a means to an end that must in its raw state be destroyed. An entire boulder is not used to build a fortress' wall. The boulder must be cut and broken into bricks. The boulder must be destroyed.
“Likewise too is wool cut of much of it to become yarn, or a block of chalk broken to produce powder for mandalas.
“But people are not a resource. People are not destroyed to produce something new. People must be kindly and justly tended, justice measured against and for them to accommodate.” he walked to the tree and directed the young prince's attention to it, “Is this alive, or is it not?” he asked.
“It's a tree.” Ugyen answered simply.
“True, but that is what it's called. But it does not describe a tendency for it to be alive or dead. Would we call water to be in the living state of being wet or being water? No, water is a non-living force.
“A tree is a living force. It grows, it spreads its seed, which in turn grows, and then it dies. It is as part of the cycle of life and rebirth as all spirits are tied to. The insect the same way, and the bird.
“A just ruler will measure these as living things and grant them the respect they deserve. Not as high as man, as many of these are suited for our own survival. But you do not kill a sheep for its hide, neither should you cut down an entire forest for a single tree. Do you understand where I am at?”
“I'm not sure I can see.” Ugyen said.
Thubten nodded, “Then let us begin to day on some biology, and what it will mean for you.”
Potala Palace
“Good afternoon.” Samten greeted, as he stepped forward to greet his guest. The man, a stout but burly man with a wolverine nose stopped and bowed to the Prince of Lhasa. The mail and mirror plate of his armor clinked and chimed against him as he bowed, and the horse-hair spike that rose from his helmet dangled down to obscure his face for a brief moment.
“Honorable Samten.” he replied with professional poise, “I have heard the call, and would like to answer the services of my company to you.”
“Excellent, as I'm sure you would hope.” Samten smiled, stepping aside. The two men stood within one of the top-most rooms of the palace. Through the windows the cool summery breeze of Tibet wafted in, carrying with it the smells of the crisp alpine air and the distant noises of the city of Lhasa itself. The sensations that came through chased through the wooden halls the bitter stench of yak butter candles burning away to provide the soft light within the palace.
“So, Lega Dolma, let's begin the negotiations.” Samten offered, as he took a seat on yellow cushions by the window. He invited the mercenary captain to sit across from him, “What is it you require for your men's services.”
“Your honor, I simply wish to get out of the mercenary trade.” Dolma said with a smile. He flashed his left hand for the prince to see, his pinkie was missing as was half his ring finger. “It can be very dangerous, as you see. But neither I or my men have any future beyond fighting. We've no land. I would ask for the usual wagon load of salt or a pouch of gold so we may trade it in Nepal or Bhutan. But these days, it's not what we need.”
“So what is it your men need?” asked Samten.
Dolma smiled and laughed, leaning back he crooned, “Is it not obvious? I want land provided for myself, and any of my men who wish to take it and settle down. There is five-hundred in all, at a base I am asking for a parcel per-head with three as my own personal acquisition.”
“A flat five-hundred and three parcels of land between all of you?” Samten asked, “What would happen if members of your company die, as so often happens in war?”
Laughing Dolma rose his hand, declaring, “Then I take the parcels owed to the dead and divide it among those men with the most merit.”
“I do not feel right to offer payment for services rendered to men who died in battle. If I said I will only offer the stated number of parcels for payment of services rendered to only those surviving warriors, would you take the offer?”
“I would suggest that sounds low.”
“Then if I will give half a parcel to your company for your own distribution to every man who has died, or that half parcel is given to their families if any have one of their own?”
“I am not the captain of Dolma's Bastards for no reason, my lord. My men do not have families. And often many have left circumstances a great distance away. There would be no one to offer land to. But I shall agree to the half parcel for every man slain as compensation for their work.”
“Do as you do with the land, it doesn't matter.” Samten smiled, “But do you have real-estate in mind?”
Dolma stopped to consider, leaning back with his hands resting on his armored knees. He seemed to stare out the window for a long while, thinking. “What is your intention in this war?”
“To take from Chodak what is owed to me for his injustice.” Samten replied, “If that does mean taking Ngari for myself then so be it.”
“Then would I be stretching my offer by asking for land at or around Burang?” Dolma asked.
“You will receive.” Samten bowed.
“Hah!” cheered Dolma, clapping his hands together. “Then let this negotiation be closed.” he cackled, “When do I sign?”
“I will have my scribes write down the proposal we just discussed and the terms for the war. You will receive it in the next half hour.” he said, raising a hand and summoning a courtier in the corner, “You may wait in the courtyard, the local monks get edgy around sell swords here.”
The Barkhor
Light filtered through grimy windows spilled out onto a floor rubbed so bare it was down to the wooden boards. The carpet had been eroded or stripped completely bare as the overhead ceiling was flaked and peeling, reigning slow pieces of plaster down onto the floor, coating it in a thin veneer of dusty white. Electrical cables and plumbing near to a centuries old wound across the gaps that had formed in the ceiling of the decaying apartment. Outside the windows and thin curtains the narrow streets of the Barkhor carried on with their market life as street vendors hawked foodstuffs and odd trinkets. Worshipers and monks alike navigated the street in prayer and their chanting rose above the sounds of music and the isolated calls of hawkish merchants.
There was a glow in the light that filtered through the window, granted by silken sheets pulled over the streets to shade it from the sun. Though it did not completely blot the sunlight it added colors. Strong orange and red hues dashed themselves across the floor as that filtered sunlight fell through windows. At the sills chips of black paint laid out across rough hewn, drying woodsills.
The walls here were thin and Gyaltsen could hear the footsteps of the other tenants as they went about their mid-day. Somewhere someone was singing softly to themselves. The hunter couldn't tell where, but the melody was hardly soft, yet it wasn't coarse. It was hardly melodious at all but still inoffensive in its assault. It was quite plainly: inoffensive.
Gaincain's lodgings in the city was hardly richly decorated or a disheveled mess. It reflected plainly a man without many possessions. A handful of tools hung on the wall from a variety of trades. Represented on claw-bent nails was a street sweeper's broom, a dog-catcher's noose, and a number of rakes and implements of urban upkeep. Glossing over the poorly kept, tapped together tools Gyaltsen concluded that his man had been struggling to keep up, unrooted to any one spot. He dragged his fingers along the rough handles of the tools hanging on the wall there by the door.
He stepped aside and made his way towards the middle of the room. The apartment wasn't large he noted and comprised mostly a single room. In the far corner there was a bathroom that would never work as it had again, a foul – if soft – stench crept from the hole in the floor like a ghoul and tickled the inside of the scarred hunter's nose. In the place of running water, somehow had left out a wooden bucket of water, in the hopes it'd wash down whatever waste was put down the hole. Clearly despite that intention, it would never be used in that manner.
Gyaltsen turned away from it, it would need lye and need it soon. Or else the entire apartment would smell of sewage and rot.
Gaincain's sewage issues aside, Gyaltsen was on a mission. He had an inclination among all the items left behind here there might be a clue to the entire retinue of assassins that had brought down Dromtönpa. And with that, the place of Gaincain in all of that.
At the center of the room say a low tea-table, beds of straw provided cushions for his man and his guests to sit. Gaincain knelt at the side of the table and looked down at the impromptu cushions. Each pile was depressed. Had the entire party sat here, or did his would-be assassin rotate among them? He brushed it aside, it wasn't important. And there was nothing at the table.
Gyaltsen groaned as he rose. If he was a naive fuck up, where would he hide his evidence? Scanning the rest of the room there was hardly anywhere else he could look, the room was bare as Gaincain was poor. On a half suspicion Gyaltsen went to the bed and tore through the sheets and rotting cushions there, but produced nothing. He was beginning to wonder. Grumbling, the hunter looked over the room. He was becoming impatient and distraught, was there anything else here? Anything he could press his man at all?
But his thirst to find wasn't going to let him give up. He looked up, searching the numerable holes that dotted the crumbling ceiling. There, poking out of a bundle of sinewy electrical cables a corner of a piece of paper poked out. And like a warm alcoholic drink the hunter felt the sweet relief of victory work the magic of sweet liquor.
His knees popped as he rose and pulled his knife from its holster under his clothes. Reaching out with the long, curved jagged blade he touched it to the dry, mummified cables and began to tease the paper from its hiding place. Plaster rained down in ashen clouds as the loose bundles dragged and rubbed themselves against the crater in the ceiling. Flakes of dry parched rubber insulation fell against his face as the piece of paper came lose. And as a flower petal caught on a summer's breeze it fell to Earth and into Gaincain's twisted and bent hand.
“There we go.” he whispered on a dry breath, unfolding the paper in his hands.
Across the yellowing sheet was a map. An intersection of roads, the placement of buildings, and markings for placements. He didn't need an enlightened man to know it was a map. An illustration for the ambush placement of the conspirators. “So.” he crooned to himself, “What do you mean?” he asked.
At each of the marked attack points were placed dashed strings of characters. It didn't read to him as Tibetan. All the same satisfied he tucked the paper into his coat.