The Chronicles of Shamballa

Chapter XIII: The Journey Begins

The next few moments went by in a flash as the three of them quickly packed their belongings and hurried out of the room with the help of Chotu. They could hear heavy footsteps coming in through the corridor, the hounds- they wanted to eliminate them! Fortunately, they somehow managed to sneak out of the back door where Chotu took their leave and instructed them to get on a horse carriage that he had arranged for them earlier. Ram Babu, being a simpleton, kept begging him to return the mule to his beloved friend Rajesh. His priorities made the others drag him onto the carriage… As the carriage quickly moved out into the city, Carey took a peek through the window at the building that they had just left. He saw a strange man with a black mask staring out of the bedroom window…

“How did they find us here?” asked Carey.

“I told you they got eyes and ears everywhere, it is me they are looking for but they won’t hesitate to hurt you and your friend, fortunately I am not someone to go down without a fight,” she said to him whilst tapping her longsword.

The driver of the carriage was instructed to take them out of the city limits and leave them wherever they asked. But currently Carey was having difficulty in deciphering the symbols.

“Where to now Mr. Carey, we will get out of the city within an hour but we can’t keep running around aimlessly!” she said.

“I know, I know, just give me a minute, these symbols are coded,” he replied looking at his notebook.

Ram Babu sat on the floor of the carriage even though there was an empty seat, he felt that it would be an insult to her highness to sit at par with royalty. The Princess found this quite odd and with great difficulty, she made him sit on the opposite seat. Carey had no idea what was going around him, he had forgotten that he was in a carriage. All he could see were the strange symbols on notebook; so absorbed was he in his research that he could see the symbols floating around his head.

“What a strange man is he Ram!” remarked the Princess in the native language.

“Oh! Sahib can be a little odd sometimes but he is a good man your highness!” replied Ram.

“He seems nice, I have never seen such a sincere and devoted man, who only worships his work,” she said. “Why do you always follow him around?”

“It is my duty your highness, my family has been serving the foreigners since before my birth and I followed him since the Thugs attacked us in Awadh, he needs someone to take care of him madam, and sometimes he forgets to eat or sleep,”

“Is he married?”

“Oh no, Sahib has no time for all that, he works every waking minute and is completely devoted to his craft,”

“Hmh, I see, it seems are destinies are entangled, I never dreamt of working with a foreigner to save my kingdom,” she said looking at him curiously.

Carey suddenly turned towards her.

“What did you just say?” he asked her.

“What? Did I say anything wrong? Wait, you were listening? ” she asked him in surprise

“Could you please repeat the last line?” he said in a tone of urgency.

“I just said that our destinies are entangled…”

“That’s it, entangled! I got it now, these symbols- yes! They are not a different language, they are Sanskrit letters simply entangled upon one another, here- look- one letter is drawn over the other to make it ineligible, see?” he said excitedly

“Um- I don’t understand” she replied.

“Well, look here, this letter- it’s the letter – ‘U’ and the letter beneath it is the letter ‘Cha’ or ‘Ch’, now when I draw them one upon the other, like this- watch what happens- it makes the symbol on the map!” he explained.

“Amazing but what does it mean?” she asked.

“Wait- ah! See here, there was a small inscription that I had missed earlier, on the bottom of the map, there were these cardinal directions, north-south-east-west, translated in Sanskrit with just the first letters- ‘U- Da- Pu- Pa’,” he explained further.

“You mean just like in Sanskrit and Hindi, U. stands for Uttar meaning north,” she suggested.

“Yes and so on- now, this letter, ‘Ch.’ could mean the first letter of the place, now- where’s the map of the country,” he said taking out the political map of the country.

“So- we are now in Benaras and if we keep going north, we find only one place that starts with this letter-here,” he showed them the map.

“Champaran!” exclaimed the Princess.

“Yes, north of Behar, the district of Champaran, that’s where the road starts, and the rest four symbols must be similar, the first letter of the direction written and entangled upon the first letter of the place” he said victoriously.

“But I don’t understand one thing Mr. Carey, why does the map takes us to different places in the country, why not lead us to a single location and say- hey, here’s the lost city of Shamballa, go find it!” she asked a rather important question.

“I do not know that yet, maybe after we reach Champaran then we shall have out answers,” he replied.

“But Champaran is almost 200 kms north of here, might take us 12 hours or more,” she said.

“It is imperative that we get there as quickly as possible, we don’t have the luxury of time, there are men after us,” he said looking worried.

“The fastest way to get there is by the river, we need to hire a boat, that way we can steer clear of the obstacles, nobody guards the river,” she suggested.

“Right but where do we find a boat? The rains will be upon us quite soon I'm afraid, we have to get to Champaran before the monsoon begins,” he said looking at the clouds through of the window.

“Leave that to me, Mr. Carey- driver, take us to the river port!” she ordered and the carriage took a sharp left.

The sky was getting gloomier by the moment and everybody was relieved of the scorching heat. Farmers and peasants alike looked upwards at the sky, hoping for some rain for their crops. As usual, rains have been delayed for over a month this year just like the previous year; people prayed and offered sacrifices to the Gods for the rain to come or there would soon be another famine…

The Carriage stumbled over the rough city roads as the three of them sat silently, anxiously looking at each other; nobody knew what the road ahead would bring them. Fifteen minutes later, they would soon exit the city limits, when the Princess asked the driver to stop the carriage, took three gold coins from the bag and exited the vehicle to gather some supplies for the road ahead. They would need a generous stock of non-perishable food and had to change their disguises every now and then to avoid detection. After getting what they need, they were about to resume their journey, when they heard the similar sound of approaching hooves in the distance. Carey looked towards the source of the sound and saw a large group of bandits approaching them.

“Oh no, get in the car, quick, the Thugs are on to us, we have to leave,” he remarked.

“No!” cried the Princess, “there’s no point in trying, their horses will eventually catch up to us, better to face them here and now,” she said drawing her shiny long sword.

The violent men came riding on their horses and stopped right in front of their carriage. One of the elderly looking bandits came down from his horse and unveiled his face.

“Move, woman, we have no quarrel with you, we want the foreigner,” he said in a low husky voice.

“Do you know who you’re talking to? I am the Princess of Shahpur, daughter of the Nawab, you shall immediately leave here and not pursue us!” she ordered.

“Is that supposed to mean something? Oh! You think we are not supposed to hurt royalty?” said the Thug and laughed at her face.

“I know Kali has been assisting you and the foreigner and now he’s in hiding, he has been given a simple task, kill the foreigners, rid this beloved country of ours of this white scum but that belligerent fool failed! He fell for your charms, dear Princess!” he said mocking her.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked rather insulted at his tone.

“He must have given you some lame excuse to not hurt you or your friends,” he said.

“It is not your code to hurt royalty,” she interrupted.

“It is not our code to hurt women and children of any caste or creed, beyond that we have no rules, that punk refused to complete his mission because he’s enchanted by your charms! Huh! Pretty good tactic I must say, thwarting your enemy without picking up your sword… but don’t take us to be the same, Princess, we won’t hurt you, but we will tie you up and render you useless and then we will grab this foreigner fool and gut him with our blades!!” threatened the elderly Thug.

Carey took a huge gulp when he heard this, he and Ram Babu were standing behind her and watching the events unfold. He thought that it would be better to surrender and sacrifice his life than watching them hurting the Princess, there’s no way that the Princess could take on seven of these thugs.

“I’d like to see you try!” said the Princess with fire in her eyes.

Carey looked at her in surprise.

The Thug was annoyed at her audacity, he turned away from her and looked at his men- there were six of them, all mean looking with scars, holding their swords, ready to attack at any moment. And then he turned towards the Princess-

“Tie her up and kill the foreigner!”

The men drew their swords and rushed towards the Princess- she took an attacking stance, Ram and Carey fell back a few steps- the driver of the carriage ran for his life.

“Stay back Mr. Carey, I shall protect you or die trying,” she said and rushed at the men with her sword.

Out of nowhere came a flying object that was tethered to a rope at the end, it swept past the Princess and hit two of the Thugs on the face who immediately fell down on the ground. Then the flying object flew back. Everybody was surprised and looked towards the east, a tall dark man stood there with the object hanging from a rope, it looked like a boomerang of sorts, only much sharper on one end and deadlier, his face was masked and his eyes were red.

“Kali!” grunted the elder Thug in anger, “finish him!” he ordered.

Soon there was chaos, four of the men went to face Kali, while two of them sparred with the Princess who graciously defended herself.