The Chronicles of Shamballa

Chapter XXXII: The Warrior Monk: Awakening

“Where’s Carey?” yelled the Princess while fighting off the mad villagers.

“I’ll go look!” replied Raza as he cowered behind the Princess.

Raza ran with great difficulty through the storm. He went door to door, looking for Carey, but all he could find were scared and angry villagers either running or hiding from the strange weather. A couple of minutes later, he found the shack where Carey was holed up. He called out his name from outside, but Carey didn’t respond. As soon as he stepped inside the hut, a scared woman ran out screaming. Raza looked at Carey and his eyes opened wide. The man had a strange white glow emanating from his chest. His face was painted with Red and Blue colors like a tribal chief and he was shirtless, seated in a meditative position. Raza called his name out again but he wouldn’t respond. He had a powerful halo on top of his head and it seemed that his entire body was surrounded by a powerful energy. Raza didn’t know what to do, he had never seen anything like this. He was confused- how could a foreigner get such magical powers? Is he the one controlling the weather? Should he try to wake him up?

The Princess came running into the shack and saw this strange sight. She immediately went and touched his arm- a wave of intense energy came flowing out of his body and disappeared. Carey fell down unconscious. The weather was slowly turning back to normal.

“Mr. Carey! Wake up!” said the Princess, tapping his face.

“Ahhh! God no! No! Help!” yelled Carey as if he woke up from a terrible nightmare.

“What happened to you?” asked the Princess.

“What- where are those terrible women? They’re going to eat me alive!” said Carey.

“Snap out of it! They’re gone, we need to escape now!” said the Princess slapping him in the face.

“Ow! What?” said Carey as the Princess dragged him out of the hut.

A minute later, the group gathered around and picked up their belongings. The mad villagers were still scared, some of them unconscious from the beating they got, some hiding, refusing to come out. This was their time to escape- they gathered themselves and started to run away towards the hills. Carey was still trying to come to his senses, he had lost his sense of time- one minute he was prepared to be food for the savages and the next minute he was in the Princess’s arms- the slap did hurt a lot! Raza and the Princess were unable to process what they saw in the hut. But they would have plenty of time to discuss this later, for now, they had to leave before the savages gather themselves. Ram Babu looked towards the sky- strangely, the sun was peeping out from the clouds.

As they began to stumble through the rugged terrain, they could hear the sound of the hooves in the distance. Five kilometres away, they saw three tiny dots approaching them- more trouble! It was the Hard Chief and his two soldiers, approaching the village, looking for Kali. His spies had told him earlier that they saw a group of strangers going down to the village of the savages and there was a man that looked like a Thug. The savages ran at the sight of the Hard Chief and his men- they were terrified of him and his men and got out of the way. But Carey and the others had already managed to disappear into the thick jungles at the sight of the horsemen- they knew whoever they were, they weren’t there to help them. The Chief couldn’t find them anymore, but this was his territory- how long did they think they could survive? He looked at the majestic hills and turned back- it was no use chasing them through the treacherous jungle. He knew that if the jungle did not kill them then his guerrilla spies would definitely choke them to death. He smiled knowing that Kali was nearby and it wouldn’t be long before he would put his dagger through his chest!

The five of them rested after an hour into the jungles. Carey looked around, there were huge mountains surrounding on all sides and a thick jungle stretched from east to west.

“Mr. Carey! We have to get back on track, tell me you know the way,” said the Princess impatiently.

“Yes, but shouldn’t we find shelter first, it would be dark soon and you remember what happened the last time we were in the jungle!” replied Carey.

“No time! We will keep walking all night if we have to, didn’t you see those black- clad horsemen? They were Thugs! They are looking for Kali – this is their territory, and if we stopped to rest, we sure won’t make it to the waterfall, so tell me you know the way,” she said.

“All right, just give me a minute, Ram! Hand me my bag please, I got to look at the maps,” he replied.

Raza snooped towards the Princess.

“Your Highness, aren’t we going to talk about what happened in the hut at the village? Didn’t it look like he was controlling the weather?” he asked.

“Yes, it is curious, but I’m not surprised anymore, I have seen things in this journey- maybe he doesn’t realize what he has done,” she replied.

“What is it that you are really looking for your highness? Is it some lost treasure?” asked Raza.

“Hmh, you will see, by the way, you’re not getting paid for your services, you know that don’t you?” she replied and walked towards Carey.

Raza was close to finding out about their mission but the Princess refuse to share anymore. Whatever it was, he sincerely hoped that his idiotic men were following his trail. Unbeknownst to anyone, he had left bread crumbs for his men to find him. This he did by tying pieces of torn clothing on trees and bushes in a certain manner that would indicate which way they went. He sincerely hoped that the Princess and her team would find the treasure they were looking, for he was running out of clothing.

“So? Found anything?” asked the Princess sitting by Carey’s side.

“No, I mean yes- ah, I don’t know anymore, we need to get to higher ground to be sure, everything here looks the same, I can’t tell,” replied Carey.

“What happened to you in the hut?” asked the Princess.

“What do you mean?” replied Carey.

“You don’t remember? The storm? The strange weather?”

“What? The weather was perfectly fine, I was about to be turned in to food, and then,”

“And then what?”

“I don’t know, everything’s blurry, I remember praying for help, and then, ah! I don’t know,”

“Hmm, well can you tell me which direction we are supposed to go? This journey is getting tiresome and I’m fed up of getting chased, for once I want some rest, some peace of mind,”

“Yes, I think it’s that way, on that hill in the west. Don’t worry Princess, once we gather all of the pieces, we will have plenty of time to rest,”

Carey’s head was full of thoughts. He didn’t know how to explain his strange abilities, but he realized one thing that something or someone has bestowed upon him said powers and abilities so that he could reach his goal. But he wondered what else he could do? There’s one other thing he did not divulge to the Princess. Until now he had explained her everything about the visions and the strange powers but he never told her that sometimes he would see her face in the visions. . Carey was often puzzled why she was in his visions for it would mean a bigger game was in play. It would mean that they knew each other in the past life and they were brought together in this life for a greater mission- it was destiny! These said visions were nothing but glimpses of his past life- things that had actually occurred hundreds of years ago. They were becoming stronger as he was getting closer to the pieces of the Orb. Clearly he was on the right path. He was not sure how to explain the appearance of the Princess in his visions for he was embarrassed to tell her what he actually saw. In every vision he had received, he would see the Lost Kingdom, where he used to live. It was never a clear vision- it was always bits and pieces that would flash before his eyes, like peeping through a keyhole to see the other side of the door…

He saw how he was a strong young man bestowed with a great physical appearance and had an equally powerful intellect. He would see bits and pieces of a beautiful woman who used to work as a chief in the army. They were attracted to each other but never found the time to express their love owing to their duties which they held sacred and above themselves all the time. And so every now and then they would exchange looks and let their eyes do the talking. He would work as a scholar, teaching his students about the mystical arts while she would train the army. Until one stormy night, when they met in the darkness and embraced each other. They met in the jungle where he was foraging for medicinal herbs.

She came in from behind and slowly held his eyes with her hands. He smiled and touched her soft hands and turned towards her. They looked into each other’s eyes for a moment and he ran his hand from her face to her neck and on her breasts. Her heartbeat accelerated and she touched his chest and ran her hand on the only piece of clothing he was wearing- a white piece of loin cloth that covered his lower body. She untied the knot and let the cloth fall down on the ground.

They would soon succumb in to the wild passions and release all the pent up wild emotions that they had for each other. He laid on top of her and pinned her on the soft ground. Thunder began to crackle in the skies and small drops of rain fell upon their warm bodies which only excited them further.



But that night would be their last for the enemies were surrounding them from all sides. They had already lost sense of time while they were making love. A huge explosion woke them up from their slumber. The streets were on fire and the people were screaming and running all over the place. Both of them dressed up and hurried to find that the enemy had already entered the place. She cursed himself for letting off her guard and hurried to save the Kingdom. That was the last he saw of her- running towards the enemy- fiercely fighting and cutting them off with her sword. The next thing he knew was that the King and Queen had handed him the Orb and asked him to run and hide… He wanted to use his abilities to protect the Kingdom but they told him that it was futile to try and that he would be only wasting time. It would be best to hide the Orb for that was the only thing that they were after. He was in the mountains, searching for a place to hide the Orb… the enemies had found him and were chasing him… a dark figure stood there blocking his path and stabbed him in the stomach but he kept running- until he bled out and fell on the ground. In his dying moments he used all his abilities to disintegrate the Orb and send the three pieces flying across the continent. The dark figure jumped out of nowhere and with a long spear it stabbed his heart. As he lay dying, he saw his killer’s face- it was a woman with a scar across her face… The enemies returned empty handed and the King and Queen used their powers to teleport the kingdom somewhere else…



Carey always knew that the Princess and he were destined to be together but now that he had seen what had happened in his past life, he wanted to be with her forever. They were separated by death in the past life and he swore that he would have her as his wife in this life. But how was he supposed to tell her about what he had seen, about the love making? It would be rather awkward… No! He would win her heart and then tell her how he actually felt…