The Chronicles of Shamballa

Chapter IV: The Key

“Who goes there?”

Carey woke up to the alarming voices around. He had fallen asleep on the carriage. As he rubbed his eyes to the light of the lanterns in front of him, he saw that the drivers of his horse carriage had already fled the scene. He and his valet were on the carriage-both fast asleep. He noticed that they were in front of the governor’s bungalow. As he looked at his pocket watch he noticed that it was already dawn. The governor was standing on the front gate with his hands on his hips as the guards came to fetch Carey.

“Is that you Mr. Carey? Heavens! We have been looking all over for you, where have you been?” asked the governor.

The governor- Sir John Cunningham was a tall and lean man in his late forties with a bald head. His bungalow was a two storied mansion with lavish quarters and an army of guards.

“It’s a long story governor, we were being threatened by goons and almost kidnapped. We escaped somehow- ah! I’m so tired, I really need some sleep Sir.” replied Carey, trying to hide the truth.

“What a terrible business! Guard, show them to their quarters, we shall talk in the morning, get some rest!” said the governor.

Carey fell asleep as soon as he hit the bed. He had a strange dream that night- he saw that he was being chased by the Nawab’s men as he kept running towards a cliff. But somehow the Nawab’s daughter appeared in front of him out of nowhere and blocked his path. There was something wrong with her- she looked more like an apparition to him, with a thin veil of silk barely covering her nude body. He stopped as he reached her and saw her bloody and distorted face…next thing he knew, he was falling down the cliff, screaming his guts out…until he heard Ram Babu’s voice-

“Sahib! Sahib!”

Carey woke up and realised he was only dreaming. Ram Babu was in his room, waking him up.

“Good God! What time it is?” he asked.

“It is already time for lunch Sir,” replied Ram Babu, cleaning up his room.

“Wait, No, no, leave that bag,” remarked Carey.

Ram Babu was putting things in order when he suddenly picked up the huge bag of gold that the Nawab had offered him earlier. He smiled and let go off the bag.

“Yes, Sir, of course,” he replied realizing what Carey meant.

Carey trusted this old servant of his, he was very loyal and so he had already shared everything about the conversation between him and the Nawab. But it was also not safe to hide a huge bag of gold in a government quarter. He also had other things to ponder upon, the location of the map, and his secret deal with the Nawab and of course, his main quest of finding the location of this mysterious place. He got up from his bed and walked towards the window. The sun was out with all its glory- Indian summer had already begun. Beyond the Governor’s Bungalow, he could see endless fields of paddy and peasants working hard in the scorching sun. He took a deep breath as he gazed at the beautiful scenery.

“Eh, shall I bring Tea or Lunch Sir?” asked Ram Babu.

“Some Tea please,” Carey replied as Ram Babu went out of the room.

It was 11.30 in the morning and he had already slept half the day but he was confused where he would actually start his journey. From what he had seen so far, this journey of his might include some danger, there were powerful people looking for it, the League and the Nawab were just two players in the game, he suspected that he would meet lots of interesting people in his journey. Some would threaten him while some would help him along his way but whatever the risks, he wasn’t a man to back down on his side of the deal. The League had offered him a prestigious teaching post at the Oxford University of London and the Nawab was willing to give him more than he could ask, clearly they believed that he was the right man for the job and he was going to prove them right!

With a renewed sense of confidence he unpacked his bag and took out his notes while a lingering thought hovered over his head- who were the goons that attacked him in Awadh that night? The Thugs that Ram Babu were so terrified of- how did they come to know about him and his quest? Is there a third player in the game? Or were they sent by the Nawab himself?

“Ugh! This is too much, I need to focus on my work,” Carey said to himself as he scrolled through his notes.

“Right, so what do we know, the poem, hmm, says that there is an ancient place somewhere in the North, with mysterious people and objects, so North, oh! It said far beyond the Northern Mountains, so…north….would mean the Himalayas?” muttered Carey as he consulted the map and his notes.

“But where in the Himalayas? Ah, I need the Kalachakra map for that, clues, what clues have I collected, my diary? Where is it? Ugh! Ram Babu! Where is my diary? Ram…Oh! Here it is, Right, so clues…I need to find that map quickly, or else goodbye Oxford, hmm… here it is…”

Carey was supposed to shower that day but he spent the entire day drowned in his notes. In a span of nearly two years, he had collected so much data about the location of the map and of the entire country as a whole. He had loads of books, notes and journals about all that he had discovered from various places in the country of Hindostan. And when he learned how majestic, ancient and surreal the culture of this mystical country was, he was truly humbled. From North to South and East to West, he had been to several places, looking for any clues that could lead him towards the Kalachakra map. This said map was mentioned by Madam Blavatsky, the famed occultist, who once came looking for the map herself but her journey was cut short due to illness and she had to return to home. She had mentioned in detail, in her journal, where the search for this map took her- from dangerous jungles to uninhabited islands, from strange country folk to cannibals of the hills. Carey had that journal with him, courtesy of the League, who had recovered it after the lady’s death. But the journal only mentioned about the journey until the time where Madam Blavatsky was close to finding the map and then, it was empty- no further entries. Carey presumed that it could be because she got sick and abandoned her search. So it was entirely up to him to put together the clues and get back on track.

From what he understood, the word Kalachakra which loosely translated into The Wheel of Time. It was a term commonly used in Buddhism which referred to the cycles of planets to the cycles of human breathing and subtle energies. It also referred to the journey of the human soul in metaphysical sense from life to death and rebirth- the tedious journey of human suffering and how man could break from this cycle and attain Nirvana like the Buddha. But Carey couldn’t understand how these mystical elements could relate to a map and the map could supposedly lead him to the place beyond the Northern Mountains…

The data that he had previously collected were random scriptures and parchments of ancient Indian and Buddhist teachings and he had already learnt to translate them into English. But the trouble was that everything that he had learnt and collected until now were pieces of a giant puzzle and his time was running out to put them together. He had already spent one and a half year in researching and according to his contract, he had roughly six months to complete the assignment and locate the place.

But Carey was a genius of sorts, he knew how to find patterns and look for things that others couldn’t see. He also had an eidetic memory, which meant that he could recall any image he had earlier seen down to its tiniest details. He spoke seven different languages which included obscure languages like Latin and Sanskrit. Often times when as he would get absorbed in his work, he would forget everything including food or drink, which contributed largely to the fact that he was a bachelor. His passion for archaeology was so great that he wouldn’t rest until he had found the answers he was looking for. Today wasn’t going to be any different- his table was filled with dozens of opened books and maps, all arranged in some strange order that made sense to his mind.

It was five in the evening, the sun was beginning to set behind the hills and an orange hue filled the sky. The workers in the paddy fields were returning to their houses, singing songs and the lamps in the bungalow were slowly being lit. Carey’s lunch had gotten cold as he feverishly kept scribbling into his notes and studying the ancient scriptures- he had completely lost track of time. He understood now that the possibility of an ancient kingdom, beyond the Himalayas was high. Many folklores and poems indicate that there was once possibly a kingdom as such and due to some unknown incident, the ruler decided to lock it off from the rest of the world and disappear mysteriously. But it appears that some ancient sage decided to make a map and he wrote down all the instructions on how to reach it. He called the place Shamballa. Another obscure poem loosely mentioned that to find the map, one has to understand the teachings of the ancients.

“Ugh!” Carey drew a long breath.

“Still no clue to the location of the map, God!”

Ram Babu came in knocking-

“Sir, still working Sir? I was looking for the key to my room, I left it here, excuse me,”

And then it hit him-

“The key, of course, the key, every map has a key, this map must have a key too, good God, I’ve been so blind, great work Ram Babu!” he said excitedly.

Ram Babu smiled nervously and excused himself from the room. He had seen this before, his master was about to have another fit of madness where he would keep talking to himself and forget that anyone else was in the room until he would collapse due to exhaustion.

Carey just realized that everything that he needed was right before his eyes. The random clues that were scattered across the table could lead him to the map. Just like every map has a key or a legend that explains how to read the map, the Kalachakra map had its key in those folk tales and poems. If he could organize them according to the time and place they belonged to, it would probably lead him to first mention of the map. And wherever and whenever the map was first mentioned, that would be the place that the map was probably located. It was a crude idea but it was his best shot and better than nothing.

Carey threw everything else off from his table and lit his table lamp. He then carefully arranged all the pieces of folklore and poem that mentioned about the map from top to bottom. The last piece of poem of folklore would lead him the way to Shamballa!