The Chronicles of Shamballa

Chapter LX: Dangerous Liasions

A gust of wind blew some of the embers of the dying fire as the three of them struggled to stay warm.

“Gosh! This cold- there’s nothing else to burn!” remarked Carey as he hugged the Princess in his arm.

“We won’t make it like this, we need to burn something- my face has gone numb,” she said shivering in his arms.

“All I have is my bag,” Ram Babu added as he prepared to throw it into the embers to keep the warmth going.

Outside the cavern, the wind howled fiercely and the darkness engulfed the entire valley. The snow started to pile up on the exit, slowly covering and blocking it. But just a few miles away, on the deserted train engine, the Dutchman sat comfortably and waited for the storm to pass. The sun would be up soon and then he would be back to stalking Arthur Carey and his mates. This hunt had gone longer than he presumed and had it not been the orders from his client- ‘The League’ , he would have ended Carey’s life soon enough. But he was to track him down to the final location and then finish him so that nobody else but his client would know the secrets of the location. He took out his finest pistol- The Walther P38 and his trusty Winchester sniper rifle and cleaned them. Then he took a look at his small knives and machetes and finally he checked his bag for the sticks of Dynamites. After being satisfied with his arsenal, he took out his can of whiskey and took a sip while staring into the flames of the burning coal.

Not far away was the witch, Ashanti and her minion, the zombie rebel leader. She had already entered the snowclad mountain range and paused and stared at the dark and cold mountains of the Himalayas. The wind was making it difficult to navigate and it angered her that she could no longer ride on her horse in the knee deep snow. She climbed down from the horse and so did her minion and as soon as she did the horses were free from her enchantment and fell dead on the ground. She had decided to continue on foot for the rest of the journey. She has been following Carey’s scent for all this time but now something in the mountains was blocking her magic. She stood silently as her thick black robe wavered in the wind and her eyes glowed beneath her face mask. The rebel leader stood motionless like a stone behind her. She decided to use her tracking magic to find the exact whereabouts of Carey. She clasped her palms together and chanted some ominous phrase and closed her eyes and then suddenly she opened her arms wide and let go off a black wave of energy into the mountains. The power surge sounded like a glacier breaking down from afar and the wave of black energy went out to every nook and cranny of the valley. And then within a few seconds it returned to her. She took the energy wave back and a moment later, she began to see every living creature in the entire valley in her mind- from the smallest animal to the largest mammal to any human being. They appeared like tiny red dots in her mind but that was all she needed to know Carey’s location. Within a couple of minute, she realized that there was some sort of a broken train engine twenty kilometres North, where some strange man was taking a nap and in another- that was not Carey but in about twenty five kilometres North West from the Engine she could see that there were signs of three human beings huddled up near a mountain. This was it! She finally found their location. But what about the strange man resting in the train? She assumed that he too must have been looking for Carey for there could be no other reason for any other human being to come into this hell hole. Whoever he was, she knew that no mortal could ever harm her. Only magic could fight against magic. She was desperate for the foreigner’s blood and she would have it first! She began walking towards Carey’s location- her minion following her obediently from behind.

An hour passed and Carey looked at his pocket watch sincerely hoping for the sun to rise and this weather to subside. He looked at the Princess, she had passed out due to exhaustion and Ram Babu was barely staying awake. But he could sleep- the excitement of holding all the pieces of the Orb together, his past life and resurrection and this dangerous journey that he had been- these things were keeping him awake. He was shivering and could barely touch the stone cold metal pieces of the Orb, let alone put them back together. The moment he put out his bare hands out of his jacket to touch the pieced, the cold instantly numbed his fists and he would lose his sense of touch. It was three in the morning but he could wait no longer. He extended his palms on to embers and warmed them up. Then he held the pieces and tried to arrange them into a whole but the cold would soon come biting and he had to warm his hands again. He did this over and over for almost half an hour until he finally arranged the last piece and put the metal Orb back together. The last piece made a clicking noise and he held the thing in his palm. It was and odd looking object- barely 20 centimetres in diameter, smooth and shiny on all ends with a smoky and silver complexion. It seemed like it was a perfect circle from one end and yet looked like an egg from the other. Carey hoped for a big revelation, now that he had put all the pieces back together- something should happen any moment-

“What now? Come on,” he whispered alone in the dark, holding the Orb in his hand and yet a minute later, nothing happened.