He opened his mouth wide releasing a helpless whelp of despair, “Let us go! Why are you keeping us here?” The guards rushed over with sticks and flogged him, reopening some of his wounds. The man fell to the ground, making a noise close to crying. A rumbling, wheezy cough rattled within his ribs.
Johannan crouched down and remained still, keeping his brown eyes to the reddened earth. The prisoners piled up on one another in an attempt to avoid a stray blow from the swinging sticks. The village guard continued to beat the man, every blow against his body sounding like a stick swatted against a stretched sheet of leather.
How am I going to get back to Ayushi now?
One of the prisoners spoke to Johannan once the men were out of sight. The sound of his wheezing in-between breaths was like a bubbling pot of Mama’s soup.
“They treat us really badly here. I have been here for months—my family must think I’m dead by now.”
Another prisoner interrupted, “What do they want with us? Sure, sell us or kill us even, but to keep us here in these conditions—why? Back home, we have chickens in a cage, and we clean the cage out all the time. The children are no better—they come during the day and throw stones at us.”
“I hate those little brats. If I could get out, I’d set them all on fire and burn them alive,” said another captive.
Johannan glanced into the village and saw a tall, peculiar figure. A man, watching him—everyone marched right past him, almost as if he wasn’t there. But he didn’t fit the scene; he didn’t resemble one of those people. The man’s robes seemed to release a faint glow that could be seen in the daylight, and his sky-blue hair rippled like silk in the breeze. Johannan glanced at the ground to break eye contact, and when he had turned back, the man was gone.
The sky gradually turned grey and cloudy, and it started to rain as the evening advanced. Johannan stooped in his corner of the cage. The other prisoners had nothing to protect themselves from the building rainfall. Every now and then, one of the village men would throw something on top of the cage to protect them from the rain, but he hadn’t been sighted in the village for some time, a prisoner told Johannan.
One of the prisoners pointed to a skinny, shivering dog taking shelter outside the cage. “Dogs are worth more than any of us.”
Johannan began to sob. Maybe I should have stayed home. I didn’t know people could be this bad. He rested his back against the cage, and he could feel the heat from his body rising up from the inside of his cloak. The heavens pecked the earth with showers. He glanced at the gaping prisoners; the red scabs of mud that had built up on their skin began to dissolve. Their appearance was horrible and unkempt, their washed skin revealed hidden bulbous welts all over their bodies. Johannan dipped his head. Those cruel village children have thrown so many stones at them, and they refuse to see what they are doing to these men. I can’t believe that their parents allow this.
The sudden clench of his fists prompted a cry for vengeance within. These people should be punished for their crimes.
That night, Johannan had a dream—or more so, a nightmare. He was at home with Mama and Ayushi. The chants of clucking chickens indicated that it was a fair day. His ears welcomed the missed sounds of popping from the fires under Mama’s pot. A burden departed from his body. The wonderful rich smell of Mama’s cooking penetrated his being. An atmosphere of love and peace, a sense of belonging to somewhere or to someone echoed within him, releasing fullness in his soul. Ayushi was sitting on her stool, hinting a smile of contentment. He dipped his chin; he had taken this for granted—he hadn’t been aware of his luck. It reminded him of something Mama used to always say: “You cannot see when you’re in the presence of love, but when it is taken from you, at that moment, your eyes begin to open.”
There was a growl from the hole in his stomach, and he inched over to the pot and began prodding for bits of meat, as he usually would when Mama’s attention was elsewhere. The simple smile on Ayushi’s face changed into a wide beam as she detected Johannan was up to no good again. As he bent down, poking for the biggest piece of meat he could find, he felt the sting of Mama’s rolling pin against his backside. Johannan shrieked, and both his legs hopped into the air, capsizing the pot.
Mama gnashed her teeth and trembled with rage. Ayushi cupped the sides of her head in panic. “Oh, you’ve really done it to her this time. Run, Johannan!”
He yelled as he dived through the hatch opening, but Mama was faster this time. She reached out to grab him, but he escaped her grasp. He hurtled over the goats, through the bush, and skipped over the river. When he twisted around to scan the distance he’d covered, he could see Mama closing in. He saw her large body hopping over the river’s stones in pursuit. Her rage had given her access to some sort of untapped energy to charge onward. Robbed of feeling a sense of relief, Johannan began to feel frightened. Mama wasn’t giving up, he had to retreat into the hills where he’d often take Ayushi. He always leaned towards the thought of Mama being more like a ballast on legs, as opposed to someone who could keep up, let alone catch him. Fatigue was invading his body, he had never seen her like this before.
With the last exhausting steps forward, he finally made it to the top. “Phew! She’s getting faster,” he said, resting his hands on his knees to regain control of his breathing.
He could see a panoramic view of the village and the heavenly trail of pluming ovens billowing upwards. Then he heard a sudden disturbance, a rustle in the scenery behind him. He veered to face the bush, and Mama was standing there, flicking a custom-made whip, crafted from a tree branch she had shelled of its skin.
“Boy, you are going to get it this time! Stealing our food before it’s cooked. Today, I know why there is always hardly any meat in the pot.”
The fury in her words overwhelmed him. He clasped his hands. “Mama, I’m sorry, please forgive me and let me go. I won’t do it again.”
“It is too late for that, child. I didn’t run all the way up here, almost killing myself along the way, to accept your silly apology. You knocked over my pot, and I have to do it all again. I’m going to beat the thief!”
And in saying that, she held up her whip and—
Johannan immediately woke up with a surging intake of air through his nostrils. The heavens still showered the earth with needles of water, and everyone in the village was indoors, sound asleep. He was relieved—it was just a dream. But come to think of it, he was in a better position in his dream than he was here. It was like one of Mama’s weird sayings: “Better to be beaten by a mother who loves you, than to be beaten by those who hate you.” It made sense now, a lot of sense.
He turned to view the village, and there was that man from earlier, standing there, staring at him. He began to draw closer to the cage. Johannan felt a quiver of unease. Swiftly, he turned his head, so that he caught sight of his glowing robe from the corner of his eye.
“Son of Nepal.”
A comforting voice resounded through the missiles of rain. Only two beings called him that, and this man didn’t resemble either of them. Johannan angled up into the man’s flawless face. His clear skin deflected the light along his prominent jaw line, and his eyes changed from blue to green, like iridescent sheets of satin. Johannan had never seen eyes like this before. The signature stench of the village dissolved as he came closer.
“Do not be frightened, Son of Nepal. I was sent here to deliver a message. The Master is with you. He said he can feel your every anguish, your every fear. You must not be troubled.” Then he pointed to the sky. “Behold.”
Johannan stared into the raining heavens and saw a wide hole in the clouds right above him—it unclothed the star-speckled night. There was one star that stood out brighter than all the others. Every time he glanced at the beams of light, it shimmered in response.
“That excellent star which sits in the distant heavens above you is the Master. He has followed you from out of the Gobi desert. You must not be afraid.”
Johanna
n was silenced by the hand of awe. The man continued to speak, “During the day, the Master will be like a small gust of wind in the heavens, and you will know that he is with you when the birds of the air have taken to the wind.”
Johannan felt like his tongue was suddenly released by concern, “What am I supposed to do? These people are going to kill me.”
“Be still—this village has seen its last days on earth. In the morning, the law will pass over it, then their judgment will come from the heavens.”
What does that mean? The law passing over the village?
The man ambled away with a voice that faded in the rain, "Do not be afraid, Son of Nepal.”
CHAPTER 17
The stench of destruction
The muddied ground of the morning exposed a whole night of rainfall. It was cold and damp. The prisoners formed a cluster of wet bodies in the corner of the cage to distribute the heat that escaped from their fellow captives. Throats were cooled in the morning mist that was beginning to depart early in favour of the afternoon. A shivering forehand of filled veins extended to point at Johannan.
“Look! He’s bone dry, he didn’t get wet at all!” A mixture of mucus and saliva dangled from the lips of the prisoner in his attempt to expose Johannan, whom he believed had greedily hidden a secret from the rest of them.
Johannan, at a loss for words, failed to explain how he managed to remain dry, especially when all the prisoners’ skin glistened with evidence of heavy rainfall. Having no explanation didn’t suffice with a few of the prisoners, and they kept to a grudging silence. Johannan was puzzled; all the questions he had asked himself yielded no reasonable answers, almost like asking a fisherman’s advice on how to build houses. How did the small area around him remain dry? After all, he did sleep quite well, and this would partly explain why.
The progressive bustle of the village indicated that everyone was getting prepared for the day. The men were gathering materials to make a fire, and the women scraped the skins off vegetables for dinner.
The intrusive blare of a horn suddenly arrested the entire sky. The whole village paused with a frightened curiosity. The low-pitched peal was many times worse than the roar of thunder that heralded the approach of hurricanes. The people stretched their arms out to balance as the ground quivered. Old pots and pans edged and tumbled from their shelves, and some of the weaker roofs of the village huts collapsed. Ornaments rattled, and some shattered. The children and the animals scampered in all directions in an aimless hope to find shelter. The cage rumbled, and the prisoners yelled. Johannan held onto the vibrating bars. He had been in situations like this before out in the desert. The betraying message of his heart revealed to him that no matter how many times he experienced similar events, he would never be allowed to grow used to them.
Could it be the Soburin and the Muhandae? This must be what that man spoke of last night.
Shouts from one of the men jolted Johannan, who was by now lost in a world of his own ideas. The anonymous individual implored everyone in the village to witness what was happening in the sky.
Johannan saw fear in their faces. Those expressions had caused him to shiver with the cold of an unknown terror.
What are they all seeing?
He tilted his head to observe. There was a sparkling ball of what could be better described as a glowing white flame. It was soaring high above the village, and spewing behind it stretched a billowing trail of ashy clouds and glittering embers. It was the same type of smog that proclaimed the vengeance of a volcano.
The snatching hands of some of the village women hoisted their children onto their hips. Others searched and latched onto their just as frightened husbands. After half an hour, the low-pitched sound of the horn died. The evidence of a long stream of black smoke lingering over the village pointed the route of the fiery light, which had now returned to the heavens. The village was overwhelmed with the wails of crying children, howling skinny dogs, and squealing pigs. So many times, the question “what was that?” was repeated throughout the village. No one had ever reported seeing a thing like this before. The prisoners were all talking and sharing concerns for their families and homes.
Later that day, the village settled back into their everyday routines, but the villagers were still discussing the perplexing events of that morning.
Johannan remembered what the man had said to him during the night. He stared up high into the ether and saw a group of bar-headed geese gliding around in circles. It was just as he said, the Master is up there watching.
But his inner voice of objection aired its views. But, what is he actually doing up there if he has come to help?
Johannan wondered why the Soburin and the Muhandae didn’t free him from his imprisonment. A guard’s voice pulled Johannan from his state of mind.
“That’s him, that’s the one we caught yesterday, blissfully trespassing in our mountains,” said the tall, skinny guard with the red nose. He was talking with a form of respect, which led Johannan to believe the other guard was the one in charge.
“Did you find anything on him?” the leader replied in a stern, husky, and malevolent tone.
“Skins filled with water. We actually thought the boy had wine on him.”
The man in charge paced around the cage, glaring at Johannan. The other prisoners attempted to stay out of his line of vision. It was obvious to Johannan from their behaviour that this man was responsible for most of their wounds. “You thought he had wine on him? Get him out! I want to further inspect him.”
The red-nosed guard beckoned his fellow guards to assist him in getting Johannan out of the cage. It wasn’t long before Johannan felt the forceful grip of four hands locking onto the inside of his arms. He begged them to release him with pleas for mercy.
“Shut up!” said the leader, slapping Johannan across his face with the back of his hand. “You will speak when you are spoken to. You belong to me now!”
Johannan struggled, but the men who were holding him exhibited a force twice his strength. They were getting annoyed with him and threw him against the ground with a severing noise of tearing clothes. They closed in with several kicks to the stomach, and Johannan coughed in pain. They knocked the wind out of him, his stomach convulsed, and he regurgitated. He couldn’t recall ever feeling a pain like this before.
“On your feet, young traveller.” The men yanked him back up.
Johannan could taste blood inside his mouth, and his eyes were red from the abundance of tears.
“What were you doing in our territory, boy?”
“He could be a spy, coming to search for the other prisoners,” said the man with the red nose. The leader stepped close to Johannan, so that they were face to face; close enough for Johannan to smell the warm stench of his horrible breath.
“Is that true, then? Are you a spy? Have you come to free the others?”
Johannan could barely stand up, his head slowly pivoting on his neck.
“I—I’m just a traveller. I don’t know anyone in the cage. I’m too young to be a spy.”
The responding frown showed that the leader didn’t seem convinced. The men shouted words like “He’s lying” and “He’s a spy”.
Johannan knew they couldn’t be so stupid as to believe he was a spy, but they just wanted to beat him for sport. The leader slapped Johannan again and again, blood and saliva sputtered to the left and right.
“Speak, boy! Tell us the truth! We want to hear it.”
The villagers gathered around in a circle; they were feeding off the suggested lies.
“Beat him,” they shouted.
“Hit him really hard,” said some of the women, stamping the ground with enthusiasm.
Johannan could only imagine the pain he was about to endure as the voices of the villagers drowned out any sound he could have made in his defence.
A few words only he could hear crawled from his lips, “Home . . . M-Mama . . . A-Ayushi.”
Was he ever going
to see them again? He remembered that day, leaving home—he chose not to turn around, but he heard Ayushi crying and felt her falling to the ground. He recalled Mama rushing to her, demanding in her most commanding tone that he came back. This was his last memory of the women he loved.
He drew in a deep breath, a breath that only a festering buildup of anger could support him to inhale, and he shouted with all his might, “Let me go!”
The guards threw him into the cage. Johannan’s head bounced against the metal bars with a resounding clung, his knees collapsed, and he fell on the ground.
“Let me go!” he cried, he could feel his heart beating fast.
The leader felt like he had tolerated enough of Johannan’s insolence, and he called for his spear with a sharp, direct order that revealed an intent to kill. Johannan shouted, expelling all of the air his lungs carried, repeating the words, “Let me go!” His teardrops darkened the red earth beneath him.
High up in the heavens, where man’s eyes had not seen before, the anguish and pain of Johannan caught the Soburin’s attention in the realm of spirits. A loud, thundering scream of Ayushi’s name ripped across the voids.
The Soburin swayed back as if to dodge something that came towards him. He felt Johannan’s sorrow blasting against him in the manifestation of a gust of wind, and he covered his face with the inside of his elbow. Johannan’s heart continued to cry out in blustering currents that appeared to increase in strength, proving that his connection to the Soburin was strong.
The gale that fought against him was unusual to him and if his wrath wasn’t triggered, he would have been astounded. This was something in the whole of the universe that caused him to take a step back, like a mere mortal avoiding an assault.
It was a feat that even the gods would have failed to believe. This, however, was unacceptable. The area above his nose tightened to form a horrible scowl.
The Soburin plummeted from the heavens in a searing rage. The loud cry of Johannan’s heart was a sound he couldn’t seem to abide by, and he descended into the mountainous regions of Altun Shan.