Kingdom (30 page)

The Abbot’s deputy was desperate to learn what happened next. He did not want to hear Herzog’s speculations. Talk of Fatherlands and Teutonic knights was incomprehensible to him.

‘Tell me what happened. You said you were lying curled up on the floor of the tower.’

‘Yes. I was. And I was beyond despair. Never have I experienced such terror before or since. Then suddenly there was a knock on the door. Trembling with nerves and a determination to survive, somehow, I sprang to my feet. A well-groomed oriental man stepped into the room.

‘“I am sorry to have kept you waiting,” he said, with a thin smile. “My name is Yuen – I am the Abbot’s assistant. You must be hungry? Perhaps you would like to eat.” ’

The Abbot’s deputy’s eyes were wide as saucers.

‘Were you not afraid they were going to kill you then and there? Why didn’t you try to hide? Or attack him?’

‘Hide?’ A dry laugh escaped from Herzog’s lips. ‘Where was there to hide? And yes, I was petrified for my life, but I knew there was no point attacking him. Even if I had succeeded in overpowering him there would have been hordes of other men behind him. As I heard the knock on the door I realized there was only one course of action that I could take. At all costs I had to conceal my true fears, to claim a courage I didn’t in reality possess. I still hoped that by conducting myself as someone who expects to be treated with respect and courtesy, I might discourage them from taking any liberties with me. It seemed a desperate hope, but it was all that I could summon at that moment.

‘So I agreed with alacrity to the offer of food and then I said, ‘“Can you please confirm that I will have an opportunity to meet the head lama of this place? Or am I a prisoner in your monastery?”

‘The man smiled and answered:

‘“The Abbot will be joining you for dinner. And as to whether or not you are a prisoner, well, we are all prisoners here, though we prefer not to put it quite like that. But it is true that it is not possible to walk out of this place. The terrain offers no route out and there is no human habitation for countless miles. I do not include the settlement in the valley below in this assessment, which you have already seen. But it is against the vows of our order to visit this place. And they do not come to visit us. Indeed, we have all come to love our confinement – as I am sure you will too.”

‘I felt as if I was about to choke on my own tongue, so desperate was I to scream out questions, but somehow I restrained myself. In the most calm voice I could muster I said, “I see, well, I will take this further with the Abbot.”

‘The man smiled again, as if to agree that it would be futile to discuss anything further at this moment, and so I followed him down the stairs, through various doors and finally into a spacious dining room. He pulled out a chair for me at the table and, terrified and trying once more to mask my true emotions, I sat down and waited to see what would happen next.

‘I did not have to wait long. A minute later, the door at the far end of the room opened and a very elderly, sinewy Chinese man came in and joined me at the table.

‘“Welcome to Shangri-La,’ he said, in a very soft, dry voice. ‘You have succeeded where so many others have failed.”’

The Abbot’s deputy’s forehead was contorted by a frown. He interrupted Herzog’s flow again.

‘But what did he mean by that? Have lots of people tried to reach Shangri-La?’

Herzog was deep into his opium-inspired memory. A mere question could no longer pull him from the depths of his dream. He ignored the deputy’s question and continued to describe the scene before him, as if he was there again at that moment, seated before the Abbot of Shangri-La.

‘The Abbot paused and gestured to a servant to pour jasmine tea for us both. Even though I was in a state of almost complete panic and fear, I could not help noticing that the cups and the teapot were made of priceless Ming china. How could that be, I wondered. And, stranger still, how was it that they were using this invaluable porcelain like a normal tea set?

‘The civility of the tea ritual could not remove from my mind the images of severed human heads and of the human-sized cage. I had never conceived that Shangri-La would be anything other than an oriental paradise, and now it appeared rather that I was about to become the victim of a gruesome Aztec-style ceremony. If I did not cry out and crumble altogether I suspect it was simply because I could not entirely believe what had happened. It was too far removed from all my expectations. I was in shock, I suspect, and unable to process everything that was before me. And besides it was so contradictory – the holy calm of the Abbot, the careful pouring of tea, and then outside, a pyre awaiting a human sacrifice, it seemed, and all the evidence of bloody carnage!

‘Even as I struggled to understand this, the Abbot continued. “I have no doubt that you have many questions, but first let me offer you a little explanation, as it will save us both time. Throughout the world, people dream of the myth of Shangri-La; some even wonder if it really exists; a tiny few even think that one day they will try to find it, and then there are the handful of people who actually set out to do just that. These people are possessed of extraordinary mental and physical attributes. In the first place, simply to sustain a belief in a place for which there is no proof requires great powers of intuition and will. Secondly, doing all the research that is necessary even to give yourself a fraction of a chance of reaching this place requires immeasurable effort. And finally, embarking on the journey itself requires the ability to draw upon non-material realms of knowledge, and this of course means that the initiate must be of advanced psychic development.

‘“From here in the lamasery we do our best to aid willing pilgrims. We send out psychic messages to alert them to our existence, much as one might send a radio broadcast. Of course, few people these days believe that such powers exist, so even when they receive our communications in their dreams they dismiss them as being just that: dreams and nothing more. But there are always some sensitive people who are awake to their intuition and instinct, and naturally these are the people we seek: people of tremendous psychic power and ambition; people who wish to change the world. Throughout the last millennia of human history we have again and again received visitors from the coming races of men. We have received emissaries from Babylon and Egypt, from Greece and Rome, and more recently from Britain and from revolutionary France and more recently still, from Nazi Germany.

‘ “You have distinguished yourself. You have found the way to our kingdom, and through decades of mental exertion and a journey that brought you almost to the point of death, you have finally made it to our table and consequently, in the hallowed traditions of our brotherhood, you are a worthy successor to the throne of Shangri-La.”

‘I could hardly believe my ears. It appeared to me that I must finally have lost my mind. This Abbot, this old man seated before me, sipping tea from a priceless porcelain cup, seemed to be suggesting that I would now become King of Shangri-La. I simply did not know what to do or say. Clutching at my original intentions, intentions that now seemed naive and foolish, I tried to formulate some sensible demands. I had no idea what to say to this man but I had an urgent need to say something – to seize control of my destiny.

‘Finally I managed to say, “I have come all this way in search of the lost Aryan knowledge. This is all I seek. And I would like to know how I may leave this place. I am grateful to you for your hospitality but I simply cannot impose on you. I merely wanted to visit and to see such a place, and now I am satisfied.”

‘The Abbot dabbed at the corner of his mouth with a napkin.

‘“The knowledge that you speak of is contained in the sacred Book of Dzyan, which has been handed down for millennia and is kept within the citadel walls. You will be able to see the book tomorrow after your coronation. In fact, then you will have access to anything that you wish, for you will be King and you will be able to do whatever you please. But you cannot leave. You are the appointed successor to the throne, and your destiny lies here, in your kingdom.”

‘The old man could see that I was completely horror-struck by this news, and he tried to reassure

me.

‘“Do not be alarmed or depressed. We have everything that you might want here. People who arrive from outside are usually at first inconsolable – it seems no one can bear the initial prospect of giving up their lives in the outside world. But I promise you that after the first few years you will be very happy, in fact you will realize how lucky you are to be removed from the chaos of human life. From our experience, there is no one, no matter what their attachments to the outside world, be they love or material possessions, who has not become gratefully resigned to their new fate over a number of years. The passions and rewards of the outside world pale into insignificance alongside the knowledge and power that we possess here.”

‘His words merely enhanced my feelings of panic and horror. I had to leave. No matter what this man said, I had to leave immediately. There must be a way – there must be some possible route out. Yet I also wanted to see the Book of Dzyan, but without having to undergo my coronation. Desires battled in my head; I had to secure an escape route.

‘“But how do you supply yourselves with necessary goods, even with this beautiful china we are drinking from, if you maintain your isolation from the outside world?” I said.

‘ “It saddens me that you are clearly still hoping that you might be able to find a way out of here. I can assure you that it is not possible. But to answer your question, every five years a caravan arrives at the high pass above the monastery and deposits for us such goods as we require. We leave payment in advance. There is no contact with the caravaneers, and even if one of our number were to reach them, they have specific orders not, on pain of death, to communicate with us, let alone help us.”

‘I could no longer maintain my calm, and my posture slumped. My head fell into my hands, such was the crushing weight of my despair and fear. The Abbot tried to console me.

‘“Do not worry. You must believe me when I say that you will come to love your time here.”

‘There was something about the phrase “your time here” that disconcerted me, and a ghastly thought suddenly occurred to me that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

‘“And if I am to be the new King, can I ask: what happened to the old King?”

‘The Abbot averted his gaze from me and stared into the bottom of his delicate teacup.

‘“The present King will be relieved of his office tonight. As will his Queen. The King always has a Queen, normally a Chinese or Tibetan woman, but in rare cases another race. But tonight is the end of their reign.”

‘My heart missed a beat.

‘“What? Why? Who is the present King?”

‘“The present King is a German man. One of a party of five who visited us many years ago, seeking knowledge and power. He is of course an old man now – though due to our climate and our practices he is still in good health. But our custom dictates that when a new pilgrim arrives, the old King must step down.”’

‘I felt I was going to be sick. All I could think of was the cage and the bonfire. My head was pounding as I struggled against the realization – I tried to divert myself:

‘ “How can he still be alive? He must be over ninety years old.”

‘“Yes – but he appears to be much younger. You will think that he is in his mid-fifties. Our Tantric practices that lower human metabolism, combined with the unique climate of this valley, have the effect of delaying the natural ageing processes. We have several lamas here who are over one hundred years old.”

‘“And the other four who came with this German man? His companions? Where are they?”

‘The man looked up at me through limpid eyes and said:

‘ “They were all kings before him. It is the law that where there are several prospective kings, each will reign only for a decade. They had their allotted time upon the throne and now they have departed.”

‘“What do you mean they have departed? Departed where?”

‘“Departed to join our Masters in the higher worlds.”

‘I tried to swallow but my mouth was dry. The Abbot was insane. The entire kingdom was a bastion of black magic and evil. I thought of the warning of the kindly man in the valley below. How right he was, and how foolish I had been to ignore him. The Abbot, with all his craven gravitas, conducting himself as if this was a perfectly holy enterprise and as if he was a spiritual man rather than a savage butcher of lives, rose to leave.

‘As he bowed to me, he said, “Thank you for listening so patiently to my explanations. It is always disconcerting for new arrivals here. It appears that you are managing very well. I suggest that you return to your room and get some rest. The abdication ceremony takes place at nightfall. As the King-to-be, your presence will be required.”

‘With that he left the room. I was completely terror-struck. I could barely even think. I was trapped in a medieval monastery, surrounded by a brotherhood of monks whose moral sense was so wildly out of line with any civilized norm that they were apparently about to burn a man alive.

‘And yet part of what he had said rang true: I understood some vestige of his descriptions of psychic summoning, of messages sent in dreams and at dimly resonating levels of human consciousness. After all, I had clung stubbornly to the idea of Shangri-La for years without even a shred of proof that it existed. I had felt a calling, in my dreams and even in my waking hours, an insistent siren song had taunted me. All that time, I knew that Shangri-La existed and I knew, just as the sun rises in the east, that one day I would arrive there.

‘My gullet rose at the thought of the bonfire and the cage: I too would meet that fate. That was the inevitable implication: they were going to burn me alive. If not tonight, as I had only moments ago feared, then one day in the future when some other poor soul struggled across the Himalayas and against all the odds found their way to Shangri-La. Then I too would be sent to join the Masters, as the crazy Abbot put it. I too would be forced to abdicate.