SHAMBALLAH MISSION: 10th Report WALLACE / DAWALASAT speaking, transcribed by Art-- events occurring on the 2nd of April, received mid June Yep, it's me again, Good Ol' Uncle Wallace. Got my recorder-doohickey back again. so I can report on the latest shenanigans over here in Shamballah, which is purty major this time 'round. I guess that the biggest news is that everybody's worst enemy, the hornswaggelin' Elder Da-starda-hat is dead. Just a-fore he managed to wipe out all human technology, culture, civilization and whatnot. Guess'n I gotta report that it was me who shot him right in the brain, altho it maybe ain't so smart of me to be recording a murder confession. But I do got the purty-good excuse of self-defense, since that ornery polecat was in the middle of trying to kill most humans in the world all at once, me included. I ain't proud I done it-- ain't shot nobody since World War Two, an I've always felt bad about those men I had ta do in way back then, even tho my only choices wuz to kill or get kilt --but I's glad that Da-starda-hat has been stopped. He was really out to do some unfixable damage. Worse than Hitler, I'd say, but then I never met Hitler, Dastardat I knew all too well, from way back when we wuz both still kinda young. He'd also been out to murder me for awhile now, knowing I had his ol' six-hooter, sendin' his thugs 'round to the various villages of the Shamballah complex. Nokhons ain't normally cruel, but he was and his agents wuz special-syssked to be awful mean and nasty. They hurt a lot of Yeti folk while searching for Dag and Dak and me, cuz we wuz foreign revolutionaries come all the way over here to depose him, y'know? And some Tibetan monks got hurt too, the human kind, like me. We's been over here half a year already, mos'ly 'cuz we hadda hide a long time while scroungin’ up an army of Yetis brave 'nuff to go against the Starda Faction. There warn't so many to scrounge; Nokhons don't believe in goin to war, they'd rather just suffer and be mistreated. I agrees with them in principle, but when a tyrant dictator gets bad enough ya gotta fight back, no way 'round it. Most o them that had survived bein' slaves, they wuz ready to fight... them that still could walk, that is. I reckon you wanna hear how I come close 'nuff to shoot the bastard, considerin that he wuz protected by an army of über-syssked Yeti. Last time ya heard from me I wuz sendin all my MP3 recording's over to you from the Outpost, since there ain't no Internet nowhere in the Shamballah complex. I wuz kinda stuck in that Outpost for a few weeks, not doin nothin, nowhere to go. It wuz downright tedious. When I'd ask the staff about getting back to Shamballah North, they'd just tell me "not yet" an’ that Johmsumma would "send word" when it got safe. But tarnation, I knew my friends Dag & Dak wuz mobilizing an army for a war and there warn't nowhere "safe" for them. I tried goin’ down to the Outpost terminal an just climbin onto the shuttle, that same classic old '39 Vauxhall lorry that got me there, but the Sherpa driver had since been taught two words of English: "Not yet." There's only two ways in and out of the Outpost; the tunnel an a gravel road that runs thru the valley an on over the horizon, altho I never learned perzactly where it went. Tibet? Mongolia? India? Did me no good to ask, seems it was Top Secret. Mountains to the north an’ the only road went south, so far's I could see. I deliberated takin that road to wherever, jus for sumthin to do. I'd gotten 'round the USA by hitch-hiking when a lot younger, but there wuz no traffic 'ceptin for one beat-up ol’ taxi that showed up once in a while (it wuz also a Vauxhall, like the only motor vehicles to be found wuz relics from British colonial days). Sometimes Outpost staff folk takes that taxi to or from the outside world, or a monk would pass thru to Shamballah North. But they wouldna take me along, being in cahoots with the locals, I reckons. I tried walking the road for a whole day, got as far as the next valley. Spent the night out there, no town no food no water. The taxi comes by-- with no passengers --an' offers me a ride back to the Outpost, so I takes it. Waall, after those weeks I finally gets a ride back to Shamaballah North with the same Sherpa driver as afore, so we couldna say nothin ta each other for another 6-hour ride though that scary dark tunnel. But this time there wuz another passenger along for the ride an’ he could talk good English, even tho he wuz Tibetan, or Mongel, or whatever kinda gook he wuz. This fella wuz a travelin guru, a wise man who went 'round to different temples an' monasteries, speechifying kinda like an evangelist, 'ceptin for it wuz more 'bout magic than religion. Altho he seemed to know his way around Christianity an’ Buddhism an’ Bön an’ even Atli, mostly from a funny perspective. Made me laugh lots. I tell ya, he was a hoot. First off, he knew who I wuz afore we even got into the lorry for the trip back, sayin "Good day, Mister Forest, I am Swami Zenobio. I've been meaning to talk to you and it seems fate has brought us together for at least six hours. How opportune!" He wuz 'bout my size, maybe even 'bout my age, although there ain't so many o them. He wuz wearing a guru robe an’ had a dot tattooed on his forehead to show how holy he wuz. I asks him how he knows my name an’ he sez, "Oh, I've been hearing about you, Wally my boy, you're rather famous in certain circles." "Certain circles?" I hasta ask. "Aket, for example. We have mutual friends there. Da-nama-hat sends greetings." "You been there?" That wuz a trick question: me knowin' I's the only non-Nokhon ever been let into that secret Sasquatch city. "Not in person," he sez in perfect Nokhontli, then switches back to English. "I do believe that you happen to be the only homo-sapiens ever allowed into Aket. I have only visited telepathically, by astral projection, you know." "So you know about Nokhons?" "Bigfoot, Sasquatch, oh yes, and Yetis over here, all the same race. I also know about the evil Elder Da-starda-hat and the great catastrophe he is about to perpetrate, which is why we need to talk." Waall, that got my 'tention, all rightee. This Mister Zenobio, or rather Swami Zenobio, definitely knew lotsa stuff that might be interestin' to me. So we talked as we drove through the dark and suddenly we wuz all the way at the other end o’ the trail, down under Shamballah North. Maybe I'd a been a bit mesmerized alongs the way, 'cause it felt like the trip hadna been six hours, but just barely two. I can dimly recall that we talked 'bout fate and destiny an' magical enchantments, how they wuz sumthin' like a Nokhon syssk, but different. I thinks I started to get argumentative, sayin, "A syssk? Them's bad shit." But he sez: "A syssk can also be good shit, depending upon to what it is applied." Then he goes on to talk 'bout how a man ends up in jus' the right place to get used by the fates an do a job that wouldna be possible without some kinda magic steppin' in. There was sumthin 'bout him sayin, "Da-starda-hat is a danger not only to the Nokhons, but even more to our own human race. The time is critical, he must be stopped soon and therefore have we been destined to meet just now. I am to enchant you with a spell that will temporarily give you certain abilities..." After that it gets fuzzy. Whilst we helps unload supplies for the Shamballah North terminal, Zenobio sez to me: "Take care, Wally, the Starda Faction has agents here seriously looking for you-- and that old pistol you've restored. They've got orders to kill you on sight. It would be better for you to keep going directly to Shamballah Central, retrieve the pistol from wherever you have hidden it, and go straight to the Palace, where Da-zinta-hat is waiting for you. The tunnelway is clear of Starda agents right now, but not for long." So I goes up a level from the lorry tunnel, but avoids the temple town of S. North via a detour into 'nother tunnel that leads to Shamballah Central. Zinobio wuz right; there warn't no soldiers along that way, 'ceptin at one intersection where I could sneak past 'em, easy-like. 'Specially cause they wuz movin kinda slow. Or so it seemed, but now I think it was really me movin faster. Cuz right 'bout this time I'm gettin a funny feeling: like I'm stronger an’ kinda weightless, walkin faster than normal an' lighter on my feet. Time feels different. Sure 'nuff, it takes me less 'n half a day and I'm already at the Central tunnel intersection. Already by then I'd been pickin up on some kinda weird energy waves pulsing in my brain, even so far underground. I just knew it wuz Da-starda-hat's psychic presence-- I could sorta recognize it --even tho I'd never felt it so strong afore. That was kinda scary, me knowin what a bastard he could be. I goes to get my Colt .45 from its secret place, half-worried someone mighta stumbled on it an’ I'd jus’find it gone. But no: it's there; the pistol an’ both boxes a bullets. Things is workin out like Swami Zenobio said they would. Gets me speculatin on jus' who that feller wuz anyway. Now that I get that old pistol in my hand, things get really serious. It would be too dumb not to have it ready to use, just in case, so I loads in five bullets (leaving one chamber free so's not to blow my own dick off in a quick-draw). I hides it in my robe, but it drags down so heavy an makes me feel all lob-sided. Outta balance, in many ways. I'm gonna make the statement here that I never had no intentions for actually shooting nobody. But reckoned that I might hafta use the gun as a persuasive threat if'n I needed to. That I could do. I go from the tunnels up to the town. By now it's already become night, but the town is glowing an flickering from all the open fires. I can hear the streets a-buzzin with angry voices, like there's a buncha riots goin on. Near the middle o town I meet crowds, surging every which-way, up and down. Can't help but notice all the weapons: hit-sticks or pointy jabbing-sticks, in the hands of both soldiers an’ civilians, combatants clumped into groups, or squads. It's lookin’ like an army is occupyin Shamballah Central. Factually, I ain't never seed any kinda Nokhon Army afore, the whole concept o war is too foreign to them. An’ it seems none o these Starda Faction soldiers understand anything about military strategy or discipline, cuz they's completely un-organized, just bullyin folk, pesterin females an’ scarin kids an’ being way more ornery than necessary. Like they wuz goin' crazy-mean just for fun. At the same time, I's feelin kinda discombobulated; cuz everyone seems to be moving really slow now. 'Cept for me, I wuz the only one movin at normal speed. Or that's how it seemed to me. An’ even more confusing: factually, many o them soldiers ain't fightin at all, but lookin kinda dreamy instead, standing stiff-still an lookin’ to the north insteada after enemies.
A squad of Starda Faction alutna comes 'round a corner an’ thru a wide open street, marchin in two neat lines. Right away I can see that they's better trained or disciplined than all these others, so I happens to notice their leader, an impressive big Alutna. Seein him from behind, but him looking familiar-like anyhow. And then he stops, like he can feel my eyes behind him, turns 'round an’ we sees each other. It's my ol’ pal Daklakht. Now, at this time, I don't yet know 'bout Dak being re-enslaved by Da-starda-hat's psychic domination, so there's this moment of confusion when I just don' get what he's doin with the consarned Starda Faction assholes. Then he starts making a beeline my way, running, leaving his alutna back-up behind. He ain't smiling, looks serious, got a hit-stick in one hand and is starting to heft it. Lucky for me he's movin slower 'n normal, but he's still mighty fast. "Hey, Dak, old pal..." I calls to him, kinda unsure. "So- r- ry, Da- wa- la- sat," Dak's talking slow too, "but- I- serve- Our- Ultimate- Master- now- and- have- been- commanded- to kill- you. Nothing- personal..." He raises the club for a big, hard swing, not lookin friendly at all. I knows syssk-behavior when I sees it. But I don't panic, got lots o time, pulls out my Colt .45 six-shooter and shows it to him. "Naw, nothin personal, Dak, but you maybe better re-think this situation." "You- won't- shoot- me," he insists, still coming, "I'm- your- friend." Not slowin down, almost on top o me now. He ain't afraid a no noisekiller, 'cause he's right: me knowin this ain't his fault, I can't shoot him. But I can blow that club right outta his hand, so I do. I had plenty o time to take aim, things movin so slow. The BOOM of a gun going off inside that big cavern hollow was like thunderation: everybody 'round jumped sideways. Most Yetis are scared silly by noisekillers. an most of 'em there ran away. Even fearless Daklakht hopped backwards as the club 'sploded outta his grip. I didna know I wuz such a marksman: not only did I hit a moving target but also hit it so jus-right to shatter the club 'nuff to make it useless as a weapon anymore. Once again, sorta like magic. But that didna hardly stop Dak, he recovers his impetus and is loomin over me again, his hands the weapons I needs to beware of now. I aims the gun at his face, him movin in closer fast, but just can't pull the trigger again. Dak's a mighty big fella, outweighs me by 400 pounds at least, he's gonna squash me flat if'n he lands on me. But he's comin’ slow and I just manages to wiggle out from under him real fast. I'd like to run away 'bout now, but suddenly there's another big hairy 500-pounder mixin into the fray. Two Bigfoots crashin together right overhead, blockin all escape, so I'm trapped. But they comes crashing down together just past me and I gets to survive this one. Steppin back I see that it's Dagrolyt who's come to rescue me and is wrasslin with Dak. Those two tends to wrassle a bit every day for friendly sport, Nokhons do that, so Dag knows Dak's moves better'n anyone. But this time Dak is under syssk-orders to kill his friends so this is a wee mite more dangerous than their ever-day fun an’ sportin games. I see Dak's alutna cops finally starting to come our way, slow but steady. But then those resistance fighters who'd arrived with Dagrolyt, also comes charging an’ swinging their hit-sticks. They all crash together, tons of Yetis, so they're busy now an’ I don't have to worry about them. I see that Dag has managed a tricky hold so that Dak can't hit him an they just strain 'gainst each other. Dag shouts to me, "Run!" so I does.
I'm fast, unstoppable quick, rush thru town towards the Palace. No one can catch or stay me, them all movin slower 'n' slower, like they wuz pushin thru a thick syrup an me just whizz'n past, somehow dodging 'em all an zipping into the Palace without gettin noticed, kinda like magic. (What in tarnation did Swami Zenobio do to me?) There's plenty o soldiers in the Palace but none o them are payin any notice to me, kinda like I's invisible. There's no guards outside the entrance to Da-starda-hat's chambers, so I' guessin he's not home right then. So I runs on past, aiming for another set o chambers: there with the yellow hangings. I finds Da-zinta-hat in his chambers, like he's been waitin for me. He's slowed down too, speakin’ so slow he's hard to understand. The first thing he asks is: "Do- you- have- the- noise-killer- with- you?" I plucks it out from under my robe to show him. He kinda cringes away. Unpacking the other equipment hidden in my monk robes, I see that my talk-recorder's battery is down to 5% (whatever that means), but I's learned to plug it into the solar charger thingamabob and set them on the floor beside the illumination-rod in Da-zinta-hat's chamber to fill it up again. Later on, Da-starda-hat will find it and make his recording at the beginning of this chapter, but I don't know that yet, o course. Da-zinta-hat's got this whole buncha info an warnings for me, talkin's fast as he can so I unnerstand him: startin with how Da-starda-hat's psychic powers has all o sudden got a whole heap stronger than ever before, an how all his old syssks he's ever once used to control folk thru-out all his years are now extra-active again, all over the world. An’ how he's just 'bout to cause the end of the world, for humans anyway. Factually, I already knows about that: what my nephew Art and his Nokhon son Adam calls a permanent EMP: the very thing we came on this mission to Shamballah to stop it from happening. So I asks, "What do we do now?" "Not we. YOU. You have to find Da-starda-hat and shoot him dead." "What, me? I can't just murder someone!" "He is not just someone, he is your own Hitlerr. This is your destiny. Because it's your own NokhSo culture which needs saving, a Nokhon cannot do it for you." "MY culture? I hopped off that wagon a long time ago." "Exactly, you became a Nokhon; the only white man ever. And here you are: right man, right place, right time; Destiny." "Maybe I can just threaten Da-starda-hat with his own six-shooter, make whacha call a citizen's arrest..." "No," Da-zinta-hat sez, "he'll only overpower you with the expanded power of his mind. You have to end him or he’ll destroy you." "So where is he?" "He's gathering his troops in another part of Shamballah. Positioning them to act as antennae to direct the planet's magnetic field into effecting a disruption of all electrical circuitry planet-wide." (Not that I get a word of what that old Elder wuz talkin ‘bout.) "But he'll be coming back to his chambers to finish the spell. You’ll strike then." I didn' say much for a while, but we waited. After a little longer Da-zinta-hat was talking way too slow for me to unnerstand anny-- thin'-- hee-- saaid. Time kept gettin slower an’ slower for me, I got even more separate from everyone else, in fact they couldna see me anymore, or maybe just a flickering of light as I whisked by. I knew I'd have no trouble gettin past guards when the time come. But the time wuz taking a long while coming, an hour was like a whole day for me, that night was a week-end. By now I'd reckoned that this wuz Swami Zenobio's magic "ability" he'd worked on me so that I could get to Da-starda-hat an kill him. Trouble with time slowin down when you gotta kill someone is that you get too much time to think about it. You ends up wondering, sympathizing, empathizing with your victim. Did he deserve to be murdered? Lucky for me I came up with "yes" every way I considered his history. But that it had to be ME who did it kept feeling more an’ more unfair. I didn't wanna kill no one. It wuz TIME I needed to kill, so I went for walks. 'Splored the town, visited Ma Silla an’ her friends, altho they prob'ly never knew I wuz there. Went outside the mountain Shamballah is hidden inside: snow an ice out there, a ferocious-like storm blowin hard. A few freezing seconds o that wuz 'nuff to send me scurryin in again. Went for a swim in the town's lake, but the water felt slower'n molassas to me, easier to go steppin' atop the lake, like a speedy-quick Jesus. Finally I gets a telepathic hum in my head. I don't need to understand words, I know it's Da-zinta-hat callin me to work. I cain't resist, find mysself trudging across town towards the Palace. All thru Shamballah Central folks wuz still milling 'bout, soldiers and civilians, but not so much fighting goin’ on any more. Instead there's a shimmering to the air, a tingly pulse that permeates skin an’ bone. Now those "weird energy waves" are building up to some kinda crescendo, throb throb throb. I walks into the Palace, right past lotsa guards but no one tries to stop me. They’s too busy lookin North. That throbbing pulse is even stronger in here and it feels bad. None o the soldiers pays any notice to me at all, so I stroll in and make it to Da-starda-hat's chambers just as he's 'bout to cause the end o the world. He's there alone, his back to me, talking to someone-- no, the recorder --but it's all mumbles to me. He senses me somehow, turns, moving so slow, mumbles somethin. Later I listen to his recording, "Who dares disturb me now?" And shouts for a guard. Then he recognizes me. "YOU!?!?" And OUR old Colt .45 six-shooter... I can see it sparklin’ in his eyes, since I'd done such a nice job o restoring it, polishing all the rust away, oiling it so it shines. "Yep," I answer, "it's me, all righty." He sez somethin like, "Die, insect..." and I can feel this big psychic WHALLOP comin at me, him sayin "no one can resist my.." Arrogant to the end. Factually, I ain't sure 'xactly what happens next, my mind got all mixed, my feet staggering all sloppy-like. Those throbbing pulses wuz makin me dizzy, my belly 'bout to bail, I kinda shit in my robes an’ go half-blind. I musta passed out, anyway there's a big blank spot in my rememberin' there. Then it's nice and peaceful. I come back from somewhere. I've still got the Colt .45 in my hand, the barrel is warm. I must'a fired it. Da-starda-hat is lying on the chamber floor, lookin downright dead to me. I wonders: did I do that? "Tarnation," I sez to mysself, "that wuz a purty good shot. Right twixt the eyes." Then I notices that Da-starda-hat had borrowed my talk-recorder. I turns it off and tucks it into my monk’s robe. So that I can record this very report later on, nach-erly.
A dead body's kinda poor company, so I go outta those chambers to the Palace's big hall an sees right-off that my perception o time wuz back to normal speed; that spell had ended once the deed had been done. But the most dramatic and immediate reaction to the expiration of Da-starda-hat's mental grip over his subordinates wuz the absolute collapse of his entire army. They wuz no longer interested in invading Shamballah. Yep, suddenly all those soldiers an’ alutnas wuz free of his psychic domination. Most of them had been slavishly obeying orders 'gainst their will or moral ethics. Cruelty had been demanded of them, but now they can refuse and do so. Those in the process of beating some unlucky victim with a hit-stick abruptly stop, apologize, and run away in shame. Hundreds of discarded hit-sticks clatter to the floor as the entire army deserts, Nokhons no longer willing to wage war now strive only to escape the scene of battle. The Starda war is over. Dag and Dak shows up; they'd stopped fighting same time as ever-body else, lucky 'nuff afore they'd really hurt each other. Many others wuz not so lucky, there was lots o wounded yeti on the floors of Shamballah. And some dead, but not so many as when humans make war with their noisekillers. I ain't gonna say no body count, not gonna glorify it in any way. The locals wuz horrified about this whole shebang. An when we informed the population that the Wicked Elder 'sponsible for all this misery was now dead, they bobbed their heads in agreement that it wuz for the best, but there warn't no cheering nor celebratin', even tho he'd been a real nasty ball-buster. Nokhons don't care 'bout revenge. Not even Dak, who'd had lotsa personal reasons to hate Da-starda-hat. He wuz just grateful to be free again. "I didn't want to serve him, but couldn't resist his will. So I'm glad he's gone, for everyone's sake. Thanks, Dawalasat." Me, I don't feel like a hero nor nothin', I'da been more or less a brainless slave to Swami Zenobio's enchantment and Elder Da-zinta-hat's plan, just a pawn in the consarned game. I's jus' glad it didn't all go belly-up.
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