A Dream of Shambhala
Every night, Everett Mayweather dreamed of Shambhala. The city was framed in gold, from the glittering towers of the inner city, to the great wall around it, while lush green foliage filled in the rest. The air was comfortably warm and carried sweet cardamom and the beat of drums. Men and women—smiling, beautiful, clad in vivid silks and peacock feathers—strode with confidence down shimmering avenues towards the city center. Every single one of them was singing.
“Hello,” he said, but there was never a response. The people of Shambhala were seemingly oblivious to him. Everett could only watch as they walked past him, moving to the rhythm of the drums.
Then, after a few minutes of watching the reverie, he saw a young woman on the periphery of the parade turning to look at him. Everett hesitated, transfixed by the swirling patterns on her cheeks, then he called out.
“You can see me!” he said, night after night. And night after night, she turned away. “Wait, come back!” he cried, but his voice was drowned out by the chorus. Everett rushed forward into the crowd, trying not to lose her. He pushed past tattooed men with censers and women in flowing saffron robes, but the painted woman seemed always out of reach.
As his search grew more frantic so too did the drums, building into a ferocious cacophony. It came from everywhere: heartbeats and footsteps blended seamlessly into the polyrhythm while great bells rang overhead in a rainbow of pitches.
Smoky-sweet incense filled his lungs and stung his eyes. Everett quickly became lightheaded, disoriented, the bright colors all around bleeding together into one amorphous mass. He found it increasingly difficult to navigate the crowd as the world grew less and less discrete.
“Excuse me,” he said, coughing. Again the crowd ignored him. “I can’t...” Everett fell to his knees; the parade washed over him like a stone in a river. There was fire on his tongue and his throat was raw and burning. “Somebody,” he wheezed, collapsing onto the ground, “please help me.”
Everything went dark. Everett could hear the muffled pitter-patter of hoofs on cobblestone through his window, the soft aural glow of the rain. He fought to remain unconscious, it wasn’t time to wake up, not yet. He emptied his mind and let himself drift back to Shambhala.
When he opened his eyes, everyone was gone. The streets were empty, the drums quiet. The air was clear and kissed his skin with a jungle warmth. Everything was still except the songbirds. They were bigger than any bird he’d ever seen in waking and infinitely vibrant, calling to each other with voices that would inspire jealousy in an opera singer.
Gently, but not slowly, they grew in number, spilling out of the edges of his vision to fill the city’s vacant places. It briefly crossed Everett’s mind that he ought to be worried, but greater than that was a powerful feeling of perfect calm. A city full of songbirds was as natural as the sunset on the horizon.
They turned their attention to Everett, serenading him with beautiful music and draping him in fine silks. One came forward and presented a basket of ripe mangoes at his feet, followed by pears and pomegranates. A peacock poured coconut water from a golden pitcher. Everett ate and drank and danced until the sun went down and rose again. During the night, the birds entertained him with stories and Everett listened with rapt attention, savoring every detail.
At noontime, when the sun was directly overhead and no shadows were cast, the songbirds disappeared. They were gone as quickly and as gently as they had arrived, easing out of Everett’s view so subtly as to have never been there at all. Alone now, his chin and chest sticky with fruit juice, Everett caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye—something colorful and familiar and feminine.
He watched the painted woman disappear behind a grand building of unknown purpose and this time he did not hesitate. Racing after her, he shouted.
“Wait!”
To his surprise, she followed his command. He found her standing by the bank of a river that ran through the city.
“Speak to me, please. Who are you? What is this place? Where did all those people go?” Everett tripped over his words in excitement. The painted woman said nothing, but moved towards him as if in a funeral procession. Her steps were slow and deliberate—predestined—and her expression was one of mournful stoicism.
As she approached, all mirth fled the city and the warmth went with it. The air thinned and snowflakes bit Everett’s flushing cheeks. He shivered, watching with morbid curiosity as the golden street faded to stone under her every footfall. Everett stood with locked knees, unable to move, unable to look away. He could see fields of grain in her irises, swaying in the wind.
The painted woman closed in, he could feel her breath, their noses now only inches from each other. Everett traced her patterns, looking her up and down, taking in every detail. So close now, it all started to make sense. The paint was not merely aesthetic, it served a practical purpose as well. The painted woman was a living glyph and Everett found that from this distance, he could read her curves for what they really were: a map.
“Shambhaala koee aur adhik,” she whispered, taking the final step and passing through him. She was gone, like the soul of paradise departing.
Everett Mayweather woke up on a bright November morning to the sound of birdsong and rattling carriages. Sunbeams touched him through the window to coax him out of bed, envoys of the crystalline blue sky. The only clouds were from Everett’s breath, as his fireplace was empty, the temperature in his bedroom was near freezing.
Everett hastily emerged from his castle of quilts and linens, scrambling to open the drawer of his bedside table—he had to write it down. His journals were neatly organized, he knew which one he needed without looking, and which pencil was the sharpest. Frantically, he jotted down what he could remember. When he was done, he stared at the thing in astonishment: it was finally finished.
Every night, Everett had the same dream, and every morning, he would write what new little detail he could remember of the map. Slowly but surely, piece by piece, he had filled the page. It had taken him months, but he’d done it. He’d really done it. The map to Shambhala was complete.
Everett dressed quickly and to the point. He packed what little he owned, his spartan lifestyle meant he would be traveling light, but it also afforded him the money he would need for such a trip. Ready to go inside of an hour, Everett sat down for his last meal at home in quite some time. It was a simple affair—bread, jam, and smoked haddock—but Everett would remember it fondly in the days to come.
He gathered his savings, said goodbye to the place, and headed to the harbor. When he returned from his expedition with the wealth of Shambhala and the fame of discovery, the whole world would know his name.
It was a busy day down at the harbor, full of hustle and bustle in equal measure. Ships loaded passengers on and unloaded cargo off. Even those not there for work milled about, trying their best to look occupied. This was no place for standing around.
Everett found it a simple enough thing to book passage to the Orient, though a little more expensive than he’d hoped. He was lucky enough to find a ship—the
Madeline—that would be departing soon.
The captain of the
Madeline was an amiable fellow by the name of Montgomery Sinclair. He wore his beard short, to match his stature, though what he lacked in height he more than made up for in volume. The man didn’t speak so much as bellow, even in the greatest of typhoons, his voice would not be lost.
“Welcome aboard,” he said, as Everett suspected all sea captains did, “welcome aboard!”
The journey was a long one and while initially seasick, Everett quickly got the hang of things. He filled his days with planning, writing in his journal, and games of chess with Captain Sinclair whenever possible. For the first time in months, Everett did not dream. At first, this made him extremely uncomfortable. He’d come to look forward to his nightly visits to Shambhala, even if he could never stray from the path of the dream. It took him longer to adjust to the empty nights than the churning sea, but he did, eventually. It meant he had learned what he was supposed to have learned, after all. He had solved the puzzle. He had the key to Shambhala.
The
Madeline pulled into port sometime in the early hours of the morning, while Everett was still asleep. When he awoke and found himself in civilization again, with a view of the city’s skyline instead of endless blue, he almost yelped with joy.
After settling his debt with Captain Sinclair, Everett hastily disembarked, eager to be on dry land again and anxious to start his expedition sooner rather than later.
He questioned a couple of locals and soon found himself in a grand emporium. It had an enormous domed roof decorated with golden filigree and shelves upon shelves of merchandise. The quantity of the selection left him quite awestruck, it was everything he could ever need for his expedition. Everett approached the counter in the middle of the room and explained his situation.
“A treasure hunter then, are we?” asked the pale, mustachioed creature working the counter.
“No hunting about it,” said Everett, “I have a map.” The man nodded and smiled a salesman’s smile.
“Yes,” he said, “of course you do. Now, as to your supply problem, I do believe you have come to exactly the right place. Will you be needing a guide?”
“I should think so,” said Everett, after a moment’s consideration. He really would have to spend every penny he’d saved, but such a sacrifice was nothing in the face of the riches he knew awaited him.
“Bhavi!” called the man, ringing a little bell.
On cue, a young woman with tired yellow eyes approached from one of the aisles.
“Yes?” she muttered, looking slightly annoyed. Her accent wasn’t quite local, but wasn’t distant either.
“Can you take this man here up north? Or has someone else booked you?”
“No, I’m free. The usual rate? How many days?”
“That depends on you,” said Everett. “I’ll give you pay and a half if we can leave tomorrow.”
Bhavi blinked.
“Done.”
It took eighteen days to reach Shambhala. Eighteen days of constant hiking through grueling, if beautiful, jungle where the air was as dense as the foliage. Everett checked the map religiously, making sure they did not stray from the path. Bhavi didn’t speak much and when she did it was usually to chide him for being slow. Everett couldn’t help it, he had a decidedly northern constitution. It was a wonder, he thought, that he could walk at all in a place as hot and humid as this. It had certainly taken its toll on him, but he’d come so far and he wasn’t going to go home empty handed.
On the eighteenth day, they crested a great hill. Pausing only briefly to admire the view, they followed the sound of running water, down into a secluded and somewhat familiar valley flanked by overgrown cliffs. The thick canopy above kept the area shady and, combined with shrouds of waterfall mist, made the place cool and comfortable in comparison to the rest of the journey.
It was a place of natural peace: predator and prey alike gathered by the river to drink and play and sleep the day away. Everett himself felt almost immediately rejuvenated: his feet no longer ached and his pack seemed infinitely lighter. He smiled at Bhavi, but she did not return it.
“How much more ground do we have to cover today?” she said.
“Hold on, let me check.” Everett kept his journal hooked to his belt, so he could consult it at a moment’s notice. He flipped it open to the relevant page. “Let me see here… No, that can’t be right.”
“What?” she said, the canopy casting swirling shadows across her face.
“If I’m reading this correctly—and I am—then we’re already here.” He looked around frantically and all the animals looked back at him. A bird began to sing, then another, then another, until the whole valley was filled with music.
“I don’t understand,” he said, though he was putting the pieces together, his eyes on the towering stone cliffs around them, untouched by golden sunlight. “It was here!”
“Yes,” she said, “it was.”
