Temple of a Thousand Faces (6 page)

Jayavar continued onward, leading now, helping the weak and wounded. Though on that day little luck had befallen him, he was fortunate that he ran to the west, away from his home. If he had seen what was happening to his people, seen the horrors that they now endured, he would have turned back and stepped into the flood of Chams. He would have fought them until they danced in his blood and even Ajadevi would not have been able to save him.

hough nearly three weeks had passed since she had seen her loved ones perish, Voisanne was unaware of the daily wax and wane of the sun’s rays or of the changing colors in the sky. Time had lost all meaning. She cared not if she lived or died, rested or suffered. Food was of no consequence, nor were her enemies, her thoughts, her dreams. She had been blessed for so many years, but now those blessings were gone, and it seemed that she lived a new life, one bereft of joy and meaning. If only she had been killed along with everyone else. A spear through her heart would have let her travel with those she held dearest, emerging into life again like a butterfly leaving its cocoon.

But Voisanne had not been killed. Instead, the Chams had gagged and bound her and locked her underground for many days. She was not alone. Several dozen other Khmer women, all beautiful and young, shared her fate. Each morning the door would open and the Chams would drag a shrieking woman into the light. The woman never returned.

When the Chams finally came for her, Voisanne made no protest. She walked with them, her head held high, believing that she would die soon and rejoicing in that belief. Her misery was almost at an end. Whatever waited after death could be no worse than the present.

To Voisanne’s surprise, she was led to the vast moat that surrounded the city of Angkor. She was told to bathe and given a fresh skirt cloth. Though she had never been ashamed of her nakedness, she turned away from the Cham warrior, covered her privates with a cupped hand, walked down the steps leading into the moat, and waded until the water was up to her neck. She didn’t emerge until he called to her several times in his strange tongue.

The warrior then led her into the immense and bustling Royal Palace, which was located just to the north of Angkor Wat and had hardly been damaged during the attack. Since it was built to house mortals and not the Hindu Gods, the Royal Palace was made of impermanent materials—namely, various hardwoods. The building had been home to the Khmer king, his wives, and his five thousand concubines. Though the Royal Palace didn’t rival Angkor Wat in terms of its beauty, it featured carved lintels, enormous wooden columns, courtyards, and bathing pools. Its most striking feature was its size, for the Royal Palace was two thousand feet long and half as wide.

Deep within the structure, Voisanne was turned over to a trio of Cham women. She didn’t understand their words, but they made it clear that any effort to disobey them would result in a beating. Voisanne only shrugged. When the women anointed her with perfume and gave her a necklace of flowers, she expected the worst. But no Cham warlord appeared. No one ravaged her.

That same evening she was brought to an elaborate feast. Seated before the foreign dancers and harpists were the Cham
king and his confidants. Standing without thought or purpose, Voisanne simply waited for her fate to unfold. From somewhere in the distance, screams drifted to her, usurping the voices of a troupe of Cham singers. Voisanne listened to the screams, not the music. The sounds came from men, from Khmer men. One after another they shrieked, moaned, and went silent.

Nothing happened to Voisanne that night or the night after. She was locked in a small room, but left alone. Several times throughout the subsequent days she was close to the Cham king and felt his gaze on her. He was a brute of a man, a head taller than most of his officers and seemingly as wide as a horse. She never saw him hurt anyone, but he spoke at length with Khmer prisoners, and when they didn’t tell him what he wanted to hear, they disappeared and the screams began anew.

For almost a week, Voisanne lived in such a way, a witness to her masters’ doings but called on neither to speak nor act. She was being saved for something or someone, she decided. She was a gift that had not been opened. At some point this pattern would change and she would suffer. But that day had not yet dawned.

Now, as the sun climbed high, Voisanne stood on the east side of Angkor Wat. She didn’t watch the nearby Cham warriors or their prisoners but turned to look at one of the most spectacular bas-reliefs in all of Angkor, which graced the lower portion of this side of the massive temple. She was unsure why the Cham king liked to interrogate his prisoners here, within sight of such beauty. The sandstone carving was called
The Churning of the Sea of Milk
and was almost two hundred feet long. Taller than Voisanne might reach, the bas-relief depicted the Hindu myth of creation. One side was dominated by ninety-two demons that pulled on the end of a giant snake. Eighty-eight Gods pulled on the other end of the snake, which was wrapped around a mountain set in the cosmic sea. The tug-of-war twisted the mountain,
which churned the sea and created life—dragons, fish, turtles, and crocodiles.

Had she known the Cham king’s plans for her, Voisanne might have listened to the voices of her captors. She might have tried to understand what was happening to her countrymen. But she only looked at the demons and Gods, remembering how she’d talked about them with her father and, later, her lover. Her father had told her the story of creation. Her lover had wondered how anyone could fashion such beauty from stone.

Fifty feet away from the fabled bas-relief, several hundred Cham warriors stood behind their king and his closest advisers. Now that the invasion was over, none of the men wore their lotus-flower headdresses. The group was gathered in a courtyard that sprawled to the east of Angkor Wat. A sheathed sword hung from Indravarman’s hip, as usual. Weapons were cumbersome, and he believed that only by carrying them as often as possible would they become a part of him, no more aggravating or heavy than his hands or feet. Then, when battle came to him, as it inevitably would, his instruments of war would be readily available and easy to wield. Indravarman’s soldiers were required to carry their weapons everywhere outside their private quarters. Anyone forgetting to do so would be put to death without trial or defense.

The Chams were gathered in the shadow of Angkor Wat, a shadow that mimicked the rises and falls of the temple mountain above. As distant screams rose, Indravarman leaned toward a high-ranking Khmer official and a stout Khmer warrior. Both men were bound and on their knees. Asal stood beside Indravarman, his hand gripping the hilt of his sheathed sword. On Indravarman’s opposite side was Po Rame, his personal assassin and the most feared of all Cham killers. Po Rame and Asal were old adversaries, and Indravarman enjoyed their close proximity.

Because Indravarman demanded that all his officers learn to
speak the language of their enemy, he had no need for a translator. He studied the Khmer official, saw fear in the man’s eyes, and then glanced at Angkor Wat. Six beautiful Khmer women stood at the base of the temple mountain, and he considered each of them, thinking that they looked stronger than their men. The women showed less fear and more resolve. He admired them.

Indravarman stepped closer to his prisoners. “The screams, do they disconcert you?” he asked in Khmer. “You seek a seamless rebirth, but if you fail to tell me what I long to hear, you too shall produce such screams before you leave this body for the next.”

The Khmer official nodded but said nothing. He trembled. His hip cloth was dark and moist around his groin.

“The work of your ancestors inspires me,” Indravarman said, pointing to the bas-relief that depicted the tug-of-war between the forces of good and evil. “It’s why your countrymen scream. Only I use two elephants. A man is tied between them, and they move in opposite directions. You see, the Gods make life. I destroy it.”

“I…know nothing, lord,” the Khmer muttered, his eyes darting again to the bas-relief. “I know nothing of where he’s gone.”

Indravarman felt his temper rising and let his emotions be known. He clenched his fists. “Jayavar left you,” he said. “He abandoned you. And yet you protect him.”

“I don’t pro—”

“You expect me to believe that no fallback plan existed? No staging point for a rally?”

“I…I am not a warrior, lord.”

“You had access to the king! To the prince! The false king is dead, but his son is not, and I want him!”

“I swear, lord. I don’t know where he is. I beg you, please, please believe me. I’d tell you if—”

“Tell me something now, of value, or the elephants are next.”

“I—”

“Tell me!”

The prisoner leaned forward, beating his bound fists against his brow. He wailed and closed his eyes, flailing at himself until he suddenly straightened. “Stones,” he said. “You must look for piles of stones.”

“What?”

“The prince makes piles of stones in the jungle. I’ve heard that he does it to teach himself patience. If your men see one of them, lord, far from here, then you should look for him in that area.”

Indravarman cursed in his native tongue. “I want locations and you give me stones.”

“It’s all I have, lord. It—”

“Would you kill me, if you had the chance? Would your countryman, the warrior beside you, kill me?”

“What?”

“Would you kill me, coward, if you could?”

“No.”

Indravarman spat toward the prisoner. He then shifted his attention to the Khmer warrior, knowing that the man had slain five Chams before he was captured. Indravarman admired such strength and resolve. His own man, Asal, had killed an equal number of Khmers, and suddenly Indravarman was bored with interrogations and lies and whimpering. He wanted to take the measure of his man, to test his loyalty and prowess against the best that the Khmers had to offer.

Turning to his left, Indravarman took a shield and a sword from one of his officers and tossed the instruments toward the Khmer warrior. “Free him,” Indravarman commanded to no one in particular.

A Cham untied the leather straps that bound the prisoner’s
hands and feet. The Khmer remained almost motionless, though Indravarman saw him unclench his fists. Somewhere an elephant trumpeted and a man screamed. The scent of sweat hung in the still air.

“The prisoner has escaped,” Indravarman said, turning to Asal. “Kill him.”

Asal stiffened. Indravarman had tested him often over the past few months, tested his courage and his devotion. And after the successful completion of each test, Asal had been promoted higher in the ranks, finally becoming one of Indravarman’s most trusted officers. Asal had pleased his king many times over. He was where he wanted to be. He had made his ancestors proud. But suddenly now everything had changed.

To ignore the order would be to die; Asal was certain of that. He closed his eyes and tried to hear songbirds over the surge of his heartbeat, forcing his fear downward, as if it were an enemy that he could crush beneath his feet. Opening his eyes, he pulled his sword free, raised his shield, and stepped forward.

The Khmer stood up, unsteadily at first, and Asal gave his foe time to adjust to his freedom, so that no one could say the fight was unfair. Asal wondered if he would soon be reborn. He bit his lip, resigned to his fate and yet disappointed that he had climbed to such a high peak only to stare at an abyss. His wife was still unmet, his children yet unborn. Though he had been alone for most of his life, he didn’t want to die alone.

The Khmer warrior seized the sword and shield, screamed a battle cry, and ran at Asal. Their weapons met, and Asal felt the strength of his adversary’s blow. He pulled back, raising his shield, spinning away. The hum of a sword cutting the air filled his ears, and he knew that the Khmer’s blade had passed a handsbreadth from his neck.

Though Asal didn’t realize it, his countrymen had gathered in
a circle around them. Everyone but Indravarman and Po Rame encouraged him. Indravarman wanted to witness Asal’s skill with a blade again and to study his tendencies in combat. Po Rame longed to see him die.