Terror in Tiam

Kirk Straughen

Carlos Ramiz, while visiting his father, who is employed as the personal physician of the priest-King of Tiam, becomes embroiled in the evil machinations of the island's oppressive theocratic regime. Will he survive the terrors of Tiam, or die horribly in the jaws of fate? To find the answer, read the story if you dare.

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It was nighttime, and Carlos Ramiz walked along the shadow-shrouded streets of Longak, the capital of the island of Tiam, a strange cultural anomaly in the middle of the South China Sea. Tiam had once been a British colony, but a charismatic religious leader had arisen, Nompek by name, who had fermented a violent revolution that had driven the colonizers from Tiam. Having overthrown the white man’s rule, Nompek had set himself up as the Gam-lak (Priest-king) of a theocratic government, which banned all Western influences and thus, in his and his followers’ eyes, freed their land from sources of foreign contamination.

These events had occurred well over a hundred years ago, but the reclusive, theocratic regime was still in power, now led by Chomgan, a direct descendant of the founder, and so the ban on modernity was still enforced. As a consequence, Tiam was without electricity, and all technology associated with it. The people of the island were trapped in a medieval era.

The only small exception to the rule that had been made was in the field of medicine. Chomgan, the current Gam-lak, a young man of twenty, had employed Alberto, Carlos’s father, as his personal physician, but that was the limit of concessions. Alberto had accepted the position, hoping he could make a difference and convince Chomgan of the benefits of progress to the nation.

Carlos, concerned about his father working in a religious dictatorship, was on the island to pay his sire a visit and also to explore the unique antique culture of the land. At the moment, he was wandering through Joy Alley, the city’s small red-light district, more out of curiosity than seeking the embrace of a prostitute. There was no street lighting. A light drizzle was now falling, and the moon was partly obscured by cloud. Everything was cast in deep shadow. The small alleyway was usually bustling with clients, both men and women, eyeing off a dozen naked girls as they brazenly hawked their erotic services, but the way was now deserted, the inclement weather having driven them inside.

Carlos cursed the rain and stepped into a sheltering alcove, which contained one of the many shrines to Angi, the Sun God, the principal divinity of the island. He looked around and saw that the alleyway was not entirely deserted, as he had assumed. At its end, a young woman, completely nude, stood shivering in the drizzle, no doubt desperately hoping for a customer.

The sound of heavy footsteps suddenly echoed down the narrow lane. Carlos tensed. A cloud passed over the moon, plunging the alley into stygian darkness. Instinctively, the young man pressed himself back into the alcove. Dim light blossomed in the dark. A large sedan chair, borne by heavyset carriers armed with swords, passed by, with the soft light coming from its swaying lantern.

No one had seen Carlos hiding in the darkness of the alcove. Curious, he peered out and saw the sedan chair stop in front of the naked girl. Its door opened. A hand beckoned, and the sex worker stepped within as if she had been expecting its arrival. It seemed that the same age-old transaction was taking place until a muffled cry sounded and the sedan chair shook from a brief but violent struggle. The antique conveyance then moved off as if nothing untoward had happened.

Carlos, who had witnessed everything, swore softly. Prostitute or not, the girl was in serious trouble. He had to act. Stepping from the alcove, he began to stealthily follow the sedan chair, hugging the shadows; the lack of street lighting and the rain worked to his advantage. The antique vehicle turned into the Street of a Thousand Gods. Carlos peered around the corner of another larger shrine. The bearers set the sedan chair down. One of the men drew a large iron key from his sash and unlocked a heavy timber door. The sedan chair entered, and the door was firmly closed.

Carlos tensely scrutinized the portal. The roof of a pagoda jutted above the compound’s high enclosing wall. It was the Temple of Angi, not the small shrine where he had sheltered, where individual worshipers could pray, or the larger shrines in the Street of a Thousand Gods, where public ceremonies were conducted by the priests. Before him stood the Holy of Holies - a sanctuary where secret rites were conducted, a place forbidden to all but the innermost circle of Angi’s priesthood: the feared warrior-clerics of the cult.

Something very suspicious and obviously nefarious was going on. Why would a prostitute be kidnapped and taken within the sacred precincts of the Temple of Angi, when all other commoners were forbidden from entering it?

The young man muttered an oath. His initial plan had been to follow the kidnappers to their lair and then report the matter to the city watch, but this was a theocracy where the rule of law was whatever the Gam-lak decreed. The local equivalent of the cops was hardly going to burst through the temple doors of their most holy tabernacle. They would simply look the other way. Carlos knew he had a choice: to turn a blind eye and abandon the girl to whatever fate awaited her, or to intervene. He chose the latter and walked toward the temple door.

The walls enclosing the sacred building were too high and smooth to climb, but as he scrutinized the massive door, a means of ingress occurred to him. The portal was made of heavy timber, studded with ornamental cubes of bronze. Carlos was a practitioner of indoor climbing, where participants ascended engineered walls to which various grips had been affixed.

The bronze cubes were barely large enough to serve as hand and footholds and, in addition, they were slippery from the rain. An older man would have probably given up, but Carlos was young and adventurous, to which was added a dash of recklessness. The rain-soaked street was deserted. He began his risky ascent. The climb was difficult; the darkness was a blindfold, his hands groped. He slipped several times, and it was only the strength of his strong hands, the bulging muscles of his arms, and his steady nerves that saved him.

With a final effort, he flung up a straining arm and caught the carved lintel of the portal, then secured a hold with his other hand. Taking a deep breath, Carlos hauled his wet and trembling body up and over the parapet and slid to the wall walk behind it. Here, he rested and surveyed the scene as he caught his breath. Moonlight had broken through the clouds, dim but enough to see by. The pagoda stood in the middle of a square garden of low shrubs and gravel pathways. No lights showed. There was no sign of the sedan chair or its bearers, which he now realized must have been warrior-priests in disguise rather than just the servants of a wealthy man.

The place seemed deserted. Puzzled, Carlos began his descent via the wall’s inner stairway and moved toward the temple’s entrance. The crunching of boots on the gravel path made him drop behind a bush. One of the sedan chair bearers, now on guard duty, rounded a corner of the pagoda. The man paused by the bush, and Carlos’s heart hammered in his chest, expecting to be discovered at any moment.

But the warrior-priest moved on, and Carlos slowly let out the breath he had been holding. He peered around the bush and saw the man turn the corner of the temple to continue his patrol. Undeterred, the young man leapt over the narrow gravel path so as not to make a noise. He landed silently on the lawn and sprinted for the entrance to the building, then swiftly crossed its threshold. The pagoda was tall, but its octagonal base was small, and in the centre of the room was the eight foot high idol of Angi, standing in gilded, woody rigidity on its timber base. Apart from this, there was nothing else to see except for a dim glow seeping from beneath the statue’s plinth, suggesting that there was an open space beneath it.

Carlos, his curiosity roused, stepped to the statue and knelt to examine the soft illumination. The light was definitely coming from below, and he could feel an air current against his hand. He stood and began to carefully push and pull the idol. It began to turn, silently pivoting on one corner of the plinth. The statue hardly weighed a thing, and he correctly deduced that it was entirely hollow.

With a final push, the mysterious way was open. Stairs led down into the earth. Within the forbidden temple was another layer of secrecy. Carlos descended quietly and stepped from the stairs into a subterranean passage. Up ahead, the light grew stronger, and now he heard the sound of chanting in an ancient tongue. As wary as a cat, he advanced down the tunnel, and at its end he came upon a scene to chill the blood.

Another idol of Angi, smaller than the one in the temple above, stood against a wall of the subterranean chamber. A stone bowl filled with leaping flames was next to it, and near the bowl, with her arms bound above her head and her ankles restrained by ropes, was the kidnapped girl. These things in themselves were quite shocking, but what added to the horror was the priest, his face concealed by a devil mask, who stood before her with a long, glinting knife in his hand.

The priest spoke, his words carrying clearly to Carlos, who stood in the concealing shadows, momentarily paralyzed by the horrific scene playing out before him. “You should feel honored,” hissed the masked figure. “Every decade, Angi requires a human sacrifice as a sign of the priesthood’s continued devotion. In life, you are nothing but a worthless commoner. But in death, you will be glorified as the vehicle of the divine will. I will slice your belly open and in your entrails read the decree of Heaven through the use of haruspicy.”

The priest raised his glinting knife in preparation for the gutting stroke. The terrified, writhing girl shrilly screamed. Carlos burst forth from the shadows. The sound of his speeding feet made the cleric spin around. The man swore in a most unholy manner. His knife flashed in a gleaming arc. Carlos caught the priest’s wrist. Both wrestled madly. The enraged cleric tried to knee him in the groin. Carlos twisted and caught the painful blow on his thigh. He slammed his foot into the priest’s shin. The man howled. He fell and hit the floor hard, and his devil mask fell off.

The face that was revealed shocked Carlos. It was Chomgan, the current Gam-lak of Tiam, whose features were instantly recognisable, as huge portraits of him were everywhere across Longak. Chomgan’s face contorted with hate, more devilish than the mask he had been wearing. He jerked a forbidden revolver from his robe, but before he could take aim, Carlos kicked it from his hand. The gun exploded, and a slug bounced off the stone ceiling in a whining ricochet.

Chomgan was down but far from out. The enraged man was on his feet in an instant. He lashed out in a series of wild blows with his hands and feet; the vicious onslaught drove Carlos back against the wall. The Gam-lak, sensing victory, let out a wild yell of triumph and struck again at his battered opponent. But Carlos managed to duck the roundhouse kick and slam his fist into his assailant’s groin.

The Gam-lak howled in agony and collapsed to the floor. Carlos’s boot heel thudded against the fellow’s chin, and the savage kick stretched Chomgan senseless on the floor. Carlos, battered and bruised and breathing hard picked up the knife and began hurridly sawing at the bonds that bound the girl. “Your safe now,” he said fluently but breathlessly in Tiamese, the local dialect. “I’ll get you out of here.”

The trembling, terrified girl nodded, unable to speak. She did, however, scream as the last rope fell away. Carlos turned and cursed. Four warrior-priests, those who had carried the sedan chair, were racing down the passageway toward them, attracted by the thunderous gunshot; their naked swords were gleaming in the light.

The young man hurled the knife with all his might at the foremost man. The flying blade struck the fellow, and down he went, howling. Carlos looked wildly around as the remaining foe came at him with undaunted frenzy. Another doorway drew his desperate gaze. He grabbed the girl by the hand. “This way,” he cried. “Come on.”

They sprinted for the portal and crossed its threshold with Olympic speed. The room they entered was stacked with crates, and racks of AK47’s stood against one wall. Carlos pulled the girl behind a pile of boxes clearly marked as containing hand grenades. The room was full of contemporary munitions and armaments. Being both Western and modern, they shouldn’t have been on the island, let alone hidden beneath the most sacred site in all the land.

In one of his letters to Carlos, Alberto had hinted at the population’s growing dissatisfaction with the priesthood’s oppressive rule. Despite bans and censorship, some knowledge of the outside world had slowly filtered in through foreign merchants trading in permissibles, and the people wanted better lives than what a medieval society could offer. In an instant, Carlos realized that these weapons had been bought to suppress the possibility of rebellion.

The girl looked at him with wide, terrified eyes. “We’re trapped,” she fearfully whispered. “What shall we do?”

The sound of men barging into the room stifled Carlos’s reply. The stacks of crates and boxes formed a maze. He grabbed her hand and led her through it. A gunshot rang out. Hot lead slammed into one of the stacks of crates. The girl stumbled in fright and fell against it. The top box tumbled. She screamed as it smashed on the floor. A mix of Mk2 and StiGr 43 hand grenades spilled from the shattered container. Another slug whined past Carlos’s ear. The spilled bomblets brought inspiration. He snatched up a Mk 2 grenade, pulled the pin, and threw it.

Behind him, men cursed in the dark as it landed at their feet. Carlos stuffed his pockets with more grenades, and then grabbed the girl’s hand. “This way,” he urged, “and keep low.”

They scuttled between piles of crates. The hurled grenade exploded. Containers tumbled, shattering on hard stone and spilling bazooka rounds. Another gunshot exploded in the dark. A slug whined off stone. At least one of their pursuers was still alive and wasn’t giving up.

“Look, another exit,” gasped Carlos’s terrified companion.

They ran for it. Carlos paused at the threshold. He tossed two more Mk 2 grenades, and then the escapees fled down the tunnel’s gloomy length. They sprinted around a hairpin bend. Behind them, the grenades exploded; the blasts set off a chain reaction of detonating bazooka rounds.

A terrific explosion rocked the earth as the entire armory beneath the temple detonated like an erupting volcano. Flame and billowing smoke shot high into the air, and burning debris rained down around the city, waking its inhabitants from their slumber. Fires broke out here and there, but fortunately they were quickly extinguished by the rain, which had now become a tropical downpour.

In the tunnel, Carlos shakily picked himself up from the dusty floor and then assisted the girl to her feet. His ears still rang from the mighty blast. They had been saved by the hairpin bend in the passageway, which had shielded them from the brunt of the terrible explosion.

“Are you hurt at all?” He asked the girl as he removed his shirt and handed it to her so she could clothe herself. “I’m Carlos. What’s your name?”

“I am Rangat,” she replied as she donned the garment, which barely concealed her pubic hairs. “May the blessings of the gods be upon you for saving me. No, I am not badly hurt.”

Carlos looked at the noxious smoke billowing down the tunnel with increasing volume and alarming speed. “We can’t stay here. Let’s away,” he said.

They followed the underground passage for fifteen minutes until it ended in an upward flight of stairs. Both ascended. Carlos paused on the landing and peered through a spyhole in what was obviously the back of a concealed door. He recognized the hallway. As the son of the Gam-lak’s personal physician, he was staying in the palace as a guest. The secret tunnel connected to the royal residence, as he had suspected. At this hour, the palace should have been quiet, but the hallway was alive with people running madly about. The explosion had roused the building’s occupants, who were in a state of consternation. The residence was on a rise, and from this elevation the destruction of Angi’s most holy site could be clearly seen.

Carlos gasped in fear when he saw a man being dragged along the passage by a group of hard-faced warrior-priests. It was his father, Alberto. The explanation dawned on the young man with terrifying clarity. Chomgan had recognized him as Alberto’s son. The Gam-lak must have survived the explosion, and now sought vengeance on his sire. He quickly explained the frightening situation to Rangat.

“I can’t let my father fall foul of that deranged fanatic,” he said. “Stay here while I attempt his rescue. If I don’t return, you will know I’ve failed. I’m sorry, but if I’m dead or captured, you’ll have to save yourself.”

“I owe you my life,” replied Rangat as she placed her slender hand on his shoulder. “Just as you stand by your father, I will stand by you. We’ll see this through together.”

Carlos nodded. Realizing there was no time for subtility, he thrust open the door and stepped boldly out into the hallway with Rangat. People stared wide-eyed at both of them as they emerged, but the onlookers were in a state of shock at the destruction of the temple, and no one tried to stop or question them as they swiftly strode in the direction the warrior-priests had taken.

The hallway gave access to the palace throne room, and as Carlos crossed the threshold, his face grew grim as he saw Alberto’s captors cast his father at Chomgan’s feet. The Gam-lak sat on his dragon throne, bloody, bruised, and singed, but very much alive - he had fled well before the final blast destroyed the temple and had been caught in the fringes of its shockwave. Chomgan’s head jerked around; his gaze was drawn by movement at the edge of vision. His eyes went wild as they fell upon Carlos, and he cursed bitterly.

“You,” he shrieked as he shot to his feet, his face alive with savage rage. Then he shouted to a dozen other warrior-priests grouped nearby. “Slay the infidels,” he shrilly screeched, madness glinting in his staring eyes as he pointed with a trembling hand at Carlos and the girl.

Carlos drew the last bomblet from his belt. This was a StiGr 43 stick grenade. He jerked the pull cord, hurled it at the charging foe, and then pulled Ragnat to the floor, shielding her with his body. This grenade, more powerful than the standard pineapple, exploded with a roar that shook the room. Men screamed and died. Smoke billowed. Debris rained in a patter. A sword crashed next to Carlos, a severed hand still goryly clutching it.

Carlos scrambled to his feet, bleeding from superficial shrapnel wounds. Corpses and body parts were strewn around the room, transforming it into a charnel house. Through the drifting smoke, he saw Chomgan stagger up from behind the dragon throne, where he had thrown himself to escape the devastating blast. Having fled the temple without his pistol, the tyrant had armed himself with a borrowed sword, and now he drew his blade and stumbled with murder blazing in his eyes toward Alberto, who lay bound and helpless on the floor.

Carlos grabbed the sword and freed it from its severed hand. He charged Chomgan, yelling wildly as he ran. The Gam-lak raised his sword to kill the young man’s father in a savage act of sanguine revenge. Carlos hurled his blade with all his strength and a desperate prayer. Chomgan’s sword swept down in a brutal arc. The whirling weapon crashed against it and tore it from his hand. Carlos crashed against the tyrant like a battering ram and felled him to the floor.

They wrestled desperately, then broke apart. A wild exchange of blows ensued almost too swift for the eye to follow. Again, they clinched and grappled fiercely. Carlos was stronger, but Chongam managed to gain the upper hand. He broke the grip that Carlos had upon him and swiftly applied a deadly sleeper hold. Carlos fought desperately to free himself, but to no avail. His vision began to darken as the blood supply was cut off from his brain. In mere seconds, he would be unconscious and then, shortly after, dead.

Chomgan grinned madly, relishing his opponent’s end and the look of horror on Alberto’s face as he frantically tried to free himself to save his son. Then, at the height of his seeming triumph, the Gam-lak screamed as agony lanced his back. Chongam’s grip loosened. He collapsed to the floor. His last sight was of Rangat standing over him, a bloody sword in her small but avenging hand. The girl quickly knelt and examined Carlos. The young man opened his eyes, quickly recovering, much to her vast relief.

“Carlos,my son,” cried Alberto, “are you all right?”

“Father,” gasped the young man as Rangat helped him stand. “Yes, I’m fine, thanks to Rangat.”

He walked a little unsteadily toward Alberto and, with Rangat’s help, began to free his father from the cruelty of his bonds. “We must get away from here,” he said as the last rope fell away.

But at that very moment, when freedom seemed within their grasp, more armed men burst into the room like a pack of snarling wolves. These were not the warrior-priests, the elite inner circle of the theocracy, but regular soldiers who patrolled the perimeter of the palace. They stared at the carnage, at their slain leader, and then at the trio standing near his bloody corpse.

Carlos tensed as the guards drew their swords and advanced menacingly upon them. There were too many to fight, and they blocked the only exit to the room. The young man snatched up a sword and prepared to defend his father and the girl, regardless of the overwhelming odds.

Then an authoritative voice rang out in a sharp command: “Halt. Lower your blades. I wish to look more closely at the girl.”

An older man strode forth, his eyes locked on the small crescent-shaped birthmark on Rangat’s forehead. Carlos had also noticed the nevus, but had given no thought to it, being preoccupied with the threat of constant danger.

“I am Bakgom,” announced the older man, “commander of the palace guard.” Then, to Rangat, “What is your name? Tell me about your parents and your history. Be truthful, child. Your life and that of your companions depend on it.”

“I am Rangat. My father, Mongok, was a poor man,” she replied, somewhat puzzled. “He found me while gathering firewood in the forest. It is not uncommon for unwanted babies to be abandoned in the wilderness. He brought me home as his wife; Lalman had recently lost their infant daughter to a childhood illness. They raised me as their own. When I was sixteen, tragedy struck. Both my adoptive parents died within a week of each other, and I was forced to turn to prostitution to survive.”

“It is as I thought,” muttered Bakgom to himself. He turned to his men and spoke. “As you all know, Chomgan was not the only child of his parents, Lombak and Umon. My sister, as a midwife, was present at the time. Umon gave birth to non-identical twins. The first to emerge was a girl with a crescent-shaped birthmark on her forehead. It was considered an ill omen - a sign that the moon goddess Rasura would eclipse Angi, the Sun, and supplant him as chief deity of our nation. A lie was put about that the girl child had been stillborn. The unwanted infant was abandoned in the wilderness, as is customary, and all those involved were sworn to utmost secrecy. The girl you see before you is of the right age and bears the sign. Chomgan is dead and left no heirs. By our laws, Rangat is now the rightful ruler of Tiam.”

Rangat, a horrified expression on her face, looked at the body of the slain Gam-lak. She had been told to wait for the sedan chair by the madam of the brothel. Chomgan must have somehow discovered that she was still alive and had decided to eliminate her by sacrifice. He had been an evil man, but even so, she had just killed her own brother, and by virtue of this act had risen from the lowest station of a prostitute to the highest office in all Tiam. Carlos caught the girl as she fainted from the shock.

**********

Over a year had passed, and much had changed in Tiam. The priesthood of Angi had been dealt a devastating blow by the destruction of the temple, the revelation of the cache of forbidden weapons, and the exposure of the barbaric rites that had been practiced there in secret. This cruelty and hypocrisy was the final straw for the population, already discontent with clerical rule. Chomgan’s death, and the deaths of most of the warrior-priests, added to the disarray of the theocracy, so there was no need for a violent revolution. People simply ignored the powerless priests. No one showed up at their ceremonies. The clerics no longer had modern weapons they could have used to enforce their rule, and when faced with a hostile nation, most of the hierophants could see that submission to the new order was their only hope for survival. It was either that, or be torn limb from limb by an infuriated mob.

Indeed, with the revelation as to why Rangat had been abandoned in the forest becoming widely known, many people shifted the focus of their devotions to Rasura, the Moon Goddess, and thus the prediction from all those years ago when she was born with the portentous birthmark became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Rangat, with the support of Bakgom, was now ruler of Tiam. Despite being a member of the dynasty that had oppressed them, the people had grudgingly accepted her, based on her promises of reform and modernization. Despite her lack of education due to poverty, Rangat possessed innate intelligence, and with the help of Carlos and Alberto, positive change was slowly coming to the island nation. With this improvement, support for her governance was growing.

Longak’s sole hospital was being modernized with the addition of solar panels and batteries that would power the donated medical equipment, courtesy of Alberto, who had contacts with various organizations devoted to the improvement of developing nations. More health workers and educators were also on their way to assist and to train the local doctors in modern medicine.

In addition, social ills were being addressed. Training and employment were being offered to sex workers who wanted to leave the industry, and poverty was being addressed through the involvement of international agencies. It would take decades, but the long, slow process of the betterment of people’s lives was at last underway.

These were some of the thoughts going through Carlos’s mind as he stood on the palace balcony, watching the glorious tropical sunrise. His musings were interrupted by Rangat as she stepped through the doorway of the royal suite that gave access to the balustraded platform.

He turned at the sound of her rustling nightwear - a flimsy, translucent robe that the early morning light penetrated, revealing the delightful curves of her nubile form. The terrified girl that he had rescued had transformed into a stately woman who would not be out of place in any royal court in Europe.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Did I wake you with my early rising?”

“No,” she replied with a smile. “But the bed feels empty without your presence. Do you not wish to console me in my loneliness?”

Carlos took the not too subtle hint and grinned. They were now much more than just good friends. He picked her up and carried her back inside. A new day was dawning, and both were sure that many more would follow it.

The End