Holy City of Champa

Anh Hai shook his head. He seemed to debate internally about answering her but Jasmine did not give him the chance to make up his mind.

She'd had plenty of time to think about all the possible answers that might sigh into the puzzling events of the past few weeks and she was eager to lay it out to him.

"If you don't want to tell me, fine, but let me guess anyway. You are going to kill me, just as you killed my cop friends and my music buddies, right?"

He laughed, rubbing his face tiredly.

"If I wanted to kill you, I would have done it in the jungles a long time ago and not have to drag your unconscious body around, trying to find a healer for you.

"What about my friends? Why did you kill them?"

"I was nowhere near them when they died."

"But you're the big honcho, you don't ned to be physically present for them to die. All you had to do was give the word and one of your henchmen would have done the job for you. That tells me you're a coward who's too chicken to do his own dirty work."

Anh Hai opened his eyes and stared at Jasmine.

"There are things that you are not fully aware of. The truth is even more bizarre than you can ever imagine. This is why I need to take you to this Holy City of Champa in Myson. Only there can you find the answers to your questions."

"My questions are simple, but all you do is evade them with vaguely worded answers."

"Like I said, you may not be able to handle the truth."

"Try me." Jasmine turned a steady gaze at him.

Anh Hai sighed.

"The truth is, I have been looking for you for a very long time, and now that I have found you, there are things that must be addressed, wrongs that must be righted before there is justice, and of course, there is the matter of the lost gemstones."

Jasmine shook her head, even more confused. She had no idea what this truth was that he was trying to tell her.

As if realizing that he was rambling and saying things that no longer made sense to her, Anh Hai leaned the seat back and closed his eyes, as if exhausted from the ordeal of the trip.

The sun was setting in the distant horizon when the jeeps finally reached their endpoint.

Jasmine sat up and peeked out. They had reached a wide river which cut across the path and traversable only by a narrow bridge fashioned from bamboo poles placed side-by-side and tied together to form a loose swinging structure that swayed in the easy breeze of the evening air.

"This river is not supposed to be here." Anh Hai sighed. "The topography has been changed until it is barely recognizable."

Anh Hai shook his head.

"We'll have to make the rest of the way on foot, but it's very near here. Another ten minutes of walking and we will reach the Holy City."

He got out of the jeep and opened the door for her.

"Come." He reached out to help her.

She grabbed hold of his hand and stepped from the cool interior of the jeep into the cloying heat of a dying day. The sultry evening air permeated throughout the place, bringing with it a sticky oppressive weight that made it hard to think and hard to breathe.

The ground swayed slightly as Jasmine fought to stave off a wave of dizziness. She was still not quite well.

She clutched onto his arm and followed him to the bamboo bridge.

"Hold onto me with your left hand and the rope rail with your right." He pointed to the dangling rope on her other side.

"Keep your eyes on me and don't look down."

Jasmine nodded and clung onto both his arm and the rope that dangled almost uselessly on her right. She concentrated on placing one foot in front of the other even as the bridge swayed to and fro over the churning waters 50 feet below.

It took some time for everyone to clear the bridge but eventually, they were all on the other side.

The men led her through a well-worn path deeper into the jungles and finally after what seemed like forever, they broke free onto a ledge that splayed out in panoramic splendor, the magnificence of the Holy City of Champa.

Against the backdrop of the golden setting sun, the crumbling ruins of long-forgotten red brick towers, softened and overgrown with wild weeds, stood silent and alien, outcasts of the modern world.

It was still there, still wrapped up in its ancient history, replaying itself over and over again until the mind could no longer assimilate or make sense of the chaos.

The shouts and wails of the many wars which raged on among its golden walls, mixed with the humming chants of the ancient priests who wandered among its ornately carved architecture.

There were screams of an unearthly nature as modern horrors of air raid bombs fell overhead, creating large craters that shattered many of its once glorious structures.

The monsoons came and went, crumbling the worn structures into homogenous blobs of brick and debris. The hot suns flashed overhead, day after day, streaking like meteorites across the pink, then blue, then violet skies. This scene repeated over and over until the once dark red bricks had faded to a rusty yellow shade the color of old gold.

All this, Jasmine could see with her mind's eye, and as she stood with the winds whipping her hair back in tangled cords of silk, she could hear the soft melodious singing of a young girl.

At first it was just a faint echo—the sound of the twilight wind bouncing off the ancient brick temples.

But then it grew stronger, gathering intensity until she could almost hear the ancient words and struggled to grasp the merest tendrils of the meanings. But the meanings were slightly out of reach of her groping mind.

Mesmerized, she focused on the sound and started to follow it to its source, but strong hands frustrated her efforts, holding her back even as Jasmine struggled onward.

She tried to fight those who did not want her to seek out its lovely source, but the hands were stronger than she was.

SLAP!!!

With a blow that stunned her mind and snapped her back into the present, a hand slapped her once across the face, breaking her focus on the singing. It faded away until she could no longer hear those sweet strains.

"Jasmine!" A voice was calling out to her with urgency.

For a confused moment, she did not know where she was or how she got there, but then it all came rushing back to her.

Her eyes registered the shapes which her mind finally sorted out to become those of Anh Hai's worried face, with his men behind him.

"What happened?"

"You tell me!" He breathed harshly. "For a moment, you blanked out and then tried to head out over the cliff! It scared the hell out of me!"