Outwardly gross and disgusting, the Tark embodies all the darker elements of the Tibetans. He carries the primal energy of the shamanistic Bon creed, which he still practices  in defiance of the Imperial edicts. Uneducated, illiterate, brutish, self-centered and barbaric, the Tark stands in stark contrast to the more refined and cultured person of Rana Tenpai.

When Omu Seng Tu sends him a curious “gift” the Tark is led into direct conflict with Rana and his trusted loyals. He seeks further guidance and support from the mysterious shaman Jambala, and plots against the young Tibetan general, secretly planning betrayal. Rana is forced to accept the Tark’s apparent compliance with his leadership, but treachery is soon at hand, and Rana’s life is changed forever.

The Tark is aided by his clan second, Memo, who reads all official messages sent on scrolls and wood slips to the Tark.

EXCERPT From Chapter 33 - The Tark

It was a large oblong room with thick walls of hard pressed brick and a roof of heavy toghrak beams. A gaping hole had been cut in the roof to reveal the night sky above. Beneath this break a large fire pit had been dug into the clay floor and circled with black, charred rocks. Wood was piled up in the pit and a hearty fire cracked and popped, licking the bare, gray walls with orange and yellow and smoking up through the gap in the roof. The opening had been cut as a makeshift chimney and all the doors and windows had been thrown open so the room would not smoke over. Ten men sat in a wide circle about the fire, but one stood out at the place of honor, a thick, dark man with wild hair extending in twisted braids from beneath a cap of woven mail.

 His broad forehead was painted with firelight, and his wide-set eyes glittered with jovial malice as he buried his nose in a bowl of mutton tea. He slurped the liquid down, heedless of the drool that trickled on his thinly bearded chin. Firelight danced and sparkled from his chest and torso, for he wore  the Chihal’Ta Hazar Masha, or ‘coat of a thousand nails’ that he had taken from an Indian captain long ago when he campaigned in the Hindu-Kush. It was a thick leather cuirass with leaf shaped shoulder pauldrons. The body of the coat was decorated with hundreds of small metal rivets that were arranged in a pattern of scales. The coat was a bit too small for the man and his burly arms and shoulders seemed to bulge beneath the garment, which opened near the waist to accommodate his ample stomach. A thick-hafted axe hung from a sash there.

 The other men in the circle were eating and talking loudly, gesturing at the fire to accent their speech and sometimes throwing the last dregs of their bowls on the flames where it hissed and steamed up into the heavy airs of the room.

 The Tark had taken chambers in the heart of Charchan, but they were not to his liking. He had torn down all the emblems of the T'ang administrators and burned them in a huge fire just outside the door for all to see. Around this he had set seven spears in the ground, each one crowned with the head of a Chinese minister, their faces twisted in gruesome masks of death and awash with the yellow light of the fire. Fifty men of his guard set campfires just beyond the main entrance. They talked loudly as they took their evening meal, voices echoing into the chamber. There the Tark sat with his circle of ten, each a Khur Kan leader in the Tebu Clan, and all sworn as ‘common fated ones’ to his house.

 He belched, throwing his wooden bowl on the floor and swabbing the side of his chin with the sleeve of his arm. The Tark was very hungry tonight. He was tired of the oat and barley teas that had sustained the men on their long march down from the mountains. Now he wanted meat, and the room was filled with the aroma of seared yak where it was cooking on long stakes of sharpened wood planted at the edge of the fire pit. He leaned forward, seizing a stake in his thick, dirty palms and yanking it roughly from the clay flooring to get at the meat. The meat slices were still sizzling with the heat when he bit at them, filling his puffy cheeks with a great bite and grunting with pleasure as he chewed. At least the food was good.

Taklamakan            The Land of No Return      © 2001, John A. Schettler