Beginners' guide to Khanology 2

I am sitting in a boat, drifting slowly downstream. My thoughts turn to the Republic of Tinselman - now so distant a place - and I have not made any plans for what will happen when I return. Aside from Rock Bridge, attending ministerial ceremonies and overthrowing Qarl Qhan and President Rupey, what will I do with my life? Can a returned hero, haunted by exotic traumas, ever fully re-integrate?

Then I get the idea of going back to university. It has been politely pointed out to me, by no less than the Universal Khan himself, that my recent Beginners' guide to Khanology was a load of irresponsible semi-truths, likely to provoke sectarian conflict. I have therefore decided to enrol part-time at the Tinselman Khanological College. No one would dare argue with a Degree in Khanology.

But my plans have hit a rock, and my hopes are overboard. I went to the College website and saw it has been infiltrated by evil totalitarian ideologues with a taste for dictator chic and ersatz coats-of-arms.

Tinselman Khanological College coat-of-arms

I am disgusted. Where they ought to be reciting the deeds of Shatner, or interpreting the sayings of Miller, these charlatan proponents of the "Science of Khanology" instead glorify the likes of Napoleon - and worse. It must be that the President is funding research into the terrible Dark Arts of Statecraft, which are quite different from true Khanology, in a vain attempt to strengthen his rule. Rupey secretly fears that the Old Khan will one day invade the Republic, and he will try to resist by any means available. He does not anticipate the Universal Khan, I think.

Beginners' guide to Khanology

Now that he has been found, the question naturally arises: who is the Khan? Although still a beginner when it comes to Khanology, I thought I'd make a record of what I know.

The short explanation is that there is not one but three Khans - the Nirmana-khan, the Sambhoga-khan, and the Dharma-khan.

1. Nirmana-khan

This is the historical Founder of the Republic of Tinselman, known to his people as Khan Miller. He appears in a variety of physical forms at different times, depending on the needs of the Republic. It is this Khan who met with Museum of Dust representatives during last year's election campaign. It is this Khan who was imprisoned at Al Khazneh, and later burnt at the stake. He is a national hero.

Archive photos of the Nirmana-khan

Of him it was prophesied:

'The Museum of Dust will destroy the Republic of Tinselman by capturing the Khan and handing him over to the National Park Service (NPS) for harsh interrogation.'

Something else was said about him, but all we know of this is the following, incomplete petroglyph:

?

2. Sambhoga-khan

I like to think of this second Khan as the puppeteer behind the various manifestations of the historical Founder. He is a kind of spiritual bridge between the wordly and transcendent Khans. The Sambhoga-khan became visible some time after the Founder's Absorption, but only to his chosen disciples. Sometimes he looks like the King of medieval religion, other times he tranforms into the Megophias megophias of prehistoric shamanism.

Digital impressions of the Sambhoga-khan, reconstructed from brain scans of Khan devotees

This Khan commands a retinue of saints who he sends into battle against the demonic forces which threaten the Republic of Tinselman. Museum of Dust-based terrorist El Cacaracha Libre ought to watch his step, or face the Khan's famous wrath.

El Cacaracha Libre: (left) photo; (right) artist's impression.

3. Dharma-khan

I've never properly understood this Khan, and there are no pictures of him, so I'm just going to quote the leading Khanologist, Nalinaksha Dutt:

Dharma-khan

The only real Khan is the Reality as conceived by the Tinselfolk, and is not different from the things or beings of the universe. Though an attempt to define it by current words and expression is bound to be not only incorrect but misleading, the Tinselman texts tried to give an idea of it as far as the language permitted. . . . It is, according to them, immeasurable and illimitable. It fills all space. It is the basis of the Sambhoga and Nirmana-khans. . . . It is possessed of eternal, real and unlimited tinsel. . . . Dharma-khans may have their individual Sambhoga-khans but they all have one Dharma-khan.

If anyone understands this, or has any other information about the Khan, please post your comments below.

- Danxia

Competition over

Now that the Khan has been found, the House on Rock Bridge Competition is finally over. The winners are:

• Bonnie, for being the first to find the Khan this time around;
• Joelson and Alli, for finding the Khan the time before that;
• Indie for her helpful suggestions; and
• Cog, for offering us her decryption skills.

As promised, you are all to be allocated a portion of Rock Bridge on which to build a house. (Joelson and Alli - do you mind sharing a house?) Which reminds me - in response to the first ever post on this blog, Cog seemed to doubt the former existence of the old Rock Bridge, asking "Do you have any pictures of the original[?]"

Seeing as you're a competition winner, Cog, I've decided to answer your question. Yes, I do.

Satellite image (1940) of the original rock bridge, Republic of Tinselman.

Unsaved, but not (yet) despairing

Firstly, I would like to thank you, my readers, who have been working hard to release me from my prison. Joelson has come up with the brilliant idea of meditating our way to liberation and deliverance. As I said to him at the time,

I've been confined to the same room for . . . I can't remember how long . . . all alone . . . for such a long time that I'm already in a kind of involuntary, sensory-deprivation induced trance. I'm currently trying to shift from a state of hypnotic absorbtion to one of nirvanic insight.

(Did I mention I've gone bald while I've been here? It happens to the best of us.)

Alli and Indie have been also been doing whatever it takes to get me out of here - even placing our enemies in stress positions. And it paid off - for they confessed everything:

To exit the Room of Illusion, um.... well, I'm colorblind, but I know the answer had something to do with red and green - I never went in there myself.

If it hadn't been for this vital information, I would not have noticed this inscription on the wall, made from mysterious red and green letters:



I quickly re-entered the meditative state in an attempt to fathom the meaning of this. COIL'D SERPENT KNIFE initially made me think of some neo-pagan trinket (see below).



But I couldn't see how that would help me. On the other hand, the Tibetan phurpa - a Tantric ritual dagger with coiled serpent motif on its blade, used in the subjugation of demons - would definitely come in handy at a time like this. Like a special key, perhaps.


a phurpa

There is no such ritual dagger inside this room, so I suspect it must be found and used from the outside - by you, my dear readers. While you are at it, if you can tell me what BLUR MAGIC ORB refers to, that would be a great help. What is an 'orb', really, anyway?

Logistics

So. Rupey has left the starship and returned to the Republic of Tinselman. Wilmey now leads the expedition to recover Khan Miller.

As for myself, I'm in a dilemma. I am anxious to return to the Republic to begin work on Rock Bridge. So it is tempting to follow Rupey.

On the other hand, it was the Khan who put me in charge of this project in the first place - so if I give up on the Khan there's no reason for me to return to the Republic. They say there’s always a third way . . .

Well, it turns out that I’m not free to choose either of these options, anyway, because I’m still inside the Trompe l'oeil Room. I keep thinking I've found the door, but it always turns out to be painted on, or else the room behind it is, or both.

A desert of death and fire

There’s no need for me to fill you in on what happened since my last post, you can read all about it in Notes from Mount St. Tinsel. Suffice to say: we tried to rescue the Khan, but he’d already been burned alive by an unidentified robot (pictured); we got back to the ship and started dying one by one; then the holodeck stopped and we flew safely to a nearby planet.

But there’s one thing I still don’t get: we all know when the holodeck recording ended, but when did it actually begin? Was it:

1. Just after the robot lit her match?
2. While I was writing the post ‘Life is a Bridge’?
3. Just before I began the Rock Bridge blog?
4. Other?
   

Needing some existential reassurance, I turned to the words of Rene Descartes:

Yet although the senses occasionally deceive us with respect to objects which are very small or in the distance, there are many other beliefs about which doubt is quite impossible, even though they are derived from the senses — for example, that I am here, sitting by the fire, wearing a winter dressing-gown, holding this piece of paper in my hands, and so on.

… Unless perhaps I were to liken myself to madmen, whose brains are so damaged by the persistent vapours of melancholia that they firmly maintain they are kings when they are paupers, or say they are dressed in purple when they are naked, or that their heads are made of earthenware, or that they are pumpkins, or made of glass.

But now I’m even more confused. If anyone knows, please enlighten me!

Khan found!

I am proud to announce some amazing news: the Khan has been found by Alli and Joelson! Three cheers! The bad news is, we've lost Alli and Joelson, and they're still with the Khan . . . so altogether that's three we've lost.

It all began when the starship approached the moon of Petra, home of the Nabataeans. I'd heard of these guys, and knew that they were the galactic experts in glyph decryption. This gave me the idea of sending Joelson and Alli down to the surface to get some help translating these (see above).

I beamed them down, but kept in communicator contact from the starship bridge (where I was also playing holochess with Rupey). They soon found themselves in the middle of a vast desert, staring at the Nabataean City on the distant horizon.

Nabataean City, Moon of Petra

(I could hear Alli on the communicator - complaining that I could have dropped them off closer to the city - just as Rupey was taking my King's bishop.)

After a few hours trekking through the desert, they arrived and headed straight for the local Glyph Decryption Bureau with my notebook in hand. There they were greeted by a helpful Nabataean official.

"May I see your passports?"

Of course, they didn't have any.

"No passports? What!? You must be from the Republic of Tinselman! Perhaps you can tell me - who is this Woman X everyone's talking about?"

Ignoring the question, Joelson showed the petroglyphs in my notebook to the Nabataean, who then took them out the back for analysis. He promptly returned with two printouts, and placed one of them on the desk (see right).

"I have reconstructed the missing part of this glyph (from fragment 3). It says 'National Park Service'. So the first part of the inscription reads,

'The Museum of Dust will destroy the Republic of Tinselman by
capturing the Khan and handing him over to the National Park Service (NPS) for harsh interrogation.'"

Listening to all this on the communicator, I nearly forgot my turn at holochess. The NPS is the government agency behind Natural Bridges National Monument (NBNM), Utah. So it was them all along! First hate mail, now this!

The Nabataean was also getting excited at this point. He went on,

"Before I show you the next part, I think you ought to know something. We have intelligence suggesting the National Park Service are operating a secret prison right here on the moon of Petra. At Al Khazneh, exactly five miles west of here."

Alli and Joelson were already on their feet and out the door! They didn't even hear the official call after them "Wait - don't you want to know what the missing part of fragment 4 says?" (Somehow I could hear that on the communicator). But the two of them ran, without stopping, exactly five miles to the west, until they came to the NPS secret prison, and went inside.

NPS secret prison, Al Khazneh, Nabataean City

"You don't just walk into an NPS secret prison!" I yelled over the communicator. But they weren't listening - and they were in for a shock! You go in, and suddenly you seem to be standing on the edge of a bottomless chasm. But if you happen to be clever - like Joelson and Alli were clever - you try to throw tinsel over the precipice . . . revealing an invisible camouflaged rock bridge leading safely from one side of the chasm to the other! I so wish I knew how they made that!

Anyway, they both got across the bridge, and entered a small, dimly lit cell. And, there, waiting inside to greet them - was THE KHAN!!!

The Khan in his cell at Al Khazneh

(Even Rupey took his attention away from the holochess for a minute to view the image being sent to the Enterprise.) I must admit, the Khan looked a lot older than I remembered . . . or perhaps it was the chainmail. Whatever the case, I was just so ecstatic to see the Khan again that I didn't care what he looked like!

It was at this point that things started to go bad. A look of anxiety appeared over the Khan's wizened face, and a weird, robotic voice could be heard somewhere in the background.

"Now ve have ze Khan!"

. . . And then the communicator went silent. I don't know what happened next, but I'm worried.