Kingdom of the Golden Dragon (10 page)

“Are you nuts? I would never permit such a thing!” Alex exclaimed.

“If we'd been born into the tribe of the People of the Mist in the Amazon, we would have to hunt for food with poisoned darts. If we'd been born here, it wouldn't seem strange to have fathers arrange marriages,” Nadia argued.

“How can you defend this system? Look at the poverty! Would you like to live like that?”

“No, Jaguar, but I don't want more things than I need, either,” she replied.

Kate took the two young people to visit palaces and temples, and also walked them through the markets, where Alexander bought bracelets for
his mother and sisters while Nadia's hands were being painted with henna, like a bride's. The design was as intricate as embroidery, and it would stay on her skin for two or three weeks. Borobá, as always, rode on his mistress's shoulder or hip, but he didn't attract attention there as he had in New York; in New Delhi monkeys were more common than dogs.

In one square they came upon two snake charmers sitting on the ground, legs crossed, playing their flutes. Their cobras rose from their baskets and stayed erect, swaying, hypnotized by the movement of the flutes. When Borobá saw them, he jumped from his mistress, shrieking, and scrambled up a palm tree. Nadia walked over to the charmers and began to murmur something in the language of the jungle. Immediately the serpents turned toward her, hissing, as their tongues knifed through the air. Four elliptical eyes stared daggers at the girl.

Before anyone could react, the cobras slithered from their baskets and zigzagged toward Nadia. People began shouting, panicked, and ran. Within an instant there was no one left but Alexander and his grandmother, both of them paralyzed with surprise and terror. The snake charmers tried in vain to control the serpents with their instruments, but they didn't dare go near them. Nadia was composed, with a rather amused expression on her golden face. She did not move an inch as the serpents coiled around her legs and climbed up her slim body as high as her neck and face, hissing constantly.

Kate, bathed in cold sweat, thought she was going to faint for the first time in her life. She slipped to the ground and sat there, pale as death, eyes bulging, unable to utter a sound. After the first instant of stupor, Alexander realized that he mustn't move. He knew his friend's strange powers very well. In the Amazon he had
seen her pick up a
surucucú
, one of the most poisonous serpents in the world, in one hand, whirl it over her head, and throw it far away. He assumed that if no one did anything stupid to disturb the cobras, Eagle was safe.

This scene lasted several minutes, until the girl gave an order in her jungle tongue and the serpents snaked down her body and returned to their baskets. The charmers quickly slapped down the lids, picked up the baskets, and ran from the square, convinced that the foreign girl with feathers in her hair was a demon.

Nadia called Borobá and, once he was back on her shoulder, continued her walk through the square as if nothing had happened. Alexander followed, smiling, without a word, highly amused to see that for once his grandmother had completely lost her composure at a sign of danger.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The Sect of the Scorpion

O
N HER LAST DAY IN
N
EW
D
ELHI
, Kate Cold had to spend hours in a travel agency trying to get tickets on the one weekly flight to the Kingdom of the Golden Dragon. It wasn't that there were that many passengers, just that the plane was so small. Since she had to make those arrangements, she gave Nadia and Alexander permission to go by themselves to the Red Fort, an ancient landmark near the hotel, which was a must for tourists.

“Don't get separated for any reason, and come back to the hotel before sunset,” the writer
ordered.

The fort had been used by English troops during the time that India was a colony. This enormous country had been the most glorious jewel in the British crown until finally it gained its freedom in 1947. Since then the fort had been deserted. Tourists visited only a small part of the enormous compound. Very few people knew the inner workings of the fort, a true labyrinth of corridors, secret rooms, and underground passageways that stretched beneath the city like the tentacles of an octopus.

Nadia and Alexander followed a guide lecturing in English to a group of tourists. The suffocating heat of midday did not penetrate the fort; inside it was cool, and the walls were stained with the green patina of moisture collected over the centuries. There was a disagreeable odor in the air, which the guide said was the urine of the thousands and thousands of rats that lived in the cellars and came out at night. The horrified tourists covered their noses and mouths, and several left the tour.

Suddenly Nadia pointed out Tex Armadillo in the distance, leaning against a column and looking around as if he were expecting someone. Her first impulse had been to wave to him, but Alexander realized what she was about to do and caught his friend's arm.

“Wait, Eagle, let's see what this guy is up to. I don't trust him at all,” he said.

“Don't forget that he saved your life when you were being crushed by the crowd.”

“Yes, but there's something about him I don't like.”

“What?”

“He seems to be something he isn't. I don't think he's really a hippie interested in finding drugs, as he told us on the plane. Have you noticed his muscles? He moves like one of those
karate experts you see in the movies. A drug-addicted hippie wouldn't look like that,” Alexander said.

They waited, unseen among the mass of tourists, never taking their eyes off Tex. After a while they saw a tall man walking toward him; he was wearing a tunic and a blue-black turban that was nearly the same tone as his skin. He had a broad sash about his waist, also blue-black, and tucked into it a curved knife with a bone handle. His eyes glowed like coals in his dark face, and he had a long beard and prominent eyebrows.

The friends could tell that the newcomer and the American obviously knew one another, and watched as the man with the turban disappeared around the corner of a wall, followed by Tex. They needed no discussion; wordlessly they agreed to investigate. Nadia whispered to Borobá that he shouldn't chatter or jump around. The little monkey clung to his mistress, tight as a backpack.

Slipping along, hugging the walls and hiding behind columns, they stayed within fifteen or twenty feet of Tex Armadillo. Sometimes they lost sight of him because the architecture of the fort was complex and it was evident that the man did not want to call attention to himself. However, thanks to Nadia's infallible instinct, they always found him again. They were a good distance from the other tourists now, and they didn't see or hear anybody. Alex and Nadia cut through rooms, went down narrow stairways with treads worn by use and time, and crept along endless corridors, always with the sensation that they were walking in circles. A growing murmur, like a chorus of crickets, was added to the penetrating odor.

“We shouldn't go any farther, Eagle. That's the sound of rats. They're very dangerous,” Alexander said.

“If those men can go into the cellars, why can't
we?” she replied.

The friends did not speak as they went deeper and deeper into that underground world; they realized that echoes would repeat and amplify their voices. Alexander was worried that they wouldn't be able to find their way back, but he didn't want to voice his doubts aloud and frighten Nadia. Neither did he say anything about the possibility of snakes, because after the episode with the cobras, his apprehension seemed out of place.

At first, light had sifted in through small openings in the ceilings and walls, but now they were forced to walk long stretches in darkness, feeling along the walls as a guide. From time to time when they passed a weak lightbulb they could see rats scurrying along the walls. Wires dangled dangerously from the ceiling. They noticed that the floor was damp, and in some places they could see little streams of foul-smelling water. Soon their feet were wet, and Alexander tried not to think about what would happen if something triggered a short circuit. However, being electrocuted worried him less than the increasingly aggressive rats all around them.

“Pay no attention to them, Jaguar. They won't dare come near us unless they smell that we're afraid; then they'll attack,” Nadia whispered.

Once again they had lost sight of Armadillo. The two friends were now in a small domed room that had been used to store munitions and provisions. Three arches opened onto what appeared to be long dark corridors. Alexander signaled Nadia, asking which they should choose; for the first time she hesitated, confused. She wasn't sure. She took Borobá, set him on the floor, and gave him a slight push, asking him to pick. The monkey climbed right back on her
shoulder; he hated getting wet and was terrified of the rats. She repeated the order, and though the little primate wouldn't let go he pointed a trembling paw toward the opening on the right, the narrowest of the three.

The two friends followed Borobá's indication, crouching down and feeling their way because now there wasn't even a weak lightbulb and the darkness was nearly total. Alexander, who was much taller than Nadia, bumped his head and muttered “what the . . . !” For a few minutes they were enveloped in a cloud of bats, stirring panic in the heart of Borobá, who immediately dived under his mistress's shirt.

It was time to call on the black jaguar. Alex concentrated, and in only seconds he could see about him as if he had antennae. He had practiced this skill for months, ever since he had learned in the Amazon that the jaguar, the king of the South American jungle, was his totemic animal. Alexander was slightly nearsighted, and even with glasses he did not see well in darkness, but he had learned to trust the instinct of the jaguar that he sometimes could invoke. Now he followed Nadia confidently, “seeing with his heart,” as he did more and more often.

Suddenly Alex stopped short, taking his friend's arm; ahead, the passageway made a sharp turn. Farther on, he could see a faint glow, and they could hear the murmur of voices. Using extreme caution, Alex peered around the corner and could see that ten feet away the corridor opened up into a room like the one they'd just come from.

Tex Armadillo, the man in black, and two other individuals dressed in the same kind of tunics were kneeling around an oil lamp that flickered faintly but produced enough light for the two young people to see. It was impossible to get any closer, as there was nothing to hide behind, and
they knew that if they were caught, they would be in trouble. The thought flashed through Jaguar's mind that no one knew where they were. They could die in those cellars and no one would find their bodies for days, maybe weeks.

The men were speaking English, and Armadillo's voice was clear, but the other three had a nearly incomprehensible accent. It was obvious, nevertheless, that they were talking about a business deal. They watched Armadillo hand over a sheaf of bills to the person who had the air of being the leader of the group. Then they heard a long discussion about what seemed to be a plan of action that included weapons, mountains, and maybe a temple or a palace, they couldn't be sure.

The leader unfolded a map on the dirt floor, smoothed it with the palm of his hand, and with the tip of his knife traced out a route for Tex Armadillo. The light of the oil lamp fell full on the man's face. From where they were watching they couldn't see the map very well, but they could easily make out a brand on the man's dark hand and note that the same design was repeated on the bone handle of the knife. It was a scorpion.

Alex calculated that they had seen enough, and should start back before the men ended their meeting. The only way out of the room was the corridor where Alex and Nadia were hiding. Again Nadia consulted Borobá, who from his mistress's shoulder unhesitatingly pointed the way. Relieved, Alexander remembered what his father always advised him when they went mountain climbing together:
Confront obstacles as they appear, don't waste energy fearing what you may meet in the future
. He smiled, thinking that he shouldn't worry so much, since he wasn't always the one in charge. Nadia was a resourceful person, as she had demonstrated on many occasions. He should never forget that.

Fifteen minutes later they were back at street level, and soon heard the voices of tourists. They walked faster and blended into the crowd. They did not see Armadillo again.

• • •

“Do you know anything about scorpions, Kate?” Alexander asked his grandmother when they all met back at the hotel.

“Some of the kinds they have in India are very poisonous. You can die from their bites. I hope that won't happen, because that would delay our trip, and I don't have time for funerals,” she replied, feigning indifference.

“I haven't been bitten yet.”

“Then why are you interested?”

“I wanted to know if the scorpion means something. Is it a religious symbol, for instance?”

“The serpent is, especially the cobra. According to legend, a gigantic cobra watched over Buddha as he meditated. But I don't know anything about scorpions.”

“Can you find out?”

“I would have to get in touch with that dreadful Ludovic Leblanc. Are you sure you want to ask me to make that sacrifice, child?” the writer grumbled.

“I think it could be very important, grandmother . . . Sorry, I mean Kate.”

So Kate plugged in her laptop and sent an e-mail to the professor. Given the difference in time, it wasn't feasible to call him. She didn't know when the answer would come, but she hoped it would be soon, because she wasn't sure she could use her computer in the Forbidden Kingdom. Following a hunch, she sent another message to her friend Isaac Rosenblat, asking if he knew anything about the Golden Dragon that supposedly existed in the country they were traveling to. To her surprise, the jeweler replied immediately.