Kingdom of the Golden Dragon (2 page)

Tensing led his disciple through the mountain peaks, leaping chasms, scaling vertical faces, slipping along narrow paths cut into the rock. Occasionally they came across old hanging bridges, but they were in very poor condition and could be used only with great care. When there was wind or sleet, they looked for shelter and waited. Once a day they ate their
tsampa
, a mixture of toasted barley flour, dried herbs, yak butter, and salt. They found abundant water beneath the crust of ice. Young Dil Bahadur often had the impression that they were walking in circles, because the landscape looked the same, but he said nothing about his doubts: it would be discourteous to his master.

As evening fell, they looked for a sheltered place to spend the night. Sometimes it was nothing but a rift in which they could find comfort protected from the wind, other nights they might find a cave, but occasionally they had no choice but to sleep out in the open, barely shielded by their yak cloaks. Once they set up their austere camp, they sat facing the setting sun, legs crossed, and chanted the essential mantra of Buddha, repeating over and over
Om mani
padme hum
—Hail, precious jewel in the heart of the lotus. The echo would repeat their prayer, multiplying it to infinity among the high peaks of the Himalayas.

During the day's march they gathered sticks and dried grasses, which they carried in their pouches for building the nightly fire and for cooking their food. After the evening meal, they meditated for an hour. During that time the cold left them stiff as ice statues, but they scarcely felt it. They were used to such immobility, which brought them calm and peace. In their Buddhist practices, master and student sat in absolute relaxation, but remained alert. They rid themselves of all the distractions and worries of the world, though they never forgot the suffering that existed everywhere.

After scaling mountains for several days and climbing the frozen heights, they came to Chenthan Dzong, the fortified monastery of the ancient lamas who had invented the form of hand-to-hand combat called Tao-shu. In the nineteenth century, the monastery had been destroyed by an earthquake and had to be abandoned. It was built of stone, brick, and wood, with more than a hundred rooms that seemed glued to the edge of an impressive cliff. For centuries the monastery had housed monks whose lives were dedicated to spiritual quest and to perfecting the martial arts.

The Tao-shu monks had originally been physicians with an exceptional knowledge of anatomy. In their practice they had identified vulnerable points of the body that were numbed or paralyzed when pressed, and they combined that knowledge with techniques of wrestling known in Asia. Their objective was to reach spiritual perfection through control of their own strength and emotions. Although they were
invincible in hand-to-hand combat, they did not use the Tao-shu for violent ends, only as a physical and mental exercise. Similarly, they did not teach their art to just anyone, only to certain chosen men and women. Tensing had learned Tao-shu from those monks, and he had taught it to his disciple Dil Bahadur.

The earthquake, snow, ice, and the passage of time had eroded most of the building, but two wings were still standing, although they were in ruins. The travelers had reached the monastery by climbing a precipice so difficult and remote that no one had attempted it for more than half a century.

“Soon they will come to the monastery by air,” Tensing observed.

“Do you believe, master, that they will discover the Valley of the Yetis from airplanes?” the prince inquired.

“Possibly.”

“Imagine how much effort could have been saved. Before long we could have flown here.”

“I hope that it will not be so. If they trap the Yetis, they will turn them into circus animals, or slaves,” the lama said.

They went into Chenthan Dzong to rest and to spend the night in its shelter. Threadbare tapestries with religious images still hung on some of the walls, and they found cooking vessels and weapons the warrior monks who survived the earthquake had not been able to take with them. There were several representations of Buddha in varying postures, including an enormous statue of the Enlightened One lying prone on the ground. The gilt had cracked away, but the remainder of the statue was intact. Ice and blowing snow covered nearly everything, lending the ruins a particularly beautiful aspect, as if it were a crystal palace. Behind the building, an avalanche had created
the only level surface in the area, a kind of courtyard about the size of a basketball court.

“Could an airplane land here, master?” asked Dil Bahadur, unable to disguise his fascination with the few modern apparatuses he knew.

“I know nothing of these things, Dil Bahadur. I have never seen an airplane land, but it seems to me that this space is very small, and besides, the mountains act like a funnel, drawing strong air currents.”

In the kitchen they found pots and other iron implements, candles, charcoal, sticks for making a fire, and some grains preserved by the cold. There were also vessels for holding oil and a container of honey, which the prince had never seen. Tensing gave him a taste, and for the first time in his life the prince felt something sweet on his tongue. The surprise and the pleasure nearly knocked him off his feet. They built a fire for cooking and lighted candles before the statues, as a sign of respect. That night they would eat well and they would sleep beneath a roof: the occasion merited a special brief ceremony of thanks.

They were meditating in silence when they heard a low moan echoing through the ruins of the monastery. They opened their eyes just as a rare white tiger padded into the ruined room, a half-ton of muscle and white fur, the fiercest animal known to the world.

Telepathically, the prince received his master's command, and tried to obey, although his instinctive reaction had been to call on Tao-shu and leap up to defend himself. If he could get close enough to reach behind the cat's ears, he could paralyze it; he sat motionless, however, trying to breathe calmly so the beast would not pick up the scent of fear. The huge feline slowly advanced toward the monks. Despite the imminent danger in which he found himself, the
prince could not help but admire the animal's extraordinary beauty. Its fur was a pale ivory with dark markings, and its blue eyes were the color of some of the glaciers in the Himalayas. It was an adult male, enormous, powerful, a perfect specimen.

Sitting in the lotus position with legs crossed and hands upon their knees, Tensing and Dil Bahadur watched the tiger move toward them. They both knew that if it was hungry, there was little possibility of stopping it. Their hope was that the animal had eaten, although it was not very likely that game was abundant in these barren solitudes. Tensing possessed uncommon psychic powers because he was a
tulku
, the reincarnation of a High Lama of antiquity. He concentrated that power like a beam to penetrate the beast's mind.

They felt the breath of the great cat on their faces, an exhalation of warm, fetid air escaping from its jaws. Another terrible roar shook the air. The beast approached to within a few inches of the two, so close that they could feel the prick of its stiff whiskers. For several seconds, which seemed eternal, it circled around them, sniffing them and feinting with one enormous paw, but not menacing them. The master and his disciple sat absolutely motionless, leaving themselves open to warmth and compassion, displaying no fear or aggression, only empathy. Once the tiger's curiosity had been satisfied, it left with the same solemn dignity with which it had come.

“You see, Dil Bahadur, how sometimes calm is effective,” was the lama's only comment. The prince was unable to answer because his voice had frozen in his breast.

Despite that unexpected visit, master and student decided to stay and spend the night in Chenthan Dzong, but they took the precaution of sleeping near a bonfire, and of keeping within reach a couple of lances they found among the
weapons abandoned by the Tao-shu monks. The tiger did not return, but the next morning, when they continued their march, they saw its paw marks on the gleaming snow, and far away they heard its roars echoing among the peaks.

CHAPTER TWO

The Valley of the Yetis

A
FEW DAYS LATER
, T
ENSING
shouted jubilantly and pointed to a narrow canyon between two vertical faces of the mountain: two black walls polished by millions of years of ice and erosion. They entered the canyon with great caution, scrambling over loose rocks and avoiding deep holes. With each step they had to test the firmness of the terrain with their poles.

Tensing threw a stone into one of the openings, and it was so deep that they never heard it hit bottom. Overhead, the sky was barely visible as a blue ribbon stretching between gleaming walls of rock. They were surprised to hear a chorus of horrifying moans.

“It is fortunate, is it not, that we do not believe in ghosts or demons,” commented the lama.

“Then maybe it is my imagination that is making me hear those wails?” the prince asked, his skin prickling with fright.

“Possibly the wind is blowing through here like air blowing through a trumpet.”

They had progressed a good way when they were assaulted by the stench of rotten eggs.

“Sulfur,” the master explained.

“I can't breathe,” said Dil Bahadur, pinching his nostrils.

“Perhaps it is best to imagine you are smelling the perfume of flowers,” Tensing suggested.

“‘Of all fragrances,'” the prince recited, smiling, “‘the sweetest is that of virtue.'”

“Imagine, then, that this is the sweet scent of virtue,” the lama replied, laughing.

The pass was approximately a mile in length, but it took them two hours to travel that distance. In some places the passage was so narrow that they had to scoot sideways between the rocks, dizzied by the thin air, but they did not hesitate, because the parchment clearly indicated that there was a way out. They saw niches dug into the walls, which contained skulls and large piles of bones, some seemingly human.

“This must be the Yetis' cemetery,” Dil Bahadur had commented.

A breath of moist, warm air, like nothing they had ever felt, announced the end of the canyon.

Tensing was the first to step out, followed closely by his disciple. When Dil Bahadur saw the landscape that lay before them, he thought he must be on another planet. If he hadn't been so weighed down by bodily fatigue, and if his stomach weren't churning from the stink of the sulfur, he would have thought he had made an astral journey.

“There it is: the Valley of the Yetis,” the lama announced.

Before them stretched a volcanic mesa dotted with patches of harsh gray-green vegetation: dense shrubs and giant mushrooms of various shapes and colors were growing everywhere. They saw rushing streams and bubbling pools of water, strange rock formations, and tall columns of white smoke billowing from the ground. A delicate fog floated on the air, erasing shapes in the distance and giving the valley the look of a dreamscape. The visitors felt they had left reality behind, as if they had entered another dimension.
After the intense cold of traveling through the mountains for so many days, that warm vapor was a true gift to the senses despite the lingering, nauseating odor that thankfully was less intense here than in the canyon.

“In olden days, certain lamas, carefully selected for their physical endurance and spiritual fortitude, made this journey once every twenty years to collect the medicinal plants that do not grow anywhere else,” Tensing explained.

He said that in 1950 Tibet had been invaded by the Chinese, who destroyed more than six thousand monasteries and shut down the rest. Most of the lamas left to live in other countries, such as India and Nepal, carrying the teachings of Buddha into exile. Instead of snuffing out Buddhism, as the invading Chinese intended, the lamas accomplished exactly the opposite: they spread it throughout the world. Even so, much of the knowledge about medicine, as well as the lamas' psychic practices, was lost.

“The plants were dried, ground, and mixed with other ingredients. One gram of those powders may be more precious than all the world's gold, Dil Bahadur,” his master told him.

“We can't carry many plants. Too bad we didn't bring a yak,” the youth commented.

“Possibly a yak would not willingly have crossed these mountains; I do not see a yak keeping its footing with a staff, Dil Bahadur,” said the master. “We will carry what we can.”

They entered the mysterious valley, and after walking for a short time they saw something that resembled skeletons. The lama informed his disciple that they were the petrified bones of animals that roamed before the universal flood. He got down on all fours and began to search the ground until he found a dark rock with red spots.

“This is dragon excrement, Dil Bahadur. It has magical properties.”

“I must not believe everything I hear, is that not true, master?” the youth replied.

“No, but perhaps in this case it is all right to believe me,” the lama said, handing the specimen to his disciple.

The prince hesitated. The idea of touching that stone-hard blob did not appeal to him.

“It is petrified,” laughed Tensing. “It can cure broken bones in only minutes. One pinch of this, ground and dissolved in rice alcohol, can transport you to any of the stars in the firmament.”

The small specimen Tensing had discovered had an opening through which the lama passed a cord and hung it around Dil Bahadur's neck.

“This is like a shield; it has the power to deflect certain metals. Arrows, knives, and other cutting weapons cannot harm you.”

The youth laughed. “Perhaps it will be an infected tooth, a slip on the ice, or being hit in the head by a rock that will kill me.”

“We will all die; that is the one certainty, Dil Bahadur.”

The lama and the prince made camp beside a warm fumarole, enveloped in its dense column of vapor and happy to spend a comfortable night for the first time in several days. They had made tea with the water from a nearby thermal spring. The water was boiling when it reached the surface, and as the bubbles cooled they turned a pale lavender. The geyser fed a steaming stream that had fleshy purple flowers growing along its banks.