Kingdom of the Golden Dragon (29 page)

General Myar Kunglung took the call as soon as he was notified of what had happened, and spoke directly with Pema. She repeated what she knew but refrained from mentioning the Golden Dragon: first, because she wasn't sure the bandits had actually stolen it, and second, because she knew instinctively that if that were the case it would be better if no one knew. The statue represented the soul of the nation. She did not want to spread what might be a false alarm, she decided.

Myar Kunglung sent instructions to the nearest guard post to pick up the girls from the village and bring them to the capital. With Wandgi and Kate Cold by his side, he himself met them halfway. When Pema saw her father, she leaped from the Jeep and ran to hug him. The poor man was sobbing like a baby.

“What did they do to you?” cried Wandgi, looking Pema over from head to toe.

“Nothing, Papa, nothing happened, I promise. But that isn't important now, we must rescue the king, who is in danger of his life.”

“That is something for the army, not you. You will come home with me!”

“I can't, Papa. It is my duty to go to Chenthan Dzong!”

“And why is that?”

“Because I promised Dil Bahadur,” she replied, blushing.

Myar Kunglung studied the girl with his eagle-sharp eyes and he must have seen something in the color of her cheeks and the tremor of her lips, because he bowed deeply
before the guide, hands before his face.

“Perhaps honorable Wandgi will allow his courageous daughter to accompany this humble general?” he asked. “She will have good guard by my soldiers.”

The guide realized that despite the bow and humble tone, the general would not accept no for an answer. He would have to allow Pema to go with him, and pray to heaven that she would return safe and sound.

The good news that the girls had escaped the grasp of their kidnappers flew through the country. In the Forbidden Kingdom, word spread from mouth to mouth so quickly that when four of the girls, their bare heads covered with silk scarves, appeared on television to tell of their experience, everyone already knew about it. People ran outside to celebrate. They took branches of magnolias to the girls' families and gathered in temples to make offerings of thanks. Prayer wheels and banners carried their elation to the skies.

The one person who had nothing to celebrate was Kate Cold, who was on the verge of a nervous collapse because Nadia and Alexander had not as yet been accounted for. She was still trailing Myar Kunglung. On horseback, Pema and she were on their way toward Chenthan Dzong at the head of a detachment of soldiers, following a road that snaked up toward the heights. When Pema told them what she had heard about the Golden Dragon from the mouths of the bandits, the general had confirmed her suspicions.

“One man guard at Forbidden Door lived past his wounds; he saw bandits take away honorable, beloved king and dragon. Must be secret, Pema. You were good, did well, not to say on telephone. Statue is valued at fortune. All know that, but who can tell me why the king was took?” he said.

“Master Tensing, his disciple, and two young
foreigners were going straight to the monastery,” Pema informed the general. “They started many hours ahead of us. Possibly they will get there before we do.”

“That may not have been the wisest thing to do, Pema. Oh, my. If something happens with our prince Dil Bahadur, who will move up to throne?” the general sighed.

“Prince? What prince?” Pema interrupted.

“Dil Bahadur is heir to the throne, that you did not know, girl?”

“No one told me that. At any rate, nothing will happen to the prince,” she stated, but she knew immediately that she had been discourteous, and corrected herself. “That is, possibly the karma of the honorable prince will be to rescue our beloved sovereign and emerge unharmed.”

“Perhaps.” The general nodded, preoccupied.

“Can't you send planes to the monastery?” Kate queried, impatient with this war being waged on horseback, as if they'd regressed several centuries in time.

“Is nowhere to land. Perhaps a helicopter could do it, only expert pilot could do such flying. Where he lands is funnel of air currents,” the general explained.

“Possibly the honorable general agrees with me that at least it must be tried,” begged Pema, with the glint of tears in her eyes.

“We know only one pilot who is good enough, can do job. He lives in Nepal. He is a
big
hero, he flew a helicopter up Everest mountain to rescue lost climbers.”

“I remember that. The man is famous, we interviewed him for
International Geographic
,” Kate commented.

“Is possible we can reach him. Maybe in next few hours. Ask him to come here,” said the general.

Myar Kunglung had no way of knowing that
that pilot had been hired much earlier by the Specialist, and that this very day he was flying from Nepal to the mountains of the Forbidden Kingdom.

Tensing, Dil Bahadur, Alexander, Nadia with Borobá on her shoulder, and the ten Yeti warriors were approaching the steep cliff topped by the ancient stone ruins of Chenthan Dzong. Excited, growling, the Yetis were pushing and shoving each other and exchanging friendly nips, joyously readying themselves for the thrill of battle. For many years they had waited for an opportunity to really let themselves go, and now the time had come. Tensing had to pause from time to time to calm them.

“Master,” Dil Bahadur whispered to Tensing. “I think that finally I remember where I had heard the Yeti language before: in the four monasteries where I was taught the code for the Golden Dragon.”

“Perhaps my disciple also recalls that in our visit to the Valley of the Yetis I told him that there was an important reason for our being there,” the lama replied in the same tone.

“Something to do with the Yeti language?”

“Possibly . . .”

The view was breathtaking. They were surrounded by incomparable beauty: snowy peaks, enormous rocks, waterfalls, ravines sliced into the mountainside, corridors of ice. Seeing that landscape, Alexander Cold understood why the citizens of the Forbidden Kingdom believed that the highest peak in their land, some twenty-one thousand feet high, was the world of the gods. The young American felt as if he were filled with light and pure air, that something had opened in his mind, that minute by minute he was changing, maturing, growing. He would be very sad to leave this country and return to so-called
civilization.

Tensing interrupted Alex's musings to explain that the
dzongs
, or fortified monasteries, which existed only in Bhutan and the Kingdom of the Golden Dragon, were a blend of convent for monks and bunker for soldiers. They stood at the confluence of rivers, and in valleys, to protect nearby towns. They were constructed without plans or nails, always following the same design. The royal palace in Tunkhala was originally a
dzong
, until the needs of government forced it to be enlarged and modernized and turned into a labyrinth of a thousand rooms.

Chenthan was an exception. It rose from a natural terrace so sheer that it was difficult to imagine how the materials were brought there to build it, or how it had withstood winter storms and avalanches for centuries, until it was destroyed by the earthquake. Narrow steps had been cut into the rock, but the monks had so little contact with the rest of the world that it had seldom been used. That path, practically carved from the mountain, was interrupted from time to time by fragile rope and wooden bridges strung across crevasses. The route had not been used since the earthquake, and the bridges were in very poor repair, with the wood rotted and half the rope eaten through, but Tensing and his group could not stop to consider the danger; there were no alternatives. The Yetis crossed them with complete confidence; they had come this way before in their brief excursions outside their valley to look for food. When the party saw a body lying in the depths of a ravine, they knew that Tex Armadillo and his crew had been here before them.

“The bridge isn't safe, that man fell,” Alexander said, pointing.

“His horse isn't down there. Maybe he didn't fall from the bridge, maybe he was pushed,” Dil
Bahadur suggested.

“Why would they be killing each other? That doesn't make sense,” Alexander replied.

“Possibly there was an argument, and maybe that man disobeyed the leader,” Dil Bahadur ventured.

“We don't have time to find out. We have to get across,” Nadia interrupted.

“If the bandits made it on horseback, and maybe even dragging that heavy Golden Dragon, then we can do it, too,” Dil Bahadur pointed out.

“That may have weakened the bridge even more. Perhaps it would not be unwise to test it before we start,” Tensing determined.

The chasm was not very wide, but neither was it narrow enough to use Tensing's and the prince's wood staffs. Nadia suggested that they could tie a rope to Borobá and send him to test the bridge, but the monkey was very light, so there was no guarantee that if he crossed others could do it, too. Dil Bahadur scanned the terrain and saw that by luck there was a stout root on the other side. Alexander tied one end of his rope to an arrow and the prince shot it with his usual precision, driving it firmly into the root. Alexander tied the other rope to his waist and, steadied by Tensing, slowly ventured onto the bridge, carefully testing every bit of wood before he put his weight on it.

If the bridge gave way, the first rope would hold him briefly. They didn't know whether the arrow would hold, but if not, the second rope would keep Alexander from dropping into the void; however, he could still splatter like an insect against the sidewall of the chasm. He hoped that his experience as a climber would help.

Very gingerly, Alexander started across. He had made it halfway when two planks split and he slipped. A scream from Nadia echoed among the peaks. For a minute or two, no one moved, until
the swaying of the bridge stopped and Alex regained his balance. Very slowly he pulled out the leg that was hanging through the broken boards, then lay back and, using the first rope, got back on his feet. He was debating whether to go forward or return when he was startled by a strange noise, as if the mountain were snoring. They first suspected one of the tremors so common in that region, but then they saw the stones and snow rumbling down from the peak. Nadia's scream had triggered a landslide.

Helpless, the friends and the Yetis watched the deadly river of rock hurtle toward Alexander and the delicate bridge. There was nothing he could do, it was impossible to go forward or back.

Automatically, Tensing and Dil Bahadur concentrated on sending their energy to Alex. In different circumstances, Tensing would have attempted the ultimate test of a
tulku
—a reincarnation of a great lama—he would have altered the will of nature. In moments of true necessity, certain
tulkus
could halt the wind, change the course of storms, stop floods in times of rain, and prevent ice storms, but Tensing had never needed to do that. It was not something that could be practiced, like astral journeys. At that moment, it was too late to try to change the path of the avalanche and save the American boy. Tensing used his mental powers to transmit the enormous strength of his own body to Alexander.

Alexander heard the roar of the stones and saw the cloud of snow it raised before it blinded him. He knew he was going to die, and the rush of adrenaline was like a huge charge of electricity, erasing all thought from his mind and leaving him at the mercy of instinct alone. He was filled with supernatural energy, and, in a thousandth of a second, he was transformed into the black jaguar of the Amazon. With a terrible
roar and a formidable leap, he sprang to the far side of the precipice, landing on four cat paws as stone rattled behind him.

His friends did not know he had been miraculously saved; snow and dust from the cliffs masked their view. No one saw him, except Nadia, until the landslide settled. In the instant death threatened, when she believed that Alexander was lost, she had a similar reaction, the same charge of powerful energy, the same fantastic transformation. Borobá was left behind on the ground as she rose into the skies, converted into the white eagle. And from the height of her elegant flight she could see the black jaguar, its claws digging into terra firma.

As soon as the immediate danger had passed, Alexander returned to his usual form. The one sign of his magical experience were his bleeding fingers and the expression on his face: lips drawn back and teeth exposed in a ferocious grimace. He also sensed the strong jaguar scent on his skin, the smell of a carnivorous beast.

The landslide had carried off a section of the narrow path and destroyed most of the wood of the bridge, but both the old ropes and Alexander's were intact. That was what allowed them to continue—after Alex had tied his rope tightly on one side, and Tensing secured the second on the other. The Yetis were agile as monkeys, and accustomed to the terrain, so they had no difficulty in swinging across. Dil Bahadur reasoned that if he'd learned to use a staff as a bridge, he could manage a tightrope, as his master did with such grace. Tensing didn't need to carry Nadia, only Borobá, since the eagle was still circling above their heads. Alexander wondered why Nadia hadn't been transformed into her totemic animal when she dislocated her shoulder and instead had to send a mental
projection in search of help. The lama explained that pain and exhaustion had held her in her physical form.

It was the great white eagle that informed them that Chenthan Dzong lay just a few meters ahead, around a turn. The mounts tethered outside betrayed the presence of the bandits, but Nadia didn't see anyone standing guard; it was obvious that they weren't expecting visitors. She counted nineteen horses, and they were again amazed at the animals' ability to move about in the mountains. They now had an idea of the number of horsemen, since they assumed that none of the bandits had come on foot.

Tensing received the eagle's telepathic message, and gathered his party to plot the best course of action. The Yetis had no concept of strategy; their way of fighting was simply to charge, swinging their clubs and yelling like demons, a tactic that could be very effective if they weren't welcomed with a salvo of bullets. First they would have to find out exactly how many men were in the monastery and where they were located, how many weapons they had, and where they were holding the king and the Golden Dragon.