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.
Suddenly Nadia was back among them, so naturally that it was as if she had never flown as a great eagle high above them. No one commented.
“If my honorable master will permit it, I will go ahead,” Dil Bahadur requested.
“That, perhaps, is not the best plan. You are the future king. If anything happens to your father, the nation has only you to count on,” the lama replied.
“If the honorable master will permit it, I will go,” said Alexander.
“If the honorable master will permit it,” Nadia interrupted, “I think I am the best person to go, because I have the power of invisibility.”
“No way!” Alexander cried.
“Why? Don’t you trust me, Jaguar?”
“It’s too dangerous.”
“It’s no more dangerous for me than it is for you. There’s no difference.”
“Possibly our girl-eagle is right. We offer the talents we have,” Tensing replied. “In this case it will be an enormous advantage to be invisible. You, Alexander, great jaguar heart, you must fight alongside Dil Bahadur. The Yetis will come with me. I fear that I am the only one here who can communicate with them and control them. Once they learn that we are near the enemies, they will go wild.”
“Now is when we need modern technology. A walkie-talkie would really come in handy. How will Eagle tell us when we can attack?” Alexander asked.
“Possibly in the same way we are communicating now,” Tensing suggested, and Alex burst out laughing; he realized that for quite some time they had been exchanging ideas without speaking.
“Try not to be frightened, Nadia,” the prince advised, “because that will jumble thoughts. Do not doubt the method, because that, too, will interfere with reception. Concentrate on one image at a time.”
“Don’t worry, telepathy is like talking with your heart,” she soothed him.
“Our one advantage, possibly, is surprise,” the lama reassured them.
“If the honorable master will permit a suggestion, I think that possibly it would be more effective to be more direct when you’re speaking to the Yetis,” Alexander said sarcastically, imitating the educated manner of speaking in the Forbidden Kingdom.
“Perhaps the young foreigner should have a little more faith in my master,” Dil Bahadur interjected as he tested the tension of his bow and counted his arrows.
“Good luck,” said Nadia, quickly kissing Alexander’s cheek.
She set Borobá down, and he ran and jumped up on Alexander, holding tight to his ears as he had in his mistress’s absence.
At that moment, a noise that sounded like the avalanche froze everyone in place. Only the Yetis understood immediately that this was something different, something terrifying that they had never heard before. They threw themselves flat on the ground and hid their heads in their arms, trembling, their clubs forgotten and all their ferocity replaced with the whimpering of frightened pups.
“It sounds like a helicopter,” said Alexander, signaling that they should take cover among the shadows and rock crevices so they wouldn’t be seen from the air.
“What is a helicopter?” the prince asked.
“Something like an airplane. And an airplane is like a huge kite with a motor,” Alex added, amazed that in the twenty-first century there were people still living as if in the Middle Ages.
“I know what an airplane is, I’ve seen them go by every week on the route to Tunkhala,” said Dil Bahadur, not offended by his new friend’s tone.
A metal craft appeared in the sky beyond the ruins of the monastery. Tensing tried to calm the Yetis but there was no room in the minds of those creatures to absorb the idea of a flying machine.
“It is a bird that obeys orders. We do not have to be afraid of it, we are fiercer than it is,” the lama told them finally, thinking that was something they could understand.
“This means there is a place where the ’copter can land. Now I know why they took the trouble to come here, and how they intend to get out of the country with the statue,” Alexander concluded.
“Let’s attack before they get away—that is, if my honorable master thinks it wise,” the prince proposed.
Tensing made a sign that they should wait. Almost an hour passed before the helicopter landed. They couldn’t see the ma
neuvers from where they were, but they imagined it must be very complicated, because the pilot made a number of attempts, only to gain altitude, turn, and descend again. Finally the noise of the motor was stilled. In the pristine silence of those peaks they heard human voices close by, and assumed it was the bandits. When the voices faded, Tensing decided the time had come to move closer.
Nadia concentrated on becoming as transparent as air, and started toward the monastery. Alexander was trembling with worry for her; his heart was beating so loudly that he was afraid that three hundred feet ahead their enemies could hear it.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The Battle
IN THE MONASTERY OF CHENTHAN Dzong the last part of the Specialist’s plan was being set into motion. When the helicopter finally landed in the small, snow-covered area leveled by an avalanche, it was welcomed with cheers; it was a truly remarkable feat. Tex Armadillo, as instructed by his boss, had marked the site with an X traced with strawberry Kool-Aid powder. From the air the cross looked the size of a quarter, as the pilot flew closer it was clearly visible. In addition to the small size of the landing field, which demanded all the pilot’s skill to keep the giant blades from clipping the side of the mountain, that master airman also had to contend with air currents. The peaks formed a kind of funnel in which the wind circled like a tornado.
The pilot was a hero of Nepal’s air force, a man of proven courage and integrity who had been offered a small fortune to pick up “a package” and two people at this site. He did not know what the cargo was, or feel any great curiosity to know; it was enough for him that it had nothing to do with drugs or weapons. The agent who had contacted him introduced himself as a member of an international team of scientists who were studying rock formations in that area. The two passengers and the “package” were to be transported from Chenthan Dzong to an unknown destination in northern India, where the pilot would receive the other half of his payment.
However, the pilot didn’t like the look of the men who helped him down from the helicopter: They were not the foreign scientists he expected but nomads with blue skin and frightening expressions, with a half-dozen knives of different shapes and sizes tucked into their sashes. An American with sky-blue eyes cold as a glacier welcomed the pilot and invited him to have a cup of coffee inside the monastery while the others loaded “the package” into the helicopter, a heavy, strangely shaped bundle wrapped in canvas and tied with rope. Since it took several men to lift it, the pilot assumed it was the rock samples.
The American led him through several rooms in complete ruins. The ceilings were about to cave in and the floor had buckled from the effects of earthquakes and the roots that had pushed up during years of abandonment. Hard, dry weeds had sprung up in the cracks. There were animal droppings everywhere, possibly from snow leopards and mountain goats. The American explained to the pilot that in their hurry to escape the disaster, the warrior monks who had lived in the monastery had left behind weapons, tools, and a few pieces of art. Wind and subsequent tremors had toppled the religious statues that lay shattered on the ground. It was difficult to pick their way through the ruins, and once, when the pilot started in a different direction, the American took him by one arm and pleasantly but firmly led him to a small, improvised kitchen where he was offered instant coffee, condensed milk, and crackers.
The Nepalese hero saw a number of the men with blue-black skin, but he did not see a slender, honey-colored girl who passed very near him, slipping like a ghost among the ruins of the ancient monastery. He wondered who the thuggish-looking men with their turbans and tunics really were, and what connection they might have with the supposed scientists who had hired him. He didn’t like the turn this assignment had taken; he suspected that the matter was not as legal and clean as it had been presented to him.
“We have to get going soon,” the pilot warned. “After four the wind picks up.”
“We won’t be long. Please stay right here. The building is about to fall down, it’s very dangerous,” Tex Armadillo replied, and left the pilot with a cup in his hand, watched by the men with the knives.
The king and Judit Kinski were at the other end of the monastery, many debris-filled rooms away. They were alone, not tied or gagged, because, as Tex Armadillo had said, escape was impossible; both the monastery’s isolation and the watchful eyes of the Sect of the Scorpion assured that. As she moved through the monastery, Nadia counted the bandits. She saw that the external stone walls were as damaged as the internal ones. Snow had drifted high in the corners, and there were recent tracks of the wild animals that had their lairs there but had been frightened away by the human presence. Communicating with her heart, Nadia transmitted her observations to Tensing. After she looked into the room where the king and Judit were waiting, she notified the lama that they were alive. Tensing decided that the moment had come to act.
Armadillo had given the king another drug to lower his defenses and weaken his will, but thanks to the monarch’s control of body and mind, he had maintained a deliberate, stubborn silence throughout his interrogation. Armadillo was furious. He could not complete his mission without learning the code for the Golden Dragon. He knew that the statue “sang,” but those sounds would be useless to the Collector without the key to interpreting them. In view of his failure to achieve results with drugs, threats, and blows, the American had informed his prisoner that he was going to torture Judit until the king revealed the secret, even kill her if he had to, in which case her death would weigh on the conscience and karma of the king. He was preparing to carry out his threat when the helicopter arrived.
“I deeply regret that you find yourself in this situation because of me, Judit,” the king murmured, weakened by the drugs.
“It isn’t your fault.” Her words were meant to be soothing, but it seemed to the king that she was truly frightened.
“I cannot allow them to harm you, but neither can I trust these men, they’re merciless. I believe that they plan to kill us whether I give them the code or not.”
“In truth, Majesty, it isn’t death I fear, but torture.”
“My name is Dorji. No one has called me by that name since my wife died, many years ago,” he murmured.
“Dorji? What does your name mean?”
“It means beam, or ray, of true light. The beam symbolizes the enlightened mind, but I am very far from having reached that state.”
“I believe that you deserve that name, Dorji. I have never known a person like you. You have absolutely no vanity, even though you are the most powerful man in this kingdom,” she said.
“Perhaps this will be my only opportunity to tell you, Judit, that before these monstrous events took place, I had considered the possibility that you might join me in the mission of looking after my people . . .”
“I don’t quite know what you mean.”
“I was thinking of asking you to be queen of this modest land.”
“In other words . . . marry you?”
“I realize that it is absurd to speak about that now, when we are about to die, but it was my intention. I have meditated about this long and hard. I feel that you and I are destined to do something together. I do not know what, but I feel that it is our karma. We will not be able to do it in this life, but possibly it will be in our next incarnation,” said the king, not daring to touch her.
“Another lifetime? When?”
“A hundred years, a thousand, it doesn’t matter,” the king responded. “After all, the spirit has but one life. The life of the body, on the other hand, races by like a fleeting dream. Pure illusion.”
Judit turned away from him and stared at the wall, so the king could not see her face. He assumed that she was troubled, as he was himself.
“You don’t know me, you don’t know who I really am,” Judit murmured finally.
“I cannot read your aura or your mind, as I would wish, Judit, but I can appreciate your intelligence, your great culture, your respect for nature . . .”
“But you can’t see inside me!”
“Within you there must be beauty and loyalty,” the monarch assured her.
“The inscription on your medallion suggests that people can change. Do you truly believe that, Dorji? Can we be totally transformed?” Judit asked, turning to meet his eyes.
“The one certainty is that everything in this world changes constantly, Judit. Change is inevitable, since all things are transitory. Nevertheless, it is very difficult for us humans to modify our essence and evolve into a superior state of consciousness. We Buddhists believe that we can change through effort of will if we are convinced of a truth, but that no one can force us. That is what happened to Siddhartha Gautama: he was a spoiled prince, but when he saw the misery of the world he was transformed into Buddha,” the king replied.
“I believe that it is very difficult, to change. Why do you have faith in me?”
“I have so much faith in you, Judit, that I am prepared to give you the code of the Golden Dragon. I cannot endure the thought of you suffering; least of all because of me. I do not want to be the one who decides how much you can bear; that is your decision. And that is why the secret of the kings of my nation must be in your hands. You can give it to these criminals in exchange for your life,” the king offered. “But please, do that only after I am dead.”
“They wouldn’t dare kill you!” she cried.
“That will not happen, Judit. I will end my life myself, I do not want my death to weigh on anyone’s conscience. My time here is ended. Do not worry, it will not be violent, I shall simply cease to breathe,” the king explained.
“Listen carefully, Judit. I will give you the code and you must memorize it,” he continued. “When they question you, explain that the Golden Dragon emits seven sounds. Each combination of four sounds represents one of the eight hundred and forty ideograms of a lost language, the language of the Yetis.”
“You mean the Abominable Snowmen? They really exist?” she asked, incredulous.
“There are only a few remaining, and they have degenerated. Now they are like animals and communicate using only a few words; three thousand years ago, however, they had a language and a civilization of sorts.”