by Guy d'Armen
Unlike the day before, another older guard came and bowed to her with great respect, then talked to her. Ardan knew some Mandarin Chinese, but could not understand what they were saying. Eventually, Milarepa followed the newcomer cutting short her time outside. Ardan grew worried that her ransom had been paid and that he would never see her again.
For the next two days, he neither saw, nor heard any signs from Milarepa. He began to believe that his situation had become truly hopeless. Then on the third night, he heard the knocks, and the digging again, and soon, she managed to create a tiny opening in the wall between the two cells, through which she slipped another ball of paper. It read:
Tomorrow I’ll hide a box inside the niche on the platform. Take it. I’ll explain later.
Later, the young man was again summoned by Kyzyl Kaya, but he asked his guard permission to remain in his cell, arguing that he needed more time to reflect upon his situation.
Told of this, Kyzyl Kaya was puzzled but decided to give Ardan two more days undisturbed.
Once Ardan’s father pays his son’s ransom, the villain thought, Mendax and I will have the means to raise an army. With our combined geniuses, we can create more new and deadly weapons. Soon, we’ll be Masters of Central Asia!
The next day, Ardan found the little box Milarepa had left for him on the platform. At first, he was disappointed for it was empty, except for another message, which read:
The bottom of this box is made of a thin parchment; in its center there is a small hole. Tonight, I will slide a wire through the opening I made in the wall; pass one end through the hole, then make a knot and pull.
What a strange request, thought Ardan, puzzled. But I’ll do as she asks.
Later, back in his cell, he spotted the end of the wire emerging from the opening in the wall, likely pushed by Milarepa from the other side. He grabbed it and followed her instructions, then waited.
Second later, he felt a vibration through the box and head a voice. A woman’s voice. Then, he understood. The young Tibetan woman had had him rig a makeshift microphone through which they could communicate verbally without having to resort to the cumbersome Morse code. She spoke into an identical device on the other side and the vibrations of her voice were transmitted along the taut wire and recreated inside his own box.
He put it to his ear and heard:
“Hello, can you hear me?”
“I can hear you perfectly,” he replied, speaking in the improvised microphone.
“You sound surprised. But we Tibetans have used such devices to speak over long distances for centuries.”
“Early telephones!” said Ardan. “Amazing!”
“We have many more wonders that would astound you if you came to discover them.”
“You speak excellent English…”
“I will explain later. But first, we need to plan our escape.”
“I’m all ears,” said the young man. “Do you know a way out of this Citadel.”
“I think so, yes, but for it to work, it is necessary for you to join me in my cell.”
“I see. That could prove difficult…”
“Not necessarily. As you saw, our captors allow me a great deal of freedom and comfort. I have new clothes regularly delivered to me by servants of my father. Recently, he managed to have a very thin saw smuggled to me in the lining of a coat. I will give it to you and you can use it to enlarge the opening between our two cells. It is made of tempered steel; it will cut easily through the mortar between the stones.”
“Excellent! I can dislodge the stones one by one, and carefully replace them in their original position so that my guard won’t notice a thing. And I’ll hide the debris under my cot. May I suggest that, on your side, you hide the hole by hanging clothes over it? I’m ready to start now! Give me the saw!”
Milarepa did so and Ardan set to work, being amazed by the sharpness and rigidity of a blade that was barely a millimeter thick. His growing respect towards Tibetan science went up another notch.
The young doctor calculated that with nine stone blocks out of the way, he could create an opening large enough for him to slip through.
After the first stone had been dislodged, he carefully skipped it out of the wall and beheld Milarepa’s face through the opening.
“Now we can speak face to face,” she said with a beautiful smile.
“Yes, Miss.”
“Please, just call me Milarepa.”
“Milarepa…” repeated Ardan.
“In my language, it means ‘blue like the sky.’”
“That’s very pretty.”
Ardan set back to work and the next morning, by 10 a.m., he had succeeded in excavating the nine stone blocks.
CHAPTER VII
The Escape Plan
“Leave eight of the blocks in,” advised Milarepa, “so that, if anyone comes, you’ll just have to slide the ninth block back into place.”
Ardan followed the young woman’s advice, and they began talking to each other without hindrance for the first time.
“We can’t escape until after sunset,” she said. “So that leaves us plenty of time to fill.”
“Why don’t you tell me more about yourself and how you came to be a prisoner here?” suggested Ardan.
“Why not? As I told you, I am the daughter of Prince Manjitar, Governor of the Province of Gyantse. Even though we Tibetans are hostile to the notion of letting foreigners into our country, we are not opposed to traveling abroad. In fact, most of us consider it an act of great piety to travel to India to meditate in the Holy Places where the Buddha once lived. Thus, I was able to study in Calcutta and learn English. When I came home, I expected my father to marry me to one of the Province’s dignitaries, but something happened which derailed the course of my existence.
“A local warlord named Kharbin was jealous of my father’s success in modernizing the province, and, with the help of a sect of conservative monks, he was able to unseat him. He couldn’t kill him, because the population, which loves my father, would have revolted, but we were taken out of the place by men in arms and assigned to residence in a more modest mansion. No one dared protest. My father sent a missive to the Dalai Lama in Lhasa begging for help, but we didn’t hear back from him.
“Then, Kharbin took an interest in me and asked for my hand in marriage. Whether it was to consolidate his power by forcing my father to marry me to him, or because of his lecherous ways, I do not know. But to his credit, my father turned down the villain. Kharbin protested, threatened, offered great prizes, but my father remained inflexible.
“Finally, one night, Kharbin tired of my father’s stubbornness and sold me as a hostage to Captain Mendax, in the event that the Dalai Lama would choose to interfere with his banditry. The warlord had two of his men seize me from my room in the dead of night. I fainted when the bandits grabbed me and I woke up, tied like a bunch of rags on the back of a mule.
“After a couple of week’s travel, we reached the foothills of Mount Everest. As you know, the outside world believes that no one has ever succeeded in reaching the top of this magnificent mountain, but as you are now aware, this is not true. For a long time, we, Tibetans, have known a passage to the summit, which was made more accessible by the villainous Captain Mendax. It is nothing more than a perilous rocky path, more suited to a mountain goat than a man. It goes to a small excavated platform from which Mendax and his men drew a steel cable which carries a small elevator—more like a cage, really—all the way to the top. It is protected from the lack of air and the cold by the same mysterious devices designed by Kyzyl Kaya to shield the platform where we met. That was how I was brought here, unlike you, who traveled on the pirate’s fantastic flying machine.”
“So if we could reach that cable, we could take the makeshift elevator down to the footpath below and escape?” asked Ardan.
“Yes. But it won’t be an easy task. However, I’ve given it some thought and I think the two of us might succeed…”
At th
at point, Milarepa walked to the other end of her cell, which was much larger than the young doctor’s, and, searched through her clothes. Finally, she pulled out a small tablet which she brought back to the young explorer.
“Look!”
“What is it? I can’t read it.”
“Yes, of course. It’s written in Jin-yu; it’s a message from the previous occupant of my cell. He was a wealthy Mandarin from the Shanxi Province who was ransomed by Mendax over a year ago. It says that he discovered that the wall behind my wardrobe is very thin; in fact, it claims there was a hole in the flank of the mountain there, that was simply walled up with bricks when they built this citadel. It gives out onto a kind of ledge from which one can grab the elevator cable that leads to the platform located above us…”
At that moment, Ardan heard the sound of footsteps and quickly pit the stone block back in its place. Then, he pretended to be asleep on his cot as a guard entered the cell.
The man had merely come to check on the prisoner and soon left, locking the door behind him.
Five minutes later, Ardan and Milarepa were talking again.
“If what this Mandarin says is true,” said the young man, “it will be child’s play for me to smash through the bricks and create an opening, but how do we get down the cable without the cage? Unless… Milarepa, can you create a makeshift rope with your bed sheets or some of your clothes?”
“Yes, of course,” she replied, her eyes shining with new hope. “Weaving is second nature to all Tibetans. When you stroll through the countryside, you will often see men and women with little bobbins on which they thread yarn just to while away the time. I have all afternoon and I can make us a very sturdy rope that will easily carry our combined weights.”
“Excellent!” said Ardan. “With that rope, we can slide down in a controlled fashion to the platform below; you’ll be hanging on to me, of course.”
“But if we succeed,” said Milarepa, still sounding a little uncertain, “we’ll still be in hostile territory. There will be men whose loyalty is to Mendax, or even Kharbin. If they spot you—a white man—in this most forbidden area, they’ll kill you on sight.”
Ardan thought for a minute.
“Not if I make myself up to look like one of your people,” he said. “I can pretend to be dumb and you’ll speak for me. As for my appearance, I stole some tincture of iodine and black dye earlier. It’s not the ideal makeup set, but it should darken my skin and hair enough to pass for a native, at least without too close an inspection.”
“And I have a pair of dark glasses that I almost never use that will hide your eyes!”
“Perfect! Now, it’s time to get to work!”
After pulling out the other eight stone blocks, Ardan, slippery as an eel, crawled into Milarepa’s cell. It was, as he had surmised, a much larger and far more comfortable room, equipped with its own bathroom and lavatory.
He soon went to work behind the wardrobe, using makeshift tools taken from the bathroom to remove first the mortar covering the bricks, then the bricks themselves. Meanwhile, Milarepa had starting tearing thin strip of linen and had begun weaving a solid rope.
As Ardan succeeded in removing the first brick, he felt his face blasted with a burst of frigid air. The message from the Mandarin had been right: the wall gave onto the outside of the mountain!
He took step to block the opening with fur coats and other items of clothing in order to not alarm any guards strolling past the cell who might be alerted by a sudden draft of icy air.
After several hours of non-stop labor—it was now almost sunset—Ardan had managed to create a sizeable hole through which he and Milarepa could escape, The young Tibetan woman had finished weaving a long and sturdy rope.
“Now it’s time for me to return to my cell,” said the young man. “When the guard comes to bring me my dinner, I’ll knock him unconscious, steal his clothes, and apply the makeup. Then I’ll return here and we’ll make good our escape!”
It went just as the young doctor had planned.
Two hours later—after nightfall—Ardan, now dressed in Tibetan clothing, his face and hair properly dyed, was back in Milarepa’s room.
He grabbed the rope and removed all the furs that obstructed the hole. A blast of icy air struck them on their faces and they shivered.
“Time to go,” said Doc Ardan.
Milarepa passed her arm around the young man and they stepped through the hole.
CHAPTER VIII
The Abominable Snowman
Ardan and Milarepa, her arms firmly around the young man’s body, stood on the narrow ledge, facing the impenetrable night. The icy wind threatened their balance. Just ahead of them was the steel cable that served to support the small elevator erected by Captain Mendax.
“How far down to the platform?” asked Ardan.
“About 300 meters, I think,” replied the young woman. “The rope I wove is a little longer than that, so it should be fine.”
“I’m going to tie the rope to this cable hook here,” said Ardan, pointing to a metal ring sealed into the cliff that kept the elevator cable straight, “and then use the rope and the cable to climb down. Make sure you hold on to me.”
Swiftly, the young man made a solid knot, and tested it by pulling on the rope as hard as he could. It held.
Then, holding the rope with his hands, the young man put his feet around the steel cable and started on their slow descent. In the quasi total darkness, with the icy wind blowing around them, Ardan was grateful to his father for the relentless training that had given him the strength to manage this exploit.
Inch by inch, without ever losing his firm grip on the linen rope, guided by the steel cable between his feet, the young doctor kept his pace steady. Three hundred meters had initially seemed easy, a relatively short distance, but now it was as if he, like Achilles in the famous Xeno Paradox, would never reach his goal.
Despite the cold, sweat starting rolling down his forehead and into his eyes; however, he knew he could not spare a hand to wipe it off without risking losing his grip and dooming both of them to a quick, icy death.
“Are you OK?” whispered Milarepa in his ear, as if she sensed the young man’s cruel predicament.
“Yes,” replied Ardan, “Do you see any guards waiting for us below?”
“No. At this hour, and in this weather, the platform is always deserted. Courage. We’re almost there.”
Ardan sighed in relief.
But then, as if to crush his renewed hopes, a bright red flare burst out of the platform above them.
The young man guessed that their escape had just been discovered when someone had gone to check on either he or Milarepa. With a bit of luck, they wouldn’t yet have spotted the hole in the bricks, which he had hidden behind a pile of coats, or the one between the two cells, as he had put all the stone blocks back in place.
Still, it wouldn’t take them long to discover the truth. They had to move quickly.
With a last prodigious burst of strength, the young Doctor rushed down the last few yards of rope and they both landed on the platform below with a thud and the sound of ice breaking under their soles.
Ardan cut a length of rope which he tied around his belt; they then ran down the rocky path into the darkness below.
They had been lucky, because mere seconds later the elevator cage descended, which would have crushed them had they still been hanging onto the rope.
Two armed guards stepped out and started spraying machine gun fire into the darkness. Fortunately, the bullets just bounced off the jagged rocks without hitting their intended target.
Ardan heard a voice barking orders from above. The machine gun fire stopped immediately. He guessed that their captors didn’t want them killed by overzealous guards, which gave them an advantage.
They kept running down the icy path in total darkness. It was truly miraculous that neither slipped, broke an ankle or a leg, or even worse, fell to their death in the neighboring precipice. But ta
king precautions would have meant risking being recaptured, so they had no choice but to keep running as far and fast as they could.
As they reached the bottom of the peak, Milarepa spied a large boulder behind which they could hide and also find refuge from the icy wind.
“We can rest here,” she explained. “The snow will be softer and we can dig a shelter.”
Ardan understood his companion’s plan and, minutes later, they had built themselves a roofless igloo that was both a camouflaged hiding place and offered protection from the hostile environment.
From inside their shelter, they heard the guards search for them in vain, then move on to other areas. For all Mendax knew, they could now both be dead at the bottom of a chasm. His men would be spending many hours looking for bodies.
As dawn came, they cautiously stepped out of their shelter. The wind had stopped. The sky was now pristine and the sunlight made the snow sparkle. The area appeared to be both silent and totally deserted.
Ardan took some food he had saved from the last evening’s meal and shared it with Milarepa.
After that brief breakfast, they cautiously set out in the direction which Milarepa thought would take them to a neutral city, from which she could travel to Lhasa to plead her father’s cause, and Ardan could proceed towards a British outpost where he could send a cable to his father.
After traveling for a short while, the young man suddenly stopped in his tracks.
“Look!” he exclaimed.
“What did you see?” asked Milarepa.
“A strange animal… over there…”
The young man pointed towards an odd-looking, big cat, whose white fur was dotted with a few black spots, walking with eerie ease over the snow.
“Ah! That’s a snow leopard!” said Milarepa. “We Tibetans believe it’s an omen of good luck, and that it helps lost travelers by guiding them back to their people.”