by Guy d'Armen
Barely fifteen minutes later, they were back at the frozen lake where they had met the herdsman earlier. This time, Ardan did not stop and launched his mount straight across the lake. Milarepa then understood her companion’s plan and followed, smiling.
The yaks crossed the icy surface with the same speed and ease as if they had been galloping on solid ground. But their pursuers’ horses were not as lucky!
Soon, three of the bandits’ horses had fallen onto the ground and were unable to get up again; the others, more cautious, had stopped at the edge of the lake and, despite their riders’ prompting, refused to step onto the ice.
A few bullets whizzed by, but the two young people had again managed to escape from their pursuers again.
They made a long detour but eventually found their way back to the valley. Eventually, they decided to stop in a small wood comprised of a sparse trees and bushes.
“I’ll go and collect some argol,” said Milarepa.
“What is that?” asked Ardan.
“It’s a tartar word which means animal dejections. We’ll need some to start a fire. Didn’t you know it’s the major source of fuel used in this part of the world? There are lamas whose entire life is devoted to collecting argol.”
“I could use a good fire—and some fresh milk,” said Ardan, smiling.
Soon, the industrious Milarepa had gathered enough argol to start a fire. The radiating warmth and the sweet-tasting milk from the yaks added to the tiredness of the two young people whose sleep had been so brutally interrupted, and made them very sleepy. Soon, they dozed off.
Meanwhile, their pursuers had gone around the frozen lake and again begun their search for the fugitives. After hours of canvassing the desolate countryside, they were about to give up when one of them smelled the wisp of smoke carried by the wind.
“A campfire!” said the leader. “Our prey must be close by. When we find them, stay back—about a hundred meters away. Join me only if I call you with a whistle, understood?”
At the site of the campfire, Ardan, once again alerted by his preternatural senses, had woken up and urged his companion to leave. Milarepa wanted to wait for daybreak, but the young Frenchman persuaded her otherwise.
Minutes later, they rode away on the yaks, which had been grazing peacefully.
The night was still and the light of the Moon enabled them to make good progress.
Soon, they were in a narrow plain traversed by the Dingri river. Suddenly, Milarepa uttered a small cry, pointing in terror to a grisly sight a few feet away.
“A hanged man!” she exclaimed.
It did look as if the corpse of a man as hanging at the end of a rope from a nearby tree by the side of the road.
Ardan shivered: such a grim discovery was never welcome, but in this desolate, frozen landscape, it seemed even more terrible.
“It must be a thief caught by the locals, who did their own justice,” he said, approaching the body. “Maybe he is still alive? We should check him out...”
He got off his mount and walked towards the body with the intention of cutting the rope, but as he reached it, something truly amazing happened.
The “hanged man” slipped off its noose and landed back with its two feet on the ground. He then aimed two pistols towards the young people.
“Why, if it isn’t young master Ardan?” he sneered. “I bet you weren’t expecting me!”
“Mendax!” uttered Ardan, stunned to see his enemy standing in front of him.
CHAPTER XI
Prisoners of the Kolos
Mendax whistled loudly and, almost immediately, he was rejoined by the rest of his gang.
“Tie up these two solidly,” he ordered. “We’ll carry them back to the Citadel with us, and this time, I swear they won’t escape so easily!”
He laughed, then continued:
“As for you, Doctor Ardan, you decided to leave us just as we were about to conclude our agreement. That was hardly worthy of a respectable gentleman like you.”
“I don’t owe you any respect, Mendax,” snarled the young man. “You’re nothing but a pirate!”
“Not so, young sir! I consider myself more of redistributioner of wealth—almost a philanthropist, in fact. But even if I don’t convince you of the rightness of my position, your father will, nevertheless, be made to pay—if he wants to ever see you back alive, that is.”
While this heated exchange was going on, Mendax’s men had securely tied the wrists and ankles of the two young people, who they then dropped like two sides of beef onto the back of two horses.
Ardan understood there was nothing more he could do for the moment. As for Milarepa, her Oriental philosophy helped her to accept this reversal of fortune with equanimity.
The road taken by Mendax and his men back to the Everest Citadel was very different from the one Ardan and Milarepa had followed during their escape.
At some point, they rode through a narrow gorge where progress was difficult; the trail was sandwiched between an insurmountable cliff and a precipice, at the bottom of which one could hear the raging waters of a torrent that even the ambient freezing cold had not succeeded in taming.
Mendax and his men seemed very familiar with the surroundings and their horses displayed no hesitation in stepping along the narrow path. Ardan shivered, thinking that the least misstep would surely result in them being thrown to their deaths hundreds of feet below.
They had been riding for half-an-hour when, suddenly, they heard a sound much like the cry of an owl.
Mendax, who had been riding ahead, stopped and, with a gesture, ordered his men to do the same.
Thirty seconds later the cry of the owl was followed by the sound of a trumpet.
“Damn it! Kolos!” muttered Mendax.
“Brigands,” whispered Milarepa to the young Frenchman.
At that point, the gorge became larger and the two gangs faced each other. The Kolos were heavily armed with rifles; each rider also wore two pistols and a sword in a holster tied to their belts; they were dressed with wolf skins and their cruel faces sported heavy mustaches.
“Friends of yours?” asked Ardan, aloud.
“Not in a million years,” muttered Mendax. “They’re ruthless bandits who hide in the most inaccessible parts of these mountains. They’re quite blood-thirsty. I’ve dealt with the ones from Kampa Dzong but these look like they come from Tinki Dzong. This might be a problem...”
Mendax considered his choices: they could not turn around, and his half-dozen men could hardly force their way through the Kolos who numbered at least thirty.
Suddenly, the chief of the Kolos gave a guttural shout and several riders jumped forward. There was the sound of gunshots and several men, on both sides of the battle, fell dead or wounded into the precipice. The Kolos outnumbered them and their chief knew it. It seemed he did not mind sacrificing his own men’s lives in order to weaken his enemy.
Mendax understood he had no choices left but to negotiate. He put his hands up in the air, and the few men he had left imitated him.
“We surrender!” he shouted.
“Drop your weapons or you’ll all be killed,” ordered the Chief of the Kolos, whose horse was more garishly ornamented than the others.
The clatter of guns, swords and knives hitting the frozen ground ensued as Mendax and his men obeyed.
“Where are you from?” asked the Chief.
“Kampa Dzong,” replied Mendax.
“You lie! I don’t like liars! You and your men are not tibetan; you are thieves from Sikkim.”
He then pointed to the bodies of the two young people.
“Who are these? Why are they tied up?”
“They’re our prisoners—traitors to my people. I am willing to pay for safe passage...”
“That man is indeed lying to you, O mighty chief,” Milarepa suddenly said in the language common to the tribes of Tibet. “He is not from Sikkim, but from Chomolangma,” she added, using the local name for Everest. “He is o
ne of the defilers of the White Goddess, and instead of being traitors, we are wealthy hostages whom he intends to ransom...”
Mendax tried to speak, but the Chief stopped him with an imperious hand gesture.
“Ransom, did you say? How much exactly?”
“Fifty million rupees for the two of us.”
“Tsong kaba!” cried the Kolo. “Fifty millions! That is a king’s ransom! For that price we shall take very good care of you and you companion, O noble lady!... Untie them!” he ordered his men. “They will ride with us as honored guests... As for you,” he said, finally turning back to Mendax, “you are my prisoner, too. I’ve heard rumors from those at Kampa Dzong about the demons who have established their abode on Chomolangma... My guess is that you will be worth something... Say, twelve million rupees? And if not, I can always sacrifice you! Purging demons is a holy task, after all!”
The Kolos tied Mendax’s hands behind his back, then proceeded to do the same to the handful of his men who had survived the skirmish.
Mendax was furious. Having been trapped so stupidly in that gorge was now likely to cost him a great deal of money. He cared less about his personal safety than the prospective loss of income. And who knows what else Ardan and his companion might reveal to the greedy Kolos... This could put his entire operation in danger!
“You stupid girl!” he growled at Milarepa. “If you’d kept your mouth shut, you could have bargained for your freedom!”
Milarepa, now sitting comfortably on a horse, smiled but said nothing. She knew their chances of freedom were much better with them in the hands of the Kolos, and fifty million rupees, while still a large sum, was far less than what the rapacious Mendax had hoped to squeeze from their relatives for both of them.
Soon, the small caravan was en route towards Tinki Dzong.
Mendax continued, in turn, to try to either threaten or entreat with the Kolos Chief, but had no success. When he got tired of the tirades directed at him, a strong lash of his whip administered to the villainous captain’s back forced him to adopt a sullen silence.
The trail they were following was absolutely free of any other traffic, and Ardan was somewhat surprised not to see their destination, until they reached a stone fortress. Remarkably, the “Dzong” was devoid of the small monticules of stones that tibetan priests built around their monasteries, or of the strips of colored fabrics floating in the wind at the end of tall poles like so many flags. This was an indication that this place was anything but sacred. Indeed, as they approached, the young Frenchman thought it looked just like what the lair of a gang of cutthroats should look like.
The Chief approached the heavy wooden gate and barked a password at the gatekeeper who had opened a spy hole on hearing the little troop approach.
Slowly, the heavy gates opened and more surly-looking bandits came out.
“Two ‘guests’ and a ‘demon’ to be locked up and kept under watch at all times,” ordered the Chief. “The guests are not to be mistreated. Put them together in the upper section of the Dzong. The ‘demon’—to the cells!”
The bandits obeyed diligently.
Fifteen minutes later, Ardan and Milarepa were locked in a suite of rooms that had belonged to the high priest before the monastery had fallen into the hands of the Kolos. The windows were blocked with a grid of solid metal bars, but they had good views of the fortress below and the Himalayan mountains over the horizon.
Mendax, on the other hand, was taken to a dank cellar and dumped on a straw bed.
The Captain’s anger as only increasing. He, the Master of Everest, was the prisoner of a bunch of savage barbarians! The sheer insanity of his predicament was enough to drive a weaker man’s mind mad! But Mendax never lost his cool.
He started to examine his prison and immediately noticed a tiny window of less than 8 square inches high above his head. The stone wall was uneven and, clawing his way up, the pirate captain saw that his prison overlooked a precipice at the bottom of which was a raging torrent—likely, the same river they had followed through the gorge.
I wonder how deep that torrent is? he thought.
First, he took off this shirt, and methodically tore it into thin strips of fabric with which he made a rope thirty yards long. Then he took off his suspenders and, with a few, quick gestures, unclipped the metal parts which, once unfolded, revealed themselves to be two short but sharp steel blades.
Ha! he thought, with a chuckle. Aren’t I glad that I get my clothes made especially to my exact specifications! No one ever thinks of looking at suspenders if one is captured...
With the two knives, he was able to pull stones out of the wall from the crumbling mortar which surrounded them, and thus enlarge the opening. Then, he took a stone and threw it into the river. The sound it made was enough to reassure him that its depth at that point was at least twenty feet.
Excellent! he thought. It’s only six miles from here to Kampa Dzong. I have allies there. I’ll return at dawn with them, retake my prisoners, and teach that arrogant Kolo bastard a lesson he won’t soon forget!
Then, he jumped from the window and into the freezing torrent. Despite the coldness of the water, his head reemerged above the surface mere minutes later. Grabbing a tree trunk floating by, he decided to let the river carry him past the gorge, thinking correctly that he would reach his destination faster that way.
Indeed, after he again set foot on dry land, he started running towards Kampa Dzong. The sun was setting and he knew he would have to run for most of the night, but it didn’t bother him.
Tomorrow, I’ll return with a small army! he thought. And then, we shall see!
CHAPTER XII
A Sacrilegious Act
Mendax was a man of action and proved it once again.
When he reached Kampa Dzong, it was child’s play for him to find his men, hire two dozen more mercenaries, and thus, it was at the head of a small army that he galloped back at dawn towards Tinki Dzong. But when they reached the former monastery, he experienced a shock.
The entire place was ablaze!
The few bandits that remained didn’t even bother putting up a fight and surrendered immediately. As for his former prisoners, the two young people were nowhere to be seen.
After spitting out an unrepeatable string of blasphemous insults in five different languages, the pirate captain regained his composure and decided there was nothing to do but carry on with his search for the fugitives.
While they rode away, he was able to piece together what had happened from one of the survivors...
After the Kolos had locked Ardan and Milarepa into their cells, with the hour of sunset rapidly approaching, the bandits had decided to celebrate their multi-million rupees capture in a grand fashion. The leader had had several big clay jars filled with chumsurum, a local drink made up of 20% rice alcohol, brought to the central courtyard. There, by the light of oil lamps, the entire company had begun to drink, sing and generally behave in a riotous manner under the tents that covered the vast enclosed space.
Meanwhile, Ardan was pacing, thinking of how to escape from the clutches of the bandits. He had previously examined the primitive lock that kept the door of their cells shut, and knew it would take only seconds for him to open it, but he saw no way to reach the outside without being at once spotted and stopped by the savage horde of the Kolos.
He examined the windows of his cell, ad determined that no escape was feasible that way either. As he saw the preparations for the night’s celebrations below, he suddenly had an idea, which he shared with Milarepa.
A few minutes later, the young woman knocked repeatedly on the door, attracting the attention of the guard posted outside.
“What do you want?” growled the Kolo.
“We can smell the chumsurum from our window,” she replied. “We deserve to celebrate as well. After all, as you will soon be rich beyond your dreams, we will be reunited with our families. This is cause for rejoicing.”
As the guard didn’t move, sh
e added:
“And your chief told you to treat us as honored guests. What kind of host is it who doesn’t provide his guests with something to drink?”
That argument convinced the guard who left and soon returned with two clay bottles of chumsurum.
After the guard had gone, relocking the door, Ardan began to put his plan into motion.
Tearing strips from the drapes, he soaked them in the alcoholic drink, and made them into a combination of both wicks and stoppers. After that, it was an easy step to set fire to the wicks by using the flame from one of the oil lamps that lit their cells.
Then, approaching the window, Ardan took his two improvised incendiary bombs and dropped them one after the other onto the tents below.
In a matter of seconds, a raging conflagration had erupted, fueled by the additional oil lamps and jars of alcoholic drink being tipped over by the fleeing Kolos. As the young man had surmised, their own sentinel had run off to help his fellow bandits, so when he cracked the lock open, there was no one to prevent their escape!
Using stealth, they reached the ground floor and, once there, discovered that the blaze had caused one of the courtyard walls to collapse. By then, most of the Kolos were either dead, or tending the wounded. Many had simply run away, grabbing whatever they could. Certainly, no one was giving any thought to their prisoners.
They got out of the burning monastery without any trouble; but did not succeed, however, in stealing any horses.
Once they were a safe distance away, Ardan asked Milarepa what their logical destination ought to be.
“Shigatse,” she replied. “It’s a prefecture; we’ll be safe there. There will be functionaries that will have heard of my disappearance through one of my father’s agents.”
“How far is it?”
“About 100 miles from here,” she replied, a little dejected. “There are only two villages between here and there, Kuma and Yako, and the trail should be relatively safe.”
“That’s not so bad,” said Ardan. “If we manage to cover fifteen miles a day, we’ll be there in six days. How far is it from there to Lhasa?”