Nadia and Alexander followed a guide lecturing in English to a group of tourists. The suffocating heat of midday did not penetrate the fort; inside it was cool, and the walls were stained with the green patina of moisture collected over the centuries. There was a disagreeable odor in the air, which the guide said was the urine of the thousands and thousands of rats that lived in the cellars and came out at night. The horrified tourists covered their noses and mouths, and several left the tour.
Suddenly Nadia pointed out Tex Armadillo in the distance, leaning against a column and looking around as if he were expecting someone. Her first impulse had been to wave to him, but Alexander realized what she was about to do and caught his friend’s arm.
“Wait, Eagle, let’s see what this guy is up to. I don’t trust him at all,” he said.
“Don’t forget that he saved your life when you were being crushed by the crowd.”
“Yes, but there’s something about him I don’t like.”
“What?”
“He seems to be something he isn’t. I don’t think he’s really a hippie interested in finding drugs, as he told us on the plane. Have you noticed his muscles? He moves like one of those karate experts you see in the movies. A drug-addicted hippie wouldn’t look like that,” Alexander said.
They waited, unseen among the mass of tourists, never taking their eyes off Tex. After a while they saw a tall man walking toward him; he was wearing a tunic and a blue-black turban that was nearly the same tone as his skin. He had a broad sash about his waist, also blue-black, and tucked into it a curved knife with a bone handle. His eyes glowed like coals in his dark face, and he had a long beard and prominent eyebrows.
The friends could tell that the newcomer and the American obviously knew one another, and watched as the man with the turban disappeared around the corner of a wall, followed by Tex. They needed no discussion; wordlessly they agreed to investigate. Nadia whispered to Borobá that he shouldn’t chatter or jump around. The little monkey clung to his mistress, tight as a backpack.
Slipping along, hugging the walls and hiding behind columns, they stayed within fifteen or twenty feet of Tex Armadillo. Sometimes they lost sight of him because the architecture of the fort was complex and it was evident that the man did not want to call attention to himself. However, thanks to Nadia’s infallible instinct, they always found him again. They were a good distance from the other tourists now, and they didn’t see or hear anybody. Alex and Nadia cut through rooms, went down narrow stairways with treads worn by use and time, and crept along endless corridors, always with the sensation that they were walking in circles. A growing murmur, like a chorus of crickets, was added to the penetrating odor.
“We shouldn’t go any farther, Eagle. That’s the sound of rats. They’re very dangerous,” Alexander said.
“If those men can go into the cellars, why can’t we?” she replied.
The friends did not speak as they went deeper and deeper into that underground world; they realized that echoes would repeat and amplify their voices. Alexander was worried that they wouldn’t be able to find their way back, but he didn’t want to voice his doubts aloud and frighten Nadia. Neither did he say anything about the possibility of snakes, because after the episode with the cobras, his apprehension seemed out of place.
At first, light had sifted in through small openings in the ceilings and walls, but now they were forced to walk long stretches in darkness, feeling along the walls as a guide. From time to time when they passed a weak lightbulb they could see rats scurrying along the walls. Wires dangled dangerously from the ceiling. They noticed that the floor was damp, and in some places they could see little streams of foul-smelling water. Soon their feet were wet, and Alexander tried not to think about what would happen if something triggered a short circuit. However, being electrocuted worried him less than the increasingly aggressive rats all around them.
“Pay no attention to them, Jaguar. They won’t dare come near us unless they smell that we’re afraid; then they’ll attack,” Nadia whispered.
Once again they had lost sight of Armadillo. The two friends were now in a small domed room that had been used to store munitions and provisions. Three arches opened onto what appeared to be long dark corridors. Alexander signaled Nadia, asking which they should choose; for the first time she hesitated, confused. She wasn’t sure. She took Borobá, set him on the floor, and gave him a slight push, asking him to pick. The monkey climbed right back on her shoulder; he hated getting wet and was terrified of the rats. She repeated the order, and though the little primate wouldn’t let go he pointed a trembling paw toward the opening on the right, the narrowest of the three.
The two friends followed Borobá’s indication, crouching down and feeling their way because now there wasn’t even a weak lightbulb and the darkness was nearly total. Alexander, who was much taller than Nadia, bumped his head and muttered “what the . . . !” For a few minutes they were enveloped in a cloud of bats, stirring panic in the heart of Borobá, who immediately dived under his mistress’s shirt.
It was time to call on the black jaguar. Alex concentrated, and in only seconds he could see about him as if he had antennae. He had practiced this skill for months, ever since he had learned in the Amazon that the jaguar, the king of the South American jungle, was his totemic animal. Alexander was slightly nearsighted, and even with glasses he did not see well in darkness, but he had learned to trust the instinct of the jaguar that he sometimes could invoke. Now he followed Nadia confidently, “seeing with his heart,” as he did more and more often.
Suddenly Alex stopped short, taking his friend’s arm; ahead, the passageway made a sharp turn. Farther on, he could see a faint glow, and they could hear the murmur of voices. Using extreme caution, Alex peered around the corner and could see that ten feet away the corridor opened up into a room like the one they’d just come from.
Tex Armadillo, the man in black, and two other individuals dressed in the same kind of tunics were kneeling around an oil lamp that flickered faintly but produced enough light for the two young people to see. It was impossible to get any closer, as there was nothing to hide behind, and they knew that if they were caught, they would be in trouble. The thought flashed through Jaguar’s mind that no one knew where they were. They could die in those cellars and no one would find their bodies for days, maybe weeks.
The men were speaking English, and Armadillo’s voice was clear, but the other three had a nearly incomprehensible accent. It was obvious, nevertheless, that they were talking about a business deal. They watched Armadillo hand over a sheaf of bills to the person who had the air of being the leader of the group. Then they heard a long discussion about what seemed to be a plan of action that included weapons, mountains, and maybe a temple or a palace, they couldn’t be sure.
The leader unfolded a map on the dirt floor, smoothed it with the palm of his hand, and with the tip of his knife traced out a route for Tex Armadillo. The light of the oil lamp fell full on the man’s face. From where they were watching they couldn’t see the map very well, but they could easily make out a brand on the man’s dark hand and note that the same design was repeated on the bone handle of the knife. It was a scorpion.
Alex calculated that they had seen enough, and should start back before the men ended their meeting. The only way out of the room was the corridor where Alex and Nadia were hiding. Again Nadia consulted Borobá, who from his mistress’s shoulder unhesitatingly pointed the way. Relieved, Alexander remembered what his father always advised him when they went mountain climbing together: Confront obstacles as they appear, don’t waste energy fearing what you may meet in the future. He smiled, thinking that he shouldn’t worry so much, since he wasn’t always the one in charge. Nadia was a resourceful person, as she had demonstrated on many occasions. He should never forget that.
Fifteen minutes later they were back at street level, and soon heard the voices of tourists. They walked faster and blended into the crowd. They did not see Armadill
o again.
• • •
“Do you know anything about scorpions, Kate?” Alexander asked his grandmother when they all met back at the hotel.
“Some of the kinds they have in India are very poisonous. You can die from their bites. I hope that won’t happen, because that would delay our trip, and I don’t have time for funerals,” she replied, feigning indifference.
“I haven’t been bitten yet.”
“Then why are you interested?”
“I wanted to know if the scorpion means something. Is it a religious symbol, for instance?”
“The serpent is, especially the cobra. According to legend, a gigantic cobra watched over Buddha as he meditated. But I don’t know anything about scorpions.”
“Can you find out?”
“I would have to get in touch with that dreadful Ludovic Leblanc. Are you sure you want to ask me to make that sacrifice, child?” the writer grumbled.
“I think it could be very important, grandmother . . . Sorry, I mean Kate.”
So Kate plugged in her laptop and sent an e-mail to the professor. Given the difference in time, it wasn’t feasible to call him. She didn’t know when the answer would come, but she hoped it would be soon, because she wasn’t sure she could use her computer in the Forbidden Kingdom. Following a hunch, she sent another message to her friend Isaac Rosenblat, asking if he knew anything about the Golden Dragon that supposedly existed in the country they were traveling to. To her surprise, the jeweler replied immediately.
Dear girl! What a pleasure to hear from you! Of course I know about that statue. Every serious jeweler knows its description, it’s one of the rarest and most precious objects in the world. No one has seen your famous dragon, and it has never been photographed, but there are drawings of it. It’s about two feet long and is thought to be solid gold, but that isn’t all: the craftsmanship is very ancient and very beautiful. In addition, it is covered with precious stones. According to legend, its eyes alone—just those two perfect, absolutely symmetrical, star rubies—are worth a fortune. Why do you ask? I don’t suppose that you’re planning to steal the dragon, the way you did the diamonds in the Amazon?
Kate e-mailed back, assuring the jeweler that robbery was precisely what she was planning, and decided not to remind him that Nadia had found the diamonds. It suited her to have Isaac Rosenblat believe she was capable of having stolen them. That way, she calculated, she would keep her former suitor’s interest alive. She burst out laughing, but the laughter quickly turned into a fit of coughing. She dug through one of her many carryalls and pulled out a canteen containing her Amazon remedy.
Professor Ludovic Leblanc’s reply was long and confusing, like everything he did. He began with an exhausting explanation of how, among his many attributes, he had been the first anthropologist to discover the meaning of the scorpion in Sumerian, Egyptian, Hindu, and . . . blah-blah-blah . . . mythology; then followed with twenty-three paragraphs on his accomplishments and knowledge. But sprinkled here and there in those twenty-three paragraphs were several very interesting facts, which Kate Cold was able to extract from the tangle. The aging writer heaved a sigh of boredom, thinking what a burden it was to have to put up with that peevish man. She had to reread the message several times to be able to summarize the important parts.
“According to Leblanc, there is a sect in the north of India that worships the scorpion. Its members have that figure branded on their skin, usually on the back of the right hand. They have a reputation for being bloodthirsty, ignorant, and superstitious,” she informed her grandson and Nadia.
She added that during the fight for India’s independence the sect had done the dirty work for the British troops, torturing and murdering their compatriots. Though they were widely despised, the men of the scorpion sect were still employed today as mercenaries, because they were ferocious fighters, famous for their skill with knives.
“They’re bandits and smugglers, and they also kill for hire,” Kate informed them.
Alexander then told Kate what he and Nadia had seen in the Red Fort. If Kate was tempted to scold them for having done something so dangerous, she contained herself. On the trip to the Amazon, she had learned to trust the two young friends.
“I have no doubt that the men you two saw belong to that sect. Leblanc says in his e-mail that the members wear cotton tunics and turbans dyed with the indigo plant. The dye rubs off on their skin and over the years becomes indelible, like a tattoo, which is why they are known as the Blue Warriors. They are nomads, and they spend their lives on horseback. They have no belongings except for weapons, and they are trained to fight from the time they are children,” Kate explained.
“Do the women have blue skin too?” Nadia asked.
“It’s strange that you should ask, child. There are no women in the sect.”
“How do they have children if there are no women?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they don’t.”
“If they’re trained for war from the time they’re small, children must be born into the sect,” Nadia insisted.
“Maybe they steal them, or buy them. There’s so much poverty in this country, so many abandoned children . . . And many parents just sell their children because they can’t feed them,” said Kate.
“I’m wondering what business Tex Armadillo can have with the Sect of the Scorpion,” Alexander mused.
“Nothing good,” said Nadia.
“You think it has anything to do with drugs? Remember what he said on the plane, that marijuana and opium grow wild in the Forbidden Kingdom.”
“I hope that man doesn’t cross our paths again, but if he does, I don’t want you to have anything to do with him. Do you understand?” his grandmother ordered firmly.
The friends nodded, but the writer happened to catch the look they exchanged, and guessed that no warning of hers would restrain Nadia and Alexander’s curiosity.
One hour later the group from International Geographic assembled at the airport to take the plane to Tunkhala, the capital of the Kingdom of the Golden Dragon. They ran into Judit Kinski there, who was taking the same flight. The landscape architect wore boots, a white linen dress and a matching coat, and she carried the scuffed purse they had seen before. Her luggage consisted of two suitcases of a heavy, tapestrylike cloth, expensive but badly worn pieces. It was obvious that she had traveled a lot, though the general effect of her clothes and her suitcases was anything but shabby. In contrast, the members of the International Geographic expedition, with their stained and wrinkled clothes, their bundles and backpacks, looked like refugees fleeing some cataclysm.
The prop plane was an old model with a capacity of eight passengers and two crew. The other two travelers were a Hindu who had business in the Forbidden Kingdom and a young doctor who had graduated from a university in New Delhi and was returning to his country. The travelers commented that their little plane did not seem a particularly safe way to challenge the mountains of the Himalayas, but the pilot smiled and replied that there was nothing to fear: In the ten years he had been flying that route he had never had a serious accident, even though the winds between the precipices were often very strong.
“What precipices?” asked Joel González, uneasy.
“I hope you can see them, they’re magnificent. The best time for flying is between October and April, when the skies are clear. If it’s cloudy, you can’t see anything,” said the pilot.
“It’s a little cloudy today. What will keep us from crashing into a mountain?” asked Kate.
“These are low clouds. You’ll see it clear soon, ma’am. Besides, I know the route by heart, I can fly it with my eyes closed.”
“I hope you keep them wide open, young man,” Kate replied curtly.
“I estimate that within a half hour we’ll have left the clouds behind,” the pilot said, hoping to calm her, and added that they were lucky, because sometimes flights were delayed for several days, depending on the weather.
Jaguar and Eagle we
re just happy that Tex Armadillo wasn’t on board.
CHAPTER EIGHT
In the Forbidden Kingdom
NONE OF THE TRAVELERS TAKING that flight for the first time was prepared for what lay ahead. It was worse than a roller coaster in an amusement park. They covered their ears and felt an emptiness in the pits of their stomachs as the airplane shot up like an arrow, then dropped several hundred feet, making them feel as if their guts were glued to their brains. When it seemed that finally they had stabilized, the pilot would bank sharply to avoid a mountain peak, and they would be hanging almost upside down; then he would perform the same maneuver in the opposite direction.
Through the windows they could see mountains on both sides, and below them, very far below, incredible precipices with seemingly bottomless chasms. A single false move, or a brief hesitation on the part of the pilot, and the small plane would threaten to crash against the rocks or drop like a stone. A capricious blast of wind from the stern would hurl them forward, but once past that mountain, the air currents would change and blow toward them, making them feel as if they weren’t moving at all.
The merchant from India and the doctor from the Forbidden Kingdom were glued in their seats, less than relaxed, although they said they had lived through that experience before. As for the members of the International Geographic team, they held their stomachs with both hands, trying to control their nausea and fear. No one made the least comment, not even Joel González, who was deadly white, quietly praying and rubbing the silver cross he always wore. All of them were impressed by the calm of Judit Kinski, who was composed enough to be leafing through a book on tulips, showing no trace of vertigo.
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