“Now I’m going down as far as that ledge, and once I’m there I’ll measure the distance to the bottom of the cliff,” he announced after he had secured his rope and put on the harness.
Everyone watched what he was doing with intense interest, except Nadia, who didn’t dare look over the edge. To Tensing, who had spent his life climbing through the Himalayas like a mountain goat, Alexander’s technology was engrossing. Amazed, he examined the strong, light rope, the metal carabiners, the belaying devices, the ingenious harness. He watched Alexander give a wave of his hand and drop into the void, sitting in his harness. Alex used his feet to kick away from the vertical rock face and his hands to let out the rope so that he slipped down ten to fifteen feet at a time, with no apparent effort. In fewer than five minutes he reached the lip of the ledge. From above he looked very small. For half an hour, he measured the distance to the bottom with the second rope, which he carried coiled at his waist. Then he climbed back up, not as easily as he’d gone down, but with no major difficulty. Back on top, he was greeted with applause and happy cheers.
“We can do it, Master Tensing, the ledge is wide and firm enough to hold all five girls and me. The rope reaches the bottom, and I think I can teach them to use the harness. But there is one problem,” Alexander said.
“What is that?”
“I will need both ropes once I’m on the terrace, because they can’t go down without a safety rope. One will be attached to the harness and the second to a piton I’ve driven into rock and left down there; that will help me ease the girls down. We really have to have that safety in case they lose control of the first rope, or if the system fails for some reason. Since they aren’t experienced, they can’t do it without that second rope.”
“I understand that, but we have two ropes; what is the problem?”
“We’ll use those getting down to the terrace. Then you will drop them so I can secure them there and lower the girls to the bottom. I can’t climb back up if both ropes are on the terrace. And I can’t scale that vertical wall without gear. An expert climber could do it, over a matter of hours, but I don’t think I can. It means that we will have to have a third rope of some kind,” Alexander explained.
“Or at least a cord that we can use to pull up one of the ropes from the terrace,” added Dil Bahadur.
“Exactly.”
They didn’t have a hundred and fifty feet of cord. Their first thought, of course, was to cut narrow strips from the clothes they were wearing, but that would leave them too exposed to the cold and in danger of frostbite or death. The girls were wearing nothing but thin silk sarongs and short jackets. Tensing thought about the rolls of yak hair rope he kept in his hermitage, but that was far away and there wasn’t time to get it.
By then the sun had gone down and the sky was beginning to turn an indigo blue.
“It’s very late. Perhaps the hour has come for us to prepare to spend the night as comfortably as we can. Tomorrow we shall see what solution occurs to us,” the lama said.
“This cord we need doesn’t have to be terribly strong, does it?” asked Pema.
“No, but it must be long. All we need it for is to pull up one of the ropes,” Alexander replied.
“Perhaps we can make one,” she suggested.
“How? With what?”
“We all have very long hair. We can cut it and braid it.”
An expression of absolute amazement lit every face. The other girls immediately began to stroke the long locks that hung to their waists. Scissors never touched the hair of women from the Forbidden Kingdom; it was considered their greatest attribute of beauty and femininity. Unmarried women wore their hair loose and perfumed it with musk and jasmine; married women bathed theirs in almond oil and braided it in elaborate hairdos they decorated with silver pins, turquoise, amber, and coral. Only female monks sacrificed their crowning glory and lived their lives with shaved heads.
“Possibly each of us can provide twenty strands. Multiplied by five, that’s a hundred. Let’s say that each length of hair is about twenty-four inches long; we will have over a hundred and fifty feet of hair. And possibly I can get twenty-four strands from my head, so even after it’s braided we will have more than enough,” Pema explained.
“I have hair too,” Nadia offered.
“It’s pretty short, I don’t think it will work,” Pema observed.
One of the girls burst into inconsolable tears. Cutting her hair was too great a sacrifice, she said. They couldn’t ask her to do that. Pema sat down beside her and began gently persuading her that hair was less important than their lives and the safety of the king. After all, the hair would grow back.
“And while it’s growing, how will I show my face in public?” the girl sobbed.
“With enormous pride, because you will have contributed to saving our country from the Sect of the Scorpion,” Pema replied.
While the prince and Alexander looked for roots and dry animal droppings to build a small fire to keep them warm during the night, Tensing examined Nadia and adjusted her bandages. He was very satisfied; her shoulder was still bruised, but healed, and she felt no pain.
Pema used Alexander’s knife to cut her hair. Dil Bahadur was so agitated that he couldn’t watch. Pema’s cutting of her hair seemed too intimate, almost painful. As the silky hair fell and the girl’s long and fragile neck appeared, her beauty was transformed; she looked like a handsome youth.
“Now I can go out and beg like a monk,” Pema joked, pointing to the prince’s tunic she was wearing, and her head, where only a few clumps stood up among the stubble.
The other girls took the knife and began to cut each other’s hair. Then they sat in a circle and braided a fine, gleaming black cord that smelled of musk and jasmine.
The group rested as well as they could in their small refuge among the rocks. In the Kingdom of the Golden Dragon there was never physical contact among people of different sexes, except among children and married couples, but that night it was necessary; it was cold, and they had no shelter other than the clothes on their backs and two yak hides. Tensing and Dil Bahadur had lived in the high mountains, and they tolerated the cold better than the others. They were also accustomed to privation, so they gave the yak hides and the larger portions of food to the girls. Although his stomach was growling with hunger, Alexander followed their lead; he did not want to be less gallant than the other men. He also shared a chocolate bar he found broken at the bottom of his backpack.
Since they had only a limited amount of fuel, they had to keep the fire very low, but even those weak flames offered a certain security. At least it would deter the tigers and snow leopards that lived in those hills. They heated water in a bowl and prepared tea with yak butter and salt, which helped them endure the rigors of the night.
They slept huddled together like cubs to give each other warmth, protected from the wind in their cleft in the mountainside. Dil Bahadur did not dare choose a place as close to Pema as he would have liked; he dreaded his master’s teasing gaze. He realized that he hadn’t told Pema that his father was the king and that he was not an ordinary monk. It seemed to him it wasn’t the right moment for that; on the other hand, he felt that not to tell her was as bad as deceiving her. Alexander, Nadia, and Borobá formed a tight little knot and slept soundly until light began to appear on the horizon.
Tensing led the first prayer of the morning, and in chorus they all recited Om mani padme hum several times. They were not worshiping a deity, for Buddha was simply a human who had achieved illumination, that is, supreme comprehension. They were sending their prayers like beams of positive energy into infinite space, and to the spirit that reigns in all things. Alexander, who had grown up in a family of agnostics, marveled that in the Forbidden Kingdom even the most trivial things were suffused with a sense of the divine. Religion in that country was a way of life; every person cared for the Buddha carried within him or her. He was surprised to find himself reciting the sacred mantra with true enthusiasm.<
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The lama blessed the food and divided it as Nadia passed two bowls with hot tea.
“Possibly this will be a beautiful day, sunny and without wind,” Tensing announced, studying the sky.
“Perhaps if the honorable master wishes, we could get started as soon as possible,” Pema suggested. “The road to the valley will be a long one.”
“I believe that, with a little luck, all of you will be down in less than an hour,” said Alexander, checking his gear.
Shortly after, they began the descent. Alexander snapped on his equipment and in only a few minutes, light as a fly, he had lowered himself to the ledge halfway down the vertical wall of the rock face. Pema made it clear that she wanted to be the first to follow. Dil Bahadur took the rope, fit the harness around her, and once again explained the mechanism of the carabiners.
“You must drop down in short spurts. If there’s a problem, don’t be afraid; I will hold you safe with the second rope until you get your rhythm, understand?” he asked.
“Perhaps it will be wise not to look down. We will support you with our thoughts,” Tensing added, stepping back to concentrate on sending mental energy to Pema.
Dil Bahadur drove a piton into the rock and knotted on a rope he tied around his waist; he signaled Pema that he was ready. She walked to the edge of the precipice and smiled to veil the panic she was feeling.
“I hope we will see each other again,” Dil Bahadur whispered, not daring to say anything more for fear of revealing the secret love that had been choking him from the first moment he saw her.
“I hope so, too. I will send my prayers to the heavens and make offerings for the king to be saved. Please be careful,” she replied, moved.
Pema closed her eyes, commended her soul to heaven, and dropped into the void. She fell like a stone for several yards, until she could control the carabiner that tightened the rope. Once she got the feel of the mechanism and mastered the rhythm, she continued with more confidence. She used her legs to kick away from the rock and maintain her momentum. Dil Bahadur’s tunic—which she was wearing—floated in the air, and from above she looked like a bat. Sooner than she expected, she heard Alexander’s voice saying that she was almost there.
“Perfect!” he yelled, as he caught her.
“Is that it? It was over just when I was beginning to enjoy it,” she replied.
The terrace was so narrow and exposed that a small wind could have affected her balance, but just as Tensing had predicted, the weather was cooperating. High on the cliff, they pulled up the harness and put it on another of the girls. She was terrified, and did not have Pema’s character, but the lama fixed his hypnotic eyes on her and was able to calm her. One by one, they lowered the four girls without major problems, because every time one slipped or let go, Dil Bahadur held them with the safety rope. Once everyone was on the narrow lip of the ledge, it was difficult to move, and there was a substantial threat that one of them would fall off. Alexander had foreseen that difficulty, and the previous day had driven in pitons they could hold onto. They were ready to begin the second phase of the descent.
Dil Bahadur dropped down the ropes, and Alexander used them to repeat the operation from the ledge to the foot of the precipice. This time Pema had no one to catch her at the bottom, but she had gained confidence and started down with no hesitation. Her companions followed shortly after.
Alexander waved good-bye to them, wishing with all his heart that those four girls who looked so fragile dressed in their tattered festival saris and golden sandals, and led by another girl dressed in a monk’s tunic, would quickly find the road to the nearest village. He watched them start down the mountainside toward the valley and grow smaller until they were tiny dots, then disappear. The Kingdom of the Golden Dragon had few roads, and many could not be traveled during the rainy season or winter snows, but at this time of year they would fare better. If the girls found a road, someone would give them a ride.
Alexander gave a sign, and Dil Bahadur picked up the long length of black braid, which had a stone tied on the end. After making sure where it would land, the prince dropped the braided hair onto the terrace and Alexander picked it up. He rolled one rope and secured it at his waist, then tied the second to the braid and signaled them to pull it up. Dil Bahadur pulled carefully until he held the end of the rope in his hand. He knotted that onto a piton, and Alexander began his climb to the top.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The Yeti Warriors
ONCE THEY WERE ASSURED THAT Pema and the other girls had started off in the direction of the valley, the lama, the prince, Alexander, Nadia, and Borobá began their trek up the mountain. The higher they climbed the colder it got. Once or twice they had to use the monks’ long staffs to cross narrow crevasses. Those improvised bridges were more secure than they seemed at first glance. Alexander, who had practice in keeping his balance because of his climbing with his father, was not hesitant to step on the pole and jump to the other side, where the steadying hand of Tensing was waiting. But for Nadia the bridges were impossible, especially after suffering the dislocated shoulder. Dil Bahadur and Alexander stretched a rope tight between them, one on each side of the fissure, while Tensing made the jump with Nadia tucked under his arm like a precious package. The idea was that the rope would give Tensing a bit of security should he waver, but he was so experienced that neither felt a tremor as he went across: the monk’s hand barely brushed the rope. Tensing’s foot touched the staffs for only an instant, as if he were floating, and before Nadia could panic they were on the other side.
“Possibly I am in error, honorable master, but it seems to me that Chenthan Dzong does not lie in this direction,” the prince hesitantly suggested a few hours later, when they stopped briefly to rest and brew some tea.
“If we took the usual route, it might, perhaps, take several days, and that would give the bandits the advantage,” Tensing replied. “It perhaps is not a bad idea to take a shortcut.”
“The Yetis’ tunnel!” Dil Bahadur cried.
“I believe we will have need of a little help if we are to face the Sect of the Scorpion.”
“My honorable master intends to ask the Yetis?
“Perhaps.”
“With all respect, master, I believe that the Yetis have about as much of a brain as this monkey,” the prince replied.
“In that case,” Nadia interrupted, offended, “we’ll be fine, because Borobá has as much of a brain as you do.”
Alexander tried to follow the conversation and capture the images that were forming telepathically in his mind, but he could not be certain what they were talking about.
“Did I understand? You’re talking about a Yeti? The Abominable Snowman?” he asked.
Tensing nodded.
“Professor Ludovic Leblanc searched for him for years in the Himalayas and concluded that he doesn’t exist, that he’s only a legend,” said Alexander.
“Who is this professor?” Dil Bahadur wanted to know.
“My grandmother Kate’s enemy.”
“Perhaps he did not search where he should have,” Tensing interjected.
The prospect of seeing a Yeti was as exciting to Nadia and Alexander as the extraordinary encounter with the Beasts in their marvelous golden city in the Amazon. Those prehistoric animals had also been compared to the Abominable Snowman because of the enormous tracks they left, as well as for their elusiveness. It had also been said of the Beasts that they were only of legend, but their existence has been proven.
“My grandmother will have a heart attack if she learns we saw a Yeti and didn’t take photographs,” Alexander sighed, remembering that he had put everything in his backpack but a camera.
No one spoke as they continued; each word cost them breath. Unaccustomed as they were to that altitude, Nadia and Alexander were suffering the lack of oxygen most. Their heads ached, they were light-headed, and by dusk both were at the limits of their strength. Soon Nadia had a nose bleed, and she bent over and vomited. Tensin
g decided they would stop where they were, and he began to look around for a protected spot. While Dil Bahadur prepared tsampa and boiled water for a medicinal tea, the lama eased Nadia’s and Alexander’s discomfort with his acupuncture needles.
“I believe that Pema and the other girls are safe by now. That means that soon General Myar Kunglung will know that the king is in the monastery,” said Tensing.
“How do you know that, honorable master?” asked Alexander.
“Pema’s mind is transmitting less anxiety. Her energy is different.”
“I’ve heard of telepathy, master, but I never imagined it could function like a cell phone.”
The lama smiled amiably. He didn’t know what a cell phone was.
The young people tried to make themselves comfortable among the boulders while Tensing rested his body and mind; however, since these peaks were the land of the great white snow leopards, he kept watch with a sixth sense. That night seemed very long and very cold.
The next day the party reached the entrance of the long natural tunnel that led to the secret Valley of the Yetis. By then Nadia and Alexander were totally fatigued; their skin was burned by the sun reflecting off the snow, and their lips were dry and cracked. The tunnel was so narrow and the smell of sulfur so strong that Nadia thought they would suffocate, but for Alexander, who had wormed through the depths of the earth in the City of the Beasts, this was a walk in the park. Tensing, who was almost seven feet tall, could barely squeeze through some parts of the tunnel, but since he had come this way once before, he kept moving forward with assurance.
Nadia and Alexander were amazed when finally they emerged into the Valley of the Yetis. They had not been prepared to find a place bathed in warm mists buried deep within the frozen peaks of the Himalayas, a land where they saw vegetation unknown anywhere else in the world. Within a few minutes their bodies recovered the warmth they hadn’t felt in days, and they were able to take off their parkas. Borobá, who had made the journey beneath Nadia’s jacket, clinging tight to her and numb with cold, poked out his head; when he felt the warm air he recovered his habitual good humor: at last he was in his element.
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