by Alex Archer
“We just have to count on Prasad and Lal to keep that from happening,” she said.
He nodded. “I doubt our fates could rest in better hands.”
At last the oldest peasant nodded. His brutally weathered old face smiled, seeming to become a series of more or less concentric circles. The younger men laughed, perhaps a trifle nervously.
The elder spoke at length, his manner serious but no longer suspicious. Prasad and Lal listened intently, nodding. Occasionally Prasad asked a question. Lal maintained respectful silence between his elders.
“You go safely,” the old man called to Annja and Pan. He waved. The four turned and scrambled up into the snow-clumped rocks and quickly vanished as if swallowed by the rocky hillside.
“Bad news,” Prasad said to Annja. “The elder tells us there are more foreigners in the area. They are numerous, a dozen or more. And armed. They go in concert with Party men. They act very arrogant, threatening. That’s why the peasants are so wary.”
“Bajraktari and his Maoist helpers,” Annja said.
Pan looked at Prasad. “These peasants, do they support the government, then, and not the guerrillas?”
“They are poor people, Sergeant,” Prasad said. He and his nephew insisted on calling the Macedonian by his rank. “This is hard country, as you can see. Those who live upon it can afford to support no sides—they are only for themselves, and their families. Especially since these Party men are with the government. No longer is it easy to tell what the sides even are. But the peasants want no one desecrating their holy places, as the Maoists often do.”
He smiled. “Once I explained the nature of your pilgrimage, they gave you their blessings, and wish you success in your quests, both temporal and spiritual.”
Annja and Pan exchanged glances. “I’ll take all the good wishes I can get,” he said.
“Likewise,” Annja said. “Thank you, Prasad, Lal. Once again we’d be lost without you.”
“They gave us one more warning,” Prasad said. “The bonmanche is abroad in the lower reaches of the White Mountain. Its cries have been heard along the Myagdi River, and travelers say they spotted it in the heights above here.”
“Bonmanche?” Annja asked.
“It means ‘wild man,’” Lal said. “You would call it yeti, I think.”
“Ah,” Annja said. She flicked a quick glance Pan’s way. The very immobility of his long and usually expressive face told her all she needed to know.
Glad to know he doesn’t buy into the myths, either, she thought. She was also pleased he had sense enough not to embarrass their guides—and comrades—by openly scoffing. Then again, that squared right up with everything she’d seen of Pan Katramados. He was fundamentally a decent, polite man, even kind, with a quick, keen mind—and sound judgment.
Prasad smiled his ever ready smile. “You are skeptical, my friends. Perhaps you will learn to your satisfaction.”
His manner quickly sobered. “The wild man can be very dangerous. Yet his appearance can also be most fortunate. It remains to see which his appearance portends for us—good fortune. Or death.”
WATER GURGLED GENTLY over big smooth rocks flanking the Buddha’s altar and ran down channels in the floor. A bare electric bulb hanging from the dark wooden ceiling lit the chamber. The walls were whitewashed, whether over stone or brick Annja couldn’t tell.
She sat with Pan on cushions on a stone floor polished to glassy slickness by generations of bare feet, drinking tea. The tea was way sweeter than she liked. On the other hand it completely lacked the traditional salt and rancid butter. So on balance it tasted fine.
Their host smiled at them and bobbed his head. He was a tiny, wrinkled monk in a saffron robe. He spoke barely understandable English. Annja wished Prasad or Lal had come in to help—discreetly—with translation. But their guides insisted on remaining outside the monastery on the outskirts of the terraced hill town, so she had given them and the porters the afternoon off.
“It is an honor that you visit us,” the monk told them.
Trying not to be too obvious, Annja glanced at Pan. She got the strong sensation he was wondering the same thing she was. Why?
“We’re doing the best we can to help protect Nepal’s ancient Buddhist heritage,” she said, taking a blind stab.
The lama grinned and nodded. “Ah, yes. That, too. It is most important work, and does your souls credit. And now we have something I believe you will wish to see.”
He gestured with a hand toward a wooden door on one side of the chamber. As if on command a red-robed acolyte opened it and gravely beckoned them.
Annja rose. Knowing it wasn’t precisely correct but strongly suspecting its intent would be understood, she pressed her hands together and bowed toward the lama in yellow. Pan mirrored her actions so closely it might seem they had rehearsed the gesture.
“We thank you for your kindness, sir,” she said.
The monk chuckled. “Do not thank me for showing you the next step on your journey,” he said, then turned serious, “until you have seen—and felt—where it leads.”
He settled into an immobility no less absolute than that of the gilded image behind him. Clearly he had said all he intended to say. Annja didn’t bother questioning him any more.
Pan showed her a raised eyebrow. When she shrugged and walked toward the newly opened door he did likewise.
Inside were large cushions and a low reading table. On the table lay several yellowed scraps of what looked like dried animal skin of some sort. Butter-bowl lamps on the tables and arranged in a score of niches around the walls cast a rich if not particularly bright illumination. The red-robed young man bowed and withdrew, closing the door.
For a moment Annja and Pan just stood there. The room was silent but for the bubbling of unseen water that seemed to pervade the entire building. The lamasery was built over a spring fed by the enormous snow mass of the Dhaulagiri Himal. As he took leave of them at the scarlet-painted doors, flanked by stone prayer wheels tall as a man, Prasad had informed them that it was called the Lamasery of the Waters for that very reason.
Annja sat down. Putting on a pair of latex gloves, she examined the scraps. The skin the parchment was made from was thin, pale and fine pored. “I’m not so sure I want to know what this is made of,” she confessed.
Pan laughed softly. Both spoke in hushed tones, as if in a library.
“Good thing that’s not vital to our mission,” he said, seating himself across from her.
With gloved hands he picked up the parchment and squinted at it. After a moment he requested a magnifying glass. Annja took out a retractable piece in a sturdy and much used green leather case and handed it over. He opened and peered through it.
“It’s transcribed ancient Greek of the Macedonian dialect, all right,” he said. “And it appears to be further journal entries from our friend…the general.”
She noted the slight catch in his words and the way he did not speak the ancient Macedonian’s name. The dreams seemed to be affecting him more, at least to judge by the way he sometimes woke her in camp at night. Sometimes, though, he smiled blissfully, his long handsome face composed, serene. Perhaps the dreams of his imagined prior life didn’t always distress him. He didn’t speak of them during the daylight, and she didn’t press. She felt like an intruder as it was.
He carefully scanned the scraps for several minutes. Annja sat and meditated, drawing deep abdominal breaths, holding them briefly, letting them go and then remaining with her lungs emptied for several seconds. She found it calmed her and cleared her mind—for whatever might come.
At last Pan began to read aloud.
I feel keenly the suffering of our soldiers, good Macedonian men, a world away from their homeland, caught up in endless war. Although none can match them for bravery, before I set out upon this journey I heard many asking, “Why? Why have we come to leave our bones in this hostile place at the end of the Earth?”
Now as I sit and think, here at this
monastery, whose barbarian monks have treated me as courteously as they might a prince of their own land, I can find no reason to give our men. Try as I might.
Not all the inhabitants of this cold and thin-aired land prove so hospitable. The day before we arrived here Patrokles and Diomedes were slain in an ambush. We slew three in return before our attackers vanished as though melting into the rocks and snow. We are men of the hills ourselves, but these are not our hills.
Beyond defending our honor and ourselves as warriors of Macedonia I have not sought to punish the inhabitants of the area. We lack the skill to track them, as our guides at least profess to. Nor can I bring myself to fall upon whatever village we first come across and take retribution. Although they are tiny of stature and cannot speak human language—
Pan paused and looked at Annja. “He means Greek,” he said.
“I figured,” she replied.
—still they remind me of my own men, my own family and tribe back home. And I think how, if an invader came among us and slew ten of us for each man they had lost to ambush in our country, we should rise up and never rest until we had killed ten more of them for each of ours. Nor, as Pallas Athena is my witness, have I in truth the heart for it. I tire of the endless cruelty we seem to visit everywhere we go. It seems to burst the bonds of military need, and to give the lie to our claims of superior civilization.
He broke off there, frowning.
“What’s the matter?” Annja asked. “Did you hit an illegible spot?”
“No. But I grew up idolizing Alexander and his men. These words—written by a man who knew him well—leave a bitter aftertaste in my mouth.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t need to say anything, Annja. If I let myself be deterred by mere words I’m the worst kind of coward, no matter what physical dangers I may have faced down. I still believe physical bravery is a virtue—I do. But it’s also the easier kind.”
“I know,” she said.
He scratched his temple as if to reset himself, and read on.
Sometimes it seems the land itself resists us, with sudden rockfalls and no less sudden storms. Two days ago a flash flood rose up as out of the very rocks and swept away Herakles and two of our porters crossing a bone-dry wash, dashed them to their deaths on rocks below. And this from a clear sky, with neither speck of cloud nor sound of thunder.
Yet my hosts here, gracious though they be, warn me that the way becomes only more perilous from here. The air grows colder and thinner, the snow and ice thicker. The gods’ whims become more capricious in directing the weather. Zeus forgive me, but I cannot say whether our own gods and goddesses hold sway at all in this land so distant from lofty Olympus.
And most sinister of all, it seems, is the Lost Monastery, high up beyond the point at which even the toughest native tree will grow. The very mention of that accursed place caused a half dozen of our porters to desert. The others grew glum, and mutter continually themselves that demons guard it. Yet there, it seems, our quest inevitably leads us.
Ah, well—what treasure worth winning was ever easily gained? So great is this treasure of which my master Alexandros hears, had the dangers not been supernaturally great, it should have been plundered long since.
Reverently Pan placed the last scrap on the table. “Whew,” Annja said.
He looked at her. “Whew,” he agreed.
THE MARKET TOWN TERRACED into a steep subpeak of the Dhaulagiri Himal teemed with tourists and locals, bright as tropical birds and all talking at once. It was a bright, crisp morning. The inevitable white-and-blue bulk of Dhaulagiri I dominated the scene.
Pan and Annja had checked into a hostel on a lower level and left their packs behind. Despite the sunscreen she’d slathered on before they set out to tour the unusual settlement, the high-altitude sun stung her nose and cheeks. She’d given Prasad and Lal and the Sherpas the rest of the day off. She hoped they’d get a good rest.
The town’s multilevel market offered a surprising array of wares. Gold-painted plaster Buddhas from Macao and Taiwan vied with bolts of bright cloth, modern sporting goods, stacked clay pots ranging in size from palm fitting to vessels Annja reckoned she might just fit in, and the inevitable racks of bottled water—apparently a staple of foreign and local mountaineer alike, mostly imported from India and China, as close as Annja could tell by the labels. Up-to-date cell phones and used iPods lay alongside stacks of colorful boxes of tea and biscuits and carefully arranged strands of exquisite turquoise jewelry. Bent low beneath big wicker baskets, men and women of all ages hustled along the avenues between whitewashed stone buildings and the vendors’ stalls and blankets spread out on the hard gray dirt.
Bins displayed fresh vegetables in a variety Annja hadn’t anticipated in such a remote location, not to mention such a vertical one. She saw beans, cabbages, turnips and many she didn’t recognize. Apparently the area’s farms, terraced like the town, were very productive. Diminutive women with colorful turbans picked through them with expressions that even to Annja, stranger to local conventions of body language, saw were skeptical. Then they and the shopkeepers would screech at each other in mock rage.
In fact the level where Pan and Annja stood bustled with noise, as well as bodies. Chickens squawked from wicker cages. Music blared from overloaded speakers; strange skirling Himalayan and Indian music competed with Western rap and European techno. Annja found herself drifting away from the small tinny speakers hung from garish stalls toward a stone stoop where several people wearing ragged, ill-fitting Western cast-offs played skirling music on instruments like rough-hewed violins with no facing on their hollow bodies and sang in high voices. A middle-aged man would sing a verse. Then two women and a man sang the chorus in a higher pitch.
“What fascinating music,” Annja said. “I wonder what they’re singing about.”
She spoke to Pan, but a small voice piped up right beside her in English. “They are the Gaines,” it said, pronouncing the name gah-eenes. “They sing songs of old heroes, you know.”
In surprise Annja looked down to see a boy of maybe eight or nine standing next to her. He wore a blue plaid flannel shirt that hung clear to the knees of blue jeans that pooled over the tops of faded red athletic shoes with splitting toes.
“Well, thank you,” she said. “What’s your name?”
“I’m Yuvaraj. What’s yours?”
“I’m Annja. This is Sergeant Katramados.”
The boy blinked up at Pan. “Are you a soldier?”
“Not anymore,” Pan said. He dropped a hand to the boy’s head to ruffle his dark close-cropped hair. Then his eyes snapped to focus past Annja’s shoulder and he went rigid.
A heavy hand clamped on her left bicep. Startled she looked around.
She found herself looking up into the moon-faced, brown-toothed leer of Duka, Enver Bajraktari’s giant bodyguard.
Wide-eyed, she glanced back toward Pan. Yuvaraj had vanished into the crowd. Another Kosovar in a black leather coat had Pan gripped from behind.
He had the muzzle of a Skorpion machine pistol pressed up under the angle of the special operator’s jaw.
19
“Pan!” Annja exclaimed.
“He cannot help you, I’m afraid,” an unfortunately familiar voice said from behind her. She didn’t have to turn to know that Bajraktari himself was approaching.
She caught Pan’s eye. He winked.
She needed no more. She could smell the overpowering odor of Duka, mostly stale sweat, human grease and harsh Balkan tobacco. In the cool air the heat washed off his body as from an open oven. By accident or design he had come up on her with his left side turned somewhat toward her, blocking the obvious shot at his crotch.
Instead Annja yanked hard with her captive arm. Duka’s hand clamped down like a vise. He grinned.
She raised her right knee and kicked hard down and out. Her heel hit the front of the big man’s knee on the inside. She felt and heard a pop as his kneecap sli
d around out of place to the side.
Duka folded like a cheap suit. He lay on the ground clutching his leg and screaming in pain.
From the corner of her eye she saw Pan make his move. His right arm came up fast. The machine pistol’s muzzle raked a bloody line up his jaw as he knocked it skyward. Caught flat-footed by the quick, decisive move, the Kosovar hadn’t had time to fire.
Pan caught his gun wrist with his left hand, turning hard into him. Using his raised right arm as a fulcrum he locked out the man’s elbow. He snapped it with a sound Annja heard even as she took off like a sprinter off the blocks.
She dodged through the throng of chattering locals. She was betting—hoping—that if Bajraktari and his goons didn’t have a clear shot at her they wouldn’t dare just rake the crowds with gunfire in hopes of thinning them away enough to hit her. I so love having to depend on the good grace and judgment of terrorists, she thought.
A burst of gunfire crashed out. She grimaced, expecting to feel the sting of bullets piercing her back. Instead the bullets cracked over her head. One of the terrorists had noticed she was taller than almost anyone else in the bazaar, and ripped off a shot over the heads of the Nepali townspeople. Fortunately he’d aimed too high.
Can’t count on that happening again, she told herself. Spinning right as sharply as she could she ran up the tongue of a parked handcart full of green apples, presumably imported from nearby India with its yearlong growing season. As she reached the box the apples rolled right out from under her feet, dumping her forward. She grabbed the cart’s back end, stuck up at an angle, and hauled herself onto it.
The cart overbalanced and dumped her unceremoniously on the other side. Apples cascaded around her and went bouncing in all directions. The apple merchant bounded from behind his table, waving his arms and expostulating vigorously.
Not so many style points for that one, she thought. She picked herself up and started running again. But I wound up where I needed to be.