We Are Not Eaten by Yaks

by C. Alexander London

  “I don’t usually crawl upside down hundreds of feet in the air,” said Celia.

  Lama Norbu smiled at her and took out his rope. He tied it around each of their waists.

  “This way, if one of us falls, the others can catch her,” he said.

  “What do you mean by her?” objected Celia.

  Lama Norbu simply shrugged and grabbed on to the wire, swinging his legs up effortlessly and hanging upside down. He began to inch along, trailing the rope behind him. “Come on!” he called back.

  “I don’t think we should do this,” Oliver said.

  “He’s not trying to trick us,” Celia explained. “He went first.”

  “It’s not that. . . . This wire is going to break.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Every show I’ve ever watched,” he said, “when someone has to cross a gorge or a valley or a canyon . . . the wire or the bridge or whatever always breaks. Always. It’s like a law.”

  “Well, this isn’t television,” Celia said.

  “I know.” Oliver sighed. “This is much worse.”

  The twins wrapped their palms with the cloth and, one after the other, followed Lama Norbu out onto the wire, hanging upside down and crawling along like inchworms. Oliver went first. As always.

  The wind whipped past them and made the wire swing and swoop while they crawled. Oliver made the mistake of looking down. The river churned and the air swirled. He felt his hands slipping. His sister shouted to snap him back to attention.

  “Hey! This isn’t the time for daydreaming! Keep crawling!”

  Halfway across, their arms and legs were aching, and they were getting dizzy from hanging upside down for so long. Lama Norbu was whistling a cheery tune while he crawled, but the twins were straining and grunting with the effort. It was like gym class, only with their lives on the line. If this had been a challenge in school, they never would have made it even this far. Lama Norbu called back to encourage them: “The body is only an illusion, and so your pain is not real. Focus and you can accomplish the impossible! In fact, you must.”

  Just as he said those words, the cloth on his hand tore and he slipped. For a moment, he hung upside down and backwards by his legs, looking Oliver and Celia right in the eyes. It was only for an instant, but his face showed a clear expression both kids knew well from gym class: embarrassment and terror.

  A split second later, his legs slipped off the wire and he fell. Oliver watched as if in slow motion as the rope that attached him to Lama Norbu unwound and pulled tight. When the rope had run out, it snapped Oliver right off the wire too and he began to fall behind the monk. Last in the line, Celia watched as her brother fell and the rope connecting them began to pull. She screamed and hugged the wire as tightly as she could, with her arms and legs, vowing that she would not let go no matter how much it hurt.

  “Pain is an illusion,” she muttered to herself as the full weight of the monk and her brother hung off of her by a gnarly old rope. “An illusion. An illusion. An illusion.”

  Her grip on the wire was all that stood between the Navel Twins and certain death. She squeezed her eyes shut and held on for dear life against the strain. The wire continued to sway in the wind and her whole body ached and burned against the weight.

  “Oliver,” Lama Norbu called up, “you must climb back up to the wire. Use the rope and climb!”

  “Hang on, Sis!” Oliver yelled as he reached one hand over the other and started to climb. Now it really was like gym class.

  “Ahhhh!” Celia yelled as the shifting weight yanked her waist. She tried to clear her mind, to think about anything else. She started to list the television networks they’d have once they got cable: ʺABC, BET, CBS, FOX, HBO, NBC, TBS, TNT, USA, Cartoon Network, Soap Network, Reality Network, Reality Two, Reality Three, Food Network, All Sports, All Sports Except Fishing, The Fishing Network . . . Ahhhh!”

  Oliver was halfway up to his sister when his arms slipped and he went skidding down the rope, burning his palms. He couldn’t give up, though. He began again, one hand over the other.

  His arms ached from lifting himself and Lama Norbu below him. Every muscle in his body strained and screamed at him, but he had to speed up. He didn’t know how much longer his sister could hang on to the full weight of two people. Overhead, giant vultures had gathered, swirling through the warm air, hoping to catch a meal.

  Celia thought of every television show she had ever seen; she imagined what was on right now; she tried to list her favorite actors in alphabetical order; tried to imagine Cory Brandt cheering her on. Anything to distract her from the pain. It wasn’t working.

  Then she thought of her mother.

  Her mother had climbed Mount Everest when she was only eighteen years old. Her mother had trekked alone through the jungles of South America, had swum with great white sharks in South Africa, had told Celia bedtime stories and rubbed her stomach when she was sick, sang ancient songs of healing from the Twa People of Rwanda to her, and blessed her with secret prayers from Kabbalah.

  Celia was her mother’s daughter. Her mother had always believed in her. And if her mother could believe in her, then she would not fall!

  As she imagined her mother’s face, watching her, she forgot all about the pain and the danger and the fear. All she knew was that she was loved, and for the first time, she was sure, absolutely sure, that her mother was alive somewhere. She couldn’t explain how she knew, she just did. Before she realized any time had passed, there was Oliver, red-faced and soaked in sweat, hanging from the wire next to her.

  “Hey, Sis,” Oliver panted. “Coach Busick would never have believed we could do that, huh?” He even managed a smile. Lama Norbu hung from the wire right behind him. Celia noticed that the weight on her arms wasn’t so intense anymore. They felt like Jell-O, sure, but they were also relieved; her brother had taken the weight off of her. Celia let out a breath and simply laughed. Even though she was still hanging like laundry hundreds of feet in the air over wild river rapids, she had never felt so relieved in her life.

  The moment didn’t last.

  With a terrible splitting sound and deep vibrating twaaaang, the strands of the wire, which had hung across the gorge for almost a hundred years, started to break.

  Twang! Twang! Twang!

  The wire jerked and jolted with every snapping strand.

  “Hurry,” yelled Lama Norbu, as they all tried to scurry as fast as they could toward the other side of the gorge.

  “Go faster!” Oliver yelled, but it was too late. With one terrible snap, the old wire broke off from the cliff, and they swung down through the air like monkeys on a vine, except they were going way too fast and heading right for a wall of solid rock. Jagged boulders jutted out at them, like the spikes in the Cabinet of Count Vladomir next to their fridge at home. If they held on, they would be impaled.

  Celia looked down at the raging river below and saw their only choice. As desperately as she had held on moments before, she let go. Oliver was yanked right off the wire after her, followed by Lama Norbu.

  “Ahhhh!” they all screamed as they fell backward toward the frothing river below, tied to each other and flapping their arms like flightless birds.

  20

  WE DON’T QUESTION THE WISDOM OF RAINBOWS

  THE OLD ABBOT OF THE Monastery of the Demon Fortress of the Oracle King knelt beside the calm pool at the base of the Hidden Falls. He had traveled for weeks, eating only a grain of rice a day. He was tired, but his spirit felt fresh and young. He had reached the goal of his pilgrimage, the place that had appeared to him in a dream. He removed a small butter lamp from his bag and set it on the ground.

  “For as long as space endures, and for as long as living beings remain, until then may I too stay to heal the misery of the world,” he chanted. It was his favorite saying from the sacred texts. He bowed his head to the earth and rose again to light the lamp.

  The flame flickered in the cool air. Behind him, the Hidden Falls rose hun
dreds of feet, and, in the mist where the water crashed into a pool at its base, a rainbow blossomed. The abbot smiled.

  For months, the monks at his monastery had been afflicted by horrible nightmares. Though his monastery had a terrible-sounding name, it was a place of peace, reflection and learning. There were no demons there, and it looked more like a medieval spa than a fortress. No one actually knew how it had come to have that name, but for centuries the monks had prayed and studied there, hidden from the modern world. Outsiders imagined the place was Shangri-La, as if such a place existed. To the abbot it was simply home.

  But all that changed a few months ago. One of their monks, a powerful oracle who channeled the spirit of their protector, Dorjee Drakden, had vanished. Then the nightmares spread like wildfire.

  Now, hundreds of sleepless monks were wandering the halls. Everyone was so tired and nervous from the dreams that small arguments turned into ugly fights very quickly. If a monk coughed too loudly or ommed too quietly, all of their nonviolence training went right out the window. Fists would fly. The abbot had never thought he would have to break up fights or treat bloody noses. He felt like a nurse and a referee more than a wise and learned abbot. It was a terrible situation.

  The monks’ nightmares were all the same, and the abbot suffered from them too. In the dream, Dorjee Drakden, their great protector, was locked in a cage, helpless, as an army of men marched across the land, setting fire to all in their path. The leader of that army carried a giant scroll wrapped in chains, and scholars threw their sacred texts in front of him. He stomped them into the dirt.

  “Has the protector abandoned us?” frightened monks would ask the abbot in the morning. “Will we be destroyed?”

  The abbot could not say, but he decided to take a pilgrimage to find out. As he walked for days and days, down from his mountain and into the hidden lands, he meditated, hoping that he would find guidance. He saw an image of these great waterfalls, of the pool beneath, and of three rainbows. He decided he would go to the place in his visions. He had arrived and now he would meditate.

  “Ommmmm,” he said.

  He pictured the ferocious protector-spirits of Tibet, in all their many forms. He pictured Dorjee Drakden. He pictured the Chitipati, the dancing skeleton twins who guard the burial grounds of eternity and protect the righteous from thieves. The Chitipati feared nothing, not even the other spirits. If the abbot could meditate on them to defeat fear, then so could all his monks, and so could all people. It was a big task he’d set for himself. He would need to concentrate. This was some of the hardest meditation a person could do. It was dangerous to invoke the ferocious protectors if you were not ready. He lit another butter lamp.

  “Ommmm,” he said. “Ommmmm.”

  “Ahhhhhhh,” he heard in response. “Ahhhhhhhhhh!”

  His heart quickened. Could this be the response he had hoped for? Could this be the answer of the gods? What did it mean?

  “Ommmmmm,” he said again.

  “Ahhhhhhhhhh!” he heard again. And again. “Ahhhhhhhhhh!”

  The voice was not from his head. It came from behind him. He sighed. His concentration was broken. All this strange shouting was quite distracting. He turned toward the falls to see what all the trouble was about.

  Just then, he saw a small form fly over the edge. It looked like a monk shouting and waving his arms frantically. Behind the monk another small form fell, shouting. This one looked like a child with a school backpack. And it was tied to the monk. And then a third form, tied to the other two, also plunged over the edge of the falls. That one looked like a little girl. All three shouted as they fell.

  “AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

  He watched the three figures, flailing and falling through the water and the mist, as they crashed into the deep pool. He waited to see what would happen next. Just as three heads popped out of the water, choking and gagging, he saw that the rainbow above them had split into three, just like he had seen in his vision.

  This is what he was meant to see. These three figures would end the nightmares that had plagued his monks and would restore the protector to his place. The abbot packed up his lamps and rose. He had a long trek back to his monastery on the icy mountain. He could hardly wait to tell his followers the good news.

  He couldn’t actually imagine how a monk and two children had come to crash over the Hidden Falls, nor how they would be of any help, but he had long ago learned not to question the wisdom of dreams or rainbows, and certainly not to interfere with their plans.

  He took one last look across the water, being careful not to be seen, and watched as the children climbed out of the water and yanked the sopping wet monk out behind them. They slumped down on the bank, exhausted, and the abbot was again tempted to run over and bless them, to ask them who they were and why they were there. He wanted to help them. But he resisted. All would be clear in time, he told himself, and they had their own journey to complete. He turned and started his trek out of the valley, walking as fast as he could. The three rainbows faded behind him.

  21

  WE KNOW HE’S NO LAMA

  OLIVER AND CELIA SCRAMBLED out of the water at the bottom of the great waterfall. Their clothes were dirty, dripping and torn, and every inch of them was soaked. Oliver took off the wet backpack and set it on the rocks with a plop. They watched as three rainbows faded into the foam.

  “We’re alive!” Oliver shouted and jumped up and down.

  “What?” Celia shouted. The roar of the waterfall made talking almost impossible.

  Oliver just smiled and hugged his sister. A line of butterflies fluttered overhead, dancing and swirling in the air.

  The twins had seen waterfalls on television before, but this was something else entirely.

  “Wow,” Oliver said.

  “Wow,” Celia said.

  The water crashed down hundreds of feet into the pool in front of them. The mist and water and shimmering remains of the rainbows were beautiful. Celia couldn’t help feeling bad that their father wasn’t around to see it. He would have loved a sight like this. And she couldn’t help but wonder if her mother had really been here. This was the kind of place that explorers loved to discover. Neither one of them could think of a TV show to compare this to. They were dumbstruck.

  Lama Norbu sat on the bank of the river, exhausted, with his feet dangling in the water. The twins were so busy admiring the butterfly parade and trying to think of something they’d seen on TV that was as amazing as this waterfall that they didn’t see him fiddling with the wet phone in his lap, banging on it and cursing under his breath. He eventually gave up trying to get it to work and tossed it into the river. Frank Pfeffer did not care about littering. He sighed and stood.

  “We’ve arrived,” he declared, and pointed at the waterfall, as if the twins might not have noticed. “The ruined monastery is just behind this screen of water. We’ll have to climb up the rocks over there to get to it.”

  The twins were tired of climbing, because it always ended up with a lot of falling, but they were so close to their goal, they didn’t complain. They just turned and started on their way up, scrambling and sliding over wet boulders.

  They slipped behind the thunderous wall of falling water and found themselves in a large cavern. Sunlight passing through the waterfall made it look like glowing marble, rather than tons and tons of crashing water.

  “Why would someone want to build a monastery down here?” Celia asked.

  “It’s kind of a cool place,” Oliver said. “I bet Secrets of the Underworld would love to do an episode here.”

  “I never want to watch that show again,” Celia said. “I’ve had enough reality for a while.”

  “Reality TV is different,” Oliver objected. “It’s not as wet as real reality.”

  Celia just shrugged. She couldn’t understand boys sometimes.

  The cave itself wasn’t just rock and moss, like a normal cave. It had once been built into something. There were doorways that led into other p
assages. Some of the doorways were filled with broken doors hanging off their frames, others just had piles of rock and ash where wooden doors used to be. The walls were charred too, like someone had tried to burn down the inside of the mountain, and soot covered up elaborate murals painted on the walls.

  Oliver and Celia were able to make out strange images of men sitting on clouds, and tigers leaping over hills and rivers, but the images were all broken and burned. There was a stairwell at the back of the cave that descended into the shadows and there was a statue in front of the stairs that looked like someone had tried to break it.

  “This place is creepy,” Celia said, and Oliver did not disagree. He shivered.

  The statue in front of them was of twin skeletons. Their mouths were open and filled with long, razor-sharp fangs. They were dancing and holding strange objects in their claws. They each had an extra eye in the middle of their foreheads and they each wore a crown of tiny skulls. Everywhere Celia stepped in the cave, she felt as if the skeletons were watching her through their third eyes. The eyes seemed to glow.

  “The Chitipati,” Lama Norbu explained. “Guardians of the charnel grounds.”

  “What’s a charnel ground?” Oliver asked.

  “The place where the bodies of the dead are burned.”

  Both twins looked back at the statues and shuddered.

  “Not cool,” Oliver said.

  “This was the monastery of the Ferocious Protectors,” Lama Norbu said. “Here they prayed to the warrior-god Dorjee Drakden. These skeleton twins are meant to protect the righteous against thieves. If ever there were a place to hide the Lost Tablets of Alexandria, this would be it. We must try to decipher what your mother told us,” Lama Norbu said.

  He pulled the page out from his robes. It was soaking wet and the ink had blurred. A few runny demon faces from the sketch were still visible, an arm or two, but little else.