It happened in seconds. Without warning, the island began to shake violently, making ripples in the ocean that built up into tremendous, crashing waves. Vents opened in the dead volcano’s side, thrusting steam high into the air as if from a gigantic teakettle. And then, no more than a minute after it began, it ended in a shattering explosion. Like Krakatoa and Tambora before it, the entire island disintegrated in a detonation of Biblical proportions. The Japanese boat, closest to the island, was sunk instantly; the British and American crews barely escaped with their lives.
The message was received.
Chapter XXVIII
THE SECOND WALL
—
NO MORE THAN an hour of daylight remained by the time the exhausted band of travelers entered the valley, so their journey was halted for the night. They set up camp near the foot of the mountain through which they’d come, just where the scrubby vegetation began. The Baroness and Nenn scouted out a sheltered location where they could remain unobserved, while Sid and Hank gathered kindling for a fire.
Captain Doyle and Professor Armbruster collapsed in a heap, massaging their aching feet as they talked about the singing stone. They had made great strides in refining Doyle’s radio-beam transmitter during the flight, and it had survived the crash thanks to the inventor’s insistence on keeping it strapped down in case of turbulence. But they had not yet had a chance to use the device on the stone. Armbruster in particular was eager to try, his early skepticism having been erased by the episode in Shanghai, but Sid and the Baroness were reluctant.
“I appreciate all you’ve done, but I’m just not sure,” the Baroness said. “The last time the results were so unpredictable...”
“The last time the results saved our lives,” Armbruster retorted. There was no arguing with that. “We don’t know what this golden aspect of the cylinder does, but we should find out, and the sooner the better. We do know that blue stone will protect us from the flamethrowers. So that’s another reason to test the transmitter: my guess is that we’ll need to turn this stone blue to bridge that wall of fire our Chenggi friend mentioned.”
The scientists won the argument, and soon had their equipment set up for the first test. Remarkably, they completed the work without either man hurling a single insult at the other: too much was riding on the experiment’s success. When they were ready, with the singing stone propped on its side and the radio device pointed directly at one of its circular ends, Doyle connected the two wires linking the transmitter’s battery to the compact main assembly. He pointed the device’s conical front end at the stone and flipped the activation switch.
There was an immediate effect. The undulating, humming sound — the stone’s “song” — had not changed since they first heard it in Bartholomew St. Cyr’s Shanghai vault, but now the tone shifted, becoming slightly deeper and slower. The difference was subtle but unmistakable.
“Very good. We can indeed influence the stone through directed radio waves,” noted Doyle. “Now let’s see what happens when we change the frequency.”
He twisted a dial on the side of the transmitter, very slowly, and the stone responded in kind. A slight greenish tint appeared, spreading out from the point where the radio beam struck the stone and rippling through the cylinder like dye in a solution. Doyle turned the dial further and the greenish tint became more pronounced, but still mixed with golden light. Satisfied with this result, Doyle switched off the power. The green color disappeared in an instant, leaving the singing stone just as it was when they began.
Over the next fifteen minutes the scientists successfully identified settings for blue — which made the transmitter vibrate alarmingly for a moment but caused no damage — then a light purplish color that matched the amulet Around Hank’s neck, and finally red. Something unexpected happened when they reached this last color: a beam of bright red light shot out from the end of the cylinder like a lance, drilling a hole nearly twelve inches into the side of the mountain before Doyle could cut the power again.
“My word. That is most interesting,” the Professor breathed. “It’s like the inverse effect to the blue aspect: blue reflects energy, green stores it, and red focuses it, like a magnifying glass under the sun.”
“But we still don’t know what purple does,” said Doyle.
“No, nor gold for that matter.”
“I have a theory about that,” said the Baroness. The scientists spun around in surprise; they hadn’t even known she was there.
“While you boys were experimenting just now, I remembered something I read in Bartholomew St. Cyr’s book, Strange Tales of the Orient. He described the meanings of the different aspects of the Glorious Dragon, the prince of Shangri-La. He said blue princes were wise, red princes were noble, and so on. It occurred to me that those qualities also apply to the stone. Like with red: Nenn Si-Lum told us that only a stone in red aspect can carve the others. You could say it’s more noble.”
“That seems like quite a leap of logic to me,” said Armbruster, “But go on. What is a golden prince like?”
“Well, a yellow dragon indicates a fool,” she said. “So maybe the yellow stone is, too...”
“A fool?” queried Doyle. “I don’t understand... oh. Yes, yes I do! The golden stone is unstable, as we’ve seen. It’s mercurial. It can take on any aspect at any time, but it retains nothing, following the breezes hither and yon like our dear Professor. And he’s a fool if I ever saw one.”
“I see. Well then, it’s no wonder your contraption works,” said Armbruster, testily. “Your supposed skill with radio waves has nothing to do with it. It’s the golden aspect of the stone. The thing will probably react the same way to any tuned input of energy.”
“All right,” declared the Baroness, “That’s enough science play for tonight, boys. We all need some sleep if we’re going to get anywhere tomorrow.”
The sun had already set somewhere behind the ceiling of thick gray clouds and swirling snow; the land was growing dark. But far off in the distance the clouds shone a dull white above Shangri-La, reflecting light from a land eternally illuminated by a mighty machine, powered by a singing stone.
* * *
It was a long, troubled night on the eerily silent valley floor. Most of the adventurers had nightmares.
In Sid’s dream, an illustration of Doc Savage stepped right off the cover of his magazine, a shimmering vision in chiseled bronze with torn shirt and stern jaw, and told Sidney Friedman he was a nobody, a child playing at a man’s game. The crude image of Doc pointed its accusing finger at Sid and said he was doomed to let everybody down, especially Rosie, poor sweet Rosie, left to die in a wrecked airplane on a mountaintop, her final resting place unknown to even her own family. Sid awoke in a cold sweat.
The Baroness dreamed of six giant, man-eating yeti, hideous monsters with white fur stained red by the blood of her friends, their yellow fangs leering and snapping at her as she watched them carry her father away over the mangled bodies of Sid, Rosie, Sonny, and her first love, Simon Marstead-Blake.
Even Nenn Si-Lum, the stone-faced Chenggi, was haunted in sleep. He dreamt of the Black Dragon triumphant, laughing, forcing Nenn to watch as his infernal machines swallowed Chenggi-Lai whole, sending the paradisiacal land falling from its lofty perch into the fiery pits of hell.
In the morning, nobody felt rested. A feeling of discouragement beset everyone, a foreboding sense that their mission was pointless and they were fools to go on. Everyone, that is, except Hank, who slept like a baby and awoke refreshed and eager to resume the chase.
“Nightmares? I didn’t have no nightmares,” he said cheerily. “I didn’t hardly dream at all. I just heard this thing singin’ to me, and I knew everything was gonna be all right.” He pointed to the amulet of Ando Chee, glowing bright purple around his neck.
* * *
They marched into the foothills on the far side of the valley that morning, through the tall grasses that marked the landscape’s transition from scruffy brown to thriv
ing green.
“We must be near that second wall now, huh?” asked Hank.
“Yes, I believe so,” replied Nenn. “But I cannot be sure. I have never made this journey on foot, only by air.”
Sid joined the conversation. “You said it was a wall of illusion? What does that mean, exactly?”
“I do not know,” said Nenn. “But I worry we will not be equal to it. This all feels very wrong. We should perhaps have taken more care with our plans.”
“You said it,” replied Sid. “I think we’ve made a terrible mistake coming here alone. There’s only six of us. What chance do we have against an army?”
The mood amongst the party became gloomier and gloomier as the morning wore on, their progress slowing as the doubts mounted: were they even going the right way? Did they have enough food? How did they know the Black Dragon wasn’t watching them the whole time, ready to spring a deadly trap? After a few hours the Baroness stopped and made a frustrated noise.
“Damn... we’re walking in circles!” she said. “I remember all of this from before...” — she swept her arms to indicate the green landscape — “See that clump of rocks? We passed it half an hour ago. I’m certain of it.”
“And whose fault is that?” snapped Armbruster. “Nenn, you’re leading us in circles! How do we know you’re not doing it deliberately, hmm? Why should we trust you?”
And then a noise made them all freeze in their tracks. It was a low, gravelly moan, coming from somewhere over the next rise. It sounded once, a long tone that rose and faded, echoing lightly against the distant hills, but it seemed to cut into their flesh, chilling their blood. Some kind of animal was over there, something large, and it was waiting for them.
“We should turn back,” said Doyle. “This isn’t safe.”
The noise came again, closer now, with a thick, growling menace. The friends closed ranks, looking around in fear, but saw only the rolling hills and the grass all around them. There was no shelter, no place to hide except the now-distant mountains at their back.
It came leaping over the rise as if shot from a cannon, an enormous beast with dirty gray fur and four massive limbs, each terminating in long curved claws that looked capable of eviscerating a grown man in one swipe. The thing landed not fifty feet away, near the top of the hill, and snarled as it regarded them one by one. The Baroness recognized it, she had seen it in her dream: it was a yeti, an abominable snowman. But it looked nothing like a man. It was more like an unholy cross between a polar bear and a wolf, six feet tall at the shoulder.
A second beast came over the hill, and then a third. Someone drew a gun and began firing wildly, but the bullets had no effect. The monsters advanced, slowly, spreading out to cut off all angles of escape. The only option was to retreat and pray. They ran for it.
“What the hell?”
It was Hank speaking. He was utterly confused. One minute they were all climbing a hill; the next, everybody looked like they’d just seen a tiger eat their grandmother. Sid even pulled out his gun and tried to shoot at thin air. Nothing happened — the safety catch was on — but the others all seemed to hear the shots as if they were real. Then they all broke into a run and scrambled back down the hill, leaving Hank standing there, all alone.
At the bottom of the hill, the Baroness was screaming at Hank, imploring him to run, to follow the others to safety. Doyle glanced back and saw Hank standing still, seemingly oblivious, as the three monsters converged upon him. Why didn’t he run? He just stood there like an idiot, with that purple bird dangling from his neck...
The second wall is illusion.
Doyle had a mad thought. He reached into his rucksack and withdrew the radio-beam transmitter.
“Good God, Doyle, what are you doing?” — Sid’s voice, from somewhere behind him. “You’ll be killed! Run! Run for your life!”
Doyle pointed the device at Hank’s rucksack, which held the golden cylinder. One of the beasts had seen him, and now started running down the hill straight towards him. The other two monsters were mere feet away from Hank, who still appeared not to notice them. Doyle turned his dial to the setting he’d marked as “purple,” and pressed the trigger just as the advancing beast leapt for him, claws extended for the death blow, its teeth gleaming like daggers as they plunged into his chest...
And then the monsters were gone. The howling and snarling had stopped. And the feeling of dread that had plagued them all since the previous night lifted like a curtain from a stage. The others stopped running and turned back to see what had happened. There was Hank, perplexed, still standing at the top of the hill and scratching his head, and Doyle, standing at the bottom with his strange device in hand, grinning and yelling like a madman.
“Purple!” shouted Doyle. “Now we know what purple does!”
Professor Armbruster began to laugh. He laughed so hard he had to sit down in the grass and wipe the tears from his eyes.
“My dear Captain, you’ve done it again. Now whatever you do, don’t turn that confounded machine off!”
Just like Ando Chee in the thirteenth century, the adventurers marched confidently through the second wall of Shangri-La, protected by a singing stone of purple aspect, which, as Bartholomew St. Cyr had once written, was a power “anathema to yeti, oni, werewolves and bedbugs.”
* * *
While her comrades on the far side of the mountain tossed and turned through their nightmares, Rosie Esterhaszy also wrestled with a bad dream.
She was in the wrecked plane with Sonny, St. Cyr and Djali. It was a rough night, cold and uncomfortable, with the wind howling outside and a sense of utter isolation filling the cabin. But fitful sleep had come at last. At some point, Rosie dreamed, the darkness was interrupted by a dull green glow, and a strange scraping sound rose above the howl of the wind. The stranded voyagers had awoken in a panic, and moments later something smashed in the cabin door. Men made of night, pure black from head to toe, came pouring through the door into the cabin, and had taken them all out of the plane and into the burning maw of a waiting dragon. And then, nothing.
Rosie awoke from her awful dream, woozy and aching, and slowly opened her eyes.
It was morning. Flat, gray light streamed in from a somewhere high above her. Rosie was in a warm, soft bed, in an otherwise bare room whose walls and floor were made of a smooth, reddish stone. And standing over her, his face impassive, was a towering man in flowing robes of green and black.
He was Wo Then-Liang, the Black Dragon.
Chapter XXIX
THE WALL OF FIRE
—
“CURIOUS. MOST CURIOUS.” The Glorious Dragon of Black Aspect sat upon his carved throne at the head of the Great Hall and regarded the four prisoners arrayed in his presence. He addressed his words to Rosie Esterhaszy, who was still not entirely sure what was going on.
She had awakened to find herself in some sort of cell, with the Black Dragon watching her. She lay there, staring, not knowing what to do next: Scream? Run? Wait? Before she could decide, the prince spun on his heel and strode out of the room. A female attendant had entered, every bit as tall and solemn as the Chenggi men and bearing a washbasin and some clean clothes, which Rosie wore now: a long, luxurious robe, shimmering in shades of emerald and amethyst. In other circumstances she would have found it breathtakingly lovely. The attendant returned a short time later with a bowl of steamed rice and a cup of fragrant tea, which Rosie had refused. And then she was brought here, to this enormous chamber, along with St. Cyr, Sonny and Djali.
The Black Dragon spoke again.
“In the Shanghai temple, I gave orders that you should be brought here. One of my aeroplanes departed Shanghai the next morning. This is logical.”
He stood and began to pace in front of his throne, his eyes still locked on Rosie’s blonde head.
“The aeroplane crashed in the mountains. This has happened before, in storms. Understandable. Yet when the wreck is investigated, we find only you. The Rothburg girl and your Mr. Frie
dman are not there. My two operatives are not there. Only you, two men unknown to me, and...” — his piercing, hypnotic eyes flashed to the old man at the far end of the line — “Bartholomew St. Cyr. This is not logical.”
A startled ripple ran through the prisoners. “I... I am known to you, sir?” asked St. Cyr, somewhat awed.
“You are. You came to my attention some years ago, poking your nose into my affairs, looking for information about the fabled Shan-Gri-La.” He spoke the name in its non-native form, exaggerating the mispronunciation as if it were an insult.
“I considered killing you then, but it was better to let you live. I have read your books, peasant. You are a purveyor of fairy stories. When such a man as you stands before the world and declares something to be true, the world assumes it is false. This is to our advantage. So I allowed you to publish your Strange Tales of the Orient, allowed that Englishman Hilton to write his absurd Lost Horizon. Your kind has protected us from prying eyes. I should thank you.”
He had ceased his pacing, and now stared at each of the prisoners in turn as he spoke.
“But this is not relevant. Three men were on the plane who did not belong. Why? My own men are missing. Why? Do you choose to tell me?”
There was silence. A log cracked in the cavernous fireplace built into the wall.
“You shall, in time. But first, I shall tell you something. Provisions were taken from the plane. Enough for, perhaps... six? Yes. It was six. Your faces betray you.”
Rosie shifted uneasily on her feet. The man seemed barely human. His gray eyes burned with fathomless menace; his deep, resonant voice was like something from beyond the grave. And his gaze seemed to reach right into her mind and soul. Her blood froze as the Black Dragon raised his arm, pointing a curved fingernail at a point directly between her eyes.
“You sought to attack this fortress. You thought you would defy me. Stop me. But you crashed. Two were injured, two remained to watch. And six are coming on foot. Yes.”
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