The hat came off and Rega’s familiar face was revealed to the crowd. Despite the warming light of the candles, his skin was the colour of stone, his dead eyes fixed ahead to the middle distance.
A gasp of astonishment rippled through the crowd of seated monks. Rega drew himself to his full height, his old back unbending and his bony shoulders straightening. He raised the Wheel of Law above his head, its metal glinting.
‘I hold the Dharmachakra,’ he shouted, his voice wavering from the effort. ‘And with its vested powers, I now command the monastery.’
Some of the monks recoiled as if they had been physically assailed by this news. Murmurs of surprise and alarm were clearly audible as the same questions were asked again and again. Where was the Abbot? How could their sacred leader be so summarily replaced?
‘I speak for the Council,’ Rega barked above the noise. ‘The Abbot has stepped down from his duties. I am your leader now.’
Confusion mounted amongst the monks. Most turned, bewildered, to ask questions of their neighbours. Some younger monks stood up in confusion, demanding answers.
Towards the front of the temple, seated by one of the high wooden columns near the dais, was Norbu. He stared in disbelief at the crowd. He had not understood what was happening until he saw Rega hold the Dharmachakra aloft, brandishing it in his hand like a prize. Suddenly, his eyes fogged with tears and he sank to his knees, his face buried in his hands.
He had betrayed the Abbot. He had unbolted the door when he had been told not to, tricked by Rega and his men. His only consolation was that the Westerners had changed their plans and arrived in time to rescue the boy.
Rega was pacing from side to side on the dais, displaying the Dharmachakra to all the monks gathered in the temple. Norbu stared up at him helplessly, eyes still shining with tears.
Rega raised his hands.
‘Silence!’ he shouted, the veins of his neck bulging. ‘Silence, I say!’
Gradually, the murmuring faded away as each monk obeyed and stared up at him.
‘I come before you as your Abbot bearing grave news. Chinese soldiers have discovered the route to Geltang. They approach even as I speak.’
There was stunned silence for a moment as the weight of this news slowly sank in. The impossible had happened; their greatest fears had become reality.
Slowly, a new clamour rang out as the monks began to panic. It reverberated against the closed acoustics of the temple roof, pierced by sudden shrieks of shock and fear. Rega tried to speak, but his voice was drowned out by the turmoil. After several attempts he signalled to three men standing alongside the dais. Raising their silver trumpets, they blew a high-pitched wavering note that finally cut through the noise.
In the brief moment of silence that followed, Rega shouted to make himself heard.
‘The Chinese are coming, my brothers! They seek to destroy our treasure. I know what will happen if they reach our gates. Fires will burn . . . everything will be lost.’
The noise began to swell once again.
‘But we can defeat them! All is not lost if we only have the courage to show our strength and resist. They are but a few soldiers and we are many. We can overcome them and protect ourselves. As your Abbot now, I order you to fight!’
When he shouted the last word, the crowd erupted. While many of the older monks stood aghast at this call to arms, stunned by the shattering implications of what Rega was saying, around the periphery of the temple novices surged towards the dais, shouting with excitement and determination.
Norbu was shunted forward in the commotion, and dropped to his knees on the floor. He stared up through the sea of legs surrounding him, bewildered by it all. Then suddenly he realised what must be done. He must get back to the real Abbot. He would free him from his quarters and return him to his rightful place.
Norbu set off, fighting his way through the crowd. He felt his awkwardness and weakness melt away in the face of his self-appointed task. He pushed his way through the press of monks, towards the temple doors.
Despite all the confusion, that single movement going against the grain caught the eye of Drang who was standing on the far corner of the dais, his head raised above the crowd. Quickly realising what Norbu intended, he leaped into the throng after him, shouldering monks out of his way as he gave chase.
Norbu managed to work his way round the back of the line of pillars, to where the temple was less densely packed. He had turned right, towards the doors, when he suddenly caught sight of Drang scything his way through the crowd towards him. Norbu froze in terror. He blinked, hypnotised by the brutal energy in Drang’s eyes. The scar running down his shaved head seemed to distort the whole left side of his face, making him look monstrous and larger than life.
Finally, Norbu managed to drag himself out through the temple doors. The air outside was cool, the last of the evening light fading fast. Bounding down the stone steps of the temple, he sprinted across the courtyard and pressed his body flat against the stone wall on the far side, melting back into the shadow cast by the eaves of the building.
Suddenly the doors of the temple were flung back and Drang came crashing down the steps. He paused, head turning from side to side as he tried to see in the gathering darkness. Retreating a couple of paces, he snatched one of the torches by the temple door and raised it above his head. He then walked out into the centre of the courtyard, searched frantically for the boy, the flames from the torch flattening as he turned.
Norbu could see one of the doors to the interior of the monastery just a few feet away. He could feel the air grating in his lungs as his chest heaved up and down, and sweat ran freely into his eyes. Pushing off against the wall, he lunged forward and made it through the door of the monastery. Behind him he heard Drang roar, then the sound of feet running in pursuit.
Norbu raced along the corridor. Wells of light flashed by as he sprinted past doorway after doorway. He came across a wooden ladder leading to a lower level and hammered down it. As he came to the last rung, his feet seemed to overtake him and suddenly he pitched forward, crashing down on the stone floor in a sprawling heap.
With a moan, he dragged himself into a sitting position so that his back was leaning against one of the many wooden doors. As he stared down at the scuffed and bleeding palms of his hands, he could hear the sound of Drang’s footsteps on the level above. He was close. Just above the ladder. Norbu quickly reached up and pulled down the latch, collapsing back inside the darkened room.
Drang came quickly down the steps. He paused at the bottom, craning his neck from right to left. Then he put his shoulder to the door, sending it flying back on its hinges. With his torch held out in front of him, he stepped into the darkness of the room, bolting the door shut behind him.
Shelving was arranged in several well-ordered lines before the door, filled with jars, boxes and crates. Drang moved stealthily down each row in turn, the sinewy muscles of his right arm visible in the torchlight, eyes darting ceaselessly from one object to the next.
Rounding the last line of shelves, he paused.
‘I’ve got you now,’ he whispered.
There was a whooshing sound as his torch suddenly flared into a fountain of flames. Fire rained down over his neck and the bare flesh of his arm, as the shoulder of his robe burst into flame. He dropped to the floor, screaming in surprise and pain as his hands raised instinctively to protect his face. He twisted on the floor, the flames leaping higher with each move he made, eating through the dry fabric of his clothes and into his flesh.
With a horrible gurgling sound, Drang’s hands clawed at his clothing, trying to pull it free from his body, whilst in the far corner of the room, the bolts on the door were quickly drawn back.
Norbu emerged from the storeroom, trembling with shock. His mind was numb, the enormity of what he had done paralysing him. The half-empty vial of candle oil he was holding slipped from his grasp, smashing on the flagstones.
Across the calm of the monastery, the sound
of trumpets struck up once again. It was a brief wavering sound, fading almost as soon as it began.
Norbu started running down the corridor again. The Abbot was the only one who could stop Rega now.
Chapter 51
Smoke rose from the crooked line of pencil flares, glowing orange in the darkness. Chen worked slowly, double-checking each marking. Every twenty yards or so he would reach into a small canvas sack and strike the base of a flare on a nearby rock, triggering it to life. Sparks shot up into the night sky, bathing the vast slabs of rocks in their blood-red glow before settling into a long, steady flame.
For three hours he had been moving from rock to rock, searching for the next marking and leading the way through the Kooms. The entire SOF unit followed silently in his wake. They moved with their rifles slung across their backs, keeping their hands free for balance. Despite their training and experience in mountain warfare, none of them had ever experienced such relentless terrain.
Eventually Chen came to a huge boulder separated from the rest. He reached inside his bag, thumbed off the safety and sparked another flare. In front of him, a wide tract of deep snow was suddenly illuminated, sloping up into a gulley. He reached up to wipe the sweat from his forehead. Finally they were through.
In the main sweep of the gulley the snow was even deeper, forcing him to rock his body forward as he tried to move forward. To his left was a towering cliff, possibly two hundred metres high. Jagged buttresses were lined in vertical towers along it, sweeping round to where they finally joined with the snow gulley ahead.
Chen tilted his head up, letting his eyes trace the sides of the cliff. The scale of them was simply awesome. The mountain seemed to loom over him with an air of silent menace.
Suddenly he caught sight of a light. It shimmered somewhere high up towards the top of the cliff. He tried to focus on it, but the light blurred back into the darkness. He waited, eyes straining against the dark, but there was nothing. Then, just as he was about to turn back to the other soldiers, he saw it again – but this time there were two.
‘Sir, you need to see this.’
Zhu came to a halt, his eyes following the line of Chen’s pointing finger. Reaching into the front pouch of his webbing, he pulled out his Leica binoculars, swivelling the focus wheel impatiently. After a moment, he lowered them again.
‘It must be the Westerners,’ he said, then continued matter-of-factly, ‘take three men and lead them up the cliff in front. You’ll need to move fast to cut them off.’
‘Climb that? At night?’
Chen heard the shock in his own voice. He stared in disbelief at the towering cliff-face in front of them. Even during the day it would have been a formidable climb.
‘Capturing the Westerners should be your only concern, Lieutenant. You have ropes and harnesses. I suggest you use them.’
‘But, Captain, if we were only to traverse round up the gulley . . .’ Chen trailed off as he stared into Zhu’s black eyes, made blacker by the darkness. He knew there was no point in arguing. The captain would never back down.
Ten minutes later he stood at the base of the cliff with three of the SOF soldiers as the remainder busied themselves establishing a new camp on the edge of the snowline. As he explained the mission he looked into their faces, suddenly realising how young they all were. At most they were in their early-twenties. In the moonlight, he could see their frightened expressions. Fighting men was one thing. Fighting nature was something else.
Roped together in two separate pairs they set off, rifles slung across their backs. They climbed without gloves, the rock ice-cold to the touch, with pockets of drifted snow collected in the deep cracks. But the granite itself was solid, making their footing more stable and their handholds secure.
Above them the clouds began to disperse, scattering in thin wisps across the sky and allowing a wash of silvery moonlight. Climbing slowly, they could just make out the route ahead. Both pairs followed the edge of one of the main buttresses, pressing their right shoulder against the cliff-face as they clawed their way higher. With no bolts or friends to jam into the cracks for security, the two leading climbers fed the rope over outcrops of rock that they passed, hoping it would snag if one of them fell.
Chen stopped to catch his breath and stared down between his legs, watching the soldier below him force his way higher up the face. He could hear the laboured sound of the man’s breath and see the absolute concentration in his eyes. Chen pulled up some slack, looping it over a spur by his head, then turned and began climbing again.
They had chanced upon a good route and with each minute drew closer to the summit. Chen’s confidence began to soar as he saw the twinkling of stars beyond the top of the ridge. They were close now. No more than fifty feet.
From somewhere lower down he heard a scraping sound, then a long, panicked yell. Chen turned to see the lead climber from the other pair slipping down the cliff. His arms flailed desperately and his body twisted round like a spinning top, gaining momentum as he fell. For a split second, the rope between the two climbers caught on a spur, then the sheer force of the fall ripped it free, yanking the second climber from the face also. There was a long, petrified scream.
Chen watched both bodies fall the length of the cliff before thudding into the rock at its base. One of the rifles went off with the force of the impact, sending a booming echo across the entire mountainside as the bullet ricocheted off into some unseen distance. A silence followed that seemed to drag on and on.
Chen felt a pulse thundering in his neck. He could feel his hands shaking as he instinctively tried to tighten his grip on the rock. His eyes switched from where the two men had fallen and connected with the soldier beneath him, attached to his rope. They stared at each other, the same fear imprinted on both faces. Then, as one, they scrambled upward again, panic and adrenaline flooding their tired muscles.
They had to get off this terrible cliff-face.
‘What the hell was that?’ Bill said, looking in alarm towards Luca.
Luca was staring down into a long vertical crack in the ground. He adjusted the beam of his head-torch to see into its depths, scanning the light over the sheer sides. In the darkness, he had almost walked straight into it.
At the sudden sound he looked up, swinging the beam of his torch over Bill. No avalanche or rock fall could have made that sound. That was something else. Flinging his rucksack to the ground and unbuckling the top flap, he pulled out the climbing rope.
‘Tie me off,’ he muttered to Bill, uncoiling the rope into a pile on the ground. He ran the few paces to the edge of the cliff, then flung one end over. A few feet behind him, Bill jammed tight a quick-release knot around a nearby boulder, before feeding the rope over his back and gripping it tight with both hands.
‘OK,’ he whispered to Luca, widening his stance to take the strain.
Luca switched off his head-torch then edged his feet out over the cliff and sank his weight into the rope. Without using a harness, he gripped tight with his hands, walking back a few paces so that he could lean right out over the cliff’s sheer side.
His eyes scanned across its great flanks, searching the darkness. Then, thirty feet to the right of where he was standing, he caught sight of a figure. It was grey in the moonlight, merging with the colour of the rock, but its quick movement had caught his eye. It was climbing fast and was now just below the crest of the cliff.
‘That’s not possible,’ he muttered, the words dropping involuntarily from his mouth.
It was the Chinese soldiers. It had to be. But how had they found them so fast?
Signalling to Bill to haul him in, Luca made it back to the flat ground, his mind racing.
‘Soldiers,’ he breathed, staring from Shara to the boy. ‘Fucking soldiers! They’re climbing the cliff-face.’
Shara instinctively grabbed hold of Babu, her fingers kneading the collar of his jacket.
‘We’ve got to run,’ she said, voice rising in panic. She pulled Babu forward by hi
s arm, turning back towards the monastery.
‘No, wait!’ Bill shouted, raising his hand. ‘It’s too dangerous. You’ll fall.’
Shara paused, fighting her natural inclination to flee. She stood with her legs shoulder-width apart, eyes wild in the darkness. Her hands gripped Babu more tightly.
‘I’m not going to let them take him,’ she hissed. ‘I swear, they will not take this boy.’
Babu looked up at her, alarmed by the sudden vehemence of her tone and the feeling of her nails biting through his sheepskin jacket. He stood silently, suddenly overwhelmed by fear.
‘What the hell do we do?’ Bill asked, breathing hard.
Luca was staring back at the cliff edge. The Chinese would be over it in less than a minute.
‘Luca, what do we do,’ Bill repeated. With a burst of determination, Luca sprinted over to where Shara and Babu stood. Grabbing them both by the arms, he pulled them towards the deep crack in the ground.
‘We’ll lower you down there. You can hide from them and use the rope to climb out when we’re gone.’
‘But what about you?’ Shara asked.
‘You worry about the boy,’ he snapped, pulling the rope in from the cliff-face and feeding it down into the crack. He turned to face Shara, grabbing on to her shoulders so hard that his face was only a few inches from hers.
‘You take care of Babu,’ he whispered. ‘I promise we’ll be back. Just stay quiet, whatever you do.’
Before Shara could protest, Bill had grabbed hold of Babu and was raising him on to her chest. Babu looped his arms behind her neck, clinging to her so that his head was pressed tight under her chin. With a final, questioning look at Luca, Shara gripped on to the rope and stepped backwards into the darkness beneath her.
While Luca lay flat on the ground, his arm outstretched, shining the torch as far down as he could to guide her, Shara’s felt boots edged down the sheer wall of rock, her arms shaking from the strain. Her feet suddenly pedalled out into mid-air and she hung from the rope, twisting her head to try and see below.
The Cloud Maker (2010) Page 29