The Ninth Buddha

by Daniel Easterman

  Christopher decided he would not. He took firm hold of the knife, lifted it, and sprang for Zamyatin. The blade slashed through the Russian’s sleeve, tearing the cloth away from his arm, as he spun himself sideways. Christopher fell flat on the cushions, righting himself as he toppled, holding the knife away from himself, aiming it at Zamyatin.

  The Russian had landed on his side awkwardly. Cushions impeded his movements, getting in his way as he struggled to wriggle away from Christopher. Christopher made a second lunge-.

  Zamyatin caught his arm in his left hand, gasping as he forced the point of the knife back from his chest. It was less than an inch away. Christopher fought to drive it home, bearing down heavily on his opponent. He felt rage explode in him like a sudden storm, giving him strength, but weakening his judgement. He swore as Zamyatin brought a knee up, thudding into his stomach and throwing him backwards. He toppled into a row of candles, knocking them over on to the cushions. A piece of fine cloth caught fire, flaring up and setting light to the cushion beside it.

  Christopher grunted as the Russian rolled over on top of him.

  He still held the knife, but his arm was pinned down by Zamyatin’s knee. In spite of appearances, the Russian was a trained fighter.

  Christopher brought his left arm up to his opponent’s throat, pushing him up and back. But Zamyatin’s own hands were free.

  He struck Christopher hard against the side of his neck, causing him to stiffen and drop the knife from nerveless fingers.

  Zamyatin picked up the knife and brought it down slowly until it touched Christopher’s neck. It pricked the skin, drawing blood.

  Behind them, the fire was taking hold of the cushions. An acrid smoke had begun to billow round them, making them both splutter.

  The Russian intended to kill him. Christopher could see it in his eyes. He was breathing heavily, the simple fury of pain giving way to a deeper rage. It was suddenly clear to Christopher that Zamyatin hated him. He remembered the look in Zamyatin’s eyes when he had entered, the animosity that filled them. And he realized the reason for it. The Russian, abandoned by his own father, hated him because of his love for William. History be damned, he thought, the bastard’s just trying to get back at his father.

  Suddenly, there was a sound of running footsteps. Someone had seen the flames. A group of monks ran up. One of them had had the presence of mind to rip down a heavy hanging, which he tossed on to the flames. The others stamped at isolated pockets of flame or threw untouched cushions aside, out of the path of the fire.

  Within less than a minute, the blaze had been brought under control.

  With so many candles extinguished and without the fire, it was dark in the chorten hall. Zamyatin remained kneeling on Christopher, the knife hard against his throat. A thin trickle of blood ran down Christopher’s neck to the floor.

  The monks fell silent and gathered in a tight circle about the two men. Christopher sensed the struggle in Zamyatin’s mind. He wanted to kill Christopher; but he knew the value of the information he could obtain from him. Gradually, his breathing grew lighter and his grip slackened on the handle of the knife. Abruptly, he took the knife away and stood.

  “Get up!” he snapped.

  Christopher rose painfully to his feet.

  Zamyatin looked at him.

  “You have a few hours, Wylam. What you decide to do is up to you. But rest assured that your son will suffer if you refuse to cooperate. I want names, addresses, codes, and methods of operation.

  I require full details of all intelligence your people have gathered on the Indian communists. I’d like to know about what your man Bell is up to in Tibet. You can fill in the rest yourself. Give me as much or as little as you want: your boy will be treated accordingly.

  So much as one little trick, so much as a single false lead, and I’ll slit the little bastard’s throat with your own knife.”

  He turned and spoke rapidly to one of the monks.

  “Take him to his apartment. Lock the doors and put guards on them. If there’s a secret entrance, find it and block it up. If he escapes, I’ll hold you personally responsible and, by God, you’ll pay for it. Bring him back first thing in the morning.”

  His voice echoed among the tombs and died away. It would be morning in another seven hours.

  William was frightened. The sensation was, of course, nothing new to the boy. He had been frightened ever since that moment when the men had come for him after church. Time had ceased to have any meaning since then, and he could not have said how long had passed. All he knew was that what had started as a bad dream had become an unending nightmare out of which he desperately longed to awaken.

  He remembered every incident of the past weeks with a vividness beyond his years: the murder of Father Middleton, the men bundling him into the car, the mad drive through snow and fog to a port somewhere. Then they had transferred to a boat, the three men still bad-tempered and uncommunicative. He had been particularly frightened of the third man, the thin one who gave the orders. They had sailed into a storm, almost foundering among waves the height of houses. He had no idea where they had landed.

  Only the thin man had accompanied him the rest of the way.

  An aeroplane had been waiting for them at a field not far from the beach where they had come ashore. They had flown north at first he knew how to work out directions from the sun and the pole star and then due east. From what he knew of geography, he thought they were flying over Russia. They landed often to refuel and several times to carry out repairs on the aircraft. After a while, they began to go south.

  He had been exhausted on their arrival in India, but he had hated the orphanage they took him to, even though it meant he could sleep in a bed. He could never think of the Reverend Carpenter without a shudder. The journey afterwards had been terrible. Mishig, the man in charge of the small caravan, was a brute, and he had made William’s life a misery.

  In the monastery, nothing seemed real to him. Everywhere, there were frightening pictures and statues, everywhere thin men with shaven heads who stared at him as though he were something in a circus. The old man who spoke English and said he was William’s grandfather had told him not to be afraid, but he could not help it: he was alone and bewildered and lost. Not even the other boy, who spoke to him in a language he could not understand, or the lady, who had spoken to him with the help of his grandfather, had been able to calm his fears.

  But tonight had been the worst time of all. They had come for him and the other boy, Samdup, in the middle of the night, dragging them over that terrible bridge. He had seen men being killed, dozens of them. Then he had seen his father brought in, and that had destroyed his last hope. If his father was in the hands of these people too, then who was going to come for him, to rescue him?

  Chindamani had persuaded Tsarong Rinpoche to let her take the children to her room. Two guards had been posted at the door, neither of whom was known to her. The Rinpoche had left with a warning that he would be back early in the morning.

  Her old nurse Sonam was there. Chindamani had found her hiding beneath the bed where she had left her. The old ama-la had been Chindamani’s constant companion since the day the little girl had been brought to Dorje-la from the village in Tsang province where she had been born. That had been sixteen years ago.

  Sonam had been an old woman even then; now she was positively ancient. She had served two incarnations of the Lady Tara, bathing and feeding them as infants, passing on her love to them as children, sorting out the problems of puberty, and listening to their troubles as women. Twenty years ago she had embalmed Chindamani’s predecessor and clothed her in her finest garments before placing her in the small chorten long reserved for her in the Tara temple. Four years later they had brought Chindamani to her, a tiny girl pathetically clutching a wooden doll and pleading to be sent back to her mother. The doll was still there, well worn and unlovely now. So was the little girl.

  “What can we do, ama-la?” Chindamani asked the old woma
n.

  Her own initiative seemed to have evaporated since the moment she stood in Thondrup Chophel’s room watching the hanging bodies bob in the shadows. She had told Sonam almost nothing of what she had seen, enough to satisfy the old woman’s curiosity but not enough to frighten her.

  “Do71 What can we do?” splutterd the old crone. Little black eyes darted about like fish in a face as dry as parchment. She still wore her hair in the traditional one hundred and eight plaits, but over the years the plaits had become thinner and thinner, not to say greasier and greasier. Her mouth had long been untenanted, but she never grumbled, she had lived on tea and tsampa all her life and had never tasted let alone craved for either flesh or fish.

  Between her hands she held a prayer-wheel, which she was nervously turning with her gnarled fingers.

  “You say Tsarong Rinpoche has deposed the pee-ling trulku,” she went on.

  “Pah! That won’t last long. The pee-ling’s more than a match for him.

  I knew that Tsarong when he came here as a boy.

  He was always a nasty bit of work. He used to pull the wings off flies, then the legs, then the heads. A methodical little bastard he was. When he was beaten for it, he’d say he’d done the flies a favour perhaps they’d be reincarnated as something better:

  dragonflies or butterflies or bats. He’s vicious, but he isn’t

  popular.

  They won’t stand for him. The Dorje Lama will soon be back in charge.”

  Chindamani sighed heavily. She hadn’t wanted to cause the old woman pain. But she had to know something of the truth.

  “The Dorje-Lama is dead, ama-la,” she whispered.

  “Dead? How?”

  Chindamani explained what Tsarong Rinpoche had told her. It was not easy, and when she came to an end she found she was crying. Samdup watched her, the sense of horror and outrage growing in him.

  “Murdered?” Sonam repeated.

  “Oe! This will cost Tsarong Rinpoche a hundred lifetimes! He’ll come back a wingless fly, wait and see And if he does, I’ll stamp on him.” But the anger and the raillery were a facade. Deep down, the old woman’s world was being smashed. She had taken time to get used to the pee-ling trulku, but in the end she had grown fond of him.

  “We’re all in danger, ama-la. There’s a man here from the north, a Burial. He wants to take Lord Samdup and the pee-ling trulku’s grandson away.”

  “And you, my jewel what do they want with you?” The old nurse stretched out a leathery hand and stroked Chindamani’s hair gently.

  “I think Tsarong Rinpoche will have me killed as well,” answered Chindamani as calmly as she could.

  “He knows that, if I chose, I could still rally the monks round me, that I could put an end to his games. But he won’t allow that. Nor will the Burial.” She paused, taking Sonam’s hand in hers and clasping it hard.

  “They won’t touch you!” exclaimed Samdup, rising and crossing to Chindamani.

  “I won’t let them. They need me. I won’t do what they say if they hurt you.”

  Chindamani took the boy’s hand.

  “Thank you Samdup. I know you would do everything you could. But you wouldn’t be able to stop them. Tsarong Rinpoche is frightened of me. I have power he does not possess: I’m an incarnation, he is not.”

  “But I’m a incarnation! I can .. .”

  “Yes, Samdup, love; but you’re also a child. The Dorje Lama was an incarnation, but they killed him. Others would not have killed the Dorje Lama. Remember how they brought you back when you tried to escape with Tobchen Geshe.”

  Samdup frowned and sat down again, remembering his helplessness on that occasion, how easily Thondrup Chophel had escorted him back to Dorje-la.

  Chindamani turned to face Sonam again.

  “Listen, ama-la,” she said.

  “Listen carefully and don’t fidget. I have to escape. And I have to take the children with me.”

  “Alone? You and the boys? You’d never make it out of the pass.”

  “Not alone,” said Chindamani.

  “They haven’t killed the Dorje Lama’s son. At least .. .” She paused.

  “They hadn’t killed him when we were sent away. If I can get to him ... I have clothes and provisions already hidden for a journey.”

  “And how will you get out of Dorje-la?” the old woman croaked.

  She knew all about Christopher. For two days now, Chindamani had talked about little else.

  “No-one will be asleep tonight. You know it’s impossible to climb down even with ropes. You haven’t got wings, you aren’t birds. Is this Ka-ris To-feh a magician? Can he fly like Padma-Sambhava?

  Or perhaps he’s a lung-pa who can run hundreds of miles in a day and be away from this place before they know he’s gone?”

  “No,” said Chindamani, shaking her head.

  “He’s none of those things.”

  “Neither am I,” muttered the nurse.

  “Neither are you, for that matter. Just because the Lady Tara .. .”

  “Leave the Lady Tara out of this, Sonam,” Chindamani retorted.

  “I never mentioned magic and I’m not mentioning it now.”

  “Well you’ll need magic if you’re to get out of this place without being seen. And more magic to get away before that Tsarong Rinpoche comes chasing after you. Rinpoche indeed! He’s no more a Rinpoche than I’m a yak’s backside.” The old dame chuckled;

  she wouldn’t be put down by her ward, even if she was an incarnation of the Lady Tara.

  “Ama-la, this is serious. We can’t afford to wait. Surely you must know some way out, some way even I don’t know. A secret passage through the rock, perhaps. Didn’t you mention .. .?”

  “Mention? What did I mention? I mentioned nothing.” Sonam had become serious suddenly. Her little eyes would not hold still for a moment. She could not look Chindamani in the face. She knew what the girl was going to ask.

  “Please think, Sonam dear,” Chindamani exhorted her.

  “Years ago, when I was a little girl, you told me of a passage that had been constructed when they built Dorje-la, a secret tunnel connecting the monastery to the pass. It went down through the mountain, you said. Is it true? Is there a passage?”

  The old woman seemed to shiver.

  “No,” she said.

  “There’s no such passage. I was telling fibs, stories for a little girl. You shouldn’t listen to everything your old ama-la tells you.”

  But Chindamani knew her nurse too well to be fooled for an instant.

  “Ama-la, please you’re lying now. What you told me was the truth, I can tell it in your voice. Please don’t lie to me. There isn’t time. Where is the passage? How can I get to it?”

  Sonam took Chindamani’s hand in hers and began to knead it with her fingers. She was visibly frightened.

  “I swore I’d never tell anyone,” she said.

  “Your last body told me. I don’t know who told her.”

  The little woman took a deep breath. Her pulse was racing and she was sweating.

  “There’s a passage beneath the gon-kang,” she whispered. Chindamani had to lean close to hear her. Samdup came across and sat next to her. William watched from his seat next to the wall. He wished he knew what they were talking about. He could sense the fear and excitement in their voices, but he could not understand a word of what they said.

  “It runs for about one hundred yards. Then there’s a flight of stairs cut through the rock, into the mountain. They’re known as the stairs of Yama, I don’t know why. They lead down to a spot below the pass, out of sight of the monastery. They were built in the days of the old kings, thousands of years ago.”

  Chindamani guessed that the ‘old king’ had been Lang Darma and that the stairs had been constructed as an escape route from the gompa so that the abbot could get to safety in the event of an attack by the royal forces. That had been hundreds of years ago, when the Buddhist faith was in danger of being stamped out all over the coun
try.

  Samdup clapped his hands excitedly.

  “But that’s perfect,” he exclaimed.

  “Chindamani knows lots of secret ways to the gon-kang. All we have to do is to get there and we’re safe. They’ll never know which way we’ve gone.”

  But the old woman shook her head furiously. She shook it so hard it looked as though her neck would snap and send it spinning off into Chindamani’s lap.

  “No, my Lord, no!” she cried.

  “You mustn’t go that way. I haven’t told you everything.” She paused again, as if gathering courage to say more.

  “Hundreds of years ago,” she began, ‘when the first Chqje came here, he brought a great treasure from Lhasa gold and silver and precious jewels, to be made into his trance garments. You’ve seen him wear them in the Lha-kang when he enters the holy state and is ridden by the gods.”

  The Chqje was the Oracle of Dorje-la. In a state of mystic trance, he could enter into communication with the spirits or the gods themselves and pass on messages to other men. The ceremonies at which he appeared took place only a few times every year, but they were by far the most exciting events in the monastery’s calendar.

  His regalia was indeed impressive: the great hat, so heavy that it needed two men to support it until the Chqje rose in his trance, was a mass of rubies, emeralds, and amethysts; the Oracle throne on which he sat was studded with gems of every description, and its frame was encased in solid gold. The great mirror of divination that he wore on his chest was made of solid silver and encircled with precious stones of the finest quality.

  “Have you never wondered,” the ama-la continued, ‘where those precious things are left when they are not in use? Have you never wanted to look more directly at them?”

  Chindamani shook her head. The Oracle’s performances in the incense laden gloom of the Lha-khang had always filled her with a state of dread, and she had never sought closer contact with the darkly numinous world he represented.

  “Only a few people know that particular secret,” the old woman whispered.

  “The Chqje himself, his assistants, and the abbot. And myself, of course though none of them has ever known that I know.”