Bamboo Dragon td-108

by Warren Murphy

  His train of thought was sidetracked as the party started moving. They kept on heading eastward, veering slightly to the south when they had covered half a mile or so. The trail was left behind, but it meant nothing to the natives, who guided their three prisoners by secret paths no white man had traversed in living memory.

  Behind them, Remo was their shadow, hanging back enough to keep from being noticed but never falling far enough behind to lose their scent or sound. The natives were adept at forest travel, but they still left traces of themselves behind for anyone with eyes to see. If necessary, Remo could have let them lead him by a day, but he preferred to keep the hostages within his reach in case the end—whatever that turned out to be—came suddenly.

  The hiking gave him time to think about what he had overheard while spying on the Malays and their prisoners. The captives were supposedly en route to meet Nagaq, whatever that meant. Remo didn't like the sound of it, but he was still inclined to wait and see what happened in the short run rather than attacking from the shadows and endangering his recent traveling companions. There was no fear on his own behalf, despite the heavy odds, but he couldn't prevent one of the natives spearing Stockwell, Sandakan or even Chalmers while he dealt with their associates. Whatever lay in store for the three hostages, Remo could be ready in a flash if someone tried to execute them on the trail, but otherwise, he thought it best to watch and wait.

  The jungle felt more claustrophobic here, a combination of congested undergrowth and something less substantial—almost metaphysical—but Remo had no problem keeping up with the bizarre procession. Once, he traveled for a quarter mile above them, skipping through the treetops, feeling very much like Tarzan as he left the ground behind. It was a whole new world up in the canopy, some sixty feet above the forest floor, complete with creatures who were born, lived out their busy lives and died without a single visit to the ground below.

  He thought of waiting for Chiun, but had no way of knowing where the elderly Korean was, when he would choose to reappear or what he had in mind. Right now, the more important task was keeping up with Dr. Stockwell and the others, making sure they didn't stray beyond his reach.

  Some unknown ordeal lay ahead of them—that much was obvious. With luck, Remo thought it might just help him single out the ringer he was looking for and finalize his mission. Once the traitor was eliminated, Remo could decide what he should do about the freakish natives, the survivors of the expedition and the panic button nestled in his pocket.

  Choices.

  What was all this talk about Nagaq? It seemed that Stockwell's party had been captured by some kind of native cult, though Remo couldn't say for sure. Devotion to a mythic creature wouldn't be the strangest notion he'd ever heard of, and the setting clearly lent itself to legends, whether they revolved around a dragon or a tribe of forest trolls. In fact, it wouldn't have surprised him to discover that the freakish tribe itself had given rise to some peculiar stories in the neighborhood if he had time to ask around.

  Mythology didn't concern him at the moment, though. His more immediate priorities were flesh and blood—the natives, their three hostages, the man he had been ordered to identify and kill. The jungle spooks and demons, meanwhile, would be forced to watch out for themselves.

  There was a brand-new predator advancing on the Tasek Bera. Grim. Impervious to pity. Ruthless. And he wouldn't stand down until his work was done.

  And old Nagaq would have to take a number if he wanted Remo's prey.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Safford Stockwell slapped at his neck. The heat and the incessant hum of insects buzzing in his head was driving him mad. He'd come so far, risked everything, only to be stopped by these primitives before he reached his goal. It was just too much. It meant that Audrey's sacrifice had been for nothing, all their effort a pathetic waste of time. When he was gone, another white man swallowed by the jungle with no clue to what had happened, how his mocking colleagues back at Georgetown would amuse themselves at his expense!

  Kuching Kangar had promised they were being taken to Nagaq. Of course, the comment was intended as a threat, but Stockwell took it as a hopeful sign. The natives obviously meant to kill their prisoners, but there was still a chance that he could change their minds. And if he failed, at least there was a possibility to see his curiosity assuaged.

  Stockwell was not an anthropologist, but he was literate, well-read in many disciplines. He knew, for instance, that most cults—at least among the aborigines, where modern drugs and psychopathic "saviors" weren't an issue—had their roots in some concrete and tangible event. The Polynesian cargo cults were an example, sprung to life from Allied air drops during World War II. Some isolated tribes still worshiped mock-ups of the aircraft that had showered them with blessings fifty years ago, a whole new generation waiting for the sky gods to return.

  Why should Nagaq be merely fantasy, a witch doctor's hallucination? Was there any reason to rule out that this group, at some point in the past, had encountered some forgotten creature thought to be extinct?

  It need not mean Nagaq was still alive, or even that it had been sighted by living men within this century. However, since the last known dinosaur abruptly vanished more than sixty million years ago, which was some fifty million years before the first appearance of a protohuman ape, it stood to reason that no man had ever seen a dinosaur… unless a few stray specimens had somehow managed to survive.

  There were alternative hypotheses, of course. Nagaq might not be an official dinosaur at all. Stockwell had seen enough, when he was younger and more heavily inclined toward working in the field, to realize that science still had far to go in terms of understanding life on earth. New species weren't found as quickly as the old ones disappeared, but each year still brought some remarkable discoveries. Most of the "new" arrivals were diminutive—insects, amphibians and reptiles, with a few stray birds and mammals, but a larger species surfaced every now and then. The great Komodo dragon was a "legend" until 1912, and the first specimen of the "mythical" Kellas cat had been bagged—in Scotland, no less—as recently as 1983. If the immense, uncharted Tasek Bera region did not hold some secrets of its own, then Dr. Stockwell would be very much surprised.

  He only hoped that he would live to find an answer to the riddle, even if he never had the chance to share his information with the world at large. There would be satisfaction just in knowing for himself, a certain pride in realizing that his last great effort hadn't been a total waste.

  They didn't stop for rest at all that day, and there were times when Stockwell thought he would collapse from sheer exhaustion on the trail. Each time he faltered, though, one of his captors would rush forward, jabbing at him with a spear or crude stone knife until he found fresh energy and struggled onward. Sparing sips from his canteen kept Stockwell going, that and fear, but he grew famished as the afternoon wore on, exertion burning up the calories with nothing to replace them. His stomach growled like a caged animal, but no one seemed to notice, and the feeling of embarrassment passed.

  By late that afternoon, their path was winding downward, losing altitude, although he reckoned that must be a function of his own fatigue. According to the topographic maps he carried, this whole region was a sort of swampy floodplain, nearly level, with no striking highs or lows. There were no mountains in the district, for example, and it stood to reason there would be no valleys, either. Still…

  But as dusk approached, he realized there could be no mistake. Their path was intersected by a gully that led steeply downward for a hundred yards or so, then leveled out again. Trees from each side of the gully met overhead and blocked out the sunlight. More than once, he saw the disappearing tails of serpents startled by their passage and half expected a king cobra to rear up and block the path at any moment.

  Watching out for snakes made Stockwell think of Renton Ward, and that in turn brought painful memories of Audrey Moreland back into the forefront of his mind. Such beauty, squandered in a godforsaken wilderness, and she woul
d be forgotten almost overnight back home.

  The trees cleared out in front of them, a sudden break in the oppressive gloom, and in the few short yards before they closed in overhead once more, he saw it.

  He stood rooted to the spot until his captors shoved him on.

  Stockwell thought he must have lost his mind. The heat had poached his brain; that must be it.

  He blinked, then blinked again, but nothing changed. The scene in front of him was real, and his companions saw it, too. Pike Chalmers, too, had stopped dead in his tracks, dumbstruck, until a couple of the pygmies prodded him with spears. Stockwell now kept on moving, even though his legs had lost their feeling. He was giddy with excitement, close to passing out from the combined effects of hunger, heat, exhaustion and surprise.

  But he kept moving.

  Toward the ancient, hidden city that had risen from the ground in front of them, as if by magic.

  Coming home was always a relief and pleasure for Kuching Kangar. He hated visiting the outside world, but he had no real choice. Cruel Fate had marked him with a face and body that were different from others in his clan—"normal" in the words of men who didn't know his people—and it meant that he was preordained to bridge the gap between his tribe and those Outside.

  In every generation of his people, there were six or seven normal ones, enough to carry on their necessary commerce with the world of common men. It was a part of great Nagaq's own master plan, and while Kuching Kangar could recognize the genius of it, he was still uncomfortable with his special role. Raised from birth to be as those Outside, he always knew that he was strange, a fact the other children of his tribe wouldn't let him forget. They teased him constantly, threw pebbles at him when he tried to join them in their games and made it crystal clear that he would never be entirely welcome. The young women of the tribe had shunned him, too, as if his normal aspect was revolting, something to be feared. In time, he knew from adolescence, elders of the tribe would choose a normal female for him, to perpetuate the freakish bloodline, even if they had to snatch one from Outside.

  The normal ones must never die out absolutely, after all. They were the only link between his people and the larger world that brought them special treasures: gold and silver, precious stones and sacrificial offerings for great Nagaq.

  When he was sent away for education with the common men, Kuching Kangar had worried they would find him out, see something in his eyes or in his manner that would instantly betray him as a member of the tribe. He had been wrong, of course. The men Outside were idiots, for all their schooling. They knew nothing of his people or Nagaq. They even raised their children to believe that dragons were a figment of imagination.

  Fools.

  These days, he lived between two worlds, with one foot in the City and the other one Outside. With his diplomas duly registered and filed away, Kuching Kangar took pains to hide his education, building up a reputation as one of the foremost hunting guides in all peninsular Malaysia. He was famous, in his way, among the Outside men who came with guns or cameras to stalk the native wildlife, study plants or mingle with the aborigines. Some came in search of oil or other minerals, but it was all the same to him. Each year, a number of his clients vanished in the jungle, always under circumstances that would not reflect upon Kuching Kangar or make him suspect in the eyes of the authorities.

  Nagaq demanded periodic offerings, but there were millions of unsuspecting fools Outside, and each new season brought a crop of them, intent on finding riches, romance or adventure in the wild. Most made it back intact, but if a member of the party should be lost occasionally, snatched by "tigers," "crocodiles" or "quicksand," who would be the wiser? After ten years in the game, Kuching Kangar had come to realize that strangers from Outside were fond of tragedy. It made their own lives more exciting, satisfying somehow, if they knew somebody who had died.

  Perhaps it reassured them of their own invincibility, when Death brushed shoulders with them and selected someone else. The roots of their peculiar mind-set held no fascination for Kuching Kangar. It was enough for him, and for his people, that the idiots still made themselves available—and paid him very handsomely for leading them to meet their fate.

  He'd never before snared an entire expedition, but Dr. Stockwell's group was special. They had come to find Nagaq, the first time in a generation that Outsiders had taken any interest in a "simple native legend." Last time, in the year before Kuching Kangar was born, a group of British soldiers had come hunting for the dragon, but their disbelief had blinded them, and they were too well armed for any member of the tribe to challenge them. Besides, they had been more concerned with pitching tents and practicing survival exercises than in hunting for Nagaq. A normal member of the tribe had been their guide, and he made sure they never passed within a day's march of the City.

  There had never been another name for it, as far as he could tell. The tribe didn't possess a written history, of course, but the traditions were preserved in oral form, passed down among the normal ones and any others capable of holding long-term memories. It was "the City," plain and simple, built from massive blocks of jade, erected in the time before remembering. The site was chosen by an ancient father of the tribe who was the first to see Nagaq and worship him with offerings.

  According to tradition, early members of the tribe had all been normal. It took a few years in the City, worshiping Nagaq, before the dragon god had started blessing them with special children. At first, in the beginning of the change, some members of the tribe were horrified, repulsed by "monster" children in their midst, but then a wise priest recognized the blessing of Nagaq and carefully explained it to the others.

  They had chosen wisely in their god, and he rewarded them by setting them apart. He placed his mark on those who served him, leaving normal ones among the blessed to help deceive the world at large. Sometimes, he even favored normal ones with special children, so they wouldn't be discouraged by their lot in life or blame themselves for having failed to worship him with proper offerings.

  Nagaq had placed his mark upon the City, too. A secret river from below ground fed a stone fountain in the spacious courtyard where the tribe conducted many of its rituals. And sometimes, in the dark of night, the very water seemed to come alive with eerie, dancing lights.

  The blessing of Nagaq.

  He stared ahead now, his heartbeat fast and joyous. His first glimpse of the City, after time Outside, inevitably caused his pulse to quicken. Beautiful was not a word that sprang to mind—the jade was ancient, weathered, faded, mostly overgrown with moss and creeping vines—but it was home. His heart was here, among the other members of the tribe. So would it always be.

  The massive gates were fashioned out of square-cut timber, thirty-five feet tall, and flanked by sentries on the wall. At the appearance of the warriors and their captives, one of those on guard gave out a birdlike call to someone in the courtyard, an all clear for opening the gates. It took some time—each gate weighed tons, and only Small Ones were permitted, for some reason, to perform the opening—but Kangar felt no need to hurry. He had performed his mission, and he would receive his just reward.

  Perhaps, he thought, already conscious of a restless stirring in his loins, he could request a night with Jelek, the three-breasted one.

  "What is this place?" the old professor asked, yelping when one of the Small Ones jabbed him with a spear.

  "The City," said Kuching Kangar, as if that answered everything. Which, in his own mind, was the truth.

  "You live here?" There was amazement in the voice.

  "The tribe lives here, white man. I am a member of the tribe. Where should I live?"

  "I simply meant—"

  The Small One used a bit more force this time, and Dr. Stockwell got the point. He shut his mouth and kept it shut, eyes focused on the double gates as they crept open, inch by groaning inch.

  "I'll guess you don't have many visitors," Pike Chalmers said. "Be bloody tiresome, going through this nonsense every
time somebody rings the bell."

  The one-eyed member of their party stepped in close to Chalmers, lashed out with his spear as if it were a cudgel, using force enough to bruise the tall Brit's shin.

  "Goddamn your eye!"

  The next blow dropped him to all fours, a dazed expression on his face.

  The gates stood open before Kuching Kangar now, his people gathered in the courtyard to behold the offerings he brought Nagaq.

  He smiled and led the way inside.

  His first glimpse of the hidden city startled Remo, made him double-check his map, but there was no mistake. He didn't have a fever, wasn't prone to fantasy and this was no mirage.

  The maps were simply wrong—Or rather, incomplete.

  He watched and waited while the massive gates were opened, a laborious procedure that convinced him there must be some other means of access to the city, for emergencies. If fire broke out, if they were suddenly attacked, there would be some hidden exit, almost surely more than one.

  The trick would be to find it, if he didn't want to scale the wall for starters. Not that it would be a challenge, since the weathered stone offered countless cracks and crevices, all kinds of creepers on the outside that could double as a ladder. Even so, the wall was guarded, and while Remo had the utmost confidence in his ability to take the sentries out, there would be hell to pay if one of them lived long enough to sound a general alarm.

  In that case, Remo knew, the hostages would be in greater peril than himself. It was impossible to know exactly how the tribesmen would react, but at a glance, he didn't think they would be noted for their self-control.