Tiger's Quest

by Colleen Houck

  “Thank you, Grandmother.”

  “There is one more thing. You must learn to take a step back and visualize the whole piece. If you focus only on the thread given to you, you lose sight of what it can become. Durga has the ability to see the piece from beginning to end. You must trust her.

  “Don’t allow yourself to become disheartened when the thread doesn’t suit or seems unsightly to you. Wait and watch. Be patient and devoted. As the threads twist and turn, you will begin to understand, and you will see the pattern finally materialize in all its splendor.”

  I let go of Kishan’s hand, so I could step closer to the old woman. I kissed her on her soft, wizened cheek and thanked her again. Her eyes twinkled, and the shuttle started moving again. The rhythmic click-clacking noise continued as she slowly faded from sight. Soon, we could hear only the sounds of the loom and then nothing at all.

  We turned to face Durga, who was petting her tiger’s head and smiling at us.

  “Will you trust that I will look after your tiger, Kelsey?”

  “Yes. I will.”

  Durga beamed. “Wonderful! Now, before I send you on your way, I will bestow another gift.” She began rotating the weapons in her arms and stopped at the bow and arrow set. She raised the bow, and Kishan stepped forward.

  “Patience, my ebony one. I have a gift for you as well, but this . . . is for my daughter.”

  She handed me a medium-sized golden bow with a quiver of gold-tipped arrows.

  I curtsied, “Thank you, Goddess.”

  She turned to Kishan and smiled. “Now, I will choose something for you.”

  He bowed deeply and grinned rakishly at her. “I will gladly accept anything you offer me, my beautiful goddess.”

  I rolled my eyes at him. Sheesh.

  She nodded her head slightly in acknowledgement, and I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I saw a little dimple where she twitched her mouth up in a small smile.

  I looked at Kishan, who was grinning goofily, bewitched by Durga. He was very handsome. Didn’t Zeus have affairs with mortals? Hmm, I’ll have to ask Mr. Kadam about that when we get back.

  Durga handed Kishan a golden discus, and he seemed delighted by it. It even made him bold enough to press a warm kiss on the back of her hand. Overstep boundaries much? I wasn’t jealous. I was more shocked that he would act that way with a goddess.

  The two stared at each other, so I cleared my throat, “Ah-hem. So is there anything else we need to know before we head off? We were thinking of Lhasa and the Himalayas. You know, searching for Noah’s ark and Shangri-la.”

  Durga blinked and got back to business. Her tinkling voice echoed, “Yesss . . .” her voice started fading, and her limbs returned to their former position. “Beware of the four houses. They will test you. Use what you’ve learned. When you obtain the object, it will help you escape and help you find the one you love. Use it to—”

  The goddess froze. Her soft skin hardened into stone.

  “Drat! I have to ask her questions first the next time we do this!”

  Wind blew through the room, and the statue began to move and was soon facing the street outside once more.

  “Hello? Earth to Kishan.”

  He’d stood watching until Durga was gone from sight. “She is . . . exceptional.”

  I snickered. “Yeah. So what is it with you and unattainable women anyway?”

  The light faded from his eyes, and he visibly withdrew into himself. He grimaced. “Yes. You’re right, Kelsey.” He laughed at himself dryly. “Maybe I can find a support group.”

  I giggled but then became sad. “I’m sorry, Kishan. That wasn’t very nice of me to say.”

  Smiling ruefully, he held out his hand. “Don’t worry about it, Kells. I’ve still got you. Remember, you’re my warp and I’m your weft.”

  “Yeah. Not too flattering for me, eh?”

  “You’re a beautiful warp.”

  “Hmm, I don’t think my warp drive is operating within normal parameters.”

  He tilted his head, confused. “What’s a warp drive?”

  I winced. “Sorry. Dad was a Trekkie. I couldn’t resist.”

  “A Trekkie?”

  “I’ve got to introduce you to Star Trek. It’s a television series and not one but several movies. You may like it.” I mumbled, “Too bad Scotty can’t beam us out of this crazy life, huh?”

  Kishan’s brows knit together in confusion. He had no idea what I was talking about.

  “Just ignore me. Someday, when we’re not fighting demons, I’ll teach you all about science fiction. We’ll start easy. Maybe with E.T.”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “Whatever you say, Kells.”

  I teased, “Come on, ebony one. Let’s go find Mr. Kadam.”

  He grinned. “After you, my lovely.”

  I rolled my eyes at him again and headed down the stairs. “Didn’t get enough flirt time in with the goddess, huh? Well, knock it off. It doesn’t work on me, anyway.”

  He laughed and followed me downstairs. “Then I’ll keep trying until I find something that does.”

  “Don’t hold your breath, Casanova.”

  “Who’s Casanova?”

  “Never mind.”

  The moon had disappeared behind the clouds, and the temple walls and floors were covered with the same grime and dust as when we entered. Kishan took my hand again, and together we stepped out into the dark night.

  14

  The Friendship Highway

  We met Mr. Kadam outside the temple. When we asked if he’d noticed the statue moving, he said that he hadn’t. He hadn’t felt the wind either. I told him that he should come with us next time. He always took the look-out position and said he had assumed that Durga would appear only for me and the tigers. He thought that his presence might deter us from our course.

  I teased, “Of course, if you did come along, you’d probably fall under Durga’s spell the way Kishan did, and then I’d have to bring both of you out of your love stupor.”

  Kishan scowled at me while Mr. Kadam’s face lit up with delight. “The goddess is beautiful, then?”

  I responded, “She’s okay.”

  Kishan began gushing, “Her beauty surpasses all other women. Her ruby lips, soft limbs, and long dark hair would be enough to cause any man to lose control of his faculties.”

  I scoffed, “Oh, please! Exaggerate much? Ren never reacted that way.”

  Kishan glared at me. “Perhaps Ren had a reason to look elsewhere.”

  Mr. Kadam laughed. “I would very much like to meet her if it will work.”

  “It can’t hurt to try. The worst that could happen is nothing, and then you could always leave, and we’d try it again.”

  After we returned to the hotel, we showed Mr. Kadam our new weapons. Kishan was going on and on about the goddess this and the goddess that and was twisting his discus in the light so the gleaming gold reflected on the walls of the hotel room. I listened for a while and heard Mr. Kadam talking about how the discus represented the sun, which was the source of all life and that the circle was a symbol of the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. I stopped listening, so I could tune out Kishan’s constant praising of Durga and her lovely feminine features, which practically made me gag.

  I leaned in the door frame between their connecting rooms, rolled my eyes, and during a break in Kishan’s Durga tribute, mocked, “Are you going to yell like Xena when you throw the discus? No! Even better. We’ll buy you a leather kilt.”

  Kishan’s golden eyes turned to me. “I hope your arrows are as sharp as your tongue, Kelsey.”

  He walked toward me. I stood my ground, blocking his way, but he just picked me up and moved me to the side. Leaving his hands on my arms for a moment, he leaned over and whispered, “Perhaps you are jealous, bilauta.” Then he closed the connecting door behind him, leaving me alone with Mr. Kadam.

  Flustered, I flopped into a chair and muttered, “I am not jealous.”

  Mr. Kadam looked at me
thoughtfully, “No you’re not. At least not in the way he might hope.”

  I sat up straighter. “What do you mean?”

  “You’re protecting him.”

  I snorted. “Protecting him from what? His own delusions?”

  He laughed. “No. You clearly care for him. You want him to find happiness. And because Ren isn’t here, all of your maternal instincts are focused on Kishan.”

  “I don’t think what I feel for Ren is maternal.”

  “Of course, it is. Well, a part of it is, anyway. Do you remember what the weaver told you about the different threads?”

  “Yes. She said I’m the warp.”

  “Exactly. Ren’s and Kishan’s threads weave around you. Without your strength, the fabric couldn’t be complete.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Miss Kelsey, do you know much about lions?”

  “No. Not really.”

  “A male lion cannot hunt for himself. Without the female, he would die.”

  “I’m not sure I’m getting the point.”

  “My point is that a lion without a lioness dies. Kishan needs you. Perhaps even more than Ren does.”

  “But I can’t be all things to both brothers.”

  “I’m not asking you to. I’m just saying that Kishan needs . . . hope. Something to hold onto.”

  “I can be his friend. I’ll even hunt for him. But, I love Ren. I won’t give up on him.”

  Mr. Kadam patted my hand. “A friend, someone who cares about him and loves him and won’t let him give up on himself, is what Kishan needs.”

  “But isn’t that what you’ve done for him all these years?”

  He chuckled. “Oh, yes. Of course. But a young man needs a young woman who believes in him. Not a crusty old man.”

  I got up and hugged him. “Crusty and old are two words I’d never use to describe you. Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight, Miss Kelsey. We leave early in the morning, so get some rest.”

  When I dreamed that night, it was of both brothers. They were standing in front of me, and Lokesh was ordering me to choose which one would live and which one would die. Ren smiled sadly and nodded toward Kishan. Kishan’s face tightened, and he looked away from me knowing that I wouldn’t pick him. I was still pondering my choice when the courtesy wake-up call startled me.

  I packed up my bags and met Mr. Kadam and Kishan in the lobby. We drove in silence about ten miles to Kathmandu, the largest city and capital of Nepal. Kishan and I sat in the Jeep while Mr. Kadam went into a building to finalize paperwork for our trip through the Himalayas.

  “Uh, Kishan? I just wanted to say that I’m sorry for acting like a jerk yesterday. If you want to fall in love with a goddess then, by all means, go for it.”

  He snorted, “I’m not falling in love with a goddess, Kells. Don’t worry about me.”

  “Well, still. I wasn’t being very sensitive.”

  He shrugged. “Women don’t like hearing men talk about other women. It was rude of me to go on like that. Honestly, I only praised her beauty so much to get a rise out of you.”

  I turned around in my seat. “What? Why would you do that?”

  “I wanted you to be jealous, and when you weren’t, it . . . bothered me.”

  “Oh. Kishan, you know I still feel—”

  “I know. I know. You don’t have to remind me. You still love Ren.”

  “Yes. But it doesn’t mean that I don’t care about you. I’m your warp too. Remember?”

  His face brightened. “That’s true.”

  “Good, don’t forget that. We’re all going to have happy endings, okay?”

  I reached a hand back to him, and he held it in both of his and grinned. “Promise?”

  I smiled back at him. “Promise.”

  “Good. I’ll hold you to that. Maybe I should get it in writing. I, Kelsey, promise Kishan that he will get the happy ending he seeks. Should I define the parameters for you now?”

  “Uh, no. I’d like to keep it vague for the time being.”

  “Fine. Meanwhile, I will create a mental list of what constitutes a happy ending and get back to you.”

  “You do that.” He kissed my fingers brazenly, holding them tightly while I struggled to pull my hand out of his grip.

  “Kishan!”

  He laughed as he finally let me go and then changed to a tiger before I could verbally chastise him.

  “Coward,” I muttered as I turned back in my seat. I heard him growl softly but ignored him.

  I seriously racked my brain for the next few minutes trying to find a happy ending for Kishan. At this point, my own happy ending wasn’t even a guarantee. The best I could come up with was finishing the four tasks, so the brothers didn’t have to be tigers anymore. I hoped that by the time we finished them, the happy endings would sort of take care of themselves.

  Mr. Kadam returned and said, “We’ve received permission to take the Friendship Highway tour route to Tibet. It’s something of a miracle.”

  “Wow. How did you manage it?”

  “A high government official in China owes me a favor.”

  “How high?”

  “The highest. Still, we have to stick to the tour stops and check in at each place along the way so they can keep tabs on us. We leave immediately. Our first stop is Neyalam, which is about 150 kilometers from here. It should take us about five hours just to hit the Chinese/Nepal border.”

  “Five hours? Wait a minute, 150 kilometers? That’s roughly ninety miles. That’s only eighteen miles per hour. Why does it take so long?”

  Mr. Kadam chuckled. “You’ll see.”

  He handed me the tour guide, map, and brochures so I could follow along and help him navigate. I thought the Rockies were huge, but comparing the Himalayas with the Rockies was like comparing the Rockies with the Appalachians, literally mountains to molehills. The peaks were thick with snow, even though it was early May.

  Stark rocky glaciers rose up before us, and Mr. Kadam told me the landscape becomes tundra and then permanent ice and snow a little higher. Trees were small and scattered. The ground was mostly covered with grasses, dwarf shrubs, and moss. He said there were some conifer forests in other parts of the Himalayas, but we would be passing mostly through the grasslands.

  When he said, “you’ll see,” he wasn’t kidding. We were climbing at about ten miles per hour into the mountains. The road wasn’t exactly up to standard, and we bumped and weaved around potholes and sometimes herds of yaks and sheep.

  To pass the time, I asked Mr. Kadam about the first company he bought into.

  “That would be the East India Trading Company. It was started before I was born in the early 1600s, but it became a very big business by the mid–eighteenth century.”

  “What kinds of things did you trade?”

  “Oh, lots of things. Cloth—silk mostly—tea, indigo, spices, saltpeter, and opium.”

  I teased him, “Mr. Kadam! You were a drug dealer?”

  He winced. “Not in the current definition of the word, no. Remember, opium was touted as medicinal then, but I did transport the drug in the beginning. I owned several ships and funded large caravans. When China banned the opium trade, triggering the Opium Wars, I stopped shipping it and focused most of my business in the spice trade.”

  “Huh. Is that why you like grinding your own spices so much?”

  He smiled. “Yes, I still like to look for the best quality products and enjoy using them in my cooking.”

  “So you’ve always been in the cargo business then.”

  “I guess I have. I never really thought about it that way.”

  “Okay, I have two questions for you. Do you still have a ship? I know you kept a plane from that company, but do you still have a ship? Because that would be so cool. The second question is what’s saltpeter?”

  “Saltpeter is also known as potassium nitrate. It was used to make gunpowder and is also, ironically, a food preservative. And, in answer to your other question, the boys do o
wn a boat, but not one of my original shipping boats.”

  “Oh. What kind of a boat?”

  “A small yacht.”

  “Ah. I should’ve guessed.”

  We stopped near the China/Nepal border in a city called Zhangmu where we had to fill out paperwork again. Then, after a day of driving and traveling only a total of ninety-six miles, we drove into Neyalam and checked into a small overnight guesthouse.

  The next day we climbed even higher. The brochure said that by the end of the day we’d be above thirteen thousand feet. On this section of the drive, we saw six of the major mountains in the Himalayas, including Mount Everest, and stopped to take in the magnificent view of Mount Xixapangma.

  On day three, I started feeling a little sick, and Mr. Kadam said he thought I had altitude sickness. He explained that it was common when traveling higher than twelve thousand feet. “It should pass. Most people adjust within a few hours, but for some it can take several days for their body to acclimate to the elevation.”

  I groaned and tilted my seat back to rest my dizzy head. The rest of the day went by in a blur. I was disappointed that I couldn’t appreciate the scenery. We drove to Xigatse, where Mr. Kadam and Kishan saw the Tashilumpo Monastery while I stayed in the small hotel.

  When they returned with dinner for me, I rolled over and waved them away. Mr. Kadam left, but Kishan stayed.

  “I don’t like seeing you sick, Kells. What can I do?”

  “Uh, I don’t think there’s anything you can do.”

  He left me alone for a minute. Soon he was back pressing a damp cloth to my forehead.

  “Here, I brought you some lemon water. Mr. Kadam said it helps to hydrate.”

  Kishan forced me to drink the entire glass and then poured another glassful from the bottled water they’d bought. He finally let me stop after my third glass.

  “How are you feeling now?”

  “Better, thanks. Except my head is pounding. Do we have any aspirin?”

  Kishan found a small bottle. I downed two, sat forward, placing my elbows on my knees, and massaging my temples with my fingers.