Tiger's Quest

by Colleen Houck

  “Changing appearance? What do you mean?”

  “Umm, how do I describe it? Have you ever seen a magician pull a rabbit out of a hat or change a bird into a feather?”

  “We did have magicians come to court occasionally. One of them changed a mouse to a dog.”

  “Yes! It’s similar to that. It’s an illusion. A trick done with light and mirrors, sort of.”

  “How does that work?”

  “Remember the Divine Weaver said there was power in the weaving? It not only creates the clothes of that person, but it can make you look like him or her as well. The key is, you have to be specific and capture in your mind exactly who you want to look like. I’m going to try it. Watch and tell me if it works.”

  I said, “Disguise, please—Nilima.”

  The Scarf grew into a long piece of sparkly black fabric with colors swirling quickly through the entire piece. It glittered as if embellished with jeweled sequins that surfaced briefly and then disappeared. Light reflected and moved around the tent like thousands of prisms shooting rainbows in every direction.

  I wrapped the fabric around my body and covered my entire frame, including my hair and face. My skin became warm and tingly. The swirling colors were iridescent and lit the dark small space in which I sat wrapped inside the warm blanket the Scarf had become. It was like watching my own personal laser light show. When the glow diminished, I unwrapped myself and looked at Kishan.

  “Well?”

  His mouth opened in shock. “Kells?”

  “Yep.”

  “You . . . you even sound like Nilima. You’re dressed like her.”

  I looked down and found I was wearing a powder-blue silk dress that ended at my knees. My legs were bare. “I just realized that. I’m freezing!”

  Kishan wrapped his coat around me then picked up my hand and examined it. “Your skin looks like hers. You even have her long painted nails. Unbelievable!”

  I shivered. “Okay, demonstration done. I am seriously freezing.” I wrapped the fabric around me again and said, “Back to myself, please.” The colors began swirling again and after a long minute I removed the material and returned to looking like myself. “Now you try, Kishan. I didn’t have a mirror. I want to see how accurate it is.”

  “Okay.” He took the Scarf from me and said, “Disguise— Mr. Kadam.”

  He wrapped it around his entire body. When he took the fabric off a minute later, I found myself sitting across from Mr. Kadam. He looked exactly like I had last seen him. I stretched out a finger and touched his short beard.

  “Wow! You really look like him!” I felt the hem of his pants. “The pants feel real. It’s a perfect replica!”

  He touched his face and rubbed a hand over his close-cropped hair.

  I said, “Wait a minute! You’ve even got his amulet on! Does it feel real?”

  He touched the amulet and felt the chain. “It looks real, but it’s not.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I wore an amulet for most of my life, and when I gave you mine to wear, I could feel its absence. This one doesn’t feel real to me. It doesn’t feel powerful. Also it’s lighter in weight, and the surface is slightly different.”

  “Hmm, that’s interesting. I don’t know that I can really feel the power of mine yet.”

  I reached over and touched the amulet around his neck and then compared it to mine. “I think the one you are wearing is made of some kind of fabric.”

  “Really?” He rubbed it between his fingers. “You’re right. The surface is slightly off. You really can’t feel the amulet’s power?”

  “No.”

  “Well, if you wore it for as many years as I did, you would feel it.”

  “Maybe it’s something only you tigers can feel because you’re so closely associated with it.”

  “Maybe. We’ll have to ask Mr. Kadam about it.”

  Kishan changed back to himself. “So what exactly is your plan, Kells?”

  “Well, I haven’t hammered out all the details yet, but I was thinking that maybe we could impersonate Lokesh’s guards and sneak into wherever they’re holding Ren.”

  “You don’t plan to make a trade then? An amulet for Ren?”

  “Not if we can avoid it. I’d like it to be a last resort. The big problem with the plan is that I don’t know where Ren is being held. I told you I saw Ren in the vision, but I also saw a person that I’m really hoping Mr. Kadam can identify.”

  “Identify how?”

  “His hair and tattoos were unique. I’ve never seen them before.”

  “It’s a long shot, Kells. Identifying where the servant is from doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s where Lokesh is holding Ren.”

  “I know, but it’s all we have to go on.”

  “Okay, so we have a how. We just need a where.”

  “Right.”

  The next day, we finally passed the snow line and continued moving quickly downhill. Kishan had slept as a tiger so he walked with me as a man for most of the day, which gave us the opportunity to talk. He said that he felt stifled being forced back into the tiger form. Like Ren, now that he’d gotten a taste of being human, he craved it desperately.

  I tried to remind him that twelve hours was much better than six. He could sleep as a tiger and spend most of his waking hours as a man now, but he still complained about it.

  During a lull in the conversation, I said, “Kishan?”

  He grunted as he slid downhill a bit on loose gravel. “Yeah?”

  “I want you to tell me everything you know about Lokesh. Where did you meet him? What is he like? Tell me about his family, his wife, his background. All that stuff.”

  “Okay. To start off, he didn’t come from a royal bloodline.”

  “What do you mean? I thought he was a king.”

  “He was, but he didn’t start off that way. The first time I met him, he was a royal advisor. He had moved up quickly to a position of authority. When the king died unexpectedly without any progeny, Lokesh stepped into the king’s position.”

  “Huh, probably an interesting story there. I would love to hear the tale of his ascent to power. Did everyone just accept him as the new king? Were there any protests?”

  “If there were, he quickly snuffed out any malcontents and went about building up a powerful army. That kingdom had always been very peaceful, and we’d never had a problem with them until Lokesh took power. Even then, he was always very careful around my family.

  “Minor skirmishes broke out between our armies, which he always claimed he had no knowledge of. We now think that he was gathering intelligence because the skirmishes always occurred in key military areas. He dismissed them as minor misunderstandings and assured us that he would reprimand the survivors.”

  “Survivors? What do you mean?”

  “The skirmishes often resulted in the deaths of his soldiers. He used his soldiers like disposable tools. He demanded their loyalty, and they gave it—even to the point of death.”

  “And nobody in your family ever suspected anything?”

  “If anyone suspected him, it was Mr. Kadam. He was head of the military at the time, and he felt that there was more going on than soldiers misunderstanding their orders. Nobody else suspected Lokesh, though. Lokesh was very charming when he visited. He always assumed a humble demeanor around my father, but all the while he was coldly calculating our downfall.”

  “What weaknesses does Lokesh have?”

  “I think he knows more of my weaknesses than I of his. I imagine he abused Yesubai. According to him, his wife had died long before we met him. Yesubai never spoke of her mother, and I never thought to ask. As far as I know, he has no family left, no posterity, unless he took another wife over the years. He craves power. That could be a weakness.”

  “Does he crave money? Could we offer to buy Ren’s freedom?”

  “No. He uses money only as a means to get more power. He couldn’t care less about jewels or gold. He might say differently, but
I wouldn’t trust him. He’s an ambitious man, Kelsey.”

  “Do we know anything about the other pieces of the amulet? Like where he got them from?”

  “The only thing I know about the amulet is what my parents told us. They said that the amulet pieces were carried by five warlords and were handed down over the centuries. My mother’s family had one piece, and my father’s family had another. That’s how Ren and I each got one. The one you wear was Mother’s, and Kadam wears Father’s. I have no idea how Lokesh acquired the other three pieces. I’d never heard of any other amulet pieces until Lokesh mentioned them. Ren and I wore our pieces under our clothing as carefully protected family heirlooms.”

  “Maybe Lokesh found a list of the families who had been entrusted with them?” I pondered.

  “Maybe. But I’ve never heard of such a list.”

  “Did your parents know the amulets were powerful?”

  “No. Not until we were changed to tigers.”

  “You didn’t have an ancestor who lived a long time like Mr. Kadam?”

  “No. Our family was prolific on both sides. There was always a young king to pass the amulet to, and in our family, tradition was to pass on the amulet when the boy turned eighteen. Our ancestors had longer lives than normal, but the life span then was considerably shorter than it is today.”

  “Unfortunately, none of this information gives us an inkling as to any of Lokesh’s weaknesses.”

  “Perhaps it does.”

  “How so?” I asked.

  “He craves power above all else. Since he is pursuing the amulet pieces at all costs, then that is his weakness.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We just saw the Scarf create a replica when I assumed Mr. Kadam’s form. If he takes the replica version, he’ll think that he’s won.”

  “But we don’t know if the replica can be removed from the person or not. Even if it could be, we don’t know how long it will last.”

  Kishan shrugged and said, “We’ll test it when we get back.”

  “It’s a good idea.”

  I stumbled over a rock, and Kishan caught me. He held me for just a moment longer than necessary, smiled, and brushed the hair out of my face.

  “We’re almost there. Can you keep going or do you need to rest?” he asked intently.

  “I can keep going.”

  He released me and took the backpack from my shoulders.

  “Kishan, I just want to say thank you for everything you did in Shangri-la. I wouldn’t have made it without you.”

  He threw the backpack over one shoulder and stopped, considering me for a minute. “You didn’t think I’d let you go alone, did you?”

  “No, but I’m grateful that I had you with me.”

  “Grateful is all I’m going to get, isn’t it?”

  “What else were you hoping for?”

  “Adoration, devotion, affection, infatuation, or just plain finding me irresistible.”

  “Sorry, Don Juan. You’ll have to live with my undying gratitude.”

  He sighed dramatically. “I guess that’s as good a place to start as any. How about we just call it even. I never actually thanked you for convincing me to come home. I’ve . . . found a lot of things about being home that I like.”

  I smiled at him. “It’s a deal.”

  He put his arm across my shoulders, and we continued our hike.

  “I wonder if we’ll come across that old bear again,” Kishan mused.

  “If so, I should be able to keep him away this time. I didn’t think to use my power when we first ran into him. Apparently, I’m not much of a warrior.”

  “You fought the birds really well.” He grinned. “I’d ride into battle with you any time. Let me tell you about the time I left my sword at home.” He kissed my forehead and remembered happier times.

  At dusk, we could see a small fire in the distance at the base of the mountain. Kishan assured me that it was Mr. Kadam’s camp. He said he could smell him on the breeze. He held my hand the last half mile because he said he could see better in the dark than I could—but I suspected that wasn’t the only reason. When we got closer, I could just make out Mr. Kadam’s shadow inside the tent.

  I approached the tent and said, “Knock. Knock. Any room in there for a couple of wandering strangers?”

  The shadow moved, and the tent’s zipper slid down.

  “Miss Kelsey? Kishan?”

  Mr. Kadam stepped outside and grabbed me in a big hug. Then he turned to clap Kishan on the back.

  “You must be freezing! Come inside. I’ll make some hot tea. Let me just get a kettle to put on the fire.”

  “Mr. Kadam, you don’t have to do that. We have the Golden Fruit, remember?”

  “Ah, yes, I forgot.”

  “And we have something else too.”

  I took the amethyst-colored Scarf from around my neck, which caused it to shift to turquoise. “Soft cushions please, and could you make the tent just a bit larger?” I asked.

  The turquoise threads immediately shifted and stretched. Several of them wove large cushions of various colors and another piece broke off and began looping through the end of the tent. A few moments later, we were able to sit comfortably on large cushions in a tent that had doubled in size. Mr. Kadam quietly watched the busy threads, in fascination.

  I struggled briefly to get out of my coat. Kishan helped and stroked my arm. I shoved his hand away, but Kishan only grinned and reclined on the cushions.

  Mr. Kadam asked, “Does it work like the Golden Fruit except it creates woven things?”

  I shot Kishan a warning look and replied, “Sort of, yeah.”

  Mr. Kadam mumbled, “‘India’s masses shall be robed.’”

  “Huh, I guess we could clothe India’s people with this thing.”

  Funny that that hadn’t occurred to me before.

  “Wait a minute. Didn’t the prophecy say something about ‘chief’s disguise’ too?”

  Mr. Kadam rummaged through some papers and found a copy of the prophecy.

  “Yes. It says here, ‘Discus routs and ‘chief’s disguise can stave off those who would pursue’. Is that what you’re referring to?”

  I laughed. “Yep, that makes sense then. You see, the Divine Scarf can do a couple of other things too. I mean other than making clothes and weaving things. It can gather the winds like the god ’s bag.”

  Mr. Kadam exclaimed, “Similar to the bag of winds Odysseus received from Aiolos? Ulysses’ leather bag tied with a silver cord?”

  “Yes, but it’s not leather. Silver cord would work, though.”

  “Perhaps sent by one of the gods of wind? Vayu? Striborg? Njord? Pazuzu?”

  “Don’t forget Boreas and Zephyrus.”

  Kishan interrupted, “Could you two speak English, please?”

  Mr. Kadam laughed. “Sorry. I got carried away for a minute.”

  “Do you want to show him now, Kishan?” I asked.

  “Sure.”

  Mr. Kadam leaned forward. “Show me what, Miss Kelsey?”

  “You’ll see. Just watch.”

  Kishan took the Divine Scarf, mumbled, “Disguise,” and twisted it around his body. It lengthened and turned black with swirling colors.

  “I want to see if it will work without me saying a name out loud like the Golden Fruit does,” he said from beneath the folds of fabric.

  “Yes. That’s a good idea,” I responded.

  When Kishan took the Scarf away from his face, I was unprepared for what I’d see. It was Ren. He’d taken Ren’s form. He must have seen my stricken face.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to shock Mr. Kadam by showing him his own face.”

  “It’s okay. Just change back quickly, please.”

  He did, and Mr. Kadam sat there dumbfounded. I couldn’t speak. Seeing Ren sitting there—even knowing it was really Kishan— was extremely difficult. I had to tamp down all the emotions that surfaced.

  Kishan quickly took over for me and expl
ained, “With the Scarf, we can take the form of other people. Kelsey changed to look like Nilima, and I became you. We need to test its range and try different forms so we can figure out the Scarf’s disguise abilities and limitations.”

  “Simply . . . amazing!” Mr. Kadam sputtered, “Uh, Kishan, may I?”

  “Sure.”

  He tossed the Scarf to Mr. Kadam. Its colors changed as soon as his fingers touched the fabric, first turning a brown mustard color and then changing to olive green.

  I teased, “I think it likes you, Mr. Kadam.”

  “Yes, well . . . imagine the possibilities. The many people the Golden Fruit and this glorious fabric could help. So many people suffer from want of food and warm clothes, and not just in India. These are truly divine gifts.”

  I let him examine the Scarf while I had the Golden Fruit make us some chamomile tea with cream and sugar. Kishan wasn’t especially fond of tea, so he got a hot chocolate with cinnamon and whipped cream instead.

  I asked, “How long were we gone?”

  “A bit over a week.”

  I quickly calculated in my mind how many days we were up on the mountain. “Good. Our time in Shangri-la didn’t count.”

  “How long were you two in Shangri-la, Miss Kelsey?”

  “I’m not sure exactly, but I think it was almost two weeks.” I looked at Kishan. “Is that about right?”

  He nodded silently and sipped his cocoa.

  “Mr. Kadam, how soon can we get going?”

  “We can leave at dawn.”

  “I want to get home as soon as possible. We need to get ready to save Ren.”

  “We can go across the border and enter India from the Sikkim province. It will be much faster than going through the Himalayas again.”

  “How long?”

  “It depends on how fast we get through the border. If there’s no trouble, perhaps a few days.”

  “Okay. We have so much to tell you.”

  Mr. Kadam sipped his tea and looked at me thoughtfully. “You have not been sleeping well, Miss Kelsey. Your eyes are tired.”