Kingdom of the Golden Dragon (16 page)

Huddled beside a fire were four captive girls, trembling with cold and terror. The jailer grunted and gestured to Pema and Nadia that they should join them. The only one of them who was wearing winter clothing was Nadia; all the others were dressed in the silk sarongs they had put on to celebrate the king's birthday. Nadia realized that these girls had been kidnapped under the same circumstances she and Pema had, and that gave her a ray of hope, because by now the police would be moving heaven and earth looking for them.

A chorus of moans greeted Nadia and Pema, but as the woman came toward them with whip raised high, the prisoners fell silent, burying their heads in their arms. The two friends tried to stay close together.

When the guard wasn't looking, Nadia wrapped her jacket around Pema and whispered not to give up hope, they would find a way to get out of this mess. Pema was shivering, but she had succeeded in regaining control. Her beautiful black eyes, which had always been smiling, now reflected courage and determination. Nadia pressed her hand, and each felt strengthened by the other's presence.

One of the members of the scorpion sect could not keep his eyes off Pema, impressed by her
grace and dignity. He came toward the terrified girls and stood before her with one hand on the handle of his dagger. He wore the same filthy dark tunic, greasy turban, and had the same tangled beard, strange blue-black skin, and betel-stained teeth as the others, but his attitude radiated authority, and the others respected him. He seemed to be the leader.

Pema stood and bore the cruel gaze of the warrior. He reached out and touched the girl's long hair, which slipped like silk through his filthy fingers. A light fragrance of jasmine was loosed in the air. The man seemed confused, almost moved, as if he had never touched anything so precious. Pema shook her head, pulling her hair from his hand. If she was afraid, she didn't show it. On the contrary, her expression was so defiant that the girls, the old woman with the scar, and even the other bandits froze, sure that the warrior would strike his insolent prisoner, but, to everyone's surprise, he barked a brief laugh and stepped back. He spat on the floor at Pema's feet, then returned to his cronies, who were kneeling around a fire. They were sipping from their canteens and chewing red betel nuts, spitting and talking as they studied a map unfolded on the ground.

Nadia assumed that this map was the same, or similar, to the one she and Alex had glimpsed in the Red Fort. She understood nothing of what was being said, because the brutal events of recent hours had affected her so deeply that she wasn't capable of listening with her heart. Pema quietly told her that they were speaking a dialect of the north of India and that she could understand a few words: dragon, routes, monastery, American, and king.

They had to stop talking, because the woman with the scar, who had heard them, came toward them brandishing her whip.

“Quiet!” she roared.

The girls began to whimper with fear, except for Pema and Nadia, whose manner did not change, although they lowered their eyes in order not to provoke the woman. When the jailer again lost interest in them, Pema whispered to Nadia that women abandoned by the Blue Warriors always had a scorpion branded on their foreheads, and that many were mute because their tongues had been cut out. Shuddering with horror, they did not speak again, but communicated with their eyes.

The four girls who had been brought to the cave a little before them were in such a state of panic that Nadia believed they must know something she didn't, but she didn't dare ask. She realized that Pema, too, knew what was awaiting them, but she was brave and was prepared to fight for her life. Gradually, the other girls felt the comfort of Pema's courage, and, without consulting one another, they inched closer to her, seeking her protection. Nadia was filled with a mixture of admiration for her friend and frustration because she couldn't communicate with the other girls, who didn't speak a word of English. She regretted that she was so different from them.

One of the Blue Warriors gave an order, and for a moment the woman with the scar forgot the captives and left them in order to obey the command. She spooned something into bowls from a black kettle hung over the fire, and served the men. At an order from the leader, she grumblingly served the prisoners as well.

Nadia was handed a bowl of steaming gray gruel. A blast of garlic struck her nostrils and she had to fight to keep from retching. She must eat, she decided, because she would need all her strength to escape. She signaled Pema, who lifted the bowl to her lips. Neither of the two girls
had any intention of resigning themselves to their fate.

CHAPTER TEN

Borobá

T
HE MOON SANK BEHIND THE
snow-topped peaks, and the fire in the cave faded to a pile of coals and ash. The guard was snoring, sitting up, whip still in her hand: Her mouth was agape, and a thread of saliva was trickling down her chin. The Blue Warriors had stretched out on the ground and they, too, were sleeping, but one of them stood guard at the entrance to the cave, holding an ancient rifle. A single torch shed a pale light, projecting sinister shadows onto the rock walls.

The men had tied the captives' ankles with leather thongs, and given them four blankets of rough wool. Barely covered, pressed against one another, the unfortunate girls tried to keep one another warm. Exhausted from crying, they were all asleep, except for Pema and Nadia, who were using the moment to whisper back and forth.

Pema told her friend all she knew about the feared Sect of the Scorpion, how they stole girls and mistreated them. Besides cutting out the tongues of those who spoke too much, they burned the soles of their feet if they tried to escape.

“I don't plan to remain in the hands of these horrible men. I would rather kill myself,” Pema concluded.

“Don't talk that way, Pema. Whatever happens, it's better to die trying to escape than to die without a fight.”

“You think you can escape from here?” Pema
replied, pointing to the sleeping warriors and the guard at the entrance.

“We will find the moment to do it,” Nadia assured her as she rubbed her ankles, swollen from the bonds.

After a while even the two friends were overcome with weariness and began to nod off. Several hours had gone by, and Nadia, who had never had a watch but was accustomed to calculating time, thought it must be about two in the morning. Suddenly her instinct warned her something was happening. She felt with her skin that the energy in the air had changed, and she sat up, alert.

A fleet shadow was almost flying across the floor of the cave. Nadia's eyes could not see what it was, but she sensed that it was her loyal Borobá. With a flood of relief, she realized that her tiny friend had followed the kidnappers. The horses had soon left him behind, but the little monkey had been able to follow his mistress's trail and somehow find the cave. Nadia hoped with all her heart that Borobá would not shriek with joy when he saw her, and tried to transmit a mental message to calm him.

Borobá had come to Nadia's arms as soon as he was born, when she herself was nine. He was so small that she had to feed him with an eyedropper. From that time they had never been apart. The monkey grew up at her side, and they complemented one another so well that each could sense what the other was feeling. They shared a code of gestures and intentions, in addition to Borobá's language, which Nadia had learned. The monkey must have picked up his mistress's warning, because he did not come to her. He sat huddled in a dark corner, motionless, for a long time, looking around, calculating the risks, waiting.

When Nadia was sure that no one had noticed
Borobá's presence, and the snores of her jailer hadn't changed, she whistled softly. The monkey started working his way toward her, staying close to the wall where he was protected by the shadows, until he reached her and with one leap threw himself around her neck. He had torn off his baby snowsuit, leaving only shreds. His little hands clung to Nadia's curly hair, and he rubbed his wrinkled face against her neck, emotional but silent.

Nadia waited for him to calm down, and thanked him for being so faithful. Then she gave him a command. Borobá immediately obeyed. Slipping back the same way he had come, he approached one of the sleeping men and with his clever and delicate hands, with awesome precision pulled a dagger from his sash, and carried it to Nadia. He sat down in front of her, watching intently, as she cut the thongs from her ankles. The knife was so sharp that it was not difficult.

The moment she was free, Nadia waked Pema.

“This is our chance to escape,” she whispered to her.

“How do you plan to get past the guard?”

“I don't know yet, we'll see. One step at a time.”

But Pema would not allow her to cut her bonds, and with tears in her eyes whispered that she couldn't go.

“I won't get very far, Nadia. You see how I'm dressed; I can't run like you in these sandals. If I go with you, they will catch us both. You have the best chance if you go alone.”

“Are you crazy? I can't go without you!” Nadia murmured.

“You have to try. Get help. I can't leave the other girls; I will stay with them until you get back with reinforcements. Go now, before it's too late,”
said Pema, taking off the jacket and handing it back to Nadia.

She spoke with such determination that Nadia gave up any idea of trying to change her mind. Her friend would not abandon the other girls. And it was not possible to take them, because there was no way they could all leave without being seen; only she could do that. The two friends hugged briefly and, with her heart in her mouth, Nadia stood up.

The woman with the scar moved in her sleep, stammered a few words, and for an instant it seemed that all might be lost, but then she started snoring with the same rhythm she had before. Nadia waited five minutes, until she was convinced that all the others were asleep as well. She immediately started along the path Borobá had taken, pressing herself against the wall. She took a deep breath and called on her powers of invisibility.

Nadia and Alexander had spent an unforgettable time in the Amazon with the tribe of the People of the Mist, the most remote and mysterious humans on the planet. Those Indians, who were living just as men and women had in the Stone Age, were in some aspects very evolved. They scorned material progress and lived in concert with the forces of nature, in perfect harmony with the world around them. They were part of the complex ecology of the jungle, like the trees, the insects, the humus. For centuries they had survived in the forest with no contact with the outside world, protected by their beliefs, their traditions, their sense of community, and the art of making themselves invisible. When they sensed danger, they simply disappeared. This skill was so absolute that no one actually believed that the People of the Mist existed. When people talked about them, they spoke as if
they were telling a legend—and that had protected them from the curiosity and greed of outsiders.

Nadia realized that this skill was not a trick or an illusion but a very ancient art that required continual practice. “It's like learning to play the flute,” she had once told Alexander. “You have to study a long time.” He had never really believed he could learn, and hadn't made an effort to practice. Nadia, on the other hand, had decided that if the Indians could do it, she could, too. She knew that more was involved than mimicry, agility, delicacy, silence, and knowledge of one's surroundings; mental attitude was most important of all. She learned how to reduce herself to nothingness and visualize her body becoming so transparent it was converted into pure spirit. It was necessary to maintain concentration and interior calm in order to create a formidable psychic field about her person. One distraction could cause failure. Only in that superior state in which spirit and mind were working in unison could invisibility be achieved.

In the months that had passed between the adventure in the City of the Beasts in the heart of the Amazon and the moment when she found herself in that cave in the Himalayas, Nadia had practiced tirelessly. She had made such progress that sometimes her father shouted for her when she was right by his side. When she suddenly materialized, César Santos would jump with surprise. “I've told you not to appear like that. You're going to give me a heart attack!” he would complain.

Nadia knew that in this moment the only thing that could save her was that art she had learned from the People of the Mist. She murmured instructions to Borobá to wait a few minutes before he followed her—she could not become invisible carrying the little monkey—and then
turned inward, toward that mysterious space we all have when we close our eyes and expel all thoughts from our minds. Within seconds she entered a state similar to a trance. She felt that she had stepped free of her body, and that she could see herself from above, as if her consciousness had risen ten feet above her own head. From that position, she saw her legs take a step, then another and another, moving away from Pema and the other girls, advancing in slow motion, moving through the darkness of the bandits' lair.

She passed within inches of the horrible woman with the whip, slipped like an unseen shadow among the bodies of the sleeping warriors, continued, almost floating, toward the mouth of the cave where the weary guard was making an effort to stay awake, his eyes lost in the night, but clutching his rifle. She did not lose her concentration for a second, or allow fear or hesitation to send her soul back to the prison of her body. Neither stopping nor changing the rhythm of her steps, she came so close to the man that she was almost touching his back, so close that she could clearly smell his scent of dirt and garlic.

The guard shivered slightly and clutched his weapon, as if at some instinctive level he had sensed her presence near him, but his mind immediately blocked out that suspicion. His hands relaxed and his eyes half-closed, as he struggled against sleep and fatigue.