Kingdom of the Golden Dragon (3 page)

The monk rarely slept, but he would sit for long periods in the lotus position with his eyes half-closed, resting and renewing his energy. He had the ability to remain absolutely motionless, with his mind controlling his breathing, his blood pressure, his heart rate, and his temperature, so
that his body entered a state of hibernation. As quickly as he attained absolute rest, he could respond to an emergency, with all his powerful muscles primed to mount a defense. Dil Bahadur had tried for years to imitate him, without success. Exhausted, he fell asleep the moment his head touched the ground.

The prince awakened amid a chorus of terrifying grunts. The instant he opened his eyes and saw what surrounded him, he sprang to his feet, nerves tingling, with his knees bent and arms extended in the attack position. The tranquil voice of the master stopped him just as he was preparing to strike a blow.

“Be calm. These are Yetis. Send them waves of warmth and compassion, as you did to the white tiger,” the lama murmured.

They were encircled by a horde of repulsive creatures about four and a half feet tall, covered from head to toe in tangled, filthy white fur; their arms were long, and their short, bowed legs ended in enormous feet like a monkey's. Dil Bahadur could imagine that the tracks of those huge feet were the source of the legend about them. But then, to whom did the long bones and gigantic skulls they'd seen in the tunnel belong?

The small stature of the creatures in no way diminished their ferocious appearance. Their flat, hairy faces were almost human, but their expressions were bestial; their eyes were small and round, their ears pointed like a dog's, and their teeth were long and sharp. Between grunts, they extended dark purplish-blue tongues that curled at the tip, like a reptile's. Over their chests they wore blood-splattered breastplates that were tied at the shoulder and waist. They were brandishing menacing clubs and sharpened rocks, but despite their weapons and the fact that they greatly outnumbered the newcomers, they were keeping a prudent distance. It was
beginning to grow light, and the early dawn, veiled in thick fog, lent a nightmarish tone to the scene.

Tensing got to his feet, slowly, in order not to provoke a reaction from their “welcoming committee.” Compared to the giant lama, the Yetis seemed even more squat and misshapen. The master's aura had not changed color; it was still gold and white, which reflected his perfect serenity, while the flickering auras of most of the Yetis were dull, earth tones, indicating illness and fear.

The prince could guess why they had not been immediately attacked: the creatures seemed to be waiting for someone. In a few moments he saw a figure approaching that was much taller than the others, even though it seemed to be bowed by age. It was the same species as the Yetis, but much taller. If the creature had been able to stand up straight, it would have been as tall as Tensing, but in addition to great age it was deformed by a hump on its back that forced it to walk with its upper body parallel to the ground. Unlike the other Yetis, naked except for their long filthy hair and their breastplates, this female was adorned in necklaces of teeth and bone; she wore a moth-eaten cape of white-tiger skin and held a twisted staff in her hand.

The creature could not be called a woman, though her gender was female. She was not exactly an animal, but neither could she be called human. Her hair was very thin and had fallen out in patches, revealing a pink, scaly skin that looked like a rat's tail. She was covered by an impenetrable crust of grease, dried blood, mud, and filth that emitted a foul stench. Her fingernails were black claws, and her few remaining teeth were loose and danced in her jaws with every breath she drew. Green slime trickled from her nostrils, and her rheumy eyes shone through tufts
of the bristly hair covering her face. As she walked toward the visitors, the Yetis moved back in deference. It was obvious that she was in command, apparently the queen or the priestess of the tribe.

Surprised, Dil Bahadur watched as his master knelt before this hideous creature, joined his hands before his face, and recited the traditional greeting of the Forbidden Kingdom.

“
Tampo kachi
,” he said.

“
Grr-ympr
,” she roared, spraying him with saliva.

On his knees, Tensing was at the level of the bent-over old woman, and thus able to look directly into her eyes. Dil Bahadur imitated the lama, even though in that posture he would not be able to defend himself against the Yetis, who continued to wave their clubs. Out of the corner of his eye, he calculated that there were ten or twelve gathered around them, and who knows how many more nearby.

The female chieftain uttered a series of sharp, guttural sounds that, when combined, seemed to be a kind of language. Dil Bahadur had the impression that he had heard it before, but he didn't know where. He could not understand a single word, even though the sounds were familiar. At once, the Yetis knelt in unison and touched their foreheads to the ground, though they did not put down their weapons, wavering between that ceremonious greeting and the impulse to club the two strangers to death.

The ancient female Yeti calmed the others as she repeated the grunt that sounded like
Grr-ympr
. The visitors assumed that that was her name. Tensing listened very closely and Dil Bahadur made an effort to capture on a telepathic level what those creatures were thinking, but their minds were a tangle of incomprehensible visions. He concentrated on what the sorceress was
trying to communicate; she obviously was more evolved than the others. Several images took form in his brain. He saw hairy little animals like white rabbits shiver convulsively and then turn rigid. He saw corpses and burial places; he saw several Yetis rolling another toward a boiling fumarole; he saw blood, death, brutality, and terror.

“Be c-careful, master, they are v-very savage,” the youth stammered.

“Possibly they are more frightened than we are, Dil Bahadur,” the lama replied.

Grr-ympr gestured to the other Yetis, who finally lowered their clubs as she turned and walked away, gesturing to the prince and his master to follow. Flanked by the Yetis, they followed her past tall columns of steam and thermal waters to some natural openings in the volcanic soil. Along the way, they saw additional Yetis, all seated or lying down, none of whom made any sign of moving toward them.

Burning lava from some ancient volcanic eruption had frozen as it contacted ice and snow, but had continued to flow for some time beneath the surface. That was how the caves and underground tunnels in which the Yetis had made their dwellings had been formed. In places where the crust of lava had ruptured, a little light occasionally filtered in. Most of the caves were low and narrow, and Tensing did not enter those, though they maintained a pleasant temperature thanks to the memory of lava heat that remained in the walls and the warm waters of the fumaroles that flowed beneath them. In this way the Yetis protected themselves against the weather; otherwise it would have been impossible for them to endure the winter.

There were no objects of any kind in the caves, nothing but stinking hides, some with chunks of flesh still attached. With horror Dil Bahadur
realized that some of the skins were those of the Yetis themselves, surely torn from dead bodies. The rest were hides of
chegnos
, animals unknown in the rest of the world, which the Yetis kept in corrals fenced with rock and snow. The
chegnos
were smaller than yaks and had curved horns like a ram's. The Yetis used their meat, fat, skin, and even their dried excrement, which served as fuel. Without those noble animals, which ate very little and endured even the lowest temperature, the Yetis could not survive.

“We will stay here a few days, Dil Bahadur. Try to learn the Yetis' language,” said the lama.

“Why, master? We will never be called on to use it again.”

“I won't, perhaps, but you will,” Tensing replied.

Little by little they familiarized themselves with the sounds those creatures uttered. Using the words they had acquired, and reading Grr-ympr's mind, Tensing and Dil Bahadur learned of the tragedy of the creatures' existence: with every generation fewer offspring were being born, and of those, fewer were living. The fate of the adults was not much better. Each generation was physically smaller and weaker than the previous one; their life span had shortened dramatically, and only a few individuals had enough strength to perform the necessary tasks, such as herding the
chegnos
, collecting plants, and hunting for food. This was a punishment of the gods or demons that lived in these mountains, Grr-ympr assured them. She said that the Yetis had tried to appease them with offerings, but the deaths of several sacrificial victims, who had been torn asunder or thrown into the boiling water of the fumaroles, had not ended the divine curse.

Grr-ympr had lived for many years. Her authority lay in her memory and her experience, which no other Yeti possessed. The tribe believed
that she had supernatural powers, and for two generations had hoped that she would make things right with the gods; her magic, however, had not lifted the spell and had not saved her people from approaching extinction. Grr-ympr recounted that she had appealed to the gods again and again, and now, finally, they had come: The moment she saw Tensing and Dil Bahadur, she had guessed who they were. And that was why the Yetis had not attacked them.

All this was communicated to the visitors from the mind of the greatly troubled, ancient Yeti.

“When these creatures learn that we are mere humans, not gods, I don't think they're going to be very happy,” the prince observed.

“Possibly . . . but compared to them, and despite our infinite shortcomings, we are semi-gods,” the lama smiled.

Grr-ympr could remember the time when the Yetis were tall and well built, and were protected by fur so thick that they could survive the elements in the coldest and highest regions of the planet. The bones the visitors had seen in the canyon were those of their ancestors, the giant Yetis. They kept them there out of respect, although now no one but Grr-ympr could remember them. She had been a young female when the tribe discovered the valley of the hot springs, where the temperature was bearable and life less difficult because green things grew there, and in addition to the
chegnos
there were mice and goats to hunt.

The witch remembered having seen the gods one other time in her life, gods like Tensing and Dil Bahadur, who had come to the valley looking for plants. In exchange for the herbs and seeds they took away, they had left the Yetis valuable knowledge that greatly improved their lives. They had taught them to domesticate the
chegnos
and cook their meat, although now they seldom had
energy enough to strike stones and make a fire. Any game they could catch they ate raw and, if they were starving, as a last resort they killed
chegnos
or ate the corpses of other Yetis. The lamas had also taught them to identify themselves by name. Grr-ympr meant “wise woman” in the Yeti tongue.

It had been a very long time since any god appeared in the valley, Grr-ympr informed them telepathically. Tensing calculated that for at least half a century, since China invaded Tibet, no expedition had come to look for medicinal plants. Now the Yetis were not living as long, and no one except the ancient sorceress had seen humans, but the legend of the enlightened lamas existed in their collective memory.

Tensing was seated in a cave larger than the others, the only one he could crawl into, a place undoubtedly used to hold something like a tribal council. Dil Bahadur and Grr-ympr sat on either side of the lama, and gradually the other Yetis arrived, some so weak they could barely drag themselves across the ground. The ones that had met them with threatening stones and clubs were the warriors of that pathetic group. They stayed outside to stand guard, never for an instant putting down their weapons.

One by one the Yetis filed in, some twenty in total, not counting the dozen warriors. They were nearly all females, and, to judge by their hide and teeth, they seemed young, but very ill. Tensing examined each one, treating them with great respect in order not to frighten them. The last five were carrying babies, the tribe's only surviving offspring. They did not have the repugnant appearance of the adults; they looked like little, white, loose-jointed monkeys. They were limp; they couldn't hold up their heads or move their limbs; their eyes were shut tight and
they were barely breathing.

Moved, Dil Bahadur saw that these creatures loved their children as much as any other mother. They held their babies in their arms tenderly, sniffed and licked them, snuggled them to their breasts to nurse them, and moaned with anguish when the infants did not react.

“It is very sad, master. They are dying,” the youth observed.

“Life is filled with suffering. Our mission is to relieve it, Dil Bahadur,” Tensing replied.

The light in the cave was so weak, and the odor so unbearable, that the lama motioned them all outside, where the tribe gathered again. Grr-ympr attempted a few steps of a healing dance around the sick babies, uttering chilling cries and making her bone-and-teeth necklaces clatter. The Yetis accompanied her with a chorus of moans.

Ignoring the uproar of wailing around him, Tensing bent over the children. Dil Bahadur watched his master's expression change, as it usually did when he was using his curative powers. The lama picked up one of the smallest babies, which fit comfortably in the palm of his hand, and examined it intently. Then he approached one of the mothers, making friendly gestures to calm her, and studied a few drops of her milk.

“What is happening to the children?” the prince asked.

“Possibly they are dying of hunger,” said Tensing.

“Hunger? Their mothers aren't feeding them?”

Tensing pointed out that the Yetis' milk was a yellow, transparent liquid. Then he called the warriors, who did not want to respond until Grr-ympr grunted an order, and the lama examined them as well, paying particular
attention to their purple tongues. The only one whose tongue was not that color was the ancient Grr-ympr. Her mouth was a dark, evil-smelling pit that did not invite close inspection, but Tensing was not a man to back away from unpleasantness.