The Grave Robbers of Genghis Khan (24 page)

“It is now,” observed Groanin. “At least this one is.”

Cautiously, the professor lifted the creature’s mouth to inspect the discolored tongue and shook his head.

“It must have licked the ash off its fur,” he said. “The way any cat does when it’s trying to keep itself clean. And, in the process, poisoned itself.”

“Is the ash poisonous, too?” asked Philippa.

“Oh, yes,” said the professor. “Volcanic ash contains fluoride. This creates acid inside the animal’s stomach, which corrodes its intestines and causes internal hemorrhage. It also
binds
with the calcium in the bloodstream that — well, that isn’t good, either, as you can judge for yourselves.”

Philippa looked at Nimrod. “Is there nothing that can be done for it?” she asked her uncle.

Nimrod placed a hand on the tiger’s chest, near where he guessed its heart must be and shook his head grimly.

“The impossible I can sometimes do,” said Nimrod, “but miracles are very definitely beyond my powers. This animal is dead, I’m afraid.”

“What a tragedy,” said Axel. He glanced around at the jungle bordering the beach. “I think we’re probably looking at an environmental disaster of the kind that makes an oil
spill look like a storm in a teacup. Quite probably there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of animals already lying dead in that jungle. It’s like the fallout after a nuclear explosion.”

“Perhaps because there are so many volcanoes here in Sumatra — thirty-five — the island is suffering more than anywhere else,” said the professor. “So far.”

“Except perhaps Iceland,” Axel said gravely. “This makes me wonder how bad things are back home in Reykjavik. First, the banking crisis. And now this.”

The professor rubbed his chin again. Against his leathery hand the stubble on his chin sounded like sandpaper. “I shudder to think what things are like there.”

“How many volcanoes does Iceland have?” asked John.

“One hundred and thirty,” said Axel. “Although until this phenomenon started, there were only eighteen that were at all active. After what we’ve seen lately, we might have to revise that figure up.”

“In a few days from now,” said the professor, “if things keep going like they are here, everywhere on earth might well look like this place.”

“Now there’s a comforting thought,” said Groanin.

He went back to the carpet and fetched his carpet knife from his suitcase. Then he brought it back to Nimrod. For a moment, Nimrod, deeply affected by the sight of a dead tiger, regarded the Burnley carpet fitter’s knife blankly. It was small and hooked and sharp, like the beak of the dead hornbill.

“Crain?”
“To cut the carpet, sir,” explained the butler. “This ‘un’s German. But the Germans make the sharpest carpet knives on the market. And the best German knife is a Crain.”

“Oh, yes. Of course. Well, look, perhaps you should do it, Groanin. Perhaps this is a talent you inherited from your father. Skills like that tend to run in families, you know.”

“Aye, well, it’s true, no one could cut a carpet like my old dad,” said Groanin.

“Only you’d better give it to me, first,” said Nimrod. “You’ll need some of my blood on that blade before you can cut the carpet safely.”

Groanin handed over the knife, and Nimrod cut himself and then gave it back, dripping with blood.

The butler returned to the carpet and prepared to slice a piece off.

“How much would you like me to cut, sir?” he inquired. “For the twins.”

“How much would you suggest?”

“A four-foot strip from the edge ought to give them enough room for wherever it is they’re going,” said Groanin.

Nimrod, who was still caught up in the sad death of the tiger, nodded distractedly. “Oh, yes. Whatever you think is right, Groanin.”

Groanin put the curved tip of the blade to the edge of the carpet and was just about to cut when John said, “Don’t, Groanin. Don’t cut it.”

Groanin sat back and looked around. “Eh? What’s that you say?”
“Don’t cut the carpet,” repeated John. “At least not on my account. Because I’m not going home. At least not yet. I’m coming with you. To Mongolia.”

“What about you, Philippa?” asked Nimrod.

“Of course I’m not going home,” said Philippa. “How could I go home after seeing all this? No, I’m coming with you.”

“Besides,” added John. “The description I gave of the location of the tomb of Genghis Khan is only very approximate. You’ll need me to guide you to where it is, exactly.”

“Thank you, John,” he said. “Thank you both.”

John grinned. “Anyway, if I go home now, I’ll be missing out on the first sight of the professor’s beard.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Professor Sturloson.

“Haven’t you noticed?” asked John. “You’re growing a beard.”

Axel laughed. “He’s right, Professor,” he said. “You do look like you need a shave.”

The professor rubbed his face but instead of finding his young face smooth to the touch — as he expected — he found it rough and stubbly.

“A while ago I heard you wishing you had a beard,” said John. “Or some words to that effect. I kind of took the liberty of granting you that wish.”

Groanin found a hand mirror in his suitcase and handed it to the professor, who proceeded to examine the reflection of his transplanted face — especially the chin and upper lip — with no small fascination.

“You’re right,” he said. “I am growing a beard.” He grinned at John. “Thank you, my boy.”

“Beard suits you,” observed Groanin. “Makes you look distinguished. More professorial, if you like. I’ve never hankered after growing a beard myself. A beard looks wrong on a butler. It makes him look unkempt. Even a tad careless.”

“Thank you very much indeed.” The professor pumped John’s hand gratefully. “A beard is just what I wanted.”

“Don’t mention it,” said John. “The mask was good. I mean, that really made a statement. But Groanin’s right. In my opinion, a male professor should always have a beard. Or at the very least a big and bushy mustache.” He shrugged. “How else are you going to convince people that you’re wise and that you know what you’re talking about if you don’t have a few mad-looking whiskers?” He shrugged. “I mean, Einstein wouldn’t ever have looked like a genius without his mustache and his mad hairstyle. Obviously, he’d still have been very intelligent. But he wouldn’t have looked like a genius, would he?” He shrugged again. “Well, would he?”

“Now that’s what I call a general theory,” said Philippa.

M
ongolia is a landlocked country that lies between China and Russia. It is the nineteenth-largest country in the world — five times larger than Germany, twice as large as Turkey — and yet it is also the largest, most sparsely populated country in the world. Australia, five times larger in square miles has a population of twenty-two million people; Mongolia has just three million people living in a country the size of Iran, which, by comparison, has a population of seventy-five million people.

To the south of the country is the Gobi desert and to the north are high mountains, but most of the country is just grassland plains called steppes.

Philippa thought it the most beautiful country she had ever seen. She imagined the open prairies of America would have been like this before the wagon trains brought the people who built the cities. It was untouched, unspoiled, like the beginning of the world before cars and airplanes, with
vast rainbows and endless plains of grass that looked more like the open sea. If Australia looked like Mars, then Mongolia, no less alien in her eyes, looked like something much more lush and fertile, which made it all the more surprising that no one was there. Once or twice, they saw a herd of sheep, or some wild horses; another time they thought they spotted a moose, but mostly the land looked deserted.

The sapphire sky was a different story, however. It was full of birds, many of them — eagles, cranes, and vultures — that were easily mistaken for small planes. These seemed to fly in comparative safety, for unlike in Sumatra, here the air was fresh and clean and absent of smoke clouds and ash plumes, which seemed ironic given that they were reaching the end of their quest.

The professor said there were only five volcanoes in the whole country — Bus-Obo, Dariganga, Khanuy Gol, Taryatu-Chulutu, and one in the Gobi desert he said he’d forgotten — and that the last time any of these had erupted was more than ten thousand years ago.

For John, Mongolia was quite at odds with his perception of Genghis Khan and a horde of warlike, nomadic Mongol cavalry riding swiftly across the steppes and putting all who opposed them to the sword. What could they have thought was worth conquering? The next empty grass plain? The grass plain after that? A tented village that, next week, might exist somewhere else? There were no cities, no towns, no villages, and no castles. It was hard to imagine how someone like Genghis Khan could ever have existed.

It was curious, but Dunbelchin’s memories were now John’s own and for all the fact that the country seemed an unlikely place for a great tyrant and conqueror to have gotten started, it also seemed very familiar to him and quite like home, so that he felt like he belonged there — almost as if he had walked every mile of the country over which they were now flying. Which, of course, Dunbelchin almost certainly had. That memory was also the smell of something indefinable in the air that perhaps only a camel’s large and sensitive nostrils could have detected; at first, it eluded John what this might be, and it was only when offering precise navigation for Nimrod to steer by, and when they finally neared the site of the hidden tomb, that John was able to put a word to what this smell was. It was death: the death of the slaves who had dug the tomb, the death of the soldiers who had killed them, and the death of the baby camel that had been cruelly buried with them. And the memory and the smell left him feeling edgy and disturbed, almost as if these events had taken place in his own life and not Dunbelchin’s almost eight hundred years earlier.

“That’s Darkhan,” said John, pointing to the first town they had seen for hundreds of miles. “From here, we keep flying north, with Ulan Bator, the Mongolian capital, on our left to the west.”

A little later on he said, “All right. This is good. We’re entering the Gorkhi-Terelj National Park.”

“Doesn’t look much like a park,” observed Groanin, peering over the edge of the flying carpet. “It’s not like there
are any playgrounds, or park benches, or anything like that. In fact, there’s nothing much of anything.”

“It’s not that kind of park, Groanin,” John said irritably.

He pointed at a river. “There. That’s the River Kherlen. Just keep following that river northeast and it’ll take us straight to the mountain called Khan Khentii, also called Burkhan Khaldun.”

“Right you are,” said Nimrod.

A hundred miles farther north, John sniffed the air to the east and said, “Over there is Lake Khar. The Blue Lake. Which means we’re still right on course.”

“I can’t see anything,” said Axel. “And I certainly can’t smell anything.”

“That’s because you’re seeing things as a human being,” said Nimrod. “John is seeing and smelling everything from the point of view of a camel. Isn’t that right, John?”

John belched loudly by way of confirmation. Reliving Dunbelchin’s memories was really starting to affect him now.

“Not much farther now,” he said. “They used to let me off the bridle about here and I’d start running toward the site.”

Groanin pulled a face as if to indicate he thought John was going mad.

“And about ten tribesmen,” continued the boy djinn, “who were the sons of Genghis Khan, they would mount their horses and ride after me. This was always in summer, August, right? Because that’s when Genghis died, on August 25, 1227, the Year of the Pig. So that’s when we always visited
the tomb. And then the ground was good, of course. So it took about three days to get there. It would have taken much longer if Genghis had died in winter.”

“Naturally,” said Groanin.

“Do shut up, Groanin,” said Nimrod.

“Yes, sir.”

A little farther north, above a trackless waste close to the confluence of three tributaries of the River Kherlen, John declared that they were getting close to the high plateau where the tomb was hidden. Night was coming and a mist had started to close in, but John was not deterred.

“Don’t worry,” he said, sniffing the cool, conifer-scented evening air. “I could always find this place with my eyes closed.” He pointed ahead of them. “There. That shoulder of reddish rock. There’s a plateau behind it. That’s where you should land, Uncle.”

Nimrod did as John directed and brought the big blue carpet to a smooth landing on a high grass-covered plateau at the summit of a rather ordinary-looking hill. The plateau, which was entirely unremarkable, covered almost a square mile and was boggy in parts and rocky in others. And just as the purple sky began turning black, John pronounced that they had finally arrived.

“Arrived at what?” said Groanin.

A cold wind stirred the longer grass and smaller stones and whistled its way around the deserted plateau, almost as if something malign and invisible was already alerting the general area to their presence. Gradually, the mist that surrounded them turned to fog.

“Arrived at what?” repeated Groanin. “There’s nothing here. Nothing at all. I’ve never seen a more desolate place.”

“Or a more creepy one,” observed Philippa.

“The lost tomb of Genghis Khan wouldn’t be lost if it was obvious where it was, Groanin,” said Nimrod.

“No, I suppose not,” said Groanin. “But Philippa’s right. This place is creepier than a loud noise in a mortuary at midnight.”

“I wouldn’t mind it if it wasn’t so dark,” said Axel. He had his small, pencil-thin flashlight in his hand and was waving the almost solid beam around the plateau like a white stick. “I must say it doesn’t look like anyone’s been here in quite a while.” He looked at John. “Are you sure this is the right place?”

“It’s the right place,” said John.

“Perhaps we should wait for morning before we go and look for the tomb,” said Nimrod. “We ought to make camp and build a fire. And have something to eat. That will improve our spirits.”

“No,” said John firmly. “That wouldn’t be a good idea.”

“Why not?” asked Nimrod.

John didn’t answer for a moment. He walked a short distance from the others and stared hard into the thickening fog, almost as if he suspected it of containing something more threatening than some damp night air. And when finally he answered, his voice sounded distracted — even a little mysterious.

“I think it would be best if we were to find the tomb now,” he said quietly.

“You can’t be serious,” said Groanin. “It’s pitch dark. We couldn’t find an airship in this darkness.”

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” said Philippa. “John knows where it is. The tomb, I mean. Not the airship.” She looked at her brother and smiled politely. “By the way, where is it?”

“We should find it now,” said John. “
Because
it’s dark. And because I don’t think we can afford to delay until morning.”

Nimrod came and stood beside his nephew, staring into the fog. After almost a full minute, Nimrod whispered John’s name.

“John?”

“There’s something in the fog,” John said quietly.

Groanin shook his head fearfully and found Philippa taking his hand. “I don’t like this place at all,” he whispered.

“Me, neither,” she confessed. “We’d better stick together, huh?”

“Yes, miss, that sounds like a good idea.”

“What is it?” Nimrod asked John. “I can’t see or feel anything.”

John did not reply at first. “I’m not feeling this as a djinn, or even with my human half,” he finally confessed. “I’m feeling this with the part of me that was Dunbelchin.”

“The camel part.” Nimrod nodded. “Yes, of course that makes sense. With an animal’s sixth sense.”

John nodded. “Whatever it is that’s in that fog,” he said, “it’s something that’s always been here, in this place.”

“Can you tell what it is?”

John shook his head.

“An evil spirit?” said Nimrod. “A demon? An elemental, perhaps?”

“No. Just that it’s there.”

He kept on staring for a moment and then seemed to relax, shaking his head. “It’s gone for the moment, whatever it was.”

Nimrod muttered his focus word, which produced a large, blazing fire in the middle of the plateau.

“That feels better,” admitted the professor. He rubbed his hands and held them up to the flames. “I don’t mind admitting I find this place most uncomfortable, although, to look at, it’s a bit like Iceland.”

The wind strengthened and this time there was moisture in it.

“Rain,” said Axel. “That’s all we need. Now it really is like Iceland.”

“It’s just a shower, I think,” observed Groanin.

The next second, there came an inhuman-sounding groan that seemed to persist for several seconds before dying away.

“What was that?” hissed the professor.

But just as soon as the groan faded away it came back again, only louder this time. Louder and more horribly desperate.

“What is that?” Groanin shuddered.

“It seems to be coming from that shoulder of rocks,” said Nimrod. “At the edge of the plateau.”

There was a flashlight in his hand as he started to walk toward the rocks.

“Where are you going?” Groanin said, standing closer to the fire. “Don’t leave us, sir.”

“I’m going to find out what’s making that noise, of course,” said Nimrod.

“It’s a soul in torment, that’s what it is,” said Groanin. “Perhaps even more than one. Which is hardly surprising given the terrible history of this place. We should get out of here right now before I — before
we
die of fright.”

Nimrod scrambled up the nearby shoulder of red rock and, shining the flashlight around him, he searched the area until he saw where the sound was coming from.

“Interesting,” he said.

“What is?” said Philippa, following.

“There’s a piece of rock here that’s exactly like the pipe in an old church organ,” he said. “And when the wind catches it just right it makes —”

The groaning sound came again.

“Oh, yes,” said Philippa. “It makes that rather frightening sort of noise.”

“Well, I always thought there would be a perfectly logical explanation for it,” said Groanin.

He wiped his face as another pulse of rain swept across the plateau. Absently, he glanced at his hand in the firelight and then let out a cry of horror.

“What is it now?” asked the professor.

“There’s blood in the wind.” Groanin showed him the
reddened hand with which he had wiped his face and cried out again as he saw the professor’s heavily stubbled face. “You too, Professor,” he added. “On your face.”

The professor swept his face dry with his hand and found it covered in what looked like blood. He swore in Icelandic and shook his head. “What’s happening here?” he said. “There is indeed blood in the wind.”

Nimrod wiped the moisture from his own face, and having inspected his hand under the flashlight and tasted what, he had to admit, looked very much like blood, he said, “Relax, it’s not blood. It’s just rain with a bit of red mud in it. Probably mud that came off this reddish-colored rock. Sandstone or, perhaps, hematite.” He broke off a piece in his fingers and handed it to the professor. “Here, you’re the geologist, Professor.”

“A very soft type of hematite, yes,” said the professor. “After all, hematite is derived for the Greek word
ipa
, meaning ‘blood.’ ”

“You know,” said Nimrod. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this is the very reason why the Mongols chose this place to locate the tomb of Genghis Khan. Because of all these natural phenomena that anyone superstitious might easily misinterpret as something supernatural. The so-called blood in the wind, this natural organ pipe that sounds very much like a soul in torment. You’re absolutely right about that, Groanin. Yes, there’s that and some natural phenomenon that exists in the fog around here, perhaps. Although I don’t know what. Not yet, anyway.”

“Why not just say the place is evil and leave it at that?” said Groanin. “Better still, let’s just leave the place altogether. Natural phenomena or not, we shouldn’t be doing what we’re planning to do. And if the spirit of Genghis Khan is listening, then I’d just like to say it’s nothing to do with me, Your Majesty. I’m just a humble servant whose opinion seems to count for very little in these matters.”

“Do shut up, Groanin,” said Nimrod.