Authors: Daniel Easterman
The old woman seemed to shiver.
“No,” she said.
“There’s no such passage.
I was telling fibs, stories for a little girl.
You shouldn’t listen to everything your old ama-la tells you.”
But Chindamani knew her nurse too well to be fooled for an instant.
“Ama-la, please you’re lying now.
What you told me was the truth, I can tell it in your voice.
Please don’t lie to me.
There isn’t time.
Where is the passage?
How can I get to it?”
Sonam took Chindamani’s hand in hers and began to knead it with her fingers.
She was visibly frightened.
“I swore I’d never tell anyone,” she said.
“Your last body told me.
I don’t know who told her.”
The little woman took a deep breath.
Her pulse was racing and she was sweating.
“There’s a passage beneath the gon-kang,” she whispered.
Chindamani had to lean close to hear her.
Samdup came across and sat next to her.
William watched from his seat next to the wall.
He wished he knew what they were talking about.
He could sense the fear and excitement in their voices, but he could not understand a word of what they said.
“It runs for about one hundred yards.
Then there’s a flight of stairs cut through the rock, into the mountain.
They’re known as the stairs of Yama, I don’t know why.
They lead down to a spot below the pass, out of sight of the monastery.
They were built in the days of the old kings, thousands of years ago.”
Chindamani guessed that the ‘old king’ had been Lang Darma and that the stairs had been constructed as an escape route from the gompa so that the abbot could get to safety in the event of an attack by the royal forces.
That had been hundreds of years ago, when the Buddhist faith was in danger of being stamped out all over the country.
Samdup clapped his hands excitedly.
“But that’s perfect,” he exclaimed.
“Chindamani knows lots of secret ways to the gon-kang.
All we have to do is to get there and we’re safe.
They’ll never know which way we’ve gone.”
But the old woman shook her head furiously.
She shook it so hard it looked as though her neck would snap and send it spinning off into Chindamani’s lap.
“No, my Lord, no!”
she cried.
“You mustn’t go that way.
I haven’t told you everything.”
She paused again, as if gathering courage to say more.
“Hundreds of years ago,” she began, ‘when the first Chqje came here, he brought a great treasure from Lhasa gold and silver and precious jewels, to be made into his trance garments.
You’ve seen him wear them in the Lha-kang when he enters the holy state and is ridden by the gods.”
The Chqje was the Oracle of Dorje-la.
In a state of mystic trance, he could enter into communication with the spirits or the gods themselves and pass on messages to other men.
The ceremonies at which he appeared took place only a few times every year, but they were by far the most exciting events in the monastery’s calendar.
His regalia was indeed impressive: the great hat, so heavy that it needed two men to support it until the Chqje rose in his trance, was a mass of rubies, emeralds, and amethysts; the Oracle throne on which he sat was studded with gems of every description, and its frame was encased in solid gold.
The great mirror of divination that he wore on his chest was made of solid silver and encircled with precious stones of the finest quality.
“Have you never wondered,” the ama-la continued, ‘where those precious things are left when they are not in use?
Have you never wanted to look more directly at them?”
Chindamani shook her head.
The Oracle’s performances in the incense laden gloom of the Lha-khang had always filled her with a state of dread, and she had never sought closer contact with the darkly numinous world he represented.
“Only a few people know that particular secret,” the old woman whispered.
“The Chqje himself, his assistants, and the abbot.
And myself, of course though none of them has ever known that I know.”
Chindamani interrupted.
“I always assumed they were left in the Chqje’s own room.
Or perhaps in the old temple hall where he goes to meditate.”
Sonam shook her head.
“That’s what most people think.
But they’ve been somewhere else all the time.
In a small chamber just below the gon-kang.”
She looked up into Chindamani’s eyes.
The girl could see the fear in the old woman’s glance, quite unmistakable now, steadying its grip on her.
She felt it herself now, naked, tangible, calling her to itself.
“To get to the tunnel that leads to the stairs,” the ama-la said, ‘you have to pass through the chamber in which the Oracle treasures are kept.
Do you understand?
You have to go through the Chqje’s chamber.”
“Ama-la, I don’t understand,” pleaded Chindamani.
“What’s wrong with going through the chamber?
I won’t touch the Chqje’s jewels.
We’ll leave them exactly as they are.
We won’t even look at them closely.
The gods won’t be offended.
What danger could there be in our just passing through the chamber?”
The old woman shuddered.
Chindamani felt her own flesh creep.
What was the ama-la frightened of?
“Don’t you see?”
Sonam pleaded.
Her voice had become whining, trembling with fear.
“They put a guardian down there.
Long ago, when they put the treasures there, they set a guardian over them.
It’s been there for more than five hundred years.
It’s still there.”
“What sort of guardian?”
Chindamani asked, struggling to fight down the sensation of nausea in her stomach.
“I don’t know,” Sonam protested.
The old woman had frightened herself more than she had expected.
“Does it matter?
It’s down there, whatever it is.”
“How does the Chqje get his regalia?
He has to go down there three times a year, doesn’t he?
Why doesn’t this guardian harm him or his assistants?”
“I don’t know.
He must have some power over it.
He has magical powers.
More than you, my Lady.
And more than that Tsarong Rinpoche.”
“I don’t have magical powers, ama-la.
I have told you that often enough.”
Nor did she believe that anyone else possessed them; but that was an opinion she kept firmly to herself.
“Tell me, Sonam,” she went on, ‘does anyone know what this guardian looks like?”
The old woman snorted.
“Of course.
The Chqje knows.
The abbot knows.
At least .. .”
she halted, remembering the news Chindamani had just brought.
“At least he did know.
And the Chqje’s assistants know.
That’s all.
I’m sure that’s all.”
Chindamani sighed.
She had no wish to distress the old woman further; but she had already seen the bodies of the Chqje and his three assistants among those hanging from the ceiling in Thondrup Chophel’s room.
She made her mind up.
“We’ll have to risk it,” she said.
“If the Chqje and his assistants could go in there without coming to harm, so can we.”
The old woman put her face in her hands and began to moan, rocking backwards and forwards.
“Please, ama-la,” pleaded Chindamani.
“There isn’t time for this.
Trust me.
The Lady Tara won’t let me come to harm.”
But the old woman paid no attention.
Her moaning was becoming more intense as the reality of their situation mingled in her mind with a lifetime’s fantasies about the supernatural horrors of the universe she inhabited.
Chindamani turned to Samdup.
“Samdup,” she said, ‘please look after the pee-ling boy.
Try to tell him not to be frightened.
And look after Sonam as well.
Tell her there’s nothing to worry about.
Ask her to help you get our clothes and equipment ready.
I’ve put everything in that large chest.
Take it all out and sort it into piles.
There won’t be time to waste later.
I can’t help you: I have to go to find Ka-ris To-feh.”
But the boy just sat rigid on his seat, staring at her.
“What’s wrong, Samdup?”
she replied.
“I’m frightened,” the boy said.
“I don’t want to go to the gonkang tonight.
And I don’t want to go through any tunnels.”
Chindamani went across and sat down beside him.
“I’m frightened too, Samdup,” she whispered.
“But we both have to be brave.
It’s very important for you to be brave tonight.
Like you were when you tried to get to Ghaloring with Tobchen Geshe.”
“But I wasn’t brave then, Chindamani.
When Tobchen Geshe was lost, I got very frightened and cried.”
“I know,” she said, putting a hand on the boy’s head.
“But you had reason to be afraid.
You were alone and in very real danger.
If Thondrup Chophel had not arrived when he did, you might have died.”
“But Thondrup Chophel frightened me more than anything!”
“Only at first.
After that, you were just unhappy.
But you weren’t in danger.
Now, tonight you are in danger.
No-one’s going to try to kill you, you’re worth too much to them.
But a time may come when they decide it would be in their interests to get rid of you.
That’s why we both have to get away tonight.
Do you understand?”
“Yes.
I see, but .. .”
“There’s nothing to be frightened of in the gon-kang.”
She leaned across and whispered quickly in his ear, “And I wouldn’t worry about old Sonam’s story.
It’s just an old tale; there’s nothing down there.”
But privately, she was worried.
It might not be the sort of horror the old nurse imagined, but someone could have prepared a nasty surprise for them.
She squeezed Samdup’s hand tightly and smiled.
The boy smiled back hesitantly.
She went over to William, wishing she could say even a few words in his language to reassure him.
All she could say was his father’s name, Ka-ris To-feh, but she could not be sure that he understood what she meant.
She smiled and kissed him lightly on the forehead.
He tried a small smile in return, but he was still frightened.
She crossed the room to a large lacquer chest.
Inside, she kept the things she had put away for their journey: clothes for the four of them, a tent, food and a bag of fuel stolen from the kitchens, and money.
She had never used money in her life, but she understood its purpose and knew it would be safer to carry than gold or jewels, the only other form of portable wealth she possessed.
The money had been obtained through Sonam, who had ways of laying her hands on just about anything.
Chindamani put on a heavy man’s robe that still allowed her some freedom of movement, unlike a chuba.
She said a few more reassuring words to her old nurse, smiled at the boys again, and went to the window.
Once, long ago, when she was a little girl, she had discovered that a narrow ledge ran along the side of the upper storey, just below the windows.
She had tried walking along it to a room nearby, where one of her teachers lived, but had been discovered and severely punished by Sonam.
Now she prayed for enough balance to make it as far as Christopher’s room, which was on the same side of the gompa as her own.
The cold bit into her face and hands like slivers of ice burrowing beneath the skin.
Slowly, she lowered herself down to the ledge and found it nearer than she had expected: she had forgotten to make allowances for the couple of feet she had grown since her last venture outside But if the ledge felt nearer, it also felt narrower much narrower than the bridge to the lab rang and hard up against the wall.
The wind was worse than the cold.
It blew across the face of the monastery, as it hurtled through the pass out of nowhere and into nowhere.
The dark and cold and wind conspired against her, to blind and numb and snatch her away into the void.
Within seconds, the light and warmth of the room had become a distant memory, and one that she had to drive from her mind by an effort of will.
All her energies, all her thoughts were concentrated now on one thing, how to survive the next few minutes.
She moved inches at a time, never allowing her feet to leave the ledge, sliding across to the left, hands flat against the wall.
The stone was uneven: plaster had fallen away in places, making it difficult to judge the surface.
The wall and the ledge and the black void at her back had become the entire world for her.
There was no other world, neither in memory nor in prospect.
She edged her way along the ledge for no other reason than that she was there: