We Are Not Eaten by Yaks (11 page)

He slung his gun onto his back and started to walk down.

“What about going to see the protector-spirit, Dorjee Drakden?” Dr. Navel asked. “Won't we need his blessing?”

“The path tells us to go down, so we go down,” the lama replied quickly. “Perhaps the spirit will find us, perhaps not. And truthfully,” he said, lowering his voice to a near whisper, and losing his smile for the first time, “I do not know if we can trust the protector anymore. He has grown unpredictable. Times are dangerous.”

For a moment Celia thought she saw a guilty look slide across Lama Norbu's face, but the moment passed and his face snapped back into a smile. He turned and continued down the path, singing a little tune. Dr. Navel shrugged and followed close behind.

“Oh, children,” he said, turning over his shoulder to look at the twins. “Stay close so you don't fall or get dragged off by any demons. And watch out for the
Dugmas
—Poison Witches can be tricky. And also thanks for”—he pointed up at the sky—“you know, whatever you did. Well done!” He smiled broadly, as if this whole situation was just the most fun he'd ever had, which in his mind it may have been. Then he turned and continued after the old monk scrambling down the side of the canyon.

Oliver and Celia looked at each other in disbelief. Was that really all they got from their dad after saving his life? Celia scooped up their backpack, threw it onto her back and sighed. Oliver turned to go first, like always. Reluctantly, they followed their father down, toward the sound of howling monkeys and dangers they wouldn't even want to see on television.

THE NAVELS FOLLOWED
Lama Norbu down the narrow path for what felt like hours, tripping over gnarly rocks and bushes. Oliver and Celia were tired from traveling all night and most of a day, falling out of an airplane, hanging from the edge of a cliff, being rescued by a machine-guntoting lama, and hiking into the deepest canyon in the world. They usually found Mr. Busick's gym class exhausting.

A scorpion scurried up a rock face as they passed, and two dark black birds chirped at them, flashing their wings to show the bright feathers on the underside, brilliant rainbows of color that seemed to glow against the rest of their ink-black bodies.

“There's nothing to watch,” Oliver whined as he watched the birds take off into the sky.

“Nothing worth watching, anyway,” Celia clarified for her brother, who rolled his eyes at her. She really liked being right.

Their father tried to keep them entertained.

“Look at that,” he said, pointing to a giant tree that looked like the thousands of other giant trees around them. “That tree right there is one of the last of the great Asian sequoias.”

“Great,” the children groaned. “Trees. Whoopee.”

“And that bush there sprouts berries whose juice is poisonous to every creature on earth except one kind of beetle. And that beetle doesn't even live on this continent. There's no explanation for it! Isn't it wonderful?”

“Sure,” the kids said flatly.

“Shangri-La is a hidden land,” added Lama Norbu, trying to spark the twins' interest and seeing that their father's science wasn't working. “Many explorers believe it does not even exist, while many others have been lost searching for it. It will be a perilous journey to try to find it. There are ancient maps created by wise men, but no one knows how to read them.”

“Then how do you know where we're going?” Celia said, nervous that they themselves were going to get lost. Maybe this is where their mother got lost.

“Oh, I lived in this valley many lifetimes ago,” Lama Norbu replied calmly. “I have been a monkey howling from these trees and a fish swimming in these raging rivers. These hidden lands are drawn like a map in my soul.”

Oliver and Celia looked at each other with their eyebrows raised. The lama talked exactly like wise men on television shows, almost like he had a script that he didn't really understand himself. Dr. Navel nodded as if it all made total sense, as if it was perfectly rational to have a map in your soul and to use it to get around.

“Wonderful!” he said.

Of course, Dr. Navel, like fathers everywhere, hated to ask for directions and probably wished he had a map of
everywhere
written in his soul so he wouldn't have to pull into a gas station looking sheepish ever again.

“Okay, that's it,” Oliver finally said and stopped walking. He had had enough weird for one day. “How could you have been a monkey and a fish and, you know, yourself? How could you have been around for many lifetimes? Are you, like, a vampire?”

“Oh, no.” Lama Norbu laughed, slapping his knees and leaning against a tall tree. “A vampire! What a strange idea! No, I am not, nor have I ever been a vampire. Nor will I ever be, I pray. Their skin is like fire to the touch, their necks are long and thin, their bellies hang to their toes, and they groan with thirst for thousands of years. I pray you never meet one.”

“That's not how vampires are at all,” Celia objected. “They have alabaster skin and eyes like the sea during a storm. They have dark passions and wander the earth looking for love.”

“It would be quite impossible to fall in love with a real vampire,” Lama Norbu said and chuckled. “They are incapable of even speaking, and love nothing but misery.”

“Okay, you're not a vampire,” interrupted Oliver, because he knew how his sister felt about vampires and he didn't want to see her punch the old lama in the nose. She had a crush on Corey Brandt, who played the teenage vampire on
Sunset High
, which was canceled after the first season. It broke her heart, especially when it was replaced with
Agent Zero
. She didn't care that it had the exact same actor. She had a thing for vampires. “So how were you a monkey?”

“A vampire would never take the form of a monkey,” Celia muttered under her breath so only her brother heard her.

“Reincarnation,” Lama Norbu said. “The cycle of death and rebirth.”

“I see,” said Oliver, though he didn't see.

“We monks believe that all living things are born and die and are reborn over and over again, and how we are reborn depends upon what we do while we are alive. We will continue to return to earth again and again, rising and falling—sometimes a beetle, sometimes a god, but always returning until we become enlightened and are set free.”

“So it's like reruns,” said Oliver.

Lama Norbu just furrowed his brow. He knew a lot about life and death and eternity, but nothing about television. “It is karma,” he said. “If you do evil in life, you might be reborn a demon, but if you do great good deeds, you might be reborn as a great ruler, even a god.”

Celia liked the idea of being reborn as a god. She'd be all-powerful. Then she wouldn't have to go on these crazy adventures and could just sit on a throne and watch the world like it was a TV show. And she could watch what
she
wanted. Gods didn't have to let their twin brothers watch
The World's Greatest Animal Chases Three
. It seemed too good to be true.

“Dad, do you really believe in all this stuff?” Celia asked her father. “Rebirth, and gods and oracles and hidden lands with all the wisdom of the world hidden there? I mean, it can't be real.”

“I learned long ago that the line between real and unreal is quite blurry,” Dr. Navel said. “Think about your television. If you showed it to a group of people who lived their whole lives in little huts in this valley, they would think it was magic. Just like you think it's crazy that there can be reincarnation and oracles and hidden lands, other people might think it's crazy that humans have walked on the moon or that we watch little glowing boxes for hours and hours and hours.”

“So if Shangri-La is real, how are we supposed to find it?” Celia said. “I want to get to it as quickly as possible and get home. All the good summer shows start next week.” She pulled out their mother's note and handed it to her dad.

Dr. Navel just shook his head and looked down at the note. “Her writing's not easy to read: ‘November fourth, little time left; they are close behind me, letting me search for the missing pages until they strike. I'm closer now than I've imagined. No one thought the Great Library might be in Shangri-La. Only the shamans' eyes can tell the way from here.ʹ ʺ He looked up at Lama Norbu. “What shamans do you think she meant?”

“There are many shamans in this valley,” Lama Norbu said. “Some good. Some evil. Her clue isn't very helpful, I'm afraid.”

“So where do we find some of them?” Oliver asked. Celia couldn't believe that they were actually doing this. Oliver secretly liked the idea of meeting a shaman, but he didn't want to let his sister know. She'd think he was becoming an explorer. He'd seen a show about shamans once, and thought they were cool. He imagined them with bones through their noses dancing around fires in front of camera crews.

“That's hard to say,” Lama Norbu answered. “Anyone could be a shaman. A shaman is just someone who can show people things they cannot see themselves.”

“So I could be a shaman,” Celia said. “I can see that we should be at home right now instead of wandering around in some valley on the other side of the world!”

“Oh, to be a shaman takes great powers of meditation,” Lama Norbu answered her. “You must clear your mind and sit very still and focus. It can take hours, days, years, even lifetimes of sitting and meditating to see the truth. Life is filled with many dangers and distractions to keep you from this path.”

“Like the abominable snowman?” asked Oliver.

Lama Norbu smiled. “No, the yeti, or as you call him, the abominable snowman, is just a legend. The real dangers are in your mind. They are your illusions and your selfishness.”

“So that yeti right there is an illusion?” Oliver said, pointing at the giant white creature that stood on its hind legs in front of them. It looked like a cross between a polar bear and a person. Its teeth were the size of a man's fingers and were stained with dried blood. Everyone turned toward it and it roared. Birds took flight and leaves shook. The forest grew still and silent with fear.

“No,” Lama Norbu said, slowly moving for his gun. “I fear that creature is very real and wishes to send us to our next rebirth sooner than we would like.”

THE CREATURE LOWERED
down to all fours and snarled and scratched deep grooves into the ground with its long black claws.

“No one move,” Lama Norbu whispered. “A creature like this would never reveal herself to humans. She must be desperate and therefore very dangerous.”

“She?” Celia said.

“Yes,” he answered. “In the stories I have heard, the females are much larger than the males. They are also more aggressive.”

“Amazing!” Dr. Navel exclaimed. He dropped their mother's note on the ground. He was entranced. The excitement of the discovery washed away any fear he felt, and he stepped closer to get a better look at the furry giant. Fear, he always said, was the most boring of the emotions. Oliver and Celia found it pretty useful. They jumped backwards.

“Dad . . .” both of them warned. Their father cocked his head to the side like a curious puppy while the creature's black marble eyes stared back at him.

“Ogden, I must warn you that . . .” Lama Norbu began, but before he could finish the monster had sprung from where it crouched to a boulder above Dr. Navel and, in one swipe of her giant paw, sent the curious adventurer hurtling through the air off the side of the mountain.