Andy McDermott - The Midas Legacy

‘It is the strongest part of the monastery. It was first built as a fort, for protection against bandits.’

‘I assume the reason the monks demolished the original monastery and moved here was to make it harder for Tobias Garde to find his way back to the Midas Cave?’ Nina asked.

‘Yes,’ replied the abbot. ‘They showed your ancestor the cave in gratitude for his help. But later they realised the danger of outsiders taking control of it.’

‘How did he help them?’

Amaanat did not reply, entering a room at the top of the tower. A door was set into the rear wall. ‘This is the only way to reach the cave,’ he announced as Rudra drew back a bolt and opened it.

A freezing wind rushed in. Even in her well-insulated clothing, Nina felt it slicing at her like tiny razor blades. ‘Wow, that’s cold.’

‘It will get colder,’ Rudra warned. Beyond was the near-vertical wall of the cliff behind the monastery. A sturdy plank was lashed to metal supports driven into the rock.

‘How long’ll the climb take?’ Eddie asked.

‘It depends on the weather… and if the path is still there.’

Nina and Eddie looked at each other. ‘Yeah, that’s totally reassuring,’ she said.

Amaanat smiled. ‘There are supplies to repair it along the way — ropes, wood.’ He stepped on to the plank. ‘This way.’

Rudra went next, followed by Eddie, Nina and Jayesh. The narrow gap between tower and cliff acted as a natural wind tunnel, intensifying the icy blast. More snow-caked planks were strung along the cliff to form a walkway — with two-foot gaps between them. Eddie let out a disbelieving huff, his breath forming a steaming cloud. ‘You don’t need to be a mountaineer to get up there. You need to be Super Mario!’

Amaanat sidestepped along the planks until he emerged from behind the tower, giving him enough room to face forwards. The others did the same. The force of the gale reduced once they were clear of the structure, but the biting temperature did not improve.

The abbot surveyed the vertiginous route ahead, then advanced, fingertips brushing the rock face to his left for support. Age had not affected his agility or balance, and he negotiated the tricky path with easy assurance. His guests found it more difficult, their inflexible boots actually a disadvantage when it came to finding grip.

The walkway slanted upwards, reaching a narrow ledge. The group continued along the curving wall overlooking the natural bowl until they reached a sharp fold in the mountainside. A gap had been chiselled out of it, giving just enough room to duck beneath the overhanging rock to reach another path beyond.

Nina looked back at the monastery as the procession slowed to clamber through. The multicoloured prayer flags sweeping down from the tower fluttered in the wind, leading her eye to the precipice at the foot of the slope. More bleak mountains rose beyond it. Other than the tethered yaks, there was no sign of life, not even a distant tree. Although coldly beautiful, it was a desolate, dead landscape.

Yet it hid something extraordinary that her ancestor had seen over a century and a half ago — and that thousands of years earlier an explorer had come all the way from the mouth of the Mediterranean to find. Whatever was in the Midas Cave, they had considered it worth enduring the emptiness.

She followed Eddie through the gap, Jayesh standing ready to assist from behind. The drop to the boulder-strewn ground was a good sixty feet. If the monks wanted to silence the visitors, an ‘accident’ would be easy enough to stage…

But Amaanat and his people showed no signs of hostility; not even Rudra, whose present bad temperament was aimed at the elements. Reassured, she kept moving.

Before long, the new ledge levelled out and widened slightly. Bundles of planks and skeins of rope rested in a small hollow in the cliff. ‘The path ends not far ahead,’ Amaanat announced, stopping and moving aside so Rudra could pass him. ‘From here there are more platforms. Talonor first built them so his people could reach the cave. We have maintained them, but the journey is not easy.’

Jayesh took advantage of the brief pause to light a cigarette, drawing disapproving looks from some of the monks. ‘We’ll cope.’

‘I hope so. But be warned, parts of the path are very old.’ He turned as Rudra returned and spoke briefly in Nepalese. ‘The path does not need repair. We may go on.’

They resumed the journey, rounding another fold in the cliff. Nina halted when she saw what lay ahead. The path narrowed to nothingness, but the route continued onwards on a ragged line of more planks supported by logs jutting from the cliff face. The mountainside here was vertical, the drop at least two hundred feet and rising as the precarious walkway staggered upwards. Ropes threaded through eyelets hammered into the stone acted as a kind of handrail, though the slack in the lines did not inspire confidence. ‘Are you certain it doesn’t need repair?’ she asked.

‘This way has been used for thousands of years,’ Amaanat pointed out. ‘It is dangerous, yes, but it can be travelled safely if you take great care.’

‘Nah, I was planning to wing it and run along ’em,’ said Eddie sarcastically. He faced his wife. ‘You sure about this?’

‘We’ve come this far,’ she replied.

‘Yeah, and that’s never got us into trouble before, has it?’ He let out a vaporous breath. ‘Okay, just remember that we’ve got a little girl waiting for us to come home, right? Be really careful.’

‘I wasn’t planning to do anything else!’ Nina told him. ‘I guess we’re ready.’

Amaanat bowed his head. ‘Then let us go on.’

He retook the lead, stepping over the gap on to the first plank. It made a low warning groan as it took his weight. The sound did not deter him, and with his left hand lightly holding the guide rope he took measured paces along the wood to reach the next platform in line. ‘Do not have more than one person on each step if you can,’ he called back.

Eddie took a much firmer grip on the rope when his turn came to advance. ‘One down, maybe five hundred more to go,’ he said as he waited for Rudra to clear the next plank. ‘Will we be able to climb all the way up and then back down before it gets dark?’

‘If the path is clear, yes,’ said Amaanat.

‘And if it isn’t?’

‘There is a shelter,’ Rudra told him. ‘It is not big, but there is room for all of us.’

‘Sounds cosy,’ said Nina, not keen on the prospect — as much out of impatience to reach the Midas Cave as at the thought of being trapped for the night on a Himalayan mountain.

The little procession moved on. Once over her initial unease, Nina found the process almost straightforward: eight or nine careful footfalls along each length, then step up to the next platform. The blustery wind encouraged her to press close to the rock, but despite appearances, the guide ropes turned out to be firmly attached to the cliff.

Before long, she felt secure enough to divert a small amount of attention to her surroundings. Empty holes cut into the stone and the protruding stubs of worn logs or metal poles above and below the current pathway suggested that sections had been abandoned over time — or simply broken away and dropped into the void. Some were clearly much older than others. Talonor’s original route to his prize, allowing him to get men and materiel to and from the cave? It seemed likely… but for what purpose?

Somewhere in the distance, she heard an odd noise, a rumbling hiss. It continued for several seconds, then stopped. ‘Did you hear that?’ she asked Eddie.

‘Yeah,’ he replied. ‘Hey, Rudra. What was that?’

‘The dragon,’ the monk replied.