Patrick Woodhead - The Cloud Maker (2010)

He stood for a moment longer, his body rigid and aching, listening to the silence of the mountain. Then, from somewhere to his right, he heard the sound of groaning. Crunching his way across the pitted surface of the avalanche, he followed the sound, clutching his hand to his ribs as he walked. The snow was like rubble underfoot, stacked high against the rocks.

As he came closer, he could see the top half of a body slumped forward, head lolling to one side. A soldier was wedged against a low slab of rock, with only his top half exposed. Zhu took another step closer and pulled back the mop of hair. It was Chen. His eyes were half-closed and blood streamed out of his nose in two frozen lines. His jaw was slack and his chest heaved from the effort of breathing.

‘ I can’t feel my legs ,’ he groaned, trying to focus his eyes on the figure before him. Zhu looked down and saw that his whole pelvis had shifted unnaturally to one side. The avalanche had nearly broken him in two.

Zhu’s eyes ran over the shattered body. He could see something in Chen’s right hand, a line of photographs that he had pulled from the top pocket of his jacket.

Reaching down, Zhu grabbed on to the sleeve of his jacket with both hands and tugged as hard as he could. Chen felt his body yanked forward, his chin dipping against his chest as Zhu pulled harder and harder.

‘ Thank you, ’ he whispered, his eyes finally focusing on the top half of Zhu’s head. ‘ I can make it. I can make it back. ’

His hands closed round the pictures in his hands and he shut his eyes. Zhu pulled once again and the sleeve of Chen’s jacket slipped from his arm. Zhu twisted it round, peeling it off his massive back and down across the other arm.

As the jacket came free, Zhu staggered back a pace. He swung the warm coat over his own shoulders.

Chen’s eyes stared down at the military-issue shirt stretched over his chest. He could see thin traces of his body heat escaping into the icy air.

‘ You can’t . . . ’ he breathed, his voice barely more than a murmur. ‘ You can’t . . . do this. ’

Zhu didn’t answer, but finished buttoning up the jacket. Without a word to Chen he turned away, working his way over the snow towards the exposed part of the Kooms. Chen watched him slowly start to clamber his way through, then, in the silence that followed, a broken laugh escaped his lips.

‘ Scared of heights, ’ he wheezed. ‘ You’ll never get down the cliff-face. ’

He inhaled, mustering the last of his strength.

‘ You deserve to die out here! ’ he shouted. ‘ Just die! ’

His head slumped forward against his chest and as the blackness began to well across his vision, he spoke once again.

‘ We all deserve to die . . . ’ With one final wheeze, the last breath escaped his body and Chen finally fell still.

Zhu staggered forward, clutching his ribs. As he came down off the last of the avalanche, he turned from side to side, searching for the flares. A few yards ahead of him a dull red glow emanated from a rock. The flame had eaten through almost the entire length of the stick. It had been nearly six hours since they had come this way.

Lurching forward, Zhu searched for the next flare, sweat beading his ashen face. Words came from his mouth in an unintelligible stream, his mind closed off from the world around him.

For hours he continued clambering; the endless rocks, the dull red flares. He pulled his aching body over the next slab of rock, then the next.

Eventually he crawled under an overhanging slab and out into the open bowl of the glacier. He wheeled round towards the gulley behind, raising his arms wide.

‘You can’t hide forever,’ he screamed in English. ‘I will return with hundreds of men and find you. Do you hear me?’

His face creased with pain as he called out to the mountain: ‘And when I return, I will kill every breathing thing!’

Chapter 57

Dorje raised the ornate china teapot a few inches higher and green tea cascaded into the delicate bowls below. Luca sat opposite him on the prayer mat.

Raised on a low platform at one end of it, the Abbot sat facing them both with his legs folded beneath him. He inhaled the aroma of the tea wafting across the room before his eyes settled on Luca.

They sat in a circular room with a lofty, domed ceiling, like a bell tower. Light poured in from every direction through the narrow windows that had been carved into the walls at regular intervals. They were in the highest point of the entire monastery, but as Luca had climbed the last of the twisting stairs he had settled down on the floor without so much as a glance at the glorious panorama of mountains outside.

The Abbot stared at him, his gaze passing over each part of Luca’s face. A long scar ran over the top of his lip and his cheeks were still puffy from the last of the swelling. In the week that had passed since the avalanche, the Westerner’s face had healed a great deal. Physically, he was recovering well, but in all that time he had barely uttered a word. The Abbot had been informed that he lay for hours in his cell, staring vacantly at the ceiling and hardly touching his food.

Dorje placed a bowl in Luca’s open hand. As he set it down in front of him, some of the boiling tea sloshed over the rim and scalded his fingers. He didn’t appear to notice. Instead, he returned the Abbot’s gaze, his own eyes dull from sleepless nights.

‘So what happens now?’ he asked.

‘That depends to whom you refer,’ Dorje answered, before taking a sip of his tea.

‘The boy.’

‘His Holiness will remain here at Geltang under the direct supervision of our Abbot. He will be instructed in our teachings to the very highest level, until he is ready to take his place in Shigatse.’

‘But that means the Chinese will win,’ Luca said flatly. ‘After all that’s happened, after so many people died, you’re just going to sit back while they crown their own Panchen Lama. What was the point of it all?’

Dorje inhaled deeply, then nodded. ‘Indeed they will have their victory, but only for now. We cannot risk exposing Babu to the world before he is old enough to know his own mind and his own path. Many would seek to control him, as you saw even within our own walls. You must remember that despite the awesome knowledge and power within Babu, he is still just a boy. We shall wait until he is ready to be known. But rest assured, Mr Matthews, he will be known, and our rightful ruler will be restored.’

‘That could be years from now. Decades even.’

Dorje nodded again. ‘It could indeed, but fortunately, patience is one of our greatest attributes. We have already waited many decades for our country to be free, and are prepared to wait many more.’

He took another sip of tea and gestured for Luca to do the same. As Luca raised the bowl to his lips, the Abbot’s eyes finally left him and turned towards Dorje.

‘ I believe it is time to tell the Westerner the whole truth about our monastery, ’ he said in Tibetan, his voice slow and deliberate.

Dorje looked aghast, the bowl tilting in his hands and spilling some tea on to his lap.

‘ But why, Your Holiness? Why share such knowledge with an outsider? ’

The Abbot’s eyes traced over Luca’s slumped shoulders and the scar running across his lip.

‘ Because he has given everything for us, ’ he said. ‘ After all that has happened, he deserves to know what he has helped save. ’

Dorje inhaled deeply, setting his bowl back down in front of him. He hesitated for a second, then as the Abbot nodded again, started to speak.

‘Some time ago, Mr Matthews, I told you that Geltang Monastery was a repository of treasure, but the treasure I was referring to had nothing to do with the statues you happened upon in the basement.’