Kingdom of the Golden Dragon

by Isabel Allende

  For an instant, which nonetheless seemed eternal, men and beast stood facing one another, until Tensing’s serene voice could be heard whispering a basic mantra. The oil lamp flickered as if it was going to go out, and before their eyes, in place of the cat, appeared a strange-looking youth. They had never seen anyone with such pale skin, or anyone wearing clothes like his.

  As for Alexander, he had seen a faint light that at first seemed like an illusion, but gradually became more real. Behind that glow he could see two human silhouettes moving toward him. He thought the two were from the Sect of the Scorpion, and he leaped up, alert, ready to die fighting. He felt the spirit of the black jaguar rush to his aid; he opened his mouth, and a savage roar shook the quiet night. It was only when the two strangers were but a few yards away, and he could see their faces better, that Alex realized they were not the sinister bearded bandits.

  The three stared at each other with equal curiosity: on one side, two Buddhist monks wrapped in yak hides; on the other, an American youth in blue jeans and boots, with a monkey holding onto his neck. When they had collected themselves, all three joined their hands before their faces and bowed in unison in the traditional greeting of the Forbidden Kingdom.

  “Tampo kachi,” said Tensing. May happiness be yours.

  “Hi,” Alexander replied.

  Borobá shrieked and put his paws over his eyes, as he did when he was frightened or confused.

  The situation was so bizarre that all three laughed. Alexander desperately searched for some word in the language of the country but couldn’t remember a one. He had the impression, however, that his mind was an open book to these men. Although he didn’t hear them speak a word, the images forming in his brain revealed their intentions, and he realized that they were there for the same reason he was.

  Tensing and Dil Bahadur learned telepathically that the stranger was looking for a missing girl he called Eagle. They naturally deduced that it was the same person who had sent them the white bird. It was not surprising to them that the girl had the ability to transform herself into a bird, just as it was no surprise to them that the youth had appeared before their eyes in the guise of a great cat. They believed that nothing is impossible. In their trances and astral journeys, they themselves had taken on the form of different animals or beings of other universes. They also read in Alexander’s mind his suspicions about the bandits of the Sect of the Scorpion, which Tensing had heard about in his travels through the north of India and Nepal.

  At that instant, a cry from the skies interrupted the current of ideas flowing among the three men. They looked up, and there, once again, was the great bird. They watched it trace a tight circle and then descend in the direction of a dark precipice a little farther ahead.

  “Eagle! Nadia!” yelled Alexander, first with wild joy and then with terrible apprehension.

  The situation was critical, because climbing to the bottom of that ravine at night was next to impossible. Even so, they had to try, because the fact that Nadia had not answered Alexander’s repeated calls, or Borobá’s shrieks, meant that something very serious had happened to her. She had to be alive, the mental projection of the eagle proved that, but she could be badly injured. There was no time to lose.

  “I’m going down,” Alexander said in English.

  Tensing and Dil Bahadur did not need a translation to understand his decision, and they prepared to help him.

  Alex congratulated himself for having brought his mountain-climbing gear and flashlight, and he was also thankful for the experience he’d acquired climbing and rappelling with his father. He put on his harness, drove a metal spike into the rocks, tested its firmness, secured his rope and, before the astonished eyes of Tensing and Dil Bahadur, he scrambled down the precipice like a spider.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Medicine for the Mind

  THE FIRST THING NADIA NOTICED when she regained consciousness was the rancid smell of the heavy yak hide wrapped around her. She half-opened her eyes but she couldn’t see anything. She tried to move, but she was immobilized; she tried to speak, but no sound came out. She felt an unbearable stab of pain in her shoulder, which within seconds spread through the rest of her body. Again she sank into darkness, with the sensation that she was falling into an infinite void that enveloped her totally. While in that state, she floated calmly, but the moment she had a spark of consciousness she felt pain shooting through her. Even in a faint, she moaned.

  Finally she began to come to, but she felt as if her brain were enveloped in a whitish, cottony matter she couldn’t shake free of. When she did open her eyes, she saw Jaguar bending over her and assumed that she had died, but then she heard his voice calling her. At last she was able to focus, and with the burning stab in her shoulder, she knew she was still alive.

  “Eagle, it’s me . . .” said Alexander, so frightened and worried about his friend that he was near tears.

  “Where are we?” she murmured.

  A bronze-colored face with almond-shaped eyes and a serene expression came into view.

  “Tampo kachi, brave little girl,” Tensing greeted her. He was holding a wooden bowl and indicating that she should drink the liquid it held.

  With difficulty, Nadia swallowed the warm, bitter liquid that fell like mud into her empty stomach. She felt nauseated, but the lama pressed his hand firmly against her chest, and the discomfort immediately disappeared. She drank a little more, and soon Jaguar and Tensing faded away and she fell into a deep, tranquil sleep.

  Using his rope and flashlight, Alexander had descended into the ravine in a matter of seconds; he had found Nadia curled up amid some brush, icy and motionless, like someone dead. When he confirmed that she was still breathing, he yelled with relief. As he tried to move her, he saw the dangling arm and assumed she had broken some bone, but didn’t pause to find out. The first priority was to get her out, though she wouldn’t be easy to lift, in her unconscious state.

  He removed his harness and fitted it around Nadia, then used his belt to strap her arm tightly to her chest. Dil Bahadur and Tensing raised the girl very cautiously, careful to keep her from swinging against the rocks, and then threw the rope back down to Alexander so he could climb up.

  Tensing examined Nadia and decided that before anything else they would have to get her warm; they would tend to the arm later. He tried to give her a little of the rice liquor, but she was unconscious and wouldn’t swallow. Among the three of them, they rubbed her from head to toe for a long time, restoring her circulation, and as soon as some color came back, they wrapped her in one of the hides like a package, covering even her face.

  With their long staffs, Alexander’s rope, and the second yak hide they improvised a litter and transported the girl to a small refuge nearby, one of the many natural caves in the mountains. To carry Nadia back to Tensing and Dil Bahadur’s hermitage would be too difficult and take too long. The lama decided that they would be safe from the bandits where they were, and should rest the remainder of the night.

  • • •

  Dil Bahadur found some dry roots and used them to build a small fire that provided some warmth and light. With extreme care, he removed Nadia’s parka, and Alexander yelped with fear when he saw his friend’s shoulder out of its socket, and her dangling arm swollen to twice its normal size. In contrast, Tensing showed no sign of emotion.

  The lama opened his small wooden case and began to place his needles at certain points on Nadia’s head to suppress the pain. Then he took herbs from his pouch and ground them between two stones while Dil Bahadur melted some yak butter in his bowl. The lama stirred the powders into the fat to form a dark, pleasant-smelling salve. His expert hands reset Nadia’s shoulder, and then spread the salve over the area of the injury. The girl did not make the slightest movement, completely tranquilized by the needles. With telepathy and gestures Tensing explained to Alexander that pain produces tension and resistance, which blocks the mind and slows the natural ability to heal. Besides killing pain, the
acupuncture activated the body’s immune system. Nadia was not, he assured Alexander, suffering.

  Dil Bahadur tore off the lower edge of his tunic to make bandages. He boiled water with a few coals from the fire and soaked the cloth strips in that liquid; the lama then used them to wrap the injured shoulder. Finally Tensing immobilized Nadia’s arm with a scarf, removed the acupuncture needles, and demonstrated to Alexander how to cool Nadia’s forehead and lower her fever with snow collected from among the rocks.

  In the hours that followed, Tensing and Dil Bahadur concentrated on healing Nadia with their mental powers. It was the first time the prince had practiced this skill on a human being. His master had been training him for years in this method of healing, but up till now he had tried it only on wounded animals.

  Alexander realized that his new friends were focusing the energy of the universe and channeling it to give strength to Nadia. Dil Bahadur passed Alex a message telepathically, telling him that his master was a physician and, in addition, a powerful tulku, who could call on the enormous wisdom of previous incarnations. Although he wasn’t sure that he had fully grasped the telepathic message, Alexander had the good judgment not to interrupt or ask questions. He stayed close by Nadia’s side, cooling her with snow and giving her water to drink when she awoke. He kept the fire going until the roots they were using as fuel were exhausted. Soon the first light of dawn slit the mantle of night, while the monks, sitting in the lotus position with their eyes closed and their right hands on his friend’s body, murmured mantras.

  Later, when Alexander was able to analyze what he had experienced during that strange night, the one word that occurred to him to define what that pair of mysterious men had done was “magic.” Nothing else could explain how they had healed Nadia. He assumed that the powder they had used to make the salve was some powerful remedy unknown to the rest of the world, but he was sure that it was Tensing’s and Dil Bahadur’s mental powers that had produced the true miracle.

  During the hours that the lama and the prince were applying their psychic powers to heal Nadia, Alexander thought about his mother, far away in California. He imagined the cancer as a merciless terrorist lurking in her body, ready to attack at any moment. Lisa Cold’s family had celebrated her recovery, but all of them knew that the danger was not past. Chemotherapy and the “water of health” Alex had brought from the City of the Beasts, in combination with the witch man Walimai’s herbs, had won the first round, but the battle was not over. Throughout the night that he watched Nadia improve with such amazing speed as the monks silently prayed, he formed a plan to bring his mother to the Kingdom of the Golden Dragon—or else study that awesome method of healing for himself.

  At dawn, Nadia awakened without fever, with good color in her face, and with a voracious appetite. Borobá, huddled by her side, was the first to greet her. Tensing prepared tsampa, and she devoured it as if it were a delicacy, although it was nothing but a grayish gruel with the flavor of toasted barley. She also eagerly drank the medicinal potion the lama gave her.

  In English, Nadia reported her adventure with the Blue Warriors, the kidnapping of Pema and the other girls, and the location of the cave. She was aware that the two men who had saved her were capturing the images forming in her mind. From time to time Tensing interrupted her to clarify some details, and since she listened with her heart, she understood him. The person who had the most difficulty in communicating was Alexander, even though the monks could divine his thoughts. He was exhausted; he couldn’t keep his eyes open, and he couldn’t imagine how the lama and his disciple were so alert after having spent part of the night rescuing Nadia and the rest of it praying.

  “We must save those poor girls before they suffer irreparable harm,” said Dil Bahadur after listening to Nadia’s story.

  But Tensing was not in as great a hurry as the prince. He questioned Nadia to learn exactly what she had heard in the cave, and she repeated the few words Pema had recognized. Tensing asked if she was sure that they had mentioned the Golden Dragon and the king.

  “My father may be in danger!” the prince exclaimed.

  “Your father?” Alexander asked, surprised.

  “The king is my father,” Dil Bahadur explained.

  “I’ve been thinking about all this, and I am sure that those criminals didn’t come to the Forbidden Kingdom just to steal some girls. They could have done that more easily in India,” Alexander offered.

  “So you think they came here for some other reason?” Nadia asked.

  “I think they kidnapped the girls as a diversion, and that their real goal has something to do with the king and the Golden Dragon.”

  “Stealing the statue, maybe?” Nadia theorized.

  “I understand that it’s very valuable. I have no idea why the kidnappers mentioned the king, but it can’t be for anything good,” Alex concluded.

  The usually unemotional Tensing and Dil Bahadur could not hold back a grunt. They discussed the matter in their language for a few minutes and then the lama announced that they must all rest for three or four hours, before moving into action.

  When the friends awakened, the location of the sun told them it was about nine A.M. Alexander looked around him and could see nothing but mountains and more mountains; it was as if they were at the end of the world. He knew, however, that they were not far from civilization, it was merely well out of sight. The hiding place the lama and his disciple had chosen was protected by large rocks and was difficult to reach unless one knew it was there. It was obvious that the monks had used it before, because there were candle stubs in one corner. Tensing explained that to go down to the valley they would have to make a long detour; it wasn’t that far, but they were cut off by a high cliff, and the Blue Warriors blocked the one trail that led to the capital.

  Nadia’s temperature was back to normal, she felt no pain, and the swelling in her arm had gone down. She was hungry again, and ate everything she was offered, including a serving of a vile-smelling cheese from Tensing’s pouch. The lama again applied the salve to the girl’s shoulder and wrapped it in the same strips of cloth, since they had no others, and then he helped her take a few steps.

  “Look Jaguar, I’m completely well! I can lead you to the cave where Pema and the other girls are,” Nadia exclaimed, giving a few hops to prove what she was saying.

  But Tensing ordered her to lie down again on her improvised bed; she was not completely well and she needed more rest, he told her. Her body was the temple of her spirit, and she must treat it with respect and care. Her task was to visualize her bones in the correct places, her shoulder without swelling, and her skin clear of the bruises and scratches she had suffered in the last day or two.

  “We are what we think. Our being emerges from our thoughts. Our thoughts construct the world,” the monk told her telepathically.

  Nadia captured the broad stroke of his idea: She could heal herself with her mind. That was what Tensing and Dil Bahadur had done for her during the night.

  “Pema and the other girls are in serious danger. They may still be in the cave I escaped from, but it’s also possible that they’ve already been taken somewhere else,” Nadia explained to Alexander.

  “You said that they had a camp there with weapons, provisions, and equipment for their horses. I don’t think it would be easy to move all that in a few hours’ time,” he reasoned.

  “In any case, you have to hurry, Jaguar.”

  Tensing indicated that she was to stay and rest while he and the two young men rescued the captive girls. It wasn’t far, and Borobá could lead them there. Nadia tried to explain that they would have the ferocious Sect of the Scorpion to deal with, but it seemed as if the lama did not understand, because his only response was a calm smile.

  Tensing and Dil Bahadur had no weapons other than the prince’s bow and arrows, and the two tall wooden staffs they always carried; everything else was back in their hermitage. Their one amulet was the magic piece of petrified dragon dropping from the
Valley of the Yetis that the prince was wearing around his neck. When they competed in earnest, as they did sometimes in the monasteries where the prince was educated, they used a variety of weapons. The competitions were friendly, and rarely was anyone injured, since the warrior monks were experienced and careful not to do harm. The gentle Tensing would wear a hard armor of padded leather that covered his chest and back, in addition to metal guards on his legs and forearms. His size, enormous in itself, was thus doubled, turning him into a true giant. Atop that massive body, his head looked too small, and the sweetness of his expression seemed entirely out of place. His favorite weapons were metal discs with knife-sharp spurs, which he threw with incredible precision and speed, and his heavy sword, which no other man could lift with both hands and which he brandished effortlessly with one. He was able to disarm another man with a single move, split an armor in two with his sword, and brush the cheeks of his opponents with his discs without wounding them.

  Dil Bahadur did not have the strength or skill of his master, but he was quick as a cat. He did not wear armor or other protection, because it slowed his movement; speed was his best defense. In a tournament he could dodge knives, arrows, and lances, flexing his body like a weasel. To see him in action was a wondrous sight, he seemed to be dancing. His favorite weapon was the bow, because he had infallible aim: wherever the target was, there sped his arrow. His master had taught him that the bow was part of his body and the arrow an extension of his arm; he must shoot by instinct, sighting with his third eye. Tensing had insisted on making him a perfect archer because, he claimed, it cleansed the heart. According to the lama, only a pure heart can master that weapon. The prince, who never missed a shot, contradicted him, joking that his arm knew nothing at all about the impurities of his heart.