White Peak

by Ronan Frost

  “I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “Just tell your friend to buy the gas for five hundred on the way back.”

  FIFTY-FIVE

  The hunters were tooling up as they left the shantytown.

  There were thirty of them in total, most of them made up of the old leathery-skinned men Rye had seen sitting around watching their womenfolk do the work, but there were half a dozen young, incredibly lithe, muscular men, who looked like they could run for miles without breaking a sweat. They carried a mixture of makeshift weapons and farming tools, none of which would be a match for a bullet, but Sonam assured him they weren’t about to do anything stupid like end up in a showdown. “We know what we are doing,” he said. “This is our land. We hunt it every day.”

  “They aren’t antelopes or wild pigs you’re dealing with.”

  The tribesman laughed. “Last week we brought down a black bear and a snow leopard.”

  “Neither of which had submachine guns,” he pointed out.

  They made their farewells.

  This time it was Carter’s turn back at the wheel. The plan was four-hour shifts, driving through the night. With any luck they’d reach Tangbi Mani before dawn. Part of the journey would see them join the Trongsa-Yotongola Highway, which would be the first real road they’d drive since crossing the border.

  They left the shantytown, pushing the truck on the open road to take advantage of the relatively good conditions to make time before they returned to the meandering twists and turns of the climb up ahead. The road ran parallel to the river for half an hour. Before long, mists had begun to gather in the basin around them, thickening quickly until, after another half an hour or so, the valley floor had been swallowed by thick primordial fog. Even with the truck’s lights on full beam they could only see twenty feet beyond the hood, and with the sun going down it was uncannily like they were driving into another world.

  “Do you think they’ll be all right?” Rye asked eventually.

  “You warned them what was coming. That’s more than I would have done,” Carter admitted.

  “But do you think they will be okay?”

  “I have no idea. But it’s their choice. You didn’t force anyone to play hero. If they buy us an extra few hours, that might be all the difference we need to find this place, get what we came for, and go home,” he said optimistically. “And I’m all for that.”

  “You do realize it’s all relative, right? We’ve got eight to ten days walking ahead of us once we reach Tangbi Mani, and we’re talking six to eight hours walking a day, a fairly monstrous ascent, up into the glacial peaks, and then we’ve got to find this place, assuming it’s there to be found.

  “All we’ve got to go on is a view of some mountain peaks and some guesswork from Byrne based on satellite telemetry. This is the most grueling trek in the world, and let’s not forget the sacred mountain is off-limits to climbers. We have no idea how the Bhutanese or the Chinese on the other side of the border police this place, if they even do, but one thing is for sure, we are entering nightmare territory in terms of physical endurance. You heard what Byrne said about those two Nazi expeditions; despite the shrine back there, we have to assume they didn’t find what they came looking for, and they turned back empty-handed.

  “And all of those stories about the haunted slopes, and everything Rask was saying about the demons supposedly protecting the place. The Asuras. You saw those bones as clearly as I did. If the Brotherhood are protecting this place, and they’ve got those demons for backup, I’m thinking it’s safe to say it doesn’t want to be found.”

  “And yet we are going to find it,” the thief said confidently, “because we’ve got one thing all of those other explorers didn’t have: we’ve got the map and Byrne.”

  “That’s two things,” Rye said, but he knew what Carter meant. He just wished that his enthusiasm for the hunt was as infectious as he thought it was. “I’m just saying that, even if we get a full day’s lead on Cressida’s crew, there’s no guarantee that’s enough. We could be in those peaks looking for a way into Shambhala for weeks—and that’s assuming we actually find it, or that it’s even there to be found.”

  The mist continued to thicken as the sky darkened, like his mood. Without the ambient light of civilization to counter the absolute black, everything around them lost shape and form as it was swallowed by the night.

  They were forced to slow down even more as visibility reduced to almost nothing, trusting that the road would eventually lead them up above the mist.

  Rye felt the gradient begin to increase. It was a gradual thing, but within half a mile they had climbed high enough to break out of the low-lying fog. The headlights transformed the drop-off from the roadside into a rippling blanket of white as far as the beams could see. The SUV climbed the road ahead of them.

  They drove beneath the shadow of a mountaintop monastery, the sweeping rooftops of the nine towers lit by the silver moon. The place was so incredibly remote, the mountainside it was built onto so perilously steep it was hard to imagine the builders making the climb with all of those materials slung across their backs, but somehow it had been built, and now it offered the monks the ultimate in contemplative solitude. Or so it felt for at least three more miles, until they saw the lights of a restaurant up ahead, promising great burgers. There was a hotel a little farther on down the road and a sign that promised the Bank of Bhutan was only five minutes away. They were moving into the outskirts of Thimphu, the last major settlement before they reached base camp.

  Rye saw the stark blocks of a huge hydroelectric plant that braced two peaks off in the distance lit up like Disney’s Magic Castle, feeding the power back into the town. The plant generated every kilowatt of electricity used by Thimphu, keeping the lights on. It was an incredible sight after the seemingly endless mist and darkness, coming down again into what looked like a modern town.

  The moonlight gradually lent more clarity and definition to the golden rooftop of the capital’s incredible temple fortress. But for the engines, they were in a silent world. The temple was part of the core urban sprawl that was taking over the city. Rooftops, like parasols in the moonlight, spread out down the middle of the valley, the buildings very much confined to the geological possibilities the place offered.

  The river split the city in two.

  Rye was struck by the sheer size of the temple, with four immense corner towers like some medieval castle. A larger central tower behind the perimeter buildings was easily the tallest building in Thimphu, rising over all others. Houses clung to the sides of the valley. Even in the moonlight Rye realized the east and west sides of the valley were composed of forms of vegetation, with the river cutting through the middle seeming to demarcate two completely different temperate zones.

  As they drove farther into the city, following the main highway that itself followed the river, the first thing he noticed was a distinct lack of traffic lights. He didn’t see a single one all the way into the central business district.

  Nightlife in Thimphu was almost quaint in comparison to Kathmandu, but he did notice a handful of bars along the roadside. He was watching a group of young male revelers negotiating the traffic, drinks still in hand, as his cell phone began to vibrate to an incoming message. Six texts came in quick succession as they came into range of the cell tower, all of them from Jeremiah Byrne. Beside him, Carter’s phone matched the vibrations as the same string of texts landed.

  The thief checked his screen, then told Rye, “Earbuds in,” as he retrieved his own from the glove box and popped it in.

  Rye pressed down on his, hearing three short beeps inside his head as the connection was established. The next thing he heard was Byrne’s voice.

  “About time,” he told the family’s fifth sibling.

  “I could say the same thing. You’re way behind schedule. You should have been in range over four hours ago.”

  “They’re not exactly country roads back there,” Rye said defensively. �
�Some of those stretches were barely single lane, and you’re looking at a thousand-foot drop if you put a wheel wrong. So, whatever Google Maps says, we weren’t getting here any faster. Plus, we had company.” He filled Byrne in about what had happened since they’d last talked at the shrine.

  “I’ve seen the damage,” he said.

  Rye was about to ask how, but remembered Rask’s private satellite. Byrne was a literal eye in the sky.

  “I’ve sent you through maps and GPS stuff to help once you’re out of the cars. I’ve got no idea how long we’ve got before we lose the signal again, given half the homes in this place don’t even have running water, never mind flushing toilets, and I’m not hopeful, so listen up. Bad news first: the rain is coming. You’re maybe twenty klicks from the edge of the storm, and the weather front is stretching all the way through Punakha into Gasa, though by the time you get far enough north the elevation means snow. We are talking full-scale Snowmaggedon. It’s looking evil out there.”

  “Fan-fucking-tastic,” Carter said beside him. “So, what’s the good news? And don’t say at least you packed your snow shoes.”

  “Man, I’ve missed you, Carter. These few hours of radio silence have been positively desolate. I was going to say, the good news is that I used the time productively. I’ve had the satellite over the White Peaks of the Seven Brothers, and there’s definitely something going on there. There’s marked variations in the vegetation coverage and color where it’s below the permafrost, and subtle differences to the topography and geology of the main mountain itself. It’s enough to suggest there was a settlement of some sort there.”

  “Was?”

  “It’s hard to say with any certainty without actual hands-on digging, but there’s enough in terms of surface anomaly to assume we’re looking in the right place for Shambhala, though whether it was ever the city Rask hopes it was remains to be seen. There’s an area of spotting—I’ve sent you a scaled-up image—which looks to be looting holes, which makes me think the Nazis weren’t far off when they were digging, but there’s no evidence I can find yet to suggest they found a way down into the subterranean city. I’ve been running the satellite’s hyperspectral camera and have found something I think might be worth exploring—that’s the third image I sent. It would seem to be a large hominid fossil bed.”

  “A what?”

  “An ancient graveyard,” Rye said, translating for the thief.

  “Not necessarily all that ancient, of course, given the extreme conditions of the mountain, but a hominid burial ground would suggest civilization at some time or other, so it is another marker that we’re in the right place.”

  “What are the other files?”

  “I thought you’d never ask. One is a hand-drawn map; now what’s interesting about this is it’s not supposed to exist. It predates d’Anville’s map of the Himalayas, and seems to have been drawn during Napoleonic times, meaning it also predates the Blavatsky we’re working with, but is considerably closer to d’Anville’s than the Spanish missionary’s fantasy thing replete with monster sightings.”

  “Where did you find it?”

  “I didn’t. Rask bought it off a private collector.”

  “How on earth did he know to even look?” Rye asked.

  “Remember the names of the buyers our forger had sold copies of the Blavatsky to?”

  “Someone else looking for Shambhala?”

  “Someone else at least interested in the theory behind it. A legend hunter. A deal was done, money changed hands, and a facsimile of the original drawing was procured, and is now on your cell phones thousands of miles from where it has been locked away for the best part of seventy years. I still haven’t told you the best part.”

  “Spill.”

  “The drawing’s previous owner? One Edmund Kiss, the occult expert connected to Hess and Himmler, and most notably, Sébastien Guérin. The same Kiss who was part of the Nazi expedition into Tibet you’re walking in the footsteps of. He was a key member of the Thule Society and the SS Ahnenerbe, his primary obsession was the Holy Grail, and according to our collector, Kiss believed this drawing to be the key to finding that fabled chalice.”

  “Forget Rome,” Carter said, “it’s like an internet argument, all roads lead to the Nazis.”

  “Eloquently put, Mr. Vickers.” Vic’s deep basso-profundo voice filled their ears, reminding them they weren’t alone. “And the final attachment?”

  “A satellite photograph, it shows differences in moisture levels in the underlying soil in the valley in the shadow of Gangkhar Puensum. Normally I’d look at plant life, try to see textual differences in the spectral imagery from their root systems. Stunted roots would suggest something down there, but given the glacial layer, it’s almost impossible, but I have marked on it a pink fissure which runs almost half a kilometer through the valley bed and seems to lead to the unnamed monastery the satellite imagery threw up. It may or may not be anything, but I wanted to flag it up for you.”

  “Excellent work, Mr. Byrne,” Vic said. “Truly excellent. One final question: Can you tell how far behind us our hunters are?”

  “Do you have any idea what sort of vehicles I’m looking for?”

  “They are black and driving in close formation.”

  “I’ll look for them. It’s dark, there are no streetlights, and the fog is thick back there. It might take a minute.”

  They continued to drive through the center of Thimphu toward a golden spire that appeared to be some sort of shrine.

  Byrne came back to them. “They’re still back at the roadblock, you brought half the mountain down. It’s pitch-black out there, but they’re working by headlights trying to get it cleared. It’s hard to put a time on it, but I’d figure the next hour or so.”

  “And then they’ve got to deal with Sonam’s hunters,” Rye reminded them. “So, we’re looking at being a good half a day ahead at least.”

  The first fat drops of rain hit the truck’s windshield.

  FIFTY-SIX

  The rain carried on through the night.

  They spelled each other behind the wheel, each taking turns to sleep for a few hours, though the old truck’s seats were hardly built for comfort. More than once, eyes closed, Rye heard Carter curse out some animal crossing the road ahead of them. The rain made the road treacherous, and combined with the near-absolute darkness, lethal. The wipers couldn’t keep up with the rain streaming down the windshield, and the headlights couldn’t push on through the downpour, so they couldn’t see where the road was taking them. The first time they crossed one of those precarious girder bridges Rye felt the wheels sliding away from under him as the truck aquaplaned across the slick surface. Thankfully the deluge meant he couldn’t see the drop, and before he could think about it, the truck was on the other side and the sound of the wheels on concrete replaced the eerie shwoosh of the slide.

  Beside him, the thief didn’t so much as stir.

  Either he was a lot cooler than Rye, given the circumstances, or he’d fallen asleep with his head up against the glass of the passenger window. The second time he felt the wheels lose their traction on the road, he steered into the skid and narrowly avoided ending up in a ditch.

  And still the rain got worse.

  The incessant drumming on the metal roof threatened to drive him out of his mind, and with no radio he couldn’t try to drown it out with other noise. It wasn’t restful, like listening to a summer shower on an old tin roof. It was frantic, filled with panic and urgency. It was relentless, driven by an elemental madness.

  It just kept on and on.

  In several places the already-treacherous road was in danger of flooding. The truck’s high-riding suspension meant there was good clearance between the underside of the vehicle and the gathering pools of water. Cars that rode lower were going to be in trouble. And it was only going to get worse. Vast stretches of the road were going to become impassable.

  Rye finally grasped what the rainy season truly entailed—and i
t was unlike any weather he’d experienced in his life.

  Still, he drove on through the night, always going forward, slowing down sometimes to a crawl that took them closer to base camp every minute of every hour until dawn.

  The first glimmers of sunlight brought golden fields to life all around them.

  They were stepped in tiers, with farmers driving teams of yaks across them, already hard at work in the paddy fields. Incredibly, if he craned his neck he could actually make out the first dustings of snow farther up the same slopes. These wetlands were full of wildlife and lush colors. Where the trees gathered in close to the roadside, he saw a Tarai gray langur and its mate sheltering from the torrential rain. The monkeys skittered away from the edge of a branch as the vehicles ploughed by. Rye couldn’t hear their hooting, but their agitation was obvious. The greenery of the mountain around them was too vivid, too lush, and too false, as though a child had colored them with a crayon and only had chlorophyll green in their box of colors.

  And still Carter Vickers didn’t stir.

  The man could sleep through the end of civilization without so much as a groggy, “What was that?”

  Rye checked the coordinates on his phone. The battery was running low. He had maybe five or six hours left before it would need charging. Carter had turned his off, so that when Rye’s died they’d still have his. Likewise, Vic and Iskra had turned theirs off. With luck, that would give them enough battery life in one device to make it all the way to Gangkhar Puensum.

  Not that he felt lucky.

  The GPS on the phone wasn’t tracking properly, and they’d lost Byrne hours ago with no promise that they’d be able to get him back.

  “Time to go analog,” Rye told Carter, who mumbled something about a waste of good sleep, but reached into the glove box for the map book. It took him a moment of thumbing through the pages and tracking the road from Thimphu toward Tangai Mani and Bampura to work out roughly where they were, and another few minutes of peering out into the rain to try and find some sort of landmark capable of proving his guess was right.