“Or the creepy tail,” Zak added.
“Especially the creepy tail,” I said.
Neither of us said anything for a long moment. “So we’re cool?” Zak asked hopefully.
I thought about messing with him, but didn’t. It just didn’t feel like the right time. “We’re cool,” I said.
Zak smiled. There wasn’t a lot left to say so we bumped fists. It was sunny and bright outside as we glanced upwards at Tendua Tibba, the clouds blowing past its jagged snowy peak. We admired it for a minute before Zak turned away. Then he looked back at me. His expression had changed.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Look.”
I stared up at Tendua Tibba. It was the closet I'd ever been to a giant mountain and it was the most majestic thing I had ever seen.
“I know,” I said. “It’s awesome. Really awesome.”
“Not there. Here.”
Zak pointed down. A red and gold carpet laid outside the door of the hut like a doormat. I recognized it as the carpet from Mukta's hut. I had no idea how it had gotten there, but it was there, looking kind of strange out in the middle of nowhere. But it wasn’t the only thing that was there. There were paw prints. Large, cat-like paw prints, each as big as a basketball, littered the ground before trailing off across the snow toward the base of Tendua Tibba. I was stopped cold.
I didn’t know if my dream had been real, or if some other animal with giant feet had been out crawling around in the snow, but there was only one way to find out. Zak and I followed the paw prints. It turned out though, that distances were hard to gauge in the mountains. Tendua Tibba that had looked so close that morning had only looked that way because of its huge size. It took us hours just to get to its base. Zak tried the magic carpet out to hurry things along. He sat on it. He asked it to move. He even asked me to ask it to move. But the carpet wouldn’t do anything. It might have flown for Mukta, but it wouldn’t even float for us, so Zak refastened it to my backpack and we were forced to hike up the mountain the old-fashioned way — with our legs. It went on like that all day and then, just before the sun went down, we came upon a spotted lizard basking on a rock, with its butt in the air and its green back in a high arch.
“Is that Downward-Facing Dog?” I asked.
“As in the lizard after Lord of the Fishes? The one that was yet to come?”
“It would make sense. That lizard has a pretty intense arch to its back.”
Zak and I shared an uncertain look. “Nah,” we both said together.
I snapped a shot of the lizard as it posed there, back arched, on the rock. I didn’t bother trying to figure out how it had gotten there, or why a cold-blooded lizard hadn’t frozen to death on a rock in the middle of a snow field. Too many weird things had happened since we’d been in mountains for me to concern myself with those little details. I did notice, however, that as we walked past it, the lizard winked at me, which might not have been so strange if the paw prints behind us didn’t start to magically disappear, one by one, as we hiked up the mountain.
It got darker and darker and then it was night. This was it. The night of the full moon. The one night in a hundred years that the Ghost Leopard would get its body back. The moon hadn’t risen yet, but it would soon, I could feel it. Our journey had changed from hiking to straight-up climbing. The wind blew ferociously as we scaled the icy rock wall in the darkness. I would have liked to have rested, but there was no time. We chewed on what was left of the cookies I had brought with me as we climbed. Though it would have been nice, I hadn’t had time to make eggs or rice. If there was one thing I could have changed about this trip, besides, you know, boiling monkeys and freaky tail-guy, it would have to have been the cookies. Two or three cookies, yum; two or three hundred cookies, and I guarantee you’ll want to barf. I swallowed what was left of my semi-dry cookie and focused on climbing. If anything was going to happen, if we were going to see the Ghost Leopard, it would happen tonight. We had to be ready. Hyperventilating, I caught my breath on a mountain ledge and took out my camera. I marveled at just how well the waterproof casing had protected it before firing off a long line of shots of the mountain peaks below.
“Come on,”Zak said. “We’re not there yet.”
Zak found a crack in the wall and pulled himself up to the next level, extending his hand down to me. I guess his arm was feeling better, because he was really going. I took his hand and we continued to climb. I had wool gloves which were great because they stuck to the ice, but my fingers were still starting to get cold. Even though I felt much better than I had the night before, I still noticed that every foot I pulled myself up the mountainside, I felt heavier and heavier. Mountain climbing at these heights was like running in water. Even though I pushed myself as hard as I could, the going was slow. But we were getting there, I could see it. Bit by bit we were climbing Tendua Tibba’s crooked peak.
We kept climbing, Zak leading the way, me following, until I was pretty sure I couldn’t go any farther. I guess altitude affects everyone differently. I had been able to run faster after the bus, but up here, Zak was the better climber. But only a bit better, he looked really tired too. It didn’t matter. We pushed on, and on, and on. At some point, I don’t know when, I stopped thinking about whether we would ever get to the top. The thing was that right about then, right around when I stopped thinking about it, was when we got there. Heaving upward together, we found ourselves atop a mountain plateau, a white strip of cloth flying from a lone bamboo pole. I rolled over onto my back on the windswept rock, gulping in the thin air. It felt like I was getting no oxygen at all.
“Tell me we're at the top,” I wheezed.
Zak rolled onto his back.
“We’re at the top.”
“Excellent,” I said breathlessly.
Zak let his eyes fall backward, casting his glance farther behind him. There was a maze of stone and ice there, but not much else.
“My ears are freezing.”
“Mine too,” Zak said.
“Nice work leading the climb,” I said.
“Thanks.”
“Why did we come here again?” I asked.
Zak reached into his pocket and pulled out the weird-looking yellow yak-hair hat he had bought back in the bazaar. He slapped it on my head.
“We came to come.”
“We came to come.”
I pulled myself up and started snapping photos in the moonlight. We were above everything on this mountaintop. We were above the valleys, we were above the clouds and the other mountains, we were above even the moon that was finally rising in the distance. We were at the top of the world.
22
THE RAILROAD AT THE TOP OF THE WORLD
The full moon floated above us, casting its cool glow over the night world. There it was, the hundred-year moon. Zak looked around the mountaintop while I shot pictures.
“Moon’s up.”
“Yup,” I said.
“No Leopard.”
“Nope.”
“Kind of makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”
“Wonder what?”
“If we’re going to see this Leopard at all.”
I put down my camera.
“We came this far. We’re going to see something.”
“I really hope so,” Zak said.
What’s the old saying? Ask and ye shall receive? Well, that’s when the ground began to shake. I had already felt the ground shaking once before and I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to like what came next. The icy mountaintop we were standing on was really vibrating this time. It was hard to stand up. And that was before the deafening whistle blew through the air. It was so loud that I thought my eardrums would burst. A bright light appeared, bearing down on the both of us, casting huge shadows as it lit up the night. I don’t know how, but once again, a railroad track materialized at our feet. I covered my ears and dove off the track with Zak. Then the bhagwan's giant, cherry-red locomotive screamed down on us from a hole in the rocks. The
engine zoomed past us, continuing across the plateau until it came to a screeching stop. It didn’t take long before the bhagwan descended from his private train car. He didn’t wait for his servants to put out the stairs, he just stepped right out into the snow bank.
“Crud,” Zak said.
“Yes. Crud indeed,” the bhagwan replied.
A gust of wind raged across the plateau, blowing a wall of snow with it. Rhino Butt got out of the train, followed by his goons. They carried the huge metal trunk that Zak and I had hidden in between them. I wondered why they would want the trunk up here? The mountaintop had begun to feel very crowded.
“Nice to see you again,” Zak said.
“Pleasure,” the bhagwan replied.
The bhagwan's long tail rose behind him. He had not yet fully transformed into the Monkey Man, but I didn’t like the look on his face, or the polished crossbow in Rhino Butt's hand. Rhino Butt glanced at a tablet computer. I could see from where I stood that he was looking at a digital map which he cross-referenced against the old piece of parchment that had started all of this.
“This is it,” Rhino Butt said. “This is the spot. Lay it down there,” he said to the goons. “If we do this right, we get it to jump right in. We do it wrong, you two carry the corpse. Either way that Leopard’s coming home with us.”
Rhino Butt’s hairy men laid down the metal trunk and at that moment I realized what it was. The trunk wasn’t luggage. It wasn’t a box to carry crossbows or equipment. It was a coffin for the Leopard.
“That isn’t just a box,” I said.
The bhagwan smiled, his yellow claws extending from his fingernails. “No,” he said. “It’s much, much more. This box ensures that no one will ever lay eyes on your precious Leopard again. This box is your Leopard’s final home.”
Thinking about the Leopard being slapped inside a box like that made me mad. Really mad. But I didn’t know what to do about it right then. What could I do? Ask the bhagwan to go home? Something told me he wasn’t going to listen. The bhagwan scraped his claws on an icy granite boulder. They screeched like fingernails on a chalkboard. A faraway look entered his eye and I knew what was going to happen. He was transforming into the Monkey Man. The bhagwan's jaw slowly elongated. Fur began to cover his face, his coal-black eyes glowing red.
“I think we should get out of here,” I said.
“Right behind you.”
Zak and I walked slowly backward. Where we were going to go, I had no idea. But it had to be better than where we were. The goons began their transformation alongside the bhagwan. Their teeth elongated, wiry hair growing from their cheeks and ears. I don’t know why the whole thing didn’t bother Rhino Butt, but he didn’t seem overly concerned. Instead of watching them transform, he loaded his crossbow. Then the bhagwan leapt. In that moment his fangs extended down over his thick lips and he became the Monkey Man. Zak and I dove out of the way as the bhagwan landed in the deep snow. But something else happened. A roar echoed across the mountaintops. Suddenly everyone was very still. Zak and I were still. Rhino Butt was still. The bhagwan was silent. Then a flash of white fur glided between the rocks. Fire lit up the bhagwan's eyes. He turned to Rhino Butt.
“It’s time,” he said. “Take the top path.” He pointed to the goons. “You two, with him.”
The bhagwan disappeared through the rocks, Rhino Butt and the goons heading off in the opposite direction. Zak and I were left suddenly alone.
“That was easy,” Zak said. “Now let’s get out of here.”
I looked around. The locomotive now blocked our view of the mountaintops below and there was a maze of rocks behind us. We were hemmed in.
“Not so fast,” I said. “This is why we’re here.”
“I’m starting to rethink that,” Zak said.
A flash of fur slipped through the rocks above us. One thing I was certain of was that now was not the time for hesitation.
“You go that way. I’ll go around. We meet back at the train in five minutes.”
“Let me just go on record and say that those guys scare the living crud out of me,” Zak said.
“Me too.”
I turned on my camera and took off quietly into the night.
Sparkling snow blew in gusts across the mountaintop. The moon was so bright that I bet I could have read the ingredients off a cereal box out there. My shadow followed me as I walked between the towering boulders. I didn’t hear much except the wind, but I sensed that the others were near. It was spooky inside the rock maze, giant boulders casting their shadows across the snow. Already I wasn’t sure how I would get back. Rock after towering rock looked the same. I hadn’t seen another glimpse of the Leopard. I hadn’t seen anything. Maybe just being there had been enough to protect it. Maybe I had done my duty. I didn’t know, but I was beginning to think that Zak might have been right. Maybe we should have gotten out of there when we had the chance. I heard something. The sound of feet on crisp snow.
“Zak?”
My only response was the echo. If Zak was out there, it was high time that I met him back at the train. I had done my part to protect the Leopard. Now we needed to get off this mountain before it was too late. I began to backtrack. I turned and followed my footsteps. They led me back the way I had come, around a giant granite boulder, until I had done a full circle back to where I was standing. It didn’t make any sense. How was I ever going to get out of the maze? Then I was stopped in my tracks by an enormous roar. There was no mistaking it. The Leopard, barely visible for an instant, slinked between the gray rocks.
This was it. This was my moment. I took hold of my camera just in time to see the Leopard’s long white tail disappear.
I followed the Leopard’s path, slipping between a pair of rocks. As I did, I came to a drop-off. It was at least twenty feet down to the next level. I saw Rhino Butt in the maze of rock below me. He held his crossbow steady, ready to shoot an arrow. Zak was hiding behind him. I didn’t know if Rhino Butt knew Zak was there or not, but I didn’t think so. I saw a quick flash of fur in the maze below. Zak's whip was in his hand, the elephant-tear glowing brightly. Rhino Butt took one more step and Zak stepped out from behind the boulder cracking Stryker. The snot-green emeralds glowed as the tip of the whip cracked through the night air. Stryker’s silver tip wrapped around Rhino Butt’s crossbow. Zak ducked as he pulled the crossbow toward himself, the arrow firing into the air above.
The flash of fur appeared again, but the shot had missed. I know that Rhino Butt turned toward Zak, but I didn’t see what happened after that because the next thing I knew, the Leopard had leapt up a level and into the rocks above me. I walked backward, struggling to get a clear shot of it as it snuck through the rocks above my head. It was here and then there, but never right in front of me. I stared at the world through my viewfinder, rapidly clicking on the shutter, but I couldn’t get a full shot. It was maddening. All I got was white fur, or a leg, or a tail. The thing wouldn’t stay still. Then the Leopard took a massive leap upwards. I saw little more than a silhouette as it did, because a gust of wind blew snow in my face. The Leopard was directly above me and when I took another step forward, I saw why. Somehow I was back at the train, the Leopard slinking its way along the roof of the carriages above. I looked to either side to ensure that I was alone and made my way up between the carriages, climbing the icy ladder to the rooftop of the train.
When I reached the rounded red carriage top, I found it completely iced over. But I wasn’t alone up there. Through the gusts of blowing snow I could see the silhouette of the Leopard in front of me. I was too close to it. What I needed was to move backward. I took one step back on the icy rooftop and clicked a shot. I felt my rear foot slip on the ice, but I held my ground. I wished that the wind would stop gusting, if only for a moment. The blowing snow was everywhere. I glanced to my right and saw that there was nothing below me. The train car was perched on the cliffside. It didn’t matter. What was down there was not my concern. I took another step backward, and
clicked the shutter, trying to get that golden shot. The Leopard moved a step closer to me again. The stupid thing was that I had probably clicked my shutter thirty times and I didn’t think I’d gotten a picture of it yet. It was driving me crazy.
“Just a little more,” I whispered to myself.
I stepped backward again. The wind stopped gusting for a moment and the sky was clear, but dark. A cloud had passed in front of the full moon. The cloud began to blow over, the giant moon gradually lighting the rooftop again. That’s when I heard Zak's voice.
“Zoe…”
“Sure. Now you want to talk,” I said to myself.
The Leopard's shadow loomed above me. I took another step back on the icy carriage roof, continuing to stare through the lens at where the Leopard stood. But I could no longer see the black silhouette of the Leopard. Instead I saw the bhagwan. His monkey head loomed large in my viewfinder, his yellow fangs bared.
I lowered my camera and took one more step back. But it was one step too many. I slipped on the icy carriage, sliding down its red rounded roof to the mountaintops below. I desperately grabbed at the icy steel, but there was nothing to hold onto. It was just too smooth and too slippery. Even as I tried to claw the carriage’s roof, I felt my body fly through the air as I slipped right off, over the cliffside.
My heart was in my throat as I fell, back first, off the rooftop. When I looked up, the bhagwan's giant monkey head was all that I could see. I felt my fall slow, almost as though I was lying on my back in midair. It took a moment for me to realize that I actually was lying on my back in midair, my camera floating in the air beside me. I got it now. The bhagwan was holding me there in midair with the power of his mind. It was a strange feeling, lying there frozen like a starfish, gusts of wind biting at my skin, nothing below me but thousands of feet of sky, nothing above me but the bhagwan.
“I’ve spent millennia searching for the beast whose destruction would return my honor. In that time I've dealt with countless figures like you,” the bhagwan said. “You who see fit to stand in my way. You who are no more than a child.”
Ghost Leopard (A Zoe & Zak Adventure #1) Page 21
