by D. H. Dunn
Kneeling out onto the pair of logs, Drew ignored how much the lashed-together structure bent with his weight and swayed with the wind. He would only be on it for a few moments, he reminded himself.
Keeping his eyes on the wood, he edged himself forward. The experience was quite like working on the mast and yardarms of a ship, you just needed to manage what you looked at.
Of course, the Pacific was warm and friendly. It was happy to lure you into forgetting the dangers that lurked under the waves. Torpedoes ready to shatter your world like so much fragile glass.
Just as memories of that dark day threatened to overtake his mind, Drew found his next push forward brought him back onto the white snow of Everest, his crossing complete.
The next few hours stretched into a blur for Drew. The path left by the Shipton party was clear and easy to follow, the glacier’s movement having done little to disturb most of the ladders and logs the British expedition had left behind.
Drew had expected Carter to express some national pride in how well his countrymen had worked through such a dangerous obstacle, but the old man made no observation on it. He supposed in truth much of the most dangerous work had been done by the Sherpa anyway.
They all had worked in silence through much of the pre-dawn, though, Drew himself falling into almost a trance as they climbed and crossed their way through the dark.
All but Nima, who had exclaimed loudly at each new sight and obstacle, her joy and wonder at the mountain’s offerings seemingly boundless.
This energy had nearly gotten her killed as she misread a jump across another crevasse, but she had managed to grab the other edge with her gloves and scramble to the top unharmed.
“I made it,” she cried defiantly, as if Drew and Pasang’s shared expressions of disapproval were completely unreasonable. Her brother shook his head, and Drew laughed despite the gray hairs Nima was likely giving him.
Drew continued climbing with the group as hours passed. At times checking to see if the golden thread that danced in front of his vision led in any particular direction. The path stayed variable, shifting this way and that, only ever indicating a general route further up the mountain.
His arms were aching as he pulled himself up another of the endless series of walls, the slight pink tinge in the sky just starting to push back against the night’s shadows.
He looked over his shoulder, impressed with the height they had reached and the depths into the Khumbu they had managed. They were probably the only people outside the Shipton expedition to make it this far, as incredible as that seemed.
The pride he felt for their accomplishment drained away at the sight of a small glint of light flicking back at him: the just-risen sun reflecting off the windshield of a vehicle heading toward the Icefall from Gorak Shep. A moment later, he made out a second glint not far behind the first, both approaching at a high rate of speed.
Shit. So much for luck.
It was Jang, it couldn’t be anyone else.
“We’ve got trouble,” he yelled, feeling his adrenaline rise. Turning, he saw the others peering over another crevasse, this one wider than any of the previous.
Nima looked up, seeing the worried look in Drew’s eyes.
“Jang?” she said, grabbing her brother’s shoulder.
“Yep,” Drew nodded. “We’ve got to get going. How deep is this thing?”
“Like so many of the others,” Wanda replied, kneeling and looking into the dark below. “To deep to see the bottom, and this one is too far to jump.”
“There’s a log over there!” cried Pasang, pointing to their left. “We could slide it over and use it as a bridge!”
Drew followed the pointing finger and saw one of the Shipton logs visible, partially buried under snow. Of all the logs to move out of position, of course the glacier had picked this one.
“Great! Let’s push it over!” Drew ran over to the log, pushing the snow off it with a frantic energy. Pasang was alongside him almost immediately with his sister. Fortunately, the snow was recent and easy to brush off.
With Carter and Wanda joining in, they all began to push the log as a group. The thing was heavy, heavier than any logs Drew could recall from his uncle’s cabin in the woods back in Oregon. It was stubborn, but with effort they were able to get it moving.
“Are you sure this Jang would really kill?” Wanda asked between grunts. They were being careful to keep the log parallel to the edge of the crevasse, their feet sliding in the snow as they pushed.
“In town? Maybe not.” Drew wiped the sweat from his forehead as they got the log in place. “Out here? Definitely. Let’s get this thing pushed across.”
With Pasang, Carter, and Wanda all anchoring the rear of the log and providing leverage, Nima and Drew inched it forward over the crevasse.
“Jang,” Nima said to Drew as they pushed, her tone worried.
“Nothing we can do right now, little sister. Let’s get as far from him as we can. Maybe he won’t risk the Icefall.”
Nima nodded, and they continued shoving until the log just reached the other side. Drew stood, frowning as he gulped in air, his chest heaving with exertion.
The log was too thin, too unstable and it just barely reached. But it would have to do.
The wind began to pick up, carrying the sound of engines along with it. Jang’s vehicles were getting closer.
“Okay, Pasang,” Nima said. “You first with the rope.”
Drew grabbed the end of the log, Nima joining him as they tried to steady it for her brother’s crossing. Wanda grabbed the end of Pasang’s rope, Drew relieved she knew what to do without being asked. She planted her feet and anchored herself, just as Drew had done on the last crossing.
Pasang whisked by them onto the log, his face intense. He had been slow and methodical before, but now there was no time. Yet if Pasang felt any fear, he did not show it.
In an eyeblink, Pasang was already halfway across. Drew was just feeling the tension in his chest lessen when the ground began to tremble.
“Earthquake?” Wanda cried. Drew shook his head, this was no quake. Somewhere deeper in the Icefall there had been an avalanche. Not enough to knock anything down here, but the air could soon be filled with snow as the impact ran through the glacier.
Pasang had been smart enough to freeze as soon as the log started to shake, but now that it was stable he darted across the final few feet to the other side. Nima cheered for her brother, the rising wind tearing away the sound almost immediately.
Pasang quickly hammered in an anchor into the far side and secured the rope.
“Carter next!” Nima yelled, Drew agreeing with her choice. The old man was the biggest liability here, and if the avalanche-driven snow was going to reduce visibility, it was better if he were across.
Carter knelt next to them. He shimmied out onto the log, getting just a few feet past the edge before he froze.
“Not sure about this,” he said. Carter gripped the log with one shaking hand, the other fumbling in his pocket
Damn, Drew thought. We don’t have time for this.
“Wanda!” Nima yelled. The wind was getting even stronger, more snow filling their view. “Take Drew’s place on the log.”
“I’ll be right here with you, Carter.” Drew said, motioning the old man forward as he took up a position behind him. “Just hold onto the rope. I’m right behind you.”
For a moment, he wasn’t sure if Carter had heard him. The form in front of him was frozen to the log as if he were part of it.
Just as Drew was about to speak again, Carter began to inch himself along. The wind was wild now, the snow starting to fly past Drew’s eyes in clumps. Pushed by the force of the distant avalanche, the full cloud of snow would be here any moment.
The log under his legs shuddered with the onslaught, Carter just barely reaching the midpoint of the crossing.
“Come on old man,” Drew yelled. “Move! Move, or we’re both dead!”
Another tremor rocked through the Icef
all, the log shuddering and lurching to the left.
With a cry of fear Carter began to move faster, far too fast. As he scrambled ahead down the log, moving in pure panic, the old man slipped and tumbled over the side.
Drew launched himself forward, his right arm just able to catch onto Carter’s upstretched hand. He wrapped his legs around the log to keep himself aloft.
Drew cried out in pain, each of his limbs feeling as if they were being shredded by the strain. The snow blew into his face as he looked down at the old man’s terror-filled eyes.
Drew kept his left arm wrapped around the log while his right kept Carter dangling above the abyss. His body began to tremble from the exertion.
“Nima!” he yelled above the growing wind. “Get me rope!” Another tremor ran through the Icefall, more snow toppling down into the crevasse.
“I am here!” Wanda’s voice cut through the gale, her arms coming around his legs. His right arm was shaking, and Carter’s gloved hand was starting to slip.
Knowing he had only seconds left, Drew screamed as he tried to pull Carter back onto the log. The old man started to rise with his exertion and for a moment Drew thought he might succeed.
With a sound that was as slight as a bird’s wing, Carter’s glove slipped out of his grasp.
“Carter!” he shouted. Drew caught the briefest glimpse of a body tumbling down into the dark as the full force of the avalanche’s snow cloud hit.
His world went white as he was bombarded by a fine mist of snow carried through the howling wind. He braced himself for a fall, certain the log could not withstand the strength of the sudden gale.
Yet it held, somehow. He could barely hear Nima and Pasang’s voices over the howl, the words unintelligible.
“I cannot see!” Wanda cried from behind him. She still gripped his legs.
“Just follow the log and move!” Staring down, he began to inch forward, his right side buffeted by the wind. The surface of the wood was slick, and Drew was forced to grip with his legs as well as his hands.
Moving forward on his belly, he was nearly across when the wind died down, the blinding snow clearing away to a shocking sight.
Carter was clinging to the opposite side of the chasm, hanging by his hands from an icy outcropping just a few feet from the edge.
“Pasang!” Drew yelled, pointing at the old man. Pasang let go of the log and ran toward where Carter was hanging on for his life.
How could he be there? Drew scrambled across the log’s remaining distance while his mind struggled with the old man’s miraculous appearance.
Drew made it off the log, stopping to help Wanda finish crossing as he watched Pasang kneel where Carter was hanging.
He couldn’t still be alive, could he? Could the winds have blown him there?
Pasang finally pulled the old man up with one strong arm, smiling as he helped him to the surface above the crevasse. Carter collapsed into the snow, coughing and sputtering.
Pasang turned back toward Drew, still grinning as a flash of lavender energy exploded behind him. Suddenly cast in shadow by the massive appearance of the Yeti, Pasang did not have an opportunity to react before he was scooped up in one enormous furred arm.
“Pasang!” Nima’s shout echoed across the crevasse.
“Help her!” Drew shouted at Wanda. He didn’t need to look to know Nima would be charging across the log bridge.
Drew broke into a run, the Yeti already turning away with its prize under one arm, trudging through the snow toward the next step up the Icefall.
It was hunched over and laboring, the large crystalline structures poking out of its back glowing red and orange. Drew passed Carter, who had now risen to his knees.
He’d seen this beast in action when he and Nima chased it before. It seemed to weaken just after using its magic.
Drew pushed himself harder, feet pounding into the snow. The Yeti was only a few feet away, Pasang struggling against its strength. His orange hat came off his head, flying by as Drew closed the final distance.
With a shout he launched himself at the Yeti’s back, hoping to bring the creature to the ground and allow Pasang a chance to run.
It was like hitting a stone wall covered in fur. Drew fell to the ground, his left shoulder taking most of the blow. He jumped back to his feet, the Yeti turning and swinging at him with its free hand. Drew ducked as the huge paw sailed over his head, claws longer than his fingers slicing through the air.
Clasping his fists together, he managed a blow to the monster’s blue jaw, the maw opening as it bellowed a roar.
Pasang continued to twist it the Yeti’s grasp. Drew looked up into its gaze, seeing a mixture of anger and fear in the beast’s dark eyes.
The eyes narrowed as they looked back at Drew, shifted to purple, and the Yeti vanished, leaving behind only a dissipating cloud of sparkling energy.
Drew fell to his knees in the snow as Nima ran by him, screaming Pasang’s name. The Yeti materialized hundreds of feet away and several tiers higher in the Icefall. No matter how fast they might climb, even rested they would not be able to close the distance with the great beast.
5
“Do nothing in haste, look well to each step and from the beginning think what may be the end.”
—Edward Whymper
November 2, 1951
Khumbu Icefall, Nepal
Jang Baradhur studied the face of the Khumbu Icefall intently, squinting against the glare of the sun as the ice reflected the light back at him.
He could sense the impatience of the Nepalese men behind him, his hirelings from Kathmandu. They were impatient for action, impatient for movement, and impatient to be paid. They were fools to hurry so. Jang knew the value of being a patient man, it was a quality which had served him well.
His men were aware of this, they wisely left him to his study of the five figures and their mad chase up the glacier. Even Shamsher, the giant local whose family had been indentured to Jang’s for decades, even he kept his quiet while Jang studied.
He knew his eyes had not tricked him. He had seen it once, but he needed to see it again to be sure. If he was right, it changed everything.
Almost everything, he supposed. He was still going to kill Drew Adley and perhaps his Sherpa friends as well, but if he was right about what he saw he now had even more reason.
He watched as they scrambled from one step of the glacier to another, Adley and that infernal Sherpa girl in the lead, followed by the two Westerners. He quickly reminded himself Adley was a Westerner too, gritting his teeth at the error.
Of the Sherpa boy he saw no sign, but he suspected he knew why. He peered intently through the glare into the distance, focusing on the figure Adley and the others pursued.
There! He saw it again. A large white shape far ahead of the others, too big to be a man. Jang saw the faintest flash of purple light, then the shape vanished and reappeared dozens of meters higher. Below this he could see Adley and the other climbers, hardly more than dots against the ice as they scrambled in a hopeless pursuit.
“It is just as you described, Adesh,” Jang said, speaking to the taller of his two Nepalese hirelings. He had sent Adesh to follow Adley and the Sherpa girl the previous evening, when their group was camping not far from where Jang now stood.
Adesh had returned to Jang with his face as white as the Westerners and gibbering in fear. His description of a white beast that could fly instantly through the air seemed incredible, ridiculous.
Jang had dismissed the man’s ravings as nonsense. Moments before he had discovered his tent had been robbed, Shamsher reporting that the young man Adley had been seen with was behind the crime. At the time his mind had been occupied on the documents alone. The documents and Adley’s neck in his hands.
At the time.
Then came the incident at Dorjee’s tent, the business with the old woman outwitting Shamsher and Adley’s moonlight run away from Gorak Shep. It had piqued his curiosity. Not the fact that they had run, bu
t to where.
They were right to run from him, that made sense. Run into the hills or back to Namche Bazaar, maybe even back to Kathmandu. Certainly, those documents would be worth plenty back there. Alternatively, they could have gone back to the Sherpa girl’s village, perhaps to convince the local leaders that Jang’s hold on their land was less than legitimate.
Instead they had run to the Icefall, of all places, bringing the pair of new Westerners along with them; the old man and the pale woman. Having seen the man up close, Jang knew he was British and likely had military training, just like Adley. The woman was more of a mystery, with her red hair and strange accent.
His men joined him as he stared up at the tiny figures on the Khumbu, Shamsher gasping as the large white figure flashed again, reappearing on a higher ice pillar.
“The mountain is guarded by demons!” The edge of fear in Madhud’s voice made Jang grind his teeth. The stocky man was Adesh’s brother. Looking at his broad girth, Jang worried about any trip up the mountain with him. “They chase after it. Madness!”
“No,” Shamsher said. Both the Nepalese men stepped back slightly, as if the deep sound of Shamsher’s voice alone moved them. “Chomolungma is no home to demons. Whatever men or beasts may be on the mountain, it is because she allows it.”
Adesh shook his head, while Madhud went to the back of the truck and began unloading the rifles.
Jang spat in the snow, watching it freeze on the surface. These men had little vision. They saw a beast fly through the air in an instant and they thought it the work of demons, of magic.
He knew better. The white beast was not a demon, it was a resource. It was something to be captured and used, and it was likely the reason Adley and his friends were on the mountain in the first place.
The men were afraid, and Jang respected fear. Fear had kept him alive all these years, but this creature represented opportunity.
Unwittingly, Adley had delivered the change Jang had been waiting for, a chance to make everything right again.
Only a few years earlier, he had been Gagan Magar, a high-level associate of the Jang family, as his father had been, as well as his grandfather before. For a hundred years the Dynasty had kept Nepal as it should be, with the support of far off nations keeping the Jang in power.
