by Jack Du Brul
On an upper story of the monastery a window sash rattled as a fresh gust of wind blew by. The candle on the table flickered and shadows jumped along the stone walls of the cell. Tisa barely looked up from where she sat, a cup of pungent butter tea cooling at her elbow. She was physically and spiritually drained, but she knew the bed in the corner would provide no succor. In sleep lay the nightmares that had plagued her for so long.
Added to them were her fears for Philip Mercer.
She was sure he had survived. When she’d left him on the floating tanker truck and struck out for Luc’s boat, she’d tried to convince her half brother that she alone had escaped from the sinking ferry. He hadn’t believed her, but the crush of survivors trying to board the speedboat nearly capsized the vessel and forced him to motor away before mounting a search. Mercer would have surely been rescued when word reached Santorini that the ferry had gone down.
No, her fears were based on what she knew was coming. She wondered if she should have bothered giving him the warning about La Palma now that she couldn’t be with him. Mercer would doubtlessly figure out that the volcano was going to erupt and she was just as certain he would try to minimize the devastation. He’d go to La Palma and be one of the first to die. Her interference had sealed his fate. She’d only just discovered that in their short time together he’d evoked emotions she’d thought she was incapable of. She’d fallen in love with him. Now he was gone forever.
She knew now that whoever said it was better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all had no idea what they were talking about. She looked at her wrist where for a few hours she’d worn the watch he’d given her. It was the sweetest gesture she’d ever seen. He couldn’t possibly understand why she wouldn’t wear one, couldn’t know the fear she had of time itself, how finite it was and how she couldn’t stand the constant reminder.
She wished now she’d kept it.
The monastery was so solidly built that it seemed to absorb all sound. Tisa didn’t hear the footsteps outside her door, didn’t know anyone was coming for her until the heavy iron lock slid back against its stop.
She remained bowed, not needing to look up to see that it was her brother who had come for her. “Leave me, Luc.”
“You know I would never do that,” he whispered. When they were together at Rinpoche-La, they spoke Tibetan. For some unknown reason, when they were on the outside they conversed in either French or English.
She raised her head. She’d lost her glasses during her escape from the ferry. Her spare pair weren’t the correct prescription, forcing her to squint slightly to focus her vision. Like her, Luc was dressed in voluminous wool pants, a fine cotton shirt and a heavy cloak. She noted he’d taken to carrying a pistol belted around his lean hips. “What did you hope to accomplish by bringing me here?”
He crossed the murky room to stand behind her. She could feel his hands near her shoulders but he refrained from touching her. “I just want to keep you safe.”
“From what?” she snapped. “Inevitability?”
“Tisa, it doesn’t have to be like this. I forgive you for trying to warn the world. At times, even I thought that we should. In the end, we both know it’s for the best that we don’t.”
She turned in her seat to look him in the eye. “Best for who? Who are you to decide?”
“I can ask you the same question. For centuries the Order has done nothing but watch as cataclysms destroyed nations, laid waste to entire regions, and killed millions. No one ever questioned our need to remain silent. Just because the scope is so much greater now doesn’t mean we should part with our traditions.”
“Luc, if we don’t do anything a hundred million people will die outright and many more later as civilization unravels.”
“This is where you and I disagree, dear sister. I don’t see that as a bad thing. Civilization as it is today is fundamentally flawed and can’t be sustained. Its demise is certain. Rampant consumption in the west and exploding populations in the developing world are either going to bleed the planet dry or collide in a monumental war that will destroy both. The eruption on La Palma is a pressure relief valve, a way to turn back the clock a century or two and give humanity a chance to learn from its mistakes rather than continue to build on them.
“This is the very nature of evolution — the adaptation to changing circumstances. Those that can do it will survive, those that can’t will perish. The planet doesn’t care which species resides at the top of the evolutionary ladder so long as it can endure the tests thrown at it. We’ve done well for so long that we forget we’re here only by the earth’s grace.”
Tisa couldn’t form a response. Far from growing blank, her mind was a swirl of images and thoughts, a torrent that crashed like a hurricane. In the months since she’d learned about the La Palma eruption, she’d strived to find a way to avert it, or at least reduce the impact. She’d remained confident that she could make a difference. That knowledge had given her the determination and courage to continue. Hearing her brother now, she understood how useless it had all been. For the first time she knew she was going to fail.
There was no escaping Rinpoche-La. Upon her return she’d seen that Luc had mobilized dozens of followers into a loose army. Like her brother, they all seemed to be carrying guns. Even if she could slip past the guards and make it out of the valley, she’d never survive the trek to Nepal. Darchen, the closest Tibetan town, was out of the question too. It was a backwater village with a heavy military presence. She’d be arrested the first time she tried to hitch a ride to Llasa.
Luc began to massage her shoulders. Tisa didn’t have the strength to shrug him off. “We’ll be safe here. When the time comes we will rejoin the world and take our rightful place. The oracle will guarantee our primacy.”
“I want to see the Lama,” she said, trying to keep from sobbing.
“Of course.” Luc stepped back to allow Tisa to stand. He smiled at her, a patronizing look that said he could see past her anger and not care about her pain. “Whatever you want is yours for the asking.”
He led her from the cell. In this wing of the lamasery, the hallways were wide and lined with rooms once used by some of the hundreds of monks who’d lived here. Precious prayer scrolls called thangkas adorned the paneled walls. The floors were made of tropical woods, burnished to a mirror gloss, then mostly covered by intricate carpets. He took her to one of the central mezzanines where a staircase seemed to float in space yet was large enough to accommodate a dozen people walking abreast. Oil lanterns lit the way. The ground floor was an open space several acres square, cut by marble columns that supported the floors above. There were so many supports that the grand entrance was called the stone forest. The ceiling gleamed with gilt.
It took several minutes to cross to another set of stairs that descended below ground level. This passage was part of a dormant geothermal vent, and once at the bottom of the steps the passage took random twists and turns that had once been an ancient lava tube. After a hundred yards they came to a towering door. Luc unlocked it with a key kept on a long leather thong around his neck. He gave Tisa an appraising look.
She remained expressionless. Three months had passed since she’d last been here and taken the chronicle from the archive that lay beyond this door. Only the archivists, the most venerated members of the Order, had the key. Luc had not been among them then. Her brother must have been busy consolidating power within the Order. She feared what else had changed.
The archive chamber was dark until Luc turned on lights powered by a geothermal generator buried deeper under the monastery. The walls were draped with heavy, moisture-absorbing carpets to protect the priceless volumes. The rugs were replaced on a regular basis and the ones here appeared fresh and vibrant. The air was chilled, not damp exactly but clammy and claustrophobic. The chronicles were arranged along two walls in shelves that stretched from the floor to the ten-foot ceiling. There were several antique desks for the archivists and drawers filled with maps
and manuscripts. This wasn’t where Admiral Zheng He’s cache was stored, although a few pieces were generally kept here for reference. The bulk of that horde was in another chamber Tisa had never seen.
When she’d taken the book she’d shown Mercer, she had tried to disguise the theft by spacing out the nearby journals. Luc, or one of his underlings, had reformed the tight ranks and the gap where the chronicle once stood was as obvious as a missing tooth. From the blank spot to the end of the last shelf were six more journals awaiting the time when the predictions in them could be verified.
Luc crossed the room and opened another locked door. Tisa’s unease increased. She hadn’t seen the Lama in almost a year. Even back then his health was failing and his mind had lost much of its keen edge. She dreaded that he’d died in her absence and her brother was leading her to his ossuary. That would explain how Luc had taken such complete control over the monastery and the Order.
They continued down the volcanic tube, their way lit by bulbs strung along the ceiling. Tisa suspected this was an alternate route to the oracle chamber, the subterranean cavern where centuries earlier devotees of Zhu Zhanji had constructed the oracle based on designs that dated from long before the scholar took possession of Admiral He’s historical treasures. The air in the tunnel turned warmer the farther they descended, fueled by the earth’s fiery heart.
At last they came to an open area that had been finished off with elegantly paneled walls and a carpet-strewn wood floor. The room was furnished with ornate sofas and chairs covered in watered silk. Glittering chandeliers hung from the coffered ceiling like crystal stalactites. The architectural details of the handcarved moldings were lost under heavy layers of gilt. Through an open doorway Tisa could see a bedroom dominated by a massive four-poster bed. It was only the lack of windows that betrayed the space as something other than a room fit for royalty. She’d never seen this part of the monastery and didn’t understand what it was. Luc indicated she should go into the bedroom.
The chamber was much dimmer, shadowed and ominous. There was a gamey odor in the air, like meat on the verge of rotting. Sensing a presence, she stilled her breathing. Someone was on the bed, hidden by darkness. Her heart began to hammer and her palms turned slick. As Tisa approached the bed, she couldn’t still her quivering lips. She knew whom she was about to see. The rasping breathing that first caught her attention stopped suddenly and the figure on the bed let loose with a crowlike caw.
Tisa’s hand flew to her mouth to stifle a scream. She slowly made her way closer, angling across the room so light could reach the figure leaning against the headboard. Behind her Luc adjusted a light switch and the level of illumination grew. Tisa gasped.
The Lama no longer wore his ceremonial blue robe. He was naked, his thin chest rising feebly as he struggled to breathe. His body was hairless save the coarse gray nest at the juncture of his legs. The hair atop his head was as fine as silk thread. His face was more deeply wrinkled than any she had ever seen. The creases seemed to vanish into his skull. His mouth was a blackened, toothless hole, his limbs little more than desiccated sticks. He wasn’t yet seventy but appeared ninety. She discerned all this ruin in a glance, but what held her were his eyes. They were those of someone with severe retardation. They remained bright, but there was no curiosity behind them, nothing to indicate the creature peering through them even knew who or where he was.
Soft cords bound his left hand and ankle. The right side of his body was held rigid by some paralysis.
Tears burned Tisa’s eyes. She turned to her brother, unable to hide her pain and confusion.
“Two months ago,” Luc explained as if discussing the weather. “The doctors say it was a massive stroke. It would have been better had the old bugger died. I’ve actually thought about putting him out of his misery, but the others believe his condition is a portent and that the date of his death will have special meaning.”
Tisa reached out and brushed a wisp of hair back across the Lama’s forehead. He looked at her trustingly, but without recognition. Unable to keep her composure, a wracking sob tore into Tisa’s chest. The pain was like a lance.
“Ah, dinner’s here,” Luc said from the doorway, unmoved by his sister’s personal agony.
Tisa glanced over her shoulder. A local woman Tisa didn’t recognize hesitated at Luc’s side, torn by duty and the unexpected presence of a stranger in the Lama’s bedroom. She was pretty, not far out of her teens, with a round face and freshly washed hair. She was dressed simply in a long skirt and a loose blouse of cotton. She carried nothing, no tray or bowl from which to feed the Lama.
“I’m not sure that you want to stay for this,” Luc said as the girl made her decision and drew closer to the bed.
The high Lama cawed again, becoming animated at the sight of the young woman. The girl paused, her dark eyes darting from Luc to Tisa. Luc made a “go ahead” gesture with his hand. Tisa remained uncomprehending. The Lama tried to reach for the woman with his bound hand, his motions directed at her chest.
It was then that Tisa saw the wet patches at the swell of the woman’s bust. She was a nursing mother, her breasts heavy with milk.
Tisa whirled away, unable to hide her revulsion as the woman began to undo her buttons.
Luc laughed. “It’s the only way he’ll eat,” he explained cavalierly. “Though we did have his teeth pulled. He kept biting the wet nurses.”
The Lama’s agitated noises were suddenly replaced with a contented mewling. Tisa refused to look, although her brother watched for a moment. She stormed past him.
“How could you?” she hissed so hard it hurt her throat.
He grabbed her by the shoulder and spun her into his arms so their mouths were inches apart. “I told you it would have been better if the stroke had killed him. The pillar of our community has been reduced to an infant. Maybe it is punishment for continuing the program to counter the time drift that developed in the oracle’s predictions. The Order should never have started moving rivers, constructing towers, and digging holes in an effort to change earth’s chi.”
Tisa twisted so she wouldn’t have to look at her brother’s face, a visage so much like her own. “I hate you.”
“One of these days you’ll see things my way. Not now, I understand, but soon, very soon.” He kissed the top of her head and released his grip. “In the meantime I’ll make sure no harm comes to you, as we wait together for the world to be transformed.” He looked past her shoulder. Donny Randall stood at another entrance to the living quarters. “Take my sister back to her cell, Donny, then meet me in my office.”
Tisa couldn’t stop crying as the big man lumbered at her heels through the sprawling building. She’d been away a few months, but it had been even longer since she’d seen the Lama. She should have stayed. She could have prevented Luc from usurping power as he had. Her duty was here, at Rinpoche-La, not on the outside. Had she not wasted so much effort contacting Mercer, maybe she could have saved a portion of the Lama’s dignity and with it the purity of the Order.
Half a millennium of planning and surviving was about to unravel in a way even the oracle couldn’t have predicted. For centuries the Order had been free of the pettiness that had destroyed so much that was rational in the world, the squabbles that blossomed into wars, bankrupting nations and killing millions. The innocence they had enjoyed for so long was lost, as lost as the Lama’s mind.
Maybe Luc was right, she thought, capitulating to her own inner darkness. Maybe nothing humanity had created was worth saving. After all, she’d seen there was an ugly reflection to all things beautiful. The first joyous cry of a newborn was the same sound as the dying wail of a starving child. The same techniques that created great cathedrals helped the construction of concentration camps. The same laboratories that produced chemicals that cured also made those that killed. Art and music and free expression had all been perverted by hate by those bent on sending their own unholy message. Religion, politics, family, it was all so easily distorted t
hat little of the good behind these ideals remained.
She trudged up the steps to her cell, barely able to shoulder the burden of her feelings. Her strength was gone. Since she’d first learned the mysteries of the Order, she’d always held hope that she’d been selected for a special task, that she would be the one to break the cycle that had kept the Order together but doomed it to the role of Cassandra, the figure from Greek mythology endowed with the gift of prophecy but unable to convince others of the future. She realized now that it didn’t matter that she had convinced Mercer. Events were inalterable. Her true purpose, she saw bitterly, was to witness the end of everything, to be the last watcher stuck on the fringes of calamity.
Tisa had dammed up so much in her life, watched as devastation overran the world, stood by knowing she could have helped, all the while fighting for a time when she could make a change. Time had been her enemy, the most hated element she’d ever known. She’d fought it for as long as she could, hoping she could steal a moment and slay the beast. But there was no stopping time and only now was she willing to concede defeat.
They reached the upper floor. Donny fumbled with a key ring as Tisa stepped into her cell.
“What time is it, Mr. Randall?”
“Huh?” Donny looked up from his work, lost count of the keys and had to start from the beginning to find the right one.
