The Forbidden Temple

by Patrick Woodhead

  As one, the soldiers looked up at the wall of snow crashing down towards them. Some simply stared in bewildered horror while others attempted to turn and run. With frightening ease the avalanche engulfed them all, their bodies disappearing from view within a couple of seconds.

  Zhu stared up the gulley, his face frozen with fear. Like Chen, he had heard the sound of the rifle shot and now stood with his binoculars trained, trying to see whether the Westerner had actually been hit. Then they heard the boom of the avalanche starting and watched in horror as the snow began to crash down towards them.

  Zhu stood transfixed by the sight. The sheer scale of it was unbelievable, the noise deafening. Suddenly he felt himself being pulled by the arm.

  ‘Follow me!’ Chen shouted, yanking him forward with such force that Zhu fought to stay on his feet. Together, they struggled back towards the protection of the Kooms, Chen using his massive body to plough his way through the deep snow and pulling the captain behind him with savage jerks of his arm.

  The noise was all around them now as the first tumbling balls of snow ricocheted past them, smacking into the rocks ahead. The massive stone that stood at the entrance to the Kooms was only a few feet from them now. Just a few more paces and they would be there.

  Chen pulled Zhu forward again, forcing him round the back of a boulder just as the main flow of the avalanche swept across them. They were ripped apart as snow surged over the top of the rock and around its sides, picking them both up in its flow. The sudden speed was incredible, the snow packing in around them in a moving torrent, knocking the wind from their bodies with brutal force.

  Chen could feel himself being hurled forward. There was light, then a sudden blackness, and then all he could feel was the weight of snow packed in around him, in his mouth, ears and nose, choking all the breath from his body. Something smashed into the front of his face and his vision went black.

  Eight hundred metres higher up, Luca watched in disbelief as the first columns of the Kooms were knocked down by the force of the avalanche, twisting round in the direction of its flow like pebbles. But as the snow swept further into the maze of rocks it began to slow, losing power and dispersing into long, reaching tentacles. Eventually the last of the avalanche ground to a halt and the mass of snow finally lay still.

  An extraordinary silence filled the mountainside.

  Luca took in the scene of desolation below him, his mouth hanging open in shock. It was as if the mountain had been scalped. Patches of bare rock were visible in streaks across the face of the gulley. Lower down, at the beginning of the Kooms, the snow lay metres deep. Odd shards of rock managed to pierce through the surface, jutting out at crooked angles, while the remainder lay lost under the vast blanket of snow.

  Luca slowly clambered to his feet. He stood alone at the head of the gulley, mesmerised by the sheer power of the avalanche he had unleashed. He had started it deliberately, with the intention of stopping the soldiers from climbing the gulley, but he had never believed it would kill every living thing in its path. He had never imagined such a reckoning.

  He had killed them all. Just like that.

  A wave of exhaustion spread through him and his whole body sagged. Every bruise and graze seemed to ache at once as the adrenaline he had been feeding off for so long finally ebbed from his veins and he sank down to his knees. His eyes gravitated to where the Chinese had pitched their camp. It was at the lowest point of the slope where the snow would now be deepest.

  At least Bill’s body would stay buried. He would remain here, entombed by the mountains he loved, forever shrouded in their frozen snow.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Luca whispered, as tears ran down his cheeks. ‘I’m so sorry I ever got you into this.’

  An entire hour passed before he finally turned away from the desolate graveyard and back towards the path and the monastery of Geltang.

  Zhu blinked, trying to see in the darkness.

  Snow was packed over his face and eyelids, clogging his mouth and throat. His breath came in shallow, wheezing gasps, and the snow in his mouth was making him retch. He twisted his body, trying to break free, then screamed as the movement sent spikes of pain shooting up from his broken ribs.

  He didn’t feel cold yet. That would come later. His clothes were pasted to his limbs and the layer of snow around his body was slowly beginning to melt from his body heat, drawing the warmth away from his core. His hands were shaking, gloves ripped off by the avalanche and the nail-less fingers of his right hand clawed at the freezing snow, trying to dig himself free.

  Jerking forward again, he felt his right leg kick clear of the snow and into the air. He cried out in pain as his ribs flexed from the movement, then, gritting his teeth, tried to force the other leg free. Using every ounce of strength in his thigh, he pulled his knee upwards in desperate jerks but his leg remained locked in position. He tried again, the pain threatening to overwhelm him, before his neck muscles finally relaxed in exhaustion, dropping his head deeper into the snow.

  For a moment Zhu’s whole body went limp; the fight was just too much, the snow’s grip too strong. His eyes were wide, staring blindly into the darkness of the snow as a wave of claustrophobia washed over him. He contemplated nothingness; impassive, black nothingness. Death was close.

  Zhu screamed, twisting his whole body round and jerking manically against the imprisoning snow. Madness rose in him, overriding the pain and exhaustion, and he lashed out in all directions, flailing with his limbs. He felt a sudden movement around the ankle and then his other foot broke through the crust of snow. He fought harder, releasing his knee, then the top half of his thigh.

  A surge of elation flowed through him. He twisted again and again, pushing out with his hips and punching his arms. Eventually he broke free, raising his hands to his face to paw away the last of the snow. He could breathe; the weight was finally off him.

  It took Zhu nearly half an hour to summon the strength to get to his feet. Even then, as his body shook from cold, he realised how lucky he had been to be spat to the top of the avalanche. Only a foot below the surface and yet it had been almost impossible for him to break free.

  Now he had to keep moving, to fight off the paralysing cold. The sweat on his lower back had begun to freeze against his body and, without hat or gloves, he could feel the heat draining from him. It wouldn’t be long before the cold would overtake him completely.

  Zhu looked up and saw the towering rocks ahead of him. He would have to follow their route from here to make it back to the cliff-face.

  He stood for a moment longer, his body rigid and aching, listening to the silence of the mountain. Then, from somewhere to his right, he heard the sound of groaning. Crunching his way across the pitted surface of the avalanche, he followed the sound, clutching his hand to his ribs as he walked. The snow was like rubble underfoot, stacked high against the rocks.

  As he came closer, he could see the top half of a body slumped forward, head lolling to one side. A soldier was wedged against a low slab of rock, with only his top half exposed. Zhu took another step closer and pulled back the mop of hair. It was Chen. His eyes were half-closed and blood streamed out of his nose in two frozen lines. His jaw was slack and his chest heaved from the effort of breathing.

  ‘I can’t feel my legs,’ he groaned, trying to focus his eyes on the figure before him. Zhu looked down and saw that his whole pelvis had shifted unnaturally to one side. The avalanche had nearly broken him in two.

  Zhu’s eyes ran over the shattered body. He could see something in Chen’s right hand, a line of photographs that he had pulled from the top pocket of his jacket.

  Reaching down, Zhu grabbed on to the sleeve of his jacket with both hands and tugged as hard as he could. Chen felt his body yanked forward, his chin dipping against his chest as Zhu pulled harder and harder.

  ‘Thank you,’ he whispered, his eyes finally focusing on the top half of Zhu’s head. ‘I can make it. I can make it back.’

  His hands closed
round the pictures in his hands and he shut his eyes. Zhu pulled once again and the sleeve of Chen’s jacket slipped from his arm. Zhu twisted it round, peeling it off his massive back and down across the other arm.

  As the jacket came free, Zhu staggered back a pace. He swung the warm coat over his own shoulders.

  Chen’s eyes stared down at the military-issue shirt stretched over his chest. He could see thin traces of his body heat escaping into the icy air.

  ‘You can’t . . .’ he breathed, his voice barely more than a murmur. ‘You can’t . . . do this.’

  Zhu didn’t answer, but finished buttoning up the jacket. Without a word to Chen he turned away, working his way over the snow towards the exposed part of the Kooms. Chen watched him slowly start to clamber his way through, then, in the silence that followed, a broken laugh escaped his lips.

  ‘Scared of heights,’ he wheezed. ‘You’ll never get down the cliff-face.’

  He inhaled, mustering the last of his strength.

  ‘You deserve to die out here!’ he shouted. ‘Just die!’

  His head slumped forward against his chest and as the blackness began to well across his vision, he spoke once again.

  ‘We all deserve to die . . .’ With one final wheeze, his body went limp and the line of photographs he was holding, gently fluttered to the ground.

  Zhu staggered forward, clutching his ribs. As he came down off the last of the avalanche, he turned from side to side, searching for the flares. A few yards ahead of him a dull red glow emanated from a rock. The flame had eaten through almost the entire length of the stick. It had been nearly six hours since they had come this way.

  Lurching forward, Zhu searched for the next flare, sweat beading his ashen face. Words came from his mouth in an unintelligible stream, his mind closed off from the world around him.

  For hours he continued clambering; the endless rocks, the dull red flares. He pulled his aching body over the next slab of rock, then the next.

  Eventually he crawled under an overhanging slab and out into the open bowl of the glacier. As he came into the open space, he wheeled round towards the gulley behind, raising his arms wide.

  ‘You can’t hide forever,’ he screamed in English. ‘I will return with hundreds of men and find you. Do you hear me?’

  His face creased with pain as he called out to the mountain: ‘And when I return, I will kill every breathing thing!’

  Chapter 57

  DORJE RAISED THE ornate china teapot a few inches higher and green tea cascaded into the delicate bowls below. Luca sat opposite him on the prayer mat.

  Raised on a low platform at one end, the Abbot sat facing them both with his legs folded beneath him. He inhaled the aroma of the tea wafting across the room before his eyes settled on Luca.

  They sat in a circular room with a lofty, domed ceiling, like a bell tower. Light poured in from every direction through the narrow windows that had been carved into the walls at regular intervals. They were in the highest point of the entire monastery, but as Luca had climbed the last of the twisting stairs he had settled down on the floor without so much as a glance at the glorious panorama of mountains outside.

  The Abbot stared at him, his gaze passing over each part of Luca’s face. A long scar ran over the top of his lip and his cheeks were still puffy from the last of the swelling. In the week that had passed since the avalanche, the Westerner’s face had healed a great deal. Physically, he was recovering well, but in all that time he had barely uttered a word. The Abbot had been informed that he lay for hours in his cell, staring vacantly at the ceiling and hardly touching his food.

  Dorje placed a bowl in Luca’s open hand. As Luca set it down in front of him, some of the boiling tea sloshed over the rim and scalded his fingers. He didn’t appear to notice. Instead, he returned the Abbot’s gaze, his own eyes dull from sleepless nights.

  ‘So what happens now?’ he asked.

  ‘That depends to whom you refer,’ Dorje answered, before taking a sip of his tea.

  ‘The boy.’

  ‘His Holiness will remain here at Geltang under the direct supervision of our Abbot. He will be instructed in our teachings to the very highest level, until he is ready to take his place in Shigatse.’

  ‘But that means the Chinese will win,’ Luca said flatly. ‘After all that’s happened, after so many people died, you’re just going to sit back while they crown their own Panchen Lama.’

  Dorje inhaled deeply, then nodded. ‘Indeed they will have their victory, but only for now. We cannot risk exposing Babu to the world before he is old enough to know his own mind and his own path. Many would seek to control him, as you saw even within our own walls. You must remember that despite the awesome knowledge and power within Babu, he is still just a boy. We shall wait until he is ready to be known. But rest assured, Mr Matthews, he will be known, and our rightful ruler will be restored.’

  ‘That could be years from now. Decades even.’

  Dorje nodded again. ‘It could indeed, but fortunately, patience is one of our greatest attributes. We have already waited many decades for our country to be free, and are prepared to wait many more.’

  He took another sip of tea and gestured for Luca to do the same. As Luca raised the bowl to his lips, the Abbot’s eyes finally left him and turned towards Dorje.

  ‘I believe it is time to tell the Westerner the whole truth about our monastery,’ he said in Tibetan, his voice slow and deliberate.

  Dorje looked aghast, the bowl tilting in his hands and spilling some tea on to his lap.

  ‘But why, Your Holiness? Why share such knowledge with an outsider?’

  The Abbot’s eyes traced over Luca’s slumped shoulders and the scar running across his lip.

  ‘Because he has given everything for us,’ he said. ‘After all that has happened, he deserves to know what he has helped save.’

  Dorje inhaled deeply, setting his bowl back down in front of him. He hesitated for a second, then as the Abbot nodded again, started to speak.

  ‘Some time ago, Mr Matthews, I told you that Geltang Monastery was a repository of treasure, but the treasure I was referring to had nothing to do with the statues you happened upon in the basement.’

  Luca looked up as an image came to him of the Buddha’s eyes sparkling in the flame of his lighter.

  ‘But I saw them . . . I saw the diamonds and gems.’

  ‘To some they are significant, true, but to us, they are little more than tokens with which to decorate our holy statues. Geltang was not built to safeguard them. Not at all. Our mountain beyul, indeed all our secret beyuls, were built for another purpose entirely. But you need to understand something of our history before this story will make sense.’

  Dorje stood up, moving over to one of the windows to stare out at the view.

  ‘Over two thousand years ago, an Indian prince called Siddhartha Gautama was the first to attain perfect enlightenment. He became what we call the Supreme Buddha. During his lifetime his teachings, and by that I mean the actual words he spoke, were precisely copied down by scribes and divided into eight sections, or paths as they were called. Each path was then divided again by subject into a further eight.

  ‘This gave rise to a total of sixty-four books. Now, you must remember that these books were not copies or hearsay, they had not been rewritten or revised – they were the actual words spoken by the Supreme Buddha. The books were then divided and spread amongst our beyuls for safekeeping, housed in our most secure libraries and kept secret from the world.’

  Dorje slowly turned away from the window, his expression gradually darkening.

  ‘But, as you know, our beyuls were discovered and razed to the ground. One by one they fell, and many of our treasured books were lost. After Benchaan Monastery fell, two complete paths were destroyed by the flames and it was then that a decision was made throughout the five orders to draw all knowledge to Geltang. But the books could not be transported by hand. This was the dark time of the Cultural Revol
ution and all religious works were either confiscated or burned on sight, their carriers arrested and brutally tortured. We could not afford for any more to be lost.

  ‘So, in all this madness, certain monks were chosen to memorise each of the books by rote. Every word, sentence and paragraph of Buddha was thus preserved in living, walking books. Disguised as peasants or traders, they then made their way past road blocks and patrols, eventually arriving at Geltang to begin the long process of transcribing each of the teachings back on to paper.’

  ‘Books?’ Luca repeated. ‘That’s what all this is about – books?’

  ‘Yes,’ Dorje answered softly. ‘And now we have nearly all of the surviving texts. The last of the eighth path is all but complete.’

  Luca shook his head, picturing the lines of monks he had seen in the library, pens working in a ceaseless flow across the pages. Shara had been there, amongst them.

  ‘That’s what she was delivering, wasn’t it?’

  ‘I presume you mean Miss Shara? She is indeed a living book – the fifth book of the eighth path, and one of our most treasured works. She is here under most exceptional circumstances. Her brother was meant to deliver the text to us but was caught crossing the border three years ago. We have not heard from him since that day, nor know anything more of his fate. So, after much deliberation, it was discovered that Miss Shara has the same ability as her brother and she volunteered to take his place. As she was travelling across the breadth of Tibet to deliver her book to our sacred monastery, news of an attempt on His Holiness’s life was made known to members of the Gelugpa sect. They managed to divert her and she was charged with bringing the boy here. The rest of the story is of course known to you.’

  Luca’s expression remained blank as he tried to imagine memorising an entire book. The tomes he had seen in the library were inches thick.

  ‘I’ve been in the library and seen them working,’ he said, ‘but I can’t understand how a person could memorise an entire book.’