Eveywhere, stone lay upon fallen stone, cracked and twisted by rain and heat and the green creeping flesh of the jungle.
Christopher stepped inside the clearing, drawn by morbid curiosity. But Lhaten hung back, unwilling to set foot within a place so long abandoned. He watched Christopher walk from moss-covered stone to moss-covered stone, his fingers tracing ancient carvings and forgotten inscriptions. He glanced fearfully at the strange gods, leaning at crazy angles in the grass. He watched a black snake glide through the fingers of Shiva like a living rod in the god’s hand.
“You should not go there, sahib,” he called from the trees, his obsequiousness returning through fear.
“There are bad spirits in this place. You should apologize and go, sahib.”
High up, in the treetops, a bird screeched once and was silent.
Here, in the vicinity of the ruins, the jungle seemed quieter, as though this was the heart of some ancient silence. Christopher turned and saw Lhaten beckoning to him from the side of the clearing, fear visible on his face.
“It’s all right, Lhaten,” he shouted, but his voice sounded flat and coarse and out of place. On a low wall to his left, he could make out the figures of men and women making love, their limbs softened by the remorseless green moss. Nothing stirred. There was no breeze, no freshening wind to move the leaves. At his feet, the broken hand of a statue clutched at the moist air. Christopher felt the walls of the jungle close in on him. He wanted to get on suddenly, to break away from this place and breathe the air of the mountains. Wordlessly, he rejoined Lhaten. They skirted the clearing and pushed on through the undergrowth, heading north.
That night in the darkness, Lhaten returned to his questioning.
“There are no Germans now, are there, sahib?”
“In India, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t think so.”
“The British and the Germans are good friends now. Is that right?”
Christopher shrugged.
“I don’t know about “good”, but we have made peace with one another.”
“So you are not looking for Germans.”
“No, Lhaten. I’m not looking for Germans.”
“Who are you looking for?”
Christopher wished they could light a fire. How many more nights of this darkness would there be?
“I have a son,” he said.
“A boy often called William. Someone kidnapped him. He was brought to Kalimpong. But they’ve taken him further now into Tibet, across the Sebu-la.”
Lhaten was silent for a while.
“You have spoken about this to the Reverend Carpenter Sahib?”
he asked at last.
“Why should I talk to him?”
“Because he knows about such things. About boys who disappear. Girls who are never seen again. He is a very religious man.
A very Christian man don’t you think, sahib?”I “What do you know about the Knox Homes, Lhaten?” Christopher remembered the boy’s original reaction to his enquiry about the place.
“It is a place where they keep children. And sometimes the children leave and go elsewhere. A very Christian place.”
“Do many people know about this, Lhaten? That the Reverend Carpenter sells boys and girls to rich customers?”
Lhaten nodded.
“Some people know, yes. But the Reverend Carpenter is a very holy man, a very good man. We are all very grateful for his Christian charity. If I had told you when you first came that children disappeared, would you have believed me? If your own son had not been one, would you have gone to look for them?”
Christopher shivered. The boy was right. Hypocrisy had more allies than any other vice.
“Where are they taking your son?” asked Lhaten.
Christopher knew the answer, or at least he was reasonably sure he did.
“Have you ever heard of a place called Dorje-la?” he asked.
Only the jungle answered.
“Lhaten, I asked if you had heard of somewhere called Dorje-la.”
The thin piping of a bat echoed nearby.
“I think it is time for sleep, sahib,” Lhaten said at last. He did not answer Christopher’s question.
They crossed the river on a shaky bridge at Shamdong three bamboo poles across the icy torrent. The jungle gave way abruptly to more open country. By the sixth day, they had reached seven thousand feet and the climate had started to change. It was no longer warm. On the mountain-tops, now visible from time to time, snow fell in broken patterns. Shadows shifted on the distant peaks, as though shelves of ice were cracking and breaking away.
Grey and white clouds gathered and dispersed above them, bringing a chill, drizzling rain that fell in cold spasms. They took their mountain clothing out of the rolls on their backs and put it on.
Christopher’s heart felt heavy. Not even Lhaten’s banter and laughter could dispel the gloom that had fallen over him. He looked up at the mountains, watching the shadows move behind the snow, and he shivered as though he were already there, in that dark solitude.
They passed deserted bamboo houses, abandoned for the winter.
Sometimes they would shelter in one. Sometimes there was nothing but rain for miles. They saw almost no-one, for they gave a wide berth to any villages or clusters of huts that fell across their path.
Those few travellers they did meet they ignored, walking on huddled and unresponsive into the driving rain.
After Tsontang, the river branched, becoming the Lachung on the right and the Lachen on the left. A soft dank mist filled the narrow Lachen valley. Without speaking, Lhaten led the way into it, picking his path nervously between stones and clumps of dukshing, a poisonous weed that seemed ubiquitous. On the following day, the mist lifted and by evening they saw the first real signs that they were close to the passes: patches of ice and unmelted snow lay in pockets across the valley floor.
The next morning, flakes of icy snow began to fall from a leaden sky.
They trudged on in silence, each thinking his own thoughts.
Lhaten looked worried, but he said nothing to Christopher. The journey was proving harder than he had expected, and he knew that the going would get much worse up ahead. And if the weather deteriorated any more, every further step they took would bring them nearer to the point of no return. Calculating when they reached that point was the single most important thing he had to do.
Not only that, but they were getting close to the critical altitude of twelve thousand feet, beyond which further ascent could prove dangerous or even fatal. Christopher had assured him he had been well above that height more than once. But a man changes: even the heart of a fit man might not stand the strain.
Night descended and they were lost in a huddle of cold and blackness. They could feel the snowflakes descending, slow and soft and deadly, cold presences from another world. They were twelve miles above Lachen village, at the extremity of things.
Beyond them remained only Tangu, the last village before they entered the passes. If the weather and the gods allowed them entry.
The steep climb from Lachen had brought them to the critical height. They would camp here and see how Christopher fared before deciding to proceed or not. If the strain of altitude proved too great, they would have to move back down as quickly as possible. Even a day’s delay could prove fatal.
They pitched their tiny yak-hair tent in a sheltered position near the valley wall. In the night, Lhaten tossed and turned, unable to sleep. The boy was worried. He had not been certain at first, but for the past twenty-four hours he had been sure: they were being followed. They had been followed from at least as far as Nampak, soon after the jungle ended. In all probability, their pursuers he was sure there were at least two had been with them in
