The Ninth Buddha (21 page)

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 the forest as well, but he had not been aware of them then.

Christopher slept uneasily while the snow fell in uninterrupted torrents, like white petals in a dark and noiseless spring.
 
Inside, the tent was hot, sealed tight against the freezing cold outside.
 
The elements were turning against them.
 
In the mountains, soft winds were moving slowly across sheets of naked ice.

In the morning, they argued.
 
Lhaten wanted to wait where they were for several more days, until Christopher had had time to acclimatize.
 
Technically, the boy was right, though he could not have explained why.
 
At twelve thousand feet, the alveolar oxygen pressure drops to about 50mm; when this happens, ventilation increases and the carbon dioxide pressure in the lungs begins to fall.
 
The result is hypoxia, a lack of oxygen which can have serious and even fatal consequences if the body fails to acclimatize.
 
During the present journey, they would have to climb to about eighteen thousand feet.
 
If Christopher had done it before, he should be able to acclimatize quickly.
 
But on his own admission, he had never been through the passes in weather like this before.

“I don’t need to acclimatize.
 
I’m feeling perfectly fine,” he

insisted.

“Please, sahib, don’t argue.
 
It’s been easy going up to here.
 
But now things get hard.
 
Give your body time to adjust.”

“Damn it, I’ve done it before, Lhaten.
 
I didn’t bring you with me to give advice.
 
Just show me how to get to the passes, that’s all.
 
You can turn back now and welcome.”

Lhaten said nothing.
 
Irritability was often the first sign of altitude sickness.

“I said I’d come with you to the passes,” the boy said finally.

“If you like I’ll take you through them.
 
You won’t get far on your own.”

“I’ll be all right.
 
Don’t mother me.”

“Won’t you wait at least one day, sahib?
 
Until the weather clears.”

It had stopped snowing earlier that morning, but there were deep drifts everywhere, both ahead of them and behind.

“No.
 
We’ve got to leave now.
 
If it snows again, we may not get through at all.
 
Or perhaps you’d like that.
 
Is that what you pray for enough snow to block the passes?”

“No, sahib.
 
I’m asking the Lady Tara for protection.
 
And for good weather.”

But even as he spoke, he glanced at the dark clouds building behind the mountains.
 
Left to himself, he would have turned back two days ago.
 
Any one of his family or friends would have done the same.
 
But Christopher, like all pee-lings, was stubborn.
 
He lacked a nose for danger.
 
Whatever happened, he would try to push on, even if it meant taking stupid risks.
 
And that meant someone would have to be there to get him out when the time came.
 
Lhaten sighed.
 
There wasn’t any choice about who that someone would be.

They moved on just after 10 a.m.”
 
Christopher going ahead, sullen, irked by the snow-drifts that hindered his progress.
 
Using his body as a plough, he forced a path through the packed snow that lay at times four feet high.
 
Lhaten followed him, carrying far more than his share of the baggage.
 
On either side of the narrow valley, steep hillsides restricted the view.
 
There was no way through them.
 
The only path lay ahead and up.

All that day and the next they pushed on until they came to a flat region almost free of snow.
 
The weather held, but it was growing colder the higher they climbed.
 
In the more open country before the passes, they were exposed to sharp winds that rushed on them like vampires, sucking away their breath and chilling their blood.
 
Lhaten kept an anxious eye on Christopher, watching for further signs of altitude sickness.
 
Sometime about the middle of the second night, a gale-force wind lifted their fragile tent and hurled it ofT into the darkness.
 
To the dangers of altitude was now added the threat of exposure in the freezing nights ahead.

“If we go further,” whispered Lhaten in the darkness, ‘it means going deeper into this.
 
The winds will get stronger, strong enough to tear our flesh.
 
And it may snow again.
 
Not a little, like before, but a great deal.
 
There may be a blizzard.
 
Nothing can survive in that, sahib.
 
Nothing.”

But Christopher did not listen.
 
He felt driven now, and in love with the ice and snow.
 
He could feel his heart beating more rapidly as the air grew thinner and his blood tried to regain lost oxygen.

Lhaten could hear his rapid breathing in the darkness, but he said nothing.
 
He would let the altitude stop him, then lead him back the way they had come, like a lamb.

They reached the Chumiomo Glacier the next day.
 
From there, a narrow side-passage would take them to the first pass.
 
The ascent was steep, and Christopher was forced to stop more than once to rest.
 
When he walked, he leaned heavily on his climbing stick.
 
His breathing was becoming more laboured, and Lhaten wondered how long it would be before exhaustion forced him to surrender and turn back.

They had just reached a point about half-way along the defile when the avalanche came.
 
There was a low rumbling that grew in volume rapidly, like an express train bearing down on them out of a black tunnel.
 
Lhaten knew the sound at once.
 
He looked round, terrified, knowing they were trapped in the canyon.
 
He saw it at once a mass of snow and rock and fine white spume tumbling at breakneck speed down the face of the steep slope to their left.
 
The whole world seemed to shake and their ears were filled with crashing and pounding as ton after ton of dislodged matter thundered towards them.

Frozen to the spot, they watched it come: crystals of snow leapt shimmering into the air, catching the light, dancing in space, cavorting as they fell.
 
It was a thing of beauty, not heavy at all, but free of mass: rare, white and mysterious, fashioned from air and water, as fine as cloud or mist .. . and as destructive as sheets of beaten steel.

Lhaten broke from the spell and snatched at Christopher’s arm.

“Run!”
 
he shouted, but his voice was drowned in the roar from above.

Christopher was like a man in a trance.
 
His feet felt like lead and his legs had no strength left to move them.

“We have to run, sahib,” shouted the boy again, but the thunder snatched his words away like feathers.
 
He pulled at Christopher.

Like a man in a dream who drags himself through a clinging swamp, Christopher followed Lhaten.
 
The first clumps of flying snow started to land in the canyon, striking them with uninterrupted force, snowballs in a deadly game.
 
Fear gripped Christopher and he felt power surge back into his legs.
 
He began to run, following Lhaten up the narrow path.
 
It felt as though he were trying to run at full speed up the side of a mountain.

A stone struck him on the arm, then a larger one chipped his leg. Ahead of him, the world was turning white.
 
Lhaten disappeared in a cloud of whirling snow.

Christopher ran on, his lungs tearing inside him, desperately struggling for air.
 
He thought his heart would stop beating, it hammered so thickly in his chest.
 
He felt himself stumble, then regain his feet and stagger on.
 
The world was nothing but roaring in his ears and redness in front of his eyes.
 
Two steps, three steps, each one an individual agony.
 
The world vanished and he was wrapped in snow and the roaring of snow.
 
All light, all other sounds were blocked out. His body became heavy, then his feet would not move, and he felt himself pitch forward.

The roaring died away and the last snow settled on top of the debris.
 
Silence returned to the valley.
 
The mountains watched, unmoved, uncaring, smug in their white and unsoiled remoteness.

They had seen it all before and they would see it all again.

In the silence, he could hear his heart thumping like a drum at a funeral, slow and melancholy, but alive.
 
He opened his eyes, but there was nothing, only blackness.
 
For a moment, he panicked, thinking he had gone blind.
 
Then he realized he had been buried in the avalanche.
 
He could feel the weight of the snow on top of him, pressing him down.

Heavy, but not too heavy.
 
He was sure he could push his way out.

They had been caught at the end of the slide, where the fallen snow came to only a few feet in depth.
 
It did not take Christopher long to struggle free.
 
Finding Lhaten took him rather longer.
 
The boy had been in front when the avalanche struck, so Christopher looked for him there, scrabbling with his bare hands at every likely looking mound. As he searched, he kept glancing up anxiously at the slopes above him: the crash of the avalanche might well have dislodged more snow higher up or on the opposite slope.

He found Lhaten curled up beneath about three feet of snow, several yards from where he himself had been.
 
Christopher thought he was dead at first, he was so still.
 
But a quick check showed that the boy was still breathing.
 
There was blood on his left temple and a large stone nearby, and Christopher assumed he had been knocked unconscious.
 
It was only when he dragged him clear of the snow that he noticed the leg.

Lhaten’s left leg lay at an awkward angle.
 
There was blood on his trousers below the knee, and when Christopher ran his fingers over the leg, he encountered something hard beneath the cloth.

The boy’s shin had been fractured in his fall, and the broken bone had cut through the thin layer of skin.

Christopher reset the bone while the boy was still unconscious and prepared strips of bandage from his own undershirt.
 
Using thicker pieces cut from his chuba, the sheepskin coat Lhaten had obtained for him in Kalimpong, he made pads to place between the boy’s legs and then tied them together firmly, having first bandaged the actual wound.

When he had finished, he collapsed beside the boy and fell into a deep sleep.
 
If another avalanche began, that would be too bad:

Christopher could not move another step, even to save his life.

When he finally woke, it was dark.
 
A wind had sprung up, a black wind from nowhere, an old wind full of sadness and unreasoning anger.
 
It was lonely and hungry and malevolent.
 
The whole world was filled with it: sky, mountains, passes, glaciers all the high places, all the footpaths of the damned.
 
It moved through the gully in which they lay, raging with all the fraught intensity of a lost soul.