The Cloud Maker

Chapter 26

The four of them stood with their heads bent back, eyes following the old monk’s grubby forefinger as it traced a line down the sheer wall of rock.

In the misty morning light, the buttress of the mountain resembled the knuckles of a giant’s fist, scoured with cracks and fissures, seemingly impenetrable. But as the monk’s finger traced a line down the rock face, Luca’s vision blurred as it had done the day before and he suddenly realised what the old man was trying to show them.

‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ he muttered under his breath.

‘What is it?’ asked Bill, standing just behind him.

‘That crack he’s pointing to… look at it again.’ Luca cocked his head to one side as his eyes swept up along the contour of the rock-face. What had appeared to be a large crack running from the base to halfway up the rock-face was, in fact, a narrow ledge. Like staring at the inkblots of a Rorschach test, Luca’s eyes suddenly reversed their focus and what had simply been a fissure in the rock, now became something wide enough for a human to stand on.

Bill shook his head. ‘I can’t see it.’

‘You have to kind of unfocus your eyes,’ Luca answered distractedly.

After a few moments, Bill began to smile. ‘Jesus, yes. I see it now.’

Luca shook his head in disbelief, turning to where the old monk stood.

‘How the hell did you find that?’

The old man smiled then looked pointedly over at Shara who stood staring up at the cliff-face, her expression unreadable.

Luca turned back to the cliff. Even with the ledge, it was still going to be one hell of a climb. Not for the first time since last night, he wondered if they would be able to keep their side of the bargain. After they had decided to accept the monk’s condition, the four of them had talked more over breakfast that morning. They were to get Shara above the cliff and on to the flat of the glacier beyond. Once there, they would set up a base camp from which they could tackle some of the nearby peaks and she, in turn, would be able to collect her herbs. A week later, they would all descend together.

As Luca stood there, staring up at the route, he felt a tap on his shoulder. Bill motioned for him to step away from the others and the pair of them moved closer to the cliff. Opening their rucksacks, they began laying out ropes and hardware on the ground in neat piles.

‘I’m still not sure about this at all,’ said Bill in a low voice. ‘Are you buying this whole rare herb thing? We’ve been up in the mountains a thousand times and nothing grows at that altitude.’

Luca shrugged, squatting down to count the pile of climbing bolts.

‘Maybe it’s possible you get lichen or something up there. Who knows?’

‘It just doesn’t make any sense. I got the feeling last night that the whole charm offensive happened because the old fella had forced her into making a deal with us.’ Bill scratched the side of his face distractedly. ‘I wonder why that would be?’

Luca stopped counting and looked at him impatiently.

‘Bill, the bottom line is that I really don’t care what she is doing up there. All that matters is that we’ve been shown a route up and we’re one step closer to finding the pyramid mountain.’

‘Yeah, but I don’t see the connection between…’

Luca stood up, pulling two climbing harnesses from the rucksack. He looked at the deep frown lines running across his friend’s forehead.

‘Come on, mate. Give it a rest. We came here for the pyramid mountain. That’s all that matters. In a few days’ time, we’ll have found a route through these mountains and be standing at its base.’

He handed a harness across to Bill.

‘Piece of piss,’ he said, the beginnings of a smile on his face.

Bill stared down at the harness for a moment before reaching forward and taking it. He went to say something more, but Luca swivelled away from him, staring out towards the distant mountains. Low on the horizon, faint wisps of cloud were gathering on the peaks.

‘We should get moving,’ he said. Then raising his voice to include Shara and Gyaltso, ‘We need to be on top of this cliff before the wind picks up.’

Shara took in the crisp morning air and clear skies. She cast a doubtful look towards Bill.

‘Trust him on this,’ Bill confirmed. ‘The weather is the one thing Luca always gets right.’

‘The one thing?’ queried Shara, an eyebrow raised.

While Bill and Luca finished preparing the ropes, the old monk led Shara away and started talking to her. They kept their backs to the men as they looked out at the mountains. Luca was in the middle of uncoiling two of the eight-millimetre ropes when he glanced over and noticed the old monk reach into the small satchel slung across his shoulder. He pulled out something wrapped in a piece of cloth. Luca only saw it for a split second before Shara slid it quickly into her own bag.

She put a hand on the old monk’s arm, seeming to reassure him about something, before walking over to where Luca was standing.

‘Are we ready?’ she asked.

‘Yeah, we’re ready.’

He studied her for a moment, impressed by how calm she appeared before the climb. She stood with her hands on her hips, the strong bones of her face emphasised by the way her hair had been pulled back in a ponytail. Instead of the dirty tunic of the previous evening, she wore a thick cream jumper with a high neck. It was pulled tight around her waist by a leather belt. The felt boots she was wearing were laced with twine, in similar fashion to the herders’ but of much better quality.

A green canvas bag with metal clasps and padded shoulder straps lay by her feet. Earlier that morning he had seen her pack a thick sheepskin jacket and several pairs of tightly knitted woollen gloves. Looking down at the bag, he wondered what it was that the old monk had given her.

‘It’s going to be a hard climb and you should travel the lightest,’ Luca said. ‘Why don’t you put some of your stuff in my pack and I’ll carry it for you?’

Shara gave him a quick smile. ‘I should be all right. It’s not too heavy,’ she said, raising the bag a little to test it.

‘Up to you,’ said Luca.

Bill walked up to them with a loose bundle of slings in his hand.

‘We didn’t have a spare harness,’ he said to Shara, ‘so I’ve rigged this up for you. It’s not pretty, but it’ll hold.’

Luca swung the ropes round, tying off two figure-of-eight knots into his own harness and then signalled to Bill to start belaying him. He was about to move on to the narrow ledge and begin climbing, when the old monk stepped up to the cliff-face and approached him. Luca stood in silence as he old man placed gnarled hands on his cheeks and began mumbling a long stream of rolling syllables. Resisting the urge to pull his head free, Luca waited until he had finished, feeling awkward with the sudden solemnity of the situation.

‘A blessing,’ Shara explained, as the old man turned and did the same to Bill. With Shara he bent forward so that their foreheads were touching and with his eyes firmly closed, repeated a silent prayer, his lips moving slowly with unspoken words.

When the old monk had finally backed away, Luca nodded to him, smiling faintly.

‘Don’t worry. We’ll take care of her.’

With that, he glanced across at Bill and moved forward on to the ledge, keeping his hips close to the rock and the top half of his body arched out, so he could see higher up. Shara watched the ropes slowly paying out to where Luca climbed in a steady rhythm, only pausing every five metres or so to clip in one of the bolts that hung in a great bunch of twisted metal from his harness. In what seemed like just a couple of minutes he was fifty feet above where they stood, his movements fluid and precise. There was an absolute confidence to the way he climbed, each grip of his hand deliberate, each foothold instinctive and self-assured.

Pausing again, he jammed down two bolts about a metre apart into an open crack in the rock. Offsetting the angle, he clipped a carabineer through each point and ran through a sling, twisting it back on itself with a flick of his wrist. Clipping the climbing ropes into a third carabineer, he screwed the locking gate closed and finally put his weight back into the seat of his harness, secure.

‘OK,’ he shouted down the face. Bill tied Shara into the same rope and then motioned her forward. He counted out ten more metres before tying himself in.

‘Just take the exact same route,’ he said. ‘And, whatever happens, don’t look down.’

Shara moved methodically, keeping her focus on the wall ahead and trying to ignore the fact that her legs felt wooden and her heart was beating in her throat. Every few meters, the ropes ahead of her would gently tug at her waist as Luca pulled in the slack from above.

Along the actual ledge, the going was not too bad. Although she was much slower than Luca, her feet moved upwards in a near-constant flow. Then, fifty feet above the ground, the ledge naturally sheared off, leaving an exposed patch of perfectly smooth rock.

Shara stopped, feeling for a handhold higher up the cliff. There was nothing above or below — just smooth, unbroken rock. All she could think to do was to press her body flat against the cliff and edge her way higher. But without a decent grip, her balance felt tenuous, as if the slightest breeze would send her toppling over the edge. She’d watched Luca climbing this part from the ground. He hadn’t even hesitated.

Looking across the gap, Shara could see where the ledge continued. It was only a metre or so away. All she had to do was lean out.

She felt her breath becoming quick and shallow as the sweat collected across her forehead. She tried to move, tried to force her heavy, unresponsive legs forward, but every instinct screamed out for her to stay where she was.

‘Come on,’ she murmured to herself. ‘Come on. Just one step…’

With a sudden lurch, she reached forward again, pushing out across the drop. The side of the cliff yawned out below her and, for a second, she looked down, seeing the hazy outline of the ground beneath. Then the toe of her right foot connected with a loose pebble lying on the edge and suddenly she was sliding downwards, her knee banging against the cliff and her hands clawing at the rock.

There was a sudden jolt as the ropes went tight, then a stabbing pain as the straps from the slings dug into her waist and kidneys. The heavy bag on her shoulders yanked her whole body backwards, pulling her off balance, and she frantically reached for the taut ropes ahead of her. Then everything went still. There was silence, except for the slow creaking of the ropes.

‘You OK?’

Luca’s voice wafted down to her.

She tried to shout back but her mouth was completely dry. As she fought to steady her breathing, her body slowly spun round on the end of the ropes, forcing her to look away from the cliff towards the distant mountains. Using her hips, she swung her weight round again, trying to get her feet flat against the rock. After a few moments of fighting they finally connected.

Shara swallowed a few times, trying to get some moisture into her mouth.

‘Fine,’ she shouted, feeling her lungs bursting from the effort.

A moment later the rope tugged upwards and, inch by inch, Luca slowly hoisted her the couple of metres back towards the ledge. Shara reached forward, gripping on to the rock and taking her weight out of her harness, feeling disorientated by the lack of support.

Edging her way along once more, she rounded a corner of the cliff to see Luca, hanging in the seat of his harness, coiling in the slack rope. As their eyes met, a smile flashed across his face before he reached out one hand. For a moment, Shara’s eyes flitted from the rock to his outstretched fingers, gauging the distance. Then, with a sudden lunge, she grabbed on to his wrist. The movement was clumsy but he was able to switch his grip and hold her tight, drawing her towards him.

Shara clung to his shoulders, a wave of relief washing over her at the contact, at the sudden feeling of being secure. Before she had even looked down, he had clipped her into the same two anchor points as himself and was gently pushing her back into her harness.

‘You OK?’ he said softly. He’d seen the same wide-eyed look many times before.

Shara exhaled, pushing back strands of hair from her clammy face.

‘I had no idea it was going to be like this,’ she said. Then after a pause while she tried to steady her breathing, ‘This probably isn’t what you want to hear, but I really hate heights.’

Luca laughed out loud.

‘Fine time to tell me.’

Despite herself, Shara found herself smiling.

‘I know. I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t worry, you’re doing great,’ he said.

Shara shook her head slowly, her voice barely more than a whisper. ‘I’ve always been dreading this part of the journey.’

‘Part of the journey?’ Luca asked, turning to look at her. ‘What do you mean?’

She shook her head again.

‘I’m just going to be a lot happier when we reach the top, that’s all.’

After a moment, he nodded thoughtfully. ‘Well, it looks like the ledge gets broader up there and the going gets easier. We’re going to have to move fast, though, if we want to stay ahead of the weather.’

He gave another tug on the rope and, moments later, Bill’s face appeared round the edge of the cliff.

For another four hours they continued climbing. Bill and Luca took it in turns to lead, while Shara stayed in between. Bill remained silent for most of the climb, taking the sling full of hardware from Luca as they switched leads and pressing on up the ledge without another word. He climbed fast, pulling impatiently at the rope to Shara’s harness and forcing her to keep pace. But as the ledge became easier, she began to climb with more confidence. The crippling sense of fear she had felt at the beginning was now forgotten, replaced by a strange sense of exhilaration.

Finally, she came out on to the top of the cliff and staggered like a drunk over to where Luca stood, pulling the rope through a belay.

‘That was incredible,’ she said, flopping down on the flat rock.

Luca’s eyes switched from staring at the far mountains and he smiled down at her.

‘That was one hell of a first climb. You should be proud of yourself.’

Shara gave a tired but happy smile. Beyond where Luca stood, she could see the high summits of the mountains encircling them like an immense amphitheatre, their peaks stretching up thousands of metres into the sky. Glaciers streamed down from their summits, converging on the lower slopes. Not far from where they were, she could see the snub nose of the nearest one, rising up like a pitted barricade.

Moments later, Bill appeared above the cliff edge. He walked straight past where Shara was sitting and up to Luca.

‘Great climb, huh?’ Luca said, smiling.

Bill seemed not to have heard him. ‘We need to get moving to the shelter higher up,’ he said. ‘The wind’s picking up fast, like you said.’

Shara got to her feet and walked up to where they were standing. She had been so absorbed in the climb she hadn’t even noticed the changing weather. The ghostly clouds they had seen that morning now streamed across the sky, muting the afternoon light. They had obviously been climbing in the lee of the wind for all this time, but now they were exposed to its full force and she could feel it rip through her heavy jumper. Reaching into her pack, she put on the sheepskin jacket, using her leather belt to pull it tight around her body and buttoning it high up under her chin. The jacket also had a hood lined with soft wool and fringed with long, black fur that she pulled up to protect her face.

‘Let’s get moving,’ Luca said, his eyes switching back to their route up the glacier. ‘We’ve got to get to the far side to be out of the wind. You OK with that, Shara?’

She looked pale and tired, but without another word swung her pack on to her shoulders, ready to leave. Luca smiled again, amazed by how different she seemed from the angry and aloof girl they had first met in the village. Bill had been completely wrong about her, he was sure of it.

‘I’m ready.’

Within seconds she was roped up between the two of them and together they trudged off towards the start of the snowline like convicts in a chain gang.

With each minute that passed, the wind grew steadily in strength. Funnelled by the adjacent peaks, it rampaged down the mountainside, picking up loose snow from the glacier floor and hurtling past them. Squinting against the swirling air, Luca leaned into it, concentrating on the route ahead. They had to reach the shelter of the higher ground.

As he marched forward, tugging at the rope, Shara struggled to keep pace. She panted in the thin air as huge, swirling belts of cloud rolled across the sky, blurring out the horizon. The ground had become a great flowing blanket of driven snow, with the wind streaming across the hardened ice, until all they could do was bend lower still against the maelstrom.

Luca trudged forward without checking his stride. All around them, the noise of the wind grew and grew, until it became a shrieking sound that made the sides of their Gore-Tex hoods clatter at deafening volume.

Hours passed and the strength of the wind only increased. It was relentless, the streaming snow eddying round their faces and condensing on their raw cheeks. Snow forced its way past their hats and neck gaiters, trickling down their bodies like sand and making them shiver from cold.

They had been going for three hours when suddenly the rope at Luca’s waist snapped tight. He waited for a moment, bracing himself against the wind, then stepped forward once again. It remained fixed. Behind him, he could see the blurry outline of Shara. She was bent forward, her hands on her knees.

As he trudged back along the rope towards her, Bill appeared out of the gloom. For a moment they stood in silence as the snow quickly covered the coils of rope at their feet. Shara was still bent double, struggling to breathe in the rushing air. Frost layered her face and her heavy jacket hood was caked in snow. She was shaking violently from the cold, her arms hugging her body to stay warm.

Luca pulled her upright, staring into her eyes. They were glassy, her eyelashes frosted at the end.

‘Hold on,’ he shouted to her. ‘We’re stopping here.’

Bill swung off his rucksack, pulling out the tent and poles. With heads bent low, they knelt on the hard snow, staking down the main body of the tent while the fabric flapped and twisted in the wind. Bill had his right glove off, the end clamped between his teeth, as he used his bare fingers to work the poles through the fabric sleeves.

‘OK,’ he shouted, holding one of the ends tight. As Luca put tension on the pole, the end slipped past the attachment at the corner of the tent, digging down into the snow beneath. With the snow half-blinding him, Bill hadn’t seen what had happened and Luca pushed harder, digging the pole down deeper into the snow.

Suddenly it flexed then gave a brittle snap.

Luca looked up to see the main support for the tent buckling to one side.

‘Shit!’ he shouted, banging his fist against the snow.

He flung his end to one side and crawled across the billowing fabric to where Bill crouched on the opposite side. For a moment they knelt in silence, heads only inches apart, as they tried to work out what to do.

‘Rock-face?’ Bill shouted.

‘Too dangerous.’

Luca then squinted across to where Shara stood.

‘We don’t have much time. You stay with her. I saw some overhangs in the rock west of here. Before the weather closed in.’

‘OK,’ Bill shouted back. Balling up the tent fabric with both hands, he trudged round to Shara who was still standing, arms clamped around her body. Wrapping the fabric around her to shield her from the worst of the wind, he pushed her down on his rucksack. Then he put one arm around her shoulders and with his spare hand tried to brush some of the caked snow away from her face.

Reaching into his jacket pocket, Luca pulled out his GPS and waited for the satellites to triangulate. Finally he got a clean signal and took a waypoint of their position. Without looking back, he shouldered his pack and marched off.

Seconds later he was swallowed up in the blizzard.