The Cloud Maker

Chapter 38

With a sudden burst of energy, Luca strode over to the open window of his room and looked down along the length of the outside wall.

‘OK,’ he whispered to himself, trying to steady his nerves. ‘Piece of piss.’

The moon had risen above the far mountains and by its pale light he could see the many levels of the monastery stacked under him, the heavy stone walls disappearing into the darkness below. Dragging his sweaty palms across his trousers, he took another deep breath. Christ, it was a long way down.

He glanced back at the squat wooden door of his room. Dorje had left nearly two hours ago, locking it from the outside. Since then Luca he had been lying on his bed, waiting for the sounds of the monastery to fade into silence. Now everything was still. It was the perfect time to break out.

After exhaling a few times in quick succession, he sat down on the windowsill and swung his legs round until they dangled over the outside edge. He could feel the cool night air on his face and his heart beat pulsed through the vein in his neck.

It was just a few simple moves. He could do this.

Sucking in his breath, he swivelled his body round and dangled from the edge of the windowsill, scraping the tips of his boots down until he could feel an indentation in the stone wall beneath. A sharp pain shot through him from his lower back but he gritted his teeth and ignored it, extending his arms to slide lower down the wall.

Gripping tight with his right arm, he swung his left down, using his fingertips to hang on to a small fissure in the block of stone by his head. Then he leaned out, arching from his hips, so he could look down between his legs at the frame of the window directly beneath. It was just a few inches further.

Slowly releasing the grip of his right hand, Luca felt his body start to slide. With well-practised precision, his foot connected with the sill below and he jolted to a halt.

He exhaled again. Just a couple of moves, but in the dark, and over such a long drop, they’d been difficult. A few seconds later, he kicked open the shutter of the room below and swung himself in through the open window.

It was some kind of storeroom. There were row upon row of receptacles, each with labels inscribed with neat Tibetan writing. Luca reached out to touch one and realised that his hands were trembling. He clenched his fists, squeezing the shakes out of them.

This was the way it always was with free climbing.

He moved towards the door, feeling a new excitement build in him as the wave of adrenaline passed. He was finally free from Dorje and able to explore the monastery unhindered. Since they had first arrived, he was sure their routes through the miles of passageways had been very carefully chosen. Certain corridors had been deliberately avoided; certain doors closed ahead of his arrival. Dorje had taken great pains to shepherd him through the monastery, ensuring that he saw as little of it as possible.

Now he had the chance to see it all for himself. But first he had to find Bill — and Dorje had let it slip that he was somewhere in the lower levels.

Stepping out into the corridor, he half-expected to see Dorje’s figure materialise out of the darkness, but everything remained still. Luca swivelled his head from side to side, wondering which way to go. At the far end of the corridor, a faint light emanated from a flickering yak-butter candle.

Luca patted the pocket of his trousers, feeling for some wedges of sliced chocolate. Lying on his bed in the darkness, he had decided that the real danger with breaking out of his room was getting lost in the maze of catacombs that presumably lay below the monastery’s main levels. His GPS had been left in the cave with most of his other climbing gear, but even if he did have it, with such thick walls it would have been useless anyway. Instead, he’d remembered something from his schooldays: Theseus and the Minotaur. He didn’t have a ball of string, but he could use pieces from the two crumbled chocolate bars they’d had left to mark each stairway he used or door he opened. That was if the rats didn’t get to them before he returned.

Luca moved off swiftly, descending a staircase just in front of him that led down to the next level. He moved as fast as his bulky climbing boots would allow, stopping when he remembered to tuck one of the bits of chocolate into the top rung of the stairs.

He shook his head. The plan was ridiculous. It felt like something out of Hansel and Gretel.

Below was another corridor, identical to the previous one. He edged across the stone floor, feeling weighed down by the oppressive stillness of the monastery. The only sound was the rise and fall of his own breath. On he went, down more staircases and corridors, the smell of the dripping candles heavy on everything he passed.

A few levels lower down, the corridor he was following came to a dead end. He stopped, studying the wooden door ahead of him. It was much larger than the others and had been ornately carved. Luca turned the handle with a loud click and pulled his lighter from his pocket.

As he opened the door, Luca’s eyes narrowed in surprise. He could see the roof of the chamber high above him. Directly in front was one long, continuous row of bookshelves, stretching off for as far as he could see. The flickering light picked out the spines of countless books. He paced alongside them, following them deeper into the room.

He turned left at the end of the shelves, the flame of the lighter revealing random glimpses of the room beyond. Writing desks were neatly spaced out across it, and behind them stood towering columns of paper set in wooden boxes. Each contained hundreds of old parchments stacked on top of each other, reaching towards the ceiling like crooked stalagmites. Luca waved his lighter higher. The columns led back as far as he could see.

Approaching the nearest, he picked out a few loose pages at random. They were covered with dense Tibetan writing. These must be prayer parchments, like the ones he’d seen in the market stalls in Lhasa. Sweeping the lighter around in a slow arc, he wondered how on earth they knew which one was which.

‘Just like Cambridge,’ he muttered under his breath.

Retreating along the line of the bookshelves, he then went out of the door and down another level, then another. He left bits of chocolate on the top tread of each stairway. Now he stood halfway down the next, finally realising how idiotic he had been to think he would be able to find Bill in such a gigantic place. It could take weeks. As he stood there, wondering whether to retrace his steps, he noticed a musty, almost chemical smell. He sniffed, wondering what on earth it could be.

He stood in the heavy silence, hairs rising on the back of his neck. Something other than the smell had changed, he could feel it. There was a low reverberation in the air, a noise so faint it seemed to fade into the walls of the monastery. He took a few steps forward, his heart beginning to beat faster.

Soon it was a deep, rumbling sound, pitched on so many levels that it seemed to roll up and down in a strange melody. It was a few minutes before Luca even realised it was made by humans. Ahead of him, light flickered under a wide, gilded doorway and Luca found himself being drawn towards it, mesmerised by the dancing shadows. The smell was stronger now, a bitter odour that clung to the air.

At the base of the doorway, tens of pairs of felt slippers lay fanned out across the floor as if their owners had just stepped out of them. Luca kneeled beside them, pressing his head to the cold floor as he tried to see under the crack in the door.

The first thing to hit him was the smell. As the air circulated under the door it wafted across his face, burning his throat and making his chest suddenly tighten. Inside, he could see a cavernous room lit by immense flaming candelabras arranged at intervals along the vaulted walls. At the far end of the room was a line of seated monks.

He couldn’t see all of them, just the first few, their heads swaying in drifting circular motions as they continued an endless chant. Further towards the left, he could see the doorway to another chamber. It was open, and a light was shining from it.

Luca moved his head slightly, trying to get a better view, and saw a thin figure being escorted to this next chamber by two strangely clad silhouettes. The figure between them could barely stand. As Luca pressed his head harder to the ground, trying to see who it was, he caught a glimpse of a monk, eyes rolling and face completely drained of colour, before the inner doors were slammed shut and he disappeared from view.

Luca lay there, blinking his eyes and trying to make some sense of it all. A headache had spread across his forehead and he was finding it hard to think. The tightness in his chest was getting worse and he could taste the chemical taint in his mouth.

Why was a drugged monk being led into some strange ante-chamber? What were they doing in there?

Gripped by a sudden fear, he raised himself to his feet but the blood rushed to his head. He widened his stance, trying to keep his balance, but felt disorientated and sick.

There was the sound of footsteps on the other side of the door and then a scraping as heavy metal bolts were being drawn back. The ceremony had finished, the monks were leaving.

Luca staggered off down the corridor, trying to break into a run, but his legs felt clumsy and slow. After a hundred yards he rounded the corner, looking for the piece of chocolate on the staircase he had come down. It wasn’t there.

How could he have turned the wrong way?

Ahead of him the corridor branched off into two narrower passageways and he stopped, wondering which to choose. To his left, a large metal chain was wrapped over a circular wooden wheel and bolted to the wall. He moved closer to one of the flaming candles and tried to think, but the sizzling noise of the wick burning through the candle was growing impossibly loud. Luca stared at the dancing yellow flame as a long plume of black smoke belched out on to the wall above.

As he stared at the light, his jaw slack and his eyes wide open, his mind started to fill with strange, swirling images. It was that smell… It was making him feel faint. His eyelids were getting heavier.

He heard footsteps, then voices. They were drawing closer. Light from around the corner appeared on the wall. Luca shook his head, trying to snap himself out of it, when his eyes came to rest on the metal chain reaching down to the floor. He looked more closely. It was a trapdoor, cut into the stone floor below.

With a dull metal clank from the chain, he heaved open the trapdoor and shuffled down the wooden ladder, drawing his lighter from his pocket but not sparking it.

Beneath, there was absolute darkness.

There was a padding sound above him as a procession of felt slippers walked over the timbers of the trapdoor, then eventually silence. Luca waited a moment longer, listening to the sound of his own strained breathing, before finally rolling his thumb down the flint of the lighter.

As the flame sparked, the outline of a terrifying figure exploded out of the darkness. Luca jumped back, pressing himself against the wall, and accidentally let his thumb off the gas, sending the space ahead into pitch blackness. It took a moment for him to steady his nerves and realise that the figure was nothing more than a painting on the wall of the narrow tunnel he now found himself in.

With the lighter held high above his head, he took in the picture. It was of some strange god with blue skin and flaming orange hair. Its lips were pulled back, snarling ferociously with great incisor teeth and yellow eyes that stared accusingly ahead. In its hands were dozens of naked human figures, which were being crushed and burnt in the fires all about its hideous body.

The figure was part of a mural that stretched the entire length of the corridor, from floor to ceiling, reaching back into the darkness. Luca slowly edged his way along, eyes transfixed by the scenes before him. There was just an overwhelming array of colour and form.

‘What is this place?’ he whispered.

In a deep alcove off the main stem of the tunnel, his lighter picked up another figure. It was statue of the Buddha, about four feet high and raised on a plinth. As he slowly approached, the surface of the statue seemed to shimmer in the light. He moved closer still, reaching out his hand and letting his fingertips brush across its hard surface.

The entire statue was encrusted with thousands of tiny gems. Even through the haze of his headache Luca grasped the significance of what he was seeing and for a long moment, just let his hand linger on the cool brittleness of the stones. As he moved the lighter in front of the statue’s eyes, two huge diamonds danced and flashed before him.

Finally he tore his gaze away, looking further down the corridor. He could see other alcoves set back from the tunnel. In the closest, another statue was shining in the darkness. How many more were there? And what other treasures were to be found, sealed away in this vault?

A sense of wonderment spread over him. Surely this was what the fortune hunters had been searching for all those years — the hidden treasure that the professor had said was just a myth.

Studded into the plinth of the statue were long lines of metal nuggets, each no bigger than a human finger. There were hundreds of them. He picked one up at random, turning it over in his hand. The metal was coarse and dull, and at one end he could see a circular mark had been branded into it, with eight points merging into a central triangle.

He had seen that mark before — in the thangka Jack had given him. It was the exact same symbol the priest had held in his open hand.

Running his own hand over the studded surface, Luca finally understood what these were. They were seals, used to brand letters with the official mark of Geltang. They didn’t look valuable, but they would at last be some kind of tangible proof that the place actually existed. Plucking one from the lowest part of the plinth, he slipped it into his pocket.

As Luca looked up again and into the white diamonds of the statue’s eyes, he heard a loud groaning. He froze. The sound was so close, hidden somewhere just beyond the statue.

Then it came again.

Waving the lighter from side to side, Luca tried to peer further into the darkness. The flame blew sideways, struggling to stay lit.

‘Who’s there?’

Nothing.

‘Answer me!’

He shuffled forward, passing round the front of the statue. The alcove opened up into a dark well and on the far side was the grey profile of a human figure, its outline vague against the stone wall. Luca stopped dead, feeling his insides turn to water.

The figure was contorted into the lotus position, head bent low, chin almost touching its chest. The legs were bent across each other and hands folded back, palms facing upwards. Tight leather straps ran right around its body, crisscrossing over the thighs then back across the shoulders, forcing it to remain unnaturally rigid.

‘Holy shit,’ Luca breathed.

At the sound of his voice, the figure’s head suddenly jolted upwards, revealing pale eyes that glowed in the half-light. The apparition wailed, a pitiful, strangled sound that sent Luca leaping backwards in fright. He bumped into the far wall, nearly toppling the statue. Somewhere in the confusion, his thumb slipped from the lighter wheel, plunging him into darkness once again.

He ran back, hemmed in on both sides by the tight walls of the tunnel, his hands brushing against them. Then it came again — the howl from the darkness. He fumbled with the lighter, and a few sparks flashed before the flame finally caught. Hurling himself up the ladder, Luca used his shoulder to barge open the heavy trapdoor into the corridor above.

For a second he stopped there, his hands on his knees, staring down into the black void as he tried to catch his breath.

‘Don’t panic,’ he said to himself, trying to steady his breathing. ‘Just don’t panic…’

Then he shook his head. Screw that. This was exactly the time to panic.

Sprinting off down the corridor, he reached the gilded door of the ante-chamber from where they had taken the monk. It was shut, with no light coming from underneath. Ahead was another stairway. Luca pounded up the steps, taking three at a time. Reaching the top, he bent down and fumbled across the tread.

The piece of chocolate was there! He was on the right track. Feeling a new surge of energy, he started running again, the sound of his boots dulled by the heavy stone walls.

On the lower level by the trapdoor, in a corner hidden from the light of the candle, a figure stood motionless. It listened, senses well attuned to the dark. Concealed under the hood of blue monastic robes, clouded pupils stared out sightlessly, instinctively following the noise of Luca’s retreat along the level above.

Then, without a sound, the figure turned, fading back into the shadows.