The Midas Legacy

10

The visitors prepared for the journey. Amaanat assured them they would not need the climbing gear Jayesh had brought, but Nina and Eddie still made sure they had survival and emergency equipment — and some extra for the monks, just in case.

They assembled in the courtyard with Amaanat, Rudra and five other monks. The Nepalis had donned outerwear that Nina considered worryingly light for the conditions. The new faces all bore cargo: one had a small haversack and two coils of rope slung from his shoulders, while the others wore larger backpacks. What was in them she couldn’t tell, but it was clearly heavy.

Amaanat issued instructions, then spoke to Eddie and Nina. ‘We are ready. Please follow — and once we are outside the monastery, be very careful.’

He set off, but not towards the main gates. Instead he led the group into the string of buildings, passing through the debate house and the hall of prayer wheels before continuing on past the stairs into other structures. Monks bowed as they passed. Finally they entered the base of the tall tower. A large golden statue of the laughing Buddha sat in the centre of the floor, one hand raised as if waving them off on their journey.

A staircase of well-worn dark wood spiralled upwards inside the framework of thick beams supporting the stone walls. Amaanat bowed to the statue and uttered a brief prayer, then led the ascent, pointing out features as they climbed. ‘Many parts of this tower were brought here from the original monastery. These stairs are almost four hundred years old.’

‘No wonder they creak,’ said Eddie.

‘It is the strongest part of the monastery. It was first built as a fort, for protection against bandits.’

‘I assume the reason the monks demolished the original monastery and moved here was to make it harder for Tobias Garde to find his way back to the Midas Cave?’ Nina asked.

‘Yes,’ replied the abbot. ‘They showed your ancestor the cave in gratitude for his help. But later they realised the danger of outsiders taking control of it.’

‘How did he help them?’

Amaanat did not reply, entering a room at the top of the tower. A door was set into the rear wall. ‘This is the only way to reach the cave,’ he announced as Rudra drew back a bolt and opened it.

A freezing wind rushed in. Even in her well-insulated clothing, Nina felt it slicing at her like tiny razor blades. ‘Wow, that’s cold.’

‘It will get colder,’ Rudra warned. Beyond was the near-vertical wall of the cliff behind the monastery. A sturdy plank was lashed to metal supports driven into the rock.

‘How long’ll the climb take?’ Eddie asked.

‘It depends on the weather… and if the path is still there.’

Nina and Eddie looked at each other. ‘Yeah, that’s totally reassuring,’ she said.

Amaanat smiled. ‘There are supplies to repair it along the way — ropes, wood.’ He stepped on to the plank. ‘This way.’

Rudra went next, followed by Eddie, Nina and Jayesh. The narrow gap between tower and cliff acted as a natural wind tunnel, intensifying the icy blast. More snow-caked planks were strung along the cliff to form a walkway — with two-foot gaps between them. Eddie let out a disbelieving huff, his breath forming a steaming cloud. ‘You don’t need to be a mountaineer to get up there. You need to be Super Mario!’

Amaanat sidestepped along the planks until he emerged from behind the tower, giving him enough room to face forwards. The others did the same. The force of the gale reduced once they were clear of the structure, but the biting temperature did not improve.

The abbot surveyed the vertiginous route ahead, then advanced, fingertips brushing the rock face to his left for support. Age had not affected his agility or balance, and he negotiated the tricky path with easy assurance. His guests found it more difficult, their inflexible boots actually a disadvantage when it came to finding grip.

The walkway slanted upwards, reaching a narrow ledge. The group continued along the curving wall overlooking the natural bowl until they reached a sharp fold in the mountainside. A gap had been chiselled out of it, giving just enough room to duck beneath the overhanging rock to reach another path beyond.

Nina looked back at the monastery as the procession slowed to clamber through. The multicoloured prayer flags sweeping down from the tower fluttered in the wind, leading her eye to the precipice at the foot of the slope. More bleak mountains rose beyond it. Other than the tethered yaks, there was no sign of life, not even a distant tree. Although coldly beautiful, it was a desolate, dead landscape.

Yet it hid something extraordinary that her ancestor had seen over a century and a half ago — and that thousands of years earlier an explorer had come all the way from the mouth of the Mediterranean to find. Whatever was in the Midas Cave, they had considered it worth enduring the emptiness.

She followed Eddie through the gap, Jayesh standing ready to assist from behind. The drop to the boulder-strewn ground was a good sixty feet. If the monks wanted to silence the visitors, an ‘accident’ would be easy enough to stage…

But Amaanat and his people showed no signs of hostility; not even Rudra, whose present bad temperament was aimed at the elements. Reassured, she kept moving.

Before long, the new ledge levelled out and widened slightly. Bundles of planks and skeins of rope rested in a small hollow in the cliff. ‘The path ends not far ahead,’ Amaanat announced, stopping and moving aside so Rudra could pass him. ‘From here there are more platforms. Talonor first built them so his people could reach the cave. We have maintained them, but the journey is not easy.’

Jayesh took advantage of the brief pause to light a cigarette, drawing disapproving looks from some of the monks. ‘We’ll cope.’

‘I hope so. But be warned, parts of the path are very old.’ He turned as Rudra returned and spoke briefly in Nepalese. ‘The path does not need repair. We may go on.’

They resumed the journey, rounding another fold in the cliff. Nina halted when she saw what lay ahead. The path narrowed to nothingness, but the route continued onwards on a ragged line of more planks supported by logs jutting from the cliff face. The mountainside here was vertical, the drop at least two hundred feet and rising as the precarious walkway staggered upwards. Ropes threaded through eyelets hammered into the stone acted as a kind of handrail, though the slack in the lines did not inspire confidence. ‘Are you certain it doesn’t need repair?’ she asked.

‘This way has been used for thousands of years,’ Amaanat pointed out. ‘It is dangerous, yes, but it can be travelled safely if you take great care.’

‘Nah, I was planning to wing it and run along ’em,’ said Eddie sarcastically. He faced his wife. ‘You sure about this?’

‘We’ve come this far,’ she replied.

‘Yeah, and that’s never got us into trouble before, has it?’ He let out a vaporous breath. ‘Okay, just remember that we’ve got a little girl waiting for us to come home, right? Be really careful.’

‘I wasn’t planning to do anything else!’ Nina told him. ‘I guess we’re ready.’

Amaanat bowed his head. ‘Then let us go on.’

He retook the lead, stepping over the gap on to the first plank. It made a low warning groan as it took his weight. The sound did not deter him, and with his left hand lightly holding the guide rope he took measured paces along the wood to reach the next platform in line. ‘Do not have more than one person on each step if you can,’ he called back.

Eddie took a much firmer grip on the rope when his turn came to advance. ‘One down, maybe five hundred more to go,’ he said as he waited for Rudra to clear the next plank. ‘Will we be able to climb all the way up and then back down before it gets dark?’

‘If the path is clear, yes,’ said Amaanat.

‘And if it isn’t?’

‘There is a shelter,’ Rudra told him. ‘It is not big, but there is room for all of us.’

‘Sounds cosy,’ said Nina, not keen on the prospect — as much out of impatience to reach the Midas Cave as at the thought of being trapped for the night on a Himalayan mountain.

The little procession moved on. Once over her initial unease, Nina found the process almost straightforward: eight or nine careful footfalls along each length, then step up to the next platform. The blustery wind encouraged her to press close to the rock, but despite appearances, the guide ropes turned out to be firmly attached to the cliff.

Before long, she felt secure enough to divert a small amount of attention to her surroundings. Empty holes cut into the stone and the protruding stubs of worn logs or metal poles above and below the current pathway suggested that sections had been abandoned over time — or simply broken away and dropped into the void. Some were clearly much older than others. Talonor’s original route to his prize, allowing him to get men and materiel to and from the cave? It seemed likely… but for what purpose?

Somewhere in the distance, she heard an odd noise, a rumbling hiss. It continued for several seconds, then stopped. ‘Did you hear that?’ she asked Eddie.

‘Yeah,’ he replied. ‘Hey, Rudra. What was that?’

‘The dragon,’ the monk replied.

‘No need to be sarcastic.’

‘I was not.’

Eddie rolled his eyes at Nina, who shrugged, wondering what he meant. They resumed their trek.

The trudging climb continued around the mountain, revealing a new frozen vista beyond as empty as that behind them. It also revealed something new along their path — something worrying.

Eddie saw it too. ‘You’re f… lippin’ kidding.’

‘Amaanat! Are you sure that’s safe?’ Nina called to the abbot. He had reached a vertical cleft cutting deeply into the rock face, an ancient geological fault some fifteen feet across. The route upwards continued on its far side — but the only way to reach it was by traversing an extremely rickety-looking rope bridge.

‘In my time at Detsen monastery, eighteen monks have fallen from this bridge,’ he warned.

‘That’s kind of a huge no, then.’

‘It is less than one every two years.’

‘Still not filling me with confidence!’

The elderly man smiled. ‘Watch me. Do what I do, follow my footsteps.’

A guide rope was stretched along the inside of the bridge. He gripped it with his left hand, then held his right arm out for balance as he took small, precise steps over the planks.

‘You holding your breath?’ Eddie whispered.

‘Uh-huh,’ Nina replied, not daring to exhale in case she blew the monk off his feet.

Amaanat reached the midpoint. He paused as a gust of wind set the bridge swinging, hunching down to dampen the motion, then continued. A few more steps and he reached the relative security of a short length of rocky ledge.

Nina finally allowed herself to breathe. ‘That wasn’t terrifying at all.’

‘We’ve still got to get across it,’ Eddie reminded her.

‘Thanks for that, hon.’

Rudra crossed next, more quickly than the abbot, as if trying to prove a point, then it was Eddie’s turn. The Englishman held the rope before gingerly putting one foot on the bridge. ‘I should probably say something reassuring about now, shouldn’t I?’ he said, looking back at Nina with a strained grin.

‘Yeah, that would help!’

‘How about… at least we’re not being shot at?’ He winked. ‘All right. Let’s do this.’

He followed Amaanat’s example, taking controlled, measured steps. The wood creaked underfoot. Nina cringed, but Eddie steadied himself, then carried on. Five feet to go, three, two… then he took a long step to take the waiting Rudra’s hand on the far side. ‘Thanks,’ he said, before looking back at his wife. ‘Take it steady, and you’ll be fine.’

Nina clamped her hand around the guide rope. ‘Look at the bridge, not the… total nothingness under it,’ she muttered. From here, she could see that the cleft cut a good seventy feet into the mountainside, and stretched seemingly to infinity below. ‘Okay. Take it steady. Real steady.’

She put one foot on the first plank. It shifted slightly beneath her. Steeling herself, she stepped forward.

Her heart began to pound. The whole bridge was swaying, and the wind was now picking up, snow being plucked from small outcrops below and spiralling skywards past her. ‘It’s all right,’ called Eddie reassuringly. ‘You’re doing fine. Just keep going.’

‘I’m sure as hell not going to stop,’ she said as she continued her nervous advance. Halfway over, three quarters…

A sharp gust — and the entire bridge lurched.

Nina tried to drop as Amaanat had done, but the planks had swung out from beneath her centre of gravity, overbalancing her. The vertical cleft opened up below—

The guide rope snapped taut. Pain flared in her clenching fingers, but she maintained her grip. She crouched to steady herself, then took hold of the line with her other hand. ‘Jesus!’

‘Sh… oes!’ yelled Eddie. ‘Nina, are you okay?’

She somehow forced a smile. ‘You still managed not to swear.’

‘It was close! Are you all right?’

‘Yeah, I’m fine, just feeling like my adrenal gland exploded.’ She cautiously straightened. ‘I’m coming over.’

She set off again, trying to balance the need for care against her desperate urge to reach comparative safety. Step, step, feeling the planks waver — and then Eddie grabbed her hand and pulled her on to the ledge. ‘Got you.’

‘Oh, thank God!’ She hugged him.

Amaanat called back to her. ‘Are you all right, Dr Wilde?’

‘Yes thanks. That was close, though!’

‘I warned you how dangerous this place can be.’

‘It’d be less dangerous if you built a proper bridge!’ said Eddie angrily.

Rudra scowled, but the abbot shrugged off the criticism. ‘Our legends say that this’ — he indicated the chasm — ‘was cut by the sword of the bodhisattva Manjusri when he fought the dragon of the mountain. We cannot close the wound in case the dragon regains his strength.’

‘I don’t think dragons are what you should be worried about,’ Nina complained.

The old monk smiled knowingly. ‘You will soon see that is not so.’ He went to the end of the ledge and resumed his precarious trek along the stepped platforms, Rudra following.

‘Sure you’re okay?’ Eddie asked Nina.

She nodded. ‘Yeah. But let’s not do that again.’

‘Still glad to be back out in the field?’

A narrow-eyed smile. ‘Get moving, you.’

He laughed, then set off after the two monks. Nina waited until he had cleared the next platform before continuing, Jayesh and the other monks crossing the bridge behind her.

As the group made their way around the mountain, Nina’s resurgent vertigo discouraged her from admiring the view, however spectacular. It also grew steadily colder as the sun moved behind the wall of rock.

The line of platforms eventually ended. She wondered if they had reached their destination, before seeing that they were instead changing direction — going straight up. Rungs had been driven into the sheer stone to create a ladder, ascending for about a hundred feet. Amaanat had already begun to climb. Rudra clambered up behind him.

Eddie reached the foot of the ladder. ‘Think they need to spend a bit of the money they make from selling gold knick-knacks on Hammerite.’ He tugged at one of the rust-scabbed metal bars. To Nina’s relief, it didn’t move.

He let Rudra open up a gap for safety, and was about to climb after him when he froze and looked across the valley with a quizzical expression. ‘What is it?’ asked Nina.

‘Thought I heard a chopper.’

She followed his gaze. The distant echoing thrum of a helicopter’s rotors reached her, but she could see no sign of any aircraft. ‘You expecting company?’ she called to Amaanat.

‘Ever since the earthquake, there are many more helicopters,’ he answered. Eddie still appeared dubious, but the sound soon died away. ‘Be careful here. Some of the rungs need to be repaired.’

‘Don’t suppose you remember which ones, do you?’ said the Yorkshireman, but he got no reply. With a sigh, he followed Rudra upwards, Nina behind him.

As Amaanat had warned, some of the rungs were in poor condition, a few so heavily corroded that they had sheared apart. ‘Watch out on this one,’ Eddie told Nina and Jayesh as he passed the halfway point, finding a particularly ragged example. ‘Don’t want to catch tetanus.’

‘As if we don’t have enough to worry about,’ said Nina.

‘Yeah. Don’t think we packed anything in the first-aid—’

He had gripped a new rung — which lurched in its mounting holes. One of his feet slipped, the jagged end of the broken bar slicing an ugly gash into his boot. ‘Ffff… ishing hook!’ he yelled as he secured himself. Rudra stopped above him, looking down in alarm. ‘You could’ve warned me!’ The young monk appeared genuinely contrite.

‘Are you okay, Eddie?’ said Nina, worried.

‘Just got a bit of a shock, that’s all. Don’t put any weight on this one.’ He thumped the offending rung with a balled fist, taking a very careful look at the ones above before resuming his ascent.

The rest of the climb was made safely. To the visitors’ enormous relief, the top of the ladder led to the solidity of a ledge. The group advanced along it, crossing another section of planks before reaching a further ledge. Ahead, a second ladder continued upwards, but something beyond it caught Nina’s eye. ‘Are we here? Is that it?’

A squat wooden structure was tucked against the cliff, half buried in snow. ‘No,’ said Amaanat. ‘That is the shelter. I hope we will not need it.’ He drew back the cuff of his coat, revealing a watch. ‘Yes, you will be able to see what is inside the Midas Cave and return before sunset. The timing is perfect.’

‘Timing for what?’ she asked, but he began to scale the next ladder without answering.

Rudra went up behind him. Nina waited for Eddie to follow, but now he too was staring at something along the ledge — not the shelter, but a small crevice nearer to them. ‘That’s weird.’

‘What?’

‘The snow. I mean, the no snow.’ A teardrop-shaped gap in the white covering directly in front of the little opening revealed bare rock, a rime of frost glistening on it. ‘Looks like it’s melted.’

‘Why would it only melt there?’ Nina wondered.

‘Dunno.’ He glanced back at Jayesh as the Gurkha joined them. ‘Keep an eye out,’ he whispered to his friend.

‘You think they’re going to try something?’ said Nina.

‘I dunno what they’re going to do. Better safe than sorry, eh?’

The visitors made their way up the ladder. This one was fairly short, about thirty feet, and ended at a much larger and broader ledge strewn with boulders.

A cave entrance was set into the foot of the cliff, a small wooden hut to one side. As with the crevice below, the ground immediately before the opening was devoid of snow.

There was no indication that anyone else was already here, though: no footprints other than Amaanat’s and Rudra’s, no smouldering remains of fires. So what had caused the snow to melt?

‘Is that the Midas Cave?’ Nina asked, starting towards the entrance.

‘It is,’ replied Amaanat, holding up a hand to warn her back. ‘But you must wait before we can go inside.’

‘Why?’ asked Eddie.

‘You will see. In…’ he checked his wrist, ‘six minutes. Please, wait over there.’

The other monks assembled where the abbot had indicated, putting down their heavy packs. Now intrigued, Nina joined them, Eddie and Jayesh standing slightly apart from everyone else to maintain a discreet watch.

The minutes ticked by. ‘So whatever’s about to happen, it happens to a schedule?’ Nina asked Amaanat.

‘Always,’ he said. ‘You are lucky to be here at this time of the year. It begins at the end of winter and continues until summer. It has done so since Talonor first came to this place, and long before.’

‘And it always happens on time?’ said Eddie.

‘Yes.’

‘Whatever it is, we should get it to run the trains.’

Nina smiled, then looked at her own watch. Less than a minute, if Amaanat was right. Less than a minute before she had the answer that her mother had sought for so long…

She became aware of an odd, unsettling sensation, but couldn’t identify it — until she realised that the ground itself was shivering. A low rumble gradually became audible, a hiss rising above it. ‘What’s that?’

‘The dragon,’ announced Amaanat. ‘The dragon is breathing.’

No sooner had he spoken than the sound became a whooshing roar — and a great blast of steam burst from the cave mouth, sweeping across the bare stone before the dense cloud of rising vapour was caught by the wind, dispersing into tendrils. More rose from below as a smaller jet gushed out of the narrow crevice on the lower ledge. The thunderous expulsion continued for several seconds before fading. A few last puffs escaped the cave, then everything fell silent and still.

Eddie and Nina regarded the entrance in shock. ‘What the hell was that?’ she said, wide-eyed.

The abbot gave her a gentle, knowing smile. ‘That,’ he said, ‘was the secret of the Midas Cave. And now I shall show it to you.’