The Kingdom

38

GOLDFISH POINT, LA JOLLA

CALIFORNIA

With copies of “The Great Dragon” on each of their iPads, Sam and Remi thanked Professor Moretti for her help. Sam and Remi read the story and e-mailed copies to Selma, Wendy, and Pete. As Remi was sending a copy of the story to Jack, Selma connected with him via iChat.

“You two look absolutely giddy,” Karna said. “Don’t keep me in suspense. What have you found?”

Sam said to Remi, “You tell him.”

Remi first recounted their conversation with Moretti, then gave everyone a summary of “The Great Dragon.”

“Incredible,” said Selma. “You’ve both read the story?”

“Yes,” said Sam. “It should be in your e-mail. You too, Jack.”

“Yes, I see it here.”

“How closely does the story match the bamboo engraving?” asked Wendy.

“If you replace the clearly fictional bits of the story with De Terzi’s alleged testament, you get what reads like a factual account: the crash, the number of survivors, the discovery of a mysterious treasure, the trek home . . . It’s all there.”

“And the time line fits,” Remi said. “Between the secondhand accounts of De Terzi’s comings and goings, he could easily have been traveling to and from China.”

“I am flabbergasted,” said Karna.

Pete, who was paging through the story on Sam’s iPad, said, “What’s this map on the frontispiece?”

“That’s the hero’s journey to return the treasure,” replied Remi. “Jack, do you have that?”

“Looking at it right now. It appears De Terzi arrives from the west and first stops at what is labeled here as a castle. This, we can assume, is Shekar Gompa.”

“The launch base for the airship,” Sam said.

“And possibly the burial site for Giuseppe,” added Remi.

Karna continued: “From Shekar Gompa, De Terzi travels east to the Great City. Based on the position of Shekar, the city could be Lhasa.”

“Why would he go there?” asked Wendy. “The crash site is forty miles south of Shekar Gompa. Wasn’t he trying to return the treasure?”

“Yes,” Sam replied, “but in the story when he reaches the castle a local wise man tells him he must return the treasure to ‘its rightful home.’ He is told to seek out another wise man in the Great City to the west.”

Karna picked up Sam’s line of thought: “From the Great City, De Terzi continues eastward, eventually arrives at . . . I don’t know. There’s only an X here.”

“Shangri-La,” Remi suggested.

There were a few moments of silence from Karna, then: “You’re going to have to excuse me. Apologies. I’ll get back to you.”

The iChat screen went dark.

Karna was back thirty minutes later. “There are some rough grid lines and other landmarks on this map I’ll have to cross-reference, but using the distance from Shekar Gompa to Lhasa as a benchmark, the final leg of De Terzi’s journey ended in an area that’s know today as the Tsangpo Gorge.”

“Your front-runner for the location of Shangri-La,” said Sam.

“Yes indeed. Sam, Remi, you may have just solved a riddle six hundred years in the making.”

Sam said, “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. How long will it take you to nail down the locations on the map?”

“I’ll start right now. Give me a day.”