White Jade

Chapter Thirty-Eight

In the idling Humvee, Carter scanned a landscape turned ghostly green by his night vision binoculars. The road they'd been following turned out of sight beyond the base of a large hill on its way to the monastery. To the left, a broad valley skirted the hill and headed north. A cold, hard wind gusted without stopping against the vehicle.

He put the binoculars down.

"This should take us close to where we want to go." He traced the valley floor on the map. "If we don't run into any obstacles, I think we can get there in four or five hours."

Selena said, "I have to pee."

Ronnie and Nick began laughing.

"What's so funny?" She felt her face reddening.

"Nothing," Carter said. "Just tension, that's all. Hell, I do too. Pick your restrooms, everyone."

A few minutes later Ronnie put the vehicle in gear and they turned up the valley.

The peaks on either side were bigger than the highest mountains in the United States. They were only foothills to the massive giants not far away. The slopes were bare of vegetation and covered with stony debris and boulders. Lifeless rock stretched away in every direction with cold indifference. It was like driving on an alien planet.

The moon was almost down. The stars blazed incandescent overhead. Nick had never seen so many stars. There were clouds of stars, bright enough to cast shadows on the valley floor. The deep black, star-studded sky seemed to hint at something mysterious just out of reach. Under that sky, with towering, snow-covered peaks gleaming in every direction, it was easy to understand why people living here believed these mountains were the home of gods.

"How are you doing, Selena?"

"I've got a headache, but aside from that, good. I'm glad I don't have to hike this right now."

"Take a hit of oxygen. We don't want to get sick up here. We aren't used to the altitude, but we won't be here very long."

"I wonder what we're going to find."

"We'll know soon enough," Ron said. "We're about four klicks from the ruins."

The Humvee jolted up and down across a rough patch of rocks. A loud crack of breaking metal came from the front. They slewed to the right in a sliding shower of loose rock and dropped down hard onto a low boulder before Ronnie could stop. He killed the engine.

"What was that?"

"I don't know," Ronnie said. "Didn't sound good. The steering went."

They got out. The Humvee was hung up on the rock, the right wheel jutting up in the air. Ronnie got out his flash and looked underneath.

"Can't see much with all that armor plating." He grasped the tire in his hand. The wheel swung easily back and forth. "It looks like we walk. I think a tie rod or a control arm must have broken."

"Right, let's get it under cover."

They pulled the packs out of the back and covered the vehicle with camouflage netting. The Humvee blended into the landscape. Nick's altimeter showed 16,400 feet.

They shouldered packs and began climbing. They followed a steep draw, detouring around gigantic boulders and falls of rock. The wind was relentless, a freezing, brittle wind. Loose stones rolled like uneven marbles underfoot. Carter kept slipping. His back was on fire. His pack felt like it was full of lead.

The sky showed signs of dawn. He looked at the others. Selena was sweating in the cold air. Ronnie looked grim.

"Let's take a break," he said.

They stopped. He had to do something about the pain. He got out the med kit, took out a couple of pain pills, thought about it and put one back. This wasn't a good place to risk mistakes in judgment.

Three hours after they'd left the Humvee, they topped the final rise. A cold sun bathed the mountains in brassy, ominous light that offered no comfort from the chill wind. The prospect before them was daunting.

The ruins covered the crest of the hill in a jumble of stone. The outer walls were twenty feet high, built of flat stones fitted together. They stretched for over a hundred yards in each direction to form an outer square. Tumbled gaps gaped in the walls where stones had fallen. A building topped by a tall, stepped, pyramid-shaped roof dominated the center of the compound.

Carter pictured attacking those walls on foot with spears and swords and bows and arrows. In its day, the fortress would have been impregnable.

The silence was immense. The only sound was the constant keening of wind through the ruins.

The mountain dropped away from where they stood in a sweeping vista of snow-capped mountains and valleys. A waterfall that must have been two thousand feet high dropped straight down to a river winding below along the valley floor. A herd of yaks grazed on the side of a mountain in the distance, thirty or forty tiny black dots. A lone, golden eagle glided past, a thousand feet below.

Carter had never seen space like that. It wasn't only that the mountains were big. It was the distance around them, the way they forced themselves up into the thin sky. The scale of nature was overwhelming. It made him feel the size of an ant.

He consulted his GPS and pointed at a spot on one of the satellite photos.

"We're here, at the southwest corner of the outer walls. These four lines look like streets between buildings. We'll go along this wall and follow one in."

"They all converge at the center," Selena said, "at the building and the square around it."

"Isn't the center a big deal in these parts?"

"Yes. Mt. Kailash, over that way, was supposed to be the center of the world. That building is the center of this complex and the cavern is under it."

Ronnie spoke up. "Then why don't we start there?"

Another pre-coded burst let Harker know they had arrived and were proceeding. Carter put the phone back in his pocket and they set out along the west wall. Halfway down, they came to what was left of a gateway. The gate was long gone. A broad uneven avenue of frost-heaved grayish stone led straight toward the building with the pyramid spire at the center.

They headed in. Standing walls of gray stone and piles of rubble lined the street. Selena pointed out a carving of a giant bird on a tall, weathered column of rock.

"That's a garuda, same as the book name."

"What were all these buildings for?"

"Shops, quarters, stables. This place is a small city."

The wind moaned through the deserted stones, lifting a thin, gritty dust into the air. Selena paused at a building on the edge of the square. The roof was still intact. She stepped inside, into the ruins of a broad atrium.

The floor of the atrium was about thirty feet square. Uneven colored tiles formed an elaborate picture on the floor. Lichen grew between the tiles and many of the pieces were missing, but the design was still clear enough.

At the corners, curled leopards stood guard. In the center, a woman reclined on a low couch with curved ends. She wore a blue robe. She had long, black, curling hair circled by a gold band. Three women in robes of white attended her. One played a flute, another bore a basket of fruit, a third poured wine from a jug. All three had black, curly hair bound with a headband and lifelike eyes made from black and gold tiles. Above the scene, two women rode in a chariot, blond hair streaming behind them. The chariot was pulled by two winged griffins. Above everything flew a large bird.

"This is Cretan," said Selena. "This is amazing. The one with the wine is pouring from an amphora. It's definitely Minoan. Paintings similar to this were found in a Minoan burial chamber in Northern Crete. The women in the chariot are probably goddesses, maybe escorts to guide the soul to the afterlife."

"Then the Minoans were here, after all."

"It looks like it. This style of mosaic art is unique to the Aegean. Either the Minoans or someone who had contact with them had to have done it. Finding this in Tibet is incredible." She took out her camera.

They came to the edge of the square. The walls of the building at the heart of the complex were eroded from the endless winds, the ancient stone dark and stained. Narrow openings were set along the lower walls and in the roof.

"This is an early style of Vedic temple architecture," said Selena. "The pyramid roof was typical. I'd guess around 1800 BCE. Maybe a little later."

"It was a temple?"

"It must have been. This entire complex is laid out like a mandala, with entrances to the center from the four directions."

"What's a mandala?" Ronnie rubbed his face with his glove.

"It's a tool, a picture to help focus your mind. By looking at the picture and meditating on it you develop the ability to enter a spiritual dimension."

"You believe that?" he said.

"It seems to work for the people who practice with it."

Carter looked around the broad square, thinking what it must have been like when there were people here.

"This place was a mandala for real?" He rubbed his ear.

"That would have been the idea. Everything constructed to remind people of their spiritual nature and the transience of life."

"Then why are we here looking for something to make you immortal?"

"Immortality is the payoff in a lot of religions. It just takes different forms for different people. In the East, you get enlightened. In effect you become immortal. In the West, you live forever in heaven."

"Or hell," he said.

"I don't believe that," said Selena.

For the most part, the square was free of debris. They walked toward the building, stopped and stared at the structure.

Two massive columns held up an arched entry. Above the arch, a great, fierce bird was hewn into the stone. Still visible on each column was the sign of the labrys, the double headed axe of ancient Crete.