Kingdom of the Golden Dragon (7 page)

Recently installed, television was transmitted a few hours each day, and then only those programs the king considered inoffensive, such as sports, science, and cartoons. National dress was obligatory; Western clothing was forbidden in public places. That restriction had motivated fervent petitions from university students who were dying to wear American jeans and sports shoes, but the king was inflexible on that point, as he was on many others. He counted on the unconditional support of the remainder of the population, which was proud of its traditions and had no interest in foreign styles.

The Collector knew very little about the Kingdom of the Golden Dragon, whose historical and geographical riches meant nothing to him. He never planned to visit. Nor would it be his problem to acquire the magical statue: for that he was paying a fortune to the Specialist. If that icon
could predict the future, as he had been assured, he could fulfill his ultimate dream: to become the richest man in the world, to become Number One.

Dil Bahadur was the youngest son of the monarch of the Kingdom of the Golden Dragon, and the chosen heir to the throne. He lived with his master in his “home” in the mountains. The entrance to their grotto was camouflaged by a natural screen of rocks and bushes and located on a kind of terrace or balcony on the side of the mountain. The monk chose it because it was nearly inaccessible on three sides, and because no one could find it unless he was very familiar with the area.

Tensing had lived for several years as a hermit in that cave, in silence and solitude, until the king and queen of the Forbidden Kingdom delivered their son to his care. Tensing was to tutor the lad, who would be with him until he was twenty. During that time he would shape him into a perfect ruler by following a program so rigorous that few humans would survive it. All the training in the world, however, would not achieve the desired results unless Dil Bahadur proved to have superior intelligence and a spotless heart. Tensing was content; his disciple had exceeded his hopes in regard to those attributes.

The prince had been with the monk twelve years now, sleeping on rock, his only shelter the skin of a yak, eating a strictly vegetarian diet, dedicated totally to religious practice, study, and physical exercise. And he was happy. He would not change his life for any other, and it was with regret that he saw the day approaching when he must rejoin the world. He remembered very well, nonetheless, how terrified and lonely he had felt when at the age of six he had found himself in a hermit's cave in the mountains alongside a
gigantic stranger who let him cry for three days; cry until he had no more tears to shed. He never wept again. Beginning with that day, the giant had replaced his mother, his father, and the rest of his family; he became his best friend, his master, his Tao-shu instructor, his spiritual guide. From Tensing he learned nearly everything he knew.

Tensing led the prince step by step along the path of Buddhism, tutored him in history and philosophy, introduced him to nature, animals, and the curative powers of plants, developed the youth's intuition and imagination, and taught him the skills of war while teaching him the value of peace. He initiated Dil Bahadur into the secrets of the lamas and helped him discover the mental and physical equilibrium he would need in order to govern. One of the exercises the prince had to practice was shooting his bow while standing on tiptoe with raw eggs beneath his heels, or crouched with eggs tucked behind his knees.

“Hitting the target with your arrow is not enough, Dil Bahadur; you must also develop strength, stability, and muscle control,” the lama repeated patiently.

“Perhaps it would be more productive for us to eat the eggs, honorable master,” the prince would sigh when he broke them.

Dil Bahadur's spiritual apprenticeship was even more intense. When he was ten, the boy could enter a state of trance and rise to a higher level of consciousness; at eleven he could communicate telepathically and move objects without touching them; at thirteen, he made astral journeys. On his fourteenth birthday his master opened an orifice in his forehead to enable him to see auras. The operation actually perforated the bone and left a circular scar the size of a pea.

“All organic matter radiates energy, or an aura, a halo of light invisible to the human eye except in the case of certain persons with psychic
powers. You may learn many things from the color and shape of an aura,” Tensing explained.

During three consecutive summers, the lama traveled with the boy to cities in India, Nepal, and Bhutan, to train him in reading the auras of the people and animals he saw there. He did not, however, take him to the beautiful valleys and cultivated terraces in the mountains of his own country, the Forbidden Kingdom. He would return there only when his education was complete.

Dil Bahadur learned to use the eye in his forehead with such precision that by now, at the age of eighteen, he could identify the medicinal properties of a plant, the ferocity of an animal, or the emotional state of a person, just from viewing the aura.

In only two years the prince would be twenty, and his master's work would be done. Then Dil Bahadur would return for the first time to the affection of his family, and would go to study in Europe, because there was crucial knowledge to be learned in the modern world, information Tensing could not teach him but he would need if he was to govern his nation.

Tensing was devoting all his energies to preparing the prince to be a good king and to be able to decipher the messages of the Golden Dragon. Dil Bahadur's course of studies was intense and complex, so that sometimes he lost patience, but Tensing, unyielding, prodded him to keep working until both were exhausted.

“I do not want to be king, master,” Dil Bahadur said one day.

“Possibly my student would rather renounce his throne and not have to study,” smiled Tensing.

“I want to live a life of meditation, master. How shall I achieve enlightenment amid the temptations of the world?”

“Not everyone can be a hermit like me. It is your karma to be a ruler. Your illumination must
come as you travel a path much more difficult than that of meditation. You will have to achieve that while serving your people.”

“I do not want to leave you, master,” said the prince, his voice breaking.

The lama pretended not to see the tears in the youth's eyes.

“Wishes and fears are illusions, Dil Bahadur, not realities. You must practice detachment.”

“Must I also detach myself from affection?”

“Affection is like the noonday sun; it does not need the presence of another to be manifest. Separation between beings is also an illusion, since all things in the universe are connected. Our spirits will be together always, Dil Bahadur,” Tensing explained, noting, with some surprise, that he himself was not immune to emotion, and that he shared the sadness his disciple felt.

He, too, was distressed when he thought of the impending day when he must return the prince to his family, to the world, and to the throne of the Kingdom of the Golden Dragon for which he was destined.

CHAPTER FIVE

Eagle and Jaguar

T
HE PLANE CARRYING
A
LEXANDER
Cold landed in New York at five forty-five in the evening. At that hour, the heat of the June day had not yet faded. The youth remembered with good humor his first trip alone to that city, when almost as soon as he left the airport, an inoffensive-looking girl stole everything he owned. What was her name? He'd nearly forgotten . . . Morgana! A name from medieval sorcery. It seemed to him that years
had gone by since that incident, though it was only a few months. He felt like a different person: he'd grown up, he was more sure of himself, and he no longer had fits of anger and despair.

His family's crisis was behind them. It seemed that his mother had beat her cancer, though there was always the fear that it would come back. His father was smiling again, and his sisters, Andrea and Nicole, were beginning to grow up, too. He almost never fought with them anymore, just enough to be a true brother. He had gained a lot of respect among his friends. Even the beautiful Cecilia Burns, who used to pay about as much attention to him as she would to a flea, now asked him to help her with her math assignments. Well, more than just help. He had to do all the problems and then let her copy his work, but the girl's radiant smile was more than enough reward for him. All Cecilia Burns had to do was shake that shining mane of hair, and Alexander's ears turned red. Ever since he had returned from the Amazon with half his head shaven, with a proudly displayed scar and a string of incredible stories, he'd become very popular at school. Even so, he felt as if he didn't really fit in. His friends were not as much fun as they had been. Adventure had aroused his curiosity; the little town where he'd grown up was a barely visible dot on the map of Northern California. He felt he was suffocating there, he wanted to escape and explore the wide, wide world.

Alexander's geography professor suggested that he give an oral report to the class about his adventures. He arrived at school with his blowgun—though, to avoid accidents, without the curare-poisoned darts—photos of him swimming with a dolphin in the Rio Negro, subduing a crocodile with his bare hands, and wolfing down meat impaled on an arrow. When he explained that the meat was a hunk of anaconda, the
world's largest water snake, his classmates' amazement reached the point of disbelief. And he hadn't even told them the most interesting part: his journey into the territory of the People of the Mist, where he had encountered fabulous prehistoric creatures. Nor had he told them about Walimai, the aged shaman who helped him obtain the “water of health” for his mother, because that story would have made them think he'd lost his mind. He had written everything down very carefully in his diary, because he was planning to write a book. He even had the title; he would call it “City of the Beasts.”

He never said a word about Nadia Santos, or Eagle, as he called her. His family knew that he had left a friend in the Amazon, but only his mother, Lisa, guessed the depth of their relationship. Eagle was more important to him than all his friends put together, including the beautiful Cecilia Burns. He had no intention of exposing his memory of Nadia to the curiosity of a mob of ignorant teenagers who would never believe that the girl could talk with animals, or that she had found three fabulous diamonds, the largest and most valuable in the world. And certainly he couldn't mention that she had learned the art of making herself invisible. He himself had witnessed the Indians disappear at will, like chameleons taking on the colors and textures of the jungle; it was impossible to see them in broad daylight and from only six feet away. He had attempted their disappearing act but had never learned the skill. Nadia, on the other hand, did it as easily as if becoming invisible were the most natural thing in the world.

Jaguar wrote to Eagle almost every day, sometimes a paragraph or two, sometimes more. He stored up the pages and every Friday mailed them in a large envelope. The letters took over a month to reach Santa María de la Lluvia, which
was on the border between Brazil and Venezuela, but the two friends were resigned to the delays. Eagle lived in an isolated and primitive little village where the only telephone belonged to the police, and e-mail had never been heard of.

Nadia answered his letters with laboriously written brief notes, as if writing were a difficult task for her, but all it took was a few words from one of her letters and Alexander could sense her beside him, like a real presence. Each of those letters brought a breath of the jungle to California: sounds of water and concerts of birds and monkeys. Sometimes Jaguar thought that he could actually smell the damp of the trees, and that if he held out his hand he would be able to touch his friend. In her first letter, Eagle had told him that he should “read with his heart,” just as before he had learned to “listen with his heart.” According to her, that was the way to communicate with animals, or to understand an unknown language. With a little practice, Alexander learned to do that; then he discovered that he didn't need paper and ink to feel that he was in contact with Nadia. If he was alone, and if it was quiet, he simply thought about Eagle and could hear her. But he enjoyed writing her anyway. It was like keeping a diary.

When the door of the plane opened in New York, and the passengers finally could stretch their legs after six hours of immobility, Alexander exited carrying his backpack, hot and cramped but very happy at the idea of seeing his grandmother. His tan had faded, and his hair had grown; it now covered the scar on his head. He remembered that on his previous visit Kate had not met him at the airport, and he recalled how upset he had been. It was, after all, the first time he had traveled alone, but now he laughed to
think how afraid he'd been. This time his grandmother had been very clear: they were to meet
at
the airport.

Almost as soon as he came off of the long ramp into the gate area, he saw Kate Cold. She hadn't changed: the same spiky hair, the same broken eyeglasses mended with tape, the same jacket with a thousand pockets—all filled, the same knee-length, baggy shorts revealing thin, muscled legs scored like tree bark. The only surprise was her expression, which ordinarily conveyed concentrated fury. Alexander had not often seen his grandmother smile, although she frequently burst out laughing at the least opportune times—an explosive laugh like yipping dogs. Now she was smiling with something that resembled tenderness, although it was highly unlikely that she was capable of such a sentiment.

“Hi, Kate!” he greeted her, a little frightened by the possibility that his grandmother might be going a little soft in the head.

“You're a half hour late,” she spit out, coughing.

“All my fault,” he replied, calmed by her tone. She was the grandmother he'd always known; the smile had been an optical illusion.

Alexander took her arm as unemotionally as possible and planted a loud kiss on her cheek. She pushed him away, wiped off the kiss, and invited him for a soda, because they had two hours to kill before taking off for London on their way to New Delhi. Alex followed her to the clubroom for frequent flyers. The writer, who traveled often, at least allowed herself that luxury. Kate showed her card and they went in. Then, only nine feet away, he saw the surprise his grandmother had prepared for him: Nadia Santos.