The Avatari (61 page)

25 September

Peter

It was afternoon when Peter managed to pull himself up and sit with his back against the rock. He found that the men he imagined he had seen were camped all around him. They were close to the river, because he thought he heard the rush of water, but it was out of sight, screened by a small hillock. Horses grazed on a small outcrop of grass. A man noticed him move and called out in a language he had never heard before. Soon, he saw two other men approaching.

The taller of the two had distinctly mongoloid features, like the Hazara innkeeper they had stayed with the night before they entered the Big Pamir. He was a huge man, well over six feet tall by the look of him, with a long, straggly moustache and beard framing his fierce, strong-jawed, unlined face. The strands of grey in his facial hair were the only signs that he might be middle-aged or older.

The shorter, more genial-looking man had a smile on his face as he approached. He hurried to the spot where Peter lay and knelt beside him. The other man stood looking down at the two of them, his face impassive.

‘English?’ the shorter man asked eagerly, his voice a monotone, his teeth clenched and his lips barely moving, as if he were practising the word for the first time.

‘Yes!’ Peter replied, not bothering to hide his amazement. ‘Are you guys for real?’

He found that his voice was weak and he was almost panting from the loss of blood. His vision was blurring and he fought to stop himself from blacking out.

The shorter man did not appear to understand Peter’s last words, but bobbed his head up and down, his pudgy face breaking into a wide grin.

‘Good!’ he said encouragingly, ‘very good! We speak English. You take rest. Lie still. Ready by tomorrow.’

Peter slumped back on the rock, looking at them in a daze. They were dressed identically, each of them wearing a heavy woollen
del
, a wraparound garment which came down to below the knee, and partially covered thick, knee-length leather boots. Over the
del
, they had on body armour made of thick leather which covered their upper torso and made them look like quarterbacks in uniform. Both men wore sheepskin cloaks over their armour and the top of their leather helmets was encased in metal. The bigger man’s helmet had the head of a snow leopard adorning the crown.

Another man came up to them now, a wooden bowl in his hands, which the shorter man took from him after muttering his thanks. Then he held it up to Peter. The American stared at the contents – a cloudy liquid, with leaves and pieces of meat floating in it.

‘Drink. Good tea,’ the shorter man urged, bringing the bowl to Peter’s lips and letting him sip the mixture.

Peter slowly drank the ‘tea’, taking his time to chew the bits of meat. His mouth felt raw and burnt from the fever and his tongue had no sensation of taste whatsoever. But after a while, he felt some strength come back to his body.

When he had drained the contents of the bowl, the shorter man wiped Peter’s face with the sleeve of his
del
and said, ‘I am Tashi.’

‘Peter,’ he responded, trying to lift his hand in greeting, but the man who had introduced himself as Tashi held him down gently.

‘Do not worry. We meet in the morning, Peter
bagatur
,’ the man said with a smile, using their word for ‘warrior’.

Then the man got to his feet and walked away with his taller companion, leaving Peter on his own.

Peter realized he must have slept, for when he next awoke, it was early morning. There were hardly any clouds in the crisp blue sky, suffused with pink in the east. A light breeze drifted over his face. It was a gentle gust, but cold. Yet wrapped as he was in a thick fur, he was warm enough. His foot felt stiff and painful and his body still ached from the buffeting it had received from the rocks underwater, but the throbbing in his head was gone. It took him a moment to orient himself and recollect what had happened. He heard a movement and saw the back of a man, who had probably been assigned to watch over him, retreating. Peter pulled himself upright and sat with his back against the rock. His mouth felt very dry.

Susan, Ashton – I’ve got to go for them
, he thought.

Then he noticed two men approaching. Screwing his eyes up against the glare of the sun, Peter tried to make out their features and remembered having seen them the previous afternoon. They came and sat down next to him.

‘How are you feeling?’ the shorter one asked gently.

Peter now recalled the man’s name – Tashi.

‘I’m all right,’ he replied. His voice was hoarse. ‘Water, please,’ he said.

Tashi murmured a few words and the man who had been keeping an eye on Peter leaned forward and handed him a leather water bag, from which he drank in grateful gulps, the water spilling ice cold on his cheeks and stinging his chapped lips.

‘So you guys are the Jhagun?’ he asked.

‘Yes. You are the first to know our name,’ Tashi replied.

‘You mean, there have been people here before us?’

‘Other people like you, who have entered the Western Gate. Yes, many have come in search of the monastery. It is from them that we have information about the world outside. My English is all right?’

‘Yes,’ Peter answered, not bothering to tell Tashi that for some strange reason, he spoke the language like a Russian would have. ‘These people who came before us – you guided them?’

‘Yes. We know that such people have undertaken a very difficult journey and need our help.’ Tashi paused. ‘Some are evil and have to be stopped.’

‘And how do you do that?’

Tashi seemed almost surprised at the question.

‘We kill them,’ he answered simply.

‘Good,’ Peter replied with feeling. That was the attitude he wanted them to have. ‘But how did you know which members of our group to signal to? You did send me a signal, didn’t you?’

Tashi said something to the other man who had been sitting impassively like an Indian chief, without uttering a word. The man now reached into his
del
and took out a mirror which he held out to Peter who nodded in recognition.

‘We had been watching you since you entered the Gates. But you were still too far away. Then we saw the airplanes come in with the other people. So we kept watching you, till we were certain that it was you we needed to signal to.’

‘You
knew
I was coming?’ Peter asked, incredulous.

‘Yes. We also knew the
avatari
was with you. It is he who must be protected and brought safely to the monastery.’

‘Ashton?!’

‘If that is the name of the other man with you, then yes, it is him we speak of.’

‘But you did not attack the people who captured our party and took us hostage,’ Peter said.

‘It would have been of little use. They were carrying rifles and on that ground, we might not have been able to defeat them. Besides, it would have put the
avatari
at unnecessary risk.’

‘So
now
what is your plan?’

‘We have got you. You had correctly interpreted our signal. We had nets in the water to fish you out after the party on the ledge had passed.’

‘You mean,
I
am your plan?’ Peter asked, exasperated.

Yes,’ Tashi said simply. ‘You are the
bagatur
, the warrior who will lead us to victory over these evil men and deliver the
avatari
to the monastery. That is what has been foretold.’

Peter looked at the two men in disbelief. Then he began to curse, not giving a damn if they understood him.

Claire Donovant

In the morning, there was commotion in the camp. Susan and Ashton strained to find out what had happened. Stein was riding about, a length of rope in his hand, with which he lashed out at his men as he shouted curses in Spanish and German. Later, they would come to know that the last detail of duty on the perimeter patrol had not returned to the camp. They could not even find traces of where the two men had gone. There were no signs of a scuffle or, for that matter, of anything untoward. What had really got Stein’s goat was the way the two Afghans in their group kept blabbering about
chinokosins
or female ghosts who were supposed to abound in the mountains and had a penchant for devouring sleeping men.

‘
I
am the only ghost you
arshlochs
should fear!’ he shouted at them now.

He ordered them to break camp immediately and set off without breakfast.

Within two hours, they had reached the line of hills and were climbing. Ashton could tell Stein was uneasy. He would ride up and down, scanning all directions with his binoculars.

‘Has your transmitter started working?’ Stein asked Claire sharply, not for the first time.

‘Not yet,’ she answered evenly, looking straight ahead.

She had begun having doubts about Stein’s capabilities. His face was looking mottled, which was probably the altitude taking its toll. He hadn’t handled the loss of two of his men very well either.
Well, you always have to work with what you have
, she thought,
till they become expendable, of course
.

They climbed steadily for two hours, gradually reaching the crest. These were sandy hills, not very high themselves, but at this altitude, every foot you ascended counted. The animals plodded along, their heads down. Every now and then, one of them would flounder and would have to be pushed up by the cursing men. Luckily, their route was wide enough for the all-terrain vehicle or the ATV, which was carrying the heavy loads – mainly rockets and mortar bombs.

At the top of the crest, Claire paused to take a breather, though it was the wrong thing to do. The first point to remember, when up in the mountains, was to try and descend to lower altitudes and out of the wind’s path. But the view from the top was magnificent; they were looking down at a huge soup-bowl-shaped valley, rimmed on all sides by hills, the kind they had just climbed. Towards the top, for the last 200 yards or so on both sides, the hill was covered with patches of dull yellow ice. Stein had made some of the men stop to chip away at it with their machetes. The pieces they stuffed in bags could be melted, when required, at lower altitudes; water was always scarce and a critical factor. Above them, almost overhead, sullen grey clouds had massed and were being driven along by a steady crosswind which flung the loose sand into their faces, cutting their skin and stinging their chapped lips. The shoulders of their men now drooped with exhaustion and many were seized by bouts of coughing. There was very little conversation.

Claire looked at the altimeter strapped to her wrist. The digital dial showed 4,850 metres – about 16,000 feet. Technically, they weren’t acclimatized to this altitude, she mused, but most of the recruited men were from regions in the Andes and should be all right. She could feel the ends of her fingers and toes begin to tingle; that was the first indication of hypoxia. She forced herself to concentrate on her breathing.

Just then, she heard a low, moaning vibration and opened the flap of the canvas satchel she had strapped to her waist. She could see the amber light at the top of the transmitter glowing intermittently. Without breaking her stride, she looked up casually and saw that Stein was far ahead, riding downhill. She pressed another button at the top of the box. The light showed green, then faded back to amber. In a few minutes, all the lights went dim. They had briefly connected with the satellite overhead; she hoped they would get her signal. She didn’t plan to tell Stein about this;
let the idiot suffer
, she thought with grim satisfaction.

The descent to the valley floor was relatively swifter, not only because they were going downhill, but also because they were still at a high altitude. The ground was now scaly and cracked, much as a dry lakebed in the desert would be, but it was also interspersed with large, bulging mounds, like bruises in the earth. These turned out to be the most treacherous. The crust on top was wafer-thin, cracking and breaking under a man’s weight. In fact, one of the men almost went under and had to be pulled out by his companions. Minutes elapsed before they thought they could smell the gas. The fumes would reach their nostrils in barely discernible waves before suddenly ebbing away, making them wonder if they had imagined it all. It was a sweetish odour, not harsh or sulphurous, and they began to feel woozy. They could not decide if it was the gas, the altitude or just their mind playing tricks on them. This was the ‘lake of dreams’ that Ru San Ko had talked about, Claire mused, noticing that most of the men had taken out handkerchiefs or scarves and wet them with a few drops from their water bottles, before holding them over their noses.

Claire heard a shout and turned to see Stein beckoning her. She noticed Ru San Ko, Ashton and the sergeant already standing close by.

‘How much farther?’ Stein now asked Ashton. He was breathing heavily and his voice emerged in gasps.

Ashton found his direction from the weak sun, barely visible from behind a bank of clouds above the distant hills fringing the valley.

‘That way,’ he said, pointing north-east. ‘We have to climb out of this bowl and cross those hills in the distance.’

Stein thought it over, then came to a decision.

‘We will not be able to get out of this bowl before dark and I don’t want to camp at night in this
schiesshaus
,’ he said firmly. ‘We will turn back and climb the hill, till we are away from the smell of gas. There, we will camp for the night. Tomorrow morning, we will set out again and, in a day’s march, try crossing the hill the colonel has pointed out.’

They all nodded in agreement and the sergeant left them to give orders to the men. Stein turned to Ashton.

‘Colonel, I hope, for your sake, that these dreams of yours have some substance. I am very unpleasant to people having a laugh at my expense.’

Ashton turned and walked back to his mule, giving no indication that he had heard Stein’s warning.

They retraced their steps, climbing back up the slopes they had just crossed over. They moved back a few hundred yards more and found a flat spur where they camped for the night. The wind howled and whistled in the bowl below them and the sky was a smoky black, intermittently lit up, as it had the previous night, by jagged streaks of lightning. The sergeant placed double duties on the night watches, but he needn’t have bothered; not many of the men slept.