I

 

On the fourteenth day, with rations running low, they reached a plateau. It swept away, gray and arid, to a distant horizon, blending into the persistent Himalayan backdrop.

"Well," said Corporal Skinner. "Well, well, well." He sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of a gloved hand. A harsh, dry wind in­sinuated itself inside the greatcoat and he shivered. "Still bloody cold," he remarked.

"Make camp!" Sergeant Young said shortly and Corporal Skinner passed the order on to the men. They pitched their tents and managed to light fires and broke out the rations. Morale was high, considering.

The deep, clear, Himalayan night set in and the wind died. Eventually the moon rose over the mountains. Skinner tossed restlessly for a while, then went outside his tent. It was bit­terly cold, but not nearly so unpleasant as the day. Stillness enveloped him like a cocoon so that when a sentry snapped to attention, he started nervously. Then he grinned and called out, "Evening, George," leaving his Cockney accent to iden­tify him.

"Sah!" the sentry replied crisply.

"Just going for a little walk," Skin­ner told him mildly. Two days ago, any man in the Company would have called him Tom. Two days ago he hadn't been second-in-command.

"Sergeant's out there," the sentry volunteered.

"Might get a chat with him," Skin­ner said. "Anything else moving?"

"Not a thing, sir." Moonlight highlighted a youngish face.

"Good," Skinner nodded.

The ground was rocky and almost barren. Just a few tufts of wiry grass clung to the brittle topsoil. He wondered what it would be like when the snows came.

Up ahead he saw the sudden, feeble flaring of a match and Young's face flashed briefly into granite relief. Another match flared and Skinner grinned. Jock was trying to light a pipe. He walked over with calculated lack of stealth.

"You'll never manage it, Sarge," he said softly. "Bloody things won't stay lit at this height." His hand went, quite involuntarily, to the pocket of his greatcoat and curled around his own cold pipe. Even through the heavy gloves, the curve of the bowl gave him some faint comfort.

A third match flared, went out. "You're right, Tom." The pipe van­ished into a pocket. "Ah'm probably better without it." The sergeant half turned and stared silently out across the moonlit plateau.

"Where do you think we are, Jock?" Skinner asked him quietly.

'Too high for a start." The harsh, gravel voice with its soft Scots bun-floated through the stillness. "According to the maps, we should be coming into the foothills by now." He coughed suddenly and spat. 'The trouble with fighting a war in this Godforsaken country, laddie, is you can't trust your ordinance. Move off the track a mile and you're good as lost."

"Pity we moved off the track, then."

"Didn't have much option, did we?"

"No," Skinner agreed, thinking of Captain Dennis.

They stood, hands deep in great­coat pockets, listening to the silence.

'Think we'll see any more action, Sarge?" Skinner asked eventually.

In the moonlight the big, broad sergeant shook his head. "I'd wager my last bawbee that Younghusband's into Lhasa now." He chuckled. "Give him a week or two to make terms and the way we're go­ing, we might meet him coming back."

"If we can get out of these moun­tains."

"Aye," Sergeant Young agreed.

 

The noise roused him before reveille in the morning. He peered sleepily around his tent flap and saw Morgan dragging a young Tibetan boy across the compound. The lad was struggling wildly. Skinner ducked in again and began to dress hurriedly. He had a feeling he was going to be needed.

He came out to find Sergeant Young sitting on a knapsack, staring impassively at the boy. Morgan was standing to one side, fingering his rifle. The boy's eyes flickered ner­vously from the big, ugly Scotsman to the ludicrously grim-faced guard.

"Ask him what he was up to, Cor­poral."

Skinner put the question in Nepalese, which he spoke fluently, but the boy looked blank. He switched, haltingly, to the local Xhampa dia­lect. The boy glanced at him in sur­prise, then began to chatter wildly.

When he had finished, Skinner told Young, "His name's Losang and he has a big brother who'll beat the hell out of you." Then, because Mor­gan was listening, he added, "Sir."

The sergeant grinned. "Ask him where his brother is. Tell him we might bring him back."

"That way," Skinner translated la­conically and pointed.

"Any idea how far?"

"Just a short way, he says. But dis­tance doesn't mean much to these people."

Sergeant Young rubbed a gloved hand across his chin. "It can't be more than a mickle. A lad his age—"

One of the sentries came racing over, stopped and snapped to atten­tion. "Party approaching, sir! "He caught his breath. "Northeast direc­tion."

Young stood up. "How many strong?"

"Can't say for sure, Sergeant, at the distance."

"Get the men fell in, Corporal." To the sentry he said, "You can show me where to look, laddie."

Morgan coughed. "What about this one, Sergeant?"

Young glanced back at the boy.

'Tell him you'll shoot him if he moves, Corporal." He turned away so the youngster could not see his smile. "But if he's the nerve to try, let him go and good luck to him."

Skinner watched the sergeant walk off, then translated the threat. The boy spat disdainfully, but did not move away. Skinner turned and went off to organize the men.

By the time the party came within hailing distance, the men had been deployed in a semicircle around the camp, using boulders for cover. It was purely a precaution. The ap­proaching party looked too small to start a fight. Unless, of course, there were reinforcements coming up be­hind.

Skinner strained his eyes. Only the leader was mounted, a slight figure in a yellow robe straddling a shaggy pony. The rest walked beside him or straggled in an uneven line behind. They were all smallish men, dressed alike in russet robes. As they came closer, Skinner noticed the shaven heads and began to wonder suddenly if they might be monks. Not that it mattered: they were outnumbered more than two to one.

They stopped, quite suddenly. He wondered if they had just noticed the rifles pointed in their direction.

"Corporal Skinner'. To the front rank!"

Skinner moved up obediently to join the sergeant. "Looks as aye big brother has arrived," Young re­marked dryly. "We'll go parley."

"Any more coming up behind?", Skinner  asked, a little nervously.

"Not that we can see, Corporal," Young said briskly. Then, in an un­dertone, he added, "What's the mat­ter, laddie—surely you don't want to live forever?"

"Bloody sure I do!" Skinner whis­pered back.

The rifles came up reassuringly as he and the sergeant walked across the shrub. The wind was in their faces and now, in contrast to the clear night sky, a thick gray cloud cover was nestling on the mountain peaks. The only movement in the party ahead came from two of the men who were helping their leader dismount.

"Tell them we want to talk," Young instructed out of the corner of his mouth. "Tell them they can send one man or two and we guaran­tee they won't be harmed." He drew breath in the biting wind. "And tell them if they mess about with us, Ah'll have them mowed down like field mice."

Skinner shouted the message in his halting Tibetan, then waited. Af­ter a moment, the leader detached himself from the group and began to walk slowly forward. He was dressed in a high fur hat and wrapped in a heavy purple cloak around his saf­fron robe. "Might have a knife under that cloak, Sarge," Skinner mur­mured. But as the man came closer, his fears eased.

"That one's a lama," Young whis­pered. "The uniform would tell you."

"Must be a hundred if he's a day."

"In his seventies I'd say, lad­die ..."

The old man walked slowly, with great dignity, to within a few yards of them. He watched them for a sec­ond or two with glittering black eyes, then bowed.

"Don't bow back," Skinner cau­tioned in an undertone. "It's impor­tant to show who's boss."

The old man came erect and said something in a high, musical voice.

"He offers greetings from his Ab­bot and wishes to present us with scarves," Skinner translated. "He comes in peace and wishes to know if the boy novice from his party is unharmed." He sniffed. "That one's educated, Jock. You can tell by the way he sounds his vowels."

"Tell him we'll gladly take his gift of scarves—" The big sergeant's com­posure slipped for a moment and he asked cannily, "Do we have to give him something back?"

"Yes," Skinner said. "More scarves."

"Please do not worry about need­less formalities," said the old man in heavily accented English.

 

Sergeant Young curled his hands around the little silver bowl of luke­warm tea, sipped from it, scowled. "What do you make of it, laddie?" he asked suddenly.

Skinner was sitting with his back propped against the gray stone wall and his toes, curling with reflex pleasure, held out to the brazier. His boots were Beside him, near his Sam Browne and his pistol. He had his rifle across his knees, cleaning it. "I think it's solved our rations problem, Sarge," he said.

Young snorted and frowned thoughtfully. "If you found a troop of enemy soldiers parading through your back yard, would you invite them in for tea?"

"Nope." Skinner took a tin of grease from his knapsack and began to apply it to the bolt of his rifle.

"No, you wouldn't. Nor would I."

"Of course," said Skinner, "I'm not one of these mad wogs." He worked the bolt vigorously. "I'm a mad Englishman and there's a lot of difference."

"Not when it comes to basics, lad­die. We're part of an invading force—at least we were until the cap­tain got us lost. So why the red car­pet?"

"I suppose they know?" Skinner asked abruptly.

"Know what?"

'That there's a war on—it's pretty remote up here."

"Bad news travels," Young growled shortly.

Skinner said nothing. He had not been entirely happy with the ser­geant's decision. It was a shade too much like walking into the spider's parlor. At the same time the monas­tic life had its advantages. He curled his toes again.

"What do you think of the Ab­bot?" Young must be feeling jumpier than he showed:  he was talking far, far more than usual.

"Not a patch on the old geezer who met us."

"Ah think he's sly," the sergeant said sourly.

Skinner clicked the bolt of his rifle and sighted along the shining barrel. "They always give that impression. It's the religious training."

 

The monastery housed two hun­dred and thirty monks, according to the figures given by the Abbot, and was built like a small medieval town. It was walled, with several buildings opening off a central courtyard. Some of them, including the temple, were actually cut into the rock face.

"You appreciate," said Gyalo Thondup in his measured, high-pitched tones, "that there had pre­viously been many caves in the mountain and these aided the build­ers. It was, you might say, a task of conversion."

"German!" Skinner said suddenly. "Bloody must be!" He leaned for­ward and jabbed a finger toward the old lama sitting cross-legged oppo­site. "You've got a German accent!"

Thondup smiled, bleakly. "I was taught your language—along with his own—by an Austrian who visited Lhasa fifteen years ago."

Impatiently Sergeant Young cut in. "Gyalo Thondup Lama, my men have rested themselves. Now we must press on to join the remainder of our expeditionary force." He hesi­tated, then said bluntly, "Ah'll need maps of the district."

"My Venerable Master the Abbot has instructed me that guides will naturally be at your disposal."

'The Abbot's kind," said Young, "but Ah'll still want maps."

Thondup's glittering black eyes glazed and his features grew ex­pressionless. "I shall speak of it to my Venerable Master."

"What was all that about?" Skin­ner asked when the old lama had left.

Sergeant Young got up and walked across to the window. Be­cause the room was on an upper floor, he could see over the wall and out onto the steep trail leading down to the plateau; and beyond it, the sweep of the plateau itself. Despite the cold and frequent frosts, they were well below the snow line here. But the first storms were due soon. "Lord knows what a guide would walk you into," he said. "But maps are maps."

Skinner came over and joined him at the window. He was a smallish man and far more lightly built than the sergeant. "Tsk! Tsk!" he said. "You've got a nasty suspicious mind, Jock."

"Aye," Young muttered dourly.

Less than an hour later, they were examining maps, frail, beautiful scrolls that crackled as they were unrolled. Skinner felt a creeping chill. If these maps were accurate, they were miles from where they should be. Captain Dennis had a lot to an­swer for. But then, of course, he'd answered for it.

"What do you think, Tom?" the sergeant asked him gravely.

Skinner scowled. "Nice to know where we are anyway—up the flip­ping creek without a paddle!"

"It's not as bad as that, laddie!" Young said heartily. "There are three possibilities here as far as I can see. The shortest one is pressing on and hoping the Good Lord lets us make it through here—" He stabbed at the map with a broad, thick finger. "Or we could cut across the plateau and try to reach this trail—" The fin­ger jabbed again. "Or we could double back the way we came and branch off where we went wrong: which Ah'll vow was about here—" The finger pointed, then came up off the map to help scratch the close-cropped head. "The trouble is we're going to hit the storms soon which­ever way we go."

"Please forgive my interference, Sergeant Young," Thondup put in smoothly, "but it would not be advis­able to cross the plateau without guides. The area is exceedingly treacherous for those—" He coughed drily, "—unfamiliar with its perils."

The big sergeant glanced at Skin­ner, but said nothing.

They had difficulty getting rid of the old lama without downright rudeness, but he left them eventually with obvious reluctance. Skinner and the sergeant walked from the hall they had commandeered to- private quarters. Once inside, Young said, "So our friends don't want us roaming round the plateau." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Now why do you suppose that is, Corporal?"

'They don't want us to fall down and get hurt," Skinner told him, deadpan.

"Ah see," Young nodded with dry humor. He began to pace up and down, frowning, his bulk too large for the room. Skinner propped his back against the wall and waited. Eventually Young said, "Suppose they have military installations out there?"

Skinner wrinkled his nose and shook his head. "Makes no sense, Sarge. If there's a secret army on the plateau, why not call them in to put us in our place? We haven't that many men and they can't be worried about our main force when they know bloody well we've lost them. But they didn't do a thing except in­vite us in and let us take over their monastery."

'There's something out there they don't want us to know about."

"Maybe it's where they keep their women," Skinner grinned.

The sergeant started pacing again. When he stopped, quite a long time later, his expression had fallen into its familiar lines. "Corporal," he said crisply, "send word to the Abbot we won't be moving for a while yet—"

'What about the storms, Sarge?"

"Ah worry about that when Ah have to. Tell the men to stand by, but not to make it obvious we're ex­pecting trouble—"

"Are we?" Skinner asked.

"Maybe."   Young   paused,   then added, "When you've got that orga­nized, come back here. I've another job for you."

 

It happened on the fourth night, just long enough for him to convince himself nothing was going to hap­pen. He watched the little torchlit procession file out through the main gate, watched the gate closed silently behind them. When they moved— hopefully—out of earshot, he climbed the rope and dropped down on the frozen ground. Beyond the torchlit snake, the night was pitch black, still and deadly cold.

He moved after them stealthily, feeling the weight of the rifle slung over his back, the weight of the pis­tol in his belt. He felt nervous and very much alert.

It was hard enough going, but de­spite his exertions, the cold wormed its way inside his clothing and once, briefly, he thought he felt a flurry of snow against his face. But he had no trouble following. The torches shone like a beacon across the plateau and, once they had moved a distance away from the monastery, the monks in the party ahead began to chant softly. The sound traveled eerily in the night.

They had been on the move for al­most an hour, as near as he could judge, when he noticed a curious lightness in the sky ahead, like the first faint hint of dawn before the sun begins its climb above the hori­zon. As he moved on, it occurred to him that the source of the light was on the ground, yet it seemed far too steady for a campfire.

He was still wondering when, abruptly, the torchlight party van­ished. He could still hear the chant­ing, but the torches had winked out abruptly, leaving nothing but the cold, steady glow. Seconds later, he found himself climbing and con­cluded the party had simply dropped behind a ridge.

With nothing but the chanting to guide him, he slowed, fearful of walking into any stragglers and rais­ing an alarm; and after a moment he found he could not hurry anyway, for the path had become very steep and rocky.

Ahead of him, the glow grew stronger.

He topped the ridge breathlessly. He stood for a moment, staring down, then, with a curious deliber­ation, began to scream.

 

II

 

Gyalo Thondup was solicitous, on his own behalf and on behalf of his Abbot. It pained him deeply that the corporal's mind now showed signs of derangement. What a tragedy that he had attempted to cross the plateau at night—and alone! The effect of ex­posure.

Sergeant Young listened impas­sively.  Behind him, on the  straw mattress, Corporal Skinner lay staring at the ceiling. He had stopped screaming now, but his eyes were glazed and he would not reply to questions. So far, he had completely failed to respond to stimulus—even pain.

"My Venerable Master the Abbot has, of course, ordered prayers sung on his behalf," Thondup was saying.

The old lama was lying, of course. Not about the prayers, which con­ceivably had been ordered for show, but about the night on the plateau. Something had happened to Skinner and Thondup knew exactly what. But he wasn't likely to change his story now. As far as anyone was con­cerned, Skinner had been found near the monastery at dawn, dazed and wandering.

Was it, the sergeant wondered suddenly, the result of drugs?

He was still thinking of drugs when Thondup left him—a herbal mixture brewed to produce delirium. It would make sense provided Skin­ner had stumbled onto something he wasn't supposed to see. His mind reverted to the old notion of a military encampment—reserve forces, possi­bly, drawn up for a surprise counter­attack against Younghusband. What­ever Skinner said, it was the most likely explanation. On reflection, Skinner's objections didn't make all that much sense anyway. Why divert troops to deal with a few of the enemy, lost in the mountains and relatively harmless, when every man would be needed to hit the main force on the plains?

Young began to pace again. If there were Tibetan soldiers out there, his duty was clear enough.

A little-later, he issued orders to move out. Two men were ordered to commandeer a stretcher for Skinner. As an afterthought, looking into Skinner's blank: eyes, he made Mor­gan an acting corporal and second in command.

The Abbot, dutifully flanked by Gyalo Thondup and several other dignitaries, met them in the court­yard, bowing and smiling.

It was with deep regret, Thondup explained, effusive in his Oriental courtesy, that his Venerable Master the Abbot had learned of his guests' decision to depart. Guides would, of course, be provided to ensure their safe—

Sergeant Young cut him short with an impatient gesture. He tow­ered above the lamas like a giant over pygmies. "No guides, if you please. We'll find our own way with the help of your maps."

Surprisingly, Thondup only shrugged and bowed. The Abbot and his party stood aside and the little British force marched in strict for­mation through the main gate, down the trail and onto the plateau.

The ambush hit them only fifteen minutes later.

 

Sergeant Young deployed his men in a huge, sweeping arc across the plain, each one just within sight of two others. They moved forward slowly, searching.

He felt sick. He kept seeing the bodies lying on the frozen ground, bleeding slowly, dying. He'd shot men in the Crimea, in India, even here a few weeks earlier. But it had never been like this before: always the enemy had been armed.

In his mind's eye he saw the young monks fling themselves, open-hand­ed, on his men. So many of them. Too many, so that guns had to be used. And then the slaughter, the unarmed men bleeding onto the arid ground.

If they were attacked now, his own men wouldn't stand a chance. But Young had changed his mind about what they were facing. If anything made any sense, the unarmed am­bush ruled out the possibility of a military encampment. Now the men had simply been instructed to search, with no one—least of all Young—sure what they might be searching for.

The line moved slowly forward.

In the middle of the afternoon, the sergeant heard a shout. He swung round. Hitchen, one of the youngest privates, was standing on the top of a steep rise, waving. The nearest men were converging on him at the double. Young began to run.

As he topped the rise, he realized instantly what had caught Hitchen's attention. Below them, nestling in a shallow, natural crater was a low, round, domed building, beautifully designed and recently painted silver. It reflected fluidly.

Young stopped and stared. He'd seen nothing like it anywhere else in Tibet—or even India, for that matter. It had no doors or windows on the side he could see and the silvering was a work of art, so beautifully done that the whole structure might have been made of metal. He guessed at a wooden framework cov­ered with silvered cloth, possibly silk. A sickening suspicion was rising in his mind.

He circled the building slowly. The lack of doors and windows on the other side confirmed his suspi­cion. The building was not practical at all, but religious. His stomach churned. He'd had a hundred unarmed monks shot so his men could violate a religious taboo.

Woodenly, he went through the proper motions of approach. He de­ployed men at the ready in a full circle round the construction. When they were in position, he ordered them to fire at the first sign of dan­ger. Then, departing from the rule book, he walked down himself to take a closer look.

A hundred yards away from the dome, his depression vanished abruptly to be replaced by a wary alertness. The illusion of metal was too perfect for the distance. But if the thing was metal, how had the monks worked it? And what process kept the metal fresh, fluid, glistening in this ghastly climate?                     |

It was metal! He struck it with his rifle and it rang like steel. With a caution honed fine by years of training, he broke and ran back toward his men. The sudden movement starts tied them and he could see the rifles come up, but no one fired without an order.

"What's wrong, Sergeant?" Mor­gan asked him as he reached the top of the ridge again.

"Nothing's wrong, laddie, except Ah don't know what that thing is yet. Until Ah do, Ah feel safer at a distance." His accent thickened with the heavy breathing.

"What do we do, Sarge?"

"Make camp on the other side of the ridge. Ah want six men posted to keep an eye on that thing. Then Ah want time to work out what to do about it."

But he got no time. Just after his tent was pitched, Gyalo Thondup and the Abbot arrived, in­congruously escorted by two grim-faced sentries. The sight of them brought back the full pain and hor­ror of the ambush. Young waved them to sit down and called for tea. But he cut the formalities short by stating bluntly, "Ah'm sorry about your men. They gave me no choice."

"You had no choice," Thondup nodded.

The big sergeant stared into the old, glittering black eyes. "Why did you send them against me?"

Thondup sat silent, his face as blankly innocent as a newborn child.

"All right," Young sighed. 'Then what's the metal thing over the ridge?" He jerked his head.

Thondup looked towards the Ab­bot and translated the question. In the half-light of the tent, they seemed very frail, very strange old men. With their shaved heads and their little gray beards, they might have been brothers—even twins. There was a long pause before the Abbot spoke and then he spoke very slowly. When, he had finished, Thondup said simply, "It is the home of the gods."

 

The gods, Gyalo Thondup Lama explained, first visited Tibet in pre­historic times. The land itself had not been formed. What was now a country was then an inland sea, sur­rounded by uninhabited forests and mountains. The gods, who came from beyond the sky in a fiery celes­tial chariot, had landed on the bed of this sea, for water and land was all one to them.

Knowing all things past, present and future, the gods realized that one day this primeval seabed would be a land inhabited by a humble and pious people. So they decided to make the land their own and set their special signs upon it.

Slowly, over millennia, the waters departed. So too did the gods. But they gave a promise to the spirits of the land that they would assuredly return.

Men gradually began to appear in this remote region. Tribes settled and squabbled amongst themselves for many years, forgetful of religion and unmindful of law.

But one glorious morning, more than two thousand years ago, the gods returned, riding their celestial chariot in above the Himalayan ranges to claim their birthright.

In the year of the Wood Tiger (or, as the Indians measured time, four hundred and eighteen years after the death of the Lord Buddha) the gods unified the warring tribes and set one of their number, King Nya-Tri-Tsenpo, to rule over the land.

Taking wives from amongst the daughters of men, King Nya-Tri-Tsenpo founded a dynasty which ruled without a break for forty gen­erations. As an immortal, the king could not die, but when his ap­pointed time arrived, he was again taken beyond the sky in a fiery char­iot, leaving his son to rule after him.

Until the advent of the twenty-eighth king of the dynasty, the people of Tibet worshiped the gods, honoring them along with the nature spirits of the region and the spirits of their ancestors. Then, in the reign of Lha-Tho-Ri-Nyen-Tsen, a tragedy happened. Buddhist scriptures were introduced into Tibet.

Sergeant Young's jaw dropped. 'Tragedy? The first scriptures of your own religion?"

Thondup frowned, then answered mildly, "We are priests of Bon, the Venerable Abbot and I."

Young shook his head. He was no expert on this Godforsaken land. Just one of the soldiers Curzon sent in to persuade Lhasa into a bit of trade. "Go on," he murmured.

The rot, Thondup said, did not really set in until the reign of the thirty-third king, Song-Tsen-Gampo. Although born of the line of the gods, he embraced Buddhism totally and established many temples.

But the gods continued to appear to their faithful followers. In the reign of Tri-Dhi-Tsuk-Ten, for in­stance, three generations after the accursed Song-Tsen-Gampo, war broke out between China and Tibet. The king's minister, Ta-Ra-Lu-Gong, was a secret follower of Bon and, helped by certain machines loaned to him by the gods, he pushed with Tibetan forces deep into Chinese territory and conquered a number of provinces.

Buddhism continued to gain strength, however, and, coincident with its penetration into every corner of the state, Tibet's power grew. At that time, the old gods had not shown themselves for many genera­tions and the simple people consid­ered they would never return.

Yet return they did. A great celes­tial chariot sailed into the remote vastness of northern Tibet in the year of the Iron Bird. The gods themselves instructed Lang-Dar-Ma, forty-first king of their ancient line, and he attempted, during his reign, to reverse the tide of events and up­root Buddhism from Tibetan soil.

But the task proved too great for him. After six years he was assassi­nated. The gods were angry and withdrew from the sight of men for a period of fully five hundred years. For more than three hundred and forty of these years, Tibet was in tur­moil, split into dozens of tiny, quar­reling kingdoms.

When the gods eventually re­turned, however, it was to find Tibet reunified. The task had been accom­plished almost two centuries earlier by a high lama from Sakya monas­tery, who became the country's first priest-king.

Mortals might be tempted to imagine the gods would have been distressed at this victory of a rival re­ligion. But mortals could not know the thoughts and plans of the gods. They made no further move to over­throw the established religion, and were content simply to claim the help of their followers during those periods when they revealed them­selves.

Even when there was a return to secular monarchy between (in the Christian calendar) 1435 and 1641, the gods made no move to intervene in the country's affairs. Nor did they attempt to intervene in the Water Horse year (1642) when a Dalai Lama first took control of the state. Indeed, at that time, the gods had entered one of their many with­drawn periods. They revealed them­selves to no one and their chariots came no more over the high Hima­layas.

Yet from time to time they did re­turn to instruct the faithful and re­ward those who had kept alight the lamp of their teachings. The ancient records showed that the great chari­ots had appeared briefly in 1652 at a time when, coincidentally, the Dalai Lama was out of the country on a state visit to China. Again, as Bon priests recorded, the gods appeared to men in 1780, 1785, 1786 and 1840.

A celestial chariot had, some said, been seen by goatherds in 1855, al­though there was no record of its having landed.

Thondup paused, his dark, hooded eyes staring thoughtfully into those of the big sergeant.

Young shifted uneasily and coughed. "Do Ah take it that the thing over the ridge is a special temple to the gods?"

For the first time, Thondup's fea­tures betrayed surprise. "Oh no," he said in his high-pitched, accented voice. 'That is a celestial chariot."

 

He left an armed guard watching over the two old priests, although neither of them seemed very inter­ested in going anywhere. He had the bulk of his men stationed along the ridge now. He was more nervous than he showed. With the fall of darkness, the metal structure had be­gun to glow, a hard, bluish light which illuminated the immediate area as adequately as a full moon.

Sergeant Young went up to join the men, worried by his thoughts. Gyalo Thondup still insisted that it must have been the sight of the gods that drove Skinner—an unbeliever—insane. Young listened, but thought it . . . unlikely.

"Anything happening, Peters?" he asked the man nearest him.

"Nothing yet, sir. Nothing stir­ring."

"Hm-m-m," Young said. The bluish halo had to be electrical. Maybe a static charge built up on metal in the rare atmosphere. But then why didn't the rifles show halos?

"Excuse me, Sergeant. . ."

"Aye, Peters?"

"What are you expecting to hap­pen, sir?"

The burly sergeant thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. "God knows, laddie. Nothing prob­ably." He wished he had cannon. A rifle bullet wouldn't even dent that shell. Instantly he wondered why his instinct was to attack it. And what was he doing with thirty British sol­diers watching a religious artifact?

He half turned and almost missed seeing the door open out of sheer metal. (There hadn't been a door before—without doubt there hadn't been a door before!) He swung round and watched as Satan walked out into the luminous blue glow.

Instantly, panic broke out among the men. Several of them started shooting wildly, and the heavy, brass-jacketed slugs ricocheted off the metal wall. Someone ran past Young, stumbling down the ridge into the darkness. There was a lot of shouting as military discipline, drilled in with months of training, broke down in seconds under the im­pact of a single, impossible sight. From somewhere in the darkness, a man started screaming.

Sergeant Young snapped an order to stand firm, but it had no effect. The panic spread like wildfire. Within seconds, the men were streaming past him, tripping, stumbling, falling, half insane in their de­sire to get as far away from the crea­ture as possible.

Young let them go. To his sur­prise, all his previous uneasiness had vanished. He stared down from the height of the ridge at Satan. Satan was tall and brown and slender, with huge bat wings the full size of his body. His head was perfectly bald, perfectly smooth, perfectly ovoid. His eyes were enormous and strangely beautiful. There were no horns.

Satan walked fiuidly a little way away from the doorway. Was he wearing clothing—skin-tight brown clothing? It was difficult to be sure at this distance in the half light.

Very calmly, Sergeant Young lifted his rifle and aimed carefully at the heart region. As Satan turned to face him full on, he fired once. Satan slammed backward and the bat wings spread wide in some dying re­flex. Behind him the doorway van­ished instantly. Satan crumpled in a leathery heap on the frozen ground.

Sergeant Young began to run down from the ridge. The entire silver metal building rose into the air and rushed toward him with a shriek of tortured air. He threw himself to the ground and rolled over and over as the huge bulk passed above him. It hummed, like a multitude of angry bees. His back and part of his left side began to itch, then bum. It was an irritating pain, but not a crippling one. By the time he pulled himself shaking, to his feet, the glowing metal dome was little bigger than a florin in the sky. He was in total darkness. Somewhere ahead of him was Satan's corpse.

Young wept. He stood in the cold Tibetan darkness and wept.

 

III

 

Morgan, crimson with shame, led the advance party over the ridge at dawn. There was nothing to show where the flying machine had rest­ed. (God in heaven, these natives had flying machines and Curzon had sent an expedition against them!) But down there on the fro­zen ground were the crumpled re­mains of the thing he'd seen the night before and near it, prostrate, was Sergeant Young.

Morgan approached gingerly. He was more or less an atheist, but even so the sight of the bat wings in the half light had thrown a medieval ter­ror into him. Now, in the dawn light, he had vague thoughts of unknown animals. But he still hoped it was dead. Even at a distance, the leathery skin revolted him, making his spine crawl as if he had been forced to touch a snake.

He stopped and knelt by Sergeant Young, sliding his hand inside the clothing in search of a heartbeat. Young was almost rigid with the cold and one hand, where he had pulled the glove off, was bright blue. But the heart beat strongly, so strongly that there seemed no doubt he would live.

Acting Corporal Morgan called two of his men and ordered them to carry the sergeant, at the double, back to camp and warmth. Then, keeping his voice firm with an effort, he ordered two others to lift the bat-winged corpse and carry it back as well.

He turned his back as they lifted it and ignored the surprised comment from one of them about how light, how very light, it was.

 

Young woke, in his tent, weighed down by a mountain of blankets.

Morgan was kneeling over him hold­ing a steaming mug of tea. The ser­geant took it and drank gratefully, although it wasn't hot enough. Tea was never hot enough in the moun­tains: water boiled at a lower tem­perature than it should.

He looked around. "What hap­pened?"

With only a small hesitation, Mor­gan said, "We're not sure, Sarge. You shot the animal and then something got at you. Your back's all burned and we found you pretty stiff."

He could feel the discomfort across his back, although there was little enough pain now. He grinned. "Ah thought the whole dome went for me!"

"It was a flying machine, Ser­geant!"

There was silence in the tent as they stared at one another without understanding. Young flexed the muscles of his left hand, which seemed to have lost all sense of feel­ing. "What happened to the thing I shot?"

Morgan swallowed. "I had it brought back to camp."

"Did the natives see it—the old priests?"

'They watched us bring it in."

"Get upset, did they?"

Morgan frowned. "Not that I no­ticed, Sarge."

Another ruddy mystery. Young pushed the blankets away from his body and heaved himself upright. He felt remarkably well, considering. All except the numbness in his left hand.

With no further reason to cross the plateau, Young led his men on the direct route through the higher mountain pass. They carried two stretchers, one bearing Skinner, still blank and oblivious to his surround­ings; the other with the weird, winged body strapped to it, perfectly preserved by the bitter Tibetan cold.

They were almost through the pass when, a little early, the first storm of winter broke and trapped them.

 

IV

 

Next spring, when the thaw came, two young acolytes searched out the body of the winged creature and carried it with great reverence back to the Bon monastery above the plateau.

There it was embalmed according to the traditional rites, gilt and placed, facing north, in a niche in the main temple.                                   |

And there it remained, from that| soft spring of 1904 until the harder spring of 1959 when, piqued by the flight of the Dalai Lama, the Chinese burned down several monasteries, that one amongst them.

A few artifacts survived the flames, but the ‘gilted, carved-wood statue of a demon', as the Chinese inventory described it, was not amongst them.