27
WE’VE GOT TO TRUST THE YAK
“KHRUUUMPF,” the yak grunted.
“It’s the talking yak from my dream!” Oliver shouted once he overcame his surprise.
“What’s he saying?” Celia asked.
“ ‘Khruuumpf,’ ” Oliver said.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is ‘khruuumpf’ the sound a yak makes?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, ‘khruuumpf’ isn’t very helpful.”
“I think he might only talk in dreams.”
“Well, we don’t have time for you to go sleep.”
“I think we’re supposed to ride him.”
“Did he say that?”
“No.” Oliver pointed. “But he’s wearing a saddle.”
“I can’t remember,” Celia said. “Do yaks eat people?”
“I hope not,” Oliver answered.
“Khruuumpf,” said the yak.
On the yak’s back was a large saddle made of thick brightly colored carpet and leather straps. With the cold dry air blasting into the tunnel and the snow swirling around, the blanket saddle looked very inviting, even though it smelled absolutely terrible. One thing that the twins quickly learned about yaks is that they do not smell good, even the mystical green-eyed ones.
“Yaaaaarrr,” the yak said, which could have been a happy noise or could have been gas.
“We have to trust the yak.” Oliver held his nose and climbed on, then hoisted his sister up.
The yak turned and began walking away from the small entrance to the tunnel and up the rocky slopes of the mountain. Celia grabbed one of the blankets and wrapped it around Oliver. Then she wrapped another around herself. Sitting on the yak was surprisingly comfortable and the yak moved along the icy and rocky ground much more easily than the twins could have on foot.
“I hope he knows where he’s going,” Celia said.
“He hasn’t been wrong so far,” Oliver answered as he patted the yak’s thick brown fur.
“Hey Oliver,” Celia said, her voice sounding relaxed for the first time in two days. “Look at that.”
Oliver turned and saw a distant mountain with a line of ants marching around it. When he looked closer, he saw that they weren’t ants, but people who looked tiny next to the giant mountain, hundreds of people walking single file. Some of them held flags and banners; some of them held tall poles with spinning prayer wheels at the top. Some of them held nothing but packs on their backs, and every few steps, they would kneel on the ground and then bend down and touch their foreheads to the cold earth. A few people even stretched out like they were lying down for a nap. Then they stood up again, took a few more steps and lay down again. When the wind changed directions they could hear the crowd murmuring and chanting, though they couldn’t make out any words.
Oliver looked in the other direction and saw a vast icy plain stretching into jagged mountain peaks under a bright blue sky. As they continued up, they could see behind them and down toward the gorge, a shock of tropical green below the brown and white of the high plains. Both of the twins felt light-headed from the altitude, but the yak climbed onward, upward, for hours and hours.
“Khruuumpf.”
“Did the yak say something?” Celia asked.
“No,” Oliver said sadly. “That was my stomach. I’m starving.”
Celia just grunted. She was hungry too. They hadn’t eaten since breakfast with Lama Norbu, back when he was Lama Norbu. She hoped that wherever they were going, they had some not-poisoned food. Cheeseburgers would be nice, chicken soup would be fine. Maybe some hot chocolate. She hoped it wouldn’t be something slimy.
The sun was setting and the sky turned a glistening shade of orange and yellow and red over the snowcapped mountains. The ice shimmered in the last light of the day, and the cold seemed to thicken around the twins.
“It’s getting really c-c-c-cold,” Oliver said through chattering teeth.
“I hope we g-ge-get where we’re going s—ss—sss—soon,” Celia agreed.
Within seconds it was dark, a terrifying, howling-wind, ice-cold dark. The yak didn’t seem to mind and just kept climbing, stepping up onto rocks and scurrying up the steep slope at impossible angles. The children wrapped their blankets tighter around themselves and held on tighter to each other.
There is a kind of tiredness that only an unlucky few ever know. It’s the tiredness of ultralong-distance drivers and of deep-undercover-special-forces soldiers, and of students who forgot to study for their history test until the night before. Celia and Oliver felt that kind of tiredness. Even though they were cold, and frightened, and the yak smelled worse than a turkey sandwich left all year at the bottom of a locker, they both fell into a deep sleep.
Oliver dreamed of his mother giving them a slide show of the years she had been missing, using the strange skeleton projector. Celia dreamed that her father was riding a yak into the Himalayan Mountains toward Shangri-La to save her from the Poison Witches while she slept peacefully in a hut with satellite TV.
With a shock, the children awoke to the sound of a gong, a really big gong. When they uncovered their faces, they saw that they were stopped inside the courtyard of a monastery, surrounded by young monks who were all dressed just like the little boy they met in the cave. There were children of different ages and sizes, but all of them had shaved heads and wore maroon and yellow robes. Some were playing around, chasing each other or making faces, but most were standing in a circle around the yak, clapping. The sun was high and bright overhead. The yak was chewing comfortably on some grass that a group of young monks were feeding it.
“Where are we?” Celia asked.
“And why are all these kids clapping at us?” Oliver wondered.
“They clap to ward off evil,” a voice called from a wall high above them. It came from an old man wearing a monk’s robes with a giant yellow hat shaped like a crescent moon. Two giant Tibetan warriors stood on either side of him wearing large swords, heavy cloaks and grim expressions. When the old man in the big yellow hat spoke, all the children grew quiet. The gong next to him sounded again. “They clap so that you would wake and be free of the dark dreams that brought you here.”
“Okay,” Celia shouted up, still quite distrustful of monks. “Where is here?”
“You are at the Monastery of the Demon Fortress of the Oracle King,” the old man said. “I am the abbot here, and I have been expecting you. I’m very glad you survived the waterfall and found your way to us. Come inside and have a bite to eat before we get down to business, as they say.” He glanced quickly at the guards next to him and Oliver thought the old abbot looked frightened.
“What do we do?” Oliver wondered.
“Eat, I guess,” said Celia as they hopped off the yak.
From the shadows of an upper window, a figure watched the twins follow the abbot and the large warriors inside. Just as Celia glanced up, it disappeared from view. She wasn’t sure if she even saw anything at all.
“Something’s not right about this place,” she said to no one in particular. She had no idea how true that was.
