“Don’t argue with me. There are always ways to get around problems. Ling was on that road for a reason. She got rid of the sentry for a reason.”
“You’re telling me to abandon the village and road leading down—”
“Don’t be an idiot. I’m just telling you that road could be taken in either direction.” He was still gazing at the mists shrouding the top of the mountain. Are you up there, Catherine Ling? It would be unexpected. A red herring? Or something more dangerous? He didn’t know enough about the mountaintop to be certain. He’d only gone up there once after he’d taken over the palace and property. He’d been unimpressed. “You keep your search going as you’ve begun. I’ll take a few men and climb to the top and look around.” He turned and started to cross the courtyard. Then he stopped and glanced back. “And rout out one of those monks who are still living in the village and send him after me. Maybe that old lama who refused to leave his precious mountain. He might be able to tell me more about that area.”
“It’s only a bunch of boulders and rocks.”
“Send him,” Kadmus said. “Right away. Bring him to the sentry post.” He strode over to the jeep parked near the compound gate. He would only be able to take the vehicle a short distance before the road narrowed as it neared the top. That didn’t matter. Speed was important now.
I thought there was only one way out. Did you find another one, bitch?
It won’t do you any good. You can’t get Erin away from me. It was meant to be. I was meant to have it all.
Shambhala.
* * *
“How are you doing, Erin?” Catherine’s words were coming in gasps. Her own lungs were tight, her breath almost nonexistent. It seemed as if they had been running down this twisted, spiraling path, for hours. If she had felt like this, what must Erin be feeling? “It can’t be much farther.”
“Promises. Promises,” Erin said breathlessly. “I’m okay. Except that my legs feel like spaghetti.” She drew a deep, shaky breath. “And I didn’t expect all these weird echoes down here. I guess I should have, it’s sort of a cave, after all. But it’s like being in a giant fun house.”
“Without the fun.” The echoes had also startled Catherine when she had first noticed them. “Anything else?”
“I’m dizzy from all these twists and turns. But then I bet you are, too.”
“Yes. But it would be worse if the incline were straight—” She stopped. “Do you smell something?”
Erin sniffed, then stiffened. “Something’s dead.”
“No, though I can see how you might think that. It smells like rotten eggs.” She sniffed again, then said eagerly, “Sulfur smells like rotten eggs. And hot springs are full of sulfur. We have to be close. Hurry.”
“What else have I been doing?” Erin asked ruefully. “But you may be right. I’m feeling warmer.”
Dressed as they were in this cold-weather gear, they were going to feel a good deal warmer as they got closer to the springs, Catherine thought. Even in extreme, frigid temperatures, the area surrounding a hot springs could be seventy degrees or much higher. “You’ve lived and worked in Tibet for a number of years. You probably know more about these hot springs than I do. I’ve only taken a bath in one of the springs up north, and then I was in and out. Cameron said they could be scalding. Have you ever run across that?”
“Once. But only in spots, and you can move away from the area, and you’re comfortable again.”
“But you weren’t deep inside a mountain. Conditions could be different.”
“I don’t know about that. But the hot springs here in Tibet could be less hot because they weren’t created by volcanoes. The Himalayas were formed by two tectonic plates shifting and coming together millions of years ago. One of the side effects was the forming of a network of hot springs throughout the mountain range.”
Catherine found herself smiling. “I only wanted to know if we could get scalded. I forgot you were a journalist until you started spouting volcanoes and tectonic plates.”
“I was interested,” Erin said. “But what you mustn’t ever do is submerge your head under the waters. There’s an amoeba that exists under those conditions that can enter your sinus passages and cause a deadly brain disease that could kill you.”
“Thanks for telling me,” Catherine said dryly. “Cameron failed to mention that little threat. A warning would have been nice.”
“Why make you worry? I wouldn’t have let it happen to either of you.”
That jarring intrusion again. She would never become accustomed to it.
She ignored him. “Anything else I should know, Erin?”
She shivered. “Snakes. I’ve heard there’s a species of snake that can live in the hot water.”
Steam was beginning to pour through the passage and perspiration was beading Catherine’s face. “Poisonous?”
“I don’t think so.”
“It would be nice to know.”
“It’s not relevant. They’re rarely found outside Qinghai Province.”
“I think it’s safe, Erin,” Catherine said. “Snakes may be the last thing we should worry about at the moment. God, that sulfur stinks. We must be right on top of—” She broke off as she rounded the corner.
Billows of steam drifting upward from a large dark pool.
Heat.
Sounds of running water.
The foul, ever-present stench of rotten eggs.
“This sure isn’t like the last hot springs where I bathed,” Erin said. “The sun was shining, the sky was blue, and the mountains were magnificent. This looks … menacing.”
“It’s the darkness. The unknown can be frightening.” And those billows of steam coming from that darkness seemed something from a sci-fi movie. She bounced the beam from her flashlight around the stone bank of the spring, then to the water itself. “Listen. That rushing sound. Can you tell where it’s coming from?”
Erin listened. “To the right. But it’s very faint.”
Catherine lifted the flashlight and aimed it to the right.
A break in the solid wall of the mountain.
Yes!
The waters of the spring appeared to be trickling through the break and down …
“Come on. That could be our way out.”
“Or not,” Erin said.
“Well, I don’t see anything else. Hurry.” She was shedding her parka and shirt. “Get rid of all your outer clothes. They’ll weigh you down when you’re in the water. You can keep on your underwear.” She was down to her thermal undershirt and tights. She tucked her gun and knife in her boots, loosened the shoestrings and tied them around her neck. “Leave your clothes here, but you’ll need your boots. They’re hard to replace and we can’t afford to have our feet cut to ribbons once we’re outside. Slip anything you want to keep into the boots.”
Erin followed Catherine’s example and tied the boots around her neck. “I’m ready.”
“What about that gold necklace you’re wearing? Don’t you want to take it off and put it in your boot?”
“No, I won’t lose it.” She touched the necklace. “It’s very strong.”
“Whatever. Stay here. I need to test the waters.” Catherine put her bare foot in the spring and slipped from the stony bank. “Warm. Not hot. But it may change the farther we go. My feet are touching the bottom, and so far, the waters are only up to my chest.”
“I’m coming in.”
“No, let me go a little farther. There’s no way that it’s not going to hurt those wounds but I want to make sure there’s no additional acidic—”
“No, you don’t have time to baby me.” Erin slipped into the water and inhaled sharply. “You’re right, it does smart a bit. It’s nothing I can’t deal with.” She waded toward Catherine. “Let’s go.”
There would obviously be no arguing with her. “We’ll try to stay side by side as much as possible. If it narrows down, you go ahead. I need to keep an eye on you.”
“That’s going to be hard. I can barely see you through this steam.”
“It should get less if that passage leads closer to the outside.” She was almost to the break in the wall, and the beam of her flashlight was playing deep into the dark cavity. “Except for the water, it looks almost like that twisting path we took to get down here.”