Stepping out into the corridor, he half-expected to see Dorje’s figure materialise out of the darkness, but everything remained still. Luca swivelled his head from side to side, wondering which way to go. At the far end of the corridor, a faint light emanated from a flickering yak-butter candle.
Luca patted the pocket of his trousers, feeling for some wedges of sliced chocolate. Lying on his bed in the darkness, he had decided that the real danger with breaking out of his room was getting lost in the maze of catacombs that presumably lay below the monastery’s main levels. His GPS had been left in the cave with most of his other climbing gear, but even if he did have it, with such thick walls it would have been useless anyway. Instead, he’d remembered something from his schooldays: Theseus and the Minotaur. He didn’t have a ball of string, but he could use pieces from the two crumbled chocolate bars they’d had left to mark each stairway he used or door he opened. That was if the rats didn’t get to them before he returned.
Luca moved off swiftly, descending a staircase just in front of him that led down to the next level. He moved as fast as his bulky climbing boots would allow, stopping when he remembered to tuck one of the bits of chocolate into the top rung of the stairs.
He shook his head. The plan was ridiculous. It felt like something out of Hansel and Gretel.
Below was another corridor, identical to the previous one. He edged across the stone floor, feeling weighed down by the oppressive stillness of the monastery. The only sound was the rise and fall of his own breath. On he went, down more staircases and corridors, the smell of the dripping candles heavy on everything he passed.
A few levels lower down, the corridor he was following came to a dead end. He stopped, studying the wooden door ahead of him. It was much larger than the others and had been ornately carved. Luca turned the handle with a loud click and pulled his lighter from his pocket.
As he opened the door, Luca’s eyes narrowed in surprise. He could see the roof of the chamber high above him. Directly in front was one long, continuous row of bookshelves, stretching off for as far as he could see. The flickering light picked out the spines of countless books. He paced alongside them, following them deeper into the room.
He turned left at the end of the shelves, the flame of the lighter revealing random glimpses of the room beyond. Writing desks were neatly spaced out across it, and behind them stood towering columns of paper set in wooden boxes. Each contained hundreds of old parchments stacked on top of each other, reaching towards the ceiling like crooked stalagmites. Luca waved his lighter higher. The columns led back as far as he could see.
Approaching the nearest, he picked out a few loose pages at random. They were covered with dense Tibetan writing. These must be prayer parchments, like the ones he’d seen in the market stalls in Lhasa. Sweeping the lighter around in a slow arc, he wondered how on earth they knew which one was which.
‘Just like Cambridge,’ he muttered under his breath.
Retreating along the line of the bookshelves, he then went out of the door and down another level, then another. He left bits of chocolate on the top tread of each stairway. Now he stood halfway down the next, finally realising how idiotic he had been to think he would be able to find Bill in such a gigantic place. It could take weeks. As he stood there, wondering whether to retrace his steps, he noticed a musty, almost chemical smell. He sniffed, wondering what on earth it could be.
He stood in the heavy silence, hairs rising on the back of his neck. Something other than the smell had changed, he could feel it. There was a low reverberation in the air, a noise so faint it seemed to fade into the walls of the monastery. He took a few steps forward, his heart beginning to beat faster.
Soon it was a deep, rumbling sound, pitched on so many levels that it seemed to roll up and down in a strange melody. It was a few minutes before Luca even realised it was made by humans. Ahead of him, light flickered under a wide, gilded doorway and Luca found himself being drawn towards it, mesmerised by the dancing shadows. The smell was stronger now, a bitter odour that clung to the air.
At the base of the doorway, tens of pairs of felt slippers lay fanned out across the floor as if their owners had just stepped out of them. Luca kneeled beside them, pressing his head to the cold floor as he tried to see under the crack in the door.
The first thing to hit him was the smell. As the air circulated under the door it wafted across his face, burning his throat and making his chest suddenly tighten. Inside, he could see a cavernous room lit by immense flaming candelabras arranged at intervals along the vaulted walls. At the far end of the room was a line of seated monks.
He couldn’t see all of them, just the first few, their heads swaying in drifting circular motions as they continued an endless chant. Further towards the left, he could see the doorway to another chamber. It was open, and a light was shining from it.
Luca moved his head slightly, trying to get a better view, and saw a thin figure being escorted to this next chamber by two strangely clad silhouettes. The figure between them could barely stand. As Luca pressed his head harder to the ground, trying to see who it was, he caught a glimpse of a monk, eyes rolling and face completely drained of colour, before the inner doors were slammed shut and he disappeared from view.
Luca lay there, blinking his eyes and trying to make some sense of it all. A headache had spread across his forehead and he was finding it hard to think. The tightness in his chest was getting worse and he could taste the chemical taint in his mouth.
Why was a drugged monk being led into some strange ante-chamber? What were they doing in there?
Gripped by a sudden fear, he raised himself to his feet but the blood rushed to his head. He widened his stance, trying to keep his balance, but felt disorientated and sick.
There was the sound of footsteps on the other side of the door and then a scraping as heavy metal bolts were being drawn back. The ceremony had finished, the monks were leaving.
Luca staggered off down the corridor, trying to break into a run, but his legs felt clumsy and slow. After a hundred yards he rounded the corner, looking for the piece of chocolate on the staircase he had come down. It wasn’t there.
How could he have turned the wrong way?
Ahead of him the corridor branched off into two narrower passageways and he stopped, wondering which to choose. To his left, a large metal chain was wrapped over a circular wooden wheel and bolted to the wall. He moved closer to one of the flaming candles and tried to think, but the sizzling noise of the wick burning through the candle was growing impossibly loud. Luca stared at the dancing yellow flame as a long plume of black smoke belched out on to the wall above.
As he stared at the light, his jaw slack and his eyes wide open, his mind started to fill with strange, swirling images. It was that smell… It was making him feel faint. His eyelids were getting heavier.
He heard footsteps, then voices. They were drawing closer. Light from around the corner appeared on the wall. Luca shook his head, trying to snap himself out of it, when his eyes came to rest on the metal chain reaching down to the floor. He looked more closely. It was a trapdoor, cut into the stone floor below.
With a dull metal clank from the chain, he heaved open the trapdoor and shuffled down the wooden ladder, drawing his lighter from his pocket but not sparking it.
Beneath, there was absolute darkness.
There was a padding sound above him as a procession of felt slippers walked over the timbers of the trapdoor, then eventually silence. Luca waited a moment longer, listening to the sound of his own strained breathing, before finally rolling his thumb down the flint of the lighter.
As the flame sparked, the outline of a terrifying figure exploded out of the darkness. Luca jumped back, pressing himself against the wall, and accidentally let his thumb off the gas, sending the space ahead into pitch blackness. It took a moment for him to steady his nerves and realise that the figure was nothing more than a painting on the wall of the narrow tunnel he now found himself in.