The little procession moved on. Once over her initial unease, Nina found the process almost straightforward: eight or nine careful footfalls along each length, then step up to the next platform. The blustery wind encouraged her to press close to the rock, but despite appearances, the guide ropes turned out to be firmly attached to the cliff.
Before long, she felt secure enough to divert a small amount of attention to her surroundings. Empty holes cut into the stone and the protruding stubs of worn logs or metal poles above and below the current pathway suggested that sections had been abandoned over time — or simply broken away and dropped into the void. Some were clearly much older than others. Talonor’s original route to his prize, allowing him to get men and materiel to and from the cave? It seemed likely… but for what purpose?
Somewhere in the distance, she heard an odd noise, a rumbling hiss. It continued for several seconds, then stopped. ‘Did you hear that?’ she asked Eddie.
‘Yeah,’ he replied. ‘Hey, Rudra. What was that?’
‘The dragon,’ the monk replied.
‘No need to be sarcastic.’
‘I was not.’
Eddie rolled his eyes at Nina, who shrugged, wondering what he meant. They resumed their trek.
The trudging climb continued around the mountain, revealing a new frozen vista beyond as empty as that behind them. It also revealed something new along their path — something worrying.
Eddie saw it too. ‘You’re f… lippin’ kidding.’
‘Amaanat! Are you sure that’s safe?’ Nina called to the abbot. He had reached a vertical cleft cutting deeply into the rock face, an ancient geological fault some fifteen feet across. The route upwards continued on its far side — but the only way to reach it was by traversing an extremely rickety-looking rope bridge.
‘In my time at Detsen monastery, eighteen monks have fallen from this bridge,’ he warned.
‘That’s kind of a huge no, then.’
‘It is less than one every two years.’
‘Still not filling me with confidence!’
The elderly man smiled. ‘Watch me. Do what I do, follow my footsteps.’
A guide rope was stretched along the inside of the bridge. He gripped it with his left hand, then held his right arm out for balance as he took small, precise steps over the planks.
‘You holding your breath?’ Eddie whispered.
‘Uh-huh,’ Nina replied, not daring to exhale in case she blew the monk off his feet.
Amaanat reached the midpoint. He paused as a gust of wind set the bridge swinging, hunching down to dampen the motion, then continued. A few more steps and he reached the relative security of a short length of rocky ledge.
Nina finally allowed herself to breathe. ‘That wasn’t terrifying at all.’
‘We’ve still got to get across it,’ Eddie reminded her.
‘Thanks for that, hon.’
Rudra crossed next, more quickly than the abbot, as if trying to prove a point, then it was Eddie’s turn. The Englishman held the rope before gingerly putting one foot on the bridge. ‘I should probably say something reassuring about now, shouldn’t I?’ he said, looking back at Nina with a strained grin.
‘Yeah, that would help!’
‘How about… at least we’re not being shot at?’ He winked. ‘All right. Let’s do this.’
He followed Amaanat’s example, taking controlled, measured steps. The wood creaked underfoot. Nina cringed, but Eddie steadied himself, then carried on. Five feet to go, three, two… then he took a long step to take the waiting Rudra’s hand on the far side. ‘Thanks,’ he said, before looking back at his wife. ‘Take it steady, and you’ll be fine.’
Nina clamped her hand around the guide rope. ‘Look at the bridge, not the… total nothingness under it,’ she muttered. From here, she could see that the cleft cut a good seventy feet into the mountainside, and stretched seemingly to infinity below. ‘Okay. Take it steady. Real steady.’
She put one foot on the first plank. It shifted slightly beneath her. Steeling herself, she stepped forward.
Her heart began to pound. The whole bridge was swaying, and the wind was now picking up, snow being plucked from small outcrops below and spiralling skywards past her. ‘It’s all right,’ called Eddie reassuringly. ‘You’re doing fine. Just keep going.’
‘I’m sure as hell not going to stop,’ she said as she continued her nervous advance. Halfway over, three quarters…
A sharp gust — and the entire bridge lurched.
Nina tried to drop as Amaanat had done, but the planks had swung out from beneath her centre of gravity, overbalancing her. The vertical cleft opened up below—
The guide rope snapped taut. Pain flared in her clenching fingers, but she maintained her grip. She crouched to steady herself, then took hold of the line with her other hand. ‘Jesus!’
‘Sh… oes!’ yelled Eddie. ‘Nina, are you okay?’
She somehow forced a smile. ‘You still managed not to swear.’
‘It was close! Are you all right?’
‘Yeah, I’m fine, just feeling like my adrenal gland exploded.’ She cautiously straightened. ‘I’m coming over.’
She set off again, trying to balance the need for care against her desperate urge to reach comparative safety. Step, step, feeling the planks waver — and then Eddie grabbed her hand and pulled her on to the ledge. ‘Got you.’
‘Oh, thank God!’ She hugged him.
Amaanat called back to her. ‘Are you all right, Dr Wilde?’
‘Yes thanks. That was close, though!’
‘I warned you how dangerous this place can be.’
‘It’d be less dangerous if you built a proper bridge!’ said Eddie angrily.
Rudra scowled, but the abbot shrugged off the criticism. ‘Our legends say that this’ — he indicated the chasm — ‘was cut by the sword of the bodhisattva Manjusri when he fought the dragon of the mountain. We cannot close the wound in case the dragon regains his strength.’
‘I don’t think dragons are what you should be worried about,’ Nina complained.
The old monk smiled knowingly. ‘You will soon see that is not so.’ He went to the end of the ledge and resumed his precarious trek along the stepped platforms, Rudra following.
‘Sure you’re okay?’ Eddie asked Nina.
She nodded. ‘Yeah. But let’s not do that again.’
‘Still glad to be back out in the field?’
A narrow-eyed smile. ‘Get moving, you.’
He laughed, then set off after the two monks. Nina waited until he had cleared the next platform before continuing, Jayesh and the other monks crossing the bridge behind her.
As the group made their way around the mountain, Nina’s resurgent vertigo discouraged her from admiring the view, however spectacular. It also grew steadily colder as the sun moved behind the wall of rock.
The line of platforms eventually ended. She wondered if they had reached their destination, before seeing that they were instead changing direction — going straight up. Rungs had been driven into the sheer stone to create a ladder, ascending for about a hundred feet. Amaanat had already begun to climb. Rudra clambered up behind him.
Eddie reached the foot of the ladder. ‘Think they need to spend a bit of the money they make from selling gold knick-knacks on Hammerite.’ He tugged at one of the rust-scabbed metal bars. To Nina’s relief, it didn’t move.
He let Rudra open up a gap for safety, and was about to climb after him when he froze and looked across the valley with a quizzical expression. ‘What is it?’ asked Nina.
‘Thought I heard a chopper.’
She followed his gaze. The distant echoing thrum of a helicopter’s rotors reached her, but she could see no sign of any aircraft. ‘You expecting company?’ she called to Amaanat.