Free The Forbidden Temple by Patrick Woodhead Page A

read up about it for yourself. If you are serious about finding out some more, then I’ll make a few more enquiries and see if I can’t arrange a meeting or two.’
    Putting the phone down, Luca walked over to his bedside table and fished out the folded satellite map. With a handful of drawing pins and a thick black marker pen in his left hand, he unfolded it and pinned it up on the patch of wallpaper at the end of his bed. He then wrote a single word in the bottom right hand corner.
    BEYUL?

Chapter 12
    HIS FACE WAS old as only a Tibetan face can be.
    Lines cross-hatched their way across its leathery surface, like a paper bag that had been crumpled into a ball and hastily smoothed out. His dark brown eyes were set deep in their sockets, staring out from beneath long, straggling eyebrows. Around his body were wrapped thick red robes, but years of exposure to dirt and sunlight had faded them to almost the same colour as the ground.
    The old monk sat on a pile of earth a few hundred yards from the entrance to Menkom village, but rarely turned from his vigil to look back at the thatched houses. Although a few thin wisps of smoke still trailed out from the chimneys into the cobalt sky, the village was almost completely still. It had been ravaged by disease for over a month, ever since the traders had come.
    The first to fall ill were the old men, disappearing from their usual place by the side of the road. Then it spread: to young children, women, and finally the men working out in the fields. In just a few weeks, the once lively village had become ghostly and withdrawn.
    Most people remained indoors, lying fever-ridden on the wooden floors of their homes, while outside cattle ambled through the streets untended. Small, black pigs poked their noses through piles of rubbish in the stream and chickens nested in the thatch rooftops. No stones were thrown at them, no voice raised to scare them away.
    As the old monk watched, something distant on the pathway seemed to move then became stationary again. He got slowly to his feet, leaving his prayer wheel lying at his side, and squinted down on to the bare earth slopes of the lower valleys. Haloed by the late afternoon sun, he could just see a small cloud of dust hovering above a black shape. It was hazy, little more than a smudge merging into the horizon.
    Gradually, the shape began to separate into its component parts: first, the outline of a yak’s great arching horns, then came the silhouettes of people following behind. Through the dust came a second yak, then another, until he could see an entire caravan of men and beasts toiling up the valley at a steady pace.
    It was them. It had to be.
    Finally the first of the yaks drew level with him, the heavy brass bell around its neck clanking with each step. Its huge flanks were dread locked with dust and dried mud, and on the arch of its withers heavy saddlebags were roped tight. As the mighty beast snorted, long strands of saliva oozed from its nose, beading with the dust from the pathway.
    From somewhere near the back of the line, a voice called out above the noise. Amidst a ragged cacophony of bells the row of animals came to a juddering halt. With clothes stained grey from travel, a figure slipped off the back of one of the yaks and approached the monk. As a filthy cloth was pulled away from the figure’s face the monk found himself looking at the dark suntanned cheeks and green eyes of a young woman clearly exhausted from her journey.
    ‘
Tashi delek
, venerable father,’ she said, bowing her head to reveal long, black hair that was matted with dust. ‘We are looking for the gatekeeper.’
    The old monk nodded, an unaccustomed smile creasing his face even further.
    ‘
Tashi delek
,’ he replied, in a voice hoarse from disuse. ‘I am he.’
    With that he reached forward, clasping her hands in his and bringing them towards his heart. ‘I did not expect to see you until the solstice.But it is wonderful indeed that you have