Walking Mountain Read online

  ‘Will you be all right without me?’ he whispered to Dawa, as Zeppa and his grandfather argued about something manly on the other side of the room. She just patted his cheek. She had to reach up to do it, which made Pema feel even more wobbly inside.

  ‘Take the marmole,’ she told him. ‘He’ll fret if you leave him behind.’

  With a dry tongue, Pema clucked to his pet. Jeffrey, a friendly rodent the size of a kitten, trundled over, climbed his trouser leg and settled into his coat pocket . . .

  And then, suddenly, there was nothing left to wait for, and he was on his way, alone (except for Jeffrey), head buzzing, on the long climb to the Abbey of the Sisters of the Snow.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The White Women

  The Sisters were an ancient order. No one knew where the first of them came from, or what had possessed them to set up their community amongst the Mountain’s frozen rocks and perpetual ice. The Abbey buildings clung to narrow ledges and crags not far below the very summit of the Mountain, and were as often as not hidden from sight by banks of cloud or mist. But on a clear day, the home of the White Women could be seen for great distances, glinting like ice in the sun, looking almost as if it had grown there naturally.

  Everyone regarded the White Women with great respect, even awe. They knew about things that were important but, well, ferly. Out of the ordinary. They studied ancient writings, practised powerful medicine, helped the High Land people when they struggled with questions about life and death. They taught the people their prayers. And they looked after the Mountain. Everybody knew that was the way it was. And, as far as Pema was concerned, the way it was was fine.

  Everything had always just made sense to Pema. Life in the High Lands might be dangerous but they were all known dangers – avalanches, wulfs, the slip of a foot on the edge of a chasm. The rest of the world, though – that was another thing altogether. Pema had listened with horrified fascination to the stories and rumours from beyond the Jungle that trickled up even as far as his grandparents’ cottage: tales of harsh, strange religions; of more people stuffed into the towns and countryside than there were snowflakes in a storm, each one desperate to outwit the others; of men called Protectors who stole children for their chain gangs; of soulless metal machines. Sometimes Pema would stare into mid-air, imagining an evil-hearted Low Lander watching him from behind a tree, or what it would feel like being kidnapped and enslaved, while a vicious Enforcer shouted at him from the back of an oil-fired metal beast, Faster! FASTER!

  But then a gow would try to put her foot in the milk bucket, or Dawa would call for help with turning the cheeses, or he’d spot some delicious-looking mushrooms sprouting by a log. And he’d give himself a shake and be grateful he was a gowboy who need never worry about the monstrousness of the great wide world.

  But if Zeppa was right and the Mountain had suddenly decided to go crazy, maybe the monstrousness was coming here. Maybe there were dangers he hadn’t even imagined . . .

  But that’s the Sisters’ problem, he reminded himself. My job’s to tell them what Zeppa told us. They’ll know what to do. Dawa said so.

  Meantime, now that he was on his way, it did feel good to be out in the clear spring air, stretching his legs to their full, new length. Jeffrey the marmole was a reassuring weight in his pocket, his head and front paws sticking out as he watched the world go by, making chirruping comments. They made the halfway bothy in good time. There wasn’t a lot of comfort in the hut but, in spite of Dawa’s worry, its roof had survived the winter intact. Pema cut some fresh heather for a bed and he and Jeffrey slept surprisingly well.

  The next day started well too, and by noon he’d reached the snow line. The sun glinted off the whiteness and the mica in the exposed rock glittered. Pema was glad of his quilted coat and hat, glad of being out in the high, thin air – glad just generally – and then, all of a sudden, the path swung round an icy boulder and he let out a strangled gasp.

  There it was: the Abbey of the Sisters of the Snow, clinging to the mountainside above like a vision in a dream. It was so . . . white. And majestic and impossible and awe-inspiring.

  All his doubts returned in a rush. What was he doing here? He was the last person they should have sent!

  ‘I could do with a break,’ he muttered to Jeffrey. ‘Let’s finish the breadcake.’

  A marmole never says no to a snack.

  So Pema set them up a little picnic there beside the path, and Jeffrey was chirpy and cheerful, snitching more of the food than was his share and then dancing away with it across the rocks until he was just out of reach.

  ‘You filcher! That was mine!’

  Jeffrey made a rude comment in marmole. Pema, laughing, turned away for one moment. The next, there was a horrible scream and a fierce rush of wind that made him cower and cover his head with his arms. It was only for an instant. But when Pema looked again, there was . . .

  . . . nothing.

  ‘JEFFREY!’

  Pema leapt up, staring wildly from side to side, but there was no sign of the marmole or whatever had taken him. Rabbid? Fur snake? Dentrice? No predator he could think of could disappear like that. Then his eye caught the drift of a falling feather and he looked up.

  An ice eagle.

  ‘Jeffrey,’ he whispered in despair. And then he saw the marmole move in the grey claws. Still alive!

  The eagle was labouring to gain height. It had found a thermal, but the marmole’s struggling kept knocking it off balance, making it lose its place in the ascending spiral. Pema yelled and began to run and almost immediately fell on the jagged ice, scraping the skin off his hands. He scrambled to his feet – he must watch the path as well as the bird.

  It’s my fault. It’s my fault. The words kept pounding round and round in his head, keeping time with the pounding of his feet. It’s my fault.

  Twice more he slipped on the ice, sliding perilously close to a sheer drop. He cursed himself – a year ago he would never have been so clumsy. The path crawled up the mountainside in zigs and zags, while the bird had the whole clear sky to climb through. It was starting to get away from him. He had a moment of pure panic when a wisp of mist hid the eagle from sight, then a wind shredded the cloud and he saw it again.

  But higher. Always higher.

  Jeffrey . . .

  Pema struggled on, his breath tearing in his throat. The next stretch of the path demanded his complete attention, thinning along the edge of a deadly chasm. He took it at a suicidal speed. When things levelled out again, he peered up desperately, searching the sky for the eagle and its prey, only to find that everything had changed. The bird had reached the apex of its climb and was beginning a long swoop down again.

  It was going to land!

  Pema plunged forward round an outcrop of rock and saw ahead of him a white wall, twice his height, with a set of tall, solid wooden doors tight shut within it. And it was clear the bird was aiming for the other side.

  ‘No!’ Pema tried to scream, but his labouring lungs could only produce a squawk. Without breaking stride he bent, scooped up a handful of jagged icy stones and began to throw.

  His first shots went wide, but at least they caused the eagle to jink aside. Pema forced himself to stop running and take careful aim. He shook his head, trying to clear his vision – white spots fizzed in his eyes and every muscle quivered. Jeffrey hung from those brutal claws like a sad rag, not moving anymore. The eagle wasn’t in great shape either. Its beak gaped as it gasped for breath.

  One last chance . . .

  The eagle was barely higher than the top of the white wall when the stone found its mark. The bird lurched silently in mid-air, too blown to cry out, and then it and the marmole plunged earthward . . . on the other side of the wall.

  Pema staggered forward and fell against the gate, pounding at it with both fists, half-shouting, half-sobbing, ‘Let me in! Let me in!’ He kept banging and flinging himself against the wood until suddenly it gave way and he pitched forward.

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p; ‘—the matter? What’s wrong? Wh—’

  A small door inset in the big one had opened. Pema landed in a tangle at the feet of a round woman in white clothes. He barely noticed her. All he saw was Jeffrey, pathetically small on the courtyard stones, and the eagle splayed out a few paces beyond. It must have dropped the marmole in order to try to save itself from a crash landing. Sides heaving, unable to move, the bird stared at him with its mad yellow predator’s eyes.

  Pema rushed over, gathered Jeffrey up and cradled him. The marmole lay limply in his arms, but he was still warm and Pema could feel the little creature’s heart thumping under his fur. He staggered to his feet, turned wildly – and the courtyard exploded with noise.

  A girl in dishevelled beige robes screeched down the steps from the top of the wall and thundered past Pema, practically knocking him over again. She fell on her knees by the eagle and spread out her arms as if to protect it from further attack.

  ‘I saw you! I saw you!’ she yelled over her shoulder at Pema. ‘You threw rocks at him! Don’t try to deny it!’

  ‘I’m not trying to deny it!’ Pema shouted back. ‘Look what he’s done to Jeffrey – he was killing him – he was going to eat him!’

  The girl glanced up at the bleeding bundle of fur in Pema’s hands.

  ‘He’s an eagle. What do you want him to eat? Grass?!’

  ‘Not my friend! That’s what I don’t want him to eat!’ yelled Pema. The girl hesitated, looking suddenly uncertain. Then Pema became aware of the flutter of white robes. The courtyard was filling up with Sisters. He was suddenly deeply conscious that he was red-faced and sweating, clutching a bleeding marmole to his chest, and that he had just finished shouting at a White Woman. Well, a White Girl, anyway.

  A voice rang out, but it wasn’t Pema who was being addressed.

  ‘Singay. I might have known.’

  Pema saw a weary sort of horror dawn in the girl’s eyes. A tall, gaunt Sister was looking down on them from a balcony. Her voice was chilly.

  ‘Singay. Those animals are damaged. Take them to Sister Menpa. I will await you in my chamber. You might like to tidy yourself before then. Sister Shing, if you would be so good as to deal with that boy, then send him on his way. I need hardly remind you we are the Sisters of the Snow. I am not aware of any change in that.’

  There was a chorus of dutiful tittering, which the tall woman pretended to ignore. She was already turning away when Pema, without meaning to, found himself calling out.

  ‘Wait! I mean, stop! I mean . . . I have to talk to the Abbess! It’s about the Mountain.’

  The tall woman froze. In the sudden silence, Pema heard the round Sister suck in her breath, and the girl Singay’s eyes went wide in her sharp little face, as if she were appalled and, perhaps, also impressed. Pema could feel his face turning even redder.

  ‘I am the Abbess,’ said the tall woman, looking down at him over her shoulder. Her voice could have cut through stone. ‘What do you have to tell me about the Mountain?’ She said the words as if what she really meant was ‘What could YOU possibly tell ME?’

  ‘It’s turned around, ma’am,’ Pema blurted. ‘It’s going backwards.’

  And then, to his complete astonishment, the Abbess pointed at Singay and spat, ‘You put him up to this, didn’t you?’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The Way of Mother Mountain

  What?

  Pema stared, bewildered. The girl – Singay – hung her head wearily for a moment before scrambling to her feet and bowing to the furious Abbess. Then, awkwardly, she managed to get the eagle onto her arm.

  ‘This way,’ the girl said to him in a dull voice. ‘I’ll take you to Sister Menpa.’

  ‘No . . . yes, but . . .’ Pema hesitated, looking from her to the Abbess. This can’t be happening – I can’t have bungled everything already! Jeffrey stirred and whimpered in his hands. He didn’t know where to turn, what to do. And then the round Sister – Sister Shing – took him by the elbow in a kindly way.

  ‘The Abbess will see you, lad, don’t worry,’ she murmured. ‘She’s bound to see anyone who comes looking to be seen, whether she likes it or not. Singay’ll take you to her once the beasts are tended.’ Then, in such a quiet voice that he had to bend down to hear her, ‘Is it true, what you just said? About the Mountain? You didn’t make it up?’ Pema looked into her homey round face and longed to tell her everything. But before he could speak, she glanced up at the Abbess and gave him a shove instead. ‘Go on. Follow Singay,’ she said, her voice loud enough now to be heard from the balcony.

  Not knowing what else to do, Pema took a ragged breath and did as he was told.

  ‘Right then, that’s as much as I can do for the moment.’ The marmole’s wounds had been examined, cleaned, salved and bound by Sister Menpa. ‘My prescription is a soft blanket and a long sleep, and my prognosis is a total recovery – in the fullness of time, lad, so you mustn’t be impatient. If you go picking the animal up or jolting him about, my work will all have been for nothing.’ Sister Menpa glared at Pema as fiercely as she knew how, which wasn’t very, and Pema nodded earnestly. There was a wonderfully soothing quality to this Sister’s voice that gave him almost as much comfort as seeing the marmole so gently cared for.

  She turned to Singay. ‘And what trouble have you got yourself into this time, eh?’ Then she shook her head with amused resignation. ‘No, don’t tell me. I can guess.’

  The girl! thought Pema with a start. He’d forgotten about her, but there she still was, standing to one side, waiting by the ice eagle. Someone had brought in a wooden perch and the bird was clutching it with claws still dark with Jeffrey’s blood. It was breathing normally again, and taking occasional swipes at its feathers with that vicious beak to groom them.

  Sister Menpa began to examine the bird, who promptly tried to eat her hand.

  ‘Behave yourself!’ she said. And it did. Without further protest, beyond some dirty looks, the eagle let the puny human extend his wings, examine his feathers, and generally poke and prod.

  ‘Well, Singay,’ Sister Menpa said at last, ‘for the beasts, at least, it’s been a lucky day all round. No primary feathers are broken. In fact, the bird’s got no damage he won’t recover from in a day or so.’

  Pema could see the relief written all over the girl’s pointy face.

  Sister Menpa shook her head ruefully. ‘All I have to do is help the animals, thanks be to the Mother. It’s up to you to square things with the Abbess. I’ll take the marmole to the back room and settle him where it’s quiet.’

  ‘Thank you, Sister,’ said Pema.

  And then there were only the two of them left in the room. Pema’s arms and legs felt too long, and if he didn’t concentrate he would probably trip over his own feet, but he knew he had to say something to her, even if it meant her yelling again.

  ‘I – I’m really glad I didn’t hurt him too much,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I wasn’t thinking. I just . . .’

  ‘I know.’ Luckily, the girl didn’t seem to have any anger left. ‘And it’s not that I don’t like marmoles. I do. There was a burrow behind my house, where I grew up. I like . . . I used to like watching them.’ She was looking anywhere but at him as she said in a rush, ‘It was my fault. I thought I was ready to fly the eagle on my own. Sister Hodges said I wasn’t, but I was so sure . . . I’ve been working so hard to train him. Anyway, I couldn’t get him to come back. He just flew right away from me.’ She lifted a finger as if to stroke the eagle’s breast, but then dropped it again. ‘You’re not supposed to. Stroke them, I mean. It’s bad for their feathers. But it’s hard not to.’

  Pema nodded. ‘I’ve never been up close to one before. He’s very beautiful, isn’t he. I didn’t know that about the feathers.’

  There was a pause. Neither of them knew what to say next.

  ‘What – still here?’ It was Sister Menpa, coming back into the clinic. ‘No point putting it off. Better out than in, I always say.’ Here she paused. ‘Though pe
rhaps comparing an audience with the Abbess to a bout of wind is not perhaps quite the thing.’

  Grinning feebly, Pema and Singay left.

  ‘The Abbess’ rooms are on the top floor,’ the girl told him as they started up the stairs. ‘Best view.’

  ‘Look, I didn’t mean to get you in trouble. It’s just I’ve been sent . . . I’m supposed to tell—’

  But Singay shook her head.

  ‘Better not talk any more to me,’ she said. ‘Then you can tell the Great Gow I didn’t corrupt you.’

  They climbed in silence until they arrived at the Abbess’ antechamber.

  ‘You took your time!’ snapped an undersized Sister with tight lips.

  ‘Sorry, Sister Khalu,’ muttered Singay.

  ‘Well, you’re here now,’ said the Sister. She ushered Singay immediately in through an ornate door. The expression on her face suggested she was ushering in a grunt pat.

  Sister Khalu shut the door on Pema with a bang. I guess I’m next, he thought. He looked around for somewhere to sit down but there were no chairs. He felt stupid standing in the middle of the room so he went and stood against the wall instead.

  He didn’t feel much smarter.

  Even through the closed door he could hear raised voices.

  What am I doing here? he wailed inside his head. What in the name of all that’s cold . . .

  Part of him – the cowardly part – hoped Singay was in for a long session, just to put off his own audience, but it seemed like no time at all before the door opened and she came out again, alone. Her face was wan and pinched. Pema could still hear the Abbess fuming – either she was so angry she hadn’t noticed the door wasn’t shut, or else she didn’t care.

  ‘That girl – she doesn’t belong here! She’s been nothing but trouble from the very first day. I should never have accepted her. If her family hadn’t been so desperate to get rid of her . . .’

  Pema stared in horrified embarrassment at Singay, who stared back. Neither of them seemed able to move.