Chapter 11

The following characters appear in this chapter:

Wang Fuzhi

Shaojiang (Major General) PLA, 5’-8’’ tall, 155 pounds, 44 years old, short black hair with some gray, brown eyes

Dukhor

The Timeless Monk, 5’-4’’ tall, 130 pounds, an older man, shaved head, tired brown eyes

Vishnagupta

The oldest purple Dragon, very faded coloring, forty feet tall when he arrived

While Craig and Jorani were exploring the Nest and wondering where the portal they had discovered led to, things at the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) Headquarters near Lhasa were in turmoil.

“WHAT do you mean the entire missile site is gone?” the Chinese General in Command of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) demanded in an angry voice.

“The entire site has been destroyed and burned. There are no survivors, sir,” the officer, a Zhongxiao, which is the equivalent of a Lieutenant Colonel, told Shaojiang (Major General) Wang Fuzhi.

“We lost contact with the site around 2000 hrs. last night. All attempts to reestablish contact with them failed. After an hour plus, the Duty Officer here alerted the Headquarters of the Snow Wolf Team at Saga and had them launch a Z-18 with two squads to check on the site immediately. The missile site was within the range of the Z-18 even at that altitude.

“They departed at 2230 and arrived at the site just after 0030 hrs. They found the site completely destroyed and everything was burned, even all of the bodies,” the Zhongxiao informed the General.

NOTE:

The Snow Wolves are a mountaineering unit that serves as a Rapid Response Team. The Z-18 is a large transport helicopter that can carry 27 troops. Saga is a town midway between Lhasa and Mount Kailash.

“Did they locate any of those responsible for this or their tracks?” the General demanded.

“No sir, there were no tracks or debris from those who attacked the site. The only tracks they found were from the guards when they checked the area outside of their compound. There was no debris found from the attackers. There were no cartridge cases, magazines, boxes or discarded objects. Nothing. The area outside the compound was free of any signs of the attackers,” the Zhongxiao told him.

“How could something like this happen? Were those lazy bastards asleep or what? I would have all of them shot, but you said there were no survivors,” the General demanded in an angry voice.

“No sir, all signs point to the guards being alert and even those off duty joining those on duty when the attack started. They were all found surrounded by fired cartridge cases and empty magazines; what was left of them that is,” the Zhongxiao informed him.

“What do you mean by ‘what was left of them’?” the General demanded in an outraged voice. “Were they mutilated or something?”

“No sir, like all of the building and all of the equipment, all of the personnel were found burned, and not just their clothing, but burned to a crisp, to their skeletons in many places,” the Zhongxiao informed him with a shiver.

“What the hell was used there?” the General demanded, still in an angry voice.

“The Wolf Team has no idea. There was no scent of fuel or other chemicals when they arrived there. The buildings and the equipment looked like they had been blown up before being set on fire,” the Zhongxiao continued.

“Was this the work of local rebels or was it the cursed Indians?” the General asked in a cooled and more rational voice.

“Those at the site have no idea, sir,” was the reply.

“Get a crack team from the Intelligence and Security Department out there immediately. I want to know who is responsible for this. Heads will roll when I do,” he told the Zhongxiao, who left to do as instructed.

Jorani joined me, and together we moved up to the portal in our Human form. It snapped into existence on our approach, and we walked through it to emerge in a wide hallway somewhere. We could see that there were rooms off of this hallway or corridor. The floor, walls, and ceiling of this area were rougher than the entry hallway to the Nest but were not that much rougher. It was also a bit chilly here, and we called some of our western traveling clothing to us to help keep us warm. It wasn’t cold enough for our local clothing.

As we moved down the main corridor, we looked into the various rooms on each side of it. From what remained of their contents, we guessed what each had been used for. Some of the rooms were large shops while others were smaller. Guess was all that we could do as nearly all of the equipment, tools, and materials had been removed from most of the rooms. All that remained in most of them were things too broken to be useful, or the decaying remains of some of the material that had been used there.

There were also pictures on some of the walls of people at work which helped us guess what had been done in some of the workshops, as this was what they were ... workshops where Humans had produced things for the Dragons and for themselves.

There were corridors that crossed the one that we had entered on. Some of them led to what appeared to have been the quarters of those working here. Others led to what had been storerooms ... storerooms that were empty now, just as the shops were. There was also something else at the end of several of the corridors – walls. Masonry walls that closed off what would have been exits to the outside. The walls had been expertly fitted to the original openings. The material used was adobe blocks which had been laid with mortar. They were the same kind of blocks that we had seen used for building construction in both Nepal and here in Tibet.

After an extensive search of the corridors, we found one that ended in a doorway. The rooms on this corridor were also different, as had been several of the rooms on the connecting corridor. All of them were filled with statues, paintings, scrolls, and other Buddhist religious items normally only seen in monasteries, Temples, or prayer rooms. We wondered where they had come from.

Not only did the wall in this corridor end in a door, but as we approached it, an old Monk had come through the door. He appeared to be shocked by the level of illumination here now and to see us there in front of him. We had renewed the lighting spell in all of the corridors and rooms for our own convenience. When the Monk saw us, his shock was very real, and he hurried toward us.

“What are you doing in here?” he demanded in good English, as it was obvious that I, at least, was not Tibetan. As he drew closer, an even more shocked expression appeared on his face.

“You’re Dragons!” he said in an even more shocked voice and stopped four feet (1.2 meters) or so in front of us.

“You have the gift to be able to see Dragons?” I asked.

“Yes, some of us are blessed with the second sight,” the Monk admitted.

“Yes, we are Dragons,” Jorani told him, and he stared at her even harder.

“You’re a ... a Female Dragon! But there have been no Female Dragons for ... for nearly four thousand years!” he exclaimed in shock.

“I am Thangakili, the new Dragon Queen of the East,” Jorani told him in a quiet voice, while changing into her Dragon form at the twelve-foot-tall level, as that was all the corridor would allow.

“But what are you doing here?” the Monk stammered in amazement on seeing her in her Dragon form.

“We were inspecting the Nest and came here to inspect the work areas of our former Human assistants,” she told him.

“But those who assisted the Dragons have been dead for ... for nearly as long as the Dragons have. How would you expect to find them here?” the Monk asked before bowing to us.

“I am Dukhor, a Monk here at the Potala Palace in Lhasa,” he told us in introduction. Now we knew where we were – well mostly.

“Are we then near the top of the mountain, where the Red Palace is located?” I asked knowing the layout of the Palace from my research.

“No, you are much deeper in the mountain than that. This area is closer to the base of the Kharpo Podrang, or the White Palace. King Songtsen Gampo’s Palace was constructed on Marpo Ri in the mid-7th century. That is the Tibetan name of the 130 meter (426 feet) high mountain called ‘Red Hill’ in Lhasa. That was long before the present Palace was constructed here. There was little left of it when the current White Palace was started in 1645 by the Fifth Dalai Lama.

“The Monastery, Marpo Podran or the Red Palace, was constructed above the White Palace many years later. I have been a Monk here since the year 1700. I know where everything is and have secreted many of the most personal possessions of the various Dalai Lamas here to prevent them from being stolen,” he told us in a modest voice. We were staring at him in shock and amazement on learning this.

“You have been a Monk here for over 400 years?” Jorani asked still in shock.

“Yes, it is my blessing for doubting the wisdom of the Third Dalai Lama, Sonam Gyatse. In 1580, he blessed me with the name Dukhor and conferred on me a long life. I served at several other large Monasteries before coming here. I must remain a Monk until I have atoned for my sin of doubt, or until the Dragons return. I have seen over time that it was a good thing that there is someone here to preserve the things of the various Dalai Lamas,” he told us with a smile before continuing.

“To redeem myself, I must assist the Dragons to help the Tibetan people,” he finished.

“But that means that you have been a Monk for over 540 years!” Jorani said in shock.

“Yes, that is true,” Dukhor acknowledged quietly.

“But, how did you reach us here? Do others know how to get here, or even that these corridors exist?” I asked unsure now of just how safe this place and the Nest were.

“There is a secret door on the first floor of the Red Palace. The tourists and others are not allowed on the first floor. The Chinese authorities have had it closed off for many years. Visitors go directly from the second floor to the ground floor where the great assembly hall is. Even the few Monks who remain here aren’t allowed to go there. However, there is a secret passage from the second floor to the first. It is in the meditation chamber (Chogyal Drupuk) of King Songsen Gampo. From the first floor, it is many sets of stairs down to this level. I only come here occasionally anymore, but something told me to come here today. Now that the Dragons have returned, perhaps my redemption isn’t far away,” the thin old Monk told us in a joyful voice.

“Tell us about the plight of the Tibetan people,” Jorani asked.

“The Chinese claim that they are caring for the Tibetan people, but it is a lie. They want to replace us with their excess population of lowland Chinese, but their people are not adapted to the thinner air here. They find it hard to work and do things requiring much effort. The Chinese claim that they have brought many jobs here, but there are few Tibetans who are trained to do them. There are only low paying manual labor jobs available to most Tibetans. Those who are old and the infirm can get no jobs. Plus, everything is now more expensive. Many of our people are slowly starving to death,” he told us in a sad voice.