Kingdom of the Golden Dragon (Memories of the Eagle and the Jaguar #2)(6)

The female chieftain uttered a series of sharp, guttural sounds that, when combined, seemed to be a kind of language. Dil Bahadur had the impression that he had heard it before, but he didn't know where. He could not understand a single word, even though the sounds were familiar. At once, the Yetis knelt in unison and touched their foreheads to the ground, though they did not put down their weapons, wavering between that ceremonious greeting and the impulse to club the two strangers to death.

The ancient female Yeti calmed the others as she repeated the grunt that sounded like Grr-ympr. The visitors assumed that that was her name. Tensing listened very closely and Dil Bahadur made an effort to capture on a telepathic level what those creatures were thinking, but their minds were a tangle of incomprehensible visions. He concentrated on what the sorceress was trying to communicate; she obviously was more evolved than the others. Several images took form in his brain. He saw hairy little animals like white rabbits shiver convulsively and then turn rigid. He saw corpses and burial places; he saw several Yetis rolling another toward a boiling fumarole; he saw blood, death, brutality, and terror.

"Be c-careful, master, they are v-very savage," the youth stammered.

"Possibly they are more frightened than we are, Dil Bahadur," the lama replied.

Grr-ympr gestured to the other Yetis, who finally lowered their clubs as she turned and walked away, gesturing to the prince and his master to follow. Flanked by the Yetis, they followed her past tall columns of steam and thermal waters to some natural openings in the volcanic soil. Along the way, they saw additional Yetis, all seated or lying down, none of whom made any sign of moving toward them.

Burning lava from some ancient volcanic eruption had frozen as it contacted ice and snow, but had continued to flow for some time beneath the surface. That was how the caves and underground tunnels in which the Yetis had made their dwellings had been formed. In places where the crust of lava had ruptured, a little light occasionally filtered in. Most of the caves were low and narrow, and Tensing did not enter those, though they maintained a pleasant temperature thanks to the memory of lava heat that remained in the walls and the warm waters of the fumaroles that flowed beneath them. In this way the Yetis protected themselves against the weather; otherwise it would have been impossible for them to endure the winter.

There were no objects of any kind in the caves, nothing but stinking hides, some with chunks of flesh still attached. With horror Dil Bahadur realized that some of the skins were those of the Yetis themselves, surely torn from dead bodies. The rest were hides of chegnos, animals unknown in the rest of the world, which the Yetis kept in corrals fenced with rock and snow. The chegnos were smaller than yaks and had curved horns like a ram's. The Yetis used their meat, fat, skin, and even their dried excrement, which served as fuel. Without those noble animals, which ate very little and endured even the lowest temperature, the Yetis could not survive.





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"We will stay here a few days, Dil Bahadur. Try to learn the Yetis' language," said the lama.

"Why, master? We will never be called on to use it again."

"I won't, perhaps, but you will," Tensing replied.

Little by little they familiarized themselves with the sounds those creatures uttered. Using the words they had acquired, and reading Grr-ympr's mind, Tensing and Dil Bahadur learned of the tragedy of the creatures' existence: with every generation fewer offspring were being born, and of those, fewer were living. The fate of the adults was not much better. Each generation was physically smaller and weaker than the previous one; their life span had shortened dramatically, and only a few individuals had enough strength to perform the necessary tasks, such as herding the chegnos, collecting plants, and hunting for food. This was a punishment of the gods or demons that lived in these mountains, Grr-ympr assured them. She said that the Yetis had tried to appease them with offerings, but the deaths of several sacrificial victims, who had been torn asunder or thrown into the boiling water of the fumaroles, had not ended the divine curse.

Grr-ympr had lived for many years. Her authority lay in her memory and her experience, which no other Yeti possessed. The tribe believed that she had supernatural powers, and for two generations had hoped that she would make things right with the gods; her magic, however, had not lifted the spell and had not saved her people from approaching extinction. Grr-ympr recounted that she had appealed to the gods again and again, and now, finally, they had come: The moment she saw Tensing and Dil Bahadur, she had guessed who they were. And that was why the Yetis had not attacked them.

All this was communicated to the visitors from the mind of the greatly troubled, ancient Yeti.

"When these creatures learn that we are mere humans, not gods, I don't think they're going to be very happy," the prince observed.

"Possibly… but compared to them, and despite our infinite shortcomings, we are semi-gods," the lama smiled.

Grr-ympr could remember the time when the Yetis were tall and well built, and were protected by fur so thick that they could survive the elements in the coldest and highest regions of the planet. The bones the visitors had seen in the canyon were those of their ancestors, the giant Yetis. They kept them there out of respect, although now no one but Grr-ympr could remember them. She had been a young female when the tribe discovered the valley of the hot springs, where the temperature was bearable and life less difficult because green things grew there, and in addition to the chegnos there were mice and goats to hunt.