Neon Lotus by Marc Laidlaw

Author:Marc Laidlaw [Laidlaw, Marc]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Freestyle Press
Published: 2016-07-16T22:00:00+00:00

10. Tumo Fire

It was nightfall when they returned to where the jet was hidden. As Marianne looked back at the lights of the village below, their trail seemed to dissolve into gray light. Black storm clouds were blowing over the peaks. This was the spot where she’d had her first view of the village that morning.

She gave her hand to Jetsun, and as they pressed on the last hundred feet to the jet, snow began to fall. A thickening swirl of powder veiled the air before them.

Without warning, Jetsun stopped moving. He stared through the pale murk.

“Come on,” she said. “Well freeze here.”

“Where is it?” he said.

She pulled on his arm, then slowly let go. The snow was not so thick nor the light so dim that she couldn’t see the rocks on the far side of the level niche. She stared at the mountain wall in disbelief.

The jet was gone.

“I don’t believe it,” he said. He strode forward, broke into a run, and then skidded over a patch of ice. “It was right here!”

As if the sky had opened wide at the sound of his voice, snow began to fill the oppressed air. Jetsun vanished from sight. She cried out and ran blindly forward through the storm. He reappeared as a blurred shadow rising in her path.

“It was here,” he said. “I swear it!”

She caught hold of him. “I know it was—you’re not crazy. Come on, we’ve got to find shelter.”

“Where can we go? The jet is gone, Marianne!”

“I know, but—oh damn it, come on!”

She tugged him toward the cliff, hoping that the wall would give them some protection from the wind and snow. There had to be some niche that would shelter them. There had to be. . . .

The wall came up abruptly, stark and vertical, with nothing but small stones accumulated at its base. She put her hand against the rock as if it might have been a great door that would open to her touch. It was solid and cold, immovable. Still holding Jetsun’s hand, she followed the wall deeper into the mountains. To attempt to travel in this storm would have been ridiculous, for the only possible route open to them led down narrow spines of rock, with sheer drops at either side. If only they had accepted Jigme’s offer of a hearth for that night. But how could they have known that the jet would he gone?

She had no doubt that it had been found and taken by companions of the men who had killed Tsering. Three-eyed murderers.

At the thought of them, she felt even colder.

Three-eyed men. They were specters risen from the past, tracking her from life to life. Tashi Drogon’s death had not satisfied them. Any number of deaths might leave them unfulfilled.

She had grown up hearing her parents recount the story of Tashi’s death, over and over again. Her mother had told it as a cautionary tale, as if to say, “This is what you’re getting yourself into, joining those Tibetans.

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