Kingdom of the Golden Dragon Read Online Free PDF

strictly prohibited, along with the purple flowers that grew on the banks of the stream. The thermal water could be used for bathing but not for drinking or preparing food, they told her. They didn’t bother to explain that it contained harmful minerals, because the ancient Yeti would not have understood; it would be enough that theYetis would honor her instructions. Grr-ympr made her task easy. She called her subjects together and notified them of a new law: Anyone who drank that water would be thrown into a fumarole. Understood? They all understood.
    The tribe helped Tensing and Dil Bahadur collect the medicinal plants they needed. Throughout the week they stayed in the Valley of the Yetis, the visitors were able to watch the babies’ health improve every day and see that the adults were growing stronger in direct ratio to how fast the purple faded from their tongues.
    Grr-ympr personally accompanied the lama and his disciple when the moment came to leave. She watched them start in the direction of the canyon they’d come through when they arrived. After some hesitation, because she feared revealing the Yeti’s secrets even to these gods, she motioned that they should follow her in the opposite direction. For more than an hour the lama and the prince walked behind her along a narrow path that wove among the columns of vapor and pools of boiling water, leaving the primitive village of the Yetis behind.
    The sorceress led them to the edge of the volcanic plain, pointed to an opening in the mountain, and told them that from time to time the Yetis used that pass to go out in search of food. Tensing understood what she was telling them: This was a shortcut in the form of a natural tunnel. The mysterious valley was much closer to civilization than anyone had supposed. The parchment Tensing carried with him indicated the only route known to the lamas, which was much longer and filled with many more obstacles, but no one knew of this secret pass. As he found its location on the parchment, Tensing realized that the tunnel descended straight down into the mountain and came out near Chenthan Dzong, the ruined monastery. This route would savethem two-thirds of their original trek.
    Grr-ympr bid them farewell in the only way she knew how to show affection: She licked their faces and hands until they were wet with saliva and mucus.
    The instant the horrible priestess turned to start back, Dil Bahadur and Tensing rolled in the snow to cleanse themselves. The master was laughing, but the disciple was barely able to keep from throwing up.
    “Our only consolation is that we will never see that fine lady again,” the youth commented.
    “ Never is a long time, Dil Bahadur. Possibly life has a surprise in store for us,” the lama replied, stepping with determination into the narrow tunnel.

CHAPTER THREE
    Three Fabulous Eggs
    O N THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD , Alexander Cold was arriving in New York, accompanied by his grandmother Kate. The sun of the Amazon had burned the American boy the color of wood. He wore his hair Indian-style: a bowl cut with a shaved circle on the crown of his head, and in that circle was a new scar. He had his filthy backpack over his shoulder, and he carried a bottle of milky liquid. Kate Cold, as tanned as her grandson, was dressed in her usual khaki shorts and mud-caked shoes. Her gray hair—which she herself cut without looking in the mirror—gave her the look of a Mohican that had just been rudely awakened. She was tired, but her eyesglittered behind broken glasses held together with tape. Her luggage consisted of a tube about six feet long and an assortment of bundles of uncommon shapes and sizes.
    “Do you have anything to declare?” the immigration officer inquired, throwing a disapproving look at Alex’s strange haircut and at his grandmother’s general appearance.
    It was five in the morning, and the man was as tired as the air passengers who had just flown in from Brazil.
    “Nothing. We’re