Kingdom of the Golden Dragon Read Online Free PDF Page A

advanced age. I calculate that she must be a hundred,” the lama concluded.
    â€œWhat has changed in the valley? Why don’t they have enough food?” the prince asked.
    â€œPerhaps they have food; they may simply be ill and not assimilating what they eat. The babies depend on their mother’s milk, which is not rich enough to nourish them; it’s like water, and that is why they are dying at the age of a few weeks or months. The adults have more resources because they eat meat and plants, but something has weakened them.”
    â€œWhich is why they’ve been getting smaller and dying young,” suggested Dil Bahadur.
    â€œPossibly.”
    Dil Bahadur rolled his eyes; sometimes his master’s vagueness made him crazy.
    â€œThis is a problem that has developed during the last two generations, because Grr-ympr remembers when the Yetis were as tall as she is. At this rate, they probably will disappear in a few years,” said the prince.
    â€œPossibly,” the lama replied for the hundredth time; he was thinking about something else. He added, “Grr-ympr also could remember when they had moved to this valley. That may mean that there is something harmful here, something that is destroying the Yetis.”
    â€œThat must be it! Can we save them, master?”
    â€œPerhaps . . .”
    The monk closed his eyes and prayed for a few minutes, asking for inspiration to resolve theproblem and for humility to understand that the result was not in his hands. He would do the best he could, but he could not control life or death.
    At the end of his short meditation, Tensing washed his hands, then went to one of the corrals. There he picked out a female chegno and milked it. He filled his bowl with warm, foaming milk, and carried it back to the infants. He wet a rag in the milk and placed it to the lips of one of the babies. At first the child did not react, but after a few seconds the smell of the milk stirred it; its lips opened, and it began weakly to suck the rag. The lama gestured to the mothers that they should imitate him.
    It was a long and tedious process to teach the Yetis to milk the chegnos and to feed the babies drop by drop. The Yetis had a minimal capacity for reasoning, but they were able to learn by repetition. The master and the disciple spent the whole day on the project, and they saw the results that same night when three of the babies cried for the first time. The next day all five were crying, asking for milk, and soon they opened their eyes and were able to move.
    Dil Bahadur felt as proud as if the solution had been his idea, but Tensing didn’t stop there. He had to find an explanation. He studied everything the Yetis put in their mouths without coming upon the cause of their distress. Then he and his disciple themselves began to suffer stomach pains and vomit bile, although they had eaten only their usual tsampa . They hadn’t tried the chegno meat the Yetis offered them, because they were vegetarians.
    â€œWhat have we eaten that is different, Dil Bahadur—the one thing?” the master asked as he prepared a medicinal tea for their digestion.
    â€œNothing, master,” the youth replied, pale as death.
    â€œIt has to be something,” Tensing insisted.
    â€œAll we have eaten is our tsampa , not a bite of anything else . . .” the prince murmured.
    Tensing passed the bowl with the tea to Dil Bahadur, who, doubled over with pain, put it to his lips. But he stopped short before he swallowed, spitting the liquid into the snow.
    â€œThe water, master! It’s the hot water!”
    Normally they boiled water or snow to prepare their tsampa and their tea, but in the valley they had been using the boiling water from one of the many thermal springs bubbling from the ground.
    â€œThat’s what is poisoning the Yetis, master,” the prince insisted.
    They had seen them use the lavender-colored water from the thermal spring to