CHAPTER ONE
The jagged peaks of the hard Himalayas cut deeply into
the vivid purple of the Tibetan evening skies. The setting
sun, hidden behind that mighty range, threw scintillating, iridescent colors on the long spume of snow perpetually blowing from the highest pinnacles. The air was crystal clear, invigorating, and giving almost limitless visibility.
At first glance, the desolate, frozen countryside was
utterly devoid of life. Nothing moved, nothing stirred
except the long pennant of snow blowing high above. Seemingly nothing could live in these bleak mountainous wastes. Apparently no life had been here since the beginning of time itself.
Only when one knew, when one had been shown time
after time, could one detect—with difficulty the faint
trace that humans lived here. Familiarity alone would guide
one's footsteps in this harsh, forbidding place. Then only
would one see the shadow-enshrouded entrance to a deep
and gloomy cave, a cave which was but the vestibule to a
myriad of tunnels and chambers honeycombing this austere
mountain range.
For long months past, the most trusted of lamas, acting as
menial carriers, had painfully trudged the hundreds of miles
from Lhasa carrying the ancient Secrets to where they
would be forever safe from the vandal Chinese and traitorous Tibetan Communists. Here too, with infinite toil and suffering, had been brought the Golden Figures of past Incarnations to be set up and venerated in the heart of a mountain. Sacred Objects, age-old writings, and the most venerable and learned of priests were here in safety. For years past, with a full knowledge of the coming Chinese invasion, loyal Abbots had periodically met in solemn conclave to test and pick those who should go to the New Home in the far distance. Priest after priest was tested, without his knowledge, and his record examined, so that only the finest and most spiritually advanced should be chosen. Men whose training and faith was such that they could, if need be, withstand the worst tortures that the Chinese could give, without betraying vital information.
So, eventually, from a Communist over-run Lhasa, they had come to their new home. No aircraft carrying war loads would fly this high. No enemy troops could live off this arid land, land devoid of soil, rocky and treacherous with shifting boulders and yawning chasms. Land so high, so poor in oxygen, that only a hardy mountain people could breathe. Here, at last, in the sanctuary of the mountains, was Peace. Peace in which to work to safeguard the future, to preserve the Ancient Knowledge, and to prepare for the time when Tibet should rise again and be free of the aggressor.
Millions of years ago this had been a flame-spewing range of volcanoes erupting rocks and lava over the changing face of the young Earth. The world then was semi plastic and undergoing the birth-pangs of a new age. Over countless years the flames died down and the half molten rocks had cooled. Lava had flowed for the last time, and gaseous jets from the deep interior of the Earth had expelled the remnants into the open air, leaving the endless channels and tunnels bare and empty. A very few had been choked by rock falls, but others had remained intact, glass hard and streaked with traces of once-molten metals. From some walls trickled mountain springs, pure and sparkling in any shaft of light.
For century after century the tunnels and caves had remained bare of life, desolate and lonely, known only to astral-traveling lamas who could visit anywhere and see all. Astral travelers had scoured the country looking for such a refuge. Now, with Terror stalking the land of Tibet, the corridors of old were peopled by the elite of a spiritual people, a people destined to rise again in the fullness of time.
As the first carefully chosen monks wended their way northwards, to prepare a home within the living rock, others at Lhasa were packing the most precious articles, and preparing to leave unobtrusively. From the lamaseries and nunneries came a small trickle of those chosen. In small groups, under cover of darkness, they journeyed to a distant lake, and encamped by its bank to await others.