03. The Maze in the Mirror (21 page)

Fortunately, we didn't have far to go, although it was cold, slippery going for a few minutes that seemed like hours, and I was thankful for the sheer muscle power and skill of our two guides.

I was actually prepared, mentally, for a longer hike, maybe even a couple of days or on horseback or something, since I figured Tarn's hideaway wouldn't be anywhere near his substation, but I kind of figured that the whole place was booby-trapped as hell, maybe even fortified-who could see what was just above, or who?-and that it would take real effort to get past here and maybe it was impossible without setting off so many alarms you'd be creamed anyway.

We went through another cave, this one incredibly noisy as the wind whistled through it, telling me it was a through passage and not a dead end. I was right-we emerged on the other side into a kind of bowl-shaped valley surrounded by peaks still too high not to be permanently socked in, and while it wasn't the land of milk and honey in the movie it sure as hell took your breath away.

Built into the side of the valley, maybe a half-hour from where we came in, was a
huge
building, kind of like a great castle and also like a damned big and exotic-looking condo. Partly built out of the solid granite and partly hewn from it, it had a kind of fairyland look about it. The place sure was awesome, anyway.

Somebody at least had anticipated that both of us would be totally winded even by so short a walk
as we'd had in this altitude and also decided not to make us suffer. There was this big, enclosed sedan chair there with these long logs running through both sides and supporting it, and six big and brawny guys in furs apparently waiting for us. Maria looked doubtful, as if trying to decide between the misery she felt and the risks of the contraption, but I urged her in, and we sat across from each other on two curved wood seats that were worn almost smooth by who knew how many posteriors, and there were what I can only describe as grab bars everyplace.

"Hold on tight!" I warned her. "They got to lift us up!"

It didn't help. When they lifted us up with professional ease, it was still bouncy enough that neither of us had a good grip and we tumbled together for a minute. We managed to get back into our seats quickly, though, and then were off in a real rock and roll type ride.

"I have never been so cold and miserable in my life!" she wailed. "I do not like this cold at all, and I like this place and this thing even less."

"We just got to be obedient to orders," I responded a bit sarcastically. I was actually enjoying this to a degree. Not just her discomfort, although I admit that getting used to seeing a pretty girl not as that but as a loaded pistol pointed at your head can make you feel real satisfied that way, but also because I'd kind of been afraid these guys were in substation fortresses or other dull places and this was getting real interesting.

They put us down in the courtyard after coming through these gigantic wooden gates right out of a Cecil B. deMille Biblical epic, then one of the big
guys opened the door and we sort of crawled out and stood on ancient cobblestone looking at the inner and main building complex of this place.

Until now I had no real idea if this was some kind of noble's headquarters, some reconstruction for Tang's amusement of someplace he'd loved and lost back home, or maybe some kind of monastery. Maybe all three, I decided at last.

I looked over at Maria, who was too shocked and frozen to do more than just stand there shivering, and then they motioned for us to follow them again and we walked to the main doors, which opened inward to receive us, and inside.

The immediate inside was kind of anticlimactic; I mean, I expected some real royal grand hall or maybe Westminster Abbey, but it was a small and dark area that felt almost as cold and damp as outside. There we were met by a number of men wearing monk-like robes of brown or black with cowls up. One of the black-robed ones came right up to me and what I could see of his face didn't look all that Tibetan or whatever the others were.

He snapped his fingers and one of the brown-robed ones brought us robes as well. We were helped off rather insistently with our coats and it was clear that we were to put on the heavy woolen robes instead. Fortunately they believed in being clothed underneath and they made no move to take the nice, warm boots. Even so, Maria resisted giving up the coat; I think she would have been quite happy putting the robe on over the coat for extra insulation.,

"Just do it their way," I cautioned her. "We don't know what the rules are here, and I think this is also a way of making sure we don't wander outside
without permission. You'll get used to it after a while. It's not as bad as all that in here."

"I shall
never
get used to this," she responded bitterly. "With so much of the world so warm why do people choose to live in such cold, anyway? It is illogical." But she surrendered the coat like a good trooper and wasted no time getting the robe on.

"No, it's illogical not to use all the places that can support human life," I responded. "We need all types of people and all the land we can get. Some people even prefer to live in places like this and would ask how and why anyone would live in such a horribly hot, wet climate as you come from. I didn't ask for you, so if you want to come along then you better shape up."

Flanked by other monks or whatever they were, the man in the black robe then led us further in. It
was
warmer in the center, almost comfortable so long as you kept your clothes on and robe on top, the result of a number of good-sized fires burning in fireplaces nicely spaced around the place. Right in the middle there was a large chamber, it seemed, its open doors kind of reminding me of a medieval European cathedral, although the altar at the end had what looked like, in the brief glance I got, the stupidest looking idol I had ever seen. It was golden, gigantic, and had a pot belly, short, stubby legs, and a squared-off face with big bulging eyes and a mouth that looked like a hollow figure eight on its side. It looked like something out of a comic book, but I wasn't about to laugh or criticize the local deity in this place. No telling-Quin Tarn might take it personally.

We went up some stone stairs and then down a hall that had solid doors on one side and on the
other a railing beyond which you could look down on the cathedral proper, although it didn't have the best view of the big idol. A brown-robed monk opened one of the doors with a big key and gestured for Maria to enter. She balked, and turned on them. "No! We stay together!"

The monk, one of the smaller men in the group, might not have understood the words but certainly understood her meaning. He shrugged, then shoved her hard into the room and slammed the door on her, turning the key. I could hear her yelling, screaming, cursing, and pounding on the door, but that thing was so thick it was barely noticeable.

They skipped a door, then opened another for me, and I didn't object or wait for the shove. I walked in, and the door closed behind me with the most solid thud I ever heard.

Still, the place was livable; larger than I expected, and with a pretty nice-sized bed with sheets and lots of wool blankets, a personal woodstove that had been pre-started for my benefit and a fair number of logs in a scuttle next to it should I get chilly, a basin with a drain but no faucets, of course-there were two big pots of water there, one sitting atop the stove and the other fairly cool. Under the bed was a pretty standard chamber pot. I wondered if Maria knew what a chamber pot was, but that was her problem. The place was warm, and there wasn't the damp chill or the bed of straw I might have expected. It was a bedroom, not a dungeon, and that was sufficient for me.

There were no windows, and I doubted if we were really against an exterior wall at all. There
was also no peephole or trap in the door, so if they could spy on me it would have to be by very clever design or by cheating and using technological stuff. I slipped off the robe and then did a routine check of the place for such things, although without instruments it was more a matter of thinking like a security man and knowing what I would use and looking in the places I'd put them. I found no trace of anything, not even any indication that the place was wired at all for any kind of electrical power.

Tarn certainly had anything he wanted at his disposal someplace or another, since he joined in their conference calls and had to keep in touch or we wouldn't have even been allowed here or expected, but he might feel so unassailable in a spot like this that he left it in one secret and unobtrusive place with maybe only a couple of trusted aides to monitor it, and lived more or less native.

So I stoked the fire, plopped down on the bed, and waited to be summoned.

It wasn't all that long. The key turned in the lock and the same black-robed monk who'd brought us in stood there, this time alone. I got up off the bed and took the robe off the hook, put it on, splashed a little water in my face to brace me, turned, and went to him. He turned as I approached and I followed him out of the room and down the hall to the end. I glanced over the rail and heard a lot of praying and chanting down there and saw a bunch of mostly brown robes doing the expected towards the idol, but my keeper ignored it and, when we got to the end, we took a left and walked up another, shallower, set of stairs to a kind of landing. I mentally figured we were more or less standing on the idol's head, with the steps coming up from both sides to here, and then a single set going up and further back. At the top of those stairs was another set of ornate wooden doors, and the guy in the black robe took something metallic from a pocket in the robe and struck a metal plate on the right door three times. It made an impressive racket.

He did not, however, wait for an answer, but put his knocker away and then opened both doors inward, revealing a very fancy and very cozy room.

The carpets were thick and plush and had woven Oriental designs and even scenes in them; there were other rugs on the walls, giving the place a real cozy feel and also providing insulation. At the end of the room was a raised area carpeted entirely in red, with a kind of throne in back of it-not fancy, but impressive, a real throne-type chair- and a table or altar or something in front of it that was covered with a matching red cloth. I was kind of disappointed; I was getting kind of hungry, and I'd hoped to be invited to dinner, not an audience. At least I'd hoped to see a chair in the room so I wouldn't be standing.

The monk in black stopped me and pointed to my boots, then took out his nasty-looking iron knocker and looked for sure like he was gonna break both my ankles. I got the idea. Boots off before you got on the red part. No problem.

At least it was nice and warm in here, almost homey, and he didn't seem to mind socks. Well, hell, Aunt Sadie never allowed shoes on the carpet, either. You know the type-kept the whole house covered in plastic and looking like it was about to be visited by
House Beautiful
while everybody lived in, and was only permitted in, the kitchen, John, and bedroom.

I stuck the boots to one side and straightened up, then turned to see what to do next, but all I heard was the doors closing behind me. The guy in black had gone, leaving me alone.

Well, I knew better than that. I could have planted a hundred monitors in here nobody would ever see, and, hell, a couple of good old basic peepholes as well. I studied the tapestries and tried to look bored and waited some more, and only when I glanced back at the throne did I notice somebody was sitting in it.
That
bothered me. I hadn't heard him come in, sit down, or anything, and I was like ten feet from him. Nothing like somebody doing that to you to knock the self-confidence and cockiness right out of you.

He was a man of medium height, with strong Mongol-like features, with a strong-looking frame and the kind of hard, tough face that said it always meant what it said. His hair was dark, his moustache long and flecked with gray, and he was dressed in a metallic blue robe with the cowl down. There wasn't anything fancy about him, but if he'd suddenly stood up and said he was Fu Manchu, Emperor of the World, I'd have taken his word for it.

"Why do you come here, sir?" he asked, in a heavy and labored accent that showed he was using a translation module that took his thoughts and turned them into compromise English and would also take my compromised English and feed it to his brain in the language he best understood.

"To speak with Quin Tarn," I responded.

"Why, G.O.D..
man?"
he pressed, his tone unmistakable in any language.

I sighed. "I was not asked about this assignment," I reminded him. "I was drafted, my son abducted, to force me into it. Your side forced me into this, and so you must also accept my own methods and ways. Otherwise, all that trouble was for nothing. You have a problem that I have been asked to solve. I can not solve it without information any more than a man can work without food and water."

He took this impassively. "Well met, then. What can I do for you?"

"You are Quin Tarn?"

"I am."

"What is this place? Is it a cover, a hideout, or a sincere religious place?"

"Why do you wish to know that?"

"How can I expect to get anything done if you are going to ask that every time I ask a question, sir? I will not explain myself no matter how that sounds, for you might be the very one I am asked to unmask."

"If I am, then you are a dead man," he noted with a trace of amusement. "Are you not completely in my power here?"

"Completely," I agreed. "But if you were I don't think you'd knock me off here. It would be rather difficult to explain to your comrades, I should think. Somewhere else, perhaps, but not here, not when it's your responsibility. I think you-all of you-are considerably smarter than that."

Quin Tarn seemed to noticeably unfreeze, becoming warmer in tone and more human in appearance. He actually smiled at me.

"I believe I am going to like you, sir." He stood
up, clapped his hands, and two smaller figures in blue silk robes entered from the rear and set up two large pillows on either side of the red-covered table, then scurried back out. There was no mistaking that they were women.