Shangri-la?

Prompt: Shangri-la


The Himalayans were a torturous environment; cliffs as sheer the edge of a blade, peaks like jagged fangs, and cold that can kill. Gregory Kline led his team fearlessly through that foreboding landscape, intent on pushing through. To setting foot in places where no man has walked before.

And he was sure they would succeed. They were six hundred miles from the nearest civilization and had been re-supplied by helicopter twice already, and every member of the team was still in excellent condition. No signs of frostbite or hypothermia, no accidents. Kline grinned under his thick scarf.

Which is exactly when the ice underneath him cracked with a sound like thunder. The world tilted violently sideways and the expedition leader stumbled and fell. Ropes napped tight as Kline’s weight pulled against the ice climbers he was tethered to. Ice shivered apart and one by one they slide into the crevasse in a line, boots kicking for purchase on the smooth ice, flailing with ice picks.

It was Oscar who saved their lives. Someone had lost hold of their ice pick, sliding adown the slope alongside them. Oscar managed to grab it as it slid past him and raise it alongside his own pick. With a cry he brought them both down and felt them bite. The tethered line of sliding men and women came to a halt with a jarring snap. One at a time they each found purchase of their own, taking the strain off of Oscar.

Kline dangled at the bottom of the slope, hanging over what would have been a fatal drop. He looked up, heard Oscar shouting for the team to spread themselves out and tie themselves off. For an Arizona native, the man was surprisingly natural on the ice.

Kline looked down, knowing that he would have to wait for the others to secure themselves before they could pull him to safety. As he dangled, rotating slowly on the ropes that tethered him to his team, Kline marveled at the ice. So much more beautiful than a simple ice cube, the ice sparkled in blue, indigo and violet. He smiled at a rare flash of deep green in the ice, then his breath caught.

A glassy boulder of ice reflected green-gold light up at him, colors he had never before seen in all his years mountain climbing. Kline blinked his eyes rapidly. Maybe he was going snow-blind…maybe it was fatigue…but it almost looked like a reflection in the ice. A reflection of a green valley.

“There’s something down here!” He shouted.

“What is it?” He heard Oscar shout back, his voice ricocheting off of the chasm walls like a pinball. Kline smiled briefly. It had been a long time since his first days on the mountain, shouting from the peaks to hear his own voice. But because he didn’t engage in those amateur jokes any longer, didn’t mean he still couldn’t be amused by them.

His smile faded as he stared at the reflection below him. This was either an amazing discovery, or he was hallucinating. “I’m not sure! I want to climb down and get a better look!”

Oscar organized the team and they got Kline hauled up onto the slope so they could begin an organized descent. It took four hours to climb back up the slope to where the ice had first shattered and collect gear that had been left behind and then to climb back down and make the final descent to the bottom of the chasm.

Kline was almost certain that as soon as they reached bottom that there would be nothing to see. Nothing more than a trick of the light played on senses scrambled by fear and adrenalin from his near-death. Under the ledge where he’d dangled, the late afternoon light had passed the point where it could shine to the bottom. But there was light…

The eastern end of the crevasse was pinched shut by the slow movement of the eons, but the western end was open; a tall but narrow shaft winding away. Light like fire was tingeing the icy walls with warmer colors.

“Do you see that, Greg?” Oscar said quietly, stepping up besides Kline. He nodded. “Good, I thought maybe I was going nuts. This is what you saw, too, right?”

They chuckled together. “Well, we could still both be nuts. Let’s check it out while we still have light,” Kline said.

They moved on in silence, intrigued by the beautiful light spilling into the chasm. When they stepped out of the opening, they had to raise their hands to cover their eyes. The late sunlight poured into a vast valley, glinting off the ice on western rim. Below them lay a green and lush valley, a sparkling lake in the center.

When the powers of speech returned, Hamilton breathed, “I saw this valley from up top...there was nothing but ice and snow…”

“Look!” Said Oscar. “Houses! …Tended fields…and those trees. They were planted! It’s a God-damned orchard…”

Kline unzipped his parka and pulled his frozen gloves off his hands with his teeth; it was much warmer in the valley. “Well, everyone, lets go check it out… It’s like…. It’s like, Shangri-la…”

There was even a path from the crevice winding down the slopes of the valley, switching back over hills covered in grass and clover. No one spoke as they made their way to the valley floor. Something about this valley seemed, odd, special, maybe sacred.

“Holy shit, a welcoming committee,” Oscar said. Near the bottom of the hill a group of people were waiting. Their dress and manner instantly brought the word ‘peasants’ to mind. They wore simple, homespun clothes, worn, but well-cared for. Their faces were round and sun-darkened, creased at the eyes and around the mouths with deep lines. They bowed deeply as Kline and his team neared them.

Kline looked over his shoulder at the expedition, shrugged, then turned towards the peasants and bowed in return. Behind him, Oscar and the others mimicked. The valley-folk straightened, smiling and came forward, babbling quickly in a language Kline had never heard before. Grasping arms and wrists they coaxed the team forward and into their village.

“Abe? You still have the camera, right?” Kline asked. Behind him, gently nudged along by several of the peasants, the young man patted the bulging pocket of his pack.

“If it didn’t get broken in the fall, yeah. Do you think it’ll spook the natives?”

Oscar chuckled. “Yeah, wouldn’t want to make them think we were stealing their souls, now.”

Kline was torn between frowning and laughing along. “Good point. Be discrete; get a few pictures when you think you can do it without anyone noticing. At the very least we’ll get some shots from the edge of the valley when we leave.”

“If the camera’s not busted…” Abe muttered.

They were taken to a long low building, like a lodge. The peasants pulled at their clothes, and after some initial resistance, Kline realized they were only trying to remove their bulky cold-weather clothes. They weren’t really necessary any more, so he relented and encouraged his team to do likewise. He was no diplomat, but his mother and law always seemed to take offense if he did not offer to take her coat when she came to visit. He grinned at the idea of treating this whole village like his mother in law, but considering how carefully he tread around that woman, it couldn’t hurt.

They were treated to a feast by the village people, presided over by an elder so ancient and withered that Kline couldn’t be sure if they were man or woman. The food was excellent and copious, but not exotic, at least not to the area. They ate the same sort of fare Kline found in the Himalayan communities all around the mountain. He was vaguely disappointed; he’d almost been expecting roast yeti.

Kline could see his team trying to mingle, introducing themselves in loud and over-enunciated English. Oscar was perhaps having the most success communicating, employing grand hand gestures and not a few sound effects. Kline choked on his water when he saw Oscar wind milling his arms, crying out as he played out an exaggerated version of their fall this morning. A smiling old woman thumped him the back, murmuring in her incomprehensible language until he could breathe again. He thanked her with tone of voice and expression, knowing that it would be a long time before his words meant anything to his people. Probably not until National Geographic got here.

The lodge was turned into sleeping quarters, with thick blankets laid out on the floor for each of them and the fire pits stoked for the night. Smiling and bowing, the villagers backed their way out and left them alone. Kline lay back on a blanket, pulling another over his legs and feeling the pleasant drowsiness of a good meal. And satisfaction at his discovery. He hadn’t discovered a place where no man had set before, but he thought that these people and their amazing valley high above the earth might be even better.

Kline was woken by nature’s call. At first, he couldn’t make sense of his surroundings. Not that he had forgotten where he was – on the contrary, he’d been dreaming that he was receiving a noble prize (he wasn’t sure if they gave them out for this, but he hoped) for his discovery here – but that his surroundings looked nothing like the lodge he’d fallen asleep in. It was misty and hot, damp. Kline groaned, his skin itched to the point of burning.

But only for a moment. He blinked away the sleep and saw the carved beams laid out above him and his team laid out below them. Sleep seemed distant, so he resolved to take Abe’s camera and get some snapshots after doing his business. He paused as he crept over to Abe’s sleeping form, suddenly realizing that he had no idea where these people went to go pee, and hoped he didn’t cause an incident with his ignorance. He hoped that he could find someplace to relieve himself that they wouldn’t find until he could figure out a way to politely use hand-signs to ask where the bathroom was.

The camera was right next to Abe. He must have taken it out during the feat, maybe he’d even gotten some photos unnoticed during the commotion. He grabbed the camera, but the strap was looped around Abe’s hand. Kline gently lifted it and slipped the camera off, but he felt something slick and warm. He held his fingers up and in the dim light of the fire pit’s embers, he saw a dark stain. He smelled it and took in the metallic scent of warm blood.

“…Abe…?” He jerked the blanket back and felt his gorge rise. The young man’s skin was mostly eaten away, dissolved as if by acid.

“Ungh… what’s up, boss?” Abe blinked sleepily, obviously unaware of his condition. How could he not feel it? Kline turned away, certain he was going to vomit. He braced his hands on the floor and the burning itch suddenly returned. With a scream, he saw that his own hands were almost fleshless, eaten away nearly to the bone.


Screams echoed off the sides of the valley, but it was far too remote for them to be heard by even bestial ears. The village in the valley faded away as the creature closed its illusory mouth. Perhaps in another few decades some beast would wander this way again, and the creature would unfold its trap and let its meal walk right in.