Another corner. She felt refreshed, clear, alert. “What drives those prayer wheels?” she asked. “They never cease turning.”
“There is a spring of water under monastery—source of Tsangpo River. It pass over wheel, turn gears.”
“Ingenious.”
They passed by the wall of creaking, rattling brass wheels, like some Rube Goldberg confection. Constance could see, behind the wheels, a forest of moving brass rods and wooden gears.
They left the wheels behind and came into one of the outer corridors. Ahead loomed one of the far pavilions of the monastery, the square pillars framing the three great mountains. They entered the pavilion and Constance drank in the pure high-altitude air. Tsering indicated a seat and she took it. He sat down next to her. For a few minutes they gazed over the darkening mountains in silence.
“The meditation you are learning is very powerful. Someday, you may come out of meditation and find the knot . . . untied.”
Constance said nothing.
“Some can influence the physical world with pure thought, create things out of thought. There is story of monk who meditate so long on rose that when he open his eyes, there is rose on the floor. This is very dangerous. With enough skill and meditation, there are those who can create things . . . other than roses. It is not something to desire, and it is a grave deviancy from Buddhist teaching.”
She nodded her understanding, not believing a word of it.
Tsering’s lips stretched into a smile. “You skeptical person. That very good. Whether you believe or not, choose with care image you meditate on.”
“I will,” said Constance.
“Remember: Though we have many ‘demons,’ most not evil. They are attachments you must conquer to reach enlightenment.”
Another long silence.
“Have question?”
She was quiet for a moment, recalling Pendergast’s parting request. “Tell me. Why is there an inner monastery?”
Tsering was silent for a moment. “Inner monastery is oldest in Tibet, built here in remote mountains by group of wandering monks from India.”
“Was it built to protect the Agozyen?”
Tsering looked at her sharply. “That is not to be spoken of.”
“My guardian has left here to find it. At this monastery’s request. Perhaps I can be of some help, too.”
The old man looked away, and the distance in his eyes had nothing to do with the landscape beyond the pavilion. “Agozyen carried here from India. Taken far away, into mountains, where it not threaten. They build inner monastery to protect and keep Agozyen. Then, later, outer monastery built around inner one.”
“There’s something I don’t understand. If the Agozyen was so very dangerous, why not just destroy it?”
The monk was silent for a very long time. Then he said, quietly, “Because it has important future purpose.”
“What purpose?”
But her teacher remained silent.
5
THE JEEP CAME CAREENING AROUND THE CORNER OF THE HILL, bumped and splashed though a series of enormous, mud-filled potholes, and descended onto a broad dirt road toward the town of Qiang, in a damp valley not far from the Tibet-Chinese border. A gray drizzle fell from the sky into a pall of brown smoke, which hung over the town from a cluster of smokestacks across a greasy river. Trash lined both shoulders.
The driver of the jeep passed an overloaded truck, honking furiously. He swerved past another truck on a blind curve, slewing within a few feet of a cliff edge, and began descending into town.
“To the railroad station,” Pendergast told the driver in Mandarin.
“Wei wei, xian sheng!”
The jeep dodged pedestrians, bicycles, a man driving a pair of oxen. The driver screeched to a halt in a crush of traffic at a rotary, then inched forward, leaning continuously on the horn. Exhaust fumes and a veritable symphony of claxons filled the air. The windshield wipers slapped back and forth, streaking the mud that covered the jeep, the anemic rainfall sufficient only to spread it around.
Beyond the rotary, the broad avenue ended at a low gray cement structure. The driver stopped abruptly before it. “We are here,” he said.
Pendergast stepped out and opened his umbrella. The air smelled of sulfur and petroleum fumes. He entered the station and made his way through hordes of people, pushing, yelling, lugging huge sacks and wheeling baskets. Some carried live, trussed-up chickens or ducks, and one even wheeled along a piteously squalling pig tied up in an old wire shopping cart.
Toward the back of the station, the throngs thinned and Pendergast found what he was looking for: a dim passageway leading to the officials’ offices. He passed by a half-sleeping guard, walked swiftly down the long corridor, glancing at the names on the doors as he passed. At last he stopped before a particularly shabby door. He tried the handle, found it unlocked, and walked in without knocking.
A Chinese official, small and rotund, sat behind a desk heaped with papers. A battered tea set stood to one side, the cups chipped and dirty. The office smelled of fried food and hoisin sauce.
The official leapt up, furious at the unannounced entry. “Who you?” he roared out in bad English.
Pendergast stood there, arms folded, a supercilious smile on his face.
“What you want? I call guard.” He reached to pick up the phone, but Pendergast quickly leaned over and pressed the receiver back into its cradle.
“Ba,”
said Pendergast in a low voice, in Mandarin. “Stop.”
The man’s face reddened at this further outrage.
“I have some questions I would like answered,” said Pendergast, still speaking in coldly formal Mandarin.
The effect on the official was pronounced, his face reflecting outrage, confusion, and apprehension. “You insult me,” he finally shouted back in Mandarin. “Barging into my office, touching my telephone, making demands! Who are you, that you can come in here like this, behaving like a barbarian?”
“You will please sit down, kind sir, remain quiet, and listen. Or”—Pendergast switched to the insulting informal—“you will find yourself on the next train out of here, reassigned to a guardpost high in the Kunlun Mountains.”
The man’s face edged toward purple, but he did not speak. After a moment he sat stiffly down, folded his hands on the desk, and waited.
Pendergast also seated himself. He took out the scroll Thubten had given him and held it out to the official. After a moment, the man took it grudgingly.
“This man came through here two months ago. His name is Jordan Ambrose. He was carrying a wooden box, very old. He bribed you, and in return you gave him an export permit for the box. I would like to see a copy of the export permit.”
There was a long silence. Then the official laid the painting on the table. “I do not know what you are speaking about,” he said truculently. “I do not take bribes. And in any case a lot of people come through this station. I wouldn’t remember.”
Pendergast removed a flat bamboo box from his pocket, opened it, and tipped it upside down, depositing a neat stack of fresh hundred-yuan renminbi notes on the table. The man stared at them, swallowed.
“You would remember this man,” Pendergast said. “The box was large—a meter and a half long. It was obviously old. It would have been impossible for Mr. Ambrose to have taken the box through here or gotten it out of the country without a permit. Now, kind sir, you have a choice: bend your principles and take the bribe, or stick to your principles and end up in the Kunlun Mountains. As you may have guessed from my accent and fluency in the language, although I am a foreigner, I have very important connections in China.”