"The 404th lao gai brigade."

Khorda nodded slowly. "I've seen them take gompas." The right side of Khorda's face twisted into a hideous grin. "You know what it means?" the sorcerer asked. "They eliminate it. They take it stone by stone. They eradicate its existence. They pound the foundation into the earth. Reclamation, they call it. They take the stones and build barracks. If they could dig a hole deep enough they would bury all of Tibet." Khorda stared at Shan. No, he stared at a point behind Shan that he seemed to see through Shan's skull. After a moment his eyelids shut.

"I touched a dead body," said Shan.

Slowly the left eyelid opened. The red jewel stared at him. "A common enough sin. Ransom a goat." Khorda spoke with what seemed a shadow of a voice. It was hoarse and distant and gasping.

The penance was common among the herding people, who would buy a goat out of the herd to save it from the pot. "Where I live there are no goats."

The cheek curled in another half grin. "Ransoming a yak would be even better."

"The killer was wearing this."

The sorcerer's face tightened. His good eye opened and transfixed the disc that Shan held out. He pulled it from Shan's hand and held it closer.

"Once he was awakened," Khorda nodded knowingly, "he could not be expected to sit idle. When he sees everything he will have no more rest."

"Everything? You mean the murders?"

"He means 1959," the woman snapped from behind Shan. The year of the final Chinese invasion.

"I need to meet him."

"People like you," Khorda said, "people like you cannot meet him."

"But I must."

Half of Khorda's face curled into a hideous smile. "You will take the consequences?"

"I will take the consequences," Shan said. He felt a tremor in his lips as he spoke.

"Your hands," Khorda rasped. "Let me see them."

As Shan laid them on the table, palms upward, Khorda bent over each one, studying them a long time. His eyes rose to meet Shan's. As he did so, he pressed Shan's hands together and dropped a rosary into them.

The beads felt like ice. They seemed to numb his hands. They were made of ivory, and each was intricately carved in the shape of a skull.

"Repeat this," Khorda said. There was something new in his voice, a bone-chilling tone of command that caused Shan to look into the sorcerer's eye. "Look at me with the beads in your hands and repeat this. Om! Padme te krid hum phat!" he barked.

Shan did as he was told.

Behind him Yeshe gasped. The woman made a sound like the call of a raven. Was it laughter? Or fear?

They repeated the strange mantra at least twenty times. Then Shan realized Khorda had stopped and he was speaking alone. He felt light-headed, then an intense coldness clenched him and everything seemed to grow dark. The words came faster and faster, as though his voice was being controlled by another. Suddenly there was a brilliant flash that seemed to come from inside his head, and Khorda gave an immense roar. It was a sound of great pain.

Shan shivered violently. He dropped the beads and the room came back into focus. The shivering stopped, though his hands felt ice cold.

The sorcerer was gasping, as though from strenuous exercise. He looked warily around the chamber, especially into the shadows of the corners, as though expecting something to leap out. He reached and poked Shan's chest with a gnarled finger. "You still alive?" he croaked. "Is it still you, Chinese?" He retrieved the rosary and studied Shan's palms again.

Shan's heart was racing. "How do I find Tamdin?" he asked.

"Follow his path. He won't be far now," the sorcerer said with his crooked grin. "If you are brave enough. The path of Tamdin is a path of ruthlessness. Sometimes only ruthlessness reaches the truth."

"What-" Shan's mouth was as dry as sand. "What if someone offended Tamdin? What would need to be done?"

"Offend a protector demon? Then expect to attain nothingness."

"No. I mean a true believer did something in the name of Tamdin, pretending to be Tamdin. Maybe borrowing the face of Tamdin."

"For the virtuous there are charms for forgiveness. Might work for the girl."

"A girl asked to be forgiven by Tamdin?"

Khorda said nothing.

"Can they work for me?" If a nonbeliever used a costume, Shan realized, they would not ask for a charm. But surely a nonbeliever would have no reason to use the costume, unless they were framing the Buddhist monk. And then they would not be concerned with forgiveness. Shan sighed. He wished he could simply settle for attaining nothingness.

Khorda lifted his enchanter's cap and set it on his head. As if it were a cue, the woman appeared with a sheet of rice paper, ink, and a brush. Khorda lifted the brush and began to work on the paper. He inscribed several large ideograms, then closed his right eye and raised the paper to the jeweled eye. He shook his head sadly, tore the paper into pieces and dropped it all onto the floor. "It won't stick to you," Khorda grunted in frustration, fixing Shan with his unearthly stare. "You require much more." The sorcerer's hand, still clutching the rosary, began to shake.

"What do you see?" Shan heard himself say, as though from a distance. He massaged his fingers. They still seemed icy cold where they had touched the skull rosary.

"I have known men like you. Like a magnet. No. Not that. A lightning rod. If you are not careful your soul will wear out long before your body."

Khorda's hand was shaking violently now. It began to move. Khorda seemed to fight it, to try to restrain it, but without avail. It leapt at Shan and grabbed his pocket. Two bony fingers pulled out a paper. It was the charm from Choje. The shaking hand unfolded it, then abruptly dropped it, as though burned.

The old man studied the paper and nodded deferentially. "This Choje must love you well, Chinese, to give you such a thing," he said solemnly. A hoarse laugh rose in his throat. "Now I know why you survived," he said, wheezing. "But it cannot change the thing you did." He gave a great sigh, as though he had been released from a powerful grip, and began to stare at the skull beads in his hand. An intense curiosity seized his face, as if he could not understand how they got there, or why.

"The thing I did? The mantra, with the skulls?" Shan asked.

But Khorda seemed not to hear. The woman pulled his arm urgently. "The summoning," she hissed, pushing him out the door. "You summoned the demon."

As they moved back through the maze of stalls, a two-wheeled cart filled with young goats turned in front of them, pulled by two old women. The women stumbled and the cart flew upward, tipping its contents directly onto Sergeant Feng. Feng went down, entangled in bleating animals. The alley exploded with activity. Merchants angrily shouted to keep the goats from their wares. Herdsmen moved in to help, adding to the confusion.

Three men, dressed in the fleece vests and caps of herders, materialized at Shan's side. They pushed Yeshe and Shan into a doorway six feet away. One of them turned his back to them, blocking the view to Feng; he began shouting encouragement to the herdsmen.

"We know you have Sungpo," one of them said abruptly. He pulled back his cap, revealing a familiar haircut. Several long scars crisscrossed his face.