Footsteps broke the spell. Feng and Yeshe were not far behind. Shan approached the building.

The door, painted with a small ideogram surmounted by the sun, a crescent moon, and a flame, swung open with a light touch. The entry chamber had the air of an austere but lovingly tended cabin. Fresh flowers stood in a can below a window. The second chamber had no windows. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness Shan discerned a straw pallet, a stool, writing implements, and several candles. Lighting a candle, he discovered he was not in a chamber, but in a cavern.

There was a noise outside. He extinguished the candle and moved back through the structure. The meadow was empty. A murmur of surprise came from overhead. He looked up to see a small squat man lying on the roof, his mouth stuffed with nails. The man's head jerked to the side, with the dull, inquisitive look of a squirrel. Suddenly he spat out the nails, grabbed the edge of the roof and pulled himself over, landing in a pile at Shan's feet.

He didn't rise, but extended his finger and poked at Shan's leg as though to test if he were real.

"Have you come to arrest me?" he said as he rose. There was a strange hopefulness in his tone.

His flat, light-colored features were not Tibetan.

"I've come about Sungpo."

"I know that. I prayed." The man held his wrists together, as though for handcuffs.

"This is Sungpo's hermitage?"

"I am Jigme," the man said, as though Shan should know him. "Is he eating?"

Shan studied the strange creature. He seemed stunted somehow. His hands and ears were oversized for his body. His eyelids drooped, like those of a sad, sleepy bear. "No. He is not eating."

"I didn't think so. Some days I have to switch broth for his tea. Is he dry?"

"He has straw. He has a roof."

The man named Jigme gave an approving nod. "He has trouble remembering sometimes."

"Remembering?"

"That he's still just a human."

Yeshe and Feng appeared beside Shan. Jigme muttered a greeting. "I am ready," he said with an oddly cheerful voice. "Just have to close up. And leave a little rice for the mice. We always leave food for the mice. Master Sungpo, he loves the mice. Maybe he can't laugh with his mouth but he laughs with his eyes when the mice eat from his fingers. Right from the heart. Have you seen him laugh?"

When no one replied, Jigme shrugged and began to move back to the hut.

"We didn't come to take you," Shan said. "I just have questions."

Jigme stopped. "You have to take me," he said. He studied Shan in alarm. "I did it," he said in a new, desperate tone.

"Did what?"

"Whatever he did, I did it, too. It is the way we are." He lowered himself to the ground and put his arms around his knees.

"How often does Sungpo leave the hut?"

"Every day. He goes to the edge of the cliff and sits, two or three hours every morning." Jigme began rocking back and forth.

"I meant away from here, out of your sight."

Jigme looked confused. "Sungpo is on hermitage. He started nearly a year ago. He can't leave." He looked up, understanding his mistake. "Not of his own will." He seemed about to cry. "It's okay," he said apologetically. "Grandfather says we'll start over when he returns."

"But you aren't with him every hour. You sleep. He could go and come back before you wake."

"Not me. I know. I always know. Is my job to know, to watch over him. Hermits can concentrate like-" his search for words seemed almost painful, "- like a lump of coal in a wood fire." He shrugged. "They can fall off cliffs. It's happened. He belongs to me. I belong to him." He looked into his hands. "It's a good world." But Shan knew he wasn't speaking of the world at large. He was speaking of a tiny plateau in a remote township in a forgotten corner of Tibet.

"There is one man he may speak with," Shan suggested.

"Grandfather. Je Rinpoche." Jigme spoke almost in a whisper.

"Is Rinpoche here?"

"The gompa."

"The day they came for Sungpo. Tell me about it."

Jigme began to rock again. "They were six, maybe seven. Guns. They brought guns. I had been told about guns."

"What color were their uniforms?"

"Gray."

"All of them?"

"All but the young one. Had a slice in his face. His name was Meh Jah. Everyone called him Meh Jah. He wore a sweater, and glasses with dark lenses. He sent for the abbot. He wouldn't do anything until the abbot arrived."

"They said they found a wallet."

"Impossible."

"They didn't find it?"

"No. I mean they found it. I was there. In this cave. Meh Jah, he brought in the abbot. They had flashlights. He turned over a rock and there it was. But it was impossible it could be there."

"How long did they look for it?"

"The soldiers searched everywhere. Turned over my baskets. Broke my flowerpots."

"But how long after this man named Meh was in your cave?"

"He took the abbot into the cave. Someone called out right away, all excited. Then Meh Jah is here and put chains on Sungpo's hands."

"Show me the rock."

It was fifty feet inside the cave, a flat rock large enough to serve as a stool. Shan asked Yeshe to take Jigme outside. He sketched the cave in his notepad then bent over the rock with a candle. He ran his fingers around the stone, and paused. On the side facing the entrance there was a stickiness, a small rectangular patch that pulled at his skin. He called for Feng to light three more candles. He found what he was looking for ten feet further in, where it had been thrown from the rock after it served its purpose. A wad of black electrician's tape. The rock had been secretly marked to assure it could easily be found by those who came for the arrest.

"Were there other visitors?" Shan asked. "Before the day Comrade Meh came."

"None. None that I saw. Except Rinpoche."

"Rinpoche. Where in the gompa will I find him?"

Jigme was looking away, toward the edge of the cliff. A raven was there again, this one with an odd patch of white on the back of its head. Jigme began waving. "Visitors!" he shouted at the bird. "Hurry up!"

Jigme shielded his eyes to study the bird. "He's coming now," he announced. "The raven says he's coming now."

Je Rinpoche was not coming. He was waiting. Shan found him on a ledge a hundred yards down the path. He was paper-frail. His head was nearly hairless, and his skin rough, as if covered with dust. But his eyes, wet and restless, were brilliantly alive. The effect was as though someone had set two jewels into corroded stone.

Shan pressed his palms together and bowed his head in greeting. "Rinpoche. If I could ask-"

"There are so many things to consider," the ancient one interrupted. His voice was surprisingly strong. "This mountain. The dogs. The way the mist falls down the slopes, different each morning." He turned to Shan. When he shifted his body the robe barely moved. "Some days I feel like that. Like mist sliding down the mountain." He looked back down the valley and pulled his robe tighter, as if cold. "Jigme brings a melon sometimes. We eat it and Jigme will watch."

Shan sighed and stared out over the landscape. He would never have a chance to speak with Sungpo. Je, his lama, had been Shan's only hope for an intermediary. "When we climb to the top of the mountain, you know what we do?" the lama asked. "Just as I did when I was a novice. We make little paper horses and fly them away in the wind." He paused as if Shan required an added explanation. "When they touch the earth they become real horses to help travelers through the ranges."