Shan considered the words, trying to understand if Bing was speaking of himself or of the one who had severed his hands. “Was Abigail here?” he asked.

Bing’s mouth twitched. Had he any strength left, he would have grinned mockingly. “She watches,” he said in a hoarse whisper.

“She doesn’t care. Living with the gods, it’s all playacting.”

Shan shot a worried glance toward Hostene.

“How did this happen to you?”

“I was exhausted. I fell asleep. I woke to find him standing over me, grinning, singing one of his damned songs. Before I could speak, something hit me on the back of the head. When I came to there were rocks on my arms, so I couldn’t move them. He had already cut off my left hand when. .” Bing drifted off.

Shan stepped into the little clearing behind him. It seemed like Bing had lost gallons of blood. Even at this altitude, small flies had located it.

He dripped water into Bing’s half-open mouth. “The young miner, earlier this summer,” Shan said as Bing opened his eyes. “Did you kill him, too?”

Bing struggled for his answer. “Define kill,” he whispered.

“Let’s define it this way. Last year you killed a miner, then put his partner’s chisel in his back to show to Hubei, your witness.

The miner had been threatening to undermine Chodron’s business structure, and you had to show you were worthy of becoming the miners’ leader. The perfect answer was to kill him and blame his partner, the man you chased away. Placing the skeleton on the grave wearing the partner’s ring was truly inspired. But then Thomas started telling everyone that he could tell the cause of any death, even what caused a skull fracture. And you must have inflicted such a hard blow to the miner’s head that the weapon would have been obvious as soon as Thomas saw the skull. A hammer leaves a distinctive round indentation when there’s a lot of force behind it. You had to dig up the bones of the man you killed and dispose of them.”

“No miner would go onto that ridge. It was haunted,” Bing said, with a low whistling sound as he inhaled.

“But Thomas was ready to study every bone on the mountain for his project, especially if it might belong to a murder victim.”

“You never tried to go up there,” Bing added. “Why? I was hoping, watching. I could have killed you a dozen ways up there and everyone would have blamed the ghosts.”

“I didn’t need to,” Shan explained. “I’ve seen old burial caves before. I’ve seen what people like you do to them. One man had already died up there. Chodron was so suspicious he sent that farmer to follow you. No doubt he would have been one of your victims too, if the lightning hadn’t killed him first.”

“I was going to show them the skull of some old saint and say it was you. Push a leg bone into one of your old boots. They would have believed me, after everything else that’s happened.”

“A burial cave,” Shan said, “contains lots of old bones. And it’s a perfect hiding place for treasures, like the gold you had begun to buy from the miners without Chodron’s knowledge.”

“How was I supposed to guess she’d go up there looking for her damned gods? There is no evidence left,” Bing added in an oddly defiant tone.

“Because even those old bones became liabilities when Thomas announced he could tell the old from the new. He would have proven your story about the revenge of the ghost was wrong.”

“The little prick. One of those teacher’s pets who always has to show off how much he knows.

“They have artificial hands for amputees,” Bing said with sudden malice. “I’ll get ones with electric choppers. I’ll come looking for you, Shan.”

“You could have just sent Tashi away,” Shan continued. “None of this had to happen.”

“Tashi was the reason it all started. It would have been ungrateful to simply order him off the mountain. Worse, it would have been untidy.”

Shan paused, trying to understand. Bing’s breath began to rasp. He coughed. His breath came in short, shallow gasps. His lungs were beginning to fill with fluid.

“Tashi hadn’t a clue about keeping secrets.” Bing’s throat rattled. “The moment the fool appeared on the mountain, I knew there would be trouble. His services had already been bought and paid for. I gave him a chance, but he couldn’t stay away from vodka. We did him a favor, considering what might have happened.”

“Like the gratitude Rapaki showed you?”

“Too many years with those old Buddhist books, I guess. Nothing was real to him anymore. Everything was a symbol. He would hallucinate sometimes, talk to the paintings, stop suddenly and start speaking to a rock.” Bing’s breathing became labored. “He decided I became. . one. . in the end.”

“A demon,” Shan said, filling in for him. “Even though it was you who explained about demons to him last year.”

“He was like a damned cat, appearing out of nowhere, never making a sound unless he was telling his beads. I had no idea he was there, watching last year when I killed the miner. I had to think fast. The man was down but still breathing. I told Rapaki, Quick, help me get him to the painting of the old saint. I knew there was one close by. I said I had a prayer, given me by a saint, which had special powers near the old paintings, a way to identify a demon in human form. If I said the magic words, and the man was actually one of the demons who opposed the gods, then a red eye would appear on the man’s hand.”

“Your laser pointer,” Shan said with a sigh. “Ni shi sha gua.”

Bing gave a hoarse laugh, which triggered a fit of coughing. “I hid it in my hand and said the magic words in Chinese. You should have seen his face that first time, when that miner’s hand lit up with a demon’s eye. Rapaki was terrified. But then he began to smile. He ran away, and I thought that was the end of it. A few minutes later he showed up with that old ritual ax.”

“And now someone has borrowed your laser pointer.”

“Go any further and it will happen to you,” Bing vowed. “Soon everyone you know will have no hands.”

Shan ignored him. “It’s the new age indeed, Bing. High-tech demons. And thieves no longer know the meaning of honor. No loyalty. No gratitude,” Shan added, with a gesture to Yangke.

Bing weakly raised his brows in query.

“You never thanked Tashi’s friend. He didn’t tell Chodron about your lie. He didn’t tell him that you knew where two tons of gold, mined centuries ago, lay near the top of the mountain.”

Bing made an effort to push himself up. He rolled on top of Shan, who fought for a moment, then grew still as he realized Bing no longer resisted, realized the sour breath no longer came from Bing’s mouth, inches away from his head.

“He’s dead,” Hostene declared, and with Yangke’s help lifted the body from Shan.

They helped him to a nearby stream, where he thrust his face into the frigid water. Then, with gravel from the bed, he cleansed his hands and arms until the skin stung. When he was clean, to his surprise, Shan found he was hungry. As they ate, they debated what to do with Bing’s body. Yangke favored leaving Bing spread out by the gateway, to become a skeleton on the pilgrim’s trail. Hostene was inclined to shroud him in the blanket and heave him over the cliff. In the end they wrapped him in the blanket and covered him with rocks in the blood-soaked clearing, though not before Shan had studied the stumps of his arms. Each hand had been severed with two strikes. Each had left the same small nick in the bone.

They removed Bing’s shirt after Shan searched the pockets, ripping it into squares that Yangke inscribed, using a stick and Bing’s own blood, then left the prayer flags anchored with the burial stones. One more shrine to a demon.

“If he had followed the pilgrim’s path,” Yangke declared in a hushed voice, as he and Hostene pushed up the trail, “he would have seen who was lying in wait on this side of the passage.” It was Bing’s only epitaph.