returning. Chindamani had given him something like hope to hold on to, and William had made the hope seem real and tangible. He had started to believe it might be possible to get at least as far as the pass beyond the walls of the monastery.
“How many will this be?” he asked the Rinpoche.
“Enough to keep you crawling about in mud for the rest of eternity, I should think.”
“I told you to keep quiet,” the Rinpoche snapped. He could feel his confidence evaporating already. This would not be easy. Killing one of them alone would not have been difficult. But the two of them together, in the presence of the boys and the old woman .. .
Suddenly, everyone froze. In an uncannily high-pitched voice, old Sonam had begun to mutter the words of what sounded to Christopher like an incantation of some sort. He saw Tsarong Rinpoche turn pale and grip the gun as if to crush the metal in his bare hand. The old woman’s voice continued to rise and fall, quavering yet quite inflexible, filling the little room with curious echoes.
“Shut up!” Tsarong Rinpoche yelled at Sonam. Christopher noticed that the guard had blanched as well and was stepping back towards the door.
“Ama-la, please!” Chindamani urged, pressing the old woman’s shoulders in her hands.
“Stop reciting.” But the little nurse paid no attention. Eyes fixed on the Rinpoche, she went on with her incantation, pouring the words out implacably into the shadows that hung about him.
“Be quiet!” the Rinpoche shouted again, stepping towards the old woman and waving his gun loosely in the air. His eyes were wild and staring. Christopher could see that he had been gripped by some kind of superstitious dread, although he did not understand a word of the rhyming lines that the old nurse was reciting.
He guessed that it must be a curse of some sort and that Tsarong Rinpoche took it very seriously.
“Please, Sonam, don’t,” Chindamani was pleading. The boy Samdup sat frozen to the spot, his eyes fixed on the ancient figure, watching in horrified fascination as her wrinkled form rocked backwards and forwards in a steady rhythm, echoing the stanzas that rolled from her lips.
“Stop her!” the Rinpoche shouted.
“Or I’ll kill her. I swear I’ll kill her if she doesn’t stop!”
“Stop it, ama-la,” Chindamani pleaded. She had recognized the pain in Tsarong Rinpoche’s voice and knew he would indeed pull the trigger if Sonam went on much further. She knew why he was frightened.
But nothing would shut the old lady up. She was into her stride now, spitting the dark words of her curse out as though they were poison and could kill. Perhaps she thought they could.
Tsarong Rinpoche fired his revolver. A single shot, then the gun hung limply from his fingers. The bullet hit the ama-la in the throat. There was a terrible choking sound. She did not fall back, but went on sitting as though unhurt. But the bullet had entered through the front of the throat and exited again by the back of her neck, severing the top of the spinal column. A plume of blood sprayed out from the wound. There was a choking sound. Bright red blood foamed on her lips. Her old eyes glazed over and a moment later her body went limp and she fell back into Chindamani’s arms.
Nobody said anything. The room was filled with a dreadful silence that stretched into more than a minute. Outside, a gust of wind fell heavily against the window and rushed away again. It was as if it had come to take another soul from Dorje-la and carry it to the mysterious realm of Bardo.
The first person to move was Chindamani. There was a cold rage in her eyes that had never been in them before. She let go of Sonam’s body, lowering it to the bed, then stood up slowly, her gaze fixed on Tsarong Rinpoche. The lama’s face was twitching. A nerve was working in his right cheek. The hand that held the gun shook uncontrollably.
Chindamani began to recite the curse from where Sonam had left off. She spoke in a voice that was almost a whisper, but it carried clearly to the man at whom it was directed. She raised a finger and pointed at him and her voice trembled with anger.
As though mesmerized, Tsarong Rinpoche stood frozen for a moment, then his hand began to move. He raised the gun slowly and pointed it at Chindamani. It shook terribly and he set his teeth together, forcing his nerves to grow still. Then, just as slowly and just as deliberately, he turned the gun until it was pointing at his own face. The weapon was heavy, his fingers weak, drained of strength. He opened his mouth, then rested the edge of the gunbarrel on his lower teeth. His whole body was shivering now.
Chindamani’s voice filled the world. He wanted to cry out, to scream against the incantation, but his limbs were paralysed. Only his finger moved, tightening against the cold metal of the trigger.
Christopher watched in horror, unable to understand what was happening. The lama was terrified beyond measure. But surely the power of superstition alone could not be responsible for his unreasoning fear of the incantation. Tsarong Rinpoche had committed every sacrilege there was. And yet a few words from an old woman had been enough to undermine him completely.
Christopher held William’s face tight against his stomach. The boy had seen enough horrors already. Chindamani’s voice sounded in his ears, hard and relentless as a scalpel cutting through skin.
Tsarong Rinpoche closed his eyes.
The explosion blew most of Tsarong Rinpoche’s skull apart. Blood marked the walls of Chmdamani’s apartment with bright, angry drops. A great shudder went through all the limbs of the Rinpoche’s body, then he toppled and fell backwards Chindamani faltered and closed her eyes but remained standing. Samdup cried out in horror and threw his hands over his eyes. William, who had heard but not seen the explosion, clung to his father tightly. The monk who had entered the room with Tsarong Rinpoche was drenched with blood. Without a word, he dropped his weapon and ran through the door.
Christopher shuddered. For what seemed an age, he stood there holding William, looking at Tsarong Rinpoche’s bloodied corpse, at the blood streaming across the naked wall. Slowly, he became aware that Chindamani’s voice had faded away. He turned his head and saw her, still standing in the same spot, her arm outstretched, her finger pointing at the empty space where the Rinpoche had been standing.
He set William down on the couch and stepped towards her.
Tentatively, he took her in his arms. The shock of what had happened was rapidly leaving him, and he realized that it would not be long before someone came to investigate the gunshots.
“Chindamani,” he whispered.
“We’ve got to go. Zamyatin will send someone to see what’s going on. The monk who was here will tell others. We have to leave now or we’ll never make it.”
She was still staring ahead, her eyes unfocused, her body rigid.
He took her by the shoulders and began to shake her. She did not respond.
Suddenly, he noticed Samdup by his side. The boy had made a tremendous effort to shut out the horrors he had seen.
“Chindamani,” he said.
“Please answer me. Thepee-ling is right we have to escape. Please hurry or they’ll find us here.”
As if the boy’s voice worked some sort of magic on her, the girl blinked and began to relax. Her arms dropped to her side and she looked down at Samdup.
“I feel cold,” she said in a scarcely audible whisper.
Samdup looked up at Christopher.
“There are things for the journey in that chest,” he said.
“I was supposed to get them ready, but I had to look after Sonam and forgot.”
“William,” said Christopher.
“Come and help us get ready to leave. Help Samdup take things out of the chest.”
While the boys hurried to sort out clothes, tents, and bags of food, Christopher helped Chindamani to a seat. He put his arm round her, remembering how, not so very long before, their roles had been reversed.
“Where are we going, Ka-ris To-feh?” she asked.
“Away from here,” he answered.
“Far away.”
She smiled wanly and reached down to pick up some bags from the floor.
“Don’t waste time tying those on,” said Christopher.
“We can do that later. The main thing at the moment is to get out of this room.”
Chindamani turned and took a last look at Sonam. The old woman lay back on the bed where she had fallen,
