The Wheel of Darkness

“Thank you, Mr. Kemper, for a most interesting voyage.” And with that, Pendergast eased his arm from the woman’s support and slipped a hand into a valise he carried.

Kemper stared at the man in surprise. “There’s no need to tip the ship’s officers,” he said curtly.

“I think you’ll want this tip,” Pendergast replied, extracting an oilskin-wrapped package from the valise. He extended it toward Kemper.

“What’s this?” Kemper asked, taking the package.

The man said nothing more. He merely turned, and then he and the woman melted back into the early-morning shadows, heading toward the moving masses of people.

LeSeur watched as Kemper untied the oilskin.

“Looks like your three hundred thousand pounds,” he said, as Kemper stared in silent astonishment at the soiled bundles of notes.

“Strangest man I ever met,” Kemper said, almost as if speaking to himself.

LeSeur didn’t hear him. He was thinking again of that demon-haunted shroud that had engulfed Captain Mason.

Epilogue

SUMMER HAD FINALLY COME TO THE LLOLUNG VALLEY. THE Tsangpo River roared over its cobbled bed, fed by melting snows in the great mountains beyond. Flowers mortared the cracks and hollows of the valley floor. Black eagles soared above the cliffs, their high-pitched cries echoing from the great wall of granite at the valley’s head, mingling with the steady roar of the waterplume leaping off its rim and feathering down onto the rocks below. Beyond rose up the three massive peaks, Dhaulagiri, Annapurna, and Manaslu, swathed in eternal glaciers and snow, like three cold and remote kings.

Pendergast and Constance rode side by side up the narrow track, trailing a pack pony on whose back was tied a long box wrapped in a canvas manty.

“We should be there before sunset,” Pendergast said, gazing at the faint trail that wound up the granite face.

They rode on for a while in silence.

“I find it curious,” Pendergast said, “that the West, so advanced in many ways, is still in the dark ages when it comes to understanding the deepest workings of the human mind. The Agozyen is a perfect example of how much more advanced the East is in this area.”

“Do you have any further thoughts on how it might work?”

“As a matter of fact, by coincidence I read an article in the

Times

that might shed some light on it. It was about a recently discovered mathematical object known as E8.”

“E8?”

“E8 was discovered by a team of scientists at MIT. A supercomputer, running for four years, had to solve two hundred billion equations in order to draw an image of it—an admittedly very imperfect image. There was a crude reproduction in the newspaper, and when I saw it I was struck by its resemblance to the Agozyen mandala.”

“What does it look like?”

“It’s quite indescribable, an incredibly complex image of interlocking lines, points, and surfaces, spheres within spheres, occupying nearly two hundred and fifty mathematical dimensions. They say E8 is the most symmetrical object possible. Even more than that, physicists think that E8 may be a representation of the deep inner structure of the universe itself, the actual geometry of space-time. Incredible to think that, a thousand years ago, monks in India somehow discovered this extraordinary image and committed it to a painting.”

“Even so, I don’t understand. How could just looking at something like that alter one’s mind?”

“I’m not sure. The geometry of it somehow lights up the neural networks of the brain. It creates a resonance, if you will. Perhaps on a deep level our brains themselves reflect the fundamental geometry of the universe. The Agozyen is a rare intersection of neurology, mathematics, and mysticism.”

“Extraordinary.”

“There are many things the dull Western mind has yet to appreciate about Eastern philosophy and mysticism. But we’re starting to catch up. Scientists at Harvard, for example, have just begun to study the effect of Tibetan meditative practice on the mind—and to their amazement they discovered that it actually causes permanent physical changes in the brain and body.”

They reached a crossing of the Tsangpo. The river was shallow and broad at the ford, running merrily over a shallow bed of cobbles, the rushing sound of water filling the air. Gingerly their horses stepped into the torrent and picked their way across. They came out on the far side and continued on.

“And the smoke ghost? Is there some kind of scientific explanation for that?”

“There’s a scientific explanation for everything, Constance. There are no such things as miracles or magic—only science we haven’t yet discovered. The smoke ghost was, of course, a tulpa, or ‘thoughtform’—an entity created through an act of intense, focused imagination.”

“The monks taught me some of the tulpa-creation techniques, but they warned me of the danger.”

“It’s extremely dangerous. The phenomenon was first described to the West by the French explorer Alexandra David-Neel. She learned the secrets of creating a tulpa not far from here, near Lake Manosawar. As a lark she tried it out and, it seems, began visualizing a plump, jolly little monk named Friar Tuck. At first, the monk existed only in her mind, but in time he began to take on a life of his own, and she glimpsed him at odd moments, flitting about her camp and frightening her fellow travelers. Things went downhill; she lost control of the monk and it began to morph into something bigger, leaner, and far more sinister. It took on a life of its own—just like our smoke ghost. She tried to destroy it by reabsorbing it into her mind, but the tulpa strenuously resisted and the end result was a psychic battle that almost killed David-Neel. The tulpa on board theBritannia was the creation of our friend Blackburn—and itdid kill him.”

“So he was an adept.”

“Yes. He traveled and studied in Sikkim as a young man. He realized immediately what the Agozyen was, and how it could be used—much to Jordan Ambrose’s misfortune. It was no concidence it ended up with Blackburn; there was nothing at all random in its movements through the world. You might say the Agozyensought Blackburn out, using Ambrose as a medium. Blackburn, with his billions and his dot-com savvy, was in a perfect position to spread the image of the Agozyen across the globe.”

They traveled a moment in silence. “You know,” Constance said, “you never did explain to me how you sent the tulpa after Captain Mason.”

Pendergast did not answer immediately. Clearly, the memory was still extremely painful. At last, he spoke. “When I freed myself from its grasp, I allowed a single image to form in my mind: the Agozyen. In essence, I implanted that image in the tulpa. I gave it a new desire.”

“You changed its prey.”