howler guardians held a pistol, still extended, its barrel smoking. Lin furiously pointed at the man, and the nearest soldier lunged and slammed his rifle butt against the pistol, knocking it to the ground, then rested his boot on the weapon.
Dzopa twisted, holding his left calf, which was bleeding profusely. Lhandro darted to the man's side and pressed a scarf against the wound. Jokar took two steps toward the dobdob then was restrained by Lepka, whose hand appeared on the ancient lama's shoulder. Tenzin stepped forward and knelt by Lhandro and the dobdob, Khodrak watching Tenzin with a victorious smile.
Shan's eyes shot back and forth from Lin to Dzopa. Then his gaze locked on the mendicant staff in Khodrak's hands.
'Arrest them!' Khodrak shouted at the guards. 'You saw what that man with the staff did. Now his companion reveals himself, that one with the chig! And that Han who conspires with them!' he shouted in a victorious tone, pointing at Shan. 'Arrest them all! Traitors! Murderers!'
Chig. Shan looked about in confusion. It meant the number one. He looked back at Lhandro, still on the ground beside Tenzin. The simplest, oldest form of representing the number one in Tibetan writing was an inverted U, slanted slightly to the right. Like the birthmark on Lhandro's neck. His eyes moved from Khodrak to Lhandro. The one with the chig.
Shan became aware of Tenzin moving his arm, drawing something in the earth with his finger, then looking at Shan. A shape of curves. It looked like the Arabic number three, slanted to the left, its bottom extended like a tail. It was a shape Shan knew well, the shape of the curved scar on Drakte's forehead. In Tibetan the symbol meant nyasha. Fish. Once the chairman had been looking for a man with a fish.
Khodrak's smile faded as he saw the figure in the dirt, and he turned his back on Tenzin and the dobdob. 'Murderers!' he called out again. 'Seize them!'
'Murderers?' A voice called out from behind Khodrak. Several of the officials were standing at the edge of the platform now. One of them, a lean older man wearing a grey uniform, examined the chairman of Norbu gompa with a puzzled expression. 'You order an arrest?'
'The Religious Affairs officer in Amdo town.' The announcement left Khodrak's lips slowly. 'It will be written that he was a hero who died for our true cause, who died for the Serenity campaign, who died as an example of how Norbu leads the new order.'
It will be written. Khodrak had written lies to win his newfound power. Drakte had written the truth to stop him, and died for it. Shan sensed his legs move and suddenly he was in front of Khodrak, blocking his path to the platform. Khodrak glared and made a shoving motion with his staff. Shan stared at the staff, his gaze fixed now on its head.
'I know the hero who died for the truth,' Shan declared.
Suddenly the truck escorting Larkin and the Tibetans began honking its horn as if in celebration, and those on the platform looked away, toward the line of prisoners. But Khodrak and Shan kept their eyes locked together, until abruptly Khodrak lowered the staff, its head leveled at Shan's abdomen, and lurched forward with it. A hand shot out as Shan felt the cold steel touch his stomach. Ma was at his side, hand on the metal shaft head, pushing it back. The horn stopped, and Khodrak withdrew the staff with a satisfied air and stepped around them.
A strange stillness fell over Shan and the professor as they watched Khodrak, then slowly Shan turned to see Ma standing looking into the palm with which he had seized the staff. The professor's palm was sliced open. Blood dripped down his fingertips onto the soil.
It was said by the old Tibetans that sounds accompanied enlightenment, not human words but sounds the spirit somehow knew to use when it was in contact with deities. Perhaps the sound that escaped Shan's lips now was such a reaching out, a strange part-groan, part-exclamation of discovery, part cry of pain.
The professor, who seemed oblivious to his wound, looked at him with sudden worry. 'Are you ill?' Ma asked.
Yes, Shan wanted to reply. Ill with the truth. Ill with the heavy knowledge of what Beijing's years of occupation had done to all of them.
But instead someone shouted out in a loud, steady voice. 'One yak,' the voice said sternly. 'Only one yak. Lamtso Gar has one yak.' Shan almost began looking around before he realized it was his own voice. 'Eighteen sheep. Five goats,' he said, remembering the way the woman at the lake had proudly pointed out her entry in Drakte's ledger. 'And two dogs.'
Khodrak halted. The color of his face shifted, pale at first, then flush with anger. The chairman of Norbu was suddenly in front of him again, raising his staff, now slamming the butt end of it into Shan's belly. Shan collapsed onto his knees, holding his belly, fighting for breath. But not taking his eyes off those on the platform, turning as though trying to address the dignitaries, the Tibetans, and the soldiers all at once.
'Last year,' Shan shouted, gasping, looking at the platform, 'a child died of starvation there.'
'Coward!' Khodrak snarled. 'We are the examples of the new way. We came to be celebrated.' He turned. 'Tuan!' he snapped, and the Director appeared, followed by four white shirts who seemed eager to close on Shan. But then Shan pulled a piece of paper from his pocket, and unfolded it: the photograph of the cottage by the lake he had taken from Tuan's office. He extended it like a weapon. Tuan, only ten feet away now, halted, the color draining from his face.
Lin uttered a sharp syllable and soldiers flanked the white shirts, making it clear they should go no further. It was a little thing, Shan thought, of minor consequence to Lin. He was just allowing Shan to hang himself in front of the dignitaries.
If Khodrak was not certain whom his audience should be, Shan at least knew who his was. He struggled to his feet and stepped closer to the platform as Khodrak glared, first at Shan, then at Lin. 'The people of the district compiled their own report of economic activity. A report based on the truth. The people must have a voice, too. When they sought to present it to Deputy Director Chao in Amdo town, Khodrak killed Chao, then killed the Tibetan who brought it.'
Incredible as it seemed, Shan realized the only audience that would listen to him was the one before him now, an audience of soldiers who distrusted knobs, and howlers who distrusted knobs, and knobs who distrusted both; an audience in which those not form Lhasa and the Ministry feared those who were, who would tolerate his accusations because they were all seasoned in the language of accusation, and had been taught that suspicion and fear and blame were the foundations of power. Most no doubt assumed Shan would be in manacles after his speech, but just as certainly everyone was wondering whether they might hear something that might enhance their own power.
'Killed them with the very staff he carries. Measure it and you'll see it matches the wound that killed Deputy Director Chao.' Shan had no doubt now that it matched another wound, one he had seen, the terrible gash in Drakte's abdomen that the purba had tried to mend with coarse thread and a tent needle. Drakte had fled Khodrak, had fled from Amdo town, but the blow Khodrak had inflicted had finally killed him at the hermitage. And killed their sacred mandala.
The line of detainees from the end of the valley was closing, and would be at the camp in five minutes. Melissa Larkin would be there, face to face with Zhu.
There was movement behind Shan. Professor Ma was there again, with Shan; two Chinese against the Tibetan chairman of Norbu gompa. The professor said nothing, but turned his hand outward, where the officials form Lhasa, in the front row, could plainly see the blood dripping from his hand. One of them, the stern woman in the grey dress gasped and spoke into the ear of a man beside her.
'Lies!' Khodrak shouted. 'You have no proof!' He looked back uncertainly at his guards, penned in by the soldiers, and then at Tuan, who still stood as if paralyzed. It seemed as though Director Tuan had suddenly given up. But Shan knew he had given up long ago. Tuan had never shared Khodrak's energy, or goals. Shan's visit to Tuan's office had cracked open a door in Shan's memory, down the dark, distant corridor that represented his Beijing incarnation. For Inspector Shan, who had specialized in corruption investigations, the evidence had been obvious. Tuan's ambitions had been more modest than Khodrak's. He had only wanted to retire before he died of his disease, to go to his modest cottage, financed by the phantom soldiers he had put on his payroll.
'You were in Amdo to stop the true records of the township from reaching the Bureau,' Shan continued, 'to stop Deputy Director Chao from receiving such records and passing them on to Lhasa. But then you recognized the Tibetan who was there, delivering those records. You had seen him in Lhasa with the abbot of Sangchi, the night the abbot disappeared. You realized it probably meant that the abbot was not in the south. But you never told
