The tunnel curved to the left, then the right, then stopped suddenly at a vertical wall. Straight ahead, a chest-high archway was carved out of the limestone. Pushpa turned and spoke with Karna for a few seconds, then Karna told Sam and Remi:

“Pushpa understands that you are not Buddhists, and he understands that our work here may be a bit complicated, so he won’t ask us to observe all Buddhist customs. He only asks that when you first enter the main chamber, you circle the perimeter once, in a clockwise direction. Once you’ve done this, you can move about as you please. Understood?”

Sam and Remi nodded.

Pushpa ducked through the archway and stepped to the left, followed by Remi, Sam, and Ajay. They found themselves in a corridor. Painted on the wall before them were faded red-and-yellow symbols unfamiliar to Sam and Remi, along with hundreds of lines of text in what they assumed was a dialect of Lowa.

Whispering, Karna told them, “This is a greeting of sorts, essentially a historical introduction to the cave system. Nothing specific to the Theurang or Shangri-La.”

“Is all this natural or man-made?” Remi asked, gesturing to the walls and ceiling.

“A bit of both, actually. At the time these caves were constructed-about nine hundred years ago-the Loba in this area believed that sacred caves were revealed by nature in their embryonic stage. Once the caves were found, the Loba could excavate them according to their spiritual will.”

Following Pushpa, the group continued down the corridor, walking stooped over until they reached another arched entrance, this one a few inches taller than Sam.

Over his shoulder Karna said with a smile, “We’re here.”

At first glance, the main chamber seemed to be a perfect dome, ten paces in diameter and eight feet high, with the ceiling tapering to a rounded point. The wall opposite the entrance was dominated by a mural that stretched around the chamber and from the floor to the domed ceiling. Unlike on the mural in the corridor, the symbols, text, and drawings here were painted in vibrant shades of red and yellow. The contrast against the mocha-colored walls was startling.

“It’s magnificent,” Sam said.

Remi, nodding, stared at the mural. “The detail . . . Jack, why is the color so different here?”

“Pushpa and his people have been restoring it. The pigment they use is a long-held secret. They won’t even share it with me, but Pushpa assures me it’s the same recipe that was used nine centuries ago.”

Standing at the center of the chamber, Pushpa was gesturing toward them. Karna said to Sam and Remi, “Let’s make our circuit. No talking. Head bowed.”

Karna led them clockwise around the space, stopping again at the archway. Pushpa nodded to them and smiled, then knelt by his pack. He pulled out a pair of kerosene lanterns and hung one from a peg in each side wall. Soon the chamber was filled with an amber glow.

“What can we do to help?” Remi asked.

“I’ll need the disks and some quiet. The rest I must do myself.”

Sam dug the Lexan case containing the Theurang disks from his pack and handed it to Karna. Armed with the disks, a spool of string, a tape measure, a parallel rule, an architect’s compass, and a directional compass, Karna stepped up to the mural. Pushpa hurried forward carrying a rough-hewn wooden step stool, which he placed beside Karna.

Sam, Remi, and Ajay took off their packs and sat down, their backs against the entrance wall.

For almost an hour, Karna worked without pause, silently measuring symbols on the mural and jotting in his notebook. Occasionally he would step back, stare at the wall while muttering to himself, and pace back and forth.

Finally he said something to Pushpa, who had been standing to one side, hands clasped before him. Pushpa and Karna knelt down, opened the Lexan case, and spent a few minutes examining the Theurang disks, fitting them together with the flanged outer ring in various patterns before finding an apparently satisfactory configuration.

Next, Pushpa and Karna placed the disks over certain symbols, measured distances with the tape measure, and murmured to each other.

Finally Karna stepped back, hands on hips, and gave the mural a final once-over. He turned to Sam and Remi.

“Selma tells me you two are fond of good news/bad news scenarios.”

Sam and Remi smiled at each other. Sam replied, “Selma’s having a little fun at your expense. She enjoys those; us, not so much.”

“Go ahead anyway, Jack,” said Remi.

“The good news is, we need go no further. My hunch was correct: this is the cave we needed.”

“Fantastic,” said Sam. “And . . . ?”

“Actually it’s good/good/bad news. The second bit of good news is we now have a description of Shangri-La-or at least some signs that will tell us if we’re close.”

“Now the bad news,” Remi prompted.

“The bad news is, the map offers only the path that the Sentinel Dhakal would have taken with the Theurang. As I suspected, it leads east through the Himalayas, but in all there are twenty-seven points marking the path.”

“Translation, please,” said Sam.

“Shangri-La could be at any one of twenty-seven locations stretching from here all the way to eastern Myanmar.”

KATHMANDU, NEPAL

“Are you sure you won’t change your mind, Jack?” asked Remi. Behind her, on the dirt tarmac, was a blue-on-white Bell 206b Long-Ranger III helicopter, its engine whining as the rotors spun up for takeoff.

“No, my dear, I’m sorry. And apologies for abandoning you. I have a hate-hate affair with all flying contrivances. The last time I flew back to Britain, I was under extreme sedation.”

After leaving the cave complex the day before, the group had returned to Lo Monthang to regroup and brainstorm their next move. There was only one, they knew: follow Dhakal the Sentinel’s path east across Nepal, eliminating the locations Karna had gleaned from the mural map.

The altitude and remoteness of the target areas left them only one transport option-a charter helicopter service-which in turn brought them back to Kathmandu and into the lion’s den, as it were. With luck, Sam and Remi would find what they needed within a few days, before King could discover their route.

“And if the Kings follow our trail?” asked Sam.

“Goodness, didn’t I tell you? Ajay here is ex-Indian Army-and a Gurkha, in fact. Quite the tough bloke. He’ll look after me.”

Standing behind Karna’s shoulder, Ajay gave them a shark-like smile.

Karna handed them the laminated map he’d spent the previous night annotating. “I’ve managed to eliminate two points from today’s search grid that are improbable, both from summits that would have been covered in ice and snow at the time of Dhakal’s journey . . .”

Karna’s research into the “real” Shangri-La had led him to believe it was in a comparatively temperate location with regular seasons. Unfortunately, the Himalayan range was rife with such hidden valleys, little slivers of near-tropical paradise nestled amid the forbidding peaks and glaciers.

“That leaves six targets to search,” Karna finished. “Ajay’s given your pilot the coordinates.” On the tarmac, the Bell’s rotors were accelerating. Karna shook their hands and shouted, “Good luck! We’ll meet you back here this evening!”

He and Ajay trotted off to Ajay’s Land Cruiser.

Sam and Remi turned and headed for the helicopter.

Their first target lay thirty-two miles northeast of Kathmandu, in the Hutabrang Pass. Their pilot, a former Pakistani Air Force flier named Hosni, took them directly north for ten minutes, pointing out peaks and valleys and letting Sam and Remi get the lay of the land, before veering east toward the coordinates.

Hosni’s voice came over their headsets: “Entering the area now. I’ll circle it clockwise and try to get as low as possible. The wind shear can be treacherous here.”