Shan walked through the excited throng, asking questions. The two Tibetan holy men had come through the day before, in the late afternoon, resting their donkeys at the crossroads. Others came with them, nine or ten others, old women, small children, a herder with a bad leg, some on horses or donkeys, some walking. Like a pilgrimage in the old days, a woman with grey hair said.

One of the holy men, the one in the Buddhist robe, had spoken with each of the followers, even the children. The other man, whose eyes twinkled when he spoke, had also listened to them, not to their words, but to their bodies, finding the words spoken by arms and legs and stomachs that no one else could hear. He had given herbs to some and advice for exercise of limbs to others. A dropka woman galloped up with a baby, asking the thin one with the red robe to give it a name. Once, Shan recalled, Tibetans had always asked lamas for the names of their children. Then the robed one had assigned journeys of atonement. This woman was to go see her brother whom she had not spoken with in ten years because he had given her a lame horse, that woman was to go a mountain lake and drink its waters, then build a shelter that wild animals might use in the winter. The lame man was sent to meditate where young colts slept. "A synshy," the man who had just ridden in said knowingly. "The man in the robe was a horsespeaker." Several in the crowd nodded knowingly.

But that had not been the miracle, the man on the post said. The miracle had come later, when the knobs arrived. Shan's head snapped up. A chill crept into his stomach. Only three young knobs, in a small truck. They seemed to have been searching for the holy men, and two stood guard with guns while the third, a woman knob, talked excitedly on the radio.

The people had gotten angry and told the knobs that they should be looking for the killers of children, not old men. The knobs had gotten out hand chains then, and somebody had thrown a rock at one of the knobs. They had pulled out their weapons and one shot a gun in the air, several shots, on automatic. The man with the robe- Gendun- covered his ears then, and when the gun stopped he lowered his hands and asked if the man was finished. You make it very hard to talk, Gendun had said, most earnestly, and the Chinese man who fired the gun had looked confused, then apologized.

Then Gendun had stood in front of the knob who had been hit by the stone and told the people not to hurt the young soldiers. He had spoken to Lokesh and Lokesh took the chains and fastened a pair on Gendun, then Gendun had fastened a pair on Lokesh. The lama had then asked the knobs to sit for a moment with them, to share some food. Two of the knobs had done so, and Gendun said a prayer while a herder handed out pieces of nan bread. Gendun had asked the knobs their names and he said the knob woman had a strong face and would make a good wife for a herder. People had laughed.

But even that was not the miracle, the man on the post said dramatically. The miracle came next, when a limousine arrived and the Jade Bitch appeared. People had shuddered, some had run away. The prosecutor had stood silently, looking at the Tibetans and the knobs. Then Gendun had walked in his chains to stand in front of her, smiling. She had stared, a long time, as if in a trance. Then she had spoken on her radio and told the knobs to leave, to release the two men and leave. The woman knob had argued, and the protector had shouted at her. Before the knobs left the prosecutor made the knobs give her the chains used on the two men. People had thought she was going to take them away herself, to her prison camp at the foot of the mountains. But the Jade Bitch had walked to the two men, dropped the chains at their feet, and driven away. That was the miracle.

The chains, where she had dropped them, were under the cairn.

Shan looked in silence at the cairn, then at Jakli.

"She just doesn't want to share them with the knobs," Jakli said. "She wants them all to herself, without the knobs knowing."

"I don't know," Shan said, staring again at the cairn. "Sometimes miracles do happen." He walked away to find a rock for the cairn, then asked the man on the post what had happened afterward. Night had come, he said, and they had built a fire and talked under the stars. But when the sun rose the holy men were gone.

Shan gazed toward the desert. It would be night again in a few hours, and cold.

"They don't even have a compass," Jakli said with a tormented voice.

"No. They do," Shan assured her. "Just not the kind you or I could read."

"Marco and Sophie are at the Well by now," Jakli said, but her voice showed no certainty. "Sophie could find them. Sophie could smell them. Marco probably went to Karachuk. Maybe Osman is helping now. And Nikki," she added softly.

But thirty minutes later as they drove into the next village, Marco and Sophie were in the middle of the street, surrounded by Public Security troops.

Jakli eased the truck behind a building and they looked around the corner. The village was under the control of the knobs. They had erected a security checkpoint in the square and were checking the papers of everyone in the village and all those traveling down the highway. A queue of over a hundred people stood in front of a table where three officers examined papers and stamped the hands of those who had been cleared. Two knob soldiers with automatic rifles stood at the door of a blunt-nosed grey bus with heavy wire on the windows. Half a dozen forlorn faces looked out of the wire. Beside the bus was a grey troop truck, and two hundred feet beyond that a red utility truck sat with two men in the front seat. The Brigade was watching. Watching not the crowd, but the knobs.

Jakli desperately searched the faces of those in the line. She looked back at Shan anxiously, then searched again and sighed with audible relief as she noticed a teenage girl walking by. Jakli pulled the girl around the corner and spoke in low, urgent tones. She raised the girl's hand and studied the image placed there by the knobs. A circle of five stars in red ink. She released the girl's hand and spoke a moment more, then the girl walked briskly away and Jakli pulled Shan into the line.

Jakli asked the man ahead of them what the Eluosi with the beautiful camel had done. It was Marco Myagov, the man said in an admiring tone, with his silver racer. Marco, he explained, had done nothing except to refuse to leave his camel while he waited in line, so an officer had ordered him to wait until everyone else was done. As the man spoke the camel gave a small snort. She was looking directly at Jakli and Shan, cocking her head as if about to speak to them. Marco followed her gaze, gave a small frown as he recognized them, and looked quickly away.

Shan watched the officers at the table as they worked. They looked at faces first, then papers. Woman and children were passed through with a quick glance at papers and a nod. Shan saw a Han man go through with the same treatment. An old man got through without a second look, and another. The knobs were looking for someone in particular. Not a Han. A man, but not an old man. Shan's only hope was that they found him soon, or Shan would be on the bus, as one more illegal caught in the sweep.

There was a sudden commotion at the front of the line. One of the officers was standing, telling a man to take his hat off. He pulled the man to the side and questioned him while the other two officers carefully examined the man's papers.

"Who is it?" Shan asked quietly.

Jakli spoke to the man in front again. "He doesn't know. Some Tadjik. It's good. We need the time."

For what, Shan thought. Another miracle?