Shan saw that there were perhaps a dozen pieces in the bowl, some caked with dirt, others already cleaned and shining brightly in the light. Jakli held the one she was working on in her open palm. It was a two-inch trapezoid made of bronze, slightly curved at the ends, which were punctured with small holes and inscribed with intricate ideograms.

"For the warrior monks," she explained. "We found references in some of the old books. Today, soldiers receive awards for valor. But valor was taken for granted in the old armies, in the monk ranks. It was virtue that was sought. Maybe a soldier made an act of sacrifice for his parents. Maybe he dedicated his life to the perfection of his archery. Maybe he spent all his off-duty hours writing the nine million names of Buddha, or performed great feats for the cause of truth. He would be rewarded with a medallion from his general."

"They must be centuries old," Shan said in an awed tone.

"From the Tibetan garrisons that were here. Eleven, maybe twelve centuries ago."

"They belong in a museum."

The words brought a strangely emotional reaction. Jakli clenched her hand around the medallion. "Not with the communists," she said in a fierce tone, then calmed. "Virtue shouldn't be locked in museum."

"No," Shan said, not certain what he meant. He knelt and reached into the bowl, picking up two of the restored medallions. Half of those in the bowl, all the clean ones, were tied in pairs with waxed string. Each pair matched. In his hand was a pair of two rectangles, inscribed with lotus flowers running across their faces. There was a round set, with an eagle's face, and another pair with a running horse.

"Auntie Lau," Jakli said. "She once told me that such treasures belong to no one, that they are entrusted from time to time to an honored few, then passed on like a force of nature."

Shan remembered that Lokesh had used similar words, about virtue. "But where do such things go?" he asked, reaching into his pocket to touch the medallion there, realizing now that Lau had possessed one of the ancient tokens. He began to pull it out, to show Jakli.

"The people of the desert are the ones to decide how to share the secrets of the desert," a woman's voice said at the edge of the shadows, speaking in English.

Shan dropped Lau's medallion back into his pocket and pulled out his hand.

"Warp!" Jakli exclaimed as a woman with long black hair tied in a single braid at the back emerged into the light. She wore heavy black-framed spectacles and was older than Jakli, and shorter, so small-boned that she seemed lost in the oversized green smock she wore. It was the kind of smock doctors wore, or laboratory workers.

"And the dead will walk again," the woman said, with a narrow smile toward Shan. She extended her hand as Shan rose. "We were very worried about you," she said, now speaking in fluent Mandarin. "Abigail Deacon."

"Professor of Cultural Anthropology," he said in English. Her grip was firm, and as she squeezed his hand the woman stared intensely at him. Her skin was olive-colored, and her eyes, though brilliant blue, had an almond shape, the hint of an Asian heritage.

"Shan Tao Yun," the American woman shot back. "Formerly of the Chinese government."

Shan nodded slowly, with a quick glance at Jakli. "Good," he said. "There is no time for anything but the truth."

"Is he always so serious?" Abigail Deacon asked Jakli with raised eyebrows.

Jakli smiled at Shan, who stood uncomfortably between the two women. "Sophie licks his face," Jakli offered in reply.

The American nodded thoughtfully, as though acknowledging the point, then wiped her spectacles on her smock and studied Shan carefully. "Jakli said you lost a chance at a new life, by coming to warn us."

Shan shrugged. "All I know for sure is, I gave up a hard week's ride in the back of a truck."

The American woman smiled. "The least we can do is invite you to dinner," she said, then turned and stepped back into the shadows.

"In his hut at Karachuk," Shan recalled after a moment. "Deacon was studying old cloth. Is that what his wife is doing here?" He didn't ask Jakli the rest of the question. What had Deacon been doing with a human leg?

Jakli nodded as she scrubbed another medallion. "Abigail is an expert. She sees things in cloth no one else can see."

"Why here? Why so much secrecy?"

"Here is where the cloth is. In the desert. In the ruins. It doesn't travel easily. So it's better to study it here."

"But there are museums of antiquities. In Lhasa. In Urumqi."

"What she does is special," Jakli said enigmatically.

"You mean political," Shan said in puzzlement. The Americans clearly were in China without permission. Surely they hadn't put themselves at risk of capture by a man like Bao over pieces of cloth.

Jakli kept cleaning a medallion without reply.

"What could be political about cloth?" he pressed.

Jakli frowned without looking up.

"I was sent on a path leading from the murders. The only way I can get to the end of it is by understanding everything I encounter on the way."

She cast a peevish frown his way, then covered the bowl with an old towel and stood with the bowl balanced against her hip. She led him down the tunnel, past the corridor to the room where he had slept. They pushed aside a heavy felt blanket that had been hung in the corridor, then a second, lighter cloth that was tacky to the touch, as though designed to catch dust and flying insects. They entered a well-lit room that seemed half laboratory and half library. Eight tables, made of planks on trestles, were arranged in two rows. One, against the wall, had a series of smaller trestles and planks that had been stacked to form shelves for dozens of books. Two tables held binocular microscopes, like the one Jacob Deacon had used at Karachuk, with a sophisticated camera beside one. Scattered about were large clear plastic envelopes holding bits of cloth. A balding man, with several days' growth of whiskers, was bent over one of the microscopes, manipulating a piece of cloth with two metallic probes. Abigail Deacon sat at a computer console surrounded by pieces of cloth in long transparent envelopes. Incandescent bulbs hung from wires strung across the ceiling. Shan followed the wires to a bank of batteries, larger but otherwise identical to the solar power system he had seen at Karachuk.

The older man's head jerked up. He muttered a syllable of alarm and Abigail Deacon turned. Her frown was not one of anger, only irritation at being interrupted. She turned for a moment to make several strokes on her keyboard, then removed the computer disc and inserted it into a plastic case. Shan counted a dozen similar cases on the table, all with discs inside. She spoke to the older man in the Turkic tongue, then turned to Shan.

"My husband said you would have questions. Lots of questions," the American woman sighed. She rubbed her eyes a moment, then motioned to a large thermos, from which she poured tea into three mugs, setting two on the table by the second microscope. "Sorry," she said. "Chairs are in short supply. We don't bring many nonessential goods this far. Take mine," she said with a gesture toward the stool at the computer console.

Shan shook his head. "You speak both Mandarin and the tongue of the clans," he observed, question in his tone.

The American woman nodded. "My grandmother was a Kazakh. Married an American archaeologist when he was here exploring the Silk Road early in the last century. Kept the languages alive in our family."