Shan listened to the drone of Yeshe's chant for an hour, then left to bring back Feng and the food in the truck. The sergeant paused as they were leaving the vehicle, and ran back. "Have to hide the truck," he said over his shoulder. He did not say from whom.

By the time they returned the rain had stopped and Yeshe was exactly as Shan had left him, seated in front of Balti's pallet, repeating his mantra of protection. There would be no stopping now until it was done. And no one, not even Yeshe, knew when that would be.

They gathered firewood and cooked a stew as the sun set, then ate in silence as the heavens cleared and Yeshe droned on inside the tent. Shan sat with Pemu and watched the new moon climb across the eastern sky. A solitary nighthawk called from the distance. Wisps of mist wandered down the slope. Feng lay down with a blanket and in a moment was snoring. Yeshe droned on. Pemu found a fleece and curled up in it, staring at the fire. At the edge of the flickering circle of light Harkog sat with Pok, the dog, facing the darkness. Yeshe was in his sixth hour of chanting.

Everything felt so distant to Shan. The evil that lurked in Lhadrung. The gulag he would return to. Even the ever-present tentacles of Minister Qin and Beijing seemed part of a different world for the moment.

From his bag Shan pulled the rice paper and ink stick he had purchased from the market. It had been a very long time. So many festivals had been missed. He rubbed the stick and with a few drops of water made ink in a curved piece of bark. He practiced, making small strokes in the air with the brush, composing the words in his mind before laying out the sheet and beginning to draw. He used the elegant old-style ideograms he had learned when he was a boy.

Dear father, he began, forgive me for not writing these many years. I embarked on a long journey since my last letter. Famine raged in my soul. Then I met a wise man who fed it. The strokes had to be bold yet fluid, or his father the scholar would be disappointed. Written properly, his father would say, a word should look like wind over bamboo. When I set out I was sad and afraid. Now I have no sadness left. And my only fear is of myself. He used to write letters often, alone in his tenement in Beijing. He read the ideograms over, unsatisfied. I sit on a nameless mountain, honored by mist and your memory, he added, and signed it as his father would call him. Xiao Shan.

Folding the second sheet into an envelope for the first, he pulled a smoldering stick from the fire and stepped into the darkness. He walked in the moonlight until he reached a small ledge that overlooked the valley, then made a small mound of dried grass between two stones and laid the letter on top. He studied the stars, bowed toward the mound and ignited it with the stick. As the ashes rose toward heaven, he watched reverently, hoping to see them cross the moon.

He lingered, covered in stars. He smelled ginger and listened to his father, certain now that he could remember joy.

Halfway back to the camp his heart leapt to his throat as a black creature appeared on the path in front of him. It was Pok. The huge dog sat and blocked his way.

"They say it was a riding accident but it wasn't," a voice rang out from the shadows beside the trail. It wasHarkog. He had a strange new determination in his voice. "It was a land mine. Running from the PLA. Suddenly I was in the air. Never heard the explosion. My leg flew past me while I was still in the air. But the soldiers stopped. The bastards stopped." He stepped from the shadows and looked up into the sky, just as Shan had been doing.

"You still stopped them?"

"Three of them came charging after me, to finish me. I shouted a curse and threw my leg at them. They fled like puppies."

"I am sorry about your leg."

"My fault. I should not have run."

They walked back together, slowly, silently, Pok leading the way.

"We could take you both back if you want," Shan offered.

"No," the man said in a slow, wise voice. "Just take his Chinese clothes. Everything else from Lhadrung. He must wear a fleece vest again. This has happened to him because he tried to be someone he is not. I got a truck ride there once. To Lhadrung. Good shoes. But that Jao, he was bad joss."

"You knew Jao?"

"I rode in the black car with Balti once. That Jao, he had the smell of death."

"You mean you knew Jao was going to die?"

"No. I mean people around him died. He had power, like a sorcerer. He knew powerful words that could be put on paper to kill people."

They were close enough to see the glow of the campfire when Pok growled. There was a shadow against the rock, waiting. Harkog muttered an order to the dog and the two had already moved on toward the camp before Shan recognized Sergeant Feng.

"I know what you were doing," Feng said. "Sending a message."

Shan clenched his jaw. "Just walking."

"My father tried to teach me when I was young," Feng said, in a voice that seemed to ache. Shan realized he had misread Feng. "To speak to my grandfather. But I lost it. Up here, so far away. It makes you think about things. Maybe-" He was struggling. "Maybe you could show me how again."

Trinle had once told Shan that people had day souls and night souls, and the most important task in life was to introduce your night soul to your day soul. Shan remembered the talk of Feng's father on the road to Sungpo's gompa. Feng was discovering his night soul.

They moved back to the ledge where Shan had sent his letter. Feng lit a small fire and produced a pencil stub and several of the blank tally sheets from the 404th. "I don't know what to say." His voice was very small. "We were never supposed to go back to family if they were bad elements. But sometimes I want to go back. It's more than thirty years."

"Who are you writing to?"

"My grandfather, like my father asked."

"What do you remember about him?"

"Not much. He was very strong and he laughed. He used to carry me on his back, on top of a load of wood."

"Then just say that."

Feng thought a long time, then slowly wrote on one of the sheets. "I don't know words," he apologized and handed it to Shan.

Grandfather, you are strong, it read. Carry me on your back.

"I think your words are very good," Shan said, and helped him fashion an envelope from the other sheets. "To send it you should be alone," he suggested. "I will wait down the trail."

"I don't know how to send it. I thought there were words."

"Just put him in your heart as you do it and the letter will reach him."

When they returned to camp, Harkog, Yeshe, and Balti were sitting at the fire. Pemu, speaking in the low comforting tones that might be used with an infant, was feeding Balti spoonfuls of stew. The gauntness seemed to have been lifted from Balti and transferred to Yeshe, who studied the flames with a drained, confused expression.

"We visited your house," Shan began. "The old woman married to the rat showed us the hiding place. It was made for a briefcase."

Balti gave no sign of having heard.

"What was in there that was so dangerous?"

"Big things. Like a bomb, Jao says." Balti's voice was thin and high-pitched.

"Did you ever see these things?"

"Sure. Files. Envelopes. Not real things. Papers."

Shan shut his eyes in frustration as he realized why Jao had trusted him with the papers. "You can't read, can you?"