The words chilled Shan. Something terrible was going to happen. "You're never going back to the mountain, are you?" He looked up with dread in his face. "No matter what happens. You can't have the road built. That is what it's all about." Why was it so important? Is that where he had gone wrong, not paying enough attention to the secret of the mountain?

"Waking up every day for fifty years, for a hundred years, is no great accomplishment, after all," Choje said with a serene smile. "It is like arguing that your mote of dust is bigger than my mote of dust. They are the arguments of an incomplete soul."

They would bring others to build the road, Shan wanted to say. But he did not have the courage.

"We have talked. All of us. Everyone has agreed. Except for a few. Some with families. Some who have another path to follow."

Shan looked around. The khampa was gone.

"They have received our blessings. They were accepted across the line this morning. Those of us who are left…" Choje said with his peaceful smile. He shrugged. "Well, we are the ones who are left. One hundred eighty-one. One hundred eighty-one," he repeated, still smiling.

The whistle for exercise blew, then another, and another, in relays through the camp. The men began to stir, without talking, toward the door.

"It is time, Trinle," Choje called with new strength, and the figure in the blanket rose. Not taking his eyes off Choje, Shan sensed Trinle struggling to his feet. With a shudder he realized that Trinle must have been in the stable. From the corner of his eye he saw the stooped figure wrap the blanket around his makeshift robe and over his head like a hood, then shuffle to the door.

Only Shan and Choje remained in the hut. They sat in silence amid the brilliant shafts of light that leaked through the loose boards of the walls and roof.

"What happened to that man? The one who didn't believe?"

"One day part of the mountain above him collapsed. It destroyed everything. The man, his children, his wife, his sheep. And worse."

"Worse?"

"It was strange. Afterward, no one could remember his name."

Suddenly there was a peculiar swelling of sound from outside- not a shout, but a rapidly rising murmur that carried through the camp. Shan helped Choje to his feet.

They found the prisoners in the small yard behind the hut, or rather around the small yard, packed two and three deep around an empty space twenty feet in diameter.

"He's gone!" exclaimed one of the monks as they approached. "The magic…" he began, but seemed unable to complete the sentence.

"Like the arrow! I saw it. Like a blur!" someone shouted.

The line parted to let Choje through, Shan at his side.

"Trinle!" one of the young monks gasped. "He's done it!"

There was nothing in the clearing but Trinle's shoes, sitting side by side as if he had just stepped out of them.

No one breathed. Shan stared, stunned. It had the quality of a strange, poorly timed joke at first. He looked up with alarm as it sank in. Trinle was gone. Trinle had escaped. He had spirited himself away, after all the years of trying.

The monks stared reverently at the shoes. Some dropped to their knees and offered prayers of gratitude.

But the spell did not last long. From somewhere the whistle began to blow, signaling the end of the exercise period. From the back a man with a deep baritone voice began to chant. Om mani padme hum. He continued, solo, for perhaps thirty seconds, then was joined by another, and another, until soon the entire group joined in, drowning out the angry whistles.

The prisoners began to move into the central yard, celebrating the miracle with their mantra. Shan found himself moving with them, beginning the chant. Suddenly a hand seized his elbow and pulled him to the side. Sergeant Feng.

They stayed there, watching, as the prisoners arranged themselves in a large square and sat, still chanting loudly.

Instantly the knobs were among them. Shan could see the soldiers shouting, but their voices were lost in the reverberating mantra. He tried to pull away but Feng held him with an iron grip. The batons were raised and the knobs began slowly, methodically, to beat the prisoners on their shoulders and backs, swinging their batons up and down as if cutting wheat with sickles.

The batons had no effect.

A Public Security officer appeared, his face a mask of fury. He screamed into a bullhorn, but was ignored. He grabbed a baton from one of his men and broke it over the head of the nearest monk. The man slumped forward, unconscious, but the chanting continued.

He threw the stump of the baton to the ground and moved along the ranks. The scene unfolded as if in slow motion.

"No!" Shan shouted and twisted in vain against Feng's grip. "Rinpoche!"

The officer paced around the entire square, then ordered two knobs to drag a monk to the center. It was one of the younger men, from another hut. The monk had shaved his head and wore a red band on his arm. He continued chanting, still kneeling, seeming not to notice the knobs. The officer stepped behind him, drew his pistol, and fired a bullet through his skull.

Sergeant Feng had stopped speaking. As they drove out of the base onto the Dragon's Claw he gripped the wheel with both hands, a distant, desolate look on his face. He only grunted when they pulled into the turnout above the ancient suspension bridge. He did not argue this time, nor did he try to follow as Shan and Yeshe crossed over the span, each carrying small drawstring bags with a day's provisions.

The air was unusually still, without the wind that almost always rose with the sun. Shan surveyed the slope ahead with the binoculars. He still was not certain what to look for or where to go, only that the mountain still held a vital secret. There was no sign of the sheep that might have led him to the enigmatic young herdsman. Perhaps he needed to return to the ledge with the chalk symbols. Then, at the southern end of the ridge, he spotted a patch of red among the early morning shadows. Once he had the pilgrim in the lenses, he could see the man was moving along the track at a remarkably fast pace, rising, standing, kneeling, and dropping in the act of kjangchag, the prostration of the pilgrim, as though the movements were calisthenics.

"I still don't know what it is we seek," Yeshe said at his side.

"I don't either. Something out of the ordinary. The pilgrim, maybe."

Yeshe shrugged. "Each time we've been here we've seen a pilgrim. In Tibet it's ordinary as rain."

"Which makes it a perfect camouflage." Shan suddenly saw what had been eluding him. "Let's go," he called out, still not certain of anything except that he wanted to know where the pilgrim was going.

They moved at a half trot along the ridge, keeping the pilgrim in sight. After an hour they had nearly caught up, and rested as they watched the figure begin its descent of the ridge toward the valley beyond.

The red robe arrived at the bottom of the ridge and disappeared behind a long formation of rocks. Shan and Yeshe shared a bottle of water and waited for the pilgrim to reappear on the other side of the rocks.

"My mother made a pilgrimage," Yeshe said. "After my sister died. I was away at the monastery already. She went to Mt. Kalais," he continued. "The sacred mountain. It was a bad time. Late blizzards in the mountains. Troop movements because of the uprising."

"Such challenges add to the accomplishment."

"We never saw her again. Someone said she became a nun, others that she tried to cross the border. I think it was probably simpler."