"Simpler?"

"I think she just died."

Shan didn't know what to say. He offered Yeshe the bottle and picked up the glasses. "He hasn't come out," he observed. Feng had loaned him his wristwatch for the day, which Shan stared at in confusion. "How long since he went behind that rock?"

"Ten, fifteen minutes."

Shan leapt up and began trotting down the slope, leaving Yeshe still holding the bottle in his outstretched hand.

He intercepted the pilgrimage trail, worn by centuries of use, as it wound its way through the boulders and emerged into the rolling heather of the high valley. By the time Yeshe caught up, Shan had scouted past the rocks and retraced the route looking for a second trail, a cutoff, to no avail.

Minutes later Yeshe called out and pointed to a small hole, a low, six-foot-long tunnel created by a slab that had collapsed between two sheer rock walls. It was barely wide enough to crawl into. But by the time Shan arrived and bent to look into it, Yeshe had disappeared.

The hole, he discovered, did not end in six feet, but jogged at a sharp right angle to the left. Shan squeezed inside, following Yeshe's dim shape for fifty feet before the roof rose, then disappeared entirely. They were in a narrow, twisting passage between the rock walls, which they followed into a small canyon.

"We are not supposed to be here," Yeshe whispered nervously. "It is a holy place. A very secret place. It is protected…"

His words drifted away, his tongue silenced by the power of the scene before him. A sheer rock face, five hundred feet high, rose opposite them, a stone's throw away. Diamond-bright blades of sunlight cut through the canyon shadows, heightening the sense of elevation. A hundred feet up the wall were five large rectangular holes, windows, carved out of the rock. Three other smaller openings, obviously manmade, were arrayed above the five, leading to a final smaller opening nearly three hundred feet above them. Brilliantly colored horse-flag banners, thirty feet long and emblazoned with sacred symbols, hung from poles extended from the five windows, flapping in the wind.

The Dragon Claws, Shan realized, were about to give up their secret.

"Into the shadows!" Yeshe cautioned, stepping behind a rock as though to hide. "There is someone at the water."

Shan peered toward the end of the canyon, where a shimmering pool of water reflected the images of the flags. Under a solitary willow tree at the end of the pool sat a lone figure, his back to them.

"We are not supposed to find this place," Yeshe warned again. "We should go. We can ask permission from the old-"

"There is no time for permission," Shan said, and moved toward the pool. There were small irises growing among the rocks, and a flock of birds at the water's edge.

"Not everyone is glad that you came," the figure said when Shan was ten feet from its back. It did not turn. The water and the rock gave a strange resonance to what was the voice of a child. "But I had hoped we would meet again. They say things about you I do not understand. Now we can speak once more."

"Your sheep have lost you again, I see," replied Shan.

The youth turned about slowly, wearing a grin. "Welcome to Yerpa."

Shan gestured to Yeshe, who stood behind him. "This is-"

"Yes. I have been told. Yeshe Retang. You may call me Tsomo."

He rose and silently led them back toward the passage they had just left, then veered to the canyon wall where he entered a narrow cleft obscured by the shadows. Tsomo led them for twenty paces through the darkness, until they reached a dim butter lamp at the bottom of a winding stairway carved out of the living rock.

They climbed the steps until Shan's feet ached; they rested, then climbed further. Along the corridor were several low doors leading to darkened chambers. From one came the sound of a solitary prayer, from another a fetid smell and an abject groan. At last they reached a large chamber lit by a single long window and dozens of candles.

The walls were covered with murals, paintings of guardian deities and the past and future Buddhas. It was not the chapel Shan had expected. It was far smaller, and he began to understand that he was not in a gompa at all, but in another type of holy place he did not recognize. A solitary man in the robe of a monk was on the floor, tapping a tapered metal tube from which vermillion sand fell. He sat at the edge of a six-foot-wide circle, most of which had been filled with intricate shapes and geometric designs composed of colored sands. The unfinished portion where he sat was inscribed with chalk.

"This is the Kalachakra mandala," Tsomo explained. "A very old style."

The sand painting was in concentric rings which led to square lines depicting the walls of three palaces, one inside the other. Inhabiting the palaces were scores of deities presented in minute detail.

"It is about the evolution of time," Tsomo continued, "the folding of time, because Buddha cannot bear to abandon a single soul, so that time continues in a great circle until all beings are enlightened."

Shan knelt reverently at the edge of the sand. The monk bowed his head toward him and continued working, building the mandala one particle at a time.

"Seven hundred twenty-two deities," Yeshe said behind him in a hushed tone. "They used to do this in Lhasa every year, for the Dalai Lama."

"Exactly," Tsomo said enthusiastically, pulling Yeshe forward for a closer look. "Dubhe trained with an old lama from the Potola. When it is completed it will have all the traditional deities, each one different, each in the prescribed position. Dubhe has worked on it for three years now. In four or five months he will finish. We will consecrate it, and celebrate its beauty. Then he will destroy it and start again with fresh sand." Tsomo gestured to shelves of rough-hewn timbers that lined the lower walls. They held scores of small clay jars. "Some of the sand from each mandala ever made here has been kept. It is very sacred, very powerful."

They continued along a corridor to a bigger room lit by four windows, more of the rectangular openings they had seen from below. The chamber held wide, sloping tables of rough wood along its perimeter, most of which were empty. Three monks and a nun were at work, each surrounded by butter lamps and containers of brushes and ink stones.

Shan saw the look of deference from those at the tables as Tsomo approached, and the nervous way they studied Shan and Yeshe. They had been prepared to receive strangers, but clearly were uncertain how to react. They chose silence, letting Tsomo explain the elegant manuscripts they were transcribing, writing from ancient bamboo tiles and tattered prayer books onto long narrow pages that, in the traditional style, would not be bound but covered with silk wrappers. Above the tables were shelves holding scores of similar silk packages. They were called potis, Trinle had told Shan once, books wrapped in robes. At one table a monk sat not with brushes but with long chisels and gouges. He was carving the long boards between which the potis were tied. Shan paused at the table, surprised not by the intricate detail of the birds and flowers the monk was carving, but because the man could create such beauty despite the fact that one of his thumbs was missing.

The nun rose and wandered toward them. "The history of every gompa in Tibet," she said, gesturing to the far wall. Her voice was rough, as though from lack of use. "There are letters from the Great Fifth to the kenpos announcing funds for new chapels. There are the original plans for the rope bridge across the Dragon Throat."