Neon Lotus (21 page)

Gunshots
played back and forth outside, scarcely muffled by the roar of the falls.

She bit her
lip to keep from screaming and crept one-handed along the ledge. She could see
Tsering below her in the pool. He lay sprawled over a pair of sharp rocks by
the wall of the cliff. Blood stained his back.

Without fear
of betraying their position, and without recourse to silence, the lotus
responded.

Its song was
piercing, terrible to hear. Where the music before had been full of hope and
exultance, now it told of bitterness, loss, futility.

Stabbed by
the pain, she covered her ears with both hands, dropping the flower.

As it fell,
the scarf unraveled. The blossom landed on Tsering’s neck to be gently cradled
by his shoulder, and there it throbbed with a rich red light. The song seemed
to draw strength from his blood, just as it had previously sustained itself with
the soul of Dolma Gyalpo.

The lotus
sang of death.

The gunshots
were drowned out, then they failed completely. She huddled against the rock,
trying to crush herself into the crystals, hoping to escape the agonizing
sound. Close as she was to the lotus, she could hardly bear its music. Yet she
knew that the worst range of notes was

not meant for her; she knew that the
lotus had focused its most potent tones elsewhere, sparing her from the waves
of lethal harmonics.

She was too
confused, too absorbed in pain, to be grateful.

She hardly
noticed when the silence fell.

At first she
thought the roar of the waterfalls was her own deafness; she supposed it had
claimed her forever. Then she heard fainter sounds, rapid crunching, the sound
of rock grating on rock.

Looking up,
she saw Jigme advancing through the mist along the ledge, his rifle in his
hand. He stopped when he saw her, then glanced down abruptly at his cousin.

The lotus
was dark now, like a drop of Tsering’s congealing blood.

Jigme handed
his rifle to Marianne, then crept down the face of the cliff, finding purchase
on tiny cracks and scales
of
stone
that
were
all but invisible to
her
eyes. When he reached
Tsering, he put his bare hand against the boy’s neck. She saw his shoulders
rise with dismay and then slowly fall. He stooped, took the lotus gently in one
hand, and slipped his arms beneath the boy.

Without
looking back at her, he waded across the pool, straight into the mist and the
falls. When he vanished into the worst of the thundering water, she thought she
would never see him again.

She got to
her feet slowly and passed through the mist. She was so numb already that it
felt warm on her face.

As she
stepped out into afternoon sunlight, Jetsun called to her and came running
across the snow.

“Where’s Jigme?
And Tsering?”

She looked
back toward the falls, but saw only the towering mound of frozen spray at the
foot of the cliffs.

“Tsering is
dead,” she said. “Who . . . ?”

Jetsun put
his arm around her. “We were followed or tracked somehow. Jigme sighted them
and fired first. Then Tsering came out. I thought he’d ducked back in time to—”
He shook his head. His look of disbelief reminded her why she felt numb; it was
not the cold alone that had done its work on her.

“Then came
that sound. I thought it would deafen us. It must have been worse up there.”

He pointed
up the steep side of the valley to a tiny rampart of snow-covered rocks. She
could see someone lying across them, and a faint trail of forking red lines
running along the slick wall beneath his head. A dead man. She looked down the
cliff to the snow directly below; there she saw a rifle and a boot.

Following
her gaze, Jetsun gasped. “Hey, someone fell!”

He started
to run across the valley, though the snow kept him from moving too quickly. He
slowed still further to negotiate the slick rocks and ice that covered the
stream bed. She walked after him, glancing at the falls every few steps to see
if Jigme would reappear.

He did so at
last, rising above the snow-mound. He stood on the crest for a moment, gazing
at something behind him. His arms were empty. Then he started down, crushing
the peak, spoiling its perfect shape. He descended in long, broken strides.

She waited
for him, although there was nothing she could say. She handed back his rifle and
he in turn gave her what looked like an egg carved of red crystal.

“It closed
up in my hands,” he said.

She turned
the bud over several times. It was still warm; the glow in its heart could not
be accounted for by sunlight or human contact alone. She sighed and sealed it
into a pocket.

“You’re
soaking wet,” she said. “We should get you home.”

He shrugged.
“What does it matter?”

Jetsun
called to them, waving frantically. Jigme glanced up at the cliffs, squinting
at the figure lying limp above them.

“There’s
another,” she said.

He nodded. “I
saw him fall.”

They crossed
the frozen stream and made their way laboriously to Jetsun’s side. He had been
at work over the body, unzipping pockets and pouches, bringing out sheets of
folded paper, maps, bottles. A handgun and a spring-knife lay on the snow.

The dead man
lay face upward, his head thrown back so far that all she could see was his
chin.

“Who do you
think he is?” she asked Jetsun.

He gave her
an odd look and motioned for her to step closer.

She walked
to the far end of the body and looked down. His mouth was wide open. His head
was half sunk in snow; frozen blood bubbles domed the openings of his ears. Jetsun
had already wiped away snow, exposing the face clearly from chin to brow.

“Oh, Tara,”
she said, feeling lost and defeated.

The man had
three eyes.

10.
Tumo Fire

It was
nightfall when they returned to where the jet was hidden. As Marianne looked
back at the lights of the village below, their trail seemed to dissolve into
gray light. Black storm clouds were blowing over the peaks. This was the spot
where she’d had her first view of the village that morning.

She gave her
hand to Jetsun, and as they pressed on the last hundred feet to the jet, snow
began to fall. A thickening swirl of powder veiled the air before them.

Without
warning, Jetsun stopped moving. He stared through the pale murk.

“Come on,”
she said. “Well freeze here.”

“Where is
it?” he said.

She pulled
on his arm, then slowly let go. The snow was not so thick nor the light so dim
that she couldn’t see the rocks on the far side of the level niche. She stared
at the mountain wall in disbelief.

The jet was
gone.

“I don’t
believe it,” he said. He strode forward, broke into a run, and then skidded
over a patch of ice. “It was right here!”

As if the
sky had opened wide at the sound of his voice, snow began to fill the oppressed
air. Jetsun vanished from sight. She cried out and ran blindly forward through
the storm. He reappeared as a blurred shadow rising in her path.

“It was here,”
he said. “I swear it!”

She caught
hold of him. “I know it was—you’re not crazy. Come on, we’ve got to find
shelter.”

“Where can
we go? The jet is gone, Marianne!”

“I know,
but—oh damn it, come on!”

She tugged
him toward the cliff, hoping that the wall would give them some protection from
the wind and snow. There had to be some niche that would shelter them. There
had to be. . . .

The wall
came up abruptly, stark and vertical, with nothing but small stones accumulated
at its base. She put her hand against the rock as if it might have been a great
door that would open to her touch. It was solid and cold, immovable. Still
holding Jetsun’s hand, she followed the wall deeper into the mountains. To
attempt to travel in this storm would have been ridiculous, for the only
possible route open to them led down narrow spines of rock, with sheer drops at
either side. If only they had accepted Jigme’s offer of a hearth for that
night. But how could they have known that the jet would he gone?

She had no
doubt that it had been found and taken by companions of the men who had killed
Tsering. Three-eyed murderers.

At the
thought of them, she felt even colder.

Three-eyed
men. They were specters risen from the past, tracking her from life to life.
Tashi Drogon’s death had not satisfied them. Any number of deaths might leave
them unfulfilled.

She had
grown up hearing her parents recount the story of Tashi’s death, over and over
again. Her mother had told it as a cautionary tale, as if to say, “This is what
you’re getting yourself into, joining those Tibetans.” But her father had told
it as if it were a fabulous fiction, something out of Kipling—as if it had
happened to another couple entirely.

Only Reting
Norbu’s account of the events carried the sting of objectivity. When he
described the event of her prior death, she could see it in vivid detail—could
almost
remember
it.

The knock on
the door. The exploding hand. Blood and smoke. And then Reting’s own horrified
but selfless pursuit of the assassin.

Her hand
abruptly plunged past the edge of a crack in the rocks; she found her fingers
sweeping through space. Ducking over, she glimpsed a dark, angular opening.
Then she reached in and let out a frustrated moan. It was not much deeper than
the length of her arm.

“It’ll have
to do,” she said. “We’ll squeeze in together.”

Jetsun
stooped down beside her and laughed bitterly.

“After you,”
he said.

She backed
in, drawing him with her. There was scarcely room for the two of them to huddle
with their knees drawn up to their chests. Sharp bits of rock jabbed her in the
back and buttocks; Jetsun groaned when his head banged against the slanting
ceiling.

“Better?”
she asked.

“Let me get
my arm around you,” he said, and it was done. She turned up the heat on her
suit but it had little effect.

“Are you
warm enough?” she asked.

He laughed
again. “I think a circuit burned out this afternoon; I must have severed a
connection somewhere. The only thing that’s kept me warm is exercise.”

As he fell
silent, his teeth chattered briefly; then he must have clenched them shut.
There was no sound for several minutes except for the occasional grating of
rocks as they shifted their weight and made minute readjustments in position.
The snow muted out all other sounds.

The world
outside was dark as a moonless midnight. Snow began to gather around her boots.
She shook them several times, felt the heat come on in her soles. At least
something was working.

Jetsun
rested his head on top of hers and sighed. “I’m so tired, I can’t even think
about the jet.”

“Then
sleep,” she said.

She was
exhausted and ravenous herself, but she knew that sleep was far away. Muscle
cramps reached from her legs into her belly. There was no way to massage
herself, nothing to do but watch the black snowfall, like a constant fission of
faint sparks in her eyes. She tried not to think of her discomfort.

Whoever had
stolen the jet might be keeping watch on them.

The
three-eyed men could be out there right now, slowed by the storm but still
stalking. She had the lotus bud in her pocket, and they certainly wanted that.

But who were
they?

The Kashag
had never uncovered a clue to the identity of Tashi Drogon’s murderer, nor had
they learned how he’d timed his act with such perfection. But they had known
that more than one three-eyed human existed in the world. A number had already
turned up in India, several more were discovered in Europe over the next few
years—perhaps two dozen in all. Each one had attempted an assassination; most
had been successful. Each one had died before being interrogated, either at the
hands of his captors or by suicide.

There seemed
little doubt that they were the product of advanced embryogenetic technology;
all indications were that they had been bred and raised solely for the purpose
of killing. They were political tools, biological machines.

But why did
they have three eyes?

In the East,
a third eye in the forehead symbolized spiritual knowledge and accomplishment.
Gods and goddesses, great lamas, dakas, dakinis, and yidams often had this
third eye.

The
assassins, without exception, had chosen targets of religious importance. Even
Tashi Drogon, a scientist, had done his greatest work in the area of religion.

It seemed
like a deliberate twisting of human spirituality to breed three-eyed killers,
to take this ancient symbol of enlightenment and embody it in a cruel modern
form. Autopsies of the assassins did not indicate that the extra eye increased
their visual acuity in any manner; the eye was vestigial, dimly sighted if at
all, and in fact they usually worked with it covered in order to remain inconspicuous
until the job was done. So the eyes had been inculcated purely for effect, perhaps
to sow religious doubt and mistrust along with violence.

But who had
done it? Whose technology had machined these creatures?

That was a
question no one had come close to answering.

Jetsun
shivered in her arms. She could hear his teeth rattling. The snow was piling up
at her feet. The wind seemed to blow directly on this little cave, and flurries
of ice kept sweeping in.

She took a
deep breath, wondering if she would sleep at all. Determined to try, she closed
her eyes.

“You are in
danger,” said a voice she had heard little of that day.

“Tara?” she
whispered aloud. Then, not wishing to wake Jetsun, she spoke the name again in
her mind.

“The cold is
your nearest enemy,” said her yidam. “You must protect yourself. You will die
of exposure unless you start a fire.”

“A fire?”
she said. “With what? There’s no wood, no flame.”

“I mean a
different fire. One you can build within yourself. The spiritual heat—the tumo
fire.”

“The mystic
heat?” Marianne said. “I don’t know how to do that, Tara. It takes the monks and
lamas many years to learn. I know they get so good at it that they can melt
deep holes in the snow and dry dozens of wet blankets on a winter’s night . . . but
I don’t even know how it’s done.”

Tara said,
“I do. Come down with me and you will learn. The lotus will help us. Come warm
your hands.”

She found
herself moving through darkness, a cold and silent void. Far beneath her danced
a shimmer of light in the shape of a girl. It was Tara. She plunged toward the
rainbow form and saw her yidam receding, changing color, turning red and then
orange and finally white.

It was not
Tara below her now but a tiny stroke of flame, like the tip of a fine
paintbrush.

The flame
grew only slightly as she descended. At last she perceived her yidam again,
holding that flame cupped in her hands.

Tara was
black now, black as ebony or obsidian. She had never seen her yidam as anything
but colorful and bright. There was something savage and terrifying about Tara
now that she had no more detail than a silhouette. The flame in her hands cast
no light on her face; it seemed to shine through starless space.

Tara blew on
the flame, sending it licking upward at the dark. Ribbons of fire flew high
into the emptiness. She blew again, again, and the fire coiled, twisting around
itself, a thin stream stretching up and out of sight like a beacon directed
into the night.

Suddenly,
from high above, a flare of light flashed out like a white neon sign—it was a
sigil, a Sanskrit syllable:
OM.
As it brightened, she saw that the flame had set fire to the tiny
dot at the crest of the character. Now the whole syllable began to melt,
spraying drops of liquid diamond fire in every direction. The molten light
began to percolate through a myriad of subtle channels that she had not
perceived before. The dark, limitless cavern around her became filled with
warmth and light. Then she discovered that her environment did indeed have
limits and a recognizable shape.

It was a
body, enormous and alive, hollow except for the heat-light. She could see all
the way up to the crown, following the inflated tent of skin along its folds
and billowing curves. She stood now at the juncture of the legs, just within
the mouth of the womb.

Yes, it was
a woman’s body, with a woman’s breasts and a woman’s hips. She had the feeling—no,
a certainty—that it was her own.

In
confirmation of this, she woke suddenly from her strange trance to discover
that she was sweating, burning up inside her clothes. She could no longer feel
the breath of the wind, although she heard it roaring outside.

Her
attention went to a subtler sound: a rapid rattling, the sound of chattering
teeth.

Jetsun
moaned, shrinking into himself. He seemed to be in delirium, a nightmare—or
perhaps it was more than that. His suit had not been functioning, he’d said.

Hypothermia.
. . .

She moved
swiftly, desperately, laying her hands over his face, trying to melt away the
chill in his body. She could not see him in the dark, but she felt his eyes
opening under her palms.

“Jetsun?”
she whispered. “Jetsun, can you hear me? Are you awake?”

He moaned
but said nothing more. His whole body was shaking with the cold while hers felt
like a furnace. She kicked her feet free of the snow that had built up against
the mouth of the cave, and the wind cut back slightly.

“Jetsun,” she
said. Her voice was a wail. “Jetsun!”

She could
feel him literally shrinking in her grasp, collapsing as shivers wracked him.
She tried to blanket him with herself, tried to envelop him, but the chill was
deep inside. There was no way to reach it, no way to start the fires again.