Eliot Pattison - The Skull Mantra

Jilin lowered his hammer. "You're one crazy shit."

Shan repeated the request. "Just a few seconds. Over there," he pointed. "Hold my ankles."

Jilin slowly followed Shan to the edge, then smirked. "Five hundred feet. Lots of time to think before you hit. Then you're just like a melon fired from a cannon."

"A few seconds, then you pull me back."

"Why?"

"Because of the gold."

"Like hell," Jilin spat. But then, with a suspicious gleam he leaned over the edge. "Shit," he said as he looked up in surprise. "Shit," he repeated, then quickly sobered. "I don't need you."

"Sure you do. You can't reach it from the top. Who do you trust to lower you?"

A spark of understanding kindled on Jilin's face. "Why trust me?"

"Because I'm going to give you the gold. I'm going to look at it, then I'll give it to you." Jilin could only be relied upon for his greed.

A moment later Shan was upside down, suspended by his ankles over the abyss. His pencil fell out of his pocket and plunged end over end through the void. He closed his eyes as Jilin laughed and bobbed him up and down like a child's marionette. But when he opened them the lighter was directly in front of him.

In an instant he was back on top. The lighter was Western-made but engraved with the Chinese ideogram for long life. Shan had seen such lighters before; they were often tokens distributed at party meetings. He breathed on it, letting his breath fog the surface. No fingerprints.

"Give it to me," Jilin growled. He was watching the guards.

Shan closed his hand around it. "Sure. For a trade."

Jilin's eyes went wild. He raised his fist. "I'll break you in half."

"You took something from the body. Pulled it out of the hand. I want it."

Jilin seemed to be considering whether he would have time to grab the lighter while he pushed Shan off the edge.

Shan stepped out of his reach. "I don't think it was valuable," Shan said. "But this-" He lit the flame. "Look. Wind-resistant." He extended it, increasing the risk the guards would see it.

Instantly Jilin reached into his pocket and produced a small tarnished metal disk. He dropped it into Shan's palm and grabbed the lighter. Shan held onto it. "One more thing. A question."

Jilin snarled and looked back down the slope. As much as he might wish to crush Shan, the first sign of struggle would bring the guards.

"Your professional perspective."

"Professional?"

"As a murderer."

Jilin swelled with pride. His life, too, had its defining moments. He eased his grip.

"Why here?" Shan asked. "Why go so far from town but leave the body so conspicuous?"

An unsettling longing appeared in Jilin's eyes. "The audience."

"Audience?"

"Someone told me once about a tree falling down in the mountains. It don't make a sound if no one's there to hear. A killing with no one to appreciate it, what's the point? A good murder, that requires an audience."

"Most murderers I've known act in private."

"Not witnesses, but those who discover it. Without an audience there can be no forgiveness." He recited the words carefully, as if they had been taught to him in tamzing sessions.

It was true, Shan realized. The body had been discovered by the prisoners because that was what the murderer intended. He paused, looking into Jilin's wild eyes, then released the lighter and looked at the disc. It was convex, two inches in width. Small slots at the top and bottom indicated that it had been designed to slide onto a strap for ornamentation. Tibetan script, in an old style that was unintelligible to Shan, ran along the edge. In the center was the stylized image of a horse head. It had fangs.

As Shan approached Choje, the protecting circle parted. He was uncertain whether to wait until the lama finished his meditation. But the moment Shan sat beside him, Choje's eyes opened.

"They have procedures for strikes, Rinpoche," Shan said quietly. "From Beijing. It's written in a book. Strikers will be given the opportunity to repent and accept punishment. If not, they will try to starve everyone. They make examples of the leaders. After one week a strike by a lao gai prisoner may be declared a capital offense. If they feel generous, they could simply add ten years to every sentence."

"Beijing will do what it must do," came the expected reply. "And we will do what we must do."

Shan quietly studied the men. Their eyes held not fear, but pride. He swept his hand toward the guards below. "You know what the guards are waiting for." It was a statement, not a question. "They are probably already on the way. This close to the border, it won't take long."

Choje shrugged. "People like that, they are always waiting for something." Some of the monks closest to them laughed softly.

Shan sighed. "The man who died had this in his hand." He dropped the medallion in Choje's hand. "I think he pulled it from his murderer."

As Choje's eyes locked on the disc, they flashed with recognition, then hardened. He traced the writing with his finger, nodded, and passed it around the circle. There were several sharp cries of excitement. As the men passed it on, their eyes followed the disc with looks of wonder.

There had been no real struggle between the murderer and his victim, Shan knew. Dr. Sung had been right on that point. But there had been a moment, perhaps just an instant of realization, when the victim had seen, then touched his killer, had reached out and grabbed the disc as he was being knocked unconscious.

"Words have been spoken about him," Choje said. "From the high ranges. I wasn't sure. Some said he had given up on us."

"I don't understand."

"They were among us often in the old days." The lama's eyes stayed on the disc. "When the dark years came they went deep inside the mountains. But people said they would come back one day."

Choje looked back to Shan. "Tamdin. The medallion is from Tamdin. The Horse-Headed, they call him. One of the spirit protectors." Choje paused and recited several beads then looked up with an expression of wonder. "This man without a head. He was taken by one of our guardian demons."

As the words left Choje's mouth, Yeshe appeared at the edge of the circle. He studied the monks awkwardly, as though embarrassed or even fearful. He seemed unwilling, or unable, to cross into the circle. "They found something," he called out, strangely breathless. "The colonel is waiting at the crossroads."

One of the first roads built by the 404th had been the one that ringed the valley, connecting the old trails that dropped out of the mountains between the high ridges. The road the two vehicles now followed up the Dragon Claws had been one of those trails, and was still so rough a path that it became a streambed during the spring thaws. Twenty minutes after leaving the valley, Tan's car led them onto a dirt track that had been recently scoured by a bulldozer. They emerged onto a small, sheltered plateau. Shan studied the high, windblown bowl through the window. At its bottom was a small spring, with a solitary giant cedar. The plateau was closed to the north. It opened to the south, overlooking fifty miles of rugged ranges. To a Tibetan it would have been a place of power, the kind of place a demon might inhabit.

A long shed with an oversized chimney came into view as Feng eased the truck to a stop. It had been built recently, of plywood sheets torn from some other structure. The sections of wood displayed remnants of painted ideograms from their prior incarnation, giving the shed the appearance of a puzzle forced together from mismatched pieces. Several four-wheel drive vehicles were parked behind it. Beside them half a dozen PLA officers snapped to attention as Tan emerged from his car.

The colonel conferred briefly with the officers and gestured for Shan to join him as they walked behind the shed. Yeshe and Feng climbed out and began to follow. An officer looked up in alarm and ordered them back into the truck.