Douglas Child - The Wheel of Darkness

Constance looked away.

“For weeks now,” he went on, “we haven’t spoken of what happened. But sooner or later—”

She turned on him abruptly.

“No!”

she said fiercely. “No.” She paused a moment, mastering herself. “I want you to promise me something: never mention him or . . . Feversham . . . in my presence again.”

Pendergast remained motionless, looking at her carefully. It appeared that his brother Diogenes’s seduction had affected her even more deeply than he realized. At last, he nodded again, faintly. “I promise.”

Then, withdrawing his hands from hers, he kissed her on both cheeks. Taking hold of the reins, he swung up in the saddle, kicked his horse, passed through the outer gate, and set off down the winding trail.

4

IN A BARREN CELL DEEP IN THE GSALRIG CHONGG MONASTERY, Constance Greene sat in the lotus position, her eyes closed, visualizing the exceedingly complex knotted silk cord that lay on a cushion in front of her. Tsering sat behind her in the dim light, her only awareness of him the low sound of his voice, murmuring in Tibetan. She had been studying the language intensively for nearly eight weeks and had developed a halting fluency, acquiring a modest vocabulary along with some phrases and idioms.

“See the knot in your mind,” came the low, mesmerizing voice of her teacher.

At will, the knot began to materialize, about four feet before her closed eyes, radiating light. That she was sitting on the bare, cold floor of a nitre-encrusted cell receded from her consciousness.

“Make it clear. Make it steady.”

The knot came into focus, sharply, wavering a little or going fuzzy when her attention wavered, but always returning to focus.

“Your mind is a lake in twilight,” the teacher said. “Still, calm, and clear.”

A strange sense of being there and yet not being there enveloped Constance. The knot she had chosen to visualize remained in front of her. It was one of medium complexity, tied over three hundred years ago by a great teacher. It was known by the name of the Double Rose.

“Increase the image of the knot in your mind.”

It was a difficult balance of effort and letting go. If she concentrated too hard on clarity and stability, the image began to break up and other thoughts intruded; if she let go too much, the image faded into the mists of her mind. There was a perfect balancing point; and gradually—very gradually—she found it.

“Now gaze upon the image of the knot you have created in your mind. Observe it from all angles: from above, from the sides.”

The softly glistening coils of silk remained steady in her mind’s eye, bringing her a quiet joy, a mindfulness, that she had never before experienced. And then the voice of her teacher disappeared entirely, and all that was left was the knot itself. Time vanished. Space vanished. Only the knot remained.

“Untie the knot.”

This was the most difficult part, requiring immense concentration—being able to trace the coils of the knot, and then mentally untie it.

Time passed; it could have been ten seconds, or ten hours.

A gentle hand touched her shoulder and her eyes opened. Tsering was standing before her, robe tucked around an arm.

“How long?” she asked in English.

“Five hours.”

She rose, and found her legs so wobbly she could barely walk. He grasped her arm and helped her steady herself.

“You learn well,” he said. “Be sure no take pride in it.”

She nodded. “Thank you.”

They walked slowly down an ancient passageway, turned a corner. She could hear, up ahead, the faint sound of the prayer wheels echoing down the stone passageway.

Another corner. She felt refreshed, clear, alert. “What drives those prayer wheels?” she asked. “They never cease turning.”

“There is a spring of water under monastery—source of Tsangpo River. It pass over wheel, turn gears.”

“Ingenious.”

They passed by the wall of creaking, rattling brass wheels, like some Rube Goldberg confection. Constance could see, behind the wheels, a forest of moving brass rods and wooden gears.

They left the wheels behind and came into one of the outer corridors. Ahead loomed one of the far pavilions of the monastery, the square pillars framing the three great mountains. They entered the pavilion and Constance drank in the pure high-altitude air. Tsering indicated a seat and she took it. He sat down next to her. For a few minutes they gazed over the darkening mountains in silence.

“The meditation you are learning is very powerful. Someday, you may come out of meditation and find the knot . . . untied.”

Constance said nothing.

“Some can influence the physical world with pure thought, create things out of thought. There is story of monk who meditate so long on rose that when he open his eyes, there is rose on the floor. This is very dangerous. With enough skill and meditation, there are those who can create things . . . other than roses. It is not something to desire, and it is a grave deviancy from Buddhist teaching.”

She nodded her understanding, not believing a word of it.

Tsering’s lips stretched into a smile. “You skeptical person. That very good. Whether you believe or not, choose with care image you meditate on.”

“I will,” said Constance.

“Remember: Though we have many ‘demons,’ most not evil. They are attachments you must conquer to reach enlightenment.”

Another long silence.

“Have question?”

She was quiet for a moment, recalling Pendergast’s parting request. “Tell me. Why is there an inner monastery?”

Tsering was silent for a moment. “Inner monastery is oldest in Tibet, built here in remote mountains by group of wandering monks from India.”

“Was it built to protect the Agozyen?”

Tsering looked at her sharply. “That is not to be spoken of.”

“My guardian has left here to find it. At this monastery’s request. Perhaps I can be of some help, too.”

The old man looked away, and the distance in his eyes had nothing to do with the landscape beyond the pavilion. “Agozyen carried here from India. Taken far away, into mountains, where it not threaten. They build inner monastery to protect and keep Agozyen. Then, later, outer monastery built around inner one.”

“There’s something I don’t understand. If the Agozyen was so very dangerous, why not just destroy it?”

The monk was silent for a very long time. Then he said, quietly, “Because it has important future purpose.”

“What purpose?”

But her teacher remained silent.

5

THE JEEP CAME CAREENING AROUND THE CORNER OF THE HILL, bumped and splashed though a series of enormous, mud-filled potholes, and descended onto a broad dirt road toward the town of Qiang, in a damp valley not far from the Tibet-Chinese border. A gray drizzle fell from the sky into a pall of brown smoke, which hung over the town from a cluster of smokestacks across a greasy river. Trash lined both shoulders.

The driver of the jeep passed an overloaded truck, honking furiously. He swerved past another truck on a blind curve, slewing within a few feet of a cliff edge, and began descending into town.

“To the railroad station,” Pendergast told the driver in Mandarin.

“Wei wei, xian sheng!”

The jeep dodged pedestrians, bicycles, a man driving a pair of oxen. The driver screeched to a halt in a crush of traffic at a rotary, then inched forward, leaning continuously on the horn. Exhaust fumes and a veritable symphony of claxons filled the air. The windshield wipers slapped back and forth, streaking the mud that covered the jeep, the anemic rainfall sufficient only to spread it around.

Beyond the rotary, the broad avenue ended at a low gray cement structure. The driver stopped abruptly before it. “We are here,” he said.