Eliot Pattison - Bone Mountain

Nyma sighed and continued with her chakpa, outlining a mountain with blue sand. But Shan saw that Gendun stared at Drakte, his head slightly cocked, his eyes drawn, as if there was something about the purba he could not comprehend.

Lokesh stood and took a step toward Drakte, who raised his palm, arm outstretched, to warn the old man away.

"He doesn't care who has to die," Drakte groaned. "He wants to find the stone. He kills the thing he is. He kills prayer. I saw him kill. He can't be stopped. Just run," he repeated, the words coming out like a sob. "All you can do is run now. Save the eye. Save yourselves." He looked plaintively at Shan with these last words. "I'm sorry," he moaned, as though he owed Shan something.

Shan stood, chilled by the purba's words, uncertain what to do, and stepped to the edge of the sacred circle. He was about to reach out and steady the purba, to offer to take him away for a bowl of tea so they could speak more calmly about his fears, when the dropka woman gasped and dropped to the floor on her knees, bowing her head close to the floor in the direction of the door. The Golok groaned and darted behind the circle, toward the altar. Nyma looked up and let out a muffled cry, forgetting her chakpa, blue sand spilling in a small heap onto the mandala.

A grotesque creature stood on two legs in the doorway, its huge frame filling the entire space, its eyes wild and glaring at the purba. It was a man, Shan told himself, or had once been. He was so accustomed to Tibetan tales of demons, so familiar with the lamas' efforts to visualize deity demons, that for a moment he was not wholly certain whether the thing he saw was real. The second dropka called out the name of blessed Tara, protectress of the faithful, and dropped to the floor.

The intruder had a huge head in the shape of a man's but somehow bestial, with blackened cheeks and greased hair tied in a tight bob at the crown. The thing's shoulders were wider than the doorway and it had to twist and bend as it entered the chamber. One arm, protruding from a sleeveless brown robe, was wrapped above the elbow with a red cord, its hand holding a long staff nearly as thick as Shan's arm, ending above his shoulder in a gnarled knot of wood.

Shopo stood and extended his hand, palm outward, as if to greet the intruder. But before the lama could speak the stranger lashed out with his staff, striking Drakte in the belly and shouting at the purba. He spoke fast, and so loud his voice drowned out the wind. The dropka clamped their hands over their ears. The old schools of Tibetan Buddhism taught that there were evil mystics who spoke words of power that could enslave those who heard.

But the huge black-faced intruder seemed not to notice the dropka or even the lamas. He continued shouting at Drakte in his deep demonic voice, stabbing at the purba with his staff, hitting the young Tibetan in the belly, the arms, the thighs. Shan tried in vain to understand the words. They were Tibetan, but unintelligible to him. Perhaps it was old Tibetan, like that used in ancient teachings, or one of the many dialects spoken in Tibet's remote regions. He understood only the name of Yamantaka, Lord of the Dead.

Drakte's face drained of the little color it had left. The anger that filled his eyes for a moment was quickly replaced with fear. His hand went to his chest and he stepped back, trying to avoid the reach of the staff until, as Nyma gasped, Shan saw that the purba was standing in the center of their fragile mandala. Shan desperately looked about the room for a weapon that might be used to defend the purba. Drakte, his lips trembling, his eyes fixed on the demon, began reciting the mani mantra, invoking the Compassionate Buddha.

Abruptly, the intruder stopped speaking and stared malevolently at Drakte, shaking his staff in short jerking motions. The only sound in the room was that of the purba's mantra, until it tapered off into a low whimper. Drakte began to sway, as if a strong wind blew upon him. Shopo turned toward the young Tibetan and Drakte began to raise a hand as if to ask for help. But the hand trembled and slowly fell, and Shopo moaned. Shan followed the lama's gaze toward the mandala and shuddered. It was changing before them, its colors mixing, a dark cloud spreading over the intricate pattern as though something evil had overtaken it.

Struck dumb by the sight, unable to comprehend anything that had happened in the last few moments, Shan could only stare as Nyma, then the dropka, uttered forlorn cries and pointed at the swirling mandala. With a sudden stab of pain Shan understood. It was blood. Dark red blood was pooling around Drakte's feet, streaming out of his right pant leg, covering their precious mandala.

Shan took a hesitant step forward, then another, to reach out and help Drakte. The purba seemed to sense his intention and turned his hollow, confused eyes toward Shan. But in the next moment the swaying man toppled, dropping to his knees, then falling heavily onto his face, his jaw making a sickening crunching sound as it slammed against the stone floor.

Shan looked back toward the door. The demon had disappeared.

"It's no good," the dropka woman sobbed loudly. "We are ruined." Tears streamed down her face as she stared at the mandala, over which they had labored for two months. She meant the sacred painting was contaminated. The mandala was ruined. The deities would abandon it, and perhaps abandon them.

Lokesh darted past Shan and knelt by Drakte, cradling the purba's head. The old Tibetan's face sank, and with a low rapid murmur he began a different kind of prayer. Lokesh had recognized what Shan had seen in the young purba's glazed, unfocused eyes. Drakte was dead.

"The basic nature of your mind is luminosity and emptiness," Gendun intoned softly as he sat beside the young Tibetan's body. "It dwells as a great expanse of light beyond birth or death." He had begun reciting the Bardo ritual the instant he had seen Drakte's face, quietly offering the ancient words as the two dropka reverently straightened the body on the floor. There was no time to lose. The Tibetans believed Drakte was now sensing a great falling, a rush of wind, and the flashing of brilliant colors. He had not been prepared for the loss of his body and would be confused.

"Rinpoche," Nyma said to Gendun in a numbed voice, "the mandala for the-"

Gendun paused a moment, surveying the ruined mandala, the jagged eye, then Tenzin, who had rushed forward to kneel by Drakte, before finally settling his gaze on the dead man. "This is where the Compassionate Buddha has taken us," he declared, and continued the ritual. "You will leave this body of flesh and blood and know you are at peace," the lama recited from memory, his eyes nearly closed.

The dropka produced a blanket, onto which they lifted the body. With Gendun walking alongside still reciting the death rite, Lokesh and Tenzin slowly carried the dead man into the hut next door. As Nyma lit butter lamps they arranged the body in the traditional fashion, in a sitting position, leaning against the wall. Shan sat for a moment with the lama, his heart still pounding loudly, desperately trying to understand what had happened. Then he rose and stood at the door, looking outside. The Golok and the two herders were nervously pacing the perimeter of the small compound, the dropka woman was calling to the adjacent encampment, spreading the alarm. Shan looked back inside the hut. It appeared in the dim light that Gendun and Drakte were conversing.

In the lhakang Shopo began a second ceremony at the mandala. One by one, with Nyma and Lokesh sitting on either side, the lama began to address the images invoked in the sand painting, uttering to each a low prayer that had the sound of an apology. Shan sat with them for nearly thirty minutes; then, his confusion giving way to fear again, he stepped outside, to the doorway of the second hut, where Gendun still spoke to Drakte. He stared at the dead man, recalling the first time he had seen him in the Lhadrung valley, gathering food for families of prisoners. Drakte had worn the robes of a monk for several years before being forced out of his gompa, his monastery, when Beijing's Bureau of Religious Affairs had established strict limits on the number of active monks. In another age Drakte would have passed his life in a robe, learning and teaching the ways of compassion. But those who controlled the world Shan and Drakte lived in had told the young Tibetan he was not allowed to sit in a gompa and share the wisdom of the lamas.