Offerings.
As Shan approached he found his friend at a long, flat ledge, perhaps five feet high, leaning over a rust brown image. To his right was another image, the familiar tapered egg shape of the ritual treasure flask, often depicted in the hands of painted deities.
But Shan had never seen the image on the left before.
“It is lightning,” Lokesh said, “yet not.”
The zigzag line drawn in blood did indeed look like a thunderbolt. Except that at its top, at its thickest part, was a triangular head with two eyes. “Or a snake,” Shan ventured. “Except,” he added, pointing to the two pairs of bent lines near top and bottom, “what serpent has arms and legs?”
“A dragon,” Lokesh concluded in a tone of somber discovery. “A thunder dragon.” He had followed a particularly Tibetan logic. The mountain was famed for lightning. Lightning was born of thunder and, as the older Tibetans knew, thunder came from the throats of dragons. And here they were on the mountain called Sleeping Dragon. Shan found himself gazing toward the summit. More than a few Tibetans believed dragons existed, though, like lamas, they were not faring well in the modern world. Shan had accompanied Lokesh on a race through the mountains the year before after a report of a sighting of one of the sacred creatures.
Shan left his friend’s side to search the ground where the man who was either a saint or a murderer had been found, his fingers bloodstained, with a bloody hammer. He stepped over dried, curled leaves to take in the scene more completely, then walked back and forth. Here there were none of the broken stems he had found elsewhere, no sign that anyone had been dragged, but likewise no sign of the cleated boots the comatose man had been wearing. He examined the small cracks between rocks and the gaps between boulders for a hundred-foot radius, pausing at a flattened circle of earth that showed particles of colored sand. There had been a sandpainting, Yangke had said. From a shadowed crack halfway between the charnel ground and the place where the stranger had been found, he pulled a toothbrush, its bristles stained red-brown. So the saint had not painted the images with his fingertips. It seemed unlikely that he was the one who had painted them.
Something nudged his senses, and he paced along the wall again. The dried leaves caught in the grass. There were none anywhere else, only near the painted images of the flash and the dragon. He bent and gathered several, then sat and probed one. It was not a leaf, it was a flower, one of the dried trumpet flowers that bloomed on the slopes, though the nearest plants were some distance away on the far side of the stream.
“It was an altar,” Lokesh declared. He retrieved some of the flower heads closest to the rock and held them toward Shan. They too were stained with blood.
It took a moment for Shan to grasp his meaning. The body of the stranger had been arranged beneath the painted images, along with the flowers, a traditional altar offering. Or perhaps an atonement. But the bloody hammer did not fit. Had two different people played a part in the killings? The saint had been carried to his place beneath the altar, which would have required two men. One had been devout, in his own strange way. But the other—the cool, calculating one—had dropped the hammer there to implicate the stranger in two murders.
When they neared Drango village they found men with heavy staffs stationed at the outer edge of the fields. They did not greet Shan and Lokesh, did not even acknowledge them as they stepped onto the path that wound down through the barley fields to the village proper. Shan paused and gazed back up the mountain. What were the men watching for?
The young children in the village fled when they saw Shan and Lokesh. A woman churning butter leaped up and darted into her house, dragging her churn inside with her. A small white dog barked at them. Shan approached the stable and froze.
As Shan approached he found his friend at a long, flat ledge, perhaps five feet high, leaning over a rust brown image. To his right was another image, the familiar tapered egg shape of the ritual treasure flask, often depicted in the hands of painted deities.
But Shan had never seen the image on the left before.
“It is lightning,” Lokesh said, “yet not.”
The zigzag line drawn in blood did indeed look like a thunderbolt. Except that at its top, at its thickest part, was a triangular head with two eyes. “Or a snake,” Shan ventured. “Except,” he added, pointing to the two pairs of bent lines near top and bottom, “what serpent has arms and legs?”
“A dragon,” Lokesh concluded in a tone of somber discovery. “A thunder dragon.” He had followed a particularly Tibetan logic. The mountain was famed for lightning. Lightning was born of thunder and, as the older Tibetans knew, thunder came from the throats of dragons. And here they were on the mountain called Sleeping Dragon. Shan found himself gazing toward the summit. More than a few Tibetans believed dragons existed, though, like lamas, they were not faring well in the modern world. Shan had accompanied Lokesh on a race through the mountains the year before after a report of a sighting of one of the sacred creatures.
Shan left his friend’s side to search the ground where the man who was either a saint or a murderer had been found, his fingers bloodstained, with a bloody hammer. He stepped over dried, curled leaves to take in the scene more completely, then walked back and forth. Here there were none of the broken stems he had found elsewhere, no sign that anyone had been dragged, but likewise no sign of the cleated boots the comatose man had been wearing. He examined the small cracks between rocks and the gaps between boulders for a hundred-foot radius, pausing at a flattened circle of earth that showed particles of colored sand. There had been a sandpainting, Yangke had said. From a shadowed crack halfway between the charnel ground and the place where the stranger had been found, he pulled a toothbrush, its bristles stained red-brown. So the saint had not painted the images with his fingertips. It seemed unlikely that he was the one who had painted them.
Something nudged his senses, and he paced along the wall again. The dried leaves caught in the grass. There were none anywhere else, only near the painted images of the flash and the dragon. He bent and gathered several, then sat and probed one. It was not a leaf, it was a flower, one of the dried trumpet flowers that bloomed on the slopes, though the nearest plants were some distance away on the far side of the stream.
“It was an altar,” Lokesh declared. He retrieved some of the flower heads closest to the rock and held them toward Shan. They too were stained with blood.
It took a moment for Shan to grasp his meaning. The body of the stranger had been arranged beneath the painted images, along with the flowers, a traditional altar offering. Or perhaps an atonement. But the bloody hammer did not fit. Had two different people played a part in the killings? The saint had been carried to his place beneath the altar, which would have required two men. One had been devout, in his own strange way. But the other—the cool, calculating one—had dropped the hammer there to implicate the stranger in two murders.
When they neared Drango village they found men with heavy staffs stationed at the outer edge of the fields. They did not greet Shan and Lokesh, did not even acknowledge them as they stepped onto the path that wound down through the barley fields to the village proper. Shan paused and gazed back up the mountain. What were the men watching for?
The young children in the village fled when they saw Shan and Lokesh. A woman churning butter leaped up and darted into her house, dragging her churn inside with her. A small white dog barked at them. Shan approached the stable and froze.
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