Prayer of the Dragon is-5

by Eliot Pattison

“You have it bad, Shan. You wouldn’t stand up to those who ruined your life, and now you want to kowtow to a bunch of monks who died five hundred years ago.” He pointed to a line of shadow that ascended along the nearest wall toward the summit. “Look close and you can see there are smudges of color along that trail. There’s no secret to the path those monks laid out. Only follow the paintings and don’t step off a cliff.” He draped one of their blankets over his shoulder.

  Before he departed, Bing checked the tightness of the ropes. “Here’s a plan,” he said, mocking them again. “One of you must die. Then he comes back as a rat and chews the ropes through to free the others.” He was still laughing as he disappeared around the end of the rock formation.

  They sat, bound by ropes, seeming to drift on a tide of fear and helplessness.

  Hostene said, after a long silence, “Colors may represent directions. For the Navajo, white is east.”

  “To the Tibetans too they signify direction,” Yangke observed with surprise.

  “But also elements,” Shan said. “Red meant fire, white meant metal, green meant wood. And it is wood you must focus on. The post,” he explained. “If you can pry it out of the ground you can slide the rope over the end and have enough slack to free yourself.”

  With Shan’s coaching, Hostene and Yangke learned how to coordinate their movements in order to pull the old post out of the ground. Minutes later they were all three free.

  No one seemed willing to speak about their next step. Yangke stared at the skeletons. Hostene repacked and shouldered his bag with a determined expression, then seemed to reconsider. Shan began mentally cataloging the reasons for turning back, starting with Bing and his five bullets, followed closely by the likelihood that Ren’s helicopter would soon appear. While he was silently composing a speech to persuade his companions to retreat, Yangke began studying the skeletons’ arrangement, lifting some skulls as if looking for old friends.

  Hostene, sensing Shan’s gaze, upended his bag. Its sole contents were a coil of rope, a flint, his prayer-stick feather, and a piece of wood. A look of wonder appeared on his face. There had been an earlier pilgrimage he had failed to complete on which his long-dead uncle had given him a rope, a flint, a feather, and a piece of wood, then asked him to go meet the gods. Hostene slowly repacked his bag, then stood, retrieved his staff, and began to walk in the direction Bing had taken. The sun was beginning to set. The little plain below was already in shadow.

  “No,” Yangke called out. “You cannot leave yet. We have to spend the night here. We have to understand what the message of the colors means, and sleep with the skeletons. It’s what the pilgrims were meant to do.”

  For a moment it seemed Hostene might bolt but he lowered his bag and grimly nodded.

  Using one of the iron scraps as a striker they lit a fire, though a small one, for they felt like intruders. With nothing to cook, nothing to eat or drink except their single bottle of water, they stared at the flames in silence, each man lost in thought. At last Yangke rose, holding one of the burning sticks of juniper. Shan thought he was using it as a torch but instead he extended it at arm’s length, first low, then high, as he walked around the wheel of skeletons. He was spreading the juniper smoke to attract the deities.

  Hostene began studying the ground around them, stepping out into the fading sunlight, pausing to examine scraps of wood. Shan joined the search, studying the collection of skeleton hands, finding footprints in many directions as well as several stripped leaves of fragrant herbs. He was collecting the leaves when Yangke gave an excited cry.

  Hostene was already at Yangke’s side when Shan reached them, pointing at white marks on the stone wall overhang. At the top was a jagged streak of lightning, then two of the stick-figure gods, then a row of Tibetan sacred objects. Leaning against the wall were two eight-inch-long pieces of juniper, scraped flat, decorated with black-and-white patterns. Shan picked up one of the sticks. It had been lightly coated with white chalk, then a jagged black line running its length had been inscribed with a charred stick. The other stick held the same pattern but instead of black on white the pattern was white on black.

  “Prayer sticks,” Hostene explained. “Thunder prayer sticks.” Lifting the second stick to examine it more closely, he exposed a final sign in chalk on the rock behind it, an oval with eight appendages with a smaller flat oval for a head. A beetle. Beside it was the chalk image of a sacred lotus blossom. It was as if Abigail were introducing the two worlds, Navajo and Tibetan, to each other.

  Shan extended the leaves in his hand toward Hostene, dropping them into the Navajo’s palm. “Medicine herbs.”

  The Navajo sniffed the leaves, then stared at them. “Some days she has pain in her abdomen. Once I found her doubled up behind a rock. She said it was nothing, told me to leave.”

  Yangke showed Shan that under the skulls at the hub of the skeleton wheel was a pattern of colored marks. Red, white, green. They were working to keep their small fire alight when an eerie humming sound rose from nearby. Yangke braced himself, looking wide-eyed at the skulls as if to see which of them was speaking. Shan rose and followed the sound.

  In the light of the early moon Hostene was standing on a flat boulder, whirling a piece of wood tied to a length of the yak-hair rope over his head. It made a low ululating roar that varied in pitch as it moved through the air, reminding Shan uncannily of a Tibetan throat chant. He became aware of Yangke at his side, and the two of them sat and listened until the Navajo stopped.

  “It’s called a bull roarer in English,” Hostene explained as he showed them the flat piece of wood, triangular at one end, that he had fashioned with his knife. His voice was somber and low, that of a monk in a temple. “In my people’s tongue it is called the thunder speaker. It’s used in many of our ceremonies. Thunder drives away evil. It summons the Thunder People.”

  “But the Thunder People,” Yangke whispered, “they are dangerous.”

  Hostene looked out at the stars. “They are like your protector demons. The Thunder People have the power to find lost things. They know every inch of the sky.”

  Hostene showed Yangke and Shan how to propel the bull roarer over their heads, letting its weight carry it around in a circle.

  Hostene did not enter the alcove with the bones. He stayed by Abigail’s chalk marks, a blanket wrapped around him. Three times an owl called, and each time Hostene rose and used the bull roarer as if in defiant reply.

  Shan settled against a rock near the fire and, despite a terrible feeling of foreboding, drifted into a fitful sleep. An hour later he woke up shaking from a nightmare. He had been falling down a seemingly endless hole, passing skeletons on ledges that cringed in fear as he floated by.

  As he walked out into the moonlight Hostene spoke from his vigil by the chalk marks. “I had a dream too,” the Navajo said in a haunted tone. “Abigail was a ghost and was gliding over the mountain in the arms of an ancient lama who was explaining the old ways to her. I kept calling to her but she ignored me. When they swooped close I jumped and grabbed the lama by his robe. She turned to me. ‘You need to accept it, Uncle,’ she said. ‘This is the way I was meant to learn. This is how I walk in beauty.’ ” He looked up at Shan, moonlight lighting his melancholy features. “When I pulled the lama ghost around to face me, it was Gendun.”

  In the morning Shan arranged his friends according to what he called the pattern of the colors, the only solution that made sense to him of the dozen he had considered in the night. They erected the wood post and Hostene stood beside it. Green for wood, in the tradition of Tibetan ritual. Yangke stood at the anvil. White for metal. Shan stood at the furnace. Red for fire. Extended, the line they made intersected a thin, sharp shadow perhaps one third of the way up the trail that climbed the slope above them, the trail Bing had taken the evening before. They retrieved their bags and staffs and started walking.

  Half an hour later they reached the shadow, a cleft that could easily have gone unnoticed by someone watching
his footing on the precarious trail. They entered the shadow and followed a passage through a spine of rock into a small garden on the other side, a bowl where a spring formed a pool surrounded by ferns.

  They relaxed in this oasis, drinking and washing, cautiously sampling the little berries growing on low vines, then they followed the path up the spine of rock, realizing that the arch they had seen from below was yet another passage through the rock, though not one intended for the pilgrims.

  When their path finally intersected with the end of the arched passage they found themselves on the final flat plain before the summit itself. Outside the arch, on the near side, was a now familiar painting of a dragon deity. On the other side, Bing waited for them.

  The former Public Security officer leaned against a rock, the blanket he had stolen from them draped around him. He looked strangely weak, greeting them with only a sour grimace. He made no effort to reach for the pistol that lay at his side. Several feet beyond lay the pilgrim bag in which he had carried away their food supply.

  Shan took a step toward Bing, his eyes on the gun. It was the kind of game Bing would play, to see how close you could come before he flipped open the blanket and drew the pistol, perhaps even pulling the trigger. Shan was ready to play, ready to advance close enough to attempt to kick the food bag toward his friends. But then with a chill he saw the blood, still wet, in a circle of stones behind Bing. Bing must have used the gun already.

  Shan looked futilely for bodies. Then he feinted toward the bag and darted to the weapon. As he reached it, Bing lashed out with his foot, hooking Shan’s leg, pulling Shan on top of him, squeezing him, at first with a savage strength, as if to break Shan’s ribs, but then steadily, quickly, weakening. Shan fought his grip, squirming, realizing in terror that Bing must have stabbed him, for there was suddenly a spate of blood-on Shan, on the blanket, on Bing’s face. Then there were hands pulling Shan away. As he stood upright, he saw his friends’ faces first. They were drained of color. The blanket had fallen in Bing’s struggle with Shan, revealing why he had not reached for his pistol. He had no hands.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Shan did what he could for the mayor of Little Moscow, offering him water from the bottle Yangke refilled from the spring below, wiping the blood from his face as he slipped in and out of consciousness. A quick scan of the clearing behind him showed two nearly identical blood patterns, sprays with the force of spurting arteries behind them, at each end of a low mound of heavy rocks.

  “Tell me what happened,” Shan said as he wiped Bing’s brow. Hostene had ripped two strips from his shirttail and wrapped them around the stumps of Bing’s arms.

  “When it happens,” Bing murmured with a dreamy gaze, “you’re not real anymore.

  Shan considered the words, trying to understand if Bing was speaking of himself or of the one who had severed his hands. “Was Abigail here?” he asked.

  Bing’s mouth twitched. Had he any strength left, he would have grinned mockingly. “She watches,” he said in a hoarse whisper.

  “She doesn’t care. Living with the gods, it’s all playacting.”

  Shan shot a worried glance toward Hostene.

  “How did this happen to you?”

  “I was exhausted. I fell asleep. I woke to find him standing over me, grinning, singing one of his damned songs. Before I could speak, something hit me on the back of the head. When I came to there were rocks on my arms, so I couldn’t move them. He had already cut off my left hand when. .” Bing drifted off.

  Shan stepped into the little clearing behind him. It seemed like Bing had lost gallons of blood. Even at this altitude, small flies had located it.

  He dripped water into Bing’s half-open mouth. “The young miner, earlier this summer,” Shan said as Bing opened his eyes. “Did you kill him, too?”

  Bing struggled for his answer. “Define kill,” he whispered.

  “Let’s define it this way. Last year you killed a miner, then put his partner’s chisel in his back to show to Hubei, your witness.

  The miner had been threatening to undermine Chodron’s business structure, and you had to show you were worthy of becoming the miners’ leader. The perfect answer was to kill him and blame his partner, the man you chased away. Placing the skeleton on the grave wearing the partner’s ring was truly inspired. But then Thomas started telling everyone that he could tell the cause of any death, even what caused a skull fracture. And you must have inflicted such a hard blow to the miner’s head that the weapon would have been obvious as soon as Thomas saw the skull. A hammer leaves a distinctive round indentation when there’s a lot of force behind it. You had to dig up the bones of the man you killed and dispose of them.”

  “No miner would go onto that ridge. It was haunted,” Bing said, with a low whistling sound as he inhaled.

  “But Thomas was ready to study every bone on the mountain for his project, especially if it might belong to a murder victim.”

  “You never tried to go up there,” Bing added. “Why? I was hoping, watching. I could have killed you a dozen ways up there and everyone would have blamed the ghosts.”

  “I didn’t need to,” Shan explained. “I’ve seen old burial caves before. I’ve seen what people like you do to them. One man had already died up there. Chodron was so suspicious he sent that farmer to follow you. No doubt he would have been one of your victims too, if the lightning hadn’t killed him first.”

  “I was going to show them the skull of some old saint and say it was you. Push a leg bone into one of your old boots. They would have believed me, after everything else that’s happened.”

  “A burial cave,” Shan said, “contains lots of old bones. And it’s a perfect hiding place for treasures, like the gold you had begun to buy from the miners without Chodron’s knowledge.”

  “How was I supposed to guess she’d go up there looking for her damned gods? There is no evidence left,” Bing added in an oddly defiant tone.

  “Because even those old bones became liabilities when Thomas announced he could tell the old from the new. He would have proven your story about the revenge of the ghost was wrong.”

  “The little prick. One of those teacher’s pets who always has to show off how much he knows.

  “They have artificial hands for amputees,” Bing said with sudden malice. “I’ll get ones with electric choppers. I’ll come looking for you, Shan.”

  “You could have just sent Tashi away,” Shan continued. “None of this had to happen.”

  “Tashi was the reason it all started. It would have been ungrateful to simply order him off the mountain. Worse, it would have been untidy.”

  Shan paused, trying to understand. Bing’s breath began to rasp. He coughed. His breath came in short, shallow gasps. His lungs were beginning to fill with fluid.

  “Tashi hadn’t a clue about keeping secrets.” Bing’s throat rattled. “The moment the fool appeared on the mountain, I knew there would be trouble. His services had already been bought and paid for. I gave him a chance, but he couldn’t stay away from vodka. We did him a favor, considering what might have happened.”

  “Like the gratitude Rapaki showed you?”

  “Too many years with those old Buddhist books, I guess. Nothing was real to him anymore. Everything was a symbol. He would hallucinate sometimes, talk to the paintings, stop suddenly and start speaking to a rock.” Bing’s breathing became labored. “He decided I became. . one. . in the end.”

  “A demon,” Shan said, filling in for him. “Even though it was you who explained about demons to him last year.”

  “He was like a damned cat, appearing out of nowhere, never making a sound unless he was telling his beads. I had no idea he was there, watching last year when I killed the miner. I had to think fast. The man was down but still breathing. I told Rapaki, Quick, help me get him to the painting of the old saint. I knew there was one close by. I said I had a prayer, given me by a saint, which had special powers near the old paintings, a way to identify a demo
n in human form. If I said the magic words, and the man was actually one of the demons who opposed the gods, then a red eye would appear on the man’s hand.”

  “Your laser pointer,” Shan said with a sigh. “Ni shi sha gua.”

  Bing gave a hoarse laugh, which triggered a fit of coughing. “I hid it in my hand and said the magic words in Chinese. You should have seen his face that first time, when that miner’s hand lit up with a demon’s eye. Rapaki was terrified. But then he began to smile. He ran away, and I thought that was the end of it. A few minutes later he showed up with that old ritual ax.”

  “And now someone has borrowed your laser pointer.”

  “Go any further and it will happen to you,” Bing vowed. “Soon everyone you know will have no hands.”

  Shan ignored him. “It’s the new age indeed, Bing. High-tech demons. And thieves no longer know the meaning of honor. No loyalty. No gratitude,” Shan added, with a gesture to Yangke.

  Bing weakly raised his brows in query.

  “You never thanked Tashi’s friend. He didn’t tell Chodron about your lie. He didn’t tell him that you knew where two tons of gold, mined centuries ago, lay near the top of the mountain.”

  Bing made an effort to push himself up. He rolled on top of Shan, who fought for a moment, then grew still as he realized Bing no longer resisted, realized the sour breath no longer came from Bing’s mouth, inches away from his head.

  “He’s dead,” Hostene declared, and with Yangke’s help lifted the body from Shan.

  They helped him to a nearby stream, where he thrust his face into the frigid water. Then, with gravel from the bed, he cleansed his hands and arms until the skin stung. When he was clean, to his surprise, Shan found he was hungry. As they ate, they debated what to do with Bing’s body. Yangke favored leaving Bing spread out by the gateway, to become a skeleton on the pilgrim’s trail. Hostene was inclined to shroud him in the blanket and heave him over the cliff. In the end they wrapped him in the blanket and covered him with rocks in the blood-soaked clearing, though not before Shan had studied the stumps of his arms. Each hand had been severed with two strikes. Each had left the same small nick in the bone.