Only the nearest of the makeshift shelves still held artifacts. Shan paused over them, studying an exquisitely detailed brass figure of six-armed Dorje Phurba, the deification of the ritual dagger, adorned with snakes and skulls. It was many centuries old and very rare. It had not been on the shelves when he had passed them days earlier. Several new objects, not artifacts, leaned against the rearmost shelves. Shan saw a bow and arrow, a bent scimitar, a heavy blue maul, and a sword. Gekho’s weapons had been retrieved from the valley.

He ventured past the little cave that served as the hail chaser’s quarters, noting the dented helmet lying on a folded blanket, then onto the narrow but well-trodden trail down which the nurse had disappeared on his last visit. He gasped as he realized that the ground had fallen away and he was treading a foot-wide path that clung to the side of the mountain above a chasm several hundred feet deep. His heart pounding, he stared straight ahead and after ten uneasy minutes reached a small tree-lined flat on the other side. The track seemed to follow the scent of burning juniper and incense, and he soon found himself facing a narrow cleft in the wall of the mountain. He followed it into a high-walled cavern that was lit by sunlight leaking through a crack at the top. The chamber was lined with two long altars that seemed to point to a smaller tunnel. Incense burned in bronze pots on the altars, and in a larger brazier juniper smoldered. Someone seemed to be desperately calling the gods.

Shan sensed a vibration in the air, and he recalled the hail chaser’s words about hearing the mountain speak, then he realized the sounds were mantras. He followed the sounds down the tunnel and emerged into a spacious chamber whose walls had been squared and plastered in an earlier age. Although the plaster was cracked and falling away in several places, he could make out the primitive, faded images of protector demons painted on them. In the dim light of several butter lamps, he made out four middle-aged Tibetan women sitting in pairs on worn carpets at the opposite side of the chamber. One woman broke off with a surprised cry as she spotted him, but the others continued the cadence of the prayers, though they watched him with alarmed expressions. He exposed his gau and put one hand on it, and they seemed to relax as he offered a respectful nod. The first pair was reciting the Bardo, the death rites. The other two were invoking the aid of the Mother Protector. One of that pair stared pointedly toward a dark patch in the far wall and, following her gaze, Shan discovered another tunnel.