After a few minutes, he rose and walked along the chapels, exchanging greetings with the monks and nuns who were beginning to sweep the floors, and pausing in a chapel to light his stick before the Historical Buddha. As he passed a chapel on the way to the stairs, he recognized the images of the Medicine Buddhas over an altar on which a solitary incense stick burned. The only occupants were two women murmuring in the corner beside the altar. He extracted another stick, intending to light it for Ko. He bent to pass through the low entry then froze and abruptly backed away. The two women were a nun and Meng.

Neither had seen him, and Shan edged into a shadow where he could study them without being conspicuous. They were facing each other, not the gods, and the nun was holding one of Meng’s hands while working the beads of a rosary, a mala, with her other hand. Shan found himself inching closer, trying to understand, then he saw the glass of water sitting between them. Meng wasn’t there as a tourist, wasn’t there because she had struck up a casual conversation with the nun. They were reciting a Medicine Buddha mantra, slowly, because Meng stumbled over the words. The mantra was considered to be a powerful antidote to disease, provided it was recited the traditional one hundred eight times over a glass of water, which the patient then had to drink. Shan watched until the nun squeezed Meng’s hand and gestured for her to lift the glass.

He left the temple, then the temple grounds, and walked around the adjoining block before reentering the courtyard a few minutes past their appointed hour. Meng waited for him on a bench. He sat beside her. They both looked up as a chorus broke out above them.

“From one of the roof chapels,” Shan said.

“It sounds like blessings drifting down from the heavens,” Meng observed, then after a moment pointed to the main gate. “There’s a strange fossil in the flagstones,” she said.

“It’s called the Amolongkha,” Shan explained. “The old ones have many different stories about it. Some say it was a demon trapped in stone by the earth gods. Some say it is a protector, sleeping there until it is needed.”

“It’s not needed now?” Meng asked after a moment.

Shan did not reply. “We should walk the pilgrim’s path around the temple,” he said instead.

“I have a long drive back,” she said. Her voice was weary.

“The Nangkhor Kora is the name of the path,” he said, and rose, extending a hand. “It’s been redeeming souls for over a thousand years. Lokesh says pilgrims leave tiny traces of spiritual energy along their paths, in which case this one must have the most energized air in all of Tibet.”