Neon Lotus

by Marc Laidlaw

  Her yidam did not respond for a moment. When Tara came, she gave Marianne a flashing nod of affirmation.

  “Pluck the lotus,” she said, and was gone.

  Marianne got to her feet. She started back toward the water.

  “Where are you going?” Tsering said, catching her from behind. “Don’t you know not to get your feet wet? You’ll catch frostbite. Your boots will freeze.”

  “Not these,” she said. They were self-drying boots of nomadic design, woven with threadlike heating filaments and equipped with thermostatic controls.

  She waded out into the icy water and bent to pluck the flower.

  As her hand approached, the blossom’s glow intensified. She was afraid it might burn her, so she touched it gingerly at first.

  It was warm as breath, no hotter. The petals felt solid as crystals. It was like a fleshy mineral, strangely pliant. She reached under it, probing for the stem, and her fingers encountered what felt like a strand of beads. She had barely brushed this strand when it snapped. The lotus drifted toward the shore, born on ripples from the falls. The curious stem sank away before she could examine it.

  The lotus gave up a single brief cry, then fell silent.

  She caught it gently and brought it up cupped in both hands, letting the water drip away. Her fingers dried quickly in the lotus’s warmth.

  Tsering gazed at it fondly, then gave her a sharp look. “Jigme would have shot you if you were lying, you know.”

  She said nothing. She was uncertain of how best to carry the lotus.

  “I don’t believe you could have tortured my sister and made her tell,” he said. “She must have thought you were the one meant to have it. It sang to her, and she to it. I never thought anyone else could do that, until you came.”

  She decided to carry it in one hand until she thought of a way to conceal it. There was no one here who hadn’t seen it before, except for Jetsun.

  “What is it?” he asked. “Do you know?”

  “It belongs to Chenrezi.”

  “The living Chenrezi?” he asked.

  “You know of him?”

  Tsering nodded, then gave her a sly smile. “I thought that was only a story. That’s what Jigme says.”

  “I thought this lotus might be only a story, but now I know otherwise. Maybe someday you’ll see Chenrezi yourself and learn how true some stories can be.”

  “Are you taking it back to him?”

  “Soon,” she said. “First we must find some other things that belong to him. Things that were lost.”

  Tsering looked down into the heart of the lotus. When he looked up at her, that red glow was mirrored in his eyes. “Can I come with you?” he asked.

  “I—”

  The sound of an explosion cut her off.

  They spun toward the mouth of the cave, gravel grating under their boots. There was nothing to see except the shimmering veil of the three falls.

  “That was Jigme’s rifle,” Tsering said, his face gone pale.

  “Why would he fire?” she asked.

  Tsering ran up onto the boulders and began to climb up toward the ledge. Sunlight touched his head as he rose higher.

  “Careful,” she said.

  He nodded back at her, then vanished out of the cave. She listened anxiously, staring at the lotus. It looked fragile but not brittle. Nor was it as delicate as an ordinary flower; if she did not drop it or strike it against the rocks, it would be safe enough. She took the scarf from her neck, wrapped it around the lotus, and then tried to scale the rocks while she held the blossom in one hand.

  Ahead, she saw Tsering crouching on the ledge. She knew that the mist from the falls had obscured his vision. The two of them would have to venture out and expose themselves in order to learn what had happened.

  She thought she heard shouting. Tsering glanced back at her and managed a brave smile. Raising his rifle, he headed into the fog. Before she could cry out to stop him, he was gone.

  There was another shot, faint as an echo.

  Then the mist turned red.

  She thought she was dreaming; the image was so fleeting that it seemed impossible. Then, through the frosty haze, she saw a shadow fall and heard a whimpering moan.

  “Tsering!”

  Gunshots played back and forth outside, scarcely muffled by the roar of the falls.

  She bit her lip to keep from screaming and crept one-handed along the ledge. She could see Tsering below her in the pool. He lay sprawled over a pair of sharp rocks by the wall of the cliff. Blood stained his back.

  Without fear of betraying their position, and without recourse to silence, the lotus responded.

  Its song was piercing, terrible to hear. Where the music before had been full of hope and exultance, now it told of bitterness, loss, futility.

  Stabbed by the pain, she covered her ears with both hands, dropping the flower.

  As it fell, the scarf unraveled. The blossom landed on Tsering’s neck to be gently cradled by his shoulder, and there it throbbed with a rich red light. The song seemed to draw strength from his blood, just as it had previously sustained itself with the soul of Dolma Gyalpo.

  The lotus sang of death.

  The gunshots were drowned out, then they failed completely. She huddled against the rock, trying to crush herself into the crystals, hoping to escape the agonizing sound. Close as she was to the lotus, she could hardly bear its music. Yet she knew that the worst range of notes was

  not meant for her; she knew that the lotus had focused its most potent tones elsewhere, sparing her from the waves of lethal harmonics.

  She was too confused, too absorbed in pain, to be grateful.

  She hardly noticed when the silence fell.

  At first she thought the roar of the waterfalls was her own deafness; she supposed it had claimed her forever. Then she heard fainter sounds, rapid crunching, the sound of rock grating on rock.

  Looking up, she saw Jigme advancing through the mist along the ledge, his rifle in his hand. He stopped when he saw her, then glanced down abruptly at his cousin.

  The lotus was dark now, like a drop of Tsering’s congealing blood.

  Jigme handed his rifle to Marianne, then crept down the face of the cliff, finding purchase on tiny cracks and scales of stone that were all but invisible to her eyes. When he reached Tsering, he put his bare hand against the boy’s neck. She saw his shoulders rise with dismay and then slowly fall. He stooped, took the lotus gently in one hand, and slipped his arms beneath the boy.

  Without looking back at her, he waded across the pool, straight into the mist and the falls. When he vanished into the worst of the thundering water, she thought she would never see him again.

  She got to her feet slowly and passed through the mist. She was so numb already that it felt warm on her face.

  As she stepped out into afternoon sunlight, Jetsun called to her and came running across the snow.

  “Where’s Jigme? And Tsering?”

  She looked back toward the falls, but saw only the towering mound of frozen spray at the foot of the cliffs.

  “Tsering is dead,” she said. “Who . . . ?”

  Jetsun put his arm around her. “We were followed or tracked somehow. Jigme sighted them and fired first. Then Tsering came out. I thought he’d ducked back in time to—” He shook his head. His look of disbelief reminded her why she felt numb; it was not the cold alone that had done its work on her.

  “Then came that sound. I thought it would deafen us. It must have been worse up there.”

  He pointed up the steep side of the valley to a tiny rampart of snow-covered rocks. She could see someone lying across them, and a faint trail of forking red lines running along the slick wall beneath his head. A dead man. She looked down the cliff to the snow directly below; there she saw a rifle and a boot.

  Following her gaze, Jetsun gasped. “Hey, someone fell!”

  He started to run across the valley, though the snow kept him from moving too quickly. He slowed still fu
rther to negotiate the slick rocks and ice that covered the stream bed. She walked after him, glancing at the falls every few steps to see if Jigme would reappear.

  He did so at last, rising above the snow-mound. He stood on the crest for a moment, gazing at something behind him. His arms were empty. Then he started down, crushing the peak, spoiling its perfect shape. He descended in long, broken strides.

  She waited for him, although there was nothing she could say. She handed back his rifle and he in turn gave her what looked like an egg carved of red crystal.

  “It closed up in my hands,” he said.

  She turned the bud over several times. It was still warm; the glow in its heart could not be accounted for by sunlight or human contact alone. She sighed and sealed it into a pocket.

  “You’re soaking wet,” she said. “We should get you home.”

  He shrugged. “What does it matter?”

  Jetsun called to them, waving frantically. Jigme glanced up at the cliffs, squinting at the figure lying limp above them.

  “There’s another,” she said.

  He nodded. “I saw him fall.”

  They crossed the frozen stream and made their way laboriously to Jetsun’s side. He had been at work over the body, unzipping pockets and pouches, bringing out sheets of folded paper, maps, bottles. A handgun and a spring-knife lay on the snow.

  The dead man lay face upward, his head thrown back so far that all she could see was his chin.

  “Who do you think he is?” she asked Jetsun.

  He gave her an odd look and motioned for her to step closer.

  She walked to the far end of the body and looked down. His mouth was wide open. His head was half sunk in snow; frozen blood bubbles domed the openings of his ears. Jetsun had already wiped away snow, exposing the face clearly from chin to brow.

  “Oh, Tara,” she said, feeling lost and defeated.

  The man had three eyes.

  10. Tumo Fire

  It was nightfall when they returned to where the jet was hidden. As Marianne looked back at the lights of the village below, their trail seemed to dissolve into gray light. Black storm clouds were blowing over the peaks. This was the spot where she’d had her first view of the village that morning.

  She gave her hand to Jetsun, and as they pressed on the last hundred feet to the jet, snow began to fall. A thickening swirl of powder veiled the air before them.

  Without warning, Jetsun stopped moving. He stared through the pale murk.

  “Come on,” she said. “Well freeze here.”

  “Where is it?” he said.

  She pulled on his arm, then slowly let go. The snow was not so thick nor the light so dim that she couldn’t see the rocks on the far side of the level niche. She stared at the mountain wall in disbelief.

  The jet was gone.

  “I don’t believe it,” he said. He strode forward, broke into a run, and then skidded over a patch of ice. “It was right here!”

  As if the sky had opened wide at the sound of his voice, snow began to fill the oppressed air. Jetsun vanished from sight. She cried out and ran blindly forward through the storm. He reappeared as a blurred shadow rising in her path.

  “It was here,” he said. “I swear it!”

  She caught hold of him. “I know it was—you’re not crazy. Come on, we’ve got to find shelter.”

  “Where can we go? The jet is gone, Marianne!”

  “I know, but—oh damn it, come on!”

  She tugged him toward the cliff, hoping that the wall would give them some protection from the wind and snow. There had to be some niche that would shelter them. There had to be. . . .

  The wall came up abruptly, stark and vertical, with nothing but small stones accumulated at its base. She put her hand against the rock as if it might have been a great door that would open to her touch. It was solid and cold, immovable. Still holding Jetsun’s hand, she followed the wall deeper into the mountains. To attempt to travel in this storm would have been ridiculous, for the only possible route open to them led down narrow spines of rock, with sheer drops at either side. If only they had accepted Jigme’s offer of a hearth for that night. But how could they have known that the jet would he gone?

  She had no doubt that it had been found and taken by companions of the men who had killed Tsering. Three-eyed murderers.

  At the thought of them, she felt even colder.

  Three-eyed men. They were specters risen from the past, tracking her from life to life. Tashi Drogon’s death had not satisfied them. Any number of deaths might leave them unfulfilled.

  She had grown up hearing her parents recount the story of Tashi’s death, over and over again. Her mother had told it as a cautionary tale, as if to say, “This is what you’re getting yourself into, joining those Tibetans.” But her father had told it as if it were a fabulous fiction, something out of Kipling—as if it had happened to another couple entirely.

  Only Reting Norbu’s account of the events carried the sting of objectivity. When he described the event of her prior death, she could see it in vivid detail—could almost remember it.

  The knock on the door. The exploding hand. Blood and smoke. And then Reting’s own horrified but selfless pursuit of the assassin.

  Her hand abruptly plunged past the edge of a crack in the rocks; she found her fingers sweeping through space. Ducking over, she glimpsed a dark, angular opening. Then she reached in and let out a frustrated moan. It was not much deeper than the length of her arm.

  “It’ll have to do,” she said. “We’ll squeeze in together.”

  Jetsun stooped down beside her and laughed bitterly.

  “After you,” he said.

  She backed in, drawing him with her. There was scarcely room for the two of them to huddle with their knees drawn up to their chests. Sharp bits of rock jabbed her in the back and buttocks; Jetsun groaned when his head banged against the slanting ceiling.

  “Better?” she asked.

  “Let me get my arm around you,” he said, and it was done. She turned up the heat on her suit but it had little effect.

  “Are you warm enough?” she asked.

  He laughed again. “I think a circuit burned out this afternoon; I must have severed a connection somewhere. The only thing that’s kept me warm is exercise.”

  As he fell silent, his teeth chattered briefly; then he must have clenched them shut. There was no sound for several minutes except for the occasional grating of rocks as they shifted their weight and made minute readjustments in position. The snow muted out all other sounds.

  The world outside was dark as a moonless midnight. Snow began to gather around her boots. She shook them several times, felt the heat come on in her soles. At least something was working.

  Jetsun rested his head on top of hers and sighed. “I’m so tired, I can’t even think about the jet.”

  “Then sleep,” she said.

  She was exhausted and ravenous herself, but she knew that sleep was far away. Muscle cramps reached from her legs into her belly. There was no way to massage herself, nothing to do but watch the black snowfall, like a constant fission of faint sparks in her eyes. She tried not to think of her discomfort.

  Whoever had stolen the jet might be keeping watch on them.

  The three-eyed men could be out there right now, slowed by the storm but still stalking. She had the lotus bud in her pocket, and they certainly wanted that.

  But who were they?

  The Kashag had never uncovered a clue to the identity of Tashi Drogon’s murderer, nor had they learned how he’d timed his act with such perfection. But they had known that more than one three-eyed human existed in the world. A number had already turned up in India, several more were discovered in Europe over the next few years—perhaps two dozen in all. Each one had attempted an assassination; most had been successful. Each one had died before being interrogated, either at the hands of his captors or by suicide.

  There seemed little doubt that they were the product of advanced
embryogenetic technology; all indications were that they had been bred and raised solely for the purpose of killing. They were political tools, biological machines.

  But why did they have three eyes?

  In the East, a third eye in the forehead symbolized spiritual knowledge and accomplishment. Gods and goddesses, great lamas, dakas, dakinis, and yidams often had this third eye.

  The assassins, without exception, had chosen targets of religious importance. Even Tashi Drogon, a scientist, had done his greatest work in the area of religion.

  It seemed like a deliberate twisting of human spirituality to breed three-eyed killers, to take this ancient symbol of enlightenment and embody it in a cruel modern form. Autopsies of the assassins did not indicate that the extra eye increased their visual acuity in any manner; the eye was vestigial, dimly sighted if at all, and in fact they usually worked with it covered in order to remain inconspicuous until the job was done. So the eyes had been inculcated purely for effect, perhaps to sow religious doubt and mistrust along with violence.

  But who had done it? Whose technology had machined these creatures?

  That was a question no one had come close to answering.

  Jetsun shivered in her arms. She could hear his teeth rattling. The snow was piling up at her feet. The wind seemed to blow directly on this little cave, and flurries of ice kept sweeping in.

  She took a deep breath, wondering if she would sleep at all. Determined to try, she closed her eyes.

  “You are in danger,” said a voice she had heard little of that day.

  “Tara?” she whispered aloud. Then, not wishing to wake Jetsun, she spoke the name again in her mind.

  “The cold is your nearest enemy,” said her yidam. “You must protect yourself. You will die of exposure unless you start a fire.”

  “A fire?” she said. “With what? There’s no wood, no flame.”

  “I mean a different fire. One you can build within yourself. The spiritual heat—the tumo fire.”

  “The mystic heat?” Marianne said. “I don’t know how to do that, Tara. It takes the monks and lamas many years to learn. I know they get so good at it that they can melt deep holes in the snow and dry dozens of wet blankets on a winter’s night . . . but I don’t even know how it’s done.”