So Theodore must find him. Where? How? Ordinary reason began to work with agonizing slowness, but in his new calm Theodore accepted that there was no point in rushing from the room until he had made some plan. As if to appease his body’s itch for action he rose and crossed the room to inspect the place where the robe had hung, but as he passed Lung’s cot his foot touched something solid, hidden under the tumbled bedclothes; he scuffed them aside and saw the sword, and beside it the little embroidered cap Lung always wore.
Relief lasted only for an instant. He picked the sword up, and as he stood weighing the lean, dark blade in his hands an image sprang into his mind – this blade hanging on the wall of the guest-house, where Lung had hung it, with Mrs Jones’s rifle slung crosswise over it.
His calm was chillier as he turned to the pile of baggage. The flat rifle-case was there beneath a blanket roll. It was fastened, but as soon as he pulled it clear he knew by its weight that it was empty. Yes. A rifle could be hidden under a robe almost as easily as a sword. It was a much more dangerous weapon. There was no question now of Theodore risking lives by looking for Lung on his own. He must warn the monks. But they were all busy with the festival. The oracle-priest . . .
Theodore hurried along the galleries and corridors. His shock-trance was gone, his nightmare over, and the monastery had reassembled itself into known shapes and routes. By now the courtyards were almost empty as the promised appearance of the Lama Amchi and the dance of Yidam Yamantaka drew the inhabitants towards the central arena. He could hear drums and bells without accompanying voices, which meant that a dance or play was being performed. He had no way of measuring how long he had spent in his room – the enormous change had happened in a sphere in which time had no meaning – it could have been minutes or hours. Singing, the oracle-priest had said, then another play, then more singing, and then Lama Amchi would come down the steps to watch the Lord of Death slaying the dough-giant.
The gallery above the great courtyard was fuller now, with massed ranks of choristers lining the balustrade, but leaving a narrow passage where one could pass behind them. Theodore strode along, studying the robed backs, looking for a close-cropped dark head which wasn’t wearing one of the gold cockscomb helmets. It had been under this arch, surely. None of the backs was right. He tapped a shoulder. The monk turned, patient and unsurprised.
‘Where is the oracle-priest?’ Theodore said in Mandarin.
The monk answerd in Tibetan, then pulled at a sleeve beside him. An older monk turned and Theodore repeated his question. The monk frowned, shrugged and said, ‘I will ask.’ More heads turned. There was a brief discussion in Tibetan. ‘Gone,’ said the old monk. ‘That way. Down.’ His hands made the movements of feet descending a stair. The other monks were smiling and nodding and echoing the gesture when from the courtyard below one of the long horns began to snore, a chime of bells rippled along an erratic scale and a drum thudded. The monks turned from Theodore. He saw their backs swell as they drew breath for the first crashing syllable of the chant. So the play was over and the second lot of singing had begun.
Theodore ran now, down the gallery behind the chanting ranks, to the stair that circled down in the corner of the courtyard; he stumbled and almost fell down its dark steepness, but clutched at the railing and caught himself, then picked his way down to the hallway at the bottom. This space, lit only by the archway into the courtyard, was thronged with monsters. The dough-giant, painted and grinning, towered on its sledge by the arch, surrounded by the team of black and scarlet demons who would haul it on to the stage. Beyond them the voice of the solo chanter gargled its strange deep note while the bells tinkled and clanked. The oracle-priest was not here. Urgently Theodore turned to a group by the foot of the stair.
‘Who speaks Chinese?’ he said. ‘A man is going to shoot the Lama Amchi.’
A vast shape wheeled round and the monster Yidam Yamantaka glared down at Theodore. He spoke his question again, almost shouting now, to the eye-slits in the chest. The creature took a pace towards him, making shooing movements with its arms, which protruded roughly from its hips. Several of the demons came crowding round, speaking in hissing whispers, no doubt telling him not to interrupt the ceremony but producing a noise both bloodless and furious, such as a brood of snakes might make if they could talk. Theodore retreated a couple of steps up the stair and made his plea again but was answered with more hisses and gestures of dismissal. Now, round the shoulders of Yidam Yamantaka and over the heads of the demons, he could see the solid crush of watchers in the courtyard – there was no possible way through there to warn the Lama.
As Theodore climbed the dark stair the image of the monster Yamantaka and the hissing demons was strong in his mind, not as creatures of terror, but as something else, a sign, a warning. He had been appealing for help to the wrong Gods. He must find Lung himself.
This was not a conscious decision, but as he strode back down the gallery, searching the heedless backs for one that might be the oracle-priest, his reason was asking, Where would Lung go? Where? The pulse of the chant was changing now, with the rise and fall of the deep horn-notes coming faster, like waves clustering closer together; the pitch of the voices and the other instruments held a tension, as if the outward discipline were about to burst under the pressure of the inner excitement and become chaos – a tingle like the fringe of foam that rims a wave just before it breaks. Soon, now, soon the music would end, and then the Lama Amchi would leave his house and glide down the steps to the last platform above the crowd. A perfect target.
From where?
The answer formed in the same pulse as the question. Theodore saw the image of the Lama moving down those steps as if floating an inch above them. He heard Lung’s hiss – ‘He is a sorcerer! Look, he is flying!’ The roof of the temple of the oracle, where Lung had turned from mending the windmill and seen the Lama on the steps. There!
Theodore broke into a run, racing along to the far end of the gallery and hurling down that stair and out into the courtyard. Here, at the furthest corner from the stage, the crowd was not quite so dense and it was possible to shoulder and twist a way through. The people, inured by now to jostling, seemed barely to notice him as they craned towards the steps that led down from the mountain. The soloist was chanting a phrase which Theodore recognized as the regular formula which came at the end of many different chants. In a few seconds the choirs would answer, echoing the phrase seven times, and the chant would be over.
He came to a barrier. The steps of the temple of the oracle were massed with watchers. They would not, or could not, yield at all when he tried to press through, though still they seemed not to notice him, drugged with the expectation of the Lama’s appearance and the dance of Yidam Yamantaka. He got half on to the lowest step, slipped off and fell, then stayed at that level and squirmed through the forest of legs up the steps and at last to the temple doors. He had half expected to find them closed, but they were open and the pressure of the crowd had pushed a number of spectators right back into the familiar glimmering dark. They made room for him as he rose to his feet and pressed through. He couldn’t see Major Price-Evans, but there was no time now for explanations – and if he could deal with Lung alone, and not let any of the monks know . . . He tried to move fast without attracting attention, reached the door in the far right corner where the sacred books were, opened it and slipped through into the little room beyond. The trap-door in the ceiling was open, but the ladder was gone.