The Wheel of Darkness Read Online Free PDF

have been ten seconds, or ten hours.
    A gentle hand touched her shoulder and her eyes opened. Tsering was standing before her, robe tucked around an arm.
    “How long?” she asked in English.
    “Five hours.”
    She rose, and found her legs so wobbly she could barely walk. He grasped her arm and helped her steady herself.
    “You learn well,” he said. “Be sure no take pride in it.”
    She nodded. “Thank you.”
    They walked slowly down an ancient passageway, turned a corner. She could hear, up ahead, the faint sound of the prayer wheels echoing down the stone passageway.
    Another corner. She felt refreshed, clear, alert. “What drives those prayer wheels?” she asked. “They never cease turning.”
    “There is a spring of water under monastery—source of Tsangpo River. It pass over wheel, turn gears.”
    “Ingenious.”
    They passed by the wall of creaking, rattling brass wheels, like some Rube Goldberg confection. Constance could see, behind the wheels, a forest of moving brass rods and wooden gears.
    They left the wheels behind and came into one of the outer corridors. Ahead loomed one of the far pavilions of the monastery, the square pillars framing the three great mountains. They entered the pavilion and Constance drank in the pure high-altitude air. Tsering indicated a seat and she took it. He sat down next to her. For a few minutes they gazed over the darkening mountains in silence.
    “The meditation you are learning is very powerful. Someday, you may come out of meditation and find the knot . . . untied.”
    Constance said nothing.
    “Some can influence the physical world with pure thought, create things out of thought. There is story of monk who meditate so long on rose that when he open his eyes, there is rose on the floor. This is very dangerous. With enough skill and meditation, there are those who can create things . . . other than roses. It is not something to desire, and it is a grave deviancy from Buddhist teaching.”
    She nodded her understanding, not believing a word of it.
    Tsering’s lips stretched into a smile. “You skeptical person. That very good. Whether you believe or not, choose with care image you meditate on.”
    “I will,” said Constance.
    “Remember: Though we have many ‘demons,’ most not evil. They are attachments you must conquer to reach enlightenment.”
    Another long silence.
    “Have question?”
    She was quiet for a moment, recalling Pendergast’s parting request. “Tell me. Why is there an inner monastery?”
    Tsering was silent for a moment. “Inner monastery is oldest in Tibet, built here in remote mountains by group of wandering monks from India.”
    “Was it built to protect the Agozyen?”
    Tsering looked at her sharply. “That is not to be spoken of.”
    “My guardian has left here to find it. At this monastery’s request. Perhaps I can be of some help, too.”
    The old man looked away, and the distance in his eyes had nothing to do with the landscape beyond the pavilion. “Agozyen carried here from India. Taken far away, into mountains, where it not threaten. They build inner monastery to protect and keep Agozyen. Then, later, outer monastery built around inner one.”
    “There’s something I don’t understand. If the Agozyen was so very dangerous, why not just destroy it?”
    The monk was silent for a very long time. Then he said, quietly, “Because it has important future purpose.”
    “What purpose?”
    But her teacher remained silent.

5

    T HE JEEP CAME CAREENING AROUND THE CORNER OF THE HILL , bumped and splashed though a series of enormous, mud-filled potholes, and descended onto a broad dirt road toward the town of Qiang, in a damp valley not far from the Tibet-Chinese border. A gray drizzle fell from the sky into a pall of brown smoke, which hung over the town from a cluster of smokestacks across a greasy river. Trash lined both shoulders.
    The driver of the jeep passed an overloaded truck, honking furiously. He swerved past another