Deep Fire Rising

RINPOCHE-LA, WESTERN TIBET

The western portion of Tibet had never had a substantial settled population. There was little pasturage for nomadic shepherds and few areas low enough in elevation to support farming. For this reason, the Chinese military, following their invasion in 1950, maintained a tight cordon and used the land for their own purposes. There were a few political prisons, but mostly the region was given to observation and radar installations securing the borders with Nepal and India. Tibet had been annexed as a buffer state and the Chinese kept their cushion rigid. Except in closely monitored tour groups, foreign travelers aren’t allowed much outside of the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, and the western reaches of the country are particularly restricted. Military patrols sweep the few roads on a regular basis and no one is ever granted overflight rights. The handful of drug smugglers who tested the air defenses soon found themselves painted by ground-based radar and in the sights of MiGs or Sukhoi fighter jets a short time later.

The country at the roof of the world has always been steeped in legend and mystery and no place was more unknown than the western borderlands.

To keep their valley’s secret, the Order had a strict protocol for reaching Rinpoche-La. The trek from the Nepalese frontier never followed the same route twice and never took less than two weeks, and even this pushed the threat of detection. That time frame didn’t include the days spent in Katmandu evading the Chinese informants that infested Nepal’s capital city, each eager to make a few yuan by reporting suspicious parties.

Moving hard and ignoring the safety protocols, Luc Nguyen forced the group carrying his sister from Nepal to Rinpoche-La in a mere eight days. They risked using trucks on open roads and took minimum shelter when specially modified helicopters that could fly in the rarified atmosphere of the Himalayas thundered through mountain passes. The choppers often patrolled the area searching for people trying to flee the worker’s paradise that the Chinese had imposed on the people of Tibet.

At twelve thousand feet, the wind was a constant presence. Whether a soft summer zephyr or the shrieking gales of winter, the wind never stopped moving through the valley, funneled by peaks that rose a further eight thousand feet above the valley floor. The mountains were jagged and barren, scoured clean of snow and soil except in protected pockets and veins. While much of Tibet is renowned for its rugged beauty, the land around Rinpoche-La was particularly harsh and ugly. Isolated in an isolated country, the nearest town was sixty miles east and there were no connecting roads, just a barely marked footpath that only the heartiest could attempt.

Construction on the monastery at Rinpoche-La began in 1052 under the guidance of the Indian scholar Atisha and was added on to in fits and starts until its abandonment in 1254 to protest how Godan Khan, Ghenghis’s grandson, had made the Lama of the Sakya Buddhists regent of all Tibet. Because Rinpoche-La was at the outskirts of the Tibetan kingdom, it remained completely forgotten save for the handful of self-sufficient villagers who eked out a living in the shadow of the huge building. That was until Zhu Zhanji, the Confucian who defied the emperor, cached the knowledge of Admiral Zheng He’s historic sea voyages. There were no records in the Order’s archive describing how Zhu Zhanji knew of the valley’s existence. It remained one more of the legends that surround Rinpoche-La.

The nearly six hundred years since saw countless invasions of Tibet from the south and the east and the north, culminating in the totalitarian occupation by the Chinese. Even as they slaughtered an estimated one million Tibetans and doubled the country’s population by the forced migration of ethnic Han Chinese, Rinpoche-La remained nestled in its valley, unknown beyond rumors and the whispered tales of nomads who rarely ventured close to the intimidating mountains. Beyond its geography, the valley was further isolated by a river that was barely negotiable in winter and seemingly impossible to cross in summer.

The monastery dominated the end of the valley, a five-story central structure surrounded by various out-buildings and a thirty-foot-tall, ten-foot-thick wall of mortared stone. Behind the hermitage, the valley dropped away in a sheer hundred-foot cliff, hemmed on each side by towering stone ramparts. The village lay at the monastery’s feet, clutches of stone buildings that seemed to grow out of the living rock. Because the valley was little more than an ax stroke cut into the mountains, little light filtered to the floor and this was diffused by the steam escaping through countless geothermal fissures.

It was the steam that provided the village shelter and also its means of survival. The microbes that flourished in the scalding waters of the hot springs were the basis of a bizarre food chain similar to that found in the deep-sea thermal vents called black smokers. In the absence of sunlight, creatures depended on chemosynthesis, the transformation of chemical, rather than light, energy into life. Around the black smokers, microbes fed off the exotic plumes of chemicals belched from the earth’s interior and in turn fed a myriad of odd creatures: tube worms that grew to six feet or more, mussels and crab species found nowhere else and fish able to withstand the tremendous heat. The difference at Rinpoche-La was at the top of this food chain were goats and yaks that ate nutrient-rich aquatic weeds and provided meat and wool and milk for the villagers. A further advantage to those living amid the geothermal vents was that heat was provided for them. There was no need to gather wood to warm their homes or cook their meals, a time-consuming necessity that handicapped the rest of Tibet’s rural population. Over the generations, the valley had become its own self-contained, self-sustaining ecosystem.

On an upper story of the monastery a window sash rattled as a fresh gust of wind blew by. The candle on the table flickered and shadows jumped along the stone walls of the cell. Tisa barely looked up from where she sat, a cup of pungent butter tea cooling at her elbow. She was physically and spiritually drained, but she knew the bed in the corner would provide no succor. In sleep lay the nightmares that had plagued her for so long.

Added to them were her fears for Philip Mercer.

She was sure he had survived. When she’d left him on the floating tanker truck and struck out for Luc’s boat, she’d tried to convince her half brother that she alone had escaped from the sinking ferry. He hadn’t believed her, but the crush of survivors trying to board the speedboat nearly capsized the vessel and forced him to motor away before mounting a search. Mercer would have surely been rescued when word reached Santorini that the ferry had gone down.

No, her fears were based on what she knew was coming. She wondered if she should have bothered giving him the warning about La Palma now that she couldn’t be with him. Mercer would doubtlessly figure out that the volcano was going to erupt and she was just as certain he would try to minimize the devastation. He’d go to La Palma and be one of the first to die. Her interference had sealed his fate. She’d only just discovered that in their short time together he’d evoked emotions she’d thought she was incapable of. She’d fallen in love with him. Now he was gone forever.

She knew now that whoever said it was better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all had no idea what they were talking about. She looked at her wrist where for a few hours she’d worn the watch he’d given her. It was the sweetest gesture she’d ever seen. He couldn’t possibly understand why she wouldn’t wear one, couldn’t know the fear she had of time itself, how finite it was and how she couldn’t stand the constant reminder.

She wished now she’d kept it.

The monastery was so solidly built that it seemed to absorb all sound. Tisa didn’t hear the footsteps outside her door, didn’t know anyone was coming for her until the heavy iron lock slid back against its stop.

She remained bowed, not needing to look up to see that it was her brother who had come for her. “Leave me, Luc.”

“You know I would never do that,” he whispered. When they were together at Rinpoche-La, they spoke Tibetan. For some unknown reason, when they were on the outside they conversed in either French or English.

She raised her head. She’d lost her glasses during her escape from the ferry. Her spare pair weren’t the correct prescription, forcing her to squint slightly to focus her vision. Like her, Luc was dressed in voluminous wool pants, a fine cotton shirt and a heavy cloak. She noted he’d taken to carrying a pistol belted around his lean hips. “What did you hope to accomplish by bringing me here?”

He crossed the murky room to stand behind her. She could feel his hands near her shoulders but he refrained from touching her. “I just want to keep you safe.”

“From what?” she snapped. “Inevitability?”

“Tisa, it doesn’t have to be like this. I forgive you for trying to warn the world. At times, even I thought that we should. In the end, we both know it’s for the best that we don’t.”

She turned in her seat to look him in the eye. “Best for who? Who are you to decide?”

“I can ask you the same question. For centuries the Order has done nothing but watch as cataclysms destroyed nations, laid waste to entire regions, and killed millions. No one ever questioned our need to remain silent. Just because the scope is so much greater now doesn’t mean we should part with our traditions.”

“Luc, if we don’t do anything a hundred million people will die outright and many more later as civilization unravels.”

“This is where you and I disagree, dear sister. I don’t see that as a bad thing. Civilization as it is today is fundamentally flawed and can’t be sustained. Its demise is certain. Rampant consumption in the west and exploding populations in the developing world are either going to bleed the planet dry or collide in a monumental war that will destroy both. The eruption on La Palma is a pressure relief valve, a way to turn back the clock a century or two and give humanity a chance to learn from its mistakes rather than continue to build on them.

“This is the very nature of evolution — the adaptation to changing circumstances. Those that can do it will survive, those that can’t will perish. The planet doesn’t care which species resides at the top of the evolutionary ladder so long as it can endure the tests thrown at it. We’ve done well for so long that we forget we’re here only by the earth’s grace.”

Tisa couldn’t form a response. Far from growing blank, her mind was a swirl of images and thoughts, a torrent that crashed like a hurricane. In the months since she’d learned about the La Palma eruption, she’d strived to find a way to avert it, or at least reduce the impact. She’d remained confident that she could make a difference. That knowledge had given her the determination and courage to continue. Hearing her brother now, she understood how useless it had all been. For the first time she knew she was going to fail.

There was no escaping Rinpoche-La. Upon her return she’d seen that Luc had mobilized dozens of followers into a loose army. Like her brother, they all seemed to be carrying guns. Even if she could slip past the guards and make it out of the valley, she’d never survive the trek to Nepal. Darchen, the closest Tibetan town, was out of the question too. It was a backwater village with a heavy military presence. She’d be arrested the first time she tried to hitch a ride to Llasa.

Luc began to massage her shoulders. Tisa didn’t have the strength to shrug him off. “We’ll be safe here. When the time comes we will rejoin the world and take our rightful place. The oracle will guarantee our primacy.”

“I want to see the Lama,” she said, trying to keep from sobbing.

“Of course.” Luc stepped back to allow Tisa to stand. He smiled at her, a patronizing look that said he could see past her anger and not care about her pain. “Whatever you want is yours for the asking.”

He led her from the cell. In this wing of the lamasery, the hallways were wide and lined with rooms once used by some of the hundreds of monks who’d lived here. Precious prayer scrolls called thangkas adorned the paneled walls. The floors were made of tropical woods, burnished to a mirror gloss, then mostly covered by intricate carpets. He took her to one of the central mezzanines where a staircase seemed to float in space yet was large enough to accommodate a dozen people walking abreast. Oil lanterns lit the way. The ground floor was an open space several acres square, cut by marble columns that supported the floors above. There were so many supports that the grand entrance was called the stone forest. The ceiling gleamed with gilt.

It took several minutes to cross to another set of stairs that descended below ground level. This passage was part of a dormant geothermal vent, and once at the bottom of the steps the passage took random twists and turns that had once been an ancient lava tube. After a hundred yards they came to a towering door. Luc unlocked it with a key kept on a long leather thong around his neck. He gave Tisa an appraising look.

She remained expressionless. Three months had passed since she’d last been here and taken the chronicle from the archive that lay beyond this door. Only the archivists, the most venerated members of the Order, had the key. Luc had not been among them then. Her brother must have been busy consolidating power within the Order. She feared what else had changed.

The archive chamber was dark until Luc turned on lights powered by a geothermal generator buried deeper under the monastery. The walls were draped with heavy, moisture-absorbing carpets to protect the priceless volumes. The rugs were replaced on a regular basis and the ones here appeared fresh and vibrant. The air was chilled, not damp exactly but clammy and claustrophobic. The chronicles were arranged along two walls in shelves that stretched from the floor to the ten-foot ceiling. There were several antique desks for the archivists and drawers filled with maps and manuscripts. This wasn’t where Admiral Zheng He’s cache was stored, although a few pieces were generally kept here for reference. The bulk of that horde was in another chamber Tisa had never seen.

When she’d taken the book she’d shown Mercer, she had tried to disguise the theft by spacing out the nearby journals. Luc, or one of his underlings, had reformed the tight ranks and the gap where the chronicle once stood was as obvious as a missing tooth. From the blank spot to the end of the last shelf were six more journals awaiting the time when the predictions in them could be verified.

Luc crossed the room and opened another locked door. Tisa’s unease increased. She hadn’t seen the Lama in almost a year. Even back then his health was failing and his mind had lost much of its keen edge. She dreaded that he’d died in her absence and her brother was leading her to his ossuary. That would explain how Luc had taken such complete control over the monastery and the Order.

They continued down the volcanic tube, their way lit by bulbs strung along the ceiling. Tisa suspected this was an alternate route to the oracle chamber, the subterranean cavern where centuries earlier devotees of Zhu Zhanji had constructed the oracle based on designs that dated from long before the scholar took possession of Admiral He’s historical treasures. The air in the tunnel turned warmer the farther they descended, fueled by the earth’s fiery heart.

At last they came to an open area that had been finished off with elegantly paneled walls and a carpet-strewn wood floor. The room was furnished with ornate sofas and chairs covered in watered silk. Glittering chandeliers hung from the coffered ceiling like crystal stalactites. The architectural details of the handcarved moldings were lost under heavy layers of gilt. Through an open doorway Tisa could see a bedroom dominated by a massive four-poster bed. It was only the lack of windows that betrayed the space as something other than a room fit for royalty. She’d never seen this part of the monastery and didn’t understand what it was. Luc indicated she should go into the bedroom.

The chamber was much dimmer, shadowed and ominous. There was a gamey odor in the air, like meat on the verge of rotting. Sensing a presence, she stilled her breathing. Someone was on the bed, hidden by darkness. Her heart began to hammer and her palms turned slick. As Tisa approached the bed, she couldn’t still her quivering lips. She knew whom she was about to see. The rasping breathing that first caught her attention stopped suddenly and the figure on the bed let loose with a crowlike caw.

Tisa’s hand flew to her mouth to stifle a scream. She slowly made her way closer, angling across the room so light could reach the figure leaning against the headboard. Behind her Luc adjusted a light switch and the level of illumination grew. Tisa gasped.

The Lama no longer wore his ceremonial blue robe. He was naked, his thin chest rising feebly as he struggled to breathe. His body was hairless save the coarse gray nest at the juncture of his legs. The hair atop his head was as fine as silk thread. His face was more deeply wrinkled than any she had ever seen. The creases seemed to vanish into his skull. His mouth was a blackened, toothless hole, his limbs little more than desiccated sticks. He wasn’t yet seventy but appeared ninety. She discerned all this ruin in a glance, but what held her were his eyes. They were those of someone with severe retardation. They remained bright, but there was no curiosity behind them, nothing to indicate the creature peering through them even knew who or where he was.

Soft cords bound his left hand and ankle. The right side of his body was held rigid by some paralysis.

Tears burned Tisa’s eyes. She turned to her brother, unable to hide her pain and confusion.

“Two months ago,” Luc explained as if discussing the weather. “The doctors say it was a massive stroke. It would have been better had the old bugger died. I’ve actually thought about putting him out of his misery, but the others believe his condition is a portent and that the date of his death will have special meaning.”

Tisa reached out and brushed a wisp of hair back across the Lama’s forehead. He looked at her trustingly, but without recognition. Unable to keep her composure, a wracking sob tore into Tisa’s chest. The pain was like a lance.

“Ah, dinner’s here,” Luc said from the doorway, unmoved by his sister’s personal agony.

Tisa glanced over her shoulder. A local woman Tisa didn’t recognize hesitated at Luc’s side, torn by duty and the unexpected presence of a stranger in the Lama’s bedroom. She was pretty, not far out of her teens, with a round face and freshly washed hair. She was dressed simply in a long skirt and a loose blouse of cotton. She carried nothing, no tray or bowl from which to feed the Lama.

“I’m not sure that you want to stay for this,” Luc said as the girl made her decision and drew closer to the bed.

The high Lama cawed again, becoming animated at the sight of the young woman. The girl paused, her dark eyes darting from Luc to Tisa. Luc made a “go ahead” gesture with his hand. Tisa remained uncomprehending. The Lama tried to reach for the woman with his bound hand, his motions directed at her chest.

It was then that Tisa saw the wet patches at the swell of the woman’s bust. She was a nursing mother, her breasts heavy with milk.

Tisa whirled away, unable to hide her revulsion as the woman began to undo her buttons.

Luc laughed. “It’s the only way he’ll eat,” he explained cavalierly. “Though we did have his teeth pulled. He kept biting the wet nurses.”

The Lama’s agitated noises were suddenly replaced with a contented mewling. Tisa refused to look, although her brother watched for a moment. She stormed past him.

“How could you?” she hissed so hard it hurt her throat.

He grabbed her by the shoulder and spun her into his arms so their mouths were inches apart. “I told you it would have been better if the stroke had killed him. The pillar of our community has been reduced to an infant. Maybe it is punishment for continuing the program to counter the time drift that developed in the oracle’s predictions. The Order should never have started moving rivers, constructing towers, and digging holes in an effort to change earth’s chi.”

Tisa twisted so she wouldn’t have to look at her brother’s face, a visage so much like her own. “I hate you.”

“One of these days you’ll see things my way. Not now, I understand, but soon, very soon.” He kissed the top of her head and released his grip. “In the meantime I’ll make sure no harm comes to you, as we wait together for the world to be transformed.” He looked past her shoulder. Donny Randall stood at another entrance to the living quarters. “Take my sister back to her cell, Donny, then meet me in my office.”

Tisa couldn’t stop crying as the big man lumbered at her heels through the sprawling building. She’d been away a few months, but it had been even longer since she’d seen the Lama. She should have stayed. She could have prevented Luc from usurping power as he had. Her duty was here, at Rinpoche-La, not on the outside. Had she not wasted so much effort contacting Mercer, maybe she could have saved a portion of the Lama’s dignity and with it the purity of the Order.

Half a millennium of planning and surviving was about to unravel in a way even the oracle couldn’t have predicted. For centuries the Order had been free of the pettiness that had destroyed so much that was rational in the world, the squabbles that blossomed into wars, bankrupting nations and killing millions. The innocence they had enjoyed for so long was lost, as lost as the Lama’s mind.

Maybe Luc was right, she thought, capitulating to her own inner darkness. Maybe nothing humanity had created was worth saving. After all, she’d seen there was an ugly reflection to all things beautiful. The first joyous cry of a newborn was the same sound as the dying wail of a starving child. The same techniques that created great cathedrals helped the construction of concentration camps. The same laboratories that produced chemicals that cured also made those that killed. Art and music and free expression had all been perverted by hate by those bent on sending their own unholy message. Religion, politics, family, it was all so easily distorted that little of the good behind these ideals remained.

She trudged up the steps to her cell, barely able to shoulder the burden of her feelings. Her strength was gone. Since she’d first learned the mysteries of the Order, she’d always held hope that she’d been selected for a special task, that she would be the one to break the cycle that had kept the Order together but doomed it to the role of Cassandra, the figure from Greek mythology endowed with the gift of prophecy but unable to convince others of the future. She realized now that it didn’t matter that she had convinced Mercer. Events were inalterable. Her true purpose, she saw bitterly, was to witness the end of everything, to be the last watcher stuck on the fringes of calamity.

Tisa had dammed up so much in her life, watched as devastation overran the world, stood by knowing she could have helped, all the while fighting for a time when she could make a change. Time had been her enemy, the most hated element she’d ever known. She’d fought it for as long as she could, hoping she could steal a moment and slay the beast. But there was no stopping time and only now was she willing to concede defeat.

They reached the upper floor. Donny fumbled with a key ring as Tisa stepped into her cell.

“What time is it, Mr. Randall?”

“Huh?” Donny looked up from his work, lost count of the keys and had to start from the beginning to find the right one.

“I asked for the time.”

“How the hell should I know? It’s nighttime. Don’t worry about it.”

“I guess maybe I won’t.” She eased herself onto the bed.

Once Randall had the proper key, he could turn his mind to his next concern. “Your brother’s going away in a couple of days. My orders are to keep an eye on you. I just wanted you to know my eye isn’t the only thing of mine that’s gonna be on you, if you know what I mean. You ain’t got much tit, but I figure if you were good enough for Mercer, you’re good enough for me too.”

Tisa had expected this was coming. Randall had done little to hide his leering interest since shortly after he’d pulled her from the Aegean. “Fine. By all means, rape me all you want. I just hope you understand that molesting me isn’t going to get you any closer to the person you really want.”

“Yeah, and who’s that?”

“It’s obvious you’re using me as a surrogate for Mercer. He’s the one you want to rape. He’s the one you want power over. You’re only with me so you can pretend I’m Mercer.”

Donny bristled. “Are you calling me some kind of fag?”

“No. I’m calling you a deeply sick person. And if you touch me even once, I am going to hurt you in ways you’ve never imagined.”

Randall pulled himself to his full height, the top of his head scant inches from the underside of the doorframe. “Brave words now. Let’s hear them again when your brother’s gone and I’ve got a knife to your heart.”

“Then I’ll do us both a favor and walk into it.”

Not understanding what she meant, Randall the Handle shot her a scowl and slammed the door, jamming the key in the lock as though it were an act of violation.

At another time, Tisa would have been scared, but she truly didn’t care any longer. Being raped by Donny Randall was nothing, a small taste of the shame she was just beginning to sense from her own failures.

The next day Luc knelt before an altar on the monastery’s second floor. The smell of incense was thick and the low dirge of chanting monks reverberated around the spartan temple. To the disciples behind him it appeared that Luc was deep in prayer. He was in fact thinking about his next course of action but he understood the symbolic role he had to play. While the Lama lived, he couldn’t don the sacred blue robe. However, by acting out the Order’s mysteries and rites he was laying the foundation for his eventual consecration.

In the months since the Lama’s stroke, Luc had steadily brought the Order’s younger brothers to his cause. Like him, they were drawn to the promise of power in the wake of the cataclysmic destruction of civilization. It was the old guard who resisted the changes he wanted to implement. Luc would soon leave Rinpoche-La again. Tisa had always been a poor liar and he knew Mercer was still alive. While there was nothing Mercer could do about the eruption, Luc wanted him dead. But before he could fulfill that mission, he had to solidify his position here in the monstery.

The prayers went on for six straight hours. As the voices of some monks faltered, others took up the chant. Even Luc added his voice, one more small deception. As the sixth hour ended, Luc came to his feet. Despite the forced inactivity, his muscles hadn’t cramped and he moved easily.

“My brothers,” he called softly. While the fifty younger monks stopped chanting immediately, it took several minutes for the dozen older monks that Luc had invited to this special prayer to return from their trances.

“My brothers,” Luc repeated. “Your voices have helped guide my thoughts at this troubled point in our history. I have been too long away from Rinpoche-La yet even just a moment home restores my spirit and clears my mind.”

“Time has no meaning when one has peace,” Yoh Dzu remarked. He was the Lama’s secretary and the voice of the more conservative arm of the Order. His words were part of a familiar litany, a not-so-subtle rebuke to the discord Luc’s actions had created.

“And yet time stalks us even if we have peace. Because peace isn’t a possession, but a state. That is precisely what I want to discuss with all of you. The state of the world and the state of the Order, for the two are more entwined now than ever.”

“That was not always the way,” an ancient monk muttered. “For many generations the world and the Order were separate.”

Luc seized on that comment. “Since our present Lama was given the right to wear the blue robe, he has changed the nature of the Order from passive watchers to active participants. He embarked us on a path of interference, of trying to correct the discrepancies between the oracle and physical reality. I stand before you and say that it was a mistake.”

Several heads nodded. A young monk Luc had coached said, “His mistakes have cost us and they have cost him.”

“Laying blame at the feet of a dying man is not taking a stand,” Dzu scolded.

“It is not blame, brother. It is fact. The world and the Order are no longer separate.” By invoking the Lama’s controversial decision to try to realign the earth’s chi, Luc had carefully sidestepped his own responsibility in drawing attention to the Order. “Even if we stopped now, our presence has already been detected.”

“This was debated many years ago,” Dzu pointed out. “We understood the risk then and accepted it. We all agreed that we had to do something to heal the earth and return the oracle’s accuracy. It is an unfortuante circumstance that we are without the Lama’s guidance when the time came to face the consequences.”

“Perhaps not unfortunate, but auspicious. Unlike our Lama, I have spent a great deal of my life in the outside world. I understand how it works. The La Palma eruption is going to spark unprecedented fear, and what people fear they hate. What they hate, they kill. Word will soon spread about us and how we knew about the volcano. The world leaders cannot lash out at a mountain, but they can come after us.”

“Why would they do that?” an older monk asked innocently. The man had never set foot outside the valley and had been sheltered from the corruptive nature of the world.

“Because that is their way. Startle a snake and it will strike. It doesn’t matter to it that you meant it no harm.”

“But I would not blame the snake,” the elder brother said.

“Nor I,” Luc agreed. “But the outside world does not think like us.”

The old man grasped the analogy. “I think I understand. When I was a young man I once burned my hand picking up a stone that was too close to a fire pit. In anger I kicked out the fire. Afterward I could not understand why I did it, for it was not the fire’s fault.”

Luc smiled. “You were given a taste of human nature’s darker side, one that is amplified outside the valley to the point where nations wage wars over rumors.”

“What can be done?” Dzu asked.

“I do not know, but I fear that we can no longer rely on the monastery’s isolation to protect us.”

“Is that why you and some of the others are carrying weapons?”

“Yes, brother. I fear for our safety.”

“Would you take a life to protect your own?” Dzu asked.

“No,” Luc lied. “But I still debate whether I would do it to defend the oracle.”

The statement sent a shocked murmur through the older monks. The taking of life, either a human’s or that of the lowliest insect, was anathema to everything the Buddhist Order believed.

Luc cut through the chatter. “That is the question that faces us all, the one we must answer before I take my leave of Rinpoche-La.”

“Is our situation truly that dire?” Dzu, who had been Luc’s sharpest critic in the months since the Lama’s stroke, was falling under Luc’s spell.

“It is. We must all recognize that our way of life will soon come to an end. It is how we go forward from this moment that will determine the Order’s ultimate fate.”

“I for one can never kill, no matter the circumstances.” Dzu crossed his arms over his chest as if that settled the discussion.

“And many agree with you,” Luc said. “I would never ask anyone to act against his vows. But I need to know if you would prevent others from acting in ways that you would not? What if they believed that killing to protect the oracle was the right choice? Would you stop them?”

“That question should be easy to answer. Life must take precedence over all other considerations.” Dzu paused. “Even if the oracle was threatened, killing to preserve it is wrong.”

“As wrong as those who may kill to destroy it?”

“Are there degrees to that kind of sin? I don’t know, perhaps. This is a matter I have never contemplated.”

Luc took on a sincere look of sympathy. “It is something I have not stopped thinking about for some time now.” It was a struggle to keep from smirking. He had so twisted logic that he now had the monks thinking about committing murder. “Here is something else for your consideration, something that has occurred to me over time. For one hundred fifty years the Order has had within its power the ability to save countless lives by warning those about to die and yet we did not. By rights those deaths should be on our collective consciences. Is not a lie of omission still a lie? Why then would the deaths of those who come to harm us be more wrong?”

His question was met by silence.

Finally Dzu spoke. “In some ways I hear the voice of our Lama in you, Luc. He stood in this very room when he proposed that the Order heal earth’s chi. He was very convincing and after a short debate we agreed to his plan, although some secretly believed it was a mistake. How do we know that your intentions aren’t also a mistake?”

“You must all agree that passivity is not an option. No matter what we do, the Order is forever changed.”

“I see that, yes.”

“If we do not defend ourselves when they come for us, we will cease to exist. The oracle will be destroyed.”

“So you say.”

“All I am asking is for you to consider that we are worth saving, that we should survive and emerge whole after the eruption.” He turned his attention to the elder monk. “Brother, would you not prevent a man from beating the snake that bit him.”

“Yes, I would.”

“That is all that I ask. I do not blame those of you who wouldn’t protect the snake, but I ask you not to stop those that would.”

The door at the back of the temple room creaked open on its iron hinges. A gust of fresh air swirled in, diluting the cloying smell of the joss sticks. Donny Randall wouldn’t enter the chamber but just his presence at the threshold interrupted the meeting.

“I believe Mr. Randall is here to tell me everything is ready for my trip back to Nepal.” Luc smiled at the assemblage. “Were it that I could stay and pray with you for our Lama’s recovery and for guidance in these troubled times.”

“We shall pray for your speedy return to us, Luc.” Dzu got to his feet and embraced him. “You do the Order proud and while I don’t agree with some of what you said, I know your heart is good and your thoughts pure.”

“Bless you,” Luc replied and hugged the older man more fiercely.

He crossed the carpeted floor and joined Donny. Together they strode down the hallway away from the temple and the reek of incense that burned Luc’s eyes.

“How did it go?” Donny asked.

“Better than I expected.” Luc snickered. “The old men are so confused they don’t know what to do. Even Dzu is looking for someone to lead them.”

“They’ll make you Lama when old toothless kicks the bucket?”

“Without a doubt.”

“And then?”

“And then things get run my way. With the United States and Western Europe in disarray, the world’s balance of power will immediately shift to China, Japan and the nations of the Pacific. It will take a year, maybe two, before the world economy has adjusted to the fact that most of its biggest consumers are dead. By then people will have realized that the great cities that were destroyed were little more than black holes that absorbed everything and produced only more mouths to feed.

“The planet’s natural resources like coal, grain, timber and oil will not be affected, only their means of distribution, and those can be rerouted. Take away New York as a financial capital and a new one will emerge in Australia. Scour away the beaches of Miami and people will vacation someplace else. Adaptation is perhaps mankind’s greatest skill. The eruption will force humanity to realize the suicidal path they were on and buy enough time to correct it.”

“Where does that leave us? The Order, I mean.”

“Interestingly, it is the nations of the Pacific basin that will be least affected by the eruption, yet they remain the most vulnerable to earthquakes and volcanoes. We will be in position to warn them about impending catastrophes.”

“For a price?” Donny asked.

“For a price,” Luc agreed.

Where Randall saw storehouses of gold, Luc saw power, raw unadulterated power of a kind not held since the Roman Caesars. Nations would give him anything to protect themselves and perhaps even more to not warn their enemies. How much was it worth to the Saudi government to know that a major earthquake was going to strike Iran on a certain date and disrupt their oil shipments for weeks or months? How much would the Japanese pay to have enough warning to evacuate Yokohama when an undersea slide sends a tsunami washing over the port? That kind of knowledge was worth something beyond mere money.

After just one or two demonstrations Luc was certain he’d be given virtual control of the world.