The Wheel of Darkness (2 page)

The monk turned toward the other. The second figure removed its cowl with a tentative movement, brown hair spilling out into the wind, catching the swirling snowflakes. She stood, head slightly bowed, a young woman who appeared to be in her early twenties, with a delicate face, finely formed lips, and high cheekbones—Constance Greene, Pendergast’s ward. Her penetrating violet eyes darted around, taking in everything quickly, before dropping again to the ground.

The monk stared at her for only a moment. Making no comment, he turned and gestured for them to follow him down a stone causeway toward the main complex.

Pendergast and his ward followed the monk in silence as he passed through a second gate and entered the dark confines of the monastery itself, the air laden with the scent of sandalwood and wax. The great ironbound doors boomed shut behind them, muffling the howling wind to a faint whisper. They continued down a long hallway, one side of which was lined with brass prayer cylinders, creaking and turning round and round, driven by some hidden mechanism. The hall forked, and turned again, driving deeper into the monastic depths. Another monk appeared in front of them carrying large candles in brass holders, their flickering light revealing a series of ancient frescoes lining both walls.

The mazelike turnings brought them at last into a large room. One end was dominated by a gold statue of Padmasambhava, the Tantric Buddha, illuminated by hundreds of candles. Unlike the contemplative, half-closed eyes of most depictions of the Buddha, the Tantric Buddha’s eyes were wide open, alert and dancing with life, symbolizing the heightened awareness achieved by his study of the secret teachings of Dzogchen and the even more esoteric Chongg Ran.

The Gsalrig Chongg monastery was one of two repositories in the world preserving the discipline of Chongg Ran, the enigmatic teachings known to those few who were familiar with them as the Jewel of the Mind’s Impermanence.

At the threshold to this inner sanctum, the two travelers paused. At the far end, a number of monks reposed in silence, sitting on tiered stone benches as if awaiting someone.

The uppermost tier was occupied by the abbot of the monastery. He was a peculiar-looking man, his ancient face wrinkled into a permanent expression of amusement, even mirth. His robes hung from his skeletal frame like laundry draped on a rack. Next to him sat a slightly younger monk, also known to Pendergast: Tsering, one of only very few of the monks who spoke English, who acted as the “manager” of the monastery. He was an exceptionally well-preserved man of perhaps sixty. Below them sat a row of twenty monks of all ages, some teenagers, others ancient and wizened.

Tsering rose and spoke in an English shot through with the strange, musical lilt of Tibetan. “Friend Pendergast, we welcome you back to monastery of Gsalrig Chongg, and we welcome your guest. Please sit down and take tea with us.”

He gestured to a stone bench set with two silk–embroidered cushions—the only cushions in the room. The two sat, and moments later several monks appeared carrying brass trays loaded with cups of steaming buttered tea and
tsampa
. They drank the sweet tea in silence, and only when they had finished did Tsering speak again.

“What brings friend Pendergast back to Gsalrig Chongg?” he asked.

Pendergast rose.

“Thank you, Tsering, for your welcome,” he said quietly. “I’m glad to be back. I return to you in order to continue my journey of meditation and enlightenment. Let me introduce to you Miss Constance Greene, who also has come in hopes of study.” He took her hand and she rose.

A long silence ensued. At last, Tsering rose. He walked over to Constance and stood before her, looking calmly into her face, and then reached up and touched her hair, fingering it delicately. Then, ever so gently, he reached out and touched the swell of her breasts, first one, then the other. She remained standing, unflinching.

“Are you a woman?” he asked.

“Surely you’ve seen a woman before,” said Constance dryly.

“No,” said Tsering. “I have not seen woman since I come here—at age of two.”

Constance colored. “I’m very sorry. Yes, I am a woman.”

Tsering turned to Pendergast. “This is first woman ever to come to Gsalrig Chongg. We never accept woman before as student. I am sorry to say it cannot be permitted. Especially now, in middle of funeral ceremonies for Venerable Ralang Rinpoche.”

“The Rinpoche is dead?” Pendergast asked.

Tsering bowed.

“I am sorry to hear of the death of the Most High Lama.”

At this, Tsering smiled. “Is no loss. We will find his reincarnation—the nineteenth Rinpoche—and he will be with us again. It is I who am sorry to deny your request.”

“She needs your help.
I
need your help. We are both . . .
tired
of the world. We have come a long way to find peace. Peace, and healing.”

“I know how difficult journey you make. I know how much you hope. But Gsalrig Chongg exist for thousand year without female presence, and it cannot change. She must leave.”

A long silence ensued. And then Pendergast raised his eyes to the ancient, unmoving figure occupying the highest seat. “Is this also the decision of the abbot?”

At first, there was no sign of movement. A visitor might have even mistaken the wizened figure for some kind of happy, senile idiot, grinning vacantly from his perch above the others. But then there was the merest flick of a desiccated finger, and one of the younger monks climbed up and bent over the abbot, placing his ear close to the man’s toothless mouth. After a moment he straightened up and said something to Tsering in Tibetan.

Tsering translated. “The abbot asks woman to repeat name, please.”

“I am Constance Greene,” came the small but determined voice.

Tsering translated into Tibetan, having some difficulty over the name.

Another silence ensued, stretching into minutes.

Again the flick of the finger; again the ancient monk mumbled into the ear of the young monk, who repeated it in a louder voice.

Tsering said, “The abbot asks if this real name.”

She nodded. “Yes, it is my real name.”

Slowly the ancient lama raised a sticklike arm and pointed to a dim wall of the room with a fingernail that extended at least an inch from his finger. All eyes turned toward a temple painting hidden under a draped cloth, one of many hanging on the wall.

Tsering walked over and lifted the cloth, holding up a candle to it. The glow revealed a stunningly rich and complex image: a bright green female deity with eight arms, sitting on a white moon disk, with gods, demons, clouds, mountains, and gold filigree swirling about her, as if caught in a storm.

The old lama mumbled at length into the ear of the young monk, his toothless mouth working. Then he sat back and smiled while Tsering again translated.

“His Holiness ask to direct attention to
thangka
painting of Green Tara.”

There was a murmuring and shuffling of the monks as they rose from their seats and respectfully stood in a circle around the painting, like students waiting for a lecture.

The old lama flapped a bony arm at Constance Greene to join the circle, which she hastily did, the monks shuffling aside to afford her space.

“This is picture of Green Tara,” Tsering continued, still translating at one remove the mumbled words of the old monk. “She is mother of all Buddhas. She have constancy. Also wisdom, activity of mind, quick thinking, generosity, and fearlessness. His Holiness invite female to step closer and view mandala of Green Tara.”

Constance stepped forward tentatively.

“His Holiness ask why student given name of Green Tara.”

Constance looked around. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Your name Constance Greene. This name contain two important attribute of Green Tara. His Holiness ask how you get name.”

“Greene is my last name. It’s a common English surname, but I’ve no idea of the origin. And my first name, Constance, was given to me by my mother. It was popular in . . . around the time I was born. Any resemblance of my name to the Green Tara is obviously a coincidence.”

Now the abbot began to laugh, shakily, and struggled to stand with the help of two monks. In a few moments he was standing, but just barely, as if the slightest nudge would jostle him into a loose heap. He continued to laugh as he spoke again, a low, wheezy sound, displaying his pink gums, his bones almost rattling with mirth.

“Coincidence? No such thing. Student make funny joke,” Tsering translated. “The abbot like good joke.”

Constance glanced at Tsering to the abbot and back again. “Does that mean I’ll be allowed to study here?”

“It mean your study is already begun,” said Tsering, with a smile of his own.

I
N ONE OF THE REMOTE PAVILIONS OF THE
G
SALRIG
C
HONGG
monastery, Aloysius Pendergast rested on a bench beside Constance Greene. A row of stone windows looked out over the gorge of the Llölung to the great Himalayan peaks beyond, washed in a delicate pink alpenglow. From below came the faint roar of a waterfall at the head of the Llölung Valley. As the sun sank below the horizon, a
dzung
trumpet sounded a deep, drawn-out note that echoed among the ravines and mountains.

Almost two months had passed. July had come, and along with it spring in the high foothills of the Himalayas. The valley floors were greening, speckled with wildflowers, while a furze of pink wild roses flowered on the hillsides.

The two sat in silence. They had two weeks until the end of their stay.

The
dzung
sounded again as the fiery light died on the great triumvirate of mountains—Dhaulagiri, Annapurna, and Manaslu—three of the ten highest peaks in the world. Twilight came swiftly, invading the valleys like a flood of dark water.

Pendergast roused himself. “Your studies are going well. Extremely well. The abbot is pleased.”

“Yes.” Her voice was soft, almost detached.

He laid a hand on hers, his touch as light and airy as a leaf’s. “We haven’t spoken of this before, but I wanted to ask if . . . everything went well at the Feversham Clinic. If there were no complications to the, ah, procedure.” Pendergast seemed uncharacteristically awkward and at a loss for words.

Constance’s gaze remained aimed deep into the cold, snowy mountains.

Pendergast hesitated. “I wish you would have let me be with you.”

She inclined her head, still remaining silent.

“Constance, I care for you very much. Perhaps I haven’t expressed myself strongly enough on that point before. If I didn’t, I apologize.”

Constance bowed her head further, her face flushing. “Thank you.” The detachment vanished from her voice, replaced by a faint tremor of emotion. She stood abruptly, looking away.

Pendergast rose as well.

“Excuse me, Aloysius, but I feel the need to be alone for a while.”

“Of course.” He watched her slim form move away from him until it vanished like a ghost into the stone corridors of the monastery. Then he turned his gaze to the mountainous landscape beyond the window, falling deep into thought.

As darkness filled the pavilion, the sounds of the
dzung
stopped, the last note sustained as a dying echo among the mountains for many long seconds. All was still, as if the coming of night had brought with it a kind of stasis. And then a figure materialized in the inky shadows at the foot of the pavilion: an old monk in a saffron robe. He gestured at Pendergast with a withered hand, using the peculiar Tibetan shake of the wrist that signified
come
.

Pendergast walked slowly toward the monk. The man turned and began to shuffle off into the darkness.

Pendergast followed, intrigued. The monk took him in an unexpected direction, down dim corridors toward the cell that held the famed immured anchorite: a monk who had voluntarily allowed himself to be bricked up in a room just large enough for a man to sit and meditate, walled up for his entire life, fed once a day with bread and water by means of moving a single loose brick.

The old monk paused before the cell, which was nothing more than a featureless dark wall. Its old stones had been polished by many thousands of hands: people who had come to ask this particular anchorite for wisdom. He was said to have been walled up at the age of twelve. Now he was nearly one hundred, an oracle famed for his unique gift of prophecy.

The monk tapped on the stone, twice, with his fingernail. They waited. After a minute, the one loose stone in the façade began to move, ever so slightly, scraping slowly over the joint. A withered hand appeared, white as snow, with translucent blue veins. It rotated the stone into a sideways position, leaving a small space.

The monk bent over to the hole and murmured something in a low voice. Then he turned to listen. Minutes passed, and Pendergast heard the faintest whisper from within. The monk straightened up, apparently satisfied, and gestured for Pendergast to step close. Pendergast did as requested, watching the stone slip back into position, guided by an unseen hand.

All of a sudden, a deep scraping sound seemed to come from within the rock next to the stone cell, and a seam opened up. It enlarged to become a stone door, which grated open on some unseen mechanism. A peculiar scent of some unknown incense wafted from within. The monk held out his hand in a gesture for Pendergast to enter, and when the agent had passed over the threshold, the door slid shut. The monk had not followed—Pendergast was alone.

Another monk appeared out of the gloom, holding a guttering candle. During the past seven weeks at Gsalrig Chongg, as well as in his previous visits, Pendergast had come to know the faces of all the monks—and yet this one was new. He realized he had just entered the inner monastery, whispered about but never confirmed—the hidden sanctum sanctorum. Such access—which, he’d understood, was absolutely forbidden—was apparently guarded by the immured anchorite. This was a monastery within the monastery, in which a half dozen cloistered monks passed their entire lives in the profoundest meditation and unceasing mental study, never seeing the outside world or even coming in direct contact with the monks of the outer monastery, guarded by the unseen anchorite. They had so withdrawn from the world, Pendergast once heard it said, that the light of the sun, should it fall upon their skin, would kill them.