Seeker's Curse. Alex Archer
that his beliefs give him that.
“I see you are skeptical,” Omprakash said. His smile didn’t falter. He couldn’t, in fact, have sounded more pleased if she’d explicitly accepted his every word as gospel, or converted to Buddhism on the spot.
“I’m…sorry,” she said.
He laughed. “Please, don’t be. All traditions are equally sublime. Even agnosticism and atheism. Your path to enlightenment can only be your own.”
“All right.” She smiled back. “Then I’ll go ahead and confess I am skeptical of the existence of a single fantastic treasure.”
“Yet the Japan Buddhist Federation has hired you to find it.”
“They never actually said anything about it. I did read a Byzantine fragment that mentioned such a treasure,” she said.
“Perhaps they had their reasons for wishing you to find out on your own. If you wish you may correspond with them. You need not take my word. I won’t be offended—I don’t claim to be immune from error.”
“That’s okay,” she said. She was annoyed at the JBF for holding out on her. “They may not even know about it. But you’re absolutely right—if it exists, it’s part of my job to find it and see that it’s properly preserved like any other shrine. And I’ll do my level best to find it.”
Omprakash nodded. “I believe in your integrity, Ms. Creed. You will not accept if I speak of auras, although your own best researchers years ago discovered means of tracking individuals by their unique personal electromagnetic fields. A phenomenon which I surely find difficult to tell from auras. Out of respect for your beliefs, I will point to a lifetime spent learning to read people.”
“Thanks.” She unbuttoned one of the cargo pockets of her khaki trousers and took out a plastic bag containing the coin she had taken from the warehouse in Kastoria. To her surprise Pan had given it back to her and allowed her to keep it. She might find it useful in shutting down the artifact-smuggling operation at the source, which would serve both their ends.
She presented the bagged coin to the lama. “This was found in Thessaloníki, in Greek Macedonia.”
“Hardly surprising, inasmuch as it appears to bear the likeness of Alexander,” he said.
“It was being sold by a notorious and highly dangerous antiquities-smuggling gang as part of a trove looted from here in Nepal. I saw other artifacts of clearly Buddhist origin, although I admit I don’t know enough to determine whether they were Nepalese. Archaeologists with the Hellenic police antismuggling task force authenticated them, however.”
“You are wondering,” Omprakash said, handing the coin back, “if it came from the Highest Shrine, as tradition calls it. Or legend, if that gives you greater comfort. As to that, I cannot say. But far more likely is that it came from a lesser shrine.”
His smile widened. “You see, no impious hands can ever defile the Highest Shrine, Ms. Creed. Some guardian will always arise to defend it.”
More mysticism, she thought. Since he no doubt sensed her disbelief again, she didn’t have to worry she might show lack of courage in her own convictions if she didn’t say it out loud.
“Well, just in case,” she said, “I’ll do my best to locate this Highest Shrine and ensure its proper preservation. If, ah, my hands turn out to be pure enough.”
“That will be determined in the course of your quest.”
She had nothing to say to that.
“A final bit of advice, Annja Creed, before I impart the information necessary for you to proceed,” her host said. “Your progress will depend upon your actions and the state of your soul, regardless of whether or not you believe. Please be aware that your skepticism can put barriers in your path.”
“It’s part of me, Lama. And I choose to walk the rational path,” she said.
He nodded. “Does that require you to form preconceptions and prejudices?”
“Well…no. The opposite, I like to think.”
“Just so. All I ask, and urge, is that you keep an open mind.”
“I can do that,” she said. Can’t I?
8
The monk’s advice sent her north to Baglung, chief town of Baglung District in the Dhawalgiri Zone. A garishly painted bus took her from Lumbini into almost the center of the long, striplike country. It also took her up, along precipitous narrow switchbacks.
Baglung sprawled along a wide ledge at the base of a big hill. Its blocky white multi-storied structures, roofs pitched high to shed the massive yearly snowfall, spilled out onto a couple of naturally terraced sandstone buttes thrusting out over the river valley below. The land around was scrub and stands of small trees, pitching quickly up into more hills, dusted with snow, with the stark blue-and-white mass of the real mountains looming beyond.
To the north a gigantic white mountain, shaped vaguely like a tooth, dominated the skyline.
When Annja got off the bus her legs were a bit unsteady with remnant adrenaline. Some of those last hairpin turns had been hair-raising. Shouldering her pack, she hiked to the police headquarters to check in.
It wasn’t hard to find—an old British colony, heavily influenced by India and increasingly by the U.S., Nepal depended almost entirely on tourism to keep its economy rolling. So even in this remote place English-language signs abounded alongside the curvy local writing.
The cop shop was a three-story building with a roof of dove-gray slate. The Baglung contingent of the armed police force were glum and wary little men in brown berets, light gray shirts, darker gray trousers with white-and-orange stripes down the legs, black belts and boots. Their holsters held modern Glock autopistols, Model 19s with high-capacity 9 mm magazines.
To Annja’s surprise each Glock was counter-balanced by what looked like a forward-curved short sword on the other hip. These had to be the Nepalese kukris, made famous by their Gurkha mercenary troops. They still carried them in modern-day assignments in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Annja hadn’t expected to see police officers toting huge fighting knives, though.
She filled out the usual reams of paperwork. She was all aboveboard, prepared to brandish her documents from the JBF, as well as the letter of recommendation the well-respected Lama Omprakash had provided her in Lumbini.
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