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Tsering rose. “Friend Pendergast and Friend Greene,” he said, “we welcome you back to monastery of Gsalrig Chongg. Please take tea with us.”
Cups of sweet buttered tea were brought out and enjoyed in silence. Then Tsering spoke again.
“What have you brought us?”
“The Agozyen.”
“This is not its box.”
“The original box did not survive.” “And the Agozyen?”
“Inside—in original condition.”
A silence. The ancient abbot spoke, and then Tsering translated. “The abbot would like to know: did anyone look upon it?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“Five.”
“And where are they now?”
“Four are dead.”
“And the fifth?”
“I was the fifth.”
When this was translated the abbot rose abruptly and stared. He then walked over to Pendergast, grasped him with a bony hand, and pulled him to his feet with astonishing force. He stared into his eyes. Minutes passed in the silent room—and then the abbot finally spoke.
“The abbot say this extraordinary,” Tsering translated. “You burn off the demon. But you remain damaged, because once you experience ecstasy of the pure freedom of evil, you can never forget that joy. We will help you, but we can never make you whole.”
“I’m already aware of that.”
The abbot bowed. He bent down and picked up the box, handing it to another monk, who carried it off.
“You have our eternal thanks, Friend Pendergast,” said Tsering. “You have accomplished great feat—at great cost.”
Pendergast remained standing. “I’m afraid it isn’t quite over yet,” he replied. “You have a thief in your midst. It seems that one of your monks thought the world was ripe for cleansing and arranged for the theft of the Agozyen. We still must find that monk and stop him from doing it again—or the Agozyen will never be safe.”
Once this was translated, the abbot turned and looked at him, his eyebrows slightly raised. There was a hesitation. Then the abbot began to speak. Tsering turned to translate. “The abbot say you are correct, it is not over. It is not the end, but the begi
Pendergast seated himself, as did the abbot.
“After you left, we discovered who released Agozyen into world, and why.”
“Who?” “It was the holy lama in the wall. The ancient one.”
“The immured anchorite?”
“Yes. Jordan Ambrose fascinated by this man and speak to him. The lama let Ambrose into i
“Which was?”
“It is difficult to explain. Before you arrive in spring, his holiness the Ralang Rinpoche die. He is eighteenth incarnation of the Rinpoche who founded this monastery long time ago. We ca
When the Agozyen walks the Western Sea,
And darkness upon darkness wheel,
The waters shall rise up in fury,
And batter the great palace of the deep,
And ye shall know the Rinpoche by his guardian,
Who shall return with the Green Tara,
Dancing across the waters of the Western Sea,
From the ruined palace of the deep.
“So to test prophecy, holy man release Agozyen into the world to see who will bring it back. Because man who bring it back is the guardian of the nineteenth Rinpoche.”
Pendergast felt an emotion rare to him: utter surprise.
“Yes, friend Pendergast, you have brought the nineteenth Rinpoche to us.” Tsering looked at Pendergast with a slightly amused expression. And then he focused a pointed gaze on Constance.
She rose. “The guardian of the . . . excuse me, are you saying
I’m
the reincarnation of the Rinpoche? But that’s absurd—I was born long before he died.”
The monk’s smile deepened. “I do not speak of you. I speak of the child you carry.”
Pendergast’s surprise redoubled. He turned toward Constance, who was looking at the monk, an unreadable expression on her face.
“Child?” Pendergast said. “But you went to the Feversham Clinic. I thought—I assumed . . .”
“Yes,” Constance replied. “I went to the clinic. But once there, I found I couldn’t go through with it. Not even . . . knowing it was
his
.”
It was Tsering who broke the silence that followed. “There is an ancient prayer. It say:
Lead me into all misfortune. Only by that path can I transform the negative into the positive.
”
Constance nodded, one hand drifting unconsciously across the slight swell of her waist. And then she smiled: a smile that seemed half secretive, and half shy.
A Word From The Authors
The Preston
-
Child Novels
We are very frequently asked in what order, if any, our books should be read.
The question is most applicable to the novels that feature Special Agent Pendergast. Although most of our novels are written to be stand-alone stories, very few have turned out to be set in discrete worlds. Quite the opposite: it seems the more novels we write together, the more “bleed-through” occurs between the characters and events that comprise them all. Characters from one book will appear in a later one, for example, or events in one novel could spill into a subsequent one. In short, we have slowly been building up a universe in which all the characters in our novels, and the experiences they have, take place and overlap.
Reading the novels in a particular order, however, is rarely necessary. We have worked hard to make almost all of our books into stories that can be enjoyed without reading any of the others, with a few exceptions.