The Path (12 page)

Folding the paper, he turned and handed it to the priest. “This must go out at once,” he said.

The priest sighed and bowed, then turned away. Nasiradeen could tell he was not happy with his charge—but he would obey. The
Gurkha paid this temple enough gold to make certain of their obedience.

After the priest was gone, Nasiradeen left the small antechamber and went into the main temple. On the raised dais at the
far end, the statue of the god Shiva sat behind a cloud of incense. The white stone from which it had been carved was changed
to ash-colored from the years of smoke encircling it and the blue on its throat faded now to an indistinct gray.

Nasiradeen hardly noticed as he took his place among the worshipers. His eyes went instead to the bone held in one of the
god’s many hands, to the necklace of skulls around its neck and finally to the three eyes in the statue’s face.

It was the third eye on which Nasiradeen fixed his attention. It bestowed inward vision, yet when turned outward brought
burning destruction on those toward whom it was focused. Shiva was the great god, the Auspicious One, but he was also the
Destroyer. It was to this aspect Nasiradeen prayed.

He bowed and touched his forehead to the floor, seeking the words that would win the god’s power to his side.

I will build you a great temple in the hert of Lhasa itself
, he told the god.
The holy city will become your city. I will destroy all who will not worship you, and you will drink the blood of their sacrifice.
Be my aid and my strength, great Shiva, and nothing will stand before us
.

Duncan MacLeod left the Potala early, when the sun had barely risen. He left before the monk Gaikho could summon him to his
usual morning meal with the Dalai Lama.

MacLeod meant no disrespect to the spiritual leader and hoped his absence would not be taken as such. But for the last two
days they had spent most of their time together, student and teacher, while Duncan learned of the four Noble Truths that made
up the basis of Tibetan Buddhism.

Although Duncan was grateful for the many hours the Dalai Lama was giving up from his other duties, today he needed to get
away. He needed time to think, to absorb what he had already heard, to let his mind
breathe
.

His first thought was to go to the mountains, to the beauty and the quiet. Yet he found himself heading down into the city
of Lhasa, where another beauty awaited him. The living beauty that was Xiao-nan. He knew it was early to be calling at her
door but maybe, just maybe, he could persuade her to take a walk with him. Her company—the light of her eyes, the gentle sound
that was her laughter—would help him put everything in perspective.

He found her house easily, remembering the route from the day he had walked her home. But when he arrived he stood uncertainly
at her door, feeling like a schoolboy come courting instead of a two-hundred-year-old Immortal.
What
, his sudden doubts said,
if she did not want to see him, if her pleasant company the other day had been nothing more than the compassion to a stranger
that seemed to be the unwritten law of this land?

He did not know that Xiao-nan had watched for him each
day and was just on the other side of the door waiting for his knock.

Seconds ticked by as he stood there, battling his fears and chiding himself for his foolishness. If she said no—well, it was
not the first time in his long life a beautiful woman had turned him down.
Ye’ll never know by standing here, ye daft fool
, he told himself, his mind slipping into the brogue of his childhood. He raised his hand and knocked.

The door opened so quickly he nearly fell through the sudden space. And Xiao-nan was there, smiling up at him, even more beautiful
than he remembered her.

“I… I know it’s early,” MacLeod stammered, groaning silently as he stated the obvious. Truth be told, something about her
left him feeling awkward, even tongue-tied. It had to be more than her beauty; he had known beautiful women all over the world,
and he had two centuries practice of how to talk to them, charm them, win their favor. But something about Xiao-nan said she
was different, and the difference disconcerted him.

“Will you take a walk with me?” he asked her. “We won’t go far.”

“I would like very much to walk with you, Duncan MacLeod,” she answered, her voice making music of his name. Duncan knew he
wanted to hear her say it again and again.

A voice called from within the house. Xiao-nan turned and answered it quickly. Then she stepped out beside MacLeod and gently
closed the door.

“I have told my mother we are going, so now we may walk together. Where would you like to go?” she asked.

“Anywhere you want,” Duncan answered.

MacLeod was delighted to stand and watch her as she thought about a destination. As a little frown creased a line between
her eyebrows, he fought the urge to bend and kiss it away. Then, suddenly, her face lightened.

“I know where we will go,” she said. “There is a place where the blue orchid blooms on the hill. It is very beautiful in the
early light.”

As are you, Xiao-nan
, Duncan thought. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a
blue
orchid,” he said aloud as they started toward the city gate. “Is it truly blue?”

“Oh, yes,” Xiao-nan replied. “Blue as the summer sky, with
little black flecks at its heart and a sweet scent that is like no other flower.”

She picked up the pace, eager to show it to him. “Hurry, Duncan MacLeod,” she said. “We must be there before the light passes.”

He laughed and walked faster. He wanted to take her hand and run together like happy children, but he knew that in Tibet men
and women did not touch casually in public. All he could do was stay by her side, delighting in each moment. Somehow that
was enough. In her company, Duncan felt as if the weight of his years vanished and his heart was freer than it had been for
a century gone.

Up in the Potala, the monk Gaikho reported Duncan’s absence to the Dalai Lama. The spiritual leader nodded and dismissed him.
He suspected whom Duncan had gone to see, and he approved; it would be a good match—for both of them.

The Dalai Lama took a deep breath, folded his hands in a pattern of serenity, and closed his eyes. He chose no direction for
his meditation, but let his thoughts overlap like gentle waves upon a shore. Soon, it was as if he floated in a golden ocean
of bliss, where all striving had ceased, all hopes had been realized, all was peace.

Here was the gateway of Nirvana. On one side, only a breath away, was the final state of liberation he would enter only after
his work upon this earth was done and all beings had attained Enlightenment. On the other side was
samsara
, the cycles of birth, death, and rebirth he willed to enter again and again.

But here was timelessness. Here was clear and perfect thought, perfect truth, perfect compassion. It was here he came to refresh
his mind and see how best to guide his people—all his people; he counted Duncan MacLeod among them.

He knew it was difficult for a man of MacLeod’s nature to spend his days in inactivity, no matter how important the lessons
or whom the teacher. The restlessness was there in the constant shifting of his eyes, in fingers that were never quite still,
even when he was deep in thought. The strength of MacLeod’s aura filled whatever room he occupied like the radiant energy
of the noontime sun.

It was a good aura, of a man who strove to do what was right,
what was best, but it was not the aura of a man at peace, either with himself or the world around him. The Dalai Lama knew
the Eightfold Path was the way to that peace. He knew it through the centuries of his own experience.

In the quiet of his mind, the Dalai Lama smiled, knowing that to Duncan MacLeod he appeared only as a young man of twenty-three.
But how else could it be? What could a man of the West, whose culture was blind to the truth of reincarnation, know about
immortality?

MacLeod and Xiao-nan wandered together into the hills. With each passing moment he found himself more charmed by her. She
was like candlelight in a darkened room, warm and soft and golden.

She led him to where the blue orchid grew and, as she promised, it was the most exquisite flower MacLeod had ever seen. By
comparison, his memories of the gardens of Europe, with their mazes and topiaries—even the roses of France and England and
the heather-covered hills of his native Scotland—seemed overblown.

The ground was spongy and damp, so Duncan spread out his heavy coat and they sat on it, surrounded by the heady fragrance
of the orchids and listening to the woodland symphony of breeze and birdsong. Xiao-nan laughed when Duncan wove a chain from
some of the flowers and placed it on her head, but he could only think how even these orchids paled by comparison to the beauty
of her eyes. Dark as a moonless night, they hinted at mysteries a man could gladly spend his lifetime trying to understand—even
an Immortal.

“How old are you, Xiao-nan?” he asked her suddenly.

“I am nineteen,” she replied, giving him a sidelong smile that nearly made his breath catch in his throat.

“Nineteen,” he repeated softly with a hint of wonder in his voice. He was two centuries and she not yet two decades. He knew
that nineteen years was nothing, the slightest wink of time, but Xiao-nan seemed timeless, ageless, a creature of both youth
and eternity.

He knew, too, that in the life of mortality Xiao-nan lived nineteen was the age and past when young women thought to marry.
He had to know if she was free.

“Is there some young man in your life, Xiao-nan?” he asked. “Should I stay away?”

She turned and looked him full in the face, saying nothing for a long moment as her eyes stared deeply into his own. Duncan
wanted to curse himself for being three kinds of a fool. He should have gone more slowly, felt his way through their conversation
more gently—but somehow he thought Xiao-nan would want nothing less than honesty from him.

She was still looking at him in silence. As with the Dalai Lama, Xiao-nan seemed to possess the same ability to reach deep
into Duncan’s soul with her eyes. Whatever she saw pleased her, for a slow smile lightened her features.

“There is no one else, Duncan MacLeod,” she answered his honesty with her own. “None has brought light to my heart—until now.”

Duncan reached out and drew a finger gently down the softness of her cheek. For this culture, it was a boldly intimate move
to make when they had known each other so short a time, but Xiao-nan made no move to shift away. She seemed, rather, to welcome
his touch.

Slowly, giving her time to turn her head or in any way indicate his kiss was unwanted, Duncan leaned forward. She made no
move, but waited in perfect stillness until his lips brushed hers. The touch was brief, the softest of kisses, and yet in
that instant Duncan was filled with the urge to protect her, to keep her forever safe from anything that might rob Xiao-nan
of joy or peace.

Yet even as he thought it, another voice nagged inside his mind.
And what of your Immortality?
it whispered.
Do you dare hope for her love once she knows the truth?

Duncan had no answer; he did not want an answer yet. He wanted this day free of anything but Xiao-nan’s smile. He stood and
held out his hand to her. When she took it and rose to her feet, it was only to flow against him, graceful as a cat, warm
and soft as living water. Once more he kissed her, and she returned it without fear or hesitation.

She kept her eyes open as they kissed and MacLeod felt that if he could look into them long enough, he would find the answers
wise men had sought throughout the ages. Perhaps here, at last, was the woman to whom he could truly open his heart.

* * *

Hunger drew them back to the city. Duncan would have left Xiao-nan at her door and gone back to the Potala to find a meal,
but she insisted he come inside with her.

“My parents will be honored by your presence,” she told him. “Please, Duncan MacLeod.”

How could anyone tell her no, he wondered, knowing he could not. He went with her into the little yellow house that was her
home. Both her parents came to greet them, their kind words of welcome quickly setting to rest any uncertainties Duncan had
about how they would respond to the stranger who had spent all morning with the daughter.

The house, though small by Western standards, was elegant and furnished with the deceptive simplicity of the oriental mind.
Duncan saw a single flower floating in a crystal bowl that was somehow more lovely than a full vase would have been. There
was a sculptured screen inlaid with ivory and placed where the soft light of the window would sweep across it to highlight
the carving of cranes in flight. The house smelled of ginger and jasmine.

Duncan was taken through to the courtyard out back, where the garden was just beginning to bloom. Stone benches had been set
beside a small fountain. Water trickled slowly over stone in the sound of serenity, to gather in a pool where white water
lilies blossomed.