83

"I know how stories like this end. Where's the catch?"

"Indeed. There is a serpent in every Eden, and it slithers toward us now. One of Yeshe's lord's rival princes coveted the stone, and sent an agent to steal it. But Yeshe interrupted the thief, and the holy man's wrath flared up in his heart. And, as if responding to his fury, the stone screamed, and turned a vivid, angry red, and the thief was consumed by inner flames, dying right there in agony, and the palace shook to its foundations.

"When Yeshe's lord heard of this, he realized that the stone took life as well as gave it, and that it could be a mighty weapon in his wars against his neighbors. So he went to Yeshe, and he asked him to go with his armies and use the stone to lay waste to his foes, but Yeshe was a man of peace, and he refused. And the lord begged, and implored, and offered briberies and enticements, and eventually, losing patience, he resorted to threats and shouted words.

"And once more Yeshe was filled with fury at this ingrate prince who would turn his healing power to such a use, and once again the stone shrieked and blazed and shook the town, and this time there was no stopping it. Within minutes every person in that town, man, woman, and child, lay dead, and their homes were nothing but heaps of ruins.

"Yeshe was heartbroken. He saw what the stone had roused in him, and what he had roused in it, and he knew that this thing could not be in the world of men. So he did the only thing he could think of. He took it back to its home, the hidden cave he had called Shambala all those years ago, leaving that shattered town with tears streaming from his eyes. And he went into the mountains with the Stone of Shambala in his hands, and he was never heard of again."

Zhu falls silent, waiting for your response.