49

Zhu tentatively stretches out his hand, which is thickly wrapped in heavy woolen gloves. He brings his fingertips up to the rock face…and they pass right through.

"There's nothing here!" he exclaims. "It's—it's some kind of illusion."

A fine corona of pale blue light encircles his fingers, then his hand, then his wrist as he pushes his hand farther and farther through the nonexistent rock.

Excitement rising, you put your head through the false wall. The illusion parts around you. Inside you see a narrow passage, just wide enough for two people to walk abreast and about ten feet high, that curves to the north a short way ahead. The rock of the walls and ceiling are threaded with veins of vivid, glowing blue that cast bright illumination along the length of the tunnel.

The stone also radiates heat. Inside the tunnel, your head is warmer than it's been since you left India. The entire tunnel is humming with unseen energy.

"You have to see this!" you shout back to Zhu.

"What have you found?" he asks as you step fully through into the passageway.

There's only one response you can give: "Shambala."

Next

It is hot inside the tunnel, so hot that you and Zhu have to remove your coats and put them in your packs before you can proceed. You're still sweating when you're done.

"What's powering this?" Zhu asks, gazing at the veins of glowing blue in the walls. "The light? The heat?"

You do not reply, because you cannot. Truly, this is a place of wonder.

"Let's explore," you say, as if Zhu needs any encouragement. Excitement mounting, you and Zhu stride deeper and deeper into the tunnel.

The tunnel bends north and then continues up to an archway. Through the arch, you can see a wide expanse of space: a broad cavern, its walls and floor shining radiant blue. Lying at the end of the tunnel, by the entrance to the cavern, is a small, shrunken human form.

You approach. The body is a wrinkled male corpse, its desiccated, shriveled flesh clinging tightly to the bones, a still-vivid orange robe wrapped around its shrunken frame. The body is seated in a lotus position. A few strands of long gray hair still poke out of the shriveled scalp; the sunken eyes stare glassily and sightlessly up at you.

You've seen bodies like this before in museums: ancient bog bodies from Ireland or Egyptian mummies with their wrappings removed. This is a mummified human corpse.

"It must be him," whispers Zhu. "Look, he's wearing the robes of a Tibetan Buddhist sage! It is Yeshe Tsultrim Rinpoche, the holy man from the story of the Shambala Stone