Esoteric Crimes

Prologue Summer 1989 Border between Nepal and People’s Republic of China When the Sherpa reached the umpteenth suspension bridge, they explained, in broken English, to the two women that have hired them in Kathmandu that they would never go beyond that point. They were not allowed to challenge their deities; they were too afraid. None of them has ever ventured beyond that bridge. Those, who in the past have dared to do so, never returned. If the women wanted to continue, they would have to do that at their own risk and peril. They would leave them the bare essentials to carry in their backpacks, some food, some chocolate bars, a camping stove, and the light two-seater igloo tent. They would wait for them for three days, and no more. The day was clear and, the rarefied air of almost four thousand meters of altitude gave the sky an intense blue color. The tops of the highest mountains on Earth challenged, with their snowy peaks, that same blue sky. Aurora and Larìs pulled out the warm Goretex windbreakers, which until then have protected them from the sudden blizzards, that they often have faced during the previous five days. Their purpose was certainly not to experience the thrill of an extreme vacation but to reach the Temple of Knowledge and Regeneration and to meet the Grand Patriarch. They would draw on the universal knowledge preserved in the temple and thus become members of the highest level of the sect. They already knew that from that point on, they would have to proceed alone, relying on their intuition and their powers. If they failed, if they went the wrong way, it would be impossible for them to save themselves. They would only find death in those mountains. Aurora paid the agreed-upon to the Sherpa chief, telling him that if he wanted, he could leave immediately. But the man with the Asian features, who held the reins of a lama, shook his head and repeated: «Three days.» He warmed a strong tea for the two women and dismissed them, waving them goodbye. The old woman and her young friend hoisted their backpacks and ventured onto the bridge, suspended over an abyss of at least eight hundred meters high.