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them.
    Now outside the crown of peaks, the team had ventured to a region completely foreign to de Lis’ cartograph. De Lis was certain that this was not a short cut. If anything, it was a reason to fire this guide and hire another.
    The group walked on hesitantly, evidenced by de Lis’ repeated attempts to find this location on his holobook. In his frustration, he handed the device to Valagua, telling him to
    “stow it.”
    They wound through another dry riverbed, which soon descended a sharp twentyfive degrees. At the foot of the incline, Shajda took a simple, carved path, whose traffic pattern couldn’t have been more than perhaps one person per month, but used consistently over the centuries.
    A rock face loomed ahead, beckoning them to its solid wall. Shajda walked further, giving pause to de Lis and the others, all of whom rightfully pondered where he was going; the path seemingly ended there. Sensing the group’s pause, he gestured them forward without a single turn of his head.
    De Lis again acquiesced. Shajda waited for them to catch up, then started his trek once more. The path brushed against the foot of the mountain, curving round it as the trail started another ascent.
    Tall pines and other indigenous trees formed a dark curtain around the path ahead, bringing to Gilmour a strange sense of awe. He had not noticed any of these trees in their long journey here, none especially within the confines of the mountainous crown mapped for them. Warm tingles pricked his nerves once the path had become one with the treeline. It was indeed a mysterious, if not intriguing, sensation to have.
    Their very perception of time slowed as they traversed the spiral pathway up the mountain, so much so that not even de Lis felt compelled to complain about the tremendous waste of usable sunlight this journey was.
    None of that was a concern now. A calm breeze overtook the five, washing away their desperation, pacifying the mission. Gilmour’s eyes met Mason’s, both realizing the effect the woods had on their mindset. Neither could remember quite why they had been rushed to this land. All was so...quiet.
    The path opened into a clearing, spotted with small, decorative scrub grass. Beyond that, to the group’s astonishment, was a temple situated deep within the mountainside, shaded in darkness and ringed by strings of multicolored prayer flags. Shajda halted at the temple’s gate, allowing the five to drink in the beautiful mountain garden that had suddenly appeared, its spectral blooms and sweet scents surprisingly complimenting the flapping flags above and the wafting incense below. Ornamental wood carvings and metertall monoliths of various religious and mythological motifs were patterned and grafted onto the temple itself and spread throughout the angled grounds, lending a divine aura to the already rarefied atmosphere.
    With trepidation, the two agents stepped up to the main gate. This was holy ground, and both felt uneasy—as Westerners—to even be setting foot on its soil. Waters and Valagua appeared equally uncertain, while de Lis was deeply entranced studying a particular wooden beam near him. Shajda patiently waited for whomever was expecting him. At least Gilmour hoped he was expected; with the lack of civilization in this region, they were bound for a long wait if Shajda was not.
    Moments passed before a Buddhist monk, his head clean shaven and his body draped by the traditionally simple, but bright, robes of the monastery, crossed over to the group from a narrower path behind the temple. Shajda immediately spoke to the dark man in a mellifluous tongue. The monk nodded his head enthusiastically, heartening the two agents, and most likely de Lis, also.
    Maybe this Sherpa wasn’t such a bad guide after all. If these monks had any clues to the origins of the crash and its contents, including the bizarre stone Mason had discovered, then that was one advantage the group had over the Confederation. And seeing as how