The Temple

The Temple: Chapter 4

He had to understand it, to know what it all meant. He quickly took out his small notebook and biro and drew the creature that was infesting the cranium of another. He was not a great draughtsman, but he had a good enough likeness to ask questions about if and when he returned to civilisation. There was no surface to rest the book on so he had to crease the page open in order to free a hand to control the pen.

Hoefflin's situation recapitulated through his mind trying to figure out the best path forward; he was in the centre of the building of a strange eastern sect's primary religious temple. A cult which centred around a secret history he prayed wasn't true. A bloodthirsty group who had already demonstrated that they were capable of violent acts and seemed to have murderous intentions against him. For whatever reason they had not followed him into the actual altar, but he was still surrounded and outnumbered a thousand to one. It was only a matter of time before he was found and they did god knows what to him. His best bet was to try to exit back into the crowd and sneak out the back way, perhaps he could find another rock to hide behind to wait until nightfall. Either way he couldn't stand to be in this place with its unnatural grotesqueries made of gold and looming out of the skull of another.

He started the clockwise trek back up the spiral corridor, past the prayer-wheels and toward the natural sunlight.

As he got to the top it became clear that no escape would be possible; the hoard of pilgrims all stood in terrible silence, watching him with blank-faced fury, at the door. A thousand blood-laced eyes aimed at him. A million grasping filthy hands gripping round every limb and tugging him forward to face his judgement.

The crowd parted to allow who Hoefflin took for the high priest of the cult to approach. He had on his crown a large yellow stone looped into his matted hair, and he looked at Hoefflin with unrestrained rage.

Hoefflin shook in fear under the gaze.

The priest uttered some throaty phrases to Hoefflin and then to his captors. The captors nodded in solemn agreement and they frogmarched Hoefflin towards the gates of the outer courtyard.

The crowds billowed around them as they went.

The three monks dragged Hoefflin to the foot of the mountain. They barked some orders at him that he understood to mean start the ascent, so he did.

A sort of total quiet descended over the mountainside as he climbed, the only noise was the icey wind. Hoefflin all the time peered left and right looking for some kind of escape to suggest itself. He considered making a blind dash upwards but thought that these monks seemed leaner and more agile than the first he had outrun on the mountain's peak.

Higher and higher they climbed until they got to a rocky mini-plateau where the monks stopped and ordered Hoefflin to do the same. The plateau was around three by six metres and had on it a dark smear of dried blood, and several chunks of what was suspiciously like human bone.

The monks seemed to content themselves looking skyward as if waiting for something, and Hoefflin realised that if ever he had a chance to make a dash for it, then this was it. He took a few tentative steps round a rock and then went for it.

Three steps of a run he had made before he was surprised by the figure of a vulture landing directly in front of him. Hoefflin skidded to a halt just as a rough hand clamped down over his shoulder. One of the monks had got out a yak-bone knife, curved for disembowelling corpses for the birds. And Hoefflin understood what they meant to do; feed him alive to those graceless monsters just as their compatriots had done to the Han girl not fifty minutes earlier.

Hoefflin closed his eyes and braced for the impact of the blunt looking blade, but the impact never came. He opened his eyes; the monks were backing away from something as if frightened. At first Hoefflin was in terror too as to what foul creature could be behind him, frightening away these blood-thirsty psychotics, but then he realised their fear was directed at the ground near his feet.

He looked down and saw his notebook.

It had fallen open on the page he had drawn the image of the Immortal Soul. He bent down and picked it up. The monks all averted their eyes in terror. Maybe terror but more likely religious taboo. Hoefflin held it out in front of him like a crucifix at a vampire. The snarling monks looked at the ground but tried to close in on him.

“Hey, not too close!” Hoefflin angled the picture so it was difficult for them not to see it without turning away and as soon as they did so, that was when he made a bolt for it.

Hoefflin half ran half fell down the mountainside, scrabbling over scree and sand and finally reaching the disused factory.

“Hey!” he heard a voice, “Hey!” not an English voice, but a voice calling out in English.

Hoefflin turned to see a young Tibetan man on a motorcycle.

“Hey, it's not safe round here. What are you doing here?” The Tibetan asked Hoefflin.

“My train, I was on a train to Tibet and I got off and it left...” Hoefflin explained breathlessly.

“Oh my God. Ok, if we are fast we can get you to the next stop before it leaves... it always stays there for at least a few hours to load up on supplies.”

“Thank god. Thank you. You've no idea what I’ve been through!” Hoefflin could have kissed

the man.

“Don't worry, it's over now.” The man smiled as he offered the back seat of his bike up to Hoefflin.