The rendezvous had been arranged for the twentieth day of the third month. The notification arrived in the usual manner, a slip of thick cream paper with co-ordinates and a date inscribed in flowing black calligraphy. It was delivered by a girl child from the village, small and scruffy, crusted eyes fixed on the ragged nails of her blackened feet. I had accepted such messages before and knew there was no point questioning her. The children often ran errands for strangers passing through their village who had likely received the message from another stranger elsewhere on their travels. There was little enough point in the inquiry, I had no intention of ignoring the summons. All previous attempts at tracing such missives had resulted in little if any useful information, a trail long cold and, more often than not, a dead end.

The chapel that sits in the foothills of the mountains keeps a store of old books, salvaged from the fires that ravaged the area decades ago. Amongst their stash of mostly worthless texts they keep a large sheaf of maps covering the length of the Himalayas and the surrounding countries, from Pakistan in the west across to Bhutan in the east. A remarkable achievement covering the limits of knowledge for these people at that time. They are still a fantastic resource, especially in these days when travel has become difficult and accurate information hard to obtain. The co-ordinates given to me mapped to a small border town called Birgunj, often known as the gateway to Nepal. This meant a dangerous journey was required down from the mountains of China, across the border and down through Nepal, skirting Kathmandu on the way. Not a journey to be accomplished in the depths of winter when blizzard blankets of snow and ice frame the mountain passes.

My luck held. The message arrived in good time, no delays on this occasion. In the past missions have been almost ruined when the vagaries of roads and bandits have delayed messengers so long that the chosen date has passed before the intended received their summons. The journey too was accomplished swiftly, a lone traveller skilled in moving unobtrusively can manage to attract little attention. I had good fortune also, there were men on my trail at one point but they made the fatal mistake of forgetting to bury the remnants of their evening kill in the fire pit and the Ai-Nath, snow leopards, saw to the rest. I did not count the days but passed approximately two and a half cycles in the wilderness before reaching my destination. A bribe to the appropriate authorities allowed me to locate the co-ordinates I had been given more precisely - such information is closely guarded by government officials in these troubled times. Human nature, however, does not change, corruption is rife in lands which border the wilderness where lawlessness prevails. It was an easy matter to find an official with a high enough rank to have the appropriate access codes but of low enough rank to be appreciative of the extra credits. Of course I had to dispatch him after he had given me the requisite information, the risk of leaving a trail behind me was unconscionable.

When I discovered which of the buildings north of the town matched my co-ordinates I was forced to recheck, so great was my surprise. There was no mistake, I had been directed to the white monstrosity seated on the outskirts of the town where it could maintain its greedy stranglehold on the population. The Covenant Day Spa. Such places are forbidden to us as a rule, we avoid all contact with the Westerners and their sycophantic secularism. There is no place for secular thrill-seeking in this age. I reasoned that there was unlikely to have been a mistake in the instructions and steeling myself I made my way up to the false Greco-Roman facade. How pretentious to hanker after the decadent trappings of a world long gone.

The attendants inside the door were full of sneering snobbery, inquiring as to my business with barely disguised disgust. I merely folded my arms in silence and waited. Before long an attendant came scurrying from an upstairs chamber, there was some frantic whispering amongst the attendants and I was ushered up to a small anteroom. White towelling gowns hung on brass-plated hooks along one wall and the air was thick with cloying perfumes. A white-robed girl entered, indicating that I should remove my robes and lie on the padded table in the centre of the room. Seeing no reason not to, I complied and she retrieved a water stoop from the corner of the room. Blackened with age it took the form of a Chinese dragon, rearing its head to snarl though its breath contained only water, all fires long ago extinguished. She splashed a little water from the dragon's snout onto the reddened coals of an adjacent brazier. A hiss of steam flew up, filling the air with an almost identifiable scent that deadened the senses. I felt my wits receding from the body that lay slumped on the table and passed beyond rationality for a time into the stupor that my dulled mind recognised as the Hara-Bindai trance.

I woke some short time later to feel cool hands massaging some type of pungent mud into my body, working their way up along the muscular curve of my spine to pummel my knotted shoulders into submission. I felt the presence leaning forward, hot breath sending gently chiding whispers into my ear,

'Too many exertions on your journey. You should know to care for yourself better.'

Still light-headed from the trance I took a while to reply, choosing the code words carefully.

'The road has been long and weary but those who seek truth in the mountains must often journey far into the deeps.'

The formal responses are tiresome, arcane and easily decipherable to those with a modicum of intellect but they preserve the forms and the framework within which we live and so there is at least some benefit.

'We have a task for you. It is of the utmost importance. A chance to strike deep at the corruption of the great white Satan. A blow that will send reverberations around the world. The repercussions are potentially most favourable.'

'I do, as always, what is asked of me.'

'Your work is highly spoken of. You have been most efficient in the past. The target this time is rather more tricky than anything you have attempted before.'

'I strive to please.'

'As it should be. You will travel further west than you have thus far been required to go. The target will be attending a week long conference in Rome. It should provide an ideal opportunity. You are to travel west immediately, further instructions will be delivered en route in the usual fashion.'

'May I ask who the target is?'

She leaned forward even closer at that, skin to skin, to breathe into my ear words that stunned me almost into silence.

'I am honoured. The dictator himself. The United Western States will reel indeed. This could be the strike we have waited for to break apart their union.'

'The possibilities are promising. I can say no more. Now relax, we have half an hour remaining.'

I left a short time later, massaged and perfumed, muscles relaxed and revitalised, ready to re-provision and set off on the long journey east the following day. The long wait for a strike at the idle, immoral west finally over.

---

The bath attendants watched their strange visitor stride away down the hill wondering at the spring in her stride. A testament to the skills of their therapists they decided as they watched the heavy black robes dancing along in the breeze. They were able to follow her progress for miles along the valley, even as her figure disappeared into the distance the reflected sunlight was still visible from the heavy silver cross hanging from her slender neck.