When the Abbot spoke, his voice was thin and resigned.

'It is the end of our monastery. By nightfall I will be dead and our walls will lie shattered. A terrible evil is coming from the forest . . .'

A monastery in Tibet is overrun with Chinese soldiers searching for a sacred relic. The monks flee to seek refuge in hidden caves, but their progress is hampered by an injured stranger, whose presence threatens them all . . .

Journalist Nancy Kelly receives a parcel containing a mysterious trumpet made of bone, and hears an account of a Westerner penetrating into a hidden kingdom in Tibet, where orchids cover the earth, pagodas hug the hills and soaring cathedrals hide underground.

Soon she embarks on a dangerous journey into an ancient land of myth and legend, in search of a secret older than time itself . . .