by Alex Archer
"Before he was known as Sha Wu Ying, he was called Tochardis."
"Was either his real name?" Annja asked.
"No."
"Is he still alive?"
"I don't know."
"Was he dead somewhere in the middle of that?"
Roux thought for a moment. "I suppose so."
Annja couldn't believe it. "You suppose so? How can you suppose someone was dead?"
A few of the nearby patrons glanced in their direction. A mother with two small children got up from the table next to them and wandered out into the main hallway.
Scowling, Roux turned his attention back to his sandwich. "Maybe we could be a little more circumspect."
"Being a little more circumspect isn't going to fly. I need to know more of what you know."
"If I tell you too much, I ruin the chances of you reaching important conclusions all on your own."
"I'm willing to risk it. Did Tochardis rise from the grave?"
"From everything I've been able to learn, yes. Of course, he could have faked his own death. I've had to a number of times over the years. I've lived an extended life, but it's never been without risk. You wouldn't believe the number of times I woke with someone poised over me prepared to drive a stake through my heart."
"Why?"
"They believed that I was a vampire."
"Vampires aren't real."
"Neither are men who live hundreds of years." Roux grinned. "You'd be surprised to know what is real, my dear girl."
"Was Tochardis immortal? Or long-lived?"
"By your standards?" Roux waved his sauce-drenched fork aimlessly. "Yes. Of course he was."
"How long?"
Roux shook his head. "I don't know."
"Who was Tochardis?"
"In reality? I don't know. Maybe it would surprise you to learn this, Annja, but there's still a great deal I don't know. That's what keeps my life interesting after all these years."
The knowledge that there was a lot Roux didn't know was vaguely unsettling to Annja. She pushed the trepidation from her mind and concentrated on her line of thought. "Who was Tochardis to the Scythians?"
"A great warrior. One of their leaders."
"I don't recall the name in any of the studies I've done."
Roux smiled. "Men who live unnaturally long lives, I've found in my own experience, tend not to want to draw attention to that fact if they can help it. Tochardis worked in the – "
"Shadows," Annja said as she thought of the shadow that mirrored the great tiger on the belt plaque.
"Exactly. You're very good at what you do, you know."
Annja didn't know whether Roux was pleased about that, or worried. She wanted him to be worried, but she was surprised at how much she wanted him to be pleased, as well.
"Why didn't Tochardis stay with the Scythians?"
"He couldn't hold the Scythians together. They were, by nature, a group of wandering tribes. They built a few cities. One of the largest was Gelonus, the remains of which were identified by Boris Shramko."
"That's in the Ukraine."
"Yes. That was found in the last few years. There's still so much of the past that yet remains undiscovered," Roux said.
Annja was surprised at the wistful note in Roux's voice. She focused on the task at hand. They were due to begin boarding before long.
"When did Tochardis become Sha Wu Ying?"
Roux finished his sandwich and blotted his mouth. "Your guess about that would be as good as mine. Sometime after Tochardis was killed, Sha Wu Ying appeared on the scene."
"Why would he reinvent himself and ally with the Chinese?"
"Not the Chinese. To the Qin Dynasty. Remember, when Qin first came to power, there were only the Seven Warring States. I suspect what drew Tochardis to Qin was the potential for the new country Qin was assembling. What did Qin do?"
Annja only had to think about that briefly. "He conquered and united the seven countries – "
"Providing the potential for the largest army the world had ever seen."
"He declared a standard written language – "
"Providing for an ease of communications over long distances."
"Started building the Great Wall of China to keep out northern invaders and brigands – "
"Providing for stability and solidifying a base of operations. Not to mention cutting Tochardis off from any reprisal that might be forthcoming from the Scythians for taking whatever treasures he might have absconded with."
"Controlled the silk industry and – to a degree – the spice trade along the Silk Road – "
"Providing – "
"A large and stable economic base." Annja saw where Roux was headed with his thinking.
Roux beamed like a teacher pleased with a prized student. "Exactly. The way Tochardis would have looked at it, allying himself with Emperor Qin would have been the best thing he could have done at the time. By becoming the emperor's premier assassin, he was only a heartbeat away from world conquest."
Annja knew. China had been poised to extend its reach at that time. "Except that Emperor Qin was ultimately betrayed by other men who wanted the same power he had."
"Dissatisfaction among the ranks of intelligent men trusted with their leader's greatest secrets is probably the biggest risk any dictator faces," Roux stated.
Annja arched an eyebrow. "Is that little tidbit from personal experience?"
Roux leaned back in his chair. "I have never sought control over the lives of others. Ruling kingdoms – especially with the great, unwashed masses involved – is too hard and is often its own punishment for lofty thoughts of grandeur."
Maybe those are the words you're saying today, but was it always that way? Annja wondered. "What happened to Sha Wu Ying and what did you find out from the back of the belt plaque?"
At that moment, the airline announced the boarding call for their flight.
Roux stood. "Let's go. I've got to get a few things." He was in motion before Annja could grab her backpack.
Hurrying to catch up, Annja couldn't believe it when Roux entered a bookstore and chose four paperbacks from the popular fiction racks. He turned to her. "Did you want anything?"
"No."
"Are you certain? It's a long flight."
Annja knew it was a long flight. It was time that Garin Braden would be getting ahead of them. "I'm certain."
The older woman at the checkout desk rang up Roux's purchases. Annja stood at his side, irritated that he still hadn't revealed to her what he knew.
When she was finished with his credit card, the woman handed it back and smiled at Roux, then at Annja. "You have a beautiful granddaughter, Mr. Loftus."
An unexpected warmth gushed through Annja. She smiled back at the woman.
Roux signed the credit slip and slid it back to the woman. "Oh, she's not my granddaughter." He didn't bother to explain the situation any further.
The checkout clerk's smile froze on her face as she surmised what Annja's relationship with Roux might truly be.
Annja's short-lived feel-good melted. Roux was smirking at her from the doorway.
"I'm his caregiver," she said to the woman.
The clerk looked at the credit card slip.
"No. He's still legal to manage his finances." Annja lowered her voice. "It's his physical needs I have to attend to. But rehab will only go so far when you're dealing with old age. Once the bladder starts to go, not much can be done. Do you know if they sell Depends in the terminal?"
Roux scowled and left the bookshop while the clerk told Annja she wasn't certain.
Annja caught up to Roux outside the bookshop. The boarding call for their flight echoed through the cavernous tunnel again.
Roux spoke without looking at her. "That was ludicrous. I'll have you know that my bladder is in fine shape." He sounded properly peeved.
Annja felt somewhat mollified because Roux was vain enough to be vulnerable.
"You'll wear the weak bladder stigma eve
ry time you assign me to the role of potential golddigger. It's bad enough people think that all on their own without you encouraging it."
"Point taken," Roux said.
"Now, what happened to Sha Wu Ying?"
"He died."
"How?" Annja asked.
"He was assassinated."
"I thought he was the assassin."
"There's always more than one assassin, Annja. Some families take up the trade. Look at the Medici of Florence. Some of those family members even had their own specially blended poisons made. Designer poisons." Roux smiled.
They joined the line of boarding passengers.
"Who had Sha Wu Ying assassinated?"
One of the waiting passengers looked at Annja.
"Perhaps, Professor Creed, we could continue this conversation on the plane. There's no reason to bore others with our thoughts on that paper." Roux's voice carried easily. He smiled and gave his papers to the waiting attendant, who hesitated, then relaxed and smiled back.
Annja did the same, then they stepped into the tunnel that would take them to the plane.
Chapter 27
Annja stowed her backpack in the overhead compartment above her first-class seat. Then she sat down next to Roux. The old man read the backs of the novels he'd purchased, then put three of them away. From what Annja could see, Roux's tastes included fantasy, science fiction, Western, and thriller. None of it was especially mind-expanding.
After buckling into the seat, Annja turned to him. "Now you're going to tell me."
Roux sighed and spoke in Latin.
Annja made the transition effortlessly.
Roux asked her for a picture of the back of the belt plaque and she retrieved it from her bag.
When he had the image in his hands, Roux scanned it before he spoke. "The inscription on the back is a code."
"How do you know that?"
"What else could it be?"
"A family history. Just like it reads."
"But it's not. It's a trifle complicated, and you were hampered by being unable to read Chinese. Mandarin, actually."
Annja blew out a breath of frustration. "The man I had translate it said it was Cantonese."
"You had someone translate this?" Roux frowned.
"Yes. I'd just seen Huangfu Cao gun down three men in cold blood. I was more than a little motivated to investigate."
"Did that man know what this pertained to?"
"No. He only knew part of the history. The belt plaque was rumored to be cursed."
"Knowing what I know about it, I have no doubt that it is."
"Maybe you could share."
"The inscription is in Cantonese. However, the code is written in Mandarin."
"It should be in Classical Chinese. That's the language Emperor Qin shifted everyone to when he conquered the Seven Warring States," Annja said.
"Yes. I have to admit, that confused me for a while, as well. I didn't see the message hidden within the other message." Roux shrugged. "But I think deviousness comes more effortlessly to me than to you." He touched a series of lines in the lower corner. "This is the key. It says, 'Even before the ashes in the burning pit became cold, riots had begun in Shandong. It turned out that Liu Bang and Xiang Yu were both uneducated.'" He paused. "I don't know what that means."
The inscription teased Annja's tired mind. Just when she was about to give up on identifying the reference, it suddenly came to her. "That's a poem."
Roux looked askance at the Chinese characters. "If you insist."
"It is. Let me get my computer and I'll look up the file." Annja started to release her seat belt.
Roux gripped her arm. "You're going to have to wait."
Only then did Annja realize the plane was in motion. She vaguely remembered the quick, professional pre-flight intro. She closed her eyes and thought back, managing to place the words on the computer screen in a mental image.
"It was written by a poet from the Tang Dynasty. Zhang Jie, I think. Something like that."
Roux shook his head and smiled. "I don't see how you can remember things like that."
"Because I've trained myself to." Whenever working on a project, Annja built a mental timeline for it and constantly added facts to it, shoehorning them in. She'd always had a near-photographic memory and hadn't had to study much to get through college.
"You said that poem is the key. The key to what?" Annja asked.
"To the characters in the inscription to pay attention to. When you have your printout, I'll show you."
****
Only a few minutes later, the plane leveled off. Annja unsnapped the seat belt and retrieved her computer. Placing it across her knees, she opened it and powered it up. A few clicks later, she had the obverse image of the belt plaque on the screen.
"Here is the key." Roux indicated the four Chinese characters in the lower right corner.
Annja had assumed they were the name of the artist or the name of a family.
"Now look at the placement of the fish icons." Roux pointed to the fish symbols standing on end that Michelle and Harry Kim had pointed out.
"They overlap different characters. How do you know which one a fish is indicating?"
"It's a matter of trial and error." Roux flagged down a flight attendant and ordered a whiskey sour. "Much as you would do a cryptoquote. If one of the characters didn't make sense, I threw it out. That's what took me so long this morning. Would you like anything?"
"Water." Annja remembered the sheets of paper Roux had filled while she'd talked to Professor Hu. "There is a message in the code?"
"Of course there's a message. That's how codes work."
The drinks arrived. Annja opened the bottled water and drank. "What does the message say?"
Settling into his plush seat, Roux frowned at the small screen that had flipped down in front of him. The screen showed an in-flight commercial, offering a free television show immediately afterward.
"The belt plaque belonged to a man who betrayed Sha Wu Ying."
"How was Sha Wu Ying betrayed?"
"The man who owned that belt plaque was one of Sha Wu Ying's most trusted assassins. Before that, he was a monk who lived in disgrace."
Annja was intrigued. "What kind of monk?"
"They were from Chang'an. Have you heard of them?"
"Yes." Annja was somewhat familiar with the order from her martial arts classes. "The name means perpetual peace."
"I wouldn't know. I've never really fancied the history behind open-handed fighting. I've dabbled in it, of course. Anyone who's traveled as much as I have would be a fool not to."
Annja didn't bother to mention the health and mental benefits derived from martial arts. "Chang'an was located near Xi'an."
Roux smiled. "That explains it then."
"What?"
"Xi'an was the easternmost end of the Silk Road. During different periods, the Chinese emperors called upon the various monasteries to provide warriors to protect them or wage war on their enemies."
"Why was the monk disgraced?"
"His name was Wan Shichong. He made the mistake of falling in love with a nun. Knowing they would never be allowed to live together, they ran. Eventually they went to Loulan City. There Wan Shichong took up employment with Sha Wu Ying."
"As an assassin?"
"The young monk was trained in martial arts. It was probably a good fit. At that time, war was everywhere. Qin Shi Huang was forcibly uniting the Seven Warring States. Eventually, though, Wan Shichong was torn trying to serve two masters. He had sworn loyalty to Emperor Qin, but he'd also sworn loyalty to Sha Wu Ying."
"He had to betray one of them."
Roux nodded. "In the end, he chose to betray Sha Wu Ying."
"Why?"
"Because he believed that Qin was the future of China, and his wife was pregnant with their first child. By this time, he'd also come to suspect that Sha Wu Ying was also Tochardis."
"What led him to that conclusion?"
"Artifacts that Sha Wu Ying had that had once belonged to the Scythians. The belt plaque Sha Wu Ying had chosen as a standard was another."
"So he betrayed Sha Wu Ying?"
"Yes. Wan Shichong went to Emperor Qin's court physicians and got exposed to a plague victim. At the monastery, he'd been trained in medicines that would help him stave off death."
"Plague? As in bubonic?"
"Or measles or smallpox. All were quite deadly."
The thought of the monk deliberately exposing himself to such a sickness sent a cold chill through Annja. "That's insane."
"Sha Wu Ying was a feared man. Desperate times required desperate measures."
"Did it work?"
"When Wan Shichong was certain he was sick with the illness, he returned to the City of Thieves. That was the other name for the City of the Sands. He went among the assassins and spread the plague. Evidently it didn't take long to manifest. The sick thieves wandered out into the desert and were cut down by Emperor Qin's men."
"Wan Shichong led the emperor's men to Sha Wu Ying's refuge?"
"Yes."
"Then how was the location of the City of the Sands lost?"
"All of this took place while Emperor Qin was out taking the last tour of his country."
"Sha Wu Ying had succeeded in bribing one of the emperor's closest advisors into poisoning him."
"What about the warriors who went with Wan Shichong?"
"They contracted the disease. The ones who didn't die in the desert were killed as soon as they reached the Imperial City. None of them made it through the gates."
"That wasn't exactly the payoff they'd planned on."
"By that time, news of Emperor Qin's death had spread and the country was in turmoil."
"What happened to Sha Wu Ying?"
"According to the inscription, he died inside that underground city."
"Did Wan Shichong survive?"
"He did. But he carried the disease home with him. His wife died from it, but his daughter survived. He lived out the end of his days and never told anyone where the City of Thieves was."
"There was no map?"
Roux frowned at her. "Did you see a map?"
"No, but I thought – "
"There was no map. I decoded the secret message. I suggest you figure out a way to find that hidden city."
Irritation bubbled up inside Annja. "Actually, if you just want to keep hidden whatever Sha Wu Ying took all those years ago, not finding the City of the Sands would serve the same purpose."