by Joanne Pence
“Like the one in the courtyard?” Jianjun asked.
“Exactly.”
Jianjun took a deep breath. “Demons are something I grew up hearing about in old Chinese tales. They love to kill and maim, but they aren’t real. They’re like ‘boogeymen’ in the West. Just a myth.”
Michael never tried to convince Jianjun of anything. He always hoped Jianjun-the-practical was right, and Michael-the-intuitive wasn’t. So far, he was, unfortunately, batting a thousand. “Enough about demons and foxes and me. I noticed the way you look at Kira.”
Jianjun’s head snapped towards him. “Am I that obvious?”
Michael grinned.
Jianjun’s mouth wrinkled. “She’s smart and beautiful,” he said. “But I know that even if I were single, someone like her would never be interested in someone like me.”
“Why not? There’s nothing wrong with you.”
“Nothing a few more pounds of muscles, several inches of height, hair that behaves, and a handsome face wouldn’t cure.”
Michael shook his head. “You’re too hard on yourself. You look fine. Do you want to talk about it?”
“What can I say? I’m married. End of story.”
“Right. You don’t want that kind of complexity in your life.”
Jianjun caught his eye, then smiled. “Like hell, I don’t.”
The next morning, Jianjun and Kira left the apartment to buy supplies and warm clothes for their trip to Central Asia. The first stop Jianjun made, however, was at a store that sold switchblades. He wanted to be prepared in case any more aggressive foxes showed up to attack Kira.
At the same time, Michael went to visit a woman named Renata Corbi at her home just outside of Florence along the Arno River. She was a small woman, in her mid-forties, with short, curly brown hair, and narrow black-frame glasses over dark brown eyes.
Michael had met her a few months earlier, and she gave the clear impression she would welcome more contact. She was an ethnographer, a cultural anthropologist who relied on up-close, personal experiences. Her primary area of study was the population from the eastern edge of the Pamir Mountains in what is now Uzbekistan, to the Taklamakan Desert in the western Chinese province of Xinjiang—a region that caused her to learn quite a bit about Marco Polo’s travels. After preliminary pleasantries and discussions, Michael asked if she knew any Nestorian monasteries along the Old Silk Road. He explained that a priest, now dead, claimed to have a pearl that Marco Polo stole from such a place.
“Marco, his father and uncle brought many jewels with them when they returned home from China,” Renata said. “In fact, one of the stories Marco told was that they sewed the most valuable jewels into the lining of their coats.”
“This gem is red, and most likely not a pearl at all. I suspect it’s a philosopher’s stone—assuming there are such things as philosopher’s stones, that is,” Michael quickly added.
“Well, we know there are no such things,” Renata said, her dark eyes curious as she studied him. “I’ve never heard of a red pearl stolen by Marco Polo, but there is a famous Chinese tale about one.”
“Oh? What story is that?”
“The Chinese call it Fengshen Yanyi, usually translated as Investiture of the Gods, or Creation of the Gods which isn’t as accurate but used since many people don’t know what ‘investiture’ means. Have you ever heard of it?”
“I’ve heard the name,” Michael said. “But I don’t know the story.”
“It was written down during the Ming dynasty, in the 1500s, but it is much, much older than that, perhaps from the Shang dynasty, and tells stories about gods, demons, and kings, with a lot of sex thrown in. It’s very famous in China, but not in the West, and is a horrible story filled with the most awful torture and mutilations.”
“As would be typical of a story about demons,” Michael said with a grimace, remembering his eerie encounter.
“Well, anyway, it’s not important,” Renata said, opening a map of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan. “Let me tell you about the Nestorian monasteries along the Old Silk Road. We have records of where some once were, but not a single one remains.”
When Michael left Renata’s home, he once again felt he was being watched. He steeled himself for another demonic attack. The only thing keeping him alive, he suspected, was not revealing the pearl’s location. He also remembered that the demon kept asking him to give it the pearl.
To get the pearl to the Nestorian monastery, he needed to disguise it to keep it safe from demons and also from thieves who swarmed out-of-the-way parts of Central Asia. He expected any surviving Nestorian monastery would be far from civilization. As he rode back to his apartment, a way to do it struck. Father Berosus had warned him, and he learned for himself, that demons were quite good at getting into his head. He needed to be sure not to think about the hiding place he would use to carry the pearl to Central Asia.
But trying not to think about something was the surest way to think about it. He concentrated on his purchases, not thinking of why he was buying them, and then headed for his safe deposit box.
Since the demon posing as Irina had become infuriated over his simple “Our Father” in Latin, he decided to use a longer prayer he had once memorized, one that would require even more concentration on his part. Gloria in excelsius Deo should cause any demon to flee in terror.
As with Pater noster, he had learned the prayer years ago, not because he was Catholic—he wasn’t—but because Latin, classical Greek, and Syriac were important in his archeological work. As a student he would go to a Tridentine Latin mass or to older liturgies in a Greek Orthodox or Eastern Rite church to hear a spoken version of a language he was studying.
He had been raised without God and had turned his back on religion except for his language interests. But then, other-worldly things happened in his life, things that caused him to question all that was around him. Now, since coming to Florence, he found himself spending a fair amount of time in churches. He wasn’t sure what that was all about, but he particularly enjoyed attending the Tridentine mass with its candles, incense, and bells. Many of the Latin prayers and songs he had learned as a student came back to him.
Now, alone in a bank cubicle, he opened the bronze and lifted out the pearl, softly murmuring the Gloria. He worked to concentrate hard on the Latin words, but the allure of the pearl, the power it would give him, rushed through him. He could practically feel a long line of ancestors whispering to him to keep the pearl for himself. To use it himself. He fought their call, concentrating ever harder on the prayer …
If only I used the pearl as it was meant to be used …
“Laudámus te,”
I might find Irina, I might get her back …
“Benedícimus te,”
I would have more power than imaginable in the modern world ...
“Adorámus te,”
The power of the alchemist.
“Glorificámus te …”
He concentrated hard on the rest of the prayer as he wrapped the pearl into a soft cloth, returned the bronze to the safe deposit box, and went home. Fortunately, Jianjun and Kira were still out, giving him time to hide the pearl so it could safely travel with him to Central Asia.
But simply knowing it was near gave him a strange, overpowering joy.
Chapter 31
“Since I’m here,” Kira said later that evening in Michael’s apartment, “I'd like to see the red pearl. I’m sure Jianjun would as well.”
“Actually,” Jianjun said. “You’re wrong. I don’t want to have anything to do with it.”
Kira’s words not only surprised Michael, but ratcheted up his suspicions about her. Why, he wondered, had the fox singled her out for the attack? Did it have something to do with her father, since a demon—he suspected—was the cause of his death? Were they now after Kira as well, or was she somehow connected to them because she carried her father’s genes? Was the attraction she held over Jianjun natural or demonic? “Until we fin
d out more about the pearl and what it does, that's not a good idea.”
“Is it in the apartment?” she asked.
“Let’s just say it’s safely hidden.”
“Where? Shouldn’t Jianjun and I also know? Don’t we need a back-up plan, just in case?”
His eyes narrowed. “I don’t think that’s wise.”
“But I—”
“How about I make some coffee?” Jianjun jumped to his feet. “Who’d like some? Michael? Kira?”
Both nodded.
Kira glared at Jianjun and Michael both. “So much for the pearl. All right, if you don’t trust me. Can we discuss our trip or is that also on a need-to-know?”
Jianjun looked ready to crawl into the coffee press.
“We’ll talk about whatever you’d like,” Michael said.
She looked from one to the other. “Let’s start with the Old Silk Road? What do we expect there?”
“Frankly,” he began, “I was disappointed in it after the way I’d romanticized it. In Central Asia, it was more of a network than a single road, and most of it has vanished. In China, government agents make it difficult to correctly follow Marco Polo’s footsteps, although they do have routes they’ve set up to make money from Western tourists. Then, Shang-du, poetically known as Xanadu, has all but vanished in what’s now Inner Mongolia. It’s been leveled to almost nothing.”
“That’s terrible,” Kira said. “In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree… And that’s as much as I know.”
“Where Alph, the sacred river, ran through caverns measureless to man down to a sunless sea.” Michael concluded Coleridge’s opening lines.
Kira nodded. “Very nice. What a pity Xanadu is no more.”
“I agree,” Michael said, remembering one of the disappointments of his early archeological studies. “We have very little remaining from that period. Even the burial sites of Genghis and Kublai Khan are lost. After the thousands, if not millions of people Genghis Khan killed, his family feared his grave would be desecrated, so they kept it a secret. The slaves who helped build his tomb were all killed to assure its location remained secret. Kublai Khan supposedly was buried near his grandfather. Over time, people no longer know where the graves are.”
“Amazing.”
“It’s one of the biggest archeological mysteries,” Michael added “In 2003, some Japanese archeologists announced they had found the sites, and were promptly chased off the land, fearful for their lives. The Mongolian people consider digging up a grave a desecration, and they revere Genghis Khan, no matter what the West thinks of him.”
“But he was a butcher.”
“Genghis Khan conquered the known world from the Pacific to the edge of Europe. When his grandson, Kublai, took the throne, he didn’t allow his subjects to wage war against each other. When skirmishes broke out, they were quickly and mercilessly put down. They called it the Pax Mongolica, the Mongolian Peace. A common saying at the time was that a maiden bearing a nugget of gold on her head could wander safely throughout the realm. Trade flourished between the East and West using the Silk Road as the heart of the commerce. Genghis Khan may have created the largest contiguous empire ever known—second only in scope to the far flung British empire.”
“It’s interesting,” Jianjun said, bring them coffee, “that although many people traveled back and forth between China and Europe, including Chinese people, Marco Polo is the one everyone knows.”
“The way it happened is actually kind of funny,” Michael said. “After Polo returned to Venice, he got caught up in a war between Venice and Genoa, and was imprisoned. His cellmate was Luigi Rustichello, an author of ‘romances.’ As Polo relayed tales of his travels, Luigi wrote them down in French, the most widely used language at the time. They became The Travels of Marco Polo. But since Rustichello was known as a fiction writer, Polo’s travels were looked upon as fiction. To make matters worse, since there were no printing presses yet, as scribes copied the words, some added their own embellishments, some left parts of the original out, and others made up their own stories and threw them in.
“As a result, Polo was tarnished with the name, il milioni, because the Venetians believed that he had told a million lies. On his deathbed, when pressed to admit that his travels were a lie, he said, ‘I have not told the half of what I saw and did.’”
“Poor Marco,” Kira said. “To have done all that, and not be believed.”
“We now have Chinese records from the time,” Michael said, “that tell of Europeans who meet the description of Marco, his father, and uncle in the court of Kublai Khan.”
Kira nodded. “I’m glad to hear that. It would be a shame if all the stories children are told of Marco Polo are false.”
“That’s what I enjoy most about archeology,” Michael admitted. “It gives the true picture of life at the time, not what some historian tells you about it.”
“Is there anything in Polo’s Travels about such a pearl?”
“Not that I recall.”
“What if everything that the old priest told you is a lie?” Kira asked.
“Then we have nothing,” Michael said. “But consider … what if it’s true?”
Kira looked from Michael to Jianjun. “What do you have to say?”
“Nothing! I can’t take all this history when I’m starving,” Jianjun announced. “It gives me a headache! I told Kira about my favorite soup in Florence, ribollita—twice-cooked. Let’s go eat some, and then decide what we do next.”
The other two concurred.
Chapter 32
Anyang, China 1122 B.C.
The Grand Duke of the West returned to his palace and once there bided his time. Outwardly, he showed allegiance to the king and queen because Zhou Xin and Daji not only controlled a vast army, but they also had spies throughout the land, many of whom had been willing recruits because of their own avarice and sexual proclivities.
Slowly, the desire for rebellion swept over the land. For years, noblemen felt a duty to remain true to the king, but as the cruelty of Daji continued, the feeling dissipated. Peasants who had been taught obedience above everything else, also turned against the royal couple. Quietly, the Grand Duke of the West amassed enough supporters and power to declare war.
The warring states continued for many years and caused vast amounts of blood to be shed before the uprising succeeded. With the overthrow of Zhou Xin and Daji, the Shang dynasty came to an end. The people so hated King Zhou Xin that, to ensure no one with his blood remained alive, they slaughtered all his relatives up to seven times removed from him.
The victorious leaders of the war established the Chou dynasty which ruled China for eight-hundred years.
After the king and queen were put to death, the Goddess Nüwa called the Thousand-Year Vixen, the Nine-Headed Pheasant, and the Jade Pipa to stand before her. “You have disobeyed my orders.”
“I believe we obeyed them with great zeal,” protested the Vixen who had been Daji. “We destroyed not only Zhou Xin, but his dynasty, and all his relatives. His name will be forever reviled”—she bowed low—“as you commanded.”
“I told you to harm no one else, and you did nothing but harm others!” Nüwa shrieked. “I am also disgusted with the men around you who allowed such vile terror for the sake of their own filthy lust and power.”
“Yes!” the Vixen shouted. “It was their fault. And they have been punished for it.”
“Quiet, demon!” Nüwa stormed back and forth before the three demons who quaked with fear at the goddess’s wrath. “The people have destroyed your earthly bodies, and now your demonic spirits will be placed in this stone.” She held up a small red pearl-shaped pebble. “Whoever owns it will have power over you. And when the stone is in a special rare earth, you will feel as if the soil is smothering you, and you will gasp for breath only to have dirt fill your demonic mouths causing the terror of believing each moment may be your last.
“If, by chance, you break free of this priso
n, then mankind is yours, for I will do nothing more to help them, or to stop you.”
With that, Nüwa commanded the demons into the pearl, and placed the pearl in a small bronze vessel. She then returned to earth and gave the vessel to the new king of the Chou dynasty, commanding him to cast it far from his people in a land not yet named, a land north of the Gobi desert, where only nomads roamed, and where a rare and wondrous soil would entrap the demons.
Many of the brave victims who had been killed by King Zhou Xin and Daji, as well as the heroic warriors who had died during the years of battle, were invested as gods in Heaven. And they were remembered and honored from that time forward by everyone from the highest nobleman to the lowliest peasant.
Chapter 33
News of the death, called a “possible murder-suicide” of Jonathan Vogel, hedge fund CEO, his wife, and a son who was being groomed to take over the business, flashed across the news wires the next morning. Michael, Jianjun, and Kira scoured the Internet for details.
“It isn’t stopping, is it?” Dejection filled Kira as she sat at the table with her morning cappuccino and a croissant.
“Let’s just hope, whatever it is,” Jianjun said, “doesn’t follow us to the Silk Road.”
Michael’s phone rang. His friend, Charlotte Reed, was calling from Salmon, Idaho.
“Your story about the strange pearl of Marco Polo made me curious,” Charlotte said, not bothering with pleasantries. “I’ve done some research and even contacted a few old friends from my university days. It’s fascinating! There actually are legends about a red pearl. Most people, of course, don’t believe any of them, but I’ll leave it up to you to decide.”
Michael put his phone on speaker so the others could hear what she had to report and quickly introduced her to Kira.
“More history,” Jianjun grumbled to Kira, standing close. She jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow.