by Brian Godawa
He washed, and dressed in robes provided by their host. It felt strange at first, but it began to grow on him.
He was brought to the palace gardens where Mei Li, his escort, awaited him. She bowed. “Good morning, General Antiochus.”
She was no longer dressed as a servant. She was lovely in a red satin robe, her hair partly lying on her shoulders and partly pinned up into the headdress. She still averted her gaze from him. The morning sun shone on her like a goddess in the garden.
The lone figure of Wu Shu stood behind her, dressed in full armor and weapons. He stared forward emotionless, uninvolved, ever vigilant.
Antiochus said in his stunted Ch’inese, “Our guest for today?”
Mei Li bowed. “I have known Wu Shu for many years. He is very capable as bodyguard.”
Antiochus said, “From what I have seen of his skill, he is all we need.”
Wu Shu remained still and staring as a stone statue.
Antiochus’ attention was drawn from Wu Shu to the wondrous display of plants and other foliage that rose around him like a jungle. Everywhere, green, with explosions of flowers of every color. All arranged in a geometric labyrinth for strolling. He thought, Is this what the hanging gardens of Babylon may have looked like?
It was truly a garden of the gods, and he saw stone and wooden images on the grounds to verify that thought. Ancestral deities of different names than their western counterparts, but no doubt similar in ultimate identity.
She said, “Our first trip will be a boat ride on the River Wei.”
They boarded an imperial junk ship with Wu Shu and floated downriver to the east.
Antiochus looked upon the Imperial City receding in the background. His mind returned to Babylon on the river Euphrates. For the first time in all these months he felt homesick.
He said to her, “In the west, if a concubine or wife approached the king’s throne as you did last night, without being summoned, it could result in death.”
“It is the same in this kingdom.”
“Why then did the emperor not execute you? Is it not an excuse he would happily entertain?”
“Punishing me would bring him shame.”
They were approaching a new city being built just downriver.
Antiochus looked at her scar. “He did that to you.”
At that moment, It occurred to him that he might have overstepped his bounds, especially in earshot of the emperor's high guard, Wu Shu. Though staunchly disciplined, his obedience did not render him deaf.
Antiochus glanced at the quiet sentry, whose stoic glare was sullied by unmistakable sorrow. He must be emotionally attached to this concubine. Antiochus now knew something about the warrior that he hoped would prove useful.
Mei Li changed the subject. “This city we are approaching is called Xin Palace. The emperor is building replicas of all the conquered states along the Wei River. There are as many as three hundred in various stages of construction.”
Antiochus pulled Mei Li away from the ears of Wu Shu at the other end of the boat. He had decided to take a risk. “I want to tell you something.”
She listened intently. He said, “I too was rejected by my king.”
She looked confused. “What do you mean?”
“I am his bastard child with the only woman he ever loved. But she was forbidden. A slave.” He would not tell her from where. “So I was hidden from the king as a child. When I discovered who I really was, I determined to force the king to accept me as his own. I became a general in his army, and one day I sought to achieve distinction by disobeying his order. It resulted in the death of all my soldiers.”
She could see his eyes were filled with pain.
“But it did achieve my desired result. He discovered who I was.”
She understood now. And he could see that her eyes were wet with empathy. She said with resignation, “One must sacrifice power to achieve love.”
He said, “Or sacrifice love to achieve power. His generals would have mutinied if he did not execute me. But when your people kidnapped our magi, it gave the king an idea. He faked my execution and sent me here to negotiate release, establish diplomatic connection between our nations, and thereby redeem myself.”
He could not tell her the whole truth. The truth about his dragon quest.
She said, “What will he do when you return?”
“I do not know.”
She paused thoughtfully and said, “You have more in common with the emperor than you know.”
“What do you mean?”
She could not tell him without causing grave danger to them both. “That is for another time and place.”
The boat pulled over to a dock on the south bank of the river. Antiochus saw a huge mountain in the distance.
“That is Mount Li,” she said. “Follow me, I want to show you something.”
They walked their horses from the river down a worn road, followed by Wu Shu, who kept a distance.
Antiochus felt as if an angel walked beside him. She glided over the road like silk. She moved and spoke with elegance and grace.
They broke through into a large clearing and Antiochus stopped, his breath taken away by the sight before him.
A huge ziggurat rested in the valley of the foothills of Mount Li, its top reaching to the heavens.
Mei li said, “That is the tomb of the emperor. He began building it when he came into power. He will be buried in it when he dies.” She added with irony, “If he does not find the elixir.”
It must have been five hundred feet high, and over fifteen hundred feet square. An entire walled city of hundreds of thousands of builders and workers surrounded the cosmic mountain tomb. There were troops’ quarters for guarding the edifice, homes for laborers, and large brick-making pits, all within the several mile radius of the small tomb city.
“Magnificent,” gasped Antiochus. “It is a ziggurat. We have the exact same structure in Babylon.”
This looked just like Etemenanki with its step pyramid design. A long stairway led up to an altar on the top.
It all began to make sense to Antiochus. He remembered Balthazar’s explanation of the Ch’inese word for “tower.” It was a picture of the story of the Tower of Babel and the confusion of tongues and the separation of the nations. The Ch’inese must have returned to Babylon to retrieve the ancient wisdom of the tower that they thought the magi would help them find: the elixir of immortality. Ch’in Shih Huang Di had replicated the tower in some kind of desperate bid for eternal life. It was one massive display of hope against the impossible. But the words of Aeschylus the Greek poet echoed in Antiochus’ thoughts. “Once a man dies and the earth drinks up his blood, there is no resurrection.”
Why then, did her presence resuscitate his weary soul? Her beauty proved the existence of heaven to him, the existence of the divine. He had doubted the gods for so long, but now in this exotic world with this alien woman of such splendor, he felt a sense of transcendence growing in him.
He said to her, “In Babylon, the temple tower is used to worship the gods.”
“The emperor does so here as well.” She glanced behind them at Wu Shu. He was at a distance, but not far enough away. She leaned close to whisper to him, “But it was not always this way in our land.”
“What do you mean?” he whispered back.
She said, “When the emperor unified all under heaven, he changed many things. Some for the better. Some for the worse. He has unified all currencies in the kingdom, as well as weights and measures. He has unified the language as well. These are all good for trade and economy. He has constructed great canal projects for the conservation of water, and he is building a Long Wall in the north to keep out the barbarians. He has brought change with new ways.” She gave a nervous glance in Wu Shu’s direction. “But he has also brought new gods.”
“New gods?” he asked.
She said, “You must not tell the emperor where I am about to take you.”
• • • • •
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Balthazar entered the library of the Scholar’s Academy carrying a collection of papyrus and leather skin scrolls he had stowed in his luggage. He plopped them down upon a table. He knelt down with Melchior and Gaspar and began to open some of them. Chang examined a papyrus scroll with curiosity.
Gaspar was gleeful. “Thank the gods you brought your alchemy texts. Any astrological omina?” Omina were texts for interpreting omens.
Balthazar said, “I filled my compartment in the ship with as many as I could.”
“Wonderful!” Gaspar and Melchior went through them as well.
Chang could not get over the strange scroll in his hands. “What is this material?”
Gaspar said, “Papyrus. It originated in Egypt and is made from interlocking layers of a reed that grows in marshes.” He gestured the interlocking with his fingers.
Melchior mumbled, “Know it all.”
Chang said, “May I bring this to our chief magician Xu Fu to analyze? We have been working on something that will be lighter than bamboo that we might mass produce.”
Balthazar said, “Bring it to him. We will explain the process later.”
Chang left them alone, transfixed by the scroll material. He walked headlong into the door with a loud bump.
Gaspar chuckled.
Melchior muttered, “Do not be so pleased in the misfortune of others, brother.”
“Brother,” responded Gaspar, “you have no sense of humor.”
Melchior ignored him. “We have no sense of how to create the elixir of immortality. I know all our alchemist texts, Balthazar. We have nothing but failure in our attempt to transmute lead into gold. What can we possibly offer these scholars and magicians?”
“We are doubling their ignorance,” added Gaspar. “At least, I know Melchior is.”
Melchior gave him an angry look.
Balthazar looked about and whispered, “I brought the relics in the ship.”
Melchior and Gaspar were not sure what they just heard. Gaspar was the first to respond. “You what?”
“Clear out your ears,” said Melchior. He leaned in to Balthazar and hissed, “Balthazar, you jeopardize our holy calling.”
Balthazar sat stone-faced. “The magi have watched over the relics for centuries.”
Now Gaspar leaned in to their tight circle of whispering. “You could have buried them.”
Balthazar said, “If we never returned, they would be lost forever.”
Melchior said, “If they find out, they will kill us and they will be lost forever.”
Balthazar said, “That is why we must continue to fulfill our duty of guardianship. We must keep them from getting into the wrong hands.”
Gaspar said, “There are a lot of wrong hands around here. That may be more difficult than you had planned.”
CHAPTER 17
Antiochus watched Mei Li from a distance as she spoke with Wu Shu privately. He could see the stone-faced guardian listening. When she finished, he looked troubled to Antiochus. But after his hesitation, he bowed to the concubine, mounted his horse and left them.
As she returned to Antiochus, she said, “Wu Shu will wait at the boat for us.”
There was only one way she could possibly get the guard dog of the emperor to engage in such a violation of his clear duty to shadow them. “He is in love with you,” said Antiochus.
She said nothing. He helped her up on her horse, and mounted his own. But before they moved on, she said sadly, “Wu Shu was an orphan who became a eunuch warrior in the Ch’in elite guard. It was there I met him.”
Eunuchs were castrated servants of royalty. It was the only way they could be completely trusted around the palace, and in their death defying missions for the emperor. Without the hope of love, such men became beasts of war. But in Wu Shu’s case, some of that humanity remained hidden beneath his soulless eyes of devotion.
She said to him, “Follow me.”
They galloped down the path through the woods.
As much as he appreciated the beauty of the scenery around him, the winding, flowing river, the lush green forest, the lofty mountains, none of it was as lovely or as lofty as this exquisite woman riding beside him at this moment. Her hair flowed like a river of silk. Even her riding posture seemed to defy gravity. Now that he was alone with her, he felt himself rising with desire.
They took a path off the main road that led them to a large walled complex about a half mile square. There were no inhabitants, the gates were wide open. Untended vines climbed the walls.
They entered the gate and Antiochus saw a huge field with a ceremonial layout of structures. It was all overrun by weeds and vines from apparent years of disuse. They got off their horses.
Antiochus saw various buildings at the perimeter, but the grounds were open fields more than anything. It felt like sacred space. In the center of the square rose a circular wall surrounding a circular mound of ascending platforms, four of them, that rose fifty feet into the air. It was some kind of ceremonial amphitheater. It gave Antiochus an ethereal feeling of spirituality as the standing stones cast long, ghostly shadows in the setting sun.
He said, “What is this place?”
She answered, “An Altar of Heaven. It is a place of sacrifice to Shang Di.”
“Who is Shang Di?”
“He is the one true god. My people worshipped him for thousands of years, since primeval days.”
“Apparently, not anymore,” he said, noting the unkempt overgrown foliage all around.
She stared off into the distance. “In the time of the warring states, every province had its own altar complex. The king of each state was considered a Son of Heaven who carried the Mandate from Heaven. Once a year, he would perform a ‘Border Sacrifice,’ on behalf of his people. Sheep and goats were offered up as blood atonement for the people. The largest Altar of Heaven is in Yanjing up north, built by the Zhou dynasty.”
She had slipped into a nostalgic mood, staring out as she recounted with loving memory. “The king would purify himself as high priest of Shang Di. He would fast for three days and wash his body clean. Sacrificial animals, usually a goat or lamb, spotless and without blemish, would be drawn from the pens over there.” She pointed to a corner of the complex where fences now stood broken and scattered.
She waved at the large circular altar in the center. “That was where the king would sacrifice to heaven—to Shang Di, God most high. All the other gods and spirits would worship him as well.”
Antiochus looked around. “I see no images of Shang Di.”
“Shang Di is spirit. Images are forbidden.”
Antiochus was struck with curiosity. “One true God, no images. There is only one other deity I have ever heard of like that. The god of the Hebrews in Judea. They call him Yahweh.”
She repeated the name, “Yahweh.”
Every other religion across the face of the earth had images of their gods. Zeus in Greece, Isis and Osiris in Egypt, Ahura Mazda in Persia, Shiva, Vishnu and Shakti in India. It was an odd coincidence that these two religions alone forbade images. Was there some connection between them?
“What happened, Mei Li?”
“When the emperor came to power, he abolished the worship of Shang Di. He replaced our ancient tradition with new gods, the inferior gods. He persecuted the old priesthood. The priests of Shang Di, seventy in all, ten from each kingdom, fled for their lives into hiding. If the emperor finds them, he will kill them all.”
“Why did he do this?”
Mei Li did not answer immediately. Antiochus could tell she was deciding whether she would tell him or not.
She finally looked straight at him and said, “The emperor is ruled by the Dragon.”
Antiochus’ mouth went dry. He had sought to keep his true motives for being here a secret. He had kept his eyes open and his ears alert. This was the first reference he had heard the entire time he had been here. He tried to sound more curious than desperate.
He said simply, “Dragon?”
Mei Li said, “The Dragon helped him to subdue the warring states of the six other kingdoms under his own power. Now, he is the Dragon’s slave.”
Something in Antiochus let go. This woman, this beautiful, mysterious vision had captured his heart. He could not hide from her anymore. He had to risk all. He had to trust her with his life.
“Mei Li, that is the true reason I am here. To capture a dragon and bring it back to my king.”
She looked at him with shock. Then she looked away. “I am afraid you do not know the power of the Dragon.”
“Then help me.”
She stood for a long moment considering his words. Then she said simply, “Maybe we can help each other.”
She looked into his eyes for the longest moment, and he could no longer control himself. He moved toward her.
He could see her trembling.
He kissed her.
She responded with the desperation of forbidden desire.
But then, just as suddenly, she withdrew from him and turned away.
He pleaded with her, “Have I shamed you?”
“No. It is I who am shameful.”
“Nonsense.”
“I do not want your pity.”
“Mei Li.”
She said nothing.
“Look at me,” he begged.
Slowly, she turned her head, trying to keep the scarred left side of her face away from him.
He reached out and tenderly straightened her face toward him. Her scar was in full view.
He said, “Better a diamond with a flaw than a stone without.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. She assumed he had learned Confucian sayings from Chang. He would not reveal to her that it was from his mother.
She retorted, “Honeyed words and flattering looks seldom speak of love.”
He would not back down. “Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart.”