The Dragon King

by Brian Godawa

  She replied tearfully, “And I, you.”

  He finally released her, kissed her on her forehead and looked over at her company.

  She said, “Antiochus, this is Li Bu Hai, the high priest of Shang Di. Father, this is the man who rescued me and brought me here.”

  Antiochus gave a proper respectful bow with cupped hands. Li Bu Hai returned the gesture, then looked him up and down. “A foreigner?”

  “Less than it may seem,” replied Antiochus. “I am from Seleucia in the distant west. The land of Babel.”

  He knew that word “Babel” would say more to Li Bu Hai than anything he could express. The look of surprise on the high priest’s face confirmed it.

  Li Bu Hai asked, “How is it less than it may seem?”

  Mei Li jumped in, “I once heard a wise man say that the blood of Babel runs in all men’s hearts.” She paused thoughtfully. “And it is the spirit that unites us.”

  Antiochus looked curiously at her. She agreed with Balthazar.

  Li Bu Hai raised his brow at his daughter and said, “Indeed.” He turned back to Antiochus. “I thank you for your kindness, your courage.” He looked impishly at Mei Li, “and your spirit, as my daughter so dutifully reminds me.” He turned and waved over one of his soldiers, a quiet middle-aged man with a long beard, intense eyes, and a brace on his right leg, an obvious war wound. “This is my general, Fan Zhou.” Antiochus was impressed the man could rise to such leadership after such a wounding. “Please, will you join us on the roof of the tower?”

  The five of them arrived on the roof. The archers left them alone. Antiochus could see the rebel camp before him. In the distance a few miles away, the light of fires flickered in Meng Tian’s camp.

  Li Bu Hai sighed as he too looked out upon the impossible odds before them.

  He said, “Antiochus, I am afraid you have joined a cause you may soon regret.”

  Antiochus took the satchel from off his back and offered it to Li Bu Hai. “My magi told me this could be of use to you. It was taken from the people of Jacob, those chosen by Shang Di as his allotted inheritance at the Great Dispersion.”

  The high priest accepted the satchel as if it were a holy gift. Perhaps it is holy, thought Antiochus.

  He unwrapped it to reveal the simple staff.

  Antiochus explained, “It was the magical staff of their high priesthood. It was used to bring plagues against their enemies and other sorcery.”

  Li Bu Hai asked, “How does it work?”

  “I am afraid I do not know.”

  Li Bu Hai handled the staff as a weapon. He looked closely at it. He pointed it at the wall as if to cast a spell. Nothing happened. He stretched it out like a talisman to the sky. Nothing happened again. He performed a battle form with it. He spun, twisted, twirled the staff in various positions of defense and attack. Nothing. It was a bit amusing. He looked like a sorcerer wielding a magical staff without any power.

  Antiochus said, “My magi could never seem to get it to work either.”

  Li Bu Hai said wistfully, “A powerless talisman. I am afraid your efforts were wasted.” He glanced at his silent general, a man of few words. He remembered something and asked Antiochus. “You say you have magi?”

  “Yes.”

  Chang spoke up. “Your highness.” He bowed. “My name is Chang Shen. I am from the emperor’s academy of scholars. The foreign magi were commanded to help the royal magicians to seek the elixir of immortality for the emperor.”

  The high priest asked, “Have they succeeded?”

  “No. Some have secretly worked against the emperor, so he is about to kill them all.”

  Li Bu Hai looked to Mei Li, “What of the Dragon?”

  Mei Li looked away. She did not want to answer. “We have reason to believe that the Dragon is coming to aid Meng Tian’s army against the rebellion.”

  Fan Zhou finally spoke. “So that is why they delay. They want more than a strategic defeat, they want an epic slaughter.”

  “Legendary,” added Li Bu Hai. He stood silent for an uncomfortably long pause.

  Then he said, “There is only one way to stop the Dragon.”

  Mei Li looked with knowing surprise at her father. “The Border Sacrifice?”

  Antiochus remembered what she had told him about the Border Sacrifice, and how the priesthood of Shang Di had been abolished when the emperor came to power. It was precisely why the priests were currently exiled and hiding out in this tower on the Long Wall. The Dragon’s rise to power was dependent upon the demise of Shang Di’s authority over the people.

  Li Bu Hai said to Antiochus, “The original Altar of Heaven is in Yanjing, just seventy miles south of here. If we can get to that altar and perform the Border Sacrifice, it will restore the priesthood of Shang Di and crush the power of the Dragon.”

  Their plans were interrupted by the sound of very deep and long horns from the direction of Meng Tian’s camp.

  OOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM.

  Antiochus said, “What is that?”

  Chang answered him, “Our downfall.”

  OOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM.

  Li Bu Hai explained, “It is the call of the Juren beyond the wall.”

  Antiochus listened.

  OOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM.

  He said, “But I thought the giants were part of the barbarian forces of chaos against the emperor.”

  Chang said, “The Juren are spawn of the Dragon. The Fallen Ones. The Dragon has arrived, and he is calling forth his offspring to serve him.”

  OOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM.

  They turned their attention from the enemy camp on their side of the Long Wall, to the dark forest on the other side. Antiochus walked over to the ledge to peer out into the black for a sign of anything. It was frighteningly still.

  A chilling roar suddenly echoed from deep in the forest. Antiochus had never heard a creature that sounded this menacing; bear, lion, or tiger. This one sounded like a bellowing demon of hell.

  They watched trees in the distance shake. Large trees, a hundred feet high. It must have been some kind of tactic they used to instill fear in their victims before a battle.

  Fan Zhou said somberly, “They are coming.”

  “We are surrounded,” Li Bu Hai said. “The emperor’s army before us and the Juren at our backs. The wall will not hold them for long. Fan Zhou, take over the command of our forces. We need to leave for the Altar of Heaven immediately.”

  Three chariots were armed to carry the high priest and his guardians. Chang mounted the chariot that carried Antiochus and Mei Li. Another held Li Bu Hai and two other priests. One of them carried a goat, chosen for the sacrifice. A third chariot was handled by three ex-imperial guards, the best of warriors.

  Antiochus asked Chang, “Did you send the carrier pigeons to the Academy?”

  Chang said, “Yes. I told Xu Fu everything. I don’t know what good it will do them.”

  Mei Li said, “They need only hold off long enough for us to get to the Altar of Heaven.”

  Li Bu Hai heard them. “If we maintain a fast pace,” he said, “we should be there by morning.”

  “You had better be right, priest,” said Antiochus, “or everything is lost.”

  Li Bu Hai shook his head. “Everything is already lost. Our only hope is to trust in Shang Di for a miracle.”

  CHAPTER 27

  All hundred scholars stood with glaring eyes at the three magi inside their alchemy lab. They looked ready to tear the foreigners apart.

  Balthazar gulped. Melchior looked around in vain for a way to escape. Gaspar crinkled his face, as the familiar yet repugnant stench entered their nostrils from his gastrointestinal release. It often happened when he was fearful. Melchior gave his brother a disappointed look. Gaspar shrugged.

  Xu Fu stood before them, holding in his hand the golden jar that Balthazar had been hiding.

  “You have been withholding alchemy from us, Balthazar.”

  Balthazar said, “It is a sacred relic of our people.”
<
br />   Melchior threw in, “We have guarded it for decades.”

  Gaspar muttered, “Centuries, Melchior, not decades.”

  Melchior hissed back, “I meant us, nitwit, not the magi order.”

  “Enough!” yelled Xu Fu. “What is it?”

  The magi looked at one another. Should they tell him? Should they jeopardize their sacred duty?

  Balthazar spoke up. “A thousand years ago, the creator Yahweh, or as you call him, Shang Di, rescued a people from slavery in Egypt. He chose them as his own, and brought them to a new land for their inheritance. But before they could enter their promised land, they spent forty years in the desert wilderness.”

  He paused. Looked at the two others. Should he go further?

  Melchior jumped in. They were in this together. “Shang Di provided his people with bread from heaven in the desert. Inside the jar is a piece of that bread.”

  Xu Fu was confused while looking at the sealed jar. “A thousand years ago?” He knew it would be dust by now.

  Gaspar spilled the final secret. “It never rots.”

  Complete silence filled the room.

  Xu Fu said with shaking voice, “You say it never rots?”

  Gaspar repeated, “It never rots.”

  Xu Fu’s eyes went wide, staring at the golden cup. He said, “If a person were to eat this bread, he would gain immortality?”

  Melchior waved more of the gaseous smell away from his nose. Gaspar shook with fear.

  Balthazar begged, “Xu Fu, please….”

  Xu Fu wasn’t listening to him. He said, “There would be no end to his reign of power under heaven.”

  Balthazar swallowed hard. “No end to the evil all the world would suffer.”

  Xu Fu looked up at him and said, “The emperor must not eat this bread.”

  Those with him stood quietly in approval.

  The three magi slowly realized that Xu Fu and the entire Academy of Scholars were now with them.

  They looked at one another with a grin.

  Xu Fu said, “You must get this manna as far away from here as possible.”

  Gaspar’s smile broke. “But how? The door is guarded outside by a squad of soldiers who could kill us all with ease.”

  Xu Fu said slyly, “The front door is not the only way out. The furnaces have ventilation holes in the back that lead outside the city walls.”

  “The furnaces will burn us up like kindling,” said Balthazar.

  “Yes,” smiled Xu Fu. “But you forget. We are alchemists. And in an alchemy lab we discover many things accidentally. Such as the fireproof fabric we use to protect ourselves while using the furnace. Chin!”

  The crowd of scholars stepped aside and Chin approached them, dressed in a complete body suit of stiff puffy fabric that made him look like a silly human mitt or a gigantic child’s play doll.

  Xu Fu said, “Confucius said ‘Everything has beauty. But not everyone sees it.’”

  Balthazar said grinning, “Until there is a need.”

  • • • • •

  A group of inconspicuous sailors boarded a small merchant junk ship at the port of Xianyang on the Wei River. It was the magi and their disguised helpers. They had climbed through the furnace and out of the city walls.

  Xu Fu whispered to his three hooded passengers, “I will take you to the Islands of the Immortals. It is the safest place to keep the bread of heaven away from the emperor.”

  “How so?” asked Balthazar from under his hood.

  Xu Fu didn’t answer him. He was busy untying ropes and preparing the sails with his crew. He was busy ignoring the question.

  Balthazar repeated himself, “Xu Fu, how is it the islands are the safest place?”

  Xu Fu knew he could not keep it from them for long. “It is guarded by a sea monster.”

  Melchior said stupefied, “A sea monster?”

  Gaspar said, “Would not a warship be better?”

  Melchior quipped, “I suppose you’ll also complain about the food on board.”

  “Now that you bring it up,” said Gaspar, “where is the food?”

  Balthazar had no time for their squabbling. “Xu Fu, if these islands are guarded by a sea monster, how is it that we will get by?”

  Xu Fu said, “What other choice do we have?” He whispered some commands to his crew, as they finished their preparations for departure.

  The magi could conjure no other option.

  Xu Fu then said, “We have one trick up our magician’s sleeve. Diversion.”

  “Diversion?” repeated Gaspar.

  “When the emperor discovers we are gone, he will pursue us with his warship. A warship is a much larger vessel than our tiny junk. More threatening to the watchful eyes of a guardian. Such imposing presence will surely draw the attention of the sea monster—away from us and toward him.”

  “That is your plan?” gasped Balthazar. “Let them catch up to us and pray that the sea monster notices them first?”

  Xu Fu nodded.

  “Then Shang Di help us.”

  They pushed off silently into the moonlit night with Xu Fu at the rudder.

  CHAPTER 28

  The three chariots raced eastward along the wall before they turned south toward Yanjing, where the Altar of Heaven resided. They were four-horsed chariots, made of lightweight wood with two large, spoked wheels that moved speedily across the terrain.

  Chang snapped the reins. Antiochus yelled to Mei Li over the din, “What if this Shang Di is not real?”

  Mei Li replied disappointed, “You have seen the power of supernatural evil, yet you question a supernatural God?”

  She’s right, he thought. How I hate to admit she is right. I cannot tell which is more distracting, her beauty or my own inability to see the world around me.

  He didn’t see the rope strung across their road. Hung between two trees at just their chest height, it blended in with the surroundings.

  Antiochus and Mei Li were yanked hard off the chariot to the ground. The rope sagged lower from the impact. They caught their breaths and rolled away just in time to avoid the second chariot behind them hitting the rope.

  The horses struck it full on. Their combined weight snapped the rope. The steeds plunged headlong into the dirt. The chariot flipped over them. Its priestly occupants were thrown into the air as if from a catapult.

  Unlike Antiochus and Mei Li, Chang had seen the rope and ducked. He managed to stop the chariot not far ahead of the crashed chariot.

  The third chariot, carrying the warriors, was able to stop. The armed soldiers got off safely.

  Two assassins dressed in dark cloaks jumped out from the bushes.

  Antiochus called out to Mei Li, “Are you okay?”

  “Yes,” she coughed. She was on the other side of the broken chariot. The priests had tumbled into the dirt ahead of them. She cried out, “Father!”

  “Stay put!” yelled Antiochus and pulled out his sword. “Guards, protect the priests!”

  The guards circled around to face one of the assassins approaching them, a woman with two small swords.

  The other assassin approached Antiochus.

  It was Wu Shu. He wielded a guan dao, a large blade affixed at the end of a pole like a glaive. It could cut a man in half. He spun it nimbly in his hands as if it was a six foot extension of his arm.

  Antiochus engaged with the mighty warrior. He called upon all his years of training and experience as he swung his sword with lethal precision and force.

  Wu Shu blocked every strike with ease. His returns were much harder for Antiochus to block and dodge. One swipe cut through his robe and drew blood. He was not at the same level as this warrior. He felt instantly that this fight would not last long. He drew his dagger as a secondary weapon in blocking the slashing blade of his enemy.

  He saw out of the corner of his eye that the woman assassin took down the three soldiers in quick succession. She would be at the priests any moment.

  Wu Shu’s twirling glaive caught A
ntiochus’ sword and cast it out of his hand into the darkness. Antiochus stumbled on a tree root and fell to his back on the ground.

  Instantly, Wu Shu was upon him with guan dao poised to cut him through. Time slowed down for Antiochus. In a moment he would be dead.

  Unexpectedly, Wu Shu froze with a grunt. A javelin pierced him from behind through his side. He dropped to his knees.

  Mei Li released the javelin, horrified by what she had just done.

  Wu Shu still gripped his blade.

  Antiochus yelled, “Mei Li! Run!”

  But she didn’t run. She pulled the javelin out from the warrior’s side. He grunted painfully again. She moved around him to face him. Her hands trembled, pointing the weapon at their nemesis.

  Wu Shu stared at her, perplexed.

  Mei Li gazed into his eyes and for a second his bewilderment vanished. His blade dropped to the ground. A mere look from this woman finished him off. He fell face first into the dirt.

  Antiochus got up and pulled Mei Li toward the priests.

  The female assassin killed one of the holy men with her swords. Antiochus had to get to them quickly or they would all be dead.

  Chang crouched by the overturned chariot.

  As the pair passed him, he grabbed Mei Li and pulled her away from Antiochus.

  He put a dagger to her throat.

  Antiochus stopped dead in his tracks.

  The assassin killed the second of the priests.

  Li Bu Hai sat on the ground against a tree. Her next target.

  Chang had betrayed them. He must have used the birds to inform Wu Shu of their plans. He had been helping the emperor to find the priests of Shang Di all along. He wasn’t captured at the temple of Babylon, he was planted there.

  Antiochus was stuck in a fraction of time between two options. Save the high priest or his daughter. All his mind was pulled to Li Bu Hai, all his heart to Mei Li.

  Mei Li blurted out, “You must save my father!”

  Of course. The high priest must survive for the Border Sacrifice to work. To crush the power of the Dragon. To stop the madness of the emperor. To save the world.

  Two options. One choice. No good outcome.