by Steve Berry
The glistening stone portal stood three meters high, dark green and black veins glistening in his light. Each door was carved from a single slab of marble, the surfaces littered with symbols and a bronze clamp. The right door was cocked open, which allowed a passage through the center.
He hesitated and shone his light left and right. Slits in the passage walls, high, near the roofline, indicated where crossbows had once been placed to fire on any interloper. The premier had told him that the reports of booby traps in some of the historical accounts had proven true, though 2,200 years of aging had rendered them useless. The doors themselves had been barred from the outside, and he spotted a heavy timber that had once rested inside the bronze clamps.
Every schoolchild was taught of Qin Shi. He was the embodiment of China, the founder of the longest-enduring political system on earth. A conqueror, unifier, centralizer, standardizer, builder—the first in a long line of 210 men and one woman to occupy the Dragon Throne.
And this was his tomb.
He negotiated the opening between the doors and stepped into more blackness on the other side. He’d been told to look to his right. His light found the cable on the floor, which had also passed through the open doors, ending at a metal box.
He bent down and examined the exterior. Still in good condition. He grasped a lever, prepared himself, and rotated it downward.
Cassiopeia led the way as they turned another corner and negotiated a third set of right angles. She realized that there would be another twist coming to swing them back on a line toward the tomb mound. She estimated they’d traveled maybe two hundred meters, so they should be getting close to whatever lay at the end.
She couldn’t help but marvel at the engineering. Her own stonemasons, hired to reconstruct the castle that she’d been laboring to build for nearly a decade, had early on explained the difficulties. To build today exactly as they had in the 14th century, using 700-year-old tools and methods, was daunting. But the builders of this tunnel had not been nearly as fortunate. Their tools and technology didn’t even approximate the sophistication of the 14th century. Yet they’d managed to accomplish the task, and their resounding success made her even more committed to finishing her own restoration.
“We are near the end,” she heard Pau Wen say.
Surprisingly, the air was stale but not fetid. Apparently, ventilation had likewise been part of the builders’ plan.
She knew that being enclosed underground was not Malone’s idea of fun. But flying through the air, looping around in a plane or helicopter, was not her favorite, either. Nothing about their situation was good. They were relying on a man who was utterly untrustworthy, but they had little choice. She had to admit that she was excited about the possibility of entering the tomb. Never had she imagined such an opportunity would present itself. She felt better with the gun nestled at her waist and Cotton at her back, but remained apprehensive about what lay just beyond the beam of her flashlight.
They passed two more exits, both labeled with Chinese symbols. The passage right-angled ahead, just as she knew it would.
She stopped and turned.
Malone was a couple of meters behind her. She lowered her light, pointing the beam to the ground.
He did the same.
Then she noticed something.
“Cotton.”
She motioned with her light, and he turned.
Pau Wen was gone.
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Malone muttered.
“He must have slipped into one of the side passages along the way.”
She found her gun, as did Malone.
“Lead the way,” he said.
She approached the corner and carefully peered around. The tunnel extended another fifty meters, ending at what appeared to be a doorway. A thick slab of stone, cut into a near-perfect rectangle, filled the opening, one side cocked outward, as a door would be partially opened.
Light filled the space beyond, splashing back their way, into the darkened corridor.
“I didn’t expect that,” Malone whispered in her ear.
FIFTY-SIX
Tang surveyed the interior of the tumbled-down shanty into which Ni Yong had disappeared. Earlier, he’d watched on the closed-circuit monitor as Ni entered through the door, but now his nemesis was nowhere to be seen.
“He went out there,” Viktor said, pointing to the collapsed rear wall.
Two other men were with him, more brothers of the Ba, eunuchs like himself and the two he’d left in Pit 3, all pledged by oath to do as he commanded. More of his forethought, which he silently applauded himself for having, especially given the way things were progressing.
The rain had eased, though the moist air reeked. His gaze locked on the wall, wattled and plastered, broken in a gash that exposed the bamboo beneath. He stepped across the damp floor, past rusted implements and broken pottery, and fled the building.
The others followed.
Outside was thick with shadows, the ashen sky blocked by a canopy of wet limbs and leaves. The first violets of the season bloomed beneath the trees. The fence that encircled the site stood fifty meters away, intact. Ni could have scaled it, but where would he have gone?
A well caught his eye and he approached.
Not unusual. The whole area was dotted with them. In fact, the digging of one in 1974 had led to the discovery of the terra-cotta army. But an iron plate plugged the opening.
Where had Ni gone?
He glanced around at the wet terrain, thick with trees, toward where the mound began its rise upward.
Ni had come here for a reason.
He’d learned that the fence had been erected in the early 1990s, on orders from Beijing, and that the area had remained off limits. Why? No one knew. Viktor had reported that Pau Wen had told Malone and Vitt that he knew a way into Qin Shi’s tomb. Pau had then gone straight to the recently found imperial library and made good on his promise, locating two underground passages, one of which Vitt, Malone, and Pau had disappeared into.
“Minister,” Viktor said.
His mind snapped back to the moment.
Viktor pointed inside the well. “See the scarp marks on the side. They’re fresh. That plate was removed, then replaced.”
The observation was correct. The yellowish white lichen had clearly been disturbed. He ordered the two brothers to lift the plate away and the top of a wooden ladder came into view.
They’d driven over in a museum security vehicle. “See if the car carries any flashlights,” he ordered. One of the men ran off.
“Where does it go?” Viktor asked.
Tang knew. “Into the tomb. Where Ni Yong awaits.”
Malone approached the backlit doorway, staying to one side of the partially open portal while Cassiopeia stayed to the other. They’d switched off the flashlights and replaced them in their pockets. Both held their weapons.
He noticed L-shaped bronze clamps affixed to their side of the door, another to the left and right of the jamb. A thick cut of timber rested against the wall, standing upright. Easy to determine its use. Once it was dropped into the clamps, there would have been no way to open the door from the other side.
What had Pau read to them?
Concubines without sons were ordered to follow the emperor in death, and of the artisans and workers not one was allowed to emerge alive.
He peered around the edge into the lit space beyond.
The underground chamber stretched nearly the length of a football field. The rounded ceiling was thirty to forty feet high, held aloft by arches that stretched its width and columns that dotted the rectangular hall. Tripod lights had been placed every twenty feet or so on all four sides, casting upward a yellow-orange glow that illuminated what appeared to be a ceiling of crystals, pearls, and gems arranged as stars in a night sky. The floor was fashioned as a massive three-dimensional topographic map with rivers, lakes, oceans, mountains, valleys, temples, palaces, and towns.
“Holy crap,” Cassiope
ia muttered.
He agreed. Sima Qian’s account seemed relatively accurate.
The constellations of the heavens were reproduced above and the regions of the earth below.
He noticed a glistening silvery hue from the representations of water.
Mercury.
Using quicksilver, they made the hundred rivers of the land, the Yellow and Yangtse, and the wide sea, and machines kept the waters in motion.
He cringed, but recalled what Pau had said. Preventive measures. He hoped the SOB had at least told the truth about that.
No one was in sight. So who’d switched on the lights? Pau Wen?
He risked another look and determined they were inside the short wall of the rectangle, at the opposite end of what appeared to be the main entrance. All four walls were polished stone alive with carved animal heads and otherworldly images bursting from the lustrous surface. He spotted a tiger, a prone horse, a toad, a frog, a fish, and an ox. Color abounded. Yellow-glazed pillars and arches, vermillion walls, a purple-black ceiling.
At the center stood an elaborate plinth, wider at the bottom than the top, fashioned of what appeared to be jade. Two lights illuminated exquisite carvings that dotted its sides. Nothing lay atop. Bare, like the rest of the chamber. Stone pedestals adorned the four walls, spaced every twenty feet or so, about ten feet off the floor. He realized what they had once held.
Torches were made of oil to burn for a long time.
But not a single lamp could be seen.
Inside Qin’s tomb are hundreds of lamps, all filled with oil. I even lit one.
Another of Pau Wen’s lies.
He’d read enough about Chinese imperial tombs to know that they were designed as symbolic representations of an emperor’s world. Not a monument, but an analogue of life through which the emperor eternally perpetuated his authority. Which meant the hall should be loaded with stuff.
He glanced over at Cassiopeia. Her eyes agreed on their next move.
He stepped from the darkened recess into the lit space. The floor represented the extreme southwestern fringes of Qin Shi’s empire, showing what he knew to be mountain ranges carved of jade. A flat expanse to the north delineated desert, which stretched east toward the heart of the empire. Many meters away were more open plains, plateaus, blankets of trees, mountains, and valleys. Palaces, temples, villages, and towns, all fashioned of gemstone and bronze, sprouted everywhere, connected by what appeared to be a system of roads.
He noticed that the stone panel, which blocked the portal once closed, would have dissolved cleanly into the ornamented wall. An entrance capable of being seen and opened only from the outside. Coiled dragons, humanoid faces, and crested, long-tailed birds sprang from the adjacent walls.
He motioned toward the center with his gun and they threaded their way across the floor, careful to find smooth areas on which to step. He was still worried about the mercury, concerned about vapors, so he bent down close to one of the rivers and saw that the carved channel, maybe a foot wide and a few inches deep, flowed with mercury.
But there was something else, on top. Clear. Oily. He tapped the glistening surface with the tip of the gun and ripples spread. He examined the gun’s end and risked a smell, catching a hint of petroleum.
Then he knew.
“Mineral oil,” he whispered. “Pau coated the mercury with it to hold in the vapors.”
He’d done the same once himself, in a basement floor drain trap, floating the oil on top of the water to slow evaporation, keeping sewer gases at bay. He was relieved to know that the air was not riddled with toxins, but still concerned about not only where Pau Wen had gone, but who else may be around.
They headed for the center plinth, which dominated a prominent platform. He’d been correct. The whole thing had been carved of jade and depicted a multitude of human, botanical, and animal images. The craftsmen had made excellent use of the stone’s varying shades, and he couldn’t resist caressing the translucent surface.
“It’s incredible,” Cassiopeia said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
He knew the Chinese considered jade a gift from the gods, the key to everlasting life. It symbolized eternity, and was supposedly imbued with wondrous powers that could protect from evil and bring good luck. That was why Chinese emperors were buried inside funerary suits of jade, sewn together with gold threads and adorned with pearls.
“This was where the emperor lay,” Cassiopeia whispered.
There was no other conclusion. For a culture that prized symbolism, this seemed the ultimate expression.
But the plinth was bare.
He noticed that the top was not smooth. Instead, images had been engraved from end to end, framed by a border of Chinese symbols.
“It’s like the map in Pau Wen’s house,” Cassiopeia said.
He thought the same thing.
He studied the carving closely and saw that it was a compact representation of what the floor depicted—Qin Shi’s empire. What had Pau said about the map hanging in his house? It’s a reproduction of something I once saw. With some changes.
He found his iPhone and snapped a few images of the surrounding room and the map.
“He lay atop his realm,” he whispered.
“But where is he?” she asked.
Ni had been shocked when the lever he twisted activated lights. The premier had told him how power had been run underground to the site and tripods installed. The entire purpose of the incursion had been to ascertain whether the tomb could be used for further propaganda in conjunction with the terra-cotta warriors. But the complex was found empty, every artifact gone, including the emperor himself. Which explained why the government had not allowed any further archaeological exploration. Think of the embarrassment. The questions, none of which came with answers. So a well had been constructed over the makeshift entrance, the area fenced off, and access forbidden.
The premier had wondered if the bulbs would still operate. Most had, illuminating a series of three arched antechambers, and the main burial hall, in a phosphorous glow. He’d been told that the mercury was safe, sheathed by a layer of mineral oil that Pau Wen had applied during the first exploration.
He wondered if Karl Tang would find his way down. Surely he’d found the well, and the removal of the iron plate had left plenty of fresh marks. The sounds of footsteps, approaching from behind, deep in the tunnel from which he had just emerged, confirmed that someone was headed this way.
Then he heard something else.
Movement from within the main burial hall.
And saw shadows dancing across a wall.
Strange.
He stared through the remaining antechambers, which opened one into another, and watched the distant shadows. He was positioned to deal with Karl Tang, gun at the ready.
But he was also trapped.
Between the known and the unknown.
FIFTY-SEVEN
Tang had read about imperial tombs, even visited a couple of notable excavations, but now he was walking inside one totally intact. Clearly, though, someone had been here before. A thick electrical cable lined the base of the tunnel wall and disappeared into the blackness ahead. Pau Wen? Was that why he’d traveled straight to Xi’an? But Pau had gone underground inside Pit 3, a long way from where Tang stood. No, Ni Yong had entered here. Which meant that his adversary knew things that he did not.
Viktor and the two brothers led the way down the passage, wide as an avenue, black as night. The care in the construction, the detail, the colors—they were all spectacular. Stamped decoration in light relief sheathed the walls. In the weak light of their flashlights he saw scenes of court life, the amusements of nobility, a royal procession, bears, eagles, and mythical beasts. Incense burners, shaped as mountains and fashioned of stone, dotted their path.
Fifty meters ahead a shaft of light revealed an entrance between two polished marble doors, both alive with more carvings. Stone lions flanked either side. Hybrid figures of horned bird-m
en—intended, he knew, to repel malevolent spirits—sprang from the walls on either side. Above the doorway were carved three symbols:
He knew their meaning. “Beside the capital.” Which was fitting. He recalled what Sima Qian wrote of the First Emperor in Shiji. Qin Shi made up his mind that the population of his empire had grown large while the royal palaces of his ancestors were still small. So he built a massive new palace, south of the Wei River, adjacent to his capital. Nearly seven hundred meters long and more than a hundred meters wide, its galleries had been capable of holding 10,000 people.
He called it Afang, which reflected its location, “beside the capital.”
He studied the doors and discovered that they hung with no hinges. Instead, a convex half sphere had been carved at the top and bottom, then fitted inside a concave opening in the ceiling and floor. He surmised that, most likely, the joints had once been greased with oil.
They stepped through the space where the doors parted, the crack about a meter wide, into a lit room that opened into another, then two more, all supported by wide arches and thick columns. This was a yougong—a secluded place.
Strangely, the rooms were empty.
He remembered more of what Sima Qian had written. And there were marvelous tools and precious jewels and rare objects brought from afar. The rooms and alcoves should be filled with silk fabrics, garments, ceramics, headdresses, crowns, belts, ornaments, bronze and tin funerary objects, lacquerware, wooden figurines—everything the emperor would have needed in his afterlife.
Yet there was nothing.
He noticed ornamented pedestals dotting the walls at regular intervals and realized that lamps—like the one he’d sought from Pau Wen, the ones Pau had promised Malone and Vitt existed—would have rested atop to light the emperor’s way and nourish the spirits of the dead.
But there were no lamps.
Which meant no oil.
Nothing.
Only a blue-and-white urn, perhaps a meter wide and at least that tall in the center of the next chamber. He’d seen images of one before. An everlasting lamp, filled with oil, holding a wick afloat. He stepped close and peered inside, hoping that some of the ancient crude might remain, but the container stood dry.