“Can you swim?” he asked.
“Like a fish. I was a champion amongst my brothers,” Qitong chimed.
“Good, then get your fins on,” he muttered.
They could swim round the end of the promontory of the Laolongtou then up the small river estuary to the little port by Shanhai village. It was a long swim and the water was freezing, but there was no other way.
Before he’d reached the deserted beach, the pungent odour of salt, mud and silt reached him. The tide was out so they trudged across the mud in search of deeper waters. From reading coroner’s reports, he was painfully aware that many a walker had been sucked out to a watery grave by underestimating the speed and strength of the incoming tides.
And he had to look after Qitong.
“Master,” the boy tugged at his robe.
There were noises behind them. And lanterns. There were men on the mud flats. Fisherman? No, it was too early, even for them. He crouched on his haunches and listened. The subtle noises of the dark bay were like a quiet, distant song. The noises grew into shouts. Soldiers. Cui must have spotted them and raised the alarm.
“This way,” he said, pointing further out to sea. They had to find water. They could swim under the waves and make their escape. They quickened their pace. He was panting. They ran faster. Oh, his feet were sinking, the cold mud clawing at his ankles. Each step sunk further into the mud. Water was lapping at his calves.
A gunshot rang out. The missile whizzed past his face. Qitong fell headlong into the mud. Feng fell on top of him and turned him over, face up. Thankfully, the boy was only winded. The tide was rushing in. The water was freezing, like a dark mantle spreading over everything. His heart was pounding and his calves ached.
Water washed against the side of his body. He lifted his head to prevent taking gulps of muddy water. There was a whiff of something acrid. At first, he thought it was the mud. It was his sweat, his own fear stalking him.
The soldiers were shouting at each other. A stone’s throw away, no more.
“Where is he?”
“I lost sight of him. Lift the lantern.”
He daren’t move.
“We’ll find him,” another shouted. “He’s a wanted man. There’s a reward.”
“If we don’t catch him, the tide will.”
As the soldiers closed in, the waters were rising. Another high wave and they could float off out of sight.
“See him?”
“No. You?”
He slipped off the mud flat and hauled Qitong through the waters, deep enough to crawl along the bottom. They were besmirched with mud. He found a deeper channel. The voices subsided into the distance. Qitong swam alongside him against the onrushing tide.
He glanced back at the coast. Nearby were the lanterns of Laolongtou and, farther away, the Ninghai Fortress glistened in the night. Beyond that, the dark, forbidding battlements of the Shanhaiguan Fortress that was once his home; not anymore.
They drifted with the tide and watched as the soldiers’ lanterns bobbed up and down along the beach. They were running, searching for them. Another gunshot pierced the night, but it wasn’t close. For the moment, at least, they’d escaped.
The water was so cold, it constricted his breathing. As the tide came in, he swam nearer the coast. Soon they were opposite the Laolongtou, ablaze with torches. The tide was licking at its base, kissing the Old Dragon’s nose. He noticed a hole in the sea-facing end of the wall. It was just above the tide line. Sailing often along the coast, he knew every part of the Laolongtou and he’d never seen a gap in the stonework like that before.
The incoming tide allowed him to drift nearer to the strange feature. What was it? Why had it recently appeared? The New Year winter storms must have dislodged bricks from the dragon’s ‘snout’, revealing the mysterious hole. Curious as ever, he made a mental note to investigate it under more amenable circumstances.
Feng swam over to help Qitong, who was struggling to stay afloat. Feng was shivering with the cold, but Qitong’s little body was quaking and his teeth were chattering like mad. Brave lad – and not a complaint, to boot. Feng cradled his near-frozen body. A shot rang out, as a puff of powder spat orange-red flame into the night. They had strayed too close to the Laolongtou. He wanted to dive, but Qitong was choking on the salt water and nearly fainting with the cold.
The sea was sucking the life out of them, but the waves hid their escape.
He did not know what to do next.
CHAPTER 24
Amidst the Great Tao
Great Tao has neither form nor substance, yet it fashioned Heaven and earth.
Great Tao has no favours, thus it governs the law and order of the cosmos.
Great Tao has no name, but it gives life to and sustains all beings.
THE TAO TE CHING
The words from the letter echoed around Bolin’s head for the umpteenth time. “You are the inheritor of great and marvellous magic powers.” They were stuck there. And no matter what he did, neither prayer nor supplication would shift them. They just kept repeating, like a Buddhist mantra.
But how could he, Bolin, a mere fisherman’s son, be in receipt of marvellous powers and gifts? It turned the natural order of things upside down. Did Emperors perform guard duty? Did mandarins clean out the latrines? Did scholars collect firewood? No. They did not.
The structure in society reflected the underlying order to the cosmos; the Great Tao, itself. That order had to be maintained, otherwise, well, nothing could function. He knew that. Dong knew that. The Emperor knew that. Why didn’t Luli know that?
The more he tried to push these thoughts to the back of his mind, the more they sprang up through the cracks and crevices in his reasoning.
A voice spoke to him in the deeper recesses of soul, “Find the Pearl of Wisdom. Find the place where words are made.”
“Go away!” He snarled out loud. He must have awoken Zetian in the next-door room, because he heard her rouse and she was soon knocking lightly on his door.
“Son, are you all right?” she asked, entering his room. He pretended to be asleep and started snoring. He felt her tuck in his bedclothes and tip-toe out of the room. As the second night watch sounded at midnight, he fell into an uneasy, restless slumber.
In the deep recesses of his mind, the man awaited him, like a shadowy agent, spying, peering out of the gloom. The darkness was almost palpable, as his dream body floated above his physical body and he found himself looking down on his sleeping self, in his little room, in his little life.
He drifted across the room until he rubbed against the back wall, a strange experience in itself, especially for someone who was particular about where things were and liked them to stay that way. He was not in the habit of ‘floating’ up against walls. No, in his settled, regular existence, that didn’t happen. He felt like his body – what body was that exactly, since he was looking across at his physical body prostrate on the bed? – was as light as a wispy cloud and capable of drifting through the wall and coming out the other side.
He was frightened to move either way. If he moved into the wall, would he remain stuck in it forever after? As he fretted, by some miracle he found himself in the outer courtyard. He was quick to notice that, despite the smudges of snow and ice on the ground, he had no sensation of cold. That might have had something to do with the fact that he did not have any skin to speak of.
Either way, he, Bolin, had walked – well, glided – through a wall. That was an achievement. In the end, negotiating the realm of the Tao was simple. He liked things to stay the same, like the passing of day and night, the regularity of the seasons and the constant interplay of yin and yang. That included people stubbing their toe when they tried to walk through a wall. That was a definite rule on earth, though not, apparently, in the realm of the Great Tao.
Now he was getting the hang of it, he
began to enjoy the sensation of the supreme lightness of being as he rose above his house, above Fuyuan Street, Shanhai village and Shanhaiguan Fortress, with its dark battlements, crenellated towers and massive fortifications. Another part of him experienced the eerie sensation of weightlessness with barely controlled fear. It was a fear that made him concentrate on every little thing, because he’d no idea how to return to his physical body. Was he still ‘alive’? His physical body could have died and he could be permanently cut adrift from it! Is this what death is, then?
Floating amidst the serene mists of the Great Tao, Bolin drifted over the Ninghai Fortress towards the Laolongtou. This dream travelling was a strange experience. His life had been one long drudge; other than fishing with his father, the occasional visit to the local market town and a trek into the Yanshan Mountains, Bolin had never left the environs of Shanhaiguan. Now, he found himself free to roam at will. Unconstrained by earthly chains, he could move anywhere.
From his elevation, he was able to ‘see’ the realm of earth, but with an absence of colour. All he could make out were blackened structures and shadowy figures shrouded in clouds of swirling ch’i. Sounds were muffled, like noises heard underwater. Sights were the same – blurred, with no sense of depth and everything in silhouette.
His yin-yang eyes and senses were acute. And with them, he knew someone – or something – was following him. He had a vague awareness of it in the distance, impinging on the fringes of his mind. It rose above him, flapping. Oh, it was a bird with monochrome markings, a gull perhaps. No, it was a magpie; a black and white bird of the Tao. Then it was gone, out of range.
Driven on by the urge to find the place where words are made, he hovered over the Laolongtou. A knot of guards warmed themselves around a brazier, keeping off the chill of a winter’s night. The magpie shot by him and dived straight through the stone floor of the Laolongtou.
How did it do that?
Bolin himself had moved through a wall, so he could do that; couldn’t he? So, he tried and – followed. Passing through bricks and mortar, he emerged into an ante-chamber somewhere beneath the Laolongtou. Why had he never heard of this place? The Tao bird was flapping nearby, trying to tell him something. But what? Then he realised; it was his guide. He followed it through an adjoining wall and into a vault. He felt compressed, his breathing tight. He was choking. It was the same suffocation he had experienced on the Laolongtou and in his dreams.
Inside the vault was an elongated slab, a sort of flat bed, on which were various objects. At the far end of the vault was the silhouette of a long cylinder. With no sense of colour or depth, he couldn’t identify these things.
The Tao bird departed and he followed.
Returning to his physical body, he wondered what on earth the vault had to do with the place where words are made. He had to find out.
CHAPTER 25
The Lessons of Birth and Death
Going back to the beginnings of things and pursuing them to the end,
We come to know the lessons of birth and of death.
THE TA CHUAN, THE GREAT TREATISE
As the third night watch rang out across the rooftops, Feng struggled across the sand, which clung to his wet feet, pulling him down. At least they had evaded the militia. At one point, he suspected the gods had planted a secret bell on his person that rang every time he moved, alerting the guards to his presence. Wherever he and Qitong hid, soldiers were annoyingly close. The guards even took pot shots at them from the Laolongtou. But they had survived.
Lanterns were flickering in the distance – the militia were as unstoppable as the incoming tide. Feng grabbed Qitong and dived into the long coastal grasses. His heart was beating like a drum as he watched them move inexorably along the beach. But they passed him and Qitong by and when they were gone, he heaved a huge sigh of relief. He kept thinking back to that vault at the base of the Laolongtou. It fired his imagination. It was karma that he had seen it. When he could, he would return there.
When he emerged with the boy, Qitong was shivering, convulsing and unable to stand, let alone walk. His skin had taken on this dreadful bluish hue. The cold of the waters had embraced his little body and wouldn’t release him. Feng did what he could to warm him and prayed that Luli had a remedy.
Boy in arms, he staggered around the back of the houses in Shanhai village, looking for Luli’s Po Office. He was emotionally and physically exhausted, not only by the death of his two parents, but by the swim, the chase, the boy’s parlous state and most of all by his unprecedented fall from grace. His father’s letters contained secrets that would allay his and others’ fears and restore his rightful position.
This was it. The Po Office. He glanced around the corner of the building into the main street, checking the way was clear. There was not a soul. The boy started whimpering, delirious.
“Shhh!” he said. Having reached this far, he was not going to be caught by the militia.
Qitong lay still in his arms. Feng stumbled around to the entrance gate of the Po Office, looking for signs of life. It was late at night, the sliver of a crescent moon casting no ambient light. There was no sound. Luli wasn’t awake.
He laid Qitong on the ground outside the front gate, pushed it open and stepped inside. He turned when he heard a scuffling noise and was hit hard on the head. He crumpled in a heap.
“Argh!” he clutched his head, protecting himself from the next blow which came soon afterwards. “Stop!” He hissed.
“Feng?” A startled woman’s voice. “Is that you?”
“Yes,” he groaned, holding his head like it was about to burst.
“Oh, Feng,” Luli said. “I’m so sorry. Here, let me see to that wound.”
“Ouch, that hurts,” he moaned, as she touched his head.
“There are many valuables in my shop. I thought you were a thief,” Luli said, helping him indoors and onto a stool. His head was spinning and he squealed like a pig. He was ashamed to tell her the truth, that he was on the run and hiding from the militia.
“Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine; see to Qitong,” he said, pointing outside.
“Qitong?”
“The boy. He’s outside, on the ground.”
She went out but quickly returned. “He’s gone. There’s no one there.”
“What?” Feng stood up, a move he instantly regretted. He clutched his head and swooned, only prevented from falling over by Luli’s helping hand.
“Sit there and I’ll tend to you,” she insisted, first fixing a bandage around his head before making him a cup of tea. Her warmth and kindness revived the distant strains of humanity in his soul.
“What have you been doing? Swimming in a mud bath?”
“I… I came for Tiande’s letters,” he stammered.
“Of course, I expected that you would; just not in the middle of the night,” Luli replied. “First your father and now your mother, I’m so sorry. For both to pass so close to one other; I’m afraid to say this, but you must have upset your ancestors.”
He frowned. Sometimes these seers obsessed about ancestors. “The letters?” he pleaded.
“I’ll fetch them,” Luli said, delving through her piles of scrolls.
She returned moments later with the envelope.
At last, there would be no secrets between him and his father. Until he resolved his past, he could not begin to live in the present and to plan his future. He undid the silk tie and let the scrolls unfold. The calligraphy was neat and tidy, yet elegant and authoritative. He leafed through the papers and the one on the bottom dropped on the floor. Luli stooped to pick it up, glanced at the contents and then handed it back to him.
He thanked her and opened the top one.
“If you are reading this,” it said, “my good friends, Magistrate Park and Lady Lan have both joined me in Heaven and you have discovered your true identity.”
The first carts of the day rumbled by outside the window. It was getting light. The world awoke from its slumber.
Luli was tidying her shop with a deft touch. So light and free on her feet, she moved like a dancer. Shouts from outside made him jump. Militia. He stuffed the parchments in his sleeve and raced for the door. They were already there, banging on the lintel.
“Open up,” someone shouted.
“Come,” Luli said to him, “Over here,”
“It’s the militia,” he snapped. “They’re after me.”
“Down here!” She lifted up a tattered rug and hauled open a trap door.
“What’s that?”
She spoke quickly. “A vertical shaft. When you reach the bottom, turn left into the tunnel. Keep going straight as far as you can until the tunnel makes the first turn. There, you’ll find stairs leading up to a hatch. That’ll take you to freedom. You’ll see where it emerges. Then head for the estuary.”
More banging, strident now. “Open the door! Now!”
“Here, take this.” She gave him a lantern.
“Thanks, I am in your debt,” he said and slipped through the trap door, which slammed shut behind him. He listened to the raised voices in the vestibule and Luli protesting her innocence. She had saved him. He had an escape route. What on earth had happened to Qitong?
He lifted the lantern and descended the ladder. What were these tunnels? Why had he never heard of them before?
CHAPTER 26
The First Pass under Heaven
Tiānxià Dìyī Guān – The First Pass under Heaven
THE WORDS ON THE PLAQUE ABOVE THE ZHENDONG GATE, SHANHAIGUAN
The sound of the fourth night watch rang out from atop the Drum and Bell Tower. From behind the curtains in his sedan chair, Gang was out of sight, though still able to view everything. Despite the late hour, the militia remained out in force. A knot of soldiers was dragging a man across the square towards the cells. Ignoring his cries for mercy, they beat him with bamboo batons and a choice selection of curses.
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