The Imperial Alchemist

by A. H. Wang

Georgia nods. “Well,” she says, sighing with resignation. “I guess we should keep moving then.”

  They walk further up the hill and find the clearing of the old Badagang post. Lush forest surrounds them and everywhere she looks is a sea of shimmering green. The deafening sounds of cicadas rise to crescendos and drop away, repeating this pattern over and over again. Wild daisies grow where there used to be houses, and colourful butterflies dance amongst the blossoms. Georgia smiles as she is reminded of the Butterfly Valley in southern Taiwan, where her parents once took her as a child.

  Home to over four hundred varieties of butterflies, the tiny island of Taiwan has one of the highest concentrations of butterfly species in the world. In the sixties, the country exported so many butterflies per year that it was dubbed the ‘Butterfly Kingdom.’ Georgia remembers a particular trip with her family, walking in the forest with her parents and seeing the tiny vibrant creatures flitting about. Brown and black wings highlighted with spots of iridescent purples, yellows, and blues, they glimmered in the summer sun through the dense forest foliage. Excited, she squealed with delight, and the sudden noise brought about an explosion of colour as thousands and thousands of butterflies fluttered into the air around her.

  She smiles at the memory, one of the few times she remembers really connecting with her parents, and when they seemed to be happy in each other’s company.

  As Georgia and Charlie come to the end of the three-kilometre climb, she spots the Zhuilu Cliff up ahead. From this distance, she can see that the trail hugs the almost vertical cliff face at a height of some five or six hundred metres above the Liwu River.

  “You know, this used to be the hunters’ trail for the Truku people,” she says, gesturing to the cliff. “They would travel to other villages this way, hugging the rocky cliff face on a tiny ledge. When the Japanese came, they forced the villagers to carve it out to about a metre wide so it could be easily accessed by Japanese soldiers. The native men had to suspend themselves with ropes from the top of the mountain and slowly chip the path out of the marble cliff face.”

  Charlie shakes his head. “Slave labour, huh?”

  “Yeah,” she says as she takes out her map. “It’s sad that some of our greatest achievements were built by slaves. The Great Wall of China, for example,” she refers to one of the things that Emperor Qin is most well-known for.

  Studying the map, she checks their route, pointing to their location. “This is where we are right now. It’s the highest point of the trail.”

  “And the cave should be just beyond the Zhuilu Cliff?” Charlie asks, leaning in to look at her markings on the map.

  “I believe so,” she replies. “Naaya wrote that there were two creeks that came from the northern peaks, intersecting with the east-bound Liwu River. We crossed the first one about ten minutes ago. The special mushrooms she collected were at a clearing near the second creek, and she was on her way to that creek before she fell into the cave. But it’s hard to know the exact route she took back then. The location could be anywhere along the river.”

  As they continue their path and approach the Zhuilu Cliff, they are greeted with a spectacular bird’s eye view of Taroko Gorge. Next to the track, there is an information sign erected by the national park administration, written in both Chinese and English:

  The Zhuilu Cliff is over 500 metres long. The road is narrow, and rockfalls often injure tourists here. Please do not loiter here, walk as close to the wall as you can, watch out for rockfalls, and pass quickly.

  Georgia looks at the path ahead. It’s covered by loose gravel, barely a metre wide, with only a plastic-clad steel cable along the cliff wall to hold on to. There are no safety harnesses, and certainly nothing between her and the vast void of the chasm below.

  Typical Asian country safety standards.

  Charlie, of course, is already quite a few metres ahead of her, moving as if he is strolling along a spacious boulevard. She shakes her head, gripping the cable and following him.

  As they progress on the path, she cannot help but admire the extreme beauty of it all. From here, she is rewarded with breathtaking views of the expansive Taroko Gorge beneath her, and looming mountain ranges all around. She feels grand and yet insignificant, all at the same time.

  A lone mountain hawk-eagle glides gracefully through the air, looking for prey. It rises high above to land on the mountain above her.

  She hears the sound of scree scattering from above, then Charlie yelling: “Look out!”

  But it’s too late. Georgia looks up just in time to see stones raining down on her, one of them hitting her on the shoulder and knocking her off balance. She loses her footing, feeling her body toppling to the side, and she barely has the time to gasp before she is over the ledge.

  59

  Not even a single damn paper clip.

  Frustrated, Sarah starts to pace the room again. Grinding the ropes against a corner underneath the stairs, she managed to free herself from restraints some hours ago. Since then, she’s been trying to figure out how to get the door open. Made of sturdy wood, it swings inwards, so even if she had enough strength it’s impossible to break it down by force.

  The good news, though, is that after studying the lock she’s decided it appears to be a simple pin and tumbler mechanism. Sarah is pretty confident she can get it open if she finds some kind of thin wire.

  She’s done it plenty of times before, especially when her kids were still living at home and had a habit of locking their bedroom doors at night. Rather than forbidding them to do so, Sarah allowed them the illusion of privacy and sense of control, but would habitually pick their locks to make sure they hadn’t snuck out of the house for the night.

  No lock was going to keep mummy out. All it took was a couple of hair clips and five minutes of her time.

  But now, having searched all over the basement, Sarah cannot find a single thing that can help her unlock the door keeping her imprisoned.

  She walks over to the desk again, getting on her hands and knees to crawl under, hoping she missed something the first time. Beneath the table, Sarah runs her fingers over every surface, through every crevice, looking for anything she can use. She comes up empty-handed.

  Admitting defeat, Sarah lies on the cold floor, fighting the rising sense of despair. Squeezing her eyes shut, she takes a few deep breaths to will away the tears.

  Pull yourself together, Sarah.

  She opens her eyes again and stares at the incandescent light on the ceiling. It flickers as if to mock her. That’s when the idea hits.

  Hmmm. She remembers watching MacGyver pull this trick on his show once. It might just be the thing that saves her.

  She rises to her feet and drags the heavy desk to position it under the light, climbing onto the table top. Her hands trembling with hunger, she pulls on the sleeve of her sweater to cover her skin, then stands on the tips of her toes, reaching for the incandescent bulb screwed to the ceiling. When she twists it, the room darkens a shade more, now lit by only the light across the room. Wincing from the scalding heat of the bulb penetrating the fabric, she quickly moves to release it from its socket. Prize in hand, Sarah jumps down, placing it on top of the desk to let it cool.

  Years ago, when she was a stay-at-home mum looking after two toddlers, Sarah relished mid-day TV whenever her kids were down for a nap. It was the only moment in the day she had some time to herself, a brief interval of peace and quiet in her otherwise maddening life. It was during this that she became obsessed with re-runs of MacGyver.

  Her fangirl crush on Richard Dean Anderson aside, it was a damn good TV show. Sarah had always held a keen interest in physics and the general way that the world worked around her, and this action-adventure show entertained and educated her at the same time. As a secret agent and trained scientist, the resourceful MacGyver would solve complex problems by making extraordinary things out of mundane objects. He constantly wowed Sarah with the ever-expanding applications of his Swiss Army knife and duct tape.
>
  Now, MacGyver may just be the one who saves her life.

  She looks down at the light bulb on the table, recalling a particular episode where he picked a door lock with filaments retrieved from a lamp.

  Two bits of spring steel—perfect shape and size.

  Grabbing the end of the bulb with her sleeve-covered hand, she smashes it against the edge of the table. The glass shatters easily, and she pulls on the two pieces of support wire, releasing them from the plastic base.

  Bingo.

  60

  Georgia is hanging on for her life, her legs dangling off the precarious cliff.

  Everything happened so fast that she struggles to recall the details, and she thought she was dead. Instead, she finds herself suspended over the rocky ledge with Charlie holding on to her wrist.

  “I have you, Georgia!” he calls. “Hang on!”

  Instinctively she looks down, and instantly regrets it. A rush of vertigo hits her and she kicks her legs in reflex.

  “Do not look down!” Charlie cries. “Look here! Look at me.”

  She turns to look up at him, seeing that he is lying on his front, leaning over the edge of the path. He has a deep cut on his forehead and the wound is oozing blood.

  “Hold on tight, I will pull you up.” He grips her arm with both hands.

  “I can’t, I’m slipping!” She is bordering on hysteria.

  “Just hang on to me, Georgia. Trust me. Take a deep breath,” he coaxes. “I am going to pull you up, okay? But you have to stop waving your arms and legs like that.”

  “Okay.” She stares into his green eyes, panic still gripping her heart.

  “Good. Give me your other hand.”

  She does as he instructs, feeling lightheaded with the blood roaring in her ears.

  “You see that shrub coming out of the rock there? To your right?”

  Georgia looks over and sees the small bush not far from her. “Yes.”

  “I want you to put your foot on it, I think it is big enough to support you.”

  She reaches to place her right, then left foot on the thickest part of its trunk, distributing her weight.

  “Good, Georgia,” Charlie says with encouragement. “Now, I am going to pull you up slowly, okay?”

  “Okay,” she nods.

  Gripping her forearms, Charlie slowly inches back from the ledge, pulling her with him. She grabs a boulder when he manages to lift her far enough, allowing him a brief pause before he grasps the top of her backpack to heave her all the way up on to the gravel path.

  “Are you okay?” Charlie asks.

  She nods, wide-eyed and breathless in her reply. “Thank you.”

  Loosening the straps of her pack, she shrugs it off, sitting on the path for a while to recover. Georgia watches as Charlie wipes the blood off his forehead with his long, slender fingers, the wound already healed. From this angle, his thin frame makes him look like a fragile waif. She is surprised at his physical strength.

  “Is that one of the effects of the elixir?” she asks.

  He turns to look at her, unsure of her question.

  “Your strength, your speed—is that because the elixir?”

  He exhales. “Yes. The elixir does not just make my cells heal faster; it improves the overall efficiency with which my whole body operates. The ratio of strength to muscle mass is greatly increased, too.”

  Georgia nods, suddenly feeling exhausted. She rises to her feet, pulling her backpack with her, anxious to keep moving.

  “Let’s get off this cliff,” she suggests.

  They move along the track quickly this time, Charlie trailing closely behind her. The end of the path opens up to a clearing amongst the trees. Georgia sits down on a log, exhaling a long sigh.

  Charlie sits beside her, giving her a light pat on the back. “We made it, Georgia. That is the worst of it done. Are you feeling okay?”

  She nods, giving him a weak smile. With shaky hands she reaches into her pack and pulls out two chocolate bars, offering one to Charlie. They munch on the sweets silently, Georgia slowly regaining her wits.

  When she is feeling herself again, she pulls out the map from her backpack, spreading it on a rock beside them.

  “Naaya mentioned a small flatland where she collected the mushrooms, and it’s not far from the second stream. I think it may be near where we are right now. This clearing is another of the police station ruins left behind by the Japanese.”

  She points to a spot on the map, then traces a straight line to the brook as she says, “From here, we should make a direct path towards the water.”

  “Go off the trail?”

  “Yes,” she replies. “Naaya would have chosen the shortest way to the river. The trail that we’re on, it veers northward before intersecting with the creek.”

  After a pause, she asks: “Did Naaya ever mention anything about how she concealed the entrance to the cave?”

  Charlie shakes his head. “No. But I did get the sense that when she brought her people back to the cave, they eventually made a more accessible entrance to replace the hole that she fell into. They went to the cave frequently, performing all sorts of sacred rituals there.”

  She nods, biting her lower lip, wishing that she had Tanaka-san’s Ground Penetrating Radar with her. Without access to more sophisticated equipment, she is left with rudimentary survey techniques.

  “This could be a long search, huh?” Charlie asks, reading her mind.

  “Yeah.”

  “What about this tree that she wrote of, the one she walked towards before falling into the cave?”

  “I thought about that too.” She shakes her head. “I searched for information, but I couldn’t find anything about a tree with medicinal uses for the hair in these areas. Naaya did mention that the tree was very rare. In any case, I think it’s probably irrelevant, since it’s unlikely that it’d still be standing after all these years.”

  She brings out a pen from her pack and draws a grid over the area that she believes contains the cave, two hundred metres in length on each side. “We’ll search this section in a systematic fashion. But I’m more concerned about unstable surfaces we could fall through, since we’re going off the established trail.”

  “That is fine,” Charlie says. “I will walk ahead, and you can follow a few metres behind.”

  She nods and reaches into her backpack again, taking out a compass, some climbing ropes, and a small machete knife. She hands the latter to Charlie.

  “For cutting through any branches and foliage in our way,” she explains. Looking at the compass, she points to a direction away from the trail. “The river is due west of here. We’ll follow a straight line and see what we come across on the way.”

  61

  Georgia sits on a rock, feeling utterly spent. They have been going back and forth between the clearing and the creek for hours now, scouring the area in a grid-like fashion. This would have been much easier if the terrain they are surveying were clear and flat. Instead, they are constantly clearing their paths, climbing over boulder and avoiding any snakes, spiders, and other forest-dwelling fiends in their way. Their search has been slow and tedious, and as the sun edges towards the horizon, she announces that she’s calling it quits for the day.

  She settles down to tend to the multitude of cuts, bruises, and mosquito bites all over her body. Pausing, she looks over at Charlie, who’s busy setting up camp for the night. The exertions of their day haven’t seemed to tire him one bit, and he still moves with the same graceful efficiency that Georgia envies. And of course, the skin on his shins and arms remains unblemished from their rigorous search in the forest.

  Through a gap in the foliage, she gazes out to the gorge. The sun, now half-concealed behind a peak, casts warm light over the valley, and a faint breeze picks up, rustling the leaves. The sound of crickets begins as the light gradually wanes.

  Reaching into her pack, Georgia finds the small laptop that Charlie bought during one of their supply runs. She pow
ers up the little machine, which came with a solar-powered battery charger, and opens several high resolution satellite images of the region.

  “What are you looking for?” Charlie asks, peering over her shoulder at the infrared images highlighted in false colour.

  “I’m looking for some subtle differences on the ground of this area,” Georgia explains. “It’s a pretty effective technique to detect any structures built by man. You’ve mentioned that Naaya’s people used the cave as a place of worship, so I’m hoping that they built some kind of structure or symbols of their gods near the entrance. If they did, I’d be able to tell with these satellite images.”

  “How does it work?” Charlie asks, curious.

  “Well, let me show you an example.” She brings up images of her recent dig in China. The first shows a satellite photograph of the site in the visible light spectrum, showing nothing but fields and vegetation. The second is a processed version of the same area, depicting clear patterns of circles and squares, an obvious indication of man-made structures underground.

  “See, these patterns don’t normally occur in nature.” She points to the perfect shapes on the image. “They’re what we’re looking for. The infrared images detect subtle differences in chlorophyll, which indicates vegetation health. Plants growing on top of any stone or building material are usually less healthy, so they’ll show up like this.”

  “The problem is,” she continues, switching to the satellite photos of the Taroko area again, “I’ve gone through these images a few times and I haven’t been able to find anything.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It probably means that they didn’t build anything above ground. Everything must be inside the cave.”

  Charlie nods slowly, digesting this. “So we are back to relying on—what did you call this—surface survey technique?”

  “Yeah, without more equipment, it’s just you and me, walking up and down the river bank, hoping that we’ll stumble on a discovery.”