The Kingdom of Four Rivers

by Guy Salvidge

  After a while, Ji Tao opened the flap and asked whether she could sit with him.

  “Of course,” he said, happy for the company. She sat next to the camping equipment, pushing the hair out of her face. Ji Tao had brought pen and paper. She wrote something and passed it to him. It read, “What was your girlfriend's name?”

  Had he mentioned Mei Lin? Perhaps he had in passing. He wrote a short note in reply, telling Ji Tao Mei Lin's name and what she had done for a living.

  “Why didn't you marry her?” Ji Tao wrote.

  I wanted to, Kai Sen felt like writing, but I was dying. He wrote, “She was sent to another province, and then the war came.” This was a lie. He knew nothing of the war that had devastated Shulao, but he correctly surmised that Ji Tao would not realise this.

  “It must be very hard for you to have lost everything,” Ji Tao wrote. “You must be very sad.”

  “I barely feel alive,” Kai Sen wrote. “My whole world has been destroyed.”

  “I'm sorry,” Ji Tao wrote. “I didn't realise it would be so terrible for you.”

  “You have given me a second chance at life,” Kai Sen wrote. This seemed to please her. He added, “I am looking forward to seeing your cities and people.”

  “Maybe you can find a new wife in Baitang, and have your own family.”

  His own family. If not for his illness, that would probably be exactly what he would do. To live on, into the future...but it was a hopeless dream. He knew it in his heart, felt it in his bones—he was dying. He thought about revealing this to Ji Tao. After all, she was trying to understand him. She was studying him intently. After a long time he wrote, “I would like this very much.”

  Then he changed the topic, asking Ji Tao about the road ahead.

  “There is a great jungle to the south,” Ji Tao wrote. “The shield-folk rarely go there, as it is thought to be the realm of cannibals. However, we recently discovered a native tribe who helped us through the jungle.”

  Kai Sen asked if they were travelling into the realm of this friendly tribe.

  “No,” Ji Tao wrote, “they were further south. Uncle Tuan seems to think we will be safe here, but I am not so sure. I have seen dead bodies hanging from branches in the jungle.”

  “Your uncle seems like a wise man,” Kai Sen wrote. “Will we need to cross the river?”

  “Yes. Uncle thinks that it may be safer to cross closer to Luihang. It has not rained much in recent days, so he is hopeful that we will be able to find somewhere safe to cross.”

  “Aren't there any bridges?”

  “No, we do not usually go onto this side of the Wu. Usually we keep to the eastern side.”

  “Then why did you come to Shulao this time?”

  “A man called Bao Min brought us here, but he has disappeared. He was a friend of my brother Cheng. We were looking for treasure.”

  “And all you found were some scavengers and me,” Kai Sen wrote. “That must be disappointing.”

  “No. There are more supplies than can fit in ten caravans, all of which can be traded at Luihang and Baitang.”

  For a long time he and Ji Tao sat in silence, looking out the back of the caravan at the wooded hills. Kai Sen could hear Tuan and Sovann at the front of the caravan talking in their lilting voices. A sort of inner quietude seemed to be descending over him. He did not permit his thoughts to go beyond the immediate situation, which did not require him to do anything. Ji Tao became bored and jumped down to walk with her family. Kai Sen closed his eyes and listened. There were dozens of different sounds to hear, from the clanking of cans to the creaking of the caravan's wheels.

  Opening the flap, Kai Sen peered out, his eyes dazzled by the light. They were coming down from the hills along a dusty path, and already the landscape was changing. The trees were thicker, taller, the air more humid. This must be the edge of the jungle Ji Tao had told him about. Kai Sen stepped down and went around the side of the caravan. Liang acknowledged him. Walking down the hill was easy enough, and it felt good to be on the move. There was a small stream snaking its way down the hill.

  By midday they had left the hills behind. The caravan stopped next to the stream and they had lunch. Kai Sen was keen to ask Tuan a few questions, which he wrote in his journal and passed to the elder man. Tuan would not look at the questions while he was eating, which he did slowly and methodically. Kai Sen contented himself with resting in the shade. Ji Tao sat next to him. Tuan returned the journal. The page was filled with Kai Sen's questions and Tuan's answers:

  “Are we going into the jungle?”

  “Only a short way. Luihang is east of here, so that is the direction we will take.”

  “How far is it to Luihang?”

  “Two days if the weather is good.”

  “How long has this area been a jungle?”

  “At least one hundred years. I am aware that it was not a jungle in your time.”

  “Why isn't there anyone around? There used to be a hundred million in this province.”

  “There are some primitive people living in the jungle, but most live in the shielded cities now. The millions of which you speak have gone.”

  “What will you do in Luihang?”

  “Trade the things we have found. I am also considering presenting you to the local administrator, so that he may speak to you. This is with your permission, of course.”

  “How far is it from Luihang to Baitang?”

  “Upwards of a week, depending on the weather. It has been dry in the past couple of days, which is good.”

  “When will you return to Shulao to revive the other sleepers?”

  “I cannot say exactly. I would like to arrange another expedition as soon as we reach Baitang, but that will depend on several factors.”

  That night, Kai Sen found it hard to sleep. After centuries of rest, sleep held no appeal for him. His moods fluctuated between elation and despair. Kai Sen thought about the sensation of being invaded that he had experienced. Though the feeling had not returned, he remained uneasy. He feared sleep and the dreams it would bring. Finally he could evade sleep no longer, and he drifted into a restless slumber.

  In his dream, Kai Sen was standing on a treeless plain. It was the hour before dawn and the sky was grey. Malice ascended from the earth around him. He felt a tremor beneath his feet, a quiver in his heart; the gloom held him each moment more tightly in its grasp. Utter exposure and defeat. Kai Sen had no means of defense, no conception of what imprisoned him. An aura of weakness exuded from his being. His arms were encased in stone, too heavy to lift, and his boots began to sink into the ground. Submission, no further thought save for the need to avoid pain. Death was the only available relief from this condition.

  It was possible to be held still tighter. It was possible to be more trapped than in a frozen coffin. Kai Sen's field of vision narrowed; he felt his throat closing. He was dimly aware of being curled in a fetal position, and he felt the earth heaving to close around him. Beyond panic, beyond fear, he was merely aware of the sensation of being crushed. Still consciousness lingered. Kai Sen understood that his life had been extinguished, that it was dark because he had been buried, but in understanding this the panic returned, for surely it could not be so. He strained in an attempt to listen and, hearing nothing, did not know whether he still had ears with which to hear. He tried to move his hands but could not tell where his fingers ended and the earth began, and consequently could not say whether he was making any progress.

  Later, Kai Sen had entirely abandoned these feeble attempts at self resurrection. He had resigned himself to the knowledge that either he was no longer attached to a body, or that he had one but it was dead. It was not certain that he had a mind either, for where was the proof that he was thinking? In his ‘head’? If this was the afterlife, then it was a purgatory as terrible as had ever been imagined. There was no further progress, no subsequent events. Merely an eternity of speculation from which there was no relief.

  Given Kai Sen's poor st
ate of mind, dawn came as a surprise. He was exhausted, his confused thoughts running into one another. But life went on and he dragged himself up, going through the motions of existence. At breakfast, he ate without tasting and listened without hearing. There was a grey fog all around. Kai Sen struggled to break out but whichever way he turned the fog kept rolling in. The caravan pushed east. As the sun climbed, so his state of mind improved. He began to take notice of what was happening around him. The path was covered with tall grass, which the caravan drove through. The morning passed and by lunchtime Kai Sen was famished.

  As they sat in the shade, Ji Tao handed him a note. “We are almost at the river,” it said.

  Kai Sen took a pen from his shirt pocket and wrote, “How will we get across if there's no bridge?”

  Ji Tao shrugged and he left it at that. Birds were squawking in the trees but Kai Sen could not see them. Light shone down through the jungle canopy, illuminating the way ahead. And they continued on, taking step after step. Kai Sen felt stronger, his aches temporarily forgotten. Suddenly he had a sense of purpose, to cross the river and see Luihang, the city of the future. What would it be like? The path sloped downward toward the Wu. He could see the reeds which lined the bank. Their pace quickened and they came to the river's edge.

  The Chens were excited, pointing at the river and talking amongst themselves. The water was brown and slow moving. There was a bend in the river slightly downstream, where twigs and leaves had accumulated. Did they think it was safe to cross here? How deep was the water?

  Ji Tao handed a note to him, which read, “Can you swim?”

  Kai Sen looked at the characters. “A little,” he said, motioning with his hands.

  Liang patted him on the back. “Okay,” he said. “We swim.”

  Cheng and Liang went first. Then it was a matter of leading the gaur into the water with the caravan in tow. This proved difficult and the caravan soon got stuck in the mud. Kai Sen had to get into the water and help to push it out. By the time the caravan and its contents were across, he was slicked from head to toe in mud. They sat on the bank, peeling off their sodden clothes. There were more clothes in the caravan but they had become wet in the crossing. The back of the caravan was filled with filth. Apparently the Chens were used to this kind of problem, for it wasn't long before they were on their way again. Kai Sen walked alongside the caravan.

  On this bank, the path was wider and appeared to be better The path followed the Wu southeast. Kai Sen was surprised to see other travellers coming along the road toward them. The Chens did not stop to chat. By dusk the town was only a few kilometres away. Some of them wanted to push on and reach the town tonight, but Tuan overruled them. “Tomorrow,” he said, “we will rest in Luihang.” That night Kai Sen slept well, and dreamed of meeting Luihang's ruler. The ruler was tall and imposing, speaking in strident tones. He was asking Kai Sen what he was doing here, and Kai Sen did not know what to say in reply.

  Then it was morning and he was walking again, growing stronger with every step. Kai Sen got his first glimpse of Luihang after an hour on the road, its amber shield partly hidden by the trees. A little further on, he saw the shield more clearly. The shield was a wondrous artefact, dazzling in its audacity—a barrier against the sky. So this was Luihang. It was much smaller than Shulao, but it was alive and the old capital was dead. Kai Sen's heart surged. Would there be a doctor here who could cure him? It was possible. Who knew what progress had been made? But still something nagged at him, an unpleasant thought which he worked to push away. They had said it was inoperable. It was a disease of the nervous system, insidious and malignant. By the time he had been diagnosed, it was already too late.

  Now the caravan was alongside the towering shield, following it around to the west gate. The Chens barely glanced at the shimmering surface but Kai Sen could not look away. He could see things—people—moving behind the surface, as though trapped in a bubble. It did not seem possible that such a thing could exist, and yet it did. Existing, it seemed impenetrable, and yet it was not, as the example of Shulao had shown.

  At the west gate, there was a queue of people waiting to get in. Ji Tao explained that it was not usually this busy. There was some kind of procedure for entering the city; it was not simply a matter of strolling in. There was talk of a 'breach' in the shield, the thought of which made Kai Sen uneasy. Was it safe? And people were looking at him, whispering to one another. Was it because of his height? Or was it the colour of his skin, which was a few shades lighter than theirs? Whatever it was, he knew he would be an outsider here. These people had darker skin than he, even though he too was a native of this part of the world. The difference was that Kai Sen had been an office worker, while these people were peasants and labourers. Compared to them, he was fair-skinned; his hands were not rough like theirs, but smooth. He felt self-conscious. Kai Sen was a stranger in his own homeland.

  And then it was their turn. They would step into the breach, and go forth into Luihang. Kai Sen walked alongside Ji Tao and Liang. They tried to reassure him. The guard called out to them, ushering them on. It was simply a matter of stepping into the colourful whirlwind. He closed his eyes—

  —and was instantly taken aback. This wasn't a city, it was a...a farming community. There were a few buildings dotted around the place, but mostly he saw fields of corn and wheat. It was a rural setting, quite beautiful in its way, like a vision of the world before cities commanded the countryside. There were people milling about near the gate. A queue of caravans was waiting to leave the city, and they were impatient for the entrants to move out of the way.

  The shield arched overhead, shading the sun. Kai Sen saw then what the shield had achieved—it had made the harsh sun gentle. The climate change that had ravaged his own century—bringing drought to some places and floods to others, hastily remaking nature's rules of engagement along new and unexpected lines—was unknown beneath the shield. As this province was turning from a fertile plain into a teeming jungle, the shielded land must have remained as it had been. It was a vast greenhouse, a bubble of the old world in the harsh ocean of the new. Kai Sen could see why the Chens called this the 'shield land.' And there was a shield within a shield. They were beneath the 'Outer Shield,' which served as the hinterland of the 'Inner Shield.' The Inner Shield was much smaller, covering perhaps one tenth the area, and while the Outer Shield was a calming orange colour, the Inner Shield was an angry crimson.

  Kai Sen was being ushered along; he had to stop gazing upward and concentrate on what lay ahead. Away from the hubbub of the west gate, they were briefly alone again. Further along, however, Kai Sen could see caravans and carts on the main road. Presently they came to what appeared to be a toll booth. There was a short delay, and a brief conversation between Tuan and the toll collector.

  Ji Tao was trying to explain what was happening. “This is the ring road,” she said.

  The ring road circumnavigated Luihang, and traffic travelled both ways along it. The road was not made of tarmac but metal. It was filthy, streaked with mud, rubbish and animal droppings. Ji Tao explained that they would have to go all the way around to the east district, which was for travellers such as themselves. There was no motorised transportation—no cars, buses or trucks. When Kai Sen asked Ji Tao about this she did not seem to understand. What kind of people were they who lived beneath an awesome technological marvel, and yet seemed to have reverted to a primitive state themselves? He saw no streetlights, no power lines or traffic lights. It was like he had travelled not forward, but backward in time.

  “This road must have been a travelator,” Kai Sen said.

  “What makes you say that?” Ji Tao asked.

  “Look at the gaps between these sections,” he said. “The whole thing would have moved. That's why there's a rail in the middle. Half of it would have gone forwards, and the other half backwards.”

  Suddenly everyone was listening to him. Tuan, looking down from the caravan, nodded his head. “You are correct,” the old m
an said. “The road did indeed move by itself.”

  It was one of the first times he had spoken to Kai Sen directly. Kai Sen found that although Tuan's accent was strong, he could just make out what the old man was saying if he focused his attention. Now the Chens were talking among themselves and Kai Sen lost track of the meaning. Then Tuan spoke to him again, slowly and deliberately: “You are a man from the ancient world, perhaps you can fix the ring road.”

  Him, fix the road? Kai Sen looked at it, the once gleaming surface hidden beneath centuries of neglect. “Where does the power come from?” he asked. “There must be a motor, or a series of motors, controlling it.”

  “Please, sit with me and we will discuss the matter further,” Tuan said. It was not lost on Kai Sen that he was being invited to sit alongside Tuan. He stepped up. Tuan explained that the road had once clanked around the city as Kai Sen had imagined, but it had stopped working generations ago. No one had the knowledge of how to repair it.

  “If you knew where the power was coming from,” Kai Sen said, “it wouldn't be hard to see what needed fixing. But where would we get spare parts?”

  “This is our difficulty,” Tuan conceded. “Much of the old knowledge has been lost. For this, we would have to go to Luihang Inner Shield, and this is not permitted. We are from Baitang, and are just traders here. But perhaps you would be permitted, as you do not yet have a place in our society. When we get to the east district, I will make an inquiry.”

  It took more than an hour to get to the far side of the shield, by which time the sun was almost directly overhead, and yet it was not hot. It was like being in a tremendous hall; he was both outside and inside. Kai Sen tried to estimate how high the shield was. With no point of reference, it was impossible to tell.

  Kai Sen's thoughts kept turning to the Inner Shield. It was not possible to see what lay within. From what Tuan had said, Kai Sen gathered that Luihang was ruled by an administrator named Min Jian. Usually it was not possible to see this man, but Tuan seemed to think that for Kai Sen, the authorities might make an exception. What did Tuan want him to say to the administrator? That he knew how to fix the ring road? And then there was the subject of his own mortality. If he performed this favour, would he be allowed to see whatever passed for a doctor here? Was it any use even trying?