The Black Book

by George Shadow

  Chapter 25: Liu Hang & the Hsiung-nu

  INSIDE, the tower looked roomier than the outside had suggested and stone steps led one to a lower floor, which actually served as Liu Hang’s living quarters. A small glowing candle placed on a wall stand enhanced the amount of light coming into the room since only the entrance at the top of the steps brought in sunlight and air from outside. Three wooden stools littered the room and a strange mat completed the furniture. A strange ladder led one into an even lower floor.

  “What do you know about the demons?” Matthew asked Liu Hang as the Chinese American moved to lock the big doors behind Peter. “What did they want from you?”

  “The book.”

  This only increased the children’s curiosity. Nora sat on a stool with Stephanie and Peter leaned on the wall while Matthew folded his arms beside him.

  The Gulf War Two veteran sat on the strange mat and filled some traditional cups with hot tea. “Tea?” he offered. “It’s green tea,” he informed them. “Very good for your health.”

  “On a day like this?” Peter asked him. “Please.”

  Only Stephanie took a cup.

  “How did you know we were different?” Nora asked the man.

  “No living Chinese will risk his life touring the Great Wall with a Hun,” he replied.

  “A Hun?” Peter was surprised.

  “The Hsiung-nu,” Liu Hang explained, sipping his tea. “Barbarians from the north. Emperor Shih-huang-ti erected the wall to fend them off.”

  “Mr. Heaver never told us that,” Peter said.

  “Mr. Heaver’s still on it, Peter,” Nora reminded him.

  “So who’s the odd guy?” Matthew wanted to know and Liu fingered Peter out. The kids quickly realized that he dressed differently. Leather and bear fur. Strangely different.

  “Who are you?” Matthew asked Liu Hang. “How did you get here?”

  “The name’s Liu Hang,” the man began without hesitation. “I was an American soldier serving in Afghanistan when I suddenly appeared here twelve months ago with no names and no guns or any knowledge whatsoever of modernity.”

  “How did you . . . discover yourself?” Nora asked with difficulty. “How did you come to know who you really were?”

  “It took all those twelve months, because I wasn’t as lucky as you kids to have companions suffering with me,” Liu said. “Within this time, I was forced to serve in the Chinese army since I had no relations or family to do this for me, and gradually, I realized I had knowledge my colleagues lacked. Like the benefits of green tea and what an M16 was. This knowledge made no sense to me, though, and I simply saw myself as a very peculiar inventor whose colleagues didn’t understand.” He slipped out many scrolls from behind him and spread a complex diagram of a semiautomatic rifle before them. “There were no materials here to build my ideas so I simply drew them.”

  “Wow,” Peter exclaimed. “Did you really draw that?”

  The man nodded solemnly and smiled. “I was a US Army engineer and served my country well in the Second Gulf War before joining NATO’s Afghan Command.”

  “So, how did you come to know all that?” a puzzled Matthew asked.

  Liu’s face darkened and his smile vanished. He stood up to start pacing around. “A few months ago,” he tersely resumed, “my quiet life was seized by the Booklords.”

  “The . . . Booklords?” Nora groped.

  “Your aptly-named black demons,” Liu Hang revealed. “Devils and Spirits of the Unknown Bookmakers! Tormentors and Killers of the Innocent! Masters of the black art of demonism and separatism! These - These . . . creatures exposed my old self to me and showed me I was no ancient Chinese! They accused me of writing my name in the book the day I disappeared from my military unit in Afghanistan and kept tormenting me for doing this! They demanded the book from me, and when I couldn’t provide it, they killed all my friends, inflicted disease on my family and tortured my soul with their fearful screams and cries! They turned my life into a nightmare! It would have been better for me to be living in hell! It was horrible for me, and they succeeded in making me go mad! I—I lost my sense of sanity.”

  The man was almost breaking down and Peter felt a tear in his eye, which he quickly robbed off before the others could notice.

  “So, how did you find my sister?” Matthew gently pressed on.

  “I . . . got married here some months ago and gave birth to a daughter,” the unhappy man continued, looking at Stephanie with warmth.

  “No way she’s not,” Nora refused, bringing Stephanie closer to herself. “She’s my sister.”

  “And you’re right,” their new acquaintance agreed. “As I earlier told you, the Booklords caused my daughter to fall ill two days ago with a terminal sickness and—and she stood up yesterday with a new zeal for life and a new face.”

  That was revealingly remarkable, but Matthew’s thoughts had more to do with the book and what the soldier had said about the Booklords and their grotesque visits. A distant encounter with the greedy son of a British captain, whose dreams about the book had obviously been marred by these demonic guests, as well as the notorious revelations of a one-eyed pirate, also came to mind. These two men had also been visited and tormented by tenacious demons in the course of their imposed exile, and the Second Gulf War was equally a theme conspicuously standing out in the various stories they had narrated.

  “Stephanie’s visit finally changed me,” Liu resumed after a long pause. “I quickly recalled everything I used to be when I simply held her hand, and she refused to be my daughter or touch any other person when I made her well. This was how I came to enlist in the emperor’s border sentries guarding the Great Wall and move out here so that I won’t be tainted by the original occupants of this ancient land.”

  “What of your wife?” Nora asked him. “Had any back home?”

  “Dumb question,” Matthew intruded.

  “Yes, I did,” the man surprisingly answered, “but as I told you, she didn’t survive the disease we all suffered in the hands of the Booklords.”

  The children fell silent at this sad news.

  “So sorry,” Nora murmured.

  Liu cleared his throat with effort and pressed ahead with his tale. “When the Booklords appeared here, I knew something was wrong, because they had gone away with frustration the last time I was harangued. I thought they were either here to finally kill me or take from me this knowledge they had given me about myself, so I was surprised when they only wafted past us without tormenting . . .”

  “That must be when they attacked you, Matthew,” Peter interjected.

  “Uhuuuh,” Matthew agreed, unconsciously turning to their guest. “Did you know a Captain Hayfield, Mr. Hang?”

  “Yes, I did,” a startled Liu Hang revealed. “He was my commanding officer in the Gulf War. What about him?”

  “What of a . . . Stephen?”

  “Steve? Sergeant Steve?” The Chinese guard frowned. “You’ve met Sergeant Steve?”

  “His name was also written in the book like yours and fourteen others’,” Matthew said.

  “Matthew, what are you trying to do?” Nora exclaimed.

  “By who?” demanded the American-Chinese.

  “Captain Hayfield, I think,” Matthew assumed.

  “And how do you know it’s him?” Nora asked her foster brother.

  “It’s like the pen used to write his name was used to write the other names,” Matthew explained.

  “Brilliant,” Peter admired. “How did you know that?”

  “Can you show me?” Liu Hang asked.

  “We aren’t ready to give it up, yet,” Nora said with some annoyance.

  “So you’re with the book?” the man asked her, turning towards her. “So, it is true?”

  “Em. . . . Sure it is,” Matthew carefully agreed. “But we’ve sworn to guard it with our lives, you know.”

  “I’ll never threaten you for it,” the American-Chinese assured almost too quickly. “I’ve realized I d
on’t want to go back! I need to forget a lot from my past life, believe me.”

  “Like what?” Peter pushed.

  “Just know I’ve been of . . . bad military behavior in Iraq,” the man summarized. “This might be my punishment from God for this and I’ll never judge the good captain by going back.”

  “Great,” Nora said with a sigh. A religious zealot!

  “You must go into the mainland if you want to find whoever you’ve been looking for,” Liu charged them.

  “How did you know we were looking for someone?” Matthew asked with a frown.

  “Stephanie told me,” his host replied, and now became serious. “The Booklords will come back,” he warned the kids. “They’ll do this because they want back the book, so you must be very careful, too.”

  “Steph’s coming with us,” Nora warned.

  “Of course, I am,” the little girl snapped. “I shouldn’t remain here, should I?”

  But before Nora could say something in return, a loud thump came from above them followed by a metallic clang, which sounded louder than the thump.

  “What’s that?” she rather whispered.

  Liu had already brought out his weapon and now gave long sticks to Peter and Matthew. “Wait here with Stephanie,” he told Nora as he quietly scaled the steps with the boys fearfully behind him.

  He unlocked the big doors with the same care.

  “Who do you think is up there?” Matthew asked him in a toned-down voice.

  “HUNS.”

  The boy swallowed hard and turned to see whether Peter had attracted some wild behavior to his person, but the Jew simply raised his eyebrows in silent query and Matthew looked away with telling relief.

  The doors silently inched open on well-oiled hinges and their host signaled for them to stay back before noiselessly slipping out.

  “Matthew, I think we should . . . leave now?” Peter whispered to the younger boy with some boldness.

  “Why?”

  “I—I don’t think I can fight.”

  The sudden eruption of swordplay intermingled with battle cries and grunts from above their heads startled them as much as to make them move down the narrow steps away from the door before staring at each other in wild fright.

  “What’s happening?” Nora wanted to know.

  It all stopped almost as quickly.

  The doors flew open and Liu Hang burst in with the smell of blood. “You must leave now!” he told the kids. “The Hsiung-nu prepare to invade China!” He rushed down past the boys and went over to his store as the four kids stared at one another.

  “We must go home now, Matt,” Nora said. “We can come back when we know Barbara and the others are safe.”

  “You know Mom and Dad won’t let us.”

  “And who’s gonna tell them about the book?”

  “You?”

  “Look,” she pressed on, standing up. “The Huns are killers and—and savages. They take no prisoners.”

  “We must go, Matt,” Stephanie urged her adopted brother. “Before it’s too late.”

  “And what of Yung Ji?” he asked her. “Who’s gonna save him?”

  “Your sister’s right, boy,” Liu advised as he stomped out from his store with a lighted torch. “The Hsiung-nu keep no slaves.”

  “What’s with the fire?” Peter asked.

  “To warn the soldiers farther in about this! It’s the only way.”

  “But it’s not yet dark! How you gonna do that?”

  “The smoke?” The former soldier scaled the steps.

  “We can’t leave Yung Ji behind,” Matthew resumed.

  “You might have sent the other kids to God-knows-where like your sister, Matthew,” Peter said in support of Nora. “Who knows where?”

  “I know what happened to Stephanie,” the younger boy snapped. “I must have placed her finger on Yung Ji’s name by mistake! We have Liu to thank for keeping her safe.”

  “We may not have him around next time,” Nora dryly pointed out.

  “It remains only three boys, okay?” Matthew roared. “Yung Ji, Fat George and Rupert! We get them, we get out.”

  “Can’t you take charge of this, Peter?” his sister asked the fat boy, fuming.

  “He’s somehow right, I guess,” Peter said, sheepishly.

  “He’s not! Take the book from him.”

  “Why don’t you?” Peter was ever so careful. “You know it’s magical, right? He’ll fry me with it if I try to.”

  “I knew you were a coward like Leonard.”

  This was unexpected and Peter was shocked. “I am not a coward, Nora,” he said.

  “Yes, you are.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Ow, c’mon,” intruded Matthew.

  “Yes, you are.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “Peter’s no coward!” Stephanie screamed and their bickering stopped. “We won’t get anywhere like this.”

  They heard fighting far away.

  “Up the stairs,” Matthew urged and they scampered outside together. Two men were fighting on a distant tower. A Chinese with a torch and a Hun. Liu’s fire was already blazing up smoke as he jumped down to aid his colleague.

  “Move inwards if you want to live!” their host stopped to warn them.

  “But we can only find our friend in their midst,” Matthew began.

  “Matthew!” Nora railed.

  “That’s the truth!” he vented. “It’s been like that with the book.”

  The attacking Hun stabbed the Chinese guard twice before he could light his own heap of sticks. Liu brandished his sword. “There’s a small door below my room,” he told them. “Escape from there!” And he fell into a trot.

  “I want to come with you!” Stephanie cried after him.

  “Too dangerous, Steph,” Nora told her and pulled her back into the tower. The Hun had jumped down and was coming their way, grinning. He had powerful arms. Matthew followed Nora as Liu Hang raced towards the man.

  “Help me, brother!” the fellow called out to Peter in his tongue and the Jew fled after Matthew in terror.

  “I heard him!” Peter kept saying to himself. “I heard him!” He ran down to the others now in the tower’s lowest room. Evening was fast approaching and there was little light here.

  “Where’s the door?” Nora demanded as she groped around with the others. They could hear both soldiers fighting outside.

  “Here!” Matthew announced, pushing it open. The door was small and very low so Peter found it a bit hard to squeeze through after the others.

  “More Huns are coming!” Nora informed them, looking up the wall’s length.

  “And the Chinese are running away!” Matthew observed along the grassy hills before them. Chinese families were streaming out of the towers with their belongings and children. “We better join them!”

  They started running.

  A Hun fell in a heap from the top of the wall and Peter picked up his bloody sword before speeding up to the others in top flight. “Might come in handy!” he begged them when they almost mistook him for an enemy.

  They heard a woman scream as she was clobbered to death behind them and their dedication to the race increased.

  “You must use the book now, Matthew!” Nora pleaded beside her brother.

  “Can’t!” he choked as he ran. “They’ll catch us—if we stop!”

  And he was right. Their attackers were killing any peasant they overran.

  “I can’t run anymore!” Stephanie suddenly stressed and slowed down.

  Nora carried her. “They’re closing in on us!” she wailed. “What do we do?”

  “Lie on the ground!”

  “What?”

  “Lie on the ground as if dead!” Peter repeated. “Trust me!”

  “No way!” Stephanie objected
.

  “I’ll cover you guys!” Peter disclosed. “I’m one of them, remember?”

  “What are you doing?” Stephanie asked Nora as she fell to the ground with her.

  “It’s worth trying out!” Nora said. “We’ve got no choice.”

  “We do—Run!” her little sister screamed.

  “No, we don’t!” Matthew seconded. He’d also fallen down.

  Quickly, Peter smeared their clothes with blood from the sword he had picked up moments ago, and as his rogue ‘comrades’ chased their victims past, he mustered all his energy into ‘killing’ these ‘victims’ of his own.

  One of them was not fooled by this, though, and stopped to swerve round beside Stephanie with an inquisitive look on his face.

  He was the one who had killed Liu Hang.