by Joanne Pence
After eating, he left the monastery. The rain had stopped and now, in daylight, he headed for the town of Baigou. He hiked down the hill to the tiny huts he had seen coming in. Weeds grew up around them and everything had been boarded shut. He was glad he hadn’t wasted time going there the night before.
Continuing along the road, he reached the town market. It was small, dusty, and crowded with people and stalls containing a variety of vegetables, fruit, clothes, herbs and medicines. Michael’s entry caused a stir. Uyghur women with lush beauty, captivating dark eyes, and wearing long dresses with colorful scarves, smiled at him. He remembered Marco Polo’s tale of the women of Kamel who took providing comfort to travelers to a whole new level. If they looked anything like these women, Marco Polo had been a lucky man indeed.
Older men wearing traditional fur Uyghur hats, often with a rolled brim, pulled so low over their ears that the tops of the ears bent downward, scowled in his direction. A lifetime of bending the ear cartilage permanently stretched the tops of their ears so that even after the hat was removed, their ears angled outward. Younger men preferred the brimless, four-cornered doppa, a Uyghur version of a Muslim skull cap.
As Michael walked through the bustling area, one of those older men grabbed his arm. The stranger smiled, showing teeth blackened by heavy cigarette smoke. He appeared to be in his seventies, which in this rugged, harsh land, probably meant he was a lot younger. He wore a long, heavy black coat, brown trousers tucked into black boots, and a black fur hat. He spoke to Michael.
Michael pulled his arm free, and said in Mandarin, “I don’t understand.”
“You American?” the fellow asked, also in Mandarin.
“Yes.”
“I speak English.” He had a thick accent and gave Michael a jovial whack on the back. For a while, English and Russian had been taught in schools along with Mandarin to help people learn to deal with the outside world. The man’s name was Hajji, and he asked what Michael was doing in Baigou.
“I’m traveling the Old Silk Road.” It was one of the few reasons foreigners went to that remote part of the world. The local people, as well as the Chinese government, understood and accepted it.
“Ah, you Marco Polo!” Hajji shouted, then said something, rapid fire, to the men who had gathered around them.
Little did Hajji know how close he came to the truth.
Michael asked about the building on the hill, and learned that it had been built by Christians many, many centuries earlier, and then Buddhists took it over. When Muslim Uyghurs drove the Buddhists away, it fell to ruin. Michael asked about the monks who used the church.
Hajji looked at him strangely, and said no one used it for centuries, and no Christian monks were anywhere near. Hajji’s English wasn’t good, and Michael’s Mandarin was even worse, but no matter how many ways he asked the question, he was told the monastery was an abandoned ruin with rotting, crumbling wood. When Michael mentioned an electric light that must have run off a generator, Hajji frowned and shook his head.
“If you saw anyone or any lights on that hill, it must be a ghost or a demon,” Hajji warned. “You must not go there. Come to my house. Down that street, last house.” He pointed to a street and told Michael he was welcome to sleep there that night.
Michael thanked him for his generous offer and didn’t tell Hajji he had already spent one night at the place. Instead, he said he would explore the area, and might show up later at Hajji’s home.
“Tell me,” he said. “Are there any other monasteries or old churches or temples nearby?”
Hajji thought a moment. “Nothing. That is the only one.”
Michael again thanked him, then went off to buy a meat pie, a slab of goat cheese, and pistachios at the market for his supper. He appreciated the old monk bringing him food, but preferred to pass on the greasy mutton soup.
Somewhat reluctantly, he decided to head back to the monastery. Although he believed it was the place Brother Sirom talked about, he wasn’t sure he ought to leave the red pearl there. It felt wrong. To be honest, he didn’t like the idea of leaving the red pearl anywhere. How could he be sure it wouldn’t fall into the wrong hands? At the same time, thoughts of the power of a philosopher’s stone filled him. Thoughts of magical, wondrous power that could be his.
A familiar van followed by a black SUV turned off the road and came to a stop near the market. Michael was astonished to see it, and hurried towards it as his friends got out of the van, along with three classically dressed Uyghurs. Even more surprising, he recognized Hank Bennett and Stuart Eliot when they stepped out of the SUV, along with three muscular strangers. But a dark aura circled Hank and Stuart. It startled him, and he stopped and stared.
Jianjun reached him, put his arms around his boss, but as soon as Michael tried to hug him back, he gave Michael a forceful shove. “What the hell were you thinking? You scared us to death. We didn’t know what happened to you.”
“I texted you and Charlotte. Didn’t you look at the sat phone?” Michael said.
“I never got any texts. Neither did Charlotte. And since the government runs the whole damn internet, I couldn’t even use it to track your phone or your messages.”
“Maybe you need to hack them next time. But I ran into similar problems just trying to make a phone call.”
“Hello, Michael,” Kira said, smiling broadly. She gave him a quick hug before Renata threw herself into his arms.
“I’m so glad you’re safe,” Renata cried. “I was so worried.”
“I’m shocked all of you are here. So, how did you find me?”
“You’re notorious, how else?” Jianjun admitted. He then introduced Michael to Hank Bennett, Stuart Eliot, their bodyguards, and the three Uyghurs.
“Doctor Michael Rempart, Ph.D. Oxford, I understand,” Hank said, extending his hand—a not-so-subtle way to let Michael know he had done his homework.
Jianjun had just begun telling Michael how Hank and Stuart had saved him and the women from bandits when shouts stopped him.
“Yaojing! Yaojing!” An elderly vendor of meat pies toddled towards them on thin, rickety legs, pointing and shrieking at the top of his lungs.
Michael wondered what was going on. The others in the market place also stopped everything, their gazes jumping from the old man to the white strangers in their midst. As one, they began to move towards the foreigners.
The old man continued to shout. “What are you saying, old fool?” Jianjun asked, running towards him to stop his cries.
The vendor suddenly gripped his chest and then fell to the ground, his eyes open but unseeing.
Jianjun loosened the vendor’s collar as he cried out in Mandarin to get a doctor, that the old man may have had a heart attack, but none of them moved.
“You understood?” Michael asked, kneeling by Jianjun’s side.
“Yaojing is Chinese, not Uyghur.” Jianjun tried CPR on the man’s heart, but the vendor made no response.
Renata spoke to the crowd in Uyghur, pleading for a doctor. Still, no one did anything to help the vendor, hopeless though such help might have been. Instead they glared at the foreigners, repeating the vendor’s cry of “Yaojing.”
Jianjun stood and backed away. “Let’s get out of here fast,” he said to Michael. “This could get ugly.”
“What was the old man saying?” Michael asked.
“Demon. He was yelling the word for demon.”
Before they could warn the others, they were hit by a hail of rocks. The villagers ran at them, shouting and pelting them with rocks and anything else they could grab hold of.
Polk and Taft pulled out pistols and pointed them at the villagers, but Michael and Jianjun waved their arms to stop them. “You can’t shoot them all,” Michael said, “and the survivors will tear you—maybe all of us—limb from limb if you kill anyone.”
“Come on!” Hank ordered. They climbed into their vehicles.
Kira told Michael to sit in the bucket seat up front with Jianjun, that
she’d squeeze in back with Renata and the Uyghurs. Dilnar, however, didn’t get in. “Hurry!” her brother shouted.
“No time to crawl back there,” she said, then got in front with Michael, sitting on his lap. “Okay?” she asked.
She was petite and beautiful. “Okay,” he said, and shut the door.
Jianjun peeled out of the square behind Hank’s SUV.
Bullets pinged against the van as Jianjun drove. “Damn,” Michael said. “Duck down. They’re shooting.” He found himself even closer to Dilnar after ducking, their arms intertwined. Given Uyghur customs, he could end up engaged by the time this ride ended.
Jianjun raced towards the main road. “I’ll direct you to the monastery I found,” Michael said. “I’m pretty sure it’s the one we’ve been looking for. The villagers think it’s haunted. We’ll be safe there.”
“Haunted? I don’t like the sound of that, boss,” Jianjun said as he waved to Hank, signaling the other driver to let him get ahead and then to follow him. “But right now, it’s better than sticking around these people.”
“There it is.” Michael pointed to the monastery atop the hill. All were sitting upright again, and Dilnar’s arm remained casually flung around his shoulders. He gave up trying not to touch her as she slipped and slid over the bumpy road and put his arms around her waist to steady hear. It earned a smile from her that would have curled his toes had he not been suspicious of exactly who she and her siblings were, and why they were here—particularly after her provocative nearness.
“That?” Jianjun asked. “It looks like a crumbled ruin. How can you even tell what it is?”
Michael glanced at him in surprise. “What do you mean? It’s not that bad. You’ll see.”
“We’ve heard of this place,” Az’har said. “But we’ve never been inside. The wall around seems very high. Was it difficult to get in?”
“The gate was unlocked,” Michael said. “So was the door to what had once been a Christian church.”
“A Christian church?” Dilnar asked. “I have never been in such a thing. I shall be happy to see it.”
From the backseat, Renata cleared her throat. Loudly.
Hank followed as Jianjun drove onto the footpath to the structure, the leftmost wheels on the path while the rightmost rode over rough land. “Damn, it really is a wall,” Jianjun said. “It sure didn’t look like there was anything here when we were out on the road.”
“I thought the same thing,” Renata said. “But now, I see it’s remarkably well preserved. What an incredible find.”
They parked outside the wall since the wooden gate wasn’t wide enough for them to drive through. Although the market in Baigou had been sunny, dark rain clouds now filled the sky, and a strong wind caused all of them to pull their coats and jackets closer.
“I wouldn’t worry about anyone coming by to steal the cars,” Michael said. “People think the monastery is abandoned, but a monk brought me food last night and again this morning.”
“A monk?” Jianjun asked, while Dilnar’s brother grabbed her arm and pulled her away from the others, speaking in low, gruff tones. Paziliya smiled and shrugged.
“The monk was dressed similarly to the Nestorian who told me about this place.”
“Are you saying you found a Nestorian here? That’s impossible.” Renata looked at him as if he was quite mad.
Hank, Stuart and the body guards joined them.
“What the hell is this place?” Hank asked, hands in his pockets from the cold as he walked closer to eye the building.
Michael replied. “I spent the night at a Nestorian monastery in Kyrgyzstan, and a monk directed me here.”
Hank and Stuart glanced at each other and Renata’s eyes narrowed.
Michael pulled on a rope to ring the bell by the front gate. “The person who fed me may come to the gate,” he explained. But no one did, so he gave it a push. The gate squealed open.
Everyone was quiet as they crossed the courtyard. Michael led them inside the building. The temperature was cold, much colder than it was outside.
Kira rubbed her arms and voiced what the others thought. “This place is creepy.”
Michael remembered the church’s warmth the night before although it had no heat source and no fireplace. Now, it felt dark and dank. It was dry and not drafty, but the loneliness of the place and its unnatural silence wormed its way into their bones. Their voices sounded unreal and forced, causing them to whisper.
When the rain began, the group lit candles. Michael and Jianjun went outside to bring in extra blankets and coats from the cars. When they alone, Michael questioned him about the Hank, Stuart, and the Uyghurs. His experience with Irina had left him wary of anyone suddenly latching on to their group.
Jianjun explained, but as they reentered the church, Michael remained guarded.
“Have you looked in there?” Dilnar asked Michael, pointing at the door to the sacristy.
“It’s locked tight,” Michael said. “It’ll need to be pried open.”
“I’ve heard that at the time of the Great Cultural Revolution, groups of students were assigned to buildings like this and took everything of value,” Renata said. “What they left behind, they planned to destroy as ‘objects of mindless idolatry.’”
Michael nodded. “The destruction done during that time was terrible.”
“I’ve read that in this area,” her voice echoed, “the Red Guard students were struck down by some mysterious meningitis-like illness and died. Doctors assumed they had stirred up some long dormant strain of virus or bacteria, perhaps from rat and bird droppings.”
“It sounds as if we had better be careful moving things around,” Kira said.
“Exactly,” Renata agreed. “As if we didn’t have enough to worry about. This whole adventure is getting more absurd by the minute. Doesn’t anyone see that but me?”
“Maybe those kids were struck down by something altogether different,” Hank said with a nod at Stuart, who nodded back at him.
“Okay, ignore me,” Renata said. “Don’t blame me if you all get sick.” She moved away from the others, her arms folded.
Michael sensed another presence with them. He turned in a full circle, but saw nothing. Yet something in the church felt alien. More existed here than what he could see. All sense of the peaceful, chanting monks vanished, and he wondered if what he saw last night had been a dream or a vision, perhaps caused by the demons Hajji, the villager, had described.
With that, the realization struck the way he saw this place was not what the people of the village saw. And Jianjun and Renata’s initial reactions had matched Hajji’s. At first, they seemed to see only a ruin—but no longer. Were the demons causing that as well?
The dark auras he saw around Hank and Stuart were thicker now, and more unnerving.
“We should keep watch,” Michael said, then quickly added, “in case a villager comes up here.”
“That’s why Stuart and I hired bodyguards,” Hank said, then faced the three. “Can you guys handle it?”
Carter, Polk, and Taft nodded. Carter went out to take the first shift.
“We can explore outside once the rain stops,” Hank said. “In here, there’s nothing.”
They sat around the low table. Michael faced Hank and Stuart. No one else seemed as troubled by them as he was. He wondered if the black aura he saw meant death—surely, they were under the same threat as the other sailors in the photo, and they were the only two still alive. They were very likely on borrowed time.
“Why don’t you two tell us why you’ve followed us here,” Michael said. “And why you’re both still alive.”
Hank tried to laugh off Michael’s harsh tone. It didn’t work. “I figured you’d want to know sooner rather than later. It’s a long story, one we spent the last ten years piecing together, trying to make sense of it. Yet, it’s still confusing and for many of you, ultimately unbelievable.”
Michael leaned back against the wall, his arms folded. �
��Try us.”
Hank nodded and then told his story.
Chapter 42
Egypt, Mid-twentieth century
Shortly before the Second World War came to an end, a four-star “Generaloberst” in Hitler’s Nazi army abandoned his position and escaped to Egypt, carrying with him some Nazi gold and other riches, including a red pearl that had belonged to Der Führer. The general changed his name and lived in a small town. The only person close to him was his Egyptian servant, a scrawny man with no spouse or children.
As the general’s death neared, in 1970, he told the servant he could keep all of his remaining possessions except one. The General said he had done terrible things during the war and had lived these last years in an attempt to correct some of that. But his last act was one the servant had to see was carried out. The general had had a special coffin made for himself, and he told the servant to be sure that his small Chinese bronze and the red pearl inside it be buried with him in the desert.
The Egyptian promised to do as asked, but before burying it, he opened the bronze. When he looked at the red pearl, longing and desire came over him. He felt connected to the pearl, and that it connected with him. He had never experienced anything like it before, and to bury it seemed sacrilegious. The Egyptian had spent his life following his boss’s wishes, but this time, he could not.
He soon discovered that when he held the pearl near the eyes of a stranger, the pearl would somehow fill the Egyptian with knowledge of the stranger’s future. The pearl never lied; whatever it predicted, happened. The servant became so good at foretelling the future, he came to be considered a holy man, a fakir.
The fakir found that he could make especially large sums of money in Cairo by telling the future to tourists.
Some seven years later, during a time of recession in the United States, many men signed up for military service. One of those men, Hank Bennett, grew tired of working for pennies at a gas station, and thought he might be able to do more with his life than add oil or change fan belts. He was a tall, gangly man, with an overly long face and teeth that seemed too big for his mouth. Handsome wasn’t in his vocabulary.
