Elsewhere as the sun began to set and wash the rugged snowscape in scarlet light, the Emperor Mummy and his general climbed . . .
For what seemed like a long time, and which was perhaps two minutes, Alex and Lin sat on the steps of the pavilion, guarding the pool in awkward silence.
Finally Alex said, “For the record, you don’t look a day over one thousand . . . It’s a joke. You look incredible, period.”
That made her smile. “You are very sweet, Alex.”
“Again, for the record? I just want you to know—I have nothing against dating an older woman.”
But she shook her head. “I am afraid we cannot be together.”
He blinked at her. “Why?”
“Because I am going to live forever, and you aren’t. You will grow old and you will die. And I care for you too much to watch.”
He thought about that. Then he said, “So, instead of giving the two of us a chance at maybe having something great, you’re just going to sit on the sidelines . . . for all eternity.”
She avoided his eyes. “My mother has mourned my father for many centuries. I do not know if my heart could bear such a burden.”
He leaned in, not wanting to let her off the hook. “You know what I think, Lin? I think, immortal or not, a man and woman in love can live an entire lifetime . . . in just one look.”
She cocked her head and finally met his eyes. “How can you say such a thing?”
“Because I’ve seen it. I watch my parents do that every day.”
From above, from a window in the carved-out dwelling, Jonathan called, “Alex! Your father’s come around!”
He was up like a shot, and took the short flight of stairs the same way.
Zi Yuan’s chambers were decorated with almost monastic simplicity, and yet also bore a feminine touch, in splashes of colored fabric. On the simple, palletlike bed, O’Connell awoke to find Evy on one side and Jonathan on the other.
Looking at his wife, O’Connell said, his voice husky but surprisingly strong, “If this is heaven, it’s looking good so far.”
She stroked his head, then tangled her fingers in his hair. “If you ever leave me like that again, Rick O’Connell, I’ll kill you myself.”
Then, at the same time, they decided to kiss each other and did so in a passionate way usually reserved for either the end of the adventure or at least until they were alone behind closed doors.
From the entryway, Alex’s voice came: “Nice to see some things never change.”
O’Connell noticed something tentative in his son’s tone, despite the jaunty words.
Evy leaned close and whispered, “Go easy with him, darling. He blames himself for what happened to you.”
O’Connell got to his feet—without much trouble, surprisingly—and his son crossed to him.
Alex said, “When I saw you on the ground, all bloody like that . . . I was never so scared in my life.”
O’Connell grinned. “Well, that makes two of us.”
The boy shook his head, his eyes moist. “You’re not supposed to die, Dad—you’re Rick O’Connell, Ricochet Rick, remember? They can beat you up, toss you around, but you’ll still be standing at the end. I can’t really picture this world without you in it.”
The father, pleased but embarrassed, shrugged. “Son, I’m just a regular guy, trying to be a good husband and a good father. But as a husband and father, I guess sometimes I make a good mummy hunter.”
Alex laughed; so did his dad.
“Son, lately I’ve been dropping the ball. I’m sorry.”
The boy twitched a half smile. “Well . . . I haven’t exactly been in line for a World’s Greatest Kid trophy myself.”
O’Connell shrugged again. “You must get that streak from your mother’s side.”
Father and son hugged; then the boy’s mother joined them. It was a sloppy, sentimental moment and it was wonderful.
Taking a few moments away from standing watch at the cave entrance, Zi Yuan—the dragon dagger tightly in her grasp—slipped back into the cavern to speak privately to her daughter, who sat within the pavilion, staring at her own reflection in the pool. Then her mother’s reflection appeared there next to hers.
Lin turned to the woman, who sat beside her and touched her hand, gently. In ancient Mandarin, Zi Yuan said, “You look tired. You should rest.”
“I will stay here and keep watch. We both have our responsibilities.”
The mother squeezed her daughter’s hand. “I am sorry you have spent your life paying for my sins. For centuries I have dreamed of the moment when you would return to me.”
Lin swallowed. “So many times, Mother, I have wanted to come home . . . knowing that I could not.”
Zi Yuan nodded. “And now fate is about to deal its final hand. And if we are to defeat the Emperor, I must ask you to make one more sacrifice.”
“Anything, Mother.”
“You must give up your immortality.”
Lin frowned in confusion.
“Let me explain . . .”
But before Zi Yuan could do that, a comet of fire streaked across the cavern from behind them, a tongue of flame that seemed to lick the dragon dagger right out of Zi Yuan’s grasp and at the same time knocked both women onto the pavilion floor.
Striding into the cathedral-like cave with Yang trailing just behind, the terra-cotta mummy extended a hand and drew the dagger back to his own grasp, then returned the blade to a sheath it had left many, many centuries before. The dead eyes flashed with surprising life upon seeing Zi Yuan.
In the cave dwelling above, summoned by disturbing sounds, the O’Connells ran to a window carved from the stone and looked out onto the pavilion and pool. O’Connell, Evy, Alex and Jonathan all watched in horror as the Emperor Mummy strode up the short steps into the pavilion and waded into the blue waters, sinking deep, the red-brown clay figure disappearing beneath its surface.
All four ran from Zi Yuan’s chamber down the steps into the cavern and seemed to hit the brakes simultaneously as before their wide eyes the pool began to course with energy, swirling with ominous force.
“My God,” Evy said. “All of his powers will be fully restored . . . forever . . .”
Then, slowly but inexorably, the Emperor’s head began to rise above the blue, swirling surface; but terra-cotta no more! This was Er Shi Huangdi’s human face, breaking the surface, only . . . then it happened again . . . an identical face bobbed up . . . and again . . . three Er Shi Huangdi faces!
“Third time,” O’Connell said, his hand feeling for a sidearm holster that was no longer there, “definitely not a charm . . .”
Each head revealed itself to be attached to a long, scaly neck, and then as the creature rose farther from the water, the three long necks could be seen to extend from a thick, snakelike body. The Emperor had shape-shifted into the very three-headed dragon that had always been his symbol.
But there was nothing symbolic about the way the creature rose until it finally popped the canopy from the pavilion as if the wood and gold roof were papier-mâché, crashing it down onto the cave floor. Columns toppled, as the dragon moved menacingly across Zi Yuan’s cave.
“Next time,” Jonathan said, “if no one objects, I may stay home . . .”
Proving it was indeed a dragon, the creature reared back all three heads and let loose torrents of fire, driving his enemies to cover. O’Connell had to pull Zi Yuan out of the way, as streaming fire scorched the cave around them, and Jonathan led Evy behind the slumbering Buddha, for cover. General Yang, running alongside the dragon, jumped into its taloned grip. Lin was against a wall, where she’d been flung, and was coming around just in time to see six mustard-colored eyes glow at her with vengeful lust.
From a charred recess where he’d taken cover, Alex jumped out and screamed, “Get away from her!”
But the dragon grabbed Lin in its left taloned foot and batted the boy away with a folded wing. And as the dragon swept past, Alex made desperate eye conta
ct with Lin, promising her silently he would save her somehow, even though right now he was helpless to.
Then the creature was gone, flying through and out of the cave. They did not see the thing, wings spread, filling the air, but the snapping sound of those wings they most certainly heard, as it flew straight up and out of their world.
The walls of the cavern were smoking as everyone reemerged from their respective cover. The smell of it was sulfurous.
With stiff dignity, Zi Yuan said, “Er Shi Huangdi is taking my daughter back to his tomb. He will raise his army.”
Evy said, “Zi Yuan, is there a fast way down from here?”
“With the yetis’ help, there is.”
Alex was shaking his head. “But that thing is flying overland—we’ll be too late.”
O’Connell smiled grimly. “My bet is Maddog Maguire can outfly a three-headed lizard any day.”
Alex looked more frightened than O’Connell had seen him look since childhood.
The father slipped an arm around his son’s shoulder and squeezed supportively. “We’ll get her back, Alex. We’ll get her back, and make that monster pay.”
10
No Regrets
The gray crate that was Maddog Maguire’s plane was dwarfed by massive clouds in the nighttime sky. Not only had Maddog been game to fly his little party to the valley in Ningxia Province, China, where Alex had first uncovered the tomb of Er Shi Huangdi, the pilot seemed so relieved to see them alive—and able to pay him the balance of what was owed him—he might well have flown them to the moon and back.
From the extra space available in the otherwise cramped cabin, now that Jonathan’s friend Geraldine the yak had moved on with her life, the party was able to—one or two at a time—make certain preparations for the warmer climate, including making changes of clothes. Only Zi Yuan had dressed for the trip before leaving her cavern dwelling—she was now in a flowing olive skirt, gold silk blouse and purple brocade vest, all subdued colors but for a splash of purple sash, attire she described as “battle ready.”
The rest of the O’Connell party had left some of their baggage and clothing aboard the plane, in anticipation of another possible leg to the journey. Jonathan merely abandoned his heavy parka and announced himself ready (“if not entirely willing and able”), while Evy had gotten into a full-skirted brown dress over which she now wore a brown leather jacket with matching gloves, looking elegantly prepared for adventure.
Rick O’Connell, like Zi Yuan, was prepping for battle—light brown chinos, a blue-gray long-sleeve shirt (rolled halfway up the forearms) and a brown vest-style shoulder sling for his twin .45 revolvers. Alex, also in a long-sleeve shirt and chinos, had a brown leather coat on and both men were gloved.
The father had already opened up his weathered case of weaponry, filled with its mishmash of handguns, shotguns, an M3 submachine gun (the ever-popular “grease gun”) and of course his prize tommy gun, which had jammed on him back at the colonnade. Alex was getting into a suitcase that brimmed with showroom-worthy Russian PPS 43s, the submachine gun Alex had sworn by and used so effectively in the recent struggle with General Yang’s mercenary soldiers.
“You mind,” O’Connell asked his son, “if I try out a couple of those?”
Alex glanced at his dad, and both men grinned—a divide had been crossed. They had finally bonded, even if it had been over submachine guns.
Their pilot called back to them over his engine roar: “Look, three-o’clock port! The boys back home’ll never believe this yarn!”
O’Connell and Alex made it to the nearest port-side window and could see, thousands of feet below, catching the oranges and reds of dawn, the three-headed creature that Er Shi Huangdi had become, flapping its huge wings, heading east. Barely visible in a back claw of the beast was its unwilling passenger, Lin.
Alex stared at his love, far below, and fading. His father gripped his shoulders and squeezed. The two exchanged glances but no words were said. None were necessary.
Maguire’s plane banked away, making a quick exit after delivering O’Connell, Evy, Alex and Zi Yuan to a designated drop point in the desolate valley, not far from the site the younger O’Connell had worked, seeking Er Shi Huangdi’s tomb. Jonathan stayed on board with Maguire, as per plans O’Connell had put in motion. In fact, it was already time to check in with Jonathan.
O’Connell knelt and clicked on his shortwave. “Any sign of our flying friend?”
Jonathan’s voice came back over the radio: “Negative. You better get a move on, though, if you’re going to beat him to that tomb.”
“Just do what I told you to,” O’Connell reminded his brother-in-law, and clicked off.
The little party began to walk, four abreast. The morning was cool, but compared to the Himalayas, seemed damned near subtropical.
Alex, at his father’s side, said, “Dad, I know we’re good—no question otherwise. But the Emperor will have thousands of warriors, once he wakes ’em up.”
But it was Zi Yuan who answered: “His terra-cotta army will not be indestructible.”
Evy said, “Well, that’s comforting.”
Zi Yuan continued: “That is, not until they have crossed the Great Wall.”
Frowning, Evy asked, “Meaning no disrespect, might I ask how exactly the four of us are going to fend these ‘thousands of warriors’ off?”
“When the emperor built the Great Wall,” the serene sorceress said, “he buried his enemies underneath, cursing their souls to hold it up for him, for all eternity.”
Alex said, “Tough boss.”
Evy was ahead of her son, if not her husband. She asked the woman, “You know how to raise them from the dead, don’t you?”
Expressionless, Zi Yuan said, “There is a Foundation Chamber with an altar dedicated to the five elements.”
O’Connell said, “The elements Er Shi Huangdi controls.”
“Yes. From this chamber, with those powers, the Emperor enslaved those souls, locking them in, so to speak. Most were captured soldiers who were then turned into slave workers. I will unlock them, using that same altar. And I will call them to battle, one last time . . .”
O’Connell was nodding. “Unlock that altar, raise an army. Sounds like a plan.”
His wife glanced at him. “An army of the dead,” she reminded him.
“Right. Zombies. But good-guy zombies . . . on our side. That’s the kind of living dead I can get behind.”
Alex, walking along, was thinking how casually his father was taking all this. Of course, no one on earth had dealt with as many reanimated dead people as his old man, so he guessed he could understand it.
But Alex had not been at this long enough to be nonchalant, and until the two-thousand-year-old young woman he loved was freed from these literally evil clutches, he was unlikely to be.
The wasteland where Alex O’Connell had unearthed the Emperor Mummy once again had tents near the base of the half-exposed Sphinx-like monument Er Shi Huangdi had built in honor of himself twenty centuries before. This time, however, an archaeological expedition had been replaced by the gray-uniformed soldiers of General Yang. For days these men had been training and awaiting orders, hoping to hear from the general, and from the arisen Emperor who would lead them to victory.
They did not expect to hear from Er Shi Huangdi in the manner he chose, however, specifically laying a huge blue shadow over the camp and bringing all eyes to the sky, where a giant three-headed dragon went sweeping by.
With surprising grace for such an ungainly if grotesquely magnificent creature, the dragon dropped Yang and Lin to the ground before the colossus, right in front of the gathered soldiers, who numbered nearly two hundred.
Yang straightened himself, brushed off his uniform, and—mustering as much dignity as possible for a man just dropped from a dragon’s claw—he summoned a cadre of soldiers and turned Lin over to them, saying in Mandarin, “Guard her with your life.”
The dragon itself touched down beside
the head of the colossus, like a parrot on a pirate’s shoulder. The great beast folded its wings around itself, halving its size, then the necks with the three heads wrapped themselves around the trunk of the creature, melding and condensing. The conversion was bizarre and freakish but the result was amazing.
There, standing next to his own commanding colossus, was Er Shi Huangdi, regal in his black, jade-encrusted armor, with his golden-hilted sword at his side and the dragon dagger sheathed at his waist. A vision of imperial power, he merely had to look at the assembled soldiers for them to immediately bow, awestruck.
General Yang, bowing his head as well, wore an expression rarely seen on this somber, serious, self-important man—a smiling one; but a smile touched with hysteria and greed. Though his eyes were on the scrubby ground, he was gazing into what he felt sure would be his future.
At the Emperor’s right hand, Yang would himself live like an Emperor, guiding Er Shi Huangdi in the ways of the twentieth century. And he, like the Emperor, would live forever in the pages of history, and perhaps his lord would grant him the gift of eternal life, for without Yang, Er Shi Huangdi would still be but a bronze statue encasing a terra-cotta mummy.
Then, as was their wont, the soldiers began to cheer and fire their weapons in the air, celebrating the return of the general and, especially, their emperor.
Crouched low in a ditch, Rick O’Connell watched the celebratory scene through binoculars, thinking, That’s fine, boys—just keeping using up that ammo . . .
Next to him in the ditch were Evy and Zi Yuan, with Alex behind them, flat on his belly against a mound, using his own binoculars to see for himself.
O’Connell, after watching the situation at the colossus camp awhile, said, “Okay, Alex . . . you wait here with the shortwave, in case Jonathan and Maddog call . . .”
Alex said nothing.
His father lowered the binoculars and turned to look; Evy and Zi Yuan craned to look, as well.
But Alex was nowhere to be seen.
Evy, alarmed, said, “Where did that boy go?”
His father, however, was not alarmed; he was even smiling a little, as he again raised the binoculars to see his son scurrying across the plain, keeping low, heading toward Yang’s encampment. “Where do you think, my love? He’s gone to save the damsel.”
The Mummy Tomb of the Dragon Emperor Page 14
