by Brian Godawa
Mei Li watched Antiochus sigh thoughtfully.
Balthazar said, “The gods be with you, my brother.”
Antiochus said, “Don’t you mean, Shang Di?”
Balthazar looked at Mei Li, then back at Antiochus with a smile. “Indeed, I do. Shang Di be with you.”
“And also with you,” said Antiochus.
They had a mere week to travel five hundred miles or all was lost.
CHAPTER 24
Huang Di sat alone on his throne in the empty throne room. He made all the guards stay outside the palace doors. He looked out into the vast emptiness before him. Was this what it was like to be a god? He was emperor of all under heaven. He could show his humanity to no one. Not his wives, nor his concubines, nor his closest advisors. He must remain holy, separate and above them.
A wave of nausea came over him. His limbs felt weak with trembling. The symptoms were increasing. When would they subside? He could no longer stand the smell of food. He felt sick most of the time and had to go to the latrine constantly. When would he enter into a higher state of being as he was promised by his magicians and alchemists?
His skin began to itch all over his body. It felt like insects were crawling over him. He cried out in anguish and scratched himself to rid his body of the creeping sensation.
He reached down to a small gilded bronze container and opened it. Inside were specially baked cakes that were mixed with the life-giving quicksilver, arsenic and other ingredients that would preserve his body for longevity. He crammed one into his mouth and ate with desperation. He coughed and almost choked on it. He jammed another one in his mouth. But a raging migraine headache pierced his skull and he spit out the cakes all over the floor. He clutched his head tightly.
“Your majesty,” came a voice at the other end of the vast hall. Haung Di looked up, trying to hide his shame.
He saw the chief Xu Fu with a squad of guards. The emperor suddenly brightened, and ignored the pain as hope filled his heart.
“My Xu Fu! Returned!”
Xu Fu bowed with cupped hands.
“Come forward, come forward.”
He came and stopped at fifty paces, bowing again.
“My Xu Fu has come home so quickly. Surely you have good news for me. Tell me, what did you find?”
Xu Fu bowed again, giving ample deference, showing excess humility and submission. “My lord, the emperor. I have found the three spirit mountains of the immortals in the East Sea.”
Huang Di grinned widely.
“They are named Penglai, Fangzhang, and Yingzhou.”
The emperor could not contain himself. “Did you meet the immortals?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Can they impart immortality?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Well, where is it?”
“It is an herb on the island of Penglai.”
“Do you have it with you?”
“No, my lord.”
The emperor’s excitement turned sour.
“But why not?”
Xu Fu hesitated.
The emperor exploded with fury, “WHY NOT, XU FU?! WHY DO YOU NOT HAVE MY ELIXIR?!”
“Forgive me, your highness, but I never set foot on the islands. They are guarded by a gigantic sea monster to keep mortals from approaching.”
The emperor’s face filled with confusion as he searched within his twisted logic to find a way around it. He could not.
Xu Fu peeked up at the emperor. “Your majesty, we have crafted a very large crossbow with which to shoot the sea monster. If you but grant me one more properly funded trip, perhaps I may clear the way to the island for you.”
The emperor’s eyes boiled with rage. Li Ssu had been right. He should not have trusted all these charlatans with his wealth. They have consumed his treasury like a plague of locusts.
“Insects!” screamed the emperor. He felt the crawling on his skin again. “You are eating me alive!”
Xu Fu trembled with fear.
The emperor drew his ceremonial sword. Ceremonial, but still sharp enough to behead a man. “Guards!” he yelled.
In moments, Xu Fu was surrounded by four of them, ready to kill at the emperor’s command.
But instead, he shouted, “Bring him to the Academy and lock him in with the scholars!”
Xu Fu breathed a sigh of relief. Until the emperor added, “I will kill them all together.”
The guards dragged Xu Fu out of the throne room.
Li Ssu and the warrior Wu Shu urgently rushed past him into the throne room. The two of them had returned from checking on the prisoners in the dungeon.
The emperor waved them forward.
The chancellor and warrior stood fifty paces from the king and bowed. Li Ssu said, “Highness, the prisoners have escaped from their punishments.”
Huang Di welled up with fury. “NOOOOOO!!!” He gripped a stand of a hundred candles that stood before the throne and overturned it, throwing it to the floor in a crash of wax and bronze.
He collapsed to the floor on his knees, catching his breath.
Li Ssu said, “Majesty, Wu Shu knows the concubine. He knows how she thinks. I have good reason to believe that she is taking Antiochus to the priests of Shang Di.”
Wu Shu remained dutifully silent.
The emperor barked, “Find them. Find them, and kill them all!”
CHAPTER 25
Seventy miles north of the city of Yanjing, in the northern commandery of Yan, the Long Wall stretched along hundreds of miles of mountainous regions like a serpent’s backbone, thirty feet high and twenty feet thick, with towers at various intervals. It had been started generations earlier, in incomplete segments built by the various provinces of the warring states. But when the emperor took command, he conscripted three hundred thousand slave laborers and convicts to repair, rebuild and extend the wall’s length so that it was one continuous wall of protection from the barbarous frontier.
As Meng Tian looked down from his ridge upon the Long Wall in the distance, he could not help but think that the wall was as much a prison to keep its inhabitants in as it was a protection to keep the barbarians out. He felt this tragic conflict in his conscience because he saw first-hand the price paid by the people for the emperor’s will. He was the right hand of the emperor in accomplishing that will.
He had sought to salve his conscience by influencing the emperor’s son, Fusu, to understand the value of impartiality in the games of power that enveloped history. Meng Tian considered himself outside the messy world of politics. He wasn’t a Confucian, but he wasn’t a Legalist. One seemed tribal and divisive, the other seemed harsh and tyrannical. He dreamed of an apolitical world of law and order and getting things done. He hoped to impart those values to the emperor’s next in line.
But now Fusu rode beside Meng Tian far away from the halls of power, while the younger Huhai was being manipulated in the very palace of the emperor by that cunning Li Ssu. Meng Tian could only hope to keep the elder son alive so that he might not be usurped by that treacherous tyrant of Legalism that seemed to care more about the treasury and power than his own people. The Wall was a perfect case in point.
The Wall was made of rammed earth, created by millions of baskets of dirt, wood, and rocks endlessly carried on the aching backs of undernourished peasants, morning, noon, and night. Meng Tian had pled unsuccessfully for the emperor to provide more rations. He had even petitioned for more rest for the workers, but every time, the emperor refused him. So many laborers were dying daily, that the only convenient way they could dispose of the bodies and maintain their weekly quota was to bury the dead workers into the wall itself. That was how it got the nickname “The Longest Cemetery” by the locals. Fusu had spoken up about this, but was shut down by his imperial father. At least the attempt showed hope for Fusu’s future as a compassionate ruler.
Meng Tian was loyal to the throne, so he gave his advice, but he would never think of disobeying or circumventing authority. He carried out o
rders. He was a soldier, not a politician or a scholar. He believed in authority, law and order. Without order, chaos would destroy civilization. Had not Tianxia suffered enough under two hundred and fifty years of bloodshed and chaos of the warring states? He consoled himself with the thought that war had ceased, so the suffering of the few was the price Tianxia had to pay for the blessing of security and unity. He too suffered under commands with which he was not pleased. He too felt the sting of bad decisions by his superiors. But he obeyed his orders and gave loyalty to the emperor, the god-man of “all under heaven.”
These poor fools, he thought as he looked down upon their encampment against the wall in the distant valley. They revolt for the “rights” of all people under heaven. But they cannot even take care of themselves without the great government that provided for them from cradle to grave. Yes, the government was corrupt and abusive, but it was also the absolute authority, so defiance against such order was defiance against nature itself.
He had learned that everyone had a station in life. Those who ruled were the few, and those who were ruled were the many. Wasn’t this self-evident? His own family had served with distinction in the military for many generations and were fiercely loyal to their kings. Meng Tian was proud that he too carried on that tradition with diligence and honor. Only by accepting one’s station in life could one find satisfaction and purpose in serving the greater good. It was the folly of individuals who sought higher station than they were born to, those who were ignorant and defiant of order, who were restless and caused these revolts of needless violence and destruction.
Meng Tian would return order. He would clean out the cancerous growth of insurrection and rebellion. Hopefully, Fusu would learn from him an honorable way of preserving order and authority and not capitulate to the manipulative tyranny of Li Ssu and his despotic Legalism.
Down in the valley, Meng Tian and Fusu saw a line of hundreds of Royal Ch’in soldiers impaled on poles. The insurgents had risen up and overthrown their own protectors and gathered together in the valley for their plans. They now had the royal weapons, but the weapons of hundreds would not meet the battle needs of thousands. Since these people were mostly farmers and other workers, most of them would not have swords and pikes, but hoes and pickaxes. They were not trained warriors, they were underfed peasants. Even with their passion, they could not hope to last long against the imperial army. Why would they do such a stupid thing? Why would they give up their lives for a hopeless cause? They knew nothing of how to govern themselves. They knew nothing of the art of military warfare. They only knew what they were born into. They could not protect themselves against barbarians, giants, or invading nations. It seemed foolishness to Meng Tian to prefer the cold harsh ravages of so-called “freedom” and death to the safe security of empire and life. Li Ssu abused the law through his philosophy, but in the feudal state, families and tribes were the ultimate standard, which could only result in division, disunity and endless war. With the help of the Dragon, the first emperor conquered all the warring states and brought peace and unity with his divine rule. These rebels were a mob, agents of chaos, destroyers of law and order.
As Meng Tian looked down upon the entrenchment of rebels in the valley, he thought to himself, And when the Dragon arrives, I will kill them all.
CHAPTER 26
“Have you ever seen the Juren?” asked a small stout guard, interrupting the storyteller. The guard was one of the nightwatch at the outskirts of the rebel camp.
Four others leaned in close to the circle in the brisk night air, their eyes unblinking, hearts pounding. They were so engrossed in the story that they neglected their responsibility of keeping watch for any spies or attack forces. They weren’t trained soldiers, and did not have the discipline required for a highly tuned defense force.
Besides, the conversation was fascinating.
The storyteller continued, “I myself have never seen one, but my father—” He paused darkly. Their imaginations went wild.
The questioner asked, “Are they part of the Xiongnu barbarians?”
“No. They call their tribe a foreign word, ‘Nephilim.’”
“What does it mean?” asked one of the guards.
“I don’t know. My father said they are between ten and twelve feet tall, with elongated skulls. They wear almost nothing, and they travel in packs.”
“Like wolves?” one of them said.
The storyteller answered, “Like mutant wolves. Their senses are extraordinary. They can hear you breathing at a thousand feet distance, they can smell you a mile away, and they can see you from ten miles.”
More than one of them had stopped breathing. What was legend and what was reality?
The storyteller added, “Oh, and they can see in the dark like a tiger.”
One of them looked around into the darkness. The others were too scared to move their eyes from their narrator.
“And most peculiar, they have six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, for a total of twenty-four fingers and toes.”
One of them finally let his breath out with a huff. He had tried to hold it so as not to be heard by any giant predators. The others looked at him scoldingly.
“And they have two rows of teeth in their mouths.”
“Two rows of teeth?” repeated one of them with shock. “These giants are not human.”
“They are demigods, children of the Dragon. Seed of the Serpent mingled with the daughters of men,” said the storyteller. “Though they are half human themselves, it doesn’t stop them from eating the flesh of their human victims.”
“Cannibals,” one of them gasped.
A guard slipped off his rock, making everyone jump.
Then they heard a growl. They looked out in the brush. They had neglected their duty to their own danger.
Until they realized it was the growling belly of the short guard.
“I’m hungry,” he said, trying to avert his shame. “I haven’t eaten in days.”
The storyteller broke out in laughter. The others followed suit.
Their amusement was short-lived.
A group of three dark shadow-warriors stepped out of the brush.
One watchman fell on his butt. Another peed his pants. The others lifted up their pikes.
The storyteller yelled, “Identify yourself or die!”
These bumbling farmers would, no doubt, be dead themselves in a minute.
The lead figure pulled down her hood and said, “I am Mei Li, daughter of Li Bu Hai, the high priest of Shang Di.”
The storyteller guard led Mei Li, Antiochus and Chang, with their equipment cart, through the rebel camp toward the wall. They had carried only the most basic of weapons, minimal food, and some carrier pigeons.
Antiochus took care to notice the rebel fighters and their arms. They were men and boys, most too young and too old for battle. They looked exhausted and underfed in ragged clothes, without body armor. They were laborers, not warriors. They held axes, scythes and converted garden tools rather than swords and shields. Some of the imperial forces had joined them, but these were in the hundreds. They needed thousands.
As they got closer to the wall, they passed through the village of civilians protected by the army. Women and children in groups huddled around fires outside their huts. Malnourished, sick and cold. He saw a mother holding a sickly infant. They passed a group of children trying to have some fun on the street.
Antiochus thought, These poor wretched souls have wallowed in such squalor for so long, they don’t even know how bad they have it. The hunger has become a normal part of their daily existence.
He glanced over and saw Mei Li watching him. They shared a moment of painful empathy. These were the hidden dregs of humanity, upon which the empire was built, upon which the god-king ruled from his throne.
He wanted to vomit. He wanted to kill the god-king.
The thought occurred to him that this was not much different from Seleucia, or for that matter, from Egyp
t and Rome and all the world’s empires. Despite their cultural differences or their distance from one another, it seemed that human nature was the same in every nation. They truly had a common heritage in Babel: the pursuit of power and immortality, and the human debris left in its wake.
The thought occurred to him with terrible truth. He had been so consumed with his own pursuit of power and glory, that he had never truly thought of the good of the people, real individual people like this, as opposed to mere abstraction. It was humanity in the abstract that was conjured to justify all kinds of totalitarian evil accomplished for the “good of the kingdom.”
He made a promise to himself. He would be different if he were king. He would rule justly and fairly. But would he really? And if it were true that heavenly principalities and powers, the Watchers, were behind the nations, why would he think he could be any less controlled by their evil schemes? Maybe the redemption he sought was not found in the affections of his earthly father after all, but rather in giving up everything he had sought for and embracing the people of his hidden heritage. He would have to surrender his delusions of grandeur and fight for a hopeless cause.
A necessary cause.
They arrived at a large tower. Antiochus looked up. It was fortified, a part of the Long Wall reinforced to withstand attack. Archers on their side lined the parapet looking down on them.
Imperial soldiers guarded the entrance—traitors to the emperor. Passwords were whispered and the gate was opened. Mei Li led Antiochus and Chang into the base of the tower.
It was not a large chamber, only enough room for about a hundred men. Seventy men in holy robes sat eating small rice rations. They looked up from their mats.
Mei Li whispered to Antiochus, “The priests of Shang Di.”
They were unimpressive to Antiochus. Not at all what he expected. Humble in appearance, without regal posture or presence. He saw Chang and Mei Li smile. Hardly the kind of saviors he had anticipated for this impossible goal.
