The Great Wall

by Mark Morris

  The two foreigners stood and looked around the room, bemused and disconcerted by their reception. The silence stretched on for several more seconds—and then General Shao stood up from his seat and slowly began to applaud. Immediately Lin Mae jumped up too and followed the General’s lead. Then Commanders Chen and Deng joined in, and soon chairs and benches were scraping back from long tables as every man and woman in the room stood and applauded the new arrivals.

  The foreigners looked at first astonished, and then delighted. The bearded, darker-skinned man bowed while the other grinned, his eyes darting around the room.

  Although her eyes were on the newcomers, Lin Mae suddenly felt different eyes on her and turned to see General Shao looking in her direction. His face was impassive, but his unblinking gaze spoke volumes: Remember what I told you. When he looked away she felt as though he’d left a sliver of ice behind, lodged in her heart. She tried not to let the discomfort it gave her show on her face as she continued to applaud.

  * * *

  William felt more relieved than anything when the applause eventually died down. Though Pero seemed to bask happily in the glory, William had never felt entirely comfortable being the center of attention.

  Plus he was hungry. He wanted to eat. And the food arrayed along the long table on the far side of the room looked and smelled delicious.

  But the formalities were not over yet. Once everyone had sat down, the blue-armored crane commander remained standing. When William looked across at her, she offered him a small (and, he thought, confidential) smile. Then she said, “General Shao welcomes you as honored guests of The Nameless Order and thanks you for your skill and courage.”

  Pero looked at William, who blushed and stammered, “We… er… we’re honored to be honored.”

  As the crane commander translated his words for the benefit of the room, Pero leaned across to him and muttered under his breath, “That’s the best you’ve got?”

  Before William could reply, he saw that the young commander in the red armour, whose helmet was shaped like the head of an eagle, had risen from his seat and was now walking across the room towards him, holding out William’s crossbow and arrows. Handing them to William, he turned and said something to the crane commander, who smirked.

  “Commander Chen thinks your bow is not worthy of your skill.”

  “You mean he thinks it’s an antique?”

  Her amused silence was proof enough that William had got pretty close to the mark.

  Although he dearly wanted to sit down, become anonymous and fill his belly, William’s indignation got the better of him. “Tell him there’s no better weapon in this building.”

  The crane commander conveyed his words, which generated a ripple of laughter. The bearded man in the black bear armour, General Shao, made what was clearly a good-humored comment and the woman nodded.

  “General Shao says we have much to learn about foreign pride.” She wafted a hand to encompass the room at large. “We would like to see you shoot.”

  William looked at her in surprise. “In here?”

  The commander in the red eagle armour who the woman had called Chen said something and chuckled.

  “What was that?” asked William.

  This time she managed to keep a straight face. “He thinks you have fear. That you are afraid to look foolish in front of so many people.”

  That stung William’s pride. His indignation rose another notch. Turning to Pero he pointed at one of the tables. “One of those cups.”

  Pero rolled his eyes. “Now?”

  “Get one of those cups,” William said, more insistently.

  Pero sighed. “I want to eat.”

  But a look from William was enough to make him trudge across to the nearest table and pick up an empty copper cup.

  William examined his bow, testing the tension in the string. “You remember how to do this?”

  “I remember that last time didn’t go so good,” Pero muttered.

  William selected his arrows. “We were drunk.”

  All eyes in the room were on the two men. Now that William had his bow back some of them looked wary.

  “How high?” Pero asked.

  William placed three arrows between his fingers. “Ten yards. And six hands to the right.”

  Pero hefted the cup in his hand, testing its weight. William turned to face the door he had entered by, his back to Pero and the rest of the room.

  “Oh no,” Pero said.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Seriously, William. Do the easy one.”

  Obstinately William said, “On my count…”

  Pero looked quickly around the room. Several hundred Chinese soldiers, their breakfast forgotten, looked back at him expectantly.

  Lowering his voice, Pero made one last appeal. “Please, Amigo…”

  “One…” William said firmly. “Two… Three… Pull!”

  With a look of anguish on his face, Pero hurled the cup across the room. As he did so, William wheeled round, bow drawn. Spotting the cup, he waited for it to reach its apex and then let the first arrow fly. There was a clank as the arrow struck the cup in such a way that it sent it both spinning and flying backwards. In quick succession William released two more arrows, which zipped through the air, over the heads of the astonished spectators. With a pair of metallic thwack sounds the arrows hit the cup almost in unison, and next second the spectators were astonished to see that the cup was pinned top and bottom to one of the big oak pillars on the far side of the room, so neatly positioned that it was as if it had been carefully placed and nailed there.

  There was a moment of silence, and then the applause was both spontaneous and deafening. Grinning again, William saw General Shao laughing and clapping his big, meaty hands. He looked across at Commander Chen, who smiled and bowed in deference. Then his gaze found the crane commander, who gave him a quick smile and a nod of respect. Feeling a hand clap down on his shoulder, William turned. Pero winked at him.

  “Let’s eat!” he said.

  * * *

  Ballard hovered on the periphery, taking everything in. As soon as he saw the bearded Spaniard break away from his friend and head for the food table, he sidled across.

  By the time he reached the Spaniard’s side the man’s plate was piled high with dumplings, spicy noodles, rice and pork.

  “Pace yourself,” Ballard said. “The meals are plentiful and regular here.”

  The Spaniard helped himself to a generous portion of steamed vegetables. “I hope not to stay that long.”

  “I like your thinking,” said Ballard, glancing around, “but I suggest you keep your plans private and your mouth under control. You’re not the first westerners to come here looking for black powder. We’ll discuss it tonight. Bring your partner.”

  * * *

  After getting his food, William was beckoned across to the officers’ table. With the crane commander, who told him her name was Lin Mae, acting as translator, he talked to General Shao and Commander Chen for a while, though was careful not to give too much away. Eventually Shao and Chen excused themselves and left the table to go about their duties, leaving William alone with Lin Mae.

  “Who taught you English?” he asked her.

  She nodded across the room. “Sir Ballard. English and Latin.”

  William wondered what good either would be way out here. “Why?”

  “Duty to the Nameless Order demands a life of service,” she said as though reciting a mantra. “We become ready in many ways. We have many foreign books. Many books on war.”

  “I heard Ballard has been here twenty-five years,” William said. “You won’t let him leave.”

  Lin Mae’s face hardened. “He must stay here.”

  “What about us?” William asked, but Lin Mae stared back at him implacably. After a moment he tried a different tack. “How long have you been here?”

  “Always. I was not five years old when I came here. I have no other family.”

  Wi
lliam nodded, feeling an affinity with her. “You came to fight?”

  “To learn to fight.” He smiled and she became indignant. “You think I lie?”

  “Oh!” he said, surprised by her reaction. “No, not at all.”

  She frowned, confused. “You smile. You find me foolish?”

  “No, no, nothing like that.” He struggled to explain. “I smile because… I understand. Because we’re the same. I was given to an army before I can remember. As a child.”

  “As a soldier?”

  “Worse,” he said. “A gleaner.”

  Again she looked confused. William’s smile faded as he recalled those terrible times.

  “Packs of children… we cleaned the battlefields. After. When the fighting was over.”

  She nodded. “I understand.”

  “I became a page, then a pikeman’s boy. Then on and on until…” He raised a hand, indicating himself, a wry expression on his face.

  “You fought for your country?” Lin Mae said.

  “No, I fought for food. In my world you fight to eat. And if you live long enough, you fight for money.”

  Lin Mae’s face hardened. “So all flags are the same for you?”

  William smiled again, but this time the smile was an uncertain one. Had he offended her in some way? He realized that if he was going to maintain his standing here he was going to have to tread very carefully.

  “How many flags do you fight for?” she persisted.

  “Many,” William said, but the answer clearly wasn’t enough. She stared at him implacably, waiting for him to go on.

  Unsure whether it would impress her or anger her, he said, “I fought for Harold against the Danes. I was captured and spared and sold to the Normans. I killed my first man in Scotland—and saved a Duke’s life!—before I even had hair on my face. I fought for him until he died, and then I went to Europe as an archer. I fought for Spain against the Franks. I fought for the Franks against Boulogne. I fought for Pisa and Valencia and the Pope. I’ve fought from Swintetown to Antioch.” He looked at her, but still her face was giving nothing away. Uncertain whether he was apologizing or boasting, he smiled thinly and said, “Many flags.”

  Lin Mae stared at him a moment longer, and then she stood up. “We are not the same,” she said coldly.

  William looked up at her, surprised. He wanted to reach out and grab her wrist, ask her what was wrong, how he could make amends. Before he could act on his thoughts, however, she said, “Meet me on the Wall later. I have something to show you.”

  Then she left without a backward glance, leaving William staring after her in bewilderment.

  * * *

  Across the room, Pero was eating like a man possessed, shoveling rice and meat and vegetables into his mouth with his fingers.

  By contrast Ballard, sitting beside him, seemed to have no interest in the meager portion he had selected for himself. Instead his eyes were fixed on William and Lin Mae. At last he leaned into Pero, pressing his thin shoulder against the Spaniard’s brawnier one. “He should be careful with her,” he murmured. “She’s very powerful here.”

  Pero glanced across at his friend and the Chinese woman. He grinned, showing Ballard a mouthful of mashed-up food. “Then it’s a fair contest,” he said in a muffled voice.

  9

  After breakfast William and Pero were summoned to the Hall of Knowledge, Ballard appearing at the door of their barracks to escort them. He led them through a complex maze of corridors that made William hope he would never have to negotiate the internal geography of the fortress on his own.

  Eventually they arrived at a pair of ornate double doors that opened into a vast room filled with exotic and complicated devices. Ballard pointed out a few items as they stepped inside, but the words he used to describe them—“astroscope”, “seismograph”—left the two men none the wiser.

  As they entered the room, their footsteps echoing on the wooden floor, Strategist Wang hurried forward to meet them. Behind Wang, in the far left corner, another man sat behind a desk—a younger man in green robes, whose black hair was knotted tightly on top of his head, and whose long, sulky face was turned mistrustfully in their direction.

  Wang, however, was uncharacteristically effusive. Greeting William and Pero warmly, he introduced the sulky-faced man as Shen, and told them he had requested their presence here this morning in order to relate to them the full story of the Tao Tei. As he beckoned them forward, Ballard peeled off, reminding William of a cat that had lost interest in its human companions. The scrawny man wandered among the instruments on their display tables, fingering and prodding them as if in search of something. Ignoring him, Wang led William and Pero across to an open area in the middle of the room where two young men in plain dark clothes stood in silent obedience, as if waiting for instructions.

  “About twenty centuries ago,” Wang began, “King Zhou forever stained the reputation of Imperial China. At the height of his corruption and depravity, a comet appeared, spreading its light across the night sky. At its center a single huge stone struck the earth.”

  Wang nodded at the two young men, who stepped forward in unison, each taking hold of a cord that hung from the ceiling. They tugged on their cords and a shimmering silk scroll unraveled from above. The scroll was about a yard wide and as long as the room was high. Images were painted on it in delicate Chinese ink, depicting the fallen comet from Wang’s story.

  “Its impact was heard for thousands of miles,” Wang continued. “The great valley was created in its wake. The mountains where the comet came to rest began to glow green, releasing the Tao Tei. From that day on, with terrible regularity, the Tao Tei rise with the sixty year moon to scourge the North of China.”

  As he proceeded with his story, he nodded at intervals, whereupon his assistants released more silk scrolls from the ceiling. Soon there were a dozen or more, hanging down like tall thin trees in a translucent silk forest. Their appearance was impeccably timed, Wang strolling between the scrolls and referring to each one as he related his tale, the delicate images perfectly illustrating the narrative.

  Moving between the hanging scrolls in Wang’s wake, William’s attention was snagged by a suggestion of dark movement in the gap between two of them. He glanced across to see that Ballard, who had doubtless heard this story before, was standing behind a large table which housed a model of the Great Wall and its internal workings. Like a child with a fascinating new toy, Ballard was pulling levers and turning dials, causing miniature flying rigs to open, the nests of the eagle archers to rise from the ground, the tiny trebuchets to fling their great arms forward, just as the real things had done when they had rained balls of fire down on the Tao Tei.

  Ballard was grinning, clearly enjoying himself. William felt a thread of disquiet work its way inside him like a burrowing worm. He diverted his gaze from Ballard and back towards Wang and his story.

  “The ancient Great Wall built by our ancestors has been reinforced,” Wang was saying. “The Nameless Order guards this Wall year after year. It is the first—and last—defense for China.

  “We are now in the Thirty First Cycle. What you see here in this room is but a fraction of the study we have made in secret for over eighteen hundred years. Throughout that time, to avoid creating panic among our people, we have kept the legend of the Tao Tei in the realms of folklore and rumor. Every sixty years, for eight terrible days, this Wall is the only barrier keeping China—and the world—safe.”

  His story was done. He looked at them, hands clasped together, as though inviting comment or questions.

  Obliging him, William asked, “What do the Tao Tei want?”

  Wang spread his hands. “Simply to feed. To grow.”

  “We’ve seen them eat,” Pero said darkly.

  “Yes,” said Wang, “but there is a limit to the food north of the Wall. We know they scourge every scrap of meat through the Jade Valley. We believe the only reason they retire to their hive is because they have reached a balance b
etween what they have taken and the damage we have rendered.”

  He gestured towards one of the scrolls, on which was depicted an image of a vast, bloated beast feeding, its massive mouth open and multiple tubes or cords extending into the open mouths of smaller Tao Tei who were presumably providing it with food from their own bellies.

  Sure enough, Wang said, “The Tao Tei have their own Queen. Around her are the Paladins, the officers that protect her. The Tao Tei soldiers are her arms, legs and stomach. The Queen does not stalk her prey, but depends on the soldiers to continually feed her.”

  Wang turned from the scroll and looked from William to Pero, his face serious. “If the Tao Tei were to breach the Wall… Bianliang is only eight hundred li away. A city of two million people. The consequences should the Tao Tei find that much nourishment are too dark to consider. What would ever stop them? No corner of the world would be safe.”

  He beckoned with a finger and led them beyond the hanging scrolls, to a workbench close to Shen’s desk. On the bench, surrounded by various measuring devices—calipers, weighing scales—and a scattering of sketches on rice paper, sat the severed Tao Tei claw. Even now, perched on its black, hooked talons it looked as though it might scuttle away at any moment. Perhaps Wang thought so too. Perhaps that was why it sat inside a heavy glass bell jar.

  Gesturing at the claw, Wang said, “In thirty cycles, no man has ever taken a Tao Tei down alone. To be attacked at night, in the open…” He shook his head in wonder. “You are strong and skillful, and yet it is difficult to believe your story.”

  “I have no reason to lie to you,” William said.

  Wang produced something from within the simple black robe he was wearing and held it up. It was the magnet.