The Great Wall

by Mark Morris

  “Where was this?” he asked. “As you fought, where was this stone?”

  William patted the left side of his tunic. “Tucked in my vest. Just here.”

  Wang looked thoughtful, then placed the magnet carefully down on the workbench and lifted his hand away. To Ballard’s evident astonishment, the magnet shot across the wooden surface and with a loud clang stuck firmly to an iron rivet bolting the joints together. At his desk, Shen jumped like a startled rabbit.

  Wang looked at them calmly. “The unseen force is powerful.”

  Ballard ghosted across to the magnet. He touched it, then gave it an experimental tug, but it was stuck fast. “Your point is what, Master?” he asked.

  Wang shrugged. “Perhaps nothing.” He indicated Shen. “Master Shen has sent questions to the Emperor’s Council. I seek the history of a strange battle nine hundred years ago on the southwest tower.” All at once he looked weary. “We try everything we can.”

  “Where are the Tao Tei now?” William asked.

  “They have gone back to the mountain, to regroup for the next attack,” Wang said.

  “Can’t you hunt them?”

  “Men have tried. They always disappear. We never find their bones.”

  Pero looked incredulous. “So sixty years you wait? Sesenta años? What are they doing all this time?”

  “I think they change,” said Wang. This was clearly a pet theory of his. “I think they sleep and slowly change. Many people disagree with me, but I have spent my life studying their history, and I believe they are not the same enemy our ancestors faced. How this can be I do not know, but…” He had wandered over to the magnet and was now trying to pry it loose from the iron bolt it had attached itself to. “…I will keep this stone close.”

  William didn’t know if the Strategist was asking his permission, but he nodded all the same.

  “Good luck,” he said.

  10

  After the meeting with Wang, William and Pero were left to their own devices. Now that they were no longer prisoners, nor even confined to their quarters, William decided to look around before taking up Lin Mae’s invitation to meet her on the Wall. After a few wrong turns, he eventually found his way to the vast gallery where he, Pero and their bear warrior escort had ascended in the cage to the top of the Wall. Here was housed the machinery that powered the Wall’s defenses. In many ways, William thought, this was the beating heart of the Wall itself. He watched for a while as dozens of yellow-armored tiger warriors, overseen by Commander Wu, installed a succession of sharp, wide blades onto giant wooden blade carts. He thought about offering his services, but the men were so well drilled he decided he would probably only end up getting in the way.

  After a while General Shao appeared, accompanied by a bevy of lieutenants, to inspect the work. The General nodded to William and William nodded back, but although the acknowledgement was a friendly one, it prompted William to move on. He was interested in the preparations for what would surely be further conflicts ahead, but he didn’t want to outstay his welcome. As Shao and Commander Wu became embroiled in conversation, he decided to make a surreptitious exit.

  He rode in the cage to the top of the Wall, emerging into strong sunlight. He raised his face to the sky and closed his eyes for a moment. After the comparative gloom of the fortress it was good to feel the warmth on his face, the slight breeze in his hair. Ahead of him, blue-armored crane warriors, Lin Mae among them, were training, the tall wooden cranes from which they launched their sky rigs spread out in a line along the battlements. He watched them, attached to a complex arrangement of hooks and ropes, swoop and dive and fly around the cranes, constantly adjusting ropes and hooks to give themselves more mobility. He watched them practicing with their long lances, spinning them, thrusting them into the bodies of imaginary enemies, pressing their flexible tips against hard surfaces to give themselves more impetus, more spring.

  It was a dazzling sight, like watching a flock of gleaming blue birds performing an air ballet. Eventually Lin Mae spotted him and beckoned him over. “Come.”

  He clambered up on to a sky rig, where Lin Mae was surrounded by a group of crane warriors, who regarded him curiously. Beside the pulley mechanism of the rig stood a pair of impassive bear warriors. Lin Mae had a harness in her hand, all hooks and ropes, which she held out to him.

  “You want to try?”

  One of the crane warriors muttered something, which made the others laugh.

  “What did she say?” William asked.

  Lin Mae was smiling. “She said men have so much to teach us.”

  The girls were still tittering, and flashing William mocking looks.

  “I don’t think that’s what she said.”

  Lin Mae leaned in closer and stared into his eyes. “You know what I think?” she said softly. “I think you’re afraid.”

  William smiled. Equally softly he replied, “You said that this morning. And yet here I am.”

  Lin Mae offered him the harness again. The hooks on it clanked together. “Yes. Here you are.”

  * * *

  Ballard was playing the role of tour guide, showing Pero around. He was giving him a closer look at the inner Wall workings, pointing out massive wheel gears, levers and pulleys, explaining what they were for, how they worked.

  The area was quiet now after the earlier activity, the huge blade carts equipped and ready for action, standing in silent rows. Most of the Tiger Corps soldiers had departed. Those who had been left on guard nodded to Ballard as he passed them, evidently relaxed in his company.

  “You’d have to run sixty miles west before you could consider yourself free,” he said suddenly, as though continuing an earlier conversation. “That’s how far they would chase you before they quit.”

  Pero looked at him in horror and slid a glance towards the nearest Tiger Corps guard, who was surely within earshot. Ballard laughed.

  “Oh, don’t worry about them. Not a single one of them speaks English.” He looked around, grinned, raised his voice. “Not a wee wanking one of you, eh?”

  A few of the soldiers smiled politely. They were clearly used to his eccentric foreign ways.

  * * *

  William looked down and immediately wished he hadn’t. Perched on the end of one of the crane rig platforms jutting out over the battlements, with a warm breeze ruffling his hair, the ground seemed impossibly distant. His stomach flipped and his heart felt as if it was ballooning up into the back of his throat. He tried not to show his fear, but looking at Lin Mae’s face, he realized he was fooling no one with his nonchalance. She knew perfectly well that he was nervous. She was even taking pleasure in it.

  “Well?” she said, looking him in the eye as he stood there. “Will you jump or not?”

  William glanced at the hulking bear soldiers who were standing beside the pulley mechanism, glowering at him. If he did jump his life would be in their hands.

  “Those guys do know what they’re doing?” he murmured.

  She smiled a superior smile. “Wrong question.”

  She waited, looking at him, as if willing to give him another go. William, though, grimaced in apology.

  She sighed. “Whether or not the cable is attached? That is the question.”

  “And the answer?” he asked.

  “Xin ren. Say it.”

  Automatically he repeated what she had said, struggling with the pronunciation. “Xin ren.”

  “It means to have trust,” Lin Mae said, holding his gaze with hers. “To have faith.” She gestured at the semi-circle of silent, watchful crane warriors standing behind them. “Here? This army? Our flag? We fight for more than food or money. We give our lives to something more. Xin ren is our flag. Trust in each other. In all ways. At all times.”

  She turned back to him. William stared into her eyes, held her gaze for a long moment. Then he looked once more at the ground far, far below.

  Eventually, turning back to her, he said, “Well, that’s all well and good. But I�
�m not jumping. I’m alive today because I trust no one.”

  Lin Mae regarded him with something like pity. “A man must learn to trust before he can be trusted,” she said.

  “Then you were right,” replied William. “We’re not the same.”

  11

  Ballard’s quarters reminded William of the cluttered, cave-like interior of a Turkish market stall. Lit by several lamps, it was crammed with books and trinkets; with maps, charts and wall hangings; with bits of machinery and strangely shaped stones; with bottles and jars and boxes containing who knew what variety of material?

  Selecting a bottle of cloudy yellowish-brown liquid, Ballard poured three generous measures into a trio of copper cups, two of which he passed to each of his visitors. Pero sniffed dubiously at the liquid and exchanged glances with William. Grinning at their wariness, Ballard drank from his own cup. Pero watched for a moment before following suit, sipping the concoction tentatively at first, and then, raising his eyebrows, drinking more eagerly.

  As William took a sip from his cup, tasting something potent and sweet that he guessed was made from stewed fruit, Ballard began to speak.

  “You’re stuck, gentlemen,” he said. “I hope you realize that. You know their secrets. They’ll never let you leave now.”

  He allowed his words to sink in, a smug smile on his face. Then he gestured at his quarters with a sweep of his hand. “Posit the future. See what becomes of even the best of us. Once renowned in the finest courts of Christendom, what am I now but a pampered drunk with a pen and a rice bowl? I make spirits for the elders, bore the young with Latin, and translate every piece of nonsense that comes down the Silk Road. I have spent half my life on this joy forsaken rock and yet I live only by the Oath of the Nameless Order.” He intoned the words with solemn irony. “Discipline. Loyalty. Secrecy.”

  He raised his cup with a sneer. “I’m afraid, gentlemen, you have joined the choir. Your only hope is me.”

  As he gulped at the potent liquid in his cup, tilting his head back to savor every last drop, William looked at him. The light from the flickering candle Ballard held in his left hand turned his leering, skull-like face into a writhing yellow mask.

  “The flavors of black powder are simple, gentlemen,” he said. “Charcoal, sulphur and nitre. It is the recipe and profundity of their integration wherein the magic lies.”

  He lowered the candle towards a small pewter bowl perched on the end of a cluttered workbench. Without warning there was a flash of brilliant light that caused both William and Pero to cry out and leap back. For a few terrible moments William felt sure he’d gone blind—and then little by little the white disc at the center of his vision faded. Blurrily he saw a curl of pale grey smoke rising from the pewter bowl, and Ballard grinning wolfishly at the dramatic effect of his little demonstration.

  “A taste. A glimpse,” he hissed. “A few pilfered grains from Strategist Wang’s hoard. He has mastered the transmutation of these elements. The tablets of his formulae I have seen with my own eyes in the gated heart of his Hall of Knowledge.”

  Pero was still watching the curl of now thinning smoke as if mesmerized.

  “Bouchard spoke of a weapon,” William said.

  Ballard grew sly. “There are many weapons here.”

  “Why have we not seen them?”

  “There are many things here you haven’t seen. And many things you should pray will not be needed before this siege is over.”

  He fell silent as if inviting them to ask him to elaborate. But William refused to rise to his bait. The man reminded him simultaneously of a variety of repulsive creatures: rat, snake, spider, cockroach. In the end Ballard sighed.

  Adopting the tone of a rather pompous teacher, he said, “The Tao Tei siege has never lasted more than nine days, nor less than seven. The only certainty is this: they will return. And when the battle drums begin to sound, the guards of the various Corps—Tiger, Bear, Crane, Deer and Eagle—will leave their posts and take up their positions along the wall. That will be our moment.”

  He fixed his eyes on them like a mesmerist attempting to bend them to his will.

  “We want to be riding away as the battle rages,” he said.

  “What about the armory doors?” William asked. “You have keys?”

  Ballard rolled his eyes. “I have black powder. Enough for several doors.”

  “He brings us in,” said Pero, his face flushed with alcohol. “We get us out.”

  “How?” asked William. “Do we have horses I don’t know about?’

  Pero nodded. “They have a stable here. A big one.”

  “And nowhere near enough guards,” added Ballard.

  William gave him an incredulous look. Was Ballard seriously proposing that they steal a couple of horses and fight their way out? With heavy irony he said, “That sounds like a busy morning.”

  Pero grinned a drunken grin. “Once we get that far, what else is there? Kill or be killed. Right, amigo?”

  William said nothing. Pero leaned across, almost toppling over, and punched his friend on the arm.

  “To win the thing we came for? What would we not do, eh?” His eyes were shining, his voice exuberant, as if he hoped his enthusiasm would rub off on his friend.

  But William simply looked at him, and then at Ballard.

  And still he said nothing.

  * * *

  Escorted by a squad of Deer Corps soldiers on horseback, pine oil torches raised above their heads to cut through the darkness, General Shao and Lin Mae thundered along the length of the Wall. General Shao sat astride a huge, gleaming black steed, and Lin Mae rode beside him on a smaller but no less impressive animal that was as white as lotus blossom. The desert beyond the Wall was as black as pitch, the Gouwu Mountain glowing in the far distance with a bilious green light. Though there was not a single sigh of wind, the air rang with cries from the inspection towers that spanned the Wall at regular intervals, a message passed down the line: “Troops unaccounted for at the West Tower!”

  Passing through the arch of the final tower before the one from which the guards on duty there had recently fallen ominously silent, General Shao reined in his horse and raised a gauntleted hand. As Lin Mae and the rest of the squad slowed, they saw a horrendous sight ahead of them. Scattered across an upward slope of the undulating Wall were at least a dozen bodies, and parts of bodies – all that had remained of the soldiers that had formed the night watch on the West Tower.

  Lin Mae glanced at the General. His face was stern and watchful, his upper body stiff with tension.

  “Something’s wrong here,” he said. “This is not a common attack. The Tao Tei never leave the bodies.”

  Lin Mae said nothing. For a few more seconds she and the General continued to scan the dimly lit section of the Wall ahead, alert for the slightest indication of movement.

  Eventually General Shao hissed two words. “Dismount. Formation!”

  Instantly, their reactions honed by years of training, the two dozen Deer Corps warriors slipped silently from their horses and flowed forward like a purple sea to stand in front of their commanding officers, their circular shields locking together to form an impenetrable barrier.

  General Shao and Lin Mae crept forward to peer through a gap in the shields. With a single whispered command and a couple of economical gestures, the General ordered that all but two of the pine oil torches be extinguished.

  That done, he whispered, “Forward.”

  In perfect synchronization the shield formation began to slowly advance, their breathing steady, the outer edges of their shields scraping gently together.

  Bringing up the rear, General Shao and Lin Mae drew their swords. Ever cautious, General Shao held his up in front of him, using its polished blade as a mirror to check behind them. Sure enough, behind the tethered horses, he saw something dark and bulky at their backs, creeping towards them up the slope. Signaling Lin Mae with the slightest movement of his head, he angled the blade in her direction so that
she too could see the impending threat.

  Moving slowly, so as not to goad the enemy into action, the two of them reached down in unison, each drawing circular throwing blades, which were sheathed to the outsides of their boots. Despite their attempt to be surreptitious, the huge, dark shape at their backs suddenly began to accelerate towards them, causing the horses to whinny in panic. At the same time a massive black shadow rose above the apex of the slope ahead and began to rush, almost to flow, down the incline. The Deer Corps warriors, alert to the impending attack, advanced swiftly, shield formation unbroken, to engage the enemy.

  Just as the shield formation neared the top of the slope, the Tao Tei, which had been moving with uncharacteristic stealth, let out a bellowing screech and leaped forward from the shadows, green skin vivid and the rows of jagged teeth in its gaping maw gleaming in the lamp light. As it pounced, the shield formation suddenly opened up from the center outwards, like a double door composed of overlapping panels, and eight long lances thrust out to skewer the beast in mid-air. Although the point of every lance hit home, piercing the creature’s eyes and skin, and causing green blood to spurt from multiple wounds, the dying Tao Tei’s momentum carried it forward, scattering soldiers as if they were toys. The creature’s massive jaws snapped shut on the lance bearer directly in its path, ripping through his armour as if it were wet paper and grinding him into a mouthful of pulverized meat in an instant.

  As the creature thudded to the ground and died, its last unfortunate meal still leaking from its mouth, the second Tao Tei at the rear of the group launched its attack. With a screeching cry that echoed its companion’s, it lunged at Lin Mae and General Shao, who wheeled around, throwing their twin blades in unison. Two of the four blades struck home with unerring accuracy, burying themselves deep into the creature’s tiny eyes on its massive chest. But as with the other Tao Tei, its unstoppable momentum continued to carry it forward, its jaws yawning wide to consume Lin Mae, who was standing directly in its path.