The Dragon King

by Brian Godawa

  The two halves of the ship sank down into the darkness.

  He sees everything that is high.

  The emperor’s body broke the surface and floated as dead weight amidst the gently rolling waves filled with wreckage.

  He is king over the sons of pride.

  CHAPTER 35

  Antiochus cursed the consequences and cut the throat of the lamb on the altar.

  The stone drenched red as the lamb’s life bled out.

  Antiochus and Mei Li looked up into the sky.

  Nothing.

  All was still and silent.

  The sound of giants roaring drew their attention to the gates of the complex.

  The giants that had been held out were no longer restrained. They had walked through the gates and were surrounding the lower levels of the circular altar, with menacing growls.

  Antiochus filled with confusion. “Why did it not work? Why are they able to approach?”

  “Because it must be done according to Shang Di’s mandate. A sacrifice offered in any other way is unholy and unacceptable. Only Shang Di’s priesthood can effect true atonement.” Mei Li’s voice was filled with sadness.

  The giants began to mount the stairs surrounding the altar.

  “Wait a minute,” said Antiochus. “Only Shang Di’s priesthood you say?”

  She nodded.

  “You and I are not priests,” he said. “But Aaron was.”

  Her face lit up with revelation. “The staff! Aaron’s staff represents the priesthood!”

  She ran to find the satchel that Antiochus had carried up with him. It had fallen off in their scuffle.

  The giants broke the edge of the top altar level all around them. Ten monsters, ten feet tall each, growling for blood.

  She found the satchel and pulled out the wooden symbol of the ancient priesthood of Shang Di’s own people.

  She threw it to Antiochus.

  He spun around and thrust the staff down, piercing the side of the lamb on the altar.

  A shock wave paralyzed the giants.

  A huge hole opened in the heavens above the altar.

  A swirling vortex of storm. Winds sucking upward.

  Then fire came down from heaven and consumed the sacrifice, without consuming the staff or Antiochus. It broke out into ten streams of fire that burst toward the ten giants and razed their bodies, burning them to a crisp.

  Those streams then gathered together and flashed northward to the city of Yanjing.

  • • • • •

  The Long Wall crumbled beneath the final pounding waves of the giants. They had broken through. They poured in through the breach like a wave of huge demonic rats. Women and children screamed and ran for cover as the giants smashed through the village on their way to ambush the rebel army in the rear.

  Fusu rode victoriously on his horse, cutting down rebels left and right. The dragons were killing so many rebels that they started to retreat, only to be stopped dead in their tracks by the arrival of the giants from the Wall.

  We have won, he thought. With our dragons we will slaughter them to the last man, woman and child.

  Fusu began to feel the power of the Dragon. He began to feel as if he were one with the Dragon.

  Fusu did not see the enemy general racing toward him with deadly intent, sword raised, eyes fixed. General Fan Zhou.

  A moment before Fan Zhou made contact with his unknowing royal victim, he was suddenly thrown from his horse by a powerful force to his torso.

  He hit the ground. A javelin stuck out from his gut. Pain overcame his entire body.

  The last thing Fan Zhou felt was General Meng Tian on his horse above him, retrieving his javelin from the rebel’s broken body. But the last sight he saw was the sky above him become a churning mass of fury and storm.

  Suddenly, a river of supernatural fire poured out of the forest behind the imperial army and flowed through the battlefield. It came from the south with seemingly deliberate intent. It passed over the rebels but sought out imperial soldiers to drown them in flames.

  The fire flowed over one of the Dragons, and the monster exploded into a burst of water and was gone. Then a second Dragon melted into the soil. A third, and fourth turned to water and evaporated.

  The giants in the rear stopped dead in their tracks, like dumbfounded creatures in a trance.

  Then they turned and ran away, back through the Wall and into the forest.

  By the gods, thought Meng Tian, what was happening?

  “It’s Shang Di!” shouted one of the rebels. “The Border Sacrifice has worked!”

  “Shang Di!” more rebels yelled. “Shang Di! Shang Di!”

  And all the rebels began to chant the name of the emperor of heaven.

  Meng Tian blew his war horn. What was left of the forces of the emperor of earth retreated and melted away into the landscape.

  The rebels stood stunned in the silence of their victory. They had been moments away from defeat, but were now standing still, alive by the power of Shang Di. Shang Di had won them the battle.

  For now.

  • • • • •

  Li Ssu burst from the sea gasping for air and keeping Huhai’s head above the surface so he could breathe. Huhai coughed water out of his lungs. Li Ssu draped him onto a buoyant piece of floating wreckage.

  Leviathan was gone.

  They had survived an encounter with the powerful sea monster and would live to tell of it. But now, the chancellor had a most important duty.

  He scanned the refuse floating around him in the water. His eyes found his next treasure: a lifeboat that had escaped the fearsome attack of the sea monster. It floated loosely on the water, rocking back and forth. He retrieved the boat and helped Huhai safely into its hull.

  He pulled himself in and commandeered the oars.

  He circled the wreckage still searching, but this time, for something else. Something most important.

  He found it. A body face down in the water.

  He paddled over to it and turned it over. It was the emperor. Broken, drowned, dead.

  “Father!” cried Huhai.

  “Shut up, you fool, and do as I say,” said Li Ssu. “Help me get him in the boat. We must bring him back for proper burial. But before we do, we must secure your right to the throne.”

  “What do you mean?” said Huhai, shivering in his drenched clothes. “My brother will inherit the empire. You helped my father write his will in this very ship before he died.”

  Li Ssu nodded in agreement. Yes, he had written the document on the way out to sea. Li Ssu had wondered why the emperor would have made such a wrong-headed choice. Now he would never know. But it didn’t matter. He said to Huhai, “That ‘very ship’ is in the bottom of the sea.”

  Huhai was slow to follow. He was always too slow to follow. Li Ssu sighed with disgust. “And the emperor is not dead yet.”

  Huhai narrowed his eyes with incredulity. He still did not follow. His father was clearly dead.

  “He will not die until we are on the road back to Xianyang. After he writes his will assigning you as heir to the throne, with me as witness and scribe.”

  Huhai’s eyes went wide. Now the fool was following. Then something occurred to him. “But Fusu will contest it. And he will have the support of the heroic General Meng Tian, no doubt his new imperial chancellor.”

  Li Ssu smiled malevolently. He had thought of everything.

  “No, he will not. Leave that little detail to your imperial chancellor—your majesty, Ch’in Er Shih Huang Di.”

  The new name meant the second emperor of the Ch’in dynasty. Huhai liked the sound of that title for himself. He liked the sound of power.

  • • • • •

  Deep below the surface of the murky water, three dead bodies hung lifeless in the expanse of strewn wreckage. Rope and rigging intertwined their bodies, linking them like dead puppets in a most disastrous performance.

  The magi. Eyes closed in death. Drowned in the murderous wake of th
e sea dragon of chaos.

  Suddenly, Balthazar’s eyes popped open. Followed by Melchior’s and Gaspar’s.

  They were alive.

  They were immortal.

  CHAPTER 36

  The imperial forces at the Long Wall had been decimated. Cut down by a supernatural agency that struck fear into their hearts. Meng Tian and Fusu had withdrawn to their camp to count their losses, make report to the emperor, and await further instructions.

  It had been ten days since their setback. Meng Tian had become restless. He shared a meal with Fusu in the imperial tent. They ate quietly, each silently considering the ramifications of everything that had happened. By now, his messenger would have delivered the news to the emperor and be on his way back with fresh reinforcements and new orders of conquest.

  The general had convinced his troops that the unfortunate events of that fateful day were a fluke of nature. A chance storm of unexplainable devastation. These things happened. Hurricanes, forest fires, tornados and other storms. But they were freak occurrences that did not repeat themselves. They had just had the misfortune to be caught in the middle of an unlucky maelstrom. It was surely reasonable to believe that there was no way that such a coincidence would happen again when they regrouped and finished their campaign against the rebels.

  Fusu worried about his own reputation over such a great loss. It would make his image as a leader questionable. How could he rule an empire when he couldn’t win a battle against a few rebels? But then again, maybe this situation could be symbolic of a greater need to return to the wisdom of the ancients. People who are ruled by force through fear of death cannot be cowed into obedience forever, but people who are ruled by their beliefs and traditions will die for their higher cause. His father, the emperor, had rejected the past, rejected the lessons of history in the name of forging a new path for the future. He wanted to unify all of Tianxia, eliminate the hostility between the factions of tradition. But at what price? For this harmony to be achieved, all differences had to be suppressed, or more accurately, destroyed. All must be subjugated to the will and power of one man. Was not yin yang the complimentarity of contrary or opposing forces interdependent upon one another? Was their unity not in their eternal duality? But if yin was subjugated to yang, then the one was destructive of the many. If the value of the collective outweighed the value of the individual, then why was the collective ultimately ruled by a single individual? Empire itself was the negation of the yin yang principle that embodied all of creation. It seemed like madness to Fusu, madness that his own father exemplified in his impossible quest for immortality and godhood. When Fusu became emperor, he would seek to return Tianxia to a diversity within unity. To give back to the people their traditions and history.

  And there was something about Shang Di that made him curious.

  The rebels had credited Shang Di with their victory. He knew his father had eliminated the Border Sacrifice and criminalized the worship of Shang Di, to replace him with the Dragon and a pantheon of gods and spirits. But Fusu planned to look more into the history of Shang Di and his people. They had worshipped him for thousands of years. Perhaps here too, there was wisdom in the past that they had lost in the present. Perhaps this rejection of the foundations had resulted in the very problems that plagued the land. Perhaps the unity of Tianxia could be achieved under the power of the perfect Emperor of Heaven rather than the power of the imperfect Emperor of Earth.

  • • • • •

  The town surrounding the emperor’s tomb filled to bursting point with commoners and aristocracy alike in mourning. Hundreds of thousands of subjects spilled out into the surrounding countryside. The funeral for the first emperor of Tianxia was the most glorious affair many had ever seen or would see in their lives.

  A long line of singers, dancers, military escort and royal carriages led the funerary processional through the streets of the town, up to the immense ziggurat tomb that had been prepared for the emperor during his entire reign.

  Now, it was all fulfilling the purpose for which it was created. The long tunnels of terra cotta warriors and terra cotta palace acrobats, servants and animals were buried beneath the earth and sealed to protect and provide for the emperor in his death.

  Servants carried the dead emperor on a golden carriage filled with flowers into the gateway at the bottom of the pyramid structure. They placed him in a tomb at the center of the interior garden paradise. The emperor’s concubines and wives followed the train into the very heart of his royal resting place.

  The designers of the structure then closed up the interior, sealing the concubines and wives alive into the burial chamber. Their weeping and cries for mercy echoed through the dark hollow, but soon faded into silence with the last of the huge stone enclosures.

  Then the designers were closed in with the last of the walled gates. They knew too much of the secrets of this holy mountain.

  The ziggurat towered above the people, a glorious monument to the wealth, power and achievements of Ch’in Shih Huang Di, the man who unified Tianxia and sought immortality to establish his power forever.

  But Huang Di had sought in vain. He never found the elixir. He could not achieve the godhood of his delusional designs.

  Ch’in Shih Huang Di was dead forever.

  • • • • •

  The messenger that Meng Tian had been waiting for had finally arrived. But it was not the message he had expected.

  A contingent of one hundred heavily armed imperial guards surrounded the general’s tent. General Weng entered, a fellow military leader of lesser age than the master, and hungry for his position.

  “What is this madness?” said Meng Tian.

  Weng said, “General Meng Tian, you are under arrest for crimes against the emperor and against his imperial will.”

  “What crimes?” said Meng Tian. “My father and his father, and those before him have all been loyal to the throne. My family has merited the trust of Ch’in for three generations. I have command of over three hundred thousand troops. What crime am I charged with?”

  But the general would not say. He held out some vials to Meng Tian. “The emperor has allowed you an honorable death.”

  Meng Tian repeated, “What crime have I committed before heaven that I should die an innocent death? I demand an audience with the emperor and confirmation of this order.”

  “None will be given,” said General Weng.

  “I want to see the Crown Prince Fusu,” said Meng Tian. “He will vindicate me.”

  General Weng nodded to a soldier, who stepped outside the tent. “Prince Fusu has been charged with crimes against the emperor as well.”

  Immediately, Meng Tian knew who the real culprit was behind this circus of injustice: Li Ssu.

  The soldier returned with two men carrying the contorted rigid body of Fusu. His face was pale, his veins purple and his mouth covered with the froth of poison. They dumped him at Meng Tian’s feet.

  All the station of imperial majesty was nothing to a dead body. All authority, all power, all glory was gone. Never to return.

  Meng Tian saw the end of everything he had believed in. He had thought he was apolitical, that he was merely a neutral instrument of the ruling power. Why? Because a soldier obeys without question. Because there was no authority above the emperor. It was the Way as he understood it. And now, that authority had commanded him to commit suicide. He was no longer of use. It was too late for him to recognize a higher power than human rule and authority. It was too late to demand accountability to heaven if he had denied the emperor of heaven in favor of earth. Because of his neutrality, he had become a tool of tyranny. He had sought law and order at all costs, and he had purchased peace and unity at the price of truth and justice.

  He took the poison from General Weng’s hand.

  • • • • •

  The imperial throne room of Xianyang palace filled to overflowing with royal courtiers and aristocracy.

  The resounding words echoed throughout t
he hall, “The emperor is dead! Long live the emperor!”

  Huhai looked out upon his subjects. He wore the traditional headdress of dangling strings and stars. He shivered with the responsibility before him.

  Li Ssu proclaimed to the people, “May he bring peace to all peoples united under heaven! All worship the Emperor Ch’in Er Shih Huang Di!”

  Everyone bowed deeply to the ground several times.

  Huhai now felt like a god before such adoration. And he had Li Ssu to thank. The chancellor had taught him and advised him every step of the way. He would be there to consult and to apply the wisdom of Legalism to bring forth a glorious progressive future for Tianxia, for this land of Ch’in.

  Li Ssu smiled back at the young emperor. It was a reptilian smile, with calculating eyes.

  They were eyes of the Dragon.

  • • • • •

  Antiochus stood with Mei Li on the bow of his trireme ship as it passed the port city of Langya and entered the wide open sea before them.

  Mei Li watched the tall tower on the mountainside, her façade of refuge for years, fade into the distance along with her past. She would never forget who she was and where she came from. But she would not let her past suffering ruin her future. And she knew that with Shang Di, all things were possible. She had been reborn and had found love in the arms of a man who would protect and cherish her, not use and abuse her. She had told Antiochus that his blood connection to the East mattered nothing to her. It was his goodness that she fell in love with.

  Antiochus held her with strong arms. He knew they could not stay. And they could not return to his land. He had hoped that he might discover a part of his own identity that was hidden in this exotic eastern land. He thought that he might find what was missing in his western world. But he only discovered that humanity is the same in all worlds, north, south, east and west. All races came from that one primeval tower and carried a single heart of corruption with them to the ends of the earth. Balthazar was right, the pursuit of human power only leads to tyranny and madness if it is not under the power of heaven.