Jasper Flint and the Dinosaur Saddle

by Jack Geurts

  “I guess he got what he deserved then,” Io said, and looked up to Mount Lishan. “Is that an important mountain? It must be for the Emperor to be buried here.”

  Jasper followed her gaze, then looked back down at the necropolis. “The ancient Chinese believed that this area, from Mount Hua to Mount Lishan, was shaped like a dragon. And right there, where the tomb is being built – that’s where the dragon’s eye is.”

  “Wow.”

  They both watched as the Marker was hauled in through the outer western gate, along a path cutting through the grassland and trees. It passed through another gate and into the ‘inner city’, where the huge, half-ziggurat structure towered over all. The metal pyramid was positioned in front of its larger counterpart and then people began to emerge from the tunnel. But not just a few people. Hundreds of them. Craftsmen, artisans, labourers – all at work preparing the Emperor’s mausoleum. All swarming out at hyper-speed, like ants from a nest.

  When the path was clear and the mausoleum was empty, the Marker was lowered carefully into the tunnel, until finally, it disappeared from view. Io slowed time back to normal.

  “He’s having it buried with him,” Jasper said, surprised he hadn’t realised earlier.

  “What are we going to do?” There was a note of panic in Io’s voice now, like they were running out of time. “We have been watching them for what I am guessing is a few months now, but there has been no sign of a clue.”

  “The tip glowed when I touched it,” Jasper offered.

  “Yes, but what does that even mean? How does that help us?”

  Jasper studied the entrance to the tunnel. “It was glowing faintly because we were outside. Maybe underground, where it’s darker, we’ll have a better shot.”

  “Are you suggesting we follow the Marker into the tomb?”

  “Yeah, but not yet. Its 215 BCE at this point, which means the Emperor still has another five years to live. Once they bury his body in the tomb, the entire ziggurat’ll be covered with earth and shaped into a pyramid.”

  “Then should we not go in now, before it is sealed up?”

  Jasper shook his head. “You saw all the people that just came out. They’ll be in there ‘round the clock for the next half decade trying to get it ready for the Emperor’s death. And remember, no one knows when that’s going to be. He could drop dead tomorrow. They’ll be rushing to get it done just in case.”

  “But how will we get in?”

  “We wait until the Emperor’s buried and they’re about to seal off the tunnel for good. Then we fly in...”

  “Fly in?”

  “Well, we can’t exactly walk in, can we? We’ll need the invisibility shield.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then...” Jasper said. “I don’t know.”

  “You do not know?”

  “No. No one does. After this tomb gets sealed up, it stays that way. No one’s been inside it for over two thousand years. Even in my time, they won’t try and excavate it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Mainly because of the mercury, I think.”

  Io gave him a puzzled look.

  “You remember how I told you he was taking mercury pills, how they thought it was an elixir of life?”

  “Yes...”

  “Well, by the time its all finished, it is said...,” Jasper paused for effect and Io rolled her eyes. He went on, “...that within the mausoleum are flowing rivers of mercury.”

  “Rivers?”

  Jasper nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, and that’s not all. They reckon on the ceiling, there’s a constellation of stars, and on the ground, they’ve made little mountains and stuff for the rivers to flow through. It’s all supposed to represent his empire under heaven.”

  Io could scarcely believe it. Jasper didn’t know if he did – if any of it was even remotely true. Everything he knew about this place came from one ancient Chinese historian writing a hundred years after the tomb had been sealed up. Suddenly, he wished he hadn’t been so hard on Io before when she told him she was acting on knowledge from thousands of years ago. After all, wasn’t that exactly was he was doing now?

  “They’ve done tests,” he said, sounding desperate. “They found really high levels of mercury beneath the mound, so if they start digging, it could release all these poisonous fumes.”

  Io took a moment to consider their course of action. “So you want us to fly into this underground tomb where the air is essentially poison and there are flowing rivers of mercury?”

  “And booby traps.”

  Io almost did a double take. “Booby traps?”

  Jasper nodded – half-excited, half-terrified. “Inside, there’s supposed to be crossbows rigged to shoot at anyone who tries to enter the tomb.”

  “Excellent,” Io said, with cheery sarcasm. “But, wait – surely they will not work two thousand years later.”

  “Yeah, but we’re not going in there two thousand years later. We’re going in there when it’s just being sealed up. Before everything’s rusted and broken down, when all the arrowheads are sharp and the bows are pulled tight, ready to let loose at a moment’s notice.”

  “Yes, but once we are inside, we can just switch it back to the present.”

  Jasper hadn’t thought of that. He nodded. It was a good plan.

  “Okay, so what first?” Io said. “We go forward?”

  “Take it to 208 BCE.” Then he remembered, “Please.”

  Io smiled and began to do just that. Outside, the world sped up again, faster this time – passing through weeks or even months at the same speed she had earlier been passing through days.

  Construction on the ziggurat, the city walls and palaces was completed in the next few years. Jasper watched the holographic display tick from ‘215 BCE’ to ‘214’ to ‘213’. When it ticked over to ‘210 BCE’, Jasper noticed an elaborate funeral procession taking place and Io slowed down to watch it. Thousands upon thousands of grievers were dressed in white, the traditional Chinese colour of death and mourning.

  Four soldiers were carrying a litter, each with one of the wooden bars over his shoulder. The litter’s cabin, which contained the body of the Emperor, was covered in a white cloth. Preceded by men with torches, they went down into the tunnel, while everyone else remained above.

  Time continued to surge forward. Over a period of two years, but which seemed only a matter of seconds to Jasper and Io, a huge mound of earth was formed over the ziggurat. Vast quantities of soil and rock were brought from beyond the city walls and dumped here, to be distributed over the structure by hand. Eventually, the mound was built up to the top of the ziggurat, hiding its terraces beneath smooth, even slopes. Then they began piling soil on the roof.

  When it was finally done, Jasper and Io beheld the colossal, earthen pyramid over the Emperor’s tomb, hemmed in on all sides by the walls of an empty city.

  It was 208 BCE, and Io slowed down the Time Progression as she brought them both in for a closer look. People were scurrying all over the pyramidal mound, planting trees and shrubs, so that one day it would be covered in forest. Finally, everyone disappeared and Io slowed it down even further.

  Now, the only blemish in the pyramid’s form was the entrance to the tunnel that a group of soldiers were gathered around. A huge pile of earth lay to the side, waiting to fill in the hole and be planted over.

  Io stopped the Time Progression entirely. They were so close now that Jasper could see their faces – not the soldiers, but the craftsmen who were being held at spear-point while a handful of labourers walled them in.

  The craftsmen were crying, begging. But the soldiers stood firm, keeping their spears raised. The labourers who were sealing them in wouldn’t look at them, couldn’t look at them. They were just doing their job, like the soldiers were just doing theirs. If the labourers refused to lay another brick, they’d be put to death. If the soldiers allowed the craftsmen to leave, they would likely meet the same fate. All of them were acting on the orders of
a man who was dead and buried beneath them. And so, brick by brick, the craftsmen were being buried alive, along with every secret they knew about the tomb.

  At the moment, the wall was only half-built, so there was enough room for the Flight Pod to pass through, but only just.

  And only if they hurried.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The Mausoleum

  The Flight Pod zoomed forward, heading straight for the half-closed entrance of the tunnel. They shot over the heads of the soldiers, the labourers and the craftsmen being walled up, and as they did, a fierce gust of wind was sucked in behind them. It ruffled the men’s clothes, their hair, and suddenly, all of them froze.

  They had felt something pass by them, but weren’t sure what. One of the labourers had paused in the act of trowelling some mortar, another with a brick in his hand. The soldiers’ spears lowered a little and the craftsmen turned, wide-eyed, to peer down into the tunnel.

  Here, at the entrance to their dead Emperor’s tomb, there was only one thing it could have been – a spirit of some kind. Whether good or evil, they weren’t going to wait around to find out.

  The soldiers dropped their spears and ran.

  The labourers watched them go and glanced at the craftsmen they were in the process of burying alive. It wasn’t long before they bolted too.

  The craftsmen, for their part, weren’t quite sure know how to feel. On the one hand, they were in the presence of a potentially-evil spirit. On the other, that spirit had just saved them from a horrible fate. Maybe it wasn’t so evil after all.

  Before whatever it was had a chance to change its mind, they climbed over the half-finished brick wall and ran as fast as their legs would carry them – heading east where the soldiers had gone west.

  Deep within, Jasper and Io had come to the bottom of the tunnel. The way was lit by torches that were still burning, and guarded by Terracotta Warriors that had been positioned at intervals. The tunnel was a series of wide staircases broken up by flat landings, so where they were now, they could not see the entrance any more. Here, the tunnel narrowed significantly, into a smaller path that could only fit one, maybe two people at a time. Already, the Flight Pod was barely small enough to navigate the main passage and so they were forced to land.

  Io brought them back to the present in the blink of an eye, and immediately, they were plunged into darkness – the torches had long since gone out. For a few moments, there was only silence and shadow down there in the Emperor’s tomb.

  The Flight Pod took shape around them as Io turned off its invisibility shield, and the interior light-strips allowed them to see again. Dia woke with the sudden brightness and loss of momentum, and Io stroked his head with her bare hand. She did so absent-mindedly while studying the readout projected on her holographic display. It seemed to be a graph of some kind.

  “What’s that?” Jasper said.

  “I am analysing the makeup of the atmosphere. You were right – there is a significant amount of mercury in the air.”

  She opened a compartment in the wall beside her and removed two face-masks with slits over the mouth area. They were made of the same Precursor alloy as the Flight Pod and the Markers. She handed one to Jasper.

  “Put this on,” she said.

  “What is it?”

  “It is a respirator. It will filter out the harmful chemicals in the air so you can breathe.”

  He didn’t need to be told twice. They both fitted the masks to their faces and pulled the straps tight behind their heads. Jasper thought Io might have trouble with her feathers getting in the way, but she seemed to have done it a few times and had no trouble at all. He, on the other hand, fumbled around trying to loosen his strap and ended up flicking it against the back of his head.

  “Ow!” he said, rubbing the area where the buckle had got him as Io stifled a laugh.

  Jasper scowled behind his mask, which was much more comfortable than he expected. It fitted to his face like a glove in the same way his seat on the Flight Pod changed shape to match the contours of his body.

  From the same compartment, Io took another glove identical to her own. He thought she was going to put it on her other hand, but instead, she offered it to him.

  “Here,” she said. “You might need this.”

  Her voice was distorted through the mask, as Jasper was sure his own would be, but he took the glove with a certain reverence, having seen the power of the thing. For someone his age, it was like being handed a shotgun – if that shotgun could be used to shoot blasts of energy and ride dinosaurs.

  “How does it work?”

  “Well, first, you have to put it on.”

  He went to do so, but Io slapped his hand, saying “Not in here!”

  Thoroughly confused now, Jasper waited as she took another, smaller face-mask from the compartment and fitted it to Dia’s snout. It was more elongated than the ones Jasper and Io were wearing, and the Archaeopteryx shook its head and fidgeted as she tried to put it on. Dia clearly didn’t like the prospect of being muzzled, but Io spoke reassuringly to the bird in her native tongue. Eventually, he relented, huffing like a petulant child and allowing the strap to be fitted around his tiny head.

  As Io went about doing this, the bird caught Jasper watching and glared, extending his wings over as much of the saddle as he could in a territorial gesture.

  When all three of them were properly masked, Io lowered the ramp and they descended it into the pitch-black tunnel. The only source of light was Io’s glove, glowing brightly against the darkness and illuminating the area around them.

  The first thing Jasper noticed, apart from the dark, was the complete and utter absence of sound.

  Back home, when things were silent, there were still leaves rustling in the wind, or a car driving somewhere in the distance. Even out in the desert when it was still, there was always the sound of insects – the whining of mosquitos around dusk, or the buzzing of flies in the heat of the day.

  This was the first time he had ever experienced true and crushing silence. It was broken only by their filtered breathing and footsteps. Every sound echoed in the confined space, resounding out into the blackness.

  In the light of Io’s glove, Jasper saw that the walls were surprisingly well-preserved, as were the ceramic soldiers standing guard nearby. Io moved close to one, revealing all the bright colours it had been painted with. Reds and yellows and blues.

  “Look at this,” she said. “It looks like one of those Terracotta Warriors.”

  Jasper came up alongside her, studying the figure. “I think it is one. The Emperor had them modelled on his own soldiers.”

  “But this is painted. The others were not painted.”

  “No, they were,” Jasper said, moving around to get a look at the soldier’s side. “It’s just that when the figures get exposed to fresh air, the paint peels off. No one took the proper precautions when they were uncovering the Terracotta Army, but these soldiers haven’t tasted fresh air in over two thousand years.”

  It wasn’t just the paint on the figure that told him so. He could taste the staleness of it on his tongue. He could smell the dust and see it hanging in the blue light of the air. As he breathed in through his respirator, every inhale made a raspy, sucking sound, like he was siphoning oxygen through a straw.

  Io’s brow furrowed and she pointed to the figure’s hands. Jasper noticed that they were formed into fists, but weren’t clenched tightly – almost like they were curled around an invisible pole.

  “Where is his spear?” she said.

  Jasper studied the hands, then his eyes fell to the floor. He saw a small, thin object there, covered in dust. He crouched down and picked it up. It was heavy for its size and the shape was immediately recognisable. He brushed the dust off to reveal the pointed blade of a spearhead. Dull, but unrusted.

  “Where is the rest of it?”

  Jasper turned the thing in his hands, touching the circular hollow where its pole would have slotted in. “I’m guessi
ng the shaft was made of wood, so that would have rotted away a long time ago. All the Terracotta Warriors had real weapons, but most of them were either stolen or just decayed over the years. Some of the ones they found had been coated with this chromium dioxide, and they weren’t rusted at all. In fact, some of them were even still...Ow!”

  He had run his thumb along the edge of the blade and then quickly withdrew it, sucking in a sharp breath. A thin line of blood welled on the pad of his thumb.

  “...still sharp,” he finished, with a mixture of pain and amazement.

  Io wasn’t nearly as amazed and simply took his bleeding digit between her own gloved thumb and forefinger, squeezing it tightly.

  “Ow!” he said again, louder this time, but when she let him go a second later, there was no more blood. No more cut. It had been perfectly healed, just like his shoulder, but no less impressive the second time around.

  “Can you teach me how to do that?”

  Io scoffed. “Let us start with the basics first, shall we?”

  She stepped back and Jasper went to follow her, pocketing the spearhead.

  “What are you doing?” Io said, an accusatory look in her eyes.

  It took Jasper a moment to realise she was talking about the blade. He suddenly felt sheepish. “Borrowing it?”

  “Put it back.”

  “Why?”

  “You know the rules.”

  “No one’s even been down here yet. Clearly.” He gestured around at the crypt-like tunnel to emphasise his point. “They probably won’t be down here any time soon. And even if they do, they’ll just think whatever weapon this guy had either crumbled into dust or was stolen. In this case, both will be true.”

  He flashed a mischievous smile and Io rolled her eyes, not willing to argue the point further.

  “Fine. Do what you will, thief. Now put the glove on.”

  Jasper had almost forgotten about the glove. He began pulling it onto his preferred left.