At that moment, large mice scurried from all corners of the cavern. They ignored us as they ran right past, plunging without hesitation into the water, paddling their way across, scrabbling onto the island, and greedily shoveling the newly hatched creatures into their mouths. It was a scene of carnage. In just a few seconds, they’d gobbled up every one of those exquisite insects.
The notion that they must do this all the time turned my stomach, and I was violently sick. Fortunately, there was nothing in my belly but lake water, and it all gushed out.
Satiated, the mice made their way back to shore and dispersed once again into the darkness.
Chu Jian picked up a stone and was about to fling it at one of the stragglers, but I caught his arm. In gratitude to my grandfather’s benefactor, my family had a rule that no Hu would ever allow a mouse to be harmed. These creatures had no quarrel with us; we might as well let them be.
“Disgusting,” spat Kai. “This lake is full of mice. Who knows how much mouse fur we drank with our water. I bet they pee in it too.”
“Stop talking about it,” I said, “or I might vomit again. Anyway, there’s no point staying here. Let’s move on.”
Indeed, no one in the group wanted to touch a drop more of this water, so we continued deeper into the cave. There were no other paths, just a single passageway with the sound of a flowing river coming from its other end.
As we drew closer, the air became ever more full of moisture, and the walls grew damp. Along this stretch, man-made rooms began appearing to either side, all fitted with metal bars locked up tight. In each of these cells was a selection of torture instruments—it would seem this was where prisoners had once been punished. Now they’d turned into mouse nests, and black mouse poop was everywhere on the floor.
A few hundred yards on, we finally arrived at the end of the path, where a river rushed past, as it no doubt had for thousands of years. This was the Zidu River, which had never run dry in all its existence. Not only was it wide, it also ran deep. At its end, it would meet and combine with the Tarim.
All the rivers of the Xinjiang Desert had one thing in common: no matter how large the volume of water, they were never able to burst from the confines of the desert and reach the ocean. Instead, both the interior surface rivers and the subterranean ones gradually petered out, swallowed by the desert.
An even larger cave stood on the opposite shore, connected to us by a bridge—again, carved out of black stone from the Zaklaman Mountains. Reaching out gracefully, the dark arc curved over the rushing waters of the Zidu River.
In front of the cave was an enormous metal gate, which was raised and lowered by chains the thickness of a human arm. It was half closed, propped open at the bottom by an enormous boulder. We tried to see past into the path ahead, but it remained stubbornly dark and unfathomable. Impossible to say what lay in wait for us.
“My word,” said Professor Chen. “When we saw that someone had blasted a hole in the underground palace, I thought surely someone had been here before us. And see how thick this gate is? It’s in the deepest reaches of the third story belowground, which surely means the Jingjue queen’s final resting place is at the end of this path.”
What Professor Chen said made perfect sense. The only thing was, we all suspected that this was too easy. Other archaeologists had made their way into this palace, and the cave was hardly concealed, so surely we weren’t the first ones here. Could it be that all our predecessors had made their way into the burial site, only to die there?
I asked the professor what he thought—was it worth taking the risk and going in? “Yes!” he answered without hesitation. “We have to at least take a look, to make sure the Jingjue queen’s tomb hasn’t been robbed or damaged. If I could just see it once, I’d die happy. And if my old bones end up buried here, well, that’s fair enough. By the time you get to my age, you really don’t care much about anything. But you kids are still young, so I’ll understand if you’d rather hang back. I can go on alone.”
Julie was fiddling with the settings on her camera. “Of course I’m going in,” she said, not even looking up. Her voice was deadpan, as if she’d never considered the possibility of doing anything else and the only question in her mind was whether to be the first or second person to enter.
Seeing how stubborn they looked, I knew I’d have to follow them. I’d never be able to forgive myself if anything happened to either of them.
I told Kai to stay behind and take care of the three students, but he shook his head. “So I get to be the babysitter? No thank you. I’m just going to spend all my time worrying about the three of you. If anyone’s going in, then we should all stick together. Otherwise, let’s turn back now.” He leaned into my ear and whispered. “You can relax. I promise not to steal any gold or jewels, no matter how much tempting treasure we might see in there.”
The students agreed with Kai. They weren’t about to miss out on such an amazing opportunity—not after trekking hundreds of miles across the blazing desert and suffering all kinds of hardships to reach this place. If anything were to go wrong, surely it would be better to have the entire gang there to help.
If no one wanted to stay behind, then what were we going to do with Little Ye, who hadn’t fully recovered? But she took a swig of cold salt water and seemed to get a momentary burst of energy, proclaiming, “I’m not going to be left behind either. I’m coming in with you.”
We were in trouble now. Kai and I were more than capable, but we couldn’t take care of five helpless bookworms between us if something disastrous really happened. Only Chu Jian, who was pretty brawny, might be able to lend a hand. But otherwise—
“How about this?” I told the group. “I’ll go in first and have a look. If I don’t come back after a few hours, then you should definitely not come after me.”
“No way!” yelped Kai. “If you’re going in, then so am I. It’s safer that way.”
I patted him on the shoulder. “I’ll be fine on my own. Don’t worry about me. But if something does go wrong, I’ll need you here to get the others safely back home.”
Julie rolled her eyes. “Done being heroes, you two? I’m coming in now.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. “Fine,” I said. “But if this is some kind of trap, I might not be able to save myself. Don’t expect me to take care of you too.”
“Who knows which of us will end up taking care of the other?” she retorted. “Anyway, I can’t let you go in there alone. If there’s danger, we’ll face it together.” With that, she grabbed the rifle out of Kai’s hands and quickly pulled open the chamber to check that it was loaded, then cocked it at the ready. I was left gaping at her. She handled her weapon like an expert. I’d never have pegged our Miss Yang as a sharpshooter.
As we were quickly repacking our gear, Kai whispered to me, “Hey, Tianyi, I’ve noticed there’s something strange about the way Julie looks at you. Do you think she likes you?”
I smacked him on the head. “There must be something wrong with your eyes. I haven’t seen anything like that, and I think I’d have noticed. She’s not my type, anyway. Besides, if I wound up dating a foreigner, my dad would probably break my legs.”
“All right, then,” said Kai. “I was worried you were falling for her. I can’t stand people with money. It doesn’t make her the boss of us. Just make sure you don’t get taken in by her.”
I strapped on all the guns and explosives we’d scavenged from the bandits in the valley and made sure I had all my spare ammo and tools, new batteries in the flashlight, and a charm to ward off evil in my hand. “May the powers that be protect us,” I murmured.
Julie was ready too. She asked if I had any idea what the layout of the tomb might be. “Impossible to tell from the outside,” I told her. “I’d need to look at the contours of the land, the positions of the stars, the acupoints and ley lines. All those feng shui details might indicate when this was built and what structure was used. If only we weren’t underground. Nothing I’ve s
tudied has prepared me for this. A bridge over water that leads to a tomb goes against every principle of feng shui. As for what’s on the other side, it’s anyone’s guess. We’ll just have to be careful and definitely not touch anything that looks like it might trigger some mechanism. They’ve probably booby-trapped the place. Keep an eye out for those weird black snakes too. You know how fast they move. If they get too close, we’re done for.”
Julie nodded and positioned herself to be the first over the black stone bridge. I followed closely behind her, and as the other five watched, the two of us reached the other side of the water and squeezed through the gap beneath that ominous gate.
On the other side of the portal, a long, narrow path snaked its way downward. When Julie flung a flare ahead of us, it rolled down the steep slope for quite some time before stopping. Its glow was a speck in the distance, barely detectable.
I drew in a sharp breath. If this really was the way to the tomb, it was much longer than I’d expected. At least there weren’t any corpses along the way, as far as I could tell. If this passageway was a trap, those who’d gone before us would surely have left some mark.
Even so, we couldn’t afford to be careless. I studied our surroundings carefully with every step. Something definitely seemed off, but I couldn’t put my finger on what exactly was wrong.
It was Julie who worked it out. “Have you noticed,” she said, “ever since we came in here, there hasn’t been a single sign of any mice?”
I nodded. “You’re right. And that’s odd. The gate is half open and the stone bridge connects this place to the other side—so where are they? The palace was full of them. There’s not a scrap of fur to be seen, and I don’t smell any mouse pee. I bet their animal instincts warn them to stay away.”
Julie didn’t respond for a while, just kept walking. Then, out of nowhere, she turned around and faced me. “Tell me the truth, will you? I need to know if you’ve ever been a grave robber.”
Her question caught me off guard, and I couldn’t find any words to respond. Even though we were here as part of an archaeological expedition, and even though I saw little difference between archaeologists and tomb robbers, the two groups were like oil and water, insisting on sticking to their own sides and refusing to acknowledge what they had in common. I thought I’d kept a lid on my real profession. How had she seen through me?
Watching me hesitate, Julie nodded. “I was just guessing, actually. You’re so familiar with all that old-school feng shui stuff that no one knows about anymore, and you’re certainly no stranger to ancient tombs. Look at you. You fit in so well here you could be in your own backyard. That seemed to me like someone with a history of being a robber.”
So she didn’t know for sure! I cursed her inwardly. All this time I’d been worried about the path being trapped when I should have been on the defense against my travel companion instead.
“My grandfather handed down family secrets to me,” I said. “He was the feng shui master at Shiliba Village, helping folk with their supernatural problems. My dad’s been a policeman all his life and never learned any of this. It was just a hobby to me, till now. I’m a nerd, really. I get obsessed with things, and I study them as much as possible, tracing everything back to their roots.” Chattering on, I managed to change the subject, drawing her attention away from the risky subject of grave robbing. Hopefully, she’d forget it had ever come up.
We walked a long time before finally reaching the bottom of the slope. It ended suddenly in a steep drop, plummeting down to a platform, every inch of which was covered with hundreds of statues, all depicting the same humanoid figures with massive eyes. To the sides, the walls rose into steep cliffs, and looking overhead, we couldn’t make out the ceiling, only pitch darkness.
The cavern we were now in was huge—impossible to tell how big exactly, but certainly beyond the range of our flashlights. Was this the end of the road? Yet no matter how carefully we looked, it didn’t look anything like the underground tomb depicted in the murals.
“Maybe the queen’s coffin is even farther down,” Julie said. “The Jingjue people might have destroyed the passage to the tomb, making sure that her rest would never be disturbed.”
That seemed plausible. “Just as well,” I said, smiling. “So let’s head back to—” Before I could finish, Julie had activated three flares and in quick succession flung them far into the space before us, trying to see how deep it was.
We watched the trails of light arc up over the platform, abruptly hit an obstacle, and drop back to the ground. So the far wall wasn’t as distant as I’d thought.
In the remaining light of the flares, we saw that the other end of this chamber held little mounds of what appeared to be gold and silver vessels, pearls and precious stones, and carved jade objects. “Wow!” I exclaimed. “So that’s where all the good stuff is. I guess the queen’s body must be there too. But how do we get over there?”
Julie had been groping around the edges of the cliff, and now she shook something at me in response. She’d found the edge of a rope ladder, which, when we pulled it, turned out to be suspended from an outcrop of rock, dangling down to the platform below. I tugged at it; it seemed secure enough.
“This might have been left by previous archaeologists,” said Julie. “It looks sturdy, but it could be decades old. Probably better to go back and get our own rope ladder.”
“That’s easily done,” I said. “But below us are all kinds of precious objects, jade and jewels and whatnot, so why didn’t previous explorers take them away? Lots of foreigners called themselves archaeologists, but you know very well they all came to China as thieves. What kind of thief leaves empty-handed?”
“I get your meaning,” Julie replied thoughtfully. “The only way those mounds of treasure could still be untouched is if they were protected by something.”
“Exactly. No such thing as a free lunch. The simplest thing always turns out to be the most complicated. Don’t you remember Asat Amat talking about the ancient curse on the Black Desert? Anyone taking precious items from this place will end up trapped here forever, buried alive with whatever they coveted.”
“Yes.” Julie nodded. “That belief is recorded in the Great Tang Records of the Western Regions too. The city was called Shalorjara, buried beneath the sands of the Black Desert. But we should be safe from the curse. Professor Chen and the others are respectable scholars; they’re not going to start manhandling the artifacts. I’m only worried about your plump friend—maybe you should keep an eye on him.”
“What do you mean by that?” I said, getting worked up. “Are you saying Kai and I look like thieves? Just because we’re poor doesn’t mean we’re dishonest. I’ve given you my word of honor. If I say we won’t touch a single item here, then neither of us will so much as lay a finger on anything we see. Maybe you should worry about yourself instead.”
Julie’s face was white with anger. “Now it sounds like you’re calling me a thief.”
Remembering that she’d saved my life, I bit back my furious reply. To be honest, I knew I’d gone too far. I stammered out a grudging apology, and we turned back to join the others. All the way up that steep slope, neither of us said a word, the tension between us thick and ugly.
Professor Chen and the group had been waiting impatiently, and seeing us reappear now, they clamored for details. I filled a water bottle from the river and gulped some down while describing what we’d seen. Julie filled in some of the gaps.
Everyone was thrilled—the scholars at the news of this historical discovery, Kai on hearing about the heaps of gold and silver. Now that we had gotten them excited, no one was willing to stay behind, so the entire expedition came back with us.
I went last, and the second I got past the gate, I must have brushed against it, because the boulder rolled aside and the whole thing came crashing down, sealing us in. After a moment of panic, I remembered we had plenty of explosives with us, so we could probably blast our way out. Luckily, I’d made i
t all the way in—that thing looked like it weighed a ton! Nothing to be done now, anyway, except to follow the others down the slope, back to the cliff edge.
We quickly got out our rope ladder, fastening it to the same outcrop. I figured no one was going to listen to my warnings at this stage, so I just whispered to Kai that he’d better keep his hands to himself and not pick up so much as the smallest pearl from the treasure heap. I didn’t believe in any ancient curse, but I wasn’t going to give Julie anything she could use against me. Besides, this was a matter of national pride. She was certainly not going to accuse us Chinese of being thieves again.
“Relax,” scoffed Kai. “You can count on me—I won’t let you down. I promise not to touch even a mouse dropping.” As he turned away, I heard him mutter under his breath, “I’ll just come back alone and help myself later.”
When the rope ladder was secured, I volunteered to go down first. There were still no mice anywhere about, which at first made me fearful those black snakes might be lurking below. At the bottom, though, all was still and silent. Never mind snakes and mice, there weren’t even any insects. Not the tiniest bug anywhere. Along the stone walls were several bronze lanterns, carved to resemble kneeling slaves, their arms outstretched in supplication, holding flames in their hands—except the oil had run out long ago. Looking at this row of exquisitely carved objects, I thought wistfully how any one of them could have sold for a fortune in the marketplace, especially given how ancient they were, and the fame of the city they’d come from.
Standing among these vast heaps of precious stones, I felt my insides churning. I had to fight every last instinct not to shovel all the valuables into my pockets. The only thing I could do was turn my eyes away. Looking up, I whistled to signal that the others should come down too.
As each person descended the rope ladder and turned to face the room, they were stunned into silence by the sight of the riches—so many rare gems and precious metals in all kinds of different styles, making it clear that these had been plundered by the Jingjue from the other kingdoms of the Western Regions. Even Professor Chen couldn’t tell us where they all came from. One thing was certain, though: every one was worth more than we’d earn in our entire lifetimes.
The City of Sand Page 13
