Outlanders 39 Hydra's Ring, page 22
The silver disk ship swooped upward, then curved in a parabolic course to the south. In between one heartbeat and another, it vanished from sight.
After a long moment of staring at the sky, Lakesh said flatly, "Friend Grant, I believe you were mentioning something about Enlil's involvement being only supposition."
Grant refused to be baited, but Kane inquired, half to himself, "If that was really Enlil in the ship, why didn't he just scuttle us?"
Erica voiced a low, bitter chuckle. "The reason is obvious...isn't it, Mohandas?"
Lakesh nodded and turned, holding up the Hydra's ring between thumb and forefinger. "We still have the one ring. Enlil can't take the chance of losing it at the bottom of the Yangtze."
Chapter 25
The wind blew harder and curtains of rain blurred the view. The heavy sail had been rigged to keep the junk heading into the wind, but still she drifted toward the mouth of the gorge. The vessel creaked and the taut sailcloth boomed, intercut with the humming vibration of rigging as strong gusts sang through it.
Sun Fan muttered, "Traveling the Wuxia Gorge is as difficult as climbing up to the sky." He grinned sourly at Grant, Kane, Lakesh and Brigid. "That's what Li Bai said anyhow."
"Who's that?" Kane asked, lowering the binoculars and cleaning the lenses of water droplets. "Your helmsman?"
Lakesh shook his head in exasperation. "Li Bai was a poet of the Tang Dynasty. He was known for his lamentations."
"Yeah, well," Kane retorted dismissively. "So are you."
He returned his attention to the castellated cliffs looming at least a thousand feet above on both sides of the Yangtze. Through his binoculars, he studied the high ramparts, then swept the lenses over the river as it flowed between the walls of the gorge, waves crashing and breaking on the bare stone, foaming spray flying in all directions.
The slate-green water heaved, capped with white. Small inlets and estuaries drawing away from the main waterway split the rock formations. On the narrow shoals at the foot of the cliffs lay the remains of wrecked boats, heaps of splintered timbers and flapping, ragged sails.
"Damned rough water ahead," Grant commented gruffly. He tugged up the collar of his Mag coat. "How do we propose we get through it?"
Sun Fan turned away from the bow. "Very carefully."
Shouting orders to the crew on the deck, the captain climbed up to the pilothouse and took the wheel. The sailors scrambled to various points around the junk, furling the mainsail. For the past few hours, the river had gradually narrowed to the point where both banks were visible, as well as a number of channels running around muddy islands, little more than dark fingers of rock thrusting up from the surface.
They passed fishing villages, collections of small huts propped up on stilts, and they saw more boat traffic. The junk stayed with the main channel, keeping as far away as possible from the other craft, and none of them paid the bigger boat much attention.
The four outlanders remained standing in the bow. In the distance beyond the sheer cliffs rising from the water, they saw a long line of ridges and peaks still capped in snow shouldering up from the hazy horizon. The sudden spring storm, which howled down from the mountains, carried with it a touch of the lingering winter at the higher altitudes.
The junk eased past an upthrust of black rock that jutted fifteen feet above the surface of the river. One side of it was quarried smooth and several ideograms were chiseled deep into it. Squinting at them, Brigid intoned, "Wuxia's peaks rise higher and higher.'"
"Is that a warning," Grant asked, "or just a fairly obvious observation?"
Brigid shrugged, pointing to the inscriptions. "The character 'Wu' refers to a shaman. This gorge was named after an imperial physician called Wu Xian who lived during the time of Yu the Great. According to fable, the goddess Yao Ji and her eleven sisters quelled some unruly river dragons and then turned themselves into mountains, thoughtfully positioned to help guide ships downriver."
The deck shuddered underfoot and Lakesh stated nervously, "I think we'll need all the help we can get."
Sun Fan worked the wheel as the ship was caught by a current that swept it toward a cleft between the cliffs. Carried by the current racing more swiftly than the river itself, the junk picked up speed. The dark walls seemed to plunge toward them.
Studying the precipices towering high above, Kane glimpsed four oblong shapes dangling over a stone crag on the right by thick hawsers and commented, "It looks like coffins up there."
Shading her eyes with her hands, Brigid replied, "They are. It was a burial custom of the Ba people, dating back over two thousand years."
Grant grunted. "What kind of custom is that?"
"No historian is sure. However the Ba people— who were dwarves—had reputations for perverse behavior, such as that of protesting against heaven for their small statures. One such protest, for example, took the form of wearing too many clothes in summer and too few in winter."
"Yeah, that would get heaven's sympathy, all right," Kane replied sarcastically.
"In ancient Chinese lore," Brigid went on, "they were reputed to be gatekeepers at the Pillars of Heaven, since they refused to enter themselves."
"What does that mean?" Grant asked.
Brigid shook her head. "I don't know."
The Yangtze rose and fell under the boat as Sun Fan steered it closer to the gorge mouth. The gap widened and became a gushing channel swirling around broken rocks, spray rising like smoke. The rumbling sound ahead increased steadily until it became a constant roar.
The junk quivered, then sprang like a wild animal into the heart of the churning, turbulent strait. Mist and spray swirled past the prow. The river beyond the bow disappeared in a cloud of vapor as it flowed into a stretch of white-water rapids. Lakesh, Grant, Brigid and Kane backed away, taking up position amidship, clutching at the crisscross of rigging. Although he didn't say so, Kane was envious of Erica riding out the last leg of the voyage in her stateroom below.
Brigid stared straight ahead, her long lava-hued hair' streaming straight out behind her in the gusts. The boat plunged into the strait between the slick walls of the narrow gorge. It pitched and jumped as it shot forward. Sun Fan took his vessel through, sliding with inches to spare past half-submerged boulders and jagged fingers of stone. The Yangtze broke over the bow and ran hissing over their feet and ankles, spilling over the port-side rail.
The concourse cut through gigantic tumbles of granite and basalt, huge boulders that had fallen from the cliffs over the centuries. Suddenly, the junk lurched violently. Everywhere sailors went staggering and stumbling and from starboard came a prolonged grate of wood against stone, but the boat still had momentum enough to drag free of whatever had snagged the hull. They heard Sun Fan swearing viciously in Mandarin as he fought the wheel.
The strait widened and the boat plunged between the cleft walls and into less agitated, but still violent, water. The white swells threatened to pile the vessel up on the shoals, but the foaming river calmed as the junk moved away from the throat of the strait. The storm lessened in intensity but rain continued to fall in a steady drizzle.
Exultancy swept the deck and the men shouted in joyful triumph when they realized they had emerged intact. Kane, although relieved, didn't feel like cheering. His point man's subtle sense of danger deepened as he stood up and took stock of their surroundings.
A light mist hung over the river and the surface glistened with an oily sheen, which only added to the hallucinatory quality of the scene spread out before and above the bow of the boat. Everyone stood up and stared.
"This has got to be the place," Grant said quietly, his voice hushed by awe. "No," she replied. "More like the visitor's center or information booth to a cemetery. We should find the keys to the mausoleum there."
The sight was not only strange, it was scarcely believable. On the right-hand face of the gorge, a group of small pavilions with brilliantly colored roofs clung to the slopes, sprouting like tenacious wildflowers. The structures carried their gazes upward from the upturned eaves to a gray crag upon which was perched a building out of an Oriental fantasy, like a page ripped from a storybook and somehow given immense dimension and breadth. Both Grant and Kane turned, staring at her in disbelief. "The keys?" Grant echoed incredulously. "You mean anybody at any time could just stroll up there, grab a key and unlock the damned door to the crypt?"
The huge pagoda dominated the stone bastions, the cloud-obscured afternoon sunlight winking from the gold-leaf spire rising from a roof gleaming with glazed tiles of green, blue and purple. A wide horned gate with a huge bronze disk suspended from the crossbar led to a shadowy portico. Golden dragons and fu dogs snarled down from the angles of the great gate. "No," she said again, this time with an icy edge in her voice. "I don't mean that at all."
Constructed of arches and angles, the temple looked ancient. Overlaid by a thick coating of bloodred lacquer, the support columns crawled with leering demons and slithering dragons. The temple looked beautiful, but there was something unnatural, even menacing about it.
SUN FAN ORDERED the sail unfurled and when a breeze filled it, he steered the junk toward a stone jetty extending from the base of the gorge wall. Several quays and docks were built around a spit of rock that jutted into the Yangtze. A wide stairway stretched steeply up from the landing, the steps chiseled out of the rock.
"Yes," Erica said from behind them. "It's definitely the place." Turning the wheel, Sun Fan held the junk's stern straight for the jetty. He ran alongside it, so close that the hull scraped the pilings. As the boat bobbed in the shallows, two of the crew leaped down to the pier and secured it to a cleat with a hawser, snugging the craft fast and tight.
Lakesh glanced over his shoulder at her, noting she was armed and dressed for the weather, wearing a black hooded cloak. Her one visible eye was fixed intently upon the pagoda. He said to her, "You've yet to explain sufficiently what kind place it is. Surely not the mausoleum itself." A gangplank was put in place, and the outlanders disembarked carrying all of their gear. Lakesh had the interphaser securely strapped over a shoulder.
Sun Fan announced, "We will remain here for the night and wait for you until noon tomorrow. If you don't come back..."
His words trailed off, and he cast his eyes downward so as not to meet Erica's gaze. She said softly, "A wise decision, Captain. If we don't return by then, most likely we never will."
She affected not to notice the angry glare Kane directed at her as she added, "I am grateful to you for your service, Captain."
Sun Fan ducked his head reverentially. "It has been my honor, Tui Chui Jian."
He formally shook hands with the others who extended him words of thanks, then he walked back up the gangplank to the junk. Without hesitation, the five people began trudging up the damp steps. Erica took the lead, moving calmly between the crags of upright stone that had been carved by the elements into bizarre shapes.
Kane again felt admiration for the woman, but it was not evident in his tone when he asked, "You need to brief us about what we'll find at the top, Dragon Mama."
She glanced down at him over a shoulder, pushing the hood back on her cape and shaking her hair free. Tiny beads of moisture glittered on it, as if diamonds dusted her black tresses. Her face was austere, but made sinister by the black eye patch. "All I know are the legends."
"That's usually what we operate by anyway," Brigid said wryly. "I know a little about this region. It was central to the saga of the Three Kingdoms, which was a period between the disintegration of the Han Dynasty and the subsequent reunification of China under the Qin Dynasty. During that time, there arose three kingdoms and three sovereigns who vied to unify and control the nation."
"Yes," Erica said, sounding slightly surprised by Brigid's knowledge. "The kingdoms were the Wei — based in northern China, the Shu —based in western Sichuan and the Wu—based south of the lower Yangtze. Allegedly, the temple was built on the site of the final battle to determine the fate of the Three Kingdoms."
The five people steadily scaled the time-pitted risers, picking their way carefully. In some places the steps were slippery and cracked. Erica's upward gait was a smooth, gliding motion, her legs invisible under the cloak. As she walked, she spoke, sounding not the least bit winded.
"The battle was very fierce," she continued. "The Feng-Shen text contains an account that all sides wielded weapons that were obviously not native to China five thousand years ago. So-called wind wheels launched hosts of silver dragons, mirrors on tripods radiated deadly heat, globes of fire and lightning darts. Immortals riding on flying dragons joined in the slaughter.
"At the end of the battle, seven hundred thousand soldiers died. Corpses were piled as high as mountains. Two of the sovereigns were dead. The third was appointed ruler of all of China."
"Let me guess," Grant grunted. "Sin Huangdi, who was really Huang-ti, and who now travels under the name of Wei Qiang."
"Who can say?" Erica replied. "The war between immortals and men ravaging ancient China may be only a fantasy... but the time frame for all of this to take place corresponds with the rise of the god-king system in Sumeria. Of course it was after that period the Chinese made the dragon a symbol of their civilization, believing that the celestial dragon was the father of the first dynasty of divine emperors."
Erica paused on a wide step, allowing the others to move up beside her and catch their breath. They were more than halfway to the summit. "The three sovereigns and all of their descendants are reputed to be buried here in a network of tombs, but if they were ever found, no official report was released, much like the secrecy surrounding the Xian pyramid."
"Are you claiming we'll find a necropolis up above?" Lakesh asked, inhaling deeply. "A Chinese version of the Egyptian Valley of Kings?"
"I'm not sure what we'll find," Erica answered frankly. "But ancient lore claims that only those with the bloodline of the first dynasty, the three sovereigns, can use the keys to enter the mausoleums. Almost all of the ancient birth and burial records were destroyed by Shi Huangdi, but one thing all Chinese believe is that there was an age of legendary immortals who accomplished fantastic things with the help of celestial beings."
Lakesh nodded' in agreement. "Two thousand or more years before the birth of Christ, Chinese scholars reported sightings of sui sing, luminous globes that monitored the activities of the emperors."
Grant looked up, eyeing the sky apprehensively. The rain had all but ceased, but the sky was still overcast, covered by leaden clouds. He glanced behind him, looking at the countryside cut through by the Yangtze, the details lost in the blowing rain, and to the west and south, where the looming mountains bulked dark and grim. The Wuxia Gorge itself was like a giant water- filled crack through the center of the world. A movement at the mouth of the strait caught his eye, and he squinted at the distant shape of what appeared to be a wide, flat fan boat, but the rain intervened before he could discern any details.
Speculatively, he said, "If Enlil is behind all of this, why couldn't he have already picked up Wei Qiang, Musgrave, a squad of soldiers and flown them right to the temple...and they've been waiting to spring an ambush on us since yesterday?"
Flatly, Erica said, "You do not understand Enlil at all." "And you do?" Brigid snapped, nettled by the undercurrent of superiority in the woman's voice.
"When he was in the guise of Sam," she said matter-of-factly, "we shared a dream of a new Earth. You couldn't comprehend it."
"I think we could," Lakesh retorted acidly. "He called it the Great Plan. His objective was to control all of humanity by turning everyone into extensions of himself. We put the brakes on it."
"Yeah," Kane interjected. "It was one of the high points of my life, if you must know."
Erica was silent for a long moment. "You're sure of that?"
Kane nodded, moving around her and continuing the climb. "More than anything."
Erica and Brigid walked side by side.
"Why are you so certain that Enlil won't jump us and just take the ring?" the former archivist asked.
"Because Enlil is testing Wei Qiang to determine if he is worthy of again serving as his viceroy."
"Supposition," Brigid snapped, tension and the physical exertion of the climb making her testy.
Erica didn't answer.
"You still love him." Brigid's tone was full of loathing. Erica came to halt. "If I do, it's not a love you could possibly understand."
"I wouldn't want to," Brigid retorted. "My sleep is disturbed enough already without new disgusting thoughts floating around in my head."
"You bitch!" Erica whirled, her violet eye blazing, and she slapped Brigid across the right side of her face with furious strength.
Brigid staggered and caught herself just as Erica heeled sharply around to strike her again, cloak swirling about her. Brigid shunted Erica's blow aside and pounded a left hook into her midriff. The black-haired woman jackknifed at the waist and fell away toward the jetty two hundred feet below.
Chapter 26
Erica's cloak saved her. Brigid snatched its wide hem, and for a heart-stopping instant she held the tall woman suspended over the abyss, the toes of her boots barely making contact with the crumbling edge of a riser. For a long moment, as she held Erica over the brink, she stared into her wide eye. There was no fear there and the woman uttered no outcry.
Brigid couldn't even guess at the nature of the wild thoughts possessing her. Then she pulled Erica in, yanking her upward. She fell against her, then flung herself swiftly away and flattened against the rock wall, arms wide against the granite. Erica's face was chalk-white.
"Why didn't you let me fall?" she husked out.
"Don't believe for a second that I didn't think about it," Brigid shot back.
Erica massaged her stomach and grimaced. "I apologize for slapping you."
