Black Mountain

ONE

Charles Albert Schroder paused at the bustling intersection. He knew the main streets were too easily picked over, and so it was down the secretive side alleys that he had navigated this day. Being a head taller than the milling crowd, he should be able to spot the type of shop he was searching for without too much trouble. There — the double Chinese symbols for medicine hung from a shingle out the front of a dark cramped space that emanated the mixed odours of a thousand exotic herbs, fungi and dried animal carcasses.

Schroder watched the doorway for a while. The clientele were a mix of older men, presumably seeking remedies for ailing potency, or young women looking for an elixir to turn a rich man’s head. Each left with a small package wrapped in rice paper and stamped with the shop owner’s symbol.

Schroder ducked his head as he stepped inside, and blinked a few times to try to adjust his eyes to the gloom of the interior. An ancient Chinese man stood behind a counter, staring at him with a rheumy gaze and resting a pair of reptilian hands on the counter top. Behind him, the wall was completely covered in wooden slots holding powder-filled jars or tiny drawers that were undoubtedly filled with exotic wares. Schroder quickly looked left and right, making sure he was alone with the man. The only other gaze he detected belonged to the milky eyes of a monkey’s head suspended in a jar of yellow fluid.

Schroder nodded — he didn’t need to look around the shop any further. What he searched for was never on display. He cleared his throat. He didn’t know much of the language but had taken pains to memorise a few phrases. His greeting was delivered with a bow, and on receiving a small nod in return he was encouraged to continue.

‘Nǐ yǒu lóng de yáchǐ?’

The man didn’t move, perhaps pretending not to understand. Schroder repeated the sentence, confident his words and pronunciation were correct. Still nothing more than the flat gaze in return. He lifted his billfold from his breast pocket and slowly removed a single note and placed it on the counter. He bowed and tried again.

‘Nǐ yǒu lóng de yáchǐ?’

The man’s eyes flicked down briefly to look at the purple and yellow bill. After a few seconds he nodded and disappeared behind a string curtain, emerging with a wooden tray covered in a soft cloth. He laid it down on the counter and pulled back two-thirds of the material. He waved his small wrinkled hand over the tray’s contents and said in a surprisingly deep voice, ‘Lóng de yáchǐ?’

Schroder smiled flatly. His eyes quickly sorted through the tray’s contents, mentally cataloguing the species that the pieces had come from — cave bear, giant deer, a boar the size of a rhinoceros. All excellent fossils, but nothing of real interest to him. He went to push back the cloth that still covered a portion of the tray, but the shopkeeper made a sharp noise in his throat and held his hand up. With the other hand, he pushed the single bill back across the table. His meaning was clear: the covered side of the tray was more expensive.

Schroder knew the real thing would be. What he sought was unique, and rarely placed in the hands of unappreciative foreigners. He bowed again and pulled another two bills from his wallet and laid them on the pile. He made a flat gesture indicating that was all he was going to pay. The shopkeeper’s eyes narrowed briefly, then with a flourish that would have impressed a stage conjuror he lifted the cloth to reveal several more specimens.

Schroder felt his heart thump in his chest. It wouldn’t have mattered if there were a hundred relics laid before him, his paleoanthropologist eyes were immediately drawn to just one. A canine tooth, broken at its base but still easily four inches long from its root to curved tip. With a shaking hand he held it up before him, the breath locked in his chest.

‘Lóng de yáchǐ — gāo pǐnzhí.’ The small man pointed one long fingernail at the specimen, obviously satisfied with Schroder’s response.

‘Yes, yes… dragon’s teeth.’ He used English without thinking as he brought the fossil close to his face, studying it, mentally calculating, estimating, extrapolating. In his mind, he turned the fragment of a long dead creature into something living — he could see it in all its terrible glory. He held the relic above his head, standing on his toes to reach up above his six-foot-plus frame, adding another four feet to where the mouth would have been.

He heard the shopkeeper’s voice again. ‘Lóng de yáchǐ. Guàiwù lóng de yáchǐ!’

Schroder exhaled and lowered his arm. ‘Yes, best quality, but not a dragon. Something just as fantastic.’

He emptied his wallet onto the counter and leaned in towards the man. ‘Zài nǐlǐ?’ he asked. ‘Where?’

Alex was miles beneath the surface. He stared up at a shimmering mirage of blue light. He clamped his lips shut. Panic was a heartbeat away, and the more he tried to break free, the tighter he was trapped by the black coils of slimy rope that bound his arms and legs, wrapped around his chest and coated his face. He was aware his burning lungs would soon give out, but he dared not open his mouth even to scream, as he knew the mucous-covered strands would find their way inside.

He was dragged deeper down; his feet sinking into the primordial ooze of the lightless depths. With his last fragments of energy he sprang towards the surface. Last time, last chance — he needed to breathe; he wanted to live.