The Reply

CHAPTER 9

“Those are the statues of the sixty-one foreign ambassadors and rulers who attended the funeral of Gao-zong,” Che Lu said as they slowly drove down the wide dirt road that led to Qian-Ling.

“How come their heads are gone, Mother-Professor?” Ki asked, staring at the large stone figures that stood in rows at the side of the road.

“No one knows,” she said. Her attention was focused on what lay directly ahead. Rising up in front of them, over three thousand feet high, lay the mountain that was Qian-Ling. It was the largest tomb in the world, dwarfing even the pyramids of Egypt and the large dirt mounds in the Americas. The sides of the mountain were covered in trees and bushes, but it was easy to see that it was not a natural formation, as the sides had a uniform slope leading up to a rounded top.

They were traveling down the same road the funeral procession for the Emperor Gao-zong had taken so many years ago. Che Lu felt the familiar tingle of touching the past, the feeling that had determined her destiny for her so many years ago when she’d first passed through the Great Wall in the company of Mao.

Her attention was distracted from the massive hill, though, by the sight of several trucks and tanks parked across the road a kilometer ahead. She could make out the men in the green uniforms and the guns in their hands clustered around the vehicles.

“What should I do?” Ki asked, slowing the Jeep.

“Go up to them. We have permission,” Che Lu said. The immediate area for several kilometers around was unpopulated, being designated a historic district. She could think of no reason why the army would be here unless someone in Beijing had wised up. If that were the case she knew from hard experience it would be better to face this head-on than run.

But as she slowly stepped out of the Jeep and met the soldiers, she noticed that they seemed as surprised by her presence as she was by theirs. The officer in charge of the checkpoint carefully read the letter from the Ministry of Antiquities giving Che Lu permission to be here.

“Will you be entering the tomb?” he asked.

Che Lu shook her head. “We will be doing some measurements on the outside. That is all.”

The officer frowned but the letter had the proper signatures and seals. “Be careful. There are bandits in the area. I take no responsibility for your safety on the mountain.”

“Bandits?” Ki asked. They drove away from the checkpoint, beginning their ascent up the side of the mountain toward the entrance, leaving the soldiers behind and out of sight as they went around the western shoulder.

“Anyone the government does not like is a bandit,” Che Lu said. “I was a bandit once myself.” She smiled. “And there is one now,” she added, pointing at a wizened old man who had just materialized on the road in front of them, standing as still as one of the statues.

He wore a faded blue shirt and black pants. He carried an AK-47 in his gnarled hands and battered army-issue pack on his back.

“My dear friend, Lo Fa!” Che Lu cried out as Ki stopped the Jeep. ‘Ah, you old hag,” Lo Fa spat into the dirt.

“You old goat,” Che Lu returned as she hugged him. She looked past him, where the road disappeared between two large boulders. “Are we ready?”

“I have removed the earth,” Lo Fa said. “I did it at night. Those fool soldiers wouldn’t know it if you dropped a rock on their heads. I had friends help. But their friendship only goes so far,” he added. He had one eye that was dead, completely white, so he spoke with his head twisted, good eye forward.

“You have no friends,” Che Lu said. “Only scoundrels you keep company with.” She held out a small packet filled with bills and it disappeared into Lo Fa’s tunic. “For your friends.”

“They will remain my friends now.” Lo Fa smiled, revealing broken and yellowed teeth. “Let us go, quickly, and get off this road. You have permission to break the seal?” he asked as he jumped into the back of the Jeep.

“Yes.”

With Ki driving slowly, the truck following, they went between the massive boulders. There were statues of tigers perched on top of each one. The boulders enclosed a small courtyard, about thirty meters wide by fifteen long. The side of the mountain was cut into, revealing two massive bronze doors covered with writing. A large pile of dirt was pushed to the side, Lo Fa’s work for the past two weeks since Che Lu had contacted him. She knew they wouldn’t have much time and she hadn’t wanted to waste it digging to the doors.

“This way.” Lo Fa was out of the Jeep, surprisingly agile. He walked up to the doors, Che Lu and the others following. He pointed at the barely visible seam between the two panels. “The Old Ones sealed it with molten bronze.”

One of Che Lu’s students was filming the doors with a videocamera, recording them for posterity. They had not seen the light of day for over two thousand years.

“How do we open them?” Che Lu asked.

“It is not my problem,” Lo Fa said. “You told me only to uncover the doors.” “I told you to get me in,” Che Lu said.

Lo Fa spit again, then gave a crooked grin. “Yes, that you did.” He slipped off his backpack. He reached in and pulled out a long line of blue cord. “Have your students tape it to the seam, from top to bottom.”

“What is it?” Che Lu asked as she waved a couple of her male students to do as he bid.

“Detonating cord. Explosive,” Lo Fa said.

The students paused, looking at the cord in their hands in fear.

“Ah, it won’t explode until I put a blasting cap in the end,” Lo Fa snarled. “And where did you get that?” Che Lu asked.

“The army is very careless,” Lo Fa said. “It always surprises me when they manage to put their boots on the correct feet.”

“Why is the army here?” Che Lu asked him as he prepared the detonator.

Lo Fa spit. “This time the trouble is not just students in Tiananmen Square. There is real trouble. People are tired and they want change.” He pointed at the mountain tomb that dwarfed them. “This once was China, the center of civilization. Now with this talk of aliens, people no longer know what to believe and the agitators are seizing the opportunity to push for change, to regain China’s place in the world. It is easier said than done.”

“But you have not said specifically why the army is here,” Che Lu chided him. Lo Fa straightened and stared at her with his good eye. “They are here specifically, old woman, to fight rebels.”

“Rebels?” Che Lu wondered if she had spent too much time in the library at the university. “There is open rebellion?”

“There is fighting. Especially among the Muslim people who live in this province. They owe no loyalty to Beijing.”

“I have heard nothing.”

“That is the government’s desire.” Lo Fa had a small metal cap in his hand that he was attaching to the end of the blue cord. “It is not hard for them to suppress news from such faraway places as this province. When thousands die here in floods the world never knows because the government doesn’t want them to know. You can be sure they do not want word of fighting to spread.”

“How serious is it?” Che Lu asked.

Lo Fa was done rigging the blasting cap. “I would be very quick about your business here and be gone as fast as you can. In fact, old lady, if I was you, I would go home now.”

“I can’t do that,” Che Lu said.

“I should have never sent you those oracle bones.” The old man’s voice lowered. “There is something else.”

“What?”

Lo Fa looked about the mountainside above them nervously. “I’ve heard there are foreigners about the area.”

“Foreigners?”

“Rumors. The army was on the mountain four days ago. There were explosions and weapons firing on the other side. I don’t know what they were doing. That is all I have heard. That is all I know.”

The cord was laid and Lo Fa put the cord from the blasting cap into a small detonator. He waved them all back. He looked at Che Lu. “I hope you know what you are doing, old woman. This tomb has not been opened since the emperor’s retainers sealed it. Perhaps it is best to leave it be.”

“Superstitious?” Che Lu asked.

“No,” Lo Fa replied in a strangely serious tone of voice. “It is just that I do not like meddling with things beyond me.”

“This is not beyond me,” Che Lu said confidently, but inside she wondered. She had been teaching too long and it had been many years since she’d been on a dig, and never in her many long years had she been on one as potentially important as this one.

Lo Fa hesitated for the briefest of seconds, then pulled the ring on the top of the detonator. There was a flash and crack, the sound confined in the courtyard.

Che Lu winced when she saw the damage done to the doors, but there was no other way. A black line was singed into the bronze along the seam, with a small opening about chest high.

“The jack from the Jeep,” Lo Fa ordered. He took the jack and, jamming it into the hole, began cranking the handle. With a groan the doors slowly swung open. A dry rush of cool air swept over the small party standing in the courtyard, causing all to shiver.

“Your tomb,” Lo Fa said with a wave of his hand. “I am done here.” He slung his backpack over his shoulder. “Che Lu, I would leave now.”

Before she could respond, he had already disappeared out of the courtyard.

Several students turned on flashlights, and with Che Lu leading the way, they entered the tomb. Right inside the doors was a large anteroom. The light of the lanterns flickered off the walls. They were painted with many pictures of women and men in royal garb. Che Lu had seen similar pictures many times before. There was something different about these, however, something that caused her to pause, before moving on, but she couldn’t put her finger on what troubled her.

A wide tunnel beckoned, leading into the heart of the mountain. With firm steps Che Lu led the students down the tunnel. It ran ten meters wide and was perfectly straight as far as the glow from the lights would penetrate the inky blackness. One of the students put his light next to the wall and they all stared at the smoothly cut stone. Che Lu tried to imagine the state of craftsmanship that could make such smooth walls with hand tools, and she felt a chill run down her bent spine. The Old Ones had certainly been masters of the stone.

There was no dust and the air was dry, the slightest odor of decay carried on it. Che Lu paused after about two hundred meters. There was writing on the walls where two smaller tunnels split off to each side at ninety-degree angles. She took a flashlight from one of her students and held it so she could see.

High runes. There was no mistaking the hieroglyphics. She pointed and the female student with the camera flicked on the power, lighting the wall, and quickly filmed it, then shut down to preserve the batteries.

As Che Lu turned to continue down the main tunnel, a dim red glow appeared about twenty meters in that direction. “Hold!” Che Lu ordered her startled students. Her mouth was dry and she ran her tongue over her chapped lips, watching. She did not believe in ghosts but she was old enough to know there was much she didn’t know.

The red glow began to change shape from a circle, stretching and narrowing, touching the floor. The form of a person began to coalesce, but an oddly shaped person, legs and arms too long, body short, a large head covered with red hair like fire. The skin was pure white, looking like unblemished ivory. The ears had long lobes that almost touched the shoulders. It was the eyes, though, that held Che Lu’s attention. They were bright red under fierce red eyebrows and the pupils were elongated like a cat’s.

The figure wavered in the dusty air, the corridor behind dimly visible through it. The right arm rose up, a six-fingered hand on the end, palm open toward them. A deep, guttural sound echoed up the tunnel, coming from the figure, although how the image could produce it, Che Lu had no idea. The language was singsong, almost familiar, but there wasn’t a word she recognized.

The figure spoke for almost a minute, then faded out of sight, leaving the scared group of students huddled around their mother-professor, who truth be said, was more than a little frightened herself for the first time.