The Tiger Warrior

16

Two hours later, Jack and Costas followed Katya up a rocky hillside at the western end of the lake, above the pass that dropped through a fractured landscape of ravines and gullies toward the central plain of Kyrgyzstan. It was early evening and the sun had nearly set, but it was due to be a full moon and the lake was bathed in an eerie glow. Katya found a ledge and sat down, and Jack and Costas sat on either side, looking back over the shimmering surface of the lake. A few hundred meters to the north there was a roar of diesel and a puff of smoke as Altamaty fired up the tractor and drove it back toward the yurt, his form lurching and bobbing over the uneven track that led from the site where they had excavated the Roman burial. Huge boulders lay embedded in the slope as far as they could see, like a vast inchoate army struggling to free itself from the earth.

Jack’s mind returned to one small group who had passed this place over two thousand years before, men who bore fierce allegiance to their greatest symbol, the eagle of the legion, who had paused to carve it on the tombstone of a companion in this place where none but they would recognize it. He remembered something Pradesh had told him about Kashmir, where his unit had fought Pakistani troops for possession of a bleak mountain plateau. It was the age-old wisdom of the soldier, that when you fight you do it not for any higher cause but for your comrades, for your unit. Jack narrowed his eyes, and wondered whether those legionaries had looked up and sensed the proximity of the heavens, felt the tingle of the wind. For a moment he saw not just a ragged band of survivors but a fully formed legion on the march, shadow-warriors who had been with them since the battlefield at Carrhae, but were here closer than ever, in a place where the living might seem but one short step away from the fields of Elysium.

Costas passed a cup he had carried up from the yurt toward Jack, who shook his head firmly. “No thanks.” He could smell the fermented milk. He had avoided disgrace at the feast by accepting the choicest morsels to chew on, tasteless rubbery lumps from the sheep’s head that were reserved for the most honored guest. Then Rebecca had saved the day by calling on the satellite phone just as Altamaty was serving up the mutton stew, and Jack had taken his plate outside with the receiver, apparently eager not to lose a moment before tucking in. He had returned with a convincing pile of gristle on the side of the plate, and had even tossed it back into the cauldron to be softened up further, scrupulously following the custom Katya had explained to him. Costas had looked at him innocently from the other side of the low table, reaching for Jack’s plate and the ladle, but Jack’s eyes had bored into him. It had been a close-run thing, but it was only a temporary fix. As he had clearly passed the test, endless feasts were in the offing. He had an image of the eyes of the Kyrgyz people glued on him as swimming stews of mutton and grease were poured onto his plate. He glanced at his watch. The helicopter was due to whisk them away in less than an hour’s time. He turned to Katya. “You had something more to tell us.”

Katya looked at the cover of the book she had been carrying and cleared her throat. “Okay. The period in history when these legionaries were making their way through this place was the time of the greatest empire the west had ever known. When the legionaries left Italy for the east, Rome was still a republic, just before the civil wars. But by the time they escaped from the Parthians over three decades later, Rome was ruled by her first and greatest emperor, Augustus. Those legionaries were not emissaries of Rome. They may not even have known that Rome was ruled by an emperor. But unwittingly, they were a bridge between Rome and the greatest empire of the east, one that had begun in China two centuries before. That was the time of King Zheng of the Qin dynasty, the warlord who unified China and ruled from 221 to 210 BC. He was the one history knows as Shihuangdi, the First Emperor.”

“The guy with the terracotta warriors,” Costas said.

Katya nodded. “The warriors were buried with him, surrounding the greatest unexcavated tomb in history. For the legionaries the fantasized image of that tomb may even have been the light at the end of their tunnel, a legend of unplundered riches that may have persuaded them to go east when they had escaped the Parthians. I’ll get to that in a moment. Jack, what do you know about the Res Gestae ?”

“It means things I have done” Jack said. “It was Augustus’ record of achievements, inscribed on bronze plaques and set up all around the empire. Lists of conquests, buildings projects, benefactions, laws, that sort of thing. The record of a man who saw himself as primus inter pares, a citizen who had taken temporary charge to restore the republic. Above all it was a celebration of peace, the pax Romana, the inspiration for the pax Britannica that led men like my great-great-grandfather to believe their purpose was a noble one, that a benign empire was truly possible.”

“And now for Shihuangdi, the First Emperor,” Katya said. “He also left a record of achievements, inscribed on bronze and stone and set up high in the mountains, in places he visited to carry out sacrifices to the cosmic powers. But it’s frighteningly different. Instead of listing vanquished enemies, the First Emperor celebrates internal order. He’s proud of establishing a totalitarian police state. The empire of Augustus, like the British Empire, was cosmopolitan, with a tolerance for cultural diversity that was a linchpin of the Imperial system. China was different. The empire of the First Emperor was an empire of the Chinese people, full stop. The outside world was barely acknowledged. Augustus was a man of the people, a Roman through and through. The First Emperor was an outsider, a warlord who swept down into the Chinese heartland just as Genghis Khan was to do centuries later. But whereas Genghis Khan expended his energy in endless conquests in the world beyond, the First Emperor stopped at the geographical limits of China while he was still bursting with warrior fury. He found his outlet in a mania for control. He didn’t really rule an empire at all. He himself said it. He unified China. He created China. Before him, China was a chaotic land of warring states. He subsumed all that. He turned back the clock to zero.”

“Plus ca change,” Jack murmured.

Katya opened the book. “Virtually everything we know of him comes from the Records of the Grand Historian by Sima Qian, written about a century after the First Emperor’s death. It records admonitions, edicts, laws, tirelessly issued by the Great One. He adjusts rules, sets standards for everything, ‘the ten thousand things.’ He regulates the seasons and the months, rectifies the days, makes uniform the sounds and measures. All under heaven are of one mind, one will. Listen to this. ‘His great rule purifies the folkways, the whole empire acknowledges its sway; it blankets the world in splendid regulation. Posterity will obey his laws, his constant governance knowing not end. The bright virtue of the Great Emperor aligns and orders the whole universe.’ He even erased the concept of doubt.”

Costas whistled. “Sounds like the mother of all control freaks.”

Katya nodded. “Augustus’ creed was feel-good, the creed of a golden age. The creed of the First Emperor was one of order, certainty. And with that came denial of anything that couldn’t be controlled, denial of the outside world. Listen to this: ‘In the twenty-sixth year of his rule he first united the world; there were none who did not come to him in submission.’ And again: ‘Wherever human tracks may reach, there are none who are not his subjects.’ These are patent lies, as anyone who had been beyond the borders would know. But he tried to solve that by preventing anyone from leaving.”

“So what about the gods?” Costas asked. “Or was this guy divine too?”

Katya put down the book and took out a ziplock bag with an object inside. It was the Chinese coin they had found in the burial, with the square hole in the center. “This coin represents two of the most powerful Chinese symbols of cosmological power, in which the earth is square and the heavens are circular. The coin shows the heavens as a delimited concept, as something finite.” She slipped the bag back in her pocket. “To the steppe-dweller, surrounded by vast open spaces and sky, either you’re overawed by it or you see it as the definition of your world. The ancient Chinese attempted to rationalize the heavens, to bring them within their grasp. Take a look at Altamaty’s yurt. The dome shape is a representation of the heavens, like a planetarium. Sitting inside it, surrounded by the vastness of the steppe, you can feel that you’ve drawn the heavens toward you, that you control them. That’s how to understand the First Emperor. His cities, his palaces, were analogues of the heavens, and so was the underground world he created for his eternal existence.”

“Tell us about that,” Costas said.

“That was another difference from the Romans. Augustus may have been deified later, but he lived his life as a mortal. The First Emperor had no need for the afterlife. He’d created his own heaven on earth. When he went to the mountains and sacrificed to the cosmic powers, he was really sacrificing to himself He couldn’t bear to acknowledge his own mortality.”

“You’re talking about the concept of wu di, non-death,” Jack said.

Katya nodded. “For many ancient Chinese, there was no spiritual world beyond the present. The dead formed a community on earth, an analogue of the world of the living. They could even intermingle, in places where the earth and the cosmos are close, where illusion and reality were interchangeable. Places like this, high in the mountains. And for an emperor, wu di was a control concept. Everyone retained their roles-soldiers, courtesans, the emperor himself For him, it meant eternal power.”

“Didn’t the First Emperor try to prolong his actual life?” Costas asked.

Katya nodded wryly. “He sent expeditions to a place called Penglai, the Isles of the Immortals, the mythical dwelling place of the Blessed. He ate from utensils of gold and jade, thought to dispel bodily decay. He employed spells and charms to battle the demons he thought caused aging. And according to Sima Qian, he took mercury, another supposed panacea. That was probably what killed him.”

“And that gets us to his tomb,” Jack said.

Katya flipped the book to a marked page. “The most famous passage of the Records of the Grand Historian” She read it out:

“In the ninth month the First Emperor was interred at Mount Li When the emperor first came to the throne he began digging and shaping Mount Li. Later, when he unified the empire, he had over seven hundred thousand men from all over the empire transported to the spot. They dug down to the third layer of underground springs and poured in bronze to make the outer coffin. Replicas of palaces, scenic towers and the hundred officials, as well as rare utensils and wonderful objects, were brought to fill up the tomb. Craftsmen were ordered to set up crossbows and arrows, rigged so they would immediately shoot down anyone attempting to break in. Mercury was used to fashion imitations of the hundred rivers, the Yellow River and the Yangtse, and the seas, constructed in such a way that they seemed to flow. Above were representations of all the heavenly bodies, below, the features of the earth”

“Incredible,” Costas murmured. “And all that stuff’s still there?”

Katya passed him a photograph. It showed a vast mound, surmounted by trees. “There’s no reason to doubt Sima Qian’s description, even though the tomb had been filled and sealed before he was born,” she said. “The discovery of the terracotta warriors in pits outside suggests that his account of the burial chamber may not be exaggerated. Chinese scientists using remote-sensing equipment have even detected high concentrations of mercury under the mound.”

“So you’re saying he wasn’t preparing for the afterlife, but for a kind of parallel existence.”

“The First Emperor had already paved the way in real life, planning his palaces and temples in his capital Xian as imitations of the heavens, with the river Wei as the Milky Way. He aligned political and cosmological order, just as he’d proclaimed in his edicts. He was also mapping his palaces on the stars, imposing the dwellings of a supreme being on the cosmos.”

“And for supreme being, read First Emperor,” Costas said.

“Right. And now for the reason we’re here.” Katya picked up the book and read the next passage:

“After the interment had been completed, someone pointed out that the artisans and craftsmen who had built the tomb knew what was buried there, and if they should leak word of the treasures, it would be a serious affair Therefore, after the articles had been placed in the tomb, the inner gate was closed off and the outer gate lowered, so that all the artisans and craftsmen were shut in the tomb and were unable to get out. Trees and bushes were planted to give the appearance of a mountain.”

She closed the book and spoke quietly. “What I’ve told you so far is all documented. What I’m about to tell you no other westerners have ever heard, and no one in China outside a small and secret fold that includes my own family.”

“Here we go,” Costas murmured, eyeing Katya.

“There’s an ancient myth,” she said. She paused, and Jack could see the burden on her, the decision to reveal something kept secret by generations of her forbears. She looked at him, and he nodded. She took a deep breath and carried on. “A myth about a pair of precious stones, set together in the First Emperor’s tomb at the apex of the heavens. A pair of stones that shone with dazzling light, a light the emperor believed would assure his immortal power. And a myth that the guardian of the tomb secretly took those stones before the burial chamber was sealed. That those who swore to protect the tomb, to assure the emperor’s eternal reign, pursued the guardian and his descendents relentlessly, through the ages, but never found the stolen jewels.”

“Good God,” Jack murmured. “The inscription in the jungle shrine.”

“Fast-forward two thousand years,” Katya said. “To a foggy night in Victorian London, at the Royal United Service Institution. It was the usual Thursday night venue, sherry and sandwiches followed by a lecture.” She took out a clear plastic sleeve containing a faded brown broadsheet, and passed it to Jack. He looked at it for a moment, stunned. “Well I’ll be damned,” he murmured. He read it out:

An illustrated lecture at the Royal United Services Institute, 6.30 to 7.30 pm, Thursday, 26 November 1888. “Roman Antiquities of Southern India.” Accompanied by lantern slides and artifacts on display. By Captain J. L. Howard, R.E., of the School of Military Engineering, formerly of the Queen’s Own Madras Sappers and Miners”

Jack looked at Katya incredulously. “How on earth did you get this? I knew about Howard’s lecture, but I’ve never seen an original broadsheet.”

“It’s covered in scribbled notes, in Chinese characters,” Costas said, peering closely. “In pencil, so faded you can barely read it. As if someone were taking notes.”

“It was a Chinese diplomat called Wu Che Sianghu, a Kazakh Mongolian,” Katya said. “He’d been posted the year before to the Chinese embassy in London, and frequently attended public lectures. He had a special interest in India because he’d been sent by the Chinese government to investigate the opium trade, which was still flourishing despite Victorian moral opprobrium. He was particularly concerned about the spread of opium use among the hill tribes of the upper Godavari River, following the end of the Rampa Rebellion and the departure of the troops in early 1881. I know about this because Wu Che’s papers came into my uncle’s possession.”

“Your uncle?” Costas said. “The uncle whose body we found in the jungle?”

Katya nodded. “But the broadsheet probably never would have been saved had it not been for one thing Howard said in that lecture, the one thing that explains how my uncle came to be in the jungle and to die there. It’s in those pencil notes.”

“Go on,” Jack said.

She took the paper out of the plastic. “It’s at the bottom. It says, ‘Roman military-style carvings found in jungle.’ And then ‘cave temple$$ The first note was taken from what Howard said, and the second was guesswork by Wu Che. Almost all ancient carvings then being found in southern India were from cave temples or shrines, so it was a reasonable surmise.”

“Incredible,” Jack murmured. “There are no surviving drafts of the lecture and it was never published. In Howard’s papers I found an exchange of letters with the editor of the institute journal badgering Howard for a typescript. The paper had been co-authored with Robert Wauchope, who’d been posted back to the Survey of India. Howard claimed the two of them needed to collaborate to produce a polished version, but that evidently never happened. There was a new editor a few years later and the matter was dropped. It always struck me as odd for Howard not to publish. His collection of Roman coins from India was a passion of his. But what you’ve said might shed light on it. Something was holding him back.”

“Something he said in the lecture he shouldn’t have said?” Costas suggested.

“Here’s what I know,” Katya said. “At the bottom of this sheet Wu Che writes ‘Spoke privately after the lecture to Captain Howard, no more information forthcoming.’ But then I think he tried to contact Howard again.”

Jack’s mind was suddenly racing. “I knew this rang a bell. He did try again. It’s in another letter in Howard’s papers, in the chest in Seaquest II It dates from a few years later, in 1891. Someone from the Chinese embassy in London wrote to Howard about the Rampa Rebellion. That’s why I remember it. I’m certain it was the same Chinese name, Wu Che Sianghu. The letter was purportedly about opium. He knew that Howard had been one of the longest-serving British officers in Rampa. He wanted to know if Howard knew of any ritual contexts in which opium might be used by the jungle peoples, in ceremonies, in caves, temples.”

“He was fishing for more details about that shrine,” Costas suggested.

“Wu Che must have done some research after the lecture, worked out where Howard was during his time in India with the Madras Sappers, anywhere out of the ordinary. Details of officers’ deployments were published in the annual Army List. He would have seen Howard’s deployment to Rampa in 1879 and 1880. It was close to the area of Roman influence in southern India yet hardly explored by Europeans, with hundreds of square miles of jungle not even surveyed. It was just the kind of place where soldiers on patrol might have stumbled on an ancient shrine. The Royal Engineers officers and NCOs of the Madras Sappers were the only British army personnel with the Rampa Field Force, and it’s possible that Howard was the only veteran in England at the time of his lecture. Wu Che might have played on that too. He might have expected Howard to be eager to respond to any query about the campaign. But Wu Che’s letter has Howard’s handwritten ‘Not replied’ across the top. It was obviously Howard’s firm decision, but it was perhaps a mistake. Not replying at all might have rung alarm bells for Wu Che.”

“I thought Howard had clammed up about the rebellion anyway,” Costas said. “Something you think happened to him out there. Some trauma.”

“But Wu Che wouldn’t have known about that,” Jack said. “He would have assumed the lack of reply was because Howard refused to be forthcoming about something he’d found.”

“Howard may have regretted his slip in the lecture, mentioning the sculpture, and determined never to make the mistake again,” Katya said. “When the letter arrived he would have remembered Wu Che from after the lecture, and that may have set off his own alarm bells too. He might have remembered the pact Jack thinks he and Wauchope made after leaving the shrine. That’s maybe when he decided not to go ahead with publishing the paper.”

Costas looked puzzled. “What is it that excites a Chinese diplomat in 1888 about reports of Roman sculpture in a jungle shrine in southern India? What’s that got to do with opium?”

Katya paused. “That’s why I told you about the First Emperor. There’s a connection. A pretty astonishing one. And you are the first outsiders to hear this.” She took a deep breath. “When the First Emperor was planning his afterlife, he entrusted the sanctity of his tomb to his most trusted bodyguards, to men of his clan who had ridden down with him into China from the Qin homeland in the northern steppes. They were Mongols, fierce nomad horsemen, from the stock who would one day spawn Genghis Khan and the most terrifying army the world has ever known. The emperor’s bodyguard wore tiger skins over their armor, and wielded great swords. They called themselves tiger warriors.”

Jack stared at Katya. “Go on.”

“There were twelve of them, his closest bodyguard,” Katya continued. “Six was the First Emperor’s sacred number, and any multiples of it had special power. Even during his lifetime the warriors were secret, and they revealed themselves only to the emperor’s enemies, to those they were sent to hunt down, those who would never live to tell what they saw. In time, one of them became the killer, the emperor’s closest bodyguard, and he alone became known as the tiger warrior. On the emperor’s deathbed, the twelve were entrusted with the outer ring of defenses of his tomb. The inner sanctum was entrusted to a hereditary family of guardians, who lived within the tomb precinct. The twelve were sworn to infiltrate Xian society for generations to come, as courtiers, officials, army officers, an invisible power always ready to pounce. They were promised immortality through endless reincarnation, the eternal earthly vanguard of the terracotta warrior army who were buried around the emperor’s tomb. For more than two thousand years the tiger warriors have kept the tomb inviolate, from tomb robbers, from later emperors, from archaeologists. Inviolate, that is, with one exception.”

“Something was taken,” Jack murmured.

Katya nodded. “Of all the wondrous treasures of the tomb, only the guardian and the twelve knew what lay at the apex of the heavens, directly over the tomb itself Sima Qian, author of the Records of the Grand Historian, knew nothing of it.”

“A pair of precious stones,” Jack murmured. “Stones that interacted to produce a light like a star in the heavens. A double jewel. The jewel of immortality.”

Katya stared at him, then spoke quietly. “In the last act of the burial ritual, the guardian alone was in the tomb, passing from the central chamber to the entrance before sealing the vault for all eternity. Something made the warriors suspect him of stealing the greatest treasure, and their suspicions hardened when the guardian lived to a great age, well over one hundred years. That was not uncommon for steppe Mongolians, but was enough to convince them that he had taken something that prolonged life, a treasure that should rightly have been left in the tomb to release them from their servitude and allow the emperor to rise again. They never saw the guardian die. He returned to the northern steppes, handing over the custodianship to his son, a tradition that continued. But then, five generations on, the son of the guardian himself disappeared. He did not return to the steppes but went west beyond the boundary of the empire, strayed to where he should not go. The twelve decided to act. The tiger warrior was unleashed.”

“Let me guess,” Jack murmured. “That was 18 BC, maybe a little earlier?”

Katya stared at him again, and continued. “The son of the guardian disguised himself as a Sogdian trader, and joined one Silk Route caravan, then another. The tiger warrior and his henchmen chased him across the Taklamakan Desert, toward the Tien Shan Mountains, up here to Lake Issyk-Kul, into the ravines and passes beyond. They had him in their grasp, but then something got in their way.”

“A band of renegade Roman legionaries,” Jack murmured.

“In their secret oral tradition, the twelve remembered them as kauvanas, an ancient Chinese word for westerners,” Katya said. “But my uncle was convinced of who they were.”

“I was wondering when your uncle was going to come into this,” Costas said.

“This was the story he pieced together. It fits with your scenario, Jack. The Romans attack the caravan and seize the disguised Sogdian. They keep him alive, as a guide. The warriors realize the Romans have him, and attack, but are repulsed, by a foe stronger than any they have ever encountered before. One of their number is cut down in the ravines, and one of the Romans too. That’s the grave we found by the lake. By now there are only a dozen of the Romans left. The tiger warrior and his henchmen pursue them to this place, then see the survivors embark on the lake and row east. They find the body of Liu Jinn, the guardian’s son, but the treasure is gone. They follow the boat along the shore, until it disappears in a storm near the end of the lake. But they realize that the Romans in the boat were fewer in number than they should have been. One is missing. They return to the western end of the lake, to where they had found the murdered Liu Jinn. They track the missing Roman, follow the dripped blood from the weapon the man had used. They glimpse him, high in the passes of the mountains to the south. They pursue him relentlessly, for weeks, months, sometimes coming close, sometimes losing him. They follow him through the valleys of Afghanistan, through the Khyber Pass into India, down the Ganges to the Bay of Bengal. Then, in the jungles of the south, they lose him for good. They know he’s in there somewhere, but it’s as if the jungle has absorbed him. But the Chinese do not give up. They infiltrate the Roman trading colony at Arikamedu, posing as silk merchants. For generations they remain, watching, waiting. But then the Romans leave, and with the rise of the Arabs the sea trade with the west comes to an end. The Chinese return home, and with that the story of their quest moves into the realm of legend, part of the mythology of an obscure secret society who seem to disappear from living history.”

“And now we know their names, the Romans,” Jack said. “From the tomb inscription in the jungle. Fabius, leader of the group, who went off east over the lake. And his best friend Licinius, the one who escaped south. And we know that they had the treasure. Fabius had the one jewel, the peridot. Licinius had the other, sappheiros, lapis lazuli. They must have parted ways unaware of what they had shared out between them, of the power of the jewels together. The Chinese must have thought Licinius had taken both parts of the jewel, and fled from his comrades knowing the power of what he had stolen, something that might make him an emperor in his own world.”

“Katya’s uncle may have read that inscription too, before he was murdered,” Costas said. “And those who murdered him may have found out too.”

“So what happened to the tiger warrior, and the twelve?” Jack asked.

Katya paused. “Their pledge to protect the tomb, to recover the lost treasure, remained strong, through all the vicissitudes of Chinese history, through all the emperors and dynasties who might have plundered the monuments of their forebears. The warriors nurtured the cult of the First Emperor, the mystique that still surrounds his name today. Wu Che, the Chinese diplomat who went to Howard’s lecture, was one of them. He was a keen historian, and wrote down the story I’ve just told you, the oral tradition recounted at their secret meetings. And then it seemed that their quest might be rekindled. In the second half of the nineteenth century, European scholars were reading the newly translated Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, and were beginning to understand the truth of Roman mercantile involvement in south India. Wu Che kept his ear to the ground, seeking anything unusual, anything in the archaeological discoveries that might suggest a maverick Roman, a legionary. When Howard mentioned the jungle shrine with Roman carvings, the light began flashing.”

“And that’s really why you’re here, by Lake Issyk-Kul,” Jack said quietly. “It wasn’t just to record petroglyphs and search for inscriptions from the Silk Route. You wanted to find that Roman. You’re on this trail too. You and your uncle are part of all this.”

Costas eyed Katya. “Well? Your uncle was one of the twelve, wasn’t he?”

Katya paused. “My uncle and my father both knew the story, passed down to them. My father inherited the family papers, but he had little interest in the mythology of the brotherhood. To him the jewels were lost forever, if they even existed. He was into the antiquities black market and easier prizes. It was my uncle who encouraged my interest in ancient languages and archaeology. Two years ago while we were on the Black Sea after my father’s death, my uncle came across those lecture notes of Wu Che, while he was hastily searching through my father’s papers in Kazakhstan before Interpol arrived. My uncle had already made the connection between the tiger warrior legend and Crassus’ lost legionaries. He took up where Wu Che left off He went to the India Office archives in London to research the Madras Military Proceedings and pinpoint where Howard had been during the Rampa Rebellion.”

“The same records I studied,” Jack exclaimed.

Katya nodded. “You were both on the same trail. In a district gazetteer he came across mention of a shrine, to Rama. That was the clincher. And that’s where you found him. His body.”

“Have you told Katya your theory about that name, Jack?” Costas said.

Katya replied first. “My uncle might have been there already. Rama seemed a very similar word to Roman. He mentioned it to me, but we didn’t want to voice it until we were on firmer ground. The similarity seemed too obvious.”

“Nothing’s too obvious in this game,” Jack murmured, peering at Katya. “Is there anything else you haven’t told us?”

“My uncle was being secretive, but for good reason. He knew that once he’d been targeted, so would all his immediate family. It has always been the way. If one of the twelve deviated, his entire clan would pay the price. That was the way the First Emperor had meted out his version of justice. And since there’s nobody else left in my uncle’s family, that means me.”

“Okay, Katya,” Costas said. “I take it you’re on about those tattooed guys whose bodies we found near the shrine.”

“Jack told me,” Katya said quietly. “How many of them were there?”

“We counted six bodies. Apparently, seven had gone into the jungle, arriving by helicopter. They were all Chinese, wearing shirts with the logo of a mining corporation, INTACON. Bids have been put in to strip-mine the Rampa hills for bauxite, and the local Koya people are used to seeing prospectors. All it does is drive them further into the hands of the Maoist terrorists who use the jungle as their hideaway. The Maoists occasionally attack the mining parties because it solidifies their support among the tribals, and as a result the police turn a blind eye when the mining groups go in armed to the teeth. What we saw at the shrine suggests that the Chinese got inside the cave, found and murdered your uncle, then were ambushed on the way out. Their bodies had been partly stripped and mutilated by the Maoists, and we could see the skin. They all had the same black tattoo on the upper left arm.”

Katya scribbled on her notepad. “Like this?”

Costas nodded. “Exactly like that. Like a tiger head.”

“Tiger warriors?” Jack said.

Katya shook her head. “Only one of the twelve is called that. He goes out to do the dirty work, the newest of them, as a rite of initiation. The others call themselves the Brotherhood. And the Chinese you saw were mere foot soldiers, lesser clan members bound by birth to serve the Brotherhood.”

“We encountered three Maoists, and one of them wasn’t quite dead.” Costas pointed at his bandaged shoulder. “I’m supposed to be on holiday, not nursing a gunshot wound. You need to come clean on this whole thing, Katya.”

“Only six bodies,” she said. “So one escaped?”

“Apparently, he made his way back through the jungle to the riverbank where the helicopter had landed. The Koya we spoke to couldn’t distinguish him from the other Chinese. But they did say the man was carrying a scoped bolt-action rifle in an old leather wrapping, an odd weapon for the jungle.”

“Not odd at all,” Katya murmured. “Not for him.”

“You know this guy?”

Katya looked hard at Jack. “Do you think he saw what you saw? What was in the shrine? The carvings, the inscription?”

“It’s possible,” Jack replied quietly. “And your uncle could have told them. It’s possible he was tortured.”

“It’s certain, you mean,” Katya said.

“When Licinius carved that inscription on his own tomb, he was probably living in a twilight world of his own. In his mind, the jewel may have become part of the imagery of his devotion to Fabius, the comrade he had virtually deified on that battle scene carving. Whether or not he was consciously leaving clues for some future treasure hunter, he chose to use that word sappheiros, for lapis lazuli. For anyone already on the trail, that would have had instant meaning.”

“Is this guy somewhere here now?” Costas peered at the shadowy ridge to the west, where the sun had nearly set. “The seventh one, who survived the Maoists? Are we in someone’s crosshairs?”

Katya pursed her lips. “INTACON has mining concessions in Kyrgyzstan, in the Tien Shan Mountains.” She pointed at the snowy peaks in the distance. “Those men whose bodies you found were employees of the company, but all of them have clan connections with the Brotherhood. They have helicopters, and tough horses they use for prospecting expeditions, a famous breed originating in Mongolia. If he’s here, he’s watching us now. They need to see what I’ve found, and where we’re going next. The killing comes later.”

“Great,” Costas said. “That’s just great. So we’re dealing with a mining company? Is that the modern-day face of these warriors?”

“INTACON’s their most profitable operation.” She turned to Jack. “How much time do we have?”

“A U.S. Marine Apache helicopter is due here in thirty minutes.” He checked his watch. “The Embraer should be fueled up and waiting on the runway at Bishkek. The supplies we need are already stowed.”

“Okay.” Katya looked at Costas. “Those horses I just mentioned. They’re the blood-sweating heavenly horses of Chinese mythology. According to legend, whoever rode them could never fail in battle. The horses were highly prized by the First Emperor, and helped to convince his subjects of his invincibility.”

“Blood-sweating?” Costas said dubiously.

“They’re called the akhal-teke, and they’re incredibly rare, one of the purest breeds to survive from antiquity. They’re renowned for their speed and stamina. It’s thought the appearance of sweating blood is caused by a parasitic disease endemic to the breed, but nobody knows for sure.”

“You ever seen one?” Costas asked.

Katya gave him a scornful look. “I’m the daughter of a Kazakh warlord, remember? My father made me learn to ride them when I was a girl. The akhal-teke lived in a few isolated valleys, in Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, bred in secrecy by families who maintained the purity of the breed. My father’s horse-breeder said his lineage went back to the time of the First Emperor, who sent out emissaries to the valleys to swear the breeders to eternal vigilance, to ensure that the heavenly horses were waiting for his bodyguard when he once again entered the mortal world. In China today there’s excitement about the breed, a symbol of national unity and strength from before the communist era.”

“So did your riding master pass on any other wisdom?” Costas asked.

“He said that those with the blood of the tiger in their veins can sense the akhal-teke, and that the horses sense them too. He said that when the warriors prepared for battle they came up here, past the Tien Shan Mountains to Issyk-Kul, and summoned them with their war drums. The akhal-teke came galloping through the mountain passes and along the shores of the lake, foaming and sweating and spraying the air with a mist of blood.”

“This gets better every second,” Costas said. “Is this in your genes too?”

Katya looked pensively at the lake. “I feel things up here. Maybe it’s the thin air. I never sleep well, and that’s when dreamworld and reality intertwine. I’ve woken thinking my heartbeat was the ground shaking with the pounding of hooves and thudding drums. As if the warriors were coming for me too.”

“Don’t go all Genghis Khan on us, Katya.”

She gave him a tired smile, then looked out over the lake again. “Lying half-awake at night, I’ve been seeing images of my father again, of him when I was a girl, when he was still an art history professor in Bishkek. I’d hardly thought of him since I left the Black Sea almost two years ago. My mind had shut him out.”

Jack glanced at Katya, wondering at the complex emotions she had felt since her father’s death: grief, release, anger with her father, with herself, with him. The best thing for him to do was to say nothing, to let the process take its course. Costas saw Jack’s reticence, and looked at Katya as he spoke. “Your father, what he’d become, was sitting on a sunken Russian submarine full of ICBMs,” he said. “He’d have sold a few to al-Qaeda, and that’s just for starters. A lot of innocent people are alive today because of what we did.” He got up, stretched, wiped the dust off the back of his shorts and turned toward a hollow in the hill behind them. “Time for me to disappear behind some rocks.” He gave Jack a ghoulish look. “Must be all that sheep grease.”

“Be careful.” Katya waved him off, and turned back. Jack saw that Altamaty had stopped the tractor beside the yurt, and the smoke from his cooking fire had gone out. Two rucksacks were stacked outside the tent. “It seems a long time since we sat together by the shore of the Black Sea,” he said quietly. Katya nodded, but said nothing. Jack was silent for a moment, then pointed at the yurt. “Are you still sure about coming along with us?”

She nodded. “Altamaty too. He respects your military experience, but he said Afghanistan’s a different story. He was in the valley we’re going to, as a marine conscript during the Soviet war in the 1980s. His helicopter was shot down and he was the only survivor. He fought off repeated attacks but ran out of ammunition. The mujahideen spared him because he was Kyrgyz. He lived with them in the mountains for more than a year.”

Jack nodded. “Good. Someone else is coming with us, a guy called Pradesh. He’s in charge of the underwater excavations at Arikamedu, and flew with us to Bishkek. He’s a captain in the Indian Army Engineers, with combat experience in Kashmir. He’s also an expert on ancient mining technology. He was with us in the jungle. I really want IMU activities to expand out here. If Altamaty’s serious about taking on the underwater survey at the eastern end of the lake, then he and Pradesh might be just the people we need to get things moving here. Pradesh speaks Russian. I’d like to see how they get on.”

There was a commotion from the rocks behind them. “Hey, guys,” Costas shouted. “Come and check this out.”

Jack stood up and turned around. “Do we really want to?”

“Just avoid the gully on your left. I’m a bit farther down.”

Katya got up, and the two of them picked their way over the rocks toward Costas. Jack had his compact diving flashlight with him, and played it into the gloom. He saw Costas hunched over a cleft in the rock, and they slid down a small scree slope toward him. They were in a hollow in the side of the hill, with the lake just visible to the north, the ridges of the ravine behind them to the west and the snowcapped peaks of the mountains to the south.

“Well?” Jack said, squatting cautiously beside Costas.

“I was walking back from washing my hands in the stream, and I saw this,” Costas said. He pointed at two jagged rocks embedded in the side of the ridge, a crack between them. “There’s something metal stuck in there. It’s probably modern, but I’ve got ancient swords on the brain after seeing that Chinese halberd.”

Katya knelt down beside him, and Jack shone the flashlight. It was a length of metal, embedded in the crack, just like a snapped-off blade. Katya put her finger out and touched it. She grasped and pulled it, but it would not budge. “Look at that silvery stuff on my fingers. That’s chromium,” she said excitedly. “The metal beneath is oxidized, but it was once high-grade steel, hand-forged. The Chinese plated their best blades with chromium to stop them rusting. This is an ancient Chinese sword blade. A fantastic find, Costas.”

“Just give me a bowl of sheep grease, then send me out into the hills,” Costas murmured. He peered closely. “It looks like someone jammed it into the rock, to break it off Maybe they needed a shorter blade.”

Jack was thinking hard. “Any idea what kind of sword?”

Katya felt along the blade. “I know exactly what kind,” she replied quietly. “A long, straight cavalry sword, a type favored by the Mongols. A type that was only really practicable on horseback, so if you were on foot and desperate for a weapon you might want to break it to make a more useful thrusting sword.”

Jack gasped. He remembered the tomb from the jungle. The warrior in the carving, the adversary of the Romans in the battle scene. The warrior with the tiger headdress. He turned to Katya. “You don’t mean a gauntlet sword, do you? A pata?”

She nodded. “I grew up with images of these swords all around me. The gauntlet was always gleaming golden, in the shape of a tiger. That’s what’s missing here. That’s why I was so stunned when you told me you had one. I knew your pata must be the sword of a tiger warrior, but I couldn’t be sure of the connection. Well, here it is in front of us. I’m certain of it. The gauntlet from this blade is the one John Howard found inside that shrine in the jungle.”

“Well I’ll be damned,” Jack said.

Katya touched the blade again, and breathed out slowly. “So the legend is true,” she whispered.

“What is?” Costas said.

“Another part of the legend.” She looked up and around. Jack sensed her apprehension. “We should move away from here.” She picked up a flat stone and put it over the crack between the rocks, concealing the blade. She led them back up the hill to the ledge where they had been sitting, where she had left the book. “The legend of those who were dispatched to destroy the guardian of the tomb, the one who had transgressed,” she said. “The one who followed his prey relentlessly over mountain and through jungle, whose successors maintained the watch over the centuries, seeking that which had been taken from the tomb of their emperor. The tiger warrior.”

“And the sword?” Jack asked.

“The pata sword of the first tiger warrior was taken in battle by the raumanas, the Romans. The legend tells that when it is recovered, the tiger warrior will once again surge forward and defeat all, and find what he has been seeking.”

“Before you ask, it’s secure, locked in my cabin on Seaquest II,” Jack said.

“I can feel it again now,” Katya murmured. “What you once said to me, Jack, about walking into the past, seeing it in your mind’s eye. I felt it when I was searching among those boulders with Altamaty, looking at those rock carvings made by my ancestors. But touching that blade has done something else for me. It feels exhilarating.”

“That’s when I get frightened,” Costas murmured.

Jack turned toward the lake. Starlight speckled across its surface, like phosphorescence left by a boat’s wake, a ghostly trail from the past. He felt the tingle on his skin again. Once, an Innu hunter in the Arctic had told him that the tingle you feel in these places is the divine wind, a wind of stupendous speed that you hardly feel because the air is so thin. Another Innu had laughed, and said it was just the cold. Jack had often thought about that when he had been in high mountains. Maybe it was just dizziness, oxygen deprivation. And this time it was an uneasy feeling, something that raised the hairs on the back of his neck. He looked toward the mountains to the south, a forbidding wall of rock and snow. That was where Licinius must have gone. He sensed the Roman stumbling away from this ravine, glancing at his companions as they disappeared across the lake to the east, then turning to the mountain passes, running hard, every sinew in his body straining to a breaking point. Jack turned back toward the dark ridge behind them, and looked hard. A distant throbbing became a roar, and the landing lights of a helicopter swept over the ridge as it headed down to the shoreline.

Katya got up. She turned to Costas, and gave him a steely look. “Time to go. And to find out about the Brotherhood of the Tiger. The modern version.”

Jack grinned at Costas. “You ever been to Afghanistan?”