Thunder God

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

The first chamber was larger than they had expected and they detected a further subtle incline as they walked into it. Hawke led the others into the chamber and wondered how far ahead Sheng had managed to get since they’d arrived.

As they moved further into the chamber they realized it was actually an enormous natural cavern that Qin had cleverly used as part of his five trials. Below them the ground fell away to reveal a deep fissure in the earth around a hundred feet deep. At the bottom they were able to make out a sea of sharpened wooden spikes pointing up at them menacingly. The only way across was by an ancient wooden bridge that the word rickety barely managed to describe.

“Trial by Wood,” Han said. “This is Qin’s first test — based, as I say, on the Chinese philosophy of the five elements. The first step, or state is wood, as you can see.”

“And what are the others again?” Hawke asked.

“The normal progression is described as the mutual generation, which is wood, fire, earth, metal and then water, but…”

“But what, Han?”

“There is another progression — the order of the mutual overcoming. This is wood, earth, water, fire and metal. I suspect we can expect Qin to have used this order.”

“I could be at home right now, you realize,” Lea sighed. “Instead I’m about to get sodding razor blades flung at me or some such arsing nightmare.”

Han clenched his jaw. “We must have the nerve to cross this underground canyon on the bridge, Lea. After that, there are only four more… arsing nightmares between us and the map.”

“And if we fall or the bridge gives way, then there’s a few hundred razor-sharp punji stakes down there waiting for us to impale ourselves on,” Hawke said, frowning. They looked down at the fresh corpse of one of Sheng’s men, skewered on one of the stakes like a kebab.

“Just whose bloody idea was this again?” said Lea. “I could be watching a romance film with a box of flaming chocolates on my lap and instead I’m risking getting impaled on a sodding Punjabi stick.”

Hawke rolled his eyes. “Punji stick, not Punjabi stick.”

“Whatever.”

“But you’re not far off,” Hawke said. “The name derives from the north of Burma when the British Army first discovered them in conflict with the Kachins.”

“Thanks, Joe,” Lea said. “At least I’ll have that to think about when I’m slowly dying down in that pit with a six foot splinter up my ar…”

“What was that?” Lexi asked.

“What?” Lea said, her last sentence already forgotten.

“I heard something up ahead.”

“Me too,” Reaper said. “Maybe one of the tests has slowed Sheng down?”

Hawke hushed everyone and listened hard but there was no sound other than the wind howling through the chamber complex. “Maybe just the wind, or a falling rock,” he said.

“Yes, a magic rock that just decided to fall over all by itself,” Lea said. “Or maybe a little magic pebble that decided it was time to go on an adventure to the surface after two thousand years down in this shit hole?”

“Your concern is noted,” Hawke said.

“It’s not concern, Joe! How can a bloody rock just fall over — we’re obviously closing in on Sheng!”

“Then we had better shut up and get on with it or he’ll get away again, yeah?”

“If only Ryan were here,” Lea said.

Hawke looked at her. “Eh?”

“We could send him across first.”

Hawke smiled. “I’d be up for that. He could bore the trial to death.”

Slowly, Hawke led the way across, and carefully worked out where to tread and where to avoid. After the final soldier had crossed the canyon, they made their way through the next tunnel, closing in on Sheng. After a few slow minutes moving through the long, twisting tunnel, Hawke and the others emerged into the next chamber.

They were staring at a broad expanse of what looked like a sandy-clay, submerged beneath a few inches of icy water. Around the outside of the chamber stood a dozen more terracotta soldiers like the ones from the public tomb above. Each one stared at them with dead, silent eyes, somehow beckoning them deeper into the tomb.

Han nodded and smiled. “This confirms the trials are in the order of mutual overcoming — the next will be water, with no doubt, and this is trial by earth.”

“But it’s underwater!” Lexi said.

“Wrong,” said Han flatly. “It’s the Trial by Earth.”

“Otherwise known as quicksand,” Hawke said, pushing the steel toecap of his heavy boot gently down into the water until it hit the squashy surface of the sand beneath. He frowned as he studied the wide expanse of sand. He knew from his SBS training the dangers of quicksand — a loose sand that has turned into liquefied soil due to the water being unable to escape from it.

“I read quicksand is not that dangerous, actually,” Lea said. “It’s just some crap they put in the movies to get rid of unwanted characters during the final act.”

“True enough, if the sand is on a dry surface,” Han said. “But underwater like this, it is utterly lethal. Trust me. The Emperor was not concerned with crap they put in the movies when he devised this defense, and that is why he put the sand beneath the water. That is what makes it dangerous. Now the earth beneath the water will test us as we must walk across this pool to reach the other side. There is no other way.”

Hawke went first, bravely pushing out into the water and feeling tentatively with his boots as he went. There was an art to walking across quicksand. There was an art to getting yourself out of it as well, but he didn’t even want to consider that at the moment.

Other than the quicksand, the path ahead of them was clear enough — the far bank was a shallow, smooth rock leading up to a door-sized hole hewn from the rock thousands of years ago by Qin’s men. The very same men whom the Emperor had sealed up inside after the tomb was completed, Hawke thought with a shudder. Perhaps one of the many skeletons they had seen at the entrance once belonged to the man who had carved that hole, or created this fiendish quicksand trial.

As he moved slowly forward, the water slopped and splashed around his ankles, and behind him the others followed in his footsteps, taking care not to deviate from the path he was finding through the lakebed. He looked up to study the surface of the lakebed a little further ahead and caught another glimpse of one of the stone soldiers. It stared back at him in the silence — cold, dead, inanimate terracotta.

For a second he thought he saw it move ever so slightly — just a quick flick of its eyelid — but rebuked himself for being so stupid. Flights of fancy like that got you killed fast on SBS missions, and if anything this was the most important mission he had ever been on.

Over the years he had fought more foreign soldiers and terrorists than he could remember and each time the security of the nation was at stake, or even the safety of the people. His superiors, including Hart, had told him whatever they’d had to in order to make him do the things he had to do for Queen and Country, but this was different. He closed his eyes for half a second… Hart — Sheng would pay for that.

Never before had he faced the prospect of a man as powerful as Sheng getting so close as this to something as powerful as the Map of Immortality. It made even Zaugg look like small fry. As for the lives of every man, woman and child in Tokyo now being in the hands of Cairo Sloane and the others, the weight of the responsibility he was holding felt heavier than ever.

“How’s it going?” It was Reaper, calling from the back — his thick French accent boomed in the cavernous chamber.

“Not too bad,” Hawke called back. “But it’s almost impossible to tell where…”

A second later he felt himself tumbling over to the right. His right boot was rapidly disappearing beneath the sucking surface of the quicksand under the water. Lexi screamed but immediately reached out and grabbed Hawke’s belt, almost toppling herself over in the process.

Hawke stayed calm. He knew a few old tricks to extricate himself from quicksand and panicking was the worst thing he could do. The extra agitation only served to force you deeper into the trap. He quickly prodded the sand with the butt of the rifle until he found a solid area and leaned into it as he pulled his boot out of the quicksand.

“Yeah…’ he said calmly. “Best not stand on that bit.”