Phoebe backed away, holding her head. The room spun, faces melding with artifacts. Tourists and worshippers blending with the walls and displays.
“Oh no,” she whispered, reaching for Caleb to steady herself. But he was indistinguishable from the blur all around her, the blur that now took shape, even as she was begging, Just show me what’s happening, show me what I need to see.
A blast of frigid air blew into her face…
… as she stands on a plain of ice under a picture-perfect sky. A fire roars, consuming logs and twigs, and roasting a large something that might have been a wild dog. A palatial tent ahead, the folds parting and a wizened old man, bald with a thin white braid of hair descending like a rope from his chin, inviting her inside.
“ Come, Master Temujin. We are ready with the designs.”
Inside, candles and incense burn, a great llama-fur rug covers the ground, a table is set up with scrolls, maps and designs. “Right here,” the old man says, pointing at the map.
Temujin looks at it, recognizes the eastern coast of China and Mongolia, the island of Japan. The man points inland, to part of China. “Here is the burial site you asked to see. The concealed tomb of Qin Shi Huangdi, the first emperor of a unified China, who lived a hundred years after the Great Alexander. The designs for his mausoleum I have here.” He patted another scroll and started to unravel it, giving a glimpse of a pyramidal shape, and below it, a vast network of passageways, staircases and arches leading to an impossibly detailed cityscape. “Qin Shi began its construction as soon as he ascended to the throne, and it took thirty-six years to complete, at the cost of”-he waves his hand dismissively-“sources say somewhere around seven hundred thousand lives.”
“ What of the city where he now dwells?” Temujin asks, and the old man smiles.
“ Built in the immense hollowed-out cavern under the mound, his city is complete with everything a ruler would need for the next life: four temples, erected at the cardinal points, a central palace holding his concubines and his own tomb, storehouses of gold and silver, ornamental weapons and artwork. And surrounding the palace stand inner and outer walls, courtyards and gardens, rivers originally designed to run with Mercury.”
“ Mercury?”
“ A substance the emperor believed could bestow eternal life.”
Temujin chuckles. “Fool.”
“ Yes,” says the old man. “The old man poisoned himself.”
Taking the scroll, unrolling it completely, Temujin studies the designs, unable to read the descriptive words. “Still, mercury has other advantages. What of the city’s defenses?”
“ Eight thousand terra cotta warriors facing east, guarding against the Japanese threat; several hundred horses; chariots and archers-”
“ I want more,” Temujin says decisively. “Guarding against every threat. What I protect is much more valuable than what this charlatan believed. He merely wanted to continue his rule, to live forever. But I know better. I know what the others seek, and only I can deny them.”
“ Very well, master. We shall start construction today.”
“ When will it be ready?”
“ You are young,” the old man says, rubbing his thin white beard. “And I have seen ahead. We will have time. All we need now is the place of your choosing. You will let me know soon?”
Temujin nods. He turns and strides out of the yurt, then looks north, following the outline of the winding, frozen Odon River. He blinks and he imagines sparkling lights far to the north, at the head of the snake, which has now become a dragon, and its tail twitching right before him. A tail that will move, one that will be forcibly moved to cover his entrance.
Turning on his heels, he heads back into the tent, slapping aside the entrance and boldly stepping in to where the old man still pores over the designs, calculating how to mimic such a grand and nearly impossible undertaking.
“ I have decided,” Temujin announces, pointing outside the tent. “It will be done here, right here. I have seen the way. There will be no burial mound, no obvious markers or pyramids. No sign that I am here, and as the last act, your men will divert the river and cover the entrance for all time.”
The old man blinks at him, expressionless. Then he smiles, acknowledging and respecting the humility and the single-mindedness of his master.
“ As you wish.”
When Phoebe’s consciousness slammed back to reality, she saw Caleb and reached for him, touched him, but then suddenly she was away again, down in the trenches, years later…
… digging with thousands of others, climbing scaffolding, chiseling walls, dragging huge blocks down a makeshift ramp into a cavern the size of a small valley. Massive fires burn day and night, providing meager illumination to supplement each contingent’s battalion of torches. Smoke, dust, heat and poor ventilation take a tremendous toll, and men drop every hour, only to be carted out along with the next haul of dirt and rocks.
All while the great Khan’s mausoleum takes shape, a veritable subterranean city of shining marble and alabaster materializes as if carved from the bowels of the earth itself, as if born from its primordial core.
Here she works on the city’s outer walls, carving the massive blocks and sharpening the crenulated towers, thickening the defenses. And here she digs trenches for the underground rivers that will flow-one for a moat, the other bisecting the Khan’s great city. And there, she hangs below the domed ceiling in the palace, painting Temujin’s visage on the dome’s interior, surrounded by his wife Borto and his three sons, all smiling down to the immense marble-form sculpture of a white tent, his crypt, inside which even now others are carving his resting space.
At the entrance, looking down the ramp and into the massive cavern, she sees the first regiment of the twenty thousand terra cotta warriors tethered together and lying four on a side on a wooden sled, dragged down by horses, pulled into the depths to take up their eternal positions.
Forever vigilant.
And she smiles, confident in the mechanical defenses designed inside each one.
She retreats, seeing flashes now of great crossbows, loaded and poised at angles unseen by future trespassers. She sees pits dug into the floor and covered with false doors, trip wires and gear-actioned spikes, false passageways with even deadlier contents.
And she smiles, then retreats all the way, making room for the final procession-the coffin, the twenty silk-covered maidens, the young camel-and then when all is silent and all heads are bowed in mourning, she orders the great slab door shut. The dirt is piled over the entrance, and at last the river is diverted to its new course, concealing everything for all time.
“He’s in trouble!”
Phoebe gasped, blinking back to the present and still tasting the smoke in her lungs, the scent of decay and death from so many thousands toiling and expiring underground. “What? Who?”
“Orlando.” Caleb clasped her arm, drew her to the side of the door, then pointed across the mausoleum grounds, the mausoleum that now, after Phoebe had seen the real thing first-hand, seemed like such a tawdry shadow.
Two agents were hauling Orlando into the back seat.
“What do you think he did this time?” Phoebe asked.
“I have a bad feeling about this. Should we call Agent Wagner?”
“Don’t bother,” said another voice. Right behind them.
Caleb turned just as Phoebe said, “Oh shit.”
Renee was in the doorway, the tip of her Walther. 45 pressed Phoebe’s side, just as two of her Chinese colleagues quickly ushered the other visitors out. Then they turned and drew their weapons.
“Sorry about this,” Renee said. “But we don’t have any more time. Your friend out there went snooping, glimpsing things he had no business seeing. I knew it was a risk, allying myself with psychics, but there was no alternative, not if there’s a chance you might recover those keys.”
“Damn,” Caleb hissed. “I knew you were too good to be true.”
Renee leveled her eyes at him, and her lips drew back into a wolfish sneer. “I believe you know where they are, so let’s stop wasting time. Neither of us wants Montross to get those keys first.”