Like the afterimage of lightning, the world flips to negative and back again. Ribbons of light spiral in my vision as a firecracker string of memories ignites. A thousand years of disjointed recollection—broken shards of a forgotten whole—flood into my blinded eyes.
I scream the pain of it into the freezing night.
47
CHINA, PRESENT
Like a spinning globe, a great green expanse of earth rolls beneath the private jet. Peter and I are soaring low over jagged mountains with tight, meandering spines. Slug-trail folds of the Yangtze River trickle like venom between sharp teeth of rock. In the jet cabin, a yellowed map is spread out, pockmarked with Chinese characters and a landscape that only vaguely resembles the tableau sliding past.
Elena reluctantly lived up to her promise, marking the map with the exact modern coordinates where her body was recovered more than three centuries ago.
“Huangdi is in these mountains?” I ask, watching the river swell into a lake at the point where it is choked by the wide buttress of the Three Gorges Dam. “You think his vessel is still down there?”
“Leizu tried to flood this land—proof we are on the right track. But Huangdi was clever. He built his tomb to last forever.”
“Then he’s here?”
“I will know it when I see it,” says Peter.
It’s as much as I’ve been able to get out of him, and it will have to be enough. Impatient, I check the batteries in my headlamp again. Our preparations for the trip are long complete. The pilot met us at an airstrip outside London ten hours ago. Two fat black duffel bags were waiting on the leather seats, slumped like sleeping passengers.
Inside the bag, I found boots, pants, a shirt, and a backpack—all black, made of futuristic materials and layered in places with a type of thin ceramic armor. Wearing his own quasi-military gear, Peter looks like a mercenary, perfectly confident and at ease with a custom knife sheath across his chest for his antique dagger.
As for me, I’m not so sure. I’m just as uncomfortable in this commando uniform as I was wearing diamonds and pearls. The only thing that feels right is the relic hanging around my neck in its usual place.
I find myself wondering if Peter remembers that I tried to abandon him when Talus was coming for us. I’d pressed the relic into his unresponsive hand and was ready to run. All the years I spent in school, living on student loans, moving every few years from one postdoc to another, I sacrificed friendships and relationships for the chance to be an expert, to learn more about one thing than anybody else in the world. And I nearly left him there to die, trying to get my old life back.
How much am I willing to give up to see this new world?
“Buckle up,” says Peter. He’s watching me closely, and I try to keep my face blank. “It is time.”
We land on a deserted strip of tarmac nestled in the mountains.
Stepping out into an empty hangar, I don’t see any other planes or people. Nobody checks our identification or the packs we wear. Peter gives a small nod at a ramshackle building where an indistinct face swims behind dark glass, and then we’re walking down a long gravel path that leads to a roughly paved road.
A black SUV waits for us—the ubiquitous, anonymous variety that lurks around airports all over the world. The only difference is this one has large, knobby tires and a winch welded to the frame under the front grill. Our driver, just as anonymous as his vehicle, greets us with a quick bow and climbs in. He doesn’t move to take our backpacks and doesn’t make eye contact. A light mist lies over the jungle, beads of dew cascading over the SUV hood like spider eyes. I suppress a shiver and climb in.
Peter gives terse instructions in Chinese, and we roar away.
As we cruise downhill, our narrow road weaves across a lush, mountainous countryside wreathed in ferns and reeds and towering stalks of bamboo. After half an hour, we leave the pavement for a path made of crushed stone, green fingers of tree limbs dragging across our tinted windows. We roll slowly, through scraping branches and directly over small trees. I glance at Peter in alarm as a rock grinds across the undercarriage, vibrating our feet.
Eventually, we slide to a halt on a steep slope, engulfed in green canopy.
The driver glances down at a GPS unit, turns, and nods. Peter rolls down the window, listening. A moist breeze instantly fills the car, warm and smelling of chlorophyll. Water roars in the distance, hidden somewhere in the jungle.
Peter claps the driver on the arm and nods a thank-you.
Leaning into the door, he shoves it open against dense jungle, clearing a swath of space for us to wriggle out. I shrug on my backpack, put two fingers over my chest to reassure myself that the relic is still there, and latch a hand on Peter’s knife strap as he moves deeper into a maze of vines and leaves. The wet jungle sways around us, hotter now, almost breathing, already drawing prickles of sweat onto my skin.
The SUV surges away in reverse, tires grinding over mud and rock.
“Whoa, wait!” I shout as the hood vanishes.
“It’s okay,” says Peter, over his shoulder. “We don’t need him. It’s not far now.”
We continue downhill, step by step, the jungle compressing around us like the digestive tract of some monstrous creature. Then Peter throws an arm out to bar my way, nearly knocking the breath out of me. Looking down, I see a dizzying expanse of empty air beyond my boot. We’re standing on the edge of a black rock cliff.
Across the valley, a waterfall thunders, prehistorically huge, nearly lost in billows of its own pounding mist. The cataract is split down the middle by a flat rock, lodged stubbornly on the precipice like the prow of a wrecked ship. On either side, torrents of yellow-brown water cascade over the edge, soaring in a torrent through the sky.
“This is the place,” I say, seeing the expression on Peter’s face. “How long has it been?”
Peter surveys the landscape, eyes calculating.
“A long time for a man,” he says. “But not for a mountain.”
Up the river, a series of tropical birds are sitting on branches high in a tree, watching us. I count them by habit. One, three, one, three.
“Who do they belong to?” I ask.
“Her.”
“She’s watching us?”
“She’s been waiting a long time,” he says. “Come on.”
Drawing a machete, Peter leads us straight back into the damp jungle, chopping a path with clean, tireless strokes.
“How far?” I ask, watching the birds take flight.
Peter responds without looking back.
“I was running for my life the last time I was here,” he says. “But I came from Huangdi’s tomb on foot.”
Headed mostly uphill, Peter occasionally checks his pocket watch. I follow him on the sweating, muddy trek through the tight jungle. Between panting breaths, I frantically try to put together a picture of what we’re walking into.
“I thought you had no memory this far back?”
Peter’s reply is calm and measured, his breathing steady.
“Huangdi has his tools, and so does Leizu. She once gave me a gift of remembrance. Or perhaps it was supposed to be a punishment.”
A rock face peeks out of the jungle in the distance, bright and broken. At the top is the flat line of a plateau. Hidden in the base is a dark crease, wreathed in vines. The hillside below it is a crumbling field of broken rock. Peter accelerates, legs churning as he climbs the hill of crushed boulders. Dozens of exotic birds perch on the cliff face, watching us without moving.
I swallow my questions and follow, the relic hot against my sweaty skin.
Peter stops before the crack in the rock face. Resting my hands on my knees, I feel the cool breath of a breeze flowing out. A cavern is hidden in the fold of stone before us, all but invisible. Peter sets about hacking the vegetation away from the opening.
As he works, goose bumps flower on the backs of my arms. The chipped edges of concentric circles are carved into the wall of this hollow—hieroglyp
hs that show traces of Neolithic stone-working techniques.
“This is ancient,” I say, running my fingers over the rough stone.
“It is where I emerged from the tomb,” Peter says. “There was a massive excavation. Huangdi had to hollow out this mountain.”
Now I understand the embankment of loose rock—it came from inside the mountain, dumped here ages ago and still not weathered away.
“Which means this passage will link to the tomb eventually,” I say, the back of my throat tightening. The black slice of rock seems to telescope away in my vision, like a nightmare.
Peter nods, pulling on a headlamp.
“Eventually. If it hasn’t collapsed,” he says, sliding into the crevice. “I will go first.”
I swallow and nod, trying to seem brave. I hate tight spaces, but there’s no other way except straight through. Taking a deep breath, I try to imagine the wonder of whatever antiquities might be hidden in the darkness, but I feel only a dull pounding fear.
What kind of person are you, June?
The cave starts small, and it only gets smaller.
At first on my hands and knees, and then flat on my stomach, I finally have to inch sideways—following him deeper and deeper. The rock turns cold, numbing my fingers and face. Through multiple small chambers, we find knots of tunnels heading off in every direction and some of them up and down. Peter never falters, choosing our route through the network of tunnels without hesitating.
Finally, I push my body into a vertical crevice. Scraping and sliding, Peter has also turned sideways in the gap of rock. My backpack is now attached to a rope tied around my ankle. In the LED glare of my headlamp, all I can see is my own breath, speckles of dust, and the back of Peter’s head and neck. The cave has become a black vise.
“Peter,” I say, my voice loud in my ears.
He hasn’t moved in a few minutes. Long ago, he let out all his breath to make himself smaller. Not breathing, not moving, the alarming thought occurs to me—maybe he’s dead. And then, Was he ever truly alive? Am I alone in this deep place?
I can’t turn my head to look behind me. And I can only blink in horror and wriggle backward when I see it…a trickle of water seeping over Peter’s head, leaving a damp stripe in his hair. The leak grows to a cascade, turning his hair shiny in my headlamp and oozing over his shoulder and arm.
I grit my teeth against a wave of claustrophobia.
Eyes closed, I hear a scraping sound. Peter is rocking back and forth, his face and body scraping inch by inch over sharp rock. I stay where I am, trying not to take panicked breaths, body compressed between two slabs of wet stone. Moving only my eyes, I can see that the water is pooling, rising quickly in the narrow gap.
“Peter,” I call again.
He doesn’t have to breathe, I’m thinking. He doesn’t have to breathe and I do. Cold water is soaking into my boots and I’m going to drown in this black hell.
“Peter!”
I hear a strange whining noise. It’s Peter’s body, creaking. Something cracks inside him and I hear the rip of clothing. A crack of space opens up. The avtomat has made it through the crevice. Water droplets flash in my headlamp as they fall through the space where he was. Now, I see the way forward is impossibly narrow, sheer walls flowing with clear water seeping from overhead.
A whimper forms in the back of my throat.
“June,” says a voice in the darkness. I see the flicker of Peter’s headlamp. His lips and cheek appear in the gap, scratched and dirty. “I am here.”
He’s broken his ribs to make it through.
“I can’t make it,” I say, swallowing, feeling dust on the back of my throat. Racing with adrenaline, my body is tense against the rock. Without realizing, I have started to wriggle away from the gap.
“June, you can,” he says. “I know you can.”
“No,” I gasp. “I’m not avtomat, Peter. I have to breathe.”
“You are strong. You can make it.”
Any strength I had is gone. All that’s left is panic and despair.
“I’m not strong, Peter. I left you. In Batuo’s sanctuary, I tried to leave you—”
“I know,” he says. “You came back. And you won’t stop now.”
I pause, blinking, my cheeks wet.
“How can you know that?” I ask.
His fingertips push in through the gap.
“Because you are much too curious ever to turn back, June,” he says.
I snake my hand forward, curling two of my fingers around his. They feel strong.
A sobbing laugh fights its way out of me. The relic is hard against my chest, imprinting its fractal pattern into my cold, numb skin. Even now it feels warm, even in this frozen pit.
“Fuck, Peter. Fuck this. Oh my god—”
Elbow bent, I push my face into the crevice. Water cascades over my cheeks, colder than my body can register—so cold it feels like a sheet of flame. Closing my eyes, I keep pushing, letting the stream slip over my nose and mouth. In the pounding blackness, I imagine the mountain has swallowed me. Rock scrapes my face, my chest and hips, and I exhale every last molecule of oxygen in my lungs. Keeping my body small, I shove forward with all my strength, pushing until I feel the water flowing over the nape of my neck.
Faintly, I hear Peter speaking, almost a chant.
“Come on, June,” urges Peter. “You can do this.”
Panic beats behind my eyes, lungs throbbing for oxygen, and I shove my arm farther through the breach. Peter’s hand clamps on to my forearm. I try to scream. Nothing comes out as he pulls my arm, nearly popping it out of its socket, hauling my body through the blunt crevice, ripping my clothes, branding me with a full-body bruise.
Pain claws through my body, my lungs, and my mind goes blank.
Then I tumble out into blackness, crying, wheezing for breath. Dropping without looking, I curl into fetal position. I lie for a long time on the rock. After a little while, I notice there is a warm hand on my shoulder. I put my hand over his and hold it.
Finally, I open my eyes and look up.
A black sky full of bright blue stars shines down on me. At my feet, a shimmering silver river undulates away under the night sky. Blinking in the dim light, I can make out the silhouettes of people—dozens and dozens of them, all around us. It is an army, the soldiers stock-still and inanimate, wielding spears and swords and bows.
“We are here, June,” says Peter. “Huangdi’s tomb.”
“How—how did you know I could make it through?” I ask, my throat raw.
“You could not go back,” Peter says. “Leizu has followed us in.”
48
CHINA, 3000 BC
My body is sprawled in the frozen mud of Stalingrad, but my mind is transported to an impression of the past. Memories rush over me like a surge of river water, pulling me under. Submerged, visions of my other life appear. Bits and snatches, growing into a tumbling flood of images and sounds that cascade through my mind.
I remember.
In this age I am called Lu Yan. I am holding simple leather reins in gauntleted hands, settled on the wide back of a gray stallion. The horse is strange, with a primitive blue-black stripe running along its spine and parallel lines raking over its shoulders. Not a horse, I think. This memory is of a tarpan—an extinct megafauna brought here by barbarian raiders from the steppe.
Clutching its back with my thighs, I keep the barely domesticated beast under my control. Few men can ride this steed—the father of wild horses.
We avtomat ride them with ease.
Beside me, Leizu urges her own, smaller mare into a trot to match stride with mine. Her fingers are curled into its blue-black mane. She wears a white silk dress that curls and flaps in the wind, trailing behind as she effortlessly controls the wild animal. Her features are angular and sharp, made of ceramic planes—clearly avtomat, yet she is more refined than the leather and whalebone of Favorini’s workshop.
Together, we ride wild beasts over a sea of swa
ying grass.
“General,” says Leizu, bringing her horse alongside mine. Too near.
I nod to acknowledge the empress, glancing back to the mountains by instinct. Huangdi and my army swarm the broken rock, far from here. Ensconced in cloudy peaks of stone, my master rules men and avtomat for as far as the eye can see. Leizu smiles at my hesitation, her lips bright against an ivory face.
Pushing a stray lock of hair over her ear, she chides me.
“My husband is busy attending to our great retreat,” she says. “From this distance, anyone will assume we are having an innocent conference.”
“He would not approve of us—”
“Talking? Very well. If you wish, I can talk. And you can listen.”
Leaning in her saddle, she puts a hand over my gauntlet, tracing fingers over the ornate metal. I allow her to turn my hand over and touch the rough leather of my palm. Her touch is like the fall of snow, fingers hard as stone.
“You are strong, Lu Yan,” she says to me. “My equal, perhaps. But I fear for your future. Together, you and I—”
“Should race,” I finish for her, turning in my simple leather saddle and pulling my hand away, “while the day is fine.”
A flash of anger pinches her face, quickly disappearing. She considers for a moment before pointing, long sleeve wavering in the breeze.
“To the cliff’s edge,” she says. “To the dragon’s tooth.”
Already spurring her horse, she sweeps past.
I lean and urge my beast forward. Ahead of me, Leizu looks like a spirit escaped from the underworld, black hair spilling over a milk-white dress. As my steed lumbers, gaining speed, I marvel at Leizu’s strength and agility—she rides in perfect synchronicity with the animal, her head held low and level as a tiger prowling through reeds. The waving grass brushes my thighs, whipping past as scores of insects leap like shooting stars, and I laugh with sheer exhilaration, the vibration of it echoing in my chest.
As my horse grows even with hers, Leizu leans harder but she cannot pull away. My beast gallops, sweating, stiff mane bouncing. I catch an angry smile on Leizu’s face as I pass her, and some hint of satisfaction.