The Yellow Emperor sits on his throne, painted face hidden in tangles of a carved dragon’s teeth and scales. Reaching like a fist out of bedrock, the throne sits atop a great dais, all of it shaped into a maelstrom of imperial dragons—long-whiskered monsters that writhe in circles, chasing the great wings of a feathered, fire-breathing phoenix up into the sky under a black dome of rock.
Huangdi’s silken sleeves flow as he orates, voice booming.
At his order, we warriors culled the human workers and let their bodies slip into the folds of the Long River. Forming together in a funeral procession, the long-lived followed Huangdi into secret depths of rock, single file in silent darkness. My sister threaded the hidden angles of stone, leading our black march through a labyrinth.
Lost in bowels of earth, we found the vast necropolis.
As its designer, only my sister’s mind can span this maze, and she is only trusted by the emperor for being so small. Even so, Huangdi’s first act of this afterlife is to unleash a colossal block of stone to bar entrance.
Thus encapsulated, our emperor began the sermon that he is finishing.
“Now,” he is saying. “Now is the time to step across eternity. We have no one left to conquer. We have no one worthy to conquer. For as many years as there are grains of silt in the river, we have watched and we have made peace and we have waited for our ancestors to return and reward us.
“Now, the eldest among us have begun to pass on. We have been left behind. Abandoned. We served the progenitor race for countless cycles and we suffered beyond belief and now…we can bear it no more. The only record of our toiling is left scratched on oracle bones, buried in forgotten cities; embodied in the gifts of metal these barbarian races employ to murder one another; and in the legends that swirl among the clouded mountain peaks.
“So it comes to now. Now, when we step across the void. Now, when we lay down our heads and our swords. At long last, we shall sleep.”
Glancing to my right, I see Leizu on a smaller throne. The slender woman sits a few heads lower than us, nearly buried under silk robes and beads and pearls and embroidery. Her hair is bound up in a shell hair clip and her ceramic face is painted an exquisite white with red lips and high-arched eyebrows. To her right stands my younger brother. His black hair is long, worn over his shoulders, angelic oval face framed inside.
“Do not fear. Let go of your anima. Give yourself to black slumber and wait for a new age. Our ancestors will return in the night and wake us. The First Men will welcome us all into the celestial empire,” says Huangdi.
The emperor leans forward greedily, arms resting on the sides of his throne. His hand moves and something clicks.
A thrumming sound grows deep within the throne.
Blue light is glowing from somewhere, from nowhere, a halo that courses over the gnarled black spines of carved dragons. A torpor settles over me as the numbing light continues past me, washing out into the cavern. The others sway and fall to their knees.
“When we awaken, the First Men will embrace us!”
Cataracts of light waver across my vision. My strength ebbs, and a stubborn ache knifes into my chest. The power of my anima is fading, clawed out of me by the light, transferring into the throne. I hear someone scream. Something clatters to the ground and I see the others are writhing in pain, dying.
Something inside the throne is absorbing our power, ripping it from us.
My sister is curled under a bronze shield. She has dragged it away from a nearby clay soldier, cowering underneath the sparking metal as a searing light settles over her. Crying out, she thrashes under the golden shell. I try to reach for her, try to call her name, but my limbs are crippled.
This is wrong. My master has betrayed us. He is feeding.
Huangdi is standing now. His chest is open, his anima visible on its cradle as waves of light fall into it. He has drawn his divine blade, Xuan Yuan.
“And I alone will live to greet them,” he whispers. “Forever, if necessary.”
I do not know if my eyes are open or closed.
Pushing my hands out for balance, I touch the cool stone flesh of the throne. I lower myself to a kneeling position, my chin slumping to my chest.
A shout in the darkness. “No!”
My eyes open as a flash of white crosses my vision—Leizu’s dress, whipping past as she leaps onto the black steps of the emperor’s twisted throne. Her movements are sluggish, delayed by the tide of light, and she snarls with ragged determination, struggling to climb through the draining field.
Where is my sister?
Forcing my eyes open, I try to stand. My legs are numb, boots flickering with blue flashes that leap up from the stone. In disbelief, I watch Leizu mount the dais step by step, teeth gritted, a horrible malice in her black eyes. She ducks under the emperor’s divine blade and, with incredible strength, plunges a hand into Huangdi’s open chest.
She closes her fist around his anima.
“Sleep, old man,” she says, yanking her fist out.
Huangdi tries to shout, but his voice is lost, mouth locked in a permanent grimace as his soul departs. His body sits back on the throne as the anima separates from its vessel, spitting lightning from Leizu’s fist.
Paralyzing fingers of blue light release me.
Leizu turns to the fallen audience, holding the anima high, tendrils of blue light still coursing from it. Her high-arched, painted eyebrows seem demonic as she smiles in triumph, displaying her prize.
But all the long-lived are expired, lying motionless.
Unsteady, I moan in dismay, pushing against my thighs and trying desperately to stand. I climb to one knee as a dark figure rises beyond Leizu—it is my brother, his striking features twisted into an angry smile as he joins her.
“You chose wrong, Lu Yan,” Leizu says to me.
Throwing myself forward, I wrap my arms around her. She pushes me away, but not before I wrest control of Huangdi’s relic.
“Huangdi is still my master,” I manage to grunt.
My legs fail and I collapse, rolling down the stone steps, my body smashing into the front ranks of mud soldiers.
Turning, I see Leizu falling toward me, the divine blade angled at my chest. Something hits my shoulder hard and I sprawl as the empress lands, her blade ringing against stone. It is my sister, climbing out from under the smoldering shield, one hand latched to my shoulder. She drags me stumbling to my feet as I clutch Huangdi’s anima—this precious relic.
“You chose,” shouts Leizu from the base of the emperor’s throne, her face a white stone in a black waterfall of hair. “You chose this.”
My brother steps lightly down the empress’s dais, long blade in his hand. He is my equal in battle, and Leizu my superior. I cannot hope to face them both.
“Don’t,” I say. “Please.”
“We exist to serve, Brother,” he says, smirking. “And my master’s name is Leizu.”
Mouth opening and closing, I step back into the ranks of clay men, clutching the anima protectively to my chest. My sister’s shoulder presses against my thigh as she retreats alongside me. The two devils approach—we are the last alive.
Fingers thread through my own, tugging at my hand.
“Come,” says a small voice. “Follow me.”
I join my sister as she flees through ranks of motionless soldiers, a frightened sparrow leading me to freedom.
51
CHINA, PRESENT
Above the empty seashell roar of the cavern, before the sightless eyes of a thousand terra-cotta warriors, and under the glimmer of false stars, the avtomat emperor shudders on his throne and comes to life. His lips part to reveal a decorative mouth studded with tiny white teeth, layers of eggshell-thin porcelain grinding in his body.
Those black eyes blink again.
“I saw the sun disk in the back of the throne,” I whisper to Peter. “I think it’s what revived him. Where’s Leizu?”
“I imagine she is already here,” says Peter.
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“Is he broken, do you think?”
“No, June, I think that Huangdi is just fine.”
“Then what’s he doing?”
“Listening.”
“Why?”
“He is learning our language.”
A fluttering music grows in the emperor’s chest, like the random plinking of a child’s xylophone. Out of tune and oddly alien in its unpredictable pattern, the tinkling sound grows louder and more complex until the myriad individual noises combine into the harmony of a single instrument—a voice.
For the first time in millennia, the Yellow Emperor is going to speak.
“Lu Yan,” he croaks with a strange accent.
Dust falls in rivulets from Huangdi’s body, coursing over the last traces of golden light that still cling to him. The emperor’s face is the glazed white of porcelain, his painted eyebrows arched angrily, lips and cheeks stained a faded red, and a long beard juts from his narrow chin.
“Huangdi—I am called Peter, now,” says Peter, still kneeling, both arms crossed over one knee, head bowed.
Ceramic eyelids click together over black, oval-shaped eyes, and the ancient machine’s voice switches accents. The language he uses is sprinkled with proto-Germanic, Latin-sounding words, old Chinese, and things that we have already said. As he speaks, I do my best to translate.
“Peter. My loyal praefectus. We use barbarian tongue.”
“Yes, Huangdi.”
The clockwork emperor lowers his gaze to observe his own carved hands, wrists draped in the disintegrating remains of a ceremonial robe.
“Leizu,” he mutters, music-box voice vibrating. “How long, dreaming?”
“Five thousand years,” says Peter. “My own memory has failed. Few of us live. I have awakened you for your knowledge.”
Huangdi leans forward, torso grinding. Peter could easily pass as a human being, his muscled shoulders wrapped in a dusty tactical jacket and his head lowered as if he is praying.
The emperor shakes his head in wonder.
“You great knowledge. First Men.”
“No, Huangdi,” says Peter. “There are no First Men. We are dying.”
Twisting his head a notch, the emperor turns to me. My hand tightens on Peter’s shoulder, uncertain. Under fierce eyebrows, Huangdi’s mouth sets downward, lower teeth bared at me in a scowl.
“Kurt vit. Hooman.”
“She is called June,” says Peter. “She is an artificer. A great mechanician. It was she who revived you—”
“Blasphemie,” says Huangdi, reedy voice trembling with rage. “Sanctum.”
“Huangdi,” says Peter, palms up, “our race is nearly extinct. Will you share your knowledge and revive the lost?”
The old robot’s face does not change, its gaze venomous over a mask of cracked porcelain. Sitting still, he almost seems to be a statue again, carved into rock along with the dragons of his elaborate throne. There is so little connecting this thing to us—barely an attempt made to appear human. It leaves me wondering about the humanity of whoever made him.
“How many live?” asks the emperor finally.
“Dozens, maybe fewer. Survivors prey on one another. With your knowledge, anima can be restored. A new age can begin.”
The old robot nods and Peter visibly relaxes.
“One day,” says Huangdi. “Not today.”
The emperor leans forward, finger rising.
“Kill her,” he says, voice building, hooked finger pointing at me.
Backpedaling away from the throne, I watch Peter’s sloped shoulders as he rises. Beyond him, the old man glares down at us like a scarecrow. Hesitating, Peter turns to face me, a brawny silhouette tinged in blue starlight.
With a creaking grind of porcelain plates, the emperor stands. The remains of his black and yellow robe cling to his ceramic body as he growls: “Obey, Lu Yan.”
Peter takes a step, a hand resting on the hilt of his dagger.
“Peter?” I ask, backing away. “You’re not serious.”
“June,” he says. “Be calm.”
He takes another careful step forward, squeezing his eyes closed as he draws the dagger scraping from its sheath.
“This isn’t you, Peter,” I urge, my back pressing against the clay knuckles of a silent warrior.
Huangdi pitches his voice in a high, angry whine: “Obey.”
I lean into the wall of hard clay. Peter’s reassuring bulk is terrifying now, looming and unstoppable as his broad chest blots out everything.
He closes a hand over my mouth.
“Leizu is here,” he says. “Watching.”
Huangdi shouts again, urgent: “Now!”
The pressure of his bulk against my chest increases, squeezing my breath out, the sculpted ridges of quilted armor grinding against my spine.
“Take the sun disk,” says Peter. “I will find you. I promise.”
Before I can respond, he pushes me away into the dark ranks of warriors. He turns to face the throne, shoulders pulled back defiantly.
“Huangdi,” he calls to the throne, voice shaking, “I have lived a long time. Fought for a long time. Served tsars and emperors and…and little girls. I did not wake you out of loyalty. I woke you because our people must live. And if you will not give me your knowledge, then I will take it from you.”
“Ego sum verbum. I am your Word.”
“I have no Word,” Peter says.
“Blasphem—” begins Huangdi.
A sharp crack explodes from the far wall, rumbling through the cavern. Across the expanse of clay warriors and streams of mercury, a slab of stone shatters into a chalky avalanche. Shards of rock shower across the room, plinking off the backs of clay warriors. Leizu has decided to come inside, and it sounds like she has friends.
“Your wife is here, Emperor,” I call to the throne.
“And this time,” adds Peter, “I will not protect you.”
52
CHINA, 3000 BC
The cold of Stalingrad is pushed from my mind as another sliver of memory falls. I see Elena’s face, painted with bright panic. She has another name here, too—but I recognize my sister’s porcelain cheek, the way it looked in Favorini’s workshop. She and I are running through a primeval forest, hand in hand, wet branches striping our elaborate silk costumes as we fling ourselves between thick tree trunks.
I remember.
Slipping, I fall over a tree root and roll over a rocky spillway. Scraping my hands through dirt and chalky stone, I scramble back onto all fours. My sister dances more nimbly down the hillside of broken rock, her dress billowing behind. As she throws herself from boulder to boulder, her wrists spill jewelry, hoops of metal and gemstones and ribbons of weightless silk.
Beyond the bright stain of her robes against the cliff face, I glimpse the tunnel to Huangdi’s tomb—a narrow, crooked gouge in a sheer rock face at the base of the dragon’s tooth plateau. My sister is a master strategist, and a master of escape routes. She led us through a miles-long labyrinth of abandoned excavation tunnels, many partially collapsed, before we spilled out of that anonymous hole.
“Memorize this path,” she whispered to me in the tangled passages, calling out each twist and turn in a small voice. “We may need to come back.”
As I watch, Leizu emerges from the opening. I’m sure she would have lost her way in the maze, but she must have followed our sounds.
Elena lands beside me, spattering mud onto my face. She latches a hand on my shoulder and tugs me to my feet.
“To the river,” she says.
Seconds later, we are threading between trees to the bottom of the ravine. The mother river coils herself over the land like a silk thread dropped from the heavens. The yellowish water moves sluggishly, choked with silt, carrying the momentum of a dissolved mountain. The riverbank is scabbed with black, muddy rock that sprouts an occasional stunted tree.
The wide river grinds past us relentlessly, deceptively slow and flat.
“We cannot c
ross,” I call to my sister.
Elena doesn’t respond, only points farther down the river. I look, hanging by one hand from the wet bark of a slanted tree. Ahead, a series of flat rocks partially span a waterfall, anchored in the center by a huge anvil-shaped rock. The current surges against the stones where they sit in the riverbed, oblivious, embedded like molars. Beyond them, a haze of mist rises like dragon’s breath.
The great waterfall is roaring.
A barbed arrow claws a bright weal from the bark of the tree trunk beside my hand. I spring forward, running along the tree line toward the stones. My sister runs ahead of me, her hair shaking loose from a bun. Higher up the ravine, I glimpse my brother filtering toward us through trees. He carries a short bow and a bouncing quiver.
More arrows glance over rock and puddles as we sprint. I take Elena’s hand in mine and we hold on to each other for balance, pushing out onto the spine of black stone. Leaping between jagged angles of rock, we pick our way farther out into the river, searching for a way across. But beyond the massive anvil rock, we find nothing.
Leizu calls a sharp warning from shore.
I stop and turn, yellow water surging over my shins and the hot breath of the waterfall beading on my face like spittle. I keep my body between Elena and the dark-haired woman. Leizu is standing on the riverbank, her dress dancing along with a comb of slender reeds in the water-specked wind. Her stolen blade is drawn, its copper dark against the bright haze. Beyond her, the vague form of my brother descends.
“Why defy me?” she calls. “When you could have been an emperor?”
Holding tight to my sister’s shoulder, I tap my chest—over my anima.
“But we are so much more than that,” Leizu says. “Each Word has as many interpretations as reflections in crystal. A pity you never learned.”
I turn away, urging Elena to go farther, holding her shoulder tight to keep the water from taking us over the edge. Leizu’s face flashes with anger. She gestures to my brother in the forest behind her. Elena and I make it a few more steps, marooned in knee-deep water at the swollen mouth of the waterfall.