Chapter 20

A Filial Farewell

“Ryan? Are you awake?”

“Hmm?” Alex heard the muffled sound of his brother’s voice.

It was dark and smelly under the tarp, but at least it was warm. He and Ryan had fallen asleep while waiting for Hong Mei to come back. Jet lag. Sometimes it wasn’t such a bad thing.

Alex threw back the stiff cover from over his head and breathed in the dusty, chilly air. He looked up at the windows at the top of the hangar-like structure and saw that it was getting light outside. He shivered. It was cold in this place. No central heating in tombs, he thought with a half-laugh.

Shivering again, Alex wished he was wearing his own clothes. The blazer Madam Ching had made him wear to that dinner wasn’t as warm as his Roots jacket. That one had a hood. He guessed he’d seen the last of it. He pulled the scratchy tarp up around his neck and listened to Ryan’s snoring.

Where was Hong Mei? If it was morning already, she’d been gone a long time. Maybe she couldn’t find her way back to them. Or maybe the sound they heard had been a security guard and she’d been arrested for breaking and entering. He didn’t want to think what Ryan was going to say when he woke up.

He felt around beside him for Master Chen’s box. Not feeling anything but the ground, he pulled back the tarp and searched for it. Where was it?

“What are you doing?” he heard Ryan mumble.

“Uh, nothing.” How was he going to tell Ryan that Hong Mei hadn’t come back and the box was gone? Had she been lying? Was she really on Madam Ching’s side?

Ryan sat up and took his glasses out of his blazer pocket and put them on. Smoothing his hair he looked around. “Where’s Hong Mei?”

Alex cleared his throat and said quietly, “She’s not back yet.”

Ryan sat up straighter and looked up at the same high windows Alex had. “It’s morning and she’s not back yet?”

Alex cringed. Ryan was going to lose it when he found out she’d taken the box. How were they going to get back to Hong Kong?

Just then, Alex heard, “Ryan? Alex? Are you there?”

It sounded like Hong Mei. “Here! We’re over here!” he called, but not loudly.

A couple of seconds later, Hong Mei came around the corner and smiled. “I am so glad you are here. I got confused about how to get back to you. I had to use my second sight.”

“Yeah, right,” Ryan said. “You’ve been gone for hours! How confused were you?”

Alex saw Hong Mei’s smile disappear, but she didn’t turn red like she had before.

“I was with Black Dragon,” she said, handing Master Chen’s box to Alex.

“I’m sure,” Ryan said.

Alex watched his brother roll his eyes.

“And I suppose Black Dragon asked you nicely for the jade and you told him we’d be happy to go back to Beijing and return it to him there. Right?”

Hong Mei stood unsmiling, but Ryan’s words weren’t having much of an impact on her as far as Alex could tell.

She turned to Alex and said, “Black Dragon told me the same thing your Uncle Peter told you about the truth box. It takes people to places where they learn an important truth.”

“Oh, really,” Ryan drawled. “Since you took the box, and I don’t remember you telling us you were taking it, what truth did you discover with it?”

Alex studied Hong Mei’s face. She was holding up pretty well.

Hong Mei shifted her gaze to Ryan. “I’m not sure, but I think it is that we do not have to return the jade to Black Dragon in Beijing tonight.”

“That’s amazing!” Ryan said sarcastically. “But I could have told you that, too. Because Alex and I aren’t going anywhere except for Hong Kong.” He stood up and straightened his clothes. “In fact,” Ryan said, brushing the dust off his jacket and looking at Hong Mei, “we’re headed there right now.”

Alex swallowed. There was no way Hong Mei was going to convince Ryan of anything now. He watched his brother take the peppermint box out of his pocket, and almost immediately his face changed. He frowned, his eyebrows pursed in a look of puzzlement.

“What?” Alex asked.

“I don’t know,” Ryan said, undoing the buttons on his jacket and opening it up. “There’s something in this pocket that I didn’t notice before.”

Alex watched Ryan feel the lining where the pocket was. “Is it an extra button or something?”

“No, it feels like a battery or something has been sewn into the inside of the jacket.”

“A battery?”

“Yeah,” Ryan said. “Like a double A battery.”

Alex looked closer. He saw something blinking in the cloth that Ryan was fiddling with. Was that a light?

“Ryan. Something weird is in there. Take it off.”

His brother quickly removed the jacket and threw it on top of the tarp. Looking at the blazer Alex wore, Ryan asked, “What about yours?”

Alex thrust Master Chen’s box into Hong Mei’s hands and checked his own pockets. He felt two pieces of jade in the left one and one in the right, and – what was that? He felt a heavy, cylindrical object. Quickly unbuttoning the jacket, he pulled it away from his body. He could just make out the same faint red light. He withdrew the jade pieces and passed them to Ryan, then tore off the jacket and threw it on top of Ryan’s. Alex’s breathing had quickened and he took a breath to try and steady it.

Ryan suddenly said, “Ssh. Did you hear that?”

Alex listened. He hadn’t heard anything and was about to say so, when there was the sound of a voice – a female voice – speaking Mandarin.

The three of them stood perfectly still and listened.

It couldn’t be!

Alex looked back and forth between Ryan and Hong Mei.

“She is searching for us,” Hong Mei whispered. “She knows we are here.”

Now came the gruff voice of a man. Alex heard a laugh, followed by a chorus of grunts.

Hong Mei took off the lid of the box. Alex could see that her hands were shaking. She was already reciting the poem. He immediately started saying the poem in English. Speaking quickly and softly, Alex looked at Ryan, who had joined in. The three of them, whispering in English and Chinese, raced through the poem.

They were nearly at the end of the recitation when a man came around the same corner that Hong Mei had turned just a short while before. He stopped and his eyes lit up.

Alex had never seen a bigger person in his life. He was a giant with a shaved head the size of a watermelon.

The man shouted out in Mandarin, “They’re here!”

Alex could hear Ryan and Hong Mei still reciting. He closed his eyes, shutting out the giant, and continued with the last few lines of the poem that he was getting to know so well.

A rumbling sound began and the ground shook as it had before at Madam Ching’s. They were just saying the final words when Alex opened his eyes to see that a Terra Cotta Warrior had come loose from its foundation. It tipped dangerously close to the huge man. He raised his arms in alarm, trying to shield himself from the falling soldier.

Other sculptures started to wobble – horses, standing guards and chariots. Through the swaying army and across the heaving ground, Alex spotted Madam Ching. She glared back at him with icy-cold eyes and started toward them, striding purposefully through falling statues and debris.

Alex felt Hong Mei grab his arm and shout, “Quick! Come with me.”

The last thing Alex saw was a large horse-drawn chariot rolling in front of Madam Ching, immediately blocking her way.

Hong Mei pulled him along to follow Ryan. They ran, dodging tumbling warriors, guards, infantrymen and generals.

Then, as quickly as the turmoil had started, the ground settled and everything stopped moving. Some of the army was in disarray and other parts seemed untouched. It had been just like an earthquake. Maybe that’s what it was, since they obviously hadn’t gone anywhere. They were still in the Terra Cotta Tomb.

But still, they kept moving.

Finally, Ryan said, “Here. There’s an exit.”

Alex and Hong Mei followed him through a door leading into a dark, tunnel-like walkway.

After taking only a few steps, Alex sensed that the air was different. It was thicker, somehow, and close. Not fresh at all. Ryan and Hong Mei had already disappeared from view.

“Ryan,” Alex called into the claustrophobic passageway. “This can’t be the way out.” He stopped to turn around. This place was making his skin crawl. “C’mon, you guys. This doesn’t feel right.”

He heard Ryan say from further ahead, “Keep going, Alex. It’s okay! Come and see.”

See what?

“I can’t see anything!” he called out. “Where are you?” Alex shivered. He was chilly, even colder than before. He hugged himself as he made his way toward his brother’s voice. This had better be good.

“Keep coming,” he heard Hong Mei say.

Alex took another few steps and finally saw two dots of pale green light shining ahead. In their glow he could make out Ryan and Hong Mei. His brother was holding up two of the pieces of jade and Hong Mei held the third. The jade’s colour changed from the pale green flush to a milky white. It illuminated the inkiness surrounding them. As he walked toward them, the light became as brilliant as a new star. He could see all around the room they now stood in.

Alex joined Ryan and Hong Mei who were gazing with open mouths at their surroundings. Nothing could be more different than the dusty archeological site they’d just left.

The room was small, slightly bigger than his bedroom, but far, far more beautiful. It resembled some of the Asian temples he’d seen in his aunt’s coffee-table books. The walls were painted in rich hues of red, green, blue, yellow and gold.

When Alex looked up, he saw a dome-shaped ceiling with a sun, moon and stars made out of pearls and gems. The ground was tiled and shaped into a model of forests, mountains, pastures and rivers – like a mosaic. And across the room was a set of jewel-encrusted thrones where two finely carved statues sat.

The life-size carvings were different than those of the army outside the chamber. These still wore their original colours, preserved perhaps by the lack of fresh air in the room. Instead of armour, the male figure wore a long, regal robe made of small rectangular-shaped tiles. Alex immediately thought of the chain-mail that knights wore in the Middle Ages, except this was made of jade and not metal. The statue of the beautiful woman also wore clothes of richness and royalty, but hers did not include jade, only gold and precious stones.

“They must be the Emperor and Empress,” Ryan said.

Alex moved closer to the figures. “Look. There are two smaller statues behind them.”

Holding the jade up high, Ryan went towards them. The other sculptures were young boys, nearly as tall as they were. Alex peered into the stone faces and thought how uncannily familiar they were.

He moved closer to Ryan and leaned against him. “Don’t you think those boys look a little too much like us?” he asked his brother.

Hong Mei came up behind them. “Alex is right. They do look very much like the two of you.”

Alex nudged his brother. “Ryan?”

Ryan didn’t respond as he stared wide-eyed at the Emperor and Empress.

A masculine voice, soft and low, interrupted them. “Ryan and Alex. We have longed to see you again.”

Alex nearly stepped on Hong Mei as he and Ryan stepped back.

“Please. Don’t be afraid,” the voice said. “Listen.”

He and Ryan stood together, trembling. They heard:

Long before the universe was born,

Chaos rose from a celestial storm.

Alone for eons in an endless night,

The god awoke and created light.

Seeing the beauty of what he’d done,

Chaos then made the Moon and Sun.

His next major task was to give birth

To all the planets, including Earth.

After sprinkling stars across the sky,

He looked to his wife; her frown caught his eye.

What’s this? he asked, You don’t like what you

see?

Is something not right? Please – tell me.

The voice was so familiar. It continued on for a few more lines, then said, “You have grown into such fine youngmen. I am sorry that your mother and I cannot be with you.But I am glad that Master Chen’s box has brought you hereso that I can tell you how very much we loved you.”

Alex felt Ryan’s sobs before he heard them.

“Ryan, you have had a difficult time. Perhaps now that you have forgiven your brother you can find forgiveness for yourself. There was nothing you could have done to save us.”

Ryan’s shoulders shook. “I miss you so much,” he cried.

“We know, but you must try to be strong, Ryan. You have your brother who needs you. And I know that your uncle and aunt care for you as if you were their own.”

“I know,” Ryan sniffled. “I will try harder.”

“Good. And Ryan? You must promise me something.”

“Anything, Papa.”

“You must fulfill your duty and return Black Dragon’s jade. Do not let our death be for nothing, son.”

The voice was getting softer.

“Be brave and true so that you and your descendants will live long and peaceful lives.”

“Wait!” Ryan cried.

Alex saw his brother’s face was shiny and wet. “Please don’t leave us again,” Ryan said, choking on his tears.

“Ryan, you must forgive us as well. We didn’t wish to leave you. Goodbye. We will always love you.”

Alex crouched down beside Ryan who had slumped to the ground. He put his arm around his big brother’s shaking shoulders.

“I’m sorry that I always blamed you,” Ryan sobbed. “Deep down, I knew better.” His voice caught. “I just needed someone to blame.”

Alex nodded and held onto him.

After a little while, Ryan’s breathing steadied and he reached into his pocket.

“Looking for this?” Hong Mei asked gently, walking towards them with the peppermint box.

Alex saw Ryan try to smile. “Thanks,” he said, taking it from her.

He opened it up and Alex saw there were only three mints left. When Ryan offered Hong Mei and him one, they said no, but he insisted, so they each took one. Ryan set the empty container at his feet while he retied his shoelace.

Alex popped the white peppermint into his mouth. “Are you okay?” he asked Ryan.

“Yeah. Are you?”

“Yeah.”

After a minute, Alex turned to Hong Mei and asked, “So now what?”

“I think we should stay in here until it’s safe to go out,” she sighed. “I wonder how Madam Ching got from Beijing to Xian so fast.”

“We’ve been gone all night,” Alex said. “Even if she only discovered we were missing early this morning she could have got on a plane and flown here. Do you remember what Ching Long said? About one of her ex-husbands being a bigwig at some airline company? It would have been easy for her to get here.”

“I guess,” Ryan said. “So then, I agree with Hong Mei. Let’s just stay in here until one of us can go out and take a look around. This room seems to be safe enough for now.”

Alex smiled. “Does that mean you want to return our jade to Black Dragon tonight?”

Ryan smiled back. “Absolutely.”