Kylie Chan: The Gravity Engine

‘Where is it?’

‘Under Bezeklik.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘Called Bozhikeli in Putonghua.’

‘Never heard of it.’

Rohan let his breath out in a long hiss.

‘I’m half-American and grew up in Hong Kong,’ Michael said. ‘If you want someone more local as Number One, feel free to take the job yourself.’

‘Yeah, sure. Good try.’

Michael turned back to the computer, googled Bezeklik and went through to the Wikipedia article. ‘The Thousand-Buddha Caves?’

‘Those ones. Hardly any Buddhas left, though, archaeologists stole most of them in the early twentieth century. Not much there but the caves – and a massive nest complex underneath. Our scouts estimate that the nest entrance is as old as the caves themselves.’

‘Fifth to fourteenth century. Damn, that nest is old .’

‘We’re looking at seriously huge Mothers in there. Hopefully some Dukes as well. Should be a fun field trip.’

‘We shouldn’t be wasting our time on Mothers and Dukes, we should be targeting military thralls that we can tame and add to our defensive army.’

‘Well, plenty of them too. Of course. But this breeding colony will be producing high-level war demons and if we shut it down, it could gut their military forces.’

‘That’s halfway across the continent and on the Earthly Plane. I don’t have a whole day to waste doing this, Rohan.’

‘Big Mothers, Michael.’

‘You can handle it.’

‘And Dukes. And lots of military thralls to tame and present to Dad to add to his own army – you’ll be his favourite son for ages. Come on, man, it’ll be great fun. You haven’t drawn a weapon in anger for weeks.’

Michael turned to argue with Rohan, and hesitated when he saw his brother’s desperation. ‘You really think you’ll need me?’

Rohan grimaced. ‘To be honest? Yeah. I could only round up fifteen Horsemen with enough training and none of them are Immortal. We may be a little out of our depth here, man. The scout says there’s some really weird shit happening down there – the scout that returned, that is. Three were stationed in that area and only one came back, and he’s really disturbed by what he saw, and his memory seems to be wiped. The therapists are using hypnosis to help him recall what happened, but there’s something… wrong.’

Michael held his hand out over the desk and his sword, the White Tiger, appeared on it. He stood and picked it up. ‘How are you planning to travel there?’

‘We’ll borrow one of Dad’s choppers.’

‘All right, count me in.’

Rohan’s expression filled with relief.

‘But you’re writing the report for Dad when we get back,’ Michael said.

‘Sure, but I could copy the contents of the People’s Daily , hand it to him as a report, and he’d never know, because he never reads them.’

‘I know that – I’ve done it too.’

The helicopter landed twenty kilometres away from the caves and Michael and Rohan quietly teleported the squad closer. They walked along the road to the tourist car park, a flat gravel area above the little valley that held the caves. The usual tourist-trap city had been set up, with camel rides and paid photo opportunities, but it was just on nightfall and all the stalls were closed.

Rohan signalled a couple of soldiers and made them invisible to reconnaissance. The rest of the squad waited quietly until they returned and reappeared.

‘No surveillance we can see,’ one of the scouts said. ‘No guards, no cameras, no civilians. All clear.’

Michael gestured for them to move out. ‘Number Two on point. I’ll bring up the rear.’

The squad moved into formation and went down the steps to the caves, which were set into the side of a river valley only a hundred metres across. The yellow earth formed a steep buttress on the other side, and the only greenery was some straggly trees and shrubs clinging to the bottom of the valley and the water from the river. There was no other habitation for kilometres, and nothing grew for a great distance on either side of the little valley. Several archways carved into the rock of the valley wall led away from a wide flat area that overlooked the water.

Rohan led them into one of the entrances and through the narrow corridors. The cave complex wasn’t large; each opening led to a narrow corridor that went three metres into the hillside, ended with an altar, then looped back out again. Some held brightly coloured Buddhist murals but most were bare rock, scarred where the frescoes had been chiselled away.

‘The German archaeologists took them,’ Rohan said as he led the team through the corridor. ‘Took them back to Germany where they’d be safe from the bloodthirsty local savages. Most of the paintings were destroyed when the museum holding them in Germany was bombed during a war between the bloodthirsty local savages.’

‘I believe it,’ Michael said. He put on a fake British accent. ‘But our wars are different. When good white men go to war it’s all about honour and valour, none of this Oriental savagery.’ He saw the way Rohan was looking at him. ‘I know, I know, I’m one of them. So where’s the nest entrance?’

‘Of course it’s the altar.’ Rohan gestured towards the wall, which held a fresco of an obviously European Bodhisattva; white skin and blue eyes. ‘I didn’t know there were gweilo Buddhas.’

Michael shrugged. ‘The Wudang Energy Master is a Taoist Immortal. It could even be a picture of her.’

‘You’re right, it does look like her.’ Rohan checked around. ‘All clear. Looks like I was right and they weren’t expecting us.’

‘You’re right about surprise; I’m right about the Bodhisattva. Something has to go seriously wrong now.’

‘I hear you. On point.’ Rohan walked through the wall and Michael waited for the rest of the squad to enter, again guarding the rear.

The tunnels on the other side looked exactly the same, but they hadn’t been damaged. Tan earth walls led up to an arched roof and more frescoes covered the walls. Michael stopped and studied one: it showed a group of Buddhist pilgrims, some Asian and some European, wearing saffron robes and carrying lotus flowers. A description was inscribed under each figure, saying where they were from and their humanitarian achievements.

‘This isn’t what you’d expect to find in a nest entrance,’ Michael said.

‘It changes further along, according to the intel,’ Rohan said. ‘When they first entered, the scouts thought they’d just reached a part of the caves that had been hidden by an Immortal.’ He gestured with his head. ‘Come and see.’

The end of the tunnel opened into a large underground room with a domed ceiling, twenty metres across, decorated with more Buddhist frescoes. Panels within the dome held depictions of the twenty-eight Buddhas, from the most ancient to the Maitreya Buddha Yet to Come. The walls were still the same tan earth, but it was buffed and polished to a sheen that made it appear to be shining gold. The frescoes hadn’t faded with the years; they still glowed bright as jewels.

‘I am so glad the archaeologists never made it in here,’ Michael said, turning to see the contents of the room with awe. ‘After we clean this nest out we must do something about preserving this.’

‘The best method would probably be to lock it up,’ Rohan said, standing next to him and studying the brilliant ceiling. ‘Take a complete survey and digital record, and then make sure that nobody ever enters again.’

‘When we return, remind me to liaise with the Phoenix’s people about preservation,’ Michael said. ‘They’re the materials specialists, they should have some good ideas, and they’re deeply protective of the Buddhist legacy.’