Xanadu - A BRP Chinese Fantasy

Chapter One: Ancient As The Hills (1)

In those days, it is told, the doom which came to Xanadu first appeared although few could recognise it's danger. And because they did not understand their peril, they did nothing to avert inevitable fate. The lesson here is to be watchful and mindful. One never knows what lies in wait for the unwary.

It was the first day of spring in the twenty-fourth year of the reign of the Great Khan Kubilai when ...

The weekly progress meeting in the unfinished Brocade Hall was progressing well. The great ones charged with building the Khan's summer palace had finished hearing the reports of the progress of the work of their underlings when, from the direction of the Dragon Pool, a great shouting and commotion disrupted the meeting.

The local tribesmen, a primitive race only fit for manual labour, were trying to wrestle a war bow from Dorban Qin, the Mongol foreman of works and underling of Baiju Gan. A block of stone being placed in the wall surrounding the Dragon Pool slipped and fell, trapping under it the leg of Pagbu, a tribesman. While others tried to keep his head above water, Dorban sought to remove the expendable primitive with an arrow.

Sung Il Tran sizes up the situation. He orders the militia to restraint Dorban and take him away for questioning. He organises the workers to save Pagbu. Mei Lan Dai cuts hollow reeds to allow Pagbu to breath more easily. Tumen Subei starts her rituals to placate the angry spirits of the Dragon Pool. She can feel their hunger for blood.

Tran and Xiao Linyu rush along the worker's rope bridge to the site of the accident. While Linyu checks the wall for any damage, Tran orders those holding Pagbu's head above water to drop him and lift the block. Linyu realises too late what is happening. She shouts at them to stop as the the block falls down into the Dragon Pool.

Pagbu is carried ashore and Mei Lan Dai amputates his crushed leg while the tribesman crowd around to watch. When she declares that Pagbu will live, a vast cheer goes up from the labourers. Tsongba, the village headman, invites the five managers of the Khan's summer palace project to a feast to celebrate Pagbu's miraculous survival. They will return to work tomorrow and refuse to listen to protests from the five.

Tran and Baiju Gan question Dorban. Where do he get the bow? He took it from the armoury. Force is the only thing these tribesmen understand, he says. He pleads that he was just following Baiju Gan's orders to make the buggers work. Baiju gan and Tran deliberate and decide that a suitable punishment is that he report to the village headman and be his slave until the project is finished. Dorban has no choice but to agree.

All efforts to caljole the tribesmen into returning to work that day fail and the five managers resign themselves to one day of lost production.

At dusk, the four of the five arrive at the Chogyal, the local village, which has been decked out in ribbons and flags for the feast. Tumen Subei senses that evil walks abroad this night and stays behind to conduct rituals of protection.

The four revellers are seated on the least filthy of the villagers' rugs and cushions with Pagbu and given first choice of the best meat and vegetable dishes the villagers have prepared. Fermented goat's milk is the drink of the evening. Xiao Linyu demonstrates to the villagers how her new A-frame crane will prevent accidents like this from happening in the future. They are mightily impressed at the depth of her learning and science. She is toasted many times with the strong goat's milk brew.

As the evening wears on, they notice that they have not seen Dorban anywhere. Tran, believing Dorban to have deserted, asks Tsongba whether he arrived. Of course, says Tsongba. He was sent to the slaughter yards. This answer worries Tran and he makes his way through the throng to the slaughter yard. The stench of death and blood combined with the buzzing of flies tells him he is in the right place. He sees Dorban's clothes hanging neatly on a peg on the open barn door. Inside, the rear wall is stacked high with skulls - two or three hundred, he guesses. "Who are these people?" he wonders aloud, not remembering any reference to them in any work of natural history.

At the same time, Mei Lan Dai discovers that the joint she is chewing on is a human wrist. Confering quickly, the four make their excuses and leave.

The next morning's meeting is stopped when no one can find the master mason, QiXian Lin. In his quarters, the militia reporting finding only calculations on how much stone needs to be quarried to bring the works back on schedule and to complete the statues for the Seven Sages in Stone Pavillion. Tran orders a wider search.

Within an hour, two breathless militiamen return. They've found the master mason at the Glade of Permeating Fragrance coccooned in silk and hanging from a tree. All rush to the spot. QiXian Lin is barely alive, wrapped in what everyone agrees is spider silk hanging from a branch. Each strand of silk, however, is more than a centimetre in width.

Tran orders him cut down and climbs the tree to look for further evidence of the impossibly large spider. Xiao Linyu tests the strength of the spider silk compared to ordinary rope and is impressed by its engineering possibilities. Baiju Gan keeps the gathering crowd in order. Mei Lan Dai cuts the silk from his torso to discover that his body is covered in large pustules. While she tries to keep QiXian Lin alive, Linyu cuts open one of the pustules and an immature spider six inches from leg-tip to leg-tip spills out. The master mason is covered in these egg-sacs.

Baiju Gan orders the body burned on the spot against the protests of Mei Lan Dai, Tumen Subei and Xiao Linyu who each want to study the master mason for different reasons. Tran, having found marks made by the spider's passage through the trees, orders Corporal Zhao, his best tracker, to cast around for a trail.

Both the shaman Subei and Commander Tran have heard stories of giant spiders. The spider, it is said, created all people. To each person it attached a thread of its web. The stories say that this thread was the gift of creative wisdom. Three times floods, unnatural fires and earthquakes destroyed those who had forgotten the gift of the thread. Those who remembered climbed the thread to safety high about the destruction.

"The spider's trail goes this way, sir," shouts Corporal Zhao, pointing into the manicured woods of the summer palace.

... and so began their journey into fear, little knowing that the secrets they thought safe in the iron-banded strongboxes of their souls would be revealed to the world. Not once did they think that the rewards they hoped to reap from the Great Khan for completing his pleasure dome at Xanadu would cost them more greatly than they ever imagine possible.

But that is a tale for another time.

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