About the Author
With his father in military service, Peter Ward grew up in different places all over England including much of his early childhood in Germany and the Far East. He was educated at Ampleforth college before graduating in English & Religious Studies from Leeds University, marking the start of a lifelong interest in Eastern mythology and religions.
He became interested in Chinese ceramics and decorative arts when he worked in the sales rooms of Sotheby’s, the antiques auctioneers in London. This fuelled his fascination with the mythology and culture of the East, especially China and tales set around the ancient Silk Road, which inspired him to want to write his own stories.
Dragon Horse is Peter’s first novel. It has now been translated into several different languages.
Peter lives with his wife, daughter and two sons in London.
About the Book
‘The sleeping dragon awakes!’
Aeons ago, winged dragons spread terror across the Chinese empire. Their descendants, magnificent horses bred and ridden by the Wild Horsemen, are known as dragon horses.
But now an ancient evil is stirring – and two brothers, Rokshan and An Lushan, are about to be drawn into battle. Rokshan must travel to the Valleys of the Horsemen – and on to the Plain of the Dead where the great stallion Stargazer, lord of the horses, is waiting for him.
While his brother, An Lushan, chooses a different path entirely …
Rich, vibrant and full of the myths of old Imperial China.
I owe a great debt of gratitude to my agent, Broo Doherty, who right from the start encouraged me to keep on writing, having seen the very rough, early drafts, and then through persistent and judicious editing helped me to rewrite them into something presentable. Her calming hand has always been on the tiller in helping to navigate this book through sometimes stormy waters to completion. To Claire Doherty, heartfelt thanks for introducing me to her sister and making it all possible in the first place, and for being such a staunch supporter and loyal friend.
Thanks too to Philippa Dickinson at Random House for taking the initial leap and always keeping faith; to my fantastic editor, Sue Cook, and meticulous copy editor, Sophie Nelson. To Mark and Piers Ward, my brother and nephew respectively, and Katie Day, for reading early drafts and for all their comments and encouragement; Peppe, for always listening and for his infectious optimism, and Peter Johnson at my local Lloyds TSB branch for his flexibility and discretion in the teeth of head office intransigence. Thanks too to my brother-in-law, Peter Fudakowski, and his wife, Minette, for their unstinting support, advice and encouragement.
I am grateful to the London School of Oriental and African Studies and the British Library for their reference works and on-hand help in my initial and later research into the Silk Road, especially to Dr Susan Whitfield, founder and director of the International Dunhuang Project, and all the staff involved in the amazing Silk Road exhibition shown at the British Library in 2004, which provided me with such an invaluable insight into everyday life on the historic trade routes.
‘Great Princes, emperors and Kings, Dukes and Marquises, Counts, Knights and Burgesses! And people of all degrees who desire to get knowledge of the various races of mankind and of the diversities of the sundry regions of the World, take this Book and cause it to be read to you. For ye shall find therein all kinds of wonderful things, and the diverse histories of the great Armenia, and of Persia and of the Land of the Tartars, and of India, and of many another country.’
Marco Polo, The Book of Ser, 1298 AD
Thus did the great Venetian trader and explorer, Marco Polo, exhort the world to listen to his tale of the fabulous wonders he had seen on the fabled Silk Road to the east, which is the setting for Dragon Horse.
The many different trading routes together made up the greatest road of the ancient world, which linked the Mediterranean to Central Asia, travelled by Alexander the Great, Darius (the ‘King of Kings’) of Persia, Genghis Khan and Marco Polo. The Silk Road linked the Eastern Roman Empire in the west to China, at the height of its power and cultural glory during the T’ang Dynasty (618–907 AD). Travellers, merchants and adventurers from the west came in search of silk, which was valued as highly as gold.
The different routes stretched for thousands of miles along some of the most inhospitable terrain on the planet, crossing lonely desert tracks and soaring mountain passes, connecting Chang’an, the ancient imperial capital of China, through the oases of central Asia and on to the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea.
All kinds of marvels were carried back and forth along the Silk Road. From Persia and the west came dates, peaches, walnuts, fragrant narcissus flowers and the precious perfumes of frankincense and myrrh. From Central Asia came semi-precious jade and lapis lazuli. From India came pepper, sandalwood and cotton, and from China the most secretly guarded treasure and most coveted commodity of all – the luxurious gossamer fabric of silk. The Chinese kept the secrets of sericulture (the production of silk) for at least 2000 years, being the only producer until the sixth century AD.
But the Silk Road was more than just one of the greatest trading routes; it was the ancient world’s equivalent of what today we would term the ‘information super-highway’, providing a two-way avenue for the exchange of some of the most important ideas and technologies that we take for granted in the west: writing, the wheel, weaving, agriculture, riding – to name just a few – all made their way across Asia via the Silk Road. In medieval times, the two most fundamental contributions from the east made their way westward: paper and printing – described as the ‘scaffolding of the modern world’. New thinking and practical developments in medicine, astronomy, engineering and weaponry – including the cross-bow, siege engines, gunpowder, armour and war-chariots – also made their way to Europe via the Silk Road.
The opulence and grandeur of the emperors of the T’ang Dynasty (during which Dragon Horse is set) would have been unimaginable for the average European of that time – in the ‘Dark Ages’ of European history. By the beginning of the T’ang Dynasty in the seventh century, Chang’an was a bustling and vibrant capital city covering an area of eighty square kilometres, with a population of one million inside the city and another million in surrounding metropolitan areas. It was six times larger than Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, comparable to Babylon, Alexandria and Rome at the height of their power.
To give an idea of what, to contemporary European eyes, would have been the unimaginable scale of the place, the great imperial Daming Palace, begun by emperor Taizong in 634, covered about 200 hectares – it was larger than medieval London and roughly twice the size of Louis XIV’s palace and grounds at Versailles (built nearly 1000 years later).
In recognition of its political importance in the east, between 652 and 798 AD the eastern Roman emperors sent seven diplomats to Chang’an, the Arabian caliph sent thirty-six, and Persia’s ‘King of Kings’ sent twenty-nine envoys to pay homage at the court of the ‘Son of Heaven’. The city itself was thronging with a constantly shifting population (because of the incessant trading back and forth along the ancient trade routes) that would have included Tocharians, Sogdians, Turks, Uighurs, Mongols, Arabs, Persians and Indians.
In this cosmopolitan mix, extraordinary (for the times) religious tolerance meant that Nestorians (an offshoot of Christianity), Manichaeans (a religion founded by the Persian prophet, Mani, in the latter half of the third century) and Zoroastrians (fire-worshippers) from Sogdiana and Persia coexisted with Buddhist students and monks from Kashmir, Japan and Tibet.
In its setting, Dragon Horse reflects this religious diversity by bringing together all the various elements of worship depicted in the book: of the spirits of nature –‘dragon spirits’; Buddhism at the citadel monastery of Labrang; Chinese deities like Kuan Yin (goddess of mercy) and Guan Di (god of merchants, soldiers and scholars); the Chinese ‘Immortals’, including Shou Lao, god of longevity; fire-worship and ancestor-worship (Lianxang’s people of the Darhad). All these are brought together under the auspices of the ‘Wise Lord’ (Ahura Mazda) of the Zoroastrian tradition, together with an invented ‘Creation’ myth which reflects the Christian tradition.
Much of Dragon Horse is set in the semi-autonomous (during the T’ang Dynasty) Persian, western half of the Silk Road in the Kingdom of Sogdiana, with its regional capital, Maracanda (or Samarkand, as it became known later). The Sogdians were master-traders and it was their language that became the lingua franca of the Silk Road during the T’ang era. Towards the eastern end of the Silk Road, the Chinese themselves were so convinced of the Sogdian people’s innate talent for trade that they believed their ‘mothers fed them sugar in the cradle to honey their voices, and daubed their baby palms with paste to attract profitable things’. (Shadow of the Silk Road, Colin Thubron.)
Finally, the Fellowship of the Three One-eared Hares, which is such an integral part of Dragon Horse, is based on an actual motif depicted on different artefacts: it occurs with puzzling randomness not only throughout the length of the Silk Road but also in sacred sites across Great Britain, continental Europe and the Middle and Far East. This mysterious, ancient symbol shows three hares chasing each other in a circle. Each of the three ears in the image is shared between the animals so that the illusion is created they each have a pair of ears, whereas in fact they each only have one ear. Nobody has yet worked out what this motif means or what it could have signified.
Striking depictions of three hares joined at the ears have been found in roof bosses of medieval parish churches in Devon and elsewhere in the UK, and in churches, chapels and cathedrals in France and Germany, on thirteenth-century Mongol metalwork from Iran and in cave temples from the Chinese Sui Dynasty of 589–618 AD.
The hare has always had divine and mystical associations both in the east and in the west. Legends often give the animal magical qualities associated with fertility, femininity and the lunar cycle. Dr Tom Greeves, a landscape archaeologist and part of the British research team that has visited sites in China since 2004 to try and find an answer to the mystery, has suggested that the motif was brought to the west along the Silk Road:
‘We can deduce from the motif’s use in holy places in different religions and cultures, and the prominence it was given, that the symbol had a special significance … if we can open a window on something that in the past had relevance and meaning to people separated by thousands of miles and hundreds of years, it could benefit our present-day understanding of the things we share with different cultures and religions.’
The history, different cultures and religions of the Silk Road, the richness and diversity of Chinese mythology and the beneficent dragon of the east – in complete contrast to its ferocious western counterpart – have all inspired me. I hope Dragon Horse will open a window for you into this fascinating world.
Peter Ward
One cycle of the moon later …
They came at last to the Pool of the Two Peaks, the last two hundred Horsemen led by Cetu, riding Stargazer and acknowledged as their new khagan.
Lianxang’s spirit-bird had led the dragons, at such a great height that sometimes they hadn’t seen either the bird or the dragons for days as they journeyed as fast as Stargazer could take them to their place of rebirth. Now the eagle swooped down to them for the last time and, beating her great wings, cried her shrill cry to them, her task done.
‘Farewell, spirit of Lianxang,’ Cetu called as she soared aloft and disappeared, riding the wind currents.
Stargazer reared up in the shallows of the pool and whinnied loud and long, calling the dragons to him. Four hundred or more wheeled like a billowing stormcloud in the sky, silent now but trailing wisps of fire as they gathered expectantly above the pool. The beautiful gold, green and blue hues of their skin merged into a whirling rainbow of colours and there was a noise like a gathering wind as their sinuous bodies straightened and plummeted headlong into the icy depths of the pool.
For a few moments all was silent. The dragon horses waited anxiously on the shoreline, nickering softly and nuzzling one another as if for comfort. Stargazer trotted nervously to and fro. Suddenly, without warning, a wave came rushing towards them, its bow boiling with foaming white spume, followed by another and another, until the shoreline thundered with crashing breakers.
The waves became larger still, forcing the Horsemen to retreat from the shoreline; but their mounts refused to be bidden and plunged into the pool, greeting their brothers and sisters as they were delivered back into the world, tumbling one after the other from the pounding waves.
Spray lashed Cetu’s face and mixed with his tears of joy as Breeze Whisperer whinnied with a thrill of recognition at her old rider. Hundreds of dragon horses galloped and pranced along the shore as the Horsemen laughed and cheered.
Then all of them, horse and human alike, paid homage to the lord of the horses and, proudly astride him, Cetu. In the solemn silence of the moment even the mountains seemed to hold their breath, and the new khagan thought he heard the spirit of Rokshan calling him through Stargazer.
Rokshan said that he understood now what the Serenadhi had meant by saying they would wait for him, and that at the end of things, it didn’t matter if the door closed and, perhaps, remained shut for ever: he would always be happy – for part of him, the very inner kernel of his spirit, would never be separated from Stargazer.
At last, with an exultant shout, Cetu pointed up to the summit, beyond which lay the Horsemen’s beloved valleys.
Stargazer needed no second bidding: he galloped away up the mountain, followed by the thundering mass of reborn dragon horses, wild and free – as they always had been and always would be – until the end of all things.
Open the gates while there is time.
They will draw me up and carry me
To the Holy Mountain of K’unlun.
The Heavenly Horses have come
And the Dragon will follow in their wake.
I shall reach the Gates of Heaven.
I shall see the Palace of God.
Chinese hymn, c. 101 BC
Chinese Mythology, Anthony Christie (Hamlyn, 1968)
Gilded Dragons, Carol Michaelson (British Museum Press, 1999)
The Silk Road: Trade, Travel, War & Faith, Susan Whitfield, (British Library, 2004)
Life along the Silk Road, Susan Whitfield (John Murray, 1999)
The Silk Road: a History, Franck & Brownstone (Facts on File Publications, 1986)
A Chinese Anthology, ed. Raymond Van Over (Picador, 1973)
Sky Burial, Xinran (Chatto & Windus, 2004)
Riding Windhorses – a Journey into the Heart of Mongolian Shamanism, Julie Ann Stewart (Destiny Books, 2004)
The Silk Road Journey with Xuanzang, Sally Hovey Wriggins (Westview Press, 2004)
Tao – the Chinese philosophy of Time and Change, Philip Rawson and Laszlo Legeza (Thames & Hudson, 1973)
The Silk Road – 2,000 years in the Heart of Asia, Frances Wood (British Library, 2004)
China – A Geographical Sketch, Foreign Languages Press (Beijing, 1974)
Animal Wisdom – Guide to the Myth, Folklore and Medicine Power of Animals, Jessica Dawn Palmer (Element/HarperCollins, 2002)
Shadow of the Silk Road, Colin Thubron (Chatto & Windus, 2006)
Monkey: A Journey to the West – a retelling of the Chinese folk novel by Wu Ch’eng-en (1500–1582), translated by David Kherdian (Shambhala Publications Inc., Boston, 1992)
The Essential Chuang Tzu, trans. from the Chinese by Sam Hamill and J. P. Seaton (Shambhala Publications Inc., Boston and London, 1999)
www.threehares.net For latest information on international research into the three hares mystery
CHAPTER 1
THE UNEXPECTED RETURN
Kan raced through the deserted, dusty streets of Maracanda as the first slanting rays of the sun cast long shadows over the capital city of the Western Empire. He leaped over the sleeping bodies of the street people in the Grand Bazaar, gulping in the cool air. In an hour or two the extreme heat of the last few weeks would be settling like a pall over the city.
It was high summer, and the maze of winding alleys that surrounded the Grand Bazaar were overflowing with uncollected piles of waste. There had been no wind on the plains for many weeks now, so that the summer grass, usually so lush and green, was turning a scorched brown colour. The cooling northerly winds had not come, and Maracanda baked in the heat – the people muttered that it was a bad omen, another troubled sign of the times.
Kan was an acrobat. He was only thirteen but had travelled with his circus people up and down the trade roads that crisscrossed the Empire longer than any of his friends. His best friend, Rokshan, was the younger son of one of the city’s richest merchants, a powerful trading family headed by the formidable Naha Vaishravana. Kan couldn’t wait to tell him that their favourite storyteller, Shou Lao, known to everyone as the Old Man of the Markets, had travelled back with the circus people from their last show.
Shou Lao had not been in Maracanda for many years – and now he was back, right here, and Kan was prepared to bet ten silver taals that he had plenty of wonderful new stories to tell.
Kan rapped on the heavy double-fronted doors of Rokshan’s house. The house servant, Ah Lin, heaved one of the doors open a crack to see who it was at such an ungodly hour; her wrinkled old face creased into a delighted smile of welcome when she saw who it was.
‘Kanandak, master acrobat, is returned at last to the Western Empire’s City of Dreams,’ Kan sang out in his best ringmaster’s voice, bowing low and beaming at her after executing a perfect circle of cartwheels.
‘Come in, come in, before you wake the whole household – master acrobat indeed,’ Ah Lin chuckled.
‘No, I can’t stop. Is Roksy up? He must come straight away to see somebody he hasn’t set eyes on for years and years! Tell him Shou Lao, the old storyteller, is here. I’ll meet him outside the school in two candle-rings.’
And he was gone, disappearing down the street in a whirling flurry of forward flips and cartwheels.
Ah Lin remembered the last time the old storyteller had been in Maracanda. Not long after he had moved on, the young mistress of the house, adored mother of Rokshan, had caught a mysterious fever and died. Ah Lin had always thought it was a strange coincidence, and maybe that’s all it was, but she hadn’t been able to get it out of her mind then – and now it all came flooding back.
As she watched Kan go with a worried smile on her face, she absently made the sign of the dragon – an s-shape representing the coils of the mythical creature, drawn with the nail of her thumb on her forehead, mouth and breast to ward off evil spirits. Then she shut the door as quietly as she could and disappeared inside.
The Maracanda School for Special Envoys attracted scholars – girls and boys from all over the Empire – to train as envoys for top diplomatic posts throughout all Known Lands. At fourteen, Rokshan had another two years of study ahead of him.
The school was not far from the Grand Bazaar in the city centre. The buzz and hubbub from the great market provided a constant background hum that Rokshan found strangely comforting. To wake himself up, he shook his head and ran his hands through his thick brown hair, which he grew long to cover up a deformity from birth which had left him with only one ear. It didn’t bother him – he could hear perfectly well through his good ear – but all the same he liked to cover the little stub of cartilage that marked where his other ear should have been. Right now he wished he could shave his head – it would have been a lot cooler in the heat, which even at this early hour was already uncomfortable; his linen tunic was damp with sweat and his feet were slipping and sliding in his light leather sandals. Where was Kan? Typical of him to leave an excited message and then not turn up.
He watched the steady stream of people making their way to the Grand Bazaar – absolutely everything from all over the Empire was bought, bartered, sold and exchanged here: a family of cotton traders went by, staggering under the swaying rolls strapped to their backs.
Trading, buying and selling was the city of Maracanda’s lifeblood. It was Rokshan’s family’s business, and that of hundreds of others too. He helped out whenever he could get time off from studying, and loved to sniff out the bargains when the caravans came in from the east, or on their way to the imperial capital.
Rokshan’s family traded not only in cotton but also in damask and silk, spices, herbs and garden produce. They bought and sold everything for the home too: tables and chairs, cupboards, couches, altarpieces, earthenware pottery goods and the finest porcelain tableware for rich merchants’ tables. They imported exquisitely carved ivory chess sets and chequers boards of hardest ebony, all the way from the jungle kingdoms of the Southern Empire, as well as intricately worked jade carvings of dragons of every shape and size, which guarded the entrances of all self-respecting households in Maracanda, bringing luck and good fortune. Dragon spirits were also considered harbingers of floods and rain, so there had been a brisk trade in the jade carvings.
‘Roksy! Are you coming or are you going to stand there all day?’ Kan had appeared from nowhere – an old trick of his – and was now standing on his head with his legs against the wall just a short way down the street.
‘I’m coming!’ Rokshan shouted, pushing his way through the throng of people. ‘So what’s this about Shou Lao?’
‘It’ll cost you two silver taals!’ Kan replied, arching his back, leaping upright and running off as Rokshan shot out an arm to grab him. ‘Follow me, Roksy – and keep up!’ Kan laughed over his shoulder.
He ducked off the main street and sprinted through the maze of narrow winding lanes towards the East Gate of the city, which marked the beginning – or end – of the road to Chang’an, the imperial capital. With a shout of exasperation, Rokshan set off after him. They raced round the stalls and workshops that cluttered this part of the city, hurtling along as if their lives depended on it.
‘Whoa, boys, whoa! Are you riding dragon horses?’ a carpet-seller yelled at them as they slowed to take a corner. At that moment a bullock cart stacked high with tall wicker baskets came creaking around the same corner. Rokshan realized they had no chance of avoiding the placid beasts drawing the cart. Kerrumph! Kan gasped in pain, clutching his chest as he bounced off the great thick-boned skull of one of the beasts.
He landed in a crumpled heap – Rokshan couldn’t avoid him as he came skidding round the corner and went head over heels. The bullock and its bemused partner stopped dead in their tracks for a split second before rearing back in shock and confusion.
‘Whoa, whoa!’ the basket-trader cried, desperately trying to control the animals. ‘Idiots! Get away from them!’ The two boys were trying to calm the frightened animals.
‘Cursed spawn of dragon’s breath!’ the basket-trader swore as he cracked his whip at them. The bullocks’ sudden movement had upset the load and launched a tumbling cascade of wicker.
The furious basket-trader leaped down, whip in hand, and gave chase – the two boys had wisely decided not to hang around and help clear up the chaos they’d caused.
‘Clumsy oafs! By the fiery whiskers of Han Garid – get back here!’ the basket-trader bellowed after them, but they had disappeared.
‘Fools! I’ll skin you alive if I ever catch you …’ they heard faintly as they sped laughing on their way.
They were nearing the East Gate barbican now. Its double towers were twenty yin high, each flanking the enormous fortified gates that were tightly barred every night at dusk. As they approached, they could see guards with spears raised patrolling the walls. There were eight barbican gates to the city, all heavily guarded.
They jostled their way through a steady stream of people to the caravanserai – a maze of winding alleyways, teashops and guesthouses with open courtyards that lay just outside the city walls. It was home to a shifting population of hundreds of traders and travellers who passed through Maracanda every day – any storyteller worth his salt would find a ready audience here, and the boys knew that Shou Lao was one of the best.
They soon found where he was. A crowd had gathered in the large courtyard of one of the grander guesthouses. It was shady and cool, with a fountain splashing in the centre. Mothers and small children, boys and girls, old men and women, travellers and even some market traders taking a break – all waited patiently for the Old Man to appear. There was a hum of expectant chatter. The two boys settled down on the steps of the covered balustrade that enclosed the courtyard.
‘Look – over there by the entrance.’ Kan nudged Rokshan. ‘Your brother – and Lianxang! I haven’t seen her for a while.’
Rokshan followed his gaze and waved a hand in greeting, but they were deep in conversation and hadn’t spotted them. An Lushan – everybody called him An’an apart from his father – was three years older than Rokshan and had just finished his last term at the School for Special Envoys. But he wasn’t going on to the Han Lin Academy in Chang’an, to continue studying to be a diplomat; he lived for the family business. One day when they were both very young, he’d solemnly told his little brother that he was going to be even richer and more important than the great Vartkhis Boghos, a merchant famed throughout all the Known Lands, and so rich, it was whispered, he only had to breathe on something and it turned to gold. Rokshan was surprised to see An’an there – his brother always dismissed the old tales with a sneer; business and trade were what he lived for.
The friend he was with was a girl from the school called Lianxang. She was a year or so older than Rokshan, and was from the remote north of the Empire; she had only been at the school for a year but had impressed everybody with her quickness. Slight and light-footed, she wore her hair cropped short and carried a long stiletto dagger at her side. Rokshan had often asked her about her people, the mysterious Darhad, wandering nomads of the north, who had always kept themselves apart from the rest of the Empire, but she always gave an evasive answer, or laughed and gave a little shrug. But Rokshan knew that Lianxang – just like him – loved the old stories. He had often seen her in the library, immersed in the scrolls, and he suspected that the old myths and legends meant more to her than she would like to admit. Doubtless her being there explained why his brother was amongst the crowd.
A hush descended as a little boy in the front of the crowd pointed towards one of the arched entrances surrounding the courtyard. There was a shuffling of feet and clearing of throats as everyone wondered when the Old Man was going to appear. A minute or two passed before there was an intake of breath and the crowd strained to catch a glimpse of the renowned storyteller as a faint tap-tapping beyond the archway could be heard …
CHAPTER 2
THE STORYTELLER
All eyes were on the Old Man as he made his frail, shuffling progress along the covered walkway. He leaned heavily on a carved ivory staff, which struck the stone floor with every step. He would have barely reached the shoulders of even the younger boys in the crowd, so bent with age had he become. Rokshan was as amazed at his appearance now as he’d been at the age of eight or nine when he’d last seen the storyteller – he could have sprung out of any of the paintings on the scrolls in the city library that depicted the emperor’s courtiers of long ago. He probably smelled of the library too, Rokshan thought: slightly musty.
His progress was slow, so everyone had a good stare. His wizened head was completely shaven apart from the long plaited ponytail, white with age now, that hung all the way down his back. His hooded eyes looked as if they were almost shut. His nose was large and fleshy and his long grey-white beard was oiled. He wore a belted wide-sleeved silk coat of faded crimson, long enough to cover his sandalled feet. A small perfume bottle hung from his belt on each hip.
At last, at the top of one of the sets of steps that led down to the fountain, the Old Man stopped and turned slightly.
‘My greetings, people of Maracanda; may Kuan Yin, goddess of mercy and protector of travellers, always watch over you.’
Shou Lao spoke in a surprisingly clear voice, offering the traditional greeting of travellers on the ancient trading routes before making his way down and eventually settling himself on the cool marble bench around the fountain.
In the midday heat, the hubbub from the caravanserai and the Grand Bazaar had quietened to a low murmur. The audience hardly dared breathe as they waited and wondered what the Old Man of the Markets was going to say. A mother hushed her young child, who had begun to cry. Kan started to say something but Rokshan jabbed him with his elbow to be quiet.
‘People of Maracanda,’ Shou Lao began, his voice echoing around the courtyard as he gestured towards the younger children at the front of the crowd. ‘Girls and boys. Some of you have heard me tell of the old myths and legends, of when the Earth was young and all Known Lands and Unknown Lands were one. Remember them well, for one of them tells a tale which may be taken up by some of you here today.’
The old storyteller paused for breath, looking sternly at the smallest children who’d wriggled through the crowd and gathered at his knees, their faces alight with expectation as they fidgeted impatiently. Rokshan smiled as he recalled how excited he had always felt, waiting for the storyteller to begin one of his tales.
‘But perhaps I should begin with the story of how the fallen guardian spirit who became the keeper of the gates of Hell got his name.’
Shou Lao’s eyes twinkled as the children clapped and cheered in anticipation of one of their favourite tales. Rokshan remembered how frightened he had been when he’d heard it first: he couldn’t have been more than four or five years old, but the story of the Crimson King – so-called because, chained close to the roaring fires of Hell, his skin was perpetually alight as he suffered his eternal punishment for rebelling against his divine master, the Wise Lord – had made a deep impression on him.
Shou Lao told the familiar tale; the older children – if An Lushan was anything to go by – would now tease their younger siblings mercilessly with scary imitations of the fiery but fallen guardian spirit.
Now the old storyteller produced a battered-looking leather basket, which he passed into the crowd. The clink of coins being tossed into the basket was the only sound as the old man addressed them again.
‘People of Maracanda – I said that one of the tales of long ago might one day be taken up by some of you here today. You may think this is just an old man’s fancy – you will tell me that the history of our ancestors, which became legend and then passed into myth, has been forgotten, along with the prophecies, and are now lost for ever …’ Here Shou Lao paused, wanting, it seemed, to fix everyone in the crowd with his hooded, beady stare. Rokshan looked away as his gaze fell upon him and lingered.
‘… or so some of you may conclude from your studies here at the famous Maracanda School for Special Envoys!’
‘He still remembers us – or you at least.’ Kan looked in amazement at his friend. Rokshan jabbed him with his elbow again; he didn’t want to miss a word of what the Old Man was saying.
‘And that is what I am here to tell you about today, for there is much our ancestors knew that should not have been forgotten, but not all of it is lost. Listen now, for this, of all my stories, you should heed.
‘You have all heard tell of the story of Chu Jung and his vanquishing of the ancient dragons …’ At this the children again clapped and cheered, thinking they were going to hear another of their favourite stories. Nods and murmurs of agreement rippled across the rest of the crowd.
‘Of how the evil of the ancient dragons was crushed; after mercifully being reborn in water, they once again became the spirits of nature with which you are familiar to this day. The legend recounts how some of the dragons were reborn as “heavenly horses” – or so the ancients called them – part horse, part dragon, able to fly; creatures which, so our emperors have always believed, would take them to Heaven when their span on Earth was done. The legend lives on in the dragon horses of the Kingdom of the Wild Horsemen. This much you all know.’
Shou Lao had his audience spellbound, even though he was only telling the very end of the story now.
‘And you all know how Chu Jung kept apart the Talisman he used to capture the fiery breath of the dragons and the Staff he made from the Tree of Heaven as a gift for the Wise Lord, so that they would for ever afterwards be powerless, the one without the other, and so it is that they must never be united.’ Shou Lao’s voice rose a little as he proclaimed the ancient verse that Rokshan had heard so many times before.
‘Whosoever through the ages wields the Staff
Will be commanded by the evil one, grown bold –
“Seek, seek the Talisman of old!”
And he will be drawn, and lose his way.
Yet he who serves the Wise Lord
Treads the righteous path, and will never stray.’
He paused for breath, and again, it seemed to Rokshan, fixed him with his hooded stare, before giving a little shrug and leaning forward with both hands clasped at the end of his staff.
‘So it is, and so it goes: a legend is just a legend. What does it tell us? The Wild Horsemen have their dragon horses, so called because they are venerated as the descendants of the heavenly horses, but ordinary horses they are, nonetheless.
‘But if this is all you thought the legend tells us, you would be wrong,’ Shou Lao said quietly. Now his eyes were blazing as he looked out fiercely over the crowd.
‘People of Maracanda, your kingdom borders the valleys of the Horsemen, and I tell you a shadow grows here in the west which is spreading across all Known Lands, and creeps even towards the Lands of the Barbarians. It seeks the ancient powers given to Chu Jung so that it can command a magic so great that even the Wise Lord trembles at its destructive powers. The ancient scrolls foretold this, and I tell you even now, events unfold that bear witness to their truth.’
The old storyteller leaned heavily on his staff and hauled himself up, summoning all his energy so that his voice rang out. ‘I speak of the end of empires, people of Maracanda! China and all Known Lands – even stretching beyond the Unknown Lands – all shall wither and die. The ancient power is stirring and shall be corrupted anew: the sleeping dragon awakes!’
‘What sort of story is this, old man? Who awakes the sleeping dragon?’
Shou Lao glanced to where An Lushan stood with Lianxang at his side – it was as if the old storyteller knew immediately who had asked the question that was on everyone’s lips. ‘You would want to know, An’an?’
Rokshan wondered with a start how the Old Man knew his brother – he couldn’t have seen him for nearly ten years, and then he would have been just another small, excited face in the crowd. His brother looked surprised too.
‘The servant of the Nameless One is the one I speak of,’ Shou Lao replied. ‘He serves the Shadow-without-a-name, the Lord of Evil. He pores over the ancient lore and is plotting to use the power of the dragons of old for his own ends. He must be stopped, before it is too late. But there is one small hope – an ancient scroll unearthed in the Kingdom of the Wild Horsemen, which foretold this very moment: I speak of the riddle of the Staff – the Staff of the mighty Chu Jung himself, Spirit of Fire and Heavenly Executioner, first and most devoted servant of the Wise Lord.’
Exhausted, the Old Man slumped down on the bench and once more passed his leather basket into the crowd as everyone started to talk at once.
‘I thought he was losing his touch there for a second,’ a man behind Rokshan said; ‘then as soon he talked about a riddle, I knew we were going to be all right. Well, you can’t just end a story hanging in the air like that, can you? Wouldn’t be a story then – I mean, with no ending – now would it?’
A young boy shyly handed the leather basket back to Shou Lao, who gave a small nod and rose to his feet again, a small scroll in his hands.
‘People of Maracanda. Hear the riddle of the Staff:
‘The horse of Heaven has come,
Open the far gates.
Raise up my body, o beloved,
I go to the Mountain of K’unlun.
The horse of Heaven has come,
Mediator for the dragon.
He travels to the Gate of Heaven
And looks on the Terrace of Jade.
‘People of Maracanda, you have heard the riddle – it must be solved … before it is too late …’
Shou Lao carefully rolled up the scroll and tucked it into his belt, saying nothing more. Excited murmuring hummed around the courtyard.
Rokshan didn’t hear it – the noise of the crowd seemed far away as Shou Lao’s words echoed round his head; for some reason they seemed especially important, as if the storyteller had been talking to him and him alone. Was everyone else thinking the same? he wondered, shaking his head and looking around. He saw An Lushan and Lianxang turning to go; but then his brother suddenly stopped and stared directly at him before being hurried along as the gathering broke up, the crowd’s fleeting interest in the story waning, the riddle forgotten – and Shou Lao gone.
‘Roksy! What is it? Come on … Roksy?’ Kan was looking with concern at his friend, shaking him gently by the shoulder. ‘What’s the matter?’
But there was nothing Rokshan could say. He could only wonder at his reaction to Shou Lao’s words – and whether he might seek out the Old Man again to ask him more.
They had the courtyard to themselves as the last few people wandered away. Rokshan scooped some water from the fountain, murmuring a prayer of thanks to the dragon spirit of the underground spring for the cool freshness of the water as he splashed it on his face.
‘Feeling better?’ Kan asked. Rokshan nodded.
‘You still look as if you’ve seen a kuei – an evil spirit of the road!’ his friend joked, trying to cheer him up. ‘But what about that ending of the last story? This ancient scroll unearthed in the Kingdom of the Wild Horsemen … Of all the kingdoms in the Empire, it had to be the Wild Horsemen …’ he went on excitedly.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I know from talking to people in all the places we visit when we’re touring that there are some strange goings-on in the lands of the Wild Horsemen. Haven’t the rumours reached Maracanda yet? I bet your father is interested in what’s going on there – it’s the Horsemen who control the Terek Dhavan Pass.’
‘Yes, I know – it’s the main northern route over the Pamir Mountains to the imperial capital. But why would I listen to rumours? Better to wait until we hear from my uncle, Zerafshan – I bet even now he’s with the Horsemen, going about the emperor’s business.’
‘Are you sure you haven’t heard anything from him? Or about him? All the rumours say the emperor’s business is the last thing he’s going about.’ The look Kan gave his friend was a mixture of intense curiosity and exasperation. ‘Tropical storms in the middle of winter when the temperatures at the height of the pass should be low enough to freeze the flesh off your bones? Animal shrieks echoing around the valleys up there that don’t sound like anything anyone has ever heard? A new, self-appointed leader of the Horsemen inciting them to rebellion? Could that be your uncle? That’s what some people are saying … You haven’t heard any of this stuff?’ Kan looked expectantly at him.
‘Look,’ Rokshan replied, trying not to sound irritated, ‘my father told me that my uncle was sent on a special mission to soften up the Horsemen because the emperor wants more of their so-called dragon horses, but we don’t know for sure what’s happened to him, or what’s going on in their valleys – and even if we did, it still might not help us understand what Shou Lao was talking about. I haven’t seen my uncle for ages, almost five years! So how can I possibly know what’s happening?’
‘You really think the Old Man was serious – it wasn’t just another one of his stories?’
‘What – with all that stuff about ancient scrolls and riddles? And a warning to everybody as well! Of course he was serious! Except I don’t think his warning was meant for everybody …’ Rokshan trailed off, staring at the spot where Shou Lao had stood.
Kan followed his gaze as if he half expected the Old Man to suddenly appear again. ‘What – you think it was meant just for you?’ he asked, not sure if Rokshan was joking or not.
‘Through my uncle, my family is involved with the Horsemen whether we like it or not. I’m sure that’s not all he meant though,’ Rokshan said, seeming to make up his mind. ‘There’s something else going on here … I can feel it, deep down. Kan, where did the Old Man go – did you see?’
‘Shou Lao? I don’t know – he always seems to disappear like that. I can ask around … He may be staying a few days.’
‘Thanks, Kan. If you see him, tell him I’d … I’d like to speak with him,’ Rokshan said hesitantly. ‘For now, I think I’ll go to the school library to see if I can find anything that might help explain the riddle – you never know …’
‘You never know, but I think you’ll be wasting your time. I’ve got to go. We’ve got a show on at Moon Lake this evening and it’ll take the rest of the day to get there. Meet you tomorrow, same place?’
Kan cartwheeled off, whirling round just before he reached the guesthouse entrance. ‘Roksy, nearly forgot! Your father’s old friend, Chen Ming, the caravan master – bumped into him in the caravanserai when we’d just got back. He’s ready to set off on his summer caravan to the imperial capital. He said he’s staying at the Drawn Scimitar. Why don’t you speak to him? He knows all the Old Man’s stories.’
The familiar smell hit Rokshan as he entered the Empire’s biggest and most famous library. He savoured the cool mustiness and felt himself unwinding after the strange events of the morning. But where to start unravelling the riddle?
He sat down and looked around; it was very near the end of term and there were only a handful of students scattered about. The racks of dusty scrolls and loosely bound manuscripts encircled the whole room and stretched up to the vaulted ceiling … His heart sank: it would take him the rest of the summer just to go through Legends & Mythology …
Feeling daunted by the task, he decided he would at least make a start. He pulled out a scroll at random, carefully unrolled it and was soon absorbed in the battles of good against evil in the ancient past, long before the history of the Empire had ever begun.
Time and time again, however, he found himself drawn back to the great myth the Old Man had referred to in his last story: Chu Jung and his taming of the dragon spirits. The very thought of the dragon horses that some of them had ultimately become – or so the legend told – thrilled him in a way he could not explain or understand.
He was having one last rummage around among the dustiest of the hundreds of volumes when he suddenly discovered an old scroll that had been tucked away behind the other books on a shelf. It was only a single page, but its subject – about an ancient secret society, the Fellowship of the One-eared Hares – drew his attention, as if he was somehow meant to see it.
The Fellowship of the Hares is a secret society dedicated to the worship of just one god, Ahura Mazda, the Wise Lord, creator of Heaven and Earth and of all things at the beginning of time.
The Wise Lord created Eight Immortals – guardian spirits who took human form – to act as his emissaries and maintain the balance of harmony and disharmony on Earth. The Fellowship of the Hares is made up of ordinary men and women who can be commanded by all or any one of the Immortals – who may adopt ordinary human appearance in whatever guise they choose – whenever they need to intervene directly in the affairs of men.
The Elect makes up the commanding body of the fellowship – twelve high-ranking priests. Each member is known by the number of his election – First, Second, Third of the Elect – but it is a non-hierarchical organization, except that the First Elect is acknowledged as the ‘first among equals’. The priests have their own spirit-birds or animals, which they and no one else can communicate with in their minds.
The three hares of the fellowship represent Light, Life and Truth – the three intertwined faces of harmony.
The Fellowship of the Hares embraces the worship of all gods and spirits as either creations or manifestations of the Wise Lord, but does not under any circumstances extend this to worship of the emperor as the ‘Son of Heaven’. For this reason, it was banned throughout the Empire and is now a secret organization.
Source: unknown.
CHAPTER 3
IMPERIAL MADNESS
By the time he got home later that day, Rokshan was tired and hungry and looking forward to the evening meal. His reading hadn’t turned up anything that shed light on the Old Man’s riddle. Feeling let down by his lack of success, and hoping that Chen Ming could at least point him in the right direction, he was even more disappointed when he called in at the Drawn Scimitar only to find that the caravan master wasn’t there. All he could do was leave a message.
Arriving home, he’d hardly heaved the heavy front door shut, grateful to escape the sultry heat, before Ah Lin came bustling up.
‘Out in this heat, Rokshan? Come, you must drink and then lie down before dinner.’
She clucked around him, as she always did. Following his mother’s death some years back, Ah Lin had naturally filled her place. He hugged her affectionately, and having been reassured that, no, he hadn’t got into any trouble, and no, he really wasn’t so tired that he needed to have a little nap before dinner, she seemed satisfied and hurried off as Rokshan’s father called out a greeting.
The rooms of Rokshan’s home were uncluttered and elegant, with high ceilings and wide doorways. Brightly coloured friezes decorated the walls; rich silk carpets lay on the cool marble floors. The front entrance led straight into the large ceremonial hall with its carved wooden pillars and vaulted brick ceiling; strongboxes of dark hardwood lined the walls. His father used this area for conducting his business and for occasional meetings of the city’s richest and most powerful trading families; right now he was pacing up and down, obviously distracted. Rokshan recognized the warning signs straight away: the knotted brow, the exasperated sighs, the bunched fist smacking the scroll he was reading.
‘What is it, Father?’ Rokshan asked as his father waved his arm about in exasperation. ‘Is it another report?’
‘Yes, yes … another report … unbelievable … completely unfounded, I’m sure …’ He trailed off, muttering and mumbling, and continued his pacing.
Rokshan’s father, Naha Vaishravana, was a typical Sogdian – stocky and round-faced, with a thick, bristling black beard flecked with grey. He had a booming baritone laugh, and his brown eyes were surrounded by a crisscross of laughter lines. He had worked hard for his success, having built up his business from humble beginnings with a market stall to one of the biggest trading houses, well-known and respected in Maracanda.