The Mummy Tomb of the Dragon Emperor Read Free

teachers—more like a child with a new toy.
    “I will use my dark powers,” he said, “to curse the souls of my enemies. Let them hold up my Great Wall for all eternity!”
    And again the mystics smiled, and nodded with respect and admiration and pride.
    Later, in the palace, the Emperor studied the table with its terra-cotta map—and terra-cotta warriors—that had accompanied him across thousands of miles through hundreds of battles, its arrangement now reflecting all that he had achieved. The three-dimensional map, on a table expanded now to twenty feet by twenty feet, was lined with a network of roads and canals connecting new cities throughout all of China, garrisoned with his clay-soldier army.
    And yet beyond China, past his Great Wall, lay uncharted territory—other lands remaining to be conquered.
    Er Shi Huangdi realized that all his grand ambitions could not be achieved in one lifetime. One enemy remained to be defeated, the most powerful enemy of all.
    Death itself.
    The Emperor reached throughout his kingdom for anyone who might know of a sorcerer privy to arts even darker than those of Er Shi Huangdi’s own mystics. A slave stepped forward with news of one such wizard in a distant province, and was rewarded with a quick death, which was as close as Er Shi Huangdi came to mercy.
    With his personal guard of twelve, Ming Guo—still the Emperor’s most trusted general—rode through the palace gates, setting out to find this wizard. After months of riding, the journey ended at a rugged escarpment and a looming complex of buildings, some wood, some stone. The central and most impressive of these—though not the largest structure—was a templelike affair straddling a narrow gorge. The only access was a narrow staircase carved from the rock of the steep slope.
    Leaving his soldiers behind, Ming Guo made the climb.
    Soon the general was stepping cautiously into a cramped chamber dwarfed by its own massive wooden beams, which were part of the structural design that allowed it to straddle the gorge. He found himself in what was clearly an ancient apothecary.
    In the dimly lighted gloom, on the stone floor, were smoking vats and billowing vials; all around were shelves rife with boxes and jars of mysterious ingredients, and urns everywhere, with some vessels hanging by twine from the inverted V of the ceiling. Smells were acrid here, sweet there, and unfamiliar everywhere.
    Down at the far end of the chamber, Ming Guo could make out a figure; but it was not that of a wizard. This was, perhaps, the wizard’s assistant, a striking woman with high cheekbones and large, dark eyes, in a purple robe that, while faded, was no less beautiful. Her long dark hair curved around her angular, intelligent face to spill down over one shoulder. Her form was slender yet shapely enough that the robe could not hide all of her charms.
    She looked up sharply yet casually as she ground a pestle into a small mortar, obviously at work on some potion or other. “We do not often have visitors from Qin province.”
    As he crossed the room, sidestepping jars and pots, Ming Guo asked, “Who has told you I am from Qin province?”
    Her smile was faint and, it seemed to Ming Guo at least, ethereal. “You have. Just now. You are a soldier? A general?”
    “I am.” He was at the base of the small platform on which her preparation table rested. He looked up at her; she looked down at him.
    “You are surprised that I am a woman.”
    “Perhaps. But not all surprises are unpleasant.”
    She smiled again but her eyes returned to her work. “You seek my father.”
    “I do, if your father is the great wizard whose skills have reached the ears of the Emperor.”
    She said nothing, working the pestle into the mortar. Then: “My father died some years ago. I, Zi Yuan, have taken up his mantle.”
    “He had no sons?”
    “No. Just an unworthy daughter.”
    Unworthy or not, the wizard’s daughter already had Ming Guo under her spell, though no