passage: “These are the Neeli, or indigo color; the Asmani, or light blue; and the Suvsi, or green. He says the Neeli is the most valuable. The richest colors are found in the darkest rock, and the nearer the river the greater is said to be the purity of the stone.”
“Neeli,” Costas said. “Sounds like Nielo, from the tomb in scrip ti on-sappheiros nielo minium.”
Jack nodded. “It’s the same word, in Pashtun and in Latin. It must be the Indo-European root. If I’m right, the Roman sculptor in the jungle, the guy who did that inscription, had actually been to the mines in Afghanistan. His choice of that word for ‘dark’ may well have come from contact with locals who described the best lapis lazuli that way.” He leaned over Rebecca. “The writing in the margin. Where am I looking?”
“Beside the paragraph I just read.”
Jack peered closely. “You’re right. I hadn’t seen that. There are so many other notes by Howard in the margins of the book, and I hadn’t looked at this page closely.” He took the open book from her and peered at it under his seat light. “It’s definitely Howard’s handwriting, Howard’s. It’s absolutely distinctive, even though you can barely see the pencil.” He peered again, and then slowly read it out. “It is said, if you put together peridot and lapis lazuli, then you have the secret of eternal life. They must be the correct-shaped crystals. Ancient Chinese wisdom, told to me by my ayah.” He lowered the book. “Good God.”
“Peridot and lapis lazuli,” Costas exclaimed. “That combination again. Who was his ayah?”
“His nanny,” Jack murmured. “She looked after him when he was a boy in Bihar, where his father had an indigo plantation near the border with Nepal. She was the great-aunt of Howard’s servant Huang-li, the one who waved them off from Quetta in 1908. During the Indian Mutiny, when Howard was a little boy, she took him up into the Himalayas. Later she became his own children’s ayah, and then the next generation’s. Nobody ever knew how old she was, but she lived to be well over a hundred. In the 1930s, she retired and disappeared to live out her remaining life in the mountains of Tibet. She was never heard from again. She claimed that her ancestors came from far away in the east, from northern China. When my grandfather was a boy she told him stories of the First Emperor, the great emperor Qin who unified China in the third century BC. She told him she was descended from the guardian of the First Emperor’s tomb. A legend, perhaps, but it enthralled my grandfather. One of the other books he gave me was the Records of the Grand Historian, the account of the dynasty of Qin. It had been another one of John Howard’s books, found in his study after he disappeared.”
“Speaking of family legends, what about Howard’s disappearance?” Costas said. “Talk about something that would have enthralled children. You must have wondered whether he and Wauchope found some fabled treasure and lived out their lives like kings in some hidden mountain fastness, just like Kipling’s story.”
“Well, there was one story. It was told by Howard’s wife, my great-great-grandmother. Everyone except my grandfather dismissed what she said because she’d become unwell. Howard had done everything he could for her. But as soon as their children had grown up, she deteriorated. She’d never been able to deal with the death of her first son. She was looked after by her sisters, but then she went into an institution. Howard had money from his father’s indigo fortune, and no expense was spared for her comfort. Only when he knew there was no hope did Howard return to India. But he saw her again in England several times before he disappeared, the last time in 1907 just after he retired. He took her away for a few days to a cottage on the Welsh border. It seemed to be a brief window of happiness. It was a beautiful early summer, and they walked in the hills. That was how she remembered it, in a moment of lucidity when my grandfather visited her in the hospital years later. After Howard met up with Wauchope in Quetta, he never saw his wife again. But she lived for many years longer, in a kind of shadowland, not dying until 1933.”
“Did she remember anything else?” Rebecca said, her voice emotional.
“She told my grandfather that when she shut her eyes tight, she was standing, holding hands with her son Edward, looking into a place of sparkling beauty, like a magical cave. Only Edward was older than he ever was, a little boy, not a babe in arms. Then she saw Howard, a proud young man in uniform, a twinkle in his eye, little Edward’s father, her beloved husband, and the little boy ran, arms outstretched, crying out the word Dada over and over again, a word he had barely been old enough to say in his short life. She said in that moment she was in the perfect place. She spent a lot of time in that hospital with her eyes shut tight.”
Rebecca was in tears, and Jack held her hand. “She did say one other thing. Everyone dismissed it because the hospital was run by nuns, and they thought she was just repeating some religious mantra. She said her husband had gone in search of the Son of Heaven.”
“A Christian nunnery?” Costas said. “They must have said that to a lot of widows.”
“That’s what everyone thought.” Jack leaned forward, his eyes ablaze. “But for my grandfather, then a young naval officer, it struck a chord and stayed with him. Fifty years later, when he was an old man himself, he called me at school. He was incredibly excited, and I had to drop everything and visit him. That was when he gave me the Records of the Grand Historian. He’d been thumbing through it, and he saw those exact words. Son of Heaven. He suddenly remembered where he’d seen them before. As a naval cadet, he’d put in at Shanghai and traveled to Xian, to see the fabled tomb of the First Emperor. His photograph of it in 1924 was one of the earliest to reach the west. That was where he’d seen those words, Son of Heaven. It was the traditional title of the Chinese emperor.”
Rebecca wiped her eyes. “I remember it. The terracotta warriors exhibit.”
“But there’s more to it than that,” Jack continued. “My grandfather had dug out his old print of the vast tomb mound, as big as an Egyptian pyramid, still completely unexcavated, years before the terracotta warriors were discovered. The tomb of the First Emperor, of Shihuangdi, Son of Heaven. He had the Records with him, and read the passage describing what was inside. Fabulous treasures, a replica of the world in miniature, the chamber decorated to represent the heavens, with the greatest light of all falling on the tomb. Then he had a brainstorm. That was when he called me. Howard’s wife wasn’t saying Son of Heaven, but Sun of Heaven. The sun, the greatest light in the sky, the light that would ensure the emperor’s immortality. The greatest jewel in the heavens. That’s what Howard’s wife had meant. He had told her he was going in search of a fabled lost jewel.”
“I knew it.” Costas grinned. “A treasure hunt.”
“All that stuff,” Rebecca murmured. “How you thought it out, Dad. Pretty cool.”
Jack sat back. “All I’ve done is open up an old chest of drawers and let it spill out.”
The red warning light flashed above them. Jack glanced at Rebecca’s seat belt and then out of the window, into the gray light of dawn. The descent to Bishkek airport was bumpy, through fierce crosswinds. Through holes in the cloud he saw flashes of land below, a dull flat wasteland and the airfield perimeter. A line of giant C-7 Galaxy transport aircraft stood on the tarmac, where the U.S. transit base for Afghanistan shared the runway with the civilian airport. The engines of the Embraer suddenly revved up to a whine. They had been bumped down too low, and were doing a circuit before landing. Jack sat back and shut his eyes, feeling tired enough to fall asleep in an instant. He suddenly had a vivid picture of his grandfather’s face, from the day they had spent together poring over the Chinese records. His grandfather had told him about the age-old quest for eternal life, about the First Emperor’s expeditions to find the sacred Isles of the Immortals. Jack had only been a boy, but he had told his grandfather how one day he would search for treasures like that. He remembered what his grandfather had told him as they parted, the last time he ever saw him. He said he had sailed over a million miles in his life at sea, and that it was the journeys he relished most, not the destinations. Now, years later, after half a lifetime spent hunting down the greatest treasures in the world, Jack thought he understood. And then he remembered his grandfather playfully jostling him, and pretending to be an old Chinese sage. Beware the Sacred Isles. The quest for immortality is a fool’s errand, and the First Emperor was the biggest fool of them all Stray too close, and you face mortal danger
The plane jolted violently. Jack opened his eyes with a start. Costas was staring across at him, in some kind of droll amusement. Jack guessed what he was thinking.
“Looking forward to seeing Katya?” Costas asked.
“Looking forward to seeing what she’s found,” Jack replied.
“Dad.” Rebecca gave him a scornful look.
“Okay, okay. Looking forward to seeing her,” Jack said. “But she’s stuck out there by the lake because I suggested it. I’m visiting her in a professional capacity. I have a vested interest in this project.”
“When you meet her, Rebecca, just don’t use the word girlfriend,” Costas muttered. “If you don’t want to bring out the Genghis Khan in her.”
“Give me a break,” Rebecca said. “What’s going on here? Sounds like you guys need a reality check. Katya and I are both women. We can talk.”
“Fortunately,” Jack said, smiling sweetly at her, “you’re not going anywhere near Katya today. After finding
