emperor once again be able to impose his will on the universe. For the Brotherhood, this mystical hope became a fanatical dogma after 1912. Only with the merging of the two parallel worlds would order come again. They looked for signs in the ancient myth of the elemental powers. The First Emperor had risen under shuide , the power of water, overcoming the power of fire. The Brotherhood believe that the next age of the emperor will be heralded by the coming of siandhe, the power of light.”
Jack stared at Katya. “That’s it, isn’t it? That’s why the pair of jewels are so important. The power of light.”
Katya nodded. “It was the diplomat Wu Che who reawakened the legend of the lost jewel from the tomb, the celestial jewel, whose two parts would combine to shine a dazzling light on the tomb of the emperor and breach the barrier of wu di. Only when the jewel is found can siandhe begin, the age of light.”
“And when is this supposed to happen?” Costas asked.
“For the First Emperor, shuide was associated with the number six, as well as with winter, darkness, harshness, death. The Brotherhood is twelve, a multiple of six. They came to believe that the age of light would begin in the sixty-sixth generation after the tomb was sealed.”
“Let me guess,” Costas murmured. “That would be the current generation?”
Katya nodded. “That’s why this has all heated up now. My uncle confided everything in me. He knew I was intimate enough with the history of the Brotherhood to share his fears, and he also knew the archaeological trail he was on would need someone with expertise to match his own. He’d groomed me for it. He had great faith in me. He knew time was against him, but I never thought it would end so soon.” Katya looked down for a moment, then carried on. “My uncle took up where Wu Che left off. But when he realized that the celestial jewel might actually be found, he began to fear the consequences. A decade ago, the Brotherhood lost the representative of the Feilian clan, who suddenly died. He was succeeded by his son, Shang Yong. China was changing again. Communism was eroding, capitalism was in. Some profited hugely, many did not. In Russia, some look back on the time of the czars as a kind of mythical golden age. In China, they look back to the First Emperor. Shang Yong was part of this, though at the same time profiting hugely from the new opportunities. My uncle saw disturbing signs in Shang Yong. His family, the Feilian, controlled INTACON. With the increase in the wealth of the company, Shang became a megalomaniac. He turned the Brotherhood into his own council of war. It was he who took INTACON into exploitative mining, on aboriginal lands around the world. One of those areas was the Rampa jungle of eastern India. A huge fortune was to be had in strip-mining the jungle for bauxite. My uncle vehemently opposed the scheme. He was a committed anthropologist and a humanitarian, one of the Brotherhood who had not let the creed consume him. From the start he had opposed the ascendancy of Shang. My uncle had been naive, and only realized the danger too late. By the time he told me the full story, he was a hunted man.”
“And he paid the ultimate price,” Jack murmured.
“So just like the diplomat Wu Che, he unwittingly opened a can of worms,” Costas said slowly. “Wu Che handed the Brotherhood the opium trade. Your uncle reopened the quest for the jewel, but also led them to a place where another treasure trove was to be found, in mining the jungle.”
“That was something else that dawned on my uncle too late,” Katya said. “And I fear he may even have entered into negotiations with the Maoist rebels. It would have been an act of desperation, but there may have been nobody else to turn to with the government about to draw up a contract with INTACON and the Koya people powerless to resist. It would have been suicidal for him, but then he knew he was under a death sentence anyway. And I know he had rejected the Brotherhood. He saw the creed moving from the First Emperor to Shang Yong himself, as if Shang were seeing himself as emperor, as Shihuangdi, born again.”
“So where is Shang Yong based?” Jack asked.
“In the Taklamakan Desert, on the other side of the Tien Shan Mountains,” Katya replied. “A hundred thousand square kilometers of shifting sands and utter desolation, scarred by ferocious winds. For travelers going east on the Silk Road, the Taklamakan was the last great obstacle before dropping down into central China and reaching the end of the road at Xian, source of the silk and site of the First Emperor’s tomb. Anyone who strayed into the desert risked being lost forever, and anyone who controlled the desert strongholds could prey at will on the caravans skirting its fringes. The desert remains one of the last great lawless tracts on earth. Even the communists couldn’t control it. There are many ruined fortresses half-buried in sand, built beside oases long ago swallowed up. Shang Yong set himself up in one of these, hundreds of kilometers from the nearest road. He’s built an airstrip and begun to convert the place into his own fantasy world. For the Brotherhood, the Taklamakan has always had huge symbolic significance, a bastion against the world outside, a place where they could seem to uphold the emperor’s claim that there was nothing beyond. For Shang Yong, the desert is also a perfect headquarters for INTACON’s mining enterprises in central Asia, in the Tien Shan and Karakoram Mountains. And my uncle knew more. INTACON prospectors have found evidence of huge oil reserves under the desert itself. The Taklamakan has become Shang’s fiefdom. And it’s no longer inward-looking. Shang threatens to control the whole of the western part of China, and to exert a frightening influence on the world outside.”
“So that’s what your uncle was really onto,” Jack murmured.
“What do you mean about a fantasy world?” Costas said.
Katya paused. “That’s where the real significance of the jewel, the real danger, comes into play. For the last meeting of the Brotherhood that my uncle ever attended, he was flown to the desert headquarters. In the center of the ruins lay a domed structure, a former Nestorian church. He was ushered down a ramped passage and through great bronze doors. He sat in near darkness at a low table with the other eleven, Shang Yong at the head. What my uncle saw inside stunned and horrified him. It was instantly recognizable from the Records of the Grand Historian. Shang Yong had re-created the First Emperor’s tomb inside the church. For the old Brotherhood, that would have been unimaginable heresy. Above them was the dome of the heavens, and on either side were rivers and mountains and palaces. Beyond that were images of the terracotta warriors. He said it was like sitting in a planetarium, with the latest CGI and holographic technology, even the sounds of water and wind, the baying of horses. Over the days he was there he realized that Shang Yong was spending more and more time alone in the chamber. My uncle had worried about Shang as a boy. He had been addicted to computer games, to the world of instant gratification and utter certainty, a world where morality and humanity are irrelevant. My uncle realized that Shang Yong had moved from being a player in front of a screen to being inside the game itself, part of it.”
“Computer whiz kids who barely know reality from fantasy,” Costas murmured. “Who grow up and make fortunes and think they can take that extra step the boy in the basement can’t, and walk into the screen, into a world they think they can control completely in a way they can never control reality.”
Katya nodded. “Exactly. In Shang Yong’s mind, it was an extension of the concept of wu di, the com mingling of the worlds of the living and the dead that would come with the age of light, with the celestial jewel. But it was as if he had already found a portal to that other world. My uncle knew that the powers of the jewel might prove no more than a figment of myth, but for Shang Yong it could still have terrifying potency. If he believed that the jewel was the final key to his apotheosis, to some kind of melding with the First Emperor, then it might propel him into a terrifying megalomania. That’s what frightened my uncle the most. That’s when he determined to keep his research secret from others in the Brotherhood and try to discover the jewel himself.”
“But Shang Yong already knew,” Jack replied. “Your uncle would survive only as long as it took him to find the place where he thought the jewel was hidden.”
“So who’s the guy you think is shadowing us?” Costas said.
Katya stared at him. “You told me what the Koya had seen in the jungle,” she replied. “Seven men from INTACON went in, one came out, armed with a scoped rifle. He was the initiate. The murder of my uncle was his test. He has now become one of the Brotherhood. By tradition, when one of the Brotherhood strayed, he and his immediate family were eliminated. His replacement in the twelve came from another family in the same clan, chosen for their martial prowess by the other eleven in the Brotherhood.”
“And this new one is the tiger warrior,” Jack said quietly.
“A twisted version. A psychopath. And he has a particular speciality. His grandmother was a Kazakh Red Army sniper during the Second World War, one of those who chalked up hundreds of kills. He learned everything from her. He’s a professional, and honed his art in Bosnia, Chechnya, Africa. His count may even exceed hers by now. He uses her old Mosin-Nagant rifle.”
“A sniper’s rifle is like an artist’s favorite brush,” Jack murmured. “An old Soviet bolt-action can kill as well as the latest Barrett.”
“One question,” Costas said. “Your family’s been part of this since the time of the First Emperor. Sixty-six
