Secrets Of The Serpent's Heart (The Arkana Archaeology Mystery Series Book 6) (8 page)

Dr. Rafi Aboud handed his ticket to the usher and accepted a program. He found his seat in the dress circle of the Auditorium Theater. After getting settled, he scanned his surroundings. The century-old theater had been a landmark of design in its day, credited with inspiring the Art Nouveau style in Europe. It boasted an elegance that the modern taste for curtain glass and bare metal had completely lost. Aboud decided he liked the excessive opulence of it all. Built in the 1890s, it still served as a major venue for the city’s performing arts. The doctor glanced at his program. The Joffrey Ballet was dancing Stravinsky’s
The Firebird
tonight. He, himself, wasn’t an aficionado of ballet but his business associate was. He expected that Vlad had a particular fondness for this piece as it was scored by a Russian composer and based on a Russian folktale.

Aboud sighed at the thought that he had never had the time to cultivate his finer sensibilities. He expected that with the profit from his current venture, he could soon afford to be a patron of the arts as well as a man of leisure. He cast a glance at the theater-goers taking seats around him. They exuded a consciousness of privilege. He could tell by their familiar greetings that many were season ticket-holders. Their topic of choice seemed to be details of the resort locations they’d visited during the winter months. All of them were dressed expensively, as he himself was. Soon, he’d also be in a position to cultivate the acquaintance of the smart set.

A tall blond man took the aisle seat in Aboud’s row. It was Vlad. The doctor and the weapons broker nodded at one another but neither spoke. The doctor casually scanned the rows of seats behind him, now nearly filled with spectators. He didn’t spy a black suit among them. That was good. In the event his benefactor was having him watched, Aboud knew a Nephilim would never cross the threshold of a theater. It was tantamount to passing through the gates of hell. The cult held a particular horror of public entertainments. It was laughable really that the same men who were commissioning him to develop a deadly plague could be routed so easily by a bevy of ballerinas. Aboud chuckled to himself at the paradox. The lights dimmed. The performance was about to begin.

***

When the house lights came up for intermission, Aboud followed Vlad out to the bar.

As they waited for their drink orders, Vlad asked, “How are you enjoying it so far?”

Aboud could offer no critique on the finer points of the performance. “This is the first ballet I’ve attended.”

“Ah, this is nothing,” Vlad waved his arm dismissively. “You haven’t seen
The Firebird
until you’ve seen it performed by the Bolshoi. There are no words to describe it in any language. Pure poetry in motion.”

“Perhaps one day I shall see a performance in Moscow,” the doctor agreed noncommittally.

They took their glasses of champagne and wandered off to a quiet alcove on the mezzanine where they could speak more freely.

Vlad glanced at their champagne flutes ruefully. “Perhaps we ordered the wrong drinks. We have nothing to toast yet, do we?”

Aboud took a seat on an ornately carved sofa. “It would seem I was too thorough in my work,” he remarked cryptically.

Vlad took a seat next to him. “Meaning?”

“My benefactor wanted the most virulent strain of pneumonic plague possible. One that could kill in a matter of hours.” The doctor shrugged philosophically. “And that’s what I created. I succeeded in developing a strain so lethal that even I can’t stop it.”

“So that means you haven’t developed a vaccine yet?” Vlad sounded mildly annoyed.

“Oh, I have tried to develop a vaccine,” the doctor countered. “A great number of them, in fact. I tested every conceivable type of vaccine on my last twenty subjects and still they perished.”

The Russian leaned in closer, his demeanor slightly menacing. “You need to appreciate my position. I have lined up half a dozen buyers, all eager to start bidding on your weaponized plague. I can only string them along for so long before they become impatient. Money is burning holes in their pockets but that money will go elsewhere if you don’t hurry up. And that’s a best case scenario. These men don’t like to be disappointed. They have a very low tolerance for frustration and for those who are the cause of it.”

“I am well aware of the need for haste,” Aboud concurred dryly. “My benefactor reminds me of that fact every week.”

Vlad took a sip of champagne, his attention temporarily diverted to another topic. “You still don’t know who his target is?”

The doctor shook his head. “He’s been very tight-lipped on that subject. He says he’ll let me know when it’s time to design a delivery device. Of course, I won’t be ready to do that until the vaccine has been perfected.”

The lights flashed, signaling that intermission was nearly over.

Vlad finished the rest of his champagne in a single gulp. “So what am I to tell our prospective buyers in order to hold their interest?”

Aboud pondered the question for a moment. “You may tell them that I’m very close to a breakthrough. I should have an effective vaccine within a month. Two months at the very most.”

Cassie and Griffin sat motionless in the trove-keeper’s office in Lanzhou eyeing the crude carving of the horse’s head compass which lay in the middle of the desk. They were waiting for an explanation.

Zhang Jun leaned back in his chair. “It’s a strange thing about archaeology,” he mused. “Often a small, insignificant find can lead to something much bigger. In this case, a discarded piece of a mechanical compass brought us to our first physical trace of the Yellow Emperor. But let me begin at the beginning. Do you remember when we were in Shenyang I mentioned the original rulers of ancient China?”

“You told us about the three sovereigns and five emperors,” Cassie replied readily.

“Quite so. As you’ll recall, the serpent goddess Nu Kwa was the first sovereign. She created the universe. The second sovereign was Shen-Nung. He is called the Divine Farmer because he taught the people agriculture and the medicinal uses of plants. The third sovereign is known as theYellow Emperor. He is credited with devising numerous inventions and has the dubious distinction of being named the inventor of warfare. All of the subsequent five emperors traced their lineage back to him. Of course, modern scholars dismiss all eight figures as mythical but evidence has been coming to light about other legendary figures who have been proven to actually exist.”

“Still,” Griffin objected. “Do you seriously believe the man in Cassie’s vision was your fabled Yellow Emperor?”

Rou nodded gravely.

Jun continued. “Asia is a huge land mass and not all its inhabitants are of Mongoloid ancestry. Some are Caucasian but nobody seems to remember this. China has, for a long time, believed in its cultural isolation. Because the country is bounded on all sides by mountains and oceans, most current history books insist that no foreigners ever set foot here while the culture was in its infancy. As a result, China asserts that it developed its civilization without any stimulus from the rest of the world. We know this to be far from true. The influence of the west made itself felt from the very beginning.”

Griffin stared at Jun with open skepticism.

Apparently interpreting the Scrivener’s reaction, Jun protested, “Please, allow me to elaborate. We have much more evidence than the Pythia’s vision for making such claims. One has only to look at the Tarim Basin mummies or the Beauty Of Loulan.”

“Oh yes,” Griffin said. “I recall reading about those finds. It seems a large number of perfectly preserved specimens were discovered in the Tarim Basin in the northwestern part of China. They were very tall Caucasians, some wearing woven plaid cloth resembling Scottish tartans. The most ancient of the mummies are four thousand years old.”

“The government resisted disclosing information about these mummies because they feared it would stir up controversy among the Uyghurs.”

“Uyghurs?” Cassie asked cautiously.

“From Xinjiang,” Rou mumbled under her breath.

Instantly everyone transferred their attention to her and she blushed.

“You may as well continue,” her grandfather prompted gently.

The girl tried to form a few words but no sound came out.
 
It seemed that the direct scrutiny of the group was too much for her. With a stricken look, Rou mutely appealed to Jun for rescue.

“Very well,” the trove-keeper conceded. “Xinjiang is in the northwest corner of China. The Uyghurs are a Turkic race who migrated there a long time ago. Many of them have light-colored eyes and hair. Some even have European features. The Uyghurs feel that their province shouldn’t be part of China at all because the inhabitants are not ethnically Chinese. They’ve been staging government protests for years. Needless to say, the discovery of the Tarim Basin mummies wasn’t widely publicized for fear of stirring up a furor in that region all over again. But the Uyghurs offer strong genetic proof that Caucasian tribes have existed along China’s northern and western borders for the past four millennia or more.”

Rou managed to squeak out a few audible words at last. “The Mongols.”

“What have they got to do with this?” The Pythia sat forward in her chair.

Jun replied. “As you know, the Great Wall was built to keep out barbarian raiders from the north. These raiders eventually coalesced into the Mongol Empire many centuries later. What most people don’t know is that the Mongols were genetically quite diverse. Chinese historians of the time referred to them as ‘the people with colorful eyes’.”

“That would mean they were Caucasian.” Griffin sounded baffled.

“At least in part,” Jun said. “In fact, Genghis Khan is described as having red hair and green eyes. His wife’s name was Bourtai which means ‘grey-eyed’. There are many people living in Mongolia today who have Asian features with light hair and eyes. It would appear that when the Caucasian tribes migrated eastward, they didn’t stop in central Asia. They gradually extended their reach to encompass the northern and western borders of China. A smaller number continued southeastward into China itself. Gansu Province, where we are right now, is called the Gansu Corridor because it is the easiest way to reach the Yellow River Valley from central Asia.”

“So this province acted like a funnel to draw traffic from the steppes,” the Pythia concluded. “But I still don’t understand why overlords would have traveled this far east. What was the attraction?”

Jun gave a humorless laugh. “They needed a new group of agriculturalists to exploit.”

Cassie and Griffin exchanged troubled glances before turning their attention back to the trove-keeper.

“Hold on,” the Pythia objected. “I was told the overlords left the steppes because the grasslands dried out and their herds needed greener pastures.”

“That is only part of the story,” Jun countered. “The grasslands dried out but the livestock problem wasn’t the main reason for their mass migration out of western Asia. As early as the fourth millennium BCE, the overlords had learned to prey upon the neighboring agricultural population.”

“I never thought of that,” Griffin interjected. “Of course it makes sense. Before desiccation began, fertile farmland would have existed along the fringes of the steppes. Agricultural communities probably flourished side by side with the nomads.”

“Sadly, the domestication of the horse gave an advantage to the nomads,” Jun said. “Rather than trading peacefully with the farmers as they had done in the past, they swept in and raided the agricultural communities. On horseback, the nomads struck too quickly to be pursued.”

“Nice people,” Cassie said sarcastically. “Except that it’s a bad long-term strategy. I mean, sooner or later the farmers must have gotten fed up with the chronic pillaging and moved away.”

“I believe the nomads developed other tactics to control the farmers,” Jun said. “Various tribes of horsemen would fight each other to claim control of a given agricultural area. The victors would offer to protect the farmers in their territory from other predators in exchange for a share of their crops and other goods.”

“That’s just great,” the Pythia remarked. “They invented the stone age version of a protection racket.”

“And gave birth to the exploiter model of overlord culture which has plagued us ever since,” Griffin concluded.

“This state of affairs existed for at least a thousand years before desiccation affected central Asia around 3500 BCE,” Jun said. “Some of the farming communities would have died out from famine after their crops failed year upon year. Others would have moved their communities farther away from the dry grasslands into the mountains and river valleys. This would have made them inaccessible to the overlords whose principal tactic was a speedy attack over flat, open terrain.”

“So you’re saying the overlords packed it in and went to look for easier targets?” Cassie asked.

“Yes, and this search led them very far from their homeland. We find evidence of their horse culture dispersing in all directions. The bulk of the nomads infested Europe, north Africa, and western Asia but other groups continued eastward. Their numbers were small but they didn’t need large armies to prevail over the resident agriculturalists. They brought with them the inventions of domesticated horses, spoke-wheeled chariots, and bronze weaponry. It has always been believed that these things were invented independently by the Chinese but none of that is true.”

“So you’re giving overlords the credit for all that stuff.” Cassie’s voice was doubtful.

“Not precisely.” Jun balked. “The overlords were never any good at invention. Their only talent lay in exploitation. This is evident from the very start. There would be no overlord culture at all if they hadn’t solved the puzzle of how to exploit horses as something more than a source of meat. From there, they learned to exploit other human beings.”

“How do you mean?” Cassie asked.

“Consider the topic of metallurgy. History books frequently sing the praises of overlords for their invention of bronze weapons but this is ridiculous when you think about it.”

“Yes, I see your point.” Griffin seemed to be turning over a new theory in his mind. “Mining metals requires a detailed knowledge of the local terrain. This could only be achieved by a sedentary population who worked the land and could identify ore deposits. Metal craft would also require a specialized labor force. A farming community with a dependable food supply could afford to support the efforts of miners and metalworkers. In contrast, nomads on horseback held only had a superficial knowledge of the terrain through which they moved.
 
They certainly had no specialized skills other than combat.”

“But they could threaten and bully the people who did,” Cassie observed. “Once an overlord gang was able to target a farming community that had its own miners and metalworkers, they could force them to make weapons to overlord specifications.”

“I believe you’re both right,” Jun concurred. “The same principle would have been true in the invention of the spoke-wheeled chariot. Sedentary woodworkers and blacksmiths would have crafted the vehicles the overlords required to carry out their endless battles with one another.”

“Because nomad populations were so mobile, I can see how they might have spread their extorted inventions all the way east to China. But what about horse domestication?” the Pythia insisted. “I mean, there are wild horses in this part of Asia so that might have happened right here.”

“DNA,” Rou murmured cryptically.

Jun wisely decided not to remark on the fact that his granddaughter had finally found her voice. Apparently, he realized that doing so would only dampen her budding conversational skills. He proceeded as if she’d been actively conversing with the group all day. “Yes, you are correct. Until quite recently, horse domestication was believed to have developed in isolation in China. However, we now have DNA results which prove that theory to be false.”

“How so?” Griffin asked.

“The yDNA of all the horses in China, in fact of all domesticated horses in the world, comes from a bloodline that originated in Kazakhstan. It would seem that domesticated male horses were brought into China by the overlord nomads and bred with wild mares who were caught locally and later domesticated.”

“So the overlords loaded up their horses and their war wagons and came to China looking for a new place to set up their extortion racket,” Cassie said. “But that still doesn’t connect all the dots for me. Why are you so sure that the man in my vision was your Yellow Emperor?”

Jun seemed to take no offense at her dogged persistence. “There are many stories associated with the man known as Huang Di—the Yellow Emperor. Some have been dismissed as pure myth when they should have been viewed as clues to his real identity. Let’s start with the name itself, ‘Yellow Emperor’.”

“Perhaps an association with the river of the same name?” Griffin suggested.

“Or quite literally a description of the coloring of the man,” Jun countered. “Cassie said the man in her vision was blond. Myths tell us that the Yellow Emperor had four eyes. Two appeared shut at all times but he could always see what people were doing.”

“Now that has to be fiction,” Cassie objected.

“No,” Rou asserted quietly.

The two visitors glanced at her in puzzlement.

Jun smiled. “You need to consider how Caucasian eyes might appear to an Asian who had never seen such eyes before. The Caucasian eye is more deeply recessed in the skull than an Asian eye. It is the reason your eyelids have a fold and ours do not.”

Griffin peered at Cassie’s face and then at Jun’s, apparently noting the difference for the first time. “You’re quite right, of course.” His voice held a note of amazement.

“In Asia, there are women who have plastic surgery to create a double eyelid because this is considered more beautiful.”

“Get out!” Cassie exclaimed. “It’s the skin-bleaching issue from Africa and India all over again—everybody trying so hard not to look like themselves.”

“I imagine because the Western standard of beauty dominated so many colonized countries,” Griffin speculated. “A sad legacy of overlord values.”

“Perhaps now you can understand why an ancient historian might have interpreted double eyelids as another pair of eyes,” Jun continued. “A figurative way of saying that the Yellow Emperor had Caucasian eyes.”