The Dragon King Read online

“My captain, my friend.”

  They sat in silence knowing that tomorrow Xeneotas would die.

  CHAPTER 7

  A single bright beam of sunlight spilled in through the slit of a window in the dungeon cell. It moved slowly across the wall with the rising of the morning sun.

  It landed on the closed eye of Xeneotas, who awakened with a blink and stared into the brightness. It was like a ray of fire burning away the impurities of a soul.

  Awaken to your death, O man.

  Xeneotas sat forward as if prompted by unseen knowledge. He then heard the sound of guards down the hall approaching his cell. The clink of the key in the lock sounded louder than it ever had. The hinge creakier. The footsteps of his executioners more intense and weightier as they hit the floor, gravel crunching beneath their feet. Now that he was going to his death, his senses had come alive to amplify every last moment with clarity.

  There was only one executioner. A big, bad, ugly Mycenaean. Xeneotas thought with more clarity and rapidity than ever before. Did they craft these men to fit the part? Did they feed them diseased meat to grow their height and rot their teeth? Did they deliberately carve scars into their faces and arms to make them look more like the harbingers of death that they were?

  He smiled with amusement.

  The executioner tossed a black hood at Xeneotas. He willingly put it over his own head. It would not mask the sounds that he could still hear with magnification around him.

  The brute led his prisoner out of the cell for his final journey.

  Though the hood blocked his sight, the bound and hooded prisoner could see some shadowy forms in the sunlight through the fabric. He could hear the crowd of people filling the square with shouts of outrage and anger. He could swear he heard each individual shout.

  “Traitor!”

  “You deserve death!”

  “Xeneotas, say hello to Pluto!” Pluto was the god of the underworld.

  He felt the sting of rotten food hitting him in the body and in the head. One piece was so putrid, the stench soaked through the fabric and made him gag.

  The guards pulled him along through the gauntlet of abuse to a platform. He tripped on the first stair and fell to his knees. The guards caught him, but not before he felt a searing pain shoot through his knee. He grunted. The humiliation of the walk was worse for him than the punishment at the end of it. It was one thing to execute a man, but to reduce him to a stumbling buffoon was more degrading.

  The executioner’s axe maintained his dignity because it was an exalted ritual act that reinforced the sacred notion of the prisoner’s human worth. Only a man in the image of a god had the divine conscience to know right and wrong. Mere animals are not punished because they have no such dignity. They may be slaughtered, but they are not punished.

  But all that dignity was stripped from him by the time he reached the block. He was shoved to his knees. More stinging pain. He could hear the breathing of his captors as they pushed his hooded head upon the block. His breathing became shallow and quickened. He felt his entire body fill with a surge of tingling energy. The crowds continued their verbal abuse.

  A satrap governor quieted them down and announced, “People of the kingdom of Seleucia, hear now the crime of this condemned man, General Xeneotas of Babylon, who disobeyed a direct order of the king, and as a result led his force of four thousand men to their deaths at the hands of the rebel general, Molon!”

  Boos and hisses arose to drown out the satrap. When they died down, he continued. “For his crimes against the royal monarch’s authority and power and glory, Xeneotas of Babylon now receives his punishment, the removal of his head from his body. May the gods have mercy on his soul!”

  More boos and shouts of “Rot in Hades!”

  The executioner stood over him. The condemned criminal’s head rested on the block but his body was shuddering.

  Another guard pulled off the hood and stepped away.

  He could not see the generals lined up behind him, eagerly awaiting justice. He could not see the crowd below him. He only saw the executioner raise the axe above his head. Heard the sound of his grunt.

  And the blade came down with swift and sure accuracy. The crowd cheered with vengeance and bloodlust.

  CHAPTER 8

  The black hood was pulled from the head of Xeneotas. He coughed and squinted as his eyes adjusted to the bright light of day. Judging by the sounds and pathway, he had guessed correctly where he was: the king’s war room. The king and Balthazar stood before him with a strange looking foreigner. He had been here many a time in consultation for battle strategy. But why? Why had he not been executed? Was this merely a ruse?

  Xeneotas asked humbly, “My king?”

  Antiochus said, “I have executed a man in your place. Another criminal who looked like you.”

  It didn’t register immediately to Xeneotas.

  “My generals think you are dead and I am safe from their mutiny. For now.”

  Xeneotas now understood what had happened. The king had mercy upon him. His father could not escape the guilty haunt of his beloved, and the fruit of their union.

  “However,” said the king, “the rebellion continues with Molon’s forces amassing. He is marching upon this capital. He is calling himself king.”

  Xeneotas interrupted, “Molon must be crushed. Like the revolt of the Parthians and Bactrians ten years ago.”

  The king began to pace. “Ah, yes, and that is where we find ourselves again. As with my father, so my power has been spread too thin over too vast of territory.”

  Xeneotas glanced at Balthazar. It was confirmation of his own counsel to the king.

  “My generals tell me to stop wasting forces on distant insignificant lands like Judea.” Xeneotas knew Balthazar had favor for the Hebrews because of his order’s great respect for their ancient magus Daniel.

  The king sighed. “The collapse of my kingdom is imminent.” Xeneotas could not believe he was hearing this admission. Was the king giving up?

  “And that is where you come in, Xeneotas.” The king gestured to Balthazar to speak.

  Xeneotas looked to the magus, but saw the foreigner next to him. He suddenly realized just how familiar the man looked. His skin was not white or black, but olive. He wore a gleaming embroidered robe with ornate flower patterns and serpentine images. The fabric was unique, soft and flowing. The foreigner’s eyes were different, thin, mysterious. Such peculiarities would ordinarily be attributed to barbarians, but this was no barbarian. He reminded Xeneotas of his mother.

  Balthazar said, “This is Chang Shen. He comes from a distant land called Tianxia. It means ‘all under heaven.’ They believe themselves the center of all the earth.”

  The king gave an amused smirk to himself. Everyone knew Greece was the center of the earth.

  Balthazar continued, “He was wounded and left for dead by the foreign strike force that kidnapped some of our magi. I found him.”

  Xeneotas knew where this was going. Balthazar had already told him of this incident. But this captive did not look like a warrior.

  As if answering his thoughts, Balthazar said, “Chang is a scholar for his people. Much like a magus. But he would not tell us why they kidnapped our magi.”

  “How well do you understand his language?”

  “Barely. I recognized it from the ancient archives I studied in our library. They were inscribed on oracle bones. Generations ago, King Cyrus over Babylonia had contact with these people from the far eastern ends of the earth.”

  Xeneotas hid his surprise. Could these be his mother’s people? He asked, “Why were they hidden? Why have we never heard of ‘Tianxia?’”

  Xeneotas’ mother had died when he was young. She had told him only mysterious fables and fairy tales. She had not mentioned Tianxia.

  The king joined in, “Because Cyrus decided it was a land he could not conquer.” It was common for potentates to hide their failures from written records.

  Xeneotas didn’t believe it.
“The mighty Cyrus? Unable to conquer? Why not?”

  Balthazar looked at the king for approval. Antiochus nodded.

  He said, “Because it was a land of dragons.”

  Xeneotas said nothing. He narrowed his eyes with incredulity. The king is interested in fairy tales? The kind of tales Xeneotas heard as a child?

  Antiochus said, “I spared you, Xeneotas, for this reason. I have a mission for you that will redeem you, and my kingship. I want you to go to Tianxia and bring me back a dragon.”

  Xeneotas’ incredulity became amusement.

  “I will secure my reign with its power, and you will resurrect yourself as a hero—and inherit my kingdom.”

  Xeneotas’ eyes went wide. But then his countenance dropped. “My lord, dragons are but myths of power created to inspire fear of the ruler in the ruled.”

  “Then go and prove me wrong.” He smiled. “You are dead anyway.”

  Xeneotas looked to Balthazar for support. He received none.

  He looked back to the king. “If there were such a creature with such power, how could I possibly capture it?”

  “That is why Balthazar is going with you. He will use his magic.”

  Balthazar gave no response. Not even a shrug of resignation. Xeneotas did not know if everyone around him was going mad, or just himself. He decided to play along. Use the madness against itself.

  “My lord, such monsters cannot be tamed to your will. They are agents of chaos.”

  “I will unleash the chaos upon my enemies.”

  The king was mad.

  “You may unleash it upon yourself.”

  “Just get me the dragon, Xeneotas. I will deal with the rest. I am the king.”

  He paused. Then added, “And you will be my son—if you succeed. Xeneotas of Seleucia.”

  The foreigner understood none of their words.

  Xeneotas thought, Am I escaping death only to disappear into oblivion? But then again, if these foreigners come from the land of my mother…

  He said, “Xeneotas is dead. He was executed. My name is Antiochus the Younger. And I will go to the ends of the earth in search of your dragon.”

  The king grinned victoriously. He said, “I am curious as well to learn about this foreign land called Tianxia. I expect a full report.”

  I am sure you do, thought the Younger. He bowed. After all these years of desiring to find his home with the king of this land, he thought it ironic that he might now find that home on the other side of the world.

  CHAPTER 9

  Xeneotas, now known as Antiochus the Younger, stood in his ship’s quarters with Balthazar and Chang on their way down the Euphrates toward the gulf of the Southern Sea. The ride was smooth as they had not yet reached the gulf in their trireme, a long thin warship hosting a company of over forty warriors. The trireme got its name for its three tiers of oars rowed by a crew of one hundred seventy oarsmen that gave them maneuverability in battle. It was not a comfortable vessel for long voyages, but it was swift and efficient.

  Xeneotas pointed at the map laid out on his table. It contained the entire Seleucid empire from Greece in the west, to the Levant, Mesopotamia and all the way to Bactria and Parthia in the east.

  “The trip to Tianxia will take months. We will travel from the Southern Sea, into the Arabian Sea, where we will make several stops at ports of the Mauryan Empire on our way east. But beyond this point, we sail the unknown.”

  He pointed beyond the drawn image of the East Indian continent to an unfinished blank space. Their mapmakers had no reliable sources to reconstruct the mysterious eastern ends of the earth.

  Chang watched Antiochus’ gestures closely. He could not understand his words, but he could understand the visual map. He reached into a bag he carried with him and pulled out a small bottle and paintbrush.

  As he removed the top and dipped the brush into the bottle, Antiochus asked Balthazar, “Where did he get those instruments?”

  “He asked me for them before we left.”

  The Eastern man placed his ink-dipped brush to the map. Antiochus reached out to stop him reflexively.

  “Let him,” said Balthazar.

  Antiochus withdrew and Chang began to paint in the blank area of the map. He filled in the land mass with a line that illustrated his own knowledge of the area. He drew some islands they would have to pass through to get to Tianxia. Then up in the far eastern corner, he brushed in a little bay with a river going inland. He drew a strange looking symbol at the mouth of the river. His hand moved with a graceful speed. Lines and swashes created a pictogram that Antiochus thought was both mysterious and beautiful. It was their written language.

  Chang said, “Langya.”

  Balthazar repeated, “Langya,” and Chang smiled with a nod.

  “It must be the port city to enter their kingdom.”

  Chang drew a dotted course from where their ship was currently on the map all the way to Langya. He looked up at them with a smile and a bowed head.

  Antiochus said, “This foreigner smiles and bows with a frequency quite annoying.”

  “It is their custom,” said Balthazar. “We will have some time to learn their ways in preparation for our diplomacy.”

  Antiochus smirked. “If you call hostage exchange ‘diplomacy.’”

  He smiled at Chang and added, “Yes, my dear foreigner. You will be our bargaining shekel to retrieve our magi. At least, that is the pretense for our ulterior motive.”

  Chang smiled and bowed his head innocently in return.

  “Be careful,” said Balthazar. “He may understand more than we know.”

  Balthazar pointed at the strange symbol and looked at Chang. “The place to begin learning a nation’s custom is to learn their language.”

  He smiled at Chang, pointed to his own lips, then to Chang’s lips, and then back to the symbol. Chang smiled and bowed.

  Antiochus said, “You two wise men will get along splendidly, I see. I can only imagine your endless chatter about stars, gods, and divination once you learn his language.”

  Balthazar said, “Oh, you will be learning it as well, general.”

  Antiochus’ smile drooped with displeasure.

  • • • • •

  Balthazar and Chang worked tirelessly for days to establish a basic means of understanding each other’s language. After a couple weeks, Antiochus finally joined them for the first time in Balthazar’s quarters on the ship. He stood back in surprise. “What in Hades?”

  He hadn’t seen them pack the boat before he was commissioned. Balthazar’s entire quarters was packed tight with boxes from floor to ceiling, leaving little room for a bed and a small table. Some of the boxes had been opened to reveal a shipload of scrolls and tablets as well as some special devices of magi science.

  Balthazar said, “If I am supposed to help you catch a dragon, General, I am going to need all my resources.”

  Antiochus said, “If the ship needs to lose ballast, I am afraid we will have to start here.”

  Balthazar looked at the smiling Chang and said, “My dear Chang, we men of education must impress upon this man of action the importance of knowledge and science, else he find himself afloat on a sea without a compass to guide him.” Chang grinned in response.

  Antiochus gave Balthazar a scorned look. “Show me what you’ve learned, man of education.”

  They sat down at the table, with the boxes towering over them. Balthazar pulled some parchment out with the oriental language written all over it.

  “I had spent time with the oracle bones in our archives, so I was already familiar with some of the patterns of their communication.”

  He pointed at the writing on the parchment. “Their words are like pictures. And stories. They combine some phonetics with pictograms and ideograms. Phonetics are, of course, audible sounds. Pictograms are somewhat pictorial, and ideograms are complex combinations of pictograms for more abstract ideas.”

  “Balthazar, I do not want an academic discourse. I need to
learn the basics.”

  “Sorry,” said Balthazar. “They write from the top to the bottom, instead of left to right as we do.” That seemed so unnatural to Antiochus. He wondered if these people did everything upside down or backwards.

  Balthazar pointed to one pictogram. “To the point. This is the word for ‘boat.’”

  The image was not recognizable to Antiochus, so Balthazar gestured to the various components. “This element means ‘vessel,’ and this means ‘eight mouths,’ or people on that vessel.

  “Why eight people?” asked Antiochus.

  “They believe in a primeval flood. A great deluge that drowned all living things save a family of eight. Their language embodies their cultural stories and myths.”

  Antiochus knew that was similar to their own Greek myth of Deucalion, the son of Prometheus, whose life was spared along with his wife, Pyrrha, from a devastating flood. But they were only two. Who were the other six these foreigners were including in their story?

  Balthazar showed him another word on the parchment. “This is their word for emperor, which is the same as our king.” The brush strokes were fluid looking, but still did not make sense to Antiochus.

  Balthazar continued, “The emperor of Tianxia is named Ch’in Shih Huang Di.”

  Antiochus tried to reproduce the name as Chang watched him. “Chin Shuh H-wong Dee.” Chang smiled and nodded. He said “Yes, yes,” in Greek and then followed with gibberish in his own language.

  Balthazar said, “Ch’in is the family dynasty name. Like Seleucid for our king. ‘Huang Di’ was the name of the originator of their civilization.”

  Antiochus said, “Tell me more of this emperor and his ‘Ch’inese’ people.”

  Balthazar said, “From what I gather, the people of Tianxia have lived under battling warlords for centuries. Huang Di is the first emperor to unite all under heaven, according to Chang.”

  “All under heaven? He is evidently unaware of the Seleucid kingdom. So this emperor has an inflated view of himself.”

  “As does our king.”

  Antiochus gave him a scolding look.