The Dragon King Read online

  Balthazar added some crude brush strokes to the word “emperor.”

  “This is the addition of the concept ‘under heaven.’ It is their word for a single god, ‘Shang Di,’ the Emperor of Heaven.” The magus turned more serious. “Antiochus, my order of magi have a star prophecy that the King of Heaven will yet come with a star in the west. He will unite all nations under heaven. That is strikingly similar with this Ch’inese belief. It seems all nations seek the same hope.”

  Antiochus was more skeptical. “It seems all rulers seek the same godlike power.”

  “There is more,” said Balthazar. “Look here.” He pulled out another parchment with other Ch’inese words on it. “This is the word for ‘tempter.’” He carefully caressed each brush stroke as he explained the meaning. “This is the ideogram for ‘devil,’ and ‘secret man.’ This glyph originally meant ‘serpent.” This square is a garden. These are two trees, and this is a covering. The word for ‘tempter’ is the story of the devil as a serpent in a garden with two trees. Under the cover of one tree, the serpent whispers secrets with the words of a man. It is a story of primeval temptation.”

  “What do I care for such myths?” said Antiochus.

  “Because by learning a culture’s myths, you understand how they think.”

  Antiochus continued to listen. He respected Balthazar. Though they were divided over such things as religion and politics, he had proven to be of wise counsel to Antiochus over the years. He knew he should listen even if he was skeptical. And he did want to understand these Ch’inese people. So he had better learn.

  Balthazar was like a little boy with exciting new toys. “See this? This is the word for ‘tower.’” Again, Antiochus saw all the markings as gibberish. But he watched as the magus pointed out each element of the word. “This means ‘mankind,’ and this means ‘one.’ This is ‘mouth’ or ‘speech,’ and this is ‘united’ or ‘joined together.’ While this last piece of the pictogram represents ‘undertaking’ and ‘clay brick.’ So the word for ‘tower’ is a story that Chang says took place after the Flood. It tells of all mankind being of one language. They join together to undertake the building of a clay brick tower.”

  Antiochus had trouble following the point of it. He had studied military history and strategy, not so much the myths of the people. Although he did know the epic of Gilgamesh well, because Gilgamesh was a mighty giant warrior king of Uruk just after the Great Flood, and the most renowned of legendary heroes in Mesopotamia. He was known as “wild bull on the rampage,” “one third mortal and two thirds divine.” His relationship with the “wild born” Enkidu of the Steppe reminded Antiochus of his own relationship with Balthazar. Like the magi, Enkidu was more primal, less sophisticated than his king companion. But they became a heroic team that slew Humbaba the Terrible, a giant who ruled the Great Cedar Forest, and the Bull of Heaven, a fearsome behemoth that terrorized Uruk.

  Antiochus mused over this similarity with he and Balthazar going to capture a dragon. Would they become a legend as well? Would they be able to face a fire breathing reptilian armored monster and bring him back with glory? But of course, there are no dragons, only the imaginations of earth-bound men who long for transcendent purpose and dignity through their legends and myths.

  Balthazar’s words broke Antiochus out of his day dreaming. “The Ch’inese story of the Tower is exactly like our own Sumerian tale of Enmerker and the Lord of Aratta. Enmerker sought to build a ziggurat of fired bricks on the plain of Shinar. But the god Enki came and confused the languages of the people, and they spread out upon the face of the earth. But that is not the only comparison.”

  Antiochus said, “What do you mean?”

  “Well, the Hebrews, when they were exiled in Babylon, they too told of ancient days where the tongues of nations were confused and spread out on the land. The tower was our own Etemenanki in Babylon. They called it ‘Babel.’”

  Antiochus was catching on. “So, these Ch’inese originally come from the dispersal of nations at Babylon?”

  Balthazar nodded. “That is why they have similar stories with our own. Chang’s mercenaries were returning to the tower of their origin for some reason.”

  “But why kidnap magi priests?”

  “That, our friendly smiling Chang still refuses to divulge. We need more time to learn his language.”

  Antiochus said, “These written characters are too complex for the time I have. Let us focus on the spoken word.”

  “I am but your servant,” said Balthazar.

  That night, Antiochus could not sleep. It was not the rocking of the waves that kept him awake, but the restlessness of his thoughts. Could this distant mysterious land hold the answers to his own longing? He had been so young when his mother died. She had told him the secret of his father and how he was a child of the king. But she had never told him of her own history. She had deliberately hid it from him. A person’s ancestry determined so much in this world. Because of her own lowly status, he could only imagine that she didn’t want him to be at a disadvantage. She had wanted him to rise to power within this world that he knew by embracing it as his own. And that could not be achieved if he was torn in his soul between two identities, a mongrel rejected by two worlds.

  But he remembered the stories. They haunted his dreams. She would put him to bed with wondrous tales of a magical land of fantasy. A world of one hundred states and one hundred schools of thought. Wise sages with strange foreign names and curious religious beliefs. The dragons in the stories had convinced him they were the product of a creative imagination, but now he was not so sure what was real and what was imagined.

  He had entered military school through the royal mandate, and had risen through the ranks because of his hungry and tireless pursuit of victory to prove himself. But he never saw his mother again. She died shortly after he entered the school and his humble origins died with her.

  He had been raised a Seleucid Greek, but because of his secret identity, he had always felt like a man without a country.

  He felt so drawn to this mysterious new land of its own secrets. But would it be his redemption or his destruction?

  CHAPTER 10

  Days turned into weeks, and weeks into months for their ocean journey into the unknown east. They had stopped at several ports for supplies, but they were now relying upon Chang’s cartography and navigation as they made their way through a chain of islands into the unexplored sea.

  Balthazar had set his mind to understanding the language of Tianxia and was able to speak with a moderate level of understanding. Antiochus had the responsibility of the ship, so he was only able to gain enough knowledge of key words for communicating, more like a child. He still needed translation for complex conversation.

  Chang, for his part, was as eager as his fellow scholar magus in his own efforts at learning the Greek language. Balthazar felt like he had found a kindred spirit, someone who understood him and experienced the world from an intellectually curious perspective.

  However, there were significant differences between the Greek and Ch’inese cultures.

  Balthazar considered Greek tradition to be individualistic and quite direct with their communication. Their heritage of philosophers gave them a pride in clarity and precision of language. The Ch’inese on the other hand were more collectivist in culture and indirect with their communication. Chang seemed overly polite to him, and was more opaque with his emotions. It was as if they sought to never stand out from the community. Balthazar would laugh heartily at a joke or mistake during their learning, while Chang would only smile and look downward.

  But over the weeks, Balthazar saw a change in his scholarly companion. Chang had as much curiosity about Mesopotamia and the Seleucids as Balthazar had about Tianxia and the Ch’inese. He asked as many questions about Aristotle as Balthazar asked about Confucius, their most influential Ch’inese philosopher.

  Antiochus did not tell either of them that he recognized the name Confucius from his mother’s s
tories. So it wasn’t all fantasy, after all.

  Balthazar learned that Confucius taught much practical wisdom and common sense that sounded quite similar to Aristotle’s Nichomachean ethics. Ch’inese culture was hierarchal and consisted of four basic “occupations” or classes in descending order: scholars, farmers, artisans and merchants. As one of the members in the emperor’s Academy of Scholars, Chang had borne the experience of privilege.

  The Central Kingdom of Tianxia had a long legacy of warring feudal states, that were only recently unified under the victorious conquering emperor. But one of the reforms the emperor instituted was the replacement of Confucianism with Legalism, a martial philosophy that stressed the law of the ruler as a monopoly over the feudal magnates of each people. Such unified standards and law broke down the power that regional cultures had on the people. Everyone was treated the same “under heaven,” by the same standard, and that standard was the emperor’s own. This application was achieved through three central concepts: power, method, and law.

  Chang on the other hand became fascinated with the Hellenism of the west. The Greek gymnasiums and baths, their obsession with sport, and the perfection of the body. He was most amazed at the Alexandrian policy of colonization. Though they exported Greek language and overlords to their conquered territories, they allowed the indigenous subjects to maintain their local customs and culture. It resulted in a fusion of Greek and Eastern culture.

  “How your great emperor keep order in such mixed state of custom?” asked Chang in halted Greek to Balthazar. “If our states were allow such freedom, they return to tribal war.”

  Balthazar replied, “They are one in language and law under the emperor. But by allowing them to keep their tribal traditions, they are not as likely to rebel. We call those who crush the freedom of the individual, ‘tyrants.’”

  Chang laughed heartily. “That is a funny sounding word. Tyrant.” Sometimes translation between languages created such oddities.

  Balthazar noticed the laugh as being out of Chang’s eastern character. He was becoming more western in his expressions. Balthazar smiled at the thought of their captive being a kind of chameleon in his ability to adapt so smoothly to his newfound cultural interest. Like the magi, eastern scholars were not as bound by provincial superstitions and prejudices. They were more open because they sought knowledge, and knowledge was salvation from the closed picture of the world that ignorance too often bred.

  Chang said, “I check navigation. We are close to destination.”

  After Chang left, Balthazar locked the door behind him. He moved to the bed and pushed a box aside on the pile of boxes. He pulled the box behind it to the forefront and opened the lid.

  Inside the straw lined box were the two sacred relics from the temple; the mysterious golden cup and the magical staff. He cradled the cup and read the ancient Semitic language engraved on the side, “Manna.” It was a word that meant, “What is it?” When the Israelites had escaped their slavery to Egypt and were wandering in the desert wilderness, the legend went that their god, Yahweh, would magically provide food for his people. Every morning, a strange flakey substance would appear with the dew of night, like frost on the ground. It was edible, and the Israelites would gather it up daily to eat for their sustenance. But it would rot by the end of the day, requiring them to trust that Yahweh would provide more the next day. At first, they weren’t sure what it was, so they called it, “manna” or “what is it” in a humorous nod to their creator and sustainer. The manna in this sealed jar was a special sample of heavenly bread that never rotted, as a miraculous testimony that Yahweh would provide for them forever. He was their “bread of life.”

  The other relic was the staff of the high priesthood of Aaron. It too had magical properties, at least in its origin. For when Yahweh was proving to the Israelites whose set of priests were his, he had all the tribes set forth a staff. And the staff that miraculously blossomed with almond flowers overnight would be the staff of Yahweh’s chosen priesthood. Aaron’s rod alone blossomed, thus verifying the exclusive priesthood as belonging to his tribe, the Levites. It had also been used as a symbol of judgment on Pharaoh’s house, for when his sorcerers turned their own staffs into serpents, this staff had turned into a serpent that swallowed the other serpents alive, thus showing Yahweh’s power over the Serpent and his minions.

  When they had received these sacred items in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, it had become the magi’s sacred duty for generations to protect the relics with their lives. There is no way Balthazar would risk them in the hands of lesser guardians and he would not risk hiding them, only to have them lost forever if he and his brothers never returned from Tianxia. Of course, they were so insignificant in their appearance that probably no one would recognize their importance should they find them anyway. Unless their magic was released, a magic Balthazar had yet to see and no idea how to call forth.

  Oh mighty Marduk of fifty names, he prayed, please keep your servants Melchior and Gaspar alive wherever they be.

  Balthazar’s prayer was interrupted by the distant shout of captain Antiochus on the bridge. “All hands on deck!”

  Excitement shot through Balthazar. He hastily repacked the relics, hid them under the straw, and replaced the humble box in the back. He then rushed out of his quarters onto deck.

  When Balthazar arrived up top, everyone not rigging ropes or pulling sails was standing in awe at the sight on the port side of their vessel. The shore was lined with beautiful and strange looking trees. A mountain range rose majestically in the deep background. The air was pure and clean, allowing them to see for many miles. Chang was pointing inland toward a mountain on the shoreline and shouting, “Langya! Langya!”

  They had been sailing along the coastline of Tianxia for some time. He had told them of the city at Langya, and its entry point into the complex of rivers that would take them inland to the emperor’s capital city.

  They had already been spotted by the local inhabitants and two ships were making their way toward their vessel as a welcome party. Two very large Ch’inese warships.

  CHAPTER 11

  The 27th year of the reign of the First Emperor of Tianxia.

  The first thing that Antiochus and Balthazar could see of the two warships bearing down upon them was their size and shape. The lead ship was a junk style vessel that Chang had explained to them earlier. It was a flat-bottom boat that rode well on both ocean and river. It was about seventy feet wide and one hundred fifty feet long with multiple large red-ribbed sails that looked like angled fish fins. In contrast, Antiochus’ Greek trireme was a thin long ship of two hundred feet but only thirty feet wide with one main square, white sail. The oars were withdrawn because they were not going to battle today. And it appeared that they would not be able to out-sail the speedy boats approaching them.

  But what made everyone on the trireme stare was the monstrous super-sized fortress following the lead ship. It looked to be about three hundred feet long and about two hundred feet wide. It was without sails, moving under the power of paddlewheels below the surface instead of oars. Its deck could only be described as a castle. It was a castle on a square boat. It looked like it held over a thousand troops behind its fortified walls manning hundreds of large mounted cross bows. It stayed back like a war hound behind its master, ready to be unleashed. Its size did not appear to hinder its speed. Antiochus imagined a thousand captives in the lower decks paddling for their lives. It was awesome and powerful.

  The Greek sailors manned their stations in preparation to receive the Ch’inese warship. In battle, the trireme had a bronze sheathed battering ram in its prow for ramming enemies. But Antiochus had presented its broadside in submission to the approaching battleship. He yelled to his warriors aboard, “Present no arms!” The sailors kept their bows, spears and swords out of sight. They were ostensibly here on a diplomatic mission. Most of them were secretly grateful because a conflict with this foreign warship and its monstrous companion would surely prove di
sastrous.

  Antiochus could now see the general on the prow of the approaching warship. He wore golden plated armor unlike anything Antiochus had ever seen, with a simple smooth golden helmet sporting a red feathered plume. His bright red cloaks beneath the armor were accented with a golden silken cape that flew behind him in the wind.

  Chang suddenly belted out in his native language, “General Meng Tian! General Meng Tian!” He waved his hands in the air to draw the attention of the Asian leader.

  The General’s stern eyes widened with surprise. Chang said to Antiochus in his primitive Greek, “Look. His surprise give him wide round eye like Greek.”

  Antiochus looked at the smiling Chang, who turned back and yelled in Ch’inese, “I am Chang Shen of the royal court of scholars! Returned from the western lands of Babel!”

  Antiochus deliberately allowed Chang unbound freedom in order to affirm their diplomatic intent. Though their goal was hostage exchange, they would have to make the good faith offer of Chang without hostility. They were after all, at the mercy of this eastern empire and its obvious military might.

  The Ch’inese general reminded Antiochus of an Asian version of Hermias. He was an older veteran with graying hair and a creased face from years of war experience. Antiochus knew such men were the same, regardless of culture. Pragmatic, focused, not taken to frivolity. Warriors the world over had a certain camaraderie, in spirit if not in politics or ethnicity. Warriors understood one another. He hoped he could make a connection with this brooding leader.

  Balthazar recognized the armed soldier beside the Ch’inese general. Compact, intense, relentless. He said, “Chang, who is that, next to the General?”

  Chang said, “That is Wu Shu, his champion warrior.”

  Balthazar whispered to Antiochus, “He was the one at Marduk’s temple.”

  Balthazar had previously told Antiochus of this warrior who had taken out the fifteen Seleucid temple guards single-handedly, and kidnapped the magi. He said he fought like an angel of death.