With shovels and picks they attacked the hard earth, breaking it into jagged pieces to exhume what lay below.
Men and women, working shoulder to shoulder, sweated with the effort, but continued without complaint, without a spoken word to break the cadence. Last week their priority was the land and growing food for the masses, an honourable duty. It was necessary work for survival.
This week it was different. This week what lay below the land was more important in this time-honouring and slow-paced society.
Delicate instruments replaced destructive equipment. With tiny probes they scraped dirt away from row after row of heads that erupted from the floor of the earthen pit. By removing soil with soft brushes they revealed tiny scraps of silk, red lacquered boxes bound with metal belts, and splinters of wood that once had been limbs.
These were more than mere artefacts, Liu knew. Much more.
He walked the site as an archaeologist in these times. In times past he had been many other things. As a member of a special group, he, too, had chosen to hide in plain sight. His goal, and that of other respected elders, was the same: freedom, finally, from vast darkness.
But, unlike the others, those goals weren't enough for him any more.
This then, was the beginning of a new time. The cycle would once again be renewed.
A small, old man silently appeared at Liu's side. As was his duty, he wore the common man's black pants, thin sweater and sandals, and pressed a tall mug of warm green tea in his boss's hands. Liu accepted the assistant's offering without comment or thanks. As everyone else on these sites, Hsu had a job to do. His compensation came from pride in working with someone as notable and important as the archaeologist. That was more than ample to meet an assistant's minimal needs.
Liu dismissed his assistant with a short wave of his hand, then stroked the surface of the medallion that clung to his chest. He looked around at the black-haired workers, his fellow scientists, and to the rudimentary scaffolding and hand-made ladders that dipped into the newly excavated pits. His own dark eyes rose to scan the rural landscape that stretched out all around him. Prepared for planting, the topography was broken up in its monotony only by the occasional hills that would be ruthlessly farmed for what they could bear, barely concealing the tombs that lay below.
He added another stroke to the piece that hung from his neck and touched his chest. Here, in this place of all places, in this country, the dragon etched clockwise from its fire-breathing head to its curled tail on the medallion was more than just a symbol. It signified good fortune.
But the medallion was only part of what had come to him in recognition of his work and sacrifice. It was Liu's scientific skill, his honed abilities and intuitive gifts that brought him to stand on this hallowed ground in anticipation of that which lay below. These same virtues would prove him a great leader. Contrary to the respected elders, he deserved the ultimate honour. He was owed it.
Liu tapped his watch and looked with some concern to the afternoon sun. Now darkness was the new enemy. But much as he would like, Liu could not push the calendar. It was not the way of his people. Destiny could be controlled, but it could not be rushed.
They had waited, after all, for over 2,000 years for this moment. He could wait a little longer. The time for complete exhumation would come at its own pace.
The first discovery took place in March of 1974. A work brigade of farmers drilling a well accidentally found a subterranean chamber. It had been the first.
There would be many more.
In 1974 Liu had watched from a distance for this finding. His calculations, countless hours of research, and intuition in the form of dreams had led him to this place. The call had been sounded and he had waited patiently for his colleagues to converge on this site near the now modern Chinese city of Xi'an.
They came. And they had worked. Hours turned to days, to months, then years, in the careful and painstaking exhumation of Qin Shi Huang Di's terracotta army. The funerary compound had revealed archaeological treasures that cheered the country and sent ripples of excitement around the world.
For Liu it had been much more than that. The past had now become the future. His future. And he was more than willing to accept the honour this find bestowed upon him. He was owed it after all. It was his right, if not his honour-bound duty, to see it through.
Walking the underground chambers, he had considered his choice carefully. The moment he had waited for would not be until all the armies were fully exhumed. But enough had been carefully dusted and touched with delicate instruments that he would know if his intuition had guided him correctly.
The pottery bodyguard faced east and was poised for battle. Life-sized figures, once brightly painted with mineral colours, were grouped into specific military formation.
He had paused, considered, then made his selection. The chamber of 1,400 figures held a sixty-eight-member elite command unit. They would be the first. Staring into the individual faces, no two of which were alike, he knew the theory was true. These figures, all of them, had been created from life. And somewhere deep in the terracotta, life was ready to resume itself. Liu would be the catalyst in this resurrection, then their leader.
Digging deep into a pack slung across his shoulder, he had pulled out four small purple candles to set in front of the figures. Arranging them in a star-like pattern, he touched match to wick and watched them blaze to life. Liu stepped back, took a long deep breath and held it. He gestured to the four directions that they should bring wholeness back to these terracotta people.
Then he waited.
The breath that had been held too long in his chest began to burn.
Had the figures been the victims of an opposing ceremony? Or, perhaps, they were never touched to begin with.
His lungs ached. Fighting hard against release, he found he could hold his breath no longer. His eyes went from figure to figure for a last-minute sign.
Sadly, it was not to be.
Breath escaped him in a long, singular and disappointed burst.
The first fully exposed soldier, then the second, fifth and tenth, stood tall and immovable. Their individual expressions stayed fixed and rigid as they had for thousands of years and would for thousands more.
The calculations had been wrong. His intuition had been reduced to nothing more than dreams of a common man, among far too many, hoping for something better.
Eyeing the dusty crossbows that had at one time been mechanically triggered to shoot intruders, he had walked from this chamber and would never return. There was no need. Bitterness burned his throat. Disappointment lodged in his stomach and gnawed his insides.
The medallion of the clockwise-etched dragon that clung to his chest swung back and forth with each heavy step as he left this place to the others. There was nothing more for him here. Good fortune would have to wait for another time.
Then, in March of 1990, workers building a highway noticed a strange condition in the soil. A new team of scientists arrived to dig in the fields.
Another special place had been discovered.
And another opportunity had arrived for the archaeologist to test his theory.
Liu removed the top to the porcelain mug Hsu had pressed into his hands, and sipped the warm green tea. Pushing his pack further up his shoulder, he stared at the late afternoon sun, then rubbed his face as if worry could be erased so easily. Turning, he scanned the horizon east of the city of Xi'an.
Over there was where the first emperor of China had chosen to place his terracotta army of 10,000 soldiers in preparation for death. Qin Shi Huang Di had built the Great Wall to protect the lives of his people, but had constructed the 20-square-mile compound for his own protection after his life ended. He needn't have bothered.
But here, at the starting point of the Silk Road, south-west of Xi'an, was the place of Jing Di. And perhaps this time good fortune would arise from the dark and seek the light.
The assistant, Hsu, ran up to him and spoke in rapid staccato tones. The small, old man in black pants, thin sweater and sandals gestured close and animated. "Come quick and see. Quick. It is just finished." He pointed, then stepped behind the archaeologist to watch for a response.
Liu offered a barely perceptible nod and walked to where the old man indicated. Ducking under a makeshift roof held up by wooden scraps used for studs, he gauged his steps in the loose earth. Careful not to disrupt the ledge, he approached the new finding excavated from the tunnel wall. A skeleton, pulled tight as if in a defensive posture, lay face to the wall. Liu knelt beside it with caution and restrained interest.
The skull was broken into jagged pieces. Nearby was a brick.
The old man resumed his quick gestures and rapid discourse with explanation of this event. "An intruder, I think. Someone most unwelcome. Or an accident. Maybe an accident. Maybe it is not. He was not careful. He wished for more than he should have."
"Quiet." Liu spoke harshly. "Your theories are of no interest to me." He dismissed the assistant with a wave of his hand.
Hsu stepped quietly back into the shadow.
Perhaps it was, indeed, an accident. Liu looked about the room and the brush-stroked row of heads that bloomed there. Or perhaps this unwelcome intruder had found more than he had bargained for.
The calendar could not be pushed.
The cycle would soon begin.
This victim had not been the first done in by greed, curiosity, or even vengeance. Grave robbing, it was speculated, had started as far back as the first century, and still continued today. Few had been successful. Far more had lost their lives. Many had even lost their souls.
The philosophy of the elders, and one that had followed since, held that human contact was motivated by self-interest. Here now lay proof of that thinking. Liu stood slowly. He paused, then kicked dust over the intruder.
This week what lay below the land was of more importance than what grew from it. It was a necessary work for survival. An honourable work. But the day was drawing to a close and the farmers would be forced to return to their more meaningful labour.
Liu held back growing impatience that filled his chest and made his head ache. Impatience was unacceptable in this time, in this culture. Urge it away, he told himself, for it cannot win. There is no other way but to let things be as they must.
He could not push the calendar.
Could not… could not.
Sighing deeply, he looked out over the edge of the pit.
The sun had dropped. Bright light from the day now became muted and thick. A hint of pink and orange touched the horizon. A short distance away a small aeroplane taxied down the runway and took to the air. The roar of a modest engine followed seconds later.
Early model Russian cars sparsely dotted the highway that ran near this place. Wheezing engines coughed and sputtered black exhaust. A rare bus passed, filled with passengers. The crowd of people bulged from open windows, others barely clung to handrails that lined the steps to the open door.
Nearby a baby cooed.
He turned his attention to a slender young woman making notes on a clipboard some feet away from the edge of the pit. Her foot gently rocked the tightly bound baby, but her work continued. She never made a sound.
The child was a boy. A son.
He was a son of a long line of sons that had created this place. And he was bound. Swaddled in tight cloth for warmth and safety on this day, he was also enclosed by culture and necessity for a lifetime.
It was a legacy of the ages to be enclosed, walled off by others. Qin Shi Huang Di was the first, having built the Great Wall. Now he rested with his army. There had been another in history who built a line of walls and fortresses for protection. But unlike the creator of the Great Wall, this leader and his followers had coveted the dark. Until now.
Liu turned back to glance into the pit.
While the army of Qin Shi Huang Di for ever rested, perhaps the figures of Jing Di only slept.
He stroked the medallion.
There, in the shadow of the waning day, were the first few. Liu spied row after row of heads led now by a few tiny exposed figures…
Good fortune.
… and walked the narrow path to them.
They were small, much smaller than the terracotta army, and stood only two feet tall. Unlike the sculpted and painted clothes on the armies of Qin Shi Huang Di, these smaller figures had worn garments of silk and other fine materials.
Liu stroked the cold face of a small soldier. Its eyes revealed compassion, the mouth remained upturned ever so slightly in an embarrassed smile. And that one. Here the cheekbones were high, the eyes direct, mouth set. This one was a fighter, determined in a personal goal. Each face was different in their beauty and their varied range of human emotion. There was pride, innocence, high-spiritedness, and there was something else.
Youth.
Liu gasped in recognition and sudden joy.
They were children.
Children. All of them. Offspring. And more important, if he were right, they were descendants. Fathered in mission by Jing Di, these were the minions Liu and the others sought.
The children had waited. Waited for over 2,000 years to come out of the dark.
Liu licked his dry lips and swallowed hard. He had to know if his intuition had steered him correctly this time. The discovery in this pit was far from complete, so if these children slept, they did not sleep alone.
Individually, and collectively — only when they were completely exhumed, brushed free from dirt, and the tiny instruments put away — would they awaken to take their place. Then they would join the vast population of this continent, and the world, to hide in plain sight. And he would be their new leader.
He had to know.
Now.
Reaching into his pack, he produced the four purple candles, arranged them in the star-like shape, then lit them. He pulled a deep breath, stepped back, and called once again upon the four directions to bring these figures to wholeness.
Nothing.
He kept his breath, and whispered soundless hope.
A stirring came then.
An exhalation like muted wind arrived from a distance, but ever so close that he could feel it brush against his cheek.
Far away the howling began. From the four directions a keening travelled close, closer, then converged on a point between the candles. The flames flickered, then went out. Small tendrils of candle-smoke rose and spiralled to the roof of the pit. The sound echoed through the excavated site, then died.
The new cycle had begun.
Liu tempered the small smile on his lips, but in his heart was exaltation. This time he had been right. Still, there was work to be done.
Slowly, ever so slowly, he reached deep into a pocket for a knife. It glittered with the captured lowering rays of sun that would bring about dusk. Closing his eyes, and breathing deep the musky scent of the tombs and newly extinguished candles, he slashed the knife across his open palm. Like the statues void of but one fixed emotion, he clenched his fist, dropped the blade, and approached the figure of the child fighter.
A drop of blood touched the fighter's lips. Then, a second. He moved to the compassionate child, repeated the act, then waited.
His gaze darted from one child to the next.
Unacceptable as the emotion was, he could no longer fight the impatience that grew deep within him. And then he saw it.
The fighter, of course. It pleased Liu the fighter would be the first.
Orange-brown hues in the small terracotta face lightened to grey, then to warmer shades. A hint of blue surrounded the set mouth. The direct eyes turned dark and clear.
Liu touched the young face and felt cold, hard clay begin to warm. The start of a renewed life burned deep within this one.
The compassionate child figure's eyes twinkled with a suggestion of light. New colour touched the upturned smile and spoke of animation as well.
The archaeologist clasped his hands together in reserved delight. The calculations were correct. His dreams, this time, had been accurate and unflinching. The children were awakening from the dark to see the light of his authority. He would lead them to greatness as he deserved. As it was owed to him.
A faint movement in the shadow. Quick. Decided.
The brick crashed down on his head. He crumpled and fell into a tight defensive posture, face to the wall, then looked up at his attacker.
Hsu, the assistant, held the brick high for a second assault if one were needed, then slowly lowered the old weapon. Reaching under his sweater, he pulled out a medallion of a dragon. This one was etched counter-clockwise. He spoke in quiet tones. "It is too soon. The exhumation is not complete."
Liu tried to move, to protest, but his body was unwilling. He stared horrified as Hsu pulled candles out of a satchel, placed them in a single line, then set them ablaze.
The assistant beckoned something unseen, then, palms out, held it back by offering Liu as a companion on its travels.
Liu mouthed the word "no", but the wind had already started. Soon it would touch him. And when the dark came it would take his soul. He would not be the leader of these children as he deserved, as he was owed. The small ceremony performed by the assistant had reduced him to the vulnerabilities of nothing more than a common man among far too many.
"It is finished." Hsu blew out the candles and looked at Liu with pity. "Maybe an accident. Maybe it is not. You wished for more than you should have. It was not the way." The small, old man in black pants, thin sweater and sandals bowed slightly, then kicked dust over the new intruder. He turned and walked from the pit.
The sun dipped behind a hill. Colours on the horizon brightened, then turned dull. Dusk had settled and brought the end of day and a temporary halt to the subterranean work in progress. It was necessary. It was honourable. But it would have to wait.
Growing food for the masses was, for now, more important.
Liu watched through foggy eyes as the little light waned, disappeared, then turned to inky black. Walled in by culture and necessity, he took a final breath.
The calendar could not be pushed. But soon enough, there would be freedom from the darkness. Then, with another more worthy, his child army would awaken.
The trenches were quickly filled in. The pit was covered by sod.
On the surface farmers had begun to sow seed.