Day followed day as they passed through a moonscape of ragged sere cliffs and sand bluffs.
For all of one stage the camels trudged through a salt-encrusted surface of hard-packed clay, what remained of the inland sea Lop Nor. The spongy grit slowed them and made them spit harshly. At one point Su stopped the caravan while chunks of salt were lifted and stowed for later use.
Occasionally there were old watercourses, meandering to peter out among the sand-blown flatlands with relics of past times of plenty – low thorny bushes, stunted clumps of wiry grasses, bleached skeletons of long-ago tree life.
The heat rose and the stony plains shimmered and rippled into an uncertain distance, each plodding pace an effort of will, the only distraction the occasional whirlwind of sand moving over the ground like a dancing ghost.
How Su could make out where to go in the stony wastes was beyond Nicander. If it was by recall, he would need to remember hundreds, thousands of miles of a featureless landscape from all perspectives and all seasons – or was it by some other way, perhaps watching the angle of the sun, the stars at night?
One afternoon the camels imperceptibly quickened their pace, raising their heads and snorting. They came upon a small group of wells, each some four feet across, and with age-withered fitments including ropes and buckets.
The caravan stayed several hours, sitting under makeshift awnings while the animals took their fill. However, this water was brackish and no one felt inclined to drink it.
Then it was the dunes again – a broad tongue of the Taklamakan that had to be crossed before the Gobi beyond.
The camels wound up into the maze of vast dunes, picking their way along the crests and into the hollows between in patient, slow steps.
The yellow-grey sand was an endless succession of immense curved waves, shimmering in the heat. There was no rest, Su was anxious to be quit of the soft dunes.
At last they subsided and quite abruptly terminated in a vast wall.
The caravan wound down on to the flat desert floor and Su called a halt, then climbed to the top of the tallest dune.
‘We overnight here,’ he announced bleakly when he descended.
It had been some time since he had last been this way and the dunes had shifted inexorably forward. Not only that, but their shape was now quite different and they were without any kind of track or sign. After the traverse, the waterhole he had expected was not there.
They were lost.
As the camp soberly prepared for the night, Su rode out on a tarpan. He returned just before dark set in, his face long.
The travellers turned in early; who knew what lay in store for them the next day?
Even before the stars had left the sky the caravan was assembled and ready to depart. Su looked gaunt as he went over his orders yet again for the conserving of water and protection from the sun.
When it became light enough to see he would have to decide the heading: his choice would save them or doom them to a slow death.
The order was made. To the east, toward the orb of the dawning sun.
It was a different, bleaker landscape. The sand was swept clean from the desert floor; they now faced a stippled plain of stones – not the familiar water-rounded ones about a river but sharp, many-coloured gravel.
A wind arose that whipped up spiteful sand particles, stinging exposed flesh and working into clothing.
They pressed ahead. Beside Nicander, Meng Hsiang paced on, his uncomplaining calmness a reassurance, a fellow living creature who was not intimidated by their peril. There were lessons to be had even from a beast of burden, and he vowed to bring it up with Dao Pa – when he could find him.
He reached out and patted the big flank.
Out of the distance huge vertical forms coalesced out of the haze. Thrusting up out of the flatness of the desert, fluted and pillared, these seemed like the very bones of the earth rearing up.
The caravan reached the monoliths, the travellers awed by their majesty and height, their untouchable silence. They threaded through and Su called a halt in the shade of one.
They dismounted, and as if there were safety in numbers, stayed together and sipped from their gourds.
‘We can’t go on like this!’ one of the merchants moaned. ‘While we’ve got the chance we should take it.’
‘What’s that, then?’ Korkut grunted, looking up from his seat on a rocky slab.
‘Accept that we’re lost. Turn round, go back and over the dunes. Then at least we’ll know where we are.’
‘Su knows what he’s doing,’ Zarina said. ‘I trust him to get us through!’ The desert had not been kind to her: dust-blown, her clothes worn, she was not the sparkling dancer of some nights before.
‘If he does, then why are we lost?’ the merchant came back instantly. ‘To go back we lose a few days, but to go forward without knowing—’
‘He’s striking out until he finds the track he knows,’ Korkut snapped. ‘Let him get on with it!’
‘Why should we all …’
Nicander wandered away from the bickering, remembering his foreboding
as they left Chang An. He stared up at the forbidding monoliths and wondered at their meaning. Were they emerging from some subterranean hell into the world of man, a fearsome token of the diabolic realm of devils and demons – or were they the cast-down remains of giant columns that once reached into heaven?
A memory of his mother squeezed at his heart. It was so unfair; that he had shortly to lay down his life in this—
There – in the shadow under a rock slab …
‘Dao Pa! You …’
The man was sitting cross-legged, his hands in his lap cupped and facing upwards.
‘Where’ve you been? I’ve been asking—’
He turned slowly. ‘Solitude is the highest blessing to the soul. Grant that I may so take of it.’
‘Master, we’re in such danger and you need to be alone?’
‘You think deliverance is to be found in the company of others in like affliction? You may share their bitterness, they may feel yours – but a true release is only to be found within yourself. To understand your place in the Tao, to have your being at last one with the universe.’
‘When we face … what we do, you still find time for such?’
‘What better? Tell me; in your philosophy, Ni
lao na,
what course do you take when all else is in vain and hopeless?’
‘We …’
‘Then preparing the soul for what must come seems to me the more rational course.’
‘Yes, Master,’ Nicander said humbly.
‘There are powers within, that you are unaware you possess. Together we will realise them.’
‘We have no time.’
‘Rest your fears. Su is right – soon he will find an oasis of running water and the knowledge of his position. We will have time.’
‘What! How can you know this?’
‘You have much to learn, Ni
lao na,
but you will achieve it. And now, for myself I crave the benison of meditation.’
He raised his head and closed his eyes.
The caravan got under way at first light, still eastwards. They would proceed on until the last possible minute of daylight before stopping on the flatness between two monoliths.
After an uneasy night they resumed their onward toil. The monoliths were left behind and the landscape became overlain with undulating ripples of hard-packed sand and further on, the fantastic sight of a fleet of sculpted rock formations, streamlined and sleek.
Too troubled to wonder at them the lonely caravan moved on into ragged, red-streaked sandhills, even the camels making heavy going of it. They had reached a gully between two lesser ranges when Meng Hsiang gave a low growl, a long purring grumble. He tossed his head, snatching at the head-rope, showing the whites of his eyes.
‘Steady, there,’ Nicander said, uneasy about what unseen threat out in the savage wilderness had alarmed him. He went to pat the big muzzle but it was jerked away. He heard other snorts and gnarls behind and realised the whole camel train was disturbed. A stab of fear went through him.
A little further on they came across it. A field of bones. Bleached a glaring white, obscenely protruding from rags and the mummified remains of bodies half-covered in sand, camel skeletons each arched back the same way at the agonising moment of death, their burdens still tied on them.
There was no pattern to it – the bodies lay at random in all directions. Had they kept together to the last and then … crept away for their final minutes under the pitiless sky?
Gulping, he went to the nearest human remains and stared down at the untidy body. The skull still had hair plastered on a leathery skin, the desiccated face leering at the world that had taken its life.
‘Poor devil,’ he whispered. ‘How long have you been here?’
‘You never can tell.’ It was Marius, standing behind him. ‘The desert dries
’em out, then leaves it alone. Could be one year, a hundred. Who knows.’
‘We could be joining them, my friend.’
‘Yes, possibly. Doesn’t mean we give it away before we have to? Come on, Nico. Think what we’ve got in our little chest there. Some day …’
He couldn’t find words and turned away.
There was a knot of people around Su, shouting at him in despair and anger. The voices carried clearly – Su was arguing that this only proved they were on the right track, that this was where other caravans passed, just that this particular one was ill-prepared.
He set the camel train in motion again, the imperative of survival taking priority over the impulse to provide a decent burial.
They had left the bone-field far behind but Meng Hsiang was still not happy. His eyes were rolling and he was jibbing. After what he had just seen Nicander was full of dread and the fear of the unknown returned.
The camel wrenched at his rope, snarling in temper and frustration. Nicander tried to calm the beast.
There was shouting at the head of the line and the caravan stopped. Unbelievably he saw that the cameleers were throwing off the nose-peg ropes to let the animals free. As each camel was released it made off at an ungainly lope into the sandhills on the right and disappeared.
From the crest of a nearby coarse, sandy hummock Nicander marvelled at the sight. A sizeable streamlet glittering and lazily meandering before him. And along the bank was green –breathtaking, beautiful, unbelievable green!
He and the others, delirious with the joy of life restored, were soon gulping greedily at the runnels of water.
The camels were in a solid line, splashing and slurping, giving rumbles of contentment and flicking water over themselves. They had been saved – and it had been the camels who had been the means.
They had been travelling so many miles in the gully, not knowing that running parallel, only a short distance away, was water and life. What cruel circumstance had meant that for the other caravan, the wind on that day had chosen to blow in the wrong direction, that their camels had not
picked up on the scent of water, while this day theirs had?
Now Su knew where they were. Impatiently he drove the caravan across the braided stream. Then they followed the river for another five miles before they were presented with an even bigger miracle. The oasis village of Yu Li.
Willows, poplars – trees! Growing along the banks and pathways – and an orchard!
Men came out, advancing on the caravan – women too, laughing faces. Stalls of bright melons were wheeled into place under the shade of the poplars, with much chattering, greeting, calling.
The oasis had been planted centuries before, in the time of the Han when caravans traded across immense distances to bring wealth to China and needed fresh supplies and water. That it was situated on the edge of the hideous Gobi was no supernatural feat – all it had needed was the miracle of water. The natural fertility lying waiting in the soil did the rest.
There was even a caravanserai! This far from civilisation it would be too much to expect all the comforts of home but to those emerged from the valley of death it was heaven.
And they would be resting here for a whole three days!
That night as Nicander lay staring up at the smoke-grimed roof, he forgave them everything, even the red-eyed cockroaches as long as his finger, and jumping spiders with bodies as big as pigeon’s eggs. He just wished he couldn’t hear the crunching of their jaws as they took their prey.
‘It’s the toughest of all, no doubt about it,’ Korkut told Nicander and Marius. ‘When we pass through the Shuan Ch’eng range we’ll be in the Black Gobi, and that’s flat all the way, completely open to the worst from the north.’
‘It’s late in the season, too, dear,’ Zarina said. ‘But once we’re through to Turfan it’s much easier.’
Korkut grimaced. ‘Hm. Su heard a rumour that the Mongols are out. That I don’t like!’
‘He said that we’re going to move as fast as we can,’ his wife added.
‘Meaning it’s up early and flogging all day until the last of the light. I’m already feeling it. Perhaps I’m getting too old for this kind of thing.’
The road petered out and once again they were moving over the trackless plain, towards a distant blue-grey rumpled line. In the clear desert air distance was deceptive and it was not for another stage that they had reached the foothills of the range. The peaks were abrupt and craggy with long scree slopes. Su led the camel train through a gloomy defile, its walls sheer and forbidding.
On the other side were uplands populated with jagged boulders, and then another stone-strewn range with a gorge appeared.
As they passed through the ravine, they were met with a wind that set everyone’s clothing a-flutter. Down on the level ground it eased off. The
landscape was now utterly featureless. Not a hill, a dune or even a distant range, simply an iron-flat stony plain reaching out into the limitless distance.
They tramped on.
The wind picked up with force. It had a coolness in it that was strangely disturbing in the still fierce heat of the sun out of the cloudless sky. With nothing to deflect it, it came in flat and hard, making the camels lurch and stumble. It stung exposed skin with sand and rock particles, whipping mercilessly. Nicander wound cloth around his face and kept his hands inside his robe. He tried to lean into the wind but within a short time it was impossible to move.
The camels knelt down and Nicander and Marius took shelter in the lee of the big bodies, so close they could smell their rank but comforting goat-like smell. Ying Mei and Tai Yi could not be seen through the dust.
The sandstorm passed as quickly as it had arisen. Spluttering and protesting, the camels got to their feet with their riders and the caravan got under way again.
Nicander was taken aback at the sight that met his reddened eyes. On the next camel in front the familiar structure of the howdah was missing, ripped away by the force of the wind. Between the humps was a hunched figure, ragged strips of clothing streaming out in the last of the wind. Another bedraggled figure trudged gamely along beside.
He’d never given much thought to the howdah before; but he now realised it must have been a never-ending nightmare in that lurching, swaying, broiling prison. Yet Ying Mei had always come to the evening fire looking fresh and cool. What torments this noble lady must be enduring!
They set up for the night, the usual desert evening chill an icy breath that came out of nowhere, sending everyone scrabbling for their sheepskins and impatient for a hot supper.
The crew came around with iron pegs for the tents. All eight guys were rigged on each side and fully tensioned.
Soon after midnight the wind got up again, waking Nicander. The sides
of the tent began flapping and banging in a terrifying bluster. The wind then turned to a devilish shrieking and the agitated flailing became a vicious thrashing.
With it was a cold that despite his layered clothing pierced his innermost being, leaving only a tiny point of warmth remaining. For hours he lay awake, frightened and shuddering with the cold.
Before first light, the order was given to form up ready as soon as a quick meal was taken. While the tents were struck by the crew, just moving shapes in the gloom, no one spoke for the misery of it all, the need for endurance. Surely this howling wilderness could not last for ever …
The first needle-sharp rays of sunlight appeared and they were off once more. The sun rose higher and the icy cold turned to baking heat. A general halt was called to change clothing and then it was onward, always onward, through the unvarying dreary flatness.
The sun dipped in the west and another dramatic desert sunset began building. Marius peered into the distance and growled, ‘Something over there!’
With a lurch of unease Nicander spotted a series of black objects on the skyline.
Shouts of alarm came from up and down the camel train as the numbers grew.
An urgent order to halt went out.
Soon half the horizon was filled. There was now no doubt – these were a murderous horde of Hsien Pei Mongols on the move.
‘Why have we stopped?’ Nicander blurted. ‘We’ve got to get away!’
‘Su’s right. While we’re stationary there’s no dust being kicked up. Maybe we’ve got a chance of not being noticed,’ Marius said, steadily watching.
‘Our escort …?’
‘Haven’t a chance. That’s cavalry, over firm ground, no cover. We’ll be cut to pieces without mercy.’
‘So we’re … doomed?’
‘Depends. If we offer to surrender – and if they take it, well, we may
get away with slavery o’ some kind, but if they’re in a murdering mood, I suppose …’
Nicander watched the slowly moving host in a chill of horror. They were angling away as if to cut them off – but why weren’t they thundering in at speed?
Up and down the line people watched transfixed like statues: there was nothing they could do to save themselves against the brutal flood.
The glorious sunset was shining full on the horde. It picked up an occasional flash of steel, the different horse colours, one or two banners – all pitilessly illuminated in grim detail. But still they made no move to ride in for the kill.
The tension was unbearable. Through Nicander’s mind stampeded images of the Ostrogoths’ cruel and barbarous attacks. Surely he had not been spared their callous butchery to face his end here in this hell on earth?
Marius stiffened, then turned to him with a twisted smile. ‘So o’ course, we just wait it out. They’ll be off soon and we can get back on the trail,’ he added off-handedly.
‘What are you saying?’ Nicander said incredulously.
‘Well, any fool can tell we’re right in the eye of the sunset. So they can’t see us, can they?’ He gestured out behind them to where the final minutes of the sun’s glory blazed out.
Su waited a full hour after the Mongols had passed out of sight ahead before giving the order to set up for the night. But there would be no hot food or drink, for no fire dared be lit that might draw attention. As the icy chill stole in everyone crept into their tents in dread of the fearful horde somewhere out there in the night.
The next morning some wondered whether it was wise to continue in the same direction as the Mongol horde, but Su pointed out that the slow-moving caravan would never catch up with their steppe ponies.
The wind started up again, a hard blast that blustered and stung. Nicander felt a grudging admiration for the little figure on the camel ahead, hunched and enduring as the wind plucked and battered. This was suffering indeed and should never be expected of a woman, let alone a gentle-born one. There was
nothing now he and Marius were taking that she was not sharing, and she had never once complained.
After two more days there was a subtle change in the desolate landscape: a golden-yellow sand was appearing.
It pleased Korkut. ‘Praise the gods! This is Taklamakan sand, but from the Tien Shan mountains. We’re nearly through to Yi Wu and from then on it’s much easier.’
Nicander remembered being told that where the Kunlun mountains flanked the southern side, the Tien Shan stayed with the north – it meant that they were well on their way to having crossed from one side of the Great Desert to the other, and there it would be the famed oasis kingdoms to welcome them.
The sprawling golden-yellow dunes increased and then they were back on the softness of sand.
It was not long, however, before Nicander sensed there was something affecting Meng Hsiang. Not in the same way as when he had smelt water but there was an uneasiness, a restlessness. His big head swung this way and that, and he gave out occasional drawn-out rumbles.
‘I think old Meng Hsiang is having a fit,’ he called across to Marius.
‘Can’t be the Mongols, he didn’t worry about ’em last time. Or the water – didn’t they give him a swill before we started out?’
Their stout-hearted beast had never let them down. ‘He’s on to something, and I don’t know what it is. I don’t like this, Marius!’
Whatever it was, the whole camel train was getting infected. Up and down the line there were tossing heads, ill-tempered snarling, and then the caravan came lurching to a stop.
Nicander shook his head. ‘What’s got into them?’ There was nothing ahead that looked like a threat.
Then the camels jostled together, knelt down and lowered their heads, thrusting their noses into the sand and sending up snuffling fountains.
Alarmed shouts rang out. Korkut began hastily winding a cloth around his wife’s face and others were doing likewise in a frenzy.
Seemingly out of nowhere, a long wall of ochre dust and cloud towering up to the sky, dark and whirling, was advancing over the ground towards them, swallowing up everything in its path.
‘Sandstorm. Get something over your eyes and mouth – quickly, Nico!’ Marius cried. There was no time to look to the others.
They threw themselves down against the camel. A fitful wind started, then rapidly grew stronger, spitefully whipping up sand. Then in a sudden buffet the storm struck. In an instant they were plunged into a chaos of darkness and a hot whirling fury that howled and battered at them.
Nicander choked and gasped as dust and sand was driven into his hair and clothing and every crease and orifice. He felt a drag on his legs and realised he was being slowly buried in sand. He kicked out and tried to rise but his senses were disoriented by the whirling chaos and he fell to his hands and knees, crowded and bullied by the howling storm.
It was difficult to think: the overriding imperative was to find the camel again – if he was driven away it would be into the fearful desert where he would be lost for ever. He crawled one way. Nothing. Then he tried another direction and to his intense relief found he was clutching Meng Hsiang’s front leg. He hauled himself along and buried his face in the thick fur of the neck, revelling in the pungent smell.
He clung there while the whistle and roar of the tempest went on and on but then quite as suddenly as it had come, it weakened and died. Nicander snatched a glance around him. The air was still full of dust-smoke but as it cleared the still forms of the camels could be seen, half-buried in sand piled up on one side. Here and there things began to move, ghostly shapes throwing off powdered sand.
Marius heaved himself up, spitting and swearing while Meng Hsiang spluttered and lifted his head, shaking it vigorously and snorting loudly.
Nicander stood up too and heard a harsh, barking cry. It was Tai Yi, in a frenzy by their camel. In a stab of foreboding he stumbled over.
‘She’s there, in there!’ Tai Yi sobbed, scrabbling frantically. Ying Mei had gone the wrong side of the camel and been buried somewhere under the slope of sand.
Nicander pushed Tai Yi aside. He bent down and with his legs astride, paddled the sand clear in a continuous stream until he found a limb and knew where her head must lie. He shifted along and did it again. There was movement: he scooped quickly each side. Ying Mei’s arching body then heaved clear, her head hanging while she choked and retched.
She twisted around. Her wild, dust-smeared face stared up at Nicander then crumpled in emotion. Tears slashed streaks through the dust. Impulsively Nicander held her – she clung to him, whimpering while he smoothed her gritted hair and tried to find something to say.
Then he felt a determined grip on his shoulders, pulling him away. Ying Mei held on desperately, clutching at him as though to life itself, while the sobs racked her slight body.
‘My Lady! My Lady – please!’ Tai Yi admonished. ‘Do remember who you are!’
Ying Mei fell free and dropped to the ground.
Tai Yi then said firmly, ‘That’ll do, Ni
sheng
. We’ll call you if you’re needed.’
‘No,’ Ying Mei said in a weak voice.
‘My Lady?’
She heaved herself to a sitting position, her face smeared, her clothing torn and ragged, a pitiable innocent taken by the sandstorm now unrecognisable as the Lady Kuo of Yeh Ch’eng.
Taking a shuddering breath she cried, ‘I can’t go on like this any more, Ah Lai, I just can’t.’
‘My Lady – it won’t be like this for ever. Su
sheng
said that—’
‘No, it’s not that at all. Dear Ah Lai! Can’t you see? I can’t face being a lady any more. I can’t!’
‘My child, you shouldn’t take on so. It’ll be better …’
Ying Mei tried to smooth her tangled hair then replied, ‘Ah Lai, I know. But you see, if we had a full court, attendants and the rest I could do my duty by my father, but out here in this frightful desert …’
‘Nonsense! You are born and bred a Kuo of illustrious ancestry. This can never be—’
‘No, I’m decided.’
‘My Lady?’
‘That I want to be among friends! Those who are as frayed and tattered as I am, that I don’t need to put on my airs.’
‘Child, this is—’
‘To talk with them, bear these hardships together, enjoy things – surely you must understand, Ah Lai?’
‘I don’t.’
‘I wish to be just Ying Mei to everyone from now on.’
Tai Yi froze in horror.
She gave a shy smile at Nicander. ‘And I shall call you, let me see, Ah Yung – the brave one. Who I do now thank for my deliverance.’
Then she turned to Marius. ‘And this is Ah Wu, the fierce one.’
‘My Lady, this is—’
‘Ah Lai!’ she warned, then relented. ‘Only for now, I promise. When we’re in … different circumstances I vow, I’ll behave like a high-born again.’