“No, but it must. Within the treasure that my master has claimed for the emperor, lies a weapon so powerful that it will yield unstoppable strength to its owner. I have seen it with my own eyes destroy an entire ship with seconds.”
“That is not my concern. I am here to inform you that tomorrow morning you will be executed.”
The man was obdurate.
That night I called for a guard. The man appeared young, maybe less than sixteen years old and of all the sentries I’d seen, this one appeared most ill at ease around the prisoners.
I relayed the story of our adventure to the young man. Where we had been, and what we had seen — and how my master had stayed with the stricken ship to protect the treasure so that the emperor could rule for eternity.
The boy tried his best to explain that he couldn’t help us escape, even if he had wanted to.
He has gone now, but when he returns in a few hours, I will shove these writings into his hand and make him promise to do what I could not, and return for my master.
I only hope that these words will one day lead you to find my master and return the weapon to the emperor.
Sincerely, Rat Catcher.
Chapter Nineteen
The large and cumbersome Chinook had been replaced by the much smaller and agile Bell UH-1Y Venom, AKA, Super Huey. With Tom at the controls, Sam sat comfortably as the craft flew over the Victorian town of Castlemaine and on towards Echuca, where Aliana and his father were waiting for them. They were going to follow Rat Catcher’s original map, from the Southern Ocean all the way back to where the Mahogany Ship had been finally destroyed.
Sam found them sitting by an old, beat up Holden Utility, parked on the edge of town.
“What took you so long?” his father asked.
Sam ignored the question and walked up to Aliana. “I’m sorry to leave you with my dad, but I couldn’t risk Rodriguez finding out I’d escaped.”
For a moment, he thought she might slap him, and even braced himself for the pain.
And then she wrapped her long, slender arms around his neck, and kissed him. “If you ever do that to me again, don’t expect to see me here when you return.”
“I won’t, I promise.”
James loaded the equipment into the helicopter and the team of four carried on towards the Barmah National Park along the Victorian border.
From the air, Sam remembered the story Jie Qiang told of Barloc’s men having attempted to carry the massive ship all the way from the southern coast, in an attempt to cross the enormous land mass and gain latitude. He tried to picture the monstrous ship being dragged over the crest of the hills, and for a moment, pictured creeks and troughs in the mountains as though they were possibly caused by the movement of the ship.
“Let’s have a look at this map,” his father said. “You spent nearly six months in Longjiang, trying to find a lead about this map, and now, you’re telling me one of our enemies found it first?”
“Yes, I know. Jie Qiang told me that he’d heard you talking to someone from his town. It was only then that he realized just how valuable this map really was.”
“Right, well I hope you didn’t pay him too much for it. After all, it’s practically useless, without this map, too,” James said as he pulled out his great, great, Grandmother Rose’s map.
“Let’s hope they’re both right.”
Tom smiled as his eyes skimmed over the map. “I just can’t believe there isn’t a supermarket, or shopping mall, built over the top of it.”
They flew over a number of rivers, including the great Murray-Darling, which Sam imagined had moved its banks many times in the centuries that had passed since the Mahogany Ship was carried through this area.
Still he followed the map, until no more markers were left.
And there, below them, rested the depressed marks of what could only have once been the most extraordinarily large ship of ancient times. No wood remained, and grass and trees had grown where the ship once rested, but from the air, there was still no mistaking this was the final resting place of the Mahogany Ship.
Michael Rodriguez looked at the drawing his great ancestors had made of the Ark of Light, all those millennia ago. It brought back memories of the first time his father told him of his true purpose in life.
That his family had been chosen, thousands of years ago, to look after a sacred artefact that held the key to unlock all of mankind’s unimaginable powers. He still recalled the shame that he felt as his father explained that his family, sworn to protect the scepter, had lost it nearly a six years ago. Followed by the pride to know that he would one day discover it again.
But of course, he had no intention of protecting it. A device that offered such power would surely be a waste to keep buried. No, soon it would be his, and with it, he would introduce a new system of power on earth.
Sam had done just as he wanted, and soon, his father would lead him straight to it.
“Okay, dad, do you want to read out that map of yours for me?” Sam asked, staring at the desolate land around them and wondering how such a monumental historical artefact could disappear into the sands of time, in such a place.
“No need, I’ve read it enough to know it verbatim.”
“All right then, let’s hear it.”
“We need to fly exactly 22 miles due north of the northern tip of the bow of the Mahogany Ship,” James said. “And, before you ask, we’re going to need this to be exact, so let’s work out where the different tips of the ship are.”
“Okay, I think it’s there,” Sam said, pointing to the ground to the right of them.
Aliana leaned over, kissing him on his cheek, and said, “Good guess darling, but I think you’re wrong. Zheng He’s treasure ships had a two-tiered bow, meaning that the deep imprints that we can see now are the main keel, whereas the final southern tip would be another fifty feet back.”
“She’s right son. Didn’t you study archeology or something at some stage as a minor?”
“Egyptology, to be exact — never ancient China.”
Tom banked to the left to make a large circle before starting the trip from precisely fifty feet back from where Sam had suggested the northern tip of the ship had once been.
“Everyone happy?” Tom said.
There was a general murmur of agreement, before they continued on along the treasure hunt.
Aliana picked up and then looked at the old map. “Hey James, what makes you think any of these markers on this map are still there?”
“Because old Jack Robertson may have been a murdering bastard, but as a crooked highwayman he’d been used to burying treasure for years. If anyone knew how to make a map that couldn’t be tainted by time, it was old Jack. Just look at this — all we have to do is find the tip of the highest point inside these three points and then walk north 150 feet. Easy.”
After the 22-mile flight, Tom said, “Now where?”
Sam’s father then pulled out the map that he said he’d memorized and looked at the landscape. “Just hover there for a minute, would you?”
“You’re the boss, James.”
Almost immediately, he put the map down and said, “Okay, take us down, over there.”
Landing on the top of the mountain, Sam used the helicopter’s radar to determine if there was another mountain within fifty miles higher than the one they were on — and there wasn’t. “Well dad, I guess you have a bit more luck this time.”
Together, the four members of the team counted 150 feet, and then stopped.