Chapter 1: With Allies Like These
Hi and welcome back to Tomb Raider: The City of Black Water ^.^ This is a follow-up fanfic to the 2013 reboot of the Tomb Raider franchise, which recasts Lara Croft as a more realistic and vulnerable character than her past reincarnations. I have pretty much no experience in the Tomb Raider canon and lore, and am writing pretty much from my own research into the Tangut Empire (a period of history I've always been interested in) and my experience of the new Tomb Raider game. Lara's new adventure is set in the deserts of China, as she races against mysterious forces to claim a holy Buddhist artifact…
Have fun and any feedback is appreciated, as I'm just a beginner at Tomb Raider stories. ^o^
It was a chilly midnight in Heathrow Airport.
"Luggage all checked in?" asked Samantha tiredly, as Lara slumped down on one of the lounge chairs. The lean and vigorous Lara was in her tank top and khaki, quasi-military trousers and shoes. She was as rough-and-tumble as ever, but retained that quiet air of calm and class, of confidence and courage. Far from a British native, Sam was dressed more warmly, hugging a black jacket to herself with equally leg-hugging jeans and boots. Soon, Lara would have to go through Departures, and the two women were enjoying some final private moments together. Lara would be spared Economy Class, for the Nishimura clan's private jet was awaiting her on the tarmac. All she needed to do was let the immigration officers know exactly who was helping her pull strings.
"Yeah. I didn't take too much. I guess I'm just looking to survive on more than one pair of undies this time." Lara rubbed her nose in tired contemplation, a rare, scholarly gesture as Sam laughed at her dark joke. "I heard it was in the twelfth century – around the year 1124 – that the Tanguts shot to supremacy in Inner Asia. Amidst the sand, oases, and steppe storms of the Silk Road, their elite Iron Sparrows rode handsome, black-mane horses across the plains and overran Chinese and tribes alike."
"Well, that's a good start. I've taken some weight off your back and done more research for you." Sam lifted up a heavy-looking, intimidating tome with the title: A Primer to the Religion of the Western Xia. "This book was written by Professor Zhang Chunghui at Peking University, and I've asked him to save a spot in his schedule for you. Just let him know you're Lord Croft's daughter." She flipped through to her bookmarked page. "Anyway, it was in the reign of Emperor Renzong that Buddhism really became part of the imperial state. According to the Tiansheng code, the emperor had three kinds of priests advising him: Supreme Preceptors, State Preceptors, and Imperial Preceptors – all charged with the task of blessing the empire, warding off enemies, and protecting the royal dynasty from demonic threats.
"Right… and the Buddhism of the Tanguts was a pretty special kind, right?" confirmed Lara, looking up and smiling at Sam. "A mix of Tibetan, Chinese, and native folklore."
"Yeah. And what's really interesting about this Buddhism is that its function was was not so much religious, but protective," noted Sam. "The Preceptors used Buddhism's sacred power to protect and consecrate the country. As long as the holy priests did their duty, the emperor's reign would be long and prosperous, and the country wouldn't fall. And what the emperor relied on most was a sacred head of Buddha, an astronomical treasure simply called the Constellation." Sam raised an eyebrow. "The preceptors used this Constellation, this Buddha head, to protect the emperor."
"This is the crucial link, then. It must be the Tangut Empire's most important artifact. Their holy grail of sorts. A key to a world of unknown mysteries, a world of new discovery and romantic religion and culture," concluded Lara, rising from her seat. She glanced at Sam, who looked away quickly. "Then I guess it's time for me to go," she said quietly. "I've got no time to waste if I'm going to get back into this business."
"It's not too late to turn away from all this," whispered Sam, visibly shivering, as if sensing something terrible was going to happen when Lara stepped on that British Airways flight. "You know what... we could pay a fee for cancelling your flight. You could literally just catch a ride back home with me."
"Hang on, Sam," protested Lara softly. "What are you on about?"
Sam pressed on, ignoring Lara. "And we could walk a different career path together. Where there'll be slight less chance of us being separated so violently. I almost lost my life, but what terrified me even more was the prospect of never seeing you again. To die alone… without anyone… without you. And when you came to save me, I was so terrified they would kill you too."
"It's tempting to stop here. It's not like I don't know fear," replied Lara, shaking her head. "But this… this is what I want." She pulled Sam close, hugging her gently and swallowing a lump in her throat. "We can still see the world together. I'll be your eyes, you know? And one day, you'll see me having so much fun you'll want to join me again. I'll make sure of it." She breathed in her lightly perfumed smell. "So you don't have to come to China this once. But next time, or maybe the time after that, you'll be enticed into joining me."
Sam cupped Lara's cheek with an affectionate hand, staring piercingly into her brown eyes.
"Don't make promises you can't keep, Lara. Don't lie to me."
"Did I lie to you on Yamatai? I would never leave you. I care so much for you it hurts more than you can imagine," insisted Lara, as she cradled the shaking Sam for many long minutes. The Japanese woman's skin felt slightly clammy, as if damp with fear for what could happen to Lara. For her part, Croft hated herself for torturing her like this. But something had changed within her since Yamatai. Staying in the UK probably was not for her. She still had the same urge, the same calm but burning desire, to go travelling. She knew Sam wanted more than anything to go with her too, but the trauma of being captured and nearly losing her life had changed her forever.
And she hated to even entertain such a thought, but a part of her felt relieved that Sam currently had little stomach for adventure. That would mean that she was going to be out of harm's way for quite some time.
"I'm so sorry," whispered Lara. "But like I said, I'm coming back to you, I promise."
"This is the least I could do. To pour in all the resources I still have at my disposal," replied Sam quietly. "To be as loyal to you as Roth was. And I can't help feeling the slightest curiosity at what you might find underneath the ruins of that evil desert. Forgotten dungeons? Palaces? I hate to say it, but… curiosity killed the cat – and we're both very inquisitive cats."
"That's the stuff," declared Lara, grinning cheerfully. Sam stared at her, like a bunny caught in the headlights. But it wasn't a panicked kind of vulnerability, more of a trusting openness that allowed her to bare the entire spectrum of her complicated emotions to Croft. She pulled away, hands trailing along Lara's arms. They stopped at each other's fingers, and lingered on them just for a few unhappy moments.
"Call me when you're in Beijing," demanded Sam.
"Yeah, I definitely will. Well. Then... I guess... See you later, then... good - "
Sam raised her hand, interrupting Lara's awkward farewell. She pressed a finger to her smiling lips. Her message was clear. No goodbye.
Even in the face of evil spirits, they would always be together.
Smiling in touched understanding, Lara released Sam's hand and turned her back. She stole a final glance at Sam, before grabbing her brown backpack and walking past fellow travellers, towards the immigration gate.
Beijing Capital International Airport
The flight was long but very comfortable, and when she stepped out of the jet and stumbled woozily down to plant her feet on the tarmac, a smart-looking Chinese lady in a crisp, black and white office dress was already waiting for her. Lara breathed in a dose of the notoriously foul Beijing air, her eyes meeting those of the woman in tight, black stockings and polished, formal heels.
She was really here. She was in the People's Republic of China. Her new story was about to start; a new world of adventure and odyssey opening its mysteries to her.
The Chinese woman, whose face was sharpened with lean and soaring cheekbones, began talking in slightly accented but fluent English. "My name is Wu Mei. I'm a translator. You're Miss Nishimura's friend, aren't you?"
Lara nodded uncertainly… "Uh, yeah. You're talking about Sam, right?"
"I was hired by Nishimura's company to show you around wherever you want to go in my country." Wu extended a hand, and Lara took it, feeling in her palm a strong, somewhat dominant handshake. "Welcome to Beijing. I was told you're on the trail of Western Xia artifacts. That's a rather unusual choice for adventurers and trekkers, but I'm sure upper crust women like you have their personal interests and quirks."
"Yes," said Lara, feeling slightly uncomfortable and put-off with Wu's unexpectedly forthright and almost confrontational language. Was Wu one of the Communist old guard, who disliked the moneyed classes out of principle? She didn't know that people like these, especially women as young and beautiful as Wu Mei, still existed in this stirring superpower. She shrugged. She wasn't going to let a wannabe cadre of the Party distract her ambitions. "I want to set off for the steppes of Inner Mongolia. But Sam asked me to stop in Beijing first to get up to speed on all the most recent developments in the region, so I don't go in there blind."
Wu nodded. "There are two people we'll need to approach for that. The first is pretty ordinary. Professor Zhang Chunghui is China's foremost – and by foremost, I mean only surviving – expert on Western Xia. He'll take you through essentially everything you need to know about Khara-Khoto – but the second gentleman holds the real grail we need: information about the whereabouts of the artifact you want."
Lara smiled, adjusting her backpack. "Can I be a bit selfish?"
"I thought you might already be, but go ahead," said Wu dryly.
She really doesn't like me that much, does she? sighed Lara silently to herself. "No disrespect to Professor Zhang, but I have a feeling I'd get more answers if I see the second man first. Then we can go see Professor Zhang later."
Wu's sharp eyes glinted. "As brutally honest as any Westerner. Well, don't say I didn't warn you. And don't think ill of me when you see him."
Lara was now genuinely puzzled. What did she mean by those cryptic words?
Just who was she about to meet?
While the grand, majestic Forbidden City is no longer inhabited, like the Palace of Versailles in Paris, it remains a potent symbol of China's history and imperial inheritance, a centuries-old symbol of continuity and culture in the face of relentless change and adaptation. One of these faces of change were the rows upon rows of streets that, in the past, would have been cleared daily to satisfy the Emperor's eyes when he condescended to join the common rabble. Now those streets were lined with bars, pubs, noodle stands, nightclubs that doubled as seedy soliciting joints for prostitutes, and dens for even shadier dealing. Lara was near one of the streets in the shadow of the Forbidden City. She had followed Wu out of their taxi (coughing uncontrollably, as it were, at the suffocating downtown pollution), and walked into a backstreet behind a busy avenue. They turned a grey corner. Then, another. Then, another... until they were standing before a dilapidated, rusty steel door above which hung a fizzling, broken sign reading, "Prosperous Heavenly Unicorn".
"Uh... Wu... what's this?" muttered Lara, her raised eyebrow about to disappear past her brunette's bangs, staring up at the somewhat phallic name of the... "Wait, is this a shop of some kind? A bar? A club? Who exactly are we talking to?"
"None of the above," muttered Wu, fumbling with a pair of keys and unlocking the great, big, primitive padlock that kept the door from screeching open. "You'll see." They walked down the dark staircase that yawned before them, with Lara feeling more nervous by the second. She glanced warily around as the lightless, two-storey staircase opened into a seedy lounge with cheap red light flashing unsteadily from three pairs of corny Chinese lanterns. Their shoes pressed carefully on the smeared, dusty floor. The whole basement looked spacious, but in a state of disrepair. Lara wrinkled her nose instinctively at the heady, misty smoke. She waved her hand, stifling the urge to hold her nose. In the background were muffled, moaning voices - they sounded sexual - were there prostitutes upstairs? "What is this smell? It smells like - "
"Drugs, right?" muttered Wu. "You'll get used to it."
"Which treasure hunter do you bring this time, Wu?" came a sultry, complacent voice. Lara brushed aside the heady incense and smoke before her. She was staring at a slim man sitting on a wide couch, in a crisp white shirt and well-tailored business trousers. His jet-black hair draped down his slit-like eyes, which resembled a malevolent fox's. His irises illuminated by the two golden Buddha statues behind his sofa, and his right hand was a long, slender wooden pipe decorated with a decadent, shining dragon. He crossed his legs, sitting back and almost sinking into his comfortable couch. "Oh, a ponytailed Westerner. We still get them around every now and then. Probably now food for the vultures on the plains of Mongolia."
"Lara Croft," said Wu, before spouting off at the man in a flurry of Mandarin. The sinister man nodded several times, before addressing Lara, speaking in fluent if heavily accented Chinese. "My name is Jin Teng."
"This man would fit right in with your kin, noblewoman," grimaced Wu bitterly. "He is directly descended from the Aisin Gioro clan that ruled China as the Qing Dynasty. They succumbed to revolution in 1912. After their flight from the Forbidden City, they Sinicized their surname to Jin."
"Then you're not Han Chinese?" asked Lara in surprise.
"Correct. I'm Manchu. Sorry to disappoint your expectation of a hair queue." The thoroughly modern Jin Teng raised his pipe to his thin, simian lips, and blew out a puff of intoxicating smoke, sneering with his incredibly narrow eyes at Lara. "I suppose Wu also wants you to see Professor Zhang. You were right to come down into my humble home. Zhang can't tell you much, not by way of useful directions. He is a law-abiding man, and law-abiding men are usually far too poor to buy art. Only those of the underworld know the veins through which artifacts of great price are sold and bought."
"Black market," deduced Lara grimly. Her hands were already at her sides, clenched lightly into fists. She had no gun with her - yet - but now she wondered if it would have hurt to acquire her arsenal earlier. "Why didn't I suspect this earlier? I'm a graduated student, not some undercover cop in a movie." She looked at Wu, bile rising in her throat. "We can't do this. This is ridiculous. I thought we were doing this cleanly."
"That's the point," said Wu, and her voice sounded sincerely regretful. "When it comes to hunting down Chinese art or historical artifacts, there's no such thing as clean."
"I can't believe you know these people," exclaimed Lara. "Druglords? Pimps? Traffickers? Who else is going to join our tour of Khara-Khoto?"
"You and I are the same kind, Miss Croft," proclaimed Jin, prompting Lara to look at him with fury. "The Crofts reaped generous profits from opium. Don't you know your family's history? The eighth Earl of Abbingdon's manor was built on the fortune he made trading with us in Hong Kong and Shanghai. My great-grandfather sponsored his business!" Jin inhaled a breath of the sweet drug languidly. "In the meantime, my own were smuggling and peddling our Emperor's collections to whoever would buy, including the Brits. And now I'm about to tell you what you want to know… how artifacts in this country are lost – and how they're found around the world. In our field of art dealing, there is no such thing as legitimate acquisition."
Jin licked his lips. "You owe me, just like your ancestors owe the Aisin Gioro."
"I owe you nothing, I don't want to know about your past, and we're not doing business," said Lara sharply. "Wu, I can't believe you would bring us here. Apparently, Sam's opinion of you is misguided."
"You have no idea, do you?" laughed Wu, in a shrill voice that highlighted her growing scorn and frustration with her British guest. "You have no idea about the cruelty and disillusionment beyond your sheltered world of champagne and glitter? How do you think people compete to win credit for archaeological discoveries? How do you think we've kept the hateful secrets of unholy artifacts? If Miss Nishimura and Professor Zhang understand the need to talk with those who have the real connections and knowledge, why can't you?"
"Where did you get the idea I was some spoiled brat?" snapped Lara, losing what was left of her patience with Wu. Frankly, she didn't care how the Nishimuras were related to Jin. She had faith that they weren't, and she wasn't naive enough to believe that her forebears had never committed any crimes. She was just getting fed up of Wu's overt dislike of her. Just what kind of people wanted the Constellation? Would they all be prowling Inner Mongolia? "I'm saying I don't trust this man, not that I want to bring some foie gras with me on the trip, okay? What the hell is the problem you have with me?"
"Pay Mei no mind," said the Aisin Gioro calmly, and Wu snorted, skirting Lara's hurt and angry gaze. "As you can see, she is an idealist. One of the last remaining students of Communism. Don't despise her, she gets it from her family. We don't want you to think badly of our country so soon into your expedition!
"But let's be clear, Lara Croft - I know about your misadventures on Yamatai. You only survived because you had no competitors except for a bunch of shipwrecked lunatics." Jin smugly breathed out another puff of opium. "But if you wish to enter the ruins, the dungeons, of Khara-Khoto, you will learn who else is trying to following you. For those people can be even more unsavoury than what you think of me, and the Khara-Khoto dungeons... well. That should also concern you..."
Heart pounding, Lara bit her lip, watching Jin's untrustworthy sneer. She expected getting lost or even fighting supernatural creatures, but black market traders? Underworld crimes? Smuggled artifacts?
"Oh, yes," snickered Jin, his eyes shining even more intensely. "Did you think you were the only one after the Constellation? The Buddha head of the esoteric Tanguts? Please. Mind you, I don't want it, believe it or not. But as you put it, we art smugglers have our own... investment in tracking its location, and your help will do nicely. Come, now. You're British, aren't you? Pragmatic. Don't lose your pretty little head when you have a prize to seize."
Lara glared at Jin, unable to help feeling that Wu had somehow conned her into accepting his unwanted assistance. Did she have any choice? More importantly, was he reliable, or one of the very people hunting the Buddha head?
"Fine. I couldn't care less who you are. Just don't betray me: I don't take well to disloyalty. Now tell me how you can help me get into Khara-Khoto and find that treasure," demanded Lara, her voice loud and clear.
TO BE CONTINUED...
