Kung Fu Panda

Light and Shadow

Chapter XI: Code

I am angry.

First I had to marsh the whole way to this guy and then he keeps me waiting.

I am in something like a camp full with tents, populated by his army.

They remind me of Vachir and his men.

Since the first day I haven't seen anyone special.

Adum is not interesting me.

And they said me that Tian Yi has an important meeting before me.

Who can be more important than me?

I shouldn't have believed this guy.

At the end he lied about my destiny.

It is night and I have nothing better to do than walking through this camp, which is built somewhere in a valley.

At least in this way my sensibility of familiar whirls gets better.

I need less and less concentration to detect the difference between these guys.

In this army are many foreigners.

I sense Rhinos, who are speaking an odd language.

Wolves, with an even more odd language.

Ravens in a familiar language.

And still gorillas, lions, tigers, crocodiles, vultures, bears and even some unknown species like Hippos.

A concentration of the varieties.

Led by a black crab-eating monkey.

This is really extraordinary.

"You must be Tai Lung.", I hear a voice from the side.

There is leaning a white Tiger with a sheathed sword in his hand on a tent pillar. His red eyes have a strange look.

"And you are?"

"My name is Bai Fen, messenger of Tian Yi.", he steps a little closer, "For long I wanted to meet you, the real Dragon Warrior."

I hesitate.

"I am not the Dragon Warrior. Never was."

"Odd. You have given up the title to this big fat panda?"

"You know Po?"

"Met him not long ago."

"For what reason?"

"To deliver a message to him. I don't know why, but Master Tian Yi is somehow interested in this guy."

"I see." I mutter and turn away from him.

"I haven't given up the title, but instead I realized that this is not my way." I add finally.

"And which way is yours?"

I turn my head back.

"This is the question and that is why I am waiting for your master."

"I see." he says lowering his head.

I think the talk is over and want to go, when he stops me.

"My master is ready for you."

"His meeting is over?" I reply still angry.

"Yes. He arrived not long ago. Come with me."

And so I followed Bai Fen.

He led me to a bigger tent than the others.

Inside are a small bed and a table and two chairs. On the table is the Scroll of the Phoenix, a teapot with two cups and a burning candle. Tian Yi is sitting on the chair, from where he can see the entrance.

He is brooding about a piece of paper, while I enter.

Hmm.

I sense something from him. Something odd.

He lifts his head.

"Ah, Tai Lung. Welcome in my tent." he greets me and stands up stretching his arms to the sides, after he put down the piece of paper.

I don't answer this hugging gesture like he wanted it, and that's why he lowers his arms again.

"Sit down, please." he says and points out to the other chair.

I sit down, while he sits down on his.

"Some tea?" he asks me in a completely polite manner, but also completely routine.

"No."

"You have certainly questions." he states the obvious, "Now you can ask them."

"Why have you kept me waiting?" I ask annoyed.

"I said I had a meeting."

"More important than me? Who is it?"

"The Dragon Warrior."

Somehow the mentioning of this is raising my anger.

"I see. The one who had tried to take away his title is not worth so much."

"No, it was a timing thing. I had no time to meet him otherwise."

"And about what were you talking?"

"If he joins our forces. He refused."

"Oh, is that so?"

Good. I don't want to see him. Now.

"And it can be that his friends will make us trouble. I hope I can count on your help in this, my friend?"

"I am not your friend. We are allies for time. As long as my goals are the same as yours, we will work together. Not longer."

"I see."

I look to the Scroll.

"You said, that when I give you this Scroll you would say what my destiny is. I am still waiting."

He chuckles. But different from Thorn. More arrogantly.

"I know. You ought to know what is written down on this Scroll."

"Numbers like you said. Foreign Numbers, which form a code. And this code hides the location of a power, with which I can reverse Thorn's death, when I understood correctly. And more important find my destiny."

"Correct. But to be precise this Scroll should have shown us where a City is located. The City of the Star. And in this city is the power over Life and Death hidden. And also of revive."

Life and Death and Revive? What incredible power. But…

"Does there exist such a power?"

"Yeah, but the one who had hidden it, didn't make it easy for us."

"What do you mean?"

"It appears that this Scroll is only one part of a puzzle. There is a second. And we will marsh to it soon."

"Wait a minute. Before you can tell me what you have found out, I am interested in the how."

"Of course. You see this is no simple code, but a twice encoded code. The first are the numbers. They stand for letters."

"Letters?"

"Letters are the script of a different language. To be precise in this case the language Latin, which is found only in the west. This alphabet is formed out of 26 letters, from which everyone are standing for a specific sound. And when you look more precisely on this Scroll, you will see that there is no number bigger than 26."

"Ah is that so. If I could read this numbers I would approve maybe."

"Oh I forgot about this. It is only important to know, that it so. Believe me with this. I spent years to come to this result. So every of this numbers is a replacement for a letter of this alphabet and now we need only transform the numbers into letters once again. And the result will be this."

He shows me the piece of paper and points out on the upper side:

P H Z J Q G K D E J T Z C C H O W K P S G D O V E P L R J D Z K B S C H S N Y M F V W C Z K G W J B O L E L L E T N W G F Z T E W F D G O C S E W Y A Z S H H N K N S I R W L J K B X C D Z F R P S L K K U H E I Z W F X E L K O F K V D Z Y E T M B X N A E Z H B K R V K H U L J P U K R U P O A A R H U T U P R F C E B S E D E D M C B G Y E G F G H U H P K U R O H Z S U T W C B T V J A A I F G A A Y Z C Q H Q R S G E R G L V B H G P C W T N P I Y O W K A Q R A Y L A Y B N T E Q O Z I Z E K Y B D B N L K P E N L K P X K H V P Q Y O H X M

"And what is this meaning?"

"Nothing. To be more precise rubbish."

"What? This makes no sense."

"Of course it does. I said that it is a twice encoded code. This was only the first decoding. The second is much more complicated. It uses not one alphabet, but 26."

"26 Alphabets? What do you mean?"

"You see the Latin alphabet begins with the letters A B C and so on. But for the coding it was used also the Alphabet which starts with B C and the A is the last letter. And then there is the third alphabet which starts with C and A and B are at the end. And so on until you have all 26 alphabets."

"Okay it is complicated, but I get the main thing in this. But how can this be used for coding?"

"Rather simple. You take a keyword, for example Warrior. And then you have a text, which should be coded. For example: This is a trap. So you use your keyword for all the letters. You take the first letter t. This you want to exchange with a different letter. That's for you use your keyword. The first letter of the key word is W. So you go to the alphabet, which starts with W. And then you go to the same position, where t is in the normal alphabet and uses instead the t, the letter, which is written in this alphabet. This would be the letter P in this case. Then you do this with the remaining letters until you have the coded text: PHZA QG R PRRG. Complete rubbish."

"And how this helps us?"

"When we know the keywords, we can decode this rubbish."

"And we have them?"

"Yes. My uncle had hid them in a melodious prophecy."

He tells me this prophecy.

There is also mentioned a Light. Is this me?

"The most important words of every phrase are the keywords. So Warrior, Dragon twice, Light and Shadow and the remaining. Every word is used as a keyword for a phrase of this Scroll. Now we need only to find out, when another phrase and word begins."

"But this can last long."

"Not when you have a good intelligence group. They have decoded it. It is written down on this paper first in Latin letters and then in Chinese. Look for yourself."

I read the text:

This is the Scroll of the Phoenix and it tells where a city is found.

In this city is a power that even the world would tremble, when it is unleashed.

When you want to have this power you need to be clever and good-hearted.

When you want to find this city you will need to be strong-willed and enduring.

This power is there where peace is home.

"What does this mean? It doesn't tell much about this power. It gives only advices. And an enigmatic answer where it is found. And no word about my destiny." I state annoyed.

"Correct. But it is enough. Although I think this will lead us only to another Scroll."

I read again the last phrase.

"Where peace is home?...The Valley of Peace!"

"Exactly. And there we will go."

"And you believe that this will lead us to another scroll?"

"Probably. The melody has 14 phrases, but for the encoding I needed only 5. So there need to be more Scrolls, which need to be decoded. Maybe three in total."

"Is that so? Then I know where the second Scroll is."

"You know? That is fantastic. It will cost us less time to find it. Where is it?"

"First I need to know: This should lead me to my destiny. But it doesn't tell us what my destiny is in the first place. So how this fits together?"

"We will know your destiny, when we find the city."

"That is not what you have promised."

"No, but I didn't know that there are more than one scroll either. But you heard the melody: You are the Light. Even your friend Thorn acknowledged this. And the Light has an important role in finding the City."

Somehow it still not sounds satisfying.

"I bet that your destiny is to achieve something great. No I can guarantee it. When we find this City and its power, we will change the face of this world forever. We will shape this world to a better place for everyone. And you will be the hero, who had accomplished this. You will be known for eternity."

Thinking about this makes me proud. I will be the Great Dragon, Tai Lung, if now with the title of the Dragon Warrior or not. This is my destiny. Yes.

But something is disturbing still.

"And what will you be?"

"I? I am fate. I lead you only on your way. Fate doesn't need glory."

To be continued in Chapter XII: Meeting


"Kung Fu Panda" (c) DreamWorks Animation

I own nothing except for the written word.
Characters you don't know are from me.

Somehow the break didn't last as long as I imagined. :D
For further explanation of the decoding/encoding stuff see in wikipedia: Substitution Cipher and Polyalphabetic cipher