Authors note: Well, after wrestling with the idea again, I decided, what the heck, so here's chapter one. Oh yeah, be warned, this bit has shouen-ai. (Sorry if I spelt that wrong.) I added this warning later as to begin with, I didn't want them (you'll find out who) having a relationship like that but…what can I say? stories have a life of there own.
Disclaimer: I own nothing at all and am not connected in any way to characters or some facts in this story. (Apart from writing them down in my own words.) So no one sue me.
The engine was humming outside, the overhead light flickering, everything was calm and peaceful. Except for me.
Nervously I began jiggling my foot as the plane flew steadily onwards, thinking of what had occurred over the last couple of days.
First of all there was the matter of the Xian. I grinned slightly. The famous artefact, and I would be the first one to find it. The ancient dagger, with incredible power…but (and here I frowned) there had been the dreams.
For several days before the man had come to hire me, and even yesterday evening, I had been having the same dream. I would be standing there, on the right hand side of an imposing man, a man dressed in a short silk tunic and long silk trousers. This man was armed only with a dagger, but he never used it on someone else, he would simply take it, and stab himself in the heart.
Then I would feel the grief, the terrible agonising grief as the man before me was born away to a resting place deep in the lost city.
And every night I would wake up, sobbing and crying, shaking and calling out a name I had never even known. I didn't scare easily, but this sent chills down my spine.
Next was the problem of how to find the dagger, after all, the great wall of china is not called the "great" wall for nothing. How was I even supposed to begin the search? I didn't know. But my instincts told me to start searching in the centre, and in my job, you trust your instincts.
I sighed, and leaned back in my seat, relaxing a little now I had thought about both problems. Slowly my eyes began to close…
****************
The wanderer, he was nearly here, soon they would be
united again and the power would be unleashed from the dagger. The man heading
here may not know who he truly was, but he would show him, teach him once more
about his inner self, the magic he possessed.
They would be re-united at last.
***************
I sat up with a gasp, what the hell had just happened? Then I sat back slowly, feeling drained and emotional all at once. I had had another dream, but this time, it had been different.
I had not been standing next to the man of the other dreams; he had been standing in front of me, eyes burning with desire. I shivered as I remembered that look. Then he had touched me.
Now, I was really beginning to get worried about my sanity, see, I had had dreams before (haven't we all?) But not of that sort, sure, dreams of fame and glory, but never…that.
I shivered again and pulled my travel blanket up to my chin. I stayed that way for ten, maybe fifteen minutes, before I realised that I was acting like a baby. I was an adventurer! You don't get scared by dreams!
"Are you ok Mr Maxwell?" came the voice of the air stewardess.
"What? Yes I'm fine, but do me a favour will you? Could I have some coffee?"
"Certainly."
As she turned away, I set my mind to contemplating the dream again, its meaning, what it had to do with my mission.
I knew that I would not get to sleep again that night.
*******************
"Cheers mate." I called over the noise of the helicopters blades, "See you in three days ok?"
The pilot waved a hand in casual consent, and began the laborious climb back up to the open sky.
I took a deep breath and turned away from watching it's jerky spiral, willing my self not to wave it back and tell it to take me home.
********************
"Oh yuck, three years I've been doing this, and STILL I get the heebie jeebies about a bunch of skeletons." I grumbled to myself, trying desperately to out-shout the ominous silence that lurked, threatening to become overpowering if I didn't keep talking…to myself. Hmm.
"Yick, yick, yick. More cobwebs." I paused for a moment in my rant, to wipe them off my fedora hat. "You'd think they'd keep this wall a bit cleaner on the inside, I mean honestly…"
An ominous rumbling from the passage ahead once again broke me off.
"Oh SHIT!" I cried, as a huge stone ball came bouncing down towards me, crushing anything in its path.
I ran desperately, trying to escape from it, eventually, just when I thought I was going to faint with exhaustion, I saw a side passage, dodging in, I waited until the ball had rolled past, before looking around.
I was not, as I had first supposed, in a passage. Instead I was in a huge stone hall with vaulted ceilings and painted walls. In the centre of the room was a large stone bier, and on it was a human form.
As I walked towards it, I marvelled how it had been preserved. The human on it looked as though it were asleep.
Then, when I had reached the side, I mounted the steps and looked down at her, no him, and nearly screamed.
It was the man from my dream.
**************
He had returned, the one could sense him, standing over
him. Looking down. Sense his fear, as he recognised him, though perhaps not
from this life…