The ultimate artifact.

Thomas Stratton had never imagined anything so macabre. It was hideous, a loathsome caricature of life, a rotted monster that did not belong on this verdant hillside, David's place.

No one would ever know what secrets the emperor's alchemists had employed to prepare him for eternal reign. But they had failed. They had not cheated time, but perverted it. A mummy can have dignity, like a man making his own grave.

Wang Bin's emperor had none. It was a green-tinged parody of empty sockets, spore-covered bones, shreds of dusty silk and a rictus grin.

For this abomination men had died. David had died. Stratton would die.

Drenched, fatigued, bleary, Stratton looked up at Wang Bin. "Why?" he ask feebly.

"Think, Professor. As a student of history, as an observer of mankind." He held the rope and the gun where Stratton could see them. "You know what this is, Professor. It is the most cherished archaeological treasure in all China. Its value is both symbolic and very real. It is-truly-priceless. My government-"

Wang Bin caught himself, smiled self-consciously. "Excuse me, my former government will do anything to recover this artifact. It will do anything, in fact, to conceal the circumstances of the theft. You see, Stratton, in China the scandal would be more of a calamity than the actual crime. There is no limit to what my former colleagues might do to prevent such a thing."

"So you're a blackmailer, too," Stratton said derisively.

Wang Bin stiffened. "I am not familiar with that term," he replied, testing the rope with a sharp twitch. "However, I do intend to seek what is due to me after a lifetime of devotion."

"The soldiers weren't enough?"

"Think, Stratton. There are seven thousand celestial soldiers. There is only one imperial casket. There is only one… " His voice trailed off in the night. His eyes fell to the grave, gazing at the withered creature within.

Stratton watched the gun and waited.

"By now they know," Wang Bin said smugly. "The comrades know of my achievement.

They know what they must do, for I left precise instructions. The men who would have purged me are the same men who will beseech me for this treasure. They will pay enormously for my future comfort, and for my silence. And, in return, I will give them back their precious little corpse."

"And then you disappear?"

Wang Bin nodded. "I disappear from history. My name will never again be mentioned in Peking. Those who worked with me… I cannot say what will become of them. The comrades who pursued me, however, will certainly suffer. They were too slow and much too stupid. Their defeat and humiliation is my vindication, Stratton. That much even you can understand."

Stratton understood. He understood why the celestial soldiers were not enough.

He understood the genius of the crime, the genius of the vengeance.

And he knew why Wang Bin-so small and unimposing-frightened him so.

"Close the coffin now," the deputy minister ordered. "Remove it from the grave."

"I can't."

The rope cracked. Stratton was on his toes, then peddling in the air, gulping for breath. Then he was on his knees, on all fours. Dizzy. Dying.

David, help me.

"Now," said the brother. "Remove the emperor's coffin!"

"No."

For this Thomas Stratton would not die.

With all his strength he hurled a wet handful of dirt in Wang Bin's face and dove across the grave with a scream.

Sometimes you have to take a shot. It was something you were taught but never spoke of. Sometimes the only remote chance is to give the enemy one shot and hope to survive it. Bobby Ho had remembered, there on the bloody stage at Man-ling.

Diving low, Stratton survived because Wang Bin made a mistake. Logically, he should have jerked on the rope with all his weight; that would have snapped Stratton's neck.

But Wang Bin chose the gun instead. He fired reflexively, and missed by a hair's breadth.

The bullet scored the top of Stratton's shoulder and exploded in the grave behind him. When Stratton hit Wang Bin, the almond eyes were riveted in horror-not at his assailant, but at the coffins.

Then they fought along the rim of the pit. They fought like the maniacs they were, with hands and feet and teeth: Stratton younger, heavier, but exhausted;

Wang Bin possessed of unquenchable fury.

Stratton finally saw it-a slow-motion frame-as they teetered on the lip, Wang Bin's hands like talons on his neck.

The bullet meant for Stratton had found another target: the emperor's skull.

After twenty-two centuries his warriors had failed him. A traitor's gunshot had reduced the legend to an anonymous pile of powdered bone.

Not for that.

I will not die for that.

With power he had never known, Tom Stratton ripped free of Wang Bin's clinch.

With the heel of his right hand he delivered a killing blow beneath the old man's chin, a blow that would paralyze the nervous system in the microsecond before it broke the neck.

Stratton hurled Wang Bin into the grave and fell back in the mud.

It was the rain that roused him-fresh rain, thunder and the wind that scoured his wounds, pierced his lethargy. Stratton was sick again. Then, as recognition returned, he cautiously crawled to the edge of the grave.

Wang Bin had joined his emperor forever.

He had crashed on his back into the coffin, smashing beneath him the delicate, lacework-gold bier. The impact had jarred the coffin off the rock and sent it sliding down the slope, back into the muddy tomb.

With a grunt, Stratton reached down and slammed the lid of David's casket, sealing the two sleepers. Then, determinedly, ignoring throbbing limbs and a bloody shoulder, Stratton set to work.

He had been digging for ten minutes when he heard the sounds. Stratton wiped the water from his eyes and paused to listen: branches chattering in the wind. What else could it be?

Stratton had covered the entire coffin with a foot of wet red earth when he heard it again.

Faint raps. Then a clawing, a muffled disturbance: the scuttle of rats in a barn.

It came from the grave.

Wang Bin was alive.

His body quivering, the rain cascading off his back, Stratton bent for a long and horrible moment over the shovel.

Rap. Rap.

"No!" Stratton screamed. "No! No, you!"

He shoveled relentlessly then, with black fear and desolate conviction. Dig.

Lift. Throw. Dig. But don't think. Lift. Never think. Throw.

Stratton had no memory of finishing. There was but an hour until dawn when he levered the headstone back into its silent place, tucked a shapeless old gardening hat in his back pocket, and left the rain to wash away his traces:

David Wang