She followed Qian into the room, which was square, approximately forty feet by forty feet. It was empty except for a large rug laying in the center of the room, which must have been at least thirty feet by thirty feet. Kate glanced to the ceiling and saw a thin linen cloth that covered the entire area of the room. Above the cloth, she could see another identical cloth, and beyond that, another as far as she could see, like layers of mosquito net reaching to the top of the mountain. A method to wick away moisture? Possibly, but Kate saw something else — tiny pieces of dirt and rock, caught in the cloth.
Qian nodded toward the rug. “This is the treasure we protect here. Our heritage. We have paid a dear price for it.” He cleared his throat and continued speaking slowly. “When I was young, men came to my village. They wore military uniforms. I didn’t know it at the time, but they were Nazi uniforms. These men sought a group of monks who lived in the mountains beyond my village. No one would talk about these monks. I didn’t know any better. The men paid me and some other children to take them there. The monks were not afraid of these men, but they should have been. The men who had been kind in our village turned ruthless in the mountains. They searched the monastery, tortured the men, and finally set fire to the mountain.”
Qian paused again, gathering his breath. “My friends were dead, and they were searching the monastery for me. And then they found me. One of the soldiers took me in his arms and carried me through the monastery into a tunnel. Three monks were waiting there. The man told them that I was the only survivor. He handed me a journal and said that I had to keep it safe until the time was right. The three monks left that night with only the clothes on their backs and this tapestry.” Qian settled his gaze on the massive work of art — some sort of biblical story with gods, heroes, monsters, heavens, light, blood, fire, and water.
Kate stood silently. In the back of her mind, she wondered what this had to do with her. She suppressed the urge to say, “Looks great, now can I use your computer?”
“And now you are wondering what this has to do with you.”
Kate blushed and tossed her head to the side. “No, I mean, it’s beautiful…” And it was. The colors were bold, as vivid as any fresco in a Catholic church, and the threads added depth to the depictions. “But, the man I came here with — he and I are in danger.”
“You and Andrew are not the only ones.”
Before Kate could speak, Qian continued with an unexpected strength in his voice. “Your enemy is the same group that burned that monastery 75 years ago and the same that will unleash an unthinkable evil very soon. That is what the tapestry depicts. Understanding it and the journal are the keys to stopping them. I have clung to life for 75 years, waiting, hoping the day would come when I would fulfill my destiny; and yesterday, when I learned what had happened in China, I knew it had come.” Qian reached inside his robe, and with a frail hand, offered Kate a small leather-bound book.
He motioned toward the tapestry. “What do you see, my child?”
Kate studied the richly colored images. Angels, gods, fire, water, blood, light, sun. “Some sort of religious depiction?”
“Religion is our desperate attempt to understand our world. And our past. We live in darkness, surrounded by mysteries. Where did we come from? What is our purpose? What will happen to us after we die? Religion also gives us something more: a code of conduct, a blueprint of right and wrong, a guide to human decency. Just like any other tool, it can be misused. But this document was created long before man found solace in his religions.”
“How?”
“We believe it was created from oral traditions.”
“A legend?”
“Perhaps. But we believe it is a document of both history and prophecy. A depiction of events before man’s awakening and tragedies yet to come. We call it the epic of the four floods.” Qian pointed to the upper right-hand corner of the tapestry.
Kate followed his finger and studied the image — naked beasts, no humans, in a sparse forest or an African savanna. The people are running, fleeing a darkness descending from the sky — a blanket of ashes that suffocates them and kills the plant life. Just below that, they are alone in a barren, dead wilderness. Then a light emerges, leads them out, and a protector is talking to the savages, giving them a cup with blood in it.
Qian clears his throat. “The savior knows that he cannot always be there to save them. He shares a cup with his own blood to protect them. The first scene is the Flood of Fire. A flood that almost destroyed the world, almost buried man in ashes and tore all the food from the world.”
“A creation myth.” Kate whispered. All major religions had some form of creation myth, a history of how God created man in his image.