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She approached the corner and carefully peered around The tunnel extended another fiftyat what appeared to be a doorway A thick slab of stone, cut into a near-perfect rectangle, filled the opening, one side cocked outward, as a door would be partially opened

Light filled the space beyond, splashing back their way, into the darkened corridor

“I didn’t expect that,” Malone whispered in her ear

FIFTY-SIX

TANG SURVEYED THE INTERIOR OF THE TUMBLED-DOWN SHANTY into which Ni Yong had disappeared Earlier, he’d watched on the closed-circuit h the door, but now his nemesis was nowhere to be seen

“He went out there,” Viktor said, pointing to the collapsed rear wall

Two other men ith him, more brothers of the Ba, eunuchs like hied by oath to do as he coht, which he silently applauded hiressing

The rain had eased, though the aze locked on the wall, wattled and plastered, broken in a gash that exposed the bamboo beneath He stepped across the damp floor, past rusted i

The others followed

Outside was thick with shadows, the ashen sky blocked by a canopy of wet limbs and leaves The first violets of the season bloomed beneath the trees The fence that encircled the site stood fifty meters away, intact Ni could have scaled it, but where would he have gone?

A well caught his eye and he approached

Not unusual The whole area was dotted with the of one in 1974 had led to the discovery of the terra-cotta ar

Where had Ni gone?

He glanced around at the wet terrain, thick with trees, tohere the an its rise upward

Ni had come here for a reason

He’d learned that the fence had been erected in the early 1990s, on orders fro, and that the area had remained off limits Why? No one knew Viktor had reported that Pau Wen had told Malone and Vitt that he kneay into Qin Shi’s toht to the recently found i two underground passages, one of which Vitt, Malone, and Pau had disappeared into

“Minister,” Viktor said

His mind snapped back to the moment

Viktor pointed inside the well “See the scarp marks on the side They’re fresh That plate was removed, then replaced”

The observation was correct The yellohite lichen had clearly been disturbed He ordered the two brothers to lift the plate away and the top of a wooden ladder came into view

They’d driven over in a hts,” he ordered One of the men ran off

“Where does it go?” Viktor asked

Tang knew “Into the to awaits”

MALONE APPROACHED THE BACKLIT DOORWAY, STAYING TO one side of the partially open portal while Cassiopeia stayed to the other They’d switched off the flashlights and replaced them in their pockets Both held their weapons

He noticed L-shaped bronze clamps affixed to their side of the door, another to the left and right of the ja upright Easy to determine its use Once it was dropped into the clamps, there would ha

ve been no way to open the door from the other side

What had Pau read to them?

Concubines without sons were ordered to follow the emperor in death, and of the artisans and workers not one was allowed to ee alive

He peered around the edge into the lit space beyond