Atawna

Adventures in the Lost World

Episode 1

Atawna and the Lost World

Chapter 24 The Empire of Zheng He

Melissa bit back a cry of pain as she was forced to her knees, but she had not cried when the arrows had been removed and she would not cry now. Before her stretched a polished stone floor that ended in a dais upon which sat a golden robed Oriental. She was in the presence of emperor Huang Hong, ruler of the Empire of Zheng He. Except for the bandages that covered her wounds she was devoid of clothing, a condition that was shared by most of the members of the court. Apparently nudity was an adaptation that the Chinese had made to the hot and humid climate of the Lost World.

Her musings were cut short by a blow to the back of her head. “Bow, white hyena,” shouted one of the female guards who had brought her in. Melissa already knew her well. She was an imperious young woman who had already given her a number of bruises as she escorted her to the palace. With her hands chained behind her Melissa was in no position to fight back, nor was she inclined to. She was surrounded by more than a dozen armed guards all of whom seemed to regard her with a mixture of awe and fear. Any resistance would probably be dealt with in the most brutal fashion.

Melissa bent her head to the floor as she had seen the other prisoner do. The Chinese girl who had been shackled along with her was a mystery. She had been part of the party that had wounded and taken her prisoner. There seemed to be no reason why the young Chinese girl was being subjected to the same treatment as she was, but then her captor spoke and it became clear.

Ping spoke from her position on the floor. Her head was bowed before the emperor. “Oh Son of Heaven, I bring you the white devil who defiled the waters of the Sacred Way.”

Huang Hong nodded. “I see and am pleased, Zhao Ping. But why have you also brought Hsu Li Ming before me? Surely she committed no wrong.”

“Hsu Li Ming, was most derelict in her duty. While on patrol she allowed the white devil to enter the sacred pool and profane its divine waters.”

Huang Hong frowned. “This is a most serious charge, Hsu Li Ming. Is it true?”

Li Ming replied as Ping had spoken, with her head touching the stone of the palace floor. “Son of Heaven, she was already in the pool when my patrol arrived.”

“But should you not have been there earlier? Surely the Sacred Way is never left unguarded.”

Li Ming hesitated before replying. She had been late that day, but it had been Zhao Ping who had delayed her. The patrol had been forced to wait while the emperor’s daughter flirted with the captain of the palace guard. How could she reply to the question? She should have left without Zhao Ping even if such an action might provoke an angry response, but she had not, fearing that Ping would use her malevolent influence to seek revenge. She had no one to blame but herself.

“The patrol was late, Great Lord,” she finally answered. “The white devil was already there when we arrived.”

“Then you and the white devil are both condemned, Huang Hong,” said. “You will both share the same punishment.”

Li Ming remained prone, silently accepting her fate, but that was not the case with Melissa. To the startled surprise of her guards she got to her feet, fighting back the wave of dizziness that assailed her as she placed weight on her injured leg. “Punished!” she exclaimed. “What for? I am a stranger in your country. I have done no intentional wrong. I should have been welcomed, not attacked. And this girl is also innocent. She was not responsible for my actions, only I was.”

Ping leapt to her feet. “You dare to speak to the Son of Heaven, you white jackal. Get on your knees.”

“Hold, Zhao Ping,” Huang ordered. He stared in amazement at the tall women who confronted him. She spoke the tongue of the Middle Kingdom, albeit with a strange accent. It was something he never would have expected. He studied her carefully, taking in her every feature.

That she was quite tall he already knew, but he had not realized just how much she towered over his warriors. Most of them did not even come up to her shoulder. Never had he seen a woman so tall or massively proportioned. He had heard that there were women who had breasts the size of ripe melons, but he had never actually believed it. This giant white women, however, seemed to prove that the stories were true. It seemed impossible that she could walk upright when hampered by so much weight.

Melissa waited for the emperor to reply. She could almost feel his eyes boring into her. It was a feeling she had experienced before and one that had been most unwelcome. Finally, the emperor replied, an oily smile creasing his lips. “I will consider your words. Place Hsu Li Ming and the white devil in confinement.”

Melissa refused to go quietly. “I am not a white devil,” she protested. “My name is Melissa Gallant, and I entered your country in search of a friend who was lost. I have been treated in a most barbaric fashion and demand to be released.”

“You have much to learn, white devil,” the emperor replied, ignoring Melissa’s name. “Speak only when you are spoken to and do not presume to stand in my presence again.” He gestured, and immediately Melissa was struck heavily across the shoulders by the shaft of a spear. The blow drove her to her knees and left her gasping in pain. Then she was seized by her manacled wrists and without allowing her to rise she was dragged from the room.

As the door to the throne room closed behind her she was lifted to her feet. The girl Melissa knew as Zhao Ping glared angrily up at her. “You will learn to curb your barbarian tongue or I will cut it out,” she threatened.

If she had not been in so much pain from her injuries and rough treatment, Melissa would have laughed. It was like being threatened by a little girl. Something of what she was thinking must have shown on her face because Zhao Ping’s face twisted in anger. “Round-eyed devil,” the girl shouted. At the same time she swung the haft of her spear catching Melissa behind the knees.

Melissa’s knees buckled and she fell forward to the stone floor. The blow was jarring, sending lighting jabs of pain through her injured thigh. The bandage covering her wound reddened as her injury reopened. She had to fight hard not to cry out at the sudden agony, but her act did not deceive Ping. “You will learn respect for your superiors before you leave here and I will enjoy teaching you.” The Chinese girl brought the shaft of her spear across Melissa’s back to emphasize her comment.

Melissa grunted in pain. The blow sent her sprawling forward. For a little girl Ping certainly knew how to hit. “On your feet, cow,” the girl ordered.

Melissa had seen no cows anywhere in the Lost World or in this strange transplanted Chinese civilization, but she suspected that Ping was referring to her prominent breasts. The point of Ping’s spear had her scrambling awkwardly to her feet. On either side of her the male guards grinned. Melissa felt her face colouring in anger. “Keep cool,” she told herself. “This little bitch wants a reaction so that she’ll have an excuse to beat the hell out of me.”

Without a word she stumbled forward, wondering as she did so what her captors had planned for her and hoping that it wouldn’t be the usual round of rape and torture.

“Well,” Melissa thought, “this certainly isn’t the usual rape and torture, but I’m not sure if it is an improvement. She turned her head. A few feet away she could see the tormented face of the young Chinese girl who had been imprisoned with her. She still wasn’t sure what the poor girl had done, but whatever it was it had earned her the same punishment as Melissa.

She had heard of this sort of imprisonment before, but had never thought to experience it. She was in a coffin-like box, her head protruding from one end like a jack-in-the-box, but the rest of her body sealed inside. There was little chance of escape. She had watched the Chinese carpenters nail the lid shut. They had put enough nails in it to build a boat. Without some sort of help she was going to have a tough time getting out.

She couldn’t even drink or feed herself without help. The only other hole in the box was just below her backside. Since she was lying face up at a forty-five degree angle any human waste would drop through the hole. It was hardly dignified, but it was not intended to be. She could only hope that her jailors would not take delight in rubbing her excrement in her face as was the custom in China.

The worst part of the ordeal besides the indignity, and the constant thirst was the torment of the numerous flies and biting insects that swarmed abut her. No matter how much she shook her head or blew at them they always came back and there was no way to keep them from flying or crawling into the other opening. Soon she could feel them wandering everywhere on her body, turning her skin into an insect playground. She writhed in torment, but only succeeded in so completely exhausting herself that after awhile she simply lay back and let them do what they wanted with her.

It was small consolation that the Chinese girl imprisoned alongside her was equally tortured. The girl bore her discomfort stoically, only the occasional quiver of her lip giving any sign of the emotion or distress she felt. Melissa would have liked to talk to her, but the guards forbade any conversation, and so she was left to stew in helpless rage as a thousand parasites invaded her body.

Every now and then Ping turned up to gloat. She reserved her most cutting remarks for the Chinese girl and it was in this way that Melissa learned why Li Ming was being so brutally punished.

“Stupid little lowborn whore,” Ping sneered. “To think that the daughter of a peasant was placed above me as captain of the guard. But you have done me a favour. Others will think twice before they try to take what is rightfully mine. And soon you will be sold into slavery. You can think of me as you are ravished by the big cocks of the forest savages. I have heard that they are so big that they can split a woman open like an axe cuts kindling.”

“And as for you,” she continued, turning to Melissa. “I expect you will receive their maleness with enjoyment. You are certainly no virgin, but I wonder if you will enjoy being impaled a dozen times a day as one of their temple prostitutes.”

Neither Melissa nor Li Ming replied to the Chinese princess’ cutting remarks, a fact that seemed to infuriate her. “Make sure that they receive no food or water today,” she ordered the guards. “And if they complain gag them.”

Melissa watched Ping strut away. She had developed a strong dislike of the arrogant Chinese girl. “If I ever get out of this box,” Melissa vowed, “I’m going to nail her into one just like it, without the head hole.”

The rest of the day was pure agony. Denied food and water Melissa and Li Ming suffered terribly in the tropical heat. Their tongues began to swell in their mouths so that even if they had been allowed to speak it would have been almost impossible. But neither made a sound, a display of defiance that Ping found infuriating when she returned to gloat a few hours later.

“Whores,” she growled, if a woman who was less than five feet tall could be said to growl. “Die of thirst then; see if I care.” She dipped a wooden ladle into a water bucket and dripped the water over her face and breasts.

“Ahh,” she gaped. “That is so refreshing.” She dipped the ladle again and sipped the water slowly, letting it splash over her tongue. “Until tomorrow,” she said. “We will see if you are any thirstier then.”

Melissa’s head fell backward. She no longer had the strength to hold it up. It appeared that Ping’s threat of slavery was nothing to fear. Before morning she and Li Ming would probably be dead of dehydration.

“Oooh!” Melissa was awakened by a splash of liquid upon her lips. “Drink slowly,” came a whispered command. “I cannot give you much, but the slave master has no intention of having two such valuable assets die.”

Melissa opened her eyes. It was a dark moonless night and the only light was that of a few flickering torches in the slave pens. Beside her was a diminutive elderly Chinese man. He was holding the ladle of water to her lips. For some reason the guards seemed to pay him no attention. She avidly sipped the cool liquid. It was the most delicious she had even drunk. The elderly Chinese refilled the ladle and went to Li Ming, allowing her to drink as well. Then he returned and gave Melissa one more cupful. “I can give you no food,” the little man apologized, “but now you should survive until daybreak.”

Melissa closed her eyes and lapsed into an exhausted sleep. She did not awaken until Ping’s shrill voice grated on her ears.

“So you have survived. Well so much the worse for you. You will stay here until the forest dwellers arrive to buy you. I hope you enjoy your stay.”

Melissa and her Chinese companion spent another six days in their wooden prisons. And although they were not denied food or water again each day was worse than the last. Melissa passed most of her time sleeping. There was little else to do. Occasionally, however when the guards’ attention wandered she and Li Ming were able to converse in low tones.

The Chinese girl told her an amazing story, part history part myth, but Melissa was able to determine that the Chinese had made their way to the Lost World as part of the great expedition led by the imperial Chinese eunuch Zheng He in the fifteenth century. Part of the expedition had trekked inland in search of more of the wonders of the African continent. After that the story became rather vague, but apparently the inland explorers had run into hostile Africans and had been cut off from their return route. They had fled farther inland eventually discovering the Sacred Way and a place where they could reproduce Chinese civilization in miniature.

Li Ming did not exactly tell the story that way. Her version was full of references to demons and spirits and miraculous events, but Melissa was able to read between the lines. It was an incredible tale, but nothing about the Lost World really surprised her any more. Li Ming’s story, told over the space of several days, helped to keep both of them from going insane, but it was a desperate pair who greeted Ping on the sixth day.

Both women were at the end of their reserves of strength. Covered with filth and plagued by flies and other vermin, they were close to fainting. Confined in the boxes, they had to fight constantly to prevent their bodily fluids from pooling in their lower extremities. If that happened it would mean a hideous and unbelievably painful death. But the effort had left them exhausted. It was doubtful that they could have survived much more than one more day.

“So,” Ping sneered. “Still alive? You’re very strong for a cow. I would have thought you would be dead by now. It is my unfortunate duty to have you cleaned up. The barbarian slavers have arrived and want to look over their merchandise.”

Neither Melissa nor Li Ming was in any condition to reply. Ping ordered a number of porters she had brought with her to pick up the wooden boxes then they were carried from the exposed courtyard where they had broiled in the hot sun to a large building. Inside Melissa was conscious of a pleasant smell, that of soap.

The coffin-like boxes were set down and one of the porters produced an iron bar which he used to pry the lid off first Melissa’s box and then Li Ming’s. Both women simply lay there, too exhausted to move.

Li Ping held her delicate nose. “What a stench! You two smell like the bottom of a latrine. I’m glad I’m not the one who has to clean you up.”

Several girls came forward and helped Melissa and Li Ming from the boxes. Several of them wrinkled their noses, but they made no comment as they half carried the two women towards steaming wooden tubs filled with hot water.

Stiff from their forced inactivity the muscles of both women protested against the sudden exercise, particularly Melissa whose wounds throbbed angrily. It was with great relief that as the bandages were removed she saw that the wounds seemed to have healed in spite of the way she had been treated over the last six days. Whatever medicines the Chinese physicians had put on her wounds seemed to have done the trick.

The next few hours were partly heaven and partly hell. Melissa and Li Ming were thoroughly scrubbed until every trace of their ordeal in the boxes was removed. Then they were taken dripping from the tubs to a massage table where they were worked on in teams until the flexibility and tone of their muscles was restored. The pain as their bodies were pummeled and massaged left both women gasping, but at the end, they were able to stand almost unaided.

They were then taken to a different part of the building where they were given a decent meal for the first time in a week. That more than anything else seemed to restore their strength. Finishing their meal they were then escorted to separate cells. Inside each cell was a simple straw mattress, but neither Melissa nor Li Ming cared in the least. They collapsed onto the bed and were almost immediately asleep. Not even the fear of what might await them tomorrow was enough to disturb their slumbers.

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