| MISER Shen and I reacted like sensible people, meaning that we lost our heads completely, took to our heels, and did not stop running until there was no place left to run to - meaning that we had raced back to the ruined palace and plunged through the hole in the barricade. Then our sanity returned. |
1 |
| We were hopelessly trapped. In front of us was a lake of lava that completely covered the other side of the palace. Behind us was the Hand That No One Sees. The tangle of streets on either side of the avenue had led us to nothing but dead ends where lava bubbled, and scalding steam shrieked up from cracks in the earth. We turned and watched with terrified fascination as those monstrous fingerprints moved toward us through the salt. Both of us realized that our only hope lay in finding a path to safety through those deadly side streets, but which way should we go? The devastated city had become a labyrinth... |
2 |
| A labyrinth? I concentrated with all my might. Was I hearing a faint familiar voice telling me to follow the dragon? Was I imagining it? I jerked the dragon locket from around my neck, and my fingers found the place where the dragon had stopped after leading me through the labyrinth of the Duke of Ch'in. |
3 |
| "Miser Shen, I have almost certainly lost my mind, but one way to die is no worse than another - under the circumstances. I want you to get behind me," I said. "Grab hold to my belt and hold tight. We are going to run like hell and we will be making sudden turns." |
4 |
| Miser Shen was a very brave man. He was pale and trembling, but he did as I asked without question. |
5 |
| "I am ready, Li Kao," he said in a surprisingly calm voice. |
6 |
| Then we ran. We raced back down the toppled stones of the palace and panted along the avenue. What terrified me most was the fact that the dragon passed the first six holes in the coral locket and turned into the seventh on the left, and those horrible fingerprints were nearly at the entrance to the seventh side street. What saved us was that the monster stopped crawling. I believe that it expected us to attack with puny sword thrusts - surely some of the heroes of the city must have tried it - and when we suddenly turned about twenty feet in front of the enormous fingerprints and lunged into the side street we heard the thing make its first sound: a thin high shriek of rage. |
7 |
| "Seventh left," I panted, "third right...second left...fifth left..." |
8 |
| I glanced back. The invisible hand was crawling faster and faster; it was gaining on us. |
9 |
| "First right ... second right...third left..." |
10 |
| "I see palm trees, Li Kao!" yelled Miser Shen. |
11 |
| "Third right ... first right ... Merciful Buddha!" I howled. |
12 |
| We skidded to a halt. There was that green oasis, right in front of us, but it was completely encircled by a bubbling moat of fiery lava, and there was no bridge! At the edge of the moat was the only building we had seen which remained upright - some sort of watch tower, apparently, very tall and narrow and teetering precariously upon a single jutting stone slab - and at the base were still more mangled skeletons and armor and weapons. |
13 |
| I grabbed two ancient pikes and handed one to Miser Shen and ran to the tower. "We have to pry this stone out!" I yelled. We set to work with all our might. At last the stone slab slid out, but the tower still stood! "Fall, damn you, fall!" Miser Shen roared. We raced around to the rear of the tower and began shoving as hard as we could, and slowly the tower began to tilt, and then it dissolved into a shower of stones that toppled into the fiery moat and began to sink - but very slowly, since the lava was nearly as thick as the stones. "Climb on my back!" I yelled. Miser Shen wrapped his arms around my neck and his legs around my waist, and I ran to the edge of the moat and jumped. I just made the first stone. |
14 |
| "Bravo, Li Kao!" cried Miser Shen. |
15 |
| I hopped from stone to stone with scorching feet and smoking sandals. The last stone had nearly sunk out of sight. I consigned my soul to Buddha, jumped, touched the top of the stone with the tips of my sandals, and vaulted as far as I could. Buddha must have heard me, because the next thing I knew I was lying on the grass of the oasis, and Miser Shen was happily pounding my shoulders. |
16 |
| We heard another thin high shriek of rage, and sat up and watched the stones sink one by one beneath the molten surface of the lava. The Invisible fingers angrily paved the salt, but they did not move away. The Hand That No One Sees was waiting. |
17 |
| "Li Kao, how did you do it?" said Miser Shen when he had regained his breath. "You ran through that maze of streets as though you had a map! It was unbelievable!" |
18 |
| I laughed without much mirth. "Let's try to find some food and water first," I said, and we got to our feet and entered the greenery of the oasis. The trees and shrubs dripped with luscious fruit, and there was a pool of spring water - slightly sulphurous, but drinkable. When we had refreshed ourselves I said: "Miser Shen, do you happen to know the peasants' story about Chang Heng?" |
19 |
| "Of course. I was a peasant myself," said Miser Shen. |
20 |
| "Where was he first seen after he set forth on his mysterious quest?" |
21 |
| "Near the Castle of the Labyrinth." |
22 |
| "And what was he looking for?" |
23 |
| "A little crystal ball," said Miser Shen. |
24 |
| I opened my smuggler's belt and took out the little crystal ball. Miser Shen's eyes grew as large as soup plates as he watched it glow and grow, and he found himself laughing out loud as he saw the lunatic pursuit: woman after dog after cat after rat after roach after ant. |
25 |
| "I could have made ten thousand fortunes peddling such trinkets!" he cried. "Peasant girls would sell their very souls for such things!" |
26 |
| That was an Interesting thought. |
27 |
| "Miser Shen, where was Chang Heng seen next?" I said. |
28 |
| "He was next seen near a terrible...merciful Heavens, the great Chang Heng was next seen near a terrible Desert of Salt!" |
29 |
| "Precisely. And what was he looking for?" |
30 |
| "A small bronze bell." |
31 |
| I finished eating a handful of grapes and got to my feet. "Well, let's go collect it," I sighed. |
32 |
| "Eh?" |
33 |
| "The bronze bell, Miser Shen. I will be greatly surprised if it is not on this island," I said. "Assuming that there is a pattern we should keep our eyes peeled for a pile of treasure, a copy of the tiger mask of the Duke of Ch'in, and a shadow where no shadow should be. Along the way I will amuse you with a rather remarkable story, and you will be interested to learn that you play a part in it." |
34 |
| As we walked through the oasis I told Miser Shen everything. I told him how his incredible pursuit had chased me up a mountainside, close enough to hear the mysterious whistle. I told of the Pool of Past Existences, and of the hallucinations, and of the gentleman with the shining eyes and Confucian hat and old-fashioned robe who had told me to follow a dragon. I told the story of Henpecked Ho and Bright Star, and of how Fainting Maid brought the dragon locket up from the bottom of the old well. I showed the locket to Miser Shen, and we wondered together about the three little grooves on the inside. Then I told of my incredible adventure with the Duke of Ch'in who laughed at sword thrusts, and the labyrinth, and the voice, and the dragon leading me to treasure and a mysterious ghost and a crystal ball. |
35 |
| "And so the dragon has led me through one more labyrinth, and as sure as you are born I have been brought here to collect a small bronze bell," I said in conclusion. "And if we ever get off this island I would advise you to take to your heels. Get as far away from me as possible, Miser Shen, because I am a dead man. Next it will be a silver flute, and then I will be sent to find a raindrop in a thunderstorm, or a petal in a field of flowers, or a single grain of sand concealed among a billion on a beach, and I will be very lucky if I am merely chewed to pieces by the Hand That No One Sees." |
36 |
| I had been growing more and more depressed as I recounted my adventures. I discovered that I was very close to tears. |
37 |
| "If you should manage to get back to Lotus Cloud," I sniffled. "Ask her if she ever thinks of me." |
38 |
| To my astonishment Miser Shen fell upon his knees in front of me and began banging his head upon the ground. |
39 |
| "O most-favored-of-mortals Li Kao, all peasants worship the memory of the great Chang Heng! To think that he called you for five hundred years!" bawled Miser Shen. "To think that even now his spirit follows you across China! This unworthy one has been granted the honor of pursuing you toward the Pool of Past Existences, and I beg to be granted the greater honor of dying at your side!" |
40 |
| I must confess that I was rather flattered. "Well, if you want to commit suicide I will not stop you," I said. "But I doubt that it is up to me - or to you. If Chang Heng has a use for you he will see that you accompany me whether I like it or not, and if he wants to send me somewhere alone he will do just that. We will just have to wait and see what happens, but in the meanwhile we had better keep looking for the bronze bell." |
41 |
| So we continued through the oasis. Once this island had been a pleasure garden, as fallen pagodas and the remnants of paths and pools attested. Lanterns had sparkled in the trees, and silver bells had tinkled from branches swaying in a breeze that had been fragrant with flowers and incense and wine. We could imagine intricately carved red wooden bridges with green dragon heads on the posts spanning a pretty blue moat where goldfish swam - and then the eruption, and the invisible monster that crawled up from Hell. |
42 |
| "Some great sin must have been committed by this city, although I cannot imagine a sin so great as to deserve the Hand That No One Sees," said Miser Shen. |
43 |
| Something was sparkling in the light of the setting sun. The glitter came from an ornamental grotto square in the center of the little island, and when we stepped through the entrance Miser Shen nearly fainted, for there was even more treasure piled inside than I had found in the cave beneath the Castle of the Labyrinth. A copy of the duke's tiger mask glittered upon the wall. |
44 |
| "You miserable bastard," I said conversationally to the mask. |
45 |
| "How Lotus Cloud would love this place!" cried Miser Shen, as he gaped at ten or fifteen tons of pearls and jade. |
46 |
| I was looking for a shadow where no shadow should be, and I found it. I did not know what to expect when I pulled it over me like a blanket. For a startled moment I thought that I was looking at the same ghost of the agonized peasant girl, but then I saw that it was a different girl, although she was dressed the same way and had the same bloodstain where a blade had pierced her heart. Again I sensed an incredible effort on her part to appear in ghost form, again I saw hands cupped around a small object, again I saw beseeching eyes fixed upon mine and again I heard the mysterious words: "Take pity upon a faithless handmaiden. Is not a thousand years enough? I swear that I did not know what I had done! 0 take pity and exchange this for the feather," she sobbed, and her tears mingled with the blood on her gown. "The birds must fly." |
47 |
| "Wait!" I yelled. "Don't go! Tell me what the feathers mean! Tell me what you mean by the birds! I do not understand!" |
48 |
| But she was gone. |
49 |
| Miser Shen was staring at me with frightened eyes. "Are you all right?" he said. |
50 |
| "I don't suppose you happened to see a girl with a bloodstained dress," I sighed. |
51 |
| "I saw nothing but you, Li Kao, yelling at empty space." |
52 |
| I picked up the object the ghost's hands had cradled. Of course it was a small bronze bell. Like the crystal ball it was no more than an inch and a half in diameter, and it did not appear to be anything unusual. I was willing to bet that it was like no other bell on earth, however, and I held it out toward Miser Shen and gently rang it, and instead of the sound of a bell we heard the high-pitched wail of a professional storyteller: |
53 |
| "Aiiieeeeee! Aiiieeeeee! Come closer, my children! Spread ears like elephants, and I shall tell you the tale of a girl named Beauty, and of her wicked stepmother and of her good fairy godmother, and of the little slipper that fell from Beauty's foot and led her to a handsome Prince!" |
54 |
| Never have I heard it told better - the magic fishbone and the pumpkin that turned into a coach and all the rest of the tale that has delighted Chinese children for three thousand years - and when I rang the bell again the storyteller began another marvelous story, and when I stopped the clapper of the little bell the voice ceased. |
55 |
| "Miser Shen, do you think that a simple peasant girl would sell her soul for a trinket like this?" I asked. |
56 |
| "Unquestionably," said Miser Shen. |
57 |
| I gazed sadly at the spot where the anguished ghost had been. "Is not a thousand years enough?" she had pleaded. |
58 |
Apparently it wasn't.
|
59 |