| THE path wound higher and higher toward mountain peaks. It was cold and still in those mountains. I sometimes climbed for an hour without seeing the movement of a squirrel or hearing the song of a bird. The chill that gripped the mountainside was dead and stale, as though it came from a monstrous iceberg that had been scooped up and deposited on top of a mountain, where it had lain lifeless and unmelting for a thousand years. For several days I had been hearing the sound of falling water, and finally I reached the source. |
1 |
| A waterfall was splashing down the side of a cliff, and when I climbed to the top I saw another waterfall far in the distance trickling down a higher cliff. Between the two stretched a lake. Uncounted years ago an enormous rockslide had cut a valley right in two, and the lake had formed behind the dam. It was the coldest, grayest, and most unappetizing body of water I had ever seen, and warning bells rang in my soul. Something evil lay beneath the surface of that lake. The problem was getting to the bottom, and I soon discovered that it was not going to be easy. |
2 |
| I made a bamboo raft and paddled out to the center and tried to reach bottom with a stone tied to a rope of vines, but after adding vines until the stone had gone down nearly two hundred feet I decided that for all practical purposes the lake was bottomless. I paddled back to shore and sat down to think. |
3 |
| I could not possibly get to the bottom of that lake. The rockslide that had caused it was so vast that it would take a hundred years and a hundred thousand tons of Fire Drug to blow a hole in the dam. I was wasting my time - besides, I was probably imagining things when I sensed that something evil lay beneath the surface. "Stop worrying about things you can do nothing about," I told myself. `"Get going, Li Kao!" I started off again, and as I began to climb the soaring cliff at the far end of the lake I saw why there had been a rockslide. The cliff was mostly shale held together by clay, and when I reached the top I discovered that the river that fed the lake ran through almost the only bed of solid rock there was. On either side were deep ravines carved by rainwater in the spongy earth. |
4 |
| I sat down to catch my breath. Nearly five hundred feet below, almost straight down, the gray lake gleamed dully in the sunlight. I shivered. I knew that the signals coming from my heart were more intelligent than the signals coming from my head, but what could I do about it? Nothing. So I set forth once more, climbing down the other side of the mountain. As the lake faded behind me I began to hear the chatter of squirrels again, and the song of birds, and in a week I saw the first sign of human habitation. It was a small village, but it had an inn and they were delighted to see someone from the outside world. I answered questions for a good four hours before I bad a chance to ask some of my own. |
5 |
| They knew that gray lake, and they did not like it any better than I did. They called it the Lake of the Dead, and swore that not even fish lived there. They told tales of strange sights and sounds, and swore that once a year a mysterious caravan would be seen moving toward the lake, and then it would vanish as though it had never been. That set them off on ghost stories. They asked me if I knew any good ones. I told them that I did not believe in ghosts. |
6 |
| Late that night I sat by myself at a table in my room. I had a jar of wine, but I did not really feel like drinking. I stared without thought at the table and the straw pallet and the wine jar and the vase of flowers that decorated the little room, and I felt a deep melancholy. I know that I was going the wrong way. I know that I should go back to that lake. But what good would it do? |
7 |
| "Old and young, everyone's asleep. |
8 |
| The cold lantern, flickering at midnight, |
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| is my only companion. |
10 |
| The two flowers I've been looking at become dragonfly eyes; |
11 |
| the single flame, a jade vase hanging in the air." |
12 |
| Singing did not help either. The only thing that would help would be to get to the bottom of the Lake of the Dead. Very well, I would get to the bottom. |
13 |
| "You are wasting time, Li Kao," I told myself sternly. "Chang Heng sent his little dog to go fetch, so go fetch!" |
14 |
| In the morning I asked the headman to assemble the villagers. It took a bit of persuading, but the gold in my moneybelt was more money than they had ever hoped to see in their whole lives and all but the very young and very old followed me back to the lake. We worked like demons. First we dug a trench from the river on top of the cliff to the deepest ravine, and then we dug connecting trenches to the smaller ravines until we had a ditch that ran from one end of the cliff to the other. Next we felled trees to make a dam. It was not easy to persuade the river to move into its new home, but eventually it roared angrily into the ditch, and since I could not think of anything else that might work I sent the villagers home to tend to their crops. They were happy to leave - in fact most of them ran. |
15 |
| I moved to a safer place with a tent and supplies, on the other side of the mountain across from the soaring cliff, and settled down to wait. I passed the time by building crude pearl diver's equipment in case my plan worked. A family of wild pigs provided me with air tanks made from pig bladders and breathing tubes made from intestines, and I sharpened a wooden spear and fixed a belt to hold rocks for weights. It took a month before it happened, but when it did it was spectacular. |
16 |
| I awoke to a rumbling smashing grinding sound, and felt the earth beneath me buck like a wild horse. I jumped to my feet and gazed across the lake to the cliff, and in the bright moonlight I saw it move. I had never dreamed that half the mountain would go, but it did. The angry river had tunneled so deeply into the spongy earth and flimsy shale that the entire cliff separated from the side of the mountain and plunged five hundred feet straight down into the Lake of the Dead. |
17 |
| A huge mass of water, silver in the moonlight, rose into the air like a cloud. I felt a blast of icy wind. The water seemed to move very slowly through the air toward the end of the lake, and then the monstrous liquid mass dropped over the side of the dam and smashed into the valley below. I saw a forest turned instantly to pulp, and enormous boulders scooped up like grains or sand and hurled into the distance. The whole mountain shuddered; rocks deep beneath the surface ground together and screamed; an icy mist covered everything. I clung to a tree for dear life. |
18 |
| Finally the roar of water faded away in the distance and the earth stopped bucking and -hp icy mist -11sbursed, and I gazed down upon a lake that was nearly empty. Silver moonlight glittered upon an incredible sight. A huge forest of towers and turrets and domes and spires was rising through the surface of the cold gray water. An entire city had been buried beneath the Lake of the Dead! |
19 |
| "Well well well," I said happily to myself. "What a lovely place to hide a heart!" |
20 |
| In the morning I paddled my raft out to the center of the lake and covered myself with pig grease to ward off the cold. I adjusted the rocks in my belt and picked up my wooden spear in case I ran into something nasty. Then I slipped over the side. The water was cold but bearable, with the exception of one icy current that lashed my flesh like a whip and which I soon left behind, and after dropping several rocks from my belt I attained the proper balance and was able to swim comfortably about fifteen feet beneath the surface, slowly sucking air from the first of my pig bladders. I had thought that I would be swimming blind, but the water glowed with a rather unpleasant greenish-white phosphorescence. A half-hour later I climbed back upon the raft and sat down to think. |
21 |
| That rockslide had been no accident, and the lake had filled with miraculous swiftness. The city had drowned in an instant, and so had the inhabitants. Everywhere I had looked I had seen skeletons - men, women, children, animals, no one had escaped. Only the Duke of Ch'in could have committed such a calculated massacre, and I said to myself: "Li Kao, that metal-masked monster must have the coldest heart in the whole world!" |
22 |
| The coldest heart in the world... |
23 |
| In a flash I was back in the water and swimming toward that strange icy current I had encountered. I began following it to its source, which appeared to be a large domed building with four stone towers at the corners. A boulder had crashed through the dome, and unless I was imagining things the current was flowing up through the hole. I had to return to the raft to get more rocks for my belt, and then I dove down once more and drifted down in the eerie green glow toward the heart of the Duke of Ch'in. |
24 |
| Could it really be this easy? I thought of the villagers' tales of the mysterious caravan that approached the Lake of the Dead once a year, and it occurred to me that it would be at the conclusion of the duke's annual tax trip when his coffers would be crammed with treasure. It also occurred to me that the duke was not very bright. Only a moron would trust monsters to guard his treasures, rather than fortresses and armies, and perhaps the Old Man of the Mountain had been slyly telling me something about the Duke of Ch'in when he said that some of his pupils were idiots. |
25 |
| I squeezed through the hole in the dome and worked my way down around the mass of the boulder. It had come to rest against one of the stone towers. It had also come to rest beside a pile of treasure so vast that it dwarfed the duke's other treasure troves put together, and the copy of the tiger mask that hung on the wall was immense. The tiger teeth were parted. I saw that there was a small niche in the wall behind the mouth of the mask. As I swam closer I saw that the choicest gems were piled there, and on top of them was a small golden casket. I moved my hand back and forth in front of the mouth: the icy current came from that casket. |
26 |
| "Duke, you are a dolt!" I laughed to myself. |
27 |
| I reached out. Fortunately my common sense grabbed hold of me in time, and I hastily jerked my hand back. Those huge parted tiger teeth were made of steel. After a moment's thought I swam down to the base of the boulder and felt the wall. As I had imagined the boulder had also cracked a hole in the wall of the tower, and with my wooden spear as a lever I was able to pry out a huge stone slab. With great effort I managed to lift it to the mask, and carefully - very carefully - I placed it between the two rows of glittering teeth. |
28 |
| The teeth snapped viciously shut. They ground furiously against the stone slab, and I reached inside the mouth and jerked out the casket just in time. With a horrible screech that seemed magnified by the pressure of the water the teeth ground right through the slab, and pulverized particles of stone turned the green water gray. I dropped the casket into the sack that I had tied around my waist. Even as I did so I wondered whether the closing teeth might have set off some sort of alarm, and when I turned around my heart nearly stopped beating. |
29 |
| "Lotus Cloud!" I thought. |
30 |
| But it was not Lotus Cloud. The long black hair had fooled me. The body that was moving toward me through the eerie green glow was that of the handmaiden who had given me the crystal ball. Then I saw the body of the handmaiden who had given me the bronze bell. Then I saw the body of the handmaiden who had given me the silver flute. The three white bodies, uncorrupted after all the centuries, moved through the water with strange jerky motions, wriggling like fish. Their long black hair drifted through the water like black clouds; their dead eyes gazed at me like dull pearls. |
31 |
| Suddenly three heavy coils of wet hair slithered toward me like snakes and wrapped around my face! Hair clogged my nostrils and blinded my eyes. The breathing tube was ripped right out of my mouth! |
32 |
| I turned turtle and dove. I jerked out the second of my pig bladders and inserted the breathing tube, and then I flipped over and swam back up, savagely thrusting with my spear. I was wasting my time. The bodies were inert weights, and a spear was useless against hair. Again the hair reached toward me like a deadly mass of black seaweed and ripped the breathing tube from my mouth. Hair clogged my mouth and coiled around my neck, and I just managed to break free and turn turtle and dive. |
33 |
| I inserted the breathing tube from another bladder. It was my last one. I had to break through that deadly curtain of heavy hair or die. I whipped out my dagger and swam up, slashing furiously. I could not even cut a single strand, for the hair gave way before the blade and closed in behind, reaching once more for my face. Again my breathing tube was jerked out, and I gazed at the three white bodies as they moved in for the kill. For a moment I was paralyzed; then I turned turtle again and dove, and made my way to the hole in the base of the tower and began prying with all my might at another stone slab. It seemed an eternity before it slid out and drifted slowly down through the water. Now the hole was large enough, and I squeezed through into the tower and began dropping rocks from my belt. |
34 |
| Up, up, up - my lungs were bursting and my eardrums were exploding and I saw red and orange stars flashing in front of my eyes. I felt as though I had swallowed fire. Up, up, up - suddenly I broke through! I shot to the surface and gulped air, and screamed as it touched my tortured lungs. I gulped again and screamed again, and at last I was able to breathe normally. It was pitch black inside the tower, but when I felt around and above me I discovered that the air pocket was only a foot or so from a flat roof, and that one corner of the wall had almost crumbled to nothingness. In a few minutes I managed to pound a hole in it, and I slithered out and hauled myself to the top of the roof. I lay there gasping in the sunlight like a beached fish. |
35 |
| I sat up. The bodies of the handmaidens were swimming round and round the tower like sharks. The shore was a half a mile away - but at the moment I had something else to think about. I untied the sack from my belt and dumped the contents on the roof, and when I picked up the casket I felt the beat of a heart! Of course it was locked, but my lock picks were in the heel of my left sandal and I set to work with a will. |
36 |
| It was hopeless. That was the most difficult lock I had ever encountered, shaped like a tiny flower with sixteen tiny petals, and the only way it would ever be opened was with the right key. I tried smashing the casket against the stone parapet, but I could not dent it. I tried to force it with my dagger but I could not even scratch the surface. I hurled the cursed thing to the roof and sat there gazing at it, with my chin cupped in my hands. Apparently I had scooped up more than the casket from that niche in the wall, because glittering in the sunlight beside the casket were three priceless gems, an enormous diamond, a flawless emerald, and an extraordinarily rare pearl. |
37 |
| There are moments of illumination so sudden and unexpected that it takes many minutes for the confusion of messages to force their way through the brain, and when the meaning of those gems finally reached my consciousness I felt my mind shake loose from its moorings. |
38 |
| I knew everything. I knew what sort of face was concealed behind the great golden tiger mask of the Duke of Ch'in, and I could even guess what sort of dreams haunted his sleep. I understood why he guarded his treasures with labyrinths and invisible hands and rigid corpses and murdered maidens. Above all I knew where the Duke of Ch'in had hidden the Princess of Birds, and I knew that he had won. He had placed one final peril in my path, and I could not overcome it. |
39 |
| "Chang Heng, I cannot rescue the Princess of Birds!" I cried. "It would be the death of me! It would be worse than death!" |
40 |
| Chang Heng did not reply. He had done his best to civilize a mongrel, and now the mongrel had to make its own decision. I sat there wrapped in misery, gazing at a locked casket, and in the silence I could hear the evil heart of the Duke of Ch'in: thump-thump...thump-thump...thump-thump... |
41 |
| Another message was creeping into my mind. I raised my eyes and looked with pity and terror at the bodies of the murdered handmaidens. They moved jerkily through the water, circling the tower. They were jerking to the beat of the heart! The Duke of Ch'in had tricked them into betraying their mistress. Then he had murdered them. Then he had cast a spell and tied them to his heartbeat, and they were forced to guard the life of their murderer. "Take pity upon a faithless handmaiden...Is not a thousand years enough?" No, it wasn't. The duke fully intended to live forever, and they would suffer forever. As would the Star Shepherd. The Duke of Ch'in specialized in eternal damnation. |
42 |
| Even a mongrel has some small sense of decency. I jumped to my feet and tried to recall the names in the tale Henpecked Ho had told me. |
43 |
| "Snowgoose!" I yelled. "Little Ping! Autumn Moon! Listen to me! I know where the Duke of Ch'in has hidden the Princess of Birds! I know where he has hidden the crown! I know where he has hidden the feathers! Let me pass, and I swear to you that the birds will fly! I swear it! The birds will fly!" |
44 |
| I have been privileged to see bravery beyond mortal comprehension. No words escaped those dead lips, but I felt a wave of pain that practically scorched the flesh off me, and in my heart I heard the agonized screams of the handmaidens as they battled the spell that bound them. I saw their bodies spin round and round in the water, and at first I thought they were spinning out of control, but then I realized that they were wrapping their hair around their bodies. I dropped the casket and the gems back into the sack and tied it to my waist, and dove into the water. I swam between the agonized whirling bodies and made for shore, and those girls did not give up their terrible fight until I had crawled up on the bank. |
45 |
I had very little practice at it, but I faced the three murdered maidens and managed a fairly graceful kowtowing position. I banged my head against the ground three times, and then I got to my feet and took to my heels. A long road lay ahead, and I had no time to waste.
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