The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox

by Barry Hughart

  “The celestial analogue is a bear….”

  As he punched the ninth symbol, the iron door slid open. We stepped through the opening to the other side, and Master Li reached out to another shield.

  “And the musical note of Mercury is sixth on the scale,” he said complacently, and the iron door slid shut behind us.

  “Education is a wonderful thing,” Moon Boy said admiringly. “I should have paid more attention in school.”

  “Master Li knows everything,” I said proudly.

  Even Master Li was baffled when we reached the next row of shields. The tunnel was sloping up to an exit outside the walls, and another iron door confronted us. I could see no pattern at all to the symbols, and Master Li was clearly puzzled.

  “Strange,” he muttered. “All but three of the emblems are symbolic of nature, and those three form no pattern at all: a sandal, a fan made of feathers, and an incense burner.”

  We could be of no use to him. He had me walk back and forth along the shields. “This passage is his war route,” the old man muttered. “Logically he would use symbols that would concentrate his mind on battle, but what is militant about symbols for rain and sunlight and a variety of animals?” He muttered to himself for a while. “Visualize him,” he muttered. “Shih Hu, King of Chao, riding in his war chariot upon a revolving couch with his Golden Girls behind him.”

  He suddenly let out a whoop. “Ox, back to the beginning,” he said happily. I trotted back to the first shield. “I should have seen it at once,” said Master Li. “Shih Hu is remarkable in that his bulk requires him to fight while seated upon a couch, and has there ever been a mighty warrior before him who did the same thing? Yes, one. Shih Hu’s idol is the great Chuko Liang, the legendary Sleeping Dragon of the wars of the Three Kingdoms, who charged the enemy while reposing upon a couch in a carriage. And how did he array his men? In the Eight Trigrams Battle Formation, which he signaled by languidly waving his white feather fan.”

  Master Li punched the fan symbol. No gaping pit opened beneath our feet, so I started up the line of shields.

  “The first trigram is Heaven….

  “The second trigram is earth….

  “The third trigram is wind….

  “The fourth trigram is cloud….

  “The fifth trigram is dragon….

  “The sixth trigram is tiger….

  “The seventh trigram is bird….”

  As he punched the seventh shield the door slid open. We stepped through and Master Li reached for another shield.

  “And the eighth trigram is snake,” he said, and the door slid shut behind us.

  Moonlight had greeted us, and after a few more feet we were out on a hillside beneath the stars. Master Li gazed back at the huge walls of the castle.

  “The grooms and guards will creep back to the stables and find nothing but indignant toads,” he said thoughtfully. “If they do anything it will be to round up and spank the bottoms of any small boys who happen to be handy, and they certainly will not interrupt a banquet to tell their king that they deserted their post because they were attacked by awful amphibians. In the morning Shih Hu should have a royal hangover. I doubt that any of us will be missed until afternoon at the earliest, and then they’ll search the place and the grounds. Night will intervene, and not until the following morning should they realize we’re gone. We should have nearly two days’ head start, and we’ll need every minute of it.”

  I started out at a fast pace. We couldn’t use the horse stations of the postal service until we reached Loshan, and the rugged country was familiar to the king but not to us. I remembered the display of severed heads on pikes and lengthened my stride.

  It was slow going, because no amount of effort can speed you through mountainous terrain when you don’t know the shortcuts. The distant landmarks Master Li checked seemed to grow no closer, and on the morning of the third day we noticed some monks who were watching us from a hillside. The monks turned and vanished. A few hours later we reached a place where we could see the distant rooftop of the monastery. I thought I saw something lift from the roof and streak through the sky back toward Chao, but I couldn’t be sure. Grief of Dawn’s eyes were almost as sharp as Moon Boy’s ears, and she had no doubt about it.

  “Pigeons,” she said softly. “Probably the king has sent messages to all the monasteries under his protection, and I think he’s getting a reply.”

  I seemed to hear galloping hooves and the rumble of chariot wheels, and I picked up the pace even more, but it was still a long way to Loshan. The following morning we stood on the crest of a hill and looked down at a river that was very peculiar. Half of the water was blue, and the other half was yellow.

  “The Min,” said Master Li. “Yellow clay washes into it from the banks, and farther down it will be totally yellow. That’s when it joins the Yangtze, just above Five Misery Rapids. Past the rapids is Loshan and the horse stations of the postal service.”

  His face was grim and remained grim as he told me to get to the nearest village. There we bought a boat and a great deal of wine, and I noticed that the peasant who sold us the boat was acting rather peculiar when we climbed in and pushed off. He was smiling and bowing at first, but then the smile faded as we went out farther and farther toward the strong current in the center of the stream. Then he began to shout and wave his arms, and he tried to run after us as we reached the current and started rapidly downstream. The last I saw of him, he was on his knees making shamanistic gestures to release him from guilt.

  “The perils of Five Misery Rapids are greatly overrated,” Master Li said calmly. “At least when you compare them to the perils of an angry Shih Hu and his Golden Girls. We shall, however, take a few precautions, and this is the first.”

  With that he tossed the oars overboard. I yelped in dismay, and he tossed the pole overboard.

  “Temptation,” Master Li said. “If we had poles or oars, we’d be tempted to use them, which would be suicidal. The second precaution is to get stinking drunk, and that, my children, is an order.”

  Master Li opened wine jars. Moon Boy hoisted his enthusiastically, and Grief of Dawn and I did so dutifully. The water helped. Blue and yellow were blending in dizzying patterns, and in no time my head was spinning. Master Li and Moon Boy were quite mellow when we heard the sound, and Grief of Dawn and I were reeling. The sound was the roar of the Yangtze. Our little boat shot out into the great river and hit a current like a brick wall and spun around and began to race downstream. It was bouncing up and down like a bucking pony, and I was drunk enough to giggle at first. Then I saw what was coming at us and I stopped giggling and gaped in horror.

  The water strikes Yenyu Rocks with enough force to send spray like a woman’s hair flying sixty feet into the air. I discovered that my empty hands were frantically rowing imaginary oars, and Grief of Dawn was shoving with a nonexistent pole. I watched a log float out to the safe water we were trying to reach. Then the current caught the log full force and drove it into jagged rocks just beneath the surface, and two splintered pieces shot out and flew through the air and smashed ten feet up a sheer cliff at the bank. Our little boat, meanwhile, dashed straight toward Yenyu, hit the backwash, skidded around the sharp stone corners, and plowed through the woman’s-hair spray without suffering a scratch.

  Grief of Dawn and I grabbed for fresh wine jars.

  The speed was incredible as we raced straight at and then past Fairy Girl Peak, where the rocks are shaped like a nude nymph, and the Frog, where a forty-foot plume of water shoots from a stone bullfrog mouth. We passed through the Shing and Chutang gorges without incident. Master Li and Moon Boy had their arms around each other’s shoulders and were roaring a bawdy song, and I was foolish enough to think the worst of it was over. Then I saw what was coming and nearly fainted. Wu Gorge was looming through the spray.

  Day turned into night. We had shot into a gorge so narrow that only at noon could one see the sun in a tiny ribbon of sky at the top of towering clif
fs. The narrower the Yangtze became, the faster it ran. The noise was beyond belief. A stinging mist mercifully blocked out the rocks that reached like fangs to tear us to pieces. If our bodies had been rigid with sobriety there wouldn’t have been an unbroken bone, but we were as limp as sacks of meal. I would have preferred being unconscious, because Five Misery Rapids was leaping toward us at a hundred miles an hour.

  Master Li happily waved his wine flask. “One!” he bellowed, and suddenly we were airborne. The little boat turned completely around twice as we sailed over the falls, and we hit the surface again with a splash that sent spray fifty feet up the sides of the cliffs. I somehow got my stomach back in place just as Master Li bellowed, “Two!” We ascended toward Heaven again, practically grazing one of the walls as we shot through the air. It was a long way down to the level below the second falls, and Grief of Dawn and I clung to each other in terror. No sooner had we landed and scraped ourselves up from the deck than we felt our stomachs say farewell again. “Three!” Master Li yelled, and we sailed out into space. I don’t even remember landing. “Four!” Master Li yelled, and I opened my eyes to discover we were headed somewhere in the direction of Venus. The boat spun around as we descended, and we landed backward, which allowed me to notice that we had missed a rock like a fifty-foot saw by two inches. The boat spun around. Now I could see that we were hurtling toward the narrowest part of the gorge, and I stared at a spume of water that was wrapped in rainbows as it shot a hundred feet out into nothingness. We joined the spume. “Five!” Master Li bellowed. I realized that we were flying from Wu Gorge, sailing into a million acres of bright blue sky, and then the spray settled around us and we soared down blindly. Down and down and down, while I prayed we were still right side up. We hit with a shock that nearly drove me through the bottom of the boat.

  I think I was stunned, because it took some time for me to get my scrambled senses functioning, and then I wondered what was wrong. The noise had gone. The boat was peacefully floating upon placid water. I had the distinct sensation that I was about to be devoured by an enormous mouth, and I sat up and stared at the serene smile of the Great Stone Buddha of Loshan: three hundred sixty feet high, carved in the side of Yellow Buffalo Mountain at the safe end of Wu Gorge. Five Misery Rapids was behind us, and so was the King of Chao, and the only problems were Master Li and Moon Boy.

  They wanted to go back and do it again, but Grief of Dawn and I sat on them until they regained their senses.

  The next few days were rather interesting, although exhausting. I made a few notes, and perhaps I should include a couple of them.

  Wake up, rub eyes, examine bug crawling into left nostril. Grief of Dawn sleeping, Master Li snoring, Moon Boy gone. Get up to gather firewood. Dogs barking, screams of rage in distance. Make tea, get more water for rice. Screams of rage closer, plus beautiful voice singing obscene song:

  “There’s a boy across the riiiiiiiver

  With a bottom like a peeeeeeeeeach!”

  Rest of it unprintable. Hear six hawk moths diving at my tea, look around for hawk moths, see Moon Boy doing something with his throat. Screams of rage very close, lynch mob gallops over hill. Leader has pitchfork, drags weeping boy. Moon Boy accepts tea. Leader screams accusations, Moon Boy sips tea. Leader charges with pitchfork. Moon Boy smiles—air turns sulphurous. Smiles wider—hills shimmer with heat waves. Moon Boy tickles leader beneath chin, purrs like cat: “Come here, sugar.” Escorts leader behind large rock, boy stops weeping and starts laughing. Offer tea to lynch mob. Lewd sounds from behind rock, boy can’t stop laughing. Offer rice to lynch mob. Leader emerges, adjusting clothing. Refuses tea and rice and drags boy away by ear. Moon Boy saunters from behind rock, whistling. Master Li awakes, regards Moon Boy and departing lynch mob, mutters, “If only I could be ninety again,” goes back to sleep.

  Our route back toward Ch’ang-an took us past the village of Moon Boy’s birth, at which point I began to suspect that Moon Boy’s moral turpitude resembled his art: almost supernatural.

  Road past small temple, priest emerges. Stares at Moon Boy, lifts robe, races toward village: “Lock up the boys! Lock up the men! Lock up the goats and donkeys!” Moon Boy smiles proudly. Enter village, woman emerges from cottage: “My son!” Faints. Father emerges waving horsewhip: “Shame! Scandal! Infamy! Ignominy! Odium! Obliquity!” Father apparently fairly well educated. Priest runs up and sprinkles Moon Boy with holy water, begins beating with rod. Moon Boy tickles beneath chin. “Kitchy-koo.” Priest faints. Mother revives: “Witness, O Heaven, that I was blameless!” Topples back to ground, Moon Boy smiles proudly. Neighbors gather, Moon Boy blows kisses. Father follows from village waving horsewhip: “Agony! Abasement! Depravity! Degradation!” Moon Boy blows kisses. Horses, goats, bulls, donkeys: whinnies, bleats, bellows, brays. Moon Boy blows kisses, Master Li mutters, “Rather an active childhood.” Buy boat, push off into stream. Strange low hoarse sound, Moon Boy doing something with throat. Swans swim up. Great white glowing clouds of swans, canopy of wings over Moon Boy, feathers shining in sunlight. Beautiful. Unreal.

  If I am ever invited to take a ride on one of those tubes of Fire Drug that streaks up into the sky, goes bang! and hurls sparkling comets across the sky, I will bow politely and say, “A thousand pardons, but this humble one has already made the trip.”

  One of Moon Boy’s most remarkable attributes was that he was completely without jealousy. When Grief of Dawn felt like climbing into my bedroll, which she did now and then, all Moon Boy did was lift his handsome head to the night sky and sing to the rabbit in the moon, asking for a soft silver blanket of moonbeams for Grief of Dawn and Number Ten Ox. Master Li would cry in mock agony, “Ah, if only I could be ninety again!” (actually, I think he was happy to be free from the tyranny of sex and desire), and it was clear that, for reasons of his own, he was becoming fascinated by the maid without a memory.

  Grief of Dawn was a walking collection of contradictions. She was a simple peasant who spoke the pai bua of the people, like me, but at times she would unconsciously toss in wen li phrases that would have done credit to a courtier. She painted her forehead yellow but refused to pluck and paint her eyebrows: half-patrician, half-peasant. She was shameless enough to walk around with her hair uncovered, yet she was furious when she saw a man in mourning for his mother who carried a staff of oak rather than the appropriate mulberry. She was a prostitute who indignantly refused a fan Moon Boy bought because it was folding, and the symbolism was indecent, and ladies should always carry fixed fans.

  Master Li’s eyes lit up. “I haven’t heard the fan taboo since I was a lad of six or seven!” he exclaimed.

  “Little Miss Spotless Sandals,” I teased.

  “Everybody should dust his sandals now and then,” she said demurely, and then she stepped behind me and dusted hers with two swift kicks to my rear end. “Turtle Egg!” she yelled.

  Master Li collapsed with laughter. When he recovered he explained that people once believed turtles could conceive through thought alone, which made parentage impossible to establish, so “turtle egg” became a euphemism for bastard. Master Li swore that the insult had last been delivered during the Usurpation of Wang Mang, and he was willing to bet that at some point in her wanderings Grief of Dawn had found work in one of the moldy priories where antiquated old maids preserve ancient sayings and customs they learned from their great-great-grandmothers. Another time Grief of Dawn got mad at Moon Boy and called him “Forgetter of the Eight!” and even Master Li had to pause before connecting it to the corrupt courtiers whom Mencius swore had turned their backs on filial piety, politeness, decorum, integrity, fidelity, fraternal duty, loyalty, and sense of shame: the Eight Rules of Civilization.

  Grief of Dawn was perfectly aware of Master Li’s growing interest. She began to regard him with a speculative expression that had a hint of mirth in it, and I wondered if Moon Boy could read her mind, because he picked up the exact same expression. One scorching afternoon we reached a stream and in an insta
nt Moon Boy had stripped and was gliding through the cool water like one of his swans. Grief of Dawn had plenty of secluded places to use if she liked, so Master Li and I undressed and dove in after Moon Boy. There was another splash. Grief of Dawn swam like a seal, and wasn’t exactly shy about displaying her supple athlete’s body. She stood in a shallow spot, apparently to give Master Li a good view of her lovely firm breasts.

  “Venerable Sir, how many wives have you had?” she asked innocently.

  “Buddha, I started to lose count somewhere back toward the beginning of the Sui Dynasty.”

  “And how many wives do you have now?”

  “Not one,” the old man said complacently. “They kept growing old and dying on me, so when I reached the point where I could no longer enjoy the Play of Clouds and Rain, I decided to settle for selfishness and comfortable clutter, and I haven’t had a wife since.”

  “But is that wise?” Grief of Dawn batted her eyes as though the bright sunlight bothered her. (She had beautiful eyelashes.) “Wives are useful for many things, and there are potions and incantations that can do wonders with the Play of Clouds and Rain…”

  I stopped listening and tried to make my clumsy mind come to grips with Grief of Dawn’s point of view. The more I thought of it, the more sensible it became. Prostitutes are called “flowers of smoke,” and brothels are “smoke and blossom camps” because worldly pleasures are transitory, and nothing is more transitory than beauty. A whore’s hopes can be measured in the distance between two wrinkles, and what could Grief of Dawn look forward to? If she married me, it would mean a farm and children and heartbreak when she was compelled to run off after Moon Boy and resume her restless wanderings. But if she married an ancient sage? Master Li would merely laugh if she ran off, and take the opportunity to smash up the shack with some old-fashioned drinking brawls, and laugh some more when she returned, and when he died she would become a respectable widow with a roof over her head.