Mind you, no crime is involved. Many of the damned are innocent children. After three years the damned are allowed to occasionally return to earth in ghost form (which is the reason for the Feast of Hungry Ghosts), and it is theoretically possible for a ghost to be saved by finding someone to take his place. That is why it is so dangerous to linger where a child has drowned or a man has hanged himself. The spirit will try to seize you and drag you down to the Ninth Hell, and only by doing so can it earn a place on the Great Wheel of Transmigrations. In practical terms the chances of reaching the Wheel are almost nonexistent.
All one hundred thirty-five lesser Hells and all but one of the major ones are dedicated to justice. The Ninth Hell alone is unjust. None but a theologian could love it. How can I forget a little girl I saw weeping beside the road, damned for eternity because she slipped and fell into a stream? It is my sincere belief that priests could deal a death blow to atheism by destroying the Ninth Hell, and the proper petitions should be submitted to Heaven at once.
The moment we stepped outside we were assaulted by the stench of unwashed bodies. Venality is rampant in the Ninth Hell, where the lowest of demons sell food and drink at ruinous prices, and an army of lost souls besieged us, screaming for coins. We would surely have been crushed had not Master Li and Moon Boy been able to scoop handfuls of gold and silver from the casks and hurl them into the mob. The poor souls fought for coins like animals, and the weak and the young had no chance at all.
Each chest was nicely calculated to get us so far across the long gray plain. Master Li and Moon Boy hurled coins until their arms were falling from the sockets, and as the cart grew lighter, I was able to pull it faster. Ahead was the great gray wall of the Tenth Hell, rising at the top of a hill. I puffed and panted as I hauled the cart up the steep slope. The howling wretches began to dwindle behind us. One determined band kept up, but Moon Boy had one last cask, and he tilted it and a shower of silver fell down the hill. At last we were rid of the mob and could start worrying about reaching the Great Wheel.
A demon army patrols the walls of the Tenth Hell. Master Li wasted little time. By ripping the canopy from the state umbrella he was able to fashion an acceptable ceremonial wreath, and the handle passed for a wand, and Moon Boy’s jewels produced a pearl that could pass for the sacred one. Moon Boy and I were naturally suited to be the Disciples of Wealth and Poverty, and Master Li’s venerable wrinkles formed a passport of their own. He started toward the walls waving blessings right and left, and the cry went up: “Ti-tsang Wang-p’u-sa! The God of Mercy arrives for his annual inspection!”
The wall was not difficult. There were many foot- and handholds, and Master Li hopped up on my back and Moon Boy grabbed my belt. I was halfway up the side before the soldiers began to wonder why the God of Mercy simply didn’t fly over the thing, and the alarm wasn’t sounded until I was almost at the top. Arrows flew harmlessly over our heads and started down the other side, but I almost fell nonetheless. I simply wasn’t prepared for my first view of the Great Wheel of Transmigrations.
The immensity of it cannot be described. Some phenomenon made the lower spokes move slowly even while higher ones were lifting with blinding speed. The wheel lifted up and up and up, and it wasn’t even halfway visible. It vanished in gray clouds, and I realized that it had to reach the surface of the earth and then keep lifting until it could deposit newborn yaks upon the highest mountains of Tibet.
Endless lines of the dead were converging upon a humble cottage where Lady Meng brewed and served the Broth of Oblivion. When the dead were herded back into lines their minds were as empty as the eyes of politicians, and demons tossed the trappings of their next existences over their heads: animal skins, bird feathers, and so on. It took a little while for the soldiers inside the wall to be alerted to our presence, and by that time we were shuffling in a line with sheepskins over our heads. Master Li’s nimble fingers had snatched them so quickly the attendant didn’t know they were gone, and the soldiers passed us by.
We were getting very close to the Great Wheel. The dead were climbing inside to swinging platforms. “Ox, if we get inside we’ll never be able to get out,” Master Li whispered. I nodded and he prepared to hop on my back, and Moon Boy prepared to grab my belt.
“Now,” I whispered.
Master Li hopped and Moon Boy grabbed and I jumped and caught a spoke. I managed to get my feet on the outer edge of the rim just as the soldiers spotted us. Demons screamed with rage, and arrows and spears flew, but we were rising with great speed. An arrow missed Moon Boy’s nose by half an inch and a spear grazed my arm, and then we were too high for missiles to reach, and a moment later we were shooting up into the clouds. We rose with incredible speed that made tears blur my eyes, and Master Li began to swear quite foully.
We had left the demons below, but we would be lost if we couldn’t see where to get off, and the clouds obscured everything. Long minutes massed as we whirled into infinity, and still the clouds billowed around us. Then I began to see pinpricks of light like tiny stars, and Master Li scanned the sky.
“There! The perfectly round one. See it?”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“Don’t miss.”
“No, sir,” I said.
The small round spot of light appeared to be zooming toward us at unbelievable speed. I crouched, trying to judge the trajectory. “Ready,” I said. My heart stopped when a thick cloud blinded me, but then we shot through it. “Set,” I said. The light was crossing my imaginary target point and I jumped with all the strength I had. We shot across the sky like a projectile from a catapult, and the light grew brighter and brighter, and then plunged straight into the center of it and hit a wall of water.
The breath was knocked out of me and I almost choked to death as I floated upward, and then my head broke through the surface and I gasped and gulped fresh air. I hauled Master Li and Moon Boy to a bank and dragged them up. We were lying on green grass and a yellow sun was shining, and bright birds were chirping, and a white skull was grinning up at us from the bottom of a pool.
Master Li crawled over and tilted his wine flask over the pool and Moon Boy and I watched the wine whirl in a spout that disappeared into the grinning jaws.
“Ling, old friend, you are a truly great artist,” Master Li said.
The reeds moved. “Burp.” They moved again. “No, but I am not a bad quack.”
Moon Boy was probing sensitive areas that might or might not have come into contact with an oversized demon. I stared at a long bleeding scratch where a spear might or might not have grazed my arm. Master Li grinned at us.
“Moon Boy, have you forgotten your teacher and the bandit he deafened? Ox, have you forgotten Granny Ho and her son-in-law? If Moon Boy hadn’t handled that demon we would have been killed, and if Ox had missed the target just now we would also have been killed. We have been treated to the artistry of the great Liu Ling, which makes questions of literal truth immaterial, if not absurd. Was Chuang Tzu imagining himself to be the butterfly, or was the butterfly imagining itself to be Chuang Tzu?”
He turned back to the pool and poured more wine in, and the old man and the skull drank in comfortable silence like old friends.
“Ling,” Master Li finally said, “your priests did a marvelous job of probing our minds while we lay in mushroom stupors, and they were not blinded as I am by subjective experience. Is it permissible to ask for an opinion?”
The reeds remained still.
“Let’s put it this way. If you were to entertain somebody with the story of Li Kao and Number Ten Ox and Grief of Dawn and Moon Boy and Prince Liu Pao and so on, what would you call it?”
The reeds remained quiet, but then, slowly, they moved. “Shi tou chi!”
“The Story of the Stone?” Master Li nodded. “Yes, I vaguely perceive what you mean. It’s a question of priorities, of course, and I haven’t quite sorted them out. But I’m almost there, I think.”
He got to his feet. Moon Boy and I followed his
example, and we bowed to the skull.
“Ling,” Master Li said, “I still say you’re a very great artist.”
The reeds moved for the last time. “Kao, I still say you were born to be bung.”
A priest was holding a gate open for us. We walked out to a green hillside, and the last I saw of the Temple of Illusion was a window in a small tower with shutters half-closed. A winking eye.
A few miles past the White Cloud Convent we turned off the path and climbed shale and granite and black rock and crossed a clearing. We burrowed through brush to another cleaning at the side of a cliff, and Master Li gazed happily at a strange and rather unimpressive plant.
“The mind is a miser,” he said. “Nothing is ever thrown away, and it’s amazing what you can find if you dig deep enough.” He began stripping thorny little seedlike things. “Don’t play with thorn apples unless you know what you’re doing,” he cautioned. “They’re of the nightshade family, like mandrake and henbane and belladonna, and their principal product is poison. From the Bombay thorn apple comes the legendary potion of India, dhatura, which can stupefy, paralyze, or kill, depending upon the dosage, but which can also produce a medicine with remarkable effect upon internal bleeding and fever. With any luck we’ll have Grief of Dawn on her feet in no time.”
Our trip back to the Valley of Sorrows was fast and uneventful, although Moon Boy and I grew ever more apprehensive as we approached, and we were weak with relief when the feather-duster head of Prince Liu Pao thrust from a studio window and called cheerfully to us.
“Hurray! Grief of Dawn is as good as cured!” the prince yelled optimistically. “She’s been unchanged! No weird sounds while you were gone, no more murdered monks, and no mad mummies crawling up from tombs!”
Moon Boy and I ran inside. Grief of Dawn looked very lovely and very vulnerable as she tossed in fever. She seemed to sense our presence and tried to sit up, and fell back, and Master Li stepped up and took her pulse. Since he used the right wrist I assumed he was checking on the condition of her lungs, stomach, large intestine, spleen, and parta ulta. He grunted with satisfaction.
“She can take the potion in full strength,” he said confidently, and at once he set to work with the thorn apple; boiling, distilling, blending with herbs and mysterious ingredients, and finally testing it on a cat who seemed to enjoy it.
I don’t know whether or not the stuff could be called miraculous but I do know that Master Li added a final ingredient that no other physician could have managed. Moon Boy and I propped up Grief of Dawn, and Master Li managed to get a good dose of the potion down her throat. Within a minute she was stirring restlessly, and then her eyes opened. At first she saw nothing. Her eyes cleared and focused and her head moved forward and her lips brushed Moon Boy’s cheek. “Darling,” she whispered. I leaned forward. “Dear Ox,” she said, and she kissed me too, and even managed to blush when Prince Liu Pao grinned and presented his cheek for a kiss.
“What happened?” she whispered. “It was dark and damp and I was running and running and running, and something terrible was behind me.”
“Well, it’s gone now,” Master Li said comfortingly. “You have nothing to worry about except how in hell Ox is going to add enough space to our shack.”
The sick girl sat up straight.
“I’ve already figured it out, and there’ll even be space for Moon Boy when he pops up,” I said happily.
“How about the prince?” said Master Li. “Let’s include all of the family. Your Highness, do you object to sleeping three to a bed when you wander into our alley in Peking?”
“Not at all!” the prince said cheerfully.
Grief of Dawn was looking at Master Li with wide glistening eyes. The old sage shook his head ruefully.
“A man my age starting one more family. Sheer idiocy! At least,” he added, “I’ll have the most fascinating young wife in all Peking, and that is the understatement of the century.”
I didn’t fully understand what he meant until Grief of Dawn had completely recovered. Both she and the prince had us recount our adventures in Hell over and over, and Grief of Dawn gazed in wonder at the scar where the arrow had entered her chest and said she wished she could remember what it was like to be stone-cold dead. Master Li paced the floor, obviously yearning for action. His excitement was catching, and I think it helped speed Grief of Dawn’s recovery, and then she was as fit as she had ever been and Master Li got us up with the sun. He said it was time to try something, and we had best be heavily armed. I chose an axe and stuck a short sword in my belt. Moon Boy and the prince both selected spears and daggers. Master Li lined his belt with throwing knives. Grief of Dawn was far and away the best archer among us, and she selected a bow from the pile and added a quiver of arrows and a knife in her belt. Master Li climbed up on my back.
“Start down the hill, and go across the valley to the hill beside the monastery,” he said. “Along the way I’ll entertain you with some fascinating notes I’ve taken.”
Master Li pulled out a sheaf of notes and told Grief of Dawn to walk beside me. It had rained during the night, and the morning was very beautiful. Raindrops like tiny pearls glowed on each leaf, and damp grass sparkled like diamonds in the sunlight.
“My pet, according to the inner recesses of my mind, you have a credit account in Hell that could buy one or two of the lesser kingdoms. The reason lies in a lullaby to old Tai-tai that you sang when you were delirious, and that was only the beginning of an incredible performance. You’re packed with more marvels than the Puzzle Book of Lu Pan!” he said enthusiastically. “Let’s start with one of the most astounding conversations I’ve ever experienced.”
He flipped through his notes and began to read aloud.
GRIEF OF DAWN: Mistress, must I go to Chien’s? It smells so bad, and the bargemen make rude jokes about ladies, and that old man with one leg always tries to pinch me.
MASTER LI: Darling, what does your mistress want you to buy at Chien’s?
GRIEF OF DAWN: Rhinoceros hides.
MASTER LI: And where is Chien’s?
GRIEF OF DAWN: Halfway between the canal and Little Ch’ing-hu Lake.
MASTER LI: Darling, does your mistress ever send you to Kang Number Eight’s?
GRIEF OF DAWN: I like Kang Number Eight’s.
MASTER LI: Where is it?
GRIEF OF DAWN: On the Street of Worn Cash-Coin.
MASTER LI: What do you buy there?
GRIEF OF DAWN: Hats.
MASTER LI: Hats. Yes, of course. And where do you buy your mistress’s painted fans?
GRIEF OF DAWN: The Coal Bridge.
MASTER LI: I suppose she also sends you to buy the famous boiled pork at…. What’s the name of that place?
GRIEF OF DAWN: Wei-the-Big-Knife.
MASTER LI: Of course. Do you remember where it is?
GRIEF OF DAWN: Right beside the Cat Bridge.
Master Li lowered his notes, and regarded Grief of Dawn with the fondness of a connoisseur examining a rare orchid. “My pet,” he said, “you were describing a shopping trip that the personal maid of an aristocratic lady might have taken in Hangchow.”
“Hangchow?” the prince said with a startled expression on his face.
“Indeed yes, but you’re right. No such establishments exist today, and the only reason I know about them is because they were often mentioned in the casual journals of classical writers,” said Master Li. “Both one-legged Ch’ien and his famous rhinoceros hides disappeared during a fire that destroyed the entire neighborhood during the late Han Dynasty. The Coal Bridge and Kang Number Eight’s were razed to make way for a new canal more than three centuries ago. Wei-the-Big-Knife’s was destroyed during the turmoil of the Three Kingdoms, and so it goes with every single reference.”
Grief of Dawn’s eyes were like soup bowls. “I don’t remember saying any of that, and the names mean nothing to me,” she protested.
Master Li shrugged. “You were delirious. At first I thought you were
citing the same journals I’d read, but they’re written in ancient scholarly shorthand that none but academics can decipher. I started asking loaded questions to pin down the exact date of this marvelous shopping trip, and I found it in two references.”
He went back to his notes.
MASTER LI: And what’s-his-name personally blends her ink?
GRIEF OF DAWN: Yes. Li Tinghuei.
MASTER LI: And that lovely courtesan makes pink paper for her?
GRIEF OF DAWN: Shieh Tao. Yes, she is lovely.
“Li Tinghuei and Shieh Tao are mentioned again and again in classical journals,” said Master Li. “Since Tinghuei was senior by more than forty years, there could have been only a brief period when it was possible to patronize both of them. I checked the dates, and the amazing shopping trip took place between 765 and 771 years ago.”
Moon Boy and I were gaping at Grief of Dawn, who was gaping at Master Li. Prince Liu Pao looked like he was mentally counting on his fingers, and Master Li read his mind.
“Precisely! That was when the Laughing Prince and Tou Wan kept a palace in Hangchow, and Tou Wan’s maid would have accompanied her between Hangchow and the Valley of Sorrows.”
Occasionally a moderately intelligent thought misses a turn and accidentally enters my mind, and I said, “Sir, in Hell you confirmed from the Recorder of Past Existences that the Broth of Oblivion isn’t always properly administered, and Grief of Dawn had come to the Valley of Sorrows, but perhaps she was returning to the valley, because when she was wounded and hallucinating—”
“Good boy!” said Master Li. “I had begun to suspect that Grief of Dawn had been Tou Wan’s maid in a previous incarnation. Fever allowed deep-buried memories to rise to the surface, stimulated by the familiar surroundings. I wasn’t just guessing wildly, of course. An absolutely delightful pattern was beginning to emerge, and we’ll get to it in a few minutes.”
We began to climb again. Master Li led the way along a twisting path, and then we got down on our knees and crawled through the opening of a cave where the angle of the sun sent a flow of warm light over a small pile of bones. We sat in a semicircle around the skeleton of Wolf, and Master Li patted Grief of Dawn’s knee reassuringly.
The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox Page 48
