The Big Book of Modern Fantasy

by The Big Book of Modern Fantasy (retail) (epub)

  “So what?” asked Conrad, the epitome of innocence, attentively eating his borscht.

  Old Harry frowned.

  “You know what. You know very well, Mr. Romanchuk.”

  They eyed each other up and down in silence for a few minutes. Sensing that something was brewing, Crackers cautiously collected up the remaining dishes from the table and placed them in the sink, then he hid himself away in the pantry amid the tins.

  “Fortunato is completely messed up in the head,” Conrad began. “The purpose of his existence seems to be to make life difficult for everyone around him, I can’t see any other reason. I’d happily lock him in the basement or drown him in the pond, but”—he spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness—“you said it yourself, ghosts can’t be killed. It’s highly regrettable.”

  “Hell, I’d be first in line to help you hide the body, but what’s Marianne got to do with all this?”

  “A great deal, Old Harry. A great deal. Once again, Fortunato has gone after a girl, ignoring the fact of his own death. Actually, just for the record, he’s pretty great at ignoring the obvious, he must have a natural talent. But now he thinks that fate has given him a second chance at the kind of love he’s always dreamed of. And if he believes it strongly enough to go trudging around after Marianne, to completely abandon…”

  “I’m in love, oh, I’m in love!” With a shout, the young master came sailing into the kitchen and threw himself at Conrad’s feet. “And I shall forever give thanks to the heavens for sending you to me, my comforter! She is an angel incarnate, not a woman! And how beautiful!” A sigh. “How demure!” Another sigh. “What an unearthly glow she exudes as she treads, winged with the words of my poetry!” A roll of the eyes. “Oh, I care not that fate and people stand against us! That I must flee, and love without hope! I am set alight, I am finally set alight, and ’tis you who rekindled this fire in my soul! Oh, thank you, thank you, my dear friend!” He embraced Conrad wholeheartedly and darted out of the kitchen.

  “Damn, I’ll be paying for his rapture in bruises…”

  “That poor girl,” sighed Old Harry. “She don’t deserve this…”

  “Why poor? Just think about it. How much love do you need to be able to see a beautiful, demure angel winged with the words of poetry in a gruff peasant girl with dandruff, the figure of a bowling pin, and an inch of foundation on her face? Because I’m telling you, her luster is real,” he added. “I’ve seen her glowing mug myself. Believe me, Marianne, like all young women today, wants a romantic, sensitive man who’s not ashamed to shed a tear, who remembers the anniversary of their first kiss, who takes her for moonlit walks, gives her flowers with some kind of symbolic meaning, and reads moving poems about love. But such men don’t exist, Old Harry, they died off a long time ago. And those who remained are chasing after money, careers, and shapely asses in miniskirts.”

  Machiavellianism for the poor—plain and simple.

  “Maybe you’re right, but…But we’re talkin’ about Fortunato here!”

  “How long was he chasing the first girl?”

  “Goin’ on two months.”

  “There you go! And he’s only been following Marianne for a week. Let’s give him a chance, Old Harry. What if he’s learnt something these last two hundred years? Don’t forget,” he lowered his voice knowingly, “that his being lucky in love is in our own interests. And in the interests of Bugaboo Hole. In any case, what are you worried about? After all, no man has ever died of love…not twice, anyhow.”

  * * *

  —

  One morning, the soul of a toreador was awoken in Fortunato—he decided to wait no longer, to take the bull by the horns. Having tended to his exterior—especially the tailcoat, which had long been crying out for an iron, and his disheveled curls—he had hidden himself in the upstairs bathroom to complete his cycle of extolling-and-worshipping sonnets. A new bunch of flora, this time comprising multicolored leaves, stood on the floor in a pickle jar.

  His joyful creative work didn’t take long. Just before lunch, equipped with his poetry collection and bouquet, the young master began to search for the fair Marianne. He caught up with her in the laundry room, where she was hanging out freshly washed sheets.

  “Oh, my dear lady!” he cried hysterically.

  Startled, the girl dropped her plastic basket of clothes pegs.

  “Fear not, my angel! Allow me to warm thy hands with kisses of passionate love!”

  She didn’t even have time to protest—the young master had already attached himself to her cold, wet hands and started to kiss them like a man possessed.

  “Thou art the apple of mine eye! Thou art a ray of hope illuminating the darkness! Thou art a moment of respite in the eternal toil and pain! Oh, I have wearied my lips in vain!” he shouted and pulled the girl hard until she dropped onto her knees in front of him. “I shall cut to the chase. Marianne…” he whispered passionately into her ear. “Celestial lover…will you sit on my grave?”

  “You got a ring?” she replied, matter-of-factly.

  “P…pardon?”

  “A ring,” she repeated. “A gold one with a jewel, red would be best. If there ain’t no ring, I ain’t sittin’ on no grave. Momma says you gotta know your worth, not just let the first guy that comes along pop your cherry. ’Cos then the whole village will talk, and the priest will curse from the pulpit.”

  “By God!” The young master let out a heart-rending wail. “Are you so blinded by gold?”

  “What did you think, that I’m stupid enough to give myself up for just anythin’? For a down-and-out with no job and no apartment?” She pursed her lips contemptuously. “There’s this one guy, Joe, works on construction sites, he’s rolling in money. He’s even been abroad once, he ain’t no amateur! And he brings boxes of chocolates, got me this fancy petticoat for my birthday, real expensive! And we go to the disco nearly every Saturday, and maybe we’ll announce our wedding this Christmas. With the money Mr. Romanchuk’s paying me, I’ll get a wedding dress made at a dressmaker’s.”

  Stunned by the mention of Joe and the petticoat, the young master stood up, though his legs were shaking.

  “Damn you!” he said bitterly. “You have destroyed my last hours of happiness on Earth! And…and a pox o’ your throat!” he shouted, and fled, tears streaming down his face.

  * * *

  —

  The band of valiant mushroom pickers returning from the forest saw Marianne swaying on her bike in the distance.

  “Oh, has she already finished for the day?” Conrad was surprised. He was a little uncomfortable, perhaps because he had Dammit on his head. The cat had taken fright at a hellish, fire-breathing creature equipped with a set of terrifying teeth and claws. Conrad’s fervent assurances that hares don’t usually attack anyone and that they can hardly be described as deadly or bloodthirsty—unlike, say, Crackers—had somehow failed to convince Dammit.

  “Sure looks like it,” Old Harry grunted, lifting the excursion-weary Bugaboo onto his back.

  A stronger puff of wind made the cyclist wobble but failed to topple her. She pushed forward like a tank, and in less than a minute she’d disappeared among the trees.

  Then a bang was heard from the direction of the house.

  The group began to race toward Bugaboo Hole. Conrad slipped into the lead straightaway, shedding blood from his temples and forehead, where Dammit was clinging on with all her might so as not to fall. Just behind them came Old Harry, panting furiously and puffing like a locomotive, and Bugaboo jogged behind him, trying not to lose his rubber boots.

  The young master was sitting in the pond, a shotgun in his arms, his head shot through, swaying from side to side. The water sprites were teeming around him, demanding the immediate eviction of the wild tenant.

  “Hallelujah, Fortunato! Get out of there, you’ll catch cold!” shrieked Bugaboo, whose
strength had miraculously returned, and he lunged to the young master’s aid. He began to pull Fortunato ashore, the water sprites were pushing from the other side, and a minor pandemonium broke out in the water. Feathers were flying everywhere.

  “I’m sooo miserable!” bawled Fortunato, wet and hole-ridden, with a beatific smile. Judging by his expression, he couldn’t have been happier.

  Conrad came to a halt. The cat, trembling violently, took advantage of the opportunity to scamper into the house.

  “Hell, that’s love for ya,” Old Harry panted, hands clamped to his chest. “Sure hope you’re happy. An enamored Fortunato always, always means trouble. Where the heck did he get that shotgun?”

  “They’re not the real lifers, are they?”

  “Huh?”

  “No, of course they’re not. After all, they’ll never get out of here, because they’ll never die,” muttered Conrad in a daze. “But I will. I’ll die. Definitely. At some point. After spending a few dozen years with them. It’s like a sentence…a life sentence…a proper life sentence…”

  “Yup. You finally got it, Mr. Romanchuk. Welcome to Bugaboo Hole.”

  And the higher power looked down from above and squealed with laughter.

  Qitongren, also known as Li Qiqing (李启庆) or Bucketrider, is the editor-in-chief for the online fantasy magazine Jiuge (九歌). His work includes a short story collection, a full-length novel, a historical account of ancient Chinese fantasy literature, and a biography of famous Chinese Buddhist monk Master Hong Yi. His fantasy writings are said to have inherited the spirit of fantasy literature from the Tang (618–907) and Song (960–1279) Dynasties. “The Spring of Dongke Temple” was first published in 2007.

  THE SPRING OF DONGKE TEMPLE

  Qitongren

  Translated by Liu Jue

  FORTY KILOMETERS AWAY from Qingcheng County stands the Dongke Mountain. With its high altitude and thick forest cover, the mountain is virtually trackless. Legend has it that the Dongke Temple is somewhere on the mountain. The monks, however, have all become anāgāmin (“non-returner,” practitioners who have reached the penultimate stage to becoming Arhats), and therefore extinguished all earthly desires. A few decades ago, a woodsman accidentally found the temple and dwelled there for several days. He returned, yet remained tight-lipped about the experience. Finally, on his death bed, the woodsman, vaguely, mentioned the “many swallows in the temple.” He went on to say that despite his pleasant stay it would be better for his family to “never seek the temple again.”

  On a spring day in the year 808, scholar Liu Xichu took a boat with seven or eight of his comrades up the stream to Dongke Mountain in search of the legendary temple. They found the source of the stream, only to discover untrodden woods and dark ravines. Soon, the sun began to set, alarming the scholars who urged the boatman to go back. The boatman, however, was not used to navigating the mountain stream and steered the boat into a rock where it foundered. The current, though not deep, was swift, and Liu had to grasp the branch of an old tree. On finally managing to lift his head above the water to search for his companions, they were long gone—their faint cries for help gradually fading away. In the end only the chirps of the birds and roar of the apes echoing in the woods remained, a heart-wrenching and miserable sound at the time.

  Liu breathed deeply and took a brief moment to collect himself. He crawled onto the bank along the branch. Walking around, he found an old tree to climb up and rest. Thankfully, a piece of nang bread was still safely tucked in his robe. Though it was soaking wet and had become soft, he tore a piece off and swallowed it. By this time it was dark and the moon had begun rising against the mountain. Liu, thinking of his family, couldn’t help shedding a few tears.

  The next morning, Liu climbed down the tree and tried to find his way back, gradually losing all sense of time and direction. Every piece of mountain rock and every branch of every tree looked exactly the same. He fed on wild fruits when he finished the nang bread. His wanderings became dull and tardy, until finally, he fell down at the foot of an old tree, exhausted, not able even to stir a limb.

  “I can’t believe I will die here!” he said to himself.

  On seeing a few mountain flowers dancing in the wind not far away, he began sobbing wildly. By dusk, he ceased crying and felt much better; his strength seemed to have returned. Standing up and looking around, he began collecting fruit for dinner. Suddenly, he noticed a faint scent of flowers in the wind.

  He was carried away by the scent and carefully followed it. The moon was bright and the wind refreshing. Liu Xichu kept walking till midnight, using reserves of strength he didn’t know he had. The fragrance became rich and pure, sometimes sweet and intoxicating like good wine, sometimes sharp and piercing like a blade. Enchanted, Liu kept advancing unconsciously into a valley. In the moonlight, he entered an ancient forest, with giant trees several arm-lengths wide. No wild grass was found on the ground, just a layer of gray. The fragrance was beyond a mere scent now, becoming a flowing spring of green jade.

  Liu stumbled forward, suddenly noticing a shabby temple. The front gate had collapsed a long time ago. There was an azalea tree, three meters tall, in front of the ruined gate. Despite the dim light, he could still see the vivid colors of its branches.

  Liu entered the temple shouting: “Is anyone here? Anyone?”

  Only a faint humming came as reply. Though he had walked the whole night, only at this very moment did he notice his feet aching through to their bones. He dropped to the ground, at first sitting, then later sliding down and falling into a deep sleep.

  He awoke the next morning to a courtyard full of wild grass. Inside the main hall, spiderwebs were draped everywhere. On beams and pillars were stacks of swallows’ nests. A few Buddha statues were barely upright with broken arms or missing eyes, their heads covered with gray bird droppings.

  Liu Xichu was so starved, he was light-headed. After searching inside and outside the temple, he found a few berries that were sour and sharp, which he gulped down nevertheless. Only when he felt better did he notice that there seemed to be many birds flying above the forest—their wings rustling together. He left the temple and labored to the top of the mountain. Endless bird droppings covered the ground. He managed to collect some forest fruit and saw a wild beehive. He started a fire to smoke-out the bees, and fed himself a hearty meal of honey, before continuing to march upward. Fortunately, the mountain top was not so far. He moved upward, step by step. A swallow would sweep by from time to time and then lightly fly through the leaves, up into the sky.

  It was still morning when he left the temple, but by the time he reached the top it was sunset. The sun shone through the mountain peak on the opposite side and tinged half the valley in deep red, the other half left dark green. Countless swallows swarmed back and forth above the woods. When they flew into the sunshine, they became like the flaming birds of Zhu Rong—the fire god—a blaze of red all through. But once they were in the dark half, they turned into green fish, as if swiftly swimming underwater.

  The moon was bright and stars scarce when Liu arrived back at the temple. He made do by dozing off and eating some of the honey acquired the day before. He brightened up again, carefully examining the temple inside and out. Though in ruins, much of the temple’s richly ornamented columns, beams, green rafters, and red tiles remained. Judging by its scale, the temple could have housed more than a hundred monks; the state of its decay was curious.

  There were swallow nests everywhere, from the main hall right through to the dining room; the abbot’s chamber, even the toilet, were occupied by birds. The floor covered by their droppings over the years, seemed soft when Liu first set upon them, but were solid as stone at their core.

  Swallows flew into the temple from time to time to feed their young, not in the least affected by Liu’s presence. Maybe they were accustomed to the monks here before; the sudden appearance
of a human didn’t seem to alarm them.

  Liu lived on honey for several days in the temple—becoming, surprisingly, too happy to think of home. In the swallows’ nests lay many eggs, but Liu was not willing to eat them. When the honey was finished, he went into the woods to pick wild fruit. Though they were in mid-spring, Liu didn’t mind their bitter taste.

  Just like that, over ten days passed until one day at noon, Liu heard a vague rustle behind one of the Buddha figures. Turning to check, he found a deep pit in the ground. It was too dark inside to see anything. On the nearby wall there was also a large hole from where the rustling noise seemed to be originating. Liu bent down to examine the hole closely and got a feeling that some kind of monster must be hiding there. He grabbed a stick and poked inside. Suddenly, a bat soared and crashed into his face, leaving him confused and somewhat disturbed. Another bat was barely out of the hole when Liu hastily jumped aside. More dark brown bats flipped their webbed wings, scrambling to make out the opening. In a blink of an eye, these bats clouded the main hall, rendering it into a dull darkness.

  Only an hour later did all bats leave the hole, gliding out of the main hall to form a long line. Before Liu could recover from his shock, he heard breathing from the pit. Startled, Liu found a piece of brick and threw it into the pit from afar.

  “Argh!” A scream came from the bottom, sounding like a person.

  Liu then groped the edge, shouting back: “Are you a person or a ghost?” Some babbling rose from the pit. Liu listened for a while and guessed it must be a request: “Pull me up.” As he extended a long stick down into the pit, someone grabbed it as he expected. With much effort, Liu pulled the person out of the pit. He was stunned when his eyes met the person.

  Unkempt, all skin and bones with the exception of a bulging belly, on seeing Liu the man called out with great joy.