Messiah Clears the Disc

by Henry Lion Oldie

  – I haven't heard about anybody who'd dare to fake them, – the voice of the monk remained calm but his narrow eyes became still narrower.

  – But can they be hidden in some way? – the judge went on. – If, for example, some warrior monk does not want to be recognized?

  – It is possible, I think, – the monk shrugged his shoulders, – but what for? The scars would be left... Moreover, those who passed the Labyrinth of Mannequins are rather few and well known not only in the cloister. I suppose, you've heard that one who had become a Shaolin monk can get the right to leave the cloister freely only in three ways. The first is to pass the test; but it is not for everybody and requires at least fifteen years of daily exhaustive training; the second is to be sent to the external world on some errand but such occasions are rather rare...

  – And what is the third?

  The monk simply lifted his hands as if hinting that the third way out is opened for everybody and in any situation.

  – I understand you, the highly respected xiangyigong, – continued the venerable Banh after a pause. – You were given a complicated and unpleasant case to investigate. Your duty is to solve this problem... but I think it would not be a great disaster if you'd soon give up your research. Naturally, it would be possible not before you'd have honestly found out all that is possible. And it somehow seems to me, as worthless as I am, that you've already done this. The disturber was acting alone, without any assistance, being surely mad. Besides, she's now dead, and who will be able to say in what state of mind the unlucky woman had been at that moment?

  – Of course, you're right, the venerable father, – the judge bowed his head politely. – I've come to almost the same conclusions. I feel inexpressible joy in my soul hearing that my opinion, as ignorant as I am, coincides with the opinion of such a worthy servant of Buddha as you.

  They talked a bit more about other things not concerning the case, although Judge Bao understood perfectly well: the monk has already said all he wanted to say allowing him to understand that the venerable Banh and those who stand behind him are not too interested in the detailed investigation of the case.

  The judge guessed the reason.

  The reason was that the judge has seen with his own eyes the signs of tiger and dragon branded at the arms of the monk. When the venerable Banh bowed and went away, he stood still for some time musing on the coincidence. The only difference was that the venerable Banh had them branded by fire and the other two had the form of the putrefaction spots. For just the same signs appeared after death at the forearms of Eighth Aunty, who had never entered the famous monastery under the Song mountain. And the same signs were now clearly visible at the two arms nailed to the pillory, the arms of a respectable merchant Fanh Yushi.

  Who had also never been a monk.

  Either at the Shaolin monastery or at any other.

  Chapter 2

  So it was said by the wise men in old times:

  Meeting a chan [11] master on your road

  Don't you waste your words in vain,

  Still don't give him pass you by:

  Let your fist speak instead,

  Strike his jaw well and good.

  The clever will see,

  And the fools? Let them be as they are.

  1

  – You, bastard! – roared Golden Eel trying frantically to whip stinking drops off his gown. – You, shaven-headed beast! Go down here, I'll tear your ugly head from your shoulders!

  The monk standing at the wall top did not pay any attention to the shouting below. A minute earlier he had shamelessly pulled up his saffron cassock and pissed down aiming exactly at the Golden Eel's head who dared to come too near to the closed gates of the monastery at the Song mountain. Well informed people told that behind the gates there was a track piercing the rocks and leading from the foothills to the monastery situated much higher, almost at the top; but Golden Eel could not think now about any rocks or tracks. Not so long ago he was in quite another mood after having received an official note summoning him to arrive to the outer gates of Shaolin not later than the Cold Meal Holiday. Golden Eel had expected rather to get an invitation, but such formal note was also not so bad for him, a son of a village elder from Hebei province, a renowned master of quanfa [12] in his native country: he had made his best to obtain recommendations from three much esteemed local persons...

  After all these efforts he came here obeying the orders.

  And now he has spent almost a week sticking around in front of the locked gates in the company of seven other lads aspiring, like himself, to the right to enter the most famous monastery of the whole Empire and to become monks there. The ninth to sit at the gates was an aged heshan [13] from the mountain temple in Ande district, but he was allowed to enter almost at once. After having waited only about three hours he handed the guards a written permission of his patriarch; the gatekeepers examined the letter reading it several times, exchanged glances between themselves and then waved hands inviting the visitor to follow them.

  – So it goes in the world! – a youngling who bore still his childish name Baby Snake Cai sighed enviously. – We, the laymen, must get heaps of recommendations, wait here gods know how long, and the reverend monks go to and fro, as they like: take a patriarch's permission and walk everywhere! It is just the same as in our governor's office: one must enter bowing humbly while the others march in on horse and with banners flying!

  If it were earlier, Golden Eel would not have answered anything considering Baby Snake to be a greenhorn. But after the first day of waiting he began to lose his calm mood; after three days his self-possession has been almost ruined, and now his patience was coming to an end, as well as the week that seemed endless to him. Golden Eel was ready to tear to pieces anybody who'd have bad luck to approach him...

  The monk who dared to piss at his head finally made him mad of rage.

  – Well, where are you?! A bit afraid, eh?

  The gates opened slowly, with a squeak. Two gatekeepers appeared in the clearance: two monks, alike as twins, both strapping, broad-shouldered, with their heads bluish because of daily shaving.

  – Ha! – Golden Eel shouted with as much disdain as he could. – The sanctimonious swine is hiding behind the others' back! Oh indeed, these are the heroic monks! Well, come to me, I'll show you a pair of good tricks!

  At that moment he has completely forgotten that he himself arrived here not at all for piety or for leaving the sorrowful world of vanity and mundane illusions; he was attracted merely by the glory of Shaolin as the birthplace of warrior arts, the pupils of which were famous throughout the world, from the Boshan peak in the East to the Western paradise of the lady Xiwangmu!

  Cai the Baby Snake, evidently frightened, pulled at the Golden Eel's tunic sleeve for him to notice that the gatekeepers are approaching but the furious candidate was not scared by the fact at all.

  As soon as the slow-walking guards went near to him Golden Eel took up demonstratively the position of "Little Black tiger", little known in the South provinces, and with an abrupt exhalation of air struck fiercely the nearest guard's belly.

  – What's up with you? – asked the monk, quite surprised, looking at Golden Eel who was now jumping around, wailing and nursing his wrist, badly hurt. – Are you out of your wits?

  – Oh, I know! – the second guard slapped himself on his shaven crown. – He's just showing you, reverend Jiao, the northern skills! Well, but I do remember... Yes, it is the "Lean, mangy tiger"... no, not "lean", simply "little"! Little and black! Exactly so! Little black tiger!

  – Tiger? – the first monk was surprised beyond measure. – Little and black?! But I haven't heard about such creatures!

  – They have everything there in the North. They call it ferret. It is little, black and very fierce, no tiger would equal it!

  The first monk shook his head doubtfully, grabbed Golden Eel's by the collar and dragged him to the stairs in about ten feet from the gate.

  They were
not too high, these stairs, not more than fifty steps.

  Golden Eel knew their number for sure.

  When you strike your head at each of the steps it's hard to be mistaken in counting them.

  Other candidates watched the process in perfect silence, not considering the rumbling of seven stomachs: nobody has supplied the unhappy lads with food during the week of waiting, so they had to be content with what they had brought with them, and those who hadn't cared for provisions in advance could only sustain their existence by collecting berries and edible roots in the vicinities.

  A whole week of half-starving is not an easy thing indeed...

  Having fulfilled their task the monk guards disappeared behind the wall leaving the gate opened.

  – What if I try to have a look? – said Baby Snake to himself but changed his mind at once: you peep in and those guards would throw you down the stairs topsy-turvy!

  It was about noon when the glossy face of a guard appeared again in the clearance between the gate shutters.

  – Hi, you, down there! Want to eat?

  The seven nodded their assent eagerly, forgetting even to remind the guard that he should speak in a much more polite tone, being a monk, for Buddha did not recommend them to feel any confusion of senses, to say nothing about rage.

  – Well and good then, come in all of you! – the guard invited them with a wave of his hand.

  "Here we are at last," – thought Cai entering the gate and looking around.

  In general, there was nothing to look at besides a track leading up to the hill crest through a bamboo grove and vanishing among the rocks.

  But here, at hand...

  The hot broth in the copper cauldron could have a better smell but it sufficed for the hungry candidates to feel the rumbling in their stomachs to grow like the rumble of a volcano ready to erupt.

  The seven crowded immediately around an old bronze tripod with red-hot coals sparkling at its bottom and gazed as if charmed at the cauldron fastened at its top. Baby Snake was the only one not to hurry. May be he was less hungry than the others (his mother having provided him with rather a bulky bag full of tasty things for his travel) and besides he knew how to hunt for snakes and lizards from his childhood, or maybe, being too young, he felt too shy to reveal his hunger like a silly barbarian in the presence of the gatekeepers.

  But those ones seemed really to be in a friendly mood. One of them brought a pile of chipped earthenware bowls from their lodge, the other rummaged in his bag and extracted a good dozen of barley flat cakes. Each candidate – Baby Snake Cai included – got a bowl and a cake; then the guard who had taught Golden Eel to count the steps took an enormous scoop in his hands and approached the cauldron.

  – Well, my dear friends, who of you is the most hungry?! – laughed the monk drawing up his scoop full of broth.

  "Bean soup, – Baby Snake determined judging from the smell and swallowing his saliva. – With meat. And plenty of meat, as it is..."

  His belly being too talkative at the moment, his wits refused to work: he even did not remember that the Buddhist monks are not allowed to eat the flesh of any killed animals and consequently there should not be any meat in the soup.

  Two of the most hungry – or the most impatient – put their bowls under the scoop in a jiffy, trying at the same time (in vain) to bite a bit of the incredibly stale cakes. The monk poured the broth to the dishes, and at once two howling voices roused the birds sitting at nearby trees: the bottom of the bowls was made of thin paper dyed with some dirty-brown paint in such a way that it was like the rugged clay surface even to the touch. This faked bottom broke and let the delicious and very hot bean soup with meat pour onto the bellies and knees of the too-hasty lads.

  The louder they cried the more fun the gatekeepers were getting. They snorted and yelped, wiping tears with their sleeves, they fell exhausted and knocked a staccato at the ground with their heels. Their laughter literally "shook Heaven and Earth". The gate still stood open and Baby Snake Cai was already preparing to turn off and go away. At least, such was the expression written on his face with high cheek-bones for anybody who'd wish to read it. At last he bit his lower lip, tore off the false paper, put the flat cake under his bowl for a bottom and resolutely directed his steps towards the cauldron. Just to find that he was not the only clever man in the company: for he had to take the fifth place in the line, that is the last one.

  While they were eating hastily, smacking their lips and scalding their fingers, and then chewing thoroughly the flat cakes that became soft, soaked with hot broth, the two victims of the paper bottoms sat not far from them whimpering under their breath.

  At last one of them stood up and went stumbling to the gate.

  – It is not just, – the other too-hasty candidate began whispering but gradually his voice grew louder, – it is unjust... unjust!..

  He seemed to become obsessed by the idea of justice, repeating the words more and more times, unable to stop and go away.

  One of the monks lifted him by his collar like a mischievous kitten and dragged him towards exit. After expelling the unhappy soup eater he shouted:

  – Hi, you! Yes, I mean exactly you! Come back, my precious!

  The first swift soup eater who decided to leave without calling for justice, stopped and turned round; then he hesitated a little, shrugged his shoulders and went back. He passed by the gatekeeper cautiously (still fearing some practical jokes of his), came to the cauldron and taking a half of a softened cake proposed to him by Cai the Baby Snake began to chew it automatically.

  – It is not just! – cried the expelled candidate from behind the gate, doubling his vocal efforts. – It is unjust!

  – It is, of course! – the guard agreed and closed the gate.

  And the other guard began to bawl for everybody to hear that all these idlers and loafers who gathered here may go now wherever they like, but if even the entrance to the monastery is somewhere in one of these directions he doesn't know anything about it, but if indeed he knows something he wouldn't say anything, and if by chance he'll say something it would be better for those sons of wood-louse and grass-snake not to hear his words!

  – They say that Buddha was very kind, – Baby Snake Cai sighed and started his way to the rocks towering above the gate. Behind his back he heard the answer:

  – Buddha's not like others...

  No one of the six competitors saw how the monk guards looked significantly at one another; then one of them ran in an unhurried trot along the wall and to the left, where water was rumbling softly falling on the stones.

  2

  It took Cai the Baby Snake more than twenty four hours to overcome those damned rocks. He even had to spend the night on a narrow ledge with nothing for supper besides eggs stolen from a wild dove nest, and his sleep was every now and then interrupted by a splash of instinctive dread: any unconscious movement could send him headlong to the abyss not less than twenty zhang [14] deep!

  The candidates have parted with each other at the first gate because each was convinced: it's he who knows the way to the monastery entrance absolutely exactly, and all others are but a mob of dolts and ignoramuses. This opinion was probably not so far from truth, for Baby Snake twice heard desperate cries and the rumble of landslides rolling down.

  He was lucky enough: only once he took a wrong direction and had to return almost to the gate. However, the return was much more difficult because it is always a more dangerous and tiresome task to descend than to ascend. Especially when you try at each step to drive off the evident thought that the following track you'd chose can lead you to an impasse as well as the previous one!

  Nevertheless, the wise men have some reason saying that the efforts of the valiant are to be crowned by success, sooner or later. ("Oh, the sooner the better ", – Cai the Baby Snake was thinking wiping his brow wet with sweat.)

  Next day, about noon, he discerned the white monastery wall through a tangle of stems of another bamboo grove in front of
him. From his place he could already see old willows and thick-set ash-trees surrounding it, and even the pointed blue tops of the monastery conical roofs, and a tower adorned with golden hieroglyphs reflecting sunshine. It marked most probably the main gate.

  With a sigh of relief Baby Snake continued his way straight through the thicket; but hardly had he made fifty steps when his attention was drawn by distant moaning.

  The young man stopped and listened.

  No, it was not a delusion – somebody moaned again although the sound was weak resembling rather the murmuring of a streamlet erring among the stones.

  The young candidate turned to the east, dodged a bit between knotty stems and soon noticed a bright spot of a saffron cassock clearly contrasting with the surrounding green.

  It appeared to be the same heshan who had been admitted the first to enter the gate showing to the guards the permission of his patriarch. Now he lay hunched on the ground, as a baby in his mother's womb, his left foot bandaged hastily with a bit of a blood-stained rag.

  – Be careful! – croaked the wounded monk when Baby Snake rushed directly towards him. – Look where you go!

  Fortunately, Baby Snake had enough common sense to follow his advice in time, otherwise he too would have stepped over a bamboo stump cut close to the ground and purposedly sharpened. As a result his foot would have been surely pierced like the unlucky heshan's one and there would be two men lying helplessly in the thicket and unable to reach the monastery entrance.

  Still, in such a case they would have had the possibility to console themselves talking on such an actual topic as the true essence of the human soul enlightening.

  Only now the dumbfounded Baby Snake felt that his own arms and legs are cut in many places by the sharp edges of bamboo leaves and bleeding, as if spears and knives were planted in this malicious thicket instead of usual peaceful trees!