None of the jade here was black or white, but rather a pale, soapy green, carved mostly into figurines of dogs, birds, people, temples, and of course, dragons. Bren was afraid to touch the more elaborate carvings, but he couldn’t resist picking up what looked like a polished rock, rolling it around in his hand, comparing it to his own jade.
The man selling it began speaking to Bren.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I don’t—”
“The boy is in perfect health,” said Yaozu, taking the stone from Bren and returning it to the peddler. To Bren he explained, “He said to rub on your side. Will cure kidney stones.”
“It may not have the power to heal,” said Barrett, nodding to the pale green stones. “But I daresay we could resell any of these back in Britannia for a handsome profit.”
Almost as unexpected as seeing goods of this quality for sale in small, rural villages was when their path took them onto what Yaozu called the Imperial Highway. Bren felt the same sense of awe as when his mother had taken him for walks along some of the original Roman roads that ran through Britannia. At times they were on a wide, stone-paved path, with trees and flowers lining both sides, so that it was like walking through a tranquil but spectacular garden. On one particularly steep portion, wide, low steps had been carved into the rocky hillside.
“Begun nearly two thousand years ago,” said Yaozu. “Now said to be twenty-five thousand miles long, across the empire.”
“Take a moment to appreciate what it took to make this,” said Barrett, as if she was leading a tour. “The Romans had nothing on the Chinese when it came to building. Though Marco Polo never mentioned it, there is supposedly a wall that runs across the entire empire to the north. Thousands of miles long.”
“Is that true?” said Mouse, to Yaozu.
“Not sure,” he said. “I’ve heard of it, but never seen for myself.”
Sean whistled. “You could wrap a road ’round Eire ten times with that.”
“You can travel continuously, without stopping, even across mountains,” Yaozu added.
“Not across the Forest Above the Clouds,” said Bren.
Barrett reached out her right arm to pull Bren closer, and with her left arm she pulled Mouse to her other side, so that the three of them were walking side by side, through a promenade of cherry trees.
“It was very brave what you did,” she said to Mouse. “Running back to make sure Bren was okay, to help him cross. You’re fearless, aren’t you?”
“No,” said Mouse. “I wish I were, but I’m not.”
When they camped that night, Yaozu consulted with the farmer who was playing host to them. From a distance it looked as if they were discussing the man’s farming methods, and Bren guessed that Yaozu perhaps took a genuine interest in such things, since he came from China. But it turned out Yaozu was discussing not crops but the calendar—they had figured their journey to the tomb would take a month and a half or so. But here they were, still south of the lake, and two months had passed, apparently. The farmer said the rainy season had already begun farther north.
“Good news is, we will reach the lake in fewer steps,” said Yaozu.
“Because it will have started expanding, like you explained before,” said Barrett.
“Might already be twice as wide by the time we arrive.”
“What’s the bad news?” Sean asked.
Yaozu shrugged. “Perhaps there is no bad news? It is easier to boat a long distance than walk. More lake, more boating.”
“There has to be a downside, or you wouldn’t have mentioned it before,” said Sean.
“I can think of two,” said Barrett. “Sailing across huge lakes can be just as treacherous as sailing the open sea. Storms, in particular, if we hit the beginning of rainy season. Many men have drowned in a lake.”
“And the other?”
“Foraging. The hospitality we’ve come to count on. Many of these provincial farmers pack up and move to dry land for the summer, then come back when the lake recedes. They take their rice and other goods and sell them elsewhere.”
“Also,” said Yaozu, “the land north of the lake can be dangerous. The summer migrations Lady Barrett speaks of make people targets for thieves, or highwaymen, as they say in the West.”
“It’s not as if we have a choice,” said Barrett. “We just need to know what we’re up against, and we won’t until we get there, I’m afraid.”
“And how much farther from the other side of the lake to Qin’s tomb site?” said Bren.
Yaozu looked at their map. “Perhaps four hundred miles? A bit more?”
Sean sat down. He seemed weary. They all did. No one said it aloud, but they were all thinking the same thing: they had barely covered more than half the distance they needed to go. It had been a difficult trek, over a longer period of time than they had planned, and more dangerous than they imagined. Bren wondered if they were really fit to travel so much farther.
Their trek to the edge of Lake Dongting was a soggy one, as the group was beset by blowing rains on and off for a week. When they reached the lakeshore, Yaozu calculated how far they had come and estimated that the lake had already tripled in size because of flood runoff from the several rivers that fed into it.
Barrett turned to Yaozu. “I assume you have an idea where we might get a boat?”
“The White Crane Tower, this way,” he said, leading them east.
They walked along the marshy southern rim of the lake, past small fishing villages that made charming portraits against the mist rising from the surface of the lake and the sky streaked with waterfowl. It reminded Bren of those woodcut illustrations in some of Black’s books on the Far East.
“You can hear songs lifting from fishermen’s boats when the moon is out,” said Yaozu.
“They don’t sing in the daytime?” said Sean.
“It can be strange to be on the lake at night,” said Yaozu. “I believe the singing calms them.”
“We call that whistling past the graveyard,” said Barrett.
The number of birds seemed to multiply as they kept curving east, thousands and thousands of cranes, herons, gulls, ducks, rails, and other marsh lovers. After they had walked for an hour, Bren could see the tall white tower, tiled in gold, off in the distance. Moored below it were dozens of the shallow teak boats known as dragon boats.
“This lake is where dragon boats originated,” Yaozu explained, when he saw Bren looking that way.
“Why here?” said Bren.
“The great poet Qu Yuan drowned himself here. He had been exiled south of the lake by his king during the Warring States, because the poet opposed his king’s alliance with Qin. When Qin eventually conquered all, Qu Yuan fell into despair and took his own life. It was said that the villagers rowed out into the lake to recover his body, but did not succeed. The dragon boat races honor his death.”
“Why do they dress the boats up like dragons?” said Bren.
“According to legend,” said Yaozu, “one of the four Dragon Kings once lived at the bottom of this lake.”
Bren’s and Mouse’s eyes went wide. Yaozu smiled. “Would you like to hear the story of the Dragon King’s Daughter?”
“Yes!” they both said, along with Barrett. Sean let out a great sigh, but was ignored.
“The Dragon King had three sons, and they all lived in a crystal palace at the bottom of the lake, but the third-born was fond of going his own way. He bridled at his father’s commands, and caused his family much grief. So his father ordered his brothers to never let this one out of their sight. As you can imagine, this did not sit well with the disobedient one.
“The next time they went swimming, the third-born changed himself into a carp to trick his brothers and swam off to a different part of the lake to play. But he was captured by a fisherman, who took him to market.”
“Serves him right,” said Sean.
“When third-born’s brothers came home without him, the Dragon King was very angry, thinking the boy had run off.
Lake dragons control the wind and rain, and he brought forth a great storm to scare his son into returning. When that didn’t work, the king appeared above the lake in the form of a waterspout to look for his son, but again he failed. He returned to the crystal palace in despair, mourning for several days until a curious piece of news came to him: farmers and fishermen were flocking to a nearby village, where a carp that had been caught was still alive. Everyone wanted to buy this fish, believing it would make them immortal if they ate it. When the Dragon King’s older sons made it to the market, the carp had just been sold for an extraordinary amount. The brothers offered the buyer more than he had paid, explaining that the carp was their brother, but this only made the buyer want the carp more.
“The first- and second-born turned to depart for the lake, devastated at the loss of their brother and terrified of having to give such news to their father, when something extraordinary happened: an eight-year-old girl pushed her way through the crowd and offered to make a trade with the buyer of the carp.
“The man laughed in her face. What could you possibly trade me for a carp that will make me immortal? The girl brought forth a perfectly round white jade stone. I will give you this, which supposedly has great power. And then you will not have to eat their brother.
“The man with the carp couldn’t believe his eyes. He had been born during the time of the Ancients and knew of the Eight Immortals. He took the stone and gave her the fish.
“The two brothers were so grateful that they invited the girl back to the lake, to the crystal palace, so their father could thank her in person. The Dragon King was so grateful, he made the girl a great offer: It is not human beings alone that know gratitude, he told her. Your great kindness will be repaid. A dragon’s life lasts for ten thousand years, and I will share my years of life with you, my daughter.
“They all lived happily together in the lake for some time, but their story became well known, and emperor after emperor came to the lake to discover the secret of immortality. Emperor Qin himself came here as a young man, determined to find the Dragon King, or what had happened to the white jade stone. And so the Dragon King and his three sons and one daughter left the lake, never to return, and that is why there is no longer a Dragon King at the bottom of this lake.”
“What was the point of that story?” said Sean.
“Sometimes stories are just entertainment,” said Yaozu. “Sometimes not. It depends much on who the listener is.”
“But wait,” said Bren. “A white jade stone isn’t one of the magic artifacts. Why did the man give up the carp?”
“There is a story I haven’t told you—any of you—about one of the Eight Immortals,” said Yaozu. “Li Tie Guai, whose instrument was the bottle gourd, could free his soul from his body and travel in both the earthly and heavenly realms. Once, while his spirit was gone, a disciple found his seemingly lifeless body and assumed he was dead. He burned Li Tie Guai’s body, cutting loose his soul.
“To punish him for his carelessness, the other seven Immortals divided his soul between two stones, one black jade, the other white, the black symbolizing Li Tie Guai’s heart—his passion—and the other his head, or wisdom. But his soul was trapped in the earthly realm.”
They had all stopped walking, and even Sean opened his mouth to ask the question Bren blurted out: “Are you saying Mouse’s stone—and mine—are the spirit of this Immortal?”
“I’m just telling a story,” said Yaozu. “But there is clearly something special about them, is there not? They have exhibited powers?”
“But the catfish man—”
“Catfish man?” said Sean.
“Mouse and I may have left a couple of things out,” Bren stammered. “I didn’t think it was important.” He took a deep breath. “This skeleton where we found the white jade . . . it was guarded by a man who looked like a catfish. He claimed to be the girl’s guardian, because she was a sorceress prophesied to restore the Ancients, and when she died on the island she had transferred her spirit, and thus her power, to the stone.”
“Fascinating,” said Yaozu. “I don’t know how to reconcile that. There are many stories, many legends. Hard to know the truth.”
“That’s why there are so many religions,” said Barrett. “You find a story that suits you.”
They resumed walking until they reached the tower, which was three tiers of white-painted wood supported by white columns. Each of the three roofs was tiled in gold and curved up at the corners like a bird in flight. Inside, there was a shallow, stony creek running through the tower front to back, the creek stones engraved with writing.
“Poetry,” said Yaozu, following Bren’s eyes. “No one is sure who wrote it, or how many different authors there may be, but this is the passage that gives the tower its name.”
He walked them over to a large stone and began to translate:
For seven years but one he had built the wooden forms, giving shape to the mud that would become barrier between land and sea. Until, having labored mile upon mile of shore, it seemed it would take more earth than there would be left to defend. And so, one night, he lay down to sleep.
He was awakened by the sensation of flying, and lifting his eyes, he saw that he had been carried off by a white crane, its angular, origami shape floating above him like a kite.
Fearing to look down, he shut his eyes until he felt his feet returned to the ground, knowing not where he had landed. When he dared look, his eyes beheld the Great Marsh of Cloud Dream.
“Is that what this lake is called?” said Bren. “The Great Marsh of Cloud Dream?”
“Not that I am aware,” said Yaozu. “Poetic license, I suppose.”
They walked through all three levels of the tower, listening to Yaozu read more of the engravings while they took in the spectacular views of the lake from the higher levels. There was one in particular that affected Bren, at the tower’s highest point:
The lake embraces distant hills and devours the Yangtze, its mighty waves rolling endlessly. From morning glow to evening light, the views change a thousand, ten thousand times. On top of the tower the mind relaxes, the heart delights. All honors and disgrace are forgotten. What pleasure, what joy to sit here and drink in the breeze.
Bren was only snapped out of his trance when Sean said, “Aye, it’s a beautiful view, but we don’t have the luxury of sitting here and drinking in the breeze.”
He was right, but it still irritated Bren that Sean once again felt the need to contradict everyone.
No one lived or worked at White Crane Tower, so the cost of a boat was this: to leave five lumps of rice wrapped in leaves—one for each passenger—as an offering for the drowned poet. Yaozu explained that when the villagers failed to save the poet, they had tossed rice into the lake to keep the fish from eating his body. Yaozu had traded for the rice along the way and carefully wrapped each bundle while the others waited.
It was getting dark, but the moon was waxing full, so they set out in the dragon boat upon the dark, placid lake. When they had been rowing for perhaps an hour, Mouse stood up and pointed to a small island off in the distance. “There!” she said, as if answering a question no one asked. “That place.”
Not much could be seen from this far away, even with a near-full moon, except that the island looked unwelcoming, with dozens of tall, sharp peaks. Bren felt sick, thinking of the Forest Above the Clouds. He’d had just about enough of China’s forbidding geography.
“That must be Junshan,” said Yaozu. “There is a tomb on the island, for the two favorite consorts of Emperor Shun, who was one of the Ancients. Some even claim he was one of the Eight Immortals. Four thousand years ago, these two consorts, Ehuang and Nuying, fearing that their beloved Shun was dead, drowned themselves in the lake. Shun was not dead, but rather far away, engaged in a military battle, and when he learned of their death he had the tomb built in their honor.”
Yaozu paused before continuing.
“Do you remember how I told you that the g
reat Qin came this way to search for the secret to immortality? Well, a storm nearly destroyed his boat, and he and his attendants were stranded on this island. He consulted his geomancer to see if the storm had been caused by evil spirits, and the geomancer told him of the tomb. Convinced that these beloved consorts of one of the Ancients—the people Qin had helped destroy—were trying to kill him, Qin ordered a curse be put on the island and for five stones to be laid in front of the tomb, to seal it forever.”
“Yes,” said Mouse. “We have to go there.”
CHAPTER
21
THE TEA OF SILVER NEEDLES
They landed the boat and pulled it up onto the island, to where a thicket of black-spotted bamboo formed a natural fence along the shore.
“Do you know where this tomb is?” said Barrett to Yaozu.
“I do not,” he admitted. “I’m not even sure what to look for.”
“I’ll find it,” said Mouse, and Bren half expected her to become a bird and fly around the island. Instead she just took the lead walking deeper into the island, as if she had no doubt she was meant to find the consorts’ tomb, the way she apparently was meant to find the white jade. No one questioned her.
Eventually they came to the foot of a hill, where an area otherwise wild and undisturbed had been cleared of brush and the face of the hill was bare, but for five large stones stacked two by two by one. Sean came forward and put his hand on the top stone.
“What now, little one? Do we move them?”
Mouse shook her head. “That wouldn’t work,” she said, pulling out the white stone. She closed her eyes for a minute, and Bren thought he could see a slight tremble along her lips, as if she were silently reciting a spell or an enchantment. And then they waited. They were surrounded by a small forest of the strange bamboo, and the black spots made Bren feel like he was being watched by a thousand creatures peering through the pale green stalks.
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