Authors: Cindy. Pon
Silver Phoenix (21 page)
Ai Ling woke with a start and sat straight up. The sky was a deep blue, and white wisps drifted past the jagged peaks encircling them. The whinnying of a horse had roused her. Her two travel companions had already risen. Li Rong tended to Feng while Chen Yong sat on the stone bench, his head bent over a book.
She stretched languidly and rolled her shoulders. Rui approached and asked if she would like to wash up inside.
Ai Ling followed the lanky boy into Lao Pan’s small house with its wooden porch and tall celadon-tiled roof.
Books lined the main room from floor to ceiling against two walls. A wooden ladder constructed of bamboo leaned 108
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upon one, allowing access to books out of reach. Jars and boxes filled the third wall’s shelves. Most jars were clear, revealing their contents, but a few were murky or opaque.
The room smelled of dry herbs and the must of old books.
Lao Pan sat at a large black wooden table, the planks so worn it shone. He studied a thick tome, oblivious to their entrance.
Rui guided her past a small kitchen into a rudimentary washroom at the back of the house. He pointed to the ceramic basin and the narrow back door, which led to a well if she needed more water. Ai Ling quickly washed her face and rubbed her teeth with the coarse salt provided in a gourd-shaped bowl. She rummaged for her wooden comb, looked around the cramped washroom and saw no mirror.
It was too much to hope for. She ran the comb through her hair. She wondered what Lao Pan would tell her. She plaited her hair with deft fingers and walked back to the main room.
This time, Lao Pan raised his head. He smiled at her, the lines deepening in his gaunt, sun-browned face. “Ah, Ai Ling. We can do a reading with the lunar telling sticks this morning. Perhaps they can shed light on what occurred that awful night.”
She clasped her hands in front of her, feeling awkward.
“Other things have happened, too. Evil things . . .”
“Tell me, girl.” He waved for Rui to pull up a stool for her.
Ai Ling sat down and folded her hands in her lap, not 109
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wanting to fidget. She described seeing the Life Seeker, how she was pulled into a lake and Chen Yong’s discovering her. She spoke in short, choppy sentences about the attempted rape by Fei Ming and the demon who tried to possess her after. Lao Pan never interjected, letting her fumble for words. Finally she told him what happened the previous night, when the monster bearing Chen Yong’s image had accosted her.
The seer stroked his beard in silence long after she’d finished her tale. Would he believe her? Pronounce her mad and a half-wit? Finally he stood and pulled a black leather-bound volume from the shelf. “I’ve read of similar demons in
The Book of the Dead
. But never before have I met an individual who has encountered so many and in so short a time.”
He tapped the front of the book with long fingers. Ai Ling hesitated before speaking again. “I’ve seen that book in my father’s study. I thought they were made-up tales to scare children.”
Lao Pan pulled back, tense. “You’ve read this?”
She looked down. It was like being caught by her own father.
“It’s not light reading . . . nor for the impressionable, young, or weak-minded.” He rapped the leather cover hard, as if for emphasis. “Rui is never allowed to open this book unless in my presence. It’s not to be read without guidance, girl.”
Ai Ling stared at her clasped hands, feeling guilt mingle 110
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with irritation. Father had warned her, and that was exactly why she had looked. “It’s just a book.” She raised her chin and met the seer’s cutting gaze. “And I am not weak-minded.”
He pursed his lips. “It’s not make-believe, Ai Ling.” He flipped through the thick pages as if searching for clues.
“The demonic creatures described within these pages are summoned through the dark arts. You’re fortunate to be alive.”
He closed
The Book of the Dead
with a dusty thud. “Perhaps the lunar telling sticks can offer us a clue.” The seer stood and, his thin arms straining with the effort, slid the heavy book back onto the shelf.
“But first, let us take our morning meal together. The mind and body cannot function properly without sustenance.” Ai Ling rose to follow Lao Pan. She could not agree more.
Breakfast was hot rice porridge with salted fish, pickled carrots, and spicy bean curd. Chen Yong, Li Rong, and Ai Ling sat together on the stone benches, which were config-ured into a half moon underneath a starfruit tree. They ate without much conversation. Ai Ling enjoyed the quiet calm of the morning, the feeling of sanctity this small dwelling within the mountains offered.
Rui took the used bowls and utensils away after the meal and brought lukewarm tea. Lao Pan whispered something to him, and Rui hurried back into the house. He reemerged 111
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soon after, holding a carved ebony canister filled with bone-colored sticks.
“Have you used these before?” Lao Pan asked. Ai Ling shook her head. She had seen others use them at the temples but had never tried herself.
The seer pulled one stick from the canister. It was flat and wide as a thumb, rounded to oval points at both ends and polished until it shone like the moon. A phrase was inscribed on the stick in black. “Each has its own saying,”
Lao Pan said. “You ask your question and shake the canister until one falls to the ground.”
Lao Pan demonstrated as everyone watched, holding the canister diagonally and shaking it in a slow rhythm. The sticks began to shift forward, clattering against one another.
“I can interpret the saying for you. It may offer some insight to your situation.”
He handed her the canister. Ai Ling stood under the shade of the tree, feeling awkward. “Ask the question in your mind.
We can discuss it after a lunar stick falls in answer.”
Feeling self-conscious and a little foolish, she closed her eyes. Will I be able to find Father? She began moving her hands up and down, the sticks clanking in a soothing cadence as they bounced forward. She continued shaking as five sticks separated from the rest, then three. Finally one escaped from the cluster and dropped to the ground.
Ai Ling heard a gasp and glanced toward Rui, who gaped at her feet. She looked down and saw that a lone stick stood 112
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poised on its rounded tip, as if hanging by an invisible string.
Lao Pan rose from the bench and touched the perpendicular stick, and it fell to the ground.
“I’ve never seen the like. The fortune cannot be told unless the stick lies fl at of its own accord. I never thought it could do anything otherwise until today.” He picked up the errant stick and put it back into the canister.
“Try once more,” he said.
She closed her eyes again. Ai Ling conjured her father in her mind, guiding her hand as she wrote calligraphy. Will I be able to find Father? She shook the canister steadily and watched the sticks move forward in a group, then the few that slipped ahead of the others. Two sticks fell from the canister at the same time. Both stood on end.
Everyone stared at the upright sticks until Ai Ling grew uncomfortable.
Lao Pan fi nally plucked them from the ground. “Your fate cannot be told. The Immortals must have a hand in this.”
“The Immortals!” Li Rong exclaimed. “The Immortals do not interfere in the realm of man—if they even exist.”
Lao Pan glanced at the young man, his expression austere.
“Not unless they have to.”
Everyone turned back toward her. Ai Ling tilted her chin and tried to appear unaffected. “So much for gaining insight,” she said.
Lao Pan smiled. “I fear I can offer no help there. But I can bless the dagger Master Tan gave to you. It will take all 113
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morning but will be worth the wait.” The seer gestured to Rui, who stopped gaping at Ai Ling and retreated with the lunar telling sticks back to the house.
“A blessed weapon can offer protection against the tainted and undead,” Lao Pan said.
Ai Ling pulled the dagger from her waist and handed it to the seer. “I would be in your debt.”