The Story Of The Stone (25 page)

Moon Boy teetered on the edge. His throat was vibrating faster than a throat could, and sweat was pouring down his face, and something extraordinary was happening. He was projecting the sound of the stone, but at the same time he was blending another sound into it. It was wind and sunlight and rain and snow and a comfortable snug cottage — it was the song that Grief of Dawn had sung for old Tai-tai, but now she was singing to me. Grief of Dawn was calling me, and I couldn't imagine how I had missed the path before. There it was, not six feet from the empty space in front of my sandal, and I turned and walked to it. I stepped confidently out into the air, opening my arms to embrace Grief of Dawn, and I was only vaguely aware of the prince's white terrified face, and the click of the rattan coil inside Master Li's sleeve and the flash of his knife as it slashed out.

The sound of Grief of Dawn had turned. Now she was behind me, calling me back, and I turned around like a sleepwalker and stepped back over a path of swirling energy that was as smooth as a carpet. Master Li rode on my back, chuckling, and he laughed out loud when my sandals came down on rock and grass. Moon Boy collapsed, gasping and rubbing his throat, and Master Li hopped off.

The sounds had gone. I came back to reality and whirled around and stared at Prince Liu Pao, who was still standing upon thin air in the center of the gorge. He no longer wore the stone, and the warmth and charm was gone, and all I saw was a sly and selfish little man who looked like a terrified monkey.

“Really, Prince, there's no need to be frightened. Did you think I was going to slit your silly throat?” Master Li detached the stone from the cord he had cut from the prince's neck. Why do people take me for a crude assassin?“ he asked plaintively. ”I'm not crude at all."

The torch that Moon Boy had carried from the tomb lay on the grass. It still burned. Master Li pointed to it, and then across the gorge.

“Ox, can you put this thing through that window?”

I had a lot of pent-up emotion, and I released some of it. The torch tumbled over and over as it sailed across the gorge and plunged down through the window of the prince's studio. I thought it had gone out, but it hadn't. Oil and turpentine catch easily, and flames sprang up.

“Nothing to worry about, Prince,” Master Li said reassuringly. “To cherish perfection is to commit creative suicide, and every true artist knows that a masterpiece is an accident that should be burned. Besides, your pretty pictures aren't to revel in but learn from, and you've already learned.”

He reclaimed his flask and helped himself to another pint. “Not that I entirely approve of the goal,” he said. “One of the previous possessors of the stone was Chuang Tzu. He had a disciple who spent seven years studying universal energy and then demonstrated his wisdom by walking across the surface of a river and back again, and Chuang Tzu broke into tears. 'Oh, my boy!' he sobbed. 'My poor, poor, boy! You spent seven years of your life learning to do that, and all the while old Meng has been running a ferry not two miles from here, and he only charges two copper coins.' ”

Master Li replaced his flask.

“Besides, levitation can be positively unhealthy when one is accustomed to the support of a stone,” he added.

The studio was blazing. Prince Liu Pao was weeping, and he turned and ran toward his paintings with outstretched arms. Suddenly he yelped in fear and stopped. I saw that his feet were slowly spreading apart as though the path was splitting into two paths, and he turned uncertainly this way and that. His white strained face turned back to me.

“Ox! Which way? Which is the solid path?”

“Prince, I can't see it anymore!” I shouted. “All I see is empty air!”

His legs were spreading wider. At any moment he would fall, and he squealed and jumped to the left. His feet came down on a solid line of energy and he began to run. He made two steps but not the third, and sometimes in dreams I still see a screaming feather duster turn over and over as Prince Liu Pao falls into the gorge, and I hear mocking echoes from the walls of the cliffs, and then I hear the sickening sound of a body splattering upon rocks far below.

Master Li walked to the edge and peered down. “Pity,” he said. “He had real talent. Just the man for decorating dinner invitations.”

The bottom of the gorge was leaping up at me, and I sat with my head between my knees until my stomach stopped heaving. Moon Boy was sitting beside Grief of Dawn with her limp hand held in his. Master Li turned from the gorge shaking his head in disgust, but not at the prince.

“When somebody performs my autopsy, he'll open the skull and pull out a turnip that's been masquerading as a brain,” he said sourly. “I still can't begin to come to grips with this weird case.”

I stared at him. Even Moon Boy raised his eyes from Grief of Dawn.

Master Li shrugged. “We'd have to be mindless as millipedes not to guess that the human involvement has been almost incidental. What matters is a stone.”

He began pacing back and forth with his hands clasped behind his back. He stopped and glared up at Heaven. “How the hell do you expect idiotic human beings to understand?” he shouted impiously, and then he resumed pacing.

“The ancients gave up trying to understand,” Master Li muttered. “After a couple of thousand years of watching fire transform solid pieces of wood into insubstantial heat and light, they produced the First Law of Taoist science: There is no such thing as a solid object. Five centuries later they produced the Second Law: All matter consists of bundles of pure energy called ch'i, the life force, and shih, the motion force. Another five centuries passed, and with the Third Law they threw up their hands and quit.”

He stopped pacing and grinned at us.

“Believe it or not, there's a point to this,” he said. “Ox and our late friend gave a marvelous demonstration of the First and Second Laws by adjusting their ch'i and shih to that of seemingly empty air and taking a walk, and Ox's dream about an orange-colored piece of clay unconsciously echoed the Third Law: All energy is controlled by adherence to classical patterns.”

Master Li resumed pacing.

“Ox dreamed that the clay had a pulse that followed an unusual pattern. The Third Law states that the humblest piece of clay must adjust its ch'i and shih to that of the perfect piece of clay, and the energy of stars must follow the patterns of the perfect star. Every plant, animal, insect, drop of water, mote of dust — everything in the universe has a classical model to guide it, and those perfect patterns are the building blocks in the barrier against anarchy called the Wall of Heaven. That's when the ancients said to hell with it and stopped. You see, the next step required understanding the nature of universal energy as a whole, and such a thing is completely past the capabilities of the human mind.”

Master Li stopped and shook a finger at us for emphasis.

“This can be said. Nothing in all existence is more important than maintaining the Wall of Heaven. Nothing! The forces are so awesome that should the barrier fail and energy run amok, the universe itself wouldn't last a second. The task of maintaining the Wall is that of the goddess Nu Kua, and what the goddess wants, the goddess gets. For unfathomable reasons she wanted a stone that had a flaw in it, and then when she couldn't repair the flaw, she dropped it in our laps.”

Master Li sat down between Moon Boy and me and took Moon Boy's pieces of the stone. He carefully fit them together with the piece from the prince and held the stone up to the light.

“There's the flaw. See? A tiny vein of gold ran through it. Gold is pretty stuff, but terrible for a stone. Particularly when you're building a wall.”

I hadn't noticed it when the pieces were apart, but now I saw the faint yellow lines at the edges of the cracks.

“According to one of the Annals of Heaven and Earth, assuming it existed, the goddess finally had to reject the stone, but not until contact with her hand had given it a soul,” Master Li muttered. Two great philosophers later used it for an ink stone, and the touch of Heaven produced divine calligraphy. Prince Liu Pao used it to steal from the gods in order to paint pretty pictures, and I wonder. . ."

He let the sentence die a natural death while he swiftly bound the stone together with the cord he had cut from the prince's neck. He opened his wine flask and dipped the stone inside. After a minute he lifted the stone back out and removed the cord and placed the stone upon the grass. He lifted the flask to his lips, and I saw a slow sensual shudder spread throughout his body, and when he raised his head, his eyes were shining with reverence.

“Jade Emperor, if this is what you serve in heaven, preserve me long enough to become a saint,” he whispered.

Moon Boy and I took small sips. I have no words for it. The raw alcohol of Haining Mountain Dew had become the Nectar of the Gods, and to describe it I'd have to steal from mystical accounts of divine revelations.

“Talk about temptation!” Master Li exclaimed. “I could start making this stuff by the lakeful and be deified on the spot!”

The taste had the greatest effect upon Moon Boy, who turned pale as death and began rocking back and forth with powerful emotion. I thought he was going to weep until I realized he never did. Moon Boy did not cry, not even when Grief of Dawn lay dead. Master Li was looking speculatively at him.

“You know, it's quite possible that I'm making the same mistake twice,” he said thoughtfully. “I didn't see the obvious about the prince because it was too simple, and now I may be straining to understand something that doesn't require understanding. Perhaps all we need to know is that the goddess Nu Kua is blowing on the dice for one last desperate roll, and all we can do is pray they come up with a pair of Blind Queens. After all, we must assume that the stone is one of the most important objects in all the universe. Why else would she go to the trouble of Moon Boy?”

Moon Boy stared at him. So did I, and the old man threw his head back and laughed until tears flowed.

“What a creation is Moon Boy!” he chortled. “My lad, on the one hand you're the apotheosis of beauty, irresponsibility, and unbridled sexuality on a rampage, and on the other hand there isn't an evil, unkind, or even unpleasant bone in your body.” Master Li shook his head wonderingly. “We may be sure that art is involved, for such a combination of excess and innocence is not to be found in nature,” he said. “You couldn't possibly have perfected guiltless sin without experimenting with the common garden variety, and when Ox and I watched you stand before the Mirror of Past Existences, our subconscious minds played a duet. Buddha, what a series of incarnations! From baseness to depravity to malignancy to monstrosity, culminating in an incarnation as the most dissolute and irresistible slut ever to shake her rear end across the pages of history.”

Master Li wiped his eyes and winked at me.

“Come, Ox, surely you recognized her? I thought every boy in China had memorized the more indelicate passages of her biography.”

I remembered having seen Moon Boy dressed as a girl, and then I realized he had been a girl, and then I turned bright red. Suddenly his incredible beauty made sense, and I recognized the lady in the mirror, all right.

“Golden Lotus,” Master Li said happily. “Moon Boy once walked the earth as a man-eating seductress so spectacularly immoral that she was elevated to Heaven to become the greatest Patron of Prostitutes in history, and I suspect that the goddess Nu Kua began to think deep thoughts about peculiar combinations of ch'i and shih the moment Golden Lotus began jiggling down the pearly paths, causing havoc among the young gods. Golden Lotus was removed from her post and given a new form. Remember it?”

I remembered Moon Boy in the mirror, changing and yet not changing, still beautiful but blending with bright colors, lifting his face and arms toward the sun, almost like—

“A flower,” Master Li said softly. “A beautiful flawed flower named Purple Pearl who was placed in the path of a flawed stone, and the stone brought dew and raindrops to wash the evil from the flower, and the flower fell in love and vowed to repay its debt by shedding every tear in its body. It might take centuries, or even millennia for the time to be right for a flower to be reborn, but the greatest virtue of stone is patience.”

Moon Boy's eyes were wide and wondering. Master Li picked up the stone, pieces still pressed together, and placed it in Moon Boy's hands. Then he took his wine flask and stood up.

“This will seem very silly, but who cares?” he said. “Clasp the stone tightly, Moon Boy. Close your eyes. Try to imagine a place without water near the River of Spirits, and dryness and wilting, and then a faithful stone flying up with the morning dew of Heaven.”

Moon Boy closed his eyes and clasped the stone. Master Li waited, and then he tilted the flask and sprinkled drops of Heavenly Nectar over Moon Boy's head. The effect wasn't silly at all. Moon Boy trembled all over, and squeezed the stone against his heart, and from his lips came an indescribably beautiful singing sound that gradually resolved itself into words.

“Love . . . love . . . but I have no tears . . . Not even as a child could I cry . . . How can I cry for a stone? . . . Love . . . love . . . love . . . but I cannot cry . . .”

Master Li motioned for me to follow him.

“We will leave you for a while,” he said quietly. “A flower that vows to shed tears is making a very serious commitment, and neither gods nor men have the right to influence the decision.”

He walked away. We went around the peak to the far side of Dragon's Left Horn, and Master Li sat down on a flat rock and gazed out at the valley. Peasants were scurrying around fearfully, but so far as I could see the damage from the earthquake was limited to fallen thatched roofs and a few collapsed barns. Soft blankets of shadows were sliding over the fields, and the birds were singing their last songs. Master Li tilted the flask and reverently rolled the liquid around his mouth before swallowing.

“Ox, I think Prince Liu Pao should be a hero,” he said thoughtfully. “It's better that way, even though it may cause long-term problems for his heirs. We'll tell the abbot that the prince fell in the final triumphant battle against the forces of evil, and never again will his abominable ancestor threaten the Valley of Sorrows.”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“The peasants will want a temple for him, but a shrine should do.”

Master Li was beginning to warm to the subject. “Make that two shrines,” he said enthusiastically. “We'll say he wished to be cleft in half, from top to bottom, and each half buried in one of the destroyed areas of Princes' Path to fertilize new plants.”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“He'll be the Holy Half-Princes of the Valley of Sorrows, each half turning the seeing side to the peasants' good deeds and the blind side to their bad, and the legend of what will happen when danger threatens and the two halves are reunited should be very interesting. I hope the cave of Wolf survived, because the boys should get to work on it at once.”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“His last words were that he longed to lie in his graves and listen to the innocent laughter of children and the blissful bleating of little lambs and the—”

“No, sir,” I said.

“I suppose you're right,” Master Li admitted. “Peasants will go only so far. You'd better handle that part of it.”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “His last words were instructions to his heirs to repair the damage from the earthquake and give the monastery a new roof.”

“Good boy,” Master Li said.

“And fix the dike at the intersection of paths between the monastery, village, and estate. One torrential rain and the melons will wind up in Soochow.”

“Anything else?”

“No, sir,” I said. “Anything else and the peasants will expect the prince's heirs to repair their sandals and empty the chamber pots.”

We sat in silence. Master Li's wrinkles seemed to be older than the seams and cracks in the hills across from us, and his mood was turning melancholy.

“You know, the prince was right,” he said. “I'm almost the last advocate of the old way of doing things. Perhaps it's just as well. If one leaves out the Neo-Confucians, there's much to be said for the modern style. Still, I hope you keep filling your notebooks as a record of an archaic approach to problems. There's a good deal of fun to be found in the old way, and a good deal of beauty, and the practitioners seldom expired from ennui.”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

He looked at me gravely, and then he nodded. We got up and started back. I tried to prepare for it, but still it was like a blow to the pit of my stomach, and tears blurred my eyes.

“Oh, Moon Boy,” I sniffled.

He always did things neatly. Master Li's knife had been carefully cleaned, and he had built a small dam of earth so the blood from his slit wrist would build up around and over the stone without staining the grass unnecessarily. Moon Boy had placed Grief of Dawn's hand over his, with the stone beneath them, and Master Li walked up and gently lifted the hands and picked up the stone. He washed it in the wine it had produced and dried it on his tunic and held it up to the light.

“Oh, Ox, what a beautiful piece of work,” he whispered.

A stone had once washed evil from a flower. Now the flower had shed the tears it had saved up to wash the flaw from the stone, and there wasn't a trace of a crack or a sign of soft gold. The three pieces were one, and it was as solid as a stone can be.

Master Li turned and raised his head toward Heaven and drew in great lungfuls of air. I covered my ears, but still the high harsh eagle screams that burst from the old man's throat hurt my eardrums. The screams lifted one after another, shooting to the crimson clouds, and the echoes bounced back and forth between the peaks.

He dropped to his knees. I followed his example. “It is La Kao,” he said simply. “I pray to be allowed to address the goddess Nu Kua.”

We knelt there in silence while clouds began to cover the sky. I suppose it was my imagination, but I began to sense something else that stretched from horizon to horizon: a vast maternal presence.

“Goddess,” Master Li said politely, “forgive me for beginning with a minor matter, but I have sworn a vow. The current Patron of Prostitutes is an incompetent disgrace, and the whores of China wish her to be replaced. Since the great Golden Lotus is scarcely available, they have nominated Empress Wu.”