The Story Of The Stone (5 page)

Master Li nodded to me. I stepped up and tested the stone lid. It weighed at least a ton, but it rested in smooth grooves, and I got in position and heaved. I almost broke my back before I could persuade it to move, but then it began to slide down toward the foot with a painful screeching sound. A mummy wrapped in tarred linen appeared. Part of the wrappings had crumbled away, but they had prevented the bone itself from crumbling, and a piece of a white skull was exposed. An empty eye socket gazed up at us, and I will confess that I was relieved to see that the Laughing Prince was not in shape to laugh and dance in the moonlight.

Master Li reached into the coffin and came up with a small enameled container like a pillbox. There was nothing inside but a tiny pile of gray dust, and when he cleaned off the top, we saw the picture of a toad seated upon a lily pad.

“I have heard that the Laughing Prince was expected to recover from his final fever, and this may explain why he didn't,” Master Li said thoughtfully. “Even in his day it was known that tear-like secretions of certain toads are heart stimulants even more effective than foxglove, and usually Toad Elixir was prescribed only for severe cardiac disorders. An overdose can be fatal, of course, and this could have been placed in his coffin either to signify a natural cause of death or the fact that the emperor had indeed sent him the yellow scarf and he had chosen to hop into the underworld upon the back of a toad. Not that it matters.”

There was nothing else in the coffin. In death as in life the lunatic lord was a mystery. I slid the lid back in place. We walked back into the tunnel, and the prince closed the door. The grotto was as ghastly as ever, but when we stepped outside I knew it was as dead and gone as the Laughing Prince. A lovely sunset was spreading across the sky, and birds were singing their last songs of the day, and down below us we could see the Valley of Sorrows in a haze of green and gold and purple shadows. As pretty as the setting of a fairy tale, and far more alive.

There was no point in starting to Ch'ang-an with plant and soil samples until morning — besides, it was the fifteenth day of the seventh moon, and my ears had not misled me about the abbot. He had indeed muttered “forty-two kettles of fish,” and the monastery smelled like Yellow Carp Pier. Smells of rice, pork, cabbage, eggs, and traditional eggplant tarts drifted up the hill from the village. Word that the Laughing Prince was safely in his tomb had spread like wildfire, and the Valley of Sorrows was ready for a festival.

“Mark my words,” Brother Shang said gloomily. “Somebody will break a leg.”

Master Li listened to the faint sounds of music from the village. “Peasant dancing can get rather wild,” he agreed.

“Smell that pepper sauce! Every child in the valley will be sick to his stomach,” said Brother Shang.

“For at least a week,” said Master Li.

“Monks by the dozens will forget their vows. I'll have to mop up the vomit and brew hangover remedies,” said Brother Shang, whose full name was Wu Shang and who lived up to it by always drawing the short straw. (Wu Shang means “Difficult Birth.”) This time he had to stand the lonely vigil at the monastery while the other monks enjoyed the festivities.

“Somebody is sure to toss a torch into a barn,” Master Li predicted direly.

“They'll be lucky if one cottage remains standing,” said Brother Shang, who was beginning to cheer up. “Family feuds will erupt all over the place! Broken skulls will be beyond counting! Mark my words: This date will be marked in black in the annals of the valley.”

We left the poor fellow to his self-pity, a very useful emotion, and started down the hill to the village. The Feast of Hungry Ghosts has been my personal favorite ever since I began traveling with Master Li, since I am almost certain to become a hungry ghost myself. (It honors, among others, those who have died in distant and desolate lands, or whose bodies have been mangled beyond recognition.) I was slightly surprised to see that Master Li was on his best behavior. As the visiting dignitary he was required to pass judgment on the wines of the valley, and I was prepared for the worst when he approached the reeking pots and uttered the formal “Ning szu che hou t'uen,” which means “I'm ready to die; I'll try it,” but he only took a small sip of each vitriolic product and praised all without restraint, even the brew that spilled on the ground and killed two lizards and three square feet of grass.

The abbot kept the formal prayers and ceremonies mercifully brief, and I was delighted when the hit of the early going turned out to be Brother Shang. He couldn't attend, but he had spent the winter carving and tuning tiny bamboo flutes and he tied them to the tails of the monastery's pigeons and sent them flying over the village to serenade us with a bawdy song called “Chu Chang's Chamber Pot.” The abbot said something about disciplining the impious rogue, but his heart wasn't in it.

The dancing started, which meant the fights would start shortly, and I was very disappointed when Master Li decided to slip away and walk through the hills in the moonlight. His feet led him to the destroyed area of Princes' Path, and he stood there for several minutes, rocking on his heels with his hands clasped behind his back.

“Ox,” he finally said, “what was wrong with the analysis of the situation that I gave to Prince Liu Pao?” he said.

“Sir?”

“I was trying to reassure him. I wish I could reassure myself,” the ancient sage said gloomily. “It's perfectly clear that crooks dressed in motley stole a manuscript and frightened a monk to death. After that, everything begins to run amok. A weird compelling sound is heard precisely as the crooks make their escape; some mysterious substance kills trees and plants precisely where they place their sandals. If it was a coincidental collapse of a tunnel and the release of old acids, as I suggested to the prince, it's the kind of coincidence that deserves priests, prayers, and an elaborate theology. If it wasn't a coincidence, why would crooks waste effects like that on the simple theft of a manuscript? They could walk off with the Imperial Treasury if they felt like it, or pilfer the emperor's undergarments while he was wearing them. My boy, this affair makes no sense at all.”

I said nothing, of course, but I noted that the old man was enjoying every moment of his confusion. He had feared that all he had to work with was a simple burglary, and now he was praying for a puzzle that could baffle the judges of Hell. He wiped off a flat rock and sat down beneath the stars. Just below us on the hill we saw tiny flickers of light moving through the woods. Little girls have large maternal instincts, and they take the Feast of Hungry Ghosts very seriously, and they were making their rounds with small lanterns made from candles inside rolled lotus and sage leaves. I could feel ghosts all around us, moving toward the warmth of the sweet singing voices: You are not alone, the girls sang, you are not forgotten, we care and understand, our own lives are but a candle flame from yours:

"Houtsu-teng,

Hoyeh-teng,

Chin-erh tien,

Ming-erh kojeng;

Sagebrush lantern,

Lotus leaf lantern,

Alight today,

Tomorrow thrown away."

I wiped my eyes. The moonlight was shining upon Dragon's Left Horn and the ancient estate of the Lius, and I wondered how the Laughing Prince could have enjoyed torturing and murdering little girls like these. Apparently Master Li was thinking the same thing.

“I have a theory about the late lunatic lord,” he said. “Ox, what occupation is most closely linked to insanity?”

“Emperor,” I said promptly.

He laughed. “I can't argue with that, but I meant a commonplace occupation.”

I scratched my nose. “Making felt?” I guessed.

“Precisely,” said Master Li. “Felt is cured by immersion in mercury. People in certain trades — hatters, for example — practically swim in the stuff, and it's almost certain that the Laughing Prince drank it.”

“Sir?”

“In his youth he had been a promising scientist,” Master Li explained. “Sooner or later he was bound to experiment with the Elixir of Life. The formulas are beyond counting, but they all contain the common ingredient of cinnabar, and cinnabar is simply mercuric sulphide. For years I've been warning about mercury, but nobody listens. The reason is that the effect is cumulative and gradual, and one needs to live as long as I have to see the pattern.”

He hopped to his feet and began demonstrating expressions and body movements.

“It attacks the nervous system, and eventually produces tics and twitches and spastic movements, like this,” said Master Li, and he did a strange jerky series of steps that was oddly appealing. “I am most definitely thinking of the Laughing Prince's irresistible little dance step,” he said. “As the poisoning progresses, it leads to outbursts of hysterical laughter and fits of murderous rage, and the final result is insanity followed by death. Ox, it's perfectly possible that the crimes of the Laughing Prince were caused by experiments intended to achieve immortality by drinking cinnabar — not very dramatic, perhaps, but more people have been massacred because an emperor's sandals didn't fit properly than because he received a sign from Heaven, and whenever I hear a high priest howl for divine retribution, I suspect acid indigestion.”

He jigged around the grass some more, and then he stopped and looked closely at me. “Acid indigestion?” he asked.

It wasn't that, but I couldn't explain what was bothering me. Something was wrong with the night. I doubt that city people would have noticed it, but I am pure country, and my nerves tingled at the tiny hesitation in the chirping of crickets. An owl stopped a hunting call halfway through. There was a tentative sound to the rustling of small night creatures. Something strange and unnatural had entered the Valley of Sorrows, and I realized that I was holding my breath.

When it came, it was only a small vibration. Then the vibration grew more pronounced, and I saw Master Li look around sharply. Then the sound came. I can't describe it. Nobody could. It was like nothing on earth, yet like everything, and my whole body shuddered with an agonizing sense of loss, but with yearning and hope as well — as though I had once lost something very precious and the memory was returning, and also a hope of finding it again. Can I say that the sound had notes to it? If so, they were as simple and direct as the first three tones of the scale, with the third tone drawn out:

Kung . . . shang . . . chueeeeeeeeeeh . . .

That's the best I can do, and it hit me so hard I wept, and I held my heart as though it would break in half.

“Ox? What's wrong with you?”

“The sound!” I sobbed. “Master Li, surely you hear the sound!”

“What sound?”

Kung . . . shang . . . chueeeeeeeeeeh . . .

It was beautiful and agonizing and it was calling to me. I knew I had to reach it or die, and I was not alone. The festival was breaking up and people were running through the woods, but others were like Master Li and couldn't hear it at all, and they were shouting, “Come back!” and “Have you gone crazy?” I jumped to my feet. Three little girls ran past us, weeping, instinctively shielding the tiny flames in their lotus leaf lanterns.

Master Li swore and hopped up on my back and stuck his feet in my pockets. “Stop trembling like a hobbled racehorse and run,” he growled.

I ran. The moon was so bright that the shadows might have been etched on the ground with a sharp instrument and carefully painted black, and the Great River of Stars was sparkling overhead. For a moment I wondered if the strange sound might come from the heart of a star — surely it was as hard to catch. It was like trying to find a cricket at night in a huge old barn: in front of me, then behind me, then to this side, and then to that. I finally realized I was running around in circles, and that Master Li was hauling back on my neck like on the reins of a runaway horse.

I came to a stop and stood with my legs spread and my head down, panting. Master Li held his wine flask out, and I managed to drink some of it. I choked and gasped but felt better, and he patted my shoulder soothingly.

“I can't hear whatever it is, but I know you're going at it the wrong way,” he said soothingly. “Ox, at the risk of sounding like a character from the tales of Granny Shu, I will point out that a noise some people hear and others don't isn't speaking to the ears. It's speaking to the heart, and you have a hole in your heart. All young people do. It's there to catch the wonderful things of the world, and later on it gets filled up by broken things. Forget about your ears. Listen with your heart. Aim the hole at the sound and follow in the direction where it hurts the most.”

The vibration was coming again, even stronger than before, and I held my breath.

Kung . . . shang . . . chueeeeeeeeeeh . . .

I was off and running, but more confidently now. Master Li was right. Run where it aches the most, and forget about the lies of the ears. I was climbing steadily, and now the night was changing as a thick mist began to rise. The distant lights of the village were blotted out, and then the moon and stars, and Master Li began swearing in a gravelly monotone as the damp blinding blanket closed around us. I could barely see a foot ahead, and I was colliding with trees and rocks. All I knew was that I must keep climbing higher and higher.

I have a vague recollection of sliding down into ravines and climbing back up the other sides. Now the mist was so thick that I could see nothing, and Master Li shouted for me to stop.

I couldn't. The wonderful agonizing sound had been silent for some time and I had to reach it, before it vanished forever and I kept skidding downward and scrambling upward — I want to explain that clearly, because of the extraordinary thing that happened.

I was exhausted. All I could do was crawl, but I sensed something ahead of me. The mist was beginning to lift. I saw a pair of sandals, and then skinny legs, and then a slight torso, and then a huge head with wild hair. Prince Liu Pao was staring down at us as though we were ghosts.

“Ox? Number Ten Ox? Master Li? How on earth did you . . .”

His voice trailed off and he looked wide-eyed at the path behind him.

“I heard noises and I came outside, and nobody passed me on the path,” the prince whispered.

The mist was lifting rapidly now, and with a sudden shock I realized why the prince couldn't believe his eyes.

I have not described the physical setting of his estate in detail. Dragon's Head, for which the valley had originally been named, was a tiny mountain. Ages ago some cataclysm had split it in half: Dragon's Left Horn and Dragon's Right Horn. The estate was at the top of Dragon's Left Horn, and between it and the sister peak was a sheer gorge about forty feet wide and two hundred feet deep. I had begun the climb up the side of Dragon's Right Horn, and since I was now at the estate, I had somehow managed to cross that gorge.

The prince continued to stare. I crawled back to the gorge and peered down a sheer vertical cliff to jagged rocks far below, and then I slowly raised my eyes up a matching vertical cliff to the place I had come from. It was impossible.

“Ox,” Master Li whispered in a tiny voice, “you have a wonderful career ahead of you as the human fly in a carnival, but for the love of Buddha, don't do it again when I'm riding on your back.”

We could hear a few faint shouts from the village far below. The wonderful sound had disappeared, and the prince said he was like Master Li in that he hadn't heard it at all. Just then there was a sound we all heard. The monastery bells began to sound the alarm, and in an instant I was on my feet and running down the path with Master Li on my back while Prince Liu Pao panted along behind us.

Villagers stood at the monastery gates, afraid to enter. We forced our way through, and the abbot met us and gestured dumbly. I ran to the library. It had been ransacked. Every book and scroll had been pulled from shelves and torn apart, and every desk had been searched and overturned, and the librarian's desk resembled a pile of kindling. Master Li slid down from my back and scanned the wreckage, and then he turned and trotted rapidly out the door and down one of the corridors.