The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox

by Barry Hughart

  For a week a series of explosions shook the little island, followed by the furious screams of Li Kao. His beard was singed and blackened and his eyebrows were nearly scorched off. So many fires had started in his clothes that he looked as though he had been attacked by a million starving moths, but finally he found the right formula and his tubes of Fire Drug began to behave. Miser Shen and I were rather proud of our handiwork. The basket was woven from reeds, and quite comfortable to sit in, and the palm-leaf blades revolved very nicely around the bamboo pole. The bamboo wheel to which the tubes were attached was balanced carefully and although we had no steering mechanism, we hoped to be able to control our flight by shifting our weight.

  “Of course this is madness,” I said as I climbed into the basket.

  “Moronic,” said Miser Shen, as he climbed in beside me.

  “We are totally deranged,” Li Kao agreed as he lit the fuses.

  He hopped into the basket, and I covered my eyes and waited for death. The basket shuddered as the tubes of Fire Drug began to spurt flames. The wheel started to revolve, and the blades began to whirl round and round. I peeked through my fingers and peered through a cloud of black smoke and saw that the grass beneath us was bending beneath a blast of wind.

  “We are rising!” I yelled.

  “We are falling!” howled Miser Shen.

  Both of us were right. We had suddenly lifted into the air, and now we were dropping back down. Unfortunately we had also moved fifty feet to the left, and we were dropping straight toward bubbling lava.

  “Lean back!” Master Li yelled.

  We shifted our weight and the Bamboo Dragonfly suddenly straightened out and began to skim just above the fiery surface toward the other side of the moat, and we stared with horrifying eyes at the prints of immense fingers that were eagerly pawing the salt.

  The Hand That No One Sees almost got us. A slashing invisible finger ripped off one of the palm-leaf blades, which proved to be a blessing because we had apparently used one too many. As soon as it was gone our flying machine lifted into the air and began to perform very nicely indeed, except that it was flying around in circles. Around and around it flew, moving slowly across the ruins of the city, while great lunging marks of furious fingers kicked up clouds of salt beneath us.

  “That horrible thing is crawling up on top of the ruins of the palace!” Miser Shen yelled. “If it gets on top of the wall and we keep circling like this we’ll run right into it!”

  He was right, but nothing could persuade the Bamboo Dragonfly to change course. Flames and black smoke spurted out behind us, and with one more circle we would be in the clutches of the Hand from Hell.

  “Take off your tunics!” Master Li yelled. “Try using them as rudders!”

  We ripped off our tunics and spread them behind us to catch the wind, and by some miracle it worked. Just as we reached the wall we suddenly veered to the left, and the Hand must have snatched at us because the slabs on top of the wall began to teeter precariously. Then the wall fell apart, and the stones tumbled down into the lake of lava, and then there was an enormous splash that sent fiery molten rock a hundred feet into the air.

  The monster slowly rose to the surface. What had been invisible was now covered with black lava, and we gazed in terror at an enormous hairy hand, perhaps sixty feet long. The palm was up, and the fingers were tightly clenched, and suddenly it jerked convulsively and the fingers opened. They weren’t fingers at all, but the legs of a giant spider and the heel and palm was a loathsome bloated sac! A cluster of evil eyes glared up at us and a hideous round mouth opened and displayed a circle of gigantic pointed teeth, and then lava poured into the mouth and the Hand That No One Sees sank forever beneath the fiery surface of the lake.

  The Bamboo Dragonfly flew steadily on, and the tragic shattered city faded behind us. We sat in shaken silence, and finally Li Kao cleared his throat.

  “I suspect that it was simply an oversized relative of the common trapdoor spider,” he said thoughtfully. “Invisible, because before the eruption it had lived underground, where there is no need for sight perception. Nature is astonishingly adaptable, and there are a great many sea creatures that have become transparent to the point of invisibility, and a few insects.”

  He turned and gazed back as the city dwindled to a tiny speck in an endless expanse of white salt.

  “It really is a pity that we couldn’t keep the body to study. I would have liked to learn how it managed to eat during the centuries after it devoured the inhabitants of the city, and whether its eyes were atavistic or acquired. A remarkable specimen! Nonetheless,” said Master Li, “I do not think that we will mourn its passing.”

  The Cavern of Bells

  Hour after hour the palm-leaf blades whirled overhead and flames and smoke spurted out behind us as the incredible Bamboo Dragonfly flew across the searing white salt. We used our tunics to guide us around whirlwinds, and the heat from the desert was like fiery fingers that pushed us higher and higher into the sky. With the last light of the setting sun, Miser Shen pointed ahead to a long dark line on the horizon.

  “Those are trees!” he exclaimed. “The Desert of Salt is coming to an end.”

  The best proof of that lay in the dark clouds that were building up. Lightning flickered in the distance, and I doubted that it had rained in the desert for a thousand years.

  “Gentlemen, we could be in bad trouble if the basket that we’re riding in fills with water,” Li Kao pointed out.

  We pried three bamboo pieces from the framework at the bottom of the basket, which not only made a drainage hole but also provided us with three poles for umbrellas. Thin strips from the circular rim provided the frames, and our trousers served as the covers. We finished just in time. Lightning flashed and thunder roared and rain fell in torrents, but we clutched our umbrellas and sailed through the storm quite comfortably.

  “I have always wanted to fly through a thunderstorm!” Master Li shouted happily.

  “Magnificent!” Miser Shen and I yelled as one.

  It really was spectacular, and we were rather disappointed when the storm passed and the moon and stars came out. Wind whistled around our ears and a river gleamed like silver far below us. The Bamboo Dragonfly flew steadily on, and flames and smoke spurted out behind us as we drifted gently across the deep purple sky of China; a tiny spark that flicked beneath the glow of a million billion trillion stars.

  Miser Shen dozed off, and then Master Li, and I rode through the night staring up at the stars and down at the moonlit earth far below. The sensation of flight was far different from that which I had experienced in my dreams, and to tell the truth, I far preferred dream flight. Then I was like a bird, using the wind like the current of a stream, delighting in almost total freedom, but now I was simply a passenger riding in a basket beneath whirling blades, and I silently chided myself for being too cloddish to appreciate properly an experience that was very close to being miraculous. Master Li was also chiding himself, as I learned when he began to mutter in his sleep, but for a different reason.

  “Fool,” he muttered. “Blind as a bat. Use your head.” Then he shifted restlessly and scratched his nose. “Why not on the island waiting at the end of the bridge?” he muttered angrily. “Stupid! Makes no sense.”

  He fell silent again and it occurred to me that if he was dreaming about the Hand That No One Sees, he had a good reason to think that it made no sense. Assuming that the Hand guarded the duke’s treasure trove as the tide had guarded the first one, why not put the monster on the island silently and visibly waiting at the other end of that narrow bridge? Anyone who approached the treasure would simply be serving breakfast in bed to a hungry spider.

  “Children,” Master Li muttered, restlessly turning and shifting. “Games. Stupid or childish? A little boy?”

  He sighed and his breathing grew more regular and then I heard nothing but deep snores. Miser Shen was dreaming too, and a tear was trickling down the sharp curve of his nose. He was
making faint sounds, and I leaned close.

  “Ah Chen,” he whispered, “your father is here.”

  He said no more, and finally I too fell asleep. When I awoke I discovered that we were flying through pink and orange clouds, pale against a turquoise sky, and the morning sun was shining upon mountain peaks all around us as Li Kao and Miser Shen used their tunics to guide the Bamboo Dragonfly through a narrow pass where fantastic trees precariously perched, spreading their branches to capture wisps of clouds and to weave them into the patterns of dreams, like the landscapes of Mei Fei. I yawned and spread my tunic behind me like a rudder, and we passed so close to one high jagged peak that I let go with one hand and reached out and scooped up a handful of snow, which tasted delicious. Then we sailed through the pass and began to fly over a beautiful green valley, where tiny wisps of smoke drifted up from fields where farmers were burning weeds, and the breeze was fragrant with wet earth and trees and grass and flowers.

  Around midmorning the tubes of Fire Drug began to sputter and fizzle. The palm-leaf blades whirled slower and slower, and we began to descend toward a small village nestled beside a broad river. You may be sure that peasants gathered from miles around to watch the gradual descent of a fire-breathing bird from Heaven. We hovered above the village square, and the Fire Drug produced one final spurt of flame and puff of black smoke, and then we settled lightly to earth. The crowd gaped at three Chinese gentlemen, tastefully attired in loincloths and money belts, who stepped grandly from the basket clutching umbrellas.

  “My surname is Li and my personal name is Kao, and there is a slight flaw in my character,” said Master Li with a polite bow. “This is my esteemed client, Number Ten Ox, and this is Old Generosity, formerly known as Miser Shen. We hereby donate the incredible Bamboo Dragonfly to your delightful village. Build a fence around it! Charge admission! Your fortunes shall be made. And now you may direct us to the nearest wineshop, for we intend to stay drunk for a week.”

  Miser Shen would have liked to do just that, but by some incredible stroke of luck our flying machine had brought us very close to the Cavern of Bells. It was only a short distance downstream, so we bought a boat and shoved off into the current, and two days later Miser Shen pointed ahead.

  “Stone Bell Mountain,” he said. “The entrance to the Cavern of Bells is at the water’s edge, and we should be able to sail right inside.”

  Li Kao nudged my arm.

  “Ox, I have heard that the duke’s tax trip takes him past Stone Bell Mountain,” he whispered. “If the painting in the Cavern of Bells is as Miser Shen described it, then the Duke of Ch’in may have more than a casual interest in the place.”

  I remembered his earlier warning, and I peered around fearfully for two-hundred-foot armor-plated winged water moccasins as our little boat glided through the dark entrance. But then I cried out in wonder and delight. It was like sailing into one of those beautiful undersea palaces in Buddhist fairy tales. Sunlight from the entrance struck emerald water that glittered like green fire, and then the rays bounced up the stone walls that were studded with crystals that sparkled with every color of the spectrum. It was a world wrapped in rainbows. The strangest rocks that I had ever seen pointed up through the water and down from the roof. They were like spears, but turned around so that the thick handles pointed out. Li Kao had never visited the cavern before, but he had read a great deal about it.

  “The bell stones,” he said. “When the water rises, it strikes the stones on the bottom, which ring like bells, and the vibration causes the stones on the ceiling to respond with bell sounds of their own. The phenomenon is called sympathetic resonance. Deeper in the cavern are other stones formed from soft rock, through which tiny holes have been worn, and when the water rushes through the holes it provides more music to accompany the bells. Su Tung-po has written an interesting monograph on the subject.”

  We reached a wooden pier and tied our boat to one of the posts. A flight of stone steps led up to the great hall of the cavern, where a shrine had been set up. We appeared to be the only visitors, and the shrine was tended by four monks. Three of them wore black robes, and the fourth wore crimson, and the one in crimson came trotting up. He was a tiny fellow with a high squeaking voice.

  “May Buddha be with you,” he said with a deep bow. “I am the custodian of the Temple of the Peddler, and my three brother monks belong to a different order nearby. In the passage to your left you will find the sacred painting of the deity of the Cavern of Bells. It is very ancient and very mysterious, and neither I nor my predecessors truly understand it. It is undeniably divine, and I live in hopes that some day a visitor will be able to explain it to me. May you be the wise visitors I seek,” he said with another bow. “Will you forgive me if I do not accompany you? My brothers and I are slowly going mad as we attempt to balance our subscription books.”

  The little monk pattered back to join the others, and we walked down the passageway that he had indicated. At the end of it there were flickering torches that framed something upon the wall, and Miser Shen pointed to it.

  “The painting that I spoke of,” he said, while Li Kao and I stared at ghosts.

  There could be no question about it. The painting depicted an old peddler with his back to us who was facing the murdered maiden whose ghost we had seen at the Castle of the Labyrinth. To her left stood the murdered maiden whose ghost had appeared on the island, and to her right stood a third girl who could have been their sister.

  Li Kao snatched one of the torches from the brackets and went over the painting inch by inch. The peddler’s robe was covered with colored pearls and lotus blossoms, and he was supported by a crutch beneath his left armpit. His hands were extended to the maidens. In the left hand he held three tiny white feathers, and in the right hand he held a miniature flute and crystal ball that were precisely like the ones in Li Kao’s belt, as well as a tiny bronze bell. The painting was very ancient, but what did it mean?

  “The emblems on the lame peddler’s robe usually signify Heaven, in which case this might be a painting of T’ieh-kuai Li, the Fourth Immortal,” Master Li said thoughtfully. “But two things are wrong, and one of them rules out such an interpretation. He should be carrying a large calabash on his back, and he could not possibly be leaning upon a wooden crutch. After all, the name means Li with the Iron Crutch.”

  He went back over the painting, with his eyes no more than an inch from the surface.

  “On the other hand, the emblems on the robe can signify the supernatural, and that includes the evil supernatural,” he muttered. “We know that two of the girls were murdered, and I am willing to lay enormous odds against the possibility that the third girl died peacefully in bed. The maddening thing is that I can find no trace of something that should be included.”

  I looked at him inquiringly.

  “Ginseng,” he explained. “Ox, for some mysterious reason our quest for the Great Root and the ghosts of the handmaidens are linked together, and so are the games of the children, the village of Ku-fu, Dragon’s Pillow, nonsense rhymes, feathers, birds that must fly, the Duke of Ch’in—all of the dukes, come to think of it—and Buddha knows what else.”

  He straightened up and shrugged.

  “If we ever figure it out, it should make a marvelous story,” he sighed. “Let’s go see if those monks can tell us something useful.”

  The three monks in black had disappeared, but the little monk in crimson was more than helpful. “No, we have never been able to grasp the meaning of the trinkets and the feathers,” he said. “The feathers are particularly puzzling, because there is another painting deeper in the cavern that depicts feathers. It is so old that most of the paint has worn away, but one can clearly make out feathers and the symbol of the constellation Orion. Again I have no idea what it means.”

  Li Kao’s eyes were sparkling. “Ox,” he whispered. “In ancient times a roof, three beams, and the number three formed the ideograph for Orion. It was also used to signify ginseng, particul
arly when the symbol for heart was at the point of the beams, and that would mean the Heart of the Great Root of Power.”

  I was beginning to catch some of his excitement myself, and we eagerly followed the little monk to the opening of another tunnel. He offered us torches from the wall brackets.

  “You will find the painting at the end, and in the meantime you learn why we are certain that the peddler is divine,” he said. “Fortunate! You have arrived during the rainy season, and the water has begun to rise in the Peddler’s cavern. Soon it will strike the bell stones, and only Heaven could produce such music. The stones are deep beneath the tunnel, but there are side passages that will enable you to hear the music clearly.”

  Miser Shen’s previous visit had been during the wrong season for bell music, and he was rather skeptical about it. As we moved down the low dark tunnel the slap of our sandals was joined by the sound of water lapping against rocks far below us and to the left side. Then the water rose high enough and we knew that the monk had not lied. This was the music of Heaven.

  A stone bell chimed. Just as the echo was fading away it was answered by a second bell that was soft and sweet and slightly blurred, as though the sound were sifted through honey. Another bell answered, higher and clearer and perfectly in harmony, and then bell after bell chimed in: big bells, small bells, loud bells, soft bells, clear bells, cloudy bells, and we walked along in enchantment while our torches cast immense shadows upon the stone walls. I cannot describe the beauty of the stone bell song. Then the water reached the soft rocks and began to rush through tiny holes, and the bells were joined by the sound of a thousand silver lutes being stroked by a million murmuring bees. The combination of sounds was lifting our souls right out of our bodies, and ahead of us was a side passageway that was large enough to enter. The music poured from it, and we turned as one and trotted down the passageway toward the ravishing song. Tears were streaming down Miser Shen’s cheeks. He began to run, with his arms spread wide to catch and embrace the music, and we were right at his heels while our shadows leaped and jumped all around us. A rock moved beneath Miser Shen’s foot, and I heard a harsh metallic whang.