“Our first task will be to evaluate the new regime,” he said worriedly. “It is said that the former First Lord of Hell, Yen-wang-yeh, has been judged to have been too lenient and has been demoted, but no signs have been received to indicate who’s currently in charge. If Legalists have won out, we could be in real trouble.”
We were floating downward rather than walking—a blessing, since it is a terrible task to climb down 116,787½ steps—and a small circle of pale cold light was appearing before us. We came to rest in front of a doorway and cautiously peered out across a flat gray plain toward the walls of the principal city of Feng-tu. There was no sun, only a pearly glow in the gray sky. Even the trees and flowers were gray, and sounds seemed to be muted.
The demons weren’t gray. Some had bright blue faces and fiery red eyes and long yellow tusks, and others had green fangs and crimson noses and black ears. They were every bit as horrible as the demons one sees in dreams, and they were herding the dead into long lines that slowly shuffled toward the city gates. The social hierarchy was absolute. Aristocrats formed one line, tradesmen another, scholars another—bureaucrats and soldiers and farmers all had their assigned line and priority of entrance, with the nobility taking precedence and actors bringing up the rear. The ceremony was formal and painstaking. Demons bowed to trolls, who bowed to ogres, who bowed to devils, and Master Li drew his head back and spat disgustedly.
“Bat shit,” he growled. “The Neo-Confucians have taken over.” He thought about it and cheered up. “Actually, this makes our task much easier,” he said. “Moon Boy, put on your best jewels and costliest clothes. Ox, you want the garb and facial expression of an ideal peasant, and I’ll take a few liberties with current reality.”
We opened our packs. I put on a pair of sandals that were falling apart and a hat that resembled a rat’s nest, and ripped an old tunic in the back to resemble lash strokes. When I had plastered an expression of meek animal resignation across my homely face, I was a peasant to warm the heart of the most demanding mandarin. Moon Boy dazzled the eyes. It would take four pages to do his clothes justice, and his jewels would have bankrupted some kingdom.
Master Li was awesome. Never before had I seen him in full academic regalia, and it was magnificent. He had finished his examinations as chuang yuan, the number one scholar in all China, and he proudly wore the emblem of the rose. In addition, he had a breast emblem of imperial axes and dragons: chien-kuan, the dreaded censor who is empowered to promote or decapitate on the spot. (Years ago he had been entitled to wear it.) His lacquered cap bore all nine buttons of rank, and he handed me his state umbrella. I put it together and raised it above the heads of the scholar and the handsome peacock.
“Arrogance, lads!” said Master Li. “Never forget that the flames of Hell exist for the privilege of brewing tea for noble Neo-Confucians like us.”
We took deep breaths and marched out into the cold gray landscape of Hell. Demon nostrils twitched in disgust at the aroma of living flesh, and fiery eyes turned toward us.
“Make a note of that fat fellow with the purple eyes and lumps of flesh hanging from his fangs! Ten lashes for slovenliness,” said Master Li, and Moon Boy scribbled in a ledger. “Look at these lines! Mired in molasses and not even straight! Isn’t that the corpse of the fellow who called himself Duke of Chou? Since when does a pimp take a place in the aristocrats’ line? A good housecleaning is what this place needs, along with a few hundred decapitations.”
The fierce old fellow appeared to be the type of person one passes on to superiors, and fangs and talons hovered but did not strike. We marched rapidly toward the gates. Moon Boy had the natural assurance of beautiful people. He graciously inclined his head right and left as though acknowledging applause, and a faint frown indicated that the least the ogres could do was line his path with incense and flower petals. Meanwhile, I was discovering why so many of my humble class take pride in their servility and lash marks.
I held a state umbrella on high, which meant that I too was marching beneath the yellowish-black gauze cover, red raw silk linings, three tiers and silver spires that signified an official of the highest rank. I belonged. What is a great official without a peasant to lash? A sense of power passed from the handle to my hand, and I discovered that the most natural expression in the world was a lofty sneer. Slavery is a marvelous refuge from uncertainty.
The fiends who guarded the gates held up their claws: halt! “Look at those filthy nails! Twenty lashes!” Master Li screamed furiously, and he marched right between them. I clutched the umbrella for dear life, and the next thing I knew we were through the gates and inside the city. Master Li marched past the vast basilica of the God of Walls and Ditches toward the palace of the First Yama King, and as we approached the doors, I knew we were in trouble. None could pass without the permission of a very senior devil who had a black face, crimson eyes, steel fangs, iron wings, and a head covered with writhing vipers instead of hair. Puffs of smoke came from its ears and nostrils. I wondered if the knocking sound came from my knees or Moon Boy’s, and decided we were playing a duet.
Master Li tapped his imperial censor’s emblem and regarded the terrible creature with the scientific detachment of a butcher examining a chunk of meat. “Lord Li of Kao, emissary of the Son of Heaven, to see the Recorder of Past Existences. Immediately!” Master Li snapped.
The demon glared. Flames spurted from its mouth.
“Do I detect insolence?” Master Li said coldly. He plucked an emerald broach from Moon Boy’s tunic and tossed it into the river of molten iron that ran beside the walls of the palace. “It would be regrettable should I be forced to report that an insolent doorkeeper stole a valuable broach and attempted to conceal the crime by swallowing it.” His cold eyes moved to the creature’s belly. “Although it might be entertaining to watch your superiors recover the evidence,” he added.
Without another word he turned and marched straight toward the great steel doors. I hastened to catch up, and I was so blinded by sweat and terror that I didn’t realize the doors had opened until my sandals began to slap across a marble floor.
Even Master Li had a thin line of perspiration on his forehead. Moon Boy alone seemed unperturbed. He continued to acknowledge imaginary applause, although he appeared to be slightly annoyed at the lack of welcoming trumpets, and I stiffened my spine and raised the state umbrella a bit higher. We walked down a long hallway to a large room where an army of clerks shuffled papers.
Hell is staffed by ordinary spirits as well as demons. (Demons aren’t evil, incidentally. To be reborn as a servant of Hell is one of the incarnations of the Great Wheel, and blood lust is simply part of the process, like becoming a tiger.) The head clerk must surely have been a banker in his last incarnation. He had thin straight hair, thin straight eyebrows, thin straight eyes, thin straight nostrils, thin straight lips, thin straight shoulders, thin straight hands placed precisely parallel upon the desk, thin straight knees pressed primly together, and thin straight feet planted firmly on the floor. Moon Boy regarded him thoughtfully.
“Mine,” he said.
“You have him,” said Master Li. “We need to get into the Recorder’s office.”
It was like one of those dances in opera that tell more than words are capable of. My cheeks burned as Moon Boy undulated gracefully toward the desk—I had never seen him do that before—and the clerk’s eyes glazed. Moon Boy smiled. The clerk’s eyes bulged, and beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. Moon Boy cooed soft words. The thin knees jerked beneath the desk. Moon Boy cooed some more. The thin hands twisted together and the thin feet pawed the floor. The poor fellow managed to say something, and Moon Boy’s hand behind his back pointed a finger at one of the side doors. Master Li and I moved unobtrusively over to it. Moon Boy gestured and accidentally brushed the clerk’s hand, and the clerk shot to his feet and wobbled shakily to the door and deferentially knocked and opened it.
We were through the door before the clerk knew what was happening, a
nd Moon Boy rewarded him with a pat on the cheek before slamming the door in his face.
I expected another army of clerks, but the Recorder of Past Existences was seated alone at a huge desk almost buried beneath ledgers. The face that lifted to us reminded me of paintings of Heng-chiang, the Sniffing General. His eyebrows were vertical and his eyes bulged like a frog’s and his nose was wrinkled as though he permanently sniffed something unpleasant. Master Li bowed as to a social equal, and Moon Boy’s bow perfectly matched courtesy and condescension.
“Eh?” said the Recorder.
“Lord Li of Kao, emissary of the Son of Heaven, and the Son of Heaven is furious,” said Master Li.
“Eh?” said the Recorder.
“Such an unseemly intrusion would be intolerable were not serious matters involved, and what could be more serious than failure to adequately apply the Broth of Oblivion?” Master Li said gravely.
“Eh?” said the Recorder.
Master Li whirled around and glared at me. “Look at this witless and lice-ridden representative of the lower classes!” he said angrily. “By rights his knowledge should be limited to fields, fealty, and flatulence, yet he claims to recall every detail of a previous existence in which he was the great-great-grandfather of this jewel of the current court!”
Moon Boy took his cue and bowed gracefully.
“Not only that, this drooling crotch-scratching clod insists he was tutor to the princes of the Sui Dynasty!” Master Li yelled. “He tells tales of Emperor Yang’s debauches that would curl your hair, if you had any, and every time he opens his silly mouth, he substantiates his claim to have been Lord Tsing!”
(That gave me my cue. Tsing was the name of the dear old assistant abbot in the monastery near my village, who taught the village boys when they finished working in the fields. He was a sweet kindly fellow who suffered from terminal pedantry, and I used to amuse Master Li by imitating him.)
“Step forward, oaf!” I drooled and scratched my crotch and stepped forward. Master Li looked around and pointed to an ornate bronze bowl. “What decorative motif is that?” he snarled.
I tried to make my eyes film over, and my jaws creaked like unoiled hinges as they relentlessly spread apart.
“T’sao-t’ieh, or ‘glutton mask,’ is a distinctive motif of the Shang and early Chou dynasties,” I droned in a dull monotone. “It is an animal face seen from the front, sometimes recognizable and sometimes stylized to resemble a fabulous monster. It is flattened on a side surface or bent around a comer; in either case a flange is likely to split it into symmetrical halves, each having a protruding eyeball. From each side of the face, sometimes in proper proportion and sometimes not, extends a body in perfect symmetry with its opposite, as if the carcass had been cut through along the backbone and the two halves had been folded out like wing attachments to the head. The bodies have serpentine dragonlike qualities, coiling in spirals or geometric twists and turns, and are themselves covered with spiral or geometric designs, sometimes including smaller t’sao-t’ieh. The same glutton mask usually appears many times on a vessel. It is a striking, powerful, and unique design, and what it represents…(pause, slowly count to ten)…is not known.”
Moon Boy’s eyes had glazed, and he was teetering on his feet. The Recorder of Past Existences was slumping at his desk. He jerked his head up when his chin bounced against his ink stone. I picked my nose. Moon Boy woke up and fell at my feet and began kissing my sandals. “Great-great-grandfather!” he howled.
My rheumy eyes creaked toward a vase of gray flowers. My relentless jaws creaked open.
“The following plants and flowers,” I droned, “each create a mood. The plum flower goes with poetry, the orchid with seclusion, the chrysanthemum with rustic flavor, the lotus with simplicity of heart, the cherry apple with glamour, the peony with success, the banana and bamboo with gentlemanly charm, the begonia with seductive beauty, the pine tree with retirement, the plane tree with absence of worry, the willow with sentimentality, the—”
“For the love of Buddha, stop!” the Recorder howled.
“Awe-inspiring, isn’t it?” Master Li said. “How can one doubt that this worm was tutor to princes when he can put an entire regiment to sleep in two minutes flat? Failure to remove all memory of previous existences is an extremely grave matter!”
“I can’t understand it,” the Recorder whispered. “Hundreds of such cases have been reported in the past, but we have been very careful during the past few centuries.”
“It could be fraud,” Master Li pointed out. “The Son of Heaven has proposed an infallible test, which is the reason for this visit. We shall simply make this revolting creature stand before Nieh-ching-t’ai, and the truth shall be revealed.”
“It is strictly illegal for the living to stand before the Mirror of Past Existences!” the Recorder snapped.
“The gods look the other way when the cause is just and wise,” Master Li said smoothly. “Besides, this preening peacock claims to be the great-great-grandson, and fraud is so often a matter of conspiracy.”
Moon Boy did a good job of turning pale and trembling, and the Recorder’s eyes gleamed. Bureaucrats and courtiers do not love one another, and a few minutes later we were walking down a maze of corridors. A great black door swung open to reveal a dark tunnel at the end of which was a glow of greenish light. As we came closer I realized it was a natural mirror formed by an immense crystal set in the stone wall.
A sense of sacred awe surrounded the Mirror of Past Existences. I found that I was on my knees, kowtowing, and the others were kowtowing in front of me. We got back to our feet. The marks of two sandals were drawn on the floor in front of the mirror, and Master Li shoved me forward. I placed my feet on the marks and slowly raised my eyes. The green light from the mirror was pulsing like a heartbeat. I could see my own reflection clearly, but there was no reflection of the others. A strange sense of peace had entered my heart. I was not frightened when a soft voice spoke in my ear.
“Why does a living person stand before me?”
I had no idea what to reply, so I said the first thing that came to my mind.
“Master Li seeks truth.”
The green light pulsed silently. Then the voice spoke again. “So be it. Look straight at me, Number Ten Ox.”
Two columns appeared at the sides of the mirror. One was headed “Virtues,” and the other was headed “Sins.” Then my image dissolved and reformed, and I realized that I was looking at my first existence upon the earth.
I was a blob of something I couldn’t identify, something like a tiny jellyfish. The blob combined with other blobs to form larger jellyfish. Then I became something with tendrils, and then something that crawled, and finally I was delighted to recognize one of my existences: a flatworm. The virtues and sins columns remained empty.
I was reborn as a fish. Then I became some sort of plant, and then some fungus, and then an insect. I was reborn as a hawk moth, a cockroach, a cow, and a tortoiseshell cat. I was quite proud of myself as I moved up the scale of existences.
I frowned. I appeared to be backsliding. I became a piece of kelp, a patch of pond scum, six kinds of rock, four trees, and a number of plants. Then I began moving up the scale again: a snapdragon, a black grouse, a gecko, and a bowlegged mongrel with one eye, chewed ears, and a body bearing the scars of a thousand back-alley battles. The virtues and sins columns remained as empty as the minds of the General Staff. I eagerly awaited my first human existence.
Here it was. I was reforming as a human being. I gaped at the familiar ugly face of Number Ten Ox, and when I felt my body, I watched the reflected hands move in the mirror. The virtues and sins columns disappeared.
“I’ll be damned,” said Master Li.
“We don’t say that down here, but I know what you mean,” the Recorder said. “Extraordinary! This boy is as innocent as an apricot.”
“Not quite,” Master Li said grimly. “We now know that he was never a tutor to princes, and one wonders abo
ut the nature of his accomplice. Peacock, step forward!”
Moon Boy took my place in front of the mirror. That was what Master Li had wanted from the start, and I admired the neat way he had arranged it.
“Virtue” and “Sin” columns appeared. Moon Boy’s image began to dissolve, and he too became some kind of blob. Again I saw the procession of other blobs and things with tendrils, but then things turned dramatically different. In rapid order Moon Boy became poison ivy, a patch of deadly nightshade, and a clump of red berries I wouldn’t have approached with a barge pole. He was moving up the scale at great speed, and he dissolved into a tarantula, a cobra, and a horrible thing with twenty writhing tentacles. The thing dissolved into the image of a sweet little old lady with twinkling eyes.
The little old lady was bustling about her kitchen adding green and purple powders to a pot. Purple smoke lifted from it, and black liquid boiled over the side, and the sweet little old lady cackled with delight as a kitten lapped at the stuff, turned blue, and dropped over dead. The sins column began to show activity, and apparently the Great Wheel of Incarnations decided to go back and try again.
The little old lady dissolved into something I couldn’t identify, but Master Li muttered that it looked like a case of leprosy. The leprosy dissolved into a misshapen worm, a vulture, a poisonous toad, a sow bug, a patch of spleenwort, and then a happy laughing little boy who was torturing a gecko. The sins column went to work, and Moon Boy’s next incarnation was the stuff of legend: Mad Monk Mu of Midnight Marsh.
The ghoulish monk dissolved into a patch of quicksand as the Great Wheel of Incarnations tried again. The quicksand dissolved into feverish swamp vapor, a series of spiders, a vampire bat, a hyena, and finally into Moon Boy—but Moon Boy dressed as a girl and playing with a cat. I was relieved to see that he wasn’t torturing it. Then I slowly realized that Moon Boy was training the cat to scratch the eyes from the rival’s baby, and the mirror appeared to shudder as though gathering forces for one final effort.
The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox Page 45