The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox

by Barry Hughart

  I came to the surface spouting water, and paddled to the bank. Pitch is hard to put out, and my torch lay there still burning. I had come back to the central cavern and the black river, and I lifted the torch and jumped back in and paddled to the other bank. I walked up and down peering upward, and finally I saw the black hole I had come flying out of.

  “I’m all right!” I yelled. “I don’t see the prince, but I’ll find him!”

  I began slowly walking along the bank looking for wet marks where the prince had climbed out—or been carried out. I didn’t want to think of him landing on the back of his neck or striking a submerged rock. A sound made me whirl around, raising my axe.

  I should have expected it. Master Li was flying through the air. He hit the water like a cormorant, and Grief of Dawn came flying after him and landed like a swan. Moon Boy couldn’t do anything that wasn’t graceful, and he reminded me of a great dancer at the opera as he turned a somersault, touched his toes, and split the water as cleanly as a knife blade. I helped drag them out, and collected their torches and relit them from mine. “Buddha, what a toy!” Master Li said, pounding the side of his head to force water from his ears. “The man who could duplicate that ride in the public parks would be a mandarin inside of a month.”

  “Mandarin? Emperor!” Moon Boy said enthusiastically.

  “I only hope the prince enjoyed it as much as I did,” Grief of Dawn said somberly.

  Master Li was looking for something, and he found it. Ancient iron brackets were set in the wall leading up to the hole of the chimney. “Nature rarely produces something that smooth, and I suspect that nature had some help,” he said. “The river was used to transport heavy objects to this point. They were hoisted to the hole, and windlasses hauled them on sleds up through the rock to the higher levels of the tomb. There should be a staircase very close.”

  We soon found it. Master Li wanted only to be sure there were steps if we needed them, and then we began to search for Prince Liu Pao. We walked up and down the bank, and were about to cross to the far bank when Grief of Dawn’s sharp eyes found what we had missed. It was a small red tassel.

  “The prince’s tunic has scarlet tassels at the bottom,” she said excitedly.

  We widened the search, and sixty or seventy feet upstream we found another tassel.

  “They’ve got him,” Master Li said flatly. “If he were free, he would have yelled as Ox did, and he would have looked for a way back up and found that staircase. We have to assume that he’s been grabbed by our friends in the funny robes, but has enough movement to leave a trail.”

  At regular intervals we continued to find the tassels that the prince had surreptitiously torn off. Then they stopped. We doubled back, and finally found a side passage that was almost invisible behind a jutting shelf of rock. Another tassel lay just inside the entrance, but Master Li brought us to a halt. His eyes were bleak as he examined the tunnel. Ancient wooden supports and scaffolding were everywhere, and the floor was littered with rocks that had fallen from the ceiling. It was a death trap, and the prince wouldn’t conceivably have entered it unless he was being carried. Master Li lowered his voice.

  “Moon Boy, this is your department,” he whispered. “Rather nasty gentlemen may be back in there, and I’d like them to hear us enter without us actually entering.”

  Moon Boy nodded. He sat down at the entrance and took off his sandals and placed his spear so he could scrape it against the wall with his shoulder.

  “Sssshh, quiet!” Master Li whispered—except it wasn’t Master Li, but Moon Boy pitching his voice into the tunnel. The sandals in his hands moved rapidly and lightly, and four pairs of feet seemed to move into the tunnel.

  “I don’t see anything,” my voice whispered.

  “I don’t either,” Grief of Dawn’s voice whispered.

  “All clear this way,” Moon Boy whispered in his own voice.

  The sandals were gradually hitting the floor harder, as though the people wearing them were coming closer. Moon Boy moved his shoulder and produced a metallic scrape from the spear, followed by a muffled curse in the voice of Master Li.

  “Is that another tassel?” my voice whispered, louder.

  Deep in the darkness of the tunnel was a sharp snapping sound, followed by the screech of splintering wood. We heard a great crash. The floor shook and waves rippled across the river, and dust and wood splinters billowed from the tunnel mouth. Crash followed crash as though the entire ceiling was collapsing, and it was a long time before the noise stopped and the echoes faded away.

  “Good,” Master Li said quietly. “Officially we’re dead, pulverized like corn beneath a grindstone, and they won’t be looking for us when we pay them a call. Fortunately, they shouldn’t be hard to find.”

  Master Li rode on my back. The staircase was very steep, with innumerable landings, and I was ready to stop and catch my breath when we reached a large cave that had other side passages branching from it. Master Li climbed off and wandered around the cave while Moon Boy and Grief of Dawn and I sat down and rested. Suddenly he made a sharp exclamation, and we got up and ran over to him.

  He had accidentally pushed against a part of the wall that moved. A doorway had opened into another room. All of us had been there before, and we walked inside and looked around at the paymaster’s office and the pit where the two dead gardeners lay. The arrows were still stuck in every available piece of wood, and Grief of Dawn bent down and looked closely at one. Her eyes were puzzled when she lifted them.

  “I know, I saw it before,” Master Li said. “Those aren’t ancient arrows but relatively modern ones, yet it would have been absolutely impossible for a local boy or girl to have found this place and played here without somebody finding out about it. No youngster could keep such a secret, unless he had been born with the secret. Happy home life with the Monks of Mirth?”

  He walked over and looked gloomily down into the darkness of the pit in front of the paymaster’s desk.

  “I wonder,” he said as though talking to himself. “Were you paid to carry a boy or a girl up steep steps as Ox just carried me? Did you stop at this level to rest, and did the boy or girl pause to play around with a bow and arrows? Did you then carry them up the rest of the way, and did he take another wonderful ride down that slide to the river? And then up for more archery and up farther for another slide, and so forth? Did you hear or see more than you should, and then stand in front of the desk to receive your pay?”

  The pit was silent. Master Li shrugged and led the way back to the cavern. He got on my back and I began to climb again, and the final steps up from the fourth landing brought us back into the tunnel where we had begun, right beside the passage with the pit and the marvelous stone slide. I had a sudden clear vision of a gardener setting down a laughing child, who ran to the slide and vanished down into darkness.

  Master Li walked rapidly back down the tunnel and out to the little anteroom. One more door remained, and beside it stood the last of the sons of Horus.

  “Imstey, who alone bears a human head,” Master Li said grimly. “We’re looking for humans, very unpleasant ones, and we have to hope they didn’t leave the prince tied up in that tunnel when they sprang the trap to crush us.”

  He lifted the last jar, and the door swung open. This time we didn’t need torches, because a long row of them was already burning in brackets spaced along a tunnel wall. The air was fresh and foul at the same time, and Moon Boy grimaced disgustedly and said something about the virtues ot bathing at least every seven years.

  The tunnel sloped sharply downward. Again I took the lead with my axe, and Master Li followed with his throwing knives, and Moon Boy held a spear in one hand and Grief of Dawn’s belt with the other, and Grief of Dawn walked backward swinging her bow to cover our rear. We tried to be quieter than mice. The tunnel kept going downward, and gradually the air grew moister as though we were again approaching the river, and I saw two small rocks lying on the tunnel floor. I remembered the rockfa
ll that had supposedly killed us, and glanced nervously at the ceiling. I couldn’t see any serious cracks, but a few feet farther on there was a sign that this passage had at least shaken when the other one collapsed. Dust covered the floor, and Master Li grunted with satisfaction. Recent sandal prints were marked in the dust.

  We moved faster. I had to smother a yelp, and I grabbed Master Li’s arm and pointed. A crimson tassel lay on the floor. Moon Boy whispered to Grief of Dawn, and she turned and looked and her eyes lit up.

  “He’s alive,” Master Li whispered. “The prince is a lot tougher than he looks, and when he runs out of tassels, he’ll find a way to cut himself and leave a trail of blood.”

  Moon Boy began to hear sounds we couldn’t. He whispered that people were laughing somewhere in the distance, and finally we came close enough for the rest of us to hear it; coarse and merry, with other sounds of celebration.

  “A good sign,” Master Li whispered. “They’re celebrating our demise and if they were in the process of sacrificing the prince to the stone—or whatever they do—the ritual would have a somber religious sound.”

  Ahead of us was light, and we passed a number of empty side passages. The laughter was right in front of us when we came to a passage that wasn’t empty. It was a dressing room, with a row of monkish robes in motley hanging upon pegs, and at the end of it there seemed to be a ledge looking down over the area where the light came from. We slipped inside and dropped to our stomachs and crawled to the ledge and cautiously peered over it.

  The cavern below reminded me of the courtyard of a large monastery. It was illuminated by a thousand blazing torches in brackets on the walls. The scene was very strange: Monks in motley laughed uproariously as they danced with stiff awkward movements in concentric circles. They were capering around a throne upon which sat a monk who wore a smiling paper mask with a curling beard. A large urn stood beside the throne, and a monk who appeared to be some kind of dignitary stood about ten feet away. There was no sign of the prince.

  Master Li signaled for us to slide back. “It’s an ancient ceremony called the Festival of Laughter,” he whispered. “The one on the throne is the leader, wearing the mask of Fu-hsing, God of Happiness. The monks will dance up to the throne and embrace the leader and take a paper scroll from the urn, which they will bring to the assistant, and he will open it and read aloud a comical wish for happiness. When everyone has his wish, the assistant will cry, ‘Tien-kuan-ssu-fu,’ beginning the festival, and they’ll release flocks of bats, since both bat and happiness are pronounced fu. The leader will be carried on the annual tour of inspection, and that should lead us right to the prince, and then they’ll get stinking drunk at a banquet.”

  Master Li crawled back and selected a robe that fit him. He helped us hide our weapons on our backs, beneath robes, and the huge cowls neatly covered our faces.

  “Aesthetically the ceremony leaves much to be desired, but it’s marvelous for murder,” Master Li said grimly. “I’m not going to wait for the tour of inspection. Too risky. That fellow and his happy friends tried to kill us, and it’s time to return the favor. If we can get right in the middle of them and they’re suddenly without a leader we should have an easy time of it, but don’t forget to leave one or two alive to tell us where the prince is.”

  He bent down to the sandal that didn’t contain lock picks and slipped off the rounded end of the false sole. It had a small threaded hole in it. He reached father into the hollow sandal and took out a slim rounded blade not much thicker than a large needle, and screwed the base of it into the hole. The piece of sole fit neatly into the palm of his hand.

  “Ox should bring up the rear in case I miss,” he said. “I should be right in front of him. Any volunteers to go first?”

  “Me,” Grief of Dawn and Moon Boy said simultaneously.

  Master Li chose Moon Boy to go first and Grief of Dawn to follow, and we slid back to the ledge. The ceremony was going exactly as he had predicted, and the laughing monks were slowly circling in toward the throne. Each formally embraced the leader and took a scroll from the urn and danced up to the assistant, who opened the scroll and read a happiness wish in a loud braying voice. They were crude jests without wit or imagination—to be eternally pickled in a cask of strong wine, for example, or to be reborn as a pillow in a brothel. Each stupid joke was greeted by howls of laughter.

  All eyes were on the throne and the assistant. We easily slipped down the side of a sloping cliff and fell in at the end of the procession. The only problem was matching the awkward dance steps of the monks, who seemed to be woefully uncoordinated. The line moved steadily toward the leader.

  “Brother Pimple-Puss, who shall be granted his wish to be buggered by the Transcendent Pig!” the assistant bellowed.

  Even that was greeted with laughter. The last line was circling in, and my heart was in my mouth as Moon Boy danced toward the throne. I had never known anyone braver, but his complexion was becoming sickly green. He managed the brief formal embrace without incident, however, and took his scroll to the assistant, who read another idiotic happiness wish. Grief of Dawn was next, and she too had turned green, but she also made it safety. Now it was Master Li’s turn.

  I could swear I saw a greenish tinge on his wrinkled skin as well. He danced up and extended his hands for the embrace, and his right hand slapped suddenly against the leader’s heart. A swift flick of the wrist unscrewed the sandal sole. He collected his scroll and danced on to the assistant, and now it was my turn. I soon realized what caused the green complexions. The leader hadn’t washed in six months. A step closer I changed it to six years, and then sixty.

  Master Li hadn’t missed. The head behind the paper mask lolled lifelessly against the back of the throne. The tiny blade had drawn almost no blood, and with the sole gone, it was nearly invisible. I was relieved that I wouldn’t have to strangle the bastard. I took my scroll and danced on, and for the first time the assistant changed the ritual. Apparently the last in line served a ceremonial function.

  “The last shall be first!” the assistant bellowed. “Our belated brother is granted the wish to carry our leader on the tour of inspection!”

  I looked around for a carriage or a litter, and realized that in the ancient ritual one carried the leader on one’s back. Master Li and Moon Boy and Grief of Dawn were so closely squeezed between laughing monks that it would be difficult for them to get to their weapons and all Master Li could do was raise both eyebrows heavenward as two last monks approached the throne and picked up the leader.

  Luck was with us. The flickering torchlight didn’t permit a clear view, and the paper mask stayed in place, and it occurred to me that they might not be surprised if the leader got a head start and was already stinking drunk. Swiftly I found myself with a corpse on my back, his head lolling over my shoulder and his arms hanging down on either side of my neck. The only thing I could do was hold the lifeless legs and hope the tour of inspection would do what Master Li first surmised: lead us to the prince.

  “T’ien-kuan-ssu-fu!” the assistant shouted. “The Agent of Heaven Brings Happiness! Ring the bell! Beat the gongs! Release the bats! Let there be dancing and merrymaking, for the Festival of Laughter has begun!”

  “Ha, ha, ha! Ho, ho ho!” the monks laughed, and off we went.

  Bells and gongs were banging so loudly they hurt my ears, and cages were opened and thousands of terrified bats flapped frantically through the torchlight.

  “Dance! Dance! Dance! Let joy reign supreme in the Festival of Laughter!” the assistant howled.

  I managed to glance back and saw that Master Li and Moon Boy and Grief of Dawn were each so tightly hemmed in by capering monks that they could do little but dance along with them. The harsh cacophony of bells and gongs was completely disorienting the bats. They were crashing against the walls and up against the roof, and small furry bodies were dropping down all around us.

  “More laughter! More dancing! More bells and more bats!” the assistant
screamed.

  The corpse I carried was growing rigid with astonishing swiftness. The dangling arms were pressing uncomfortably against the sides of my neck, and I was finding it difficult to breathe. I tried shifting the weight, but nothing is harder to move properly than a corpse. It’s like a sack of meal equipped with awkwardly positioned arms and legs.

  “Joy!” the assistant howled.

  The arms were squeezing tighter and tighter. I had no choice but to drop the corpse’s legs and reach up and wrench at the arms, and we staggered forward with his feet bouncing against the ground. It was like trying to pry thick iron bars apart….

  A vision of the library at the monastery flashed before my eyes, and iron bars squeezed like soft candles. I wrenched with everything I had. The arms simply squeezed tighter.

  “Let joy be unconfined, for our Lord of Happiness greets his honored guest!” the assistant screamed.

  The cowl of the corpse’s robe fell back. The mask was slipping off. The head slowly lifted. One eye popped open and winked at me, and carrion breath made me gag as the mouth opened. Now I knew why two monks lay dead with horror stamped on their faces.