Taco Del and the Fabled Tree of Destiny

by Bohnhoff, Maya Kaathryn

  “And what is a man?” he asks me. “A man is nothing. He is less than nothing — less than a beetle, or the dung in which the beetle crawls. A man must be with his family. The family is everything. No man should forget this and think his life is important apart from that. I refused the Mountain, though its claim on my soul was great. I refused to save the souls from Wiwe. And so I lived to be old...and alone.”

  In the silence of the dream, I hear the snap of flame, the sough of wind; I smell smoke, fir, dried spices, sweat; I see nothing but the smoke and the fire; I feel the heat of flame on my face; I feel this man sitting across from me, watching me, and I feel as if I’m being given some kind of choice.

  I open my mouth to speak, to ask what this means, and he says again, “Save the world from Wiwe.”

  The place and the man are gone and I lie in the dark trembling.

  Firescape wakes up, rolls over, and touches my face.

  “What?” she asks.

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  And I truly don’t. I determine to take some time to consider the possibilities. But just then, all I want is for Firescape to melt the ice off my skin and out of my veins. She does it so well, I'm in no hurry to consider anything for quite a while.

  In the morning it becomes clear that time is not something I have. The first thing I notice by dawn’s early light is that Firescape has already gone to work; her AK is gone from its rack by the bed. The second thing I notice is that Doug, who is perched in the big old window by the balcony, is trembling like crazy. He’s leaning toward the glass, too; if he had a nose, it’d be making tracks on the pane.

  I get out of bed, pad over there and put my arm around him.

  “What is it, Doug?” I ask.

  I put my face to his branches and breathe in his perfume, but all I get is a stomach full of anxious flutters. I can’t tell if that’s him or me, but I'm the only one here who's got a stomach.

  I look out the window, even press my nose against the glass, trying to see what he sees. All I get is that something’s crawling around out there and I gotta “get” it before it gets me.

  This will require a quest.

  I determine to refuel before I begin questing, and take Doug and myself off to the Sang Yee Gah for breakfast. We go to Doug’s favorite juk shop, the Dragon Boat. It’s kind of a grand name for a place whose main food item is rice porridge. Still, it’s a great place for thoughtful silences if you can ignore the noise: dishes clatter, people chatter, somewhere cooking oil snaps and pops like a pot of mad.

  The smells here are twice as loud as the sounds. They are black and red and gold smells, smoked and spiced and soaked in sesame oil. Sometimes the din sets my poor brain off on a runaway trolley and I end up miles from where I mean to be, someplace I’ve never been and don’t know how I got there.

  Today is like that — my mind is all over the place. Thanks to a little tug at my immortal soul and an accompanying whiff of fir, I finally get it under control and the loud noises and smells become a background for eating and thinking.

  I eat rice porridge and drink hot green tea and think about impending doom. I determine that I will cast runes in the Dolores courtyard again, and this time I will pay attention and remember that the line between omens and junk is...well, there is no line between omens and junk. You could be looking at either, so, in most cases, it’s safest to err on the side of omens.

  I’m getting up from my chair when I realize that Doug has sprouted a small square of rice paper, which is caught in his topmost branches. The paper has a familiar lavender tint and has been neatly folded. Deja view.

  I unfold it. In one corner of the paper there is a strange symbol, which I recognize but still don’t know. In the middle of the paper are Chinese characters I do recognize. They form two words: Tin Hau.

  This is the Chinese name of the Queen of Heaven. She’s one of the Immortals. She’s also the Goddess of Waters, which is appropriate. According to legend, she was born as a mortal on the island of Mei-Chou in Fukien province. Her padre was a sort of mayor or something like that.

  She had these dreams, see, about saving fishing boats near her village. And the weird thing was, every time she had one of these dreams, some boatload of fishermen would come limping back into port talking about how they’d been saved from certain doom by some freak happenstance. By the time Tin Hau was twenty-eight, she was perfect, so she died and became an Immortal. (I gotta admit, I'm very glad Firescape isn’t quite perfect. It’s her temper, ni dong, which I won’t say I encourage, but I sure don’t regret.)

  Anyway, Tin Hau got recalled to the Abhá kingdom, and her story was inscribed on some temple walls in Hangchow somewhere around 1228. About fifty years later, Kublai Khan read the wall scrawl, had her declared a goddess and started calling her Queen of Heaven. He was a Buddhist, you know.

  Anyway, she got to be known as the Imperial Consort, which made her second in rank only to the Jade Emperor. She started out being a protector of boats and fishermen and ended up being general goddess of the general waters of the earth. We celebrate her on the twenty-third day of the third month.

  Since it isn’t anywhere near Tin Hau’s feast day, I gotta believe this note is in reference to her temple over on Waverly.

  “What do you think, O Tree?” I ask Doug formally, hoping he can hear me in the chaos sounds from the Dragon Boat’s kitchen. “Do we go to the Tin Hau?”

  A waiter speeds by, nearly tripping over me and almost making me miss Doug’s thoughtful nod. Accordingly, I take myself off in the direction of Waverly street. It’s not a bad idea, I tell Doug, to get a little divine intercession while I’m at it.

  The Tin Hau is on the fourth floor of the building, which leaves me with a choice to make — lug Doug up the stairs, leave him behind in the lobby, or trust the ancient and enigmatic elevator. Since I got not idea one of what sort of situation awaits me, and Doug is getting to be almost as tall as I am (empotted), I do the latter.

  When I cross the upper foyer and step into the sanctuary, I am almost immediately overwhelmed with more of the Sang Yee Gah’s smoky smells. Braziers ooze fragrant incense and, at several altars, little offerings send nice smells toward heaven. The main altar at the head of the room is dedicated to Tin Hau, herself, but the room is a clutter of smaller, less impressive shrines. I stop to take stock and to absorb the serenity in the smoky scent of meat and flower and incense.

  I have not even bothered to ask myself why I have been summoned here or by whom, and this brings me to a sudden profound realization about myself and my life. I am, pure and simple, a reactor. I let myself be dragged through life by my nose. And who, you might ask, is doing the dragging? Everyone from the Wiz to Doug to a fat ginger cat, that's who. Everyone, including Bags and Kaymart and Firescape and Hoot and Lord E and even the Whisperers...maybe even most especially the Whisperers.

  A ugly little thought wriggles into the back of my mind and tells me this makes me a fool, but I honestly can’t work up much indignation. Fact is, I got nothing better to do with my time and, with the possible exception of old Elvis, none of these nose draggers mean any harm. Hell, Firescape can drag me any-damn- where she wants. Besides which, I was the one who settled myself on a career in merlinry, no one else. Bags just gave me a push.

  I shake my head and bring myself back to my study of the sanctuary. There are several worshippers in the room, kneeling in various places. Two of them are paying their respects to Tin Hau. None of them so much as twitches as I enter the room hauling the Radio Flyer and Tree. As I approach the main altar, though, one of the monks rises and makes his way back through the room in a route that will take him right past me.

  He sees Doug and pauses to smile and bow deferentially.

  “Nin hao, Wondrous Tree. And greetings to you also, distinguished merlin. You have come to seek the blessings of the Queen?”

  I return the bow, not quite as deferentially, so as to be culturally correct. He is a young monk — possibly even younger tha
n I am — and has a face that reminds me of Firescape’s. Except for the eyes, which are really strange in some way I can’t quite wrap my mind around.

  “After a fashion,” I answer. “I have received a message to come here. Does anyone here seem to be in a state of waiting?”

  The monk’s smile deepens. “Everyone, merlin, is in a state of waiting. But this you already know.”

  He bows again and disappears behind a thoroughly carved screen at the rear of the room.

  I make my way to the main altar, twitching a little like I always do after a dialogue with a monk. I feel like part of me has been communicating while another part of me has been whistling dixie. In this case, I am doubly bothered by this guy’s eyes.

  I kneel to the left of the remaining monk, placing Doug in between and slightly behind. The monk is a wizened little fellow, and I wonder how long he has been kneeling here with his nose wedged between his folded hands. He is making a raspy little sound that’s almost as wizened as he is, and I realize that he’s snoozing.

  As I am pondering how to wake him — for after all, he could be the one who sent me the message — Doug takes matters into his own hands — or branches as the case may be. He tickles the old fellow’s cheek.

  The monk’s a happy napper and comes to with a big smile on his face. His watermelon seed eyes take in first Doug and then me and he bows low at the waist.

  “Nin hao, effulgent Tree. And felicitations to you, as well, most enlightened merlin. May the Queen of Heaven bless you.”

  Then he goes back to his devotions.

  Okay, no help here, I guess. I glance about the sanctuary, seeing altars, hanging braziers and lots of smoke. Behind me, the other monks are frozen lumps of dark and light linen. Only their prayers stir the heavy air.

  I sigh and turn my gaze up to Tin Hau. She is beautiful. Very similar of face to my beloved Jade Berengaria Firescape. Her two companions, however, are not terribly beautiful. They are terribly terrible. Wherever she goes, you see, Tin Hau is accompanied by Thousand League Eyes and Favoring Wind Ears. You just gotta imagine what they look like; my words could never do them justice.

  It is while I am pondering Thousand League Eyes that I feel this immensely powerful yank at my immortal soul. It is not a pleasant feeling, nothing like Doug’s tugs or Firescape’s but, Damn, I think, I been here before. This is a familiar yank from a very cold place.

  My instincts get very weird on me at this point. Part of me wants to scram most diligently; part of me wants to crawl under the altar; part of me wants to rise up and face the Watcher, saying, “Hey you! Get your butt out here!”

  I am a man of too many parts at this moment.

  I fight the impulse to turn around and get an eyeball on Mr. Thousand League Eyes. Instead, I keep my head down and glance sideways into a polished brass gong. The monks behind me are still praying away, eyes straight ahead, prayer beads whispering through their fingers. Beyond them lies a clutter of shrines and the big old dragon screen where the friendly young monk disappeared. The second my eyes light on the thing, I know that’s where he is — the Watcher.

  I sweat. What I need now is the powers of a real shaman. What I got is the Tree and Tin Hau and the Whisperers.

  “Is this the Peach Pit?” I ask the Dolores under my breath and am scared spitless when the name Wiwe sputters out of a brazier practically under my nose.

  I grasp one of Doug’s boughs and break one tiny needle. The scent gets to me even through the smoke. I look up at Tin Hau.

  I need stuff, O Queen, I think at her. Real stuff.

  What I need is to be invisible, or at least hard to see.

  I fasten my eyeballs on the smoke around Tin Hau’s head and begin the Chouyan incantation. I think of smoke. With a little more effort, I begin to think like smoke. I become smoke. My eyes are wonky as hell, and my brain feels like it’s full of sandalwood and jasmine. I sink very low next to Doug and the old monk, and ooze back to the next shrine, and the next, and the next.

  When I stop oozing I’m behind the small shrine of Men Shen, Protector Against Demons, who is guarding the screened doorway, his tiny bow and arrow aimed at the dragon panel. On the opposite side of the doorway is a shrine to Chang Tao Ling, God of the Afterlife.

  This is not a comforting juxtaposition.

  Now I am two steps from the screen and there are no more shrines to ooze behind. I rise up from behind Men Shen, thinking smoky thoughts. I see a ripple of plum silk through the coiled, carved serpents of the screen.

  “Taco! Thay, watcha doin'? We been lookin' all over for you!”

  Creepy Lou’s voice freezes me where I stand. So much for being smoke. The plum silk flashes behind the knotted serpents and disappears in the snick of a door latch.

  “Damn!” I cry, and leap forward to squeeze behind the screen.

  I am face to face with a closed door. I fumble with the latch, while behind me Creepy Lou is jostling up and down, back and forth going, “Thay Taco, what's rumblin'?” and I hear the voice of my own gemlike Jade saying, “What the hell are you doing? I gotta talk to you!”

  The door is not locked, and it swings open onto a broad, east-west hallway with a muy low ceiling and about a godzillian doors, all closed.

  I experience claustrophobia because of the ceiling and brain freeze because of all the doors, but before I can shake off these conditions and move my ass, I realize that a monk has appeared at my elbow with smokelike stealth. It is the friendly young monk I saw disappear behind this very screen.

  Where the hell’d he come from, my inquiring mind wants to know. I immediately suspect magic.

  The monk no longer looks particularly friendly. He is still smiling, but it is a strange veil of a smile, which is not helped by those eyes.

  “You are disturbing our devotions, merlin,” he tells me. “I must ask that you leave.”

  Creepy Lou has gone round the screen and pops up behind the monk, jouncing and jostling, up-down-side-side. He waves at me. Behind him Firescape appears, also waving.

  “Who uses these rooms?” I ask the monk.

  “We use them,” he says and repeats: “I must ask you to leave, merlin. And take your too energetic friends with you.”

  His eyes don’t seem to move, but I can feel their gaze shift.

  “Someone in plum silk was eye-balling me from behind this screen,” I say.

  His eyebrows rise, and his smile gets bigger. “We monks,” he says, “do not wear silk.”

  Duh. “I know. Who does? Who might use these rooms?” I add.

  He tips his head. “Our...master dresses himself in silk.” His face gets this funny, pinched look. “I could not reveal his name, even were I to know it.”

  “You gotta call him something.”

  “We call him Master Chen. But that is not his name. That is his station.” He gestures at the door to the foyer. “You have been asked to leave. My brothers and I wish to continue our devotions.”

  “I need to talk to Master Chen.”

  “Master Chen has left the temple.”

  “I just saw him — ”

  “He is no longer here.”

  Again he gestures at the exit. Creepy Lou and Firescape are gesturing at the exit too.

  I give the Cheshire monk a look I hope is particularly fierce. I try to bore right on into his eyes, and that is when I realize what it is about them that gives me the oooga-boogas. They are not a monk’s eyes. A monk's eyes are sunny little bowls of peace, contentment, and kindness. There is none of that in these eyes; these eyes are full of something wild and dark and dizzy-making as a bottomless pit.

  Inside my chest, my heart shrivels to a prune, and it occurs to me to wonder, somewhere in the back of my suddenly frost bitten little brain, if he’s even real. Real people, I mean, ‘cause I got the distinct impression that the lights are on, but there’s nobody home — at least, not the rightful owner.

  I’m outta here. I head back to the main altar to retrieve Doug, who has been waiting patiently bes
ide the old monk. I bow hastily to Tin Hau and, as my knee touches the floor, I feel a tug at my shirt.

  I glance at the old monk. He doesn’t raise his head, but only turns his face toward me. His eyes grab me and wrap me in a straight jacket. Unlike the young monk’s eyes, these eyes are bright and clear and burrow right into my soul. Without seeming to move, he slips something into my free hand. Then he retreats into his devotions again.

  I am about to ask him something, anything, when I catch movement out of the corner of my eye. The young monk is approaching from the rear of the room. I slip whatever it is the old monk has given me into a pocket and leave the temple with Creepy Lou and Firescape practically on top of me.

  Out on the street, the two of them start talking at once. I don’t get one word of it, just white noise.

  “Stop!” I cry, and they do.

  I turn to General Firescape.

  “Creepy Lou has a report of great urgency,” she says and nudges him with the muzzle of her AK.

  He’s nodding like a bobbing doll and tugging at his left ear.

  “Yeah. Report. Yow! You’re not gonna believe, Taco. There’re cars and trucks and people!”

  “What? Where?“

  I glance at Firescape for some sense of what he means, but she’s still looking at Lou, and I don’t like the expression on her most expressive face.

  “Theen ‘em comin' down the Slot,” Lou goes on. “Next thing I know they’re all over the Mission.”

  My heart takes a dive down a dark hole.

  “The Mission,” I repeat stupidly.

  “The Dolores,” says Firescape.

  “Yeah, the Doloreth.” Lou nods wildly and snatches at air. “Ghost Town. Whithper-ville.”

  “Who are they?” I ask. “What’re they doing?”

  “Don’t know. Uh-uh. Nada clue. But they’re mean SOBs.”