Envy lifted one shoulder in a slight shrug and turned away, but not before I realized there was no amusement in his parable. The light in his eyes did not carry the clean coldness of deep water, like the eyes of Kuan, but the cruel coldness of hatred, because Envy could never rest, never relax, never enjoy, never gain what he wished and never cease wishing, never satisfy the terrible hunger that wracked his mind and body. He was a great nobleman condemned to envy not only clouds, the sun, and the gods but even mindless gardeners as humble as Number Ten Ox, and for that insult the Number Ten Ox’s of the world were going to die.
25
The starting line was very close. Master Li lifted his left hand and the white tip of the green silk scarf snapped back, and the great twisted figure of Bounding and Rushing extended his cloth-wrapped sticks over the taut surface of the huge tympan atop the center platform and began a quiet steady drumroll. Across the rainbow water Male Elder was doing the same in the yang boat. One hundred and seventy-six oars slid out on the four sides of the two boats and hovered above the surface. A dark straight shadow touched the tips of the horns that extended straight out from the dragon-head prows, and slid backward to touch the pilot posts against which the captains braced themselves, and Envy and Master Li flicked out their right scarves. Gliding Sliding One raised his clapping boards and made a sharp crashing noise, as did Elder Extraordinary One across from us, and each team of eighty-eight oars dipped into the water with long, smooth strokes. The boat seemed to jump forward beneath my feet. The clapping boards and drums worked steadily and unhurriedly as they set the beat: crash, rat-tat-tat, crash, rat-tat-tat, crash…
Steering oars as big as the ones on racing boats produce a terrible drag once they hit the water, like brakes on wagon wheels, and the steersman spends half his time sailing through the air with his body stretched out over the handle, trying to keep the huge key-shaped blade just above the surface of the water but not touching it. When the scarves signal a turn, or a drift must be corrected, the goat earns his pay. Down, shove, up! The tiniest extension of steering time means that much extra drag. Fractions of a second at the start can add up to an equal number of feet at the end, and the strange supernatural girl across from me was controlling her great oar with a touch of a finger. I was already fighting mine, and I knew there was no chance of matching a well spirit who lived in complete harmony with immortal cavaliers and ancient demigods and water woven from music. I could only do my best and trust in Master Li.
Bounding and Rushing continued the stroke beat with his drum, but Gliding Sliding One was giving a different sound with the clapping boards. At first I couldn’t make it out. Then I saw the long flowing end of Master Li’s left scarf flick up and down, and at almost the same time the oar bucked up against me, and I realized the clapping boards from now on would transmit warnings and commands. This was no placid pool we were riding on. The clapping boards were describing waves, and we lifted high and swooped down, and as we lifted again the drumbeats on both boats stepped up a notch, and the oar strokes quickened.
I saw the right scarf wave an instant before the clapping boards repeated the command. Wait… wait… now! I dropped the blade into the water and leaned left: one… two… three… up! Getting it up smoothly wasn’t so easy, but I managed with nothing more serious than a bloody nose when the handle kicked me in the face. Wait… wait… down! Lean right. One… two… three… up! It wasn’t pretty, but we’d made a turn and were back on course again. I stared at the great black rock that both boats had veered around, thrusting through rainbow waves. It had sun and moon symbols engraved on it, yang and yin, and I wondered if it had something to do with the gnomon nature of the course, like a measuring mark.
Master Li signaled and the clapping boards repeated the command and the smooth, powerful strokes of the lead oarsmen stretched out a notch: boom, rat-tat-tat, boom, rat-tat-tat, boom, rat-tat-tat. Across from us Envy had given the same command at precisely the same time, and the boats were dead even.
The captain is the most important member, of course. The goat is so far back he can’t possibly see the hazards ahead, and the world of rowers begins and ends with their oars, and the drummers’ job is to inspire, regulate, and transmit, not to originate. The captain must serve as eyes and brain from his pilot’s post in the prow, and one wrong message from a flapping scarf can mean the end of the race. My faith in Master Li is limitless, but I had to admit that his situation was something like mine. Across from him was a cavalier who had dared to love and betray the most powerful and dangerous of all goddesses, and who had once run this very race against Eight Skilled Gentlemen, and who had even driven a team of plunging dragons along a path between the stars—or something almost as dramatic, if one allows for poetic exaggeration. The puppeteer didn’t seem to have a care in the world as he easily shifted his body with the movements of the boat, not bothering to brace against his pilot’s post.
Boom, rat-tat-tat, boom, rat-tat-tat, boom, rat-tat-tat. Now the boats were fighting the waves, bucking up and down, and I was learning the first reason for the goat’s name. On a rough course the steersman must swing his oar to provide the best balance for the boat, using wind drag to correct drift as much as possible without resorting to the much greater water drag of conventional steering. Half the time I was flying through the air, butting everything in sight as I wrestled with that huge heavy thing, and when I looked through the spray to my left I could see Kuan controlling her oar with no more than a shove and a tug. How could she do it? Strength wasn’t entirely the answer. Somehow she was anticipating each wave and chop of water, each plunge and bounce of the boat, and was already in position when the instant for correction came. All around us the vibrations of the Yu music were growing stronger and stronger. The cavern seemed to have disappeared. The sky (was it really a sky?) had grown very dark, and the rainbows woven through the waves were shimmering like fire. I thought I saw banks on both sides, with trees and tangled shrubs, and then I saw people on the right bank and great terrible creatures on the left.
The scarves signaled and the drums quickened and the eight lead oars on each boat picked up the pace. The boats were shooting ahead like skimming arrows, spray flying up as prows smacked short choppy waves. The clapping boards called urgently. Wait… wait… down, shove, up… wait… wait… down, shove, up! We safely veered around a second jutting solstice-marked stone, but this time I was a fraction too late in lifting. I doubt that anyone else would have noticed the tiny jump ahead that the yang boat took when Kuan managed the turn perfectly, but I did. She was several inches in front of me now, and if those thrusting rocks were gnomon measures there should be four more of them, half a year, and I didn’t want to think how far she’d be leading when we passed the last one. Scarves flicked and clapping boards urged and drums picked up the pace, oars flashed faster and faster: boom, rat-tat-tat, boom, rat-tat-tat, but I was having a terrible time concentrating on my oar. On my left I could see a bank where huge horrible creatures roared and fought and killed, and flames and lava poured from volcanoes, and terrible cracks appeared in the earth as the ground heaved and shook. On my right I could see men and women crouched and fearful, dressed in furs, and priests wearing bearskins with four gold eyes sewn on them who raised arms to Heaven and prayed, and a girl was thrust forward and a stone ax lifted, and just as I had seen with the Celestial Master the ax fell and a soul was offered to the gods.
Wait… wait… down, shove, up… wait… wait… down, shove, up!
The yang boat was leading by a foot now. The jutting rock flashed past, and as it did I saw people staring up in fear at a tiny pale sun like a fading candle, and they shoved children out from the shelter of caves and had them run around and play with special caps on their heads, just as we still did in my village during the first moon: bright-colored caps shaped like flowers and grasshoppers, vivid against white snow to catch the eyes of gods looking down. Fires were put out to save all heat for the sun. Hard-cooked eggs dyed as bright and cheerful as the fl
owers of spring were brought out beneath the dark cold sky, and the shells were ceremoniously cracked and the round yellow yolks removed and held up high.
Faster, the scarves and clapping boards signaled, and faster flashed the oars, and the boats bounced over waves with teeth-jarring impact, one right after another, and the sterns swung around as the slim hulls tried to go sideways. I flipped like a rag doll tied to the handle of the steering oar, trying to use air drag as much as possible and water drag as little, but still Kuan was always ahead of me, always anticipating, always balanced and calm and sure. The yang boat’s lead was more than a yard now.
Through sheets of spray I could see blurred images on the banks. There was a village very much like my own, and with a pang in my heart I saw the beautiful girls wearing their brightest clothes being pushed in swings by the young men, higher and higher, lovely flowers reaching to the sky, and the older women in equally bright dress holding bright ribbons as they danced like petals around a stalklike pole. Fathers urged sons to keep the shuttlecocks in the air longer and longer, and each shuttlecock was painted bright yellow like the sun. The last ice was ceremoniously cracked, and the graves were swept, and the spirits of the dead were invited to join the festival of the first bath in the stream, where wine in buoyant cups floated from hand to hand.
I had lost track of gnomon markers. The Yu vibrations were tremendously strong, and suddenly I realized how the spirit of old wells could anticipate every command. Kuan wasn’t watching the water, she was listening to the sounds that formed it, and I discovered that if I stopped thinking and let my body react to the music of the Yu I was already in place when the scarf and clapping boards reached me. But it was too late. Already the gap had spread to ten feet and it was going to get worse unless Envy gave a bad command. I could only see his back now, far ahead, glimpsed momentarily through spray, and even at that distance he exuded the calm control of a gentleman out for a holiday paddle on a pool.
Master Li was doing the only thing he could, which was to pray. I could see him straight ahead on the high raised prow with his head lifted to the sky, and scattered words drifted back on the wind: “Lady of Mysteries… Guide of Lost Souls… Blender of the Hot and the Cold, the Wet and the Dry, the Done and the Undone…” The right hand lifted and the long scarf flicked out a command. But I had already heard something in the vibrating music, something ahead, and I was ready now: down, shove up, wait… wait… down, shove, up! I could have wept in frustration. This time Kuan didn’t gain on me and we made the turn around the rock in unison, but too late, too late. Still the ten-foot gap remained.
“Lady of Highest Prime… Guardian of the Greatest Sacrifice… Solace of All That Sickens and Dies…”
We had flashed past a rock into searing sunlight that made the sky appear to be on fire. Black-funneled waterspouts lifted from frothy rainbow waves, and I saw a dragon rear up through the surface, one of the terrible ones, a kiao lung as opposed to the beneficial water dragons. Horrible creatures had claimed the left bank. On the right bank an unrelenting Yellow Wind was ripping cottages apart, and sand covered everything, and all the crops were burned and withered.
“Lady Who Grieves… Lady Who Comforts… Lady Who Guards All Living Things,” chanted Master Li.
Screams overhead made me look up to see the most terrifying of all creatures, the three winged servants of the Patron of Pestilence who had once allowed a cavalier to love her, the Queen Mother Goddess of the West. Those who know the lady would say that her claws had touched the cavalier but lightly. Now from the Mountain of the Three Dangers had come the Great Pelican bearing upon its back the Pestilential Hag, Yu Hua-lung, and the Small Pelican that carried Tou-shen Niang Niang, the Plague Queen, and the Green Bird that carried Ma Shen, Patron of Pustules and Pockmarks. The three Death Birds swooped low, screeching, and for one heart-stopping moment I thought I saw an immense tiger claw rip through the sky from horizon to horizon, but then I realized it was a claw of Yellow Wind.
The scarf was signaling and the clapping boards sounded. Down, shove, up… wait… wait… down, shove, up, and both boats made the turn evenly, with the yang boat still leading by ten feet, and my liver turned cold. That last rock was marked with yang symbols from one end to the other. It was the last gnomon marker, half a year, and the strength of yang must now give way to yin if the earth wasn’t to burn and plague and pestilence run rampant. As our boat had swung wide I’d been able to look ahead. I’d seen a white streak of sunlight cutting straight across the path of the music water, and the course narrowed as it approached the finish line, and squarely in the center, suspended in air, hung a shimmering ring. It was pi, symbol of the harmony of Heaven, seamless continual circle of yang and yin, and the tips of the two long slim dragon horns thrusting from the prows began to glow with the same shimmering light. Master Li and Envy flung both scarves wide, and drums and clapping boards pounded like giant heartbeats, and the rowers made great gasping sounds as they put every ounce of strength into their strokes.
“Lady of Solace, Lady of Purging—”
Whatever goddess Master Li had in mind had better hurry, I thought, because the rowers on the yang boat were equally strong and the gap was getting no shorter. I was flying around trying to achieve perfect balance with the oar as the boat bucked and bounced and skidded over great waves, and when the water boiled between our boat and Envy’s and something lifted from the depths I was too busy to really see it at first. Then I did see it, and in a flash I understood that Master Li had not been praying to a goddess at all. Right from the start he had been invoking a priestess, a healer, a shamanka, and lifting through the rainbow water was the head of Yu Lan.
The puppeteer’s beautiful daughter looked at me for a long moment. Her lips parted and I saw the glitter of fangs, and one of her claws lifted through spray and fell back. Two of the drops that trickled slowly down her face weren’t music-water. Then she dove. Yu Lan disappeared beneath the waves and I was never to see her face again, but I did see something else. Ahead of us and to the left the water boiled in front of the yang boat, and then a great shining fish tail lifted into the air. Harsh sunlight blazed on the scales, and it whipped around with tremendous force and smacked squarely against the prow.
For an instant the yang boat paused as though tied to a leash that somebody had jerked, and when it moved forward again the gap had gone. We were dead even, or perhaps we even had a bit of an edge in that the smooth strokes of our oarsmen hadn’t been disrupted, and Master Li began to roar like a volcano.
“On, First Doer! On, Ancestral Intelligence! On, Lungs and Stomach! Hao! Hao! Rising and Soaring, Seizer of All, Sharpener and Amputator! On, Husky Lusty One! On, Extreme and Extraordinary One! Hao! Hao! Hao!”
Bounding and Rushing pounded his drum with all the force he had, and Gliding Sliding One smashed his clapping boards, and the rowers strained to match the strokes of the lead oars. Master Li’s right hand was out and I waited for the scarf to uncoil and shoot back. It came. Down, shove, hold steady, aim, lift just above the surface and wait for the scarf… Down, hard left, up… Down, soft right, up…
We had a slight lead and had cut across the path of the yang boat, oars were scraping oars, wood was screeching against wood, the long, slim, glowing horn from the prow of our boat was reaching out—and then it plunged through, and the shimmering pi ring was snugly around the tip. In an instant the finish line had vanished, and the banks had vanished, and the rowers leaned back and hauled in their oars, and two great Dragon Boats floated side by side in a soft mist.
Master Li turned slowly to the puppeteer. Envy turned at the same time and they examined each other for a moment, and then—at a cost beyond my comprehension—the glorious sunrise smile lit up the garish ape face.
“Poetic justice is a bit too neat for my taste, but I have to admire its effectiveness,” Envy said. I realized that his boat was turning transparent, and so was the crew, fading into the mist. Only the puppeteer remained as before, and he bent down and c
ame up with the last cage he had taken. “There’s a way to get the key without releasing the creature inside, you know,” he said matter-of-factly. “It’s time for you to meet the last of my brothers, but have no fear. It would be a poor cavalier who accepted a challenge and resorted to murder when he lost.”
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