The Mammoth Book of Extreme Fantasy

by Mike Ashley

  Rice wine and jocularity flowed freely as we quickly slurped down gallons of noodles, devoured heaps of sticky buns, and consumed dozens of rice balls. Only Master Lao seemed lacking in festive spirit, still brooding over the mysterious voice.

  Then Jade and Zhong brought out the chickens, laying them out along the table. Using my superior speed, I had just snagged a drumstick before Kua Qing could reach it, when a frightened cry at the other end of the table silenced our revelry.

  Xau Qu, the roundest of the tadpoles, was backing away from the table. In front of him, the roast chicken he had been reaching for only moments before was moving.

  Not just moving, dancing. It took two steps forward, then two back, then turned in a circle, all the while swinging its cooked wings as juice dripped down its still-moist carcass.

  “Chou Lin, bring my pen and inkpot, quickly!” said Master Lao, and I scurried to obey. Thus armed, Master Lao quickly transcribed a prayer against evil on a sheet of rice paper, rolled it up in a ball of sticky rice, then cast it at the possessed bird.

  The roast chicken gave a painful squawk, then flopped lifelessly back to the table. The younger apprentices who had been holding their breath let out a sigh of relief, but it was short-lived.

  Another chicken, this one in front of Ba La, stood up and kicked over his wine cup. Master Lao dashed off and rolled up another prayer ball and dispatched this one as well, but he had no sooner vanquished that chicken when a third popped up.

  After dispatching two more unnatural chickens, Master Lao changed tactics. “Chou Lin, fetch my silver rope.”

  In the great prayer cabinet against the north wall were tucked many of the more esoteric tools of a White Crane priest. In one of the bottommost drawers was a thin rope of purest spun silver, knotted and braided for strength, its handle carved from the hardest of ram’s horn, intricately carved with the most worthy verses of Lao Dan. It was this tool that I quickly retrieved and rushed to Master Lao’s hands.

  Master Lao whirled the silver rope around his head three times, chanting out an invocation to banish evil spirits, then launched it at the latest dancing chicken, ensnaring it.

  There was a cry of pain high up in the rafters. Master Lao, slowly and with a surprisingly great effort for something so small, hauled the chicken towards him. As he pulled, an evil, leering face high in the temple shadows was pulled into the lantern-light.

  It was Old Man Zhang’s head. Or rather, slightly more than his head, as a long trail of writhing viscera snaked behind it.

  “Filthy priest! Your silver cord will not save you!”

  “ Kua Qing! Begin the chant to drive out evil spirits!” said Master Lao, slowly pulling the roped chicken towards him, which also drew Zhang’s head lower. “Quickly!”

  Kua Qing began the chant, which was soon picked up, somewhat unsteadily, by the other apprentices.

  “Doom will come to your temple! I will eat your livers, and pluck out your eyes!”

  “Chou Lin, you know the first refrain of the third Crane Exorcism?”

  “Your corpses shall litter the earth, and I shall suck the marrow from your bones!”

  As Zhang was pulled closer, it became apparent that his eye teeth seemed unnaturally long and curved.

  “Yes master!”

  “Scribe it on the paper, then roll it up in a sticky rice ball as you saw me do!”

  “The Queen shall suck down all your souls, and you shall serve as her slaves in Hell!”

  I have always considered my calligraphy inferior to my martial arts, but never had I scribed ideograms so quickly in all my life. In ten seconds I had written out the refrain and rolled it into the center of a ball of sticky rice.

  “Now, throw it at the head!”

  With a stone I am regarded as a pretty fair shot, having once managed to destroy an expensive vase at no less than 50 paces. (My reasons for doing so were entirely salutary and justified, but too complex to relate here.) However, when I tossed the rice ball, Zhang’s head jerked with an amazing fluidity, and my shot sailed just wide of the mark.

  “Again!” said Master Lao, still slowly and carefully pulling the chicken, and Zhang, closer.

  “The worms shall eat your flesh, and your heads shall hunt the night at the Queens command!”

  I completed and threw a second prayer ball, but Zhang again ducked out of the way.

  “Again!” said Master Lao. The exertions of the chicken grew ever more frantic, and it was all he could do to keep it captive.

  Once again I scribed and enclosed a prayer, took careful aim, and threw. This time the ball hit the upper left side of Zhang’s face, disintegrating in a shower of smoke and rice as the impacted cheek caught fire.

  Zhang screamed and jerked violently. At that jerk, the captive chicken went barreling over the edge of the table, slipping out of the silver loop. Still screaming, Zhang’s burning head flew up and out one of the second floor windows. By the time Kua Qing and I had raced up the stair it had already escaped into the night.

  “Close all the windows!” ordered Master Lao. During the summer, the screens were left open due to the heat, but none of us argued.

  “Master Lao, what was it?” asked Ba Le. “And how could it have gotten into the temple?”

  “And who is the queen it mentioned?” asked Bang Zhou.

  “It must have flown in through a window,” said Master Lao. “We have not blessed the charms there in over a year. As for what it is, I have an idea, but I shall have to consult the sacred texts. In the meantime, continue the feast. We’ll deal with Zhang and his queen tomorrow.”

  We resumed our seats, but the other apprentices only picked at their food, leaving their chickens untouched. Fortunately, my quick thinking in grabbing a drumstick as soon as it arrived meant our chicken was the only one not possessed, and thus still safe for consumption. However, my chain of logic seemed unconvincing to the others, leaving me the entire chicken.

  Once again I proved unsurpassed in my devotion to the Celestial Masters.

  Most of the next morning was taken up with making new charms and re-blessing the ones around the temple. Master Lao observed the rituals, then, content that Kua Qing was capable of supervising in his stead, pulled me aside to help him in his study.

  Along with the standard works of Lao Dan, Zhuang Zhou and Confucius, Master Lao possessed a number of ancient books and scrolls, many of them on esoteric subjects. There was Hai Yan’s important book detailing the many varieties of hopping vampires, Yu Wei’s obscure treatise on magic involving turtles, and a mysterious volume written in an unreadable script by a mad Arab with an unpronounceable name.

  After several minutes of study, Master Lao finally found what he was looking for in a particularly large leather-bound tome. “Here, take a look at this,” he said, pointing to a woodcut depicting three flying heads trailing viscera behind them, with terrified villagers running about below.

  “What are they?”

  “Here they are called the Kongbu Feixing Tou. It says that they are demonic spirits which posses the heads of those who have died without being properly blessed. Those so possessed can infect others by biting their neck or wrist. Unless the wound is purified within an hour, the victim also turns into an evil flying creature enslaved by the one that bit it.”

  “How do we fight them?”

  “They cannot stand sunlight, and strong light of any kind causes them pain, especially when reflected from a silver mirror. Prayers and charms can harm them, but because they are encased in human flesh, not actually kill them unless placed directly in the mouth. And the queen herself can only be killed by a blessed arrow carved from a branch of a weeping mulberry.

  “It also says that once the Kongbu Feixing Tou queen has three servants to do her bidding, she can use them to consecrate an unholy temple, and from there open a gate to summon more of her kind.”

  “A temple? Like our own?”

  “Perhaps. According to this, it must be equidistant from the sites of the three slai
n acolytes. Perhaps we can…

  I’ll never know what Master Lao was going to say next, because at that very moment Kua Qing burst into the room, his face stricken.

  “Master Lau, you and Chou Lin must come quickly! There’s been another murder!”

  “Another one?” Master Lao stood up. “Chou Lin, you stay here and supervise the other apprentices.”

  “No Master, Chou Lin should come as well,” said Kua Qing, bowing sadly. “The murder was at Dancing Petals’. It was…it was…”

  At that Kua Qing bowed and raced out of the room, unable to meet my eyes. It was then I knew.

  It took all my training to stay composed as we ran to Dancing Petals’. In the front room, her other girls issued wild lamentations and copious tears. Dancing Petals herself wore a mournful expression, and silently gestured for us to follow her up the stairs to Orange Blossom’s room.

  It pained me greatly to realize that the same room I had experienced such ecstasy in the day before had become the site of such a foul crime. The smell of her namesake perfume still lingered in the air, but was now mixed with an undertone of corruption and decay.

  When Dancing Petals lifted the sheet away from the covered body I had to turn away, unable to look at the ruin where her head had been. I stood there staring at the wall while Master Lao administered the proper rituals. Then he finished and turned up the sheet.

  “Tell undertaker Zu I will send him special charms and ointments to prepare the body with. In the meantime, there is a great evil loose. Tell all the girls to close their windows by sunset.”

  When Dancing Petals had left Master Lao turned back to me. “Chou Lin, do you see now why I said these places are magnets for evil spirits?”

  “Master Lao, with all respect, I do not believe this is what you had in mind. Nor do you.”

  At that he looked nonplussed for a moment, his eyes showing a trace of the stormy look that usually preceded a beating. But this time he merely grunted and nodded, then turned away.

  Soon the entire village had been instructed to close their windows by sunset, no matter how they might swelter in the summer heat.

  Despite the tragic occurrences, it was the night for the Feast of the Duck, and preparations had to be undertaken. The seasons would not halt at our mortal problems, nor would the Celestial Masters step down from Heaven to dry our tears. In fact, with such evil abroad, it was all the more reason to seek their favour.

  And so it was with heavy hearts that Master Lao and I once again found ourselves in Spring Moon’s noodle house. Autumn Wind greeted us and I felt my spirits lift somewhat, though she was still struck by our long faces.

  “Both of your faces are too sad for a festival day! You look like someone died!”

  This caused a brief and uncomfortable silence as Master Lao and I looked at each other, then he started explaining Orange Blossoms death, though not the precise nature of her murderer, and Autumn Wind looked positively stricken. News travels fast, but evidently the doings at Dancing Petals’ were not considered polite conversation in the company of one so ethereal as Autumn Wind.

  “That’s horrible! Oh, I’m so sorry! Did either of you know her?”

  “Yes,” I said, then immediately regretted it, fearful of what Autumn Wind might think of such a friendship, but she seemed far too good-natured to draw such scandalous (if admittedly correct) conclusions.

  “Oh you poor man!” she said, giving me a hug. At that moment I must admit that thoughts of Orange Blossom moved very far away from my mind indeed. “Here, the two of you sit down. I’ll go fetch mother and get you some tea.”

  Autumn Moon glided away from us in a way that confirmed, once again, her heavenly origin. I reflected that, if one of them had to survive, then better Autumn Wind than Orange Blossom. Then I immediately felt a sharp pang of guilt, for Autumn Wind, while beautiful, was someone I barely knew, while I had known Orange Blossom very well indeed. But then I thought that, on the strength of merit and virtue, Autumn Wind was clearly the more deserving. But then I thought…

  There are times when I am proud of my learning. My father had been an illiterate ox-herd, while I was more than halfway to being a sage and respected White Crane Priest. However, at that moment I felt dumber than the dumbest ox, not knowing what I felt or thought.

  Master Lao often said that the road to wisdom is a very long and painful one. I thought that was merely an easy way to justify our beatings, but the longer I live the more I fear he is right.

  Spring Moon insisted on leaving the kitchen to serve us tea and sympathy. Like her daughter she was slim and graceful, and carried her mature beauty well. She asked us gently for details about the murder. Master Lao was circumspect about the cause, but emphasized that a killer was loose in the night, and that all window screens should be closed and doors locked.

  After this genial chat, Spring Moon insisted on making this order of buns an offering to the temple. Master Lao refused twice, then graciously acceded the third time, offering to send charms and blessings over the next day.

  Back at the temple, Master Lao pulled out the village map he used to advise businessmen on the most auspicious location for a new enterprise. He made a small mark for Zhang’s house, then another for Dancing Petals’ place, then laid a reed between them. Then he took out two more reeds of the same length to form a triangle, with the temple squarely in the middle.

  “Just as I feared,” said Master Lao.

  “Who lives here?” I asked, pointing to an estate on the edge of town at the triangle’s apex.

  “Hmm, that would be Hu Feng’s place,” said Master Lao darkly. Feng ran a distillery which decanted plum wine of unusual potency. His position at the edge of town was necessitated by the unfortunate tendency of his production apparatus towards periodic explosions. Despite these occasional setbacks, Feng was a remarkably successful businessman, as his libations were a favourite throughout the province, and he had steadily improved his father’s original recipe to the point where cases of permanent blindness resulting from its imbibing were now exceptionally rare.

  “Obviously, someone will need to protect Honorable Feng’s establishment,” I said, rising, “So I’ll just go over there and start…

  At that, Master Lao extended his bamboo staff and pushed me, quite forcefully, back into my seat.

  “Neither you nor Kua Qing will defend Feng’s, despite your obvious knowledge of his establishment. I will go myself and take Xau Qu with me. You and Kua Qing will guard the temple. But first, we must prepare the Feast of the Duck.”

  There followed more feast preparations, although this time I was not stirring pots but inspecting the temple to make sure charms had been appropriately situated and blessings properly scribed above all doors and windows. For once Kua Qing seems to have done a good job supervising the other apprentices, rather than his usual half-hearted and slip-shod efforts, perhaps because this time his own safety was at stake.

  Some may believe that I have unfairly exaggerated Kua Qing’s numerous deficiencies in these pages, but they don’t know him as well as I, nor have they witnessed his underhanded dealings at close range as I have. It is true that I myself am not free of sin, and that I have not always followed the Celestial Masters in all things. However, there is an important difference: The errors I have committed have been but youthful indiscretions and small lapses in my otherwise laudable life, while Kua Qing’s deplorable actions stem from deep and abiding flaws in his character.

  Besides, as any number of bruises and scars on his body will attest, my kung fu is demonstrably superior.

  The feast itself was more subdued than the night before. Because we would be taking turns guarding the temple, we were allowed only one cup of plum wine each. (There is one traveller of my acquaintance who claims that his kung fu is improved immeasurably by imbibing vast quantities of alcohol before every bout, but this person is known far and wide as a shameless braggart and liar, so I shall refrain from naming him here.) This time no supernatural forces inte
rrupted either the blessing or the meal.

  After a necessarily abbreviated feast, Master Lao went to his cabinet and withdrew several implements. For himself he pulled out the silver rope, a small whisk broom with bristles of tiger fur, and a slender bamboo rod covered with strange symbols. For myself and Kua Qing he pulled out a hooded prayer lantern and an octagonal silver mirror inscribed with the eight trigrams of the Bagua. The lantern he poured a measure of purified palm oil into, then lit. Next he wrote out a long prayer on a piece of vellum, chanting over it the entire time. When finished, he skillfully folded it into the shape of a crane, then inserted it into the flame. Suddenly, the lantern light seemed to increase ten fold, making it bright enough that I briefly shielded my eyes.

  “If one of the Kongbu FeixingTou attacks, shine the lantern off the mirror to reflect the beam onto them. It may not destroy them, but it should cause them great pain. Chou Lin, head the first watch, and Kua Qing the second.” At that, Master Lao and Xau Qu headed off to Feng’s.

  That night was the first time I had ever viewed the wide courtyard of our temple as anything but an inviting refuge. One corner held the stumps we balanced upon for our White Crane training, we practiced our forms outside when the weather was good, and held the harvest festival for the whole village there in the fall. Yet tonight, despite torches burning in the corners, it seemed a strange and ominous place, filled with dancing shadows as the willow trees whispered in the breeze.

  Bang Zhou was my companion for the first watch, and it was he who carried the silver mirror. Born the youngest of nine sons in a poor fisherman’s family near Canton, Bang Zhou was thin as a rake and wore a perpetual hang-dog expression. Despite his slight build he was a sturdy fighter and a graceful acrobat.