To my amazement Li Kao fainted, or so I thought until I realized that he was using the opportunity to reach his left sandal. He slid half of the heel aside and came up with a couple of lockpicks, and then the swearing soldiers jerked him back to his feet. Li Kao managed to slip one of the tiny picks into my hands.
“Ox, we can't possibly escape from here,” he whispered. “I'm afraid that we can do nothing for the children of your village, but one of the Dukes of Ch'in killed my parents, and if you have no objection, we will try to slit this bastard's throat.”
I had no objection, but the lockpick was a bit too small and it was very difficult to work with it while my hands were manacled behind my back. Again and again the great axe flashed through the air, and the applause of the dignitaries was nearly continuous, and the line of condemned men was steadily moving toward the throne. The duke was laughing as the heads splashed into the basin, and the soldiers joked with the sergeant at arms as they carried the carcasses away. Sometimes the legs were still twitching, and spurts of blood from the severed necks caused sticky red puddles to slide across the floor, joined by dark trickles from the overflowing basin. The feathers at the bottom of the duke's robe were dripping with scarlet. Then only one prisoner stood between me and the axe. He was a middle-aged man, slim and slightly stooped, and he had been viewing the massacre with an air of ironic calm.
“Chin Shengt'an, who dared to protest the peasant taxes imposed by the Duke of Ch'in. The sentence is death!” roared the sergeant at arms.
That must have taken incredible courage. I was later to learn that Chin Shengt'an was one of the greatest writers and critics in the empire, and that his name meant “Sigh of the Sage,” because when he was born a deep sigh was heard from the Temple of Confucius. His feet were kicked out from under him. His neck lay on the block, and the bonze mumbled a prayer, and the sergeant at arms asked if he had any last words. The ironic eyes lifted.
“Eat pickled turnips with yellow beans,” he said politely. “It gives the taste of walnut.”
I deeply regret that I never had the opportunity to know him. The axe flashed through the air, and the head of the man who had dared to protest an unfair tax joined the others in the basin. The soldiers shoved me forward.
“Lord Lu of Yu, who failed to pay his fine for disturbing the peace. The sentence is death!” roared the sergeant at arms.
My feet were kicked from under me and my neck landed neatly upon the block. The ironic eyes of Shengt'an looked up at me from the basin, and while the bonze mumbled the prayer I tried to think of an exit line that would be worthy of his.
“Any last words?” asked the sergeant at arms.
I was only Number Ten Ox, so I lifted my head to the Duke of Ch'in. “I hope I splatter blood all over you, you son of a sow!” I yelled. Oddly enough I felt much better, and I stopped gagging at the thick sweet smell of blood.
To my astonishment the duke lifted a hand and stopped the executioner. He beckoned, and soldiers lifted me and dragged me so close to the throne that my face was almost touching the tiger mask. Surely the great and powerful Duke of Ch'in could not be interested in Number Ten Ox! He wasn't. He was interested in whatever it was that Lotus Cloud has tossed around my neck, and the gold-meshed fingers of his right hand reached out and touched it. Then he leaned forward, and I felt the eyes behind the slits in the mask boring into mine, and with a sick sense of terror I realized that he was looking right through my eyes into my brain! The voice that came through the mouthpiece was a voice of metal.
“So, the wife of my Assessor gave you this,” the duke whispered. “He shall be punished for his careless words.” I could feel his mind crawling over mine, probing and peering and searching. “You do not know what it means,” he whispered. “You know nothing of importance. I see a foolish abbot, and I see children whose deaths will serve to decrease the surplus population, and I see a ghost who dances with swords, and I see your antiquated companion dancing and singing songs. I can find no awareness of meaningful things, and although you seek the right ginseng root, you do so for the wrong reason.” The terrible tiger mask lifted. “Soldiers, continue with the execution,” ordered the Duke of Ch'in.
My fingers had automatically continued to fumble with the pick, and suddenly I felt it turn in the lock.
“Master Li!” I yelled, as I jerked my hands apart and lashed out at the soldiers with the manacles. His hands were already free, and he used the chain of his manacles to trip the executioner, who toppled toward me. “Get him, Ox!” Master Li roared.
I grabbed the axe and whirled to the throne and struck with all my might, and to my astonishment that huge blade bounced off the flimsy cloak of feathers as though it had hit the strongest steel. My hands turned numb with the shock, and I swore and swung again. This time the duke was not so lucky. The blade plunged right through his chest to his heart, and I turned to die like a gentlemen at the hands of the soldiers. What I saw made me doubt my sanity.
The soldiers were laughing. The dignitaries were laughing. The bonze was laughing. The executioner got to his feet and began laughing. I turned dazedly to the throne, and there sat the Duke of Ch'in with the huge axe buried in his heart. He was laughing.
“Both the young fool and the old fool are fit for nothing more serious than bouncing balls and playing games! Very well, we will play a game,” he chortled. His fingers closed around an ornament on the arm of his throne. The soldiers next to us scrambled hastily away. “You seek the Great Root of Power? It can indeed be found, so find it.”
The floor suddenly dropped out from under us.
Down, down, down, plunging head over heels into darkness—just when I felt that I might fall forever, I landed with a shock in icy water, and I popped up to the surface and spat out a mouthful of brine.
“Master Li!” I cried.
“Right behind you,” he panted.
Li Kao grabbed my belt. A light was flickering in the distance. The pool in which we had landed was about fifty feet in circumference, and I swam across and climbed up upon a flat rock ledge. The light was coming from a single torch, and Li Kao lifted it from the brackets and swung it around.
We were in a large cavern carved from black stone. The air was moist and heavy, and it reeked of something unpleasant. Ahead of us was an archway, and when Master Li lifted the torch we saw that the first duke's famous maxim had been chiseled in the stone above the curve of the arch:
PUNISHMENT PRODUCES FORCE, FORCE PRODUCES STRENGTH,
STRENGTH PRODUCES AWE, AWE PRODUCES VIRTUE;
THUS VIRTUE HAS ITS ORIGIN IN PUNISHMENT.
We stepped through the archway and saw that an infinity of narrow tunnels branched out from the central path. We were walking upon human bones, and the reek came from decaying flesh, although I saw no recent bodies. I stared at shattered skulls, and at thigh bones that had been snapped like bamboo twigs.
“Master Li, the thing that did this had to be stronger than twenty dragons,” I whispered.
“Oh, far stronger than that.” He reached out and touched his finger to the wall, and when he held it to my nose I smelled seaweed. Then he lifted his torch high above his head, and when my eyes lifted with it I saw the corpses that were causing the horrible smell. They were crammed into crevices in the stone ceiling. Half of a face looked down at me, and a dangling leg dripped blood.
“The monster that stalks the labyrinth is simply the tide,” Master Li said calmly, “and if the tide can get out of it, so can we. Ox, was that some sort of trick axe, like the fake swords used in carnivals?”
“No, sir,” I said firmly. “That was a real axe, and it really entered the duke's heart.”
He scratched his head thoughtfully. “Strange,” he muttered. “If we get out of here alive, we most certainly must take another crack at killing him, purely in the interest of science.”
“Master Li, the duke can read minds,” I whispered, trembling all over. “He looked through my eyes, and I could feel his brain crawling over mine. It was wet and clammy, and it was like being nuzzled by cold, slimy lips.”
“Your powers of description are commendable,” he said, but I could tell that he didn't believe a word of it.
