19. Bamboo Dragonfly
I awoke to see Li Kao smiling down at me, and Miser Shen tilted a gourd filled with delicious spring water to my lips. It revived me as if by magic. Soon I was able to get up and examine the little oasis, which had clearly been used as a pleasure garden.
Trees and shrubs from every corner of the empire had been planted there, and the variety was astonishing. Silver bells had once tinkled in the branches, and paper lanterns had glowed in the night like fireflies, and lovers had walked hand in hand through mazes of moonflowers. Then the horrible eruption, and the Hand That No One Sees. I wondered what terrible crime the city had committed to deserve such a fate, but then I decided that I didn't want to know. I turned around and shuddered as I saw the marks of invisible fingers angrily pawing in the salt at the other end of the narrow bridge. The Hand was waiting.
A clear path led through wildflowers toward the bronze roof of a pagoda that sparkled in the light of the setting sun. We started toward it, and as we drew closer we saw that the pagoda had escaped destruction because it was nearly solid stone. Only the wooden doors had rotted away. The sun sank below the horizon, but the moon had already lifted into the sky, and a pale path of moonbeams reached through the hole where the door had been and touched something that sparkled. Tears began to trickle down Miser Shen's cheeks as he stared at a pile of treasure that was even larger than the one at the Castle of the Labyrinth.
“Cured!” he cried joyfully. “I could not be sure before, but now when I look at this loot, my fingers itch only for the pearls and jade, and that is because I would like to give them to Lotus Cloud.”
Li Kao's eyes met mine, and I nodded. Both of us had instinctively studied the top of the pile of treasure for a ghost shadow, and there it was. I was getting rather good at it, and the shadow blanket lifted easily over my head.
I was looking at the same ghost! No, not the same, but dressed in the same ancient fashion, and with the same streak of blood where a blade had pierced her heart. Again I sensed that she was making a terrible effort to appear before us, and I felt the same searing wave of agony when her lips parted.
“Take pity upon a faithless handmaiden,” she whispered. “Is not a thousand years enough?” Ghost tears like transparent pearls trickled down her cheeks. “I swear that I did not know what I had done!” she sobbed. “Oh, take pity, and exchange this for the feather. The birds must fly.”
Then she was gone.
Miser Shen had seen nothing, and he gazed in wonder at the stunned expressions on our faces. I snarled and scrambled up the pile, and slid back down with an identical jade casket in my hands. I jerked the lid open, and then I cried out in despair.
Inside was not the Heart of Power, which was supposed to be the ultimate, but two more tiny tendrils. They were the Arms of the Great Root, and if the Legs had failed, what more could we expect from the Arms? The ginseng aroma made my eyes water, and I turned the casket upside down. Something else fell to the floor.
Li Kao got down on his knees and carefully examined a tiny crystal ball, about the size of the miniature flute.
“Miser Shen, I would advise you to sit down and prepare for a rather unusual phenomenon,” he said grimly. Then he spat on his hand and reached out and cautiously rubbed the crystal surface.
The ball began to glow with a strange inner light. Then it began to expand. It grew until it was several feet in diameter, and the inner light grew brighter and brighter, and then we all cried out in wonder as a picture appeared, and then we heard sounds.
We were looking at the interior of a pretty little cottage where an old lady snoozed on a stool. We could hear her peaceful snores, and the sounds of chickens and pigs, and the gentle murmur of a stream. Birds sang and bees droned drowsily, and the sun-dappled leaves of a tree rustled outside the window.
An ant scurried across the floor, carrying a tiny crust of bread. After a moment a roach took notice, and began to scuttle after the ant. A rat stuck its head from a hole and dashed after the roach. A cat bounded after the rat, and then a dog bounded through the door and raced after the cat. The whole procession charged beneath the old lady's stool and tipped it over, and she sat up and rubbed her eyes, unleashed a torrent of peasant profanity, grabbed a broom, and started in hot pursuit of the dog that was chasing the cat that was chasing the rat that was chasing the roach that was chasing the ant that was carrying the crust of bread.
It is difficult to describe in words, but the scene that unfolded was incredibly comic. Around and around they went, racing through the door, climbing back inside through the window, smashing through the flimsy walls, reappearing through a hole in the roof, and reducing the furniture to splinters. The variations appeared to be endless, and they were so ingenious that Miser Shen and I held our sides as we howled with laughter. At one point the old lady's slashing broom sent every piece of pottery flying into the air, and they all came together with a crash. The fragments fell to the floor, and as one piece landed upon the other, they formed a solemn statue of the Sacred and Venerable Sage of Serenity. The mad procession raced outside and splashed through a pond, and when they crashed back inside through another ruined wall there was a huge bullfrog squatting upon the old lady's head, croaking indignantly.
Miser Shen and I might have laughed ourselves to death if Li Kao hadn't reached out and touched the crystal ball. The glow faded, and the sounds and the picture vanished, and the ball shrank down to its former size.
“Shen, have you ever seen anything like this?” Master Li asked, as soon as Miser Shen had recovered enough to breathe.
Miser Shen scratched his head and said, “Well, I can't be sure. Surely I have never seen anything like that incredible scene, but I once saw a tiny crystal ball that resembled this one in an ancient painting. It was in the Cavern of Bells. An old lame peddler with his back to the viewer was facing three young ladies who were dressed in the style of many centuries ago. In one of his hands he held three feathers—”
“Feathers?” Master Li yelped. “Girls dressed in the ancient style?”
“Ah… yes,” said Miser Shen. “In the other hand the peddler was holding a ball that resembled this one, and a tiny bell, and a miniature flute.”
Li Kao grunted in satisfaction and unsnapped one of the fake shells on his belt.
“Like this?”
“Precisely like that,” said Miser Shen as he examined the tiny tin flute. “I don't remember much else about the painting except that it was said to be very mysterious and that the old lame peddler was thought to be divine. The Cavern of Bells has become a shrine in his honor, and it is tended by a small order of monks.”
Li Kao placed the flute back into the shell, and added the crystal ball and the Arms of the Great Root of Power to his smuggler's belt.
“Let's get some sleep. In the morning we'll find out how to get off this island, and our first stop will be the Cavern of Bells,” he said.
He spoke too soon. When we made a circuit of the oasis the following morning we discovered that it was indeed an island, completely encircled by murderous lava, and the narrow bridge was the only exit. Fingerprints pawed in the salt, and my heart sank to my toes as I realized that we would never be able to get back to the children of Ku-fu. I could not stop the tears that welled in my eyes and trickled down my cheeks, and Miser Shen looked at me and then hastily averted his eyes.
“Number Ten Ox, this is not such a bad place in which to spend the rest of our days,” he said shyly. “We shall live like kings on fruits and berries and pure spring water, while the rest of the world enjoys war, famine, and pestilence.”
And death, I thought. I heard weeping and mournful bells, and I saw a long row of small coffins disappearing into the ground.
“Of course, the rest of the world will also be enjoying Lotus Cloud,” Miser Shen said thoughtfully.
“You have a point,” I sniffled.
We were sitting upon the grass with our backs against the trunk of a huge palm tree. Li Kao trotted up and joined us, and I saw that his eyes were sparkling.
“Gentlemen, how much do you know about the great Chang Heng?” he asked.
I dimly recalled schoolroom lessons. “Didn't he invent the seismograph, about five hundred years ago?”
