“— and cut off their hands and feet!”
“No, I couldn't have been the East Idiot Ruler of South Tsi,” Master Li said thoughtfully. “I would have cut off their noses as well.”
“… burned right down to the ground!”
“If you must do something, do a thorough job,” Master Li said.
“… every last man, woman, and child!”
“Wasteful. Some of the girls must have been pretty. Ling, old friend, I hate to be overly critical, but was it wise to surround yourself with nothing but water?” said Master Li.
He pulled out his flask and splashed wine into the pool, and Moon Boy and I clung together for support. The dark stain of wine had gathered itself into a spinning whirlpool, and the spout was reaching down through the water to the grinning mouth of the skull, the reeds were still. Then one moved.
“Burp.”
“This stuff is since your time,” Master Li said. “It's called Haining Mountain Dew. What do you think of it?”
The reeds went into action again. “Haining? Those clodhoppers make this excellent wine? I suppose even dung beetles have their talents. Speaking of dung beetles, has Belly Draft finished drinking himself to death?”
“He's still working at it,” said Master Li. “I tell his landlords that his liver is constructed from some kind of crystallized carbon, but they keep throwing him out because of the danger of spontaneous combustion.”
He poured more wine into the pool and had some himself. The reeds went waving again.
“Who's the raving beauty and the carnival wrestler?”
“This is my esteemed former client and current assistant, Number Ten Ox,” Master Li said. This is Moon Boy, the world's foremost authority on sounds and bottoms like peaches.”
We stepped forward and bowed to the skull. The reeds moved.
“Moon Boy makes me wish I still had a bottom, but why bring young heroes to an old quack lying at the bottom of a pool?”
Master Li took another sip of wine. “For one thing, I want Moon Boy to look into a mirror,” he said casually.
Was it my imagination or were the reeds moving warily?
“What kind of mirror did you have in mind?”
“The only one that matters,” Master Li said.
“Take care, Li Kao!”
“Others have made the trip,” Master Li said. “I even hear that the emperor came to you for a passport, and he's still in one piece.”
The reeds were quite agitated. “Tang needed both divine intervention and an enormous bribe to get out! Can you count on that kind of help? I can open the door, but once inside, you'd be on your own, and have the boys consented to such a journey?”
Master Li glanced at us. I bowed to the skull. “Illustrious Sir, where Master Li goes, I go,” I said.
“Most Noble Sage, the life of a girl named Grief of Dawn is involved, and I will go where I must,” Moon Boy said.
The reeds were still, and when they moved, it was reluctantly.
“So be it. Li Kao, give my love to Queen Feiyen if you see her—gods, her breath was like an orchid! — and thank Li Po for leaving me his loaded dice.”
The water in the pool began to revolve. It swirled faster and faster, moving in concentric circles toward the center, and my eyes were drawn to the skull. A strange light was shining in the empty eye sockets, beckoning to me, and it seemed that the skull was growing larger and larger. White bones appeared to fill the sky, and the light pulled me forward, and I found myself walking through a huge eye socket. Master Li and Moon Boy walked through the other one, and we were standing on a rocky ledge high on a mountain. Cold wind whistled around my ears, and in the distance an eagle screamed.
“Marvelous effects,” said Master Li.
In front of us, set in the rock, was a bronze door. Master Li pushed it open and we walked through to a landing and placed our feet upon the first step of a long winding staircase that would take us down to Hell.
17
Barbarian readers, no matter how illustrious, will have but a rudimentary concept of Hell. This is not their fault but the fault of ignorant priests and sages who cling to two incredible fallacies: that Hell is reserved for the damned, and that the world is flat.
The world is a cube measuring 233,575 paces across. The center of the cube is occupied by the Kingdom of Hell, and it is the judging place for all mortals, saint and sinner alike. That is why people on the wrong sides of the cube don't fall off: We are all drawn toward our ultimate destination so no matter where one stands, Hell is always “down” and Heaven is always “up,” and that's all there is to it.
The kingdom is enormous. There are one hundred thirty-five lesser Hells and ten principal ones: one for judgment by the God of Walls and Ditches, one for the Great Wheel of Transmigrations, and eight for the punishment of sinners. The lesser Hells contain people waiting to be judged, other people awaiting transportation to the Land of Extreme Felicity in the West, where they will sit at the feet of Buddha, extremely blessed people who await transportation to K'un-lun Mountain, where they will sit at the feet of the August Personage of Jade, and so many others that I will not try to list them.
It is strictly illegal for the living to enter Hell, with rare exceptions involving official delegations from the Emperor of China. Outside of Emperor T'ang, I knew of only two others who had illegally entered Hell and managed to return. One was Chou the Rogue, who was a crook so audacious that he once blackmailed the sun, and the other was Crazy Ch'i, who has become a demigod and has many temples dedicated to him. I would back Master Li against either of them, which is why I wasn't totally paralyzed with fear as we descended to the Land of Shadows. Master Li, however, had a few doubts.
“Our first task will be to evaluate the new regime,” he said worriedly. “It is said that the former First Lord of Hell, Yen-wang-yeh, has been judged to have been too lenient and has been demoted, but no signs have been received to indicate who's currently in charge. If Legalists have won out, we could be in real trouble.”
We were floating downward rather than walking—a blessing, since it is a terrible task to climb down 116,787? steps—and a small circle of pale cold light was appearing before us. We came to rest in front of a doorway and cautiously peered out across a flat gray plain toward the walls of the principal city of Feng-tu. There was no sun, only a pearly glow in the gray sky. Even the trees and flowers were gray, and sounds seemed to be muted.
The demons weren't gray. Some had bright blue faces and fiery red eyes and long yellow tusks, and others had green fangs and crimson noses and black ears. They were every bit as horrible as the demons one sees in dreams, and they were herding the dead into long lines that slowly shuffled toward the city gates. The social hierarchy was absolute. Aristocrats formed one line, tradesmen another, scholars another—bureaucrats and soldiers and farmers all had their assigned line and priority of entrance, with the nobility taking precedence and actors bringing up the rear. The ceremony was formal and painstaking. Demons bowed to trolls, who bowed to ogres, who bowed to devils, and Master Li drew his head back and spat disgustedly.
“Bat shit,” he growled. “The Neo-Confucians have taken over.” He thought about it and cheered up. “Actually, this makes our task much easier,” he said. “Moon Boy, put on your best jewels and costliest clothes. Ox, you want the garb and facial expression of an ideal peasant, and I'll take a few liberties with current reality.”
We opened our packs. I put on a pair of sandals that were falling apart and a hat that resembled a rat's nest, and ripped an old tunic in the back to resemble lash strokes. When I had plastered an expression of meek animal resignation across my homely face, I was a peasant to warm the heart of the most demanding mandarin. Moon Boy dazzled the eyes. It would take four pages to do his clothes justice, and his jewels would have bankrupted some kingdoms.
Master Li was awesome. Never before had I seen him in full academic regalia, and it was magnificent. He had
