dog died.”
“Died?”
The old man sighed in exasperation, and then relented and said in a kindly voice, “Yes, my boy: The… dog… died. The maid’s murderers had been carrying a note supposedly written by the Celestial Master, authorizing their admittance, and that was very much on my mind when I went to Devil’s Hand to find out who had ordered such an execution. When the Celestial Master’s signature again popped up, I decided I had better plan for the worst.”
This, I decided, would probably begin to make sense in a month or two, if I survived that long.
“The eunuchs,” Master Li said, “are always after Devil’s Hand to find them truly monstrous executioners for their own dungeons, so I arranged for the release of Sixth Degree Hosteler Tu and his transfer to the prison of the Palace of Eunuchs. I assumed he’d have no difficulty taking over as king of the butchers, and apparently I was right.”
A series of moist snickers suggested that Hosteler Tu was enjoying himself. “The others were rather jealous, but eventually they saw the effectiveness of my little ways,” he said.
“And felt it as well, no doubt,” Master Li said. “I assume they were the ones screaming their heads off just now?”
“Oh, I could have done better!” the hosteler protested. I could hear the soft wet smack of his long froglike tongue against his flabby moist lips. “One needs time for such things if art is to be fully honored.”
“Hosteler, you’re preaching to the converted,” Master Li said dryly. “Don’t you recall that we were once guests in your very peculiar cellar? Ox, you might as well know the rest of it. Sixth Degree Hosteler Tu is to do his best to aid us in escaping from the eunuchs’ dungeons, and then we’re to do our best to aid his escape from the authorities. He gets three months to settle where he likes and get back in business, and then we go after him again.”
“Oh no. Not again,” I faintly whispered.
“But, Ox, it was so exciting!” the hosteler hissed.
Exciting? He thought that ghastly chase had been as entertaining as a horse race or a sled down an icy slope? Suddenly I was free of chains. I felt like a dog released from a tether and I almost bolted and ran into a wall, but then the image of a dog stuck in my mind. A small sick dog on a silken pillow carried by a little maid with silly slippers, and I heard the voice of the Celestial Master chanting archaic words like a priestly chant. “If it continues to feel ill, anoint it with clarified fat of the leg of a snow leopard. Give it drink from eggshells of the throstle thrush filled with juice of the custard apple, in which are three pinches of shredded rhinoceros horn. Apply piebald leeches, and if it still succumbs remember that no creature is immortal and you too must die.”
Master Li had checked. The dog had succumbed. “And you too must die,” said the Celestial Master. You too must die… you too must die…
I snapped out of my reverie as the cell door creaked open. Sixth Degree Hosteler Tu was tugging at it, and dim torchlight played over his unpleasant features and those of Master Li, and I trotted out after them into the corridor. Master Li took the great ring of keys from a hook on the wall and began unlocking cell doors, but prisoners didn’t stream out. They were all huddled in corners in fetal positions with their hands over their ears, trying to block the screams the junior executioners had made when the hosteler got his hands on them, and I doubted that any would dare to move.
“Hosteler, last night the Black Watch brought in another prisoner. A girl named Yu Lan. Do you know anything about her?” Master Li asked.
“No, I have heard of no girl.”
“Anything unusual?”
“Yes,” the hosteler said thoughtfully. “A number of prisoners condemned to death have been taken from their cells to some other holding place where they are to be dedicated for a ceremony sometime today.”
“Dedicated? You mean like animals for slaughter?” the sage asked.
“I assume so. Rumor has it that the ceremony is to be held in the eunuchs’ courtyard at the time of the solstice,” said Hosteler Tu.
Master Li was silent for a time. Then he whispered, “Yes, that might do it. The August Personage of Jade is hot-tempered, and if Heaven turns its back…” Then he broke from his reveries and snapped, “Hurry. We have to get up to the courtyard where that ceremony is to take place.”
Hosteler Tu knew part of the underground labyrinth, and what he didn’t know firsthand Master Li could fill in theoretically, from architects’ plans seen fifty years ago and never forgotten. Like everything else in the Forbidden City, the Golden River is artificial, and a marvelously effective system allows it to pour prettily over a fall and then travel uphill so it can splash down another. The water boils down through crevices into connecting caverns where huge water wheels lift it level by level to the desired height, and then back up to the surface. We slipped through side passages from the dungeons into caverns that reminded me somewhat of the Sixth Hell. Cursing overseers lashed rows of slaves who powered great horizontal wheels connected to vertical ones, and water splashed incessantly as immense buckets lifted and vanished through crevices in the roof. One good thing was the noise level, which meant we wouldn’t be heard as we made our way along a narrow path close to the overseers. The misty spray from the water helped hide us as well, and I was just thinking how lucky we were when one overseer turned to another.
“Did you hear the latest?” he shouted. “The guilds made it official! They’ve canceled the Dragon Boat Race, and they even canceled their banquets!”
I could have strangled him.
“Tragic, even though the banquet of the Beggars’ Guild is totally unimaginative,” said Sixth Degree Hosteler Tu. “Eleven courses for beggars of the first and second degrees, seven courses, two jars of wine, and a box of salted meats to take home for third degree beggars, five courses, two jars of wine, and a box of preserved fruits for the fourth degree, and fifth through seventh degree beggars receive three courses, one wine jar, and no home box.”
His voice was getting louder and louder as he warmed up, and I tried to clap a hand over his mouth. The trouble was that we had to walk single file and he could easily fend me off unless I wanted to start wrestling and really give us away.
“The Merchants’ Guild, on the other hand, is a credit to civilization and cancellation of their banquet is a national tragedy,” the hosteler said loudly. “Even the lowest degrees, seventh through fifth, receive birds’ nests, pigs’ trotters, domestic duck, chicken, and three kinds of pork. Merchants of the fourth and third degrees are entitled to the same plus shark fins, salmon, and fried lamb. These courses are also offered to second and first degree merchants who additionally receive bear paws, deer tails, goose, crabs, and mussels. The merchants of the Mongolian guild, however—”
“Hosteler Tu!” hissed Master Li.
“But you must know!” yelled Sixth Degree Hosteler Tu. “It must be recorded that guilds are allowed local delicacies, and in Mongolia they add for all degrees slices of mutton dipped in a mixture of raw eggs beaten with chopped ginger and then seared over charcoal fires!”
That did it. Overseers wheeled around and yelled for soldiers, and an officer and ten men appeared out of nowhere and charged with spears, and after that things got very confusing. We’d backed into a wall that was almost beneath one of the great rising water wheels, and the spray that closed around us was blinding, and the noise of wheel and water blocked out almost everything else. Li the Cat hadn’t bothered to have Master Li’s throwing knife taken away—after all, we’d been chained to posts—and he was able to fend for himself. I was trying to pick up one soldier and use him as a battering ram against others, but that left most of the work to the hosteler, and I will freely admit that of all the killers I’ve encountered few could come within leagues of Sixth Degree Hosteler Tu. Those long webbed fingers, those sharp-pointed teeth filling a mouth that could stretch wide enough to swallow a muskmelon, the feet that slipped from sandals to reveal prehensile toes planned for strangling, that soft unresisting body absorbing the hardest blows like a feather pillow, and then falling in folds over a victim and clogging air passages like an obscene shroud of flabby fat. All the while the hosteler giggled, mind you, and his reptilian tongue flicked happily over his lewd lips—still, not even Hosteler Tu could ignore blows from a dagger.
When I finally staggered up from my pile of bodies and looked around I saw Master Li apparently unhurt, but the hosteler had been battling the bulk of them and now he had his arms around the last, the officer, crushing him in a bear hug. The officer was stabbing the hosteler in the back with his dagger, again and again, and then the
