BAF 64 - Kai Lung Unrolls His Mat, page 14
part #64 of Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series
“That loss were an undivided gain,” agreed the other. “But will not the ever-ready voice of censure assail our trembling prestige if we thrust him forth?”
“Refrain from instructing your venerated ancestress in the art of extracting nutrition from a coconut,” replied Leung concisely. “One whose ships are incapable of foundering on the perfidious Che-hai coast is scarcely likely to lose his bearings in so simple a matter as the marooning of Lin Ho.”
It will thus be seen that already this mentally bankrupt speculator was deceiving himself by an illogical grasp of the ordained sequences. Can we deny the aptness of the saying, “He who has failed three times sets up as an instructor?”
Early the following day, Leung took Lin Ho aside and proceeded to unfold his ignoble plan. He was (to set forth his misleading words, though the discriminating, who will by this time have taken his repulsive measure, should need no warning cough) on the eve of initiating a costly venture and would enlist the special protection of certain powerful spirits. To this end it was necessary to sacrifice and observe the ceremonies at a notorious shrine on an indicated mountain. For this service, Leung had chosen Lin Ho, and having provided him with all things necessary, he bade him set out at once.
With no suspicion of treachery, the painstaking Lin Ho proceeded on his way, determined to conduct the enterprise in such a manner as would redound to the credit of his name. It was noon when he reached the foot of the mountain, the spot being a wild one and austere. Before ascending to the shrine, Lin Ho sat down upon a rock to partake of food and gather strength for the lengthy rite. He opened his wallet and found therein an adequacy of mien paste, a flask of water, and an onion. There was also a little spice to sprinkle on the food, and a few score melon seeds.
“If he whom I serve is not so light as day, neither is he quite so black as night,” observed Lin Ho, for the nature of the fare surpassed what he had expected.
“To speak one’s thoughts aloud, even in a desert, betrays a pure and dispassionate mind,” exclaimed an appreciative voice from behind a crag. “I need have no hesitation in affecting the society of such a person.”
With this auspicious presage the one who spoke came into view and stood before Lin Ho. He was above the common height and wore a martial air, to which his fiercely bristling whiskers gave a sombre increase. His robe was faded by the long exposure of a rigorous life; where the colours could be seen, they were both harmonious and rich. Whatever arms he bore he had laid aside in deference to the reputation of those heights whose shadows lay upon them, but he retained his iron sandals and a metal covering for the head. His manner had in it both something of the menace of the mountain brigand and the subtlety of the wayside mendicant, so that Lin Ho was not wholly reassured. Nevertheless, he waved his hand in greeting and indicated a smooth rock at no great distance from the one he sat on.
“You are two thousand times welcome,” he declared hospitably. “If you are about to refresh yourself before you perform your rites there is no occasion why we should not eat together.”
“It would be churlish to refuse an invitation so delicately advanced,” replied the stranger. “Foreseeing the necessity of this halt, the one before you carried with him baked and steamed meats of various kinds, condiments of the rarer flavours, rice and sweet herbs, fruit, wine, and a sufficiency of snuff. All of these—”
“Beside your rich abundance, my own scanty fare is a shrivelled weed beneath a towering palm,” confessed Lin Ho in deep humility. “Nevertheless, if you will but condescend to share—”
“All of these were swept away at a perfidious and ill-conditioned ford a short li distant to the north,” continued the other. “Of what does your welcome and appetizing store consist, O brother?”
“Very little, and that quite unattractively prepared,” replied Lin Ho, his face by no means gladdened at the direction in which the episode was tending. “Accept this cake of paste and a cup of water to refresh your weary throat when it is finished. More I cannot allot, for I have an exacting service to perform and shall need all the sustaining vigour that food bestows.”
“What is offered in friendship should not be weighed upon a balance,” assented the stranger pleasantly, but at the same time so arranging himself that he could closely overlook all Lin Ho’s movements. “With what is your own meritorious meal supplied, in addition to this wholesome though undoubtedly prosaic foundation, comrade?”
“The staple of it is a large but unsightly onion,” replied Lin Ho, as he began to peel it. “Had there been two, I might have prevailed on you to overcome your high-born repugnance to such crude fare.”
“An onion!” exclaimed the one beside him, stretching out his hand to take it, so incredulous were his eyes of their service. “An onion at this momentous hour! Would you affront the deities on whom you call by carrying so impolite a taint into their sacred presence?”
“That is very far from being my purpose,” replied Lin Ho, colouring at the unbecoming imputation. “Not shall so gross a misdeed ever be set to my account.”
“Yet do you not hold that the breath of your petition will rise before the faces of the gods you supplicate?”
“Such is the essence of the rite,” Lin Ho admitted. “How else should they hear and concede my prayer?”
“Then how can your breath ascend on high without conveying in its wake the pestilential reek of onion if you permit yourself this rash indulgence? It is well for you that we encountered, friend!”
“That certainly presents the matter in a disconcerting light and one that I had never up to now been warned of,” said Lin Ho in a very downcast spirit. “Must the better part of my sustenance then be wasted?”
“By no means,” replied his companion, beginning to eat; “it shall not be lost. My own business with the Venerable Ones is the mere formality of rendering thanks for an enterprise achieved, and at the moment I have nothing to solicit. It therefore matters very little whether they maintain a sympathetic front or turn their backs on me disdainfully. In this matter of the onion, neighbour, be content: Lam-kwong will requite you to the full at some appropriate time.”
“That may be,” agreed Lin Ho, “but ’to-day is a blistered foot; to-morrow but an itching hand.’ It is no easy thing to prostrate one’s self continuously on a stomach sustained by mien paste alone.”
“You have suffered no great loss,” said Lam-kwong in a voice that began to lose its truculent assurance. “Already I am experiencing certain grievous inward qualms. Whence comes this dubious root that you have so noticeably pressed upon me?”
“‘Wan Tae, falling into the river while catching fish, accuses them of his misfortune,’” quoted Lin Ho, stung by the injustice of the taunt. “Touching the thing that you have eaten, I know no more than this: that it is from the hand of one who is not prone to bounty.”
“Is his enmity so great that he would conspire to your destruction if it could be prudently achieved?” inquired Lam-kwong faintly.
“He is capable of any crime, from reviling the Classics to diverting watercourses,” freely declared Lin Ho. “If you desire to speak openly of Leung, do not let the fact that he is closely related to the one before you impede the zealous fountain of your doubtless fluent tongue. Without question, he laid a dark spell upon the onion for it to contort your limbs so unnaturally.”
“It is a spell that writes Lam-kwong’s untimely end,” exclaimed the one who thus alluded to his own up-passing. “The device is an ancient one, the pungent juices of the herb cloaking the natural flavour of the poison until it is too late. Between you you have outdone me who have outdone all others—may the two of you grill at a never-slackening fire throughout eternity! Him, neither my resentful hand can reach nor my avenging ghost discover, but you at least shall suffer for your inept share in this one’s humiliation. Take Lam-kwong’s .last message!” A weighty stone, propelled with all that one’s expiring vigour, accompanied this short-sighted curse, and chancing to inflict itself upon Lin Ho at a vulnerable point of his outline, the well-meaning and really inoffensive person groaned twice and sank to the ground devoid of life.
Lin Ho being dead, his spirit at once sped to the Upper World and passed the barriers successfully. An inferior Being received and questioned him and, setting a certain mark against his name, led him into the assembly of those who sat in judgment.
“Lin Ho,” said the presiding chief in some embarrassment, “the circumstances of your abrupt arrival here are rather out of the formal order of things, and the necessary records are not as yet available. For this irregularity, Lam-kwong shall answer sharply. As for you, in view of your frugal and abstemious life, and taking into consideration the mission on which you are now engaged, it has been decided to send you back again to earth. Regard the Virtues, sacrifice freely, and provide an adequate posterity.”
Lin Ho then had the sensation of being violently projected downward. When he recovered sufficiently from the exertion to be able to observe coherently, he found that he was floating in spirit above the spot on earth where he had lately been. Beneath him lay two lifeless bodies—those of Lam-kwong and of himself. For the first time he was inspired by an emotion of contempt toward his own placid and unassuming features.
“It is one thing to lead a frugal and abstemious life,” Lin Ho reflected; “it is another to partake of meat whenever the desire arises. Hitherto this person has accepted servitude and followed the integritous path because with so narrow minded a face as that any other line of conduct was not practicable. Had he possessed fiercely bristling whiskers and a capricious eye, he would not have meekly accepted the outer husk of things, nor would the maidens of Ki-ting have greeted him with derisive cries, that he should not respond to them when they encountered about dusk in the waste spaces of the city.”
For a few short beats of time, the spirit of Lin Ho considered further. Then he looked this way and that and saw that there was none to observe him there, nor had any attending Being accompanied him to earth. He took a sudden resolution, and before a movement could be made to intercept him, he slipped into the body of Lam-kwong and animated it.
When Lin Ho, wearing the body of Lam-kwong, rose up, he was conscious of possessing an entirely new arrangement of the senses. The thought of Leung no longer filled him with submission, and he laughed sonorously at a recollection of the labours he had lately been engaged in, though hitherto he had regarded all forms of gravity-removal as unworthy of his strenuous purpose. The sound of his iron shoes grinding the rocks he walked on raised his spirits, and he opened and closed his great hands to feel their horny strength. From time to time, he leaped into the air to test his powers, and he shouted a defiance to any unseen demons who might happen to be lurking in the caves around.
So careless had Lin Ho grown that he had walked and leaped at least a li before he recalled his new position. To return to the house of Leung was now useless, for however passively disposed that one had formerly been toward a kinsman of his Line, it would be vain for a stranger of formidable hirsute guise and martial mien to appear and claim his bounty. In search of a deciding omen, Lin Ho turned to the inner sleeves of the one whom he now was, and he did not turn in vain. Among a varied profusion that he left for future use, he found a written message. It bore the name of Kuei and conveyed an affectionate greeting from one who dwelt beneath the sign of Righteousness Long Established, in the Street of the South Wind, within the city of Tsing-te. Toward Tsing-te Lin Ho now turned his adventuring feet.
It was not until three days later that Lin Ho reached the gate of Tsing-te called the Leper’s Gate and entered by it. He had not hastened, for the encounters of the way were not distasteful to his newly acquired temper. Those whom he greeted with a single upraised finger and an unbending neck acknowledged him obsequiously in turn, and when he spoke of the appetizing air, food was at once forthcoming. Some made a claim to know him and talked familiarly of things, but though Lin Ho would have welcomed whatever led him to a fuller understanding of himself, he could not pursue the arising conversation to any lucid end. From one it would appear as though he controlled a Hall of Melody; from another that he dealt extensively in yellow fat. A third spoke as if the public lotteries lay beneath his guiding thumb, and yet a fourth cautiously disclosed a secret sign which Lin Ho had some difficulty in ignoring.
“The wealth of analogy possessed by our inimitable tongue admittedly lends itself to a classical purity of style, but it certainly tends toward a baffling ambiguity in the commonplace needs of life,” reflected the one involved, and with a gesture of qualified agreement he passed on.
Once in the city he had come to, Lin Ho recognized that his course would be no less devious there. He forebore to ask the way lest it should be of any who might know him, so that it was the time of between-light before he chanced upon the street he needed. It was a deserted part and sombre, and the house that showed the symbol of a golden bar disclosed no window to the passer-by. Lin Ho struck the well-protected door, and as no answer came, at once he beat upon it with an iron shoe.
“What errant lord stands there to wake the Seven Echoes with his unbecoming clamour?” growled a contentious voice within, and there came the creak of a shutter being more firmly wedged.
“One who is not wont to be questioned either before or after,” replied Lin Ho, stamping with his massive heel upon the doorsill. “Let that suffice.”
An iron plate slid open and an eye appeared. Then the defences of the door were drawn.
“Why was the usual sign withheld, chiefling?” protested the one within. “Had I not identified that richly mellowed voice, you might have stamped in vain.”
“It was but to try thy wariness, reliant Ying,” answered Lin Ho, with a confidence engendered by success. “I am newly returned from a lengthy journey and thought to test the watch you keep here.”
“Your mood was ever light and whimsical,” retorted the keeper of the door tolerantly, as Lin Ho entered. “‘Ying’ indeed! For threescore years plain Wong has served, but ‘Ying’ is well enough.”
“Do any await me now?” ventured Lin Ho, putting this lightness from him with an indulgent nod.
“She of the inner chamber broods expectantly,” replied the docile Wong, bending a meaning look. “Furthermore, she laid a charge on me to bid you hasten to her presence.”
“Then lead me there,” Lin Ho commanded. “Her engaging interest fills me with a pleasurable confusion.”
“Lead, forsooth! Surely by this time you must know the way,” began the one who sought thus to excuse himself, but:
“I would have it so,” replied Lin Ho, touching his efficacious whiskers significantly, and Wong obeyed.
From the nature of her written greeting, Lin Ho did not doubt the depth and weight of Kuei’s devotion, and he was reconciled to the necessity of reciprocating it to the full when he should have discovered in what direction the requirement lay. In a chamber hung with bright silks of eight appropriate blends, she was seated on a dais covered with a leopard skin when he entered, and the colours and arrangement of her robes exceeded anything that he had yet encountered. At the same time he could not fail to recognize that her years somewhat overlapped those of the one whose obligations he had assumed, and as regards his natural self, the comparison was even more remote.
“Ten thousand jewelled greetings!” she exclaimed with a dignified absence of restraint that convinced Lin Ho of their mutual affection. “Have you indeed returned?”
“Admittedly,” and to impart a fuller flavour to the assurance he added, “What could detain this person’s hurrying footsteps from your virtuous and attractive side?”
The one addressed rewarded him with a well-considered glance of approval from her expressive eyes and then indicated by a refined gesture that he should seat himself where they could converse without exertion.
“Tell me, then, of the various adventures of your quest,” she commanded graciously, “for these bankrupt ears droop to learn your tidings.”
“There is neither length nor width to the limits of that story,” replied Lin Ho cautiously. “In which particular direction does your gratifying curiosity extend?”
“That needs no trumpet to proclaim it,” was the ready answer. “Have you accomplished this one’s freedom?”
“He who would deny it is malformed from birth, nor is his father’s Line unsullied,” exclaimed Lin Ho, deeming his strategy to lie in a judicious evasion until he could satisfy himself more fully; and he would have raised a menacing hand to touch his responsive cheek, had he not doubted whether the gesture would be correct in Kuei’s presence.
“Your sublime assurance is a never-failing support to the weak-kneed scruples of my own embarrassment,” confessed the lady Kuei gracefully. “There is, however, a time to speak in the flowery terms of poetical allusion and a time to be distressingly explicit. Descending to the latter plane for one concise moment, O my dragon-hearted, state definitely whether you have or have not at last succeeded in slaying this long-enduring one’s offensive and superfluous lord, and in attaching to yourself his personal belongings?”
Alas, it has been truly said, “He who flies on an eagle’s back must sooner or later drop off,” and Lin Ho was experiencing the justice of the verse. But when it seemed as though he could no longer maintain an equivocal poise, an inspired recollection of Lam-kwong’s boast—that he had achieved his enterprise—came back and decided him to accept the hazard.
“With these unworthy hands have your unmentionable sufferings been ended,” he accordingly declared, “and here”—at this point he poured out before her feet the varied contents of Lam-kwong’s inner sleeve—“here is the evidence that I do not lean on words.”
“Truly your little finger is more achieving then the whole of Fang-tso’s two-faced body,” exclaimed the one beside him exultantly. “Here are his keys and signet and his personal authority as well! Who can any longer doubt that the band will acclaim you its chief and ruler in Fang-tso’s stead—and this person has ever gone with the band!”
