BAF 64 - Kai Lung Unrolls His Mat, page 23
part #64 of Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series
Chou, also, was not entirely devoid of unnatural gifts. She could, she had learned by chance, transform herself into the appearance of certain of the lower creatures, and in moments of concentrated emotion, when words became inadequate, she had the power of breathing out fire. But with a seemly regard for the proprieties she gradually relinquished both these practices, although a few sparks occasionally betrayed the sincerity of her feelings even in later years. Her own she-children enjoyed the same corrosive attribute to a less visible degree, while her he-children walked in the integritous footsteps of their accomplished grandsire. One became a high official, the second a fearless warrior, and yet a third a person of commercial eminence. All possessed the serviceable capacity of transmutation, but the process was rather more protracted and involved than it had been with the inspired founder of their Line, and it was not infrequently discovered that what looked like gold in its creator’s hands had in some obscure way assumed another and inferior guise after it had been successfully disposed of.
In the interval of his meditations, Kuo Tsun did not disdain to take Chou indulgently by the hand and to point out to her the properties of things and the inferences that his well-trained mind evolved.
“We perceive,” he thus explained, “that by a beneficent scheme of spells and counter-charms when the light goes darkness gradually appears, and when darkness has run its appointed span the light is ready again to take its place. What, however, would occur if by some celestial oversight this had not been foreseen, and both light and dark had been withdrawn together? The logical mind bends almost double beneath the weight of so dire a catastrophe, but it is inevitable that in place of creatures of the day and creatures of the night the Empire would have become the haunt-ing-place of a race of pale and uncertain ghosts.”
“You are all-knowing,” replied Chou with ingratiating candour, though it did not escape the philosopher’s notice that she was gazing in several other directions as she spoke. “Your eyes see round the corners of the earth, and wisdom distends your waistband.”
“Say on,” remarked Kuo Tsun dispassionately. “Yet should this appreciation forecast another robe of netted gold, or a greater sufficiency of honeyed figs, let it be cheerfully understood among us that this afflicted person’s eyes are practically opaque and his outline concave.”
“Your large-handed bounty satisfies in every way,” declared Chou openly. “The reference to your admitted powers was concrete and sincere. Something in the nature of an emergency confronts the one before you, and she would lean heavily upon your sympathetic lore.”
“In that case,” said the magician, “it might be well to have all the support available,” and he would have proceeded to trace the Symbols on the ground with his bamboo wand had not Chou’s lotus hand restrained him.
“It is by raising your eyes, rather, than bending them upon the earth, that enlightenment will come,” she urged. “Behold, before us stretch the disputatious waters of the Ch’hang Ho.”
“Truly so,” agreed Kuo Tsun; “yet by pronouncing a single word of magic I can, should you desire to cross, cause a solid shaft of malachite to span the torrent.”
“The difficulty is not so easily bridged as that,” replied Chou, directing an evenly balanced glance of some significance. “What detail on the west bank of the river most attracts your never-failing gaze?”
“Upon a convenient crag there rises the strong tower of Ah-mong, the robber chief,” pronounced Kuo Tsun. “At the moment it is rendered doubly conspicuous by the fact that the revolting outlaw himself stands upon the highest pinnacle and waves a two-edged sword in this direction.”
“Such is his daily threat,” declared Chou with a refined shudder of well-arranged despair, “it being his avowed intention to destroy all people by that means unless this one will consent to grace his inner chamber.”
Although Kuo Tsun could not repress an element of surprise that the matter had progressed to so definite a complication without a hint even of its inception warning him, he did not suffer the emergency to impair the broad-minded tolerance of his vision.
“Thus positioned,” he judicially remarked, “it might become more prudent to recall the far-reaching length of Ah-mong’s sword rather than the distressing shortness of his finger nails, and to dwell on the well-lined depth of his treasure-store to the exclusion of his obvious shallowness of mind.”
“Perchance,” assented Chou; “yet now direct your all-discerning glance to the east bank of the river and indicate what feature of the landscape most forcibly asserts itself.”
“The meagre hut of the insolvent scholar Yan is in itself a noticeable landmark,” was the reply. “As the versatile student of the Classics is even now—by a process quite outside this inefficient person’s antiquated wizardry—projecting a display of lightning flashes from a revolving wheel, the spot assumes an added prominence.”
“The perfection of that device is the assiduous Yan’s continual aim,” expounded Chou. “This effected, it is his lamentable design to require the diffident one now conversing with you to share his penurious cell, and should this be withheld, to consume the world with fire.”
At this further disclosure of the well-spread range of
Chou’s allurement, Kuo Tsun did not deem it inept to clear his throat of acrimony.
“Doubtless it is as it was designed from the beginning of time,” he took occasion to remark, “for had the deities intended that men should control the movements of their lesser ones, instead of two eyes in front, they would have endowed us with sixteen, arranged all round.”
“Doubtless,” assented Chou with commendable docility, “but pending the arrival of that Golden Age, by what agile display of deep-witted philosophy is it your humane purpose to avert these several ills?”
“The province of philosophy,” replied the one who thus described his office, “is not so much to prevent calamities befalling as to demonstrate that they are blessings when they have taken place. The only detail that need concern us here is to determine whether it is more unpleasant to be burned to death or to perish by the sword.”
“That is less than my conception of the issue,” declared Chou with an indomitable air. “Is then mankind to become extinguished and the earth remain a void by reason of this one’s inopportune perfection? Rather than suffer that extremity, she will resolutely set out to conform to the requirements of both positions.”
“Restrain your admitted reluctance to jeopardize the race for at least a few beats of time,” counselled Kuo Tsun, withdrawing his mind from a deep inward contemplation. “There is an apt saying, ‘What appear to be the horns of a bull by night stand revealed as the ears of a mule at daybreak,’ and something in the nature of a verbal artifice occurs to me. Exactly what form this should take eludes the second-rate functioning of my misshapen brain at the moment but light will doubtless be vouchsafed…Had the ill-dispositioned chieftain of an unsightly band of low-caste footpads possessed even the rudiments of a literary style, an eliminating test in the guise of an essay in antitheses might have been arranged between them.”
“With so unexacting a trial, the contingency of both succeeding should not be overlooked,” interposed Chou decisively.
“Leave that to one who in his youth composed an ode containing seven thousand conflicting parallels, so deftly interwoven that even at the end the meaning had to be sought in what was unexpressed,” replied Kuo Tsun with inoffensive confidence. “Putting the same glove on the other hand, if the effete seeker after knowledge known to us as Yan had any acquaintance with the martial arts, a well-contested combat would seem to be the obvious solution.”
“Yet, with so formidable an encounter, the possibility of both succumbing must not be ignored,” urged Chou with humane solicitude; but Kuo Tsun did not applaud her bias.
“It is easier to get honey from the gullet of a she-bear than sincerity from between the lips of an upright woman,” he declared with some annoyance. “If it is neither your will that both should fail nor yet that both should triumph, indicate plainly which of the two permeates your eye with the light of gladness?”
“That,” replied Chou modestly, “is as it will of itself appear hereafter; for if it is no part of the philosopher to avert misfortune, neither is it within the province of a maiden to hasten it.”
As she made this unpretentious reference to the one who should in the fullness of time possess her, the radiant being took from her sleeve a disc of polished brass to reassure herself that her pearl-like face would be worthy of the high occasion, and she also touched her lips with a pigment of a special tincture and enhanced the slanting attraction of her accomplished eyes. But when she would have fixed at a more becoming angle the jewelled comb of scented wood that restrained the abundance of her floating hair, it slipped from her graceful hand and was lost in the darkness of a crevice.
“Alas,” she exclaimed, in an access of magnanimous despair, “that is by no means the first which has escaped my unworthy grasp among these ill-constructed rocks. Would that I might have a comb fashioned of the substance of the great sky lantern hanging there, for then its shining lustre would always reveal its presence.”
“Even that shall be accorded if in return you will but share this degraded outcast’s sordid lot,” cried a harsh and forbidding voice from near at hand, and at the same moment the double-faced Ah-mong disclosed himself from behind a convenient boulder. At the first distant glimpse of Chou he had crept up unheard to gloat his repulsive eyes on her complicated beauty as his obscene habit was. “Entitle me to the low-minded felicitations of my questionable friends, and all the resources of a nimble-fingered band of manyfooted mercenaries shall be pressed into your cause.”
At this proposal, an appropriate saying, in which a bullfrog sought to pursue an eagle, rose to Chou’s lips, but before she had made the unflattering reference Kuo Tsun contrived a sign enjoining caution.
“All this shapes itself to some appointed goal,” he whispered sagely. “The actual end of Ah-mong will certainly be painful and obscure, but in the meanwhile it is as well to play an ambiguous role.”
“Disclose your mind,” continued the obtuse chief robber (the philosopher having, by witchcraft, propelled his speech toward Chou’s ear alone); “for the time has arrived when it is necessary to be explicit. On the one hand is raised this person’s protective arm; on the other, his avenging sword. Partake of either freely.”
“Your amiable condescension retards for the moment the flow of my never really quick-witted offspring’s gratitude,” interposed Kuo Tsun tactfully. “I will therefore lift my discordant voice on her behalf. Your princely dignity requires that your lightest word should be unbending as a wedge of iron, and in this matter my verbal feet are hastening to meet your more than halfway spoken gesture. Procure the slice of heavenly luminary to which allusion has been made, and the ceremonial interchange of binding rites will no longer be delayed.”
“The task is so purely a formality that, among broadminded friends, the suggestion of delay would imply a distorting reflection,” remarked Ah-mong, hoping to outwit Kuo Tsun among the higher obscurities. “Let mutual pledge be made on this auspicious spot.”
“Friendship,” replied the philosopher no less ably, “has been aptly likened to two hands of equal size dipping into one bowl at the selfsame moment. How well-balanced must be the shadow cast by so harmonious a group!”
“May two insatiable demons dip their rapacious claws into your misbegotten vitals!” exclaimed Ah-mong, throwing off all restraint as he recognized his impotence; and with ill-advised precipitancy he seized the alluring form of Chou in his unseemly arms, intending to possess her. In this, however, his feet moved beyond his mental balance, for as his offensive touch closed tenaciously upon her, Chou merged her volition inward and with maidenly reserve changed herself into the form and condition of a hedge-pig. With a full-throated roar of concentrated anguish, Ah-mong leaped back at any hazard, and escaping thus she found safety in a deep fissure of the earth. Not to be wholly deterred in his profane endeavour, Ah-mong then turned upon Kuo Tsun and advanced, waving his voracious sword and uttering cries of menace; but as soon as he was assured of Chou’s security, the far-seeing sage passed upward in the form of a thin wraith of smoke. Brought up against a stubborn wall, Ah-mong threw a little earth into the air and tried several of the simpler forms of magic, but so illiterate was his breeding that in no single instance could he pronounce the essential word aright, and the extent of his achievement was to call down a cloud of stinging scorpions through which he struggled back to his tower morosely, arraigning the deities and cherishing his scars.
On the day following that of this encounter, Chou walked alone along the east bank of the river. Owing, doubdess, to the involved nature of her meditation, she was within sight of Yan’s obscure abode before she realized the circumstance; nor did she at once turn back, partly because so abrupt a movement might have seemed discourteous if he had observed it, but also because she knew at that hour Kuo Tsun would be safely asleep within his inner chamber. As she advanced, slowly yet with graceful ease, the following inoffensive words, sung by one to the accompaniment of vibrating strings, indicated the nature of her welcome.
“Seated on the east bank of the Ch’hiang River,
I tuned my lute into accord with its dark and sombre waters;
But presently the sun appearing every ripple sparkle like a flashing jewel,
And my glad fingers swept the cords in unison.
So when this heaven-sent one approaches all sad and funeral
thoughts are banished,
And my transported heart emits a song of gladness.”
“The time for such palatable expressions of opinion is, alas, withheld,” remarked Chou, as Yan stood hopefully before her. “The calamitous Ah-mong has brought things to a sharply pointed edge among our several destinies, and the future is obscure.”
“So long as our mutual affection thrives, no time can be otherwise than bright,” replied the scholar.
“From a poetical angle that cannot be gainsaid,” admitted Chou. “None the less truly is it written, ’Even flowers turn their faces from the sun that sets,’ and my revered father is, after all, semi-human.”
“Are then the feet of the profound Kuo Tsun’s regard still reversed in my direction?”
“Detestable as the admission is, your imperishable Treatise on the Constituents of. Voidness is his daily execration,” acknowledged Chou. “From this cause a line of dissimulation has necessarily arisen, and the one whom we are now discussing regards you merely as a studious anchoret, instead of a rival philosopher of dangerously advanced views.”
“How then-?” began Yan, but Chou interposed her efficient voice.
“The situation has slipped somewhat from its appointed base,” she explained, “and the commonplace strategy by which I sought to entice his esteem in your direction has taken a devious bend.” In a few well-arranged words, the versatile maiden disclosed the unrolling of events, adding, “Foiled in his besotted might, the intolerant Ah-mong now kow-tows to the requirement of a no-less grasping strategy. He has sent a written message of contrition to the all-wise of my noble Line, admitting that his punishment was just, but holding him to the promise by which he may yet acquire me.”
At the mention of his low-conditioned rival’s name, Yan could not restrain a gesture of dignified contempt.
“Admittedly Ah-mong’s mouth is large,” he declared, “but, the seat of his intellect, if indeed it has not completely shrivelled up, must be stunted in the extreme and of less than average quality. Furthermore, so corrupt is his daily life that, even on the most lenient scale, it can have very little longer now to run, while the greater likelihood is that a large adverse balance will have to be expiated by his weak-kneed descendants and all those connected with his effete stock.”
“In what way is this—this doubtless just punishment incurred, and how will it affect the lesser persons of his household?” demanded Chou, with a manifest solicitude that Yan was too high-minded to impugn.
“Besides his ordinary crimes,” he replied, “Ah-mong is known to do things of which a strict account is kept. These are punished by shortening his span of life here on earth before he goes to the Upper Air, where he will atone for the more serious offences. Thus he has been seen to point repeatedly at rainbows, to tread on grain destined for food, to annoy working bees, and to cook his rice, when pressed for time, over unclean sticks. In the extremity of danger, he hisses noisily between his teeth and he has an offensive habit of spitting up at shooting stars. Taking one thing with another, his end may come at any moment.”
“Yet if in the meanwhile he conforms to the imposed condition and procures the comb of silver light, how regrettable would be this one’s plight!” exclaimed Chou, restraining with some difficulty an impulse to breathe out her sentiments more forcibly.
“Set your mind at rest on that score,” replied Yan with ready confidence. “An obvious solution presents itself to one of philosophical detachment. This obscure person will himself bear off the stipulated spoil, anticipate the sluggish-hearted Mong, and then, despite the shadow of his inimitable theme, hold your honourable unnamed to the performance of his iron word.”
“That would certainly smooth out the situation appreciably,” agreed Chou with more composure. “But how shall you”—thus corroding doubts again assailed her—“being small and badly nurtured, as well as unskilled in the proficiency of arms, succeed where the redoubtable Ah-mong falters?”
“It is a mistake to judge the contents from the size and fabric of the vessel,” declared the one who made reply; “nor is the assurance of the branded label always above corruption.”
