BAF 64 - Kai Lung Unrolls His Mat, page 24
part #64 of Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series
“Your whisper,” admitted Chou with inoffensive tact, “is more far-reaching than the vindictive outlaw’s loudest summons. Yet has it not been written, ‘Beggars point the way to fortune’?”
“Not less aptly does the saying run, ‘No stream is mighty at its source,’” Yan made rejoinder. “Let mere misgivings fade. One who has brought down to you a diadem of stars to set upon your brow”—in this expressive way he indicated the string of poems extolling Chou’s perfection that hung about his stinted cell—“is scarcely prone to tremble at the thought of ravishing the moon to deck your floating hair.”
“It is enough to have reached this apex,” confessed Chou as she listened to Yan’s discriminating tribute; “for my unworthy name will shine by the pure light of your renown forever. I am a queen upon a golden throne, and the people of the earth will bow down before my glory.”
At an early gong-stroke of the following day, after performing his simple rites, Yan took up his staff and set forth on a journey. Distantly related to him by an obscure tie, there lived in a cave among the higher Quang-ling Mountains an elderly astronomer, Cheng his name and his house the reputable one of Chang, who had chosen that barren and austere retreat out of a painstaking resolve to miss no portent in the starry sphere. To consult this profound recluse was now Yan’s object, for who could advise him better than one who had spent the fullness of his life in watching the movements of the Inner and the Outer Upper Paths and the ever-shifting flux of the Beyond? As he passed Ah-mong’s stronghold that truculent leper himself appeared upon his rugged tower and began to whet his great two-handed sword meaningly upon a marble hone, purposely throwing the drip in Yan’s direction. To this insult the scholar replied with a suitably barbed apophthegm, but beyond this they ignored each other’s presence.
Chang Cheng received his kinsman gladly and set out a choicer sufficiency of food and wine than was his own abstemious custom. For some time their conversation was restricted to a well-kept-up exchange of compliments, but gradually the visitor introduced the subject of his ambition. When he fully understood what was required of him, Cheng’s face altered somewhat, but he betrayed no resentment.
“In temporal matters involving force or strategy, it is this one’s habit to be guided almost wholly by the wisdom of misshapen Mow, the dwarf who waits upon his person,” he remarked. “Retire now to your inner recess of the cave, and when the pigmy alluded to returns from gathering herbs, some scheme advancing your felicity may be propounded. In the meanwhile—prosperity and an absence of dragon dreams from about your couch attend you!”
“May the planets weave the lucky sign above your virtuous head!” replied Yan with equal aptness, as he lay down upon the floor. Weary as he was with the long exertion of the day, thoughts of Chou and of the great enterprise upon which his feet had entered kept him for many gong-strokes from floating off into the Middle Air, but as long as he remained awake, whenever he raised his head he could hear the distant murmur of thoughtful voices as Chang Cheng and the gnomish Mow discussed the means of his advancement.
The next morning Yan would have questioned Chang Cheng as to the outcome of the discourse, but the astronomer parried the inquiry with a ready saying.
“‘He who can predict winning numbers has no need to let off crackers,’” he made reply. “What we shall offer for your enlargement will be displayed at the proper moment.”
“If it is not inopportune, I should like to exchange greetings with one whose cunning stands so high in your esteem,” said Yan. “Will the dwarf Mow presently appear?”
“He has set out upon a distant journey,” replied the other evasively. “Now that the light is here, let us go forth.”
He led the way across the mountains, avoiding the path by which Yan had come, and soon they were in a hidden valley, between two projecting crags.
“These two rocks have been called Jin and Neu for a certain reason,” remarked the astronomer, stopping midway through the ravine and searching the stunted growth around his feet. “Formerly a learned sorcerer lived about this spot, but he was changed into a rivulet by an even stronger power whom he had rashly challenged.”
“Doubtless, in a modified way, he can still disclose his wisdom?” suggested Yan.
“For a time he did so, and the spot had some renown, but during an excessive drought the wellspring of his being dried up and nothing now remains of him. He left a pair of magic iron sandals, however, with the message that whoever could wear them would get his heart’s desire.”
“Was the accommodating prediction verified?” inquired Yan with heightened interest.
“It has never yet been put to the corroding test. Of those who tried to profit by the charm, many were unable to don the gear at all, and of those who could, none were successful in moving from the spot. Therein the requirement failed.”
“If it is not taking up too much of your meritorious time, I would gladly make the essay,” declared the student. “Priceless as your help will be, it is as well to remember the saying, ‘Do not carry all your meat held on one skewer.’”
“It is for that very reason that I have brought you to this forgotten place,” replied Chang Cheng. “Here are the sandals lying among the brake; it only remains for you to justify your boldness.”
Yan knelt beside the iron shoes and, with some exertion, adapted his feet to their proportions. The astronomer meanwhile lent his aid, and at a certain point he bent down and pressed the fastenings of the sandals in a special manner. This done, he stood aside.
“The omens of success are not wanting,” exlaimed Yan, standing upright but remaining on the spot. “Yet so far my self-willed limbs betray my exalted spirit.”
“That is not to be wondered at, seeing that the iron rings, now inextricably fixed about your feet, are chained to the rocks Jin and Neu, one on either side,” replied Chang Cheng, speaking in an altered voice. “The time has now arrived when sincerity may prevail and subterfuge be banished. This design to bind the planets to your purpose, O short-sighted Yan, is a menace to the orderly precision of the Paths and it cannot be endured. Desist you shall, either by force or by entering into a bond pledging your repose, and the respose of the one whom you most covet, throughout futurity.”
’That oath will never be exacted, thou detestable Chang Cheng!” cried Yan, straining at his chains. “Is this then the hospitality of the house of Chang, that was a kennel in the courtyard of my forbears’ palace? Or do malignant changelings haunt the Quang-ling heights?”
“It is better to destroy a shrub than to mutilate a tree,” stubbornly maintained Chang Cheng, but he kept his face averted from that time onward. “However, as it is truly said, ‘If there is meat at one end of a boar, there are sharp tusks at the other,’ and so long as you reject the pacific course there still remains the coercive.” With these insatiable words the perfidious astronomer took from beneath his cloak a cake of paste and a jar of water and placed them on an adjacent rock. “From time to time further sustenance will be provided, and when you are ready to bring your weak-eyed period of restraint to an accommodating close, a pacific sign will not find me hard stomached. May the All Knowing lead your feet to wisdom.”
“May the Destinies guide you even on the edge of a yawning chasm,” responded Yan with absent-minded courtesy, though on recalling what had passed he added, “and also over.”
In such a manner, the inoffensive student Yan came to be abandoned in a narrow pass among the desolate Quang-ling Mountains, with the noontide sun sapping the inner source of his nutrition. Resolved never to relinquish the hope of procuring that which alone would enable him to claim Chou’s fulfilment, the likelihood of remaining chained to two massive rocks to the end of all time did not seem to be a far-distant one. Presently, his thirst having become intolerable, he began to drag his reluctant fetters toward the place on which his food was spread when, for the first time, the deep-laid malice of the offensive plot revealed itself. Thrust how he would, the rock was a full half score of paces still beyond his reach.
In setting forth the exploits of Yan toward the attainment of peerless Chou, later historians have relied on a variety of excuses, some even describing the exact Forces that lent him their aid. Yet this should be deemed superfluous, for putting aside the protecting spirits of his devoted ancestors (who would naturally assist in a matter affecting the continuance of their Line), the outcome was one of logical conclusion. Yan’s determination to avail himself of the challenge ruling Chou’s disposal was unbending and sincere; to do so it was necessary that he should remain in a condition of ordinary existence; and in order to sustain life, food and drink were essential to his being…Toward sunset, Yan stretched out his hand and drank, and ate, for by the tenacity of his purpose he had plucked up Jin and Neu from their rooted fastness and drawn them at his need.
The next morning he awoke, encouraged and sustained. A renewed adequacy of food and water had been placed there in the night but at a yet greater distance from him than the other. By the time that the heat of the day was at its full Yan had reached this also, nor was the exertion so strenuous as before.
For a period of which no exact record has come down, Yan continued chained within the valley of the rocks, and during the whole of that time of inauspicious trial the false-hearted Cheng did not disclose his two-headed face. Yet no day passed without bringing its sufficiency of food, but each time with the labour of obtaining it increased, until Yan had to traverse the entire space of the ravine. This he could at length achieve with contemptuous ease.
When there was no greater test of endurance to which Yan could be there submitted, Chang Cheng one day appeared suddenly before him. Already Yan had striven to escape out of the valley, to confront that most perfidious kinsman eye to eye, but the ill-arranged protrusion of his prison walls had thrown back his most stubborn efforts. Now, with the thwarter of his ambitions and the holder of the key of his release almost within his grasp, a more concentrated range of the emotions lent a goad to his already superhuman power and with a benumbing cry of triumph Yan gathered together his strength and launched himself in Chang Cheng’s direction. But in this he was, as the proverb has it, dining off fish for which he had yet to dig the bait, for with a vigour astonishing in one of his patriarchal cast the astronomer easily outdistanced him and, by his knowledge of the passes, gained the upper peaks. Howbeit, Yan had thus reached a higher point along the outward path than he had ever before come to, and the noise of his progress, as he dragged Jin and Neu crashing from side to side and destroying in his wake, spread the rumour far and wide across the Province that the Hoang Ho had again burst through its banks in flood.
After that, Chang Cheng frequently appeared at this or that spot of the valley, and Yan never failed to extend himself in further pursuit. Each time he attained a higher level on the barren slopes enclosing him, but the last peak ever defied his power. Observing this, the astronomer one day cast back an unbecoming word. Under the lash of this contumely, Yan put forth a special effort and surmounted the final barrier. Outside he found Chang Cheng waiting for him with no diminution of his former friendship.
“The moment has arrived when it is possible to throw aside the mask forever,” remarked the astronomer benignly. “The course of your preparation, Yan, has been intensive and compact, for in no other way was it possible for you to gain the necessary aptitude within a given time.”
“Revered!” exclaimed the student, recalling the many occasions on which the venerable must have suffered extremely in his dignity at the hands of the pursuit. “Can it be-?”
“ ’Our troubles are shallow; our felicities deep-set,’” replied the other, tactfully reversing the adage for Yan’s assurance, “and in contemplating your spreading band of sons I shall have my full reward. When I have removed your shackles, be guarded in what you do, for the least upward movement will certainly carry you out of sight into the above.”
Has not the hour arrived when I may put my presumptuous boldness to the test?” inquired Yan.
“It will do so at a certain instant of the night, for then only, out of the millenaries of time, all the conjunctions will be propitious. Should you fail then through instability of mind or tenuity of will, demons could not preserve you.”
“Should I fall short in so unflattering a manner,” replied Yan capably, “I would not preserve myself, for all hope of possessing Chou would thereby have faded. Yet out of your complicated familiarity with the heavens would it not be possible to indicate some, as it were, sharp-pointed ends for guidance?”
“There are no abbreviated ways across in the infinite,” replied the profound, pointing. “There wheels the shifting target of your adventurous flight, and should you miss the mark your fall into the Lower Void will be definite and headlong. Now wrap your inner fibre round my words, for when you wing your upward track through space, the rush of wind and the shrieks of adverse Forces will be so marrow-freezing that all thoughts which are not being resolutely held will be blown out of your mind.”
“Proceed, esteemed,” encouraged Yan. “My ears stand widely open.”
“When you take your skyward leap from off this plateau, my staff will guide your initial course. If your heart is sincere and your endurance fixed, the momentum will carry you into the Seventh Zonal Path, whence your drift will be ever upward. Speak to none whom you encounter there.”
“Yet should I be questioned by one who seems to have authority?”
“In that case your reply will be, ‘I bear the sword of Fung,’ as you press on.”
“The reference to a sword being doubtless an allusive one,” suggested Yan, with a diffident glance at his shortcoming side.
Chang Cheng moved his shoulders somewhat, though the gesture was too slight to convey actual impatience, and he raised a beckoning hand.
“At a convenient break in the instruction, it was this ill-balanced one’s purpose to disclose the point,” he remarked concisely. “However, for strictly literary exigencies, yours is doubtless the better moment. Let the dwarf Mow appear.”
“I obey, high excellence,” was the response. “Here is the sword, indomitable Yan.”
Yan took the weapon that the gnome had brought and balanced it upon his hand before he slung it. Of imperishable metal, it was three-and-thirty li in length and three across and had both an upper and an under edge for thrusting. The handle was of brass.
“I have somewhere seen the dual of this before,” thought Yan aloud. “Yet few warriors have come my way.”
“It was formerly the sword of that Ah-mong who lived in a strong tower above the Ch’hang River, being both the secret of his power and the reason of his confidence that he should achieve the test,” explained Chang Cheng.
“That accounts for much that was hitherto obscure,” admitted Yan, and he would have inquired further, but the astronomer’s poise did not entice discussion.
“The instant presses on when you must make the cast,” declared the latter person, closely watching the movements of the Paths through the medium of a hollow tube. “The Ram’s Horn has now risen and lying off its sharper end there winks a yellow star. Mark that star well.”
“I have so observed it,” declared the student.
“That is the Eye of Hwang, the Evening Star, and on it your right foot must come to rest. For the grounding of your left you must take Pih, the Morning Star, for that conjunction alone will form the precise equilibrium on which success will hang. Now gird yourself well and free your mind of all retarding passions.”
“I call upon the revered shades of my imperishable ancestors to rally to my cause,” exclaimed Yan boldly. “Let none refrain.”
Chang Cheng indicated that the moment had arrived and held his staff at the directing angle. Mow, who knew the secret of the clasp, cast off the shackles. Then Yan, gathering together the limits of his power, struck the ground a few essaying beats and fearlessly cleft upward. Freed of the clog of Jin and Neu there was no boundary to his aspiration, and he sang a defiant song as he spied the converging lines of spirits string out to meet his coming. When he looked back, the earth was a small pale star between his ankles.
The details of Yan’s passage through the Middle Space would fill seven unassuming books, written in the most laborious style, but wherein would Chou reside? One only spoke of her—Ning, who with a flaming faggot at his tail, as the Supreme had ordered, was threading his tormented path among the Outer Limits. Ning had the memory still of when he dropped to earth to become enamoured of the slave girl Hia, and as he shot past Yan he threw back a word of greeting and would have liked to have Chou’s allurement described in each particular. Let it suffice that “Between He and Ho,” as the proverb goes, Yan gained his celestial foothold and bending forward cut with the sword of Fung what he deemed a sufficiency out of the roundness of the moon. As he withdrew, a shutter was thrown open and a creature of that part looked forth.
“What next!” exclaimed the Being rancorously when he saw what Yan had taken. “Truly does this transcend the outside confine! Is it not enough that for a wholly illusory crime this hard-striving demon is condemned to live upon an already inadequate sphere and burnish its unappetizing face for the guidance of a purblind race of misbegotten earthlings?”
“There will be so much the less for you to keep polished, then,” replied Yan competently. “Farewell, mooncalf. I bear the sword of Fung.”
“May it corrode the substance of the hand that holds it!” retorted the other with an extreme absence of the respectful awe which Yan had relied upon the charm producing. “Hear a last word, thou beetle-thing: that once in each period of measured time I will so turn this lantern which I serve that all may see the havoc you have wrought, and suffering the loss of light thereby will execrate your name forever.”
Yan would have framed an equally contumacious parting had the time at his disposal been sufficient, but remembering Chang Cheng’s warning, and his design being now accomplished, he turned and set a downward course back again to earth.
His purpose would have been to embrace the astronomer affectionately, but, owing to some deflection which lay outside his sphere of control, he found himself transported to the region of his own penurious dwelling. As he neared it, he saw Kuo Tsun, who led Chou by the hand, approaching.
“Not less aptly does the saying run, ‘No stream is mighty at its source,’” Yan made rejoinder. “Let mere misgivings fade. One who has brought down to you a diadem of stars to set upon your brow”—in this expressive way he indicated the string of poems extolling Chou’s perfection that hung about his stinted cell—“is scarcely prone to tremble at the thought of ravishing the moon to deck your floating hair.”
“It is enough to have reached this apex,” confessed Chou as she listened to Yan’s discriminating tribute; “for my unworthy name will shine by the pure light of your renown forever. I am a queen upon a golden throne, and the people of the earth will bow down before my glory.”
At an early gong-stroke of the following day, after performing his simple rites, Yan took up his staff and set forth on a journey. Distantly related to him by an obscure tie, there lived in a cave among the higher Quang-ling Mountains an elderly astronomer, Cheng his name and his house the reputable one of Chang, who had chosen that barren and austere retreat out of a painstaking resolve to miss no portent in the starry sphere. To consult this profound recluse was now Yan’s object, for who could advise him better than one who had spent the fullness of his life in watching the movements of the Inner and the Outer Upper Paths and the ever-shifting flux of the Beyond? As he passed Ah-mong’s stronghold that truculent leper himself appeared upon his rugged tower and began to whet his great two-handed sword meaningly upon a marble hone, purposely throwing the drip in Yan’s direction. To this insult the scholar replied with a suitably barbed apophthegm, but beyond this they ignored each other’s presence.
Chang Cheng received his kinsman gladly and set out a choicer sufficiency of food and wine than was his own abstemious custom. For some time their conversation was restricted to a well-kept-up exchange of compliments, but gradually the visitor introduced the subject of his ambition. When he fully understood what was required of him, Cheng’s face altered somewhat, but he betrayed no resentment.
“In temporal matters involving force or strategy, it is this one’s habit to be guided almost wholly by the wisdom of misshapen Mow, the dwarf who waits upon his person,” he remarked. “Retire now to your inner recess of the cave, and when the pigmy alluded to returns from gathering herbs, some scheme advancing your felicity may be propounded. In the meanwhile—prosperity and an absence of dragon dreams from about your couch attend you!”
“May the planets weave the lucky sign above your virtuous head!” replied Yan with equal aptness, as he lay down upon the floor. Weary as he was with the long exertion of the day, thoughts of Chou and of the great enterprise upon which his feet had entered kept him for many gong-strokes from floating off into the Middle Air, but as long as he remained awake, whenever he raised his head he could hear the distant murmur of thoughtful voices as Chang Cheng and the gnomish Mow discussed the means of his advancement.
The next morning Yan would have questioned Chang Cheng as to the outcome of the discourse, but the astronomer parried the inquiry with a ready saying.
“‘He who can predict winning numbers has no need to let off crackers,’” he made reply. “What we shall offer for your enlargement will be displayed at the proper moment.”
“If it is not inopportune, I should like to exchange greetings with one whose cunning stands so high in your esteem,” said Yan. “Will the dwarf Mow presently appear?”
“He has set out upon a distant journey,” replied the other evasively. “Now that the light is here, let us go forth.”
He led the way across the mountains, avoiding the path by which Yan had come, and soon they were in a hidden valley, between two projecting crags.
“These two rocks have been called Jin and Neu for a certain reason,” remarked the astronomer, stopping midway through the ravine and searching the stunted growth around his feet. “Formerly a learned sorcerer lived about this spot, but he was changed into a rivulet by an even stronger power whom he had rashly challenged.”
“Doubtless, in a modified way, he can still disclose his wisdom?” suggested Yan.
“For a time he did so, and the spot had some renown, but during an excessive drought the wellspring of his being dried up and nothing now remains of him. He left a pair of magic iron sandals, however, with the message that whoever could wear them would get his heart’s desire.”
“Was the accommodating prediction verified?” inquired Yan with heightened interest.
“It has never yet been put to the corroding test. Of those who tried to profit by the charm, many were unable to don the gear at all, and of those who could, none were successful in moving from the spot. Therein the requirement failed.”
“If it is not taking up too much of your meritorious time, I would gladly make the essay,” declared the student. “Priceless as your help will be, it is as well to remember the saying, ‘Do not carry all your meat held on one skewer.’”
“It is for that very reason that I have brought you to this forgotten place,” replied Chang Cheng. “Here are the sandals lying among the brake; it only remains for you to justify your boldness.”
Yan knelt beside the iron shoes and, with some exertion, adapted his feet to their proportions. The astronomer meanwhile lent his aid, and at a certain point he bent down and pressed the fastenings of the sandals in a special manner. This done, he stood aside.
“The omens of success are not wanting,” exlaimed Yan, standing upright but remaining on the spot. “Yet so far my self-willed limbs betray my exalted spirit.”
“That is not to be wondered at, seeing that the iron rings, now inextricably fixed about your feet, are chained to the rocks Jin and Neu, one on either side,” replied Chang Cheng, speaking in an altered voice. “The time has now arrived when sincerity may prevail and subterfuge be banished. This design to bind the planets to your purpose, O short-sighted Yan, is a menace to the orderly precision of the Paths and it cannot be endured. Desist you shall, either by force or by entering into a bond pledging your repose, and the respose of the one whom you most covet, throughout futurity.”
’That oath will never be exacted, thou detestable Chang Cheng!” cried Yan, straining at his chains. “Is this then the hospitality of the house of Chang, that was a kennel in the courtyard of my forbears’ palace? Or do malignant changelings haunt the Quang-ling heights?”
“It is better to destroy a shrub than to mutilate a tree,” stubbornly maintained Chang Cheng, but he kept his face averted from that time onward. “However, as it is truly said, ‘If there is meat at one end of a boar, there are sharp tusks at the other,’ and so long as you reject the pacific course there still remains the coercive.” With these insatiable words the perfidious astronomer took from beneath his cloak a cake of paste and a jar of water and placed them on an adjacent rock. “From time to time further sustenance will be provided, and when you are ready to bring your weak-eyed period of restraint to an accommodating close, a pacific sign will not find me hard stomached. May the All Knowing lead your feet to wisdom.”
“May the Destinies guide you even on the edge of a yawning chasm,” responded Yan with absent-minded courtesy, though on recalling what had passed he added, “and also over.”
In such a manner, the inoffensive student Yan came to be abandoned in a narrow pass among the desolate Quang-ling Mountains, with the noontide sun sapping the inner source of his nutrition. Resolved never to relinquish the hope of procuring that which alone would enable him to claim Chou’s fulfilment, the likelihood of remaining chained to two massive rocks to the end of all time did not seem to be a far-distant one. Presently, his thirst having become intolerable, he began to drag his reluctant fetters toward the place on which his food was spread when, for the first time, the deep-laid malice of the offensive plot revealed itself. Thrust how he would, the rock was a full half score of paces still beyond his reach.
In setting forth the exploits of Yan toward the attainment of peerless Chou, later historians have relied on a variety of excuses, some even describing the exact Forces that lent him their aid. Yet this should be deemed superfluous, for putting aside the protecting spirits of his devoted ancestors (who would naturally assist in a matter affecting the continuance of their Line), the outcome was one of logical conclusion. Yan’s determination to avail himself of the challenge ruling Chou’s disposal was unbending and sincere; to do so it was necessary that he should remain in a condition of ordinary existence; and in order to sustain life, food and drink were essential to his being…Toward sunset, Yan stretched out his hand and drank, and ate, for by the tenacity of his purpose he had plucked up Jin and Neu from their rooted fastness and drawn them at his need.
The next morning he awoke, encouraged and sustained. A renewed adequacy of food and water had been placed there in the night but at a yet greater distance from him than the other. By the time that the heat of the day was at its full Yan had reached this also, nor was the exertion so strenuous as before.
For a period of which no exact record has come down, Yan continued chained within the valley of the rocks, and during the whole of that time of inauspicious trial the false-hearted Cheng did not disclose his two-headed face. Yet no day passed without bringing its sufficiency of food, but each time with the labour of obtaining it increased, until Yan had to traverse the entire space of the ravine. This he could at length achieve with contemptuous ease.
When there was no greater test of endurance to which Yan could be there submitted, Chang Cheng one day appeared suddenly before him. Already Yan had striven to escape out of the valley, to confront that most perfidious kinsman eye to eye, but the ill-arranged protrusion of his prison walls had thrown back his most stubborn efforts. Now, with the thwarter of his ambitions and the holder of the key of his release almost within his grasp, a more concentrated range of the emotions lent a goad to his already superhuman power and with a benumbing cry of triumph Yan gathered together his strength and launched himself in Chang Cheng’s direction. But in this he was, as the proverb has it, dining off fish for which he had yet to dig the bait, for with a vigour astonishing in one of his patriarchal cast the astronomer easily outdistanced him and, by his knowledge of the passes, gained the upper peaks. Howbeit, Yan had thus reached a higher point along the outward path than he had ever before come to, and the noise of his progress, as he dragged Jin and Neu crashing from side to side and destroying in his wake, spread the rumour far and wide across the Province that the Hoang Ho had again burst through its banks in flood.
After that, Chang Cheng frequently appeared at this or that spot of the valley, and Yan never failed to extend himself in further pursuit. Each time he attained a higher level on the barren slopes enclosing him, but the last peak ever defied his power. Observing this, the astronomer one day cast back an unbecoming word. Under the lash of this contumely, Yan put forth a special effort and surmounted the final barrier. Outside he found Chang Cheng waiting for him with no diminution of his former friendship.
“The moment has arrived when it is possible to throw aside the mask forever,” remarked the astronomer benignly. “The course of your preparation, Yan, has been intensive and compact, for in no other way was it possible for you to gain the necessary aptitude within a given time.”
“Revered!” exclaimed the student, recalling the many occasions on which the venerable must have suffered extremely in his dignity at the hands of the pursuit. “Can it be-?”
“ ’Our troubles are shallow; our felicities deep-set,’” replied the other, tactfully reversing the adage for Yan’s assurance, “and in contemplating your spreading band of sons I shall have my full reward. When I have removed your shackles, be guarded in what you do, for the least upward movement will certainly carry you out of sight into the above.”
Has not the hour arrived when I may put my presumptuous boldness to the test?” inquired Yan.
“It will do so at a certain instant of the night, for then only, out of the millenaries of time, all the conjunctions will be propitious. Should you fail then through instability of mind or tenuity of will, demons could not preserve you.”
“Should I fall short in so unflattering a manner,” replied Yan capably, “I would not preserve myself, for all hope of possessing Chou would thereby have faded. Yet out of your complicated familiarity with the heavens would it not be possible to indicate some, as it were, sharp-pointed ends for guidance?”
“There are no abbreviated ways across in the infinite,” replied the profound, pointing. “There wheels the shifting target of your adventurous flight, and should you miss the mark your fall into the Lower Void will be definite and headlong. Now wrap your inner fibre round my words, for when you wing your upward track through space, the rush of wind and the shrieks of adverse Forces will be so marrow-freezing that all thoughts which are not being resolutely held will be blown out of your mind.”
“Proceed, esteemed,” encouraged Yan. “My ears stand widely open.”
“When you take your skyward leap from off this plateau, my staff will guide your initial course. If your heart is sincere and your endurance fixed, the momentum will carry you into the Seventh Zonal Path, whence your drift will be ever upward. Speak to none whom you encounter there.”
“Yet should I be questioned by one who seems to have authority?”
“In that case your reply will be, ‘I bear the sword of Fung,’ as you press on.”
“The reference to a sword being doubtless an allusive one,” suggested Yan, with a diffident glance at his shortcoming side.
Chang Cheng moved his shoulders somewhat, though the gesture was too slight to convey actual impatience, and he raised a beckoning hand.
“At a convenient break in the instruction, it was this ill-balanced one’s purpose to disclose the point,” he remarked concisely. “However, for strictly literary exigencies, yours is doubtless the better moment. Let the dwarf Mow appear.”
“I obey, high excellence,” was the response. “Here is the sword, indomitable Yan.”
Yan took the weapon that the gnome had brought and balanced it upon his hand before he slung it. Of imperishable metal, it was three-and-thirty li in length and three across and had both an upper and an under edge for thrusting. The handle was of brass.
“I have somewhere seen the dual of this before,” thought Yan aloud. “Yet few warriors have come my way.”
“It was formerly the sword of that Ah-mong who lived in a strong tower above the Ch’hang River, being both the secret of his power and the reason of his confidence that he should achieve the test,” explained Chang Cheng.
“That accounts for much that was hitherto obscure,” admitted Yan, and he would have inquired further, but the astronomer’s poise did not entice discussion.
“The instant presses on when you must make the cast,” declared the latter person, closely watching the movements of the Paths through the medium of a hollow tube. “The Ram’s Horn has now risen and lying off its sharper end there winks a yellow star. Mark that star well.”
“I have so observed it,” declared the student.
“That is the Eye of Hwang, the Evening Star, and on it your right foot must come to rest. For the grounding of your left you must take Pih, the Morning Star, for that conjunction alone will form the precise equilibrium on which success will hang. Now gird yourself well and free your mind of all retarding passions.”
“I call upon the revered shades of my imperishable ancestors to rally to my cause,” exclaimed Yan boldly. “Let none refrain.”
Chang Cheng indicated that the moment had arrived and held his staff at the directing angle. Mow, who knew the secret of the clasp, cast off the shackles. Then Yan, gathering together the limits of his power, struck the ground a few essaying beats and fearlessly cleft upward. Freed of the clog of Jin and Neu there was no boundary to his aspiration, and he sang a defiant song as he spied the converging lines of spirits string out to meet his coming. When he looked back, the earth was a small pale star between his ankles.
The details of Yan’s passage through the Middle Space would fill seven unassuming books, written in the most laborious style, but wherein would Chou reside? One only spoke of her—Ning, who with a flaming faggot at his tail, as the Supreme had ordered, was threading his tormented path among the Outer Limits. Ning had the memory still of when he dropped to earth to become enamoured of the slave girl Hia, and as he shot past Yan he threw back a word of greeting and would have liked to have Chou’s allurement described in each particular. Let it suffice that “Between He and Ho,” as the proverb goes, Yan gained his celestial foothold and bending forward cut with the sword of Fung what he deemed a sufficiency out of the roundness of the moon. As he withdrew, a shutter was thrown open and a creature of that part looked forth.
“What next!” exclaimed the Being rancorously when he saw what Yan had taken. “Truly does this transcend the outside confine! Is it not enough that for a wholly illusory crime this hard-striving demon is condemned to live upon an already inadequate sphere and burnish its unappetizing face for the guidance of a purblind race of misbegotten earthlings?”
“There will be so much the less for you to keep polished, then,” replied Yan competently. “Farewell, mooncalf. I bear the sword of Fung.”
“May it corrode the substance of the hand that holds it!” retorted the other with an extreme absence of the respectful awe which Yan had relied upon the charm producing. “Hear a last word, thou beetle-thing: that once in each period of measured time I will so turn this lantern which I serve that all may see the havoc you have wrought, and suffering the loss of light thereby will execrate your name forever.”
Yan would have framed an equally contumacious parting had the time at his disposal been sufficient, but remembering Chang Cheng’s warning, and his design being now accomplished, he turned and set a downward course back again to earth.
His purpose would have been to embrace the astronomer affectionately, but, owing to some deflection which lay outside his sphere of control, he found himself transported to the region of his own penurious dwelling. As he neared it, he saw Kuo Tsun, who led Chou by the hand, approaching.
