BAF 45 - Kai Lung;s Golden Hours, page 6
part #45 of Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series
When the distinguished-looking personage had thus regarded Hia for some moments he drew an instrument of hollow tubes from a fold of his garment and began to sing of two who, as the outcome of a romantic encounter similar to that then existing, had professed an agreeable attachment for one another and had, without unnecessary delay, entered upon a period of incomparable felicity. Doubtless Hia would have uttered words of high-minded rebuke at some of the more detailed analogies of the recital had not the pearl deprived her of the power of expressing herself clearly on any subject whatever, nor did it seem practicable to her to remove it without withdrawing her hands from the modest attitudes into which she had at once distributed them. Thus positioned, she was compelled to listen to the stranger’s well-considered flattery, and this (together with the increasing coldness of the stream as the evening deepened) convincingly explains her ultimate acquiescence to his questionable offers.
Yet it cannot be denied that Ning (as he may now fittingly be revealed) conducted the enterprise with a seemly liberality; for upon receiving from Hia a glance not expressive of discouragement he at once caused the appearance of a suitably-furnished tent, a train of Nubian slaves offering rich viands, rare wine and costly perfumes, companies of expert dancers and musicians, a retinue of discreet elderly women to robe her and to attend her movements, a carpet of golden silk stretching from the water’s edge to the tent, and all the accessories of a high-class profligacy.
When the night was advanced and Hia and Ning, after partaking of a many-coursed feast, were reclining on an ebony couch, the Being freely expressed the delight that he discovered in her amiable society, incautiously adding: “Demand any recompense that is within the power of this one to grant, O most delectable of water-nymphs, and its accomplishment will be written by a flash of lightning.” In this, however, he merely spoke as the treacherous Leou (who had enticed him into the adventure) had assured him was usual in similar circumstances, he himself being privately of the opinion that the expenditure already incurred was more than adequate to the occasion.
Then replied Hia, as she had been fully instructed against the emergency: “The word has been spoken. But what is precious metal after listening to the pure gold of thy lips, or who shall again esteem gems while gazing upon the full round radiance of thy moon-like face? One thing only remains: remove the various sheaths from off thy hands, for they not only conceal the undoubted perfection of the nails within, but their massive angularity renders the affectionate ardour of your embrace almost intolerable.”
At this very ordinary request a sudden flatness overspread Ning’s manner and he began to describe the many much more profitable rewards that Hia might fittingly demand. As none of these appeared to entice her imagination, he went on to rebuke her want of foresight, and, still later, having unsuccessfully pointed out to her the inevitable penury and degradation in which her thriftless perversity would involve her later years, to kick the less substantial appointments across the tent.
“The night thickens, with every appearance of a storm,” remarked Hia pleasantly. “Yet that same impending flash of promised lightning tarries somewhat.”
“Truly is it written, ‘A gracious woman will cause more strife than twelve armed men can quell,’” retorted Ning bitterly.
“Not, perchance, if one of them bares his nails?” Thus she lightly mocked him, but always with a set intent, as a poised dragonfly sips water yet does not wet his wings. Whereupon, finally, Ning tore the sheaths from off his fingers and cast them passionately about her feet, immediately afterwards sinking into a profound sleep, for both the measure and the potency of the wine he had consumed exceeded his usual custom. Otherwise he would scarcely have acted in this incapable manner, for each sheath was inscribed with one symbol of a magic charm and in the possession of the complete sentence resided the whole of the Being’s authority and power.
Then Hia, seeing that he could no longer control her movements, and that the end to which she had been bending was attained, gathered together the fruits of her conscientious strategy and fled.
When Ning returned to a condition of ordinary perceptions he was lying alone in the field by the riverside. The great sky-fire made no pretence of averting its rays from his uncovered head, and the lesser creatures of the ground did not hesitate to walk over his once sacred form. The tent and all the other circumstances of the quest of Hia had passed into a state of no-existence, for with a somewhat narrow-minded economy the deity had called them into being with the express provision that they need only be of such a quality as would last for a single night.
With this recollection, other details began to assail his mind. His irreplaceable nail-sheaths—there was no trace of one of them. He looked again. Alas! his incomparable nails were also gone, shorn off to the level of his finger ends. For all their evidence he might be one who had passed his days in discreditable industry. Each moment a fresh point of degradation met his benumbed vision. His profuse and ornamental locks were reduced to a single roughly-plaited coil; his sandals were inelegant and harsh; in place of his many-coloured flowing robes a scanty blue gown clothed his form. He who had been a god was undistinguishable from the labourers of the fields. Only in one thing did the resemblance fail: about his neck he found a weighty block of wood controlled by an iron ring: while they at least were free he was a captive slave.
A shadow on the grass caused him to turn. Sun Wei approached, a knotted thong in one hand, in the other a hoe. He pointed to an unweeded rice-field and with many ceremonious bows pressed the hoe upon Ning as one who confers high honours. As Ning hesitated, Sun Wei pressed the knotted thong upon him until it would have been obtuse to disregard his meaning. Then Ning definitely understood that he had become involved in the workings of very powerful forces, hostile to himself, and picking up the hoe he bent his submissive footsteps in the direction of the laborious rice-field.
III. THE INCOMING OF THE YOUTH, TIAN
It was dawn in the High Heaven and the illimitable N’guk, waking to his labours for the day, looked graciously around on the assembled myriads who were there to carry his word through boundless space. Not wanting are they who speak two-sided words of the Venerable One from behind fan-like hands, but when his voice takes upon it the authority of a brazen drum knees become flaccid.
“There is a void in the unanimity of our council,” remarked the Supreme, his eye resting like a flash of lightning on a vacant place. “Wherefore tarries Ning, the son of Shin, the Seed-sower?”
For a moment there was an edging of N’guk’s inquiring glance from each Being to his neighbour. Then Leou stood audaciously forth.
“He is reported to be engaged on a private family matter,” he replied gravely. “Haply his feet have become entangled in a mesh of hair.”
N’guk turned his benevolent gaze upon another—one higher in authority.
“Perchance,” admitted the superior Being tolerantly. “Such things are. How comes it else that among the earth-creatures we find the faces of the deities—both the good and the bad?”
“How long has he been absent from our paths?”
They pressed another forward—keeper of the Outer Path of the West Expanses, he.
“He went, High Excellence, in the fifteenth of the earth-ruler Chun, whom your enlightened tolerance has allowed to occupy the lower dragon throne for two score years, as these earthlings count. Thus and thus—”
“Enough!” exclaimed the Supreme. “Hear my iron word.
When the buffon-witted Ning rises from his congenial slough this shall be his lot: for sixty thousand ages he shall fail to find the path of his return, but shall, instead, thread an aimless flight among the frozen ambits of the outer stars, carrying a tormenting train of fire at his tail. And Leou, the Whisperer,” added the Divining One, with the inscrutable wisdom that marked even his most opaque moments, “Leou shall meanwhile perform Ning’s neglected task.”
* * * * *
For five and twenty years Ning had laboured in the fields of Sun Wei with a wooden collar girt about his neck, and Sun Wei had prospered. Yet it is to be doubted whether this last detail deliberately hinged on the policy of Leou or whether Sun Wei had not rather been drawn into some wider sphere of destiny and among converging lines of purpose. The ways of the gods are deep and sombre, and water once poured out will flow as freely to the north as to the south. The wise kowtows acquiescently whatever happens and thus his face is to the ground. “Respect the deities,” says the imperishable Sage, “but do not become familiar with them.” Sun Wei was clearly wrong.
To Ning, however, standing in a grassy space on the edge of a flowing river, such thoughts do not extend. He is now a little hairy man of a gnarled appearance, and his skin of a colour and texture like a ripe lo-quat. As he stands there, something in the outline of the vista stirs the retentive tablets of his mind: it was on this spot that he first encountered Hia, and from that involvement began the cycle of his unending ill.
As he stood thus, implicated with his own inner emotions, a figure emerged from the river at its nearest point and, crossing the intervening sward, approached. He had the appearance of being a young man of high and dignified manner, and walked with the air of one accustomed to a silk umbrella, but when Ning looked more closely, to see by his insignia what amount of reverence he should pay, he discovered that the youth was destitute of the meagrest garment.
“Rise, venerable,” said the stranger affably, for Ning had prostrated himself as being more prudent in the circumstances. “The one before you is only Tian, of obscure birth, and himself of no particular merit or attainment. You, doubtless, are of considerably more honourable lineage?”
“Far from that being the case,” replied Ning, “the one who speaks bears now the commonplace name of Lieu, and is branded with the brand of Sun Wei. Formerly, indeed, he was a god, moving in the Upper Space and known to the devout as Ning, but now deposed by treachery.”
“Unless the subject is one that has painful associations,” remarked Tian considerately, “it is one on which this person would willingly learn somewhat deeper. What, in short, are the various differences existing between gods and men?”
“The gods are gods; men are men,” replied Ning. “There is no other difference.”
“Yet why do not the gods now exert their strength and raise from your present admittedly inferior position one who is of their band?”
“Behind their barrier the gods laugh at all men. How much more then is their gravity removed at the sight of one of themselves who has fallen lower than mankind?”
“Your plight would certainly seem to be an ill-destined one,” admitted Tian, “for, as the Verses say, ‘Gold sinks deeper than dross.’ Is there anything that an ordinary person can do to alleviate your subjection?”
“The offer is a gracious one,” replied Ning, “and such an occasion undoubtedly exists. Some time ago a pearl of unusual size and lustre slipped from its setting about this spot. I have looked for it in vain, but your acuter eyes, perchance—”
Thus urged, the youth Tian searched the ground, but to no avail. Then chancing to look upwards, he exclaimed:
“Among the higher branches of the tallest bamboo there is an ancient phoenix nest, and concealed within its wall is a pearl such as you describe.”
“That manifestly is what I seek,” said Ning. “But it might as well be at the bottom of its native sea, for no ladder could reach to such a height nor would the slender branch support a living form.”
“Yet the emergency is one easily disposed of.” With these opportune words the amiable person rose from the ground without any appearance of effort or conscious movement, and floating upward through the air he procured the jewel and restored it to Ning.
When Ning had thus learned that Tian possessed these three attainments which are united in the gods alone—that he could stand naked before others without consciousness of shame, that his eyes were able to penetrate matter impervious to those of ordinary persons, and that he controlled the power of rising through the air unaided—he understood that the one before him was a deity of some degree. He therefore questioned him closely about his history, the various omens connected with his life and the position of the planets at his birth. Finding that these presented no element of conflict, and that, furthermore, the youth’s mother was a slave, formerly known as Hia, Ning declared himself more fully and greeted Tian as his undoubted son.
“The absence of such a relation is the one thing that has pressed heavily against this person’s satisfaction in the past, and the deficiency is now happily removed,” exclaimed Tian. “The distinction of having a deity for a father outweighs even the present admittedly distressing condition in which he reveals himself. His word shall henceforth be my law.”
“The sentiment is a dutiful one,” admitted Ning, “and it is possible that you are now thus discovered in pursuance of some scheme among my more influential accomplices in the Upper Air for restoring me to my former eminence.”
“In so meritorious a cause this person is prepared to immerse himself to any depth,” declared Tian readily.
“Nothing but the absence of precise details restrains his hurrying feet.”
“Those will doubtless be communicated to us by means of omens and portents as the requirement becomes more definite. In the meanwhile the first necessity is to enable this person’s nails to grow again; for to present himself thus in the Upper Air would be to cover him with ridicule. When the Emperor Chow-sin endeavoured to pass himself off as a menial by throwing aside his jewelled crown, the rebels who had taken him replied, ’Omnipotence, you cannot throw away your knees.’ To claim kinship with those Above and at the same time to extend towards them a hand obviously inured to probing among the stony earth would be to invite the averted face of recognition.”
“Let recognition be extended in other directions and the task of returning to a forfeited inheritance will be lightened materially,” remarked a significant voice.
“Estimable mother,” exclaimed Tian, “this opportune stranger is my venerated father, whose continuous absence has been an overhanging cloud above my gladness, but now happily revealed and restored to our domestic altar.”
“Alas!” interposed Ning, “the opening of the enterprise forecasts a questionable omen. Before this person stands the one who enticed him into the beginning of all his evil; how then—”
“Let the word remain unspoken,” interrupted Hia. “Women do not entice men—though they admittedly accompany them, with an extreme absence of reluctance, in any direction. In her youth this person’s feet undoubtedly bore her occasionally along a light and fantastic path, for in the nature of spring a leaf is green and pliable, and in the nature of autumn it is brown and austere, and through changeless ages thus and thus. But, as it is truly said, ‘Milk by repeated agitation turns to butter,’ and for many years it has been this one’s ceaseless study of the Arts whereby she might avert that which she helped to bring about in her unstable youth.”
“The intention is a commendable one, though expressed with unnecessary verbiage,” replied Ning. “To what solution did your incantations trend?”
“Concealed somewhere within the walled city Ti-foo are the sacred nail-sheaths on which your power so essentially depends, sent thither by Sun Wei at the crafty instance of the demon Leou, who hopes at a convenient time to secure them for himself. To discover these and bear them forth will be the part allotted to Tian, and to this end has the training of his youth been bent. By what means he shall strive to the accomplishment of the project the unrolling curtain of the future shall disclose.”
“It is as the destinies shall decide and as the omens may direct,” said Tian. “In the meanwhile this person’s face is inexorably fixed in the direction of Ti-foo.”
“Proceed with all possible discretion,” advised Ning. “In so critical an undertaking you cannot be too cautious, but at the same time do not suffer the rice to grow around your advancing feet.”
“A moment,” counselled Hia. “Tarry yet a moment. Here is one whose rapidly moving attitude may convey a message.”
“It is Lin Fa!” exclaimed Ning, as the one alluded to drew near—“Lin Fa who guards the coffers of Sun Wei. Some calamity pursues him.”
“Hence!” cried Lin Fa as he caught sight of them, yet scarcely pausing in his flight; “flee to the woods and caves until the time of this catastrophe be past. Has not the tiding reached you?”
“We be but dwellers on the farther bounds and no word has reached our ear, O great Lin Fa. Fill in, we pray you, the warning that has been so suddenly outlined.”
“The usurper Ah-tang has lit the torch of swift rebellion and is flattening down the land that bars his way. Already the villages of Yeng, Leu, Liang-li and the Dwellings by the Three Pure Wells are as dust beneath his trampling feet, and they who stayed there have passed up in smoke. Sun Wei swings from the roof-tree of his own ruined yamen. Ah-tang now lays siege to walled Ti-foo so that he may possess the Northern Way. Guard this bag of silver meanwhile, for what I have is more than I can reasonably bear, and when the land is once again at peace, assemble to meet me by the Five-Horned Pagoda, ready with a strict account.” Speaking thus, the distracted Lin Fa cast a heavy bag of silver among them, and taking a firmer hold on those that he retained, resumed his hurrying footsteps to the south.
