Bridge Of Birds (28 page)

When he opened his robe I nearly fainted, because there was a hole where his heart had
been. I could look right through it and see the stone pillar behind, shining in the
sunlight, and the gong and the hammer, and the black gaping mouth of the cave.

“Fantastic,” Master Li said admiringly. “You are truly the wisest man in the world, and a
dolt like myself must bow before your genius.”

The Old Man of the Mountain simpered with pleasure and passed the wine flask, and Li Kao
bowed and drank thirstily.

“It would seem to me that your heart must still be beating somewhere,” Master Li said
thoughtfully. “Would it be safe to transform it into a pebble or a snowflake? A heart that
is transformed is no longer a heart. A simplistic statement, but perhaps intuitively true.”

“Almost entirely true,” the Old Man of the Mountain said approvingly. “A heart cannot be
transformed into a snowflake without killing it unless the entire person is also
transformed into a snowflake. But a heart can be hidden. Of course the value of that
depends upon how well it has been hidden, and you cannot believe the stupidity of some of
the pupils that I've had. Why, one of those dolts was so mindless that he hid his heart
inside the body of a lizard that was inside a cage that was on top of the head of a
serpent what was on top of a tree that was guarded by lions, tigers, and scorpions!
Another cretin, and may Buddha strike me if I lie, concealed his heart inside an egg that
was inside a duck that was inside a basket that was inside a chest that was on an island
that was in the middle of an uncharted ocean. Needless to say, both of those numbskulls
were destroyed by the first half-witted heroes who came along.”

He took the flask and drank deeply, and passed it back again.

“Now you would not be so stupid,” he said. “Try to find treasure that is as cold as this
stuff - a man who has no heart likes things cold, and there is nothing colder than
treasure - and when you return. I will remove your heart and you will hide it well. So
long as it beats, you cannot be killed, and nothing is worse than death.”

I suddenly realized that Li Kao was controlling himself with an immense effort. He was
clenching and unclenching his hands, and he could no longer keep a trace of revulsion from
creeping into his voice.

“Some things are far worse than death,” said Master Li.

The Old Man of the Mountain stiffened. I drew back in fear as I saw his eyes burn with
cold fire.

“My secrets are not sold cheaply,” he said softly.

The Old Man of the Mountain stamped his foot, and a great crack appeared in the earth, and
our poor mules brayed in terror as they plunged down into blackness with the cartload of
treasure; he waved his hand, and the crack closed as though it had never been.

“It is perilous to waste my time,” he whispered.

The wisest man in the world lifted a finger to his lips and blew. The light was blacked
out by a dense cloud, and wind howled, and we were scooped up and sent flying into the
air, whirling around and around inside a black funnel that was thick with dirt and broken
branches and small screaming animals. The cyclone whirled down the mountainside, and I
tried to shield Li Kao's frail body with my own as branches buffeted me and shrieking wind
deafened me. Down and down and around and around, and then the earth leaped up at us and
we landed with a crash that separated me from my senses.

When I regained consciousness I saw that we had landed in soft shrubbery, but if we had
been blown another ten feet we would have sailed over the side of a steep cliff. Far below
I could see a river shining in the sunset, and a boy standing motionless upon the bank,
and a village half-hidden by trees. Birds swooped high and low in the chilly wind that
sighed down from snow-capped peaks, and somewhere a woodcutter was singing a slow sad song.

Li Kao had bandaged the bump on my head. He was sitting cross-legged at the edge of the
cliff, cradling his wine flask. When I gazed up at the distant mountain peaks, I seemed to
hear faint laughter that was like pebbles rattling in an iron pan.

“Master Li, forgive my impertinence, but if the pursuit of wisdom leads to the Old Man of
the Mountain I cannot help but think that men would be better off if they stayed stupid,”
I said.

“Ah, but there is more than one kind of wisdom,” said Master Li. “There is wisdom to take,
and there is wisdom to give, and there is the wisdom of Heaven that is inscrutable to
man.” He tilted his flask to his lips. “In this case, Heaven is becoming scrutable,” he
said when he came up for air.

To my astonishment I saw that Master Li was as happy as a small boy with a large puppy.

“Henpecked Ho gave us a third of the solution to this weird quest, and now the Old Man of
the Mountain has made it two-thirds,” he said with satisfaction. He pointed down to the
riverbank, where the boy had been joined by his friends. “What are those children doing?”

I gazed down and shrugged. “Playing games,” I said.

“Children's games!” Master Li chortled happily. “Rituals, riddles, and nonsense rhymes!”
Then, to my astonishment, he jumped to his feet, waved his wine flask toward Heaven, and
bellowed,
“August Personage of Jade, you have the guts of a first-class burglar!”

I nervously awaited a bolt of lightning, but none came.

“Come along, Ox, we must hurry back toward your village to collect the third piece of the
puzzle,” said Master Li, and he started down the mountainside at a trot.

The Old Man of the Mountain had blown us to the very edge of civilization, and we found
ourselves trudging through a very strange landscape. Flat cracked earth stretched toward
distant mountains with fantastic shapes, like deformed mushrooms, and a cold wind sighed
across twelve hundred miles of empty steppes. Once in a while we would reach a desolate
plain where endless mounds of dirt were laid out with almost geometric precision, and on
top of each mound a gopher stood on its hind legs and watched us pass with bright
wondering eyes. Once an enormous army of rats raced toward us, but when they swept around
and past us, I saw that they were not rats but roots, the famous rolling roots of the peng
plant, which were being blown by the wind toward some unimaginable destiny at the outer
edge of the world.

Gradually the bare mountains acquired scattered trees, and we reached valleys that had
touches of green, and finally the landscape turned into the one I knew so well. Then we
climbed a hill and I saw the outline of Dragon's Pillow, hazy in the distance, and I was
greatly relieved when Master Li said that it was our destination. I could not have borne
the eyes of the parents if we went on to Ku-fu with no ginseng for the children.

We reached the wall as soft purple shadows were creeping like cats across the green
valley, and the birds began to sing the last songs of the day while we climbed the ancient
stones to the Eye of the Dragon. Li Kao sat down upon the floor of the watchtower and
uncovered a bowl of rice that he had bought in the last village. For a few moments he ate
in silence, and then he said:

“Ox, mysteries cease to be mysteries when they are viewed from the proper angle. In this
case we must find the proper angle by recalling a comment that was made by the Duke of
Ch'in not once but twice. 'You seek the right root, but for the wrong reason.' Doesn't
that suggest that we might have unwittingly wandered into a completely different quest
when we started after the Great Root of Power? We can assume that the duke thought that we
might be trying to do something else, and the idea scared him half to death. What sort of
a quest could terrify a tyrant as mighty as the Duke of Ch'in?”

He ate some more rice and watched the shadows climb the wall, and he pointed a chopstick
at the songbirds.

“Let's begin by assuming that Henpecked Ho's story was factual, in the sense of history
that over the centuries has been cloaked in the conventional trappings of myth,” said
Master Li. “There really was a minor deity called the Princess of Birds, although not
necessarily as described in the story, and she really did wear a crown that was decorated
with three feathers from the Kings of Birds. We would have to be as blind as
neo-Confucians not to guess what happened,” he said. “The Duke of Ch'in went to the Old
Man of the Mountain for the Secret of Immortality, and he learned that he must begin by
stealing something that belonged to a deity. He tricked and murdered Jade Pearl's
handmaidens, captured her, and stole her crown. Then the Old Man of the Mountain removed
his heart, which is why the jovial fellow laughs at axes and fatal dosages of poison. It's
been the same duke all along, of course. The tyrant who burned the books of China has been
squatting in the Castle of the Labyrinth ever since, concealed behind the mask of a
snarling tiger.”

My heart was sick as I thought of the duke and his playmates, such as the Hand That No One
Sees. He had paid the wisest man in the world for more than heart surgery. The Duke of
Ch'in had also bought the secrets of reading minds and of controlling the creatures who
lurk in the dark bowels of the earth. What chance would we have against a pupil of the Old
Man of the Mountain?

“Jade Pearl had something that was almost as valuable as her crown,” Master Li continued.
“She had a godmother. Surely a fellow as greedy as the duke would not miss the fact that
the Queen of Ginseng had to be the most valuable plant on the face of the earth, and with
Jade Pearl as his captive, he would probably have been able to capture her godmother as
well. Now I will make one more assumption: The Great Root of Power is the Queen of
Ginseng, and that is why two quests are intertwined.”

Li Kao gazed thoughtfully up at Heaven.

“Ox, the Heaven of the Chinese is superior to all others because nothing is absolute
except the rule of law. The supreme deity is bound by the rules of the Imperial Book of
Etiquette, and if he breaks those rules, he will be abruptly replaced. Thus the Heavenly
Master of the First Origin gave way to the August Personage of Jade, and the Heavenly
Master of the Dawn of Jade of the Golden Door stands ready in the wings to ascend to the
throne the moment the August Personage of Jade gets too big for his sandals. When the
emperor's pet goddess lost her crown and failed to return to the Star Shepherd she passed
from the protection of Heaven, and the Imperial Book of Etiquette does not allow for
excuses. What could the emperor do? Direct intervention would cost him his throne, so if
he did anything it would have to be very sneaky indeed.”

Master Li bent over and laughed until the tears flowed.

“I can just see his Heavenly Majesty sitting there with that damned nursemaid of a book on
his lap!” he chortled. “I can see his eyes scanning the earth, and I can see him sit bolt
upright when two splendid fellows named Li Kao and Number Ten Ox set forth to find the
Great Root of Power. 'What's wrong with trying to help the poor children of the humble
village of Ku-fu?' he says reasonably. 'After all, things like that are the reason for my
existence!' So Pawnbroker Fang and Ma the Grub pop up to tell us that the duke has the
root - and if they uncover a tablet that tells the story of Jade Pearl? 'Accidents will
happen,' sighs the August Personage of Jade. Fang and Ma pop up again to help us escape
from a tower, along with Miser Shen - and if Shen tells us about the Old Man of the
Mountain? 'Accidents will happen,' sighs the August Personage of Jade. The Bamboo
Dragonfly heads straight toward the Cavern of Bells, and after we get a good look at the
painting of the Peddler we are reunited with Henpecked Ho, who has deciphered the story of
the Princess of Birds. 'Accidents,' the emperor sighs, 'will happen, and after all, I'm
only trying to help them find the root that might save the children of Ku-fu.' So far, so
good, but now let's take a look at something truly sneaky, which should not be difficult
to do because we're sitting on it.”

I nervously looked around the wall for something truly sneaky, but the only sneaky thing I
saw was a lizard stalking a bug.

“Centuries ago, a general just happened to dream that he had been summoned to Heaven, and
when he returned he discovered that his plans had been altered to place Dragon's Pillow in
this ludicrous position,” said Master Li. “Then a reading of the Trigrams just happened to
provide a ghostly watchman named Wan, and a couple of centuries after that some of the
local children began playing a game.”

Master Li finished his rice and pointed a chopstick at me.

“The Duke of Ch'in very nearly eliminated all trace of the Princess of Birds when he
burned the books, destroyed priests and temples and worshippers, and decapitated
professional storytellers, but he forgot about a children's game,” said Master Li. “Ox,
there is such a thing as racial memory, which preserves events long after conventional
histories have turned to dust. One of the ways in which this memory is expressed is
through the games and songs of children, and when the children came to the wall that day,
they began to play the Hopping Hide and Seek Game, which happens to be the history of the
Duke of Ch'in and the Princess of Birds.”

I stared at him stupidly.

“Jade Pearl was a ginseng child, in the sense that her godmother was the Queen of
Ginseng,” said Master Li. “How do you capture a ginseng child?”

“With a red ribbon,” I said.

“How did the duke disguise himself when he approached her handmaidens?”

I thought of the painting in the Cavern of Bells. “As a lame peddler who leaned upon a
crutch,” I said.

Li Kao began to imitate the sick boys in the infirmary at the monastery, shaking his
shoulders and snatching at the air. Then he imitated the girls, making swooping pulling
gestures.

“The boys are pretending to be lame peddlers who must hop on one leg, although they are
not consciously aware of it,” he said. “They are trying to get the girls' red ribbons, and
while the girls are not aware of it, they are ginseng handmaidens who are being killed.
The last girl becomes Jade Pearl, but the Princess of Birds cannot be killed because she
has eaten the Peach of Immortality. So the boy who takes her red ribbon hides her. He is
now the duke, and the other children become the birds of China, blindfolded because the
birds cannot see their princess after she has lost her crown. They try to find and rescue
her by touch, but there is a time limit. All right, why does the duke count to forty-nine?”