Starry River of the Sky (12 page)

“And I think that’s about when he started getting so slow and mixed up,” Peiyi said slowly. “It’s almost like he’s lost sometimes.”

“He’s like that a lot of the time,” Rendi said.

Peiyi squinted at Rendi as if the sun was reflecting off him. “This is the first time you’ve ever asked me about anybody,” she said. “You never seemed to care about anyone else before.”

Rendi shrugged, and then, for no reason, he grinned at her. Peiyi’s eyes widened, and a small, crooked smile grew on her face in response. Suddenly, they both laughed, and Rendi realized that it was not just Master Chao and Widow Yan who had become friends.

The night continued its moaning, and the day returned to its usual blistering heat. Yes, Rendi thought as he helped Peiyi wash the floors (both of them splashing as much water at each other as they did the ground), it was too hot to leave the village now. If he had to travel by foot, it would be better to wait a week or so.

But right before dinner the next day, when Rendi returned from the Half-Moon Well, a group of fine horses and carriages stood in front of the inn. New guests!

Master Chao, almost twitching with eagerness, met Rendi at the door.

“Take care of the horses,” Master Chao said, almost pushing him. “And then hurry back. There are a lot of new guests, and we need your help serving.”

Rendi led the horses to the stable, filling all the stalls. He was forced to leave the carriages outside, as there was no room in the small stable, but he was able to inspect them. One carriage, its insides covered with plush cushions and shaded by silk curtains, was obviously to carry the honored guest. The guest must be very wealthy, perhaps even royalty, for the other carriages seemed to be solely for his luggage. There should be plenty of places for Rendi to hide. To leave the Village of Clear Sky, he would not have to walk after all. He could crawl into one of these carriages and ride away, just like he’d originally planned.

Somehow, the thought did not fill Rendi with the happiness he expected. He brushed the horses, frowning. Well, he could help Master Chao and Peiyi with the guests before he left—they needed his help to serve dinner, at the very least. And maybe he could find a way to say
goodbye to them. And to Madame Chang and Mr. Shan, and even MeiLan and Widow Yan too. A strange, hard lump seemed to have formed in Rendi’s throat, and he had a hard time swallowing.

“Rendi!” a loud whisper called from the back door of the inn. It was Peiyi. “What are you doing? We need your help!”

Rendi put down the horse brush and left the stable. Peiyi stood at the inn’s doorway and dragged him inside.

“Hurry,” she urged. “Some important government official is here.”

Rendi glanced toward the new guests. The government official clearly was very important; companions who could only be his servants and guards flanked him on all sides. The only things Rendi could see of the important government official were his silk robes and his pale, thin hands, which looked as if they had never held anything heavier than a lute.

Impressed by the guest’s obvious high stature, Master Chao was filled with nervousness. He had filled a jug with wine, and the liquid made tiny waves as his hands trembled. It was Son Wine, the wine Master Chao had
bought from the merchant so long ago, Rendi thought with a pang, but he said nothing. Master Chao jumped and almost spilled the wine when two new guests, dusty-looking traders, entered.

“More guests?” Peiyi said to Rendi. She sighed as the travelers insisted on the first-floor room in the center of the inn. “And superstitious ones too.”

“What do you mean?” Rendi asked.

“Ghosts are supposed to gather in the rooms at the ends of the inn.” Peiyi snorted. “Superstitious guests always want rooms in the middle.”

Rendi grinned, but their conversation was cut short as Master Chao rushed toward them. “Rendi,” Master Chao said, pushing the jug of wine toward him, “serve this.”

“Shouldn’t I look after their animals?” Rendi asked, motioning at the traders.

Master Chao looked around at the busy dining room. Madame Chang and Mr. Shan had also seated themselves at a table. He grimaced. “Serve the wine,” he said, “then take care of their animals. And hurry!”

Rendi spun around quickly, running into one of the superstitious traders walking to another table. The
trader’s belt had a tiger’s paw hanging from it, and it swung toward Rendi as if trying to claw him. He stumbled to the official’s table, barely keeping the wine from tipping.

“Careful, boy,” one of the men said with a grin. “We’ll have to behead you if you spill on us.”

“Beheading?” another man bantered. “I’d think drawing and quartering would be more appropriate.”

“That’s true,” the man agreed with mocking thoughtfulness. “There should be torture and death for insulting the men of Duke Zhe!”

Rendi’s head jerked up, and with horror, he stared at the government official, Magistrate Tiger’s friend, Duke Zhe.

Rendi quickly glanced around him. Peiyi and Master Chao were busy working in the kitchen, and Madame Chang and Mr. Shan seemed to be in their own conversation. Rendi took a deep breath and turned back to the table, where Duke Zhe met his still-panicked eyes with a benevolent smile.

“Come, now. Look, you’ve scared the poor boy,” Duke Zhe said to his companions. “You know these peasant folk will believe anything. Look at that village we passed yesterday with the dog bride.”

The men laughed, and Rendi could do nothing except continue to gape, confusion flickering over his face.

“You’ve never heard of it?” the duke said, mistaking Rendi’s expression. “Perhaps it is just a local custom. The villagers dress up a dog as a bride, in a red gown and the finest jewelry they can afford, and then stage a wedding.”

“They even put the dog in the covered sedan chair,” hooted one of the men, “and had the long procession—it was a big parade with the entire village! Just like a real wedding!”

“It’s all for those in the Starry River above,” Duke Zhe said. “They hope that it makes them laugh so hard that they cry and then rain will fall.”

“These peasants are trying all sorts of things to make it rain,” another man said. “The whole way here, I’ve been seeing all kinds of superstitious appeals. Putting stone carvings in the hot sun to make them suffer, burning smoke in front of statues hoping their eyes will water, throwing dirt on dragon figures…”

“What’s that one for?” Duke Zhe asked with an amusement that made one of the traders scowl.

“To make the dragon bring rain so he can clean himself,” the man hooted. “But there’s a drought happening everywhere but here. This is the first clean cup I’ve seen in a while.”

“It has been very dry here,” Master Chao said, who had by this time come out of the kitchen with Peiyi. “But our village wells still have water.”

“There must be something unusual about this place, then,” one of the traders said with eyes that looked at them with something like suspicion. He fingered the talisman on his belt. Instead of a tiger’s paw like his companion’s, his was a circle made from a coffin nail. “Everywhere else is running out of water and begging for rain.”

“Rendi,” Peiyi whispered to him. She had come over with chopsticks and plates to put on the duke’s table. “Do you remember when you filled in the well and my father said he thought everyone else’s well would go dry soon? They didn’t go dry. Why?”

Rendi tried to shrug.

“It stayed hot, and it didn’t rain. Do you think there is something here that keeps the water from disappearing?”
Peiyi said. “Nothing changed, except Madame Chang coming. But that wouldn’t do anything, would it?”

Rendi could not even shake his head, and finally Peiyi gave him a puzzled look, now more confused about his uninterest than her questions. But Rendi felt frozen, barely able to move, much less talk. All he could do was continue to pour the wine, his knuckles turning white around the jug.

“The other villages sound quite desperate,” Madame Chang said from the next table. Somehow her quiet voice could be heard clearly, even despite the guffaws of the duke’s men. “It sounds as if they need help.”

“Uh… er, yes,” the duke said uncomfortably. “Too bad I am too busy trying to help find missing people instead.”

“Missing people?” Master Chao had come over to push Rendi toward the table of the two traders and stopped as he heard the duke’s words. “My son is missing.”

“I’m searching for a magistrate’s son,” the duke said with a faint tone of admonishment.

Rendi gulped and clutched the cup he was passing to one of the traders, the one with the tiger’s paw. The man looked at him carefully as he firmly took the cup away.

“Of course, of course,” Master Chao said, bowing with embarrassment.

“Two sons, one moon,” Mr. Shan said. “All missing.”

“How old are these missing boys?” the trader called out, ignoring Mr. Shan’s words about the moon.

“Oh, my son is not a boy,” Master Chao said, bowing again, but this time with a hint of wistful sadness. “Jiming is a grown man—or at least he thinks he is.”

“The magistrate’s son is a boy, however,” the duke said with dignity. “A young boy who has probably been kidnapped.”

“Kidnapped?” Rendi gasped before he could stop himself.

“Yes,” Duke Zhe said gravely. “His father is quite upset. I’m conducting this search as a favor for him. It seems it needed the attention of his superiors. The magistrate has
already decreed that anyone found with the boy will be arrested and punished, but his men have found nothing. Poor fellow. His worry has made him into quite a different person—one day I came over unannounced to find him shouting and roaring like a tiger. I even overheard someone calling him Magistrate Tiger.”

“Magistrate Tiger?” Peiyi asked. Her eyes widened, and Rendi felt as if an iron shirt were being tightened around him as Peiyi continued. “But… he’s in the story…”

“Story?” Duke Zhe asked.

“There is a story about a tiger that this magistrate should probably hear,” Madame Chang said before Peiyi could say anything else. She looked at Rendi out of the corner of her eye. “Would you like to hear it?”

“Why not?” Duke Zhe said. “We must let the horses rest for the evening anyway.”

T
HE
S
TORY OF THE
W
HITE
T
IGER

L
ong ago, when mountains wandered regularly and before the six suns appeared in the sky, a tiger terrorized a village. This tiger was no ordinary tiger. Not only was it the largest tiger ever seen by the villagers, it was a peculiar color. It was white, a dirty, pasty white, the color of clothes worn at a funeral. This was appropriate, for the tiger brought death with it. Whatever the tiger did not kill right away died soon after from being cut with its claws. Even the famous five poisons of the snake, scorpion, toad, centipede, and spider combined were not as deadly as the poisonous claws of the White Tiger. It fed on the village’s sheep and cattle at whim, and everyone knew that one of the villagers themselves would soon be the tiger’s victim. “We must destroy the White Tiger!” they said to one another. “But how?”

As they did for many things, they consulted the old sage who lived on a mountaintop nearby. But when
they described the fierce White Tiger and asked how they could destroy it, the old sage only stroked his beard and consulted the large book in his lap. Finally, the sage said, “I will have to see the tiger myself. Take me to it.”

The villagers looked at one another, and slowly they led the sage down the mountain, past a tall tree and lake, and to a dark hole, like a cave, in one of the hills around their village. By this time, night had fallen, and the hole looked as black and as evil as the mouth of a dangerous beast.

“The White Tiger lives in there,” the villagers whispered. “We dare not go any farther.”

“Well, I must go in and see it,” the old man said. “Will no one accompany me?”

The villagers looked at one another until finally a young man, the village’s potter, stepped forward. The old sage nodded at him, pleased. Together, they walked into the dark hole, the light of a lantern shaking in the potter’s hand. At the end, the White Tiger lay asleep, looking even larger and more ferocious in the dim light. The old man gazed at the tiger thoughtfully.

“It is as I thought,” he said. “See how the stripes on his forehead make the symbol for the word
wang
? A symbol of power? It is impossible for you to destroy this tiger.”

“Then we are doomed!” the young potter cried.

The sage held his fingers to his lips to quiet the man and led him out of the cave to their village. The villagers gathered around them, only to wail in despair as the sage repeated his words.

“But the tiger must be killed!” the villagers said. “How can we save our village?”

“I can help you do that,” the sage said. “But I will need a baby.”

“A baby?” the villager said. “For what?”

“For the tiger,” the sage said. “It will not be harmed.”

His words brought the village to an uproar. A baby for the tiger! The sage was crazy! No one would give up a child to the tiger. No matter what the sage said, the baby would just be an easy meal for such a wicked beast. Finally, the potter spoke up.

“We will not sacrifice a baby to the tiger,” the young man said. At home, he had a baby daughter and he
would never dream of giving her to the tiger. “We would rather die first.”

The old sage nodded. “I expected as much,” he said. “I will try a substitute. It should be enough to save your village, but it will not completely cure the White Tiger. Bring me a bowl.”

This the young man quickly did, giving the sage one of his handmade bowls. The old sage walked to the lake, a sheet of rippling silk, with the young man and the other villagers following. At the lake’s edge, the sage picked a tall blade of grass with a drop of dew hanging from it like a tiny crystal berry. In the moonlight, the water droplet turned a sparkling silver, and the old man cast it into the lake.

The villagers could not help crowding around the old sage as he bent over the lake water. As the dewdrop fell into the water, it darkened to a black silhouette and began to swim. The dew had turned into a tadpole!

But before the villagers could even gasp in awe, the old man scooped up the tadpole with the bowl. He flipped it over on top of the ground, water spreading
from the bowl’s edges like fingers on an opening hand. Then the sage looked up at the moon and knocked his walking stick against the bowl.

The thick, dark bowl cracked into pieces as if it were an eggshell, and under the broken pieces, something wriggled. The old man lifted off the shards of pottery, revealing a baby rabbit as pale as the moon above.

The sage took the baby rabbit in his hands, and a smaller, more helpless creature could not have existed. He smiled at it, and the baby rabbit opened its black eyes, which gleamed like the night water of the lake. The old man and the rabbit stared at each other as if a silent understanding had been shared, and then the sage walked back to the cave of the White Tiger, the villagers watching silently.

At the mouth of the cave, the sage gently laid down the baby rabbit and walked away.

When he reached the waiting villagers, they began to press the sage with questions and worries. “Why did you leave the rabbit there?” they asked. “The White Tiger will just kill it!”

The sage said nothing. He slowly gestured. Dawn
was breaking, and a grumble echoed from the dark hole. The villagers went silent. The White Tiger had awakened!

The White Tiger came out of its hole and immediately saw the baby rabbit, a helpless mound of soft fur trembling in the morning light. The tiger snarled, its dangerous, evil claws extended, and the villagers gasped in horror. But suddenly, the tiger’s paw froze in midair, and the rabbit and the tiger stared at each other. The baby rabbit made no sound, but the tiger put its paw on the ground. Gently, the tiger sniffed it and, like a cat, licked the rabbit’s face. Then the tiger scooped up the rabbit with its paw and carried it back into the cave.

The villagers stared in disbelief. The old man turned toward his mountain and began to walk away.

“Where are you going?” the villagers asked. “What about the tiger?”

“Leave a gourd of milk in front of the cave every day for six weeks,” the old man said without turning around, “and your village will be saved.”

“But you didn’t kill the White Tiger!” they said.

“I never said I was going to kill it,” the old man said, and continued walking.

The villagers did as the old man said. Every morning, they left a gourd of milk by the cave, and strangely, the tiger did stop bothering them. On the last day of the six weeks, out of curiosity, the young potter climbed the tall tree after leaving the milk. In a few moments, the tiger ambled out of the cave. Was it the same tiger? It was still white, but now, instead of the grayish-white of a choking smoke, the tiger was a clean, pure white like the light of the moon. The baby rabbit was the same color and looked healthy and fat as it hopped out. It eagerly drank the milk as the tiger tipped the gourd with its… hands? The man thought he saw fingers instead of claws on the tiger’s paws. He blinked his eyes. Impossible!

The rabbit and the tiger disappeared back into the cave, and when the man returned to the village to tell of what he had seen, no one believed him. “Leave the White Tiger alone,” they told him. “With any luck, it will just disappear.”

And it seemed that the villagers’ wish was answered.
The potter was the last to ever see the tiger and the baby rabbit. Villagers began to forget about the White Tiger, only mentioning it as a whispered story.

But about nine years later, a group of village children, including the potter’s daughter, ran to their parents shouting with excitement.

“We were playing in the tall grass by the lake,” the oldest boy told his mother, “when a huge snake slithered from the grass, hissing!”

“It was going to attack me,” the potter’s daughter said to her father, her eyes round. “Everyone screamed and screamed.”

“And, then, out of nowhere, something rushed out, grabbed the snake, and threw it away!” the boy continued, his words becoming shouts. “The thing that threw the snake… I think it was a monster!”

“Yes,” another girl said, almost sobbing. “It had human legs and arms, but its head and chest looked like… like… a
tiger
!”

“It even had a tiger tail!” another boy said.

The parents did their best to calm the children, but
they looked at one another with worry and bewilderment. A monster? Half-man, half-tiger? What kind of strange beast had come? They would have to hunt it down and destroy it.

But the potter, now a bearded, middle-aged man, wondered. “Before we try to kill it,” he said to the villagers, “let us ask the old sage who lives on the mountain.”

The villagers agreed, and they again traveled to see the old sage. When they asked him if they should kill the beast, the old sage looked quite annoyed.

“You want to kill the White Tiger again?” he said, disgusted. “I told you this was the only way to save your village.”

“But if this beast is the White Tiger,” the bearded man said, “how can we save our village from it?”

“Fools! All of you!” the sage said. “You do not need to save your village from the White Tiger! The White Tiger will save your village.”

“But… how…” the villagers began. However, the sage had turned away, muttering to himself, “I believe I will have to start limiting these questions. I think
next century I will start answering only once a decade, or maybe once every ninety-nine years…”

The villagers returned home, and for the next nine years, sightings of the strange beast continued. One time, it saved a raft full of children from drowning in the lake. Then it cleared boulders that had fallen in a landslide. And it carried a lost calf back to the herd. Each time the beast was seen, the description of it changed. It didn’t have a tiger’s tail. Its chest was human hair, not fur. Only its head was like a tiger.

And one day, the potter, his beard now gray, returned from a journey with a new kind of clay he was very excited about. He was not sure, but he suspected it would be able to make pots and bowls that could be pure white and painted as never before. He was in such a rush to return that he almost did not see his daughter as he hurried into the wilderness that lay before the entrance of the village. She seemed to be alone, except for a rabbit in her arms.

“What are you doing here?” he asked her.

“Waiting for you,” she said, but her pale moon-colored face flushed. She set down the rabbit and
walked her father back to the village. The potter looked at her. She had always been different from the other village children—always quiet, as if she were constantly listening to whispers in the wind. His head filled with questions, but he said nothing.

However, he did not have to wonder long. One day, while he was working on a new bowl design, his daughter walked into the village with one hand holding the jade-white rabbit and the other holding the arm of a strange young man.

The young man was, by far, the strongest and handsomest man the villagers had ever seen. There was something striking about him. He had a powerful, magnetic air, and all stared and gathered around him. He would like to make his home in the village, the young man said, promising to be a hard worker, a help to all who needed it. Also, while he had nothing more to give but his pet rabbit, the man said as he bowed humbly before the gray-bearded man, he would be honored to marry the potter’s daughter.

At that, all the village maidens looked at the potter’s daughter with jealousy while the rest of the
villagers burst into cheers of welcome. All rejoiced at having such a noble, valiant young man in their community, except for the gray-bearded potter. He had noticed what the other villagers had not.

“That is an interesting scar you have,” the potter said, motioning to the faint mark on the young man’s forehead. “It looks like the symbol of power.”

“Yes,” the man said. “I’ve always had it.”

The graybeard said nothing for a long moment, and his daughter’s hopeful eyes dimmed. But then he began to paint a rabbit on the bowl he was working on, and her smile shined with joy. He looked at her and nodded, welcoming the man into his family and the village.