The Concubine's Daughter (72 page)

From the peak above the temple of Po-Lin, Red Lotus stood with her face lifted to the sky, using the power of her mind to surround herself with a golden light. Behind closed eyelids, she concentrated on breathing deeply the rarefied air off the sea, noting with satisfaction the unhindered ebb and flow of its circulation through her body. Lost to everything but the slight sounds of wind stirring the scant tufts of grass, she willed the oxygen through her lungs, following the upright channel of her spine and into her lower belly to energize her core, then back again to complete the cycle in gradual silent exhalation that would nourish her heavenly chi.

To stand so completely alone on this, the highest point in all the offshore islands of Hong Kong, the night breeze upon her limbs and in her hair, gave her soul the freedom it must have. She had meditated there since dawn, as she had each day for a month since climbing from the pit. The gentle movements of Pa-Tuan-Tsin, the Precious Set of Eight Silk-Weaving Exercises, restored flexibility to her limbs, returning new strength to every muscle and refreshing her bloodstream. At night, if thoughts of Ah-Keung came to her, she would surround his face with a ring of fire and watch his image be consumed by the flames of his own hate.

With each day Sing felt her powers growing to a level she had never known. She was ready.

The hook-maker had lived on Lantau Island longer than anyone else, making fishhooks from the bones and claws of animals, barbs of sea-shell, and the beaks of birds bound into slivers of petrified driftwood,
each one carved with ancient characters that, he claimed, no fish could resist. The fishermen believed his hooks were charmed, for they always caught the finest fish; and when a storm swept the islands, the sampan with his hooks aboard was sure to reach land safely. So great was his magic that some began wearing his hooks around their necks as talismans to attract good fortune and keep away demons. The hook-maker charged nothing for his work, accepting only fish and other food as payment.

His advice was sought on every problem and his blessing on every birth, marriage, or death among the boat people of Silvermine Bay. But it was in the destruction of evil spirits, the chasing of demons, that the hook-maker had his greatest power. So great were his forces for white magic that even the abbot of Po-Lin asked for his help in desperate cases.

Wood smoke from the hook-maker’s hut was blowing on the offshore breeze as Sing approached it. She had run down the mountain to the sea without stopping, springing from rock to rock to rock in the plunging stream, taking the firm sand of the foreshore in long easy strides. Arriving at the hut, she greeted the hook-maker, watching the old man’s crooked fingers fashion the delicate detail of a charm. He sat on a log of driftwood, its texture as seamed and weathered as his skillful hands.

He squinted up at her. “I see you are strong again, Little Sister. How can I help you?”

She seated herself on the log beside him. “The dream came again last night,
si-fu
. No longer in the form of
yan-jing-shi
, but as
lo-fu
, the tiger.” She watched his gnarled hands carving with infinite patience. “I know the one who does this thing. He will not be so easily defeated.”

“To defeat an enemy is never easy,” the hook-maker said after a while. “I have come to know the heart of this Forceful One. He bears the venom of the cobra and the teeth of the tiger. Such a one knows only victory or death.”

“I fear for those close to me. If he tests my strength and fails again, he may turn his venom on them, to bring me to him.”

He nodded, setting aside his work and looking at her closely. “It may be so. You are strong again, but so is he.”

“I must face him,
si-fu
.”

The old one nodded “This is his intention. What he cannot possess with the mind he must destroy. To him it is a matter of honor.”

Sing withdrew a slip of red paper, unfolding it and laying it before him. “I have written this message in the old style. I ask you to lay your hands upon it. To bring him to me. There can be no peace for me until this is done.”

He picked up the red paper filled with flowing calligraphy, reading it carefully. “You are indeed a maker of fine images. How can such a challenge be ignored? It is written in the way of tradition, from one disciple to another of the same master.”

“I have come for the blessing of your protection and for the amulet,
si-fu
.”

“It is ready, Little Sister. Come inside.” The inside of the hut was cool and almost dark, taking her back to the hut of Master To. The hook-maker crossed to a recess in the wall where the sparks of joss sticks illuminated the fiercely warlike figure of Kuan-Kung. From its neck, the hook-maker removed the amulet of the White Crane. Holding it between his palms, he bowed three times to the god of war, then turned and brought it to the light from the doorway.

“It is purged of the evil one’s essence. Cleansed by the blessings of Po-Lin and imbued with the warrior spirit of Kuan-Kung. I have called upon all my powers to sanctify it.”

He held the amulet high in the sunlight; for a moment it seemed to radiate pure light. He fastened it around Sing’s neck.

“Remember, to the Forceful One all things are reversed. Night is day. Evil is good. The laws of the universe are turned upside down; only chaos reigns. Reverse the eight trigrams and you will triumph. Let the yin become the yang, black become white. When the strong become the weak and peace becomes war, then all things will be possible.”

He handed back the folded red paper. “Send your message. It will find him and he will come to the appointed place at the appointed time.”

Sing sat on the rock as the faint flush of sunrise turned the low moon pale as milky jade. Half an hour more and Ah-Keung would face her here. She could hear the words of Master To:
The crane can never match the tiger’s strength and ferocity … but the tiger cannot guess the speed and cleverness of the crane. The tiger’s power lies not in its jaws or its claws, but in the keenness of its eyes.

As the sky lightened and threads of cloud stretched like strands of colored silk above the horizon, she sensed his presence and called out, “I am here, Ah-Keung. The sun is rising. I am ready to meet the Forceful One face-to-face in its pure light.” The challenge echoed among the crumbling pagodas.

“I could think of no better place,” his voice replied. “There is no one to know what happens here but the abbot and his thousand monks without a voice among them.” His words were spoken quietly, yet echoed like those of a whispering giant among the rocky pinnacles, invading deserted burial vaults of pagodas from another age, to be lost among the great, dark pines that rose in sweeping tiers beside them.

Her heightened senses tracked down the voice to its source behind her. In the atom of time it took to turn and face him, Ah-Keung had stepped from the shadows of the Pearl Pagoda, wearing the loose black garb of the master
wu-shu
fighter, trimmed and cuffed with white, smiling at the element of surprise he had so cleverly created. “The crane becomes careless, she does not see the tiger in the reed bed nor hear its breath nor sense its smell.” He drew a breath through closed teeth with exaggerated disapproval. “Have the comforts of fame and fortune made the Red Lotus less vigilant?”

As he spoke, he loosened the corded loops that fastened the jacket across his chest, laughing at her. “Did you think me a fool to meet you on ground I had not trod, in a place not known to me?” Without haste he folded the tunic and set it aside with a water gourd. “For eight days I have slept on stone as you have done, here in this Pagoda of the White Pearl. I have watched you call upon the old one, and heard you speak with him beneath the fading moon. I learned the movements of the crane, as you have studied the secrets of the tiger.”

He sniggered, once again the herd boy from the hills. “You are a vision to watch in the sun’s first light; it is a riddle yet to be solved that one so beautiful should be so dangerous. The same golden shell shines around you that once shone around our beloved master. He has taught you well.” His tone was so even, his movements so normal, that the purpose that had brought them to this high place among the honored dead seemed suddenly unreal.

“I did not wish this day to come,” Sing replied evenly, “but have always known that it must.”

He stepped into the strengthening light, kicking the canvas slippers from his feet. “It is written in our stars, Red Lotus. We had no hand in it.” He smiled at some inner thought too big to question, grinding his bare soles into the rock to find its texture. “From the moment my twisted foot led my family to cast me out, they left me with nothing but the heart of a survivor. The way of the warrior is the only path before me.”

He picked up a piece of broken tile fallen from a pagoda roof, grinding it to dust between the millstones of his palms, not boastfully but in preparation for what must come. “And you, Little Star,” he continued, dusting his palms and stretching the sinews of his neck. “Did the gods of happiness not turn from those who gave you life because they wore a different skin? What of the gods who spoke to the old woman who carried you to the lake? Was it not they who brought you into the world of the White Crane?” His voice had risen in anger, his eyes a well of sadness that made her silent heart reach out to him.

“If this time and place are not of our making, and its purpose none of our choosing, then why must we fight, Ah-Keung? There is great truth in what you say, but this irony has given us great strength. We two have the power to change the course of our stars. We have learned to take control of the sun and the moon of our existence—to defy the voices of destiny if we must. There is no dishonor in this.”

He shook his head, and in that rare moment, the eyes that looked into hers were the eyes of a deserted child. “Such a decision will be blessed by the abbot,” she said, “of less importance to the monks than a quarrel of
the hawk and the sparrow. No one else will know that we turned our backs to the face of karma.” Was the child in him within her reach? “Must one of us die for the bad joss sticks of our parents? We have given our hearts and minds to the mysteries of earth and sky, devoted our lives in search of perfection in mind, body, and spirit. We can challenge the will of the gods, you and I.”

Ah-Keung shook off her words as a dog sheds water from its coat. “We cannot change the Way of the Warrior. Once the path is taken, there is no turning back.”

He padded catlike around her, in his wide-legged pants tied by a crimson sash. “We have waited far too long for the sun to rise upon a rock that knows no master. Our
si-fu
is not here to judge us; only you or I will know who leaves this place and who does not.”

Sing made no reply, knowing her words had failed. Her eyes entered the black depths of his without fear, seeking the weakness she knew was there.
There is a fraction of time faster than a blink that shows the intention before the act. This is true of the cobra before it stikes… . We must not miss this fragment of eternity, or it may be our last. It is the infinite space between life and death. We must not allow this to evade us.

There was a clatter of something tossed at her feet—the birth bracelet once worn by the Fish. “A pity the old witch can no longer advise her precious piglet.” His words were now brutal in their mockery.

The threads of cloud had woven themselves into molten strands to celebrate the coming of daylight. “As our beloved master looks down from his temple in the sky, he will see Red Lotus, his last disciple, face the skills of Black Oath Wu.”

She turned with him, never taking her eyes from his, as he moved in a wide circle. “He is here,” she said coldly. “My
si-fu
lives through me. The amulet no longer holds the cobra’s venom. You are a coward, Forceful One. The challenge of change is too great for you. You could not face the master on the rock, so you poisoned him. A defenseless old woman was easily felled with a single blow. Now you prepare to face a woman in mortal combat. There is nothing for you to be proud of, dog boy.”