The Story Of The Stone (13 page)

Kung . . . shang . . . chueeeeeeeeeeeh . . .

Moon boy stepped back, drenched in perspiration.

“The ancients,” he said, panting, “decided that the related phenomenon of the soul-sound of stone was nothing less than the Voice of Heaven.”

“Well, well, well,” said Master Li.

All the way back to the Valley of Sorrows Master Li kept it up. “Well, well, well . . . Well, well, well . . . Well, well, well . . .”

I hadn't seen him so happy in months.

Prince Liu Pao was delighted to see us. At first I was delighted to see him too, but then Master Li introduced Grief of Dawn. The prince jumped a foot into the air and his complexion switched back and forth from pink to white and the conversation went something like this.

“Would you care for tea?”

“No, thank you, Your Highness,” said Grief of Dawn.

“Wine, perhaps?”

“No, thank you, Your Highness,” said Grief of Dawn.

“Cakes? Fruit?”

“No, thank you, Your Highness,” said Grief of Dawn.

“How about a few swans?” the prince said hopefully. “Cash? Lambs? Silk?”

Since those were the classic wedding gifts, I decided I was in trouble. The prince's reaction to Moon Boy was almost as strong, and within minutes the three of them were so close that I began to think deep thoughts about Grief of Dawn's belief that part of the soul she shared with Moon Boy had been lost on the Great Wheel of Transmigrations. Had the wandering soul settled inside Prince Liu Pao? I asked Master Li about it, but he only grunted noncommittally.

He had something else to think about. Now all his attention was focused upon the mysterious stone of the Laughing Prince, and he settled down in the library at the monastery and began poring over ancient records in search of any mention of an unusual stone. He asked the prince to do the same with family papers, and I was sent out to see what I could find in peasant tales and legends.

It was something to keep my mind off the prince and Grief of Dawn. The stone stories of the old women in the village were the same ones I had heard all my life, so I tried a different kind of folk tale. Blacksmiths are surrounded by boys as flowers are surrounded by bees, so I decided to lend the village smith a hand. After I had lifted the anvil a few times and bent a few iron bars in my hands I had all the boys I needed, and within two days I was able to race into the library at the monastery.

“A stone! A magical stone!” I shouted. Master Li looked up from the scrolls and blinked at me. “It's a boys' story, and very ancient,” I said excitedly. “So far I've only heard a vague description, but I know it deals with a hero who sneaks into a secret cavern and finds a magical stone. Know what he's trying to do with it?” I said rhetorically. “Kill the Laughing Prince, that's what.”

Master Li leaned back and pressed the tips of his fingers together. “Well, well, well,” he said.

Adult visitors were rarely allowed to attend meetings of the Sacred and Solemn Order of Wolf, but Prince Liu Pao was not the normal kind of visitor. The moon was very bright. I listened for a treble owl hoot and replied with two cat yowls, and a boy slipped from the shadows and led us through a maze of thick brush to the side of a low cliff. The prince and Master Li and Moon Boy and Grief of Dawn and I got down on our knees and crawled through an opening, and when we stood up we were inside a small cave. Thirteen boys, eleven to fourteen years old, greeted us formally. The occasion was the induction of the thirteenth, Little Skinhead, into the elite boys' gang of the Valley of Sorrows, and we would be allowed to stay until they got to matters like codes and passwords.

A single torch burned at the back of the cave. Lying on the floor beneath it was the skeleton of a boy who had been about the same age as the members of the gang. It was a very ancient skeleton, and the boy's death had been dramatic. The rib cage was crushed, and inside it lay the iron head of an old spear. We followed the gang's example and bowed to the bones.

The leader was called Deer Ears. “We bow to Wolf, as have our fathers and grandfathers before us,” Deer Ears formally announced. “We gather in his honor, and our distinguished guests will be allowed to add one detail to his story.”

The boys sat in a semicircle facing the skeleton. We sat just behind them, and Deer Ears picked up an ancient ring from the skeleton's separated finger bones. He handed it politely to the prince, who examined it and passed it around. The ring was black iron, and engraved on the front was the head of a wolf. Master Li studied the inside of the ring with interest. There were faint lines and markings that made no sense to me. We handed the ring back to Deer Ears, and he reverently replaced it.

There was a brief ceremony for the purification of the boy to be inducted, Little Skinhead, but sacred matters would be saved for later, after we had gone. When Deer Ears began the story of Wolf I was disappointed. It was like a thousand such stories, and I could almost predict what would happen next.

A woodcutter finds a baby in a basket at his doorstep. Around the baby's neck is a cord holding a ring and a small clay tablet. Neither the woodcutter nor his wife can read, so they take the tablet to a priest, who reads to them: “When the finger fits the ring, take the boy to Temple Spring.” They have no children themselves, so they decide to raise the child as their own, and since the ring has the head of a wolf on it they name him Wolf.

When the boy is twelve years old the ring fits his finger, so the woodcutter takes him to the Temple of the Spring of the Master, which is renowned for handling all sorts of strange matters. A priest searches the records and says that according to instructions left twelve years before, Wolf is now old enough to be told that he has a cousin living in Ling-chou Valley, a very clever fellow known as Ah the Artificer. Wolf is to go to his cousin, but no other information has been left to guide him. The priest also hands Wolf a simple wooden bow, which seems to be his only inheritance except for the ring, and with many tears Wolf parts with his foster parents and sets off to seek his destiny.

Ah the Artificer is a classic villain. The greedy mean fellow accepts the boy as slave labor and works him half to death, but Wolf at least discovers that his mother died in childbirth, and his father was named Li Tan and was perhaps the greatest artificer of them all. Wolf's father then fell under the spell of a concubine of the lord of the neighboring valley, the Valley of Sorrows. The concubine was a witch. She was a barbarian called Crown of Fire, because of her bright red hair, and she had a daughter called Fire Girl, who was Wolfs age. The witch and Wolf's father had attempted to assassinate the lord, the Laughing Prince, and had been put to death, but their infant children had vanished and thus were spared.

“One day,” said Deer Ears, “a mysterious stranger appeared at Ah the Artificer's door. They talked in low voices for many hours, and then Wolf was called in. When he saw the stranger's face, Wolf felt a shudder of fear, because—”

“Wolf wasn't afraid of anything!” Little Skinhead said indignantly. He had the right spirit for a recruit.

“Wolf felt a shudder of fear because the stranger's face was as white as death,” Deer Ears hissed. “Sick, slimy, fish-belly white, and the stranger's heart was so cold that his eyes had turned blue, and a red beard crawled over his face like a hairy spider, and he was—”

“He was drunk,” Little Skinhead said matter-of-factly. “My father took me to Soochow, where there are lots of barbarians, and barbarians are always drunk.”

“He hadn't hit the wine jars yet, and don't interrupt!” Deer Ears yelled. “He told Wolf he was a trader with a caravan on its way to Samarkand with a cargo of . . .”

Deer Ears paused and looked thoughtfully at the guests. We could add one unimportant detail to the story, and nobody had yet bothered with the cargo. He bowed to the prince, who deferred to Master Li.

“Slavonian squirrels,” Master Li said, intoning the words like a priestly chant. “Undressed vairs and vair bellies and backs. Martins and finches, goatskins and ram skins, dates, filberts, walnuts, salted sturgeon tails, round pepper, ginger, saffron, cloves, nutmegs, spike, cardamoms, scammony, manna, lac, zedoary, incense, quicksilver, copper, amber, pounding pearls, borax, gum arabic, sweetmeats, gold wire, wines, dragon's blood rubies, loaded dice, and beautiful dancing girls.”

Only Master Li would have tossed in loaded dice and beautiful dancing girls, and the boys sat in reverent silence while they absorbed it. For the next ten or twelve centuries Master Li's cargo would be part of the tale of Wolf.

Deer Ears' voice changed to a nasty wheedling whine. “ 'What a fine boy,'; the stranger said. 'What a clever and manly boy. I have just the task for such a boy, and he who performed it would receive six shiny copper coins.' Wolf looked at him silently. The stranger's face contorted with terrible pain. 'All right, ”seven" ' he shrieked. 'You see, I have a niece — a wild and ungrateful girl! — who has stolen a gem and swallowed it to conceal the theft, and she has slipped into a small cave at the end of the valley. The entrance is too small for a man, but a clever boy could squeeze inside and bring my niece back.'

"Wolf wants no part of it, but Ah the Artificer insists, so he takes his ring and his bow and a torch and squeezes through a small opening into a dark cave.

Then the story got very interesting indeed, at least so far as I was concerned, and since it proved to be of use to Master Li, I will set down as much of the important parts as I can remember.

WOLF BOY AND FIRE GIRL

Wolf lit the torch and looked around. There was nobody in the cave, but there was a dark corner and when he walked over he stared in astonishment at a smooth flight of stone steps leading down. Wolf's eyes gleamed, and he thought of buried treasure, and he strung his bow and made sure he could quickly reach his knife and started down the stairs. The steps led on and on, winding sharply downward, and Wolf began to hear the sound of running water. Finally something sparkled in his torchlight, and he realized it was an underground river in the center of an immense cavern. The water was jet black, the color of the stone bed it ran through. To his right was a glow, and he moved cautiously toward it and came to the first of a long line of torches set in brackets on the stone walls.

The light was good enough for Wolf to extinguish his own torch. A small crimson boat was tied to a post. There was another post beside it, and it was stained with drops of water. The stain was still damp, and Wolf untied the little boat and climbed in and pushed off into the current.

Enormous statues carved in stone lined the banks. Wolf gazed in wonder at images with the bodies of humans but the heads of animals or birds. What could they mean? The cavern was silent except for the hiss of torches and the lapping of water. Nothing stirred. The boat drifted on and on. Everything was black or white or gray, except for the orange glow of the torches, but then Wolf saw a flash of crimson. He steered the boat over to a shelf of rock overhanging the side of the river, and beneath it was a crimson boat just like his. He tied his boat beside it and swam to the bank and climbed out, and he saw a trail of sandal prints, still damp, leading up over a mound of tumbled rocks. Wolf began to climb, following the prints, and he reached a small level area.

Something landed on his back and knocked him to the ground. A knife flashed in front of his face, and a small arm tried to jerk his head back. Wolf kicked and rolled over, pinning the knife beneath him, and managed to get to the top position. He was looking at a girl about his own age, and she was half-Chinese and half-barbarian, and her hair was the color of fire. She hissed like a cat and fought furiously, but Wolf was stronger and he managed to pin both arms, and then the boy and the girl stopped fighting.

Men were approaching, down at the riverbank. They heard coarse laughter and the clash of weapons, and something in the voices made Wolf and the girl break apart and crawl to the edge of the rocks and peer down. The soldiers had cruel brutish faces and they wore the uniform of the Laughing Prince, and Wolf realized that the cavern must run all the way to the Valley of Sorrows. The soldiers marched away and disappeared in shadows, and Wolf and the girl sat up.

Something was very strange. They should be in darkness, but they were silhouetted against light, and they realized that each of them had something on their backs that glowed. It was Wolf's bow and one of the arrows in the girl's quiver, and they held them out and stared in wonder. Writing had appeared on the bow and the arrow — writing in fire. Wolf glanced at the girl and blushed.

“I don't know how to read,” he whispered.

“I can read, a little.” The girl took Wolf's bow and scratched her head and wrinkled her nose and read, slowly and hesitantly:

"In darkness languishes the precious stone.

When will its excellence enchant the world?"

She took her arrow and scratched her head some more and wrinkled her nose some more and read:

"The precious stone, hidden away,

Longs to fulfill its destiny."

They stared at each other. Finally Wolf said, “I am called Wolf, and my father was Li Tan the artificer. I never knew him, and he left me this bow and a ring.”

“I am called Fire Girl, and my mother was Crown of Fire the witch,” the girl said. I never knew her, and she left me this arrow."

“They say that my father and your mother tried to kill the Laughing Prince,” Wolf said. “Is that barbarian trader really your uncle? He said you stole something, but I don't believe him.”

“Stole something?” The girl turned and spat furiously. “He is called Brushbeard the Barbarian, and he was taking me to sell as a concubine to the Laughing Prince, just as he once sold my mother, and when I get a chance, I'm going to kill him.”

As they talked, the glowing letters on the bow and arrow faded away, but now a third glowing light had appeared. It came from the ring on Wolfs finger, and he slipped it off. No writing had appeared, but the strange lines and marks on the inside were shining brightly. Wolf examined the markings closely, and saw that not all of the lines were glowing. The shining lines were running between parallel rows of dark ones, twisting and turning through openings.

“Could it be a map through a maze?” Fire Girl whispered.

Wolf turned the ring to display more scratchy lines on the front. “Look, these lines start at the wolf head and run to the edge, and then around and inside the ring, like going into a hole or a tunnel, and the shining lines twist through all these little openings to a circular mark, and stop there.”

The girl grabbed his arm. “There's a statue farther on that has a wolf head just like this one!” she said excitedly.

Without another word they slid back down to the riverbank and ran until they came to the huge stone wolf statue. They looked for some mark or sign but found nothing. The eyes of the wolf head were fixed on a shadowed section of the stone wall, and when they followed the direction of the eyes they found a tiny side tunnel that was almost invisible. Wolf and Fire Girl managed to squeeze through the opening.

The ring was shining even brighter, and the eyes of the wolf were like small lanterns. There were many side passages, but Wolf followed the pattern of the lines inside the ring, and to be on the safe side they used their knives to scratch marks at the entrances when they turned into different passages. They twisted and turned through a maze, and ahead of them was a light, and finally they stepped into a small round cave. The light came from a natural chimney that ran up through stone to a patch of blue sky and a shaft of sunbeams.

The cave had a table and two benches. On the floor was a stack of torches, and across from them were two sleeping pallets. Between the pallets was a natural stone shelf. On the shelf were three bronze caskets, and the same legend was carved in the stone above the two end ones. The caskets had sliding lids carved in fish shapes, and Fire Girl studied the legends above the end ones and read:

"Pull not the scales

Till all else fails."

The casket in the center had two lids that folded together, with the yin symbol on the left and the yang symbol on the right, and above it on the wall were the four ideographs tung ling pao-yu.

“Stone of penetrating spiritual power,” Fire Girl read.

Wolf opened the center casket. Inside was a piece of stone. It was small and slim and as sharp as a razor, and it was shaped like the head of an arrow. Fire Girl picked it up. On each side were two written lines, and after much scratching and nose wrinkling, she read the four lines together:

"When evil is taken for wisdom, wisdom becomes evil.

When cruelty is taken for virtue, virtue becomes cruelty.

The stone defeats cruelty and evil

And flies to the heart of Liu Sheng."

“Fire Girl, Liu Sheng is the name of the Laughing Prince,” Wolf said.

When Fire Girl held up the tip of the arrow her mother had left her he realized it had no head. There was a groove for one. She slowly took the stone and slid it into the groove, and it stuck there as though it had been bound with rawhide. She lifted the arrow and placed the center of the shaft on her finger. It was perfectly balanced.