Bridge Of Birds (16 page)

The sun had set and the light came from the rising moon. A small opening looked out over
the sea, and as the moon lifted higher, its pale rays reached farther and farther back
into the blackness of the cave, and something began to glitter.

“Great Buddha, how Lotus Cloud would love this place!” I yelped.

She would not have been interested in the gold, or the diamonds and emeralds and rubies
that were heaped in mounds, but most of all there were pearls and jade. Tons of them, and
I do mean tons. As the moon lifted even higher and the whole incredible mass of loot
appeared I decided that no single duke could possibly have piled up so much wealth. This
had to be the collective effort of all the Dukes of Ch'in, right back to the first one,
and they had not been snobbish when it came to money.

Cheap copper coins rubbed cheeks with gold, and semiprecious stones were piled with the
choicest gems. A broken wooden doll was gazing with tiny turquoise eyes at a sceptre that
would have bankrupted most kingdoms, and beside a huge jeweled crown was a set of false
teeth carved in ivory. Li Kao was gazing at that incredible monument to greed with
narrowed eyes, and he reached out and squeezed my shoulder.

“I would hate to think how many corpses this stuff cost, and I rather believe that one of
them wants to say something about it,” he whispered.

I followed the direction of his eyes, and finally I saw it. At the top of the pile was a
shadow where no shadow should be. Li Kao continued to hold my shoulder.

“Ox, don't move so much as an inch until we see what lies behind the ghost shadow. It may
be a very important warning,” he whispered.

I tried to calm the beating of my heart. I closed my mind to everything except a nice warm
comfortable blanket, and then I reached out gently with my mind and drew it over my head.
What happened then was very strange.

I was gazing at a girl who had almost certainly been murdered, because blood stained her
dress where a blade had pierced her heart. Her clothes were in the style of a thousand
years ago, and I sensed with every nerve in my body that she was making a terrible effort
to appear before us. Her gaze was beseeching, and when she parted her lips I felt a hot
searing wave of agony.

“Take pity upon a faithless handmaiden,” she whispered. “Is not a thousand years enough?”
Two transparent ghost tears slid slowly down her cheeks. “I swear that I did not know what
I had done! Oh, take pity, and exchange this for the feather,” she sobbed. “The birds must
fly.”

And then she was gone. Li Kao relaxed his grip on my shoulder. I could not possibly have
heard correctly, and I sat up and tilted my head and pounded water from my left ear.

“Exchange something for a feather?”

“Oddly enough, I heard the same thing,” said Master Li. “Also something about birds that
must fly, which doesn't make much sense unless she was referring to travelers' tall tales
about flightless birds, such as penguins and ostriches and other mythological beasts.”

“I think that she was cupping something in her hands,” I said.

I climbed to the top of the pile, slipping and sliding over sapphires, and slid back down
with a tiny jade casket in my hands. Li Kao took it and turned it this way and that in the
moonlight, and when he opened the lid I cried out in joy. A powerful fragrance of ginseng
reached my nostrils, but Li Kao's exclamation was not joyful. He tilted the casket and two
tiny tendrils with rather familiar shapes fell into the palm of his hand.

“Legs, bent at the knees,” he sighed. “According to Henpecked Ho, these would be the Legs
of Power, and we must pray they will be strong enough to carry the children to safety. I
assume that the duke broke up the Great Root, and that pieces are hidden in treasure
troves all over China.”

He turned the casket upside down and one other object fell into his hand. It was a
miniature tin flute, not much bigger than his thumbnail.

“What did she want us to exchange for a feather, the root or the flute?” I asked.

“How would I know? Ox, did the Duke of Ch'in really read your mind?”

“Yes, sir,” I said firmly.

“I don't like this at all,” Master Li said thoughtfully. He stared at the place where the
ghost had been. Nearly a minute passed in silence. “Perhaps we'll figure it out in two or
three hundred years,” he finally said. “Let's get out of here.”

It was easier said than done. It would be suicide to go back into the labyrinth, and the
only other exit was the small mouth of the cave. We stood there and gazed down a hundred
feet of sheer cliff that could not possibly be negotiated without ropes and grappling
hooks at an angry sea where waves smashed against jagged rocks that lifted through the
foam like teeth. There was one small calm pool almost directly beneath us, but for all I
knew it was six inches deep. The moon was reflected in it, and I gazed from the moon to
Master Li and back again.

“My life has been rather hectic, and I could use a long rest,” he sighed. “When I get to
Hell to be judged, I intend to ask the Yama Kings to let me be reborn as a three-toed
sloth. Do you have any preference?”

“I thought about it. ”A cloud," I said shyly.

He was wearing a smuggler's belt that was studded with fake seashells, and he snapped one
of them open and put the Legs of Power inside. On second thought he took the tiny flute as
well, and I filled my pockets with pearls and jade on the odd chance that I might live
long enough to give them to Lotus Cloud. Li Kao climbed up upon my back and wrapped his
arms around my neck, and I discovered that I was beginning to feel undressed unless I wore
my ancient sage like a raincoat. I perched on the edge and took aim.

“Farewell, sloth.”

“Farewell, cloud.”

I held my nose and jumped. The wind whistled around our ears as we plunged toward the
pool, and toward a jagged rock that we hadn't noticed.

“Left! Left!” Master Li yelled, pulling on my pendant chain like the reins of a bridle.

I frantically flapped my arms, like a large awkward bird, and the reflected moon grew
larger and larger, and then so huge that I almost expected to see Chang-o and the White
Rabbit stick their heads out and shake their fists at us. We missed the rock by six
inches. The moon appeared to smile, and the warm waters of the Yellow Sea opened to
embrace us like long-lost friends.

The monastery was hushed and the tension was such that the warm air crackled as though
touched by invisible lightning. The color of the liquid in the alchemist's vial had
changed from saffron to black, and the essence was almost ready.

Li Kao lifted the vial from the pan of boiling water and removed the stopper, and when he
and the abbot emerged from the cloud of steam they both appeared to have been reborn, with
rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes, and the ginseng aroma was so strong that my heart began to
pound furiously. I remembered that even the most skeptical physicians admitted that
ginseng could have an astonishing effect upon the cardiovascular system, and my eyes were
wide with hope as the abbot and Master Li moved down the line of beds. Three drops upon
each tongue, repeated three times. The parents held their breaths.

The effect of the Legs of the Great Root of Power was quite extraordinary. The pale faces
of the children flushed, and the heartbeats strengthened, and the covers lifted with deep
easy breathing, and then the parents cried out in joy as child after child sat up and
opened his eyes! They began to laugh and giggle, and then all the boys began to shake
their shoulders up and down and make quick snatching gestures. When the girls began to
make swooping pulling gestures I realized with a sudden shock of recognition that I was
watching a ritual that I had performed at least a hundred times myself.

Li Kao strode up to Bone Helmet and waved a hand in front of her face. Her wide bright
eyes never moved. He snarled and snatched a candle from a holder and lit it, but when he
thrust it forward so that it was almost touching her nose the pupils of her eyes did not
constrict. The abbot grabbed a boy called Monkey and shook him vigorously and got no
reaction whatsoever. The children of Ku-fu continued to laugh and giggle and swoop and
shake and snatch, completely unaware of their surroundings. They had awakened, but into a
world of their own.

Bone Helmet suddenly stopped her swooping pulling gestures and sat silently, with the
happy smile still on her face. Girl after girl, and a few boys, followed her example.
Finally only Fang's Fawn continued her gestures, and the boys redoubled their efforts, and
at last Fawn stopped and sat still. The children made a muffled sound that might have been
a cheer, and then all of them except Fawn and Little Hong closed their eyes tightly.
Little Hong's lips began to move, slowly and rhythmically, and the others started giggling
again and began feeling the air with their fingers, with their eyes still closed. Only
Fawn sat as before, completely still and silent.

I said that I recognized the ritual, but what happened next was totally unexpected. All
the children suddenly stopped feeling the air, and all the heads jerked to the east. They
were still and intent, and I sensed that they were listening to a sound that only they
could hear. Bone Helmet parted her lips. When her small thin voice lifted through the hush
of the monastery every one of us, including Master Li, who was an authority on the
folklore of every corner of China, jerked our heads toward the windows and stared with
wide eyes at the distant looming outline of Dragon's Pillow.

“Jade... plate...” she whispered.

“Six... eight...” whispered Little Hong.

“Fire that burns hot...” Monkey whispered.

“Night that is not...” whispered Wang Number Three.

“Fire that burns cold!” all the boys said together.

“First silver, then gold!” all the girls said together.

Little Hong turned back and resumed moving his lips rhythmically, and the animation
returned tenfold as the others resumed groping through the air with their fingers. Only
Fang's Fawn continued to sit silently. The giggles and laughter grew louder, and they
chanted happily, over and over:
“Jade plate, six, eight, fire that burns hot, night that is not, fire that burns cold,
first silver, then gold!”
Monkey lifted his right arm and began to swing it back and forth through the air. One of
his fingers touched Fawn's forehead, and instantly Little Hong stopped moving his lips.
The others opened their eyes and began to cheer, and a wide happy smile spread over Fawn's
face. She yawned drowsily. Her eyes closed. Fawn sank back upon her bed, and child after
child followed her example, and the weeping of parents again filled the monastery of Ku-fu
as the children once more lay as still as death.

The Legs of Power had almost done it, but those two tiny tendrils could not carry the
children to safety. The abbot took the arms of Li Kao and myself and led us into his study
and slammed the door upon the sounds of grief. His wrinkles and worries had returned, and
his hands were shaking, and he took a deep breath and turned to Master Li.

“Will you continue?” he asked quietly.

“Well, I don't seem to have anything else to do at the moment,” Master Li said with a
shrug of his shoulders. Then he smiled wryly. “No, the truth is that I'm becoming
fascinated with this weird case, and if somebody tries to pull me off it, I will scream
like a baby who has been robbed of a bright shiny new toy. It would help if I could figure
out what those children were doing in there.”

“They were playing the Hopping Hide and Seek Game,” I said.

“The what?”

“The Hopping Hide and Seek Game,” said the abbot.

The monastery supported itself by manufacturing a very good brand of wine, although the
abbot and the bonzes were forbidden to touch it themselves, and he poured cups for Li Kao
and me.

“It's a sex and courtship game, and it's been played by the children of Ku-fu for as long
as anyone can remember,” the abbot explained. “The object is to get possession of the
girls' red hair ribbons. A large circle is drawn upon the ground, or perhaps natural
barriers are used. The boys try to snatch the ribbons from the girls, but they must hop on
one leg, which is what they were doing when their shoulders shook up and down. The girls
try to trip the boys with the ribbons, thus the swooping pulling gestures. A boy who is
tripped becomes the girl's prisoner and drops out of the game, and a girl who loses her
red ribbon becomes the boy's prisoner and drops out of the game.”

Li Kao was far more interested than I would have expected. “Considering the boys'
one-legged handicap, the girls should win easily,” he said.

“They should, except that they instinctively know that the best way to begin a long
campaign in the battle of the sexes is to surrender, and the real point of the game is
that there is a great deal of giggling and grappling and feeling of bodies,” the abbot
said drily. “Thus its longevity. Eventually only one girl will be left, and when she is
captured she becomes the queen, and the boy who gets her ribbon becomes the king. In this
case it was Fang's Fawn and Little Hong. The other children put on blindfolds. The king
hides the queen somewhere inside the circle, and the others must try to find her by touch.
This leads to more giggling and grappling and feeling of bodies, but there is a time
limit. When Little Hong moved his lips, he was slowly counting to forty-nine.”

“Is the count ever changed?” Master Li asked.

“No, sir,” I said.

“Do they have formal titles, such as King of X and Queen of Y?”

“No, sir,” I said.

“The peculiar thing,” said the abbot, “was that suddenly they broke off and listened, and
then they repeated that ancient nonsense rhyme that is said to have come from Dragon's
Pillow. That is
not
part of the Hopping Hide and Seek Game.”

Li Kao helped himself to more wine, and then he walked to the window and gazed out at the
strange stretch of wall where the ghost of Wan was said to keep watch.