For the first time, he had to consider the one possibility he had refused to admit: that he could not free himself. Little by little, the full horror of his plight dawned on him. It was as if the cangue had foreseen his every effort and had known in advance each attempt he would make. It had patiently waited, allowing him to match wits and strength against it, to fling himself back and forth, to roll on the ground, twisting and turning. And it was still there.
The cangue had been silent, as though observing Jen's struggles with amusement. Now it spoke close to his ear:
"Did you not suppose every prisoner has done likewise? How foolish to think you might succeed where others failed. Understand one thing. There is no escape from me. I am Master Cangue."
The cangue said no more. If it did, Jen did not hear. He had thrown back his head and was howling like a wolf.
• • • • •
What hope is left? In the grip of the cangue, what can Jen do? Is there any possibility of ridding himself of this monstrous device? These questions, as well as other matters, are taken up in the next chapter.
26
• Stern Teacher •
• Marvelous Dreams •
• Reflections In A Puddle •
IT SNOWED THAT NIGHT. By morning, black branches turned sparkling white. Bare hillsides were dazzlingly blanketed. Snow collected in dry, rocky valleys that now looked like so many gleaming lakes. The sky cleared to rich blue, dabbed here and there with pink. An orange sun floated low on the horizon. A landscape worthy of the painter Chen-cho.
The prisoner of the cangue had spent the night crouched in a bush. He had not slept well. He had not, in fact, slept at all, except for the occasional moment when his head dropped and his chin rested on the wooden collar. The skin of his neck, where the collar gripped, had been tom in the course of his struggles. The blood had clotted, or frozen; the collar fretted away the scabby crust, biting into exposed flesh. The prisoner of the cangue ignored this discomfort. The animal panic of the day before had gone into its burrow, having worn itself out. The prisoner of the cangue was reasonably calm. He had much to do.
He crawled out. He could not stand upright. His spine and his knees seemed to have bent and frozen stiff. He limped from the woodlands and crossed snowy fields, trying to kick away the cramps in his legs. He bore northward, away from Chai-sang. Later in the morning, he struck what he was looking for: a fairly good road that would lead him in the general direction of Nang-pei. He had given up the prospect of reaching T'ien-kuo. Not entirely given it up. It hung somewhere in the shadows of his mind. It simply no longer had any great importance. He concentrated on finding a flute girl and, meantime, getting free of the cangue.
Country folk were on the road. Some trudged beside ox carts or pushed barrows. They were on their way to market in Chai-sang or some neighboring village. The bright morning had put them in good spirits. Children frolicked beside their elders, shouting and tossing snowballs. The sudden appearance of the prisoner caused uneasiness. The straggling procession of carts and barrows veered aside, giving him wide berth.
Several of the folk stared curiously. Most kept their eyes fixed straight ahead. The prisoner of the cangue had given further thought to his condition. He accepted one fact: He had no means of breaking himself from the collar. He must find means. The prisoner observed the passersby. He singled out a bluff, hearty-looking fellow who laughed and joked with his companions.
The prisoner of the cangue approached him, making friendly gestures. The banter stopped. The man's friends, silent, glanced at each other and edged away. The prisoner asked for something to pry open the cangue.
"I do anything like that," the man retorted, "I'll end up with one of those on my own neck. I'm sorry for you, but that's as far as it goes. Be on your way."
The prisoner wondered if he should identify himself. He decided it would be useless. Instead, he repeated his request for tools.
"None here," the man said. "Be off, I told you."
"You have an ax." The prisoner pointed at a heap of oddments in the cart.
"There is no ax."
"I see one. Give it here."
"There is no ax."
The man turned away. The prisoner followed, insistent. The man warned him to keep his distance. The prisoner pushed past him and tried to lay hands on the implement. Alarmed, the man cursed and shoved him aside. The prisoner was stubborn. He lunged toward the cart, swinging the edge of his collar against the man, who was now frightened. He stepped ahead of the prisoner and seized an ox goad. He brandished the Iron tipped pole.
"Enough of that. Get away."
The prisoner would not be denied. He started once more for the cart. The man struck him with the ox goad. The prisoner reeled back, regained his balance, and tried to snatch the pole. The man understood that he was dealing with a dangerous criminal. He brought the ox goad down on the prisoner's head. The prisoner fell. The man pondered whether to strike again. He judged it unnecessary. He set off with his cart as quickly as the ox could go.
The prisoner had been thoroughly stunned. By the time he got his wits back, the country folk were too far down the road to be overtaken. He started north again. He did not feel kindly disposed toward those folk. He halted. By the roadside, someone had set a pile of broken victuals. The prisoner flung himself on the bits of food. He could not put them into his mouth. On all fours, he devoured them where they lay.
At this point, the prisoner had worn the cangue less than two days. It snowed often that winter. Bad weather forced the prisoner to go at a snail's pace. Sometimes he lost his bearings amid the whirlwind of white flakes. Once, in the weeks that followed, he went in a large circle, ending where he had begun.
The cangue did not speak to him again. It was, nevertheless, an excellent teacher-stem and demanding, but always fair. As long as the prisoner did what the cangue required, they got on well enough. The cangue taught him many useful things: how to lap water like an animal; how to sleep sitting up; how to walk half bent-the prisoner found a staff to help him do so.
The cangue also taught him to avoid towns and villages when possible, to enter them only if absolutely necessary. The prisoner was not welcome there; his presence made the inhabitants uncomfortable and they sometimes drove him off with sticks. So the cangue taught him to shelter in peasants' outbuildings and to be quiet about it and not approach the dwellings. With the same instinct that told them a fox or wolf roamed their fields, the farm folk knew he was there. Some chased him away, but most ignored his presence. As often as not, they set out food for him. The cangue taught him to crouch over it and gulp it down before other stray creatures snatched it from him.
The cangue rewarded him for learning such lessons. It granted him marvelous dreams. Asleep, the prisoner was deliriously happy, his dreams so bright, so real that he was often confused when he woke. He could not be certain whether he was a prisoner dreaming of happiness, or a happy man dreaming he was a prisoner. Someone had once told him something like that. He could not remember who or when, the cangue rewarded him, as well, by allowing him to lose track of time. The prisoner at first counted the days. So many accumulated that they became as heavy as the wooden collar. The cangue permitted him to forget such details. It was either dark or light, snowing or not snowing, he had either eaten or had not. This relieved him of painfully calculating how long he had been on the roads.
One day, he grew vaguely aware of a greenish cast to the landscape, a green thickening among trees and hedges, rain instead of snow, mud instead of frozen turf. This pleased him.
The sun had grown noticeably warmer by the time he reached Nang-pei. He had been ill and feverish, but his spirits lifted and he felt a joyful excitement until now confined to his dreams. He made his way cautiously into the town, to the thieves' and beggars' quarter, which the cangue had taught him to sniff out unerringly.
He singled out a possible source of information: a street urchin, a ragged boy with a shrewd look on his narrow face. The prisoner b
eckoned. The boy swaggered over, grinning, studying the collar around the prisoner's neck as if he himself expected to wear one someday and wished a close look at what lay in store.
The prisoner inquired if he knew of a certain flute girl, a performer at the theater. "Who doesn't?" The boy put his hands on his hips. "Lady Shadow Behind a Screen." The prisoner did not recognize that name. From the boy's added description, he knew who it must be. He asked how to send her a message. "You and a hundred others." The boy chuckled. "Can't be done."
The prisoner replied that it must be done.
"Can't," the urchin repeated. "One good reason: She's gone. That's right. In a great carriage. We lined the streets to wave. We were sorry to see her go. Where? No idea. North? South? East? West? It would have to be one of them, wouldn't it?
"Here, now, old uncle," the boy added, rapping sharply on the front of the cangue, "don't go to sleep."
The prisoner had not gone to sleep. He had merely shut his eyes and let his head drop forward. He could barely absorb what the urchin told him. The boy waited a few moments. The prisoner did not move. The boy wondered if he had died. He shrugged and went off whistling down the street.
The prisoner dimly understood he would have to think what next to do. To begin, he must leave Nangpei. He hoped some thoughts would come to him by the time he reached the outskirts. None did. He sat down by the roadside. A strange new creature had roused inside his head; he glimpsed it lurking in the shadows.
Children played nearby, splashing in the puddles. They sidled up to the prisoner. He wished to tell them that their parents would be distressed and angry to see them loitering around him. But his tongue had grown thick and unmanageable, and he could not shape his words. He gestured them away. The children were not afraid. They observed him with interest. One cheerfully asked what crime he had committed. A girl held up a rice cake she had been munching. Did he want it? She stepped closer and put the cake into his mouth, grinning proudly, as if she had dared something highly dangerous.
Since the prisoner only sat motionless and showed no sign of doing anything exciting, the children grew bored and drifted away. The prisoner, actually, was very busy with the new animal. It was not panic, not love, fear, anger, hatred, or anything he had known. It had sharp claws and sharp teeth.
The prisoner had developed a raging thirst. Leaving the beast crouching in his mind, he lurched to one of the puddles and bent over it. He did not drink. A face stared up at him. The hair was long and matted, the nose and brow almost black, the skin flaked and peeling. It reminded him of someone. He racked his memory. Finally, it struck him.
"Where have you been?" he cried. "Master Shu!"
He reached out to embrace the old man. The animal, despair, took advantage of this moment of inattention. It leaped and sank its teeth.
• • • • •
Must a journey that began so brightly come to such an end? Jen has lost hope; will he survive without it? For the answer, turn to the next chapter.
27
• Two Prosperous Merchants •
• Fortune Changes For The Better •
• Or For The Worse? •
THIS DREAM WAS DIFFERENT. It was not as marvelous as the others. It kept breaking into bits and disappearing. People he did not know floated in and out. He felt as if he had been wrapped up, unable to move. Sometimes his mouth was opened and things put into it, which he chewed and swallowed instinctively. Most of the timeless time, he drifted through lightless corridors. As always, in his dreams, he wore no wooden collar. That was good. Otherwise, disappointing. He had hoped for something brighter. He had hoped to meet Voyaging Moon, as he so often did.
Eventually, he could see more clearly. Here were two gentlemen, both well-dressed. They could have been prosperous merchants. They looked vaguely familiar. One had a round, lumpy face; the other was lean, with long, ropy hair. It took him a while to recognize them.
"Mafoo? Moxa?" Jen said. "In handsome new clothes? What a fine dream this is turning out to be."
"Call me a dream, eh?" Mafoo slapped his large and solid belly. "Here's reality, well-stuffed. I got back better than I lost. You're awake, be sure of that."
Moxa came to the bedside. "If you think you're dreaming, what do you say to this?" He held up something in front of Jen. "Go on, touch it. See for yourself." It was the cangue, shattered.
"I cracked it open," Moxa said proudly. "Good thing no one saw me, or we'd all have been in trouble."
Jen took the collar in his hands. He passed his fingers over the splintered wood and broken bolts. He looked up at Mafoo and Moxa.
"No dream," Jen murmured. "I'm free of it." For the first time since he had worn the collar, he wept with joy.
"You'll tell us later how you got yourself into such a plight." Mafoo gently put a hand on Jen's shoulder. "The main thing is that you're out. Give that monstrosity here. I'll get rid of it now."
"I'll keep it," Jen said. "If I ever wonder if this is still a dream, all I need to do is look at it. And at the two of you. My dear friends, how did you find me? And where am I?"
"Specifically," the Mad Robber said, "we found you in a mud puddle. Generally, you're in Nang-peiat the best inn available, you'll be pleased to know. You've been sick a good while. We've had doctors coming and going, stuffing pills and potions down your gullet, and servants feeding you between times. You were far gone; we feared you mightn't come back."
"We've been trying to catch up with you for months," added Mafoo. "We lost track of you at the beginning of winter. Moxa picked up your trail again a few weeks ago."
"By the Ear of Continual Attentiveness!" exclaimed the Mad Robber. "It never fails. Talk, rumors, gossip. Some grateful villagers in a backwater called Ping-erh remembered you well. Ah, if only we'd found you before this."
"We did the best we could," Mafoo said. "I and this skinny madman," he added, with an affectionate grin at Moxa, "got swept beyond the mouth of the Lo, almost out to sea. We hung on for dear life to what was left of the boat. It took some doing to paddle back. We must have saved each other's life half a dozen times. We made shore at last and started upriver on foot. We sheltered in a fisherman's hut. He told us about a young fellow-we guessed it was you-who might have headed for Chen-yeh."
"No sign of you there," Moxa put in, "but the Ear of Continual Attentiveness heard of a flute girl who'd been at the Golden Grasshopper long before. We talked to the proprietor, a disagreeable creature."
"And got nothing from him," Jen said bitterly.
"On the contrary," Moxa said.. "We got a great deal. On the Feet of Stealthy Silence, I went back that night and robbed him. At last, a perfect client! Not one of the Precepts of Honorable Robbery applied to him; I had no compunction whatever. In fact, I enjoyed it. Better yet, that villain's cash was the foundation of our fortune. Of course, if you look closely enough, most fortunes have robbery of one sort or another at the bottom."
"With Master Hong's money, we bought a carriage and pair of horses," Mafoo said. "We thought that would be quicker than tramping through the countryside. We bought new clothes, too. No use rousing suspicion that we were vagrants. In fact, we looked so prosperous and substantial that I was able to do a little business here and there. For a while, we had a finger in the dumpling trade, with a handsome return on the investment. Trying to follow you from one place to another, we bought bolts of cloth, pots, pans, and such and sold them at an excellent profit. Had we kept on, we'd have made our fortunes a couple times over.
"It's mostly thanks to this long-legged lunatic," Mafoo continued. "He turned out to be a better businessman than he ever was a robber."
"It's the Eye of Discerning Perception," Moxa said, beaming proudly. "And the Nose of Thoughtful Inhalations. They served me well in ferreting out lucrative enterprises. I'm thinking seriously of giving up robbery and becoming a merchant. In business, there are no Precepts whatever to inconvenience you."
"You pair of rascals!" Jen burst out laughing. "To think I was ready
to give you up for drowned! I wish I'd done as well as the two of you.
"As for me," Jen said, after telling what had befallen him, "the gifts for Yuan-ming are gone. Voyaging Moon may still have the flute. Whether she does or doesn't makes no difference. All I want is to find her. With the three of us together now, we can surely do that."
"Don't think we haven't tried," Mafoo said. "We searched for her as hard as we searched for you. She was here in Nang-pei until winter. We talked to the theater director. He couldn't help us. He had no idea where she went."
"Then we'll keep looking," Jen said. "I'll need clothes, to begin with. You have a carriage and horses? We can start off today."
"That won't be possible," Mafoo said.
"Why not?" returned Jen. "What's to stop us?"
"We'll not give up searching," Mafoo said, "but it must be put off a while. Before that, you must go to Ch'angan. As quickly as possible."
"What?" exclaimed Jen. "No, no, I see no use."
"My plump friend is correct," put in Moxa. "The Heart of Sentimental Sympathy grieves for you. The Voice of Stem Practicality tells me you must do as he says."
Jen looked from Moxa to Mafoo. "I don't understand."
Mafoo's face was grave. "We heard of this a short while ago. Your honored father fell ill soon after you left the Celestial Palace. At the end of last week, the worthy man joined his honorable ancestors."
"My father-dead?" Jen gave an anguished cry. "And I not with him! No, not true."
"Alas, it is," Mafoo said quietly. "You are no longer Young Lord Prince. You are King of T'ang."
• • • • •
From wretched prisoner to King of T'ang! What will Jen do in these new circumstances? What of his beloved Voyaging Moon? This, and more, is told in the fallowing chapter.