"Rest a while," the Lady of Fearful Awakenings said as Li Kwang sank into the deep cushions. She covered his face with her hands. Li Kwang gratefully closed his eyes.
The fatigue that overwhelmed him did not come entirely from his ride through the countryside. It was, rather, as if all battles he had ever fought now pressed upon him. Every step marched, every league ridden compressed into a single massive burden.
For a time, he dreamed of those past combats, of hissing arrows, bloody swords, riders clashing, horses shrieking and striking out with their hooves. Cries of the wounded and dying filled his ears, the reek of old battlefields choked his nostrils.
The nightmares faded. In their place arose mineral visions: sharp-edged stars of crystals, geometric shapes shifting and combining, growing like frost patterns; mountains cleaved to reveal dark inner veins; snowflakes of garnet; the dreams a stone might dream.
He awoke. The chamber had vanished.
Li Kwang sat astride Autumn Dew. They were in the cavern once again. Unable to move arms or legs, he could open his eyes no more than a crack. Crystalline growths jutted like fangs around him and gave a dim greenish glow. Glancing down with difficulty, as if his eyes had frozen in their sockets, he glimpsed his hands on the reins. A cry like rocks grinding together caught in his throat.
Li Kwang had turned to stone. So had Autumn Dew. Li Kwang could not see them, but knew with cold certainty that his warriors shared the same fate.
He tried to fathom how this had come about, hoping that by doing so he might devise a way to free his warriors from this horrible captivity. But his thoughts moved as slowly as a glacier. Time itself seemed turned to stone-he could not calculate how long he had slept or how long he had been in the cavern. He only understood how well named had been the Lady of Fearful Awakenings.
Despite all, deep within his shell of stone he sensed a constant throbbing, and he envisioned a crimson spark pulsing faintly but steadily. As long as his heart beat, he knew himself to be a living man.
A tall form took shape in front of him. Li Kwang's eyes had become crystal prisms and he saw a dozen images of an old man in a red robe.
"I have been waiting for you," Master Wu said. "You have slept, now you must wake."
"You? Here?" murmured Li Kwang. "Was it you who caused this?"
"I cause nothing," Master Wu replied, "though from time to time I make arrangements. Had you not tried the saddle, things would have gone otherwise. Now, they are what they are and what they must be. You are in Wu-shan, Mountain of Sorcerers."
"What of Prince Jen?" Li Kwang said. "If I failed him, if I did not guard him as I vowed, let me not fail him again. How can I rejoin him?"
"Prince Jen follows his own road," Master Wu said, "and must go wherever it may lead him. Your path has taken a different turning."
"I accept my punishment," Li Kwang said. "The blame is mine alone. Therefore, I ask you to free my warriors. They followed me, but this was their duty, not their fault. I ask you as well to free Autumn Dew. Her place is not here. Allow her, at least, to return to the fields and forests and the open sky."
"Broken Face Kwang," Master Wu said, "your words do you credit. You will gain merit for them. Whatever else," he added with half a smile, "you do not have a heart of stone.
"I cannot grant your wish entirely," Master Wu continued. "That is not in my power, but in yours."
"How?" Li Kwang replied. "I can no more move from this spot than could a rock or a boulder."
"Have you the will to do it?" Master Wu said. "Try."
Summoning all his strength of spirit, Li Kwang discovered that indeed he could move a little, and Autumn Dew likewise; but so grindingly and agonizingly that all effort seemed doomed to fail. Nevertheless, whatever the painful cost, he resolved to guide his faithful horse and warriors into the sunlit world of living beings.
Master Wu nodded, satisfied by Li Kwang's determination, and gave him certain instructions. "Only if you are able to follow them," he added, "only then can there be any shred of hope."
"Given that much," Li Kwang said, "I ask no more."
• • • • •
Leaving Li Kwang and his stone warriors to whatever the future holds for them, we now return to Prince Jen, Voyaging Moon, and Mafoo. How they deal with their own plight is told in the following chapter.
6
• Prince Jen Follows the Cute Girl •
• What They Find in the Cavern •
• What Finds Them •
THE ONLY TRACE OF THE WARRIORS was a saddle by the roadside. Prince Jen knelt to examine it. "This is Li Kwang's." He glanced anxiously at Mafoo. "Where is the one I gave him to mend?"
"Forgive this unspeakably ignorant flute girl for even daring to say this," put in Voyaging Moon, "but when all of your people seem to have disappeared, and you're far from your palace, alone in the middle of nowhere, very likely without provisions, one saddle more or less is the least of your worries."
"The least?" Prince Jen cried. "It was in my charge. A gift for Yuan-ming. Master Wu chose it." He stammered out a quick account of his journey and its purpose.
"I understand why you'd want it back," Voyaging Moon said. "Of course, you've already considered the possibility that your officer left his own saddle here and put the other on his horse."
"He could have," Prince Jen said. "But why? And why isn't he here? He was ordered to wait for me."
"First, find him," Voyaging Moon said, "then you'll find what happened."
"Oh, brilliant!" Mafoo snorted. "And how to do that?"
"But surely you know." Voyaging Moon smiled at Mafoo. "By now, you've looked at the roadway. And very cleverly observed the hoofprints and wagon tracks."
"Eh?" said Mafoo. "Oh. Yes, I was just about to do that."
"Not that a shrewd, quick-witted fellow like you needs any help," Voyaging Moon added, "but if I were asked, I might agree to come along. In case-a remote possibility, but just in case-you missed some tiny detail."
"There's a slight odor of rat somewhere in this," Mafoo murmured to Prince Jen. "She has something else in mind."
"Would you help us?" Prince Jen asked eagerly, paying no attention to Mafoo. "Cha-wei will commend you for a good deed."
"I doubt it," Voyaging Moon said. "He won't have the chance. I'm not setting foot in Kwan-tzu again. I've run off."
"There's the rat!" cried Mafoo. "I knew I smelled one."
"The Honorable Cha-wei thinks I'm with you," Voyaging Moon said to Prince Jen. "By the time it occurs to him that I'm permanently missing, and he searches for me, I'll be out of reach. If he does happen to catch up with me-why, I'm simply doing the Young Lord a service."
"You left your master without permission?" said Prince Jen, taken aback. "You've committed a serious crime."
"I certainly have," Voyaging Moon happily agreed. "Cha-wei plans to bestow a great honor on me."
"Then why run away? You should be grateful."
"Do you think so?" said Voyaging Moon. "First, let me tell you this. My father was a peasant; he could barely feed himself, let alone a family. When my mother died, he sold me to a spice merchant in Kwantzu. The merchant raised me as a handmaiden for his wife. I was taught to read and write, play the flute, prepare tea correctly, and all such accomplishments. In time, the merchant wanted an important favor from Cha-wei. I was offered as a gift, which Cha-wei was pleased to accept. The merchant got his favor. Cha-wei got a flute girl.
"Now," she went on, "he wants to honor me by installing me in his bed-chamber. That's an honor I decided to do without."
"I'm glad-I mean, that is, I can understand," Jen replied. "Yes, but-regrettably, the law is clear. It requires me to send you back immediately. I don't want to, but."
"Young Lord," Mafoo whispered, drawing Jen aside, "just between the two of us, I'm not quite as clever as this flute girl thinks I am. Tracks? I can't even see them, let alone follow them. The law's already broken. What's the harm in breaking it a little more? In any case, you're
the prince. The law's what you decide it is."
Prince Jen grinned. "As I was just about to say." With Mafoo jogging behind in the carriage, Prince Jen tried to keep pace with the girl's long strides. After a time, Voyaging Moon halted and pointed toward the hills. From the tom undergrowth and trampled ground, she judged that the warriors had gone straight into the uplands. However, no sooner did Mafoo try to turn off the road than the mended wheel shattered again. The vehicle lurched and sent him tumbling into the bushes. Crawling out, shaking his fist, Mafoo laid this new misfortune on the head of Master Fu.
"We've had bad luck ever since we laid eyes on him!" cried Mafoo. "He plagues us even when he isn't here!"
"Leave the carriage, it's useless," Voyaging Moon said. "We can bring the horses-as you were about to suggest."
Mafoo unhitched the animals. Prince Jen took the bundle of gifts. Having endangered, perhaps even lost, one of them, he chose to carry the rest himself. They pressed through the undergrowth, following the surefooted Voyaging Moon. For well into the afternoon, they continued upward, walking their mounts where the woods grew too dense. A little before dusk, the girl halted at the foot of a towering mass of gray rock, dotted with patches of scrubby vegetation. The tracks led to the mouth of a cave.
"They've taken shelter there," Prince Jen said. He ran ahead into the cavern. He could see nothing in the deep shadows. He called out Li Kwang's name. Only echoes came back. Tethering the horses, Voyaging Moon and Mafoo brought in torches they had made from dead branches. The flickering light showed an earthen floor marked by boots and hooves.
"Your men stopped here," Voyaging Moon said. "That's plain enough." "Then what?" Mafoo demanded. "Vanished into thin air?"
The girl shrugged. "I see what I see."
"Are there other chambers?" Prince Jen took a torch and paced the length and breadth of the cave. The few recesses and passages were all too shallow and led nowhere.
"I know exactly what happened," Mafoo declared.
"Very simple and logical. They came in. They stopped at the wall. Obviously, they couldn't have gone through it. So, they turned around and left."
"If they did," Voyaging Moon said to Prince Jen, "you'll no doubt ask me to pick up their trail again. All right, as you insist. It's too dark to see anything now. Best stay where we are. In the morning, I'll do what I can."
At her instruction, Mafoo built a fire to keep off the chill of the cavern. From her saddlebag, Voyaging Moon shared some of the food she had extracted from Cha-wei's larder. Prince Jen ate with excellent appetite, feeling in better spirits now than when first setting out. Though he reproached himself for his misjudgment in letting the saddle out of his hands-for all that it had seemed right and sensible at the time-he was confident of finding Li Kwang and seeing the matter finally settled.
Despite his complaining at the hard ground and sharp stones, Mafoo curled up and immediately began snoring. Voyaging Moon stretched out, her jacket rolled up under her head. Prince Jen, who had never reposed on anything harsher than silk, propped his back against the stone wall and found it not unbearable. For a while, he happily observed the sleeping flute girl, and, at last, his eyes closed.
Voices roused him. Voyaging Moon had already leaped to her feet. Prince Jen scrambled up. The torches had burned low; gray morning light filtered through crevices in the ceiling. A tall figure stood in the mouth of the cave. Tied around his head was a bloodstained yellow scarf.
• • • • •
Though Prince Jen is unaware of it, we already know what has happened to Li Kwang. But now is a new disaster about to overtake our three travelers? For the answer, read the following chapter.
7
• Natha Yellow Scarf •
• Two Good Reasons For Sparing Jen's Life •
• A Third is Needed •
"BRING LIGHTS HERE." The man, big, rawboned, was dressed in a rag of a shirt and a pair of tattered trousers. A sword hung at his side. Two quick paces and he was inside the cavern. Prince Jen flung a protecting arm around Voyaging Moon. Mafoo, rubbing sleep from his eyes, hurried to join them.
The tall man set his fists on his hips. His face was chalked a deathly white and streaked with crimson; across his brow, a smear of bright yellow. Some half dozen companions, as roughly garbed and fiercely daubed as their leader, drifted in behind him.
"What have we found?" The man's eyes glittered as one of his comrades held up a lantern. "A farm girl: peasant stock, from the look of her. But these two are a different breed. Town rats, I'd say. That one with a belt too short for his belly has spent some time in dumpling houses. The other's no pauper, not in those fancy clothes. A young idler from a rich family. Father's pride, mother's joy."
"I know of you." Prince Jen looked squarely at him. "Natha Yellow Scarf. The law will deal with you, not I. You are not our concern. Either leave us or let us leave."
"What, you order me?" Natha's eyes blazed. He thrust his face close to Prince Jen's. "Oh, my lad, you say you know of me, but you know me not at all. You have a glib tongue. Mind how it wags. You may lose It."
"What he means to say," Mafoo hastily put in, "is that we're only passing through. Harmless travelers, as you see."
"We, too, are only passing through. The horses outside made me wonder who might be inside. Idle curiosity. We won't inconvenience you more than we need."
"Yes, well, in that case," Mafoo said, "we'll go quietly on our way and about our business. There's nothing you could want."
"But there is. Indeed, there is. What do I want? Let me think." Natha paced back and forth, chin in hand. He stopped in front of Prince Jen. "Yes. What I need, first, is three good reasons why I shouldn't cut all your throats.
"It should be easy," Natha went on, before Prince Jen could reply. "A moment's thought and you'll have dozens. I ask only three. Nothing comes quickly to mind? Let me start you off."
Natha raised a finger. "One. You'll tell me I'm a kindhearted, easygoing sort of fellow. That's good. I'll accept that.
"Two." He raised another finger. "Why not say, 'It would be a shame to spoil a sunny morning'? All right, I'm in good spirits. We had a little scuffle with some yokels from Kwan-tzu. To celebrate our victory? That's another good reason.
"Two, so far. Now we must seek a third. What can it be?" Natha frowned and shook his head. "Harder than I thought. Yet you must find it.
"Yes, here it is!" He turned to Voyaging Moon. "Third. The farm girl's going to bargain for your lives."
"Stand away from her," Prince Jen burst out. Voyaging Moon made a quick gesture for him to be silent.
"Another order?" Natha snapped. "Why, lad, she may offer me the best reason of all. I've seen prettier, but she may turn out to have a charm all her own."
Voyaging Moon's chin went up. Natha reached out and held her face in a tight grip. "As I take a better look at her, I think we may come to an agreement."
"Let her be." Prince Jen tore Natha's hand away. "Do you want another reason? I'll give you one."
Natha's eyes widened for a moment, then he grinned like a sword pulled from a sheath. In one sudden movement, he struck Prince Jen full in the face. The blow sent Prince Jen reeling against the cavern wall. Natha's henchmen sprang to surround Voyaging Moon and Mafoo. Stunned, bewildered, Prince Jen put his fingertips to his mouth and stared at the blood staining them. It was not the pain of the blow that shocked him, but that it had been struck at all. He could scarcely comprehend something so monstrous, unthinkable. He drew himself up to his full height.
"How dare you?" He spoke barely above a whisper, but the tone made Natha stop short. "How dare you defile my royal person?" Prince Jen's voice rose. It rang through the cavern.
"Kowtow! To the ground. All. Obey. I am the son of His Divine Majesty. I am Jen Shao-yeh. The Young Lord Prince." Natha started a moment. Mafoo rolled up his eyes and held his head in dismay. Voyaging Moon broke the sudden silence.
"Don't play the clown," she cried out to Prince Jen. "At a time like this? Si
lly fool, you'll have us all killed. No more jokes. Be serious for once." Natha glanced from Prince Jen to Voyaging Moon and back again. He clapped his hands and burst into laughter.
"Why, you truly are a fool! Think yourself clever? Is that your third reason? Oh, no, no, lad. Son of King T'ai? That would be the best reason-to slit your gullet here and now." Natha spat scornfully. "King? As much king as a bundle of straw. The officials are his masters. And ours. And strip us to the bone. Ask the peasant girl."
"And you?" Voyaging Moon said. "You're treating us as badly as any official. We've done you no harm, but you talk of cutting our throats."
"Not yours," Natha said, after a moment, as Voyaging Moon looked steadily at him. She had spoken lightly, but her voice had an edge to it. He turned away, unable to meet her gaze. "To the devil with you." He grimaced. "I had half a mind to take you with me. You'll go free. I think you'd be more trouble than you're worth.
"Even so," Natha went on, "I want my third reason from that pair. Since they can't seem to find one, I'll have to find it for them. Let's consider gold and silver."
"None," said one of his companions. "We've already searched the fat one. Not a purse, not a coin."
"I'll have something for my trouble," Natha cried angrily. His eyes lit on the bundle of gifts by the wall. "What's that?"
"Of no value to you." Prince Jen went to stand in front of the gifts. "I'll see that for myself." Natha strode after him. He pushed Prince Jen aside and tore away the wrappings.
"What rubbish is this? A paint box? A kite? Are those your playthings?"
That instant, before Natha caught sight of it, Prince Jen snatched up the sword and tore it from the scabbard. Natha halted abruptly. "Ah. Now that's a little more interesting. Hand it over."