Barry Hughart - Eight Skilled Gentlemen

“I come here often just before the seasonal sacrifices. The purpose is to steal something,” he said matter-of-factly. “I’ve offered to buy the stuff time and time again but I always get turned down, and I would be honored to have witnesses to my crime.”

“The honor shall be ours,” Master Li said graciously.

So there were three of us as we continued up the path. Master Li was perfectly content to let Yen Shih take the lead, and the puppeteer pulled weeds aside and ducked low and stepped into the opening of a natural rock tunnel. Inside the entrance was a barrel holding a stack of torches and Yen Shih and I each lit one, and then we followed the tunnel on and up into the heart of the famous Yu.

I really don’t know what I was expecting. I do know that I was disappointed. There was practically nothing to see. It was only a cavern of stone worn smooth by water, with a small round hole in the center of the floor and a maze of little tunnels leading up and out through the roof. Even the ancient altar was no more than a large stone blackened by fires of thousands of years ago, and I have to admit that I found the modern touches more interesting than the ancient ones. The modern part was simply the stack of crates holding ceremonial material for the rites of the next moon, since the Yu cavern was traditionally used for such purposes, and Yen Shih walked over to one of the crates and lifted the lid and smiled down at the contents.

“What thief could resist it?” he asked.

I stared at the stuff. “Clay?” I said.

“Very special clay,” said the puppeteer. “It comes from the bank of a river near Canton, and it’s used to blend with incense and form fragrant figures of sacrificial animals. I’ve been trying without success to buy it, because it’s perfect for modeling puppets I’ll eventually carve in permanent form.”

I watched with awe as his fingers swiftly kneaded a ball of the clay. A marvelously funny laughing face appeared, a merry woman, and then with a flick of fingers it became the sorrowful image of a weeping old man.

“I don’t need much, but it’s fragile stuff and several times a year I have to steal a bit more of it,” Yen Shih said with a shrug, and then he neatly wrapped some clay inside a piece of oilskin and tied it around his waist beneath his tunic.

“I’ll see if I can get you a permit,” was Master Li’s only comment. Then he changed the subject. “Let’s show Ox the wall carvings. A friend of ours has an interesting theory concerning who they’re meant to represent, although he hasn’t the slightest idea what they’re supposed to be doing.”

Again Yen Shih led the way with his torch, and I must honestly report that again I was disappointed. The famous frieze was in a long side tunnel that tapered to a tiny hole looking out over the lake, and at first I didn’t see anything at all. It was only when Master Li had me hold my torch close to the wall that the figures appeared, and even then I could barely make them out.

Eight hooded men were seen over and over, apparently performing different stages of some sort of ritual. The stone was worn almost smooth, and no details were visible. Each of the shamans—if that’s what they were—seemed to be carrying something, but no trace of the objects remained. So far as I could see they could have been doing anything from sowing a field to celebrating a marriage, and the few surviving symbols above them that Master Li identified as birds of some sort didn’t mean anything either.

“It’s a real pity there isn’t a clearer record,” Master Li said regretfully. “One would expect to find more carvings of the eight figures, but so far as I know none have come to light.”

I realized that Yen Shih was standing very still with his eyes fixed on Master Li’s face. I could see he was weighing various factors, and then he came to a decision.

“I haven’t been totally truthful. I come to the island to steal something else as well, and I think you may be interested in looking at it,” he said.

We followed the puppeteer back into the sunlight. He turned left and began to climb a small winding trail to the top of the crag and the row of astronomical instruments that were used to confirm predictions of eclipses in the annual imperial calendar.

“Incredible waste,” Yen Shih said, pointing at the huge metal base the instruments rested on, glinting dully in the sun. “That’s partially high-grade bronze and partially Dragon’s Sinew, meaning an alloy of a small amount of copper, twice as much antimony, and a great deal of tin. It costs a fortune, relatively speaking, and I need a lot of it to make nearly invisible wires for my puppets. Fortunately, I could keep digging this stuff out for several centuries.”

A long flat rock lay beside the platform, and when Yen Shih lifted it I saw a deep hole, big enough to slide into. He did so, taking the torch he still carried, and when he climbed back up the torch was still below, illuminating a small cave.

“There isn’t space for two, but you may find my Dragon’s Sinew mine rather interesting,” he said cryptically.

Master Li went first, and I heard a sudden sharp exclamation, and then his voice lifted happily. “Yen Shih, everything I have is yours!”

Some minutes later he had me lift him out, and then I squeezed down through the hole myself. The torch was stuck in a crevice, burning brightly, and the first thing I saw was the puppeteer’s “mine.” The workmen had poured Dragon’s Sinew with lavish abandon, leaving large congealed pools of the stuff, and Yen Shih had been very neatly chipping away at the edges. As I followed the glinting path of the metal I saw it run into a shelf of solid rock.

“I’ll be the Stone Monkey!” I yelped, and I heard Master Li laugh up above.

Yen Shih had led us to his private gallery as well as his private mine. “Eight! I’ve found all eight!” Ma Tuan Lin had written before a monster burned a hole in his back, and here carved in stone were the eight hooded shamans of three thousand years ago, and the details had not worn away. They were carrying eight cages precisely like the one concealed beneath Master Li’s pallet.

A short time later we were seated on the bronze platform beside the astronomical instruments sipping wine—meaning Yen Shih and Master Li were emptying the latter’s wine flask while I drank plum juice with vinegar from my own flask. The puppeteer appeared to have insides of solid copper. Alcohol didn’t seem to affect him at all, and he was getting on splendidly with Master Li, who was in an expansive mood.

“Yen Shih, my friend, when you come to this island you scarcely announce your presence,” Master Li said. “By any odd chance did you happen to be here two nights ago, about the double hour of the sheep?”

“No, I was sound asleep in my house at the time,” Yen Shih said.

Master Li pointed in the direction of Ma Tuan Lin’s pavilion. “Something peculiar has been going on down there,” he said. “You’ve heard about the vampire ghoul who caused Devil’s Hand to lose his chance for the record? Well, a few hours earlier, around the double hour of the sheep, that ch’ih-mei was unquestionably right where I’m pointing, at one of the pavilions.”

The puppeteer looked where Master Li pointed, and then raised his eyes to the water of North Lake lapping at the bank beside the pavilion, and his eyes continued to lift to the opposite shore and Peking and the Vegetable Market, where the ch’ih-mei had fallen and died. The terrible smallpox craters deprived the puppeteer of normal facial expressions, but his right eyebrow was eloquent as it lifted toward the top of his head.

“But how…”

“Ah! You see it. I thought you would,” Master Li said happily. He turned to me. “Ox, that’s the most important reason for coming back to the island. We’re now absolutely certain that the vampire ghoul was outside Ma Tuan Lin’s pavilion a few hours before it crawled into its coffin on Coal Hill. All right, how did it get from the pavilion to the cemetery?”