Barry Hughart - Eight Skilled Gentlemen

“For a time, Li Kao, for a time,” Envy said. He flicked a wrist in a casual gesture of dismissing a trifle I couldn’t imitate with a thousand years of practice, and the sunrise smile I had seen illuminate a landscape of pockmarks now lit the grotesquely painted face a goddess had given him. “You would have needed supernatural powers to guess at the beginning who I was and what I was after, and when I consider the array of marvels and monsters coming at you from all sides I am awestruck that you could untangle it at all, much less get here in time. An extraordinary performance, and you will forgive me if I begin to wonder who is the manipulator and who is the mannequin.”

Yen Shih stepped toward Master Li, and smiled when I jumped protectively to the old man’s side.

“Don’t worry, Ox. If murder were on my mind I would have killed both of you the moment Master Li found the remaining mandarins, which meant he had found the remaining cages that my peculiar siblings still occupied as guardians. Master Li has earned the right to challenge, and I would be a poor cavalier if I did not accept the challenge eagerly. We shall race, he and I,” he said. “The boats await as they awaited three thousand years ago, as do the crews, and it is time to meet them.”

The figures we walked toward were indistinct in mist that floated low over the twin channels of water and in the smoke from rows of torches. As we grew closer I began to realize that it wasn’t only mist and smoke that blurred the forms and features of the crews. They themselves were like wax dolls placed too close to a stove, partially melted, twisted and squashed down as had been the ancient statues of dying deities around the upper cavern of the Yu. They still carried an aura of awesome strength but they smelled of abandoned tombs, desiccated and dusty, crumbling with age, and I wondered how much longer they could keep their vigil beside antique Dragon Boats.

Sixteen stepped forward and bowed, eight from each boat, the ones wearing the red bandanas of lead oarsmen.

“Allow me to introduce those who will set the stroke for the yang boat,” said Envy. “These eight on my left are the four Roving Lights, Yu-kuang, and the four Junior Brothers of the Wasteland, Yeh-chung, who are wrongfully accused in innumerable ancient accounts of spreading pestilence. They do no such thing. All they do is row, and if pestilence follows their victories it is no concern of theirs.”

The eight oarsmen bowed again and stepped back into the ranks. Envy waved toward eight figures on the right, who lifted their heads one after another.

“Your lead strokes, Pa-ling, ‘Eight Ghostly Powers,’ and very great oarsmen of yin are they,” said Envy, who was using the intonation of a chant. “From left to right they are First Doer, Lungs and Stomach, Ancestral Intelligence, Rising and Soaring, Seizer of All, Sharpener and Amputator, Husky Lusty One, and, finally, Extreme and Extraordinary One, who has been accorded the honor of a brief description in Classic of Mountains and Seas. ‘On Shensi mountain dwells a creature that has the shape of a bull, the bristles of a porcupine, and the sound of a howling dog. It eats people.’ “

The oarsmen bowed and stepped back into the ranks. Four other creatures, two from each boat, stepped forward.

“The wielders of drum and clapping board, who receive the commands of the scarves and transmit them through their instruments to the rest of the crews,” said Envy. “Beating for yang: Male Elder on the left and Elder Extraordinary One on the right. Beating for yin: Bounding and Rushing on the left and Gliding Sliding One on the right.”

The four bowed and stepped back. A slim slight figure stepped forward, and my heart did strange things. For a long moment I was sure it was Yu Lan, but then I realized the girl had a slightly blurred face, like all the others, and her eyes were deep and cold and frightening, and where she walked a puddle formed. The awesome man-ape that was Envy, and who I still loved as Yen Shih, turned to me.

“Number Ten Ox, pay the closest attention,” he said quietly. “In the ancient White Marsh Diagrams is a charmingly innocent entry: ‘The essence of old wells takes the form of a beautiful girl called Kuan, and it likes to sit on rocks and blow a flute, and if you call it by name it will go away.’ This is indeed Kuan, Essence of Old Wells, and you must know two things. The first is that her strength has never been measured and probably can’t be, because wells draw power from earth and water alike. The second is that she has been my faithful companion during my exile on earth. As such she shall use her great strength at the steering oar of the yang boat, and you, as companion of Master Li, shall steer the yin boat, and the role of the one they call goat is a hard and dangerous one. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir,” I whispered.

Master Li and Envy walked forward together to the yang boat on the left, and as I helped them light the purifying fire on top of the platform in the center I was struck by the wording of their ancient solstice chant: “The sparks of the suns are burning the sky! The fire of the earth is burning the Five Regions! Flames destroy all that is not auspicious!” Then we crossed a gangplank to the yin boat and repeated the purifying ritual. There were other ceremonies and chants I didn’t recognize and couldn’t understand, and finally Envy returned by himself to the yang boat. The gangplank was pulled in. Master Li was totally relaxed now that the issue was clear-cut, and he regarded his counterpart with speculative eyes.

“As a matter of purely academic interest, am I correct in assuming that the appearance of that vampire ghoul was no more than a weird coincidence?” he asked.

“I sincerely hope so since I prefer not to wander into the morass of metaphysical speculation,” Envy replied with equal nonchalance. “I assume the creature fell into a load of earth that was being carried to Hortensia Island, and Ma Tuan Lin accidentally moved the bead on the cage in the proper sequence not long afterward and released the first of my brothers. Monsters worship demon-deities. The ch’ih-mei crawled from the pile and was too late to greet my brother, but at least he found a meal.”

“And your original involvement?” Master Li asked.

“I was as ignorant as the ch’ih-mei,” said Envy. “I had no idea the cages had survived until I heard the ‘Pi-fang!’ cry and saw the crane cross the moon. It was a marvelous moment. If one brother survived, and surely that meant the cage he guarded also survived, why not the others? Once long ago, I had nearly accomplished an extraordinary feat, only to be denied by incredibly persistent shamans, and now if I could get my hands on those cages I might use their own tools to complete the job. But how could I get my hands on the cages?”

“Enter a puppet,” Master Li said sourly.

“You were a godsend. The great Master Li tracking down mandarins and cages for me!” Envy exclaimed delightedly, without the slightest trace of sarcasm or irony. “I was sure you would discover the mechanisms that enabled puppets to operate with minimum help from Yu Lan while I myself roamed free, but I was also sure you would discover it too late.”

Master Li had walked up to the captain’s post on the high prow and was arranging his scarves, and on the left I saw Envy doing the same, and with a lump in my throat that nearly choked me I made my way astern to the raised platform and the long handle of the huge steering oar. It was beautifully balanced. So much so that I could lift it easily from the water with downward pressure from my body, but lowering it gently was far more difficult, and when the boat rocked very slightly as the hawser was cast away I was almost knocked off my feet. Sideways movements of the oar were murder, and I hated to think what would happen with up-and-down movements if the boat hit hard waves.