Barry Hughart - Eight Skilled Gentlemen

The twin boats were moving, floating side by side in the two channels, picking up speed even though no rower had touched an oar, and now I could see far enough through the mist to make out a perfectly straight streak of light ahead of us, cutting across our path like the edge of a knife.

“Like a starting line,” I thought, and as I thought it I felt a powerful series of vibrations: one… two… three… four… five… six… seven… eight…

The eight tuning forks, yin and yang, were allowing the Yu to perform a song unheard in three thousand years. Great rumbling notes—soft for all their force—were blurring the water and the air as though blending elements together, and then a long, slow, steady throbbing note seemed to evolve and take over. It was perfectly steady, quiet but with unimaginable power. This was the full song of the Yu, weaving music into water that stretched out from the horizontal line perpendicular to the boats and blended both channels into a river fit for a race, and Master Li turned to the puppeteer with wonder in his eyes.

“Can those remarkable men have created a racing path that also measures the solstice they sought to preserve?” he asked.

“The course is permanently set as though it was the shadow of a giant gnomon, yes,” Envy said. “I haven’t the slightest idea how they managed it, although I once read that a similar phenomenon was produced by a barbarian called Oenopides of Chios. Needless to say, the gnomon is correct to the precise second of the solstice.”

Master Li heaved a melancholy sigh.

“What a pity. The one man in the empire who could have explained it to us, on his better days, can’t be here,” he said. “I can forgive much, but I cannot forgive the fate of the Celestial Master.”

“Li Kao, he was dying! His mind was nearly gone,” Envy protested. “I had to find some way to infuriate Heaven with mankind. Your discovery of a smuggling and counterfeiting ring gave me the idea of using aristocratic greed to resurrect the ghost scheme, but in itself it wouldn’t be enough. However, the August Personage of Jade is hot-tempered, as we all know. I was certain he would remove his protection from earth before the matter had been fully investigated if the Celestial Master were to insult Heaven with human sacrifice in the name of righteousness and religion, which could be done if Malice took over the Celestial Master’s body. As it turned out, my miserable son almost ruined the whole thing.”

For the first time Envy showed strong emotion, and the garish colors of his face received an additional flush of rage.

“That idiot boy and his pathetic plot to kill you in the greenhouse,” he said with venom dripping from his voice. “Kill you? You hadn’t yet tracked down the remaining mandarins and their cages! And then he had a little maid murdered because she let a dog die, he said, but the real reason was that he wanted to exult in the power that went with the new body he occupied, and murdering someone was the best use of power he could think of. On top of that he had to amuse himself by playing tag with you around half the Forbidden City, and the most persuasive argument for celibacy I know of is my son Malice!”

“Yet that would deny you a daughter,” Master Li said quietly. “She is surely compensation enough.”

“Yes,” Envy said, very softly. “Yes, no man has ever had a lovelier and more dutiful daughter, though few daughters have been born bearing such a curse.”

The garish face turned in my direction, and I still think I wasn’t wrong to feel honored to receive a nod of his head.

“I would say that my daughter chose a most inopportune time to seek love, if I didn’t know that such things are not a matter of choice,” he said. “My heart went out to her, poor girl. Fleeing to fragmented passion in the world of dreams—the only medium in which Madness moves more freely than can her mother, and one does not disobey her mother—but even in dreams metamorphosis was sure to seek her out. She wept long and hard, and although she never told what happened I knew she could no longer approach Number Ten Ox in sleep lest her fangs sink into his brain and her claws clasp his heart. Godhood cannot be refused,” Envy said, and his grimace and wry tone of voice suggested he was talking not about Yu Lan when he added, “but it need not be sought.”

Master Li looked silently at Envy for a long moment.

“You have known grandeur and debasement to degrees far beyond human comprehension, which leads one to wonder what you hope to gain by tricking Heaven into allowing mass destruction on earth. The gods, you know, will simply blame it on Destiny and go about the delightful business of rebuilding,” Master Li said. “As for the earthly massacre, would you stoop to the level of the legendary king who summoned all the world’s elephants to trample an ant who bit his royal toe?”

Envy looked at him with a faint smile. The shining straight line was much closer now, and the boats were traveling faster, and the lead oars were spitting on their hands and rewrapping their bandanas. Water slapped the boat, and the handle of the steering oar smacked my ribs.

“Li Kao, you already know that I act as I do because I must,” Envy said.

His eyes turned to me, and in them was a strange light I couldn’t decipher, almost, but not quite, like the moon-glow eyes of Kuan, who stood across from me at the handle of her steering oar, riding easily with the movement of the boat, thinking the slow deep thoughts of wells.

“Number Ten Ox,” Envy said quietly, “once there was a great king who gazed down from a tall tower upon a gardener who sang as he worked, and the king cried, ‘Ah, to have a life of no cares! If only I could be that gardener.’ And the voice of the August Personage of Jade reached out from Heaven and said, ‘It shall be so,’ and lo, the king was a gardener singing in the sun. In time the sun grew hot and the gardener stopped singing, and a fine dark cloud brought coolness and then drifted away, and it was hot again and much work remained, and the gardener cried, ‘Ah, to carry coolness wherever I go and have no cares! If only I could be that cloud.’ And the voice of the August Personage reached out from Heaven and said, ‘It shall be so,’ and lo, the gardener was a cloud drifting across the sky. And the wind blew and the sky grew cold, and the cloud would have liked to go behind the shelter of a hill, but it could only go where the wind took it, and no matter how hard it tried to go this way the wind took it that way, and above the cloud was the bright sun. ‘Ah, to fly through wind and be warm and have no cares! If only I could be the sun,’ cried the cloud, and the voice of the August Personage of Jade reached out from Heaven and said, ‘It shall be so,’ and lo, he was the sun. It was very grand to be the sun, and he delighted in the work of sending down rays to warm some things and burn others, but it was like wearing a suit made of fire and he began to bake like bread. Above him the cool stars that were gods were sparkling in safety and serenity and the sun cried, ‘Ah, to be divine and free from care! If only I could be a god.’ And the voice of the August Personage of Jade reached out from Heaven and said, ‘It shall be so,’ and lo, he was a god, and he was beginning his third century of combat with the Stone Monkey, which had just transformed itself into a monster a hundred thousand feet tall and was wielding a trident made from the triple peaks of Mount Hua, and when he wasn’t dodging blows he could see the peaceful green earth down below him, and the god cried, ‘Ah, if only I could be a man who was safe and secure and had no cares!’ And the voice of the August Personage of Jade reached out from Heaven and said, ‘It shall be so.’ And lo, he was a king who was gazing down from a tall tower upon a gardener who sang as he worked.”