Barry Hughart - The Story of the Stone

When the boy is twelve years old the ring fits his finger, so the woodcutter takes him to the Temple of the Spring of the Master, which is renowned for handling all sorts of strange matters. A priest searches the records and says that according to instructions left twelve years before, Wolf is now old enough to be told that he has a cousin living in Ling-chou Valley, a very clever fellow known as Ah the Artificer. Wolf is to go to his cousin, but no other information has been left to guide him. The priest also hands Wolf a simple wooden bow, which seems to be his only inheritance except for the ring, and with many tears Wolf parts with his foster parents and sets off to seek his destiny.

Ah the Artificer is a classic villain. The greedy mean fellow accepts the boy as slave labor and works him half to death, but Wolf at least discovers that his mother died in childbirth, and his father was named Li Tan and was perhaps the greatest artificer of them all. Wolf's father then fell under the spell of a concubine of the lord of the neighboring valley, the Valley of Sorrows. The concubine was a witch. She was a barbarian called Crown of Fire, because of her bright red hair, and she had a daughter called Fire Girl, who was Wolfs age. The witch and Wolf's father had attempted to assassinate the lord, the Laughing Prince, and had been put to death, but their infant children had vanished and thus were spared.

“One day,” said Deer Ears, “a mysterious stranger appeared at Ah the Artificer's door. They talked in low voices for many hours, and then Wolf was called in. When he saw the stranger's face, Wolf felt a shudder of fear, because—”

“Wolf wasn't afraid of anything!” Little Skinhead said indignantly. He had the right spirit for a recruit.

“Wolf felt a shudder of fear because the stranger's face was as white as death,” Deer Ears hissed. “Sick, slimy, fish-belly white, and the stranger's heart was so cold that his eyes had turned blue, and a red beard crawled over his face like a hairy spider, and he was—”

“He was drunk,” Little Skinhead said matter-of-factly. “My father took me to Soochow, where there are lots of barbarians, and barbarians are always drunk.”

“He hadn't hit the wine jars yet, and don't interrupt!” Deer Ears yelled. “He told Wolf he was a trader with a caravan on its way to Samarkand with a cargo of…”

Deer Ears paused and looked thoughtfully at the guests. We could add one unimportant detail to the story, and nobody had yet bothered with the cargo. He bowed to the prince, who deferred to Master Li.

“Slavonian squirrels,” Master Li said, intoning the words like a priestly chant. “Undressed vairs and vair bellies and backs. Martins and finches, goatskins and ram skins, dates, filberts, walnuts, salted sturgeon tails, round pepper, ginger, saffron, cloves, nutmegs, spike, cardamoms, scammony, manna, lac, zedoary, incense, quicksilver, copper, amber, pounding pearls, borax, gum arabic, sweetmeats, gold wire, wines, dragon's blood rubies, loaded dice, and beautiful dancing girls.”

Only Master Li would have tossed in loaded dice and beautiful dancing girls, and the boys sat in reverent silence while they absorbed it. For the next ten or twelve centuries Master Li's cargo would be part of the tale of Wolf.

Deer Ears’ voice changed to a nasty wheedling whine. ” ‘What a fine boy,'; the stranger said. ‘What a clever and manly boy. I have just the task for such a boy, and he who performed it would receive six shiny copper coins.’ Wolf looked at him silently. The stranger's face contorted with terrible pain. ‘All right, “seven” ‘ he shrieked. ‘You see, I have a niece—a wild and ungrateful girl! — who has stolen a gem and swallowed it to conceal the theft, and she has slipped into a small cave at the end of the valley. The entrance is too small for a man, but a clever boy could squeeze inside and bring my niece back.'

“Wolf wants no part of it, but Ah the Artificer insists, so he takes his ring and his bow and a torch and squeezes through a small opening into a dark cave.

Then the story got very interesting indeed, at least so far as I was concerned, and since it proved to be of use to Master Li, I will set down as much of the important parts as I can remember.

Wolf lit the torch and looked around. There was nobody in the cave, but there was a dark corner and when he walked over he stared in astonishment at a smooth flight of stone steps leading down. Wolf's eyes gleamed, and he thought of buried treasure, and he strung his bow and made sure he could quickly reach his knife and started down the stairs. The steps led on and on, winding sharply downward, and Wolf began to hear the sound of running water. Finally something sparkled in his torchlight, and he realized it was an underground river in the center of an immense cavern. The water was jet black, the color of the stone bed it ran through. To his right was a glow, and he moved cautiously toward it and came to the first of a long line of torches set in brackets on the stone walls.

The light was good enough for Wolf to extinguish his own torch. A small crimson boat was tied to a post. There was another post beside it, and it was stained with drops of water. The stain was still damp, and Wolf untied the little boat and climbed in and pushed off into the current.

Enormous statues carved in stone lined the banks. Wolf gazed in wonder at images with the bodies of humans but the heads of animals or birds. What could they mean? The cavern was silent except for the hiss of torches and the lapping of water. Nothing stirred. The boat drifted on and on. Everything was black or white or gray, except for the orange glow of the torches, but then Wolf saw a flash of crimson. He steered the boat over to a shelf of rock overhanging the side of the river, and beneath it was a crimson boat just like his. He tied his boat beside it and swam to the bank and climbed out, and he saw a trail of sandal prints, still damp, leading up over a mound of tumbled rocks. Wolf began to climb, following the prints, and he reached a small level area.

Something landed on his back and knocked him to the ground. A knife flashed in front of his face, and a small arm tried to jerk his head back. Wolf kicked and rolled over, pinning the knife beneath him, and managed to get to the top position. He was looking at a girl about his own age, and she was half-Chinese and half-barbarian, and her hair was the color of fire. She hissed like a cat and fought furiously, but Wolf was stronger and he managed to pin both arms, and then the boy and the girl stopped fighting.

Men were approaching, down at the riverbank. They heard coarse laughter and the clash of weapons, and something in the voices made Wolf and the girl break apart and crawl to the edge of the rocks and peer down. The soldiers had cruel brutish faces and they wore the uniform of the Laughing Prince, and Wolf realized that the cavern must run all the way to the Valley of Sorrows. The soldiers marched away and disappeared in shadows, and Wolf and the girl sat up.

Something was very strange. They should be in darkness, but they were silhouetted against light, and they realized that each of them had something on their backs that glowed. It was Wolf's bow and one of the arrows in the girl's quiver, and they held them out and stared in wonder. Writing had appeared on the bow and the arrow—writing in fire. Wolf glanced at the girl and blushed.

“I don't know how to read,” he whispered.

“I can read, a little.” The girl took Wolf's bow and scratched her head and wrinkled her nose and read, slowly and hesitantly:

“In darkness languishes the precious stone.

When will its excellence enchant the world?”

She took her arrow and scratched her head some more and wrinkled her nose some more and read: