Kylie Chan - Heaven to Wudang

It’s not feeding time, what’s going on?

‘This is Xuan Wu. I found him,’ Simone said.

More fish appeared around the ledge, sticking their eyes out of the water with curiosity.

Put him in here with us, we’ll look after him, the fish said. Do you think he’s hungry?

‘I’ll be right back with some cat food for him,’ Simone said. She lowered the tortoise carefully onto the wet black rock. ‘Don’t go anywhere, Daddy, this is your Mountain.’ She put her hand on the back of his shell. ‘Please stay here and come back to me.’

The tortoise walked clumsily to the edge of the water. He was sixty centimetres from nose to tail and, apart from his complete blackness and his feet instead of flippers, appeared to be an ordinary amphibious tortoise. He carefully slid into the water then poked his head out. The fish quickly moved back out of his reach. He ducked his head under the water and dived beneath the surface.

The fish that had spoken to us went under too, then came back up half a minute later. He appears to be heading right to the bottom. We can’t follow that deep.

Simone dived into the water. I’ll see what he does.

I sat cross-legged on the rock and waited.

Martin and Yue Gui, Simone’s older brother and sister, came down the stairs and I stood.

‘Yes, it’s him,’ Martin said. ‘Can we go down and see?’

‘Go right ahead,’ I said.

They changed to tortoises, walked to the edge and slid into the water.

‘Can you hear me?’ I asked the fish.

Yes, it replied. He’s sitting right on the bottom, and the Princess is sitting with him. The other two are heading down as well; goodness, but they move fast.

He’s just sitting here with his eyes closed, Simone said.

Nothing happened for a couple of minutes.

They’re coming back up, the fish said.

‘Thanks,’ I said.

No problem, ma’am.

‘Do I know you?’ I said. ‘You sound familiar.’

The fish’s voice sounded horrified. Can’t you tell who I am?

‘Sorry, no.’

I’ve been in your energy work classes since the school returned to the Mountain — that’s a good six months now. You should know my voice; I’ve even spoken telepathically to you before. Its voice filled with humour. I am mortally wounded.

‘If the wounds are mortal then please die quietly.’

The fish surged out of the water onto the rock and flopped around, splashing water everywhere. It opened and closed its mouth and its eyes rolled in agony.

‘I said quietly.’

The fish stopped flapping, lay still for a moment, then rolled back into the water. It resurfaced and floated belly up without moving.

Simone, Martin and Yue Gui rose out of the water so that their feet were clear of it. The water ran out of their clothes, and they floated towards me, drifting to lightly land on the stone.

Simone glanced back at the fish. ‘What happened? Is everything okay?’

The fish quickly flipped back upright and dived under the water.

‘Is John still down there?’ I said.

Simone nodded. ‘He seems to have gone to sleep.’

‘We can leave him there, bring him food; the fish will tell us if anything happens,’ Martin said.

‘Where did you find him?’ Yue Gui said.

‘There was this news report,’ Simone said, ‘about this lake in Hanoi that had a mystical giant tortoise living in it. The tortoise disappeared from the lake hundreds of years ago, but people claimed to have seen it in the last year — it seemed to have returned.’

‘Ooooh,’ Martin said, a drawn-out sound of understanding. ‘I remember! Father got in so much trouble with the Jade Emperor, he was nearly thrown from Heaven.’

‘What did he do?’ I said.

‘The Ming of China were planning to invade the Kingdom of the Viets — what is today Vietnam. Father didn’t agree with their plans, so he took the form of a giant tortoise, and when the King of Vietnam was rowing for pleasure on the lake, Father surfaced and gave the King an enchanted sword that helped him to defeat the invading force.’

‘Good Lord, he’s the Lady of the Lake,’ I said.

‘Straight up,’ Simone said.

‘Did the King throw the sword back into the lake when the battle was done?’ I said.

‘Yes,’ Martin said. ‘It was Dark Heavens — of course Father wanted it back.’

‘The parallels are crazy,’ Simone said.

‘No wonder he did his PhD thesis on Arthurian legends compared to his own,’ I said. I shivered; the damp was seeping through my clothes and the long period of inactivity wasn’t helping. ‘Can we go back up? Do any of you want to stay here with him?’

‘We can leave him; if he wakes the fish will tell us,’ Yue Gui said. She linked arms with me. ‘I hear you’ve had a busy day. Since we’re here, we will definitely take you up on your generous offer of a Wudang Mountain luncheon.’

‘How many times has Daddy nearly been thrown from Heaven anyway?’ Simone said as we made our way back up the stairs. ‘It seems to happen every ten years or so.’

‘Sounds about right,’ Martin said.

‘Come to the Northern Heavens later this evening,’ Yue Gui said over lunch in our private room attached to the officers’ mess. ‘Allow us to reciprocate by providing you with dinner, and you can inspect the rebuilding work on the Serpent Concubine Pavilion.’

‘I can’t tonight,’ I said. ‘Simone and I have a charity art auction on the Earthly. But I’ll come in the next few days to have a look at the work on the Pavilion.’

‘The Pavilion is gone and the gardeners have already moved in,’ Yue Gui said.

‘Do you have space for another gardener?’ I said.

Martin unfocused, talking to the staff of the Palace, then snapped back. ‘If he is strong and talented, then yes we do.’

‘I have a Buddhist monk, a full Shaolin master — he fell from grace and worked as an assassin for a demon for a while,’ I said. ‘He’s trying to return to the Path and needs employment.’

‘Then the garden in the Palace is perfect,’ Martin said.

‘An assassin?’ Yue Gui said with disdain. ‘He should be incarcerated.’

‘Kwan Yin has favoured him,’ I said.

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Very well then.’

‘He is sincere about redeeming himself,’ I said. ‘I can just see him attaining Enlightenment and then doing what they all do — coming straight back down to help the sorry rest of us, raking the gravel in the garden and imparting really cryptic koans.’

‘How many Buddhas are there anyway?’ Simone said.

‘You have not studied the different Ages and their Buddhas?’ Yue Gui said with surprise. ‘Perhaps you should talk to Kwan Yin … No, perhaps not.’

‘Exactly. She says that numbers aren’t meaningful and that I should find the Universe within myself,’ Simone said. ‘And that once I have embraced Unity, I will achieve Oneness with all of them.’

‘They are pure thought when they are not assisting us,’ Martin said. ‘And thoughts cannot be numbered. They exist outside of this reality and are uncountable. So the answer to your question as to the number of Buddhas is: the answer is not meaningful.’

‘I became more interested in the whole thing when Emma came back and told us about the Second Platform,’ Simone said. ‘But right now, I think coming to terms with the Tao is more important anyway.’

‘You are lucky. You have Grand Masters on the Mountain who can teach you in the ways of alchemy, internal energy work and self-cultivation to achieve Immortality. All of the different paths are laid out before you.’

Simone looked down at her food. ‘The path I most want to travel is the one with my whole family waiting for me at the end of it.’