Bridge Of Birds (24 page)

“The extraordinary effect of the tendrils of the Great Root leads to a basic assumption,
and that is that the Heart of Power is indeed the ultimate healing agent in the whole
world,” said Master Li. “The Duke of Ch'in would never hide such a thing in a treasure
trove where he might have to cross all China to get to it. He would keep it with him,
right next to his loathsome skin, and you and I are going to have to murder the bastard
and take the root from his corpse.”

We were passing once more through the shadow of Dragon's Pillow, where crows gathered to
watch us and make rude comments.

“Master Li, how are we going to murder a man who laughs at axes?” I asked.

“We are going to experiment, dear boy. Our first order of business will be to find a
deranged alchemist, which should not be very difficult. China,” said Master Li, “is
overstocked with deranged alchemists.”

In the city of Pingtu, Li Kao examined the faces of street vendors until he found an old
lady with gossip written all over her.

“A thousand pardons, Adoptive Daughter, but this humble one seeks an eminent scientist who
may be living nearby,” he said politely. “He is a devout Taoist, somewhat seedy in
appearance and rather wild of eye, and there is an excellent chance that his house is
placed halfway between a cemetery and a slaughterhouse.”

“You seek Doctor Death!” the old lady gasped, fearfully glancing toward a ramshackle house
that teetered at the top of a hill. “None but the criminally insane dare climb the path to
his House of Horrors, and few ever return!”

He thanked her for the warning and started briskly up the path.

“Almost certainly a gross slander,” Master Li said calmly. “Ox, Taoists are guided by a
rather peculiar blend of mysticisms. On the one hand they exalt sages like Chuang Tzu, who
taught that death and life, end and start are no more disconcerting than the passage of
night and day, but on the other hand they engage in frantic quests for personal
immortality. When a scientific genius becomes involved in the mystical mumbo-jumbo, the
result is likely to be a lunatic whose quest for eternal life massacres everything in
sight, but such poor souls wouldn't willingly harm a fly. Besides,” he added, “it's a
perfect day for a visit to a House of Horrors.”

There I could agree with him. Trees in the cemetery sighed in the wind like a moan of
mourners, and behind the slaughterhouse a dog howled horribly. Black clouds muttered dark
spells above the mountains, and sulphurous lightning streaked the sky, and the ramshackle
house upon the hill creaked and groaned in a rising gale that dripped with a thin, weeping
rain. We walked through the open door into a room that was littered with carcasses, and
where a little old man with a bloodstained beard was attempting to install a pig's heart
into a man's cadaver, while cauldrons burped and kettles bubbled and seething vials
emitted green and yellow vapors.

Doctor Death sprinkled the heart with purple powder and made mystical gestures with his
hands. “Beat!” he commanded. Nothing happened, so he tried yellow powder. “Beat, beat,
beat!” He tried blue powder. “Ten thousand curses, why won't you beat?” he yelled, and
then he turned around. “Who you?” asked Doctor Death.

“My surname is Li and my personal name is Kao, and there is a slight flaw in my character,
and this is my esteemed client, Number Ten Ox,” Master Li said with a polite bow.

“Well, my surname is Lo and my personal name is Chan, and I am rapidly losing patience
with a corpse that absolutely refuses to be resurrected!” Doctor Death yelled, and then
his face and voice softened until he looked to be as gentle as a snowflake and as innocent
as a banana. “If I cannot resurrect a stubborn corpse, how can I hope to resurrect my
beloved wife?” he said softly.

He turned toward a coffin that had been set up as a shrine, and tears trickled down his
cheeks.

“She was not pretty, but she was the most wonderful wife in the world,” he whispered. “Her
name was Chiang-chao, and we were very poor, but she could make the most delicious meals
from a handful of rice and the herbs that she picked in the woods. She sang beautiful
songs to cheer me when I was depressed, and she sewed dresses for wealthy ladies to help
pay for my studies. We were very happy together, and I know that we will be happy together
again.
Don't worry, my love, I'll have you out of that coffin in no time!
” he yelled.

He turned back to us.

“It's simply a matter of finding the purest ingredients, because I already have an
infallible formula,” he explained. “You use ten pounds of peach fuzz -”

“Ten pounds of tortoise hairs,” said Master Li.

“Ten pounds of plum skins -”

“Ten pounds of rabbit horns -”

“Ten pounds of membranes of living chickens -”

“One large spoonful of mercury -”

“One large spoonful of oleander juice -”

“Two large spoonfuls of arsenic oxide -”

“For the toxin generates the antitoxin -”

“And in death there is life, as in life there is death.”

“A colleague!” Doctor Death cried happily, and he wrapped Li Kao in a bloody embrace.
“Tell me, Venerable One, do you know of some better method? This one is bound to work
sooner or later, but it has been such a very long time, and I fear that my dear wife is
growing weary of her coffin.”

“Alas, I am only aware of the classic formula,” Master Li sighed. “My own specialty is the
Elixir of Life, but I foolishly left home without an adequate supply, which is why I have
come to you.”

“But how fortunate! I have just made a fresh batch.” Doctor Death rummaged in a drawer and
pulled out a greasy vial that was filled with thick purple liquid. “One spoonful after
each meal and two at bedtime and you will surely live forever,” he said. “I need scarcely
mention to a colleague that the Elixir of Life can occasionally have distressing side
effects, and that it is best to try it first on a rat.”

“Or a cat,” said Master Li.

“Or a crow.”

“Or a cow.”

“And if you happen to have a useless hippopotamus -”

“Actually, I was planning to try it on an elephant,” said Master Li.

“A wise decision,” Doctor Death said approvingly.

“A small donation,” Master Li said, piling gold coins on a table between somebody's lymph
glands and lungs. “May I suggest that you employ a professional grave robber? Digging up
corpses can be terribly hard work.”

Doctor Death looked down at the gold with a strange expression on his face, and his voice
was so soft that I barely heard him.

“Once there was a poor scholar who needed to buy books, but he had no money,” he
whispered. “He sold everything he had to buy a tiny piece of gold, which he concealed in
the hollow handle of an alchemist's ladle, and then he went to the house of a rich man and
pretended to turn lead into gold. The rich man gave him money so that he could learn how
to turn large pieces of lead into gold, and the scholar happily ran to the city to buy the
books that he needed. When he returned he discovered that thieves had broken into his
house. They had heard that he knew how to make gold, so they had tortured his wife to make
her tell where he had hidden it. She was barely alive. He held her in his arms and wept,
and she looked at him but she did not know him. 'But gentlemen,' she whispered, 'surely
you do not mean to kill me? My husband is a brilliant scientist and a dear sweet kindly
man, but he needs someone to look after him. What will he do when I am gone?' And then she
died.”

Doctor Death turned to the coffin and shouted,
“Don't worry, my love! Now I can afford to buy a better grade of corpses, and...”
He clapped a hand to his mouth. “Oh dear!” he gasped, and he turned and trotted over to
the cadaver on the table.

“I did not mean to offend you,” he said contritely. “I'm sure that you will do splendidly,
and perhaps it would help if you realized how important it is. You see, my wife was not
pretty but she was the most wonderful wife in the world. Her name was Chiang-chao, and we
were very poor, but she could make the most delicious meals from a handful of rice....”

He had forgotten that we existed, and we tiptoed out and started down the hill in the
rain. Li Kao had been quite serious about trying the Elixir of Life on an elephant. At the
bottom of the hill was a poor old beast that was used to haul logs to the sawmill, and its
master was not kind. There were cruel goad marks on the elephant's shoulders, and it was
nearly starved. We climbed the fence and Li Kao put one tiny drop of the Elixir on the tip
of his knife blade.

“Do you consent?” he asked softly.

The elephant's sorrowful eyes were more eloquent than words - for the love of Buddha, they
said, release me from this misery and return me to the Great Wheel of Transmigrations.

“So be it,” said Master Li.

He gently pressed the blade against an open wound. The elephant looked surprised for an
instant. Then it hiccupped, hopped high into the air, landed on its back with a mighty
crash, turned blue, and peacefully expired.

We raised reverent eves to the House of Horrors.

“Genius!” we cried, and the thin rain wept softly, and an old, cracked, crazy voice
drifted upon the cold wind:

In front of our window

Are the banana trees we planted,

Their green shadows fill the yard.

Their green shadows fill the yard,

Their leaves unfold and fold as if

They wish to bare their feelings.

Sadly reclining on my pillow

Deep in the night I listen to the rain,

Dripping on the leaves.

Dripping on the leaves -

That she can't hear that sound again

Is breaking my heart.

I decided that the oceans had been formed from tears, and when I thought of the tears that
had been shed and the hearts that had been broken to serve the greed of the Duke of Ch'in,
I was delighted that we were going after him with mayhem on our minds.

We caught up with the duke in Tsingtao, where he was staying at the palace of an
enormously wealthy woman whose oldest son served as the duke's provincial governor, and
with lavish bribes Li Kao arranged for us to slip past the guards one night. My heart was
in my mouth as I grabbed the vines and began to climb, but then the breeze shifted, and an
unmistakable fragrance reached my nostrils. I quivered all over.

“Lotus Cloud!” I panted. “Master Li, my heart will break if I don't see her!”

Under the circumstances there was little that he could do except swear and box my ears as
I swung rapidly across the vines. When I lifted my head over the windowsill I saw that
Lotus Cloud was all alone, but then my joy turned to ashes.

“What's wrong with you?” Master Li whispered.

“I forgot to bring my pearls and jade,” I said miserably.

Li Kao sighed and fished in his pockets. At first he found only diamonds and emeralds,
which didn't interest Lotus Cloud at all, but finally he came up with a pearl that he had
saved because of its rarity: jet-black, with one small white flaw in the shape of a star.
I would have preferred a ton of the stuff, but it was the symbol that mattered, so I
leaned over and rolled the pearl across the floor toward my beloved's feet. Soon she will
see it, I thought. She will look up and grin and yell, “Boopsie!” and all my cares will
vanish.

She looked up all right, but not at me.

“Fear not, my turtledove!” some lout bellowed. “Your beloved Pooh-Pooh approaches with yet
another hundred pounds of pearls and jade!”

The door crashed open and the provincial governor staggered inside with an armload of
loot, which he dumped upon my black pearl. I sighed and sadly climbed back down the vines.

“Pooh-Pooh?” said Master Li. “Pooh-Pooh? Ox, it may be none of my business, but I must
strongly advise you against getting involved with women who call their lovers Boopsie,
Woofie, and Pooh-Pooh.”

“She likes to keep pets,” I explained.

“So I have noticed,” he said. “Thank Heaven she doesn't keep all of you in the same
kennel. The noise at feeding time would be deafening. And now, if you have no objection, I
suggest that we return to the matter of disposing of the duke and getting that ginseng
root.”

I climbed rapidly to the duke's window and cautiously raised my eyes above the sill. The
Duke of Ch'in was all alone in the room, seated upon a stool in front of a desk.
Candlelight glinted upon his great golden tiger mask, and the feathers in his cloak
shimmered like silver, but his gold mesh gloves lay upon the desk and his surprisingly
small hands were bare as he added up on an abacus the amount of treasure that his tax trip
had accumulated. Li Kao's eyes glistened as he looked at the duke's bare fingers.

“He lives for money, so he can die for money,” he whispered.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the most valuable of his diamonds. The moon was
very bright. Part of the vines were wild rose, which I had been careful to avoid because
of the thorns, and he found a sharp cluster just below the windowsill. Li Kao placed the
diamond in the center, and turned it this way and that until the moonbeams caused it to
explode with blue-white brilliance, and then he doused the thorns with the vial of the
Elixir of Life.

I slid back until we were concealed behind vines, and Li Kao began scratching the stone
wall with his dagger - a very annoying sound. For some time we heard only the click of the
beads as they slid rapidly over the strings of the abacus, but then a table scraped
against the floor as it slid back, and heavy footsteps approached the window. I held my
breath.

The terrible tiger mask leaned out and peered down, and the diamond was sparkling like
cold fire. The bare fingers hovered like a hawk, and then they pounced. I could clearly
see punctures. At a modest estimate the Duke of Ch'in had received enough Elixir of Life
to assassinate all of China and half of Korea and Japan, and I waited for him to topple
over and turn blue. Instead he lifted the gem to the eye-slits in the mask and turned it
appreciatively, and the metal voice that oozed through the mouthpiece held a definite note
of pleasure.