“Miser Shen, I would advise you to sit down and prepare for a rather unusual phenomenon,” he said grimly. Then he spat on his hand and reached out and cautiously rubbed the crystal surface.
The ball began to glow with a strange inner light. Then it began to expand. It grew until it was several feet in diameter, and the inner light grew brighter and brighter, and then we all cried out in wonder as a picture appeared, and then we heard sounds.
We were looking at the interior of a pretty little cottage where an old lady snoozed on a stool. We could hear her peaceful snores, and the sounds of chickens and pigs, and the gentle murmur of a stream. Birds sang and bees droned drowsily, and the sun-dappled leaves of a tree rustled outside the window.
An ant scurried across the floor, carrying a tiny crust of bread. After a moment a roach took notice, and began to scuttle after the ant. A rat stuck its head from a hole and dashed after the roach. A cat bounded after the rat, and then a dog bounded through the door and raced after the cat. The whole procession charged beneath the old lady's stool and tipped it over, and she sat up and rubbed her eyes, unleashed a torrent of peasant profanity, grabbed a broom, and started in hot pursuit of the dog that was chasing the cat that was chasing the rat that was chasing the roach that was chasing the ant that was carrying the crust of bread.
It is difficult to describe in words, but the scene that unfolded was incredibly comic. Around and around they went, racing through the door, climbing back inside through the window, smashing through the flimsy walls, reappearing through a hole in the roof, and reducing the furniture to splinters. The variations appeared to be endless, and they were so ingenious that Miser Shen and I held our sides as we howled with laughter. At one point the old lady's slashing broom sent every piece of pottery flying into the air, and they all came together with a crash. The fragments fell to the floor, and as one piece landed upon the other, they formed a solemn statue of the Sacred and Venerable Sage of Serenity. The mad procession raced outside and splashed through a pond, and when they crashed back inside through another ruined wall there was a huge bullfrog squatting upon the old lady's head, croaking indignantly.
Miser Shen and I might have laughed ourselves to death if Li Kao hadn't reached out and touched the crystal ball. The glow faded, and the sounds and the picture vanished, and the ball shrank down to its former size.
“Shen, have you ever seen anything like this?” Master Li asked, as soon as Miser Shen had recovered enough to breathe.
Miser Shen scratched his head and said, “Well, I can't be sure. Surely I have never seen anything like that incredible scene, but I once saw a tiny crystal ball that resembled this one in an ancient painting. It was in the Cavern of Bells. An old lame peddler with his back to the viewer was facing three young ladies who were dressed in the style of many centuries ago. In one of his hands he held three feathers—”
“Feathers?” Master Li yelped. “Girls dressed in the ancient style?”
“Ah… yes,” said Miser Shen. “In the other hand the peddler was holding a ball that resembled this one, and a tiny bell, and a miniature flute.”
Li Kao grunted in satisfaction and unsnapped one of the fake shells on his belt.
“Like this?”
“Precisely like that,” said Miser Shen as he examined the tiny tin flute. “I don't remember much else about the painting except that it was said to be very mysterious and that the old lame peddler was thought to be divine. The Cavern of Bells has become a shrine in his honor, and it is tended by a small order of monks.”
Li Kao placed the flute back into the shell, and added the crystal ball and the Arms of the Great Root of Power to his smuggler's belt.
“Let's get some sleep. In the morning we'll find out how to get off this island, and our first stop will be the Cavern of Bells,” he said.
He spoke too soon. When we made a circuit of the oasis the following morning we discovered that it was indeed an island, completely encircled by murderous lava, and the narrow bridge was the only exit. Fingerprints pawed in the salt, and my heart sank to my toes as I realized that we would never be able to get back to the children of Ku-fu. I could not stop the tears that welled in my eyes and trickled down my cheeks, and Miser Shen looked at me and then hastily averted his eyes.
“Number Ten Ox, this is not such a bad place in which to spend the rest of our days,” he said shyly. “We shall live like kings on fruits and berries and pure spring water, while the rest of the world enjoys war, famine, and pestilence.”
And death, I thought. I heard weeping and mournful bells, and I saw a long row of small coffins disappearing into the ground.
“Of course, the rest of the world will also be enjoying Lotus Cloud,” Miser Shen said thoughtfully.
“You have a point,” I sniffled.
We were sitting upon the grass with our backs against the trunk of a huge palm tree. Li Kao trotted up and joined us, and I saw that his eyes were sparkling.
“Gentlemen, how much do you know about the great Chang Heng?” he asked.
I dimly recalled schoolroom lessons. “Didn't he invent the seismograph, about five hundred years ago?”
“And the Fire Drug?” said Miser Shen.
“He did indeed, and his achievements did not stop there,” said Master Li. “The great Chang Heng was a superb poet, a competent painter, an engineer and astronomer without equal, and the world's greatest student of the phenomenon of flight. He perfected the science of latitude and longitude, determined the value of pi, revolutionized the armillary sphere, and constructed kites that could carry men through the air for long distances. One day he happened to be sitting as we are, with his back against a tree, and something brushed against his face.”
Li Kao lifted his right hand and opened it, displaying a tiny object.
“A sycamore seed?” said Miser Shen.
“Precisely,” said Master Li. “Chang Heng had seen thousands of them, but never before had he thought to examine one closely. The more he studied it, the more convinced he became that he was gazing at one of the marvels of nature.”
Miser Shen and I stared fixedly at the seed. It was nothing but a tiny stem and a circle of fan-shaped blades.
“Observe,” said Master Li.
He blew gently into the palm of his hand. The fan-shaped blades began to revolve, faster and faster, and then the seed lifted straight up into the air. The breeze caught it and away it went, spinning into the sky, sailing over the treetops, dwindling to a tiny speck in the distance.
“Chang Heng was gazing at one of the most efficient flying machines in the world, and he immediately began to build a sycamore seed that could carry a man,” said Master Li. “The emperor graciously provided pilots from the ranks of criminals who had been sentenced to death, and one after another the wailing wretches were strapped into Chang Heng's flying machines and pushed off the tops of cliffs. One of them encountered a strong updraft and actually flew for several hundred feet, but the end result was the same. The blades could not whirl fast enough to compensate for the weight, and the pilots all crashed to their deaths. Do you know what Chang Heng did then?”
“We are as ignorant as apples,” sighed Miser Shen, speaking for both of us.
“The great Chang Heng mixed sulphur, saltpeter, and charcoal, and invented the Fire Drug,” Master Li said. “We use it mostly for fireworks, but he had something else in mind. By adding resin, he managed to produce a compound that would burn steadily instead of exploding, and he packed it into long tubes of bamboo. He built a wicker carriage and attached it to a revolving pole. On top of the pole he placed fan-shaped blades, and at the bottom he added a wheel to which he attached his tubes of Fire Drug. The emperor and all the top officials gathered to watch what promised to be a spectacular execution, and the weeping convict was strapped to the seat in the carriage. Chang Heng lit the fuses. There was a spurt of flame, and then another and another, and a great cloud of black smoke obscured everything. When the smoke cleared, the astonished audience saw that the contraption had lifted straight up into the air, with the blades whirling furiously. A trail of smoke and flame stretched out behind as it flew through the air, and the screams of the pilot could faintly be heard as the thing streaked toward one of the palace towers. The emperor cheered and the audience applauded madly as it hit the tower and exploded with a great roar, and it was said that pieces of pilot rained down for a week, although that may be a slight exaggeration. The great Chang Heng locked himself in his workroom, and one month later he had completed the final design of the most marvelous of all his inventions: the incredible Bamboo Dragonfly.”