Li Kao smiled happily. “The plans for which I have seen in the Forest of Culture Academy in Hanlin,” he said.
There was a moment of silence.
“You can't possibly mean…” Miser Shen whispered.
“Right above us is a circle of palm branches that are light, strong, and fan-shaped,” said Master Li.
“Surely you don't intend to…” I said weakly.
“Bamboo is all around us, and so is resin. The lava is full of sulphur. There are natural deposits of saltpeter all over China, and probably on this very island, and if a former peasant like Miser Shen can't make a little charcoal, I will be very surprised indeed.”
“But it would be suicide!” I exclaimed.
“Insanity!” cried Miser Shen.
“We will have no hope of survival at all,” Master Li agreed. “Ox, you get the palm branches and resin and bamboo. The charcoal will be Miser Shen's department, and I will search for saltpeter and extract the sulphur from the lava. I suggest that we hurry, because with every passing moment I grow closer to expiring from old age.”
For a week a series of explosions shook the little island, followed by the furious screams of Li Kao. His beard was singed and blackened and his eyebrows were nearly scorched off. So many fires had started in his clothes that he looked as though he had been attacked by a million starving moths, but finally he found the right formula and his tubes of Fire Drug began to behave. Miser Shen and I were rather proud of our handiwork. The basket was woven from reeds, and quite comfortable to sit in, and the palm-leaf blades revolved very nicely around the bamboo pole. The bamboo wheel to which the tubes were attached was balanced carefully, and although we had no steering mechanism, we hoped to be able to control our flight by shifting our weight.
“Of course this is madness,” I said as I climbed into the basket.
“Moronic,” said Miser Shen as he climbed in beside me.
“We are totally deranged,” Li Kao agreed as he lit the fuses.
He hopped into the basket, and I covered my eyes and waited for death. The basket shuddered as the tubes of Fire Drug began to spurt flames. The wheel started to revolve, and the blades began to whirl round and round. I peeked through my fingers and peered through a cloud of black smoke and saw that the grass beneath us was bending beneath a blast of wind.
“We are rising!” I yelled.
“We are falling!” howled Miser Shen.
Both of us were right. We had suddenly lifted into the air, and now we were dropping back down. Unfortunately we had also moved fifty feet to the left, and we were dropping straight toward bubbling lava.
“Lean back!” Master Li yelled.
We shifted our weight and the Bamboo Dragonfly suddenly straightened out and began to skim just above the fiery surface toward the other side of the moat, and we stared with horrified eyes at the prints of immense fingers that were eagerly pawing the salt.
The Hand That No One Sees almost got us. A slashing invisible finger ripped off one of the palm-leaf blades, which proved to be a blessing because we had apparently used one too many. As soon as it was gone our flying machine lifted into the air and began to perform very nicely indeed, except that it was flying around in circles. Around and around it flew, moving slowly across the ruins of the city, while great lunging marks of furious fingers kicked up clouds of salt beneath us.
“That horrible thing is crawling up on top of the ruins of the palace!” Miser Shen yelled. “If it gets on top of the wall and we keep circling like this we'll run right into it!”
He was right, but nothing could persuade the Bamboo Dragonfly to change course. Flames and black smoke spurted out behind us, and with one more circle we would be in the clutches of the Hand from Hell.
“Take off your tunics!” Master Li yelled. “Try using them as rudders!”
We ripped off our tunics and spread them behind us to catch the wind, and by some miracle it worked. Just as we reached the wall we suddenly veered to the left, and the Hand must have snatched at us because the slabs on top of the wall began to teeter precariously. Then the wall fell apart, and stones tumbled down into the lake of lava, and then there was an enormous splash that sent fiery molten rock a hundred feet into the air.
The monster slowly rose to the surface. What had been invisible was now covered with black lava, and we gazed in terror at an enormous hairy hand, perhaps sixty feet long. The palm was up, and the fingers were tightly clenched, and suddenly it jerked convulsively and the fingers opened. They weren't fingers at all, but the legs of a giant spider, and the heel and palm was a loathsome bloated sac! A cluster of evil eyes glared up at us, and a hideous round mouth opened and displayed a circle of gigantic pointed teeth, and then lava poured into the mouth and the Hand That No One Sees sank forever beneath the fiery surface of the lake.
The Bamboo Dragonfly flew steadily on, and the tragic shattered city faded behind us. We sat in shaken silence, and finally Li Kao cleared his throat.
“I suspect that it was simply an oversized relative of the common trapdoor spider,” he said thoughtfully. “Invisible, because before the eruption it had lived underground, where there was no need for sight perception. Nature is astonishingly adaptable, and there are a great many sea creatures that have become transparent to the point of invisibility, and a few insects.”
He turned and gazed back as the city dwindled to a tiny speck in an endless expanse of white salt.
“It really is a pity that we couldn't keep the body to study. I would have liked to learn how it managed to eat during the centuries after it devoured the inhabitants of the city, and whether its eyes were atavistic or acquired. A remarkable specimen! Nonetheless,” said Master Li, “I do not think that we will mourn its passing.”
20. The Cavern of Bells
Hour after hour the palm-leaf blades whirled overhead and flames and smoke spurted out behind us as the incredible Bamboo Dragonfly flew across the searing white salt. We used our tunics to guide us around whirlwinds, and the heat from the desert was like fiery fingers that pushed us higher and higher into the sky. With the last light of the setting sun, Miser Shen pointed ahead to a long dark line on the horizon.
“Those are trees!” he exclaimed. “The Desert of Salt is coming to an end.”
The best proof of that lay in the dark clouds that were building up. Lightning flickered in the distance, and I doubted that it had rained in the desert for a thousand years.
“Gentlemen, we could be in bad trouble if the basket that we're riding in fills with water,” Li Kao pointed out.
We pried three bamboo pieces from the framework at the bottom of the basket, which not only made a drainage hole but also provided us with three poles for umbrellas. Thin strips from the circular rim provided the frames, and our trousers served as the covers. We finished just in time. Lightning flashed and thunder roared and rain fell in torrents, but we clutched our umbrellas and sailed through the storm quite comfortably.