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.
“Cold!” whispered the Duke of Ch'in. “Cold… cold… cold…”
I was so stunned that I forgot to hold on to the vines, and we plunged forty feet before I managed to grab them again and break our fall. Unfortunately we were then dangling about ten feet above the heads of some soldiers who were leaning against the wall swapping war lies.
“Wait for a cloud,” Master Li whispered.
It seemed forever, but eventually a black cloud covered the moon, and I swung over the vines to the nearest window and crawled into a room that was pitch-black. The darkness vibrated with heavy snores. Li Kao slipped off my back and tiptoed across the floor and cracked the door open. He closed it hurriedly.
“Soldiers guarding the halls,” he whispered.
We started back toward the window and froze. That damned cloud decided to move away from the moon, and we were pinned in bright yellow beams, and the snores stopped suddenly, and a grotesque figure sat up in bed and leveled a gangrened finger.
“What have you done with that ginseng root?” roared the Ancestress.
24. There Are No Accidents in the Great Way of Tao
Soldiers dragged me across the floor toward the throne upon which sat the Duke of Ch'in, and thrust my face forward so that it practically touched the terrible mask. A hissing sound came from the mouthpiece as the clammy mind crawled over mine, and then the golden tiger jerked back.
The great and powerful Duke of Ch'in was terrified. Saliva trickled from the mouthpiece, and the gold-meshed gloves trembled upon the arms of the throne, and an acrid stench of fear stung my nostrils.
“I see the three handmaidens!” the metal voice whispered. “I see the ball and the bell and the flute! I see the Legs and the Arms and the Head of Power!”
The duke was trembling so hard that his cloak of feathers fluttered as if for flight, but he finally forced himself to lean forward once more. The slimy brain moved fearfully over mine, and then I sensed relief and growing joy.
“But I do not see the birds, or the feathers, or anything else of importance,” he said wonderingly. “I see only those useless children, and the right quest for the wrong reason. You and your antiquated companion have followed paths that cannot be followed, defeated guardians that cannot be defeated, escaped from places where escape was impossible, and you have not had the slightest idea of what you were really doing, or where you were really going, or why!”
Now the metal voice held a cruel gloating pleasure.
“You have managed to annoy me, and you shall discover what it means to annoy the Duke of Ch'in.” The mask moved to the soldiers. “Take the old man and the boy to the torture chambers. They shall die by inches in the Shirts of Iron,” he commanded.
Only the duke could have ordered such an execution, and I hasten to point out that in every other part of China the Shirts of Iron had long been relegated to museums that displayed the ghastly aberrations of the Dark Ages. Actually they aren't made from iron at all, but from steel mesh that can be uniformly tightened by means of a neck loop or a screw in back. The shirts are tightened around the victim's bare torso until flesh bulges through the holes in the mesh, and then the executioner picks up something hard and rough, a rock will do, and slowly scrapes across the shirt until there are no bulges. The flow of blood is carefully stopped, and the next day the shirt is shifted slightly and the process is repeated—and the next day and the next. A competent executioner can keep a victim alive for months, and the only hope the victim has is that he will go stark staring mad fairly early in the game.
Li Kao and I had been wrapped in so many chains that we couldn't move a finger, and the soldiers groaned under the weight as they carried us down a seemingly endless flight of stone steps. I counted eleven landings, each one guarded by more soldiers. The air grew thicker and fouler, and slimy green water dripped from the black stone walls. Finally we reached the bottommost dungeons. Brass-bound doors crashed open, and the panting soldiers carried us into a torture chamber that was decorated with blood and entrails. The executioner did not view us with friendly eyes. He was a fat fellow with a bald gray skull, a bright red nose, four yellow teeth, and a grievance.
“Work, work, work!” he snarled as he bustled around us with a tape measure. “Do you realize that each Shirt of Iron must be individually tailored for the victim? Do you realize that it takes two full days to make a decent one? Do you realize that the duke has ordered me to finish your shirts in two hours? And then I have to give you your first scraping, and do you realize that a decent job of scraping takes another two hours?”
He stepped back and leveled an indignant finger.
“Look at those chains!” he snarled. “Do you realize that it will take another hour just to unlock, unwrap, rewrap, and relock those things? And do you realize that the Ancestress has ordered me to draw and quarter another prisoner? And do you realize that a decent job of drawing and quartering takes another two hours? When am I to rest, I ask you? Is there no pity? Is there no concern for the welfare of the working man?”
He was not the only one with a grievance.
“How about us?” the soldiers yelled. “We have to stand guard in this slimy hole until the prisoners die, and if you're halfway decent at your job, that will take months! And that crud of a master sergeant refused to issue earplugs, and we'll be stone deaf from the screams inside of a week! Look at those cockroaches! Look at those leeches! Look at that slimy dripping water! There's fever down here as sure as you're born, and even if we live to return to our wives, what good will it do us? The duke made us wrap these poor bastards in so many chains that they can't move, and carry them down eleven flights of stairs, and quadruple hernias have made eunuchs of us all!”
It appeared to be a day of grievances.
“Woe!” somebody howled as feet pattered down the stairs. “Woe! Woe! Woe!” wailed the Key Rabbit as he trotted into the torture chamber. “The duke has ordered me to be present at the torture of my dearest friend and the most generous protector that my dear wife has ever had, and to make a full report of their sufferings! Good evening, Lord Li of Kao. Good evening, Lord Lu of Yu. It is delightful to see you again, but how can the duke do this to me?”
The little fellow posed dramatically, one forearm across his brow and the other hand outflung.
“I become violently ill in butcher shops!” he howled. “I faint when I cut my finger! Crimson sunsets make me dive beneath my bed! Bloodhounds drive me into screaming fits! I once threw up all over a very distinguished nobleman who introduced me to his blood brother! I disgraced myself at a state banquet when I was informed that I was eating blood pudding! And now I must witness the bloodiest execution ever invented by man! Woe!” wailed the Key Rabbit. “Woe! Woe! Woe!”