The sergeant made no attempt to disguise his admiration for the thieves, who had avoided the guard dogs that patrolled at night by forging a work order for a drainage ditch and marching up the hill with picks and shovels over their shoulders, whistling cheerfully. They could tunnel like moles, and by the time the sergeant and his men had been alerted by the head gardener (he was suspicious because he hadn’t received his customary kickback for Coal Hill contracts) they’d already cut two side passages from the central ditch and removed the jewelry and jade burial pieces from two coffins. They were starting on a third when the soldiers tiptoed up behind them.
“So this fellow lifts the lid and freezes solid like a chunk of ice, and these god-awful claws come crawling out around the edge, and this horrible thing sits up in the coffin and lets out a roar of rage—”
The sergeant told a vivid tale. The grave robbers had taken to their heels with the ch’ih-mei behind them, and the sergeant had rallied his men and given chase. The monster had hurled something at the robbers, but it had bounced harmlessly off the back of one of them, and then it had been a footrace which the vampire ghoul would easily have won at nighttime, but the searing sunlight had done its work and allowed the robbers to escape.
“And a smart piece of work, Sergeant!” Master Li said admiringly. “There aren’t many men who would give chase to a ch’ih-mei, and if a promotion isn’t forthcoming I’ll be the most surprised man in Peking.”
I could see that the sage was wrestling with temptation, and for once temptation lost.
“Actually, Coal Hill isn’t my district,” he said regretfully. “That’s the responsibility of Magistrate Han-shan—you’ll never find a better audience for your tale than Han-shan, whose grandmother was eaten by a weretiger—and a shortcut to his yamen would be to retrace your path through the Lin family cemetery.”
He had something in mind, of course. The soldiers made a litter for the dead monster from pieces of venders’ stalls while Master Li confronted an unfortunate fact concerning a fortunate gentleman. Sixth Degree Hosteler Tu could not now be executed.
Devil’s Hand had swung his sword and missed, which meant that official soothsayers would have to ascertain that the phenomenon had not been caused by the will of Heaven, and the emperor would have to sign a new death warrant, but the emperor was off on another bandit-hunting expedition in Korea. So Devil’s Hand and the bailiffs dragged the horrible hosteler back into the dungeon at Executioner’s Tower, and then Master Li and I accompanied the soldiers and the dead monster back to Coal Hill.
We climbed the long path all the way to the top where the Lin family estate was. The grave the monster had occupied yielded a great number of gnawed bones, and some fresh bloodstains which seemed to interest Master Li.
“You say the creature hurled something that struck one of the robbers in the back?” he asked.
“It looked like it,” Sergeant Hsienpo replied. “Right over here.”
They searched through the tall grass until one of the soldiers let out a high sharp yell, and Master Li leaned over and took out his large green handkerchief, and when he straightened up he was carrying a man’s half-eaten head.
“No wonder the monster was annoyed. Grave robbers interrupted his dinner,” the sage said mildly.
The head had been ripped right from somebody’s body, and a nasty tangle of tendons and part of the vertebrae dangled down, making it look like some kind of obscene sea creature. Nobody was going to identify the poor fellow. The vampire ghoul had devoured the face, and I have seldom seen a nastier mess. Master Li had the soldiers look around on the odd chance that the body might be nearby, and then he added the head to the litter and sent the soldiers on toward the yamen, with a note to the magistrate praising the sergeant’s work.
Coal Hill is the domain of the wealthiest families of Peking, and when Master Li walked to the edge of the cemetery he was enjoying the most expensive view available. All the city opened up below us, and almost directly down I could see the rosy walls and emerald foliage and blue and yellow and crimson roof tiles of the Forbidden City. The old man was rocking back and forth on his heels with his hands clasped behind his back, whistling tunelessly, and I realized with surprise that he was as happy as a flea surveying the imperial kennels.
“Ox,” he said, “the gods have decided to reward us for our ghastly encounter with Sixth Degree Hosteler Tu.”
“Sir?” I said.
“Get plenty of brushes, ink, and notebooks,” he continued cheerfully. “It might be a nice gesture to send Flaccus the Fourth an account of what’s about to transpire.”
“Sir?” I said.
He reached inside his elegant robes and pulled out his odorous goatskin flask and removed the plug, sending an alcohol reek in my direction that caused me to choke.
“Ox, something about that half-eaten head is almost as unusual as the creature that ate it,” said Master Li. “The last criticism from our barbarian friend had to do with fish stories, and unless I am greatly mistaken a great white whale of a case is headed in our direction.”
“Sir?” I said.
He swilled a pint of the stuff, and I briefly wondered if a vampire ghoul could have survived it.
“A livid leviathan,” he said. “My boy, the spout reaches toward the stars, and the wake rocks offshore islands as it swims toward us, circumnavigating sacred seas with the awesome inevitability of an iceberg.”
“Oh,” I said.
2
Early on the following morning a palatial palanquin draped with white cloths of mourning and trailing plumes of smoke from sacrificial incense burners proceeded up the Imperial Way toward the Gate of Correct Deportment, with a bonze and a Tao-shih marching in front banging a gong and a wooden fish. I had no idea why I was riding in the thing with Master Li, both of us dressed for an aristocratic funeral. My experience with the old man has taught me to keep my mouth shut when the wrinkles around his eyes squeeze up in tight concentric circles, so I waited until his mind relaxed along with the wrinkles, and then he shook himself and turned toward me.
“Ox, have you ever visited the Forbidden City?”
Of course I hadn’t. I was scarcely a mandarin or member of the imperial staff, as he knew very well.
“That’s where we’re headed. I have reason to believe something very peculiar is going on,” said Master Li.
He reached into his robe and pulled out a Fire Pearl. (I don’t know what barbarians call them. They’re convex pieces of crystal or glass used to focus the sun’s rays and start fires, and they can also greatly magnify or diminish the image of things. In my village they’re “Big-Small Stones.”) Then he reached into another pocket and extracted his handkerchief, and when he unfolded it I discovered I was staring at somebody’s left ear.
Where had he picked up an ear? It was neatly severed and there was no trace of blood. Then I remembered Master Li the previous afternoon picking up a half-eaten head in the Lin family cemetery, and I remembered how he had been alone when the rest of us went searching for the body.
“Yes, I took the liberty of acquiring a piece of the ch’ih-mei’s victim,” he said calmly. “Take a look and tell me if you see anything unusual.”
I gingerly took the handkerchief and held the Fire Pearl close to the ear.
“The skin is so smooth it shouldn’t be real, except it is,” I said after a pause. “There’s something filling the pores. It’s like butter, but not quite, and there’s a strange kind of glow to it.” I ventured to touch the thing. “It’s soft and slick, almost like soapstone, and the stuff filling the pores is just a little bit greasy.”