Moby Jack & Other Tall Tales (27 page)

Once again, Mai Song simply ignored the mocking man as if he were not there, and he fumed and fretted, accusing her of incivility and bad manners, before vanishing in a cloud of petulance.

Ringed by the bandits, Mai Song’s lack of experience with a blade in battle soon became evident. The bandit chief at first attacked her armour with vigour, causing many dents to appear. But when he saw how inexperienced she was at combat, her wild blows easy to avoid, he was puzzled. What was, quite evidently, a callow youth doing wearing a
war lord
’s armour, wandering around in bandit country? The bandit chief simply began defending himself against the uncontrolled blows she tried to rain down on him in her enthusiasm.

Finally, becoming bored, he disarmed her.

‘Let me see the features of one who wears the armour of war lord, but fights like the boy who brings in the kindling,’ cried the bandit chief. ‘Let me see your face.’

‘Let me see yours,’ retorted Mai Song, snatching her bow from the saddle of her horse. ‘Don’t think because I’m not good at sword play that I can’t hit a running rat at fifty paces with this bow.’

The bandit chief removed his helmet to reveal the handsome rugged features of a young man.

‘I am Chang, of the clan On, whose home was in the far south until his father was killed, his mother raped and murdered, and his home taken from him. Now let us see the stripling behind that armour. Does your father know you are out?’

Mai Song put down her weapon and removed her helmet. ‘Yes, he does,’ she replied, furiously, ‘and he approves.’

On Chang had the good grace to gasp on seeing the face of a woman appear, while his men burst out
laughing.

Mai Song spent the night with the bandits, sitting talking around a fire. They said they would have offered to help her in her quest, but they could not because the King of Gwongdong was their sworn enemy. He was the one who robbed them of their heritage. ‘This prince you wish to marry,’ said On Chang. ‘He is not a good man. He cannot be, since he is the son of a very bad man.’

‘A son does not have to be like his father,’ replied Mai Song, in defence of her lover. ‘Pang Yau is all goodness—a pacifist. You would know if you met him. Forgive me for my bluntness, but the following is true. You have been forced into the ways of a nomadic warrior: you are a rough man, not used to finer feelings. That is not your fault, but Pang Yau will teach me about art, writing, and philosophy—things you could not understand, with your way of life—having to kill and loot to make a living.’

‘Well,’ replied On Chang, generously, ‘if you believe him to be this—this demi-god of gentleness, then perhaps he is. Maybe we will help you anyway, even though he is the son of a pig.’

But Mai Song said she wanted no help. She wished to complete the mission on her own. The next morning she left her horse and armour with the bandits and climbed the volcano. It was sweltering on the volcano, as Mai Song approached the rim, for the cone was still active. Not far down inside the lava bubbled and spat. Huge gobbets of molten rock leapt and fell, splattering on the stormy surface of the boiling lake. Liquid stone spurted ribbons of fire across the top of the crater. Mai Song tried to shield her vulnerable eyes from the heat, as she sought the crevice in which the glass bones of the dragon lay.

Finally, she found what she was looking for, but there was very little of the skeleton left. Only three ribs remained. These she gathered in her arms and went back down the slopes of the volcano.

The bandits were intrigued with her discovery. One man among them had been apprentice to a sorcerer, before he was dispossessed. Mai Song questioned him about the properties of the three ribs.

The man inspected them carefully. ‘These two bones are from the upper part of the skeleton,’ he announced, ‘close to the shoulders. If struck, one of them will shatter all glass within a region of a thousand miles. Similarly, if struck, the note from the second rib will open all locks within a hundred miles. The last rib, the smallest, I recognise immediately. It is the rib from which sprouted the dragon’s right wing. If this glass rib is struck, its note will summon the winged horse of Tang. She is the fastest steed in all China and will carry you anywhere you wish to go with the greatest of speed...’

‘But,’ said Mai Song, ‘how will I know which of the two large ribs will open the lock to my lover’s prison? If I strike the wrong rib, the other, being made of glass, will shatter.’

The sorcerer’s apprentice shrugged in sympathy. ‘I do not know how you will accomplish your task. The ribs are identical. There is no way you can tell by looking at them, which is the one to shatter glass, and which to open locks. I can’t help you. I’m sorry.’

On Chang sat with her and pored over the two glass ribs, trying to find some mark or symbol which would give her a clue as to the identity of the magic contained within. After three hours they had exhausted every possibility. Mai Song thanked On Chang for his help. She then struck the small rib with her sword. A high note rang out and the rib immediately shattered into a million fragments.

A whinnying sound was heard on the wind,
then
suddenly a magnificent horse appeared in the sky, flying down towards the bandit camp. The golden mare with a blonde mane and tail had huge feathered wings on its flanks. The wonderful beast shone in the sun as it swooped to land nearby. Once on the ground it folded its beautiful wings and stood waiting, pawing the ground gently, for its mistress.

Mai Song said goodbye to the bandits. She left them her father’s charger, armour and sword, requesting that they be delivered when the bandits next swept by her father’s castle on their way to pillaging Gwongdong. On Chang said he would hand them to her father personally. Mai Song then wished the bandits well in their fight to regain the clan’s lands and castle, after which she mounted the great horse of Tang. In her belt were the two glass bones of the dragon, like curved swords one on either hip. Her face was set and purposeful.

Into the air she went, her hair flowing behind her as a stream of jet. High above the plains and fields the flying horse took her, until the world was spread below her. She could see fine brown rivers wriggling like long worms across the land. There were green
squares which
were the paddy fields of rice plants, and white-tipped mountains in the distance, and rugged wasteland around the water margin. It became colder the closer she went to the sun, which seemed a strange thing to her.

Finally, after a long flight, the mare began to descend. It landed near a dark building made of huge blocks of granite. It was without any windows and there was only one door made of heavy grey slabs of slate. There were no hinges on the door. A flat iron girder halfway down the door, its ends buried in the granite either side of the doorway, held the slate monstrosity in place. There was a massive lock in the middle of this girder, cryptic in design and no doubt in operation.

Mai Song alighted from the horse of Tang. She stood before the sorcerer’s castle, with its single high tower, and pondered on her problem. There was no white crane to help her now. Her lover’s fate was in her hands and if she failed Pang Yau would remain a prisoner forever, his soul feeding the damned. Mai Song prayed to her gods, especially Wong Tai Sin, the goatboy whose visions had helped many lost spirits. This time however, Wong Tai Sin did not answer the orisons. It might be that he knew the woman already had the answer, if only she could find it deep within her keen brain, recognise it,
bring
it out into the light.

‘You will never find the key,’ murmured a silky voice near to her ear. ‘You are a silly woman. Give up now. Go home, live in obscurity, before you make a fool of yourself once more.’

She knew the mocking man had appeared again, by her side, but she steadfastly refused to acknowledge his presence. Instead she concentrated on her problem. As she was thinking, she kicked idly at a stone, which shot from her foot and struck another stone. The two rocks cracked together, to fly off in different directions. At that moment Mai Song had the answer and turned to laugh in the mocking man’s misty face. ‘You are the fool,’ she said. ‘You spend your whole time trying to destroy me with your bitterness and hate. Well this is the last time I want to see you. Do you understand? To appear before me again would be quite useless. I will never look at you again, nor will I hear your foul tongue. You are dead to me.’

The mocking man wailed and rippled away rapidly into the middle distance, where he waited to see what would happen.

Mai Song took the two glass ribs from her belt and struck them both together, thus producing a note simultaneously from each rib. Both ribs shattered immediately, but at the same time a loud
CLANK!
came
from the keyhole set in the iron bar. The knitted lock had unravelled itself. The great slate door fell forward with a crash, into the dust, leaving the way from Pang Yau’s prison wide open. Pang Yau came walking through the doorway to freedom, just as the whole castle began collapsing. It seemed that the slate door had also been the keystone to the ugly construction. It was soon no more than a jumble of blocks lying scattered in the dirt. Mai Song hoped that the sorcerer himself was buried under their weight.

‘My darling,’ said the prince, taking her in his arms, ‘you passed all the tests with flying colours!’

Mai Song was confused. She pushed Pang Yau out to arm’s length. Studying him, he did not look like someone who had been incarcerated in total darkness, within cold
stone walls
, for many months. He was smiling gently at her, his mouth a curved crescent below his narrow nose. She compared him with the pathetic mocking man, who still stood whining some distance away. The darkness had now blown away from the creature
who
had tormented her since she was 12 years of age.

The two figures could have been twin brothers
,
they were so much alike
.

‘A test?’ said Mai Song, in a disbelieving tone.
‘A
test
?
Where is the dark sorcerer who imprisoned you? Are you trying to tell me there is no such person?
Was all this engineered by you and your father’s wizard
? I don’t understand, Pang Yau.’

The prince was too full of himself to notice the dramatic change in her voice and expression.

‘I see you have been comparing me with myself!’ he said, nodding towards the mocking man. ‘Yes, I have been with you all along, since I first saw you leaning over the battlements of your father’s castle. I fell in love with you then, but there was a problem. My father would not consent to a marriage to a lowly marsh lord’s daughter. Only when I agreed to put you through a series of tests did my father agree to even consider the match.

‘First I had to try to destroy your will. My father’s wizard fashioned an image of me for this purpose, an engine of
sorcery which
you call the mocking man. It was the mocking man’s task to bend you, to try to break your spirit, though I always knew you would win through. We even sent “hope” in the form of the white crane, for there must always be a tiny fragment of hope around to make the torture complete. Those without hope simply fall into apathy and listlessness. There is no victory for a mocking man in forcing a state of indifference.

‘Yet, still you did not succumb to the torment. You battled
through
as I knew you surely would. I am so proud of you. This last great test, to free me from a sorcerer’s power, has lifted you up even higher in my eyes. Not only are you virtuous, but full of courage and ability. You are truly worthy to be the wife of one of the most powerful princes in all China. How could my father have ever doubted you? I certainly did not.’

‘I don’t know,’ Mai Song replied, in a quiet determined voice, ‘but I do know this. I was wrong in my earlier judgement.
So very wrong.
It is sad, but I find you are your father’s son after all.’

And with those final words to her erstwhile lover, Mai Chang mounted the great horse of Tang. She left Pang Yau standing on the windy plains. The vestiges of the mocking man moved to clutch at his raiment as swirling mist clings to the bark of trees. Mai Song flew off towards the camp of On Chang the bandit.

It has been the report of those who claim to have seen her since, that the daughter of the
war lord
joined the bandits in their fight against the King of Gwongdong. It has been said that she ruthlessly slew the king’s son in savage battle on the wilderness beyond the water margin. There are those who say she found love and are ready to swear that the demi-god Wong Tai Sin was a witness at her wedding to On Chang of the bandits.