I was not the only one who gazed in terror at the Castle of the Labyrinth. It was slowly twisting upon its foundations, as though it were being squeezed by a giant hand, and screams and shrieks rang through the streets of the greatest pleasure city in the world, and merchants and merrymakers and priests and prost.i.tutes fell upon their knees and began babbling prayers and promises to repent.

That monstrous monument to temporal power was dissolving. Invincible walls were bending like soft wax, and great stone slabs were spraying down like scattered grains of sand, and enormous steel gates were ripping apart like flimsy parchment. The iron towers melted into mud, and the drawbridges toppled into the moats, and the face of the solid cliff cracked and splintered, and the water from the moats shot over the edge of the cliff and glittered in the moonlight like silver as it plunged in a foaming cascade to the sea. Tunnels and torture chambers collapsed and buried forever the terrible secrets of the Duke of Ch'in, and in the depths of the labyrinth the tiger screamed for the last time.

A great cloud of dust and debris billowed up and blotted out the moon, and stones and steel rained down upon the duke's city. Small pieces of wreckage crashed through the roof and pounded like drumsticks upon the table that covered us. Then a great gust of wind blew down from Heaven and the dust cloud vanished as though it had never been, and I stared in wonder at the Castle of the Labyrinth as you will see it today: a great twisted ma.s.s of wreckage scattered across the face of a cliff overlooking the Yellow Sea.

Li Kao's eyes were shining, and he happily punched my shoulder. "One should not be miserly when it comes to a spectacular ending, and unless I am greatly mistaken, we are in for a whopper," he said. "Listen."

The sound was faint at first. Then it grew stronger and stronger, deepening in pitch as the chorus swelled, and resolved itself into a great song of joy as a million birds, a billion, a trillion, every bird in China, including those that had to break out of cages, came flashing across the face of the moon toward their princess. The mobs in the streets jumped to their feet and took to their heels, howling in terror while the trees and shrubs bowed beneath a great wind of wings, and billions of blossoms whirled through the air and turned bawling bonzes into bouquets, and fleeing felons into flower arrangements.

The great Phoenix, mightiest of all, led the way, and his flaming crown of feathers streaked across the sky like a meteor. Behind him flew the Eagle and the Albatross, the kings of the birds of land and sea. Then came the Owl, prince of the birds of night, and the Lark, prince of the birds of day, and the Swan, prince of the birds of rivers, and the Crane, prince of the birds of marshes, and the Parrot, prince of the birds of jungles, and the Petrel, prince of the birds of storms, and the Raven, prince of the birds of prophecy - I shall not give the entire list. Henpecked Ho might have drawn it up, since it covers twenty pages. Behind the officers flew the legions, and the world was fragrant with the sharp clean scent of the green twigs and branches that they carried in their claws.

The crown upon the head of Lotus Cloud was shining even brighter than the crown of the Phoenix. She uttered another low cry, and the mighty Falcon, prince of the birds of war, slid silently down from the sky and landed in the garden. It was as big as a horse, and its talons glittered like swords, and its wise old yellow eyes glowed like smoky torches. Lotus Cloud ran up and wrapped her arms around the Falcon's neck and rested her cheek against its head. She stood like that for some time, and then she turned, unconsciously imperial, and looked straight at two gentlemen who were still crouched beneath a table. We found ourselves crawling out, and walking obediently into the garden. The Princess of Birds reached out and placed the Great Root of Power in my hands.

"My G.o.dmother wishes to go with you," she said softly. "She has suffered much, and she prays that in the village of Ku-fu she may be able to perform the task for which she was born. I have spoken to the Falcon, who alone of all living creatures may be able to get you there in time."

She turned to Li Kao.

"I have a message that I do not understand," she said simply. "The August Personage of Jade says that he will reserve a place for you in the constellation Scorpio, where you will rule as the red star Antares, whose sign is that of the fox, on the condition that you do not try to sell him any shares in a mustard mine."

"Conditions, conditions," Master Li grumbled, but I could see that he was immensely pleased.

Lotus Cloud gestured, and the Falcon bent down and Li Kao and I obediently climbed upon its back. Lotus Cloud leaned forward; her lips softly brushed my cheek.

"I will never forget you," she whispered. "Not through all eternity."

The princess stepped back. For the last time I saw her incredible grin, and she waved, and the great wings pumped once, twice, and then the prince of the birds of war shot up into the air. The Falcon wheeled around, and the wings flashed so swiftly that they were nearly transparent in the moonlight, and Master Li and Number Ten Ox set sail across the night sky of China.

I turned and looked back, blinking through tears. A billion birds were beginning to build a bridge with their twigs and branches, and their princess was placing her foot upon the first step. Never again would I see her. Never again would I hold her in my arms. The Falcon turned its head, and its voice was surprisingly soft and gentle.

"Number Ten Ox, why do you weep?" the Falcon asked. "The Princess of Birds has vowed to remember you throughout eternity, and by now you should know that men cannot come any closer to immortality without going insane."

The beautiful Bridge of Birds was climbing slowly toward the stars, and a great song was spreading across China. Faster and faster we sped through the sky, and on the ground below the peasants were running from the cottages and lifting little children in their arms to gaze at glory.

"You see?" said the peasants. "That is why you must never give up, no matter how bad things may seen. Anything is possible in China!"

We shot over a ridge to a small valley where men stood frozen in awe and wonder, and I began to feel a certain respect for p.a.w.nbroker Fang and Ma the Grub, who were taking the opportunity to pick the pockets of their own lynch mob. The Falcon's burning eyes were lighting up the night like lighthouse beacons as we flashed past, and then we swooped over another ridge and down into another valley toward an old well and a bricked-up hole in a wall.

The Falcon was right. Why should I weep? Bright Star had shed enough bitter tears for both of us, but now her tears came from joy as she gazed at the Bridge of Birds, sparkling in the distance. The dancing girl and her captain were giving a great scholar the respectful attention he deserved, and Henpecked Ho gestured grandly at the glorious sky.

"So the peasant girl knelt before the Emperor of Heaven, and he placed the little gold crown upon her head. 'Arise, Princess of Birds!' he commanded, and when Jade Pearl stood up she was astonished to see that she shone with a divine light...."

The Falcon flashed past, and mountains and valleys disappeared as though China were being folded up like a map beneath us, and we shot down the side of a low mountain where three more ghosts were seated upon a rock, gazing up at the Bridge of Birds.

"You know, I feel in my heart that I had something to do with this, although it scarcely seems possible," Miser Shen said wonderingly. "I cannot imagine how anything so beautiful could be a.s.sociated with someone so ugly as myself."

His wife kissed his cheek, and the lovely little girl in his arms looked up in surprise. "But, Daddy, you are very beautiful," said Ah Chen.

They vanished behind us. Another mountain and another valley vanished in a blur, and then the Falcon slowed and feathered its wings above a cemetery, where a tired and lonely old man was trudging between gravestones with a cadaver on his back. He tilted the head of the corpse toward the Bridge of Birds.

"Now look here, if the birds can pull off a trick like that, surely you can manage something so simple as resurrection," Doctor Death said reasonably. "Perhaps it would help if you understood how important it is. My wife was not pretty, but she was the most wonderful wife in the world. Her name was Chiang-chao, and we were very poor, but she could make the most delicious meals from a handful of rice and the herbs that she picked in the woods. She sang beautiful songs to cheer me when I was depressed, and she sewed dresses for wealthy ladies to help pay for my studies. We were very happy together, and I know that we will be happy together again."

The Falcon dropped like a rock, and the great talons shot out, and there was a dull thud. We lifted back up into the air while the old man toppled to the ground, and his ghost lifted from his body, and another ghost came running with open arms, and Doctor Death and the most wonderful wife in the world embraced beneath the Bridge of Birds.

The stars above us were blending into a continuous blur and the landscape below was unrolling like a painted panorama: the hills and valleys that we had trudged across on our quest, and the Desert of Salt, and Stone Bell Mountain. We shot up the side of another mountain toward a stone pillar and a hammer and a gong and the black mouth of a cave. The wisest man in the world was standing there, gazing at the Bridge of Birds, and for a moment I thought that it might not be such a bad thing to lose one's heart. There was real pleasure in his eyes. Then I saw that his hands were caressing a small pile of jewels, and I remembered that a man with no heart likes things cold, and there is nothing colder than treasure.

"Cold," crooned the Old Man of the Mountain. "Cold... cold... cold..."

Then the wisest man in the world turned his back upon the beautiful Bridge of Birds, and shuffled down into the darkness of his cave.

Another valley disappeared beneath us, and another river, and more hills, and we swooped up the side of another peak, and Master Li and I cried out as one: "But surely they have paid for their folly!"

We stared down at the bodies of the three handmaidens, who still floated upon the cold water of the Lake of the Dead. The Falcon turned its head.

"In life they were faithless, but in death they were faithful beyond belief," said the prince of the birds of war. "Their courage has been brought to the attention of the judges of h.e.l.l, and even now the Yama Kings are making their decision."

We watched the bodies peacefully dissolve into dust, and we felt an indescribable wave of joy as the soul of Snowgoose and Little Ping and Autumn Moon shot past us to rejoin their mistress in Heaven.

The mighty heart pounded beneath us, and the wings beat with all of the Falcon's strength, and we left the Bridge of Birds far behind, and China vanished. My eyes swam with tears from the wind, and I could see nothing, and I held on for dear life. For an hour I had no idea where we were, but then the racing wind began to bring a hundred familiar odors to my nostrils. The pace slackened, and I pried my eyelids open, and the Falcon slid down from the sky and dipped its wings in salute above the watchtower on Dragon's Pillow. As the monastery grew closer we could see the watching bonzes point in wonder from the roof, and then the bells began to ring. Lower we drifted, and then the Falcon landed lightly in the courtyard.

Li Kao and I climbed off and bowed deeply, and the prince of the birds of war looked at us with its yellow smoky eyes.

"I shall not say good-bye. The Raven has told me that we are destined to meet again, at the great confrontation with the White Serpent in the Mysterious Mountain Cavern of Winds. The Raven is never wrong," said the Falcon, and its wings beat once, twice, and then it shot into the air and sailed away to rejoin its bridge and its princess.

Li Kao and I raced into the infirmary, where the abbot ran to meet us. He was wasted with weariness, and one glance told us that the endurance of the children was almost at an end.

"We have the Great Root!" I yelled. "Master Li found the Queen of Ginseng, and she has agreed to help us!"

Master Li and the abbot began preparing the vials, and I ran from bed to bed. I held the root toward the children's faces and recited their names and gave brief ancestries. I suppose that it was a foolish thing to do, but I remembered that the story of Jade Pearl had begun when the Queen of Ginseng had taken pity upon a child and had asked if she was lost, and the children of my village were lost indeed. Then I ran up to Master Li, and he reverently placed the root in the first vial.

I cannot possibly describe the aroma when Li Kao finally removed the vial from the pan of boiling water and removed the stopper, but old Mother Ho, who caught some of the steam full in the face, tossed her cane away and hasn't used it since. The abbot and Master Li began making the rounds: three drops upon each tongue.

The children's faces flushed, and the covers lifted with deep breathing, and they sat up and opened their eyes to the private world of the Hopping Hide and Seek Game.

The second treatment of three drops, and the happy smiling faces turned as one toward Dragon's Pillow. "Jade plate, six, eight, fire that burns hot, night that is not, fire that burns cold, first silver, then gold!" chanted the children of Ku-fu.

The third and final treatment, and there was just enough essence to go around. The children suddenly stopped chanting, and they sat motionless, with wide unseeing eyes. n.o.body dared to breathe. The monastery was completely silent until Big Hong could stand it no more. He ran to his son and waved his hand in front of the boy's bright eyes. Nothing happened.

Big Hong fell on his knees, and his head sank to the little boy's lap, and he began to weep.

Master Li is convinced that the true story of the Bridge of Birds is far too crude to please priests and palace eunuchs, and that suitably polite and pious legends will be invented to account for the extraordinary event that stunned the empire on the seventh day of the seventh moon in the Year of the Dragon 3,338 (A.D. 640), and that there will probably be a lover's festival that celebrates a meek little G.o.ddess who weaves seamless robes and a meek little G.o.d who milks cows, with a few magpies tossed in for comic effect. Perhaps, but in the village of Ku-fu in the valley of Cho we will continue to celebrate the moment when the Queen of Ginseng probed and tested, and then tentatively reached out and took ku poison into her heart. Little Hong blinked. His eyes lowered.

"What's the matter, Daddy?" he asked.

Her majesty was gaining confidence, unleashing all of her power, and child after child blinked and shook his head, as though clearing cobwebs, and wanted to know why his parents were weeping. They were very weak.

"Outside!" Master Li yelled. "Carry the children out to the courtyard!"

A long row of beds moved out to the courtyard, and the children stared in wonder at a strange glow upon the horizon, like the rising of a second moon, and then the Bridge of Birds lifted above Dragon's Pillow. Surely the Queen of Ginseng smiled to see her beloved G.o.ddaughter provide the final step to the cure. The world was wrapped in the fragrance of green twigs and branches, and a divine light climbed higher and higher toward the stars, to the great song of billions of birds. A trillion wings splintered moonbeams into rainbows, and a roar of thanksgiving came from the Great River, and the Star Shepherd hurled his crook away and bounded across waves and rocks, and the untended stars began to spill over the banks. The August Personage of Jade ordered all Heaven to erupt with bells and gongs and trumpets, and the children of Ku-fu jumped from their sickbeds and began to dance with their parents, and the abbot and his bonzes swung l.u.s.tily through the air as they hauled on the bell ropes, and Master Li did the Dragon Dance with Number Ten Ox, and showers of stars, torrents of stars, great glorious explosions of stars streaked across the sky of China while the Bridge of Birds reached the boundary of paradise, and the Star Shepherd opened his arms to receive my darling Lotus Cloud, the Princess of Birds.

I shall clasp my hands together and bow to the corners of the world.

May your villages remain ignorant of tax collectors, and may your sons be many and ugly and strong and willing workers, and may your daughters be few and beautiful and excellent providers of love gifts from eminent families that live very far away, and may your lives be blessed by the beauty that has touched mine.

Farewell.

THE END.