Chapter 46

As the three rode along, the land about them graduallybecame more rocky and a crooked path appeared. It grewdark, and the White Jade Peak began to tower overthem.

　　"According to the map, the Secret City was builtaround the base of the mountain," said Huo Qingtong.

　　"It doesn't look as if it would be more than three orfour miles from here." The three dismounted and gavetheir two horses some water.

　　Chen stroked the white horse's mane lovingly, knowingthat without it, he would never have been able torescue Princess Fragrance. He also knew he would nothave left without her.

　　They rested for a while until the horses had recoveredsome of their strength and then continued on, thecries of the wolves already vaguely discernible in thedistance. Chen rode the chestnut horse alone and thetwo sisters rode together on the white horse.

　　The night was cool and the snow on the peak glistenedbrilliant white under the moon, looking almost closeenough to touch. The path became rough and treacherousand suddenly split a dozen or so ways, with noindication of which was the correct one.

　　"With so many paths, it's not surprising people getlost," said Chen. Huo Qingtong pulled out the map andexamined it under the moonlight.

　　"It says: `left three right two'," she said.

　　"What does that mean?""It doesn't explain." In the distance, they heard thewolves howling in unison.

　　"It's about midnight," Huo Qingtong said. "They musthave stopped to howl at the moon. When they'vefinished, they will be after us again. We must choosethe path and go quickly.""There are five paths on the left here," said Chenpointing. "The map says left three right two, so let'stake the third.""If it's a dead end, we won't have time to come backagain," replied Huo Qingtong.

　　"In that case, the three of us will die together,"said Chen.

　　As Chen spoke, Huo Qingtong felt a sudden warmth inher breast and tears welled into her eyes. She raisedher horse whip and led them into the middle path.

　　The track narrowed into a stone-walled corridor whichhad obviously been hacked out of the mountainside bymen. After a while, they came to another crossroadsfrom which three paths branched out to the right.

　　"We're saved! We're saved!" Huo Qingtong shouted withjoy, and they spurred their horses up the middle pathwith renewed energy. But the track had not beentraversed for many years, and in some places, it wascompletely overgrown by grasses taller than a man,while in others, it was blocked by sand drifts. Thethree had to dismount and lead the horses over theobstacles. Chen also moved rocks onto the top of thedrifts to slow the wolves' pursuit.

　　Less than half a mile further on, they came upon threemore paths forking to the left. Suddenly, PrincessFragrance screamed and pointed to a pile of whitebones at the mouth of one of the paths. Chendismounted to investigate and found they were theremains of a man and a camel.

　　"He must have been unable to decide which path to takeand ended up dying here," he sighed.

　　They entered the third path and found it suddenlysteepened sharply. The cold and darkness becameoppressive. A short while later another skeletonappeared by the side of the path with jewelsglistening amongst the bones.

　　"He was rich but he couldn't get out," Huo Qingtongsaid.

　　"But it means we're on the right path," replied Chen.

　　"There must be even more skeletons on the wrongpaths.""When we leave, none of us must take any jewels, allright?" Princess Fragrance said.

　　"You're afraid the ghosts won't let us go," said Chenwith a smile.

　　"Promise me!"He heard the pleading tone in her voice and hurriedlyreplied: "I won't take anything, don't worry." All thejewels in the world could not match having you twosisters as companions, he thought, and suddenly feltashamed. Why did he include them both together?

　　They continued up the twisted path the whole night,and by morning, they and the two horses wereexhausted.

　　"Let's rest a while," said Huo Qingtong.

　　"We must concentrate on finding shelter first and thenwe can all sleep easily," Chen replied firmly.

　　** 10 **A short way further on, the path opened out into awide, flat valley of extraordinary beauty. The sun wasjust rising and the white mountain soared up into thesky from the valley floor. Around its base was a citythat looked as if it had once been very prosperous.

　　But now, the thousands of houses that they could see,although magnificent in scale and design, were invarious stages of ruin and collapse. Not a sound wasto be heard, not even the twittering of birds. Thethree had never seen a place that was at once sobeautiful and so terrible. They stood for a moment,over-awed by the crushing silence, hardly daring toeven breathe, then Chen urged his horse forward andthey entered the city.

　　The area was extremely dry, so dry that there wasvirtually no vegetation on the ground. The contents ofthe houses had stayed undisturbed for countless yearsand most appeared to still be in good condition. Theyentered the first house they came to and PrincessFragrance noticed a pair of ladies' shoes on thefloor. Their colour was still fresh, but as soon asshe touched them, they disintegrated into dust, andshe jumped in shock.

　　"This city is in a basin surrounded by high mountainswhich protect it from rain and wind," Chen said.

　　As they continued through the streets, they foundskeletons everywhere and swords and other weaponsthrown about at random.

　　"It doesn't look as if the city was buried in a sandstorm as the story says," Chen commented.

　　"No," Huo Qingtong agreed. "It looks more like therewas a big battle and all the people were killed.""But there's so many paths outside the city," PrincessFragrance objected. "How would the enemy find theirway in?""There must have been a traitor," Huo Qingtongreplied.

　　They went into another house, and she spread the mapout on a table and leaned over to examine it. But thetable was completely rotten despite its apparentsturdiness, and it collapsed under the weight of herarms. She picked up the map and studied it for amoment. "I'm afraid these houses wouldn't withstand anattack by the wolves for very long," she said. Shepointed at a place on the map. "This is the centre ofthe city, right at the foot of the mountain. There area lot of markings around it, which probably means itis a place of importance. If it's a palace orfortress, it is bound to be very sturdily built, solet's go there.""Right!" said Chen. The three continued on their way,following the path indicated on the map. The roads inthe centre of the city were like a maze, twisting andturning until their head's swam. If they had not hadthe map, they would surely have lost their way.

　　After an hour or so, they came to the place marked onthe map as the city centre, but were disappointed tofind no sign of any palace or fortress. From close up,the White Jade Peak looked even more beautiful thanfrom a distance. It was completely white, pure andshining. A jade carver who found even a small piece ofwhite jade would never go hungry for the rest of hislife, but here was a whole mountain of the preciousstone. They looked up at the towering peak and felt asense of spiritual upliftment. Their cares and worriesdispersed and they reflected on the wonderful mysteryof creation.

　　Then, amidst the silence, they heard far off the howlsof wolves drifting towards them.

　　"They're coming!" cried Princess Fragrance. "Could itbe the wolves have a map as well?""Their nose is their map," Chen replied. "We have leftour scent wherever we have gone and by following it,they will never make a mistake."Huo Qingtong pointed at the map. "Look," she said.

　　"There is the mountain, but there are many roadsmarked inside.""They must be tunnels," he said.

　　"Yes. Now how do we find them?" She looked at theexplanation on the map and slowly deciphered it. "Toenter the palace, climb the tall tree and call out"Ailongabasheng" three times towards the sacredmountain.""What is Ailongabasheng?" Princess Fragrance asked.

　　"It must be the password," Huo Qingtong replied. "Butwhere is the tall tree? And could this really be amagic spell?""Of course it could," said Princess Fragrance, who hadalways believed in spirits and fairies.

　　"In the old days, there would have been people in themountain who would have pushed a switch when theyheard the password, opening a cave entrance," saidChen. But after so many years, everyone in there iscertainly dead."The howls of the wolves sounded closer. "Let's go andhide in one of the houses," Huo Qingtong suggested.

　　The three turned and ran towards the closest of thebuildings. As they ran, Chen tripped on a bulge on theground and saw it was the stump of a huge tree. "Thetree's here!" he called.

　　Princess Fragrance examined the sheer face of themountain above and pointed. "That must be the cavemouth there. Look, aren't those footholds?" Chen andHuo Qingtong looked up and saw with delight that therewere indeed notches in the rock face.

　　"I'll go up and have a look," said Chen. With thedagger in his right hand, he bounded up the cliff. Hemade it up about a dozen feet then used his InnerStrength Kung Fu to lodge the dagger in the rock facefor an instant and race up further. Finally, hereached the point where the footholds began. The twogirls cheered from below, and Chen waved to thembefore turning his attention to the cliff above. Overthe years, the cave mouth had become blocked by sand.

　　Chen grabbed an outcrop of jade rock with one hand andstarted to shift some of the sand with the dagger. Hepulled broken slabs of rock out one after another, andlet them drop to the ground, and in a short while hadmade a hole large enough to wriggle through. Hecrawled in and sat down. Then, pulling his PearlStrings from his pocket, he undid them all, tied themtogether end to end and dangled the resulting ropedown the cliff face to the girls waiting below.

　　Huo Qingtong tied the rope round her sister's waistand Chen slowly pulled her up. Just as she reached thecave mouth, she screamed, and Chen quickly helped herinside, saying: "Don't worry, you've made it."Her face was deathly pale. "Wolves!" she cried.

　　Chen looked down and saw seven or eight wolves hadalready arrived at the base of the cliff. Huo Qingtongwas valiantly fighting them off with her sword. Thewhite horse shook its mane and neighed loudly thengalloped off through the streets of the ancient city.

　　Chen hastily grabbed some large rocks from around thecave mouth and threw them down, forcing some of thewolves to back away, then dropped the rope down again.

　　Huo Qingtong was afraid that in her weak condition,she would be unable to hold on long enough, so shetransferred the sword to her left hand, and tied therope round her waist as she continued to fight off thewolves.

　　"Right!" she yelled. Chen yanked on the rope and sheflew into the air just as two wolves threw themselvesat her. One of them bit deeply into her boot andrefused to let go. As Princess Fragrance screamed infright, Huo Qingtong bent over in mid-air and choppedit in half across its belly. The top half of its bodyaccompanied her up to the cave mouth.

　　Chen helped her inside and tried unsuccessfully topull the half-wolf off her boot.

　　"Did it bite into you?" he asked quickly.

　　"I'm all right," she replied. She took the dagger fromhis hand and cut open the wolf's mouth, revealing theserried ranks of teeth sunk deep into her boot. Asmall trickle of blood oozed out of one of the holesin the leather.

　　"Your foot is wounded," Princess Fragrance said. Shehelped her sister remove the boot, and ripped a stripof material off her gown to bandage the wound. Chenturned his head away, not daring to look at her barefeet.* (* In traditional China, feet were consideredone of the most erotic parts of the female anatomy.)When she had finished the bandaging, PrincessFragrance looked down at the thousands of wolvesamongst the buildings below, and wagged her finger atthem angrily. "You evil wolves, biting my sister'sfoot! I won't feel sorry for you any more," shescolded them as Chen and Huo Qingtong smiled.

　　They turned to look into the cave, but all they couldsee was pitch-blackness. Huo Qingtong took out hertinderbox and lit it, and immediately jumped infright: they were sitting on a thin ledge and next tothem was a drop of nearly two hundred feet down to thefloor of the cave, which looked even lower than theground outside the mountain.

　　"There has been no fresh air in here for a long time,"said Chen. "We can't go down yet." After a while, whenhe thought most of the stale air would havedissipated, he said: "I'll go down first to have alook around.""Once we're down it won't be easy to get back upagain," said Huo Qingtong.

　　Chen smiled. "If we can't, we can't," he said. HuoQingtong blushed and looked away.

　　He tied one end of the rope round a rock outcrop andstarted to slide down into the abyss, but when hereached the end of the rope, he was still a hundredfeet from the bottom. Abandoning the rope, he climbeddown the cliff face for a way, and then jumped lightlyto the floor.

　　"Throw down the tinderbox!" he shouted and HuoQingtong did so. He struck a light, and under itsglow, he saw he was in a chamber carved entirely outof white jade furnished with several sets of woodentables and chairs. Chen looked up and saw the twogirls peering down from the ledge, and shouted: "Comedown!""You go down first, sister," Huo Qingtong said.

　　Princess Fragrance took hold of the rope and slidslowly down to its end. She saw Chen standing beneathher with his hands opened wide, closed her eyestightly and let go. Almost immediately, she felt hisstrong arms catch her and place her lightly on theground. Huo Qingtong jumped down in the same fashionand as Chen embraced her, she flushed deep red withembarrassment.

　　By now, the howls of the wolves outside the mountainwere becoming faint. Chen looked at their shadowsdancing on the white jade walls, and then at the twobeauties beside him. Under the glow of the reflectedlight, they looked even more exquisite. Here theywere, the three of them, in the bowels of a mountain,not knowing what was in store for them. Of all thestrange things that had happened to him in hiseventful life, this was the strangest.

　　Chen snapped off a chair leg and lit it with the flamefrom the tinder-box. Princess Fragrance exclaimed atthe beauty of the chamber they were in, and taking thetorch from Chen began walking about. He broke offanother seven chair legs and the three began to walkoff along a long tunnel which turned out to be acul-de-sac. Chen wondered how they would get out. Thenin a corner of the tunnel, he noticed somethingsparkling under the torchlight. He walked over and sawit was a gold suit of armour containing a pile of oldbones. The suit of armour was exquisitely-made, andthe three marvelled at the fine workmanship.

　　"He must have been a nobleman," said PrincessFragrance. Huo Qingtong noticed that there was awinged camel engraved on the breast plate and added:

　　"He may even have been the king or a prince. I'veheard that in ancient times, only kings could usewinged camels as their emblem.""It's the same with the dragon in China," repliedChen. He took the torch from Princess Fragrance andbegan to examine the end wall of the tunnel for sometrace of a door or an opening mechanism. Raising thetorch, he saw a huge ring door knocker with along-handled axe lodged in it.

　　"There's a door," Huo Qingtong exclaimed joyfully.

　　Chen passed the torch over to her and tried to pullthe axe away, but it had rusted onto the iron ring andwas immovable. He took out his dagger and scraped awaythe rust, then with an effort, managed to pull the axefree. He found it very heavy.

　　"If this was his weapon, then His Highness was astrong man," he said with a smile.

　　On closer examination, they found there was an ironring fastened to all four corners of the stone door.

　　Chen took hold of each of the rings and gave them amighty tug, but the door did not move even a fraction.

　　He tried pushing it instead, and with load squeaks, itslowly began to swing open. They saw the door was atleast ten feet thick, and in fact was more like a hugeboulder than a door.

　　The three looked at each other with expressions ofjubilation on their faces. Chen raised the torch highand with the dagger in his other hand, led the waythrough the door. One step inside, something crunchedunder his foot, and he saw a pile of bones on thefloor. Looking ahead, there was a narrow tunnelleading off into the darkness, just big enough for aperson to walk along. Skeletons and swords werescattered all about them.

　　Huo Qingtong pointed to the back of the great stonedoor. "Look," she said. Under the torchlight they sawdeeply scored lines obviously scratched out withswords.

　　"These people must have been locked in here by theking," said Chen in a startled voice. "They tried thebest they could to get out, but the door was too thickand the jade rock too solid.""Even if they had had ten blades as sharp as yourdagger, they would still never have broken throughthis door," replied Huo Qingtong.

　　"They must have considered every alternative, andfinally one by one died as hope faded....""Don't! Don't go on," Princess Fragrance pleaded. Thescene was too tragic. She could not bear to hear anymore.

　　"Why did the king stand guard on the other side of thedoor instead of escaping?" Huo Qingtong asked. "Ican't work that out at all." She pulled out the mapand looked at it for a moment. Her face brightened.

　　"At the end of this tunnel there should be a greathall and other rooms," she said.

　　Slowly, they walked forward, treading on human bonesas they went. They turned two corners, and emergedinto a cavernous hall as Huo Qingtong had predicted.

　　They stood at the entrance and looked about. The floorof the great hall was filled with skeletons andweapons lying about at random, evidence that a furiousbattle had been fought here.

　　As they walked into the hall, Chen's dagger suddenlyshot out of his hand and fell to the floor with aclatter. At the same instant, the belt supporting HuoQingtong's sword around her waist snapped, and thescabbard fell heavily to the floor. The three jumpedin fright. Huo Qingtong bent down to pick up hersword, but as she did so, the darts in her pocket flewout with a whoosh and dropped to the ground in thesame manner.

　　Chen grabbed the two girls and leapt backwards severalpaces, steeling himself to defend them against anyattackers. But there was not a sound from the hall. Hewondered what kung fu could snatch the weapons fromtheir hands and even suck Huo Qingtong's darts fromher pocket.

　　"We have come only to escape wolves and with no otherpurpose," Chen shouted into the darkness in the Muslimlanguage. "Please forgive us for any indiscretions wemay have committed."There was no answer but the echo of his own wordsreturning from the far side of the hall.

　　As Huo Qingtong's initial fright receded, she walkedforward again and stooped to pick up her sword. But itwas stuck to the floor as if nailed in place. Shetried again using all her strength and managed to freeit, but a second later, it flew out of her hand againand hit the ground with a clang.

　　Chen realised what was happening.

　　"There must be a magnet under here," he said.

　　"What's a magnet?" asked Huo Qingtong.

　　"Sailors say there is a big mountain in the far northwhich attracts pieces of iron which hang free, makingthem point north to south. When they're on the ocean,they rely on something called a magnetic compass tofind their direction.""And you think there's another magnet mountain underhere which is attracting our weapons?" asked HuoQingtong.

　　"I think so. Let's try it." He prized up his daggerand placed it and a wooden chair leg on his left handwith his right hand on top to hold them in place. Whenhe took his hand away, the dagger flew to the groundbut the chair leg remained motionless.

　　"So as you see, the magnet is powerful," said Chen,picking up the dagger again and gripping it tightly.

　　Huo Qingtong walked on a few more steps. "Come here!"she called. Chen ran over and saw a skeleton which wasstill standing. A few tattered pieces of clothing hungon the frame, and its right hand was holding awhite-coloured sword which was stuck into the skeletonnext to it.

　　"It's a jade sword!" Huo Qingtong exclaimed. Chencarefully extracted the sword from the skeleton'sgrasp, and with its support gone, it collapsed to thefloor in a heap.

　　The jade sword's blade was very sharp, but it wasstill frail enough to shatter if it clashed with ametal blade. Looking round, they saw there were manyother jade weapons of all sizes lying about the hall.

　　"I know!" Huo Qingtong suddenly said. "The master ofthis mountain certainly planned things verycarefully.""What?" asked Chen.

　　"He used this magnet to draw the enemy's weapons awayand then his guards finished them off with the jadeswords."Princess Fragrance pointed at a skeleton wearing ametal breast plate. "Look! Some of the attackers werewearing armour. i'll bet they couldn't get on theirfeet.""But what I don't understand," Huo Qingtong continued,"is if the guards with the jade weapons killed all theattackers, why did they also die here as well?"Chen had also been considering that problem, but couldthink of no explanation.

　　"Let's go further in and explore," said Huo Qingtong.

　　"No," Princess Fragrance said. "Let's not, sister."Huo Qingtong saw the anguished expression on her faceand squeezed her arm. "Don't be afraid. Perhaps thereare no skeletons over there."They walked to the other side of the hall and lookedinto a smaller chamber. But the scene there was evenmore terrible than in the first hall. Dozens ofskeletons were piled about the room, most of themstill standing as if alive. Some had weapons in theirhands, some didn't.

　　"Don't touch anything!" said Chen. "There must be somestrange reason for them dying like this." Theycontinued on, and passed out of the chamber into atunnel. After a couple of bends, they came upon asmall swing door. As they pushed it open, their eyeswere assailed by a bright light. Sunlight poured infrom a crack in the ceiling hundreds of feet aboveinto an excuisite jade room which had obviously beencarved out of the mountain at this spot to takeadvantage of the natural lighting.

　　Although it was only a single shaft of sunlight, thethree were very excited at the sight of it. The roomthey found themselves in had a jade bed, a jade table,jade chairs, all beautifully carved. A skeletonreclined on the jade bed, while in one corner of theroom, there were two other skeletons, one large andone small.

　　Chen extinguished the torch. "We'll rest here," hesaid. They pulled out their dry rations and water andhad a small meal.

　　"I wonder how long the wolves will wait outside themountain for us?" said Huo Qingtong. "This has becamea contest between us and the wolves, so we will haveto make the food and water last as long as possible."For the past several days, Chen and the two sistershad not had a moment in which they could relax. Now,in this silent jade room, an immense exhaustion cameover them and before very long, they fell into a deep,deep sleep.