Sir Harold and the Monkey King, Part IV

SIR HAROLD AND THE MONKEY KING

Part 4 of 4

Christopher Stasheff

The moon was high when the three bats landed near the grassy mound with the mulberry sapling on top, in the center of the palace gardens. They crouched on the ground, then expanded amazingly into Monkey, Pigsy, and Shea. Shea was almost regretful about it—he had enjoyed the bat's soaring even more than the housefly's buzzing. On the other hand, that was definitely the kind of spell that could get him into trouble in other universes, including his own.

"It is under here," Monkey told Pigsy.

"Stand back, then." The pig-face grinned, showing tusks. "We shall uncover it quickly." He yanked the sapling out by the roots and tossed it over his shoulder. Shea jumped back in alarm, and so did Monkey. Good thing, too—Pigsy got busy with the muck-rake, and the dirt flew out in a continuous stream. Quickly, the whole of the mound disappeared. Then the muckrake thudded on wood, and Pigsy frowned. "Wooden boards? What is this?"

"A well cover." Monkey stepped up and, with one titanic heave, flipped the cover off the well.

Shea glanced up at the walls nervously. How could the sentries help but notice?

Foolish question. With a magician like Monkey beside him? Why did he bother asking?

"Down there?" Pigsy looked down, frowning. "You did not tell me anything about a swim, little brother!"

"Why should it bother you?" Monkey asked. "You've done your share of diving in your time. Down with you, Pigsy! The treasure is at the bottom of the well!"

"If you say so," Pigsy grunted, and dove in with a splash that Shea could have sworn must have waked the sorcerer-king—but there was no reaction, no cry of alarm, no gongs sounding. In fact, he heard nothing. Nothing but night-birds—and no sound from the well. When he was sure five minutes had passed, he said, "Has he drowned?"

"He can hold his breath far longer than this," Monkey assured him. "Do not fear for our brutish companion, Xei—and do not worry; it is a deep well."

Very deep; another five minutes must have passed before a bloated body suddenly shot from the surface of the well with a huge splash. Shea flinched back in sheer reflex, then realized that the body was hanging from the prongs of a muck-rake. Pigsy's head was right behind it. "This was all I found! Where is the treasure, Monkey?"

"Why, this is it." Monkey pulled the dead body onto the well-curb.

"What! Nothing but this? Monkey, you lied to me!"

"It is for the best," Monkey assured him. "What would you have done with gold and jewels, anyhow? We could not take time to spend them."

"You tricked me! You bamboozled me!"

"We had to have this body," Monkey explained, laying out the dead king on the ground, "and you are a far better swimmer than I."

"I'll get even," Pigsy growled. "You see if I don't!"

Shea looked at the drowned body, then looked away again, shuddering. It was swollen, bloated, and the color of a fish's belly. Still... "It's in strangely good shape for a three-year-old corpse, Monkey."

"It is." The stone simian frowned. "Almost as though a magician had cast a spell of preservation over it—or as though Yama, King of the Dead, had not yet taken his due." He looked up at Shea, brooding. "Perhaps he knows something that we do not."

"Maybe," Shea agreed, feeling a prickling of dread envelop his back and neck. "Let's get the stiff out of here, Monkey, okay?"

For some reason, the sentries were all looking the other way as Shea and Monkey hoisted the dead king over the garden wall and off into the night. They must have been selectively deaf, too, for Pigsy was not worrying about how loud he was grumbling.

"It is he, even as he appeared in my dream!" Tripitaka shuddered, staring at the dead body before him. "In truth, his body does not appear anywhere nearly as ravaged as I dreaded. What could have caused this, Monkey? Why would Yama not have taken his due of it?"

Monkey shrugged, for once without an answer.

But Chalmers was not. "Could it be," he said slowly, "that the King is only in some sort of coma?"

Shea looked up, frowning. "No, impossible, Doc! Even a body in coma has to breathe! Besides, he's bloated."

Tripitaka looked from one to the other, frowning. "What is a 'coma'?"

"A state of unconsciousness," Chalmers explained, "much deeper than sleep, but still just barely living. It usually ends in death, though the body may linger for years. Sometimes, though, occasionally, very rarely, a person will come out of a coma, and regain full use of his faculties."

"A deathlike sleep?" Tripitaka frowned. "How could the dead return to life?"

Pigsy saw his chance. "Why, just ask Monkey, master! He can bring the dead to life! Just ask him!"

"Be still, lump of lard!" Monkey frowned. "I can do no such thing!"

"Oh, aye, he will deny it!" Pigsy jibed. "But he has been in Heaven, and even in the laboratory of Lao-Tzu! If anyone can bring the dead back to life, he can!"

"What nonsense are you speaking, fool!" Monkey barked. "Only Yama can bring the dead back to life!"

"Oh, of course he will deny it!" Pigsy cried. "But only say the magic words, Master! Invoke the spell of the golden headband! Make it tighten about his temples, and he will admit the truth!"

Tripitaka, looking very stern, began to recite the rhyme.

"Master, no!" Monkey cried in a panic. "He speaks only in spite, he seeks revenge because I tricked him into... Aieeee!" He fell on the ground, clutching his temples and shrieking. Pigsy laughed, enjoying the sight immensely.

"Speak truth, Monkey," Tripitaka said sternly. "If you can raise the dead, it is needful that you do so!"

"I can, I can!" Monkey cried. "I will find a way! I will bring the dead king back to life, if I have to go to Yama himself to demand it! Only make the pain stop, Master!"

With a curt nod, Tripitaka recited the counterspell. Monkey went limp with relief.

"Remember your promise now, Monkey," Pigsy jeered. "Raise the dead king to life!"

Monkey leaped to his feet, eyes glowing fiery red, and ran at Pigsy with a bellow.

"Disciple!" Tripitaka snapped, and Monkey came to an instant halt, shouting, "I will be revenged on you, Pigsy!"

"Did you speak of revenge?" Tripitaka demanded in dire tones, and Monkey froze. Then, slowly, he turned and bowed to Tripitaka. "I shall do your bidding, Master."

Behind him, Pigsy snickered.

Tripitaka eyed him coldly. "I shall deal with you later."

Pigsy blanched.

Tripitaka turned back to his smallest disciple. "How shall you do this thing, Monkey?"

"There are only two ways," Monkey sighed. "The one is to go into the Abode of the Dead, and beg Yama to restore the soul to the body—but Yama has no reason to grant our request, and is very stingy with the souls he has gathered."

"Agreed," Tripitaka said slowly.

"The only other way," Monkey said, "is to force my way into Heaven and beg a grain of Life-Restoring Elixir from Lao-Tzu—and that is what I must do. I know the way, for I have been in Heaven before."

Tripitaka said severely, "Yes, I know you were, and I have heard the tale of the havoc you caused there, five hundred years ago. Do as you did when you were a groom to the Jade Emperor's horses, and every deity in Heaven will seek to punish us." He turned to Shea. "Do you go along with him, Magician Xei, for I have found that you have an understanding of people that may enable you to restrain Monkey from his wildest excesses. And, too, your diplomacy may gain more help than all Monkey's bullying could ever do. Will you go?"

Shea swallowed, hard, and glanced at Chalmers, who shrugged almost imperceptibly, then gave him the slightest of nods.

Shea turned back to Tripitaka. "Of course, Reverend Sir, if that is what you ask." Inside, he asked himself frantically if Heaven could really be real.

The Chinese Heaven? Why not? As real as the Norsemen's Asgard, anyway—and Shea had been there already. Why not, indeed?

Seconds later, they were on a cloud and rising fast. Shea had to gulp air to quiet a queasy stomach, and tried to remember a spell for Dramamine. He decided that he definitely preferred a broomstick, under his own control—or better yet, a reclining seat with a seatbelt and a stewardess.

Then they rose above the floor of a cloudbank, and Shea found himself facing a huge Chinese gate in a wall that towered up and up. Both were of gold, and the gate was inlaid with mother-of-pearl and jade.

Monkey hopped off his cloud and swung up his cudgel; it lengthened into a six-foot iron staff.

"No, hold it a minute!" Shea grabbed the tip of the staff—and almost got another free ride, but Monkey halted in the nick of time and grunted, "Wherefore?"

"Because breaking down somebody's front door isn't the best way to get them to like you."

"Why should we want them to like us?"

"Because if they do, they're more likely to grant us a favor."

Monkey bared his teeth in a grin. "I assure you, Xei, none here has cause to like me—and they all have long, long memories."

"Still, we might try another way."

"Why?"

"Humor me."

Monkey sighed. "You western barbarians are so unreasonable! Well enough, Xei—how would you gain entrance to Heaven? We are neither of us ghosts, you know—and, if truth be told, neither one pure enough for Heaven!"

"There's some truth in that, I suppose," Shea sighed, "but Heaven is common to both our cultures, so maybe I can impose a little of my own on this image of it." He frowned at the gate, concentrating very hard on his own private image of the Pearly Gates—and a small metal rectangle with two buttons appeared on the right-hand jamb. "There, see?" he said triumphantly, and stepped forward to press the button. The two gates slid apart with a slight hiss, to show a richly appointed little room, painted with red lacquer and gold leaf, and hung with silken tapestries.

Monkey stared, the white showing all around his irises.

Shea stepped in quickly, pressing one hand against the edge of the door. "Come on in, quick, before it closes!"

Monkey snapped out of his trance and jumped aboard.

"Where are we going?" Shea was inspecting the panel, trying to decipher the buttons—they were in Arabic numerals, and he was currently geared to Chinese characters.

"The Thirty-third Heaven." Monkey eyed his surroundings like a caged animal.

"Thirty-third it is." Shea managed to figure out what those two backward-facing fat characters were, and pressed the button.

The car began to thrum about them.

"It is alive!" Monkey cried, and leaped so high he crashed into the ceiling, brandishing his staff. He fell with a thud, and Shea helped him up, trying to sound reassuring. "It's no more alive than one of your clouds. They move too, don't they?"

"True enough," Monkey said, but he crouched in the corner and brandished his staff, eyes flicking from side to side and top to bottom, trembling the whole time the elevator was moving.

"Yes, but my stomach does not sink when it flies," Monkey moaned.

"Mine does." Shea felt the pressure inside ease up. "Besides, the car's slowing—it must have been an express. What should we be expecting to see, Monkey?"

The doors slid back.

"That," Monkey whispered.

Shea stepped out and found himself facing a vista of cotton-candy hills bedecked with pagodas and palaces.

Monkey stepped out behind him, looking about him in awe. "That is far faster than I came here last time, and with much less adventure."

"Sorry to miss that last part," Shea sighed, "but we don't really have time for it right now. Which way is Lao-Tzu's laboratory?"

"Yonder." Monkey pointed.

Following his gesture, Shea saw a plain and simple hut—that glittered. "I thought he advocated austerity."

"He does, but the Jade Emperor insisted." Monkey gestured, and a cloud detached itself from the nearest cotton-candy mountain. "Your turn to suffer my mode of transport again, Xei."

The cloud barrelled into them, knocking Shea off his feet. Monkey, of course, sprang lithely up onto it, and caroled with delight. Shea was just managing to get his feet under him again when the cloud stopped, and he pitched headlong into its softness again. He extricated himself, grumbling: "For such a short distance, we could have walked."

"Believe me, Xei, it would have taken half a day, in this clinging stuff." Monkey stepped up to the door and knocked with his staff.

Shea looked up, amazed. Yes, a plain, simple hut—the size of a palace! And made of mother-of-pearl and white jade, too!

The door opened, to show a young man shaved bald, with a saffron robe. He saw Monkey and stared, horrified.

"Let us in," the little ape blustered, "or I will bring your door down around your ears!"

"Monkey...!" Shea moaned, but the young man's expression firmed into stony impassivity. He cried, "Master! It is that horrible little monster again!"

"Horrible little monster yourself!" Monkey shouted, raising his cudgel. "I'll teach you to insult your betters!"

But the young man stepped aside, and a little old man in a plain tunic stepped into the doorway. He was bald except for a fringe of white hair, and wore a long white moustache and goatee. When he saw Monkey, he scowled. "Why do you trouble my disciple? And why have you come back, you thief and brigand?"

"Thief and brigand!" Monkey exclaimed indignantly, but Shea decided it was time he took a hand. He stepped up beside his companion, just incidentally getting between the simian and the sage, and bowed. "Have I the honor of addressing the reverend sage, Lao-Tzu?"

"You have, though I am only a man," the sage answered. "And you are Harold Xei. I have watched your skipping through universes with some interest. Do you truly think there is anything to be gained thereby?"

"Knowledge," said Shea, totally dumbfounded that the sage had noticed him.

"Knowledge?" Lao-Tzu shrugged. "What use is that?"

"Discovering new knowledge is a source of great joy," Shea answered slowly.

"Beware of such joy, young man. It will seduce you away from contemplation of the Way."

"So does all of human life," Shea sighed, "but I'm not quite ready to give up on it yet. Which is why we've come to speak with you, Reverend Sir—to ask your help in bringing a king back to life."

"We ask one grain! Only one grain! Of the Life-Restoring Elixir!" Monkey cried.

"One grain? Was not one whole flask enough for you?" Lao-Tzu scowled.

"That was five hundred years ago," Monkey protested, "and Buddha took it away from me!"

"As well he should have," Lao-Tzu said. "They who have eternal life but have not won it through virtue—it is they who fear death most; and they who fear death can be most easily intimidated. What would have happened to the world if the Elixir of Life had been spread far and wide?"

Shea forbore the temptation to mention overpopulation, and tried to remember a few of Lao Tzu's own verses instead. "But the King of Crow-Cock has been replaced by a usurper—and if the rightful king does not rule, will not the people suffer?"

"They must learn to want less, so that they will suffer less," Lao-Tzu returned.

"But," said Shea:

"The reason why people starve,

Is because they take so much in tax-grain.

Therefore they starve.

The reason why the common people cannot be ruled,

Is because their superiors act for private reasons.

Therefore they cannot be ruled."

Lao-Tzu frowned, recognizing his own words. He answered:

"The reason why people take death lightly,

Is because they so avidly seek after life.

Therefore they take death lightly.

Only those who do not act for the purpose of living—

Only these are superior to those who value life."

"Yet who would be less likely to act for the purpose of living," said Shea, "than one who has already been dead?

"When people are born, they're supple and soft;

When they die, they end up stretched out firm and rigid."

Lao-Tzu smiled. "You forget the end of the verse:

"Rigidity and power occupy the inferior position;

Suppleness, softness, weakness, and delicateness occupy the superior position."

"True," Shea admitted, "but who would know that better than a king who has already been dead, yet is now restored to life?"

Lao-Tzu frowned. "This is true. But would he therefore live as a sage, that his people might follow him into virtue?"

Shea spread his hands. "What man can, who has taken up the responsibilities of living among other people? Surely you don't think he should try to deny those commitments!"

Monkey stared up at him, frowning, puzzled. By way of explanation, Shea added:

"The Way gives birth to them, nourishes them, matures them, completes them, rests them, rears them, supports them, and protects them."

"Should not a king emulate the Way?" Lao-Tzu smiled. "Will a king who has been saved from death, from the penalty of his own mistakes, emulate the Way?"

"I should think so," Shea replied, "for if he has been brought back to life, wouldn't he be like a newborn babe? And:

"One who embraces the fullness of Virtue,

Can be compared to a newborn babe.

"So wouldn't someone who is like a newborn babe, embrace the fullness of Virtue?"

It was lousy logic, and he knew it, but it might work.

But Lao-Tzu knew it, too. His eyes twinkled with amusement, and he said, "His chances, at least, are greater than those rulers who have never experienced the Afterlife—and there is a reason why I should wish to see this king live again, which you may not know."

Shea frowned; he did not like secrets, unless they were his own.

Lao-Tzu clapped his hands, and a disciple appeared beside him, holding a little box. The sage took it and handed it to Shea, saying, "Herein is a tiny flask, containing one drop of the Life-Restoring Elixir. See that it is used only for the King of Crow-Cock—and do not let this truant touch it." He nodded at Monkey.

All the way back to Earth, Monkey was muttering: "Truant! What does he think he is, the old fool! Thirty-third Heaven! Jade palace! Who preached the virtues of simplicity, anyway?"

It was a very bumpy ride.

* * * * *

Monkey pried open the jaws of the corpse, and Shea upended the tiny bottle over the gaping mouth. A single shimmering drop fell in. Monkey shoved the jaws closed and wiped off his hands in disgust.

The bloating began to diminish, and the blueness faded.

"It's working!" Shea stared.

"Unbelievable," Chalmers was muttering beside him. "Absolutely unbelievable."

"Is it really?"

"Oh, I believe it! Here, at least!"

The pallid flesh began to turn tan again. The bloating was completely gone now; the body before them lay gaunt. The cheeks gained a flush, the nostrils quivered....

With one convulsive shudder, the King of Crow-Cock sat bolt upright.

"Father!" his son cried, and threw his arms around the older man. Chalmers reached down to pry him loose, saying: "Give him air," and the prince let go and leaped back with alacrity.

The King put out a hand to prop himself up and sat panting and looking about him, wild-eyed. "Never was air so sweet!"

"Have you learned Virtue, then?" Tripitaka asked.

"Virtue, and humility!" The King turned to bow to the monk. "Let me carry your baggage, Holy One! That I may learn the ordering of the state for the good of my people, through submission to the Way!"

The prince stared, amazed, but Monkey stepped up and said, "Just as well. How else are we to smuggle you back into Crow-Cock, eh?"

* * * * *

So they came into the palace, with the prince marching smartly at their head to open doors. Sentries sprang out of his way and bowed, and the whole entourage followed—especially the middle-aged man in the center of the procession, who was bowed under a load of bundles.

Pigsy was grinning from ear to ear—carrying the baggage was usually his job.

But at the doors to the throne room, the guards crashed their halberds together. "The King sits in judgment!"

"I must speak with him instantly!" The prince did not slacken his pace for a moment. "Step aside!"

They hesitated only a fraction of a second; after all, who was going to be their boss when the old man died? They yanked their halberds back and pushed the door open.

The prince strode into the throne room.

The King looked up, then waved away the petitioners and jumped to his feet, scowling. Shea shuddered—it was eerie, seeing the same face that he had just restored to life. "What is the meaning of this?" the King thundered.

The porter straightened up, dropping his bags. "It means that I have come to reclaim my throne, and you are unmasked!"

Time stood still while the two kings stared at one another.

The hesitation was all Monkey needed. He sprang at the false king with a howl of rage, swinging his cudgel.

The imposter whirled to him, gesturing, and Monkey's cudgel cracked against something unseen with a shower of sparks. The sorcerer sprang into the air and soared out the window, his form blurring as he went.

The prince cheered, with Pigsy and Sandy backing him up.

But Tripitaka was shouting, "He must not escape! Or he will brew unparalled mischief!"

"I go, Master!" Monkey cried, and a cloud appeared right next to him. He sprang upon it and shot out the window.

Shea ran to the opening to watch. Chalmers, Pigsy, and Sandy were right behind him.

They saw the cloud whirl up to head off the fleeing sorcerer. Lightning flashed from him toward Monkey, but the simian deflected it somehow, making it rebound toward its source. Before it could reach him, however, the sorcerer had changed into an eagle, and was soaring higher on an updraft. Monkey changed into a dragon, beat up higher than the eagle, and pounced.

The eagle dropped like a stone, changing as it went. By the time Monkey's claws closed around it, it was a sparrow that darted between the dragon's talons and went arrowing right back toward the window it had come from.

"Back!" Shea shouted. Everybody jumped aside, and the sparrow shot through the window with a monster right behind it, half dragon and half Monkey.

The bird arrowed straight for Tripitaka.

Sandy shouted and jumped after it—but before he could get there, the sparrow was growing and grasping Tripitaka, whirling him around in a circle, around and around as it turned into something tall and yellow....

Then two Tripitakas stood there, side by side, both in saffron robes, identical to the last detail.

They all stared.

Then Monkey howled: "Master! Speak and tell us which one you are!"

"I am here!" answered both Tripitakas. "I am the true Tripitaka!" Then they both turned to each other and snapped in unison, "Be still, imposter! You know that I am the true Tripitaka!"

"How are we to tell?" Pigsy moaned.

But Chalmers pursed his lips in thought. "Monkey... insult your Master."

Monkey's eyes lit with glee; then his face filled with apprehension, but he mastered it and sprang at the two monks, crying: "Fraud! You have told me that Virtue would make me immune to sorcery! You dared to tell me to spare the life of a villain, when it would be easier to kill him! You have lied to me, false sage!" And he swung the cudgel.

Both of the Tripitakas looked up in anger, but one of them chanted a quick rhyming couplet, and Monkey fell to the floor, howling in agony and clutching at the gold headband.

Pigsy roared in rage and fell on the other Tripitaka. Sandy was only one beat behind him.

Tripitaka looked up, astounded, then realized what had happened, and recited the counterspell. Monkey leaped to his feet with a cry of relief, then whirled toward the sorcerer.

Pigsy and Sandy had him pinned down. Monkey jumped up on his chest, swinging his cudgel up; it stretched out to its full six-foot length and began to descend....

"Stop!"

Everyone froze. Then Monkey looked up, staring in disbelief, staff still held high.

There was a glow in midair above him, almost too bright to look at, and within it was a human form—but Shea could not make out anything else, the light was so bright.

"Manjusri," Monkey whispered. "It is the god Manjusri!"

Everyone else in the room fell to their knees, bowing low.

Chalmers and Shea exchanged a quick glance, then began backing away toward the walls.

"There is more to this semblance than you know, Monkey," the god intoned with a voice like a gong. "This King of Crow-Cock was originally so good a monarch that, some years ago, Buddha sent me in the form of a man, to bring the King to the Western Paradise. The King, however, loved his wife, son, and people too much, and was not yet ready to leave his earthly life. For this reason, he had me bound and cast into the river, where I stayed for three days and nights before spirits from Heaven fetched me out. As punishment, Buddha sent my mount to assume the form of the enchanter and win his way to office as the King's Prime Minister! Now the pose is unmasked! Let my mount return to his true form!"

The body under Pigsy's and Sandy's hands shimmered and flowed like hot wax. They cried out and leaped back, staring.

The hot wax pulled itself together in a new form—and a blue lion stood before them, roaring.

"Of course!" Monkey breathed. "Manjusri's blue lion is gelded! No wonder he showed no interest in the Queen!"

The King stood, pale and trembling. "Then it was at Buddha's mandate that the enchanter threw me into the well?"

"Even so," Manjusri confirmed. "This was your punishment for seeking to drown me, Buddha's messenger. No one else has really suffered much; the Queen and the concubines have been ignored, and have had cause to complain only of his disinterest. As to the people, they have had a lean year, but none has died of starvation, and adversity has strengthened them."

The former enchanter turned and sprang into the dazzle of light, and they could all see the form of the god seated on the silhouette of the blue lion.

The King knelt, his head low. "Forgive me, Manjusri! I knew not whom I mistreated—and I was too proud to submit to the judgment of Buddha! I shall atone in asceticism and good works for the rest of my life!"

"See that you do," rang the voice of the god, "for you must now spend many years regaining the Virtue that you had when first I met you. And as for you!" A finger speared out toward Shea and Chalmers. "Barbarian wizards! You have completed the task for which Buddha kept you here! Go now where you will—go to the world to which the errant wife has fled!"

Fire shot from that finger and enveloped Shea and Chalmers, roaring all about them. They cried out in surprise and fear, but there was no pain, only a dazzle that blinded them....

THE END

I'm afraid that's the end of Chris's story! The search for Florimel continues in the next story but that's by a different author, so we don't have the right to post it here. If you want to find out what happens next, though, you can read The Enchanter Reborn anthology!