Feeding the Feral Children Page 3

  “You told the others that I was damned,” Huang Fa said. “How did you know?”

  Master Wong hesitated in his brush stroke. “I cast the yarrow stalks this morning and formed a trigram, then read from the I-Ching.”

  Huang Fa was skeptical at this. The I-Ching, or Book of Changes, suggested that all of life is in a flux. Every person’s situation was always about to change, and by casting the yarrow stalks, one could then consult the book and learn direction for the future. But it was not as simple as that. In part, one had to rely upon the abilities of the wizard who did the divination. One had to trust his insights.

  “So you learned that I was damned from the I-Ching?”

  “I have felt your coming for days,” replied Master Wong. “‘A stranger is coming,’ the yarrow stalks foretold, ‘one with blood on his hands and a curse on his soul. He has an enemy more powerful than this storm.’”

  “You divined all of this?”

  The wizard nodded solemnly, then set down his brush and folded his hands. “I could learn little more--except for the hour or your coming.”

  “Is there any hope for me?”

  Master Wong frowned. “This Battarsaikhan has powers that go far beyond mine. He sent this storm to slow you down—or kill you, and that is no small feat. Yet this I also know: the human heart has a magic of its own, as powerful as any spell. Perhaps if we understood his powers better. . . .”

  Huang Fa’s heart hammered, filling him with hope. “Is there a surer form of divination than the I-Ching?”

  Master Wong leaned over Huang Fa and gave an inscrutable expression, as if he might be annoyed. “You are a skeptic? You don’t trust me? I do my own readings twice a day. I would not have survived for a hundred and twelve years without them! If the stalks tell me to eat an apricot today, I eat it. If they tell me to stay out of the rain--”

  The monk’s mouth dropped in surprise. “You are a hundred and twelve years old?”

  The wizard did not look a day over fifty. He kept a straight face for a moment, and burst out laughing at his own jest. “If you want a surer form of divination,” he suggested to Huang Fa, “we can consult the turtle’s oracle bones.”

  This was a form of divination that Huang Fa could trust. The turtle was the most blessed creature under heaven. Because of this, the gods had granted the turtle long life and great wisdom, and it held a special place close to the gods as one of the four holy animals. Indeed, Huang Fa sometimes prayed to turtles, for they could act as intermediaries to the gods.

  To consult oracle bones, the wizard merely carved a question into the shell of a turtle that had been ritually sacrificed. Then he would drill small holes in the shell, insert a stick of incense into each hole, and light the incense. When the stick burned down, the heat would weaken the shell, causing it to crack. If the bone cracked inward, toward the center of the shell, then the answer to the question was “yes.” If it cracked toward the outer part of the shell, then the answer was “no.”

  This form of divination limited the wizard to asking yes-or-no questions. That was its weakness. But the virtue of this method was that heaven left no ambiguity in the answer.

  “Suggest a question,” Master Wong offered, “and I will consult the oracle bones tonight.”

  Huang Fa blew his nose. The air was so dusty that the mucus came out black. He felt dirty down to his lungs, in every pore of his skin, to the very core of his soul.

  Huang Fa formed his question for the gods: “Can I escape the Sorcerer Battarsaikhan’s curse?”

  #

  The wind shrieked outside the tent, drumming at the silk and tugging at the pegs and stays. Inside the pavilion, all was dark and strangely cold. The only light came from eight sticks of incense that rose from holes in the turtle shell. The sweet scent of jasmine curled up from the cherry coals, so that the dusty room bore a cloying air.

  Huang Fa lay in a troubled dream, shaking from chills. He dreamt of children crawling stealthily through the storm, faces bared to the wind. They dragged something large and bulky behind them as they crawled, something with hair, though the dim light defeated Huang Fa’s vision.

  It is the mare’s head, Huang Fa thought unreasonably, and whimpered in horror.

  But the children came on—toddlers with knives in their hands, and young girls in nothing but loin clothes. There were fierce boys with sharpened teeth and eyes that shone with their own inner light, as if stars might burst from them.

  They reached the door flap to the pavilion, and crept inside. Huang Fa felt vaguely detached as they neared his bed, dragging their hairy burden, even though he expected them to plunge their daggers into his flesh.

  “I meant no harm,” he apologized. “I did not know your need.”

  The feral children gave no answer.

  A chill swept over him, as if an icy wind blew up from the caverns of hell and rippled up his spine. His muscles felt as rubbery as dead eels.

  Now half a dozen children stood above the hairy thing. By the light from the incense, Huang Fa could see an animal hide rolled up and tied into a bundle.

  It is the hide from my horse, he thought. They will put it upon me so that I catch the anthrax.

  He felt torn between the desire to run or fight, or simply to lie still and accept whatever fate the feral children deemed fit.

  Three children uncut the strings that bound the hide and rolled it out, almost celebrating with excitement. Even in the dim light Huang Fa could see that it was not the hide of his fine red mare. This skin was as white as satin, the hair upon it almost as thick as wool.

  Four waifs spread the great hide over him with great ceremony, and Huang Fa breathed the luxurious scent of a well-tanned hide. The fur upon it was like heaven, like a banked fire that warmed him through and through.

  The children turned to leave; Huang Fa suddenly roused to a sense of danger. His eyes flew open and he stilled his breathing to listen for the sound of stealthy motion.

  The room was dark, the dead air heavy with dust. Outside, the storm had quieted. Nothing moved in the pavilion. The only sound was the soft snoring of a trader on the far side of the tent, hidden beneath a sheepskin.

  Droplets of sweat stood out on Huang Fa’s forehead and made his shirt cling to his chest. Briefly he worried that he had caught anthrax, but then realized that he had been lost in a fever dream and that his fever had broken.

  For days he had been sick with worry, and now he felt suddenly released. He leaned up on one elbow, peered around the room. There were no feral children here.

  He touched the blanket upon him, a fine animal hide unlike any that he could recall seeing. The fur was thick, luxurious, and the animal was huge.

  Perhaps it is a white yak, he wondered, and then realized that someone must have discerned just how chilly the night had become and laid the hide over him. His fever had turned a kindness into a nightmare.

  Huang Fa pulled the hide over his head and wished that could lie beneath it forever, smell the clean scent of the leather, fall into the embrace of its everlasting warmth.

  #

  At dawn, Huang Fa woke to the scent of tea brewing while sunlight streamed through the tent. Someone had gone outside and was using the branch from a bush to sweep dust from the walls of the pavilion.

  “Good news,” the monk said. “The storm blew out last night, and the bad air is clearing. The sun came up as red as a phoenix this morning, but all is well.”

  The silk merchants were up and bustling about, in their colorful silks, packing kegs of precious oils and spices outside while Master Wong merely sat drinking his tea, his face looking drawn and hard.

  Huang Fa got up and stretched, pulling the white hide up to him. He then looked upon a small trunk to where the turtle shell lay. The brown lines upon its curved back looked like cracks in the mud after a river dries. The stubs of eight incense sticks poked up from it.

  Huang Fa felt good, full of light and hope. He nodded to the shell and begged the wizard, “Have you che
cked the oracle bones?”

  Master Wong gazed at him for a long moment, his face stoic. He finally nodded a bit, and said evenly. “You cannot escape your fate. I’m sorry. We cannot always escape the consequences of our errors, no matter how bitterly we regret our deeds.”

  At that moment, Huang Fa wakened to a strange sensation. His face felt numb, and he noted that the skin itched on his forehead. He reached up and touched the side of his head—and felt a distinct nub protruding sharply up, stretching the skin taut.

  “What?” he asked, fear lurching in his stomach. He noted something odd about his hand, and saw that a fine soft fur had begun to grow out of it, as white as the hide that he’d slept beneath.

  Huang Fa screamed in wordless terror, and leapt out from under the hide.

  “The animal spirit has entered you,” the wizard said apologetically. “Battarsaikhan’s spell is more powerful than I could have dreamed. It is not just your nature that will change.”

  Huang Fa leapt away from his bed, shoving the great white hide away. He peered at the luxurious fur.

  “In the land of the Kazakhs,” Master Wong explained, “the animal that wore that skin is called a ‘giant deer,’ and its meat is treasured as the sweetest of all venison. Its hide is as pure as the driven snow in the mountains where it lives, and its wide antlers are valued by all, but it is so rare that some believe it to be only a myth. Here near the Altai Mountains, a few still survive, but even in our tales it is hardly more than a myth—the Xie Chai. Though it has two horns, some insist that it is a type of unicorn.”

  Huang Fa tried to climb out of bed and obeyed a strange compulsion to stand on all fours. He felt a sudden excruciating pain in his ankles as bones twisted. He knew the name of the Xie Chai, of course. It was said that the unicorn could smell good and evil and was attracted by the scent of righteous men while it punished the evil. The Buddhists said that it often carried the book of law in its antlers.

  “Haaaawlp!” Huang Fa cried, but the words twisted in his mouth, and only an animal’s mewling cry escaped his lips.

  “This is your fate, the fate that Battarsaikhan, the peaceful sorcerer, has placed upon you,” the wizard said sadly: “You shall roam the land upon four hooves, and be doomed to paw beneath the snow for lichens and grass at the feet of the Altai Mountains. You shall never know the love of a woman, for you are among the last of your kind.

  “You shall be hunted for all the days of your life, by both barbarians and by true men, and by wolves and snow leopards in the mountains, and by cheetahs on the plains. There is no escape for you, oh man with a gentle soul, nowhere that you may hide. I fear that you will not last the winter, for most of all you shall be hunted by the feral children, from whose mouths you have taken their livelihood, and it is the will of the sorcerer that you shall be found.

  “At the very last, you shall feed the feral children with your own flesh.”

  An image of Yan flashed before Huang Fa. He saw her at the foot of a screen, painting an image of a phoenix upon black silk. She looked up toward the sunlight streaming in through a window.

  Huang Fa lunged toward the flap of the tent and lurched through it into the dusty air. His animal instincts made him yearn for freedom, to run under the open sky, and he clattered the last few steps upon hooves that slipped upon the silk beneath him; his growing antlers caught in the flaps of the tent and threatened to break his neck before he tore free. The sky outside was filled with dust and had a surreal glow to it, as red as if lit by the Sun God’s fires.

  Yan, he thought.

  Huang Fa snorted and whirled, his feet kicking up dust, and peered into the tall grass near camp. There he saw tiny figures—the sprawling bodies of half-starved children, hiding in the grass, teeth filed sharper than daggers.

  He turned and bounded away, his tail raised high like a flag of warning, his feet exploding with power as he ascended into the air, dipped to the earth, and then soared upward again.

  #

  In late winter, Yan woke one night. The lunar New Year had just begun, and it was the night of the lantern festival. A great red lantern hung from the rafters on her porch, giving a little light that streamed through her window.

  She’d dreamt of Huang Fa again, and the excitement of the holidays was dulled by a sense of loss. He had never come home. She feared that he was trapped in the snowy mountains, or that he had died while crossing the desert.

  Yet tonight her heart told him that he still lived, and she imagined that he had come to her bed.

  She inhaled deeply, trying to catch the scent of him. She tried to remember the light in his eyes, his broad handsome smile, but the memory had faded.

  Yan untangled herself from the sheets of her bed, from the arms of her little sister whom she feared might waken and beg for breakfast. She went to the door. The red lantern hung above her head, burning gaily in the night.

  She gazed out across the wooden bridge in front of her house, toward the bamboo grove whose leaves rustled in a light wind.

  A beast stood there—huge and white. It was so large that at first she thought that it was a horse. Then she saw that it dwarfed even a stallion. Its broad antlers were like those of an enormous elk, yet webbing stretched between the tines, as if to catch the light of the full moon.

  It tiptoed toward her, into the circle of light by the door, and she knew it for what it was—a Xie Chai unicorn.

  It extended its snout, as if to catch her scent, and she put forth her hand for it, hoping that it might enjoy the allure of the rosewater perfume that she wore. Such animals could discern a man’s heart. It would tell her if she was good or evil.

  She longed to be good, but she knew that her love for Huang Fa was too great.

  The unicorn stepped near, and she was astonished at how huge it was. She saw its eyes, shining in the light of the lantern, all filled with some unimaginable desire.

  Suddenly she caught its scent, the musky scent of a young man that often haunted her dreams. She knew that scent intimately, knew the young man’s clean limbs and sweet breath.

  “Huang Fa?” she wondered aloud. The beast looked startled. The muscles in its shoulders bunched, as if it would dart away.

  She knew him, knew what had happened. Huang Fa had turned into this magical beast, and yearning for her, he had come to her at last.

  But how had this happened?

  Inside the house, her little sister woke in the night. “Yan?” she cried. “Yan, I’m hungry!”

  In that instant the unicorn grew afraid. There was no more coherent thought in its head, only nameless animal fear that now took over.

  The proud beast whirled and bounded, leaping through the stream.

  “Huang Fa!” Yan called, rushing to the edge of the porch.

  A low fog covered the ground, and the unicorn bounded through it, as if leaping upon clouds, until it disappeared into the plum orchard, lost under a silver moon.

  About this Story:

  I was in China writing a script for a big fantasy film when I penned this short story. Originally I had planned on setting it on the American plains in the early 1800s, but after months of work in researching ancient Chinese history, mythology, culture and magic—and after traveling through the Gobi desert and into the areas where this story is set—I decided to create something a little more exotic.

  At the same time, I was thinking much upon the theme of this story—how the older generation, time after time, depletes itself in an effort to feed its children. The result is a horrific story that makes use of ancient Chinese magic tropes, and which recently received some strong movie interest in China.

  This story was first published in the “Way of the Wizard” anthology.

  About the Author

  David Farland is a New York Times Best-selling Author with nearly fifty novel-length works in print, whose work has been translated into dozens of languages.

  He has won various awards for his work, including the Philip K. Dick Memorial Special Award for "Be
st Novel of the Year," the Whitney Award for "Best Novel of the Year," the L. Ron Hubbard Gold Award for "Best Short Story of the Year," and others.

  In 1991, Dave became a judge for the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of The Future Contest, the largest contest in the world for beginning authors of science fiction and fantasy. He soon took over the position of Coordinating Judge, where he selected stories for publication, trained new writers, and oversaw the publication of the annual anthology.

  In 1999 he began teaching creative writing at Brigham Young University, where he trained several students who went on to become superstars, including fantasy author Brandon Sanderson, young adult author Dan Wells, and international sensation Stephenie Meyer.

  In 1999, Dave also set the Guinness record for the World's Largest book signing.

  David has worked in a number of writerly jobs—as a prison guard, an ice-cream pie maker, meat-cutter, missionary, movie producer, video game designer, and editor.

  His Runelords novel series is one of the most popular fantasies of our time, but he has also worked with other major properties, including Star Wars, the Mummy, and various video games.

  Dave currently lives in Utah with his wife and five children. In addition to writing, David likes to hike and fish.

  Enjoy more works by Dave Wolverton as David Farland. Visit DavidFarland.net