Chill River

Short Story based on Mèng Jiāo's poetry and https://substack.com/@tangpoetry

Chill River 5 - Mèng Jiāo

孟郊 寒溪·其五

一曲一直水，白龙何鳞鳞。

冻飙杂碎号，齑音坑谷辛。

柧椾吃无力，飞走更相仁。

猛弓一折弦，馀喘争来宾。

大严此之立，小杀不复陈。

皎皎何皎皎，氤氲复氤氲。

瑞晴刷日月，高碧开星辰。

独立两脚雪，孤吟千虑新。

天欃徒昭昭，箕舌虚龂龂。

尧圣不听汝，孔微亦有臣。

谏书竟成章，古义终难陈。

Mèng Jiāo Hán Xī -·qí wǔ

Yī qū yīzhí shuǐ, bái lóng hé lín lín.

Dòng biāo zásuì hào, jī yīn kēng gǔ xīn.

Gū jiān chī wúlì, fēi zǒu gèng xiāng rén.

Měng gōng yī zhé xián, yú chuǎn zhēng láibīn.

Dà yán cǐ zhī lì, xiǎo shā bù fù chén.

Jiǎojiǎo hé jiǎojiǎo, yīnyūn fù yīnyūn.

Ruì qíng shuā rì yuè, gāo bì kāi xīngchén.

Dúlì liǎng jiǎo xuě, gū yín qiān lǜ xīn.

Tiān chán tú zhāozhāo, jī shé xū yín yín.

Yáo shèng bù tīng rǔ, kǒng wēi yì yǒu chén.

Jiàn shū jìng chéngzhāng, gǔ yì zhōng nán chén.

1

Cold River

The sky is empty, and his tongue is dry. It is dark and fridging on this bare mountain top, in the moon’s month of the biting cold. A crow caws and flies away and in the caw, a melody hummed. The chill River formed out of a spring and went trickling down.

The high blue sky opens up the stars and the Warrior looks upward but for just an instant because the icy wind blows along the mental scales of his battle dress. He then settles down, but he remembers that there is a plenitude of li for him to trudge over the winter summits. No strategy from the olden book helps him,

He feels alone and is back to the green-handled sword that promises and to his prisonership of poetry. For, you see, he is bound by a geas to bring back the White Dragon with his sword or to lie dead upon it. And warriors die of starvation, clinging to peaks of mountain tops. He wretched over by the side of the path. He stares into the void and girds himself to the winding trail.

The Warrior heard the sound of the sound – a low roaring ghastly sound of offal being excreted on the world. The digestion is not even human nor any animal that he could name. the thought he saw something like in a cavern along the next hill. He thought he saw something that was scarlet and thin. He thought he could see round eyes, but they then wink in the night. He then walked down the path and only for a moment braced himself on the only tree. He could see that the tree was being burrowed into by the offspring of young flies and would soon be dead. Then off in the distance, the Warrior heard an intense moan as if a sheep were slaughtered. The Warrior became enlightened.

The trail turns hard to the left and the ledge it forms goes over the edge. But the trail itself snaked downward into a crevice that promised the salvation of a valley. Perhaps not much of a valley, to be sure, but still a valley, nonetheless. He hopped down the slope in his heavy armor because he knew that this was a sign that he was being led to the White Dragon and the White Dragon’s lair.

Then his breath was taken away as he turned and saw a waterfall streaming down the mountainside like a shower spitting its image into o into a rainbow of mist and then going down to the deep dark. The Warrior took one last look upwards into the half-moon where he saw rising a crane, with wings abreast. Perhaps it was fleeing. Finally, the Warrior descended with determination on his face.

As he went half running down the path, he thought about how he had gotten it such a situation.

2

The Rise and the Fall

It was Xi’an the Western Peace that held together the regions of the land. The central city was the capital of all of China and it ruled from the center not, as later would be the case, from the coast. Now he could see the buildings a profusion of brown stucco with brutal edges and corners of the rooves, he could see why such a city would be the first among cities. He is looking at the brown pagoda in its spire challenging all to glitter before its presence. Its lines were like a bull, ragged and rough and raw in their prowess.

It was an ancient building adorned without the later refinements and delicate refinements of the more recent monuments. Instead, it was a sign of virility of the architects, stating the hallmark truth the world would bow down to the Tang, a sign of the mandate of heaven.

While the edges were blunt and the surface was crude, it was impressive because of the sheer scale in the verticality and directness. Was trying to pierce the heavens and strike fear into the moon. It towered down over the Imperial Palace which the Warrior needed to ask directions because of the maze of bridges and fortifications which were meant as stumbling blocks to the inner sanctum. But he had a handwritten introduction, which told whoever read it that this man was sent on a defiantly aspired mission to rid the world of a White Dragon that lived inside the Taihang Mountains. It did not need to explain that with each full moon and each new moon, the Dragon would fly out of the cauldron by rivers and destroy villages and all manner of roads. Even here the White Dragon head has been heard of from the messages sent to the Emperor.

The Emperor was called the "Constitutional Ancestor of the Tang" and from the beginning was set on all sides by warlords who wanted to be emperors of their dominion paying only nominal genuflection to the capital city. Of course, this did not please the Emperor and so he began a series of wars designed to humble the warlords into submission. But this meant that individual men could do daring deeds to bring a little bit of peace to a region if they got permission from the Emperor. This was the Warrior’s mission to rid the world of the White Dragon.

But it would not be easy, for the White Dragon had the full nine feet, which signified the highest rank of wyvern. And thus, he did what he pleased in the polls and valleys of Taiheng. And since the Emperor had so many enemies, he did not have the time to lead men in two the cauldron because the last time someone had done so all of his troops were slaughtered, and his head had been sent back to the capital of China. It was an embarrassment that would not be repeated.

The Warrior thought about the contradiction, the Emperor could build such a city with a pagoda and a real palace that sprawled along the gardens and a lake but could not make the White Dragon yield to his might. This was from the Emperor who controlled the Silk Road, the opening to the West which the Emperor sent Silk and Tea in return for the silver that the Empire needed to conduct business. silver was the lifeblood of both goods and the men who guarded them, not least the Army of the mandate of heaven. But the road was closed because of the fighting.

The imperial palace was a fist, punching into the twin rivers that conjoined here. A wall of brown wall and green gardens like a flower being held in an armored fist.

What he could see was that white bridges went from the hustle of the city to the almost rural tranquility of the gardens. They were lavish in the dark green splendor with their brown tendrils reaching up at every turn to a flower of leaves with a different cascade of petals at the top. Thought then he crossed a small bridge, and a guard made of found at the other side adorned with golden splendor in his black and red scales. With the Warrior with his beard, his enormous height, a crossbow on the Warrior’s back, and his polearm in his left hand looked as if he could frighten away any sword which even gained to point in his direction. The Guard then gruffly spoke:

“Who are you and why should I let you pass?”

The Warrior explained who he was, and why he needed to speak with a Mandarin who could prove or disapprove of his mission and presented the letter that spelled out his credentials. The credentials were a long list because the Warrior was accomplished in quests such as this one.

The guard merely glanced at this and saw that this was a matter for others to deal with. So he let the Warrior pass.

 He turned through the arborways, almost confused by the turning to-and-fro, when he, at last, reached a deck covered with flowers of the Peony plant and a woman who was watering and clipping each flower. She was dressed in green with cranes going up and down the length of her dress, she was notable though one could see the age on her face. She turned around and said to him:

“I am the consort to the Emperor. I have heard that you wish to take on a dark mission to rid the mountains of the White Dragon. Bring his head here and you will be rewarded.”

The Warrior confirmed this.

The Empress, for indeed she was, took out a parchment scroll wrapped with green silk, and handed it to the Warrior speaking in a soft melodious tone: “Take this and give it to the city of Wuhan, find Dōngyě, the poet and scholar, tell your story, and he shall give you a tool to make your task at least possible.” She then turned back and clipped another Peony and let it fall to the ground. The Warrior knew he had been dismissed.

But the Warrior was not enlightened.

He thought much of many tools to make your task at least possible. As he went back through the gardens, out through the mazes, and beyond the edifice of the giant pagoda. They along the river and over the road to Wuhan.

3

The Hermit

 In the Rocky canyons of the mountains in the south, there was a city known as Wuhan. Unlike Xi’an, it was scattered with homes and shops. There were few monuments, and the pagoda was less than half the width and the size. It was only a monument to the pagoda of Xi’an. The warlords mentioned were less than one-eighth the size of the Imperial palace, and as importantly had no gardens except one small patch near the pond.

Even before the site of the city, he had to close his nostrils because of the stench. Because what was carried on the barges was primarily fertilizer for the crops. But being a Warrior, this did not deter him because every city on every river or canal was like this. Instead of begging for the time of the warlord he searched for Dōngyě.

He found sickness here, from the water perhaps, and bundled his face. Many of the houses were abandoned. But some had never been occupied. Many of the shops were closed some time ago, hoping that the Silk Road would be open again.

In the maze of streets, he asked after this man. And he got no answer. Along the rice patties, he asked for this man. And he got no answer. From high to low from the center of the city to the edges of the hovels he asked for this man. And still, he got no answer.

Finally, at the end of the day, he found the most inexpensive hostel to stay the night. There was a dining room but there was no fire. Only one disheveled hermit was drinking a tin of the cheapest tea. Since the Warrior had little money, he only asked for some brown rice and a bit of the sauce for some flavor. He looked at the Hermit and finally came to ask what the Hermit was doing inside the city.

“Oh, I live here.” The Hermit rubbed his hands together for warmth.

The Warrior asked him his name.

“I was named by my father Mèng Jiāo.”

The Warrior asked him what he did for a living before was a Hermit.

“I have been a hermit for my entire miserable life. But occasionally I need money for this and that and so write poetry or rent my time out as a scholar.”

This surprised the Warrior, and he asked if he had other names.

“They sometimes call me by my honorific name but that is no concern of mine, because I already know myself, and therefore an honorific would be absurd.”

The Warrior asked what the honorific was.

“They call me Dōngyě. But that name is only for the University. No one else uses it.”

The Warrior became enlightened. He then explained all of the details that he hoped would help in getting tools to make your task at least possible. And then they waited.

Mèng Jiāo looked at the Warrior with his scales and equipment. “Who asked you to come?

The Warrior named the Empress.

“With the thousand cranes on her dress?”

The Warrior asked how he knew that.

The Hermit ignored the question: “The cranes will come for whoever loses the fight.”

The Warrior was enlightened.

 On the next morning, Mèng Jiāo carries with and a grand green velvet long sack. The hermit gave it to the Warrior.

“Just remember that the sword cuts both ways. And the sword can be corrupted because all that is green is not green.”

On the plains, the Warrior opened the bag and found a green broadsword with gold symbols on its handle: 四鶴.

4

Four Cranes

A glint of green iron whisked out of his scabbard. It was impossibly smooth and agile more than any blade that he had handled. He gripped more tightly and felt his wrist burn with the symbols. The symbols stung as the clouds rained down with thunder and fury. He felt his wrist grow red under the change almost as if the climate had grown hotter. He peered through the gloom of a hazy night. Now there were confiners but black in their needles and pitch dripped from even the twigs. He tried to brush the branches out of his way, but they were glued into place.

Then he heard a low growl in the distance. Very slowly a pair of eyes look into his. The Warrior stared back into the abyss.

The eyes spoke: “What is it you want? It is very cold here and you must have come to see me.”

The Warrior held his ground. But he noticed the rocks strewn here and there and he thought he might have some use for them to pelt the White Dragon.

It was at this point that everything became confused: he heard the lash of a tail and the bite of the shark-like spiky scales lash into his armor. The Warrior reflexively moved to a defensive crouch stabbed downward with the sword and caught something with the point. There was a spatter of black blood coming up from below. Then the Warrior felt the talons of at least three or four claws scrape his skin.

 The Warrior then spun and put his green sword up. He tried to pull the branches and move the rocks to strike a hit.

Then the green sword was slashed out of his hands and he instinctively reached for the crossbow on his back. But even faster was the White Dragon whose sound was like a home making a chord out of some strange melody that the Warrior could not understand.

 The bow twisted out and the bolt broke in. And then the eyes spoke once more: “This is your last warning otherwise I will take your sword and use it against you. And the results will not be pretty.”

The Warrior merely grunted from the pain in his leg.

 At this point, the White Dragon spun and grabbed the green sword, and instead of stabbing he listed the top as if it were like a cross. The warrior felt his whole body wrench into the sword. He was transfixed though not absorbed. And then he found himself inside the sword hammering at the green wall. He could see the white scales quite clearly and in every part of his body he felt the stabs of quills piercing through his flesh and into the bone. And then at last the warrior screamed, knowing that he would be ensnared within the sword forever. From the outside, you could see the agonizing face of the warrior trapped by the green sword. The cranes carried a body away but not the spirit.

The White Dragon placed the sword next to three others. When there was nine he would go to Xi’an, and declare this was the time for the mandate of heaven to realign. From the urbane poetry to the grimy earthen warmth, everything had to be shifted to a new order of being.