Chapter 91 — The Watcher Under the Moon
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 3
He boarded the Soul Boat and came onto the hull that rested upon the toad's back. Looking out, he saw palaces standing rank upon rank, all in ruin: broken walls, crumbling eaves, and great fallen weapons — most of them crescent-moon blades, some of them mirrors and the like. The palaces here were vast, no dwelling for ordinary folk. He passed a great hall and stopped to study the sculpture before it. The sculpture was a three-legged jade toad: three legs, the body of a man and the head of a toad, half man and half toad.
"Hee hee hee. . . "
An eerie laughter came from among the halls, and that gloomy voice was singing, singing a nursery rhyme: "Rock-a-bye, rock-a-bye, rocking to Grandma's bridge.
. . "
The Village Head hesitated, paid the voice no heed, and walked into the hall before him.
The hall was in utter disorder: censers overturned, incense ash strewn across the floor, bronze sparrow lamps smashed, screens snapped in two, jade couches shattered. Plainly it had passed through some tremendous upheaval.
He looked all around, then halted before the murals of the great hall. The murals depicted tall, slender giants in white robes herding the moon; they drove the Soul Boat, and appeared in the night.
Outside the Soul Boat were many fierce and hideous demon creatures, assaulting the vessel, but the giants aboard beat them back with bows and spears, swords and blades. With the coming of day, the darkness receded, and the Soul Boat would return to an abyss.
That must be the Soul Spring. The Village Head looked closely. The giants aboard the Soul Boat were exceedingly handsome, and between their brows lay a crescent moon. "So the bird freak spoke the truth.
Shen'er truly is no Moon Herder. Between Shen'er's brows there is no crescent moon. "
He made a circuit of the hall and found nothing more, and only then came to the great pillars at the center of the palaces.
Around the colossal pillars coiled chains, and the far ends of the chains trailed up into the sky, tethered to a broken moon. As the Soul Boat moved, the broken moon in the sky was dragged along with it; and when that broken moon rolled, great fireballs came tumbling down from the heavens — the mountains and stones of the broken moon.
The moon had been battered into ruin; the moment it moved, stones fell from it and became shooting stars. Some meteors did not burn away, and they crashed down into the Land of No Sorrow, smashing pit after pit into the ground — a most perilous thing.
"A packet of sweets, a packet of fruit, Grandma buys a fish to cook. The head's not done, the tail's burnt black, it squeaks in the bowl and in your belly hops and jumps! Heh heh heh heh heh.
. . "
The singing grew ever more bizarre.
The Village Head frowned slightly and swept his gaze around him, but still he saw no one, and a chill crept up the back of his heart. Then he saw the source of the voice.
On the flat ground at the center of those great pillars lay a face, an enormous face. The enormous face was singing, and what it sang was that somewhat sinister nursery rhyme. Its hair was in disarray, like a madman sealed inside a mirror — yet between its brows lay a crescent moon. "A Moon Guardian of the Moon Herding Clan.
.
. "
The Village Head sighed and sat down. He picked up a stone and carved it into the likeness of the jade pendant that hung at Shen Mu's breast.
"Moon Guardian, have you ever seen this jade pendant?
"
"In your belly it hops and jumps!
"
The enormous face laughed heh heh. "Hops and jumps! "
The Village Head frowned. This Moon Guardian must have died after fusing wholly with the Soul Boat. He had spent his last strength guiding the Soul Boat into the Realm of the Living Dead, yet he himself had died within the hull.
Even if he came to life again in the Realm of the Living Dead, he could only live inside the hull, unable to come out.