Chapter 276 — Departing in Peace

Shen Mu sat up at once and looked out of the window.

Libationer Bashan's snoring was deafening; the cold wind blew into the room, and still he did not wake. Outside came a strange chanting, the rise and fall of its notes all indistinct.

Shen Mu wasted not a moment: he sealed his own soul with the Art of Creation of the Dark Demon, then roused his primal energy, and the Chubao Sword hanging at the head of the bed rang once and leapt from its sheath, its silver light flooding the chamber.

Beyond the window white shapes drifted and flickered to and fro; the Chubao Sword hummed and quivered, and bolt upon bolt of sword-light shot out like lightning, and of a sudden several heads dropped to the ground outside the window.

Shamanic sorcery that kills sounds uncanny, yet it does no more than strike at the soul or strike at the flesh.

Young as he was, Shen Mu understood the reasoning well enough: to strike at the flesh was to steal into the room by secret arts and cut a man down; to strike at the soul there were stranger means by far. Shamanic poison, poisoning the enemy's soul, colorless, odorless, formless, traceless, leaving no way to guard against it.

The straw man and the worship of the soul, writing down a man's name and the hour and date of his birth and bowing to it ten days, one spirit bowed away each day, seven spirits in seven days, and then the three souls.

And the Yansheng art, which wounds the body through the soul, pricking or slashing an enemy's soul, for soul and flesh are bound together, and a wound to the soul is a wound to the body: prick the soul's hands and feet, and the enemy's fleshly hands and feet show the marks of the piercing; prick the point between the brows, and his mind falls to chaos, and so on and on. That a man may be killed merely by knowing his name is indeed beyond belief, but it, too, must come down to one of those two means. Shen Mu had sealed his own soul and hung the Chubao Sword at the head of the bed for just this: to guard against those two means.

Suddenly a strange laughter sounded.

Shen Mu looked quickly and saw a host of curious little men crawling in through the window, each one leaping down to the floor, armed with sabers and axes and steel forks, mounted on little horses, drawn up in ranks like an army of several hundreds.

That army of little men came swarming in and stood upon Libationer Bashan's chest; Libationer Bashan still did not wake, his snores loud as thunder. Their leader, a long spear in hand and a fine steed between his legs, stood upon the tip of Libationer Bashan's nose, leveled his spear at Shen Mu, who had already risen upon the bed, his eyes shining with excitement, and loosed a shout of no discernible meaning; at once the other little men rushed upon Shen Mu like a tide.

The little men were frantic with excitement, crying out all manner of unintelligible things, brandishing saber and sword and steel fork, charging in furious array.

Though they numbered several hundred, Shen Mu felt he could crush them flat with two or three kicks. He scarce knew whether to laugh or weep. Was this, then, the reason Zaifu was so wary, so loath to use his own true name?

Shen Mu drew his sword and shook it, and sword-light burst forth; he was about to sweep these little men away when of a sudden he heard someone calling his name. The voice came out of the cold wind, drawn out long, long, as if from a vast distance; Shen Mu said not a word, and yet the voice rushed toward him with flying speed.

When another calls your name, though you make no answer, your heart gives answer unbidden, and by this principle, surely, the voice had found out where he stood.

The sword-light in Shen Mu's hand was about to cut down the whole onrushing army when he felt a sudden chill of ice invade the point between his brows; he made to reach out and draw his sword, but his soul had gone rigid.

His soul went rigid, and his body with it, and the sword-light guttered out of itself. The little men rejoiced and capered; one after another they climbed onto him and burrowed into his body through his mouth, his ears, his nostrils.

The next moment Shen Mu "saw" these little men bearing "him" along at a gallop, and what they carried was not his flesh, but his soul, which they had come inside him to seize. These little men had got into his body, bound his soul fast, hoisted it overhead, and chattering among themselves in some tongue he could not tell, taken to their heels.

Shen Mu found himself unable to stir hand or foot; the scene before him shifted with dizzying speed, then abruptly went black, every light on every side swallowed up, and nothing left but darkness. In the darkness he saw a light rise beneath him: it was an altar, and he lay upon it.

The little men set him down and turned their faces to the sky; their leader, chattering, spoke a few words into the darkness, and all at once the altar rose, and looking about him Shen Mu saw face after huge face, faces like puppets, barring the four sides, vast puppet faces wearing expressions that were half smile, half weeping.

Then the altar shook again and climbed higher; a gigantic hand lifted the four puppet faces and the altar together, and Shen Mu saw a blaze of radiance in the darkness, a single vast, single eye, standing behind the four puppets, an eye alone greater than all those puppet faces together.

Then one by one more vast single eyes lit up the darkness, floating in the sky, monstrous beyond telling. "Yansheng sorcery?

" At the sight Shen Mu's heart quivered. Ban Gongcuo must be using the Yansheng art: with these little men invading his body, sealing the soul within him upon an altar such as this.

The method was monstrous strange; the voice finds you though you never answer, builds itself an altar inside your body, and even to seal your soul within your flesh is no defense.

Yet his soul should still be within his body; so long as it was in his own flesh, Shen Mu had hope of turning the tables.

"Whatever shamanic art you use, it must be fed by your own dharma-power. Inside my body your power cannot outmatch mine, so do not dream of killing me! " Shen Mu rolled upright and cried, "Sword, come!

" Suddenly a sword pellet came whistling out of the dark and, with a swish, hung still before him in the air. It was the very pellet the Silent Artisan had given him when he went back to the village for the New Year; Shen Mu had once used it to draw off the remnants of the god's divine power within the Imperial Preceptor of Jingping, so that those remnants had worn the pellet down and it had shrunk by much. Pellet in hand, sword-breath bloomed from it and swept the little men off their feet in every direction.

He split their bellies and burst their guts, yet they did not die: severed limbs crawled about, pieced themselves together, and came at Shen Mu again.

And the puppet faces about the altar showed strange smiles and stiffly raised arm after arm to smash down at Shen Mu upon the altar, bang, bang, bang, striking sparks of fire.

Shen Mu drove the sword pellet against these monstrous puppets and felt their strength enormous; every blow was almost more than he could bear. Some of the little men, struck by the puppets, were flattened to paper, but the next moment they puffed up again as if filled with air and came on once more, brandishing blades.

And now the strange eyes in the darkness burned, and bolt after bolt of fire came shooting in from all sides. Shen Mu clenched his teeth and held; he was nearly beaten to the scattering of his soul.

Little men, puppets and strange eyes alike seemed able to rise from death, endless and inexhaustible, impossible to kill or clear away, attacking without pause and never knowing weariness.

Shen Mu, worn to the edge of despair, raged in his heart: "Is Senior Brother Bashan still asleep?

" All unnoticed, of a sudden a cock crowed; then faintly he heard the watchman's clapper, the fifth watch beating.