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      Copyright Information

      Copyright © 1982 by E. Hoffmann Price.

      All rights reserved.

      Published by Wildside Press LLC

      www.wildsidepress.com

      Dedication

      To Robert Spencer Carr

      With whom I share happy memories of deceased friends, our neighbors in Chicago, 1927: Farnsworth Wright, editor of Weird Tales; William R. Sprenger, business manager; Hugh Rankin, illustrator; and Otis Adelbert Kline, outstanding contributor: a goodly fellowship called THE VARNISHED VULTURES.

      Prologue

      The Jade Emperor sighed. No matter how well the Celestial Bureaucracy ran Heaven, someone always had a complaint or wanted something changed. He tapped the petition his secretary had handed him and lifted one eyebrow inquiringly.

      “Who and what is this Mei-yu?” he asked.

      “Divine and Imperial Majesty,” the secretary answered, “she was a Buddhist nun who was granted Immortality for her good works—the usual compassionate business. For the past thousand or so years, she’s been a Jade Lady, working day and night to make jade out of moonbeams. She seeks permission to present her problem to Chang Wo, the Moon Goddess.”

      “And what’s her problem?”

      “Ah—Divine Majesty, she won’t explain. It’s something she—ah—has to discuss with another woman.”

      The Jade Emperor sighed again. “Permission granted,” he said. Accordingly and in due time, Mei-yu appeared in the Lunar Palace of Chang Wo, dressed in her formal court robes. Her velvet hood was embroidered with pearls, as were her satin slippers; as a compliment to her hostess, her tunic was the gold of the full moon on the horizon and her long ear pendants were of moonstones, glowing as if from an inner light. Elegant and beautiful, she was truly Chinese, except for her nose, which was longer than standard and faintly curved—perhaps the heritage of a Turla ancestor.

      There was no kowtowing; the Goddess loathed formality. Mei-yu permitted Chang Wo to seat her at a small table, well away from the stately area reserved for the Jade Emperor and his favorite concubine.

      The Goddess poured tea, which had been set out by soundless attendants. “What’s on your mind, Mei-yu, that’s for the ears of women only?”

      “Divinity—”

      “Do forget that formal nonsense!”

      “Ah—Chang Wo, this is awkward. You know, I was a Buddhist nun—”

      “Some of my best friends were nuns.” The Goddess sighed. “But that was thousands of years ago. So what is in your mind?”

      Mei-yu squirmed, smoothing out her tunic. “It isn’t just in my mind.”

      “Everything is mind. You must have learned that in the nunnery.”

      “I learned everything in the nunnery—except how to get a lover. I’m one thousand, two hundred and eight years, nine days, and eight hours old, and I’ve never had a lover. And I’m fed up with herding elemental jade spirits and listening to their chatter…”

      The Goddess regarded her visitor shrewdly. “Just who is this man you’ve fallen in love with—another Immortal? Or is he human?”

      Mei-yu’s brows rose to pointed arches. “What difference does that make?”

      “You’re pure spiritual essence,” the Goddess explained. “You have everything a human woman has, but not a bit of it is substantial enough for love with a solid mortal.”

      Mei-yu seemed suddenly on the verge of tears. “I never thought of that! He’s a farmers son, studying for the Imperial examinations. But he neglects his studies. He loves to work with jade. Kwan Ju-hai is an artist—a very sensitive artist… Couldn’t I possibly get a physical body or something reasonably solid?”

      “Difficult. But if he’s sensitive enough to see your spiritual body—some humans are—you two might manage. Yang combining with yin—positive combining with negative to create zero; and that’s total completeness; instead of nothing, it’s really everything!”

      Mei-yu looked dubious. “But those human girls—being solid and substantial gives them advantages no spiritual body has. There is nothing like that which I could offer him!”

      “Lingam and yoni as spirit principles have amazing possibilities,” Chang Wo assured her. “Try it. You might be surprised.”

      The Jade Lady sensed that she was listening to a woman who spoke from experience. Yet she sighed and shook her head. “If I’d started at the human level… But skipping the foundation course and the pillow book… I just can’t quite…”

      The Goddess patted Mei-yu’s shoulder. “Perhaps a temporary substantial body could be constructed for you; but it’s a complicated business with many obstacles. Some of the answers to the problem are likely to be impossible, others illegal or against public policy. Why don’t you run along home, get yourself some nice things to wear, and then find out whether he can see you—talk without speaking? If he can—well, you can use your imagination. You might make some wonderful arrangements. And if you still have problems, you can see me at any time.”

      Chapter I

      Kwan Ju-hai and his brother, Kwan Shou-chi, were glad it was a downgrade, and no doubt the overburdened pack horses shared that feeling as they came out of the wooded foothills of the Ta-pa Range, some three days march from Ch’ang-an, the capital city of the T’ang Emperor. Old Man Kwan’s sons wore blue shirts reaching halfway to the knee, and flopping black pants, about knee length. Their shoes were heavy. This was rocky ground.

      Despite cursing the pack animals and inspiring them with whip flicks to the rump, each brother had breath for gabbling and energy for lifting his mushroom-shaped straw hat to mop the sweat that cut channels through the dust that caked his sun-blasted face.

      For a farmer, Old Man Kwan was well off, but he never forgot that three centuries had been eaten up to expand a couple of peasant shacks to a walled village. He gave his sons every chance to learn that Kwan Village had not been the result of tail-sitting.

      The animals had it easier. They’d tail-switched buzzing flies and done nothing while the brothers plied axe and saw to cut a trainload of wood, some for sale, some for village use. That the animals had gone upgrade without a burden had been only because the Old Man didn’t know what he could have had them carry on the outbound way.

      Ju-hai, a head taller than his younger brother, was rangy, sharp-faced and, though he had the expression, he did not resemble father, brother, or any of the swarm of Kwan cousins. These were square rigged, squarish of face, inclined to look fixed, stubborn, and somewhat grim. Ju-hai, some months past his eighteenth birthday, carried himself as if savoring the mountain air, relishing the breath of conifers, scenting and anticipating the distant, whether in time or space. His eyes covered the entire field, ever poised, ever alert. Eagerness, versatility, and self-assurance promised Ju-hai eventful years rather than longevity.

      Ju-hai’s vision reached from the range which tapered off from the snowcap of Tai Pai Shan, near Ch’ang-an, and reached westward toward Szechuan Province; it swooped up from the three-thousand-foot elevation of the cultivated plain of Shensi Province, cradle of the Chinese race. He looked through a golden haze of loess dust, windblown from waste areas which would before many years have to be cleared of rock and scrub. For too many years there had not been plague, war, or famine to keep the people from multiplying faster than the land could feed them.

      Ju-hai looked through more than golden haze; his vision reached through the haze of time, and already instinct warned him against excessive optimism. Horse-flavored wind brought hoof-stirred dust to cake his mouth. He spat and said, “Younger Brother, this is a dog-fornicating mess—this is dung on our pancakes—for me, anyway.”

      “Elder Brother,” Shou-chi dutifully responded, “it’s not always honey or syrup, as the Old Man’s always telling us.”

      “He