Listening to Rain

Chapter 12 The Ghost Market

The Ghost Market

When Tanzong awoke, he found his camp expanded to include numerous merchant stalls. Lanterns and torches everywhere lit the night as merchants and customers haggled for the objects before them.

He arose, but no one paid any attention to him. The air was warm and thick with the perfume of various types of incense: frankincense, sandalwood, myrrh, camphor, sweet basil, musk, the island's renowned aloeswood, and other aromatic fragrances that he had never smelled before. Had he passed into Amitãbha's Pure Land, he wondered?

The merchants and their customers were tall and many wore strange, distinctive hats. Hairstyles were also varied from monk-like shaved heads to long hermit-like flowing hair and beards. As he approached a particular stall, he also heard many foreign languages spoken. The stall sold rings, but they were unlike any he had seen in his homeland. Their ornamentation featured a wide variety of stones that gave off multi-colored light. The metal work was foreign to Tanzong's experience—even the metal itself had a soft, almost living quality to its touch.

He wandered over to the next stall, which sold small packets of yellow salve, lead face powder, and peculiar coins.

"Everything in one package for your traveling convenience through the mountains. There will no longer be delays or misunderstanding when meeting mountain imps or mountain aunties. Hand them one of my packets and be warmly welcomed into their domains," boasted the merchant in Chinese.

Tanzong moved over to the next stall. There were fabrics, cool and sheer to the touch, yet capable of smothering a torch without burning. The merchant doing the demonstration looked up at Tanzong. "Made from the cocoon of the ice silkworm, water doesn't wet it, fire doesn't burn it. Ideal for a wandering mendicant's clothes."

Tanzong smiled and moved on to the next booth: various colored liquids in covered glass bowls. The merchant picked one up and offered it to Tanzong, "Gibbon's blood. Drink it and you can see ghosts. Or, perhaps, some crow or owl eyeballs. Make a soup from them and you can see the various night creatures that abound in our mountain forests." Tanzong laughed.

Some sort of ghostly humor or bad salesmanship, since the merchant was obviously a ghost.

They were all ghosts of one sort or another: there were mountain ghosts, grotto sylphs, mountain imps, tree visitors, bird-footed elves, and shape shifters of all sorts. He didn't see any thunder lords, but Li Wei said the island was free of those creatures—seems he was right on that one.

The next stall, which Tanzong quickly passed, sold all sorts of meats. "Owl and snake meat, finest quality," he heard the merchant sing out. He also had no interest in the aphrodisiacs, aromatics, and alchemical booths. There was an interesting fire orb demonstration—the merchant used the moonlight, which occasionally broke through the mist that was falling, to ignite a pile of twigs.

Tanzong also lingered at the scroll booth where a merchant was selling charms and various esoteric texts.

"The Treatise of Names is a work no serious traveler can be without. Along with a 'Diamond Vision' mirror, no shape shifter or other type of ectoplasm can ever fool you. The mirror reveals the true form of the being before you. Once you've identified your visitor, look it up in the Treatise of Names and address it by its true name to render it harmless. Better than any charm or magic weapon. Knowledge, my friends, the true power!"

At the Shaolin Monastery, mused Tanzong, the students were taught reliance on the mind and not charms, mirrors, spells, esoteric texts or other types of "mundane paraphernalia," as my Buddhist scripture master had put it. "There is no magic as potent as the unfettered mind." It was one of his favorite sayings.