Wise Woman Kang Kai of the Dragon Temple peered into the Orb of Prophecy over her half-moon glasses, its lenses betraying nothing of the darkness she saw gathering inside. “Oh my.” She had a voice like a rabbit being squeezed in a falcon’s claws.
“Well, what is it?” Consul Shanlong asked, checking the face of his pocket watch. It was nearing the hour of the Dog, and soon he would have to return to the throne room and present this madwoman’s ramblings to the court. He wasn’t looking forward to it, but wished she would hurry. There was much to do in the Kingdom.
“Oh my, oh my!” Kang Kai paced. “Bad, very bad!”
“Spit it out,” Shanlong snapped.
Kang Kai seemed ignorant, or at least apathetic to Shanlong’s ire. “Bad auguries. An inverted crescent moon, a mountain falling into the sea,” she said, almost gleefully. “You must tell the Princess Xingxin.”
Now Shanlong stood outside the throne room, a pulse in the back of his eyes, a developing headache. Never a superstitious man, he didn’t put quite as much weight on the old witch’s words. But not so for the rest of the council.
In the throne room, the Princess Xingxin sat, raised above the rest of the council so that she could see the tops of their heads. A sea of old men, old balding men, old fat men. Such bores. She toyed with her earrings and dreamed of returning to the training ground to General Panwei for a game of chess--or perhaps to best him again at his favorite game of Chase the Monkey.
She watched Shanlong enter the room. He looked constipated--or at least more constipated than usual, his long face drawn and pale. “What is it, Shanlong?” she asked, imperious. “Tell us what the Wise Woman said.”
He cleared his throat. “Yes, well.” He unfurled a scroll, on which Xingxin could just see the chicken scratch of Kang Kai’s hand. Shanglong muttered. Cleared his throat again. “The Third Planet,” he intoned, “is in the Seventh House and therefore a mountain will fall into the sea. Jackals will be released on the land. And a great and terrible shí rén mó awakens from his slumber.” He mumbled the rest, reading on. “Ah, yes--and”--he sped through the rest--“darkness and famine woe befall us unless the Princess Xingxin sacrifices herself to him before the next Lunar Year.”
The court erupted in chaos. “We should have your head for even suggesting such a thing!” General Pai roared.
“Yes, your head!” an advisor echoed. Shanlong looked even paler; Xinxin didn’t know that was possible.
She began to laugh--bright, merry peals of laughter. “What fun!” she crowed. “And where is this fearsome ogre?”
Shanlong, a little unsteady on his feet, showed her the map that the Wise Woman had drawn for them. Just beyond the Dragon Temple, where the mountain ranges bordered the West and the East. There, apparently, the ogre slept.
“Well, then, prepare my carriage.”
The council erupted once more. “Your Highness, you do not have an heir!” “Your highness, what shall the kingdom do without you!”
But the Princess silenced them with an impatient wave of her hand. “It’s only an ogre,” she said gaily. “I’ll make swift work of him. Now ready my horses before I have you all beheaded.”
By dawn the next day the Princess and an entourage of horses set off, with General Panwei following closely behind.
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