Sir Harold and the Monkey King

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Harold Shea loved to have friends drop in, but he did like a little warning first, especially if he was going to have to catch them.

He was working late at night in his study, taking a break from his usual toil—that of transcribing interviews with delusional patients into symbolic logic, looking for keys to the universes they were perceiving. For variety, he had started trying to transcribe the Tao Te Ching, The Book of the Way, by the legendary sage Lao Tzu. The book was the foundation of the Chinese religion of Taoism, and Taoist priests had the reputation of being magicians, so Shea was looking for clues to their magical principles—when he heard a sigh behind him.

He glanced up, thinking that perhaps Belphebe had wakened and come out, needing talk the demands of a newborn left her craving adult conversation—but all he saw was an amorphous, translucent white mass writhing in the dark of the study.

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