My name is Tiewei — Iron-Tail. Iron-tailed because my father hauled stone, and I was born with a harder tail than other monkeys.
Three months ago, the yao from the demon den came down the mountain with nets. Six of my band — old and young — were bagged and carried up, thrown into the pens of this cave. Thin gruel twice a day, and by day we're worked: hauling stone, cutting walls, burning charcoal.
The old book has it in writing: when the Havoc Demon seized Water Curtain Cave, he carried off monkeys for forced labor. Three hundred years on, his brood runs the same trade.
In the pens, the old cry and the young scream. I do neither. I do one thing:
I map.
Every day they march us out to work, and I memorize: from the pens to the stone yard — three lefts, two doors; from the yard to the forge — one right, one guarded drawbridge; past the forge, one stone door that never opens, with cold air leaking through the seam.
Back in the pens, I draw with a charcoal stick on the wall. A stretch a day, for eighty-one days. On the wall of the pens there is now a complete map of the cave — which passage goes where, where the guards stand, where the stone runs loose.
The little yao can't read, and they certainly can't read a map. They pass the wall every day and take it for monkey scribbles.
But last ten-day, something happened.
I woke one morning and found a new section on the wall. Not mine.
The new part shows the stone door that never opens — and what's behind it. Stairs, going down. Seventy-two steps. At the bottom, a hall, positioned at the very deepest point of the cave.
Seventy-two steps, drawn precisely, every turn marked.
I asked every captive in the pens. Nobody drew it. The charcoal is hidden where only I know. The hand of that drawing is like mine — but steadier. The hand of a monkey who was taught, practiced, schooled.
Every captive in these pens is a monkey of Flower-Fruit Mountain. And only one of us could draw like that:
He died under their hands three months ago. I watched him take his last breath.
Now I keep drawing my map as always, and I leave the new section unerased. I want to see if it grows.
If you come into this cave to get us out, find the pens and find my map. Every road on it I've verified with my life —
Except the section behind the stone door. Whose life bought that one, you'll learn when you get there.
One more thing. In the map's bottom corner I cut a mark — for my father. In a stone-hauling family, a mark is home.
If you go back to Flower-Fruit Mountain, tell him: Iron-Tail is alive, and still drawing.