Tearing Down Her Shrine

A dozen or so li outside the prefectural city stood a mound too small to be called a hill. In some forgotten dynasty, someone had built a Water Shrine there, dedicated to a water god whose origins even the local people no longer knew.

Or perhaps they had once known. After the Water Shrine fell into neglect, the people gradually forgot, remembering only that it was a Water Shrine.

Its incense offerings had never been plentiful, and only the occasional visitor came to worship. But some time ago, word spread that the god had suddenly manifested. People were half convinced and half doubtful, though the offerings increased.

Recently, however, no one knew why so many worshippers had begun arriving.

"It wasn't the water god who manifested last time. It was the Locust God!" Such talk spread.

Anyone who took the trouble to ask around soon learned that the worshippers came not for the water god enshrined in the main hall, but for the Locust God, whose statues had appeared in a side hall at some unknown point.

The newly built side hall was smaller than the main hall, but far more lavish. Large, uniformly colored stone tiles covered its floor, and fine timber had been used inside and out. It could not compare with a great shrine or Daoist temple, but for this little place, it was impressive.

Nor did it house just one statue of the Locust God. Locusts traveled in swarms, so a whole row of more than a dozen fierce-faced statues stood there, figures that looked almost, but not quite, human.

Carved from fine stone, they looked lifelike. Amid the drifting incense smoke, their strange shapes were terrifying at first glance. They could make children cry and give even adults a start.

Yet the more frightening they