Dragon Moon, Page 2

  “Doesn’t Ping want her soup?” Kai asked.

  Ping shook her head, so Kai drank her soup. Servants brought in the second course, which was baked deer in hot sauce. For Kai there was a large bowl of warm ewe’s milk sweetened with honey which he slurped up happily. Since Ping didn’t seem to be interested in the baked deer, Kai helped himself to that as well. The serving girl returned, and Kai looked at her expectantly. His spines drooped when he realised that the meal was over and she was only clearing away the dishes.

  “Any worms?” he asked Ping.

  “I thought you would’ve grown out of eating worms and insects by now,” Ping said. “I’ll mention it to the cook.”

  After the tables and dishes had been removed, Ping studied the silk square again.

  “Those shapes look like Lady An’s game of Seven Cunning Pieces,” Kai said.

  Ping traced a fingertip over the faint intersecting lines. They formed four triangles, a square and a misshapen diamond.

  “May I borrow your Seven Cunning Pieces?” Ping asked Lady An, who was sitting nearby marking a design on a piece of dark blue silk.

  “Of course,” she said. “They’re in the box with the chessboard and other games.”

  Ping went over to the box and pulled out a little bag. She brought it back to the rug and emptied out the contents. There were seven shapes made of ebony wood, carved with patterns of plum blossom and bamboo. The shapes were the same triangles, square and diamond that were marked on the silk.

  Ping had watched Lady An play this game. It involved rearranging the pieces to make shapes—a rabbit, a running man, a bird in flight. Ping didn’t mind playing chess, which improved the player’s skills at strategy, but she had never seen the point of playing Seven Cunning Pieces.

  “Can I borrow your chalk, please?” she asked.

  Lady An handed her the piece of chalky rock that she was using to mark lines on her sewing.

  Ping formed the seven pieces into a square, as they were arranged on the back of the silk square. She marked the characters on the black pieces, exactly as they were on the silk.

  Ping turned the shapes this way and that on the rug. She arranged them to make patterns and shapes—a jug, a boat and a dish. It was amusing for a few minutes, but she soon grew bored. The characters were still a senseless jumble. She studied the silk square again. There was no clue as to what she should do with the pieces.

  Lady An came over to see what Ping was doing. She was fond of the game.

  “Which shape do you want to make?” she asked.

  “I don’t know, that’s the problem. Danzi didn’t say.”

  “A dragon,” said Kai.

  “You’re right, of course. It has to be a dragon.” Ping was the only one who could understand Kai. His dragon sounds translated into words in her mind. She had gotten into the habit of speaking aloud to Kai whenever they were in company. It seemed polite.

  Ping rearranged the pieces.

  She made a passable fox and a rabbit. She created a dog, a goose and a bat.

  She sighed impatiently. “It’s impossible. There aren’t enough pieces. Do you know how to make a dragon, Lady An?”

  “I have never heard of a dragon shape,” Lady An said, “but there is a dragon’s head shape.”

  “I don’t know how to make that.”

  “That’s the whole point of the game, Ping,” Lady An laughed, “to work out how to make the shapes.”

  “You show me,” Ping said.

  Lady An rearranged the pieces. With a few moves she made a dragon’s head.

  “There,” she said.

  Four of the characters now lined up in a vertical row. Ping read them out from top to bottom.

  “Hui dao mi jia.” Ping frowned. “Return to the secret home. I don’t understand what that means.”

  “Perhaps Father means Ping’s family home,” Kai suggested.

  “No, there’s nothing secret about where my family lives.”

  “Must mean Father’s home.”

  “But he never mentioned any home to me. When he spoke to you in your dreams, did he say anything to you about his home?”

  Kai shook his head.

  Ping looked at the silk square again. She read out the names of the places Danzi had marked on the map—Dragon’s Lament Creek, Quiet Dragon Ridge, Blazing Dragon Valley.

  “These places all have good dragon names,” Kai said.

  Danzi’s meaning was suddenly clear to Ping.

  “He means a secret dragon home. He wants me to take you to a place where you could live safely. A secret place where no one who means you harm can ever find you. A place where you can be free, just as Danzi was when he was a young dragon. A dragon haven.”

  “Father didn’t want anyone else to read the message,” Kai said.

  Ping nodded. The square might have fallen into other hands, so Danzi had written a coded message, just for her.

  “There are three places marked on the map,” she said. “How do I know which one we should go to?”

  “Perhaps you can choose any one of the three,” Lady An suggested.

  “Yes!” Ping exclaimed. “There’s a choice. There were once many dragons in the world. There would be more than one place where they sought refuge. Danzi didn’t know where I would be when I discovered the silk square.”

  Dragon’s Lament Creek was closest to Yan. It was difficult to tell from the rough map, but it looked like it couldn’t be more than 300 li to the west.

  “It sounds like a rather sad place,” Lady An said.

  “I know,” Ping replied. “But I have to trust Danzi.”

  Ping didn’t know what she would find at Dragon’s Lament Creek, but she knew she must follow the old dragon’s advice. He had lived in the wild for over a thousand years before he was captured for the Emperor, alone at first, then with Dragonkeeper companions. Who else would know better where Kai would be safe?

  Lady An went off to arrange the menu for the evening meal.

  “It’s time for us to start our journey,” Ping said to Kai. She felt like leaping up and leaving immediately.

  Kai’s eyes sparkled. “Yes,” he said. “Time to follow Father’s silk.”

  Ping smiled at him. Over the winter months, he hadn’t only grown in size, he had matured as well. His speech had improved, though no one knew that but her. Other people could hear the metallic sounds he made, but in her mind these sounds were translated into words. His eyes had changed from the green of an infant, to the brown of a mature dragon. He wasn’t a dragonling anymore. He was aware that they had to leave the comfort of the palace. He knew from experience that the world of men wasn’t a safe place for dragons.

  Ping had only meant to stay at Beibai Palace until the weather had improved, but somehow more than a year had slipped by. After Ping and Kai had escaped from the Emperor with the help of Princess Yangxin, it had taken the Duke less than a month to discover that there was a dragon hidden in his palace. Ping knew the Duke could be brutal to those who offended him and she was afraid that he would punish the Princess for her concealment. But though he could be stern and short-tempered, he would defend those under his protection with his life, and he understood how privileged he was to have a dragon under his roof.

  The Duke wasn’t a greedy man. He didn’t want to sell Kai’s body parts or harvest his blood as others had. He knew that a dragon could bring him good luck. He thanked Yangxin for bringing Kai to his palace and he treated the dragon well. The Duke issued bronze weapons to his soldiers once he learned that iron hurt dragons. He made sure none of the palace women wore gowns made of five-coloured thread, as dragons didn’t like that type of cloth. He arranged for the cooks to provide Kai with special meals.

  The Duke had experienced unusual good fortune since Kai had been a part of his household. Spring had brought good rains to Yan, though the rest of the Empire had had none. The summer crops grew well and autumn had brought a plentiful harvest of wheat, millet and green vegetables. The people of Yan
ate well, while many inhabitants of the Empire were hungry.

  The Duke’s negotiations with the Xiong Nu had gone smoothly and all bloodshed had ceased. But the best luck of all had happened the previous spring just when Ping was preparing to leave. Princess Yangxin had discovered that she was going to have a child. Still homesick and missing her mother, the Princess had begged Ping to stay until the birth. After all her kindness, Ping couldn’t refuse. And it seemed sensible to give Kai time to grow bigger and stronger before they started their journey.

  The Duke was delighted when he heard the news. Though he had six other wives, between them they had only produced two daughters. There had been many miscarriages and stillbirths, and the Duke had accepted that he would never have a son to inherit his lands.

  Ping had stayed with the Princess through the summer and an entire winter. A healthy boy had been born three months earlier. The Duke named his son Yong Hu which meant brave tiger. He was convinced that Kai was responsible for this blessing and pampered the little dragon even more. The other wives were so relieved that the Duke finally had an heir, none of them minded when the Princess was elevated to the position of first wife.

  Motherhood had changed Princess Yangxin. Her face was a little fuller than it had been when Ping first met her, her cheeks had more colour, she laughed a lot. The weeping girl who Ping had discovered in a pavilion at Ming Yang Lodge had become a cheerful woman who was happy with her life as wife and mother.

  In other parts of the Empire, northern winters were spoken of with dread. It was a common threat that misbehaving servants and argumentative wives would be sent to the north for winter. Terrible tales were told of children snatched by starving tigers and villages discovered in spring with their entire populations frozen to death. Soldiers didn’t want to be sent to garrisons in the north, so they were manned by convicts—thieves and murderers who had been conscripted into the imperial army.

  Yet Ping had spent a whole winter at Beibai Palace on the northernmost edge of the Empire—and she had enjoyed every minute.

  “In the south of the Empire,” Princess Yangxin had told her, “when winter arrives, people put on thin coats and tell each other it isn’t really cold.”

  The northerners were different. They knew how to prepare well for the cold. They wore winter gowns and coats lined with thick silk floss. Braziers burned in every room of the palace day and night. The stone floors were covered with thick felt rugs purchased from the Xiong Nu. Animal skins kept people warm at night.

  No one could leave the palace because of the snow piled a chang or more high outside the gates. No farming was possible during winter. The goats, sheep and oxen were housed inside the palace walls. In the past it had often been a time of hunger, but since Kai’s arrival, food had been plentiful. The inhabitants of the palace thought of winter as a holiday from their usual chores. They kept warm by dancing to music performed by the palace musicians, or running races and playing ball games organised by the kitchen staff. The soldiers were unable to go out on manoeuvres, so they learnt acrobatic skills to keep themselves fit. They also held archery contests to improve their bow skills. The whole palace enjoyed watching these activities.

  Winter had been a holiday for Ping as well. Her dragon-keeping duties were few as Kai spent most of the winter hibernating. He woke two or three times a month, ate enormous amounts of food and then climbed back into the well. At first she thought that people might object to having a dragon sleeping in their drinking water, but it was just the opposite. They believed that the water had healing powers and were eager to drink it. As soon as the snow had begun to thaw, people with all sorts of ailments had started arriving from far and wide to drink the ‘dragon water’.

  Though dragons could bring good fortune to those who cared for them, Ping knew that the rain had nothing to do with Kai. Rain was more likely to fall near the coast, so she suspected that it was the palace’s closeness to Ocean that had been responsible for the rain. The Duke had had the foresight to have cisterns dug under the palace to store rainwater. So even though the rains hadn’t been plentiful, there was enough water. Ping had tried to explain this to the inhabitants of the palace, but they didn’t want to listen. They preferred to make a fuss of their dragon.

  Ping hadn’t been idle at Beibai Palace. The Duke had an excellent library. While the other palace women had spent the winter months embroidering, Ping had passed the dark days reading books. She had learned a great deal about the Empire.

  She had spent time with the palace herbalist as well, learning the uses of many herbs. He had taught her which seeds and berries could turn a simple meal into a tasty dish, which flowers and roots could cure illness, and which bark could heal wounds. He had shown her how to combine different herbal ingredients to make medicines and tonics. The piles of petals, fruits and leaves looked beautiful until they were boiled together and became a foul-smelling brew.

  Ping had also improved her control over her qi power. Danzi had taught her how to strengthen the spiritual energy within herself by focusing her mind, controlling her breath, and performing slow physical exercises in the golden qi-rich light of the morning sun. Once her body was full of qi, she had to control it—to concentrate it and send bolts of qi power shooting from her fingertips. She had used her qi power against a dragon hunter and he had fallen to his death. She had also used it to free herself when she was trapped beneath a huge boulder.

  Through the winter, the Duke had allowed her to practise with his soldiers, and she had mastered the art. She could now summon enough power to defend herself against armed attackers. She could knock spears and crossbow bolts aside before they wounded her.

  Her second sight, however, was still something she couldn’t control. She could not summon it at will. Instead it came upon her, unannounced, when her dragons were at risk. She hadn’t experienced a single feeling of foreboding in all the months she’d been at Beibai Palace—even when the palace was under attack. But her second sight hadn’t let her down—Kai hadn’t been in any danger.

  All the time Ping had been at Beibai Palace, the high walls had made her feel protected and safe. Now she felt confined, like a bird in a cage. It was time to leave Yan.

  • chapter three •

  THE BOOK OF CHANGE

  He read the first line aloud.

  “At the beginning, a hidden dragon.

  It is wise to be inactive.”

  Ping waited a day before she spoke to Princess Yangxin. She found her playing with Yong Hu who was lying on a tiger skin trying to grab the jade fish that his mother dangled above him.

  “I must leave the palace soon,” Ping said.

  The Princess’s smile faded. “I don’t see why you need to go anywhere,” she said with a sharp edge to her voice. “You and Kai are safe here. Even when the palace was under attack, Kai didn’t come to any harm. My husband will look after you both.”

  “I know,” Ping replied. “But Danzi went to a lot of trouble to get this message to me. I can’t ignore it any longer.”

  She had ignored her duty before, choosing the easy path. She couldn’t do that again. If there was one thing Ping knew with certainty, it was that a place of safety could quickly transform into a place of threat and suffering. She didn’t share these thoughts with the Princess.

  “The Empress will be arriving soon,” Ping said. “You won’t need me.”

  Immediately after the battle, the Duke had sent a squad of men to Chang’an to escort Yangxin’s mother, the Dowager Empress, to visit her new grandson. After his defeat, he didn’t believe the Emperor would object.

  “I will always value your friendship,” the Princess said. “No matter how many other people I have around me.”

  “We can wait a month or so for the weather to improve,” Ping said. “But then we must depart.”

  The morning was only halfway through when Ping received a summons from the Duke. She went to the Peony Hall where the Duke was waiting for her, standing with his arms folded. There were stran
ds of grey in his neatly knotted hair. He was much older than the Princess. When Ping had first seen him, he had seemed stern and humourless, but during her stay at Beibai Palace, he had become a man who smiled often.

  He also spent a lot of time in the library. Though his favourite books were about war strategies, he had shown Ping books of poetry that he was fond of.

  The Duke wasn’t smiling now. Ping made a polite bow. She didn’t sink to her knees with her forehead to the floor as she had been required to do in the presence of the Emperor. She bent just from the waist.

  “Yangxin has told me that you plan to leave us,” he said.

  “That’s what I always intended to do, Your Grace.”

  “Didn’t you believe me when I promised to protect Kai?”

  “I know that you will guard Kai with your life.”

  “But you think that I will succumb to temptation and sell him.”

  “No, Your Grace. I have complete faith in you. I would love to stay here, but I can’t. Danzi has instructed me to take Kai away.” She made it sound like the old dragon had left her detailed instructions instead of a perplexing message. “I am a Dragonkeeper, I have a duty.” Ping hesitated. “Kai will live for hundreds of years beyond your lifespan, beyond mine. I have to find a safe place for him to live.”

  “Where is it you intend to go?” the Duke asked.

  “To a secret place.”

  The Duke was silent, his mouth clamped shut and his eyes hard. Ping wondered if she was about to experience his more brutal side.

  “Will you stop me from leaving, Your Grace?” Ping asked.

  The Duke still said nothing. Ping knew she had to stand up to him.

  “Your luck will fail if you keep us here against our will, I’m sure of it,” she said bluntly.

  The servants moving around the hall stopped what they were doing. The guards stiffened and gripped their weapons, waiting for an order. Her sharp words hung in the air. Everyone’s eyes were on Ping. Had she gone too far? There was a long, uneasy silence until the Duke spoke.