“Good luck, Jay,” she says. “The clan thanks you for doing this.”
“Pressure much?”
“You’re going to do just fine,” she tells me.
Then she’s gone. I step out of el entre myself and go looking for Paupau.
The medicine wheel’s not in my head anymore, but I find other th reads—faint and delicate—that grow stronger when I concentrate on them. I realize that just as everything in the southside barrio is connected to me, all the yellow dragons are connected to each other, too.
It doesn’t take me long to find Paupau.
She’s in the waiting room of a hospital. I have a moment of panic thinking something’s happened to one of the family, then I realize that she’s here because of the guy she put into a coma.
Paupau going rogue?
Not likely. But she knows she screwed up.
She looks up at my arrival and I give her a low, formal bow. She looks smaller than I remember. Not exactly helpless—not by a long shot, really—but kind of shrunk into herself. Like for once she could actually use some outside help. I feel bad for her, but it makes this much easier.
“
” I tell her in Mandarin. “”
She might know she screwed things up. She might look a little . . . well, diminished. But the iron is still there in her eyes as she studies me.
“” she asks.
“”
“”
“” I say, “”
“”
She spends another moment studying me, then she says in English, “They sent you, didn’t they?”
I don’t play innocent.
“If by ‘they’ you mean a woman named Berlin, then yes. She asked me to look in on you.”
“Hmm.”
“And I, um, if I’m going to be honest, I have to admit I’ve been a little . . . frustrated about, you know. Us. Things that I was told and things I wasn’t. Having to go out and somehow pull off this whole dragon thing without screwing everything up.”
“I can remember feeling the same way, although I was somewhat older than you are now when the rebellion stirred in me.”
I sit down in a chair beside her. “It did?”
“Of course. Though I always knew it was something you would have to do, I hadn’t considered how painful it would be when you spread your own wings. I understand my own teacher a little better now.”
“But why does it have to be this way?”
“It is tradition.”
“Not for all the yellow dragons. Berlin told me it wasn’t like that for her.”
“Yes, but they aren’t the royal dragons we are. Our ancestors protected the greatest emperors the world has known. There was a time when China was the center of civilization.”
I nod. “But it’s not that way anymore.”
“No. So, then. All the more reason to keep tradition alive. What use is respect unless it is earned? How can one grow wise without first making mistakes?”
“Except a yellow dragon’s mistakes can kill people. It can destroy—well, I don’t know how much. Maybe a whole city.”
“This,” she says in a tone I remember from when she thought I was being particularly dense, “is why there are safeguards.”
“Safeguards. Right.”
“But you did well, Jay. The safeguards weren’t needed for you.”
“But if they had been?” I can’t help but ask. “Would you really have killed me?”
“Killed you? Who has filled your head with such nonsense? I am a hard taskmaster, but I am not a monster.”
“But—”
“If you had lost control of your dragon, I would have helped you subdue him and started your lessons all over again from the beginning. But if anyone had suggested that you be killed, they would have faced my wrath.”
Wow. Didn’t see that coming. But I believe her and I feel terrible.
“It is not an easy task that is set before us,” she says, “but that is why we are as strong as we are. We must be, if we are to survive and prosper.”
I give a slow nod. But then I have to ask her, “You know that we’re one and the same with our dragons, don’t you?”
“Of course.”
“Then why do you always talk about them as though they’re separate?”
“I find it easier to remember my humanity when I do so. The dragons are such mighty spirits. The power they wield can be seductive, so much so that we might consider that we are the emperors rather than the guardians.”
Now it’s my turn to study her. A lot of little things click into place, from Berlin first showing up on the plateau to my being here in this hospital with Paupau.
“There’s nobody in a coma, is there?” I finally say.
“Of course there is,” she says. “What else would you expect in an ICU?”
“But nobody you put in one.”
“No.”
“And you haven’t been shirking your responsibilities and going out in the streets trying to bait muggers to attack you.”
A hint of a smile flickers in the corner of her mouth.
“Why would I do such a thing?” she asks.
“So there was never any worry that you might go rogue.”
She shakes her head and I realize I’ve been played.
“Why would you have Berlin come tell me all of that?”
“I wanted to see you. I wanted to tell you how proud I am of you.”
“You couldn’t have just come and told me that?”
“I tried,” she says, “but you were not ready to hear it. You were too angry to listen to anything I might say.”
“I guess I was.”
“And now?”
“I still have issues.”
“Good.”
I have to shake my head. “How can that be good?”
“You are a yellow dragon of an old and noble clan. It is important that you stand up for yourself and know your own worth. It is your duty to protect your emperor, but only if that emperor is fair and just. You must have the strength of character to stand up to him if he is not. You cannot be intimidated by the grandeur of anything or any-one.”
Then she repeats something that she always asked me when I complained that I wasn’t strong enough to do something properly.
“Are you a yellow hamster?” she asks.
“No, Paupau. I am a yellow dragon.”
She smiles. “Just so.”
And then the iron leaves her eyes and she looks more like my mother than I’d ever tell either of them, so warm and loving.
“Your life in the desert,” she asks. “Is it good?”
I nod. “Pretty much. And the parts that aren’t, they’re getting there.”
“Then I am content.”
I put my arms around her.
“I love you, Paupau,” I say.
“I know. But not as much as I love you.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• Special thanks to my wife, MaryAnn, whose help with reading and editing the manuscripts before anyone else sees them is part of this journey we’ve now been on for thirty-four years;
• to our pup, young Johnny Cash, who reminds me to get up from behind the desk and have a little fun, and our feline girl, Clare, who keeps me company, content to sleep away the day on a nearby bookcase while I am working;
• to Stu Jenks (check out his art at www.stujenks.com), Kin Jee, and Deborah Pela for their help with the background in this book;
• to Rodger Turner, friend and advisor in bookish things, and also Web master for my Web site and the indispensable www.sfsite.com;
• to my agent, Russ Galen, who’s everything an agent should be, and much more;
• to my editor, Sharyn November, who always has faith that the story will be done and keeps
me on my toes with her astute editorial pen;
• and last, but not least, to you, the readers, who receive these stories with such open hearts and minds. Your encouragement and enthusiasm nourish my muse and keep me writing every day.
Come visit my home page at www.charlesdelint.com. I’m also on Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, so you can drop in and say hello to me there as well.
CHARLES DE LINT is widely credited as having pioneered the contemporary fantasy genre with his urban fantasy Moonheart (1984). He has been a seventeen-time finalist for the World Fantasy Award, winning in 2000 for his short story collection Moonlight and Vines; its stories are set in de Lint’s popular fictional city of Newford, as is his novel The Blue Girl and selected stories in the collection Waifs and Strays (a World Fantasy Award Finalist).
He has received glowing reviews and numerous other awards for his work, including the singular honor of having eight books chosen for the reader-selected Modern Library “Top 100 Books of the Twentieth Century.”
A professional musician for close to thirty years, specializing in traditional and contemporary Celtic and American roots music, he frequently performs with his wife, MaryAnn Harris, fellow musician, artist, and kindred spirit.
Charles de Lint and MaryAnn Harris live in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and their respective Web sites are www.charlesdelint.com and www.reclectica.com.
Charles de Lint, The Painted Boy
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