Kai took the berries. Tao was expecting him to grumble that they weren’t fresh, but he didn’t. He ate four and put the rest behind one of his reverse scales, and then set out along the path again. Tao followed him.
One thing had changed since Tao met the dragon – he had developed what Kai called second sight. The visions were difficult to unravel, like puzzles, but he had learned to interpret them – eventually. That gave Tao confidence that he really was a dragonkeeper. He hadn’t called up a vision since they left Yinmi. He didn’t want to squander this gift. For all he knew, the number of visions could be limited.
“I would like worms for dinner,” Kai announced. “I wish they were not so hard to find.”
“Worms are easy to find!” Tao was tired of listening to the dragon complain. He pointed at the damp earth. “You can see where they’ve burrowed into the earth.”
Kai dug holes in the soft earth, grumbling when he still couldn’t find any worms.
“You’re pretending they’re hard to find, so that I’ll do it.”
“I am not!” Kai said, digging an even bigger hole and flicking dirt into Tao’s eyes.
“You’re doing it wrong,” Tao said. “You don’t need to dig, that scares them off. This is what you do.”
He laid his hands flat on the ground. “You can feel them below the earth.”
“My paws are always in contact with the earth.” Kai was getting annoyed. “I never feel worms.”
Tao waited patiently with his palms on the damp soil. Before long worms emerged and Tao put them in the gourd. More creatures were about to meet their end because of him.
“Hmmph,” Kai said. “I suppose there has to be one thing you can do better than me.”
A few months earlier, Tao’s life had been filled with holy pursuits – meditating, transcribing sutras and learning Sanskrit. Now it was all about finding worms for a lazy dragon.
The sky was dark and heavy, the landscape was colourless and the sun hadn’t shown its face all day. Night had been reluctant to leave the land that morning, and all day darkness had been lurking not far away, eager to shroud the world again.
Tao didn’t have the energy to continue. He could see a rock face with a slight overhang not far away. It was probably the closest thing he would find to shelter that day.
“Let’s stop here for the night,” he said.
Kai didn’t object. He went off to hunt, while Tao did some meditation.
When Kai returned with two mice and a squirrel, Tao was sitting next to a pile of twigs and sticks, neatly set to make a fire.
“I suppose you’d like to cook those.”
“Of course I would,” the dragon replied, a little perplexed.
“Go ahead.”
Tao looked smugly at the dragon.
“Could you light a fire?” Kai asked.
“I could,” Tao replied.
“Will you light a fire?” Kai said. “Please.”
“I will.”
Tao reached for his firesticks. He was pleased there was more than one thing he could do better than Kai.
Chapter Two
UNSEASONAL WEATHER
The next morning, Kai was walking slowly, head down, studying the path. He had eaten all the worms Tao found the day before. What the dragon failed to mention was that eating worms made him fart. Tao was keeping a good distance between them.
“Where are you going?” he said when Kai wandered off the path to examine the foliage of the undergrowth and low-hanging tree branches. “I don’t think we should stray from the path.”
“I will only be a moment.”
Tao was glad that at least the dragon was no longer feeling sick.
If Tao was a dragonkeeper, as Kai said, then his job should be more than running around finding him worms and wolfberries to eat, things that a full-grown dragon could manage perfectly well on his own. Tao had no intention of being a dragon servant. But if he could find a cure for the dragon’s iron sickness, then he would be worthy of calling himself a dragonkeeper.
Unfortunately, so far none of the ingredients they had tried lessened Kai’s reaction to iron. However, Tao noticed that they had other effects. Kai had stepped on a large thorn and had been complaining for days about how sore his paw was, but after eating the scorpion tail, the pain disappeared. It made sense that the other ingredients in Sha’s brew had some medicinal purpose too. The day after Kai had eaten snake tongue, Tao noticed that he was having trouble keeping up with the dragon. He’d concluded that eating it had given Kai speed.
Kai was still fossicking around in the bushes.
“Hurry up,” Tao said.
The dragon took his time, picking up some stones and sniffing them thoughtfully before returning to the path.
“You said you weren’t going to take long. We’ve been in this same spot for at least half an hour.”
“Humans are so impatient,” Kai said, as he finally set off again. “I was speaking in terms of dragon time.”
Tao followed him, trying hard not to be annoyed.
“Did you notice any effect from eating the cockroaches?” he asked. “Apart from the vomiting.”
“It is too early to be sure, but I believe that the cut I had on my tail is healing very quickly.”
“Cockroaches must have healing properties.” Tao was pleased. His hypothesis was proving correct. Each of the ingredients of the tigers’ blood potion had a useful effect on the dragon.
“I do not care what they do. I will not eat so much as a cockroach feeler again.”
Tao was undeterred. “There are two more things on the list – bat droppings and cinnabar.”
Kai groaned again.
“Bat droppings shouldn’t be too hard to find,” Tao said. “I don’t know about cinnabar.”
“I am not eating bat droppings. I would rather suffer pain.”
As far as Kai was concerned, that was the end of the subject.
There were breaks in the clouds and through them Tao could see blue sky. The sun showed its face for the first time in more than a week.
Tao stopped. “I thought we were heading west.”
Kai kept walking. “We are.”
Tao didn’t have a good sense of direction. He had never been able to read the stars like other novices could. Fortunately, the only journey he’d had to make alone was from Yinmi Monastery to his family home twice a year, and that was always by day and along a good road. When he’d got lost, he could usually manage to work out which direction he was facing from the position of the sun.
“But the sun rose over there.” Tao pointed to his left. “That means we’re walking south.”
“The road west is not always straight,” Kai said.
Tao closed his eyes. The dragon’s lack of information about their journey was starting to annoy him and although he was no longer a novice monk, he didn’t like to get angry.
“Yes, but we’re going the wrong way.”
Kai was several chang ahead.
“We must avoid the main roads,” he called back as he disappeared around a bend. “We do not want to encounter nomads.”
Tao hurried to catch up and nearly ran into the dragon. He had stopped at the edge of a village, hidden by trees until they were upon it. It was in ruins. All the houses were destroyed, smashed to pieces as if they’d been trampled. The houses would have been fragile to begin with, made from saplings, thatched with twigs and rotten from being in a place that was dank and wet for most of the year.
“This is the work of nomads, I’m sure,” Tao said. “Though why they would be in such a remote part of the mountains and attacking poor peasants, I don’t know.”
Tao had visited many mountain villages while collecting alms for the monastery. This one should have been busy with the bustle of village life – chickens flapping as they passed, perhaps a pig blocking their way, children playing, old women sitting mending by the side of the path, enterprising villagers trying to sell them dumplings or rice balls. Tao’s stomach ru
mbled at the thought.
Kai didn’t say anything, but he overturned stones and snuffed the strengthening breeze.
“What are you doing, Kai?”
“Looking for tracks.”
“Surely the village was attacked long ago.”
The rotting timbers of the ruins were already decomposing into the forest.
“Not so long.”
As Kai searched, Tao realised they had not come across any bodies.
“There is no tomb, no grave cairn,” Tao said. “If nomads attacked, where are the dead?”
“Perhaps no one was killed,” Kai said. “Perhaps the people moved to a better place.”
Among the ruins there were cooking utensils, shoes, a split sack of grain.
“They must have left in a hurry,” Tao said.
He hoped Kai was right and the whole village had moved south. But the place had an eerie stillness that made him uneasy.
Kai picked up a bronze bowl. “This will be useful,” he said, filling it with damp grain.
“We can’t take that. What if the people come back?” As he said the words, Tao had a feeling the villagers would never return.
There was one building that was undamaged. It was a small temple on the edge of the village, crudely built from mud bricks, almost hidden by the trees. Tao knew it was a temple and not a house was because of the crooked little mud-brick pagoda leaning against it. A breeze stirred the single lopsided bell that hung from one corner of the moss-covered roof and it made a tuneless ding. The sound saddened Tao. He imagined the people who had done their best to build a house for Buddha with their simple skills and whatever materials they could find.
“We could stay in the temple tonight,” Kai said. “You will feel at home. I will go and see if it is dry.”
It was late afternoon. Tao needed reassurance that they would be safe before he agreed to stay. Even though there was a building with a roof on it, a Buddhist temple, he had a sudden desire to leave the village and never come back. Kai had already disappeared into the temple, but there was another way that Tao could seek advice.
He took something from his bag – a small vial made of pink quartz, which had once belonged to his mother. He sat down cross-legged and removed the stopper from the vial and allowed a few drops of yellow oil to drip onto his palm. It was the mixture of sesame oil and dried safflower that his mother had rubbed on his brother Wei’s useless limbs, hoping it would make them work again. Tao smeared it over his hands, closed his eyes and started to chant a Buddhist sutra. The words calmed him as they always did, leaving him relaxed and at peace with the world. He wanted to know if it was safe to spend the night in the village. It took awhile to clear his mind of his annoyance with Kai and his awareness of his painful feet, longer still to ease the sense of disquiet he’d been feeling. He put his hands together to form a shallow bowl, opened his eyes and allowed them to relax until the smear of yellow oil on his palms became unfocused. An image took shape. He saw a cliff face with a large dark spot on it. The vision was clear and stood up from his palms as if it were actually there.
Tao’s contemplation of the vision was disturbed by sounds from the forest. Tree branches shook and he could hear large feet trampling the undergrowth. Birds took off squawking. A small, terrified animal, a weasel perhaps, darted out of the undergrowth and through Tao’s legs so fast all he saw was a blur. He had his answer without attempting to interpret his vision. The village was not safe.
“Kai, are you all right? Is it a tiger?”
There was a loud animal sound, halfway between a screech and a roar. It was not the sound of a tiger. It was like nothing Tao had heard before.
“Kai, where are you?”
Tao was terrified. Had the creature attacked Kai? Surely, the dragon would have cried out. Tao hid behind a large log that had once been part of a house.
The disturbance faded into the distance. The creature, whatever it was, had gone. The log that Tao was crouched behind started to shimmer. Its dark brown bark turned greenish. Tao looked away. When he turned back, the log had turned into a dragon.
“Kai! Why didn’t you tell me you shape-changed?”
“I was being quiet. Wild animals often have very good hearing.”
“You could have put words in my mind without making a sound.”
“I forgot.”
Tao sat down again, waiting for his heart to stop hammering. “What happened?”
“I disturbed a creature.” Kai was trying to appear calm, but he was making a sound like scraping knives, which meant he was afraid.
“What sort of creature?”
“I do not know. A bear perhaps. It has gone.”
Tao had heard a bear roar before. It was nothing like the unnatural screech that had echoed through the forest. Kai was peering into the undergrowth. Whatever the creature was, it made him uneasy. Tao picked up the bronze bowl and the grain.
“We must leave this place. Now.”
The sky had darkened. Not because night was approaching, but because a black cloud had appeared in the sky. Tao could feel the air change. It was suddenly chilly and heavy with moisture. There was going to be rain. Heavy rain. Tao knew he had to expect colder weather as winter approached, but summer was the time when it rained. Autumn should gradually become drier and drier until, in winter, there was no rain at all.
“Tell me what you saw in your vision,” Kai said.
“A cave in the mountain.” That much had been clear.
“The village is not safe,” Kai said, echoing Tao’s thoughts. “Your vision is showing you a place for us to shelter. Where is this cave?”
That was not at all clear. Tao closed his eyes and tried to recreate what he had seen on his palms.
“There was a large character carved into the rock above the entrance to the cave. It should be easy to recognise. And inside, I saw glowing embers.”
He was worried that the remains of a fire meant that someone else had been there before them. But his visions had never led him into danger before. He needed to trust his second sight. A fire would warm them, and it would also keep wild animals at bay.
The sky was getting heavier. There was the sound of distant thunder.
“It’s going to pour. We need to find that cave, Kai, before the embers go out.”
But it didn’t rain.
Instead it began to snow.
Chapter Three
REFUGE
Snowflakes settled on the sleeves of Tao’s jacket. He scanned the sky. There was still a single black cloud in the grey sky, but it had doubled in size.
“This will not last long,” Kai said, pointing to a break in the clouds to the south, but Tao could tell he was also feeling uneasy.
The snow fell more heavily. The chilly breeze of a few moments earlier seemed like mid-summer compared to the biting wind that was now blowing. Normally, it didn’t snow until the depths of winter, and then only on the highest peaks. The black cloud grew as they watched.
“What else did you see?” Kai said.
“Just the character above the cave.”
“Which character was it?”
“It was the character fu,” Tao said. “Good luck.”
“We will need more than just luck to find this cave before the weather gets worse.” Kai’s optimism had disappeared with the last chink of blue sky in the distance. “We must go down the mountain.”
“No.” Tao had to shout to be heard over the wind. “We must climb.”
The gentle snowfalls at Yinmi Monastery were brief and left a pretty dusting of white. Now all Tao could see through the thickly falling snow were the faint shapes of snow-covered trees. He felt his way towards Kai and grabbed hold of his beard.
“We must trust my vision.” He gently tugged the dragon’s beard. “The cave is higher up. I’m sure.”
The dragon allowed Tao to lead him.
Tao stumbled up the mountainside, through the driving snow. This latest vision had been clearer than those he had experienc
ed previously. And there was something new – an indescribable sensation that indicated a higher altitude. He was sure he was right: the vision had told him to climb the mountain. He wished it had been more specific and told him which way to go.
Tao’s toes were numb. The snow on his sleeves was almost an inch thick. Kai’s beard felt like frozen straw in his hand. He clung onto it, glad he could feel the dragon’s breath on his fingers, glad he wasn’t alone. The path had disappeared beneath a foot of snow and he couldn’t see a handspan in front of him. As they climbed, the trees became sparser. He had no way of knowing if he was heading in the right direction.
Tao bent into the wind. The snow stung his face and got into his eyes. He could see nothing. How would he ever find a cave? He stumbled into a rock wall that rose up sheer above him. They had reached the end of the path. To go any further up the mountain, they’d need wings.
“Kai, what can you see?”
“Nothing.”
Tao felt his way along the blank rock, hoping to find the cave. Something swooped past his eyes, a blur of black. Then another, so close it scratched his face. The black shapes disappeared into the snow.
“Bats,” Kai said.
Tao felt talons grab his sleeve. He couldn’t see Kai in the blizzard, nor hear him above the roar of the wind. He guessed he was making the scraping knives sound he made when he was anxious. Thankfully, he could hear the voice in his head as clear as ever.
“This way. My eyesight is better than yours. Hold on to my tail.”
Tao grasped the dragon’s tail and allowed Kai to pull him along, scrambling over rocks that had fallen from the mountain peak, always keeping the cliff on their right. When Tao was sure he couldn’t make his frozen feet go any further, a black hole appeared in the rock face. Kai disappeared into it. Tao staggered in behind him and collapsed onto the cave floor.
They both sat breathing heavily, their breath forming white clouds.
“How did you know where the cave was?” Tao asked.
“Bats,” Kai said. “I followed the bats.”
There were flapping noises above them. As his eyes got used to the dim light, Tao could see small black shapes swooping overhead.