Tao knew he couldn’t possibly go on adventures with the dragon. He didn’t want to disappoint Kai so soon after they had started communicating properly. And he was curious about the dragon’s life and why he was wandering the world alone.
He listened to the scratching of a mouse helping itself to some of the grain and belatedly guessed the answer to Kai’s last riddle. Even though he’d slept little the last few days, he couldn’t find peace in sleep. He tried reciting sutras. No matter how hard he tried to concentrate on the holy words, his thoughts wandered like unpenned goats.
Secretly Tao had hoped that he had accrued enough good karma to make his brother better, and he had convinced himself that Kai would be the one to make it happen. He had thought that if only he could communicate with the dragon, everything would make sense and a way to heal his brother would be revealed. Now he could talk to Kai, but it had made no difference. Even though the dragon could make clouds and see for miles, he didn’t have any skills that could help Wei.
Tao got up and padded through the silent house.
Wei was awake when he went into his room. Whether he had woken him or whether he too had been sleepless, Tao didn’t know. He felt a twinge of sadness. The room had once been his room as well.
“What should I do, Wei-Wei? Everyone expects me to do things for them. Kai wants me to go on adventures with him. Our sister says I should stay and help with the farm. Mother wants me to fetch Fo Tu Deng to perform some magic on you. If I thought there was any chance of him helping you, I would do that. I would beg him to come. I would kidnap him and bring him here, but it wouldn’t do any good.” Tao recalled how the monk had twice started to build a temple in Luoyang just before it was burned to the ground. He remembered how terrified Fo Tu Deng had looked as he had fled, almost naked, from the city. “He pretends to have magic powers, but they are just tricks to hoodwink simple people.”
He looked into his brother’s eyes.
“I wish it was your voice I could hear, Wei.” He had always been sure he knew Wei’s thoughts. Now he was beginning to think he’d been deceiving himself.
Tao crawled under the blanket and lay next to his brother. This was how it had been when they were young – lying next to each other, feeling each other’s warmth, listening to each other’s breathing – like baby birds in a nest. They were as close as they could be without being one. He loved the silent companionship of his brother. He didn’t need to hear his voice. He never had. Just being with him made everything clear.
“I must go back to Yinmi and continue transcribing Buddha’s words. That’s the only way I can continue to accumulate karma for you,” he whispered. “Everything that has happened has been a distraction. Especially Kai. I have to obey Buddha’s precepts. I have to stop talking to girls.”
He recited a section from The Sutra with Forty-Two Chapters to Wei.
“Those who are pure in heart and single in purpose are able to understand the most supreme Way. Remove your desires, and have no hankering and the Buddha knowledge will be revealed to you. It is like polishing a mirror, which becomes bright when the dust is removed.”
Tao felt the tension slip from his body, peace and sleep came at last.
Chapter Fourteen
SESAME AND SAFFLOWER
Tao slept for a few hours and woke before dawn. The silence of the house reminded him of Yinmi and he was reassured that he had made the right decision, even though he’d dreamed of climbing up to the dragon haven with Kai. He was going back to the monastery. He couldn’t win arguments with everybody, so he would just leave. He was sorry that meant he would lose his friendship with Kai, especially since he was now finally able to talk to him. But the dragon had a long life ahead of him, up to three thousand years, Kai had told him. He had plenty of time to find another dragonkeeper among Ping’s descendants. Tao would miss Pema as well, but that only gave him more reason to leave. Returning to Yinmi would solve all his problems.
He didn’t want to say goodbye to Kai and Pema. He didn’t want a fuss. The only person he needed to say goodbye to was Wei.
His brother was awake.
“I’m leaving. I’m going back to the monastery to continue my transcriptions and accumulate more good karma. For you, Wei. I’m a simple novice. I don’t belong in a world of dragons and warlords.”
Tao had a feeling that his brother approved of his decision.
His mother had left a jar of the sesame oil and safflower mixture next to Wei’s bed. Tao poured a few drops into his cupped hand and rubbed it into his brother’s limbs. He didn’t believe it would make them stronger, but he knew that Wei enjoyed the massage.
Tears welled in Tao’s eyes at the thought of leaving his brother again. He was glad Pema wasn’t there to see. He looked down at his hands. They were covered in a film of yellow oil. He held them together so they formed a shallow bowl and stared at them. Though tears were blurring his vision, he thought he could see shapes, moving shapes. He blinked away the tears. The shapes didn’t go with them, instead they came into focus. He saw a deep, dark hole, ringed by a pale circle. Around the hole there were pretty yellow fans, which were all fluttering. The image wasn’t flat like a painting. It rose up from his hands as if the things he saw truly existed. He couldn’t see inside the hole, but he knew something was in there.
Tao looked up. Kai was there in his dragon shape. Without realising it, he had called to the dragon with his mind.
“I saw something,” he said. “An image in the oil on my hands.”
He held up his oily hands.
Kai made his wind-chime sound, louder than Tao had ever heard it, as if the chimes were being stirred by a gale rather than a breeze; at the same time, the dragon made an impatient gonging sound that echoed around the silent house.
“You had a vision!” Kai said. “What did you see?”
Pema rushed into the room. She had heard the dragon’s noise.
“What’s happening?”
“I had a vision.”
Pema looked around the room. “Where?”
He held up his oily hands to Pema. “Here.”
She peered at them. “All I can see is some oil and the scratches you got when you fell out of the tree.”
Tao looked at his hands again. The image had faded. He was ready to believe he’d imagined it, that it was the result of having too little sleep, not enough food, too much excitement, but Kai’s voice was in his head asking questions.
“I saw a hole,” Tao said.
“Oh.” Kai sounded disappointed. “Where was it?”
“I don’t know.”
“What else did you see?”
“Fans. Lots of yellow fans with wavy edges.”
“What does it mean?” Pema asked.
“I don’t know.”
“What’s the point of a vision that makes no sense?”
“It should make sense. I just can’t interpret it. There’s something in the hole. Something important, but I don’t know what it is.”
“Or where it is,” Pema said, though Tao didn’t need to be reminded. “It’s like a riddle, only with pictures, not words.”
“A map with directions would be more useful.”
Kai seemed less excited than Pema. “Second sight is tricky. There is always something difficult about it. If it was easy, it would not be valued.”
“I made a decision last night,” Tao said. “I am returning to Yinmi. That is what I must do. I mustn’t allow myself to be distracted any longer.”
Steam issued from Kai’s nostrils. A scream distracted them both. Meiling was standing in the doorway, her hands over her mouth, staring at the dragon. Tao’s few hours of peace with his brother were now a precious memory. Meiling’s scream brought the rest of the household running and they were soon all trying to crowd into Wei’s room. The servants panicked when they saw the dragon, but his mother didn’t.
“Did you bring this beast into my house, Tao?” She stood firm in front of the dragon, trying not to look afraid
, but Tao could hear an unfamiliar waver in her voice.
“I did, Mother,” he replied. “He is my friend. You are privileged to have him under your roof.”
Mrs Huan didn’t agree.
“I want you out of the compound immediately, Tao. You, this creature and the ill-mannered girl.”
“I had already planned to leave and Kai will come with me, but Pema can’t go back to Luoyang. It’s too dangerous.”
“Pema can stay,” said an unfamiliar voice. “If she wishes.”
Tao’s father was standing in the doorway.
“We have been fortunate,” he said. “We lost no one when Luoyang fell. Heaven blessed us. In return we can offer shelter to Pema, who lost all her family.”
Meiling put her arm protectively around Pema.
“Will you stay, Pema?” Meiling asked.
“Thank you. I would like to stay.”
Mrs Huan didn’t argue.
Tao was surprised that Pema had changed her mind, she had seemed very determined before. For once, he was happy to do his mother’s bidding, and leave immediately. His only regret was leaving Wei so soon.
“Things are changing, Wei-Wei,” he said when he went to say goodbye. “I’ll be back again at mid-Autumn Festival. I’m sure I’ll have more adventures to tell you about then.”
He sensed that Wei was anxious. Only a day before, Tao had been confident that he knew what Wei was feeling. Now the clarity of his communication with Kai made him doubt whether he really could interpret his brother’s emotions or if he just wished he could.
They were outside the gates within an hour. Pema was the only one there to see them off.
“Goodbye, Holy Boy,” she said. “Watch out for him, Kai. He’s not very good at looking after himself.”
Chapter Fifteen
CENTIPEDE
Tao didn’t want to risk running into nomads, so they avoided the road and followed a narrower path that looped to the south of Luoyang. This also enabled Kai to travel in his true shape. Tao had been carried along by the revelation of his second sight, the uproar in the house and the exhilaration of standing up to his mother, but as soon as they were walking along the empty track, his excitement evaporated like Kai’s mist.
“I’ve said goodbye to Wei many times before, but this time I feel miserable.”
“Perhaps it is bidding goodbye to Pema that has distressed you,” Kai said.
Tao did miss Pema, but he wasn’t about to confess that to the dragon.
“I’m glad she’s safe with my parents,” he said. “It’s one less thing I have to worry about.”
Kai tried to cheer him up. “Do you want to jump?”
“Jump?”
“To see who can jump the highest.”
“You have four muscular legs, and I have two skinny ones. I can tell you that without going to the trouble of jumping!”
“We can play spot the swallow.”
“Your eyesight is a hundred times better than mine.”
“Then it will have to be a riddle!” Kai said.
“A seven-coloured bridge spans the sky.
Only seen when the heavens cry,
We cannot walk on it, you nor I.”
Tao had no idea what the answer was.
They had left without eating breakfast. After walking for less than an hour, Kai wanted to stop in a birch wood and eat the dried fruit and steamed buns Meiling had given them for the journey.
“I know what I have to do, Kai,” he said. “What about you?”
“Our paths lie together. For a while at least.”
Tao wasn’t so sure. “I wish I understood what the vision meant. Can’t you work it out? You’re the one who likes riddles.”
“It is for you to solve,” Kai said.
“I’ll see if I can recreate the vision,” Tao said. “Perhaps I missed something.”
He took out the jar of yellow oil, which he had brought with him and rubbed a few drops into his palms. He stared at his hands. He could see a thin white scar from an accident with a knife when he was younger, scratches and scabs.
There was no vision.
“It’s not working.”
“It is likely that the vision will only come once,” Kai said.
“Perhaps it wasn’t a vision. Perhaps I dozed off for a moment and it was a dream.”
“Is that what you believe?”
“No.”
“Second sight is a tricky thing,” Kai said. “All dragonkeepers have trouble harnessing it.”
“When we were small, my great-grandfather used to tell us stories,” Tao said. “Wei’s favourites where the ones about a dragon, a little purple dragon who was always getting into trouble – The Little Purple Dragon and the Precious Vase, The Little Purple Dragon and the Princess who Couldn’t Smile, The Little Purple Dragon and the Poisonous Beetles.”
“Those stories are about me! They have been passed down over many generations to you and Wei.”
“But you aren’t a purple dragon.”
“I was. All baby dragons are purple when they hatch. They only take on their true colour later.”
Tao thought Kai must have been boasting. “Surely the stories couldn’t have been passed down for four hundred years.”
“Ping prepared her children, the ones who were left-handed, in case another dragon needed a dragonkeeper. She trained her grandchildren too. Telling them the stories of our time together. When she died, her descendants forgot the stories were true. They became tales to amuse children.”
“What was Ping’s second sight?”
“A feeling of dread. It came whenever there was someone near who meant me harm. She felt ill. She had pains in her stomach. Sometimes she could hardly stand.”
“Poor Ping,” Tao said. At least his second sight wasn’t uncomfortable, just elusive.
“She could also find things that were hidden. She found my dragon stone after it was stolen, just by concentrating hard and feeling an invisible thread that would lead her to it. She strengthened this power after I was hatched by holding a shard of the dragon stone. She found me once when I was held captive by an evil necromancer. I was too weak to call her, but her power led her to me.”
“Great-grandfather didn’t tell us that story when we were young. The stories he told us were of you living in imperial splendour and comfort. Why did Ping take you away to live in the mountains?”
“Your ancestors chose to pass down only the stories of the few pleasant times when I was with the Emperor. I was in captivity and Ping knew that was wrong. There were other times when I was tortured.” There was bitterness in Kai’s voice that Tao hadn’t heard before. “I was very young, a baby. Ping thought I would be safe with other dragons. She didn’t trust humans, especially those in power. She was right.”
“You said you were together for just a few years. How do you know what happened to her after she left you? Did you visit her?”
Kai shook his head sadly.
“I have no wings. I could not visit Ping. Another dragon went to see her from time to time. One who could fly. He brought me news of Ping. After she died, this dragon visited her children. Then her children’s children.”
“Couldn’t you shape-change into something that flies?”
“I can change into any shape, but it is an illusion. I am still a dragon without wings.”
“But where is this mountain where you and the other dragons live?”
“My cluster lives in a secret place far to the west.”
“Your cluster?”
“A group of dragons who live together. Some are related. Some not. Like a small human village, but the links are stronger. Dragons used to be solitary creatures, but now we huddle together for safety.”
“Like my family and their neighbours.”
“Just the same.”
Tao thought he heard disapproval in the dragon’s voice.
“And are you the oldest dragon in your cluster?”
Kai made the jingling-bell sound of
dragon laughter. “I am the youngest. I have to prove myself worthy to stay.”
“Is that why you’re here and not with your cluster? You’re on a quest?”
“That is correct. Between the age of four hundred and five hundred, a dragon must go on a quest.”
Tao knew they should be walking, not sitting in the dappled sunlight in a birch grove, but he was pleased he had managed to get the dragon talking about his earlier life, and he didn’t want to interrupt him.
“The other dragons decide what the quest will be. If he succeeds, he is recognised as a mature dragon and can speak at moon gatherings.”
“So female dragons don’t have to go on quests?”
“They do not. They join the council and take part in rituals as soon as they reach five hundred.”
“And what is your quest?”
Kai was silent for a moment. It was such a long time since he had communicated with a human. Tao thought it must be hard for him to tell of his secret life.
“My quest is to find the last dragon hunter,” he said.
“Dragon hunter?”
“A man who lives to kill dragons.”
“Why? Why would anyone want to do that?”
“Dragons are valuable. Their body parts can be sold to people who deal in medicine and magic.”
Tao was horrified at the thought of the slaughter of dragons for trade.
“And you have to find this dragon hunter? By yourself?”
“That is my quest.”
Tao had left home at a young age as well, but he hadn’t been required to risk his life.
“If there are so few dragons, why would they send you off on your own to track down the dragon hunter? It’s very dangerous.”