Tao had seen those shoes before. One of them had been used to squash a spider. His stomach did a somersault. He had to hold on to the tree to stop himself from falling. The beautiful, painted creature on the arm of Jilong was Pema. Tao couldn’t stop a cry of surprise escaping from his mouth. Her sharp thief’s ears heard the noise. Her blue eyes looked straight at Tao. Her red mouth didn’t smile.
Tao’s legs felt like they were made of rope. He would have fallen from the tree if Kai hadn’t reached out to support him. He clutched the dragon’s scaly foreleg, which was now disguised as a monk’s arm.
“We can escape now,” Kai said. “I am stronger.”
Tao nodded. “In a moment.”
He knew that if he tried to walk, his legs would not support him.
He couldn’t name the feelings inside him. He had never experienced them before. He wished Kai could fly into the air and take him away. Anywhere, as long as he didn’t have to witness Pema’s betrayal. But his eyes kept returning to her.
Nomads had no interest in music, but Shi Le was keen to behave like a great emperor.
“Music!” he announced. “There must be music.”
The trumpeters and drummers who signalled their general’s orders during battle had assembled and were trying to play together. Jilong made the women dance for the crowd, but they had no more experience at dancing than the trumpeters had at playing tunes. They stumbled around to the military beat and the tuneless trumpeting. Kai grasped Tao’s robes firmly in his talons and together they climbed down from the tree.
“What is she doing with him?” Tao whispered as Kai sat him down in the shadow of the wall where no one could see them.
“Pema has led a hard, lonely life,” Kai said. “Someone is taking notice of her, admiring her. She is enjoying it.”
“I admired her the way she was.”
“You did not express your admiration.”
“I couldn’t. I’m not supposed to have such feelings.”
Tao was glad to have a friend with him, someone in whom he could confide.
Jilong took his place on the dais and the competitions finally resumed. Horses thundered past them, but Tao was unaware of them.
“I understand your misery,” Kai said. “I know the pain you are feeling.”
“How can you?”
“Dragons are not like other beasts. They form attachments, as humans do.”
“Do you mean they …?”
“Fall in love? They can do.”
A blaring trumpet sounded to indicate that the minor competitions had finished.
Tao was unaware of it. “Did you fall in love?”
“I did.”
Tao looked at the monk beside him and wished he could see Kai in his true shape.
“There was an unpaired white dragon named Lian. She was without wings, like me. Over the centuries our friendship grew.”
Kai reached behind one of his reverse scales and pulled something out. It looked like a knot of frayed rope.
“What’s that?” Tao asked.
“It is a lock of hair from her beard,” the dragon said, stroking the brown strands with a talon. “She was gentle and lovely. She … admired my skills. I thought … I thought it was understood that we would pair.”
The final contest was one that involved many different skills. About twenty nomads on horses were assembled at the starting line. They were the ones who had won the earlier contests. Jilong hadn’t taken part in any other competition, but he rode over to join them.
“Did you ask this dragon to … pair?”
Kai replaced the hair behind the reverse scale. “It is the dragon council that permits such unions.”
“So you asked the council?”
“I was waiting for the appropriate time.”
“What happened?”
“Another dragon, a yellow, took her as his mate.”
“A yellow dragon?” Tao was about to ask Kai if it was the one they had seen the night they fled from Luoyang, when a trumpet blared again.
The riders dug their heels into their horses’ flanks and the horses leaped forwards as if they too were eager to win. They raced toward a target and the riders shot arrows at it as they passed without breaking speed. There were other tasks to complete – standing on the horse’s back, spearing a terrified pig, using a leather thong to hurl a stone at a row of bloody animal heads balanced on a plank of wood. Jilong excelled at everything, and Pema was up on her feet applauding her hero.
It was not a polite race. The contestants flung stones at their opponents’ heads and tried to knock them off their horses. The final task was to gallop to a circle marked on the ground, inside which was a lance stuck into the earth with several red silk squares tied to it. The aim was to dismount at the edge of the circle, get a piece of silk, remount and then gallop back to the starting point.
The butt of Jilong’s axe knocked three men from their horses; one of his stones hit someone else in the temple; his arrow pierced the leg of another. He was the first to reach the circle. He leaned over and ripped a piece of red silk from the lance and then galloped back to the starting line, five chang ahead of the next rider. Of the twenty riders who started the race, only seven completed it. Four had lost their horses. Five were unconscious, three had broken bones, one was dead. All the nomads cheered.
Tao felt ill. He was appalled by the exhibition of violence, but what sickened him most was the sight of Pema, her eyes shining as Jilong handed her the red silk square.
The sun was setting. Now that the competitions were over, the nomads turned their attention to eating and drinking. Jilong went over to whisper something in his uncle’s ear and then left the arena.
“Let’s escape now,” Tao said. “No one will notice us. I need to get away from the smell of blood and horse dung.” Though really he just wanted to be any place where he couldn’t see Pema.
“I will be glad to leave behind all these iron weapons,” Kai said.
Tao and Kai crept along the temple wall. Shi Le was making a long speech to the nomads, telling them about their great victory over the New Han – at least that’s what Tao assumed he was saying as he spoke in his own language. The nomad soldiers cheered again, and chanted something just as unintelligible. Fo Tu Deng applauded politely. Tao and Kai were at the edge of the arena, when the cheering changed to an excited chatter.
Tao stopped. “What’s happening?”
“I do not know.”
They both turned just as something launched into the air over the temple’s walls with a flap of great wings. Everyone was pointing and shouting. Tao had to shield his eyes. It was the yellow dragon, golden in the light of the setting sun. Jilong was astride it, his blue brocade jacket shimmering. Together man and beast looked like something from the tales Tao’s great-grandfather had told him. The spectators cried out in fear and turned to run as the dragon dived towards them, its red eyes blazing, only swooping up again just above their heads. The nomads lost their fear and gasped like children watching an acrobat as Jilong made the dragon do tricks. He had fitted a specially made bridle to the dragon’s head, so he could control it more easily. Someone on the ground let loose a deer. The startled creature bolted, heading for a gap in the crowd where it imagined it could escape to the plain beyond, but the dragon had seen it. Before the deer had run three chang, the dragon swooped down and snatched up the terrified animal in its jaws. It struggled for a moment, before the dragon shook its head, breaking the deer’s neck. Then, grasping the corpse in its forepaws, the yellow dragon ripped it apart. Blood rained down on those beneath. The crowd cheered even louder.
The show wasn’t over yet. Another animal was let loose. The cheering died down to a frightened whisper. The crowd moved back, giving the animal space. It was a tiger, its pelt glowing orange and marked with irregular black stripes. Tao felt Kai tense alongside him. The tiger didn’t appear afraid; it didn’t run. Instead, it prowled around the arena, its belly almost touching the ground, growling low and
slow, with its ears pinned back. The yellow dragon circled above, making a terrible screeching sound. Its eyes were the colour of cinnabar and they followed the tiger’s every move.
Tao felt a sudden urge to run out into the arena and save the tiger, but he didn’t have the courage.
“This isn’t fair,” he said. “The tiger doesn’t stand a chance against an enemy that can fly.”
“You are right. Tigers are dragons’ enemies, and a wingless dragon and a tiger are equally matched. They each have claws, and teeth. The dragon has horns. The tiger has speed and agility. When a dragon has wings, it is not a fair fight, and this dragon is in blood lust.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look at its red eyes. And did you hear the sound it made? This dragon wants to kill. It should only reach such a state of battle frenzy after a long fight with a dragon opponent. Once the battle stops, the blood lust should fade.”
Tao felt fear, not for himself, but for the two creatures that were being forced to enact their natural hostility in an unnatural way. The nomads were cheering excitedly.
“What’s that on the dragon’s horns?” Tao asked.
“They are tipped with iron. Sharp as arrowheads.”
“How can the dragon stand to have iron so close?”
“They must be feeding it something to keep it in battle frenzy. Most likely tigers’ blood. Perhaps that permits tolerance of the iron, as long as it does not touch the scales. Still, she must suffer.”
Tao didn’t wish to see more blood spilled. He didn’t want to see Pema’s upturned face watching every move Jilong made. He turned away from the arena. He was going to walk away from this bloody site. He would walk and walk until he reached his monastery, where he would cleanse his mind of the awful things he had seen and rid himself of forbidden feelings. No one was going to stop him. And no one did – human or dragon. It was a thought that stopped him in his tracks before he’d taken two steps.
“She?” he said, turning back to Kai. “How do you know the yellow dragon is female?”
There was a flicker in the dragon’s eyes.
“You can tell because of her undulating nose.”
“You never mentioned that before. You always referred to the yellow dragon as ‘it’.”
“It is of no importance.”
The sky on the horizon was almost the same colour as the yellow dragon’s eyes. The dragon herself was swooping through the air, red gold in the sun’s last light. Everything was suddenly clear to Tao.
“You know this dragon, don’t you?”
Tao didn’t need a vision to help him see the truth. He remembered the two parallel wounds on Kai’s belly, the unhealing sores that he had said were the result of being cut by iron. “This is the dragon who wounded you. She did it with her iron-tipped horns.”
Kai didn’t deny it. He looked away, as if what was going on in the arena interested him more.
“Is she one of your cluster?”
“She used to be a gentle creature, our healer.” Kai shook his head sadly. “Her name is Sha.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I do not have to tell you everything!”
Kai’s monk shape started to shimmer as his anger grew. He made a rumbling sound, deeper even than the tiger’s growl. The yellow dragon swerved in the air just as she had done that night at Luoyang. She had heard Kai. His growling changed to a sound like scraping metal blades. The yellow dragon, with her acute dragon vision, had sought him out where he cowered in the shadows, unable to maintain his disguise. Not because of anger. Because of fear.
The eyes of the two dragons met – Kai’s brown ones and the yellow dragon’s blazing red. Kai was afraid; Tao could feel it. The yellow dragon did a somersault in the air, trying to dislodge Jilong. The Zhao general fell to the ground, but he didn’t let go of the reins. He was furious that the dragon had made him lose his dignity. He called to his men, who rushed over and grabbed the reins as well. The yellow dragon flapped her wings and roared, yet couldn’t break free from the nomads. Some rushed at her with lances, but Jilong shouted at them not to kill her. Instead, the nomads beat her with clubs and threw ropes over her, crisscrossing them to hold her down, until finally, beaten and exhausted, she collapsed to the ground. They bound the ropes around her and dragged her away. It was a terrible sight.
Tao managed a bitter smile as he saw the tiger quietly slink into the darkness. He could hear Kai’s voice in his mind, trying to calm himself, so that he could shape-change again. So that he could hide. Kai shimmered as he returned to the shape of a monk. It didn’t matter. All eyes were on the writhing yellow dragon.
Pema was at Jilong’s side dabbing a gash on his face, with the same care and concern that she had displayed while tending the scratches on Tao’s hands. She kissed the cut on Jilong’s cheek. As she walked away on the arm of the murderous nomad, Tao was convinced that her lips were red with his blood.
Chapter Twenty
CLASH
Tao’s misery smouldered and turned into embers of anger. The emotion was so unfamiliar to him, he didn’t recognise it at first. He wanted to shout at Pema, to tell her how much she disgusted him, but he couldn’t do that. He turned to Kai instead. The dragon was in his monk’s shape, though shimmering in the light of a half-moon as no monk should.
“Aren’t you supposed to be truthful to your dragonkeeper?”
“You are not my dragonkeeper. No bond has been sealed between us.”
Tao tried to remember what Kai had said. There had been no agreement between them, but Tao had thought Kai had wanted him to be his dragonkeeper. “I wouldn’t have accepted anyway,” he snapped. “What other secrets have you kept?”
“My life has already been long compared to a human. Many things have happened. I could not tell you all of them.”
Kai turned to walk away. Tao followed him, reaching out to grab his monk’s sleeve, just as it transformed into scaly skin.
They were out in the open. Neither cared. Fortunately, every nomad’s eyes were fixed on the arena.
“You told me a tiger wounded you.”
“I could not speak from the heart. I did not know you well enough then.”
Tao didn’t look away as Kai came fully into his dragon shape, even though it made him feel ill.
“There’s been plenty of time to tell me since.”
“I had conflict with one of the dragons at the dragon haven, another yellow.”
“The one who took Lian?”
Kai made the slightest movement of his head.
“We fought. The council sanctioned the fight. It was fair. He is a much older dragon, but I won.”
“Why does this yellow dragon here hate you so?”
For a talkative dragon, Kai was very good at being silent when he wanted to be. Minutes passed before he spoke again.
“The yellow who took Lian as his consort was Sha’s mate. He betrayed her. She blames me for that.”
Tao wasn’t interested in the love-life of dragons. The truth was slowly dawning on him. “All those things you said about being on a quest, about searching for the dragon hunter, about killing a tiger. Were any true?”
Kai didn’t answer.
“You lied to me!”
Tao felt anger flame inside him.
“You tried to lure me away from my life of service to Buddha. You wanted me to give up my goal of becoming a monk to have adventures with you, but you weren’t being truthful.”
“I am not bound by your silly precepts. I had to see how you would react to an unpredictable life, to danger.”
“You hadn’t decided that I was good enough to be a dragonkeeper. You were … testing me.”
“I had to know if you were trustworthy.”
“Being deceitful is a strange way of gauging trust.”
There was nothing in the precepts about anger. Tao remembered a rule in the Vinaya, but it only forbade getting angry with other monks. Nevertheless, he was certain anger was not something a
monk should feel.
“I have changed my life for you. I was content to live a simple life, virtuous, tranquil and holy.”
Kai snorted and a stream of mist issued from his nostrils. “When I had to stop you from falling out of that tree, were your feelings virtuous and holy then?”
Tao felt his cheeks burn. He had been all of those things before Kai forced his way into Tao’s life.
“Before you came along, I devoted all my time to meritorious deeds, doing nothing for myself. My only goal since I was seven has been to accumulate good karma for my brother, to allow him to be freed from his broken body and be reborn. So that he can run through the grass, shout and sing, smile at a pretty girl. Simple things that others do everyday without thinking. You’ve ignored all that and encouraged me to break my vows.”
“The other dragons were right. A human companion is like a stone tied to the leg.”
Tao felt ashamed that he had neglected his quest to help his brother. Deep down he knew it wasn’t Kai’s fault, but the jibe hurt. His anger grew, and Tao gave up trying to control it.
“You’re selfish. I don’t believe anything you’ve said now. What other lies have you told me?”
Kai ignored the question. “You think your visions are for your benefit. They are not.”
“I didn’t ask for visions.”
Tao had a sudden thought.
“You were surprised that the hollow in the ginkgo tree was empty. You were expecting the sutras to be there.”
Kai was silent.
The truth hit Tao like a punch in the stomach.
“You hid them there! You didn’t want me to save the scrolls.”
The flame of anger inside Tao grew to a blaze. He would have hit the dragon, but his common sense hadn’t deserted him entirely. One swipe from the dragon’s paw would have knocked him out.
“It was easy,” Kai boasted. “The bamboo cylinder slipped from your shoulder when you fell as we escaped through the hole in the city wall. I kicked it aside among the rubble. I went back while you were sleeping, found the scrolls and hid them here.” His tone changed. “Who took them, where they are now, I do not know.”