until it seemed to surround them completely and
there was nothing but blue.
Ping watched the figure of the young Emperor shrink to a golden dot as the dragon flew away from Tai Shan. The mountain receded and the plain lay beneath them chequered with squares of yellow and brown. Some of the brown squares were striped with green where the spring crops had begun to grow. The hedges and walls between the fields stood out like embroidered seams so that the landscape resembled a blanket sewn from squares of different fabric. Ping had many questions to ask the dragon. The first was the most important.
”How is Hua?” She had to shout to make herself heard over the rush of air and the rhythmic flap of the dragon’s wings.
“Can feel his heartbeat.” The dragon’s voice in her mind was as clear as ever.
Ping smiled to herself. She’d known in her heart that the rat was still alive, but she still didn’t trust her second sight.
“How far is it to Ocean?”
“Not far now. Will reach it today if wings hold.”
“What were you doing up on Tai Shan, Danzi?”
“Escaping from Diao,” the dragon replied. “Must have had spy among imperial guards. Knew we were in Tiger Forest. Was waiting when we emerged.”
“What happened?”
“Diao wounded me. We escaped, but Diao followed. Wang Cao said wings were okay to fly, so we climbed Tai Shan for altitude and to escape Diao.”
“I’m sorry about Wang Cao, Danzi,” Ping said. “I was too slow to save him as well.”
“Is Danzi who must apologise, Ping,” said the dragon. “Wang Cao was jealous of Ping. He wanted to be Dragonkeeper. I listened to his bitter words and allowed him to convince me that Ping was not true Dragonkeeper. I am sorry.”
It was overcast. Danzi continued to climb higher. At first the clouds were no more than wisps, like steam from a kettle. Then they grew denser until Ping and the dragon were enveloped in a cold, white fog. Danzi was buffeted by gusts of wind but he kept climbing. Suddenly they broke through the clouds and were in the sunlight again. All Ping could see beneath her was an expanse of undulating white stretching in every direction, as if they were flying over a world of ice and snow.
She could hardly believe it, but soon they would reach Ocean. After all their trials, all the diversions, all the people who had tried to stop them, they were finally going to Ocean, and this last stretch required no effort from her at all. Ping yawned. She wanted to watch the clouds change shape beneath her, but she hadn’t slept for two days. She was glad of the rope securing her to the dragon. The dragon stone, encased in the basket, made a pillow for her head. She closed her eyes and allowed her body to slide into sleep.
When she woke, Ping was cold. Her body was stiff. She guessed she had slept for several hours. The clouds were bright with sunlight, pink tinged. Through gaps in the cloud the landscape below looked dark and uninviting. The flap of the dragon’s wings had slowed. His breathing was laboured.
Ping was just about to ask how much further they had to go when she noticed that the basket holding the stone had a tear in one side and the stone was showing through. Its colour looked different in the steely light. It was a darker purple, like ripe plums. The maroon veins, which had just been thin threads before, were thicker. Ping took the stone carefully in her hands, afraid that the basket would tear right open and the stone would fall out.
The bank of cloud below them suddenly ended and the miniature world was visible again. It was no longer patterned with tiny fields. Instead it was blanketed with low, green hills. Something on the horizon reflected the sunlight like a band of polished silver. As they drew closer, the band became wider. The dragon’s breathing grew hoarse, his wings beat more slowly, the distance between them and the earth below decreased. The hills gave way to flat land. The silver strip grew wider and wider and turned to blue as they got closer to it. It wasn’t solid, its dimpled surface was dipping and rising. Ping couldn’t imagine what sort of place it was they were going to. The land ended in a sudden cliff and then there was just a thin strip of pale earth between the land and the surging blue. Where the blue met the earth there were tiny rolls of white. Ping realised that what she was looking at was water. It stretched as far as she could see to the north, to the south and east until it merged with the sky. Its size terrified her.
“What is that?” said Ping.
“Ocean,” replied Danzi.
”But I thought Ocean was a place, a country, a province.”
“No. It is the water that surrounds all lands.”
Ping’s image of Ocean, a garden paradise, dissolved. “But you told me—”
“Cannot describe Ocean to one who has never seen it.”
“It’s so big.”
“It is greatest thing in the world.”
Ping watched the Ocean continue to grow until it seemed to surround them completely and there was nothing but blue.
“Are you going down into the Ocean?” Ping asked, thinking that the dragon’s goal might be below the waves.
“No. Must find place to rest.”
Danzi swung back towards the land. Grey clouds had appeared on the horizon. The air around them felt alive. It made Ping’s skin prickle and her hair seemed to move of its own accord, floating and crackling when she tried to smooth it down. It was eerily quiet. Danzi glided round in a circle as he prepared to land. A sudden gust of wind blew back the dragon’s wings and Ping’s stomach lurched as he dropped almost a chang before he recovered. The clouds moving in from the east were thick and black. There was no sign of the sun and it was as dark as dusk. The wind grew stronger. The clouds were lit by a blinding flash and there was an ear-splitting crack. Water started to pour from the sky as if someone had opened a hatch in the clouds. The air went from being dry to drenched in a few moments. Ping held the stone tight to her chest. Another flash of lightning lit up the underside of the clouds. The wind grew so strong, Ping was afraid she would be blown off the dragon’s back even though she was tied on with rope. She couldn’t see for the rain in her eyes. She clutched the stone tighter.
Danzi’s fragile wings were tossed around by the wind like autumn leaves. Ping was afraid they’d be blown right off. He was heading for the pale flat strip between the Ocean and the land. The dragon couldn’t control his descent. The ground accelerated towards them. As they got closer, Ping could see that it wasn’t entirely flat. There were rocks scattered across it. The rain made it hard to see. She leaned over to get a better view, searching for a safe place to land. The wind buffeted the dragon, blowing him around like a kite. The dragon banked steeply, trying to aim for a spot with no rocks. The wet dragon stone slipped out of Ping’s grasp. She cried out as she saw the purple stone fall.
She fumbled with the knots securing her. She wanted to fall after the stone and save it. She watched helpless as it crashed onto the rocks below. Moments later the dragon hit the ground with a bone-jarring thud. He ploughed into fine white sand, making a furrow several feet deep. Ping was winded for a moment, then she undid the rope, leapt off and ran to the dragon stone.
It was lying between two rocks. She knelt and picked it up and turned it over. There was a large crack running along its length. The weather at ground level was as wild as it had been in the air. The wind threatened to lift her from her knees. Lightning flashed overhead, followed immediately by booming thunder. As she watched, more cracks split off at angles to the central fracture. Water started to seep out of the cracked stone. The crack grew wider, the flow of water from the stone increased until it was gushing out over Ping’s hands. It was warm. It seemed impossible that the stone could contain so much liquid.
“Danzi, I’ve broken the dragon stone.”
The exhausted dragon crawled over to Ping’s side.
Ping looked at the ruined stone in her hands. A final gush of warm water split the stone in two. The two halves lay in her hands. The wind died. The rain slowed. The sky became lighter. There was something inside the hal
f stone in her left hand, something the same purple colour as the stone itself. It wasn’t solid though, not crystalline as she’d expected. It was like a strange purple vegetable covered in a sticky substance. It slithered out into her lap. No, it was more like sodden fabric scraps wound around each other into a ball. As she watched, the mass twitched and one of the purple strands unwound itself and flopped onto Ping’s knee.
It was soft and limp and frayed at the end. Another purple strand unwound from the shapeless mass, then another. In all, five strands unwound themselves. They were flexible, soft and sticky with mucus. Four of them had frayed ends, the fifth ended in a point. She was about to brush the ugly thing off her, when the last part of it unfolded. This strand was thicker, more solid, not so shapeless. It raised itself up. It had a certain symmetry. There were two circular bulges, two pinpoint holes. At the end of the strand, a larger hole opened moistly. Inside the hole were two rows of tiny white spikes. Ping gasped as she suddenly saw the thing as a whole for the first time. It wasn’t a vegetable, it wasn’t a ball of scraps. It was alive. The spiky hole was a mouth, the smaller holes nostrils and the bulges unopened eyes. It was a creature with a head, four legs and a tail.
Danzi carefully lifted the creature from her lap and licked off the mucus with his long red tongue, then placed it on the sand. It balanced for a moment on its fragile legs and then collapsed onto its belly. Ping saw that the little creature was covered in fine purple scales—shiny and smooth like fish scales. There was a row of soft spikes running down the length of its body from its head to the tip of its tail. The frayed edges at the end of each leg were tiny toes. It was a baby dragon.
”Danzi,” Ping whispered. “Why didn’t you tell me the dragon stone was an egg?”
When the baby dragon heard Ping’s voice, it turned its head towards her. Its eyes opened for the first time. They were green. It made a high purring sound. Ping stared at it in wonder. It wasn’t ugly at all. It was beautiful. She picked it up and held it to her.
“Didn’t want to make Ping anxious.”
“But I could have broken it!”
“Did break it.”
“I mean before it was ready to hatch.” She couldn’t take her eyes of the little creature. “Was it ready to hatch?”
Danzi inclined his head.
“Is it a boy or a girl?”
“It is boy. Can tell by straight nose.”
“What will it eat, Danzi?”
“Milk at first. Then insects. Later small birds.”
Ping looked alarmed. “What sort of milk? What kind of insects?”
“Ewes’ milk very good. Goats’ milk good too. As for insects, moths and dragonflies are best. Caterpillars also good. Nothing with hard shells, nothing that stings.”
Ping had ten thousand questions to ask. Danzi’s voice in her mind was faint, hard to hear over the constant purring of the new dragon voice. The sun appeared in the narrow space between the clouds and the horizon.
The baby’s newly dried purple scales glistened in the orange rays. Ping dragged her eyes from the baby dragon and looked at Danzi for the first time since he had ploughed into the beach. The old dragon looked exhausted. His scales didn’t reflect the sun. They looked dull and faded. His eyes had developed the yellowish cast they’d had when he was living in the dragon pit at Huangling.
Ping gasped. “Hua!” she said. “I forgot about Hua!”
Danzi reached behind his top reversed scale and lifted out the rat. Ping placed the baby dragon in her lap. It curled up and went to sleep. She reached out and gently took the motionless rat from Danzi’s talons. He lay draped over her hands like a rag. She held him closer. His small chest was moving a little as he took in tiny breaths of air.
“He’s still alive,” Ping whispered.
“May not survive,” Danzi said.
“This is my fault,” Ping said, tears filling her eyes. “Poor Hua.”
“Darkness soon arrive. Must find place to spend night.”
Ping suddenly felt overwhelmed. She had a newborn baby, an aged dragon and an injured rat to care for. They had no shelter, no food. An image of the beautiful bedchamber at Ming Yang Lodge came to her mind. She remembered the smell of the Emperor’s banquet.
Just for a second she wondered if she’d made the right decision. She looked at the little dragon in her lap. If she’d stayed with Liu Che they would have all been more comfortable, but the baby would be facing a long life in captivity. She gently put Hua back behind the reversed scale and transferred the baby dragon to the crook of her right arm. She stood up. She had work to do.
• chapter twenty-four •
PERHAPS THERE IS NO END
“Will you be able to fly so far?”
“Who knows how things will end? Perhaps
there is no end.”
Ping searched the cliffs for a cave but there was none. She walked along the beach in both directions, looking for somewhere to shelter for the night. At last she found a strange construction made from the skeleton of an enormous sea creature. Its head and tail had been removed leaving just the creature’s body. Its ribcage was so big that Ping could walk inside it. The dried skin formed a perfectly weatherproof covering. Inside were signs that it had once been a fisherman’s home.
Before it got dark, Ping collected firewood and rainwater, and found some small fish and crabs trapped in a rock pool. She started a fire. In Wang Cao’s bag there was a cooking pot, some lentils and grain. It also contained a jar of the red cloud ointment, some of Danzi’s herbal mix and a small packet of tea. Wang Cao had prepared well.
Ping cooked a meal for herself and Danzi, but the old dragon ate little.
“What about the baby?” Ping asked. “I haven’t got any milk.”
To Ping’s surprise, Danzi stretched out a talon and pierced the wound in his chest which had only just stopped bleeding.
“What are you doing?”
Danzi collected some of his purple blood in a seashell. The baby dragon lapped it up.
“Can survive on blood for few days,” Danzi said.
When he had finished feeding, Ping laid the baby dragon in a bed of dried seaweed. He was soon asleep. She made a herbal brew for Danzi and put ointment on his wounds. When all her charges were sleeping, she went out onto the beach and looked at the massive Ocean shimmering in the moonlight. Waves of water crashed onto the beach only to be sucked back again by some invisible force. She drank some of the water, and spat the salty liquid out again. Ocean was nothing like she’d imagined it to be.
The next morning, Ping woke early and rekindled the fire. The baby’s legs were stronger. He was able to totter around the beach. Danzi still looked faded and tired. Ping managed to catch a seabird which she roasted for him. She fed a few drops of fish broth to Hua.
“You lied to me about the waters of the Ocean, Danzi,” she said. “It’s too salty to drink and I don’t believe it has any magic powers.”
“Ping is right,” Danzi replied, “but could not tell you your task back then. Ping wouldn’t have been able to comprehend.”
“So here is the Ocean,” Ping said. “Why have we travelled all this way to get to it?” She looked at his frail, scarred body. “Will the waters heal you?”
“No. Must cross it to reach Isle of the Blest.”
“Why must you go there?”
“If stay here in the Empire, will die. On Isle of the Blest is stream of the water of life. This will heal me.”
She peered out towards the horizon but could see no sign of land.
“How far away is it? Will you be able to carry us that far?”
“Only Danzi going.”
Ping couldn’t believe her ears. “You’re going to leave your baby behind?”
“Wanted to take dragon stone to Isle of Blest, so baby would be born away from world of men.”
”You can still take him.”
The dragon shook his head. “World without dragons would be sad place. Will leave him here with Dragonkeeper.
”
Ping realised he meant her.
“But I don’t know how to look after him.”
“Young dragons usually spend first hundred years with mother.” Danzi sighed sadly. “Ping must take place of dragon mother, Lu Yu. Do as she would have. Nurture him but do not tame him. Shape him without controlling him.” Danzi touched the little dragon’s head with one taloned paw. “Ping will know.”
Ping wished she had as much confidence in her ability to raise the dragon as Danzi did.
The old dragon clambered slowly up the steep path to the top of the cliff.
“Must leave now.”
Ping picked up the baby dragon and followed him.
“But you haven’t got any food. You’ll need fresh water.”
“All will be provided.”
“Won’t you get lonely?”
“Will take Hua as companion. He also requires water of life to survive.”
“How will I manage without you, Danzi?”
“The path is easy if you avoid turning off it.”
“Will you be able to fly so far?”
”Who knows how things will end? Perhaps there is no end.”
Ping knew from experience there was no point in arguing with the dragon. She placed the baby in a nest of grass and took Hua out from behind the reversed scale. She held his soft, warm fur against her face for the last time. Hua turned his head towards her. He blinked but didn’t make a sound. She carefully placed him back. Danzi gave Ping all the gold and other things that he had hidden behind his reversed scales, things that she didn’t have time to examine. He handed her the Dragonkeeper’s mirror. It flashed in the sunlight.
“You are the last Dragonkeeper, Ping.”
“The last?”
The dragon nodded wearily. “The last and the best.”
“The baby isn’t the last dragon is he?”
“He is the last and the first.”
Ping didn’t know what he meant.
“Last imperial dragon. First to live free with true Dragonkeeper.”
Danzi opened his wings.