Matters would become both better and worse once we reached a more settled area. Our destination was the city of Tiongau, in the lower-lying hills that marked the far boundary of the Khavtlai plain. This was a hotbed of Khiam Siu, though they had been left quite leaderless since the failed insurrection at Diéziò; and it was here, Giat Jip-hau said, that he intended to proclaim himself the first Khiam emperor.
I did not participate in the initial infiltration of the city. Not only had I no desire to do so, I would have been worse than useless: a Scirling woman in the middle of a Yelangese city would have been extremely noticeable. Along with my fellow countrymen and the Draconeans, I lay in wait outside the city—which you need not think meant we were all huddling under bushes. One of the local magnates with an estate in the nearby countryside was a secret Khiam sympathizer, and he gave us shelter while Giat Jip-hau and his chosen companions went disguised into Tiongau, in search of the rest of their coterie.
As little as I wished to participate in another battle, waiting there was excruciating. Dorson spent the entire time pacing; he greatly disliked sitting idle while the Yelangese went about their work. But of course the presence of Scirling soldiers in Tiongau, even out of uniform, would only increase the chance of discovery. I did not pace, but I fretted all the same, spinning a hundred different scenarios in which we had to flee east on sudden notice, back to the shelter of the Sanctuary.
But disaster did not come. As is so often the case with such things, the waiting was lengthy, but the event itself brief. I shall not attempt to relate what I was not there to see; I will only say that once the fighting began, it lasted for scarcely two days. Pockets of resistance remained, but the Khiam Siu had overthrown the governor and taken possession of key locations around the city. Once those were secure, Thu reappeared with a bandage around one arm, and announced that Giat Jip-hau required our presence in the city.
I was not at my best when Tom and I arrived at the governor’s palace. Although the arrival of the caeliger and the subsequent juggling of forces in the Sanctuary had done a little to acclimate me to human company once more, I was wildly unprepared for a city full of my own species. The last time I had faced them in such quantities was in Kotranagar a year before, on my way through Vidwatha to Tser-nga. I wondered how the Draconeans would fare, surrounded by humans. I was very glad that, for reasons of security, they would not enter Tiongau until they could do so under cover of darkness.
The prospective emperor had laid claim to the governor’s own chambers. Austere for reasons of both personal inclination and political image, Giat Jip-hau had ordered the rooms stripped of much of their finery; what remained, however, was still more than elegant, with laquered screens and windows framing views of the gardens outside. I felt terribly out of place, even after my first proper bath in more than a year.
He wasted no time in making it clear why he had summoned us. “The governor of this place, like many of his rank, kept a menagerie, and in it there are dragons. I know the Draconeans trained those creatures in the Sanctuary for their own use—the mews. I want them to train the dragons here.”
Tom and I exchanged glances. His minute shrug said he deferred to my knowledge on the matter. I almost wished he hadn’t; none of my instinctive responses were at all polite. I managed to replace them with a question: “Train them to what end?”
“You rode a sea-serpent into battle in the Keongan islands,” Giat Jip-hau said. “The dragons here are large enough to bear a rider.”
I fear I gaped like a landed fish. Too many words wanted to come out of my mouth at once; they clogged my mind instead, leaving me with nothing. Tom stepped into the breach. “My lord, that is more like riding a wild mustang than a war-horse. The Keongans use the serpents in part because they have neither the firearms nor the artillery of a modern army; you do not suffer any such lack. Dragons would not be of much use to you as a weapon.”
Giat Jip-hau dismissed this with a small cut of his hand. “Their use as weapons is secondary at best. But if my enemies see my generals riding into battle upon dragons, the effect on their morale will be enormous.”
Insofar as it went, he was probably correct. That did not make the idea a good one, though. I found my tongue, and used it. “My lord, the Draconeans have spent centuries breeding the mews for their use, in much the same way that humans bred wolves into dogs. The fact that we can command hounds for our own benefit does not mean we can do the same with tigers; and I think it is fair to assume that the gap between mews and whatever dragons you have here is at least that large. If you had a decade to spend on this endeavour, it might be possible; but I presume your schedule is rather swifter than that.”
I should have stopped there. My mouth went on, though, without leave from my brain. “And even if it could be done, I think it should not.”
He fixed me with a steady gaze. “Explain.”
I thought of the rock-wyrms that had attacked the boyar’s men in the Vystrani Mountains, the fangfish that had savaged the Ikwunde, little Ascelin killing the Taisên agent in Qurrat and the sea-serpents thrashing in the waters around Keonga. But Giat Jip-hau would not be swayed by my qualms over my own past actions, nor by my newfound reluctance to see dragons killed for any reason other than sheer necessity. His care was for the future of his nation, not the well-being of a few beasts.
Instead I gave him a practical answer. “Battles are perilous things, my lord; you know that as well as I do. What omen would it be for your reign if these dragons were shot down in the field?”
“It would be the Taisên who shot them, and the Taisên upon whom the blame would fall.”
“Perhaps. But they have not used dragons in battle; their own ministers would argue that you are the one who brought them to that fate. Some would agree with you, and others with the Taisên. It is a great deal of effort for dubious benefit—especially when you might more profitably attempt to train them for another purpose.”
I spoke that last as if I had some plan in mind, held in reserve until that moment. In truth, it only took shape as I spoke; and even then, I hesitated to dignify it with the name of “plan.” But Giat Jip-hau listened with interest as I shared the beginnings of it, and he and Tom contributed elaborations and improvements, and before long, I was committed.
To my part, at least. “I must consult with the Draconeans before I can say anything for certain,” I reminded him.
“Then act swiftly,” he said. “One way or another, we do not have much time.”
TWENTY-ONE
Azure dragons—A blessing—The Khiam Siu rise up—The end of the rebellion—A letter—Returning home
The entire plan depended on the assistance of the Draconeans. They entered Tiongau in the small hours of the night, when only Khiam Siu patrolled the streets, and were smuggled into the palace through a servant entrance.
Even traversing the city at night was a shock to them. “I owe you an apology, Zabel,” Ruzt said when Tom and I met them, shortly after dawn. “You told us there were many humans in the world, but I never believed they could exist in such numbers. How many places like this are there?”
“More than I can count,” I said. “And some are far larger than this. But you need not concern yourselves with that just now; I have something to show you.”
The governor’s menagerie was no miserable zoo, with animals kept in iron cages. Instead it was a series of beautiful gardens, with their bars, where necessary, concealed behind trees and flowering bushes. The most splendid of these gardens housed a pair of ci lêng, a species known in Scirling as the azure or eastern dragon; the latter name derives from their natural range, which lies in the eastern part of Yelang, and the former derives from their lovely blue scales.
Our Draconean companions reacted to these with astonished delight. Just as I had told them of the vast number of humans in the world, I had told them of other dragon breeds; and just as my words had failed to convey the true reality of humankind, so too had it fallen short of describing dragonki
nd. Despite my cautions, the sisters hurried through the gate and into the garden, where they sat utterly still until the ci lêng lost their wariness and came to investigate. There is no sight quite like a trio of previously mythical Draconeans sitting in a Yelangese garden with two azure dragons wending between them like curious cats; and in that moment, I felt as if all my suffering the previous winter had been more than worth it.
But of course we had a great deal to do, and not much time in which to do it. Nor, for that matter, did we have many resources to work with. The governor’s dragon-men were of course no help, as they were all loyal to the Taisên; and Tom and I knew perishingly little about the breeds of western Dajin, on account of having been thrown out of Yelang before we could study more than a few. But the dragon-men had kept books detailing their arrangements, which Thu translated for us, and from this we were able to learn the means by which they fed, cared for, and worked with their charges. Kahhe, who was the best of the sisters at training mews, shook her head over the latter parts. “Is that how humans do it? No wonder you can’t manage much.”
I grinned impudently at her, buoyed by my excitement. “Very well—let us see you do better.”
They set to it with a will, despite certain obstacles. True to Tom’s predictions regarding the mews, our friends from the Sanctuary were too well adapted to high elevations and cold temperatures; the warmth of eastern Yelang in Gelis was as punishing to them as the Akhian desert in Caloris was to me. Fortunately the governor, being a wealthy man, had storehouses of ice brought down from the mountains. The four Draconeans took refuge there during the hottest parts of the day, working with the azure dragons in the morning and evening.
But they pushed themselves to their limits, for Giat Jip-hau insisted on swift action, and with good cause. The Khiam Siu rebellion needed momentum; their victory in Tiongau could not be allowed to grow stale, or the Taisên to gather themselves to resist. The moment of truth was upon us before we knew it.
* * *
It came on a brilliantly sunny day. The last of the resistance within Tiongau had been defeated; in celebration, the Khiam Siu and the people of the city were staging a great festival. Despite the destruction wrought by fighting, the burned houses and the grieving survivors, a raucous procession wound its way to the plaza in front of the governor’s palace. There were drums and fireworks, dancers and priests, and an enormous puppet of a hong lêng, the dragon associated with the Yelangese emperor himself. This was carried by a whole crowd of puppeteers, and when I saw the puppet later, it reminded me a great deal of the legambwa bomu the Moulish had used to chasten me into shedding the burden of witchcraft, so many years before—albeit much larger and more brilliantly decorated.
I did not see the puppet until later because I was not standing with the soldiers on the steps of the palace, awaiting the emergence of Giat Jip-hau. I was with Tom, very gingerly leading a pair of leashed azure dragons through the corridors like enormous greyhounds, and hoping very sincerely that they would not decide to turn against us without warning. The ci lêng were relatively tame, as dragons went, but just as a cat or a horse may snap at its owner, so too may such creatures—with very injurious consequences.
The corridors, though grand, had not been sized for dragons. From behind us came a delicate crash. Tom and I both stopped, wincing. I cast a glance behind me, and saw that the tail of Tom’s dragon had brushed against a vase in an alcove, knocking it to the floor.
“Do I even want to know what that was?” Tom asked.
“As there is nothing we can do for it now,” I said, “perhaps it is best if we just continue on.”
We made it to the great entry hall without further incident, and stood to one side, where we could not be glimpsed through the towering double doors. We had not been there long when I heard the footsteps of a great many people approaching, and then someone saying something in Yelangese. I turned just in time to see a Khiam Siu captain wipe the floor with a silk drapery, clearing away a souvenir left behind by one of the dragons before his emperor could step in it.
“Oh dear,” I said involuntarily. “I, ah—my apologies.”
If the incident troubled Giat Jip-hau, he did not show it. Perhaps his mind was so occupied by the impending ceremony that it simply could not accommodate any new sources of agitation; certainly mine would have been. He merely said, “Will it work?”
“I believe so,” I said. Then, because that was clearly insufficient: “Yes.” I prayed it was true.
He answered with a brief nod, and his entourage swept past us to the doors.
The roar from outside was tremendous when Giat Jip-hau appeared. I peered around a pillar long enough to see him raise his hands for silence, and obtain the closest approximation to it one can hope for from such a large crowd. But even had I been able to understand more than a dozen words of any Yelangese tongue, I would not have been able to listen to his oration; my leashed dragon was very determined to chew upon the gilded carvings of another pillar, and it was all I could do to keep her from swallowing a mouthful of wood and gold.
In a way, I was grateful for her mischief. It kept me from dwelling overmuch on what came next.
Thu seemed to appear out of nowhere, almost vibrating with excitement. “It is time.”
Tom and I emerged from the great entry hall into dazzling sunlight and the renewed roar of the crowd. It seemed all of Tiongau was arrayed in the plaza below us, and every last one of them was shouting at the sight of the two ci lêng—for I have no illusions that a pair of Scirling strangers occasioned any notice, when there were azure dragons to see. The common people of Tiongau would never have seen the beasts except in paintings, and their presence next to the self-proclaimed emperor of Yelang was as wondrous to them as the sight of a Draconean had been to me.
But we had only begun to astonish them.
Three shadows passed overhead, and the crowd fell to dead silence.
Ruzt, Kahhe, and Zam had leapt from the roof above. Wings spread to their fullest extent, the sisters glided over the assembled dignitaries and down the palace stairs to a point equidistant between the emperor and the crowd. They stood there long enough for people to see them clearly, and to know that these were no humans dressed in masks and silk wings; they were draconic humanoids, creatures out of legend. Then they turned, wings and ruffs spread a little in display, and ascended the stairs once more to where Giat Jip-hau waited.
In this manner did the Draconeans make their public entrance to the world of humans.
All our pains to keep them secret came to fruition in that instant, and it was worth every ounce of effort. What might have been a moment of terror transmuted to wonder instead, as the Draconeans raised their hands to the sun and spoke a blessing in the local tongue that invoked an admixture of beliefs: a ceremony of Atlim’s design, one part Draconean, one part Yelangese, and one part pure invention. Giat Jip-hau stepped forward, and Thu laid a golden robe over his shoulders; and in a powerful voice that carried to the far side of the plaza, he proclaimed himself the first Khiam emperor.
And the azure dragons danced.
Tom and I had unclipped their leashes while the sisters spoke their blessing. Following Kahhe’s whistled signals, the two ci lêng flowed forward, executing a circle around Giat Jip-hau, down the steps a short distance, and back up again to where Tom and I waited.
For the dragons to be present at his proclamation would have been a boost to the new emperor’s legitimacy—but they were only ci lêng, the dragons permitted to high officials, not the hong lêng that symbolized the emperor himself. But for the Draconeans to appear, as if conjured from nowhere, and for the ci lêng to dance at their command … could there be any clearer proof of his blessed state?
The Khiam Revolution did not achieve victory that day, of course. Although a great many people rose to their banner after Tiongau, quite a few did not; and the Taisên fought tooth and nail to retain their power, including many pitched battles that I was glad to sit out. By the time I l
eft Yelang, almost a year later, the success of the Khiam Dynasty was a foregone conclusion, but the fighting still continued; by then we had repeated the grand display half a dozen times, to prove that the events in Tiongau were not simply a tall tale. Not all breeds were amenable to even that minor degree of training, but it did not matter: the story spread, and influenced public opinion wherever it went. Whatever the Taisên thought, the war was won on the day that a hong lêng circled Giat Jip-hau in front of the captured Imperial Palace.
The challenges for my Draconean friends were tremendous. They remained miserable in the heat, especially when we visited lowland regions; and Zam even expressed grudging sympathy to me at one point, saying, “Now I think I understand how you felt when we were chasing the yaks.” Taisên agents made eight separate attempts to assassinate them, none successful. Thu told me it was a sign of desperation, that they would risk being blamed for such an act; but this of course is small comfort when one cannot sleep with both eyes closed. (They also tried to assassinate me, I think out of spite. I was far less of a threat to them than either the Draconeans or the new emperor.) It was a relief when I could finally install myself in a room in the Imperial Palace, safe behind a cordon of both Scirling and Khiam Siu guards.
By then my thoughts and Tom’s were increasingly bending toward Scirland, despite the grand events occuring around us. “Will you come with us back to the Sanctuary?” Ruzt asked one day. Their exile had ended; the elders, well pleased with what they had done, were permitting them to go home.
A part of me wanted to say yes. We had been through so much together; it was strange to imagine being parted from my Draconean friends. But not only was the Sanctuary not my home, I had little desire to return there—at least, not so soon. I wanted the company of my own countrymen, the ease of speaking my native tongue, the comforts of my home in Falchester. I could not have any of these yet; but I could have my husband.