Drakemaster, p.39
Drakemaster, page 39
The novices bowed him through the gate into a narrow valley with a groove running down one side. Fantastical creatures grew from the rocks, reminding him of the thousand Buddhas he had seen, then he spotted the horses, with Yusen checking their saddles and tugging the knots of makeshift rope bridles. The sight of his master chilled him, but he would have to accept him as part of the group. Without those horses, the quest would be over.
“I am glad to see you on your feet.” The dancer’s smile played about her lips, as she had smiled that day in the drakemaster’s workshop, claiming she wanted to find if he were just as hairy down below.
Dailus smoothed a hand over his cheek. “Thank you for bringing me here, and for shaving that terrible beard.”
She laughed behind her hand. “This is better. Have they given you medicines?”
“Some, enough, I hope.” He patted the satchel. “Green tea, ginger, some kind of flowers, Thunder God paste.”
“Thunder God?” Her brows furrowed.
“I know, it’s poisonous—I shouldn’t taste it.”
“Yes, but also—” she broke off, lowering her gaze.
“What else? He didn’t say anything.”
She took a step away, tipping her head. “It can make a man have no babies.”
Dailus’s cheeks warmed, and he suddenly missed the beard. He swallowed. “I already have two—I’m not likely to have any more without my wife around.”
“You would not be the first foreigner to take a Chinese wife.”
His throat felt thick. “I can’t do that—it is against God.”
Ming Lun turned away, the coils of her hair gleaming in the sun and moved swiftly toward the horses. “Come. The lady says we have little time.”
He watched her walk before him, her every movement grace and power. Would he even see his wife or children again? If God had forsaken him, what was the point of obedience? Except the radiance of Heaven, the comfort of that place beyond pain, would be denied him forever. When Dailus closed his eyes to pray, he pictured the bright and pale angels of his youth, backed by their radiant wings, but standing in groves of celestial willows, overseeing fountains that ran beneath arched bridges, past chapels with pillars of red, where the monks wore red as well and wished him compassion rather than penance. Heaven had left the clouds and come to this green valley to be watered by mountain streams and honored by a woman’s dance.
“I will ride first, as scout,” Yusen told one of the two monks who stood by his precious horses. “You next.” He pointed at the Jewish one. “Then my wife. I know you will have need of her cane.” The little man noticed Dailus’s approach, but said nothing.
Bao Xing tapped the knee of the third horse, and it bowed for her to mount. She had been given one of the two saddles, while two of the horses wore the sort of frame used for packing supplies. Yusen’s wife. That was a story Dailus still could not quite believe.
“I’ll walk,” said the young monk. “Someone has to.” Andao, that was his name.
“I am used to walking,” the older one replied: Zhencai, a sturdy man at least a dozen years older than Dailus.
“I can’t allow my elder to walk. And my master.”
“They argue,” Ming Lun whispered. “All the time.” She pointed toward the brown pony behind Bao Xing’s. “I think this one is yours.”
Dailus eyed the animal. “They’re all his.”
“For now, we must trust him. He did bring me to you, and to this place.”
“Why?”
She gave a shrug. “Because he is dishonored before his khan and his people. Even more so than before. His worth lies in you.”
That tightened Dailus’s shoulders and he gripped the satchel to his side with one arm. Heat flooded his hand as she stroked his fist with her fingers. “Ours are the last two horses,” she whispered. “When there is a good moment, I can lead us away from here—from him.”
“Bao Xing says that we need the cane and that young man to find our way to the weapon.”
With a sharper breath, Ming Lun replied, “Bao Xing is under the sway of the Mongol. What if they’re here on behalf of the khan?”
What she said made sense: why else would someone like Bao Xing be married to an unpopular dwarf—and apparently reconciled to the marriage? “And the monks?”
“That young one’s no monk. He is not even Han.”
“I knew it!”
Bao Xing glanced back at his sudden excitement, and Dailus lowered his voice. “He’s Jewish, isn’t he?”
“I don’t know this word, but I have heard him say it. What does it mean?”
Both the question and the horse made him feel off-balance as he mounted. In the Church, Jews were held responsible for the crucifixion, but he would have to explain the entirety of his faith in order for her to understand, and even then, the stories would be received as Ghost Shaman tales. Instead, Dailus focused on the practical. “The Jews make money off of other people’s work. They are merchants and bankers, moneylenders. I didn’t know they had spread to Cathay.”
She dipped her head in a slight nod. “He speaks more of study than of selling.”
“That, too. They write all kinds of unholy books and spread them around. Their women even know how to read.”
Easily swinging up on to her mount, Ming Lun glanced at him sidelong. “Even their women.”
“They are a strange people.” Dailus could read only a few words pertaining to contracts for materials or hired work. The churchmen loved their words almost as much as the Jews.
“Hup!” Yusen nudged his horse and started them out of the valley, the bone dragons watching them go with empty eyes. Dailus crossed himself, dodging those black glares. Immediately, Yusen turned up a narrow path likely made by goats. Dailus gripped his reins and saddle both. The horse jogged his joints so that they seemed to rattle inside.
“Why up?” he asked through clattering teeth.
Yusen turned in his saddle, gesturing at the mountains. “Scouting. To find the right peak.” The little man looked perfectly at ease sideways, in spite of the ever-steeper slope. The horses kicked aside small stones that plunged downward, and Dailus forced his eyes away from the edge. Zhencai marched steadily along, keeping a little apart from the horses while his apprentice flopped on his mount. The young man looked back and offered a lopsided grin, pointing from himself to Dailus as if they shared something. Between them, Bao Xing leaned a little forward, utterly focused on the act of riding. She kept her seat well, not with the ease of her husband’s long practice, but far superior to Andao’s novice floundering. Really, it was a wonder none of them fell.
At his back, Ming Lun rode gracefully astride, her dancer’s thighs providing all of the strength and balance she required. That thought brought an ache to Dailus’s loins and he turned away. Maybe the Thunder God Vine would reduce that ache to a wistful memory and let him keep his heart and mind on God, and on his wife.
The landscape fell away as they topped a ridge. In every direction, mountains carved dark shapes onto the horizon, growing very tall and misty at his back, a few crowned with snow. Ahead and to the right, valleys merged into the hazy distance. To either side, pine forests fringed the slopes and other spiky trees leaned into the air, daring a fall of a thousand feet or more. Crows soared overhead at first, then below, dark, familiar forms never meant to be seen from such an angle. As they came around a great stone, a herd of white goats scattered uphill, even the tiniest lambs bounding up a near-vertical slope. Dailus clung to his reins as if he could force the animal to be just as steady.
When the riders emerged onto level stone, Dailus’s horse skittered past the others, and Yusen called out to him, “Turn her head! Tightly, tightly—like a circle! Drop one rein so she turns.”
Nausea stung Dailus’s throat as he dropped the rein on one side and pulled. The horse snorted, ears flattening, but he hauled it around in a circle and it slowed its pace, tossing its head in protest until it stood, ill-tempered, a horse-length from the edge. His heart thundered, the joints throbbing from his fingers all the way to his spine.
Yusen grinned and nodded. “Just so.”
Dailus reined in the urge to charge the dwarf straight over the ledge. “I am not yours to command, not anymore.”
The grin vanished. For a long moment, Yusen stared back, then he turned away.
“Are you well?” Bao Xing spoke loudly rather than move her horse any closer.
“Fine. Hungry.” Dailus found the dropped rein and eased his grip.
“Yes, yes. We need food soon.” Her lips pinched and she looked around as if expecting to see a marketplace or a convenient shrine to steal from.
Turning his mount with no apparent exertion, Yusen galloped across the ledge and up the ridge, drawing his bow and leaning forward. At the sight of the bow, Dailus’s hand clamped to his leg, to the scar from just such an arrow, but the dwarf wasn’t even looking toward him. Instead, he shot ahead of them just as he disappeared over the top.
“What—”Andao began, then the sound of hoofbeats returned, and Yusen appeared at the top of the slope, leaning far back and allowing the horse to choose its own path down. On the saddle ahead of him draped a small white goat, blood spilling around the shaft of an arrow at its side, head and legs dangling.
Trotting easily back, Yusen switched to Chinese to ask, “Where now?”
Andao stared around them, shoulders drooping. “I have no idea.”
Dailus, too, looked around at the endless ridges, slopes and valleys. For a time, Dailus allowed himself to hope the quest could be fulfilled, his guilt eased by preventing another slaughter. Now he could see it was hopeless. Master Deng knew where to go. If he found the machine in good repair, he could choose his time and target, while they wandered the mountains forever and never recognized the way.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Yusen did as he always had when he did not know the path: he worked on what he knew. When the mind worried, the body must be fed.
Hobbling Tsang near a grassy verge, Yusen hauled the dead goat to an overhanging rock to prepare it for cooking as the dancer watched. Either she was hungry, or she was thinking of something else entirely. Either way, he would not trust her. He slashed the goat’s throat and pushed its head toward the edge to let the blood drain out. In a less promising environment, the blood, too, should be their dinner; today, he made it an offering for the land and sky in this place where they came together. While the blood trickled down, Yusen took account of his group. Who among them could do any work? The dancer, certainly. The slave once had the bodily strength of two men, but now he trembled like a baby. The old monk, even after a long day’s walk, performed a series of ritual stretches and movements.
“Zhencai, we need a fire.” Yusen flicked his gaze over their surroundings. “Down there, among the tall stones.” Which would block the wind and disguise the fire’s light.
The elder monk regarded him blankly, then started gathering materials. His apprentice slithered down and staggered from Uul’s back while the horse gave a disdainful snort. Bao Xing, meanwhile, tapped Khukhree’s leg, then dismounted carefully. He would make a rider of her yet. Yusen gathered the horses, holding the reins and tapping Zun’s leg so that the slave could dismount. The giant still stumbled away from the horse’s back until the dancer, springing down from Ech, caught his elbow. When they found the dancer waiting in Mouth of the Mountains, Yusen doubted her claims of attachment to the slave. Now, seeing her tender glances and supportive grip, Yusen only yearned for someone to look at him that way.
He stomped over to catch the reins of the other horses and brought them to Tsang. She would look out for them.
Stripping off his del, Yusen focused on his work, ignoring the stares of the others at his bare, thin chest. The latest scar throbbed at his left shoulder, but he ignored that, too. He gutted the goat, leaving the slash open to stuff in hot stones for roasting. Slinging the dead animal over his shoulder he brought it down to where Zhencai laid the fire as efficiently as Yusen himself might have done it. He had chosen his assistant well. Andao fidgeted with his sleeves, broke twigs off the few branches they had found, and shuffled against the stone, walking in little patterns.
“Heat some stones and fill the goat’s cavity,” Yusen ordered, already turning away
The monk’s soft voice stopped him. “I have not cooked meat.”
Yusen pivoted on his heel. “How can you be so strong if you don’t eat meat?” He forgot his bloody arms and bare chest until Andao’s eyes flared wide.
“I am a monk.” The corners of the old man’s eyes softened. “It is not the world that sustains me.”
Yusen snorted, chuckling as Andao emulated his master’s posture, even managing to tear his gaze from Yusen’s childish body. “And you? Do you cook?”
“It is the Sabbath. I should not even be riding.” Andao’s hand strayed toward his bare scalp.
“What has this Sabbath to do with riding?” Yusen marched back to the fire, rearranging the stones to heat the ones most suitable. His hands left bloody marks.
“This day is holy. It is a day of rest.”
Yusen shook his head. “Look around you. There is hunger and pain, there is climbing the mountains, there is searching, planning, hunting, scouting—there is no rest.” He spread his arms. “This is why all the land is holy, and high places most of all, where the land reaches up to touch the sky.”
Andao’s restless body froze, long nose pointing toward the north like a coursing hound.
“When these stones are hot,” Yusen directed, “pile them in the goat. When the hair falls off, is cooked.”
Zhencai grimaced, but gave another nod.
Moving beyond the fire, down the slope opposite where they had ridden up, Yusen cocked his head and listened. He heard nothing, but the air smelled faintly of moisture, so he proceeded down the trail until he found the pool the breeze promised, a greenish cleft of water trapped by a stone after the last rains. Scraping off as much blood as he could, Yusen filled a waterskin and used it to wash his arms and chest.
A muffled slide of movement hissed behind him. Yusen spun about, crouching, hand to his knife.
The dancer stood on the path, her garments swaying in arrested motion. She smiled, beguiling and unconvincing. “Forgive me. I thought you might have found water.” She spoke Mongolian too well.
Yusen held the blade sideways before him, not a threat, but a presence. “Yes, but not for drinking. How is the drakemaster?”
“Weak. It is too soon for him to travel.”
“He’ll recover. He has before.”
The ornaments in the woman’s hair shivered a little with a faint musical sound. “I suppose you would know; you have known him longer than I.”
“He will stay alive until he can go home.” He replaced his knife.
“Does he still have a home, after your people visited?” She softened her words with a twist of a smile.
“What Batu Khan has done with my information, I can’t say. They had no defenses, weak archers, and more temples than fortresses. Some horses, but not good ones. Batu Khan might have swept the whole of that country to the sea like a woman sweeping crumbs.”
The drakemaster appeared on the pathway behind her, gaunt, his green eyes flaming as if with fever. Yusen’s chest constricted, his breathing suddenly sharp in his throat. Yusen shrugged, hooking his thumbs into the waist of his trousers not far from his knives. “I have had no home for most of my life, and it does me no harm.”
“I have never had one,” she replied, “not if you mean any home smaller than my country.” She shifted, allowing the drakemaster to descend and join her. His hand clamped the satchel he carried over his shoulder, his slave bracelet standing out alongside the scroll. He towered over her as well, but she stood firmly, shoulders square, chin raised, more like a Mongol than a Chin. Yusen’s damp skin prickled with gooseflesh. Two against one, with the pool and the cliffs as their allies. In two strides, he could be dead.
“Is there water for washing?” the slave asked in Chinese.
“Yes, but not for drinking,” the woman said. “It might be boiled to make tea—if the Mongol has not fouled it with blood. Or does the blood stand in when you cannot get milk for your tea?”
“Oh, no, the tea stands in for blood.” Yusen grinned back at her, pushing toward the trail and the fire and his horses beyond. The slave slipped aside, knees bending and head sinking in a bow, then his body clenched and he straightened again as Yusen passed by. Yusen bounded uphill, testing his dexterity in a series of jumps like the goat he had shot down earlier. Already above them, he dodged side to side as if playing goat, or dodging arrows, or knives. The woman despised Yusen, and her attitude or her presence encouraged the slave’s independence. The two of them together made a dangerous pair, at least for him.
Yusen had no allies save his wife, and even she must be suspected because her loyalties remained Chin. Did he and Bao Xing need the slave’s knowledge, if they could get the plan? Bao Xing could understand all of these things. But they did not know the mountains.
When Yusen reached the shadowed stones, the old monk had already filled the goat with hot stones and now sat poised upon a boulder, watching. His apprentice stood as if still frozen, but Yusen realized after a moment, that he was moving almost imperceptibly, his toes digging in and shifting him slightly against the stone, his face a mask of concentration. Tempted to shout and see him startle, Yusen refrained.
Silhouetted against the broad, clear sky as if emerging from it, Bao Xing descended the slope in stately grace. Her silks hung limp, and her hair had lost its shine, but her face still glowed and the drape of cloth revealed hints of her body, the sash snug at her waist, the folds of silk at her neck where he glimpsed the string that held his first gift.
