Dragons!

by Various

  "This," I said, my smile broad with delight, "is a dragon?"

  "Do not deceive yourself, Little Brother, Lan Lung is dragon enough for any man."

  Gesturing for me to move farther aside, he offered the swallows before him and backed slowly away. Within the shadow of the pack tiny eyes flashed incandescently orange, bobbed up and down and were extinguished by daylight as it crept from cover.

  It was not as tiny as I had at first thought, though still small and precious. A large handful then, perhaps a foot long head to tail. It had a vaguely bovine head with a long, broad-nostrilled snout. Scalloped plates of scale—white rimmed in blue, green and orange—lay flat against the head, three rows deep behind the eyes and below the jaw. Its muzzle bristled with catlike lavender whiskers, and upon its crown were short, blunt, double branching horns.

  Eyeing the birds greedily, the little lizard arched his sinuous, serpentine body and rose upon his haunches stroking the air with four clawed paws. The sleek body was covered with lacelike scales, white edged in pale blue, and the curved claws were deep cobalt. There were flat plates of scale similar to those about his head at each shoulder and hip. It had no wings nor was the spine serrated, but there played about the body a vague bright aura.

  As the little dragon's muscles bunched and he sank down upon his haunches, tail braced, he opened his mouth, but instead of a hiss there was a sound like the chiming of small brass bells. Hsu Yuen Pao swung the birds in a gentle arc, tossing them several feet into the grove. The dragon sprang, covering incredible distance in a single leap, as though gravity had no meaning for him. And as he moved he seemed to grow. He was cat-sized when he landed upon the swallows and began to devour them quickly.

  With the dragon thus occupied, Yuen Pao, moving carefully, collected our few belongings and steered me with deliberate lack of hurry from the grove.

  We shortly came upon a road and followed it for a couple of hours in silence before stopping to prepare the bamboo shoots still in my pockets. Yuen Pao was deeply contemplative, but for the first time in my admittedly limited

  experience he also seemed burdened by a weight of uncertainty. As we ate he told me a story.

  Lung is the greatest of all creatures living in the world besides man himself. But as there are lazy men, so too are there lazy dragons. They do not like to exert themselves in the task of directing rain clouds about the sky. So they make themselves small and drop to earth where they hide in trees, under the roofs of houses and even in the clothing of unsuspecting men. Lung Wang, the dragon king, learning of their desertion from duty, sends messengers into the world to search for them. Lung may also make himself invisible, as is usually the case when man is present. These messengers are seldom seen, but when Lan Lung is found then Lung Wang, in fury, raises a great storm, killing the deserter with lightning bolts. This explains what might often seem a wanton destruction of life and property during such storms.

  The convenient logic with which these stories usually ended invariably amused me, and I made the mistake of smiling. Hsu Yuen Pao became indignant and proceeded to tell me more about dragons in the next hour than I truthfully cared to know.

  "It's a great puzzle," he said as we finally walked the road again. "It is rare that Lung allows himself to be seen by the eyes of mortal man. Such sightings are auspicious occasions and would normally be related directly to the emperor. But this is Lan Lung. It is not clear to me what this could mean."

  I squinted up at the bright, cloudless sky. What did any thing mean in this place? My whole existence was a mystery. Alice down the rabbit hole. But as for the dragon, I had to admit the little fellow was fascinating. He had displayed an interesting degree of mutability, and he did look strikingly like the creatures I had seen in Chinese artworks. Hardly the beast of legend—but a little dragon and a lot of imagination, persistently applied, can leave behind legends larger than life. Hsu Yuen Pao believed this was a dragon capable of all he claimed for it.

  When I looked back Yuen Pao was also contemplating the sky.

  "Yes," he said, "this must be so, though I am still unsure what it means."

  I pleaded ignorance.

  "Lung is territorial," he said in an uncharacteristically straightforward manner, still looking into the sky. "Each is responsible for the rainfall upon his own lands." The rest was obvious enough. This time I managed not to smile.

  The next two days on the road provided clear enough evidence that the tales we had heard in the hills were true. The drought extended severely as we entered the central plain and it promised to worsen. It was said that the rice crop was already unsalvageable, it being too late to plant again even if rain came soon, and despair was growing over the other, less fragile sorts of produce. And everywhere the people shook their heads and wondered what they had done to offend such a powerful dragon, for the area of the drought was wide.

  In the villages we passed Hsu Yuen Pao bartered geomancy and spells and prayers for roots and dried preserves and goat bladder water bags (which were lighter to carry when full), and we amended our course to follow the streams and rivers more closely. He had seen Lan Lung and did not expect rain soon.

  On the evening of the fourth day we camped on the bank of a muddy stream. Yuen Pao dug for roots. He would forage as long as possible to save our stores of dried goods for harder times. Those he found were pulpy and shriveled, but we boiled them in the water I had spent over an hour straining again and again. It made a bitter, unpleasant broth. The tubers were nearly tasteless but edible, and we supplemented the meal with a small handful of dried plums.

  The fire was to have been extinguished as soon as the meal was prepared. Everything around us was dry as tinder, and a fire of any size was perilous in the open. Yet when I moved to put it out, Yuen Pao stopped me with a silent gesture. As I peered intently into the dark, it was several seconds before I saw what he saw. At first I thought it was a shadow by my pack, but when it moved, two iridescent

  orange eyes flashed in the firelight, and it had my complete attention.

  Yuen Pao took up his small copper bowl and his chopsticks and began to eat with the same deliberate, unhurried movements with which he had steered me from the bamboo grove. I did the same, dividing my attention between Yuen Pao and the flickering eyes. Eventually the creature moved into the light, and I saw that this "dragon" too was white and roughly the same size as the other. This, Yuen Pao insisted, was because it was the same dragon.

  We finished our meal and sat watching the little lizard prowl about our belongings while Yuen Pao recited poetry (ostensibly to keep the two of us tranquil, since the dragon could not hear them) till the fire went out on its own. He told me to lie down and sleep, which I eventually managed to do, but for a long time I could see his silhouette against the stars as he sat in contemplation of his dragon.

  In the morning the little creature was gone, but Yuen Pao continued to conduct himself with the same care as the night before. It was his belief that Lung had been with us all along. He had simply been invisible as he may well have been at that very moment.

  I tried to take the matter seriously. For him this was an important event, and he had been allowed to participate, if only he could understand in what way. Personally, I envisioned the little fellow either sleeping quietly beneath a rock or curled up among our foodstuffs out of the heat of the sun. The notion that he might be happy feasting on dried mushrooms and plums which we would later need bothered me a great deal, but Yuen Pao would not let me sort the contents of my pack before we set out.

  In the evening as I laid our small fire the dragon appeared again. I could not tell from where. He was simply there, sitting on my pack on the ground in the smothering, breezeless heat. Again he was white. I, too, was beginning to believe it was the same dragon.

  The next morning he was nowhere to be seen. This time, however, I sorted my pack. All our belongings were in order, and no food had been disturbed. Perhaps he ate bugs,

  or a pair of swallows would last him a week.
I did not bring the subject up with Yuen Pao.

  Again the night and morning were the same. We were getting used to him. Yuen Pao was no longer quite so careful in his movements, and he had decided that the key to the riddle was to wait for the ending. This day, however at our noon meal (little more than mushrooms and lotus root soaked in stale water) our companion showed himself. I caught Yuen Pao staring at me and, looking down, found Lan Lung curled up in the shadow of my left knee. When we finally stood to go, the little dragon scampered to my pack and vanished beneath the flap.

  From that time on I seemed to take on a different dimension in Yuen Pao's eyes. But since I was never quite sure how he regarded my ghosthood, the new status was equally unclear.

  In the following weeks the dragon established himself as a permanent member of our party and my own special companion. It was impossible to say what attracted him to me. Perhaps my smell. Perhaps it was my ghosthood. He and I were both fantasies, Lung and gwai; dragons and ghosts; stories to frighten children into obedience. It seemed appropriate that the myths of our existence should keep each other company.

  He developed a habit of riding upon whatever part of my body shaded him from the sun, taking to my pack less and less frequently. Sometimes he would ride in one of the pockets of my loose, sleeveless coat or slither down my chest beneath my shirt and curl up next to my belly, a small bulge above my belt. He was smooth and dry to the touch, and the strange aura rippling over his body (Yuen Pao called it dragon fire) was almost like a cool breeze against my skin. When he climbed a leg or arm or scampered across my shoulders, his tiny claws prickled and his whiskers tickled. He seemed to absorb the moisture of my sweat, leaving a trail of dry skin in his wake. He was virtually weightless.

  From time to time he would vanish but rarely for more than a day or two. Hsu Yuen Pao said he was simply invisible, but I believed he was hunting since he left our

  dwindling supply of food strictly alone. Our water was the only thing we shared with him. In proportion to his size, in face, he received a greater share than we did, and even that little was nearly enough to undo us.

  The hardships of the summer were incredible. The people were ravaged as badly as the land and during the passage of the weeks became increasingly hostile to transients, guarding their stores of food and water jealously. Gaunt water buffalo stood about in the shade of tinder dry houses, and the mortality rate among the very old and the very young grew steadily. It became impossible to barter anything we possessed for the things we needed, especially water. And to find a village with a good, deep, spring-fed well was a great fortune. Obtaining fresh water, however, even from these places, became an exercise in stealth.

  For the most part I was unaware of the methods of pilferage employed. I was the decoy on most occasions, playing my ghostly role to the fullest. Sometimes I was convinced he actually did procure our ill-gotten gains by magic. He was able to come and go in the blink of an eye, sometimes seeming literally to vanish, and his skill at sleight of hand was astounding. In another place and time he would have been a masterful pickpocket.

  At such rare times as we passed other travelers or stopped at a town or village, Lan Lung would disappear from sight. A bit addled by the heat, perhaps, I actually began to think of his as invisible myself.

  We made progress slowly. The heat became a weighty burden, requiring us to stop often for rest. The rivers were reduced to muddy sludge, and many streams had vanished entirely. For a time we took to traveling by night. Not that it was noticeably cooler, but it spared us the direct assault of the sun.

  I lost count of the weeks; could not make out even the slightest progress toward our goal. The mountains of the southern coast looked as far away as ever. Yet there came a time when Yuen Pao changed our course away from the last river, and we struck out directly for the hazy blue and gray peaks shimmering and dancing on the horizon. We crossed

  few roads on the last leg of our trek and passed no more villages. Our rate of travel by then could have been little more than ten miles per day, and Yuen Pao guessed we had another five or six days to go. We had been on diminishing rations for a long time, and foraging had long ago become useless. Two days out from the river there was so little food left that any attempt to ration it further was a useless illusion, and we finished it off without further pretense. The water was in no better shape, but that illusion we maintained as long as we could.

  Lan Lung had settled into my right pocket and for over a week had barely stirred. When Yuen Pao and I shared our small bowl of water, a bit was always left for the little dragon who would crawl into the bowl and curl up into a ball rolling over and over in an attempt to bathe himself as best he could. On the evening our food ran out I found it was necessary to help him. I carefully lifted him from my pocket with both hands, placing him in the bowl. He moved a bit, tucking his tail feebly but did not roll over. When Hsu Yuen Pao was not looking, I wet my palm from the last goat bladder bag and stroked his dry body. He felt brittle to my touch, and it seemed days since I had seen his aura about him.

  Looking up from the bowl, I found Yuen Pao watching me and realized he had seen what I had done. He did not disapprove. Days before, when I had mentioned that Lan Lung seemed to be suffering from thirst even more than we, he had explained that it was not thirst. It is the presence of moisture which preserves his powers of motion and mutability. Without this, Lung becomes powerless and dies.

  The following evening there was not enough water to preserve that illusion either.

  The next two days became an exercise in placing one foot before the other. We moved when we could move and stopped when we could do nothing else. I believed I had begun to hallucinate when we at last reached the foothills where we at least found shade and the vaguest hint of motion in the air. The leaves on the trees were not shriveled here, and farther up the slopes the grass was almost green.

  We rested there, digging up a half decent root or two and locating a few edible berries. In my pocket Lan Lung was very still.

  The next morning we made our way slowly into the foothills The heat was still oppressive and the going even slower since we now had to climb and frequently had to help each other, but the world seemed fresher around us, and things were making a reasonably successful attempt to grow. There was hope of water here, if only we could find it. Yuen Pao crushed leaves and grasses and put the broken vegetation into my pocket with the little dragon in the vain hope that there might be enough moisture to preserve him.

  I wondered what would preserve us, but Yuen Pao felt if there was any great import to this dragon it was our duty to do all that was possible. I think it kept him going far longer than even the need to save his own life. As for me, I could only reflect that dying the first time had been far easier than the second seemed destined to be.

  On the afternoon of the third day, amid green grass and cool shady trees, we came upon a swiftly flowing stream, very deep and clear. Snow-fed, I realized, raising my cupped hands, aching from the frigid water. The longprayed-for moisture was more pain than comfort in my mouth and throat and transformed my stomach into a clutch of knots.

  Yuen Pao filled our two copper cooking bowls from the stream and set them on a warm rock in the sun. Then he set about filling our water bags before drinking himself. As he did these things and I tried to contain my eagerness for the water, I felt a feeble stirring in my pocket. I reached in and carefully removed Lan Lung with both hands, but Yuen Pao would not let me place him in one of the bowls. The water was still too cold for his enfeebled condition. So I put the limp little lizard back into my pocket and removed the garment, hanging it on a tree branch in the shade. When the water was warmed, Yuen Pao dribbled some of it into the pocket, and he and I shared the rest, refilling the bowl before starting the next. By the time we had drunk two bowls each and given as many to my pocket, the activity

  within had increased and it began to swell even as the water soaked through and ran off.

  "It is enough," Yuen Pao said. "The
belly is better filled with food."

  "If we had any," I agreed.

  "Look in the stream," he said.

  There were fish in the deep swiftness of the current. Brown and white and golden orange carp, large and sleek, flashed by too rapidly for my weary eyes to follow. There was an abundance of food within reach but how to obtain it? I had neither the strength for speed nor the courage against the bone-biting cold to consider seriously trying to catch fish by hand.

  Pointing out a far tree, Yuen Pao sent me to hang my dripping garment there, dragon and all, which I did while he took our water bags from the stream. As I watched, he raised both hands, gripping the crystal hilt above his right shoulder. Murmuring in low tones, eyes closed, he uttered an incantation I could not properly hear and slowly moved his hands up and forward. What he drew forth was not a sword. I was surprised to realized that in the time I had known him I had never actually seen this object before.

  Amazingly flexible, too long to be withdrawn straight, the shaft whispered from its sheath and sprang free, whipping back and forth in supple, diminishing strokes. A yard long, it was less thick at the hilt than the stem of a flower, tapering away to nothing. It shone in the sun, lustrous and brilliantly purple. Yuen Pao's face was set and serious as he gazed up and down the length of the shaft, his voice hushed and reverent as he said, "Dragon whisker."

  I thought of Lan Lung, his tiny whiskers tickling my neck or hand, and was dumbfounded.

  Yuen Pao stepped to the bank, the crystal hilt in his right hand and murmured a few more barely audible words. Slipping the dragon whisker into deep water, he and t knelt upon the brink and watched.

  "Come, brother Yu," he said. "Come seek your master, Lung Wang."

  The fish and eels came from all directions, massing about

  the purple wand till it was no longer visible among the bodies. Even from downstream they came, fighting the current to reach the dragon, master of all scaled things upon the earth. They crushed together from bank to bank till there was barely room to move, and those closest to the surface could be picked up by hand, barely wetting the fingers.