The Dragons of Heaven

by Alyc Helms

  I was alone, but there were signs that someone else had recently been in the room. A basin of water, fresh lotus petals floating on the surface, sat in a stand near the bed. The water was still warm enough to be steaming. The steam mixed with a ribbon of smoke rising from an incense burner on the stand. I took a cautious breath, then a deeper one. Sandalwood. The scent settled my initial panic. If Lung Huang was giving me warm water and incense, then she probably didn’t have immediate plans to eat me.

  Probably. My experience with the yaoguai was fresh enough to give me pause.

  Not wanting to be caught lying down if the dragon did want to eat me, I slipped out of bed. My forearm, where the demon’s acidic blood had burned me, was wrapped in gauze, and somebody had stripped me and put me in a light shift of undyed silk. Minimal embroidery decorated the neck and hem. I took a closer look. Or… not so minimal. A chain of red and gold carp leapt out of green waters, their tiny bodies and the spray of their antics picked out in minute detail.

  Unlike the sandalwood, the intricacy unnerved me. Wandering girls who woke to fairy tale environments rarely fared well, and in Chinese folklore, mortals who dallied with spirits usually ended up worse off than they’d started.

  Why had I come here, again?

  My hand strayed to my throat. She’d left me my pearls. I didn’t know what to make of the gesture. They felt tight around my neck. Strangling.

  I bit down on a growl. Enough dithering. No point working myself into a tizzy until I ran into something worth tizzying over.

  A large wardrobe with carved jade facing stood next to the washstand. I pulled the doors open and found a blinding array of brocade silk. It was too much. I pawed through the silks until I reached the back of the wardrobe. It was deep enough that I half expected to run across fir trees and a lamppost. Instead I found another layer of simpler robes hanging on hooks. Well, simpler by comparison. I pulled out a robe of pale green silk embroidered with pink blossoms. It only came to my knees, but there were dove-grey trousers to go underneath. I liked the color combination. It made me feel cool. Composed. Calm. The opposite of how I really felt.

  I dug out a pair of white socks and black cloth shoes, then dressed and bound my hair back in a thick French braid. I’d impale myself if I tried to work with the array of hairsticks in the box on the washstand.

  I stepped out of the room and onto a walkway, grabbing for the carved railing as vertigo threatened to send me stumbling. Lung Huang’s home-in-exile sat atop the Minshan range. The buildings nestled at different levels climbing up to the peak, connected by wooden stairs and walkways. The roof points curved up toward heaven, painted in reds and greens and gilded along the edges. Crimson banners with tassels of green and gold fluttered in a light breeze. Lung Huang’s home reminded me of a cheerful holly bush rooted deep in crags where less tenacious plants wouldn’t grow.

  I took several breaths and released my white-knuckled grip on the railing.

  The stairway nearest me led down to a series of terraced gardens. Small wooden benches, stone carvings, and reflecting pools were interspersed among the cultivated topiary. I spied a flash of steam and viridian at one edge where the gardens dropped off into clouds, one of the travertine pools that the Huanglong valley was so well-known for. The steps leading down to the gardens were wide and shallow, built of the same dark wood as the building frames and walkways. Off to one side, a tiny pagoda had been erected on a flat spar of karst. The frame was open to the light breezes. I couldn’t tell from where I stood, but I bet that on clear days you might actually be able to see forever.

  And that’s when I spied my host.

  She sat on a bench at the base of the stairs, her back to me, so still that she had become one with the landscape. She had no qualms about the clothes being too flashy. She wore an embroidered robe of red, green, and gold brocade. It should have looked opulent and overdone. It didn’t.

  Her black hair flowed free down her back. And kept flowing. And then flowed some more. It coiled in a serpentine tail on the ground behind her. In the light breeze, there should have been wispies. Lord knew I was already sporting some of my own. But Lung Huang’s hair wouldn’t dare be so unruly.

  I took a breath. She had to know I was here, but she didn’t turn, didn’t tense, didn’t shift one finger out of that perfect, meditative posture.

  Right, then. With another breath, I headed down the steps, pausing when I reached the bottom. I stood directly behind the bench, and still she didn’t move.

  Uh…

  “Miss Lung Huang? Thank you for welcoming me into your home.” My Cantonese wasn’t great; my fingers tended to twitch and swoop like a pop diva’s, tracing out the tonal shifts that my voice only sometimes followed, but it had to be better than English, right?

  She stirred. She turned.

  Oh. Crap.

  “I mean… Mister?”

  For whoever he was, he was definitely a him. There was no way he was human, either. His eyes swirled a depthless black, flecks of red, green, and gold flashing. His face was smooth, unwrinkled. Ageless. And expressionless as he watched me struggle to not look like a carp gasping for air.

  I snapped my mouth shut until I could think of something to say. It wasn’t even that my Cantonese was failing me. I couldn’t come up with anything in English, either. The coil of hair flicked and settled around his feet once more. If it were a tail, I would have said it was a gesture of mild impatience.

  If it were a tail.

  “You’re Lung Huang?”

  “I am.” His voice was as impressive as the rest of him, a deep, rich baritone that many an actor would kill for.

  And once again… male.

  “You’re a man.”

  One brow arched. It was just a twitch of movement, but it made me feel as stupid as my blurted statement had been. “Am I?”

  Thank god I’d grown up in San Francisco, where fluid genders weren’t uncommon. I winced and smiled an apology. Way to start off on the wrong foot, dumbass.

  “You’re a Dragon.”

  He nodded. The brow settled. “Better.”

  We both fell silent until I realized it was my turn again. It was conversation by rote, call-and-response. If this kept up, my chances were shot. He’d be tossing me down the mountainside before I could ask him anything important.

  I reached behind my neck and unfastened my pearls, letting them pool in my hand. I caressed a thumb over them, their nacre rich and warm, reminding me of love lost but never forgotten. My grandfather’s love.

  But of course, that’s not what they represented. I held them out. “I came to return these to you.”

  “Why?” He folded his hands in his sleeves, looking down at the pearls, but he made no move to take them.

  “They don’t belong to me. My grandfather told me about you. About your… relationship.” The ramifications were only starting to sink in. The queer community would explode if this ever were confirmed. “He’s gone now. I don’t know where. Maybe dead. Probably dead.”

  And Lung Huang didn’t need my life story. Chances were he knew better than I what had become of Mitchell Masters. I forged ahead before I could get bogged down. “He gave these to me before he left. When I realized everything he told me was true, I figured that you should have them back.”

  Lung Huang frowned, the slightest twitch of lips. Like the eyebrow, it was enough to crush me with censure. What had I said to upset him?

  “That is not why you came here.”

  Oh. Right. I licked my lips. “Not the only reason. I came hoping you would train me as you trained him.”

  “Mitchell Masters was Lung Bao Hu Zhe. My Champion. I had no choice but to train him. Honor demanded. What are you to me?”

  I felt stupid, standing there with the pearls held out between us. He still hadn’t taken them, but he had given me an opening. The pearls clicked between my fingers. “I’m his granddaughter, and I mean to take up his legacy. But I’m as clueless about how to do it as he was when he came to y
ou. So doesn’t honor demand that you train me like you trained him?”

  “You are not Lung Bao Hu Zhe. You have little guanxi with me.” He took the pearls, turning them over to inspect them. “Why do you wish to become what your grandfather was?”

  Months of asking myself that same question gave me a ready answer. “Because I want to make a difference in the world.”

  “So that the world will celebrate you as a hero?” He didn’t look up. The pearls clicked against each other as he twined them through his fingers.

  I dodged pitfall number one easily. This wasn’t about pride. I didn’t want people to know who had helped them. I just wanted to help. “I don’t want fame. I just want to make the world a better place.”

  “You wish to shape the world into what you think it should be?”

  Yes. Wait. “No…” I dragged the denial out to give myself a moment to think. “I can’t control what other people do, but I can protect people who can’t protect themselves.”

  “The sage practices not-doing.”

  “Like you not-did when you sent the huxian to save me from the yaoguai?”

  His eyes flicked up from their contemplation of the pearls, deep as starlit void. I looked down. Me and my smart mouth.

  “Why do you wish to follow your grandfather’s path?” he asked again.

  “Why did you help me against the yaoguai?”

  “You presume the two motivations are related?”

  “I don’t think you like standing aside and watching when you know you can help. That’s why you’re here and not in Shambhala.”

  He stilled and I took a step back, wondering if I’d just gone too far.

  “Perhaps you are right. But in the doing of a thing, the how and the why matters. If you do not understand this in yourself, compromise will weaken you, and you will cause more harm than you fix.” With a nod, he handed the pearls back to me. “These were a gift, and the love they represent has not died; it lives on in you. They are yours to keep.”

  I grinned at the victory, my stomach doing flips. He’d agreed!

  “However,” he said, folding his hands back in his sleeves. “You have made quite a mess, and I am disinclined to take a student who is so inconsiderate, especially after I have helped them.”

  “A mess?” I echoed. What, had I left too many snow angels during my climb through the blizzard?

  “Your demons, the ones you unleashed on the yaoguai. They have spread throughout my valley, and they are wreaking more havoc than she ever did.”

  Oh. Crap. I fidgeted, tugging at my own sleeves in a parody of his calm posture. Good going, Masters. “I’ll clean them up,” I offered, even as I realized that I had no idea how to do that, or how long it would take. What else could I say?

  Lung Huang took a step toward me, too close. He searched my face for I don’t know what. I fought the urge to step back. Americans: we like our space.

  “You will. If I agree to train you during your stay, then you must agree to remain until every shadow has been laid to rest.”

  In other words, no pulling a Luke Skywalker and rushing off to save Han and Leia. “Agreed,” I said.

  “Very well, Melissa Masters.” He reached out and took my hands, the pearls pressing into my fingers, warmer than they had any right to be. It was an oddly formal, almost ritual gesture. “I will undertake your training.”

  Another wave of vertigo washed over me. I swayed, and his hands dropped to catch me at the elbows, the first real expression crossing his features: concern. I smiled to show I was all right. The world had already righted itself.

  “Call me Missy.”

  He nodded. “And you may call me Jian Huo.”

  * * *

  Lung Huang – Jian Huo, I guess he was now – led me to the pagoda, where a table had been laid out. He remained silent as servants brought us tea and bowls of rice and steaming vegetables. The servants were human-shaped, but they moved like something else in a human costume. The composition of their faces was off, the proportions of their bodies, the fluidity of their movements. It was easier to look at the dragon across from me than it was to watch them go about their business.

  Not much easier, with him looking back at me with that eternal gaze. I poked at my rice and greens. Guess I was going to be eating healthy while I was here.

  “Why did you call them demons?” I asked when I couldn’t take the silence any longer. Jian Huo took a slow sip of his tea, then another.

  “It is what they are.” He set the cup down, folded his hands in his sleeves. He settled in as if he could sit there for all eternity.

  “Is everything in the Shadow Realms a demon?” I asked, thinking of Templeton and the few other denizens I’d met who didn’t scare me silly.

  Jian Huo pursed his lips, eyes narrowing. “What did your grandfather tell you of your gifts?”

  I didn’t know the Cantonese word for “bupkiss”, so I used the American version and got another raised brow for my efforts. The corner of his mouth twitched whenever he did that. I was going to start collecting those raised brows. They made him not quite so intimidating. How many had he given me so far? Three? Four? Hell, I’d have to start my count with this one.

  “That was poorly done of him.”

  “He didn’t know I’d inherit his powers,” I said, surprising myself more than the dragon across from me. I never stood up for Mitchell.

  “Didn’t he?” His tone suggested that my grandfather had known very well. Right. That was why I didn’t make a practice of defending the man. He had been a secretive bastard.

  “It falls to me, then,” Jian Huo said. The silence that followed those words stretched on until I realized it wasn’t just a pause for dramatic effect.

  “OK,” I prodded, but Jian Huo gave a minute shake of his head, unfolded his hands, and stood.

  “You are not ready to understand. Finish your meal. Find me in the library when you are through. Your Cantonese is atrocious. We will improve it.”

  “But… what about cleaning up the shadows?” Hadn’t he said they were wreaking havoc? I didn’t want to be responsible for any more havoc than I’d already caused.

  Another eyebrow lift. I had no clue what I’d said to earn that one.

  “You are not ready for that, either.” He pulled his robes close and swept past me, sandalwood-scented hair trailing behind him.

  Well… peachy.

  * * *

  “‘The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao’,” I recited. Months of constant study, of digging into every text Jian Huo put before me, comprehending, analyzing, critiquing, contextualizing, and discussing until late in the evenings, had honed my Cantonese beyond passable. My Mandarin was coming along, and I had even started to pick up some of the other major regional dialects. The mountaintop temple had become my home. I’d befriended most of the servants, and once they were comfortable with me, they reverted to their natural, amorphous forms with relief. And Jian Huo no longer intimidated me. Mostly, he annoyed the shit out of me.

  Like now, because, despite all my progress, we kept returning to this first book, this first line. His response was always the same.

  “No. You do not yet have it.”

  My jaw set. I would get this. I would. I tried again. “The Tao that–”

  “Repeating your mistake brings you no closer to rectifying it.”

  “What mistake?” I shoved the scroll aside. He allowed me to read from a modern translation rather than the original he’d first handed me. It was only better in that I could be a bit more careless with the materials. Struggling through Classical Chinese was kind of like struggling through Chaucer.

  We’d spent a week on Chaucer.

  He repeated the line in rich, rolling tones. I couldn’t hear any difference from what I’d just said, except my voice didn’t have that echo of eternity in it.

  I sat back on my heels, rubbing my face. “I’m just not getting it.”

  “That is obvious.”

  “I mean, I
’m not even getting what to get.”

  “As you might say, ‘Again with the obvious’.”

  I peeked through my fingers to glare at him. A smile threatened to break through, but no eyebrow lift, so it didn’t count for my collection. “I’m a bad influence on you.”

  “I believe I will survive the ordeal.”

  “I might not,” I muttered.

  He inclined his head. Jian Huo hadn’t said as much, but I suspected we weren’t going to start hunting shadows until I broke this puzzle. I was antsy to get started.

  “Is this like a Karate Kid thing, where the answer is different than what I think it is?”

  “I know little of karate, but I believe it is clear that the answer is not what you think it is, or you would have succeeded in one of your ten-thousand attempts.”

  “There haven’t been that many,” I grumbled.

  “As you say.” He rose, his coil of hair tumbling out of his lap. I breathed deeply of the sandalwood that washed over me. That earned me the eyebrow twitch I’d been gunning for. Shit. I’d been caught. Usually I managed to be more subtle.

  “Set it aside for now. Walk the gardens. Drink tea. Practice your hanfu.” I grimaced at this last. The issue of how I dressed was a constant struggle. I kept going for the unadorned robes at the back of my wardrobe, much to Jian Huo’s chagrin. But he never pressed the issue. Maybe because he dressed fancy enough for the both of us.

  Those rich robes rustled as he left the room. He paused at the doorway, regarding me with eyes of endless black. “It will come to you in time. You are a good student.”

  He left me gaping in a wake of sandalwood. Jian Huo was a patient teacher, but not an effusive one. A compliment like that from him was as precious as a pearl.

  I hopped up and all but skipped my way down to the gardens.

  When I’d first come to the mountaintop temple, I’d thought it was a lonely place, deserted by all save Lung Huang and a few spirit servants. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Nobody else lived here, but the through traffic was constant. Supplicants came to ask the Guardian of the East for aid: minor spirits, the occasional monk, the even more occasional farmer or businessman. Sometimes the greater spirits dropped by. Feng Huang, the Phoenix Guardian of the South, came on a weekly basis to play wei-qi with Jian Huo. She’d deigned to play me once. The game lasted less than five minutes. Jian Huo observed that this was another subject to be added to the growing list of things I needed to learn.