Hidden Cities

by Daniel Fox

  If Tunghai Wang still thought they were here to discuss the city, dominion, he was swiftly disabused. Ping Wen ushered him to the side, to the rocky shadow of the ridge—and left him there. Went back to his entourage, to his woman with the tiger, seemingly just to wait.

  To wait and watch the sky.

  The banner turned and twisted in the wind. It was a summons, meant to do more than fetch the generalissimo. Now it was to fetch the dragon.

  Ma understood that, just a little too late to pretend that he was ready when she came.

  HE COULDN’T understand why she would come, but that was only one of the many things he did not understand today. It was easier than many to dismiss. Why should he ever pretend to understand the dragon?

  She came. He knew it when the men were suddenly pointing, as suddenly snatching back their arms, not to draw attention to themselves. Her attention. She might not like to be pointed at.

  SHE CAME, and blocked out the sun. Deliberately, Ma was sure.

  She hung in the air and peered down at them. Staring back, Ma saw an excrescence on her neck, a shadow that moved: the boy that was said to ride her. He had assumed that to be a myth, compounded of fear and mystery together. He was perhaps a little more afraid, finding it true. An immortal creature is one thing; an immortal mediated by a human, something else entirely. A tiger on a chain.

  The impression of control was too easy to misread or overvalue. The woman held the chain; she didn’t hold the tiger. The dragon might bear the boy, but not the way Ma’s appalling mule had borne him here.

  He stepped up to the beast’s head, only to be closer to his own boy. Let people read that as they would. No one was looking anyway. Not with a dragon in the sky.

  It was Ma’s business to watch not the battle, but the men who served it. The habit of long practice brought his eyes down from the dragon.

  He might have been the only one—apart surely from the dragon, and perhaps her boy—who saw the team working on the war-machine, dragging down the arm and setting a missile carefully, carefully into its net. One man running to the forge, running back with smoke swirling from the cup of his fingers.

  Those two young men whose charge it seemed to be, shifting the aim of it with poles and spikes. Carefully, carefully.

  Everyone around them, their whole team worked blindly, heads tipped back to stare—but they were well drilled and their duties were mechanical, they seemed almost part of the machine themselves as they heaved and hauled, as the world seemed to pause on its moment.

  Even Ping Wen wasn’t watching the men, or the machine. He must presumably have given the order for it, which left him free now to follow his soul’s desire, do as every man else did, watch the dragon.

  Ma’s own soul was torn. The intense draw of the dragon—almost a passion, almost a craving, he was fascinated by the sense of his own self reacting—balanced, cruelly teasing, against the fascination of watching all these others react.

  One last glance around the margins of the bare open field, and he saw the woman too with her head cocked, looking upward into that vast shadow. The tiger’s eyes gleamed through the gloom of it. Ma thought they gleamed at him: as though he held some interest in himself, as though simple dragons could be discounted.

  Ma would have discounted that, only that it was hurled suddenly and entirely out of his head as one of the young men called an order, men heaved, the war-machine creaked and an object rose startlingly, almost vertically into the sky.

  It was a missile-pot, trailing smoke. It climbed a little higher than the hovering dragon, and seemed to pause a moment before it began to fall, directly toward her.

  She appeared to be watching it with as much interest as anyone.

  Then it exploded.

  MA HAD seen fireworks all his life. Just a couple of nights since, he had seen fireworks made into weapons, or at least instruments of terror.

  He had never seen this, never imagined how a missile might erupt into a sheet of viscous flame, which might fall like a curtain over the hindquarters of an immortal.

  Who might lift her head and scream, a dreadful sound that could shatter rocks and hearts together.

  Who might twist and tumble out of the sky all unexpectedly, coming down in a broken spiral to land in the dry paddy there, too close, too desperately close and writhing, hissing, all pain and all fury all at once.

  She needed the sea, Ma knew, and could not reach it. Fire clung to her tail, though she slammed it and slammed it into the dead dry earth, raising nothing but dust, no quenching mud, no relief.

  The boy slid from her neck and ran helplessly to and fro, away from her and back again, crying out almost in the voice of her own pain, until men seized him and dragged him to the forge.

  two

  ld Yen knew.

  He knew when he saw the monk in his robes join the smiths at the forge; when he saw the doctor-woman with her dreadful companions, with all their acquired dragonlore; when he saw the boy Han on the dragon’s neck, innocent and ignorant and doomed.

  He even knew what he was here for himself, that too. When he saw that ring of idols, set like guards all around the plateau and clustered like a troop of soldiers—or else like a templeful of worshippers, that too—just here where he was told to stand himself, then he knew. Really, it wasn’t even hard.

  PING WEN meant to chain the dragon.

  AS AN expression of power, it would be immense. Under the eyes of his significant rival, it would be majestic; how could Tunghai Wang surpass this? He would lose his prestige, his authority, his army. All in a moment.

  The emperor had lost already, so unimportant he had not even been fetched. When the thing was done, Ping Wen would lead a flotilla across the strait—but it would be in celebration, not an invasion force. He wouldn’t need a single soldier. If the Son of Heaven had any sense, he would himself usher Ping Wen to the throne. If not, his own people would hurl him down in contempt, in casual dismissal.

  · · ·

  EVEN JIAO and the tiger, even they were here for a purpose, to show how mortal can chain mystery: to teach the people that it could be done, to ready them for it before showing them the thing itself. And then, of course, to look small and insignificant afterward. A tiger? What means, what matters a tiger? He chained a dragon, he!

  Their day, Old Yen’s and Jiao’s had begun in silence, in conspiracy. Dragging herself out of bed in the dark of the morning, she had seen the children’s absence, of course, first thing. And had understood it, perhaps, despite her thick head; had understood her thick head, perhaps, that too.

  And laid no blame for it, apparently. Called no guards, set no hounds to the chase, said nothing at all. Ping Wen would learn it, no doubt, sometime today. The servants fetching food to the pavilion were safe to report the children missing; that news would climb to him even in his triumph.

  He would be furious, Old Yen thought, even if he was triumphant. Doubly furious with Jiao, who had failed her watch and then not confessed it.

  Even so. She said nothing, showed no interest. Rose and washed and took the tiger on its chain, set off to climb to the valley-ridge where Ping Wen had gone already.

  Old Yen had followed, had caught up even despite her longer legs; the tiger was a dawdler, it seemed. So they walked together, climbed together, spoke not at all.

  HERE ON the ridge, they had separated. She stood with Ping Wen, his object lesson, clear to be seen. Old Yen found himself alone among his host of idols, too many for one temple to supply.

  He watched Tien and her companions when his gaze was forced from the dragon, from her repulsive pain; saw how they moved toward the forge, where the boy Han was being chained again. Tien was urged forward between the two men, pale, reluctant, determined. Old Yen knew her kind. She would do what she thought was her duty, at whatever cost to the boy or to herself.

  And then, oh, then …

  IT HAPPENED, as it had to happen. The boy struggled and lashed out, cried the dragon’s pain and his own distress, an
d was chained regardless.

  Even that first step served to still the dragon, at least a little. She made one frantic attempt to be airborne, to climb away from this, but the war-machine hurled something high and the sky above her blazed with fire and she fell back again; and then the boy’s chains seemed to cramp her, even before Tien and the old men went to work.

  Old Yen couldn’t see what they did, and he couldn’t have read it anyway, but he knew. They were cutting spell-words into the chains, to draw the dragon ever deeper into their captivity: to chain her terrible mind along with her monstrous body, stillness and silence and sleep.

  It ought to be a good thing, it had to be a good thing. It was what he had wanted most, all summer long. Her freedom was what he had dreaded most, all a long life long.

  And for all their chains and spells and dreadful fire, they couldn’t do it alone. He knew.

  HE FELT the goddess in his gut like a sour rising, fetid and insidious.

  He felt her steal into his mind. She was a long way from the sea, but he had salt in his bones, and all these idols drew her.

  He had refused her before, but this was different. This was a thing he wanted to see happen, a thing his people needed, freedom on the water and no terror in the sky.

  She could take the dragon back into the deep and keep her there, once men had chained the creature—but she needed a man to work through, a man of the sea, one of her own.

  She needed Old Yen: his body, his voice.

  HE REFUSED her again.

  three

  tanding close by Ping Wen, Jiao could feel his confidence, his incipient triumph.

  She could see his future, the swift parade to the ultimate height, the Jade Throne itself and the empire reunited under his rule.

  She could see the slow return to the Hidden City, in glory all the way: trumpets and banners and cheering crowds, every city’s gates flung wide in welcome. She could see herself right there, marching beside the new emperor’s carriage, paced by the tiger: part bodyguard, part mascot, the very symbol of Ping Wen’s success.

  For a bandit, that was quite a climb. She might—

  SHE COULD see, the moment that the old man refused his part.

  She didn’t know what it was, but something shifted in his face, in his body, enough to catch her eye and her attention.

  The tiger growled. The dragon turned her head.

  That seemed to be as much as the dragon could do, against all the magic they were working on the boy in his chains that chained her too. Her last freedom, and even that was limited; it was the boy she looked to, not the old man. She had nowhere else to look.

  Understanding it afterward, working it out slowly moment by moment, Jiao got this far: that it was Han’s choice, and not the dragon’s. She had no choices left. He sat the throne in her head, he wore the chains that bound her; any decisive move had to come from him.

  Whether it was consent or commandment, her idea or his, Jiao couldn’t say and didn’t want to guess.

  However it worked between them, this was how it worked in the world: that the dragon looked to the boy, and all the monksmith’s chains and all the doctor’s spell-words were no use when he enabled her.

  She moved with his authority. She stretched her head out on that impeccable neck, further and far further than seemed possible; she showed her dire gape to everyone who stood around, gaping at her—

  AND THEN she swallowed Ping Wen.

  JUST THAT, swift and neat and immaculate. Her head came thrusting down—so close, Jiao could smell the rank salt reek of her, could feel the wind of her strike—and her mouth engulfed the man, gave him no time to cry out. She lifted him in those terrible teeth, tossed her head back, swallowed him like a bird that takes a fish whole and flapping.

  Jiao saw his legs still kicking as he went down.

  THEN THERE was mayhem. Panic. If she was free to eat one, she was free to eat them all.

  SO HALF his entourage believed, at least. They fled, and others followed: scrambling along the ridge or tumbling down the broken slope from terrace to drained dry terrace, soldiers and officials, smiths and servants.

  Not Jiao, and not of course the tiger. They stood and watched it happen all around them, one at least with a bitter twist to her smile. She never could work out how the tiger felt about anything, its chain included. It was a traitor to her, it had let the children by in the night and done nothing—but she hadn’t much cared even this morning, when Ping Wen might have proved angry. Now …

  Well. Now they stood and watched the people run, and counted the few who remained, and weren’t surprised to see the old fisherman still there—his fault this was, she thought, as much as Han’s, though she wasn’t clear how—and the doctor with her two slow men and their servants. And the monksmith, and over yonder the general who had brought him, with his sweet pretty boy and Tunghai Wang who would not flee, of course, not him.

  The dragon seemed not to rate him as important enough to swallow. That would be a blow, another blow to his much-bruised pride. No matter.

  What mattered to the dragon more, she flailed her smoldering tail into the war-machine and smashed it, broke it piece from piece, broke some of the men who still dared to attend it.

  At the same time her head thrust toward the forge, toward the chained boy and the monksmith. Who stood alone to face her, and oddly she didn’t eat him; only nudged him aside, almost gently, if such an atrocious creature could be gentle. Jiao didn’t understand that at all.

  The chained boy she seized in those terrible teeth, but didn’t swallow him either. Only lifted him and then herself painfully into the wind, and flew away with no one to gainsay her.

  JIAO WATCHED till she was out of sight, then looked around again.

  There was Tunghai Wang, already reckoning how he could rank this among his achievements, how he could reclaim Santung and be the generalissimo and not lose face. I faced down the dragon, and she quit me—he would claim that, no doubt, and who would gainsay him?

  The runaways would never have the nerve. Of those who had stayed, none of them would have the interest. Tunghai Wang could do as he liked, she thought, and it would never matter.

  She could attach herself and the tiger to his side, and rise with him as she might have risen with Ping Wen.

  · · ·

  OR—

  WELL. THERE was the monksmith, gazing after the dragon. She was interested in the monksmith, and especially now. She thought the dragon and the smith between them knew something that she didn’t, held something that she couldn’t see, some secret. There could be something to be learned from the monksmith, and she had missed learning new things since she left Taishu.

  OR—

  THERE WAS the ruin of the war-machine, and they could all be grateful that ruin had not encompassed fire and explosions, but still: there were broken people among the broken pieces, and she knew a way to help mend broken people, better than the doctor could even once she stopped staring after the dragon.

  Jiao looked down at the tiger, and it looked back.

  She fingered her tao and said, “One stroke to take your head off, traitor, and a quick skinning after. I could save lives.”

  It wrinkled its lip, showed her its teeth like a challenge.

  She laughed harshly and turned away, tugged the chain to bring it after. “Come on, then. There’s nothing here I want.”

  She had a blade at one hip, a tiger at the other. She had a secret little stash of stolen jade, always on her person now, since she no longer spent time with people who would know. The tiger knew, of course, but that was a different matter.

  There was a path along the ridge, running north: away from Santung, away from the sea and any distant thoughts of Taishu. She might have forgotten it for a while, but she was still a pirate at heart. A pirate with a twisted shoulder, but still. A land-pirate with a tiger. She should stick to what she knew; and the land lay this way, more land than even she could walk, even in a long, long lifetime.

 
four

  hey went up, they came down.

  Uphill is the harder work, or ought to be: but going up, Dandan had a ream of men to help her. She sat Li Ton in a chair and had him carried on poles, shoulder-high. What he consented to, Ai Guo could scarcely refuse.

  Up they went, then, stately in their dignity, like people of importance. Dandan and the boy Gieh followed in their dust.

  THEN THERE was the matter of the dragon. Other things happened, perhaps, but it was the dragon that mattered. She came, she burned, she raged, she went away.

  Ping Wen in her belly, her own boy in her jaws.

  BY THEN almost everyone had run off, everyone who could. Some were too proud, or too busy, or too broken.

  Dandan thought she herself was perhaps too slow, no more than that. By the time she thought, I could run, I suppose, it was already too late. She had looked for her old men and seen them stranded, abandoned, helpless in the dragon’s glare.

  Of course she hadn’t run, then.

  The only surprise was that the boy Gieh stayed with her.

  THE DRAGON might have eaten more, she might have eaten them all, but she took her boy between her teeth and left the rest to one another. Perhaps she thinks we will eat one another, and perhaps they would. There was a masterless city down below, and at least one man up here who had wanted long to master it, and others who had spent blood already to prevent him.

  After the dragon, though—after the dragon, all the mortal world seemed drab and short of meaning. War not worth the effort, a sword too dull to draw. Tunghai Wang might not even claim Santung now if he felt at all the same way she did—emptied-out, adrift, like a bubble in the eddy of a stream—but Dandan thought it would fall to him regardless. She thought he would walk down and find it in his hand: not won and not gifted him, not surrendered, only heedless.