They dipped their wings and soared lower.
An old tigress with white streaks in her hair knelt on the ground. She had a very thin kitten strapped to her back.
“Please send rain quickly,” she cried to the skies. “Gods of Heaven, our children have no rice to eat, only snakes and scorpions and the horses have eaten all of those!”
The Dragons looked at each other. It was true. There had been no rain for a long time. The crops had withered, the grass was yellow and fields cracked under the scorching sun.
“How poor the people are!” said Jīnlóng, the Golden Dragon. “And they will die if it doesn't rain soon.”
Lóng-zhǎng, nodded. “Let's go and beg the Jade Empress for rain.”
So saying, he leapt into the clouds, soaring high, higher, even higher so that he could see far beyond the clouds to the celestial sphere, with the others following at his tail. Soon, they saw the gleam of the Heavenly Palace where the Jade Empress lived.
Being in charge of all the affairs in heaven, on earth and in the sea, the Jade Empress was very powerful. She was a Sacred cat, with a pelt as white as the moon and eyes the colour of polished Jade, which is how she got her name. She was listening to the songs of the Faeries and was not pleased to see the dragons swooping in over the Palace walls.
“Why do you come here,” she snapped. “Instead of staying in the sea and behaving yourselves?”
Lóng-zhǎng stepped forward, carefully keeping his long tail from swishing, and he bowed his great head.
“The crops on earth are withering and dying, Your Most Esteemed Majesty. I beg you to send rain down quickly!”
“Why do you care for the people?” she asked and the Long Dragon raised his head.
“They are small and helpless and we are large and powerful. It is in our good nature to care for those weaker than we.”
“Fine,” snorted the Jade Empress. “You go back. I will send rain tomorrow.”
The Jade Empress turned back to the songs of the Fairies.
“Thank you, Your Most Esteemed Majesty!” said the four dragons, and they lifted up into the skies and returned to the seas.
Ten days passed, and not a drop of rain came down.
The people suffered more, some eating bark, some grass roots, some forced to eat white clay when they ran out of bark and grass roots. Herds of wild horses were so hungry than they began to raid the villages, eating as many people as they could.
Seeing all this, the four dragons felt very sorry and they floated on the waves of the sea for a long time.
“The Jade Empress only cares about pleasure,” said the Pearl Dragon.
“She never takes her people to heart,” said the Black Dragon.
“We can only rely on ourselves to relieve the people of their miseries,” said the Golden Dragon. “But how?”
“There is so much water in the sea,” said the Long Dragon. “I wonder if there is a way…”
And he soon lapsed into silence.
“What is it? Out with it, quickly!” the other three demanded and they slapped the water with their tails.
Lóng-zhǎng laughed and bit the waves with his great teeth.
“Look,” he said. “We could scoop the water up and spray it towards the sky. The water will be like rain drops and come down to save the people and their crops.”
“Good idea!” The others clapped their scaly hands.
“But,” said the Long Dragon, “We will be blamed if the Jade Empress learns of this.”
“I will do anything to save the people,” the Golden Dragon said resolutely.
“Let us begin,” said the Black Dragon.
“We will never regret it,” said the Pearl Dragon.
They dove deep into the sea, scooped up water in their mouths, and then flew back up, up, up into the sky, and sprayed the water out over the earth. The four dragons flew back and forth, making the sky dark all around. Before long the seawater became rain pouring down from the sky.
Far below, tigers and jaguars looked up at the clouds.
“It's raining! It's raining!”
“The crops will be saved!”
The people cried and leaped with joy. On the ground the wheat stalks raised their heads and the sorghum stalks straightened up. The horses had plenty to eat and left the villagers alone and everyone was happy for many weeks.
The god of the sea discovered these events and reported to the Jade Empress.
She was furious.
“How dare the four dragons bring rain without my permission? Do they think they are higher than I? Do they think the people will love them and serve them now?”
She ordered the heavenly Shogun Generals and their troops to arrest the four dragons, even if they hid in the waters or under the seas. They hired Chi’Chen water boats to track down the four dragons and being far outnumbered, the dragons were soon arrested and brought back to the heavenly palace.
She had a prison made for them in the courtyard, but they flew out of it.
She had a prison made for them in the moat, but they swam out of it.
She had a prison made for them of golden bars, but they were slippery and slim, and they slithered out of it.
The Jade Empress was enraged and she summoned Shānshén, the Mountain God.
“Go and order Four Mountains to lay upon them so that they can never escape!”
The Mountain God whistled into the wind and from afar, the Four Mountains left the earth and flew to the Heavenly Palace. There, Shānshén, the Mountain God used his magic power to press them down upon the four dragons – Jīnlóng, Hēilóng, Zhēnzhū-lóng and Lóng-zhǎng, imprisoning them under the mountains.
But dragons have a magic of their own. The dragons never regretted saving the people. In fact, their treatment made them determined to do good for the people forever and it made them sad that the Jade Empress was so hard. Beneath the Four Mountains, the four dragons wept for the people and for the Empress. They wept until they became nothing but four rivers flowing down from the Heavenly Palace, past high mountains and deep valleys, crossing the land from the west to the east and finally emptying into the sea where they belonged.
And so the Upper Kingdom’s four great rivers were formed – the Black River in the far north, the Golden River in the center, the Long River farther south, and the Pearl River in the very far south.
And still, even today, you can see the scales and the tears of the four dragons every time you catch a raindrop or dip your hand into a river. The tears of the dragons will keep the Upper Kingdom strong for as long as they weep.
All Stories Begin and End with Tea
So now you know the stories of the Ancestors. Stories of the Shogun before he was Shogun, of Legend Kaidan and his young wife, the Lightning. You know of the Silver Dagger and the Anger of Priests; you know of the Life and Death of Alchemy and Shadow and you know of the first hour of our Beloved Empress, Queen of the Iron Dragons. You know of mountains and tea and swords and horses. You know now about the WuXhing cycle and the men who work it, and you know more songs than you did before. The words are true but the melodies have been lost, so you may make up the tunes as you go. These songs are Ancient and deserve veneration to still be listed in our books.
There will be more books, as many as there are songs. As many as there are stories. Feel free to tell a few yourself and pass them on to your kittens, and your kittens’ kittens and maybe an Ancestor or two if you can find one with ears to hear. Ancestors are stubborn, warlike and proud, but they do love a good story and no one can tell a good story like a cat. Cats are, after all, a storied people.
I have your tea steeping.
To be continued in
Bones in the Year of the Dragon
If you enjoyed this book, I’d be honoured if you’d leave a review. Reviews are gold for Indie authors like me.
Other books by H. Leighton Dickson
To Journey in the Year of the Tiger (Book 1)
To Walk in the Way of Lions (Book 2)
Songs in the Year of the Cat (Book 3)
Swallowtail & Sword:
The Scholar’s Book of Story & Song
Coming Soon:
Cold Stone & Ivy: The Ghost Club
Cold Stone & Ivy 2: The Crown Prince
Bones in the Year of the Dragon (Book 4)
H. Leighton Dickson grew up in the wilds of the Canadian Shield, where her neighbours were wolves, moose, perennial-eating deer and the occasional lynx. She studied zoology at the University of Guelph and worked in the Edinburgh Zoological Gardens, where she was chased by lions, wrestled deaf tigers and fed Polar Bears medicine via baby bottles! She has been writing since she was thirteen, has three dogs, two cats, three children and one husband. She has managed to keep all of them alive...so far.
Swallowtail & Sword: The Scholar's Book of Story & Song (Tails from the Upper Kingdom 4) Page 18