Dragon in the Snow

by Forrest Dylan Bryant

  The Dragon’s expression changed. His eyes narrowed, his lips curled into a sneering grin, making his face look like one of those hideous demon-masks from St. Cyr’s parlor wall.

  “Your allies are doomed. They cannot pass over the three walls without my aeroplane; they will never see Chenggi-Lai. Rest now. We shall speak again later, and then you will tell me all. Or you shall die. The choice is yours.”

  * * *

  The second wall had nearly stopped them, but the third was child’s play.

  They spotted it a few miles beyond the scene of the phantom yeti attack, along the top of a low ridge which stretched as far as the eye could see in either direction. A broad, shallow depression separated the ridge from the hilltop on which they stood.

  Directly in front of them, a charcoal-gray statue rose forty feet above the tall, waving grass. It had the form of a beast, something like a stylized lion, elaborately carved with a fierce grimace on its face, a mass of curling lines indicating fur and long talons at the ends of its feet. But what attracted their attention was the mouth, a perfectly round hole surrounded by a ring of carved teeth. Scanning the ridge, they could see a second lion sitting some five hundred feet to the left, another one five hundred feet beyond that, and so on all the way to the horizon. An identical string of statues stretched off to the right.

  “There’s our wall,” said Professor Armbruster. “I expect those statues use the white fire, just like the handheld flamethrowers or the flying dragons. It must issue from the mouth.”

  “Their placement is perfect,” added Captain Doyle. “They can cover that entire area down there; I don’t see any blind spots.” He indicated the shallow dale between the lions and their own position, all of which was exposed to the lions’ angle of fire.

  Hank joined Doyle and Armbruster and surveyed the situation.

  “So if we turn this dingus blue like we did before, them lions can’t hurt us?”

  “That’s the idea,” said Doyle.

  “It worked on the Hangchow Baby,” added Armbruster.

  “Yeah, but how can we be sure?”

  “We can’t.”

  “Can we at least test it first?”

  “Are you volunteering to walk out there?”

  “No way; not me.”

  “Well then, we’ll all have to go together and hope for the best,” said Doyle. Hank slumped away nervously.

  The six adventurers bunched up in a tight group, and Doyle activated his radio-beam transmitter, setting it to the frequency that would change the singing stone from yellow to blue.

  “Here goes nothing,” said the Baroness.

  “Onward!” yelled Sid, hoping to find courage in volume. It didn’t work.

  The group descended the hill slowly, tentatively, walking in lockstep as Hank held the newly-blue singing stone high over his head. They reached the bottom of the little hill and stopped. Nothing happened. After a long moment, the six of them stepped forward as one, entering the flat stretch leading to the ridge.

  A searing blast of crackling white flame erupted from the lion’s mouth, more intense even than the attack from the flying dragon-ship. The troop dropped to the ground, partly from instinct, partly from shock. But the flames did not touch them, did not reduce them to the terrible dark smoke. An instant later, the singing stone responded with a tremendous outburst, a beam of brilliant blue light that slammed the statue in the center of its chest. The stone beast exploded as if by dynamite, spewing dark chunks of rock across the dale.

  The flying debris attracted fire from the neighboring lions, which pivoted on their pedestals with alarming speed. Suddenly the air was alive with arcs of white flame, shafts of blue light, and the shattered remnants of ancient statues. The adventurers ran across the dale and up the ridge, each holding on to a comrade to avoid becoming separated from the group.

  Halfway up the rise, the transmitter’s battery failed. The clunky device spluttered and died, and the singing stone faded from blue to its normal golden glow. For just an instant Doyle panicked, sure it was the end. But the end did not come. Five stone lions had been destroyed; the others sat silent, far out of range.

  The third wall had been conquered.

  At the top of the ridge, the adventurers saw something that made their hearts leap with joy. A huge, circular valley lay at their feet, stretching many miles into the distance. The snow still swirled gently in the air above, but did not fall upon the warm ground. A few miles ahead, they could see the exotic, curving shapes of strangely-built houses, the geometric lines of well-tended farmland, clusters of short trees and straight, immaculate roads. And beyond that, sitting atop a craggy red cliff but spilling over the sides like froth from a boiling pot, there was a vast, palatial structure, its towers and domes gleaming in the thin light, its bulk covering an area the size of a small town.

  Nenn Si-Lum fell to his knees and kissed the ground.

  “Chenggi-Lai,” he sobbed. “Amalu sighrada, ne’an shueh.” He did not translate.

  * * *

  Rosie and Sonny walked close together down the grand corridor leading away from the Great Hall, their proximity the only thing that made either of them feel safe. Bartholomew St. Cyr hobbled behind with his valet, Djali, at his side. Four grave-looking Chenggi guards flanked the prisoners, guiding them through a seemingly endless maze of passageways and turns.

  St. Cyr was doing better with his sprained ankle than Rosie would have thought possible; he barely even limped. And Sonny’s concussion symptoms were all but gone, the lump on his head reduced to a dull bruise.

  Sonny saw her looking at his forehead. “They have some kind of healing machine, Miss Rosie, like an X-ray screen. They made us stand in front of it, and there was this strange light. I can’t describe it, miss, but it healed us. Just like that. This truly is a wondrous place.”

  “A wondrous place run by a monster,” said St. Cyr. The Chenggi nearest him made a threatening motion with his hand, and the prisoners fell silent.

  They were led to a room none of them had seen before. It looked almost like a hospital ward, sparsely decorated, with a long row of cots along one wall, gray light filtering in through high, slotted windows, and a table with some chairs at the far end. The guards departed, and Rosie became aware of a man seated in one of the chairs, picking forlornly at a bowl of rice. He was burly, unshaven, but handsome, with a shock of gray, wavy hair and the dignified bearing of a gentleman. Like the others, he was dressed in a Chenggi robe, thickly woven in various shades of blue.

  She heard a gasp, and turned to see Bartholomew St. Cyr’s mouth fall open in an expression of overjoyed surprise.

  “Franz!” he shouted. “Franz de Rothburg! You’re alive!”

  Chapter XXX

  THE GRAND PALACE

  —

  THE SECOND TELEGRAM arrived at the White House twenty-four hours after the first, just as the reports came in from what had once been the island of Ranatiwi. The wire was written in the same terse style as before: there was a time, a shortwave radio frequency, and a brief message:

  YOU HAVE SEEN. NOW LISTEN AND OBEY.

  THE BLACK DRAGON

  The meaning of this strange demand was debated in conference rooms and offices from Washington to Tokyo. But the story was kept quiet, confined to secret services and military officials. No heads of state had been informed — not yet.

  Several dozen people were monitoring the little-used radio frequency at the appointed time, stationed in listening posts around the world. There was nothing but static at first, interrupted suddenly by a strange, ringing tone, like a hollow gong. A voice followed, deep and resonant, but with an eerie, high-pitched, clipped undertone. It sounded unnatural. The voice spoke first in English, then in perfect French, German, Russian, and finally in Japanese. The message was the same each time:

  “You have failed. I have watched your nations run amok, pandering to the worst aspects of humanity: greed, wretchedness, vice. So-called ‘freedom’ which is mere chaos, so-called �
��authority’ which is simple theft. You have forgotten the natural order of the world. One man rules, all others obey, and great works are accomplished. The pharaohs knew this when they built the pyramids. The Great Khan knew when he conquered all Asia. You have had your chance to follow in their footsteps. You have failed. Now the natural order shall be restored. I shall rule, you shall obey, and great works shall be accomplished.”

  There was a startled silence amongst the various listeners. What manner of prank was this? What foreign power would dare dictate terms in this way?

  The voice resumed: “You have seen my hand in the Pacific, at Ranatiwi. Know this: I can do the same to any of your cities, at any moment, at the press of a button. And I shall, if you attempt to resist me. Your armies are impotent. Your spies are useless. I am unassailable. My next message will come in twenty-four hours, on this same frequency. It will contain the terms of your surrender. You will obey the Black Dragon, or you will die.”

  The unusual gong sounded again, and the static resumed. The Black Dragon had spoken.

  Several governments had taken steps to trace the message, triangulating the radio signal to determine its origin. The Americans pinpointed a peak near San Francisco. The Japanese identified an island in the Philippines. And the European powers pointed to a remote stretch of the North African coast. The voice had come from everywhere and nowhere.

  It was time to tell the President.

  * * *

  “My dear Sidney, forgive me if this seems an impertinent question,” started Professor Armbruster, “but I see that we have arrived in Shangri-La. What happens now? Does anyone have a plan?”

  Sid grimaced a little. The honest answer was “no.” So much attention had been devoted to figuring out where to land the plane — and later to breaching the walls — that nobody had thought ahead to the next step.

  Sid stammered for a moment, confused and embarrassed. But then he looked out across the alluring, exotic vista of Shangri-La — Shangri-La! — and his pulp writer instincts returned, the spirit of his fictional idol swelling his chest and filling his brain with ideas.

  “Well, what would Doc Savage do?” he asked. The Professor rolled his eyes: Not again...

  “He would head straight for that palace, that’s what.” Sid pointed to the red mesa in the center of the vast valley, at the huge, sprawling structure that covered its flat surface and reached down its steep sides like a giant spider.

  “That’s where the Black Dragon is, and I’ll bet my shirt that’s where the singing stones are. If we’re going to finish what we’ve started, we have to get there.”

  “All well and good, young sir, but how are we to get there? It must be twenty miles or more, across open country and in hostile territory. You don’t imagine some farmer will give six invaders a lift to the royal palace on his yak-cart, do you?”

  “Not farmers,” said Nenn Si-Lum. “Priests.”

  He explained as he led the others down the steep slope into the valley.

  “You must understand. Wo Then-Liang has held power for eighty-four years. Most Chenggi, even our elders, know no other ruler. To them, there is no other way of life. So they are indifferent. They live their lives, they make no trouble. That is what the Black Dragon teaches them: do your work, obey orders, do not meddle. Those who are loyal, the true believers, are with the Black Dragon in his palace. Or they are dispatched to other lands, as his agents and spies. We shall meet no enemy until we reach the palace.”

  “But what of these priests?” asked the Baroness, “You think they will help us?”

  “The lamas are different. They, and scholars like myself, know the true history of Chenggi-Lai. We know who the Black Dragon is and what he represents. We oppose him, even if we cannot act openly. It was the high lamas of old who first made him kharpat, who saw his evil nature and cast him out of Chenggi-Lai. Today, the lamas teach that the Black Dragon is chosen by the gods. They must say this to survive, but they know. They will help us.”

  “But we’re still crossing open ground in broad daylight,” protested the Professor. “Aren’t there patrols? Won’t he know we’re coming?”

  “No. When Wo Then-Liang returned from exile, he sought only to rule Chenggi-Lai. To restore what had passed, centuries ago. But his ambition has changed. For years he has turned his gaze outward, to the greater world. He no longer knows or cares what happens within his own borders, so long as his people remain obedient. There are no patrols.”

  “Good, then we’ll go see the lamas,” said the Baroness. “But we’d better hurry... we made one heck of a racket back there at the wall of fire. Patrols or no, somebody’s bound to get curious and investigate.”

  Hank suddenly stopped walking and stared off into the distant sky. “Say, what’s dat?” he whispered. Something in the air gleamed amongst the swirling snowflakes, catching his eye. Sid followed his gaze, and he saw it too.

  “Duck!” he yelled. The six friends dove for a clump of rocks and bushes, and tried to remain still. The singing stone blazed a furious golden hue. “Cover that up!” hissed Sid. Hank threw his body over it, smothering the glow just as a curious whirring sound reached their ears from above.

  * * *

  High above the sloping ridge at the edge of the valley, a metallic dragon buzzed with beating wings, swooping towards the line of stone lions that guarded Chenggi-Lai. Its glassy eyes turned and focused, and sophisticated radio-television transmitters sent their images back to the palace.

  The Glorious Dragon of Black Aspect sat in his viewing chair and watched through his weird electric goggles. He was in the air, the ridge stretched out before him. The damage was spectacular. No fewer than five of the lions had been reduced to rubble, strewn across the dale below. But there was nothing else, no sign of the six invaders who had left the plane. He turned to the left and the right; all else seemed in order. But then... there was a flash, a glow, down there amongst the trees, bright golden and shimmering, almost like... but that was impossible. A trick of the light, surely. And then it was gone.

  He kept the dragon circling a bit longer, but saw nothing more. He grew bored, and then dismissive. They are not here, he thought. They could never have breached the second wall: the fear and paranoia would have driven them mad; they are already dead, killed by each others’ hands, likely at the bottom of some ravine. Besides, what could six hikers do against the wall of fire? Not even an aerial bombardment could touch the stone sentinels upon the ridge.

  So he rationalized: the wall of fire was very old, perhaps a thousand years or more. Perhaps the ancient conduits of energy had become overloaded under the stress generated by his Great Machine, when he used it on Ranatiwi. Yes, that was the more likely explanation.

  At the thought of the Great Machine, the pinnacle of his genius and greatest technological achievement of the twentieth century, the Black Dragon became distracted. He left the wall of fire behind, forgot the six people coming to attack him, and went to tend to his creation.

  * * *

  It happened just as Nenn Si-Lum had predicted. They found a small temple a few miles from the ridge, a beautiful, delicate structure with architecture quite unlike that of China, India, or anyplace else the travelers could think of, all sweeping arcs and filigreed corners. Doyle looked closely but could not discern a ninety-degree angle anywhere on the building. The others waited outside, hidden from view as Nenn spoke to the senior lama, who was an old man wearing orange robes and an odd, triangular hat. The two tall Chenggi returned some minutes later with half-smiles on their faces.

  “He will take us to the palace,” said Nenn. “Despite the tyranny of the Black Dragon, the lamas still command respect. None will question him if he says he has business there.”

  The travelers climbed into the back of a strange, six-wheeled vehicle. It was akin to a small truck, but gaudily decorated like a gypsy caravan, with an enclosed space in the rear and a driver’s seat open to the air. There was a curved stick where the steering wheel should have been. N
enn and the lama sat up front and the vehicle started, noiselessly, down the road and into the heart of the valley.

  The trip took nearly an hour. Although the funny truck made no sound, it had terrible suspension. The travelers were jolted and bounced around like popcorn in a pot, leaving them bruised and dizzy by the time they finally came to a stop.

  Sid craned his neck to peer through the small window above his head. He saw the old priest step out and walk over to the palace guard, a mix of red-robed Chenggi and black-garbed Shadow Order men. There were some words, and then the Chenggi all looked at the truck at once, sending Sid ducking for cover. A few moments later the truck started moving again, passing through a gate and into a wide courtyard. But nothing more happened for perhaps two minutes.

  The door of the truck opened abruptly, filling the compartment with a harsh, gray light. Sid squinted and blinked. When he could see again, he cried out in alarm.

  Guards and soldiers surrounded the vehicle, weapons held at the ready. The old lama was down on one knee, his head bowed, arms spread wide in a gesture of obeisance and generosity. And Nenn Si-Lum was being marched away, his wrists bound behind him.

  A red-robed Chenggi guard strode to the door and barked something in his strange language. But the travelers all understood. They had been betrayed.

  Chapter XXXI

  A SIMPLE BUSINESS MATTER

  —

  THE EIGHTEENTH SINGING stone, of golden aspect, was the source of much chatter and admiration among the guards. Sid saw it for only a moment, as he and the rest of the prisoners were dragged out of the courtyard and into the mammoth royal palace. But they still had its strange counterpart, the purple, humming amulet of Ando Chee. Hank, unnoticed amidst the commotion, had hurriedly stuffed the amulet under his shirt and out of view.

  The palace was even bigger on the inside than it appeared from the outside. The incredible building was nearly the size of a city, not only covering the top of the red mesa and spilling down its sides but also delving deep into the interior. Doyle made a mental attempt to calculate the volume and number of rooms, an exercise to stave off the mounting terror in his bones, but he gave up after about twenty minutes. There was simply too much to contemplate.