The next morning not long after dawn they were coursing down the river again. Ping was still troubled by the force of the water which bore the boat along as if it was no more than a floating twig. She tried not to look at the swirling water, but the distant bleak cliffs that bordered the river provided little distraction.
Since there was nothing to look at, Ping decided she would talk to Jiang Bing to take her mind off the rushing river. She cautiously negotiated her way to the stern of the boat, clinging to crates and boxes as she went, then wedged herself between some sacks.
Ping asked the boatwoman about herself. Jiang Bing said she was from a part of the empire even further away than Huangling.
“I was married to a man much older than me,” she told Ping. “My parents chose him because he had ten mou of good land and paid a sizeable dowry.”
“Was he unkind to you?” Ping asked.
“No. He was a good man, but he died soon after our marriage. Our land went to his brother and I was supposed to spend the rest of my life serving my mother-in-law.”
“What did you do?”
“I was only sixteen. I ran away instead.”
”How did you manage all by yourself?” Ping asked.
“It was hard at first,” the boatwoman replied. “I worked wherever I could. After many years I saved enough money to buy this boat. The boatmen are unfriendly. The merchants are wary of a woman who has no family and whose only companion is a ginger cat. They prefer to send their goods on boats operated by men, so I still barely make a living, but I am happy.”
Ping knew that she should be sitting with Danzi, but she was enjoying Jiang Bing’s company too much.
“What about you?” asked the boatwoman. “What causes you to be travelling with your grandfather?”
Ping had known that her questions would inevitably mean that questions would be asked of her. Danzi had warned her to keep to herself, but she didn’t want to lie to Jiang Bing.
“He isn’t my grandfather,” she replied softly so that the dragon couldn’t hear her.
“My family sold me as a slave when I was a child,” she said. “I worked for a cruel master until quite recently. The old man helped me escape. In return I agreed to accompany him on this journey.”
Jiang Bing nodded and smiled a sad smile. Ping felt that no one had ever understood her life more.
“Where are you and the old man going?”
“To Ocean,” Ping replied. “He wants to see Ocean before he dies.”
Ping looked to see what the boatwoman’s reaction was.
“It is said that this river flows all the way there,” she said.
Ping relaxed a little, beginning to trust Jiang Bing’s skill. It was warm enough to take off her shoes and socks. Perhaps the worst of the journey was behind her now. Perhaps she wouldn’t have to struggle all the way to Ocean on foot. Perhaps, instead, she could just sit on the boat for a week or two and Ocean would come to her.
• chapter fifteen •
IN THE SHADOW OF FIRE MOUNTAIN
Ping’s vision of sailing all the way to
Ocean disappeared like bubbles in soup.
After five days afloat, Ping got used to the movement of the boat as it pitched and tossed on the river. She no longer worried about falling overboard, and moved around the boat confidently doing whatever she could to help the boatwoman. She had quickly grown to love life on the river. It had a soothing rhythm. There was work to be done, fish to be caught, but she still had hours each day to do nothing but enjoy the changing view.
The stark cliffs gradually softened to hills, which in turn became flat fertile land. Villages and fields slipped by. Scenes of rural life—farmers ploughing fields, women washing clothes at the river’s edge, a young boy minding a wallowing water buffalo—appeared and disappeared as if she were looking at a series of paintings rather than real events. Mulberry orchards crowded to the water’s edge.
Jiang Bing knew everything there was to know about the river and its banks.
“Mulberry trees aren’t grown just for the sweet berries,” she told Ping. “They’re also grown for the leaves which are the favourite food of silkworms. In exchange for all the mulberry leaves they can eat, the little creatures spin silk thread.”
“The world is full of wonders,” Ping said.
They passed terraced hills that looked like they had been carved into enormous steps, as if a passing giant with his giant knife had cut steps into the hillside to make it easier to climb. Jiang Bing laughed when Ping said this.
“They haven’t been cut by a giant,” she said. “Farmers dug out these flat areas with simple spades so that they could grow vegetables and grain on the hillsides.”
At noon the boatwoman tied up the boat, as she did each day, while they ate their midday meal. It was always the same—fish and onions flavoured with a little ginger and a herb that was a favourite of Jiang Bing’s.
The only thing that Ping didn’t like about the river journey was the ginger cat. It watched her all the time, staring with its one unblinking yellow eye. Poor Hua only got to come out of the folds of her gown for a few minutes each day and slink around the deck while Ping watched over him.
It was hard to tell how old Jiang Bing was, but Ping thought that she would be about the right age to be her mother. She imagined what it would be like to live and work on the river with this woman as a companion. She thought it would be a good life. Perhaps after Danzi had reached Ocean, she could come back. The sound of hissing and spitting roused Ping from her daydreams. Hua ran across the deck followed by the boatwoman’s cat. The rat clawed his way up Ping’s gown, scratching her in his hurry. Hua wouldn’t be so keen to stay on the river. The cat glared at Ping. She liked all the four-footed creatures she had known—the oxen and the goat back at Huangling, the pigs she’d been imprisoned with, Hua and the dragon of course—but she disliked the boatwoman’s ginger cat.
Danzi was content to doze in his cabin for most of the day. Ping was glad he had given up all thought of finding the dragon stone. She knew she should spend more time with the old dragon, but she preferred to stay on deck listening to Jiang Bing’s stories of life on the Yellow River. It was good for Danzi to get lots of quiet rest, she told herself. It would mean all his qi could go to healing his wing.
They had just eaten their midday meal. Ping was making some tea for Jiang Bing, boiling water over the charcoal fire. There were only a few of Wang Cao’s tea leaves left, but Ping was happy to share them with the boatwoman.
“We’ll tie up at the next town,” Jiang Bing said, sipping her tea.
Ping looked downriver. On the horizon she could see a dark smudge. She shivered despite the warmth of the spring sun.
“Is that the town?” Ping asked. She strained her eyes but couldn’t make out any detail.
Jiang Bing nodded.
“What’s it called?” asked Ping, though she had a sudden feeling she didn’t want to know.
“Wucheng.”
Ping’s vision of sailing all the way to Ocean disappeared like bubbles in soup. She shivered as she remembered what Danzi had said about Wucheng—where sorcerers in search of dragon heart gathered.
“Must we stop there?” she asked.
“I have cargo to deliver,” Jiang Bing replied.
“If you sail past it, we’ll pay more to make up for the money you lose by not delivering your cargo,” Ping insisted.
Jiang Bing seemed puzzled by Ping’s concern. “It’ll only take an hour or so to unload.”
Danzi appeared beside Ping in his old man shape. It was the first time he’d been on deck for days.
“Danzi,” said Ping. “It’s Wucheng!”
The old man stared ahead without any sign of being surprised.
“You knew we were coming here?”
Danzi nodded. Ping wanted to question him, but she couldn’t with Jiang Bing within hearing.
As the river carried them closer, the black smudge took on the shape of a dark mountain, b
ut still looked blurred. A plume of smoke was curling from its peak. The smoke didn’t rise though, it slowly sank and wreathed the mountain slopes in a grey haze.
“It’s a fire mountain,” Jiang explained. “There’s a hole at the top that leads down to fires deep underground.”
Ping watched the mountain grow as they drew closer. Its slopes were covered with small grey stones like cinders, except for what looked like a stream of dark liquid which had frozen as it flowed down one side of the mountain.
“It’s so hot inside a fire mountain that rocks melt,” Jiang Bing told her. “Long ago the molten rock spewed out of the mountain, so they say. It was fiery red and poured down the hillside engulfing half the town. Then it cooled, turned back into rock and the rest of the town was spared.”
Wucheng was the ugliest place Ping had ever seen. Nothing at all grew anywhere on the mountain. Even on bleak Huangling there had been a few straggling melon vines and some thistles. On the fire mountain there was nothing. Not a single blade of green.
The town was surrounded by a high wall made of broken pieces quarried from the wave of rock. Wucheng looked like a town with secrets to hide. It crouched in the shadow of the wave of solidified rock as if it were trying to avoid the sun.
The boat rocked from side to side as Jiang Bing steered it across the current and towards the shore. Ping led the dragon to where the boatwoman couldn’t hear them. She shooed the cat from its position on a sack of onions so that she and Danzi could sit down and hold on to the rail.
“Why do you want to go to this awful place?” Ping asked.
“To find dragon stone,” the dragon replied.
“I thought you’d forgotten about it.”
“No. This is where Diao would bring stone. Sell it for much gold.”
“You think Diao is here?”
The old man moved his head from side to side in the annoying way that meant neither yes nor no.
”I don’t want to go there,” Ping said, but she felt no sense of terrible foreboding about going to Wucheng. The cat nudged her arm wanting to be stroked. In her heart Ping wanted to go to the town, if there was even the smallest chance of finding the stone.
“Sometimes advancing seems like going backwards,” the dragon said.
The boat bumped against the wharf and Jiang Bing tied it up. Instead of steps there were just rickety ladders leading up to the rotting timbers of the wharf.
The old-man-shaped dragon bowed to the boatwoman and walked across to the ladder. “Pay boatwoman, Ping,” said the dragon’s voice in Ping’s mind.
Ping took out some coins from her inner pocket and handed them to Jiang Bing.
“I wish I could travel further with you,” she said.
The boatwoman took Ping’s hand in hers and held it for a moment.
“Perhaps another time,” the boatwoman said sadly. Then she went back to her work.
Ping followed the dragon to the wharf with a sinking heart.
As soon as she was back on land, she felt dizzy. Her legs wobbled as she walked. She was so used to the movement of the boat, the solid earth seemed to rock beneath her feet. She hadn’t felt sick on the river, but now she was back on land her stomach felt upset.
The dark grey stone that made up the town’s wall was blistered and pockmarked. On the top of the wall the jagged points of rock were sharp enough to pierce skin if anyone tried to climb over. But the gates in the walls were open and unguarded. If Ping and the dragon were foolish enough to enter the grey town, no one was going to stop them.
Three streets of equal width fanned out from the gateway into the town.
“Which way?” asked the dragon. He already sounded weary.
“How would I know?” Ping asked irritably.
“Ping decides which way,” the dragon said.
Ping didn’t know why Danzi wanted her to make the decisions, but she knew that arguing with the dragon was a waste of time. She pointed to the middle street and the dragon set off down it.
Wucheng was drab and shabby. The streets were made of trampled cinders. The houses were old and tumbledown. Some were made of ancient wood, others were made of the same ugly rock as the town walls. The shingle roofs were covered in a layer of grey ash. There were no palaces, no beautiful halls, no statues. There were no people either. It was like a ghost town, empty and quiet. The only living things Ping could see were two great black crows perched on a ridge beam. Flakes of fine ash drifted down from the mountain and settled on Ping’s sleeves. The smoky air stung her eyes and smelt like rotten eggs.
“You can’t be sure Diao would come here,” whispered Ping.
The metallic sounds of the dragon echoed in the dismal streets. “Danzi knows the ways of dragon hunters.”
“How can we find it?”
“Ping must find it.”
“I don’t know where it is!”
“Ping can find stone. Search with mind.”
Ping looked at Danzi. There was no one to see him but he was in his old man shape. “You must be crazy if you think I can do such a thing,” replied Ping.
“Ping has sensed things before.”
Ping remembered the sense of dread she’d felt, once in the market at Chang’an, and again as they’d approached the village of Fengjing. She shivered at the memory. Both times Diao had been near. Her stomach was unsettled, but it wasn’t the same feeling of dread she’d felt before. They walked along each of the three streets without seeing anyone. Once or twice Ping imagined she glimpsed eyes in a window or thought she saw a figure in a doorway out of the corner of her eye, but when she looked back there was no one there. Their only companions were the two crows which flapped lazily from rooftop to rooftop. The only sound was the birds’ slow, mournful caw trailing into silence.
When they had walked down each of the three streets Ping stopped. She didn’t like Wucheng, but she had no sense of dread.
“Diao isn’t here,” she said.
“Good,” said the dragon.
“Let’s leave, then,” Ping said, turning back towards the gate. “If we hurry we might get back to the wharf before Jiang Bing casts off.”
Danzi shook his head wearily. “Must find inn.”
“What for? You’re not thinking of spending the night here, are you?”
She had never seen the dragon look so tired.
“It’s such an unnatural place and we haven’t seen a soul the whole time we’ve been here. I’d rather sleep on a raft in the river.”
As the half-light gave way to darkness, lights started to appear in windows. Danzi led Ping towards one of the grey stone buildings. Ping cried out in surprise and fear when she saw a dark animal shape standing by the door.
“Innkeeper,” Danzi said.
Ping looked closer. What she had at first taken to be some sort of strange beast, she realised was just a man. His hair hung down to his shoulders. He had no teeth and a scar that ran from the corner of his left eye to his chin. He wore a tunic over his gown that looked like it was made from wolf hide. He glared at them suspiciously, but though he looked sour he didn’t seem evil. Ping gave the man some copper coins and he led them to a room.
Ping wasn’t hungry but Danzi insisted that she ask the man to bring them food. Sometime later the innkeeper brought them a covered clay pot. Ping opened it and steam rose from a stew thick with chicken pieces. It smelled good, with a hint of the herb that Jiang Bing used. Danzi ate a bowl of the stew. Ping didn’t trust anything that was made in Wucheng. She dipped a spoon into the stew and sipped a little of it. It tasted quite good, but her stomach was churning, and she could only swallow a few mouthfuls.
With the strange town of Wucheng on the other side of a bolted door, Ping began to relax. All they had to do was wait out the night, then in the morning they could go back to the river. She found clean mattresses and blankets in a chest and laid them out on the floor. Danzi, back in his dragon shape, ignored his mattress and sat on the floor with his tail curled around him like a great lizard. Ping l
ay back on her mattress and was thinking about how strange it was to be sharing a room in an inn with a dragon, when Danzi stood up.
“Time to go outside,” he said.
Ping groaned. “What do you want to go outside for? It could be dangerous.”
“Must look for dragon stone.”
”But we already walked all around the town. I couldn’t feel Diao anywhere.”
“This time not looking for Diao. Looking for dragon stone.”
Ping turned her head away quickly as the dragon began to transform into the old man. She heard him unbolt the door and followed him out into the night.
Wucheng was very different at night. The streets were now busy with strange people going about their business. There were hooded figures whose faces were hidden. There were men wearing gowns painted with strange shapes. There was a woman whose hair was pure white.
“Alchemists, astrologers and sorcerers not bad people,” the dragon told her. “No need for Ping to fear them…only necromancers.”
“What are necromancers?” Ping asked.
“Sorcerers who raise the dead to find out future.”
Ping didn’t know how to tell a necromancer from an alchemist, so she decided to be wary of everyone.
Many of the blank buildings Ping had seen during the day had opened up and become shops or food stalls. People were eating bowls of hot stew and plates of roasted meat. It almost looked like a normal town, except that in a normal town people would have been sleeping at that time of night, not shopping and eating as if it were the middle of the day.
Ping didn’t have much experience with towns, but Wucheng was unlike any she had seen. The items for sale were different from the goods at the market in Chang’an. One stall sold dead insects—centipedes, spiders, beetles—all neatly pinned onto pieces of bamboo leaf in rows of ten or twice ten. Another sold rocks, some with glittering specks of silver and gold, or veins of red and green, others which were shaped like living things—a turtle, a pear, a fist. Other rocks looked like any that you could pick up off the ground, but the stallholder was calling out their magical properties.
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