by Laurence Yep
69
Leech
The storm had passed by the time they returned from their scavenging trip to Roland’s camp. The wind and the snowflakes seemed to have scoured the dust and impurities from the air so that everything he saw on the moonlit ground seemed sharply etched on his eyes.
Since he had given Pele’s charm to Scirye, Leech had taken a coat from the camp to wear over his robe. Even then, he still felt cold, but his discomfort vanished when he spotted Roland’s body. “We don’t want any more bad guys getting hold of the ring,” Leech said as he rose on the discs and left the cloud.
As he sped toward Roland, he saw the bow a few yards away. Circling around, he hovered while he squatted in midair and picked it up. The wood seemed to pulse against his palm and the string hummed. As he slung it over his shoulder, he felt the vibrations pulse through him.
He went on until he reached Roland, who was lying facedown. Roland’s hand was already cold and Leech was afraid the archer’s ring might be frozen on the finger, but it slid off easily into his palm.
He gazed down at the jewelry carved out of bone. It seemed like such a harmless thing, but it had started all of them on this strange journey. It was too bad that Scirye wasn’t here to share the moment.
When he had reached the cloud again, he handed the ring to Kat. “Here. I think Scirye would want you to return this for her.”
Tears appeared at the corner of the tough warrior’s eyes. “Now Nishke’s spirit can finally rest.”
Oko hefted a shovel to her shoulder. “Not until we find her little sister.”
* * *
Primo landed them upon the hill that was all that remained of Kemshap. A team of prisoners wrestled a portable generator off the cloud while a second team carried the lights that Roland had used on calmer evenings. All of them were volunteers, some seemed genuinely moved by Scirye’s sacrifice while others, realizing they were technically traitors, were trying to curry favor by cooperating.
Even though they were as impatient as Leech to begin digging, Scirye’s parents had to wait for the lights to come on.
But a dragon is used to finding her way in the lightless depths of the ocean. As they stepped off Primo’s strange craft, Bayang pointed to the broken column. “We’ll dig there,” Bayang announced to the other rescuers, “but since we can’t be sure this is where Kemshap’s heart is, the rest of you should explore elsewhere.”
As they climbed up the slope, Koko munched a cookie that he had found in the mess tent. “I bet we hear Kles long before we see him,” he said, trying to lift his friends’ spirits.
“He’ll be giving a lecture on internal organs,” Bayang agreed.
Leech chuckled. “There’s one person who likes the sound of his own voice.” All three of them wanted to cling to the faint hope that their friends had survived.
Bayang said a growth spell and her body shimmered in an iridescent mist until she was three times as large. “Be careful not to get behind me,” she warned. Then the dragon began to dig, her large paws breaking up the frozen dirt into clods that she cast behind her. Soon she was digging in a steady rhythm like a scaled steam shovel.
As he watched the mound of discarded earth rise behind Bayang, Leech was sure they’d find Scirye soon. Going to a spot on the other side of the shattered arrow, Leech swung a pickaxe. The cold ground was like iron but he worked determinedly until there was a small pile of rubble, which Koko lifted away with his shovel.
Soon, despite the cold, he was sweating. A little distance away he heard the generator cough into life and light suddenly flooded the slopes. All about them, people began digging.
And we won’t leave until we’ve found our friends, the Voice said.
No, we won’t, Leech promised.
70
Bayang
By sunrise of the next day, the hill was pitted with holes and Bayang had personally excavated a crater. Even her great muscles ached and Leech and Koko were moving as stiffly as zombies.
By common consent, they joined the others for breakfast, for Wali had brewed a vat of hot tea to go with the cheese and hard cakes she had liberated from Roland’s camp.
Bayang had little appetite for food, but she had welcomed the tea and had returned to the hill to sit by herself as she warmed her paws on the tin cup. As she inhaled the aroma from the tea, she remembered warm summer days floating in the ocean among the kelp. She felt a pang that she would never see her home again, but she put that aside. She had made her choices. She would live with them now.
She sighed. It would be a shame if Scirye would not get to enjoy any more sunny afternoons. But the hatchling had made her choice as well, a very noble one. All Bayang could do was try to save her now.
When the pebbles began to rattle, she stood up hastily and looked about. Was Kemshap coming to life, or was this some sort of aftershock after his death?
But the rest of the slope lay still.
Curious, she looked at the spot again and saw that the ground had risen to a small mound several inches high. And then a bronze arrowhead thrust out of it, followed by the hand clasping the shaft. The next moment, the dirt cascaded aside and a familiar but very dirty red head followed.
Scirye grinned up at the dragon. “You need a bath, Bayang.”
Bayang was so surprised that the only thing she could think of to say was, “So do you, young lady.” Instinctively, she extended the cup in her paw. “Would you like some tea?”
Scirye blinked the dirt from her eyes and sniffed appreciatively. “It smells wonderful, but would you mind giving me a paw? I feel like I’m one big bruise.”
Bayang set her cup down. It was only then that she remembered to shout to the others, “Hey, I’ve found her.”
Scirye grinned up at her. “What do you mean? I’m the one who found you.”
Laughing with relief, Bayang began to dig with both paws until she had freed Scirye’s shoulders and arms. Seizing the hatchling’s wrist, the dragon hauled her out of the hole. “Up you go.”
A very bedraggled griffin clung to her back. He let go, falling with a plop on the ground.
As she hugged the hatchling, Bayang reminded herself that despite having just heroically slain a gigantic monster, Scirye was still a human with fragile bones.
Even though Bayang tried to be as gentle as she could, the hatchling laughed. “Ouch. Not so hard.”
Tenderly, Bayang lifted Kles in her paw and repeated his battle cry in a soft, loving voice. “Tarkär, friend. Well done.”
Tucking the arrow into her belt, Scirye had tried to pick up the cup in one hand and almost dropped it. It was only then that Bayang noticed her fingers were so raw and bleeding from scraping against rocks that she had difficulty holding anything. Gripping the cup clumsily in both her hands, the hatchling drank thirstily, then lowered it.
“Here, Kles. I saved you half,” she said.
As the dragon held the griffin, Scirye lifted the cup to the griffin’s beak.
As Kles settled back against Bayang’s paw, he croaked, “For our next adventure, could we read a book? Preferably something boring—like how to grow carrots.”
Scirye had turned her face up toward the sun, letting it warm her cheeks. “I thought you liked all this excitement.”
“Sometimes you can have too much of a good thing,” Kles said, and sighed.
By then the others had stumbled over the uncertain footing of the slope toward them, and there was another round of hugs with some tears mixed in.
When everyone had had a turn with Scirye and Kles, they sat down. “Did you just burrow through a whole mountain?” Kat asked, staring at the hole.
Lord Tsirauñe scratched his cheek. “I don’t recall anyone in the family being part gopher.”
Kles was sitting up now, but leaning against his mistress for support. “I think it was the arrow’s doing, my lord.”
Scirye held up it up. “The arrow just began knifing through the dirt. I’m just glad I was able to hold on.”
/> “So are we,” Lady Sudarshane said, smiling as she began to cry again.
71
Scirye
Scirye was taken to Roland’s camp where she was comfortably installed in a tent with a portable stove. Kles had coiled himself about her neck and shoulders and was chirruping in a low voice that was his equivalent of a cat’s purr.
As he sat with his friends, Koko gave a deep sigh. “So it’s finally over.”
Scirye glanced at her hand. The mark was fading, the outlines of the “3” hard to see. Suddenly she felt sad, realizing that the end of the adventure meant that her friends would now be going their separate ways. “I suppose you’ll be heading home to San Francisco with Primo,” she said to Leech and Koko. A new thought hit her and she looked at Bayang. “But what will you do?”
The dragon lifted her head with all of her old dignity. “I’ll go home and ask for a meeting with all the representatives of the different clans. Since I did kill Badik, they’ll have to honor my request and come. Then I’ll try to convince them that Leech is no threat. After all, he did help save the world.”
“Will they believe you?” Leech said, worried.
Bayang shrugged and winced at the pain in her injured wing. “Probably not. We dragons can be a pretty hardheaded lot.”
Leech looked distracted for a moment, as if he were listening to someone, and then he asked, “What’ll they do to you?”
Bayang looked away from Leech and twisted her head to check the scars on her wing. “The dragons will put me to death for disobeying their orders.”
Leech paused as if he were listening to someone and then he said, “Even Lee No Cha would say that’s wrong.”
“And if he were here,” Bayang said carefully, “I would thank him, because he would now be my friend and not my enemy.”
“You could stay with us and Primo,” Leech offered.
Bayang shook her head. “Primo and I could never feel comfortable with each other.”
Koko gave a cough. “Scirye, couldn’t you ask the princess to work out a deal with the dragons?”
Bayang folded her wings again. “Even a princess of a vast empire is still a mere human to the dragons. My people will only listen to one of their own kind.”
Scirye pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders as she glared at the dragon. “I never thought I’d see the day when you would break a vow.”
“I beg your pardon?” Bayang said stiffly.
“Didn’t we promise to return the staff to Uncle Resak and the string to Pele,” Scirye demanded, indicating the bow in one corner.
The dragon scratched the tip of her snout. “Hmm, we did do that, didn’t we?”
“And you don’t want to break an oath to a goddess,” Leech chimed in eagerly. “So you can’t go back to your clan just yet.”
“They’ll just have to wait.” And Bayang laughed.
“And while we’re traveling, we’ll figure out some way to convince your clan to forgive you,” Scirye suggested. It seemed like a remote hope but then so had been stopping Roland.
“Sure,” Koko said. “We’re bound to save the world a few more times on the way to Hawaii. Do that enough times and even dragons will have to forgive and forget.”
“What about Primo?” Scirye asked Leech.
Leech shrugged. “He’ll just have to understand that you’re my family too.”
It was Kles who played the spoilsport. “How do we leave though? We don’t have the straw wing anymore.”
Leech waved a paw at the tent around them. “We can build a wing out of canvas and poles.”
“But how do we launch it?” Kles asked. “Bayang can’t fly yet.”
They all lapsed into silence, trying to figure out how to make that happen. Suddenly, Scirye felt a warmth wrap itself around her as if Nanaia were with her again.
“What are you smiling about?” Leech asked her curiously.
All of Scirye’s doubts and worries vanished mysteriously. “I don’t know.” Scirye shrugged. “I just feel like it.”
Then a familiar voice boomed from above them. “Ho, lumplings!”
They heard a puzzled Kat shout. “Who’s that talking? I can’t see you. And no one calls me a lump of anything.”
The tent boomed and the ropes creaked as a stray draft from Naue tried to tear it free. “Have you seen my friends?” he asked, cheerfully ignoring Kat’s questions. “They look odder than you and they’re much more entertaining.”
72
Leech
Mounting the discs, Leech rose through the air as all eyes in the camp watched him. The Voice did not speak but he could feel his elation added to Leech’s own.
Below him, Scirye, Bayang, and Koko were waving their hands to get Naue’s attention. Flapping his arms as he rocketed upward, Leech shouted, “Naue, here we are.”
Leech felt a thin gust of air circle around his waist as if Naue had extended an invisible tendril. Playfully, the wind spun him around and around as if he were a top. “Oh, such great joy! Such rapture! You’re alive, half-lumpling. Naue feels like singing. And he will.”
Before Naue could begin one of his long hymns of praise to himself, Leech said quickly, “And we’re glad to see you managed to pull yourself back together.”
“How can lightning destroy Naue the Invincible?” Naue demanded as he stopped twirling Leech.
“How did you find us?” Leech asked.
“One of Naue’s many admirers whispered in his ear.” Naue paused as if confused. “Or did Naue dream he should come here?”
Leech wondered if Nanaia had guided the wind to them.
In the meantime, though, Naue shook off his momentary confusion and began to swirl around Leech. “No matter. Isn’t it always so much fun when Naue is with you lumplings? What game shall we play next?”
As Leech fought to keep his balance, he managed to say, “We have to build another wing somehow.”
“Naue is generous,” the wind declared. “He will wait for your signal. You know the one?”
Leech remembered seeing flares in Roland’s camp. “We’ll put flowers in the sky,” Leech said. That was what Naue called fireworks.
But Naue was too impressed by his own kindliness to pay attention to the boy. “Lovely is the friendship of Naue, Great Naue!” the wind sang in a booming voice. “Grateful are the lumplings, for who else is so kind, so gracious, so understanding?”
He was still singing as his voice faded into the distance.
If he had legs, the Voice observed, he’d be strutting right now.
73
Scirye
When Leech brought them the news, Scirye was sure that the goddess had done her one last favor. Or was it some last bit of Māka still in Her? Was the memory of being human part of Her now?
Thank you, she said silently to the goddess and her friend, for she would never be able to think about the one without the other.
Bayang was busy using charcoal from the brazier to draw a crude diagram of the wing on one end of a wooden table. And on the other end, Leech was busy making up a list of what they will need.
“We’ll need supplies too,” Koko said, serious for once. “Lots of them.”
Scirye looked at the excited faces of their friends. “This is the way it should be,” she murmured to Kles who had coiled himself around her neck.
“Yes,” the little griffin agreed, “the five of us racing to a new adventure together.”
As she felt his warm body vibrate as the griffin began to chirrup contently, Scirye was ready to purr with him.
Afterword
This series began when my editor, Susan Chang, told me she was interested in the Caucasian mummies that had been found along the Silk Road, some of which dated back 3,800 years. The dry climate had preserved their bodies so it was possible to see that they had red hair and Caucasian features and had been buried in cloth with a weave distinctive to the Celts of Europe.
I’d been just as fascinated by the mummies and how they came t
o be in what is now China. DNA tests showed that they were of both Near Eastern and Asian ancestry, suggesting that people were already traveling back and forth upon the trade routes we call the Silk Road.
It was more than people and jewels; spices and other goods also moved back and forth across continents, and ideas as well. The goddess Nanaia was a combination of the Mesopotamian goddess Anahita and the Greek goddess Demeter, with some overtones of Indian deities as well.
Many authorities believe that the descendants of these mummies became the Kushans, whose empire sat astride the Silk Road for several centuries. They were a flexible people who were adept at blending ideas and concepts, including commissioning the Buddhist statues of Gandhara. Buddhist themes were sculpted in classical Greek style to create a haunting and serene beauty.
When I began the series, I had no idea that the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco was going to bring in an exhibit that featured Kushan art and jewelry, and I had a chance to see it twice. If you are curious about these treasures, you might want to look at the exhibit’s catalog, Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul.
The Old Tongue in this series is Tocharian, and I’m embarrassed to say that I found I had mispronounced some of the names of the Kushan characters, so I’ve corrected it in the guide.
Finally, I want to thank the readers for following the adventures of Scirye and her companions. I hope they had as much fun on this journey as I did and that, by the end, they could also smell a hint of spices carried on the dry wind.
These are some of the sources consulted for this book:
Adams, Douglas Q. A Dictionary of Tocharian B. Amsterdam: Rodolpi Bv, 1999.
Asarpay, G. “Nana, the Sumero-Akkadian Goddess of Transoxiana,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 96, no. 4 (October-December 1976): 536–542.
Ball, Warwick. The Monuments of Afghanistan: History, Archaeology and Architecture. London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2008.
Cribb, Joe, and Georgina Herrman, eds. After Alexander: Central Asia before Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.