The Veiled Dragon

Four

The sky above the Ginger Palace was lucid and azure, as it could be nowhere but the arid plain south of the city of Elversult. Anticipating a pleasant morning of solitude in the confines of his private park, Prince Tang crossed the humped back of Five Color Bridge, strode down the opal-paved Path of Delight, and stopped beneath the iridescent curve of the Arch of Many-Hued Scales.

From the sleeve pocket of his maitung—the long silken tunic favored by Shou noblemen—the prince withdrew a large golden key. It was shaped like a chameleon’s head, with broad shoulder flanges and a sinuous blade resembling a long, flickering tongue. He rapped the top three times against the entryway’s red-lacquered gates, then inserted the blade into a brass keyway, turned the latch, and pushed the heavy portals aside.

Prince Tang did not find his pets arrayed before the gate, as they customarily were. Instead, the rocky plaza was strangely barren, save for a half dozen buzzing, blue-black mounds scattered along one edge. Beyond the droning fly clusters, twenty quartzite boulders imported from Calimshan had been torn from their footings and strewn over the carefully shaped dunes of the park’s desert quarter. In the forest region, circles of bark had been scratched around the trunks of the most exotic trees, and in the jungle zone, the meticulously strung jasmine vines lay sliced and twined about the base of the bamboo stalks. The swamp area was covered with tangled mats of pink and blue and yellow, decorative grasses torn from the bottom and left to drift on the murky waters, while the lotus blossoms and lily pads had been thrown onto the muddy bank to wither and die.

Tang could see only one of his pets, an elusive, jet-black river monitor. The great lizard had dragged itself from the swamp and stretched its fifteen-foot length over a stone bench, leaving its webbed feet, thick tail, and slender head to dangle over the sides. The beast’s neck was twisted toward the gate, as though it had been awaiting the prince’s arrival when the last gleam of hope seeped from its dull eyes.

Tang stared at the lifeless monitor for several bewildered moments, then finally realized that some contemptible barbarian had violated the sanctity of his garden. He retreated through the Arch of Many-Hued Scales, screaming as though he had been stabbed.

At the first shriek, a company of ten sentries appeared on the Path of Delight, emerging from camouflaged posts behind the walkway’s white-blossomed hedges. In the blink of an eye, Tang was encircled by a bristling wall of scale-armored men equipped with long, curve-bladed halberds. They neither touched their master nor inquired as to the reason for his scream, but simply stood ready to obey his orders and defend his life.

Prince Tang entered his garden again, his protective shell of soldiers compressing around him as he passed through the arch. He stopped inside the gateway, remaining silent while his guards examined the scene. He did not speak until their tortoise-shell helmets had stopped pivoting on their shoulders and the last gasp had fallen silent.

“How does this happen?” demanded the prince. “Is it not your duty to protect Garden of Flickering Tongues?”

The company officer, a young moon-faced noble named Yuan Ti, dropped to his knees and touched his forehead to the stones at Tang’s feet. “Mighty Prince, your guards fail you.” Since his voice was directed at the ground, Yuan sounded as though he were mumbling. “We see no one enter garden.”

The prince snorted at the explanation. “How could it be otherwise? If you see intruder, he would be dead, would he not?” Only Tang himself used the garden; not even his wife, Princess Wei Dao, was allowed inside. Though Yuan could not see the gesture with his head pressed to the ground, the prince waved his hand at the destruction. “But does no one hear falling of stones, or scratching of trees, or ripping of vines?”

Yuan kept his brow pressed to the ground. “Great Majesty, your unworthy guards hear nothing, smell nothing, feel nothing. Please to punish.”

Tang ignored the request. “Go search garden.”

The prince could not imagine how his guards had missed the sound of the park being destroyed, but he knew the young noble would never lie to him. No Shou officer would commit such a treason, and not only because he feared for his family’s heads. The offense would dishonor his ancestors, causing them to lose their places in the Celestial Bureaucracy—an offense said ancestors would surely repay with all manner of curses and incurable plagues.

While the guards searched the park, Tang retreated through the gate and waited outside, praying to the spirits of his ancestors to guide his sentries to the vandal who had destroyed his park. Although the imperial weapon-masters had taught him to wield a sword as well as any man, it did not even occur to him to stay in the garden and exact vengeance himself. From his earliest childhood, the prince had been taught to retreat from danger and call his guards to take care of the problem. It was a lesson he had not ignored once in thirty years of life.

At length, the sentries returned with unbloodied weapons and bowed to Tang. “Garden of Flickering Tongues is safe for Mighty Prince.”

“You do not find vandal?”

Yuan shook his head. “Only lizards, and only lizard tracks.”

Tang considered this, puzzled not by who had ravaged his garden or why—he knew the answers to both questions—but by how the intruder had infiltrated the heart of his palace, vandalized the park, and escaped with his life. Truly, such a feat was as worthy of admiration as it was of indignation.

When he could not think of how the culprit had escaped, Tang sighed wearily. “How unfortunate you did not capture the intruder. He has given me much work to do.” The prince always tended his garden himself, calling for aid only when he needed help to move something heavy. “Return to your posts and punish each other, ten lashes each.”

The faces of the sentries fell. Given the magnitude of their failure, such a light punishment was humiliating. Its temperance implied that Tang believed them incapable of doing better—which happened to be the case, though the prince did not fault the guards for their inadequacy. Even the most devoted sentries could not capture intruders they could not see or hear, or find trespassers who left no tracks. Such tasks required a wu-jen. Unfortunately, the Minister of Magic was currently at odds with Tang’s own sponsor, Mandarin Hsieh Han Liu, the Imperial Minister of Spices. Consequently, the Emperor’s wu-jens were considered too valuable to waste on an inconsequential embassy like the Ginger Palace. Such political frustrations were a daily part of the prince’s life, and one of the many reasons he preferred the company of lizards to that of men.

Tang waited until the last guard had stepped aside, then took his key from the red-lacquered gates and stepped through the Arch of Many-Hued Scales. When he turned to close the gates, he glimpsed his guards glumly marching toward the Five Color Bridge and decided it would not do to have them brooding over their failure. They were an elite company, and an elite company without honor was nothing.

“One thing more, my soldiers,” he called. “You must double lashes for any man who fails to draw blood with each whip stroke.”

The guards bowed in acknowledgment, and Yuan could barely keep from smiling. “Yes, Mighty Prince.”

Tang closed the gate and put the key in his sleeve pocket, leaving the lock unlatched in case the mysterious vandal returned. He fetched a small shovel, a linen sack, and a copper bucket from a tool shanty near the jungle quarter, then took a deep breath and went to the first mound of flies. As he slid the shovel beneath the droning heap, the insects rose into the air, revealing a pile of rancid lizard viscera. Fighting his gorge back, he scooped up the entrails and placed them in the sack, then filled his bucket from the swamp and washed the stones.

The work was humiliating for a prince, of course, but Tang preferred doing it himself to having the serenity of his garden disturbed by servants. He cleaned up the other mounds of viscera, then placed the bulging sack by the gate. The entrails had obviously come from the belly of his dead monitor, for none of the other lizards were large enough to hold so many intestines. What the prince did not understand was how the intruder had known it was his favorite pet, a rare beast captured in the distant land of Chult. Only his personal staff knew how dearly he had paid for the creature, and they would no sooner betray him than his guards would.

Tang returned his tools to the shanty, then went over to the dead monitor. He waved aside a cloud of flies and grabbed the beast by its rear legs.

The beast jerked its feet from the prince’s grasp.

Tang cried out and stepped away, his gaze dropping to the black stains that covered the bench and the stones beneath it. The stuff looked like dried blood, and the rancid, coppery smell certainly suggested appearances were correct. He did not see how the monitor could have lost so much blood and lived. The great lizard raised its head, fixing a dull-eyed gaze on the prince’s face.

“Guards!” Tang stumbled backward toward the gate. “Yuan! Come quickly!”

The monitor glanced at the gate, and Tang heard the sharp double click of the heavy lock-bolt sliding into its catch. He fished the key from his sleeve pocket and continued to retreat, fighting down his growing panic and trying to decide whether he dared turn his back to make a dash for the gate.

Tang, you cannot flee me.

Tang heard the voice not with his ears, but inside his mind. It was raspy and rumbling, and even if it had come from the monitor’s mouth, it would have been much too resonant for a lacertilian throat.

That much, you should remember.

“Cy-Cypress?”

The monitor nodded, and Tang’s feet suddenly felt as heavy as boulders. At first, the prince thought the lizard had cast a spell on him, but he quickly realized that was impossible. The beast had uttered no mystic syllables, nor made any arcane gestures with its claws. Instead, Cypress was using what the Shou called the Invisible Art, an ancient discipline whose practitioners employed nothing but the power of their own minds to perform supernatural acts. Tang had heard that his unwelcome guest was a master of the venerable art, but until now, he had been lucky enough to avoid a demonstration.

Tang’s guards arrived at the park entrance and began to hammer on the gates, but they could not break through with anything short of a battering ram. Both portals were reinforced with heavy bands of steel, while the lock itself was the sturdiest Shou smiths could make. The sentries could not even scale the wall, as it was capped with a double crest of barbed spikes.

Cypress slunk off the bench, allowing Tang to glimpse a deep, white-fleshed gash that ran the entire length of the monitor’s belly. The beast trundled across the plaza on four stubby legs, then stopped next to the prince’s knee and rolled its lifeless gaze over his maitung.

Given that we have not seen you in so long, I find this altogether pretentious.

The lizard’s tongue darted out to snap at Tang’s maitung, which was tailored with overlapping brown patches resembling the spade-shaped scales of an armored skink.

How long has it been since you attended Lair?

“You know I resign.”

Cypress slipped behind his captive and lashed out with the monitor’s huge tail, catching Tang behind the knees and hurling him face first to the plaza. The prince’s nose and mouth erupted in stinging pain, and he felt the unaccustomed sensation of warm blood spilling from his nostrils. He tried to rise and found himself pinned to the ground, his entire body now as heavy as only his feet had been a moment earlier. He screamed, more in rage than anguish, and wished that he had a sword in his hand—and the strength to raise it.

The hammering at the gates ceased, then a sharp boom reverberated across the plaza as several armored bodies slammed into the portals. The thick planks creaked, but the lock did not give way. Cypress circled around in front of the prince, barely glancing toward the gates.

I have told you, no one resigns from the Cult of the Dragon!

The monitor took Tang’s hand in its mouth. The prince cringed, fearing he would soon have a bloody stump at the end of his wrist, but the powerful jaws did not close. Instead, the beast’s agile tongue rolled over Tang’s fingers, removing his golden rings. After doing the same with the other hand, the dead lizard dropped to its belly and stared the prince in the eye.

I thank you for the offering. Now, where is my ylang oil?

“Where is Lady Feng?” Tang groaned. “You have oil when I have mother.”

A red ember sparked deep within the lizard’s eye, then the beast dragged one huge claw across the prince’s face.

“You dare scratch me?” Tang squawked, astonished that even a spiteful creature like Cypress would mark a person of Imperial Shou blood. He spat on the beast’s snout, then added, “For that, you die thousand deaths!”

The monitor’s gaping jaws opened as though to chomp Tang’s head off; then the beast tipped its head sideways and did not bite. I think I shall!

A deep, rumbling laugh—more like a cough—rolled up from someplace deep in the monitor’s hollow stomach, and Cypress laid one of the lizard’s heavy claws on the prince’s shoulder.

I shall die a thousand deaths—a thousand deaths at least!

Cypress removed the foot from Tang’s shoulder and backed away, still chuckling. The prince found that his body no longer seemed quite so heavy. He gathered himself up and stood, one hand pinching his bloody nose. Another boom echoed across the plaza. The monitor’s head turned so that it could watch the arch with one drab eye and Tang with the other.

Lady Feng informs me that only you know how to press the ylang blossoms, so I will spare your life—but I am losing patience. If I do not have the oil by tomorrow, I shall start returning your mother in parts.

“What you ask is impossible! Pressing blossoms take one week—”

Don’t lie to me! I know how long you need to prepare the oil! The monitor whirled away and started across the plaza. Tomorrow.

A double click sounded beneath the Arch of Many-Hued Scales. The gates burst open, and Yuan led the guards into the garden. Several of the men were only half dressed and bleeding from their whip cuts. Their eyes went first to the prince’s bloody face, then to the lumbering monitor. To a man, they lowered their halberds and charged.

“No! Stand—”

Tang’s command came too late. Cypress ran the monitor’s dark gaze from one end of the company to the other. As the black eyes fell on each sentry, the man wailed and slapped his palms to his ears, letting his weapon fly from his hands. In a breath’s span, all ten guards lay writhing on the ground, screaming madly and bleeding from their ears. The lizard sauntered calmly into the squad’s midst, paused to suck the silver honor ring off each man’s thumb, and walked out the gate. By the time Cypress had lumbered down the Path of Delight onto the Five Color Bridge, the last sentry had curled into a tight ball and lay staring at the ground in front of him through gray, sunken eyeballs.

Tang sank to his knees and looked numbly around his garden, absentmindedly counting all the boulders and trees he would have to replace. At least now he knew how the vandal had penetrated the heart of his palace; without a wu-jen, even the most elaborate traps and precautions were doomed to fail against a master of the Invisible Art.

From beneath the Arch of Many-Hued Scales came a soft-voiced cough. Tang turned and saw the lithe form of his diminutive wife, Wei Dao, standing in the gateway. She had apparently come from her gymnasium, for her brow was wet with sweat, and she wore a black samfu, a long-sleeved uniform in which she always dressed to practice empty-hand defense. Today, her attire also included a red throat scarf. Despite her ruffled hair and flushed complexion, the princess looked as striking as ever, with generous painted lips, high cheeks, and a watchful, sloe-eyed gaze.

Wei Dao bowed. “Mighty Prince, please forgive intrusion, but I hear terrible commotion.”

Her eyes darted from her husband’s blood-smeared face to the fallen guards, but she made no comment on their condition and did not move to help them. As Tang’s wife, such things were as far beneath her dignity as that of the prince himself; at their first convenience, one of them would inform the commander of the guard that some of his men were in need of attention.

“I see Chult lizard crossing Five Color Bridge,” said Wei Dao. “It looks in no condition to walk.”

Tang rose and crossed the plaza to his wife. “We have unwelcome visitor.” He left the garden and pulled the red-lacquered gates shut behind him. “We need wu-jen.”

Wei Dao considered this a moment, then asked, “To stop dragon?” Then, as though there could be some question of which dragon she meant, she added, “To stop Cypress?”

Tang nodded. “I do not understand why, but he comes himself.” Cypress seldom ventured from the gluttonous comfort of his lair and would normally have sent his high priestess, Indrith Shalla, to deliver the threat. “And he leaves in body of monitor. Why does dragon want carcass of giant lizard?”

Wei Dao’s eyes flashed. “What do we care?” She took the scarf from around her neck, revealing the fading remnants of an ugly skin rash, and dabbed at Tang’s blood-smeared face. “Give him ylang oil before he kill Lady Feng.”

Tang winced at his wife’s ministrations. “He does not kill Lady Feng. She is safe.”

Wei Dao began to scrub the claw marks on her husband’s cheeks—harder than necessary, it seemed to him. “If dragon kills mother, you lose all honor before Emperor. We never return to Tai Tung. We spend rest of our lives exiled from court.”

Tang could think of worse fates, but he did not dare say so in the presence of his ambitious wife. “Lady Feng is safe.” He pulled Wei Dao’s hands away from his stinging face. “I know.”

The princess scowled and tried another tack. “Still better to give Cypress what he wants. If Lady Feng is not here when Minister Hsieh arrives, there be many questions. How do you explain that Cult of Dragon steals Third Virtuous Concubine?”

Tang pulled away from his wife and pushed his key into the gate lock. “I cannot give Cypress what he wants.”

Wei Dao’s perfect mouth twisted into a doubtful frown. “What do you mean? I see hundreds of ylang blossoms in spicehouse.”

“All picked in evening.” Tang turned the key and heard the double click of the bolt shooting into the catch. When the commander of the guard came to fetch his men, he would have to be entrusted with the key. There was nothing else to be done; certainly, the garden could not be left unlocked. The prince faced his wife, then said, “Ylang blossoms picked in evening are not potent.”

“Not potent?”

Tang shrugged. “They are good for balms and teas, but potion made from those blossoms does not last. Only flowers picked in morning have strength to make permanent love potion.”

Wei Dao narrowed her sloe-eyed gaze. “Why do we have only weak blossoms?”

“Because strong blossoms do not keep long. Even if journey from Shou Lung is short, they spoil before we sell them all.”

Wei Dao shook her head in open disbelief. “No. You do not want venerable mother to return! You like life of barbarian!”

Unaccustomed to being addressed in such tones, even by his own wife, the prince raised his hand—then found Wei Dao’s wrist pressed against his own, blocking his strike.

They glared into each other’s eyes for a moment, then Tang asked, “What if I press oil and spell fails? What does Cypress do to Lady Feng then?”

Wei Dao looked away and did not answer.

“Then we do this my way,” Tang said. “We wait for Hsieh’s ship—then I press oil.”

Wei Dao’s face paled. “You mean …?”

“Yes.” Tang nodded. “Blossoms come on Ginger Lady.”

The princess’s eyes grew as round as saucers. “And you do not tell Cypress?”

Tang scowled at her naivete. “Secret of oil is to press morning-picked blossoms. If we tell Cypress, do you think he returns Lady Feng to us?”

Wei Dao lowered her gaze in a practiced show of deference. “My husband, your wisdom outshines the sun.” She even managed a blush. “Please to excuse. I go do penance for my doubts.”

Tang smiled benevolently, then dismissed her with a wave of his hand. “Do not be hard on yourself.”

“Oh, but I must.” Wei Dao bowed very low, then turned to scurry down the Path of Delight.