The Dragons of Heaven

by Alyc Helms

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  Jian Huo approached the temple at the head of the Huanglong valley in a roiling fog meant to hide him from curious tourists. It burned off within moments of landing, but that was fine. I wasn’t standing beside a dragon anymore. I was barely standing beside a recognizable Jian Huo. He’d dumped the fancy hanfu for a simple set of monks’ robes. He still had his bruises, though, and his hair. It coiled behind him, the end dipping into the aquamarine waters of one of the travertine pools.

  I wanted to fish it out, just for an excuse to touch that hair one last time. I clasped my hands behind my back to keep myself from showing such weakness.

  “So.”

  “So.”

  A shriek from the temple interrupted any attempt at awkward goodbyes. “Missy?”

  A distantly-familiar laowai woman with lean limbs, sun-kissed cheeks, and salon-streaked hair jogged toward me, waving and beaming. I had to root through memory to place her. “J-Jill?”

  And the man coming up behind her. “Jim?”

  She reached me and yanked me into a hug. “Oh, thank god you’re OK. And you made it back down just in time. It took a few days–”

  “And more international roaming minutes that I care to calculate,” the man behind her drawled.

  “–But we found another bus that can take us back to Chengdu.” Jill released me, but only enough to inspect my face and clothes. She flinched. I wasn’t sure if it was due to the bruise or the fact that I wasn’t a fresh-faced eighteen-year-old anymore. “You look… different.” Her gaze dropped from my face, settled on something less troubling. “Is this silk? God, I love this! Jim, look at the embroidery!”

  Jim seemed more interested in Jian Huo than the embroidery. He glowered at him like a protective older brother, even as he spoke to me. “Where did you go? We tried to tell the temple monks and the tour guides about you, but half the time they pretended not to understand, and the other half they said you would be safe as a guest of the mountain. Whatever the hell that means.”

  Jim might as well have been a midge for how much effect his glare had on Jian Huo. “It means me. And I have brought her safely back to you.”

  As weird as it was to see Jian Huo in anything but his ostentatious robes, it was even weirder to hear him speak perfect, received-pronunciation English.

  English. He spoke English. We could have been speaking English this entire time. I glared fuck-yous at him.

  Jill remained oblivious to my fuming, hugging me again. “The cousins are going to be so relieved. And Gunther. We’ve all been kicking ourselves for letting you go off on your own.”

  I couldn’t speak past the surreality of the meeting. Who were these people? I’d only known them for a week, and that had been fifteen years ago.

  I wormed out of Jill’s embrace. “If you could just… I just need to have a quick word with…” I gave up on coming up with a good excuse and grabbed Jian Huo’s sleeve, dragging him across a nearby bridge that spanned the pools so I could rip him a new one in solitude.

  I stopped halfway across. “What. The hell.”

  He gave me a curious look. “Was that a question?”

  I glanced back at Jill and Jim, who were casting us equally-curious looks. Two older ladies joined them, hands clamping matching sunhats to their snowy hair. I couldn’t remember their names, but I recalled they were from England. Norfolk? Suffolk? One of the folks.

  I released Jian Huo’s sleeve like I was flinging off a bug. “Explain,” I commanded, crossing my arms.

  For several seconds, I didn’t think he would, but then he tucked his hands in his sleeves and sighed. “I do not know that I can give you what you wish. There is no great need for explanation. You are an intelligent creature. If you have not already deduced what I did, then you soon will.”

  “You worked some spirit mojo with time so that everything that I thought took place over fifteen years actually took place in a moment of real time,” I said. I didn’t understand all the nuances, likely never would, but I’d gotten that much at least. I touched my cheeks, looked at my hands. I didn’t feel any different. I didn’t feel like the clock had been turned back fifteen years. “You couldn’t have stopped me from aging?”

  “I could have, but then you would never have changed, never grown, never been able to…” He flattened his lips against his next words, as if I couldn’t guess what he’d been about to say.

  I would never have been able to bear him his fucking master plan.

  Screw explanations. I’d been right to leave. “You are unbelievable.”

  He caught my arm when I would have walked away. “I thought you would have been pleased to return to a world unchanged.”

  “Oh, is that what you thought? And you didn’t consider that I might be upset to learn that it was all a dream? That none of it was real?”

  “What do you take me for? Do you think me some kind of charlatan, that the only realities I can spin are illusions? It was real. The life we led was as true as anything in this world.”

  “Don’t you see? It’s meaningless now. You’ve given it back, and it’s like it never happened.”

  “How is it so? Mei Shen and Mian Zi are alive and well. You retain all that you’ve learned. The friends that you’ve made are still yours.” He snorted. “As are the enemies. You believe I’ve wronged you by compressing all of this into a moment, but perhaps you wrong me by denying the significance of that moment.”

  I couldn’t. I couldn’t stand here and listen to him tell me how I’d wronged him. Not without wanting to shove him over the bridge railing and into one of the travertine pools that had brought me to the Huanglong valley so long ago.

  A few days ago?

  I covered my face, scraped my fingers back through my hair, feeling every one of my thirty-three years, and fighting back the exhausting realization that I wouldn’t be able to share my loss with anyone. The friends I’d left behind were no longer family; the family I’d built, I had to leave behind.

  “Missy–”

  I stepped back from him before he could touch me. “Leave it. It’s done. I guess at least I won’t have to deal with missing persons reports and whatever you have to do to come back from the dead.” I laughed so I wouldn’t cry. My visitor’s Visa wasn’t even expired.

  “We can still–”

  “No. We can’t. I can’t. I came here to learn to be an adventure hero. Guess I should get around to being one.” I forced myself to meet his eyes. To not care. “Goodbye, Lung Huang.”

  Turning away, I crossed the bridge back to a world I didn’t belong in anymore.

  FIFTEEN

  Fallout

  Now

  A knock sounded at my bedroom door. I rolled over and pulled the covers over my head. “Go away.”

  The door opened. “No.”

  Shimizu. I parted the covers just enough to give her a baleful glare. “Why can’t you respect my need for privacy?”

  “Because the last time you were like this, you made me promise to never let you go more than three days without showering. You’re on day two, Masters.”

  The last time I’d been like this. The last time I’d returned from China. In many ways, this time was worse. Last time, I’d just felt disconnected from my life and everyone in it. This time, everywhere I looked I was reminded of my failure. It was made all the worse by almost everyone insisting that I – or Mr Mystic – was the hero of the day.

  Fucking Skyrocket. What a blabbermouth.

  “If I had just let David Tsung go through that ward–”

  “Then he would be Lung-whatshisface’s champion.” Shimizu yanked away my covers and poked me until I sat up. “And Mei Shen would fight even more with Mian Zi to protect her boyfriend. Probably end up working for Lung-bad-guy, and definitely end up with a broken heart.”

  Her no-nonsense assessment, no matter how insightful it might be, did little to make me feel better. Neither did her bustling. I batted her hands away when she tried to smooth my sleep-rumpled hair. �
��I could have done something else–”

  Shimizu huffed and planted her fists on her hips. “You stopped World War III, and that’s not enough for you? I give up. Wallow all you want. I just came in to tell you that there’s someone here for you.”

  She was letting me go back to wallowing? I crossed my arms. It was a trick. “There is no one in this world or any other that I can imagine wanting to see.”

  But she’d perked my curiosity. Who would cause her to brave my surly hermitage? Not any of the housemates. Not Jack, who’d already left me dozens of messages about everything from private security contract offers to movie deals. Not Johnny Cho, who would just barge in himself if he wanted to see me.

  “Who?” I took the yoga pants she handed me.

  “I guess you’ll have to go up to the parlor to see.” She left me with a wink and a grin.

  She was too cheerful for it to be anything but a ruse to get me mobile and back in the world. I almost climbed back into bed. Dressing seemed like too much of an effort, even to satisfy my curiosity. It better not be Sylvia Dunbarton or anyone from Argent. But no, they wouldn’t know to look for Mr Mystic here, even if it was his old house turned intentional living co-op.

  OK, maybe I was curious enough to get dressed. I pulled on the yoga pants, pulled my dirty hair back with a hairband, and shuffled upstairs into our rarely-used parlor.

  I froze in the doorway. Never in a million years would I have guessed this visitor.

  “I’ll just give you guys some alone time,” Shimizu said. She squeezed my hand on the way past and shut the door behind me.

  Jian Huo dressed as he always had, in rich robes out of some wuxia fantasy. He should have looked out of place standing in the Victorian parlor, but he was one that made the parlor look out of place, a cheap, gaudy stage for something out of legend. Light from the stained glass windows dappled his robes with roundels of blue and violet.

  I sat on a nearby fainting couch before I could faint across it. “I suppose you came to yell at me?”

  He moved away from the window and sat next to me, his knee touching mine. He took my clammy hands in his warm ones. I stared at his hair, the long tail snaking across the Turkish carpet to coil in the stained glass sunbeam. I couldn’t look him in the eyes.

  “Do you wish me to yell at you?”

  “I screwed up. I got cocky.”

  “You found yourself in an untenable situation, and you did the best you could.”

  “You trained me better than that.”

  He released my hands to lift my chin, forcing my gaze up. “I have not been your teacher in some while. You are a student of the Tao, remember?”

  “Is the Tao going to show up and yell at me?”

  Jian Huo choked on a laugh, which made me grin despite the grimace yanking on the corners of my mouth. I frowned harder. Everything was ruined. I shouldn’t be smiling. He shouldn’t be laughing.

  “Last time, you learned that my brother could be bested. This time, you learned that he cannot always be bested. In the final balance, I still trust that you will prove a better student than he has.”

  Strange, how such a simple absolution could make me feel better about the whole mess. As long as Jian Huo didn’t lose faith in me, maybe I didn’t entirely suck.

  “About last time…” I started, and then wasn’t sure where to take it. I wasn’t talking about Lung Di anymore. He knew that, right?

  “Yes. About last time. I did not say what I should have said.”

  “Which is?”

  “You asked me if my purpose in our union was to supplant my brother.”

  I held very still. “Well… it was.” And it had Lung Di scared enough that he’d pulled out all the stops to arrange his détente. I had to give Jian Huo props for effectiveness.

  Jian Huo’s hands rested over mine. “Perhaps, but it was not my only purpose. And I should have told you. I can plot against my brother and still love you. The two are not exclusive. I am sorry that I did not share my plans, that I did not allow you a say in the decision, that I left you doubting my love. That is what I should have said.”

  All the things he’d been pissed at me for doing to him when I went after Lung Di on my own. I sighed and twined my fingers with his. “Yeah. Me too.”

  I watched the sunlight move across the carpet, then dim as a cloud passed over the sun. I didn’t want to break the fragile moment, but one of us would have to, eventually. “How are Mei Shen and Mian Zi?”

  He grimaced. “Not speaking. You may soon hear more than you want to of Mei Shen’s side. She has declared her intention to move here. To be close to Mr Tsung, no doubt. Mian Zi… does not approve.”

  That made two of us. Three, because I couldn’t imagine that Jian Huo approved, either. I sighed.

  Jian Huo brushed my hair back. “Mei Shen and Mian Zi are young,” he said. “They must grow apart before they can come back together.”

  I leaned into him; his arms came around me, chin resting on my head. I closed my eyes and breathed in sandalwood.

  “I’ve missed you,” I whispered. Maybe I should have been stronger. Nothing had changed between us. Except that time had given me some perspective. I was right to leave him. It didn’t mean I had to hate him.

  “I cannot stay.”

  “I know. But I’ve still missed you.” A breath warmed my scalp as he buried his nose in my mussed hair. I probably stank from days of wallowing. Damn Shimizu for not making me take a shower.

  “I have something for you.” He pulled back and dug through his robes, drawing out a familiar strand of gleaming pearls. “You didn’t take them when you left.”

  For so many reasons. I didn’t want the reminder of Jian Huo; I couldn’t face the possibility that I would give them to someone else as my grandfather had done. I’d kicked myself ever since for leaving them behind. “It didn’t seem right, given… everything.”

  “And how does it seem now?” he asked, still holding the pearls out. I wondered if I only imagined that hitch in his voice, the slight tremor of his hand.

  I took the pearls, fastened them around my neck. “Like a second chance.”

  Acknowledgments

  No writer creates in a vacuum, and I am deeply grateful to all the people who supported, encouraged, inspired, or just plain put up with me through this journey.

  First thanks go to my family, and especially to my grandmothers Diane (a librarian) and Bettie (an English teacher). If love of books is genetic, I got it from them. Special thanks go to my mother, Conna, who is my biggest (and least discerning!) fan and supporter, and to my brother Devon, who taught me that the bonds between brothers and sisters might get a little bendy, but they never break.

  Second thanks go to the players in Jason Pisano’s Sunday Afternoon Comics Stack game. You guys helped me crawl out of some pretty dark shadows, dragging Missy behind me. Thank you to Emily Dare for the use of Skyrocket. The story wouldn’t be the same without Tom’s Colgate grin. I’m only sorry to all of you that I wasn’t able to work in a reference to Dr Chaos’ favorite charity: Orphans. Orphans with Diseases (see what I did there?!).

  The support of my found family of writers and friends was vital to keeping me going during the revision and submission process. I’m grateful to my littermates of Clarion West 2012 for grounding and centering me through all the angst and uncertainty, and to the extended Clarion West community for helping me achieve and celebrate my victories.

  This book went through many permutations before reaching its current form, and it would be a lesser creation if not for the beta readers who offered critique throughout the various drafts. Thanks to Marie Brennan, Jason Pisano, Avery Liell-Kok, Emily Dare, Claire Balgemann, Henry Lien, Georgina Kamsika, David Higgins, SL Knapp, and the folks in my WisCon Writers’ Workshop for all their helpful comments. Thank you to my agent, Lindsay Ribar, for giving me wonderful feedback and multiple chances to get it right.

  I feel so lucky to be an Angry Robot author, and my deepest gratitude goes to Mich
ael Underwood for running around the World Fantasy Convention at Brighton in an attempt to slam me into Amanda Rutter. Thanks to Amanda for being Mr Mystic’s first official supporter, and thanks to the rest of the Angry Robot team – Marc Gascoigne, Phil Jourdan, Caroline Lambe, and the rest of the staff – for the hard work you’ve put into making my book shine. And to Amazing15 for that wonderful cover, thank you. It feels trite to call you amazing, but it’s true!

  Finally, thank you to my foundational authors. To Anne McCaffery who made me into a dragon-girl. To Mercedes Lackey who fed my id on a diet of pure squee. To Meredith Ann Pierce who skewered my perception of how fairy tales are supposed to end. To Katherine Kurtz who saved my life, inspired me to take up Highland dance, and taught me that villains have valid perspectives. To Jessa MacBeth, who provided me with a whole host of friends and guides. And to Connie Willis, who taught me that feminist can be the least scary word in any story.

  I’m certain I’ve missed folks, and it isn’t for lack of gratitude. This has been a long journey, and I neglected to take notes on who helped me along the way because when I started, I had no idea where I was going. I’ll do better next time!

  About the Author

  Alyc Helms did her graduate work in anthropology and folklore, which makes her useless for just about anything except writing. She lives and writes in a dilapidated beach bungalow outside San Francisco, USA, near a horse trail, a troll bridge, and a raptor preserve (hopefully of the veloci-variety). The Dragons of Heaven is her debut novel – soon to be joined by The Conclave of Shadow.

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