by Mike Resnick
I started going over the harness, while Sir Mortimer examined whatever it was he was examining, but we had to admit after another ten minutes that there wasn't nothing hidden on Cuddles.
“I think I'd best examine his bedding next,” said Sir Mortimer. “Do you think he'll be willing to follow you outside?”
“I can't see no reason why not,” I said, sliding open the door to his pasture. “Come, Cuddles.”
Cuddles almost trampled Sir Mortimer as he got to his feet and bounded out into the pasture behind me. He was feeling right frisky, and he galloped once or twice around it before I noticed that he was starting to spout a little fire and I told him to stop. Then I saw a couple of lights go on in the fortress up on the hill overlooking the pasture, which didn't bode no good, and I figured that if I was gonna get in any kind of a set-to with Doctor Aristotle Ho and his friends that the safest thing to have on my side was a dragon, so I told Cuddles to stand still, and then I ran to his south end and climbed all the way up his tail and back until I was sitting on top of his neck.
That made me feel a mite safer, even though he didn't smell none too good, and I waited for Sir Mortimer to finish going through the bedding and come out, but when he finally showed up he did so in the company of three or four mean-looking Chinamen who were pointing guns at him, and following them was a thin Chinaman with two-inch fingernails and a droopy mustache dressed all in black satin pajamas.
“Good evening, Reverend Jones,” said the thin Chinaman.
“I don't know who you are, brother,” I said, “but if you take one more step toward me I'm turning this here dragon loose on you!”
For some reason that seemed to strike his funnybone, because he kind of chuckled and didn't back off so much as a step.
“I am Doctor Aristotle Ho,” he said, “and that is my dragon. I raised him from an infant, and he would no more attack me than the sun and moon would veer from their heavenly courses.”
He uttered a couple of terse commands in Chinese, and Cuddles kneeled down and stretched out his neck flat on the ground. There didn't seem much point to staying on him when he was like that, so I climbed off. Doctor Ho said something else, and Cuddles got up and meekly went back into his stall.
Now the insidious Oriental dentist turned to Sir Mortimer with an amused smile on his face.
“Trespassing, breaking and entering, stealing dragons,” he counted off. “What am I to do with you, Sir Mortimer?”
Sir Mortimer gave him a stiff upper British lip and didn't say a word.
“And you,” he said, turning to me. “Why should you be conspiring against me, Lucifer Jones? What harm have I ever done to you?”
“How'd you know my name?” I asked.
“I know all about you,” he replied. “Since the moment Sir Mortimer picked you up, I have had my minions tracing your every movement for the past five years. I know about your misadventures in Cairo and Johannesburg, about your arrests in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam and Mozambique, about your ivory poaching and slave trading, about the mutiny you led aboard a ship on the West Coast of Africa, about your being banished from the continent forever...”
“A series of misunderstandings,” I said. “Nothing more.”
“About your theft of the Empire Emerald in Hong Kong,” he continued, unperturbed. “I even know that Lo Chung has put a price on your head.”
“He has?”
“And now here you are, invading my property, even riding my dragon. Frankly, Reverend Jones, I suspect that you are something less than a credit to your church.”
“Let me tell you, one doctor to another, that I ain't never done nothing to be ashamed of,” I said heatedly. “And if you got a couple of hours and maybe a cold drink with just enough alcohol to pound the germs into submission, I'll be happy to explain my side of all them incidents you just recited.”
“Your explanation couldn't interest me less,” said Doctor Aristotle Ho. “In fact, under other circumstances I could have used a man of your peculiar abilities on my payroll.”
“Well, truth to tell, the facts didn't run all that far amuck,” I said quickly. “What kind of job did you have in mind?”
“Reverend Jones!” said Sir Mortimer sternly. “You are speaking to the most insidious villain in this part of the world!”
“I got nothing but your word for that, Sir Mortimer,” I pointed out. “All I know about this here gentleman is that he treats his animals well and he probably ain't on speaking terms with the local manicurist.”
“You interest me, Reverend Jones,” said Aristotle Ho.
“Are you going to believe that foul demon, or are you going to believe me?” demanded Sir Mortimer. “I tell you, Doctor Ho is planning the conquest of the entire world!”
Doctor Ho turned and stared at Sir Mortimer for a minute. “More groundless accusations, Sir Mortimer?” he said.
“Microdots!” shouted Sir Mortimer suddenly. “That's it! He's hidden microdots on the dragon's scales!”
Doctor Ho shook his head sadly. “Poor deluded man.”
“That's got to be the answer!” persisted Sir Mortimer. “We've searched everywhere else. Somewhere on that dragon's skin are some microdots that Doctor Ho is selling to our enemies in Europe. Probably the position of the Pacific Fleet!”
“If I let you examine every inch of my dragon, will that finally satisfy you, Sir Mortimer?” asked Doctor Ho.
“You haven't got the nerve!” said Sir Mortimer. “You know I'll find what I'm looking for!”
Doctor Ho turned to his men. “Make Sir Mortimer comfortable for the night, and when we ship the dragon tomorrow morning, make sure that Sir Mortimer accompanies him.” He walked over to Sir Mortimer. “It will take approximately seven weeks for the dragon to reach its destination. You will be given free access to him all the way there and all the way back.”
His men started dragging Sir Mortimer off.
“Well, that rids me of his unpleasant presence for the next few months,” said Dr. Ho, as he began walking back to his fortress.
“Hey!” I said. “What about me?”
“What about you?” asked Doctor Ho.
“I thought we were gonna talk a little business,” I said.
“I don't believe we shall,” said Doctor Ho.
“Why the hell not?” I demanded. “I took your side, didn't I?”
“The alternative would have been a swift and painful death.”
“What's that got to do with anything?”
“Reverend Jones,” he said, “you are perhaps the only man of my acquaintance with even less regard for the laws and morals of society than I myself possess. While I do not necessarily consider that a failing, it does make it difficult for me to trust you.”
“Well, as I see it, Doctor Ho, you got two choices,” I told him. “You can take me on as a partner, or have me as an enemy. Now, if we was to become partners and you really do take over the world, you could give me a little chunk of it, like say, Australia, and we could plunder it six ways to Sunday and split the take right down the middle. If, on the other hand, you decide you'd rather have me as an enemy, you're not only taking on me but the Lord as well, and take my word for it, the Lord can whip you in straight falls without working up much of a sweat.”
“There is a third alternative, you know,” he said.
“Yeah? What is that?”
He pulled out a little pearl-handled revolver. “I can kill you right here and now.”
Which, in my eagerness for gainful employment, was an alternative I had plumb forgotten to take into account.
“You look pale, Reverend Jones,” said Doctor Ho. “And your knees are starting to shake. I fear you must be coming down with fever.”
“Well, maybe I'll just mosey back into Peking and lie down for a week or two,” I suggested hopefully.
He nodded. “It would be best.” He reached out a bony hand and took mine in it. “Let us part friends, Reverend Jones.”
“That suits me more and more
as I come to think on it,” I said sincerely.
“I am glad to have had this little chat with you,” he continued. “You are a most interesting man. I have the distinct feeling that our paths will cross again.”
“You do?”
“Yes. And next time the outcome may not be so pleasant.”
“You still plan to conquer the world?”
“That is a very indiscreet question, Reverend Jones,” he said. “Let me answer it this way: whatever my plans may be, Sir Mortimer will never thwart them again.”
“You mean there ain't nothing hidden on the dragon or in his cage?” I said.
“That is correct.”
“Then how come Sir Mortimer is dead convinced that you're smuggling something out every time you ship the dragon?”
“Sir Mortimer is right,” said Doctor Ho with a smile. “The poor fool cannot see the forest for the trees.”
“Doctor Ho,” I said. “Whatever happens in the future, we're parting friends tonight. Just between you and me and the gatepost, no friend would keep another friend sleepless for days wondering what the hell he was shipping out in that cage.”
He looked me up and down for a couple of minutes, and then shrugged.
“All right, Reverend Jones,” said Doctor Ho. “This is the very last time I shall need this ploy, so your knowledge will never be able to be used against me. I will tell you the secret because it amuses me to do so, and because only a mind like yours can fully appreciate the subtlety of it.” He paused. “Sir Mortimer will spend every day for the next seven weeks searching the dragon, the straw, the food, and the water for these imaginary microdots and non-existent jewels and drugs. He will never find what he is looking for, and he will never prevent me from receiving the money I need to continue my operations—and yet, hundreds of times each day, he will be in physical contact with that which he seeks.”
“I don't think I follow you,” I said.
“The cage, Reverend Jones!” he said with a laugh. “The bars are made of pure platinum. For five years Sir Mortimer has microscopically examined everything within the cage, and has never thought to examine the cage itself.”
“Well, I'll be damned!” I said.
“That is a foregone conclusion.” Doctor Ho took me by the arm. “Now that you know, I'm afraid you must remain as my guest for a week, until the cage is well on its way. After that, you are free to go anywhere you wish.”
Well, he took my up to this stone fortress of his, and gave me my own room and three squares a day, and every afternoon he stopped by to play chess with me until he caught me moving one of his pieces when I thought he wasn't looking, and after the week was up he gave me one final breakfast and had one of his men drive me into Peking.
I read a few weeks later that there was a real live dragon on display in Sydney, so I figured Doctor Aristotle Ho had gotten the funds he needed to conquer the world, but as you will see, I was just a little too preoccupied to worry much about it at the time.
4. The Great Wall
The very first thing I learned in Peking is that Chinamen like games of chance every bit as much as white Christian gents do. The very last thing I learned in Peking is that they are even quicker to spot a marked deck of cards than your average American or European. The two learning experiences came about twenty minutes apart, and before the morning was half over I was back on the road, looking for some new place to settle down and build my Tabernacle.
It was about this time that China was pretty much divided up into kingdoms, and each kingdom was ruled by a warlord, which may have been a little harsh on some of the local citizenry but sure saved a lot of time and effort at the ballot box, and it occurred to me that after all the time they spent fighting each other, at least some of the armies were probably in need of some spiritual comforting, such as could only be brung to them by a sensitive and caring man of the cloth, such as myself.
I'd picked up a smattering of Chinese while on my way from Macao to Peking, so once I was a few miles out of the city I stopped an old man who was taking his cow out for a walk, and asked him where the nearest warlord had set up shop.
He told me that a General Sim Chow's barracks were about forty miles south along the road we were on, but suggested that the warlord most in need of spiritual uplifting and best able to pay for it due to his propensity to trade in certain of his homeland's perishable commodities was General Ling Sen, whose headquarters were many days’ march to the west.
I thanked him for his time and trouble, and decided that I'd give General Sim Chow the first crack at my services, since he was so much closer. I began reappraising the situation when I came to a pile of bodies about ten miles later, and when I saw a Christian mission on fire a mile after that, I decided that General Ling Sen sounded so deeply in need of salvation that there wasn't no time to waste, so I took a hard right and started walking west.
I'd gone maybe seven or eight miles when I heard a drunken voice singing “God Save the King", except when I got close enough to make out the words it was more like “God Save the Liverpool Ruggers Team", which truth to tell made a lot more sense, as the Liverpool Ruggers Team was in fifth place in the standings the last time I'd seen a paper in Macau, whereas the King didn't have no serious competition for the throne that I was aware of.
I kept walking and came upon an English soldier, all dolled up in his parade best, with a bright red jacket and a pith helmet, sitting by the side of the road, drinking from a bottle of rice wine.
“Come join me, friend,” he said when he looked up and saw me, and being the good-natured Christian that I am, I moseyed over and took a swig from his bottle.
“Are we still in China?” he asked after a moment.
“Unless they moved Peking when I wasn't looking, it's half a day's march from here,” I answered.
“Damn!” he said. “I don't think the wine will hold out.” He lowered his voice, and pointed to a backpack full of wine bottles. “I'm drinking my way back to jolly old England.”
“Ain't you attached to some army unit or other?” I asked.
He shook his head unhappily. “They're all lost but me. I went out on a bit of a bender last month, and when I came back everyone was missing. So now I'm going back to England to report that my entire unit has gone A.W.O.L., and I alone am escaped to tell thee.” He reached his hand out. “Merriweather's the name,” he added. “Corporal Marmaduke Merriweather.”
“The Right Reverend Doctor Lucifer Jones at your service,” I replied, shaking his hand.
“Did you say doctor?” he said. “I've got a boil on my back that could use lancing.”
“I ain't that kind of doctor,” I answered. “I suppose I could recite some of Queen Sheba's racier amorous escapades over it, if you think that might help.”
He considered it for a moment, then finally shook his head. “No, I think not. When all is said and done, it's the lot of the British soldier to suffer pain quietly and nobly.”
“Well, you got the noble part down pat, Brother Merriweather, but I heard you singing from half a mile away.”
“I keep hoping my army might hear me,” he responded glumly.
Well, I took another drink just as a show of solidarity and sympathy, and then he took one, and before long we'd finished that bottle and another one, and then night fell and we slept beneath a tree alongside the road, and when morning came he decided to walk along with me until he came across his unit or England, whichever came first.
“Well, that's right neighborly of you,” I said. “I always feel safer in the company of His Majesty's armed forces.”
“And well you should,” he replied. “Of course, I traded my rifle for the wine, and I seem to have misplaced my ammunition, but still, it's my function in life to protect all things British.”
“I don't want to cause you no serious moral consternation, Brother Merriweather,” I said, “but I ain't British.”
“You speak British,” he said. “That's enough for me.” He paused for a moment.
“By the way, Reverend Jones, I know where I'm going, but you haven't told me where you're heading yet.”
“I'm seeking the headquarters of General Ling Sen,” I said, “to offer them poor beleaguered soldiers a fighting shot at spiritual atonement.”
“If you will accept a gentle word of advice,” said Merriweather, “spiritual atonement probably does not rank very high up on General Ling Sen's list of priorities.”
“Oh?” I said. “You know something about him?”
He shook his head. “I know absolutely nothing about him.”
“Then how do you figure that he's not in the market for a preacher?”
“The mere fact that I haven't heard of him means that no one who has had any dealings with him has lived long enough to pass on that information to us.” He shrugged. “Still, I suppose it's in our best interest to seek him out.”
“It is?” I asked, since he had just loaded me down with a mighty tall heap of misgivings.
He nodded. “I'm already out of money, and I'll be out of rice wine in another few days. Possibly I can hire on as an advisor.”
“What kind of combat do you specialize in, Brother Merriweather?” I asked.
“Combat?” he repeated. “Do you think I joined the army to fight? I'm an accountant.”
“An accountant?”
“Somebody has to pay for the uniforms and weapons and bullets and transportation and consumables,” he replied. “I mean, Empire is all very well and good, Reverend Jones, but only if it can remain cost effective.”
“And you figure this here General Ling Sen is in serious need of an accountant?” I asked him.
“He's got an army to run, hasn't he?” answered Merriweather. “Why, with the things I could teach him about double-entry bookkeeping alone, he could continue to devastate the countryside for an extra three or four months at no additional cost.”
Well, we kept on walking and drinking from Merriweather's diminishing supply of rice wine, and he kept trying to explain the more esoteric principles of tax-loss carry-forwards to me, and one day kind of melted into another, until one morning about a month later we came smack-dab up against this great big wall and couldn't go no farther.
