by Rex Sumner
“So, Lord Sung, now I have proved my mettle in battle and diplomacy, is it now time for me to receive the title of Sung Bai Ju?”
Bai Ju meant chrysanthemum in their tongue, the flowers given at funerals, and here meant the flower of death. Sung Bai Ju is the title given to the supreme Bikkhuni, female monk, of the monastery.
The dragon paused, his head waving above the girl who showed her surprise with widening eyes. Sung never seemed troubled.
“I fear, my child, you can never become Sung Bai Ju.”
“Why not?” Stung, Qingting snapped her answer.
“There is nobody to train you, child. By all rights you should become Sung Bai Ju after years as a Qingting, but there is much to learn which you can only learn from a human. You have so much potential, but I cannot train you. Just as the monks have lost so much ability, so my Bikkhuni are a poor shadow of their greatness of the past.”
“What happened, Sung? Have you discovered anything?”
“Little that is new. As you know, my kind sleeps for long periods. I slept, for my usual twenty years every hundred, and nobody woke me. While I slept the invaders came, the wild Mongols from the steppes. The Sung Bai Ju led the monks and dragonflies to stem the tide with the Emperors troops. And that is all I know. The log of the monastery, which I have you entering now, stopped with the last entry from the Sung Bai Ju, on her departure. She relished the opportunity and there are no more entries. The history books the Wisdoms read to me, from the Empire, bring nothing new. They describe the arrival of the Sung Bai Ju, the Bright Flowers of Sung, and how they stem the horde. They tell of the defeat of the Mongols, with our Flowers to the fore, and how the Flowers left, not for home but after another enemy they would not describe, never to be seen again. But this does not explain the disappearance of the Lore Keepers, of the Librarian, of the Mother Healer. All gone but a few Wisdoms, girls who know little.”
“How long did you sleep, Sung?”
“It is not clear. Maybe fifty years, maybe a hundred. We fall into a suspended state, needing nothing. We can be encased in mud, in ice, in stone, and when we awake we are revitalized. The remaining Wisdoms did not know how to wake me, indeed they misread the books and thought they should not.”
Qingting’s brow furrowed, as a random thought crossed her mind. “Have you asked the monks?”
“No,” thought the dragon, his tone evincing some surprise. “Why would they know? They have no books.”
“There were monks with the Sung Bai Ju. Let me ask.”
*
Ju Qua, retired for the last year from active work, had refused to return home to his village but chose to end his days in Sindalar. A self-elected sweeper, he and his broom would track the sun through the monastery and the pace of the sweeping reduced with the sunshine. He considered himself superior to the other fighting monks, as the only one to find and return with a girl who could talk to the dragon.
On his own of course, for since then Qingting had found several more, accompanied by him at first, but now with other, younger, fighting monks.
Qingting found him leaning on his broom in a small courtyard, eyes blinking slowly in pleasure at the feel of the sun on his back. Still wearing his military tunic.
“Heya, Goat Shit, now you can even sleep standing up.”
Ju Qua smiled, his back to the girl so she couldn’t see. “Ah, the snapping turtle that speaks. I must watch the monastery treasures, lest they disappear.”
Qingting skipped round in front of him, and after a quick check to ensure nobody could see, gave the old man a hug.
“It is good to see you, oh Guardian of the Dragon, but you should not be sweeping. Let me take you to the Dragon’s meadow and you may garden and watch the sheep.”
“Hush, Beauteous Lady, you know this makes me happy. Though you should come by more often. I hear so much as a sweeper, information you could use. I worry I will forget before I see you.”
Ju Qua’s information held no value, revolving around his determination to prove his enemy, the cook, stole monastery funds. The cook was also his best friend.
“I need your stories today, Old Shifu,” she began only for him to cut her off in delight.
“Ha! Yes, I knew you would see sense one day. Come sit, here on this bench and I will tell you the latest tale of chicanery and double dealing by that toad, that rat in human form. Why…”
Qingting placed a finger on his lips, laughing. “No, Old Shifu, not those stories. I want to hear tales of fighting, great monks from the past.”
“Ah, I see,” said Ju Qua, his lips pursed in disappointment. “I shall tell you the tale of the Bandits of Que Loh. This was a new route for me, for we had not ventured there for many years…”
“And how did you know about the route and that we had not ventured there?” Qingting asked with a little twitch of the corners of her lips.
“Oh, yes, well it is in the stories that the monks pass down and tell in the evenings. That is how we pass on knowledge. Anyway…” Qingting shushed him again.
“There is one of those stories I wish to hear today, Ju Qua.”
“We don’t usually tell these stories to others,” he began, his eyes narrowing. He did not miss the change of name, the dropping of affectionate titles and knew she was here on business.
“I want to hear the one about the Mongol invasion, how the monks went and what happened to them.”
“I know of no such stories,” said the old fighting monk, rising and grasping his broom. “Enough of this idle chatter, I must work.” He began to sweep the area of floor he had swept before she came, broom strokes fast and furious.
“Not just the monks,” said Qingting. “But of the Sung Bai Ju and the dragonflies. We need to know what happened to them.”
“I know of no such stories,” said Ju Qua, but his shoulders hunched in his robe as if struck.
Qingting sighed. “You know I can tell when you lie from your aura, not just your face. You don’t have to hide it from me. But it is not to me you must tell this story that you are hiding. You must tell the Dragon, Lord Sung himself. Come, he is waiting.”
Ju Qua turned around, stricken. “I cannot,” he said. “It is forbidden. Secret. We must respect her honour.”
*
Ju Qua sat on the rock, cross-legged, his lined, weather beaten face stoic and impassive. His usual rich leather skin colour reduced to a pale tan at his proximity to the great dragon, whose head regarded him with unmistakable interest from a bare six feet in front of him.
“Lord Sung bids you welcome, Weapons Master Ju Qua,” said Qingting, in a gentle voice full of understanding. “He thanks you for your services over the many years and his heart is desolate that you have not met him in person before. He has watched over your prowess on many occasions down the long years of your service.”
Ju Qua nodded, still unable to speak, and groped with no success for words.
“Lord Sung wishes you to know that he needs to know why you feel unable to tell him what transpired while he slept.”
“The, the survivors, Lord,” said Ju Qua, overcoming a stammer. “We took oath. We did not want any to know lest it change the memories of the Sung Bai Ju.”
“Lord Sung says she was his friend, he loved her. Nothing you say to him can change his memories of her magnificence and ability.”
Ju Qua could not keep his eyes to the front and looked from side to side. “I was very young. My memories of my youth are not good.”
“Lord Sung says you remember this instance very well and he commands you to tell him.”
Still Ju Qua hesitated and Qingting leant forward.
“Stop mucking about, Goat Shit, and tell him. He is being very nice and gentle with you, but this is so important to him and he has the ability to force it from your mind. But that would hurt you and he doesn’t want to. His patience with you wears
thin. Tell the story, now!” Her voice deepened to one of command and Ju Qua flinched.
His eyes closed and fat tears seeped from under his lids, trickling down his face following the deep lines. The dragon leaned forward and his long forked yellow tongue flickered out, removing the tears. Ju Qua started, opened his eyes and found himself lost in the eyes of the dragon, deep, sympathetic and oh, so compelling.
“I was too young to go, though I wished to. They kept me and a dozen youths here under the command of old Ming Tse, who was very upset. He only had one leg and the Sung Bai Ju refused to let him come. He was hard on us in his anger. The Sung Bai Ju, the Dragonflies and the Weapons Masters were gone for a full moon. We heard how the Emperor’s army fell upon the Mongol, the Bright Blades of Sindalar to the fore, and routed them. The first to stand against the horse lords. The soldiers began to return, but no Bright Blades. A soldier came to Sindalar, an old friend of Ming Tse, and he told us the Bright Blades left them to pursue another enemy, one they did not see.”
The old man closed his eyes again, his throat worked and he scratched an itch in his leg, before he continued, the eyes of both dragon and girl riveted on his face.
“Two more weeks and we opened the great gates to let them in. Oh, so few. Six Weapons Masters carried a litter, with a Dragonfly at the head, all wearing bandages and moving so very slow. They brought the litter into the Great Hall and the Wisdoms and Lore Keepers flocked to them, us lads too. The Dragonfly said not a word, but she pulled back the drape of the litter.”
Tears rolled freely down the old man’s face once more, but he kept talking now, the dam broken and the poison in his memories flowing free.
“The Sung Bai Ju lay there, her body rent with great slashes as from the bite of a tiger, her normal alabaster skin blackened and sick. Her eyes opened, full of pain but triumph too, as she took the hand of the Head Lore Keeper.”
“’We did it,’ she said. ‘We slew the Black Dragon that led the hordes of horsemen. We found him and his Blackflies where he lurked back in presumed safety. Ah, how we fought. At the end, there was just him and me, the others hurt, the Blackflies slain, and my sword found his brain as he dripped venom in the slashes he put in my body. Wake Sung and tell him, I slew the Black Dragon.’”
Sung reared back at this information, sitting on his great tail and the front of his body up in the air while his tail lashed from side to side. Ju Qua stopped talking in alarm, while Qingting gripped his arm.
“It is no matter,” she said. “Lord Sung is upset at news of a Black Dragon, and the injuries to his friends, yea and their deaths. Continue.”
Ju Qua did, while watching the dragon with close attention. “The Sung Bai Ju fell back at this, while the Lore Keeper said there was plenty of time to tell Sung and first they would make her well. She barked commands and her lore keepers and wisdoms rushed to do her bidding, while we carried the Sung Bai Ju to the healing rooms. All of us assembled there, as she prepared for the operation, while the Librarian read instructions from a book. I remember they argued as to whether to tie her to the table, but the Weapons Master and the Dragonfly wished to hold her and they did, while the Mother Healer prepared to pour a potion into her wounds.”
Ju Qua paused again, shaking his head. The dragon had subsided, but now watched from further away. No human expression came from his scaled face, but his head swayed from side to side in palpable dismay.
“At the last moment, the Lore Keeper snapped a command, and Ming Tse ushered us young ones from the room, along with some young wisdoms. He paused as he prepared to shut the door, and I looked back with him. The Mother Healer poured the potion into the Sung Bai Ju’s wounds, and her body contorted, bending up while she screamed, a scream of such great pain I could not bear to hear it, and the scream turned to anger. I saw her burst free of the grips of the Weapons Masters and Ming Tse slammed the door, shaking on his one leg.”
“For ten minutes she screamed, great cries of anger and rage, and the noises that came from the room we did not understand. Bangs and crashes, others crying in pain. The door creaked and bowed as something hit it, again and once more. Then all became quiet, silence from the other room.”
Ju Qua hesitated now, sunk into his body and his age showing. Qingting nodded to him, wordless, while the dragon pulled back onto his hind legs once more, his neck shrinking and pulling his head back like a snake about to strike.
“Ming Tse told me to help him open the door and we did. Oh, the blood. The pain must have been so intense to drive her from her mind, for in her pain and rage she had slain all others in the room, ripping the Mother Healer’s very head from her shoulders, I know not how. She lay slumped behind the door, her eyes closing, a mad light still there and no sign of the woman we knew. The light dimmed as we stared, and she was no more.”
The dragon threw his head to the skies and bugled, the first sound Qingting ever heard the dragon make. Bugled his sorrow and pain, before dropping his front legs to the ground and turning, padding away from them. Qingting rose, one hand gripping Ju Qua and the other rubbing her forehead.
“You did well, Old Man. Fear not, Lord Sung grieves for his friend and for not being there. He understands, understands all too well, and commends you for your efforts to rebuild the monastery with none who could speak to him, nay nor wake him. He bids us leave him to his sorrows now.”
Ju Qua followed her and they made their way to the exit tunnel, while Ju Qua babbled, unable to stop the revelations.
“We didn’t know he was called Sung. We thought she wanted us to tell the country she killed the Black Dragon, but nobody knew anything about dragons. We didn’t know what to do, and old Ming Tse didn’t live long. He did his best, while the young wisdoms knew very little and spent all their time reading books trying to work out what to do. We didn’t even know where the dragon was. Took twenty years before the wisdoms found him and another ten before he woke up.”
*
For a week, the dragon kept silent and Qingting respected his wishes, forbidding everyone to visit his mountain meadow. She herself spent the time in the old books, seeking knowledge of the black dragons and how to kill them. She found very little. For every Golden Dragon like Sung, there was, with the natural balance of good and evil, a Black Dragon. Both unusual, she found no actual records of their existence. Just theories and speculation by ancient Lore Keepers using language she could barely understand, although the written language changed very little over the years.
Early one morning as she completed her exercises, she felt Sung’s ch’i in the aether, a disturbed, concerned ch’i. Disdaining her usual dip in the mountain stream, she hurried down the tunnel to the meadow.
Sung was not there, his basking rock empty.
Following the faint traces of his ch’i, she found him at the southern end of the meadow, quarter of the way up the wall, stuck.
“What are you playing at, Sung? You are too big to go up there. Careful lest you fall,” she said, trying to keep the exasperation from her voice, despite knowing he could read it in her ch’i.
“I must go,” he thought, head swaying as he examined all possible routes. “It is no longer safe for me here. I must flee.” He lurched upright, placing his front legs on a ledge which gave way, and the dragon slid down the cliff face in a riot of rocks and debris, while a small avalanche rained down upon him.
Alarmed, Qingting dodged rocks as she picked her way through the loose debris to him, part submerged and with his eyes closed.
“Sung! Are you all right? Where are you hurt?” She pulsed ch’i through him, and watched his aura flare, relieved it showed the lack of serious injury. The dragon shook himself, and she stepped back from the new rock surge, slipping on a rock that wobbled until she found refuge on a solid one. “What nonsense is this, of course you are safe here. Already you have one Dragonfly to protect you, and soon there will be more.”
“I searched t
hrough the aether, seeking to watch the battle from the past. I felt ch’i, and, by the powers, it felt me. Nobody feels my ch’i lest I will it. He felt me, and he grasped me, through the aether. His satisfaction and triumph flowed out, he comes, he comes for me.”
“Who comes?” Qingting tried to make sense of what could frighten her dragon. “The Black Dragon is dead, there are no more. What could harm you, sensei?”
“His child, seeking revenge. Another Black Dragon.”
Qingting digested this. “A child? A young black dragon? So, not as powerful as before. Does he bring an army?”
“No, just a Blackfly. He comes for me, not conquest.”
“A Blackfly?”
“His version of you, Qingting, little Dragonfly.”
“Does he not have a bikkhuni, a Sung Bai Ju?”
“Black dragons do their own fighting and leading. He has no need, for he has no flock to protect and nurture. Instead he feasts off the wild people, for he eats meat, does a black dragon.”
“Worry not, my beloved sensei Sung,” said Qingting, allowing her love for the dragon to show. “I shall meet him in the mountains, swat his Blackfly and bring you his head, for he is but a young dragon. I have read the histories, I know how to defeat him.”
“You? A novice barely a dragonfly,” said the dragon with deep scorn. “You have no chance, you would go to your death. No, I must flee, but it is years since I came here and can no longer fit in the tunnel.”
The scorn lashed through Qingting, and she reacted in pain and anger, drawing herself up to her full height, like a mouse in front of an elephant. “Eat less, and exercise then, you fat old gecko. I shall leave you here, stuck in your own debauchery, frightened by a shadow.”
She turned and ran across the meadow to the tunnel, while the dragon watched her go, his face and emotions unreadable to the human senses.
*
Four girls, ranging in age from six to sixteen, stood in the small room watching Qingting with round eyes. She kept silent, preparing her clothes and going through her weapons, selecting the finest and secreting them on her body. She unfolded her beautiful silk jacket, smothered her face in it for a moment, before folding it and replacing it in rice paper. She would wear her fighting leathers.
