by Jane Yolen
“Nothing, O great and mighty Lung-Wang,” said One Ox.
“We just sighed,” said Two Ox.
“Just so, just so,” said Lung-Wang. “But if I ever suspect that you have lied to me, it will not go well with you. Since you have nothing more to offer me, you shall sit in my dungeon until I am ready to eat you. Perhaps at the end of this night. Or the next. Or even the one after that. The mountain climb has toughened you—but I like my meat that way. I am in no hurry, after all, dragons live a very long time.” He picked them up by the back of their shirts, as if they weighed no more than chicks, and raised them until their heads nearly touched the roof. They were sure they would hear the sound of his great tail sweeping along behind.
The Dragon King’s dungeon was of rock and stone and so far beneath the ground it was lit only by the phosphorescence in the rock. There was no need for bars on the door, for the door was but a hole in the roof high above them, down which they had been flung. When the brothers looked up, they could not see the hole for the dark.
“Three Ox, brother,” they called up at last, “can you help us?”
“I will help, brothers,” he called back down, “when I can. And see what I have in my hand.”
“We can see nothing in the dark, brother,” said One Ox.
“And even if we could,” Two Ox added, “what you hold in your invisible hand becomes invisible itself.”
“Just so,” replied Three Ox. “Then I shall tell you. I have both the pocket beast and the pin.”
“And what will you do now?” the brothers called up to him.
“What must be done,” he answered, and was gone.
While One Ox and Two Ox waited in the cold and dark of their stone prison, Three Ox made his way back along the twisting tunnels of the cave, following the path swept clean by the dragon’s tail. At last he found himself in a great room whose ceiling was lined with panels of obsidian and jade and whose walls were encrusted with pearl. In the center stood Lung-Wang, now more dragon than man. His shoulders, as green as the jade, were fiercely scaled; his eyes and teeth were the black of jet; and down from his back ran a sinuous, twisting green tail. But his hands were still a man’s, and as the invisible boy watched, the Dragon King removed the ring from his own finger, reciting this charm:
Ring of power, ring of life,
Ring that neither blade nor knife
Nor ax nor sword can sever from me,
Swallow now so I become me!
Then the Dragon King threw the ring into the air and opened his mighty jaws to receive it
In the second that the ring was thrown into the air, Three Ox remembered what the doctor had said. The ring was the guardian of the Waters of Life. It was also—clearly—the guardian of the Dragon King. He could not be transformed back into a man without it. Even as the ring was tumbling back down, the transformation into the King of All Dragons was complete.
Three Ox ran forward and leaped high into the air. With his invisible hand he snatched the ring before it could fall into the dragon’s waiting jaws. Then in one swift, silent movement, he dived, somersaulted, and stood again, the ring now invisible in his closed hand.
For a moment more the Dragon King waited for the ring to fall into his open mouth. When it did not, he snapped his jaws shut with a sound as resounding as an executioner’s ax.
“Where is it?” he cried. “Where is the Dragon King’s own ring?” Falling on all fours, he began to sniff and snort and root around the room, lighting every crack and crevice with his fiery breath.
Three Ox did not wait for the Dragon King’s search to be over. Swiftly and silently he made his way down the tunnels to the dungeon. There he stripped off his shirt and dangled it through the hole that served as the dungeon door. As the shirt was no longer on his body, it was visible to the point where it met his hand.
“Quickly, my brothers,” he called, “grab hold of the shirt and I will pull you up. We have little time. Soon the dragon will stop searching for the ring alone and follow my scent.”
But the shirt did not reach far enough down into the hole to help. So One Ox put Two Ox on his shoulders and then Two Ox was able to reach the shirt. With a mighty effort, Three Ox pulled him up. Then Two Ox took off his own shirt and tied it to Three Ox’s. This way they had a long enough line to reach One Ox and pull him to safety. Then hand in hand in invisible hand they ran out of the cave.
Once outside, Three Ox stripped off the wang-liang’s face and held up the ring. “Here is the very thing that contains the Waters of Life. But unless we can escape the anger of the Dragon King we will not be able to bring it to our mother.” He pulled the hairpin from his waistband. “Two Ox, you must get us down the mountainside with your river and boat.”
“Gladly,” said Two Ox, drawing the pin along the path. As he did so, a river began to bubble before them and there was the boat, bobbing gently in the current. “Climb in, my brothers, and I will bring us to the mountain’s foot.”
They climbed in, and using the silver pin as a rudder, Two Ox steered them with great skill down the steep mountainside. Behind them they heard the sound of a dragon roaring.
When they came to the bottom of the mountainside, the river stopped and so did the boat. They climbed out and Two Ox quickly took the rudder from the lock so that the boat and river became a pin once more. Then he stuck the pin in his waistband.
There was a full moon overhead and in the cool of the night all three boys shuddered.
“What now?” Two Ox asked.
“Now we must ride more swiftly than the dragon flies,” Three Ox said, handing the packet to One Ox. “If we keep to the trees, we will be safe.”
One Ox placed the packet on the ground. Then he unfolded it one piece at a time. As they watched, the horse grew and grew until it was large enough for three. They got on, One Ox in front, his fingers threaded through the horse’s foam-colored mane. Behind him sat Two Ox, his arms around his brother’s waist. And at the back sat Three Ox, clutching his brother’s shirt.
The horse galloped swiftly beneath the trees all the night through, and so long as they remained hidden under the leafy boughs, the dragon could not get to them. But soon there lay ahead of them only farmland, and their mother’s poor farm on the farther side.
“What can we do now?” asked One Ox.
“Dismount, my brothers,” said Three Ox.
“How will that help?” asked Two Ox.
“I alone will ride to the farm, with the wang-liang’s face over my own, invisible. All the dragon will know is that a horse gallops swiftly below him. But you, my brothers, will not be riding.” And as he spoke, he drew the wang-liang’s face down over his own. In a moment he could not be seen.
One Ox and Two Ox dismounted and hid themselves behind the largest tree at the forest’s edge. As they watched, the horse shrank to fit a single rider, then pounded across the furrowed fields, heading straight toward their mother’s farm. But the rider and part of the horse’s back and mane could not be seen.
The dragon strained across the lightening sky, and when it saw the strange riderless horse, its anger was renewed. It pursued the horse with hot fury and hotter breath and soon flames singed the horse’s tail. Still the horse galloped on and on; if anything, fire added to its speed. Within minutes it was at the farmhouse where the mother of One Ox, Two Ox, and Three Ox lay dying.
Hearing the commotion, the old woman tottered out of bed. And when she looked out into the growing dawn, she saw a horse galloping toward her with a great jade dragon behind it. She put her hand to her heart and cried out, “My son!” for though Three Ox was invisible to everyone else, he could not fool his mother’s eyes.
Then the Dragon King understood how he had been deceived, and like a stooping hawk he cleaved his great jade wings to his sides and dived toward the running horse.
Just then the sun rose full over the farthest mountains, and its red eye burned into the dragon’s jet eyes. The Dragon King gave an awful cry, remembering only at t
hat moment that he had to be home by dawn. Then he burst like a series of bright skyrockets in the air; the light of it was seen as far away as the city of Kai-lung and down into the depths of the Western Sea. The ashes settled over the entire farm more than a li in length.
One Ox and Two Ox ran from the sheltering trees and joined their mother and brother in a mighty embrace by the farmhouse door. Then they dipped the Dragon King’s ring into a glass of clear springwater. When their mother drank it down, she felt well again. In fact she felt better than she had in years.
Once the new crop was planted, One Ox went off to the city of Kai-lung to serve his dragon master for a year. And Two Ox went off to the Western Sea to serve his. But Three Ox stayed home to take care of his mother and tend the farm.
The farm flourished as never before because the ashes of the Dragon King made the soil rich and strong. When the two older brothers returned, there was more than enough for them all.
“Which is just as well,” said their mother, “for I could never choose among my dear sons. I love each of you the best.”
And indeed she did. For many years to come she played in the flowering orchards with her many grandchildren, giving them rides on the pocket pony, or floating with them in the silver boat, where she told them story after story after story just like the one I have just told you.
Brother Hart
DEEP IN A WOOD, so dark and tangled few men dared enter it, there was a small clearing. And in that clearing lived a girl and her brother Hart.
By day, in his deer shape, Brother Hart would go out and forage on green grass and budlings while his sister remained at home.
But whenever dusk began, the girl Hinda would go to the edge of the clearing and call out in a high, sweet voice:
Dear heart, Brother Hart,
Come at my behest.
We shall dine on berry wine
And you shall have your rest.
Then, in his deer heart, her brother would know the day’s enchantment was at an end and run swiftly home. There, at the lintel over the cottage door, he would rub between his antlers until the hide on his forehead broke bloodlessly apart. He would rub and rub further still until the brown hide skinned back along both sides and he stepped out a naked man.
His sister would take the hide and shake it out and brush and comb it until it shone like polished wood. Then she hung the hide up by the antlers beside the door, with the legs dangling down. It would hang there until the morning, when Brother Hart donned it once again and raced off to the lowland meadows to graze.
What spell or sorcerer had brought them there, deep in the wood, neither could recall. Their faces mirrored one another, and their lives were twinned. Their memories, like the sorcerer, had vanished. The woods, the meadow, the clearing, the deer hide, the cottage door, were all they knew.
Now one day in late spring, Brother Hart had gone as usual to the lowland meadows, leaving Hinda at home. She had washed and scrubbed the little cottage until it was neat and clean. She had put new straw in their bedding. But as she stood by the window brushing out her long dark hair, an unfamiliar sound greeted her ears: a loud, harsh calling, neither bird nor jackal nor good grey wolf.
Again and again the call came. So Hinda went to the door, for she feared nothing in the wood. And who should come winded to the cottage but Brother Hart. He had no words to tell her in his deer form, but blood beaded his head like a crown. It was the first time she had ever seen him bleed. He pushed past her and collapsed, shivering, on their bed.
Hinda ran over to him and would have bathed him with her tears, but the jangling noise called out again, close and insistent. She ran to the window to see.
There was a man outside in the clearing. At least she thought it was a man. Yet he did not look like Brother Hart, who was the only man she knew.
He was large where Brother Hart was slim. He was fair where Brother Hart was dark. He was hairy where Brother Hart was smooth. And he was dressed in animal skins that hung from his shoulders to his feet. About the man leaped fawning wolves, some spotted like jackals, some tan and some white. He pushed them from him with a rough sweep of his hand.
“I seek a deer,” he called when he glimpsed Hinda’s face, a pale moon, at the window.
But when Hinda came out of the door, closing it behind her to hide what lay inside, the man did not speak again. Instead he took off his fur hat and laid it upon his heart, kneeling down before her.
“Who are you?” asked Hinda. “What are you? And why do you seek the deer?” Her voice was gentle but firm.
The man neither spoke nor rose but stared at her face.
“Who are you?” Hinda asked again. “Say what it is you are.”
As if she had broken a spell, the man spoke at last. “I am but a man,” he said. “A man who has traveled far and who has seen much, but never a beauty such as yours.”
“If it is beauty, and beauty is what you prize, you shall not see it again,” said Hinda. “For a man who hunts the deer can be no friend of mine.”
The man rose then, and Hinda marveled at the height of him, for he was as tall as the cottage door and his hands were grained like wood.
“Then I shall hunt the deer no more,” he said, “if you will give me leave to hunt that which is now all at once dearer to me.”
“And what is that?”
“You, dear heart,” he said, reaching for her. Startled, Hinda moved away from him but, remembering her brother inside the cottage, found voice to say, “Tomorrow.” She reached behind her and steadied herself on the door handle. She thought she heard the heavy breathing of Brother Hart through the walls. “Come tomorrow.”
“I shall surely come.” He bowed, turned, and then was gone, walking swiftly, a man’s stride, through the woods. His animals were at his heels.
Hinda’s eyes followed him down the path until she counted even the shadows of trees as his own. When she was certain he was gone, she opened the cottage door and went in.
The cottage was suddenly dark, filled with the musk of deer.
Brother Hart lay on their straw bed. When he looked up at her, Hinda could not bear the twin wounds of his eyes. She turned away and said, “You may go out now. It is safe. He will not hunt you again.”
The deer rose heavily to his feet, nuzzled open the door, and sprang away to the meadows.
But he was home again at dark.
When he stepped out of his skin and entered the cottage, he did not greet his sister with his usual embrace. Instead he said, “You did not call me to the clearing. You did not say my name. Only when I was tired and the sun had almost gone, did I know it was time to come home.”
Hinda could not answer. She could not even look at him. For even more than his words, his nakedness suddenly shamed her. She put their food on the table and they ate their meal in silence. Then they lay down together and slept without dreams like the wild creatures of the wood.
When the sun called Brother Hart to his deerskin once again, Hinda opened the door. Silently she ushered him outside, silently watched him change, and sent him off on his silent way to the meadows without word of farewell. Her thoughts were on the hunter, the man of the wolves. She never doubted he would come.
And come he did, neither silently nor slowly, but with loud, purposeful steps. He stood for a moment at the clearing’s edge, looking at Hinda, measuring her with his eyes. Then he smiled and crossed to her.
He stayed all the day with her and taught her wonders she had never known. He told her tales of kingdoms she had never seen. He sang songs she had never heard before, singing them softly into her ears. He spoke again and again of his love for her, but he touched no more than her hand.
“You are as innocent as any creature in the woods,” he said over and over in amazement.
So passed the day.
Suddenly it was dusk, and Hinda looked up with a start. “You must go now,” she said.
“Nay, I must stay.”
“No no, you must go,” Hinda said aga
in. “I cannot have you here at night. If you love me, go.” Then she added softly, her dark eyes on his, “But come again in the morning.”
Her sudden fear puzzled him, but it also touched him, so he stood and smoothed down the skins of his coat. “I will go. But I will return.”
He whistled his animals to him, and left the clearing as swiftly as he had come.
Hinda would have called after him then, called after and made him stay, but she did not even know his name. So she went instead to the clearing’s edge and cried:
Dear Heart, Brother Hart,
Come at my bidding.
We shall dine on berry wine
And dance at my wedding.
And hearing her voice, Brother Hart raced home.
He stopped at the clearing’s edge, raised his head, and sniffed. The smell of man hung on the air, heavy and threatening. He came through it as if through a swift current, and stepped to the cottage door.
Rubbing his head more savagely than ever on the lintel, as if to rip off his thoughts with his hide, Brother Hart removed his skin.
“The hunter was here,” he said as he crossed the threshold of the door.
“He does not seek you,” Hinda replied.
“You will not see him again. You will tell him to go.”
“I see him for your sake,” said Hinda. “If he sees me, he does not see you. If he hunts me, he does not hunt you. I do it for you, brother dear.”
Satisfied, Brother Hart sat down to eat. But Hinda was not hungry. She served her brother and watched as he ate his fill.
“You should sleep,” she said when he was done. “Sleep, and I will rub your head and sing to you.”
“I am tired,” he answered. “My head aches where yesterday he struck me. My heart aches still with the fear. I tremble all over. You are right. I should sleep.”
So he lay down on the bed and Hinda sat by him. She rubbed cinquefoil on his head to soothe it and sang him many songs, and soon Brother Hart was asleep.
When the moon lit the clearing, the hunter returned. He could not wait until the morning. Hinda’s fear had made him afraid, though he had never known fear before. He dared not leave her alone in the forest. But he moved quietly as a beast in the dark. He left his dogs behind.
