The Dragon Men

by Steven Harper

  “What?” Cixi sprang to her feet. Her kneeling maids scrambled to follow suit.

  “Eleven minutes and fifty-five seconds, actually,” said Lung Fang.

  Time had run out. Cixi stood for a moment, thinking furiously. Years of training in court etiquette warred with looming necessity. In the end, necessity won. She rushed out of her chambers, out of the Stars Pavilion, and down the front stairs. Zaichun was playing with a set of small mechanical animals on the front lawn under the watchful eye of a dozen eunuchs and his wet nurse. Without pausing, she snatched him up, eliciting gasps from her maids and eunuchs.

  “My lady, I’ll carry him!”

  “My lady, it is not seemly—”

  “My lady, do you want your palanquin?”

  She ignored them all and all but ran across the lawns toward the Cool Hall on the Misty Lake. By the time the palanquins was summoned and readied, everything would be over. Zaichun clung to her, wide-eyed and without speaking. He was heavy, but she didn’t set him down. She was panting and her arms were aching to fall off by the time she reached the Hall, but she kept going, trailing a line of frantic maids and eunuchs. She stormed up the step and through the front doors. Servants and courtiers leaped to get out of her way as she stormed down hallways and across courtyards, ignoring the pleas of her servants, knowing if she slowed for even a moment, she would lose her nerve.

  She was turning a corner to come down the final corridor to the emperor’s chamber when she slipped. Her feet came out from under her, and she landed hard on the polished floor. Zaichun landed on her, knocking the breath from her lungs. A squawk went up from the flock of maids and eunuchs, who quickly took the crying boy away and helped her to her feet. Thanks to her voluminous clothing, it took considerable time to get to her feet. As she rose, she saw a white feather detach itself from her slipper and float away. She must have slipped on it.

  But no time to consider further. She snatched the bawling prince away from the maid and ran down the hallway, every muscle in her body aching now. “Enough, child,” she murmured into his ear. “We are going to see your father, and you do not want him to see you weeping as he departs this world.”

  Zaichun got himself under control as Cixi reached the muscled eunuchs at the door. They tensed, having been through Cixi’s attempts at entry before, but before they could speak, Cixi held Zaichun out before her.

  “Make way for Prince Aisin-Gioro Zaichun, the Celestial Gift of China!” she boomed. “Make way for the emperor’s son!”

  As they had the first time Cixi had come through, the guards looked uncertain and puzzled. Cixi had been forbidden to enter the imperial bedchamber, but the prince and presumptive heir outranked everyone except the emperor himself. The guards were unwilling to lay a hand on him—or on the woman carrying him.

  Cixi didn’t hesitate. Holding the boy before her like a living battering ram, she bullied past the waffling guards and kicked the doors open. The eunuchs gathered around Xianfeng’s bed jumped in bewilderment at Cixi’s unannounced entrance. She didn’t bow, she didn’t kneel, she didn’t kowtow. Forgetting these things meant her death, but she was dead anyway and had nothing to lose.

  Su Shun stood beside the emperor’s scarlet bed, his brass half face gleaming in the sunlight filtered through the frosted glass of the doors. He was bending over Xianfeng’s wasted form. The blessing of dragons turned a tiny number of people into Dragon Men, it turned a certain number of people into shambling zombies, but most people it simply killed. And emperor or not, Xianfeng turned out to be no better than a commoner in this case. Xianfeng’s breathing came in short gasps as the blessing progressively paralyzed his muscles and fever ravaged his body.

  “Father!” Zaichun cried from Cixi’s arms. He squirmed away from her and ran to Xianfeng’s bed. The eunuchs boiled out of the way, and Cixi followed in the path he cleared. “Father!”

  “What are you doing here?” Su Shun snapped. “Guards!”

  Xianfeng turned fever-bright eyes on Zaichun. “My . . . son!”

  The guards from outside rushed into the room, swords and pistols drawn. But Xianfeng raised the Jade Hand. “No . . . back . . .”

  The guards obediently backed away. Su Shun looked outraged, but he could say nothing. Cixi gave him a grim smile.

  “What of your succession to the throne?” Cixi said urgently. “My lord, who shall rule after you die?”

  Xianfeng dropped his hand. The light was fading from his eyes. The water clock in the corner ticked away the time. Thirty seconds left, according to what Lung Fan had said. The room was dead silent. Everyone—guards, eunuchs, Su Shun—was listening with every fiber of his being. Cixi held her breath.

  “My . . . throne . . . ,” Xianfeng whispered.

  “Your son is here!” Cixi said. Even now she couldn’t bring herself to order the emperor to choose Zaichun, but she slid the boy closer to the emperor’s side. Zaichun looked confused and unhappy, and he reached for his father’s Jade Hand. Everyone held his breath. The water clock dripped away the seconds.

  “My . . . throne,” said Xianfeng. “Eighteen. Eight . . . teen.”

  He exhaled once more, then went still.

  Several things happened all at once. The Celestial Scepter dropped off Xianfeng’s forearm and fell toward the floor. The water clock chimed. A fast-thinking eunuch dove sideways and caught the Jade Hand before it could touch the ground. Cixi’s maids and the other eunuchs set up a screaming wail and tore at their clothes. Su Shun’s eyes met Cixi’s, and she knew they both had the same thought. The emperor had not declared Zaichun his heir. He had declared no one his heir. And Su Shun was the most powerful man in the room.

  Both Cixi and Su Shun moved at the same time. The eunuch was cradling the precious Jade Hand against his chest. Su Shun snatched a pistol from one of the guards and shot the eunuch in the head. The pistol boomed against Cixi’s very bones. She caught up the shocked Zaichun and ran for the door. For a fraction of a second, Su Shun started to aim his pistol at Cixi, then changed his mind and grabbed the Jade Hand from the dead eunuch instead. The pause gave Cixi extra time, and when she passed one of the tables, something made her snatch up the Ebony Chamber, with its gold dragons and phoenix latch. She ran for freedom, clutching the box and towing Zaichun with her. As she left, she had just enough time to see Su Shun raise a guard’s sword high and hear the meaty thunk as Su Shun chopped off his own hand.

  * * *

  “What now, my lady?” Liyang panted. “Oh, what now?”

  They were in Cixi’s dressing room at the Pavilion of a Thousand Silver Stars. Terrified maids were rushing about the room, looking busy while accomplishing nothing. Zaichun sat on the floor beside her, trying to be a man and not cry. Cixi idly stroked his hair. She herself felt a strange, icy calm, as if she had gone through terror and come out the other side. She had faced down the emperor and lost, but she was still alive. Once Su Shun recovered from attaching the Heavenly Scepter, he would doubtless come after her, but she should have a few minutes, and she meant to make them count. At the moment, she was examining the Ebony Chamber. The inlaid dragons seemed to move in impossible patterns, and when she looked at them, she realized the dragons were actually created of a design of smaller dragons, and those smaller dragons were made of yet smaller dragons. It hurt her eyes. The phoenix latch had three numbers on it, all on little wheels that could be spun to create numbers between zero and 999. She thought a moment. Xianfeng’s official lucky number was seven, but that was too obvious. This was the eleventh year of Xianfeng’s reign. But no, that would mean resetting the Chamber every year. Wait—when Xianfeng died, he had said eighteen. Cixi also knew that Xianfeng’s official lucky number was seven, but when the emperor was young, a fortune-teller had once said his lucky number was eighteen, and that he secretly preferred that one. Cixi set the latch to 018.

  The lock popped open. Heart beating fast, Cixi opened the box. A single piece of paper with her son’s name and the emperor’s seal on it would change every
thing. She looked inside.

  The Chamber was empty.

  Despair washed over her. It didn’t seem to matter what she did or how hard she tried. The universe was conspiring against her with tiny events. The emperor had failed to sign a small slip of paper. That feather she had slipped on had delayed her a few crucial seconds. Now the empire had chaos instead of a tidy succession. She and Zaichun were as good as dead.

  But, no. Sometimes the universe could not be allowed to win. Sometimes one had to strike back at the universe. Resolve filled Cixi. There was no time to stop, no time to give in. The Chamber was still open. Cixi swept the contents of one of her jewelry cases into it, sending jade and gold and silver tumbling inside. Two pieces—a jade leaf and a gold hairpin—fell to the floor, and these she kept separate. Then she scrambled out of her elaborate concubine’s clothes with the help of her startled maids and, in her underthings, grabbed the arm of a passing chambermaid, the lowest ranking girl in the room.

  “Give me your clothes,” she said. The girl stared, openmouthed, until Cixi slapped her across the face. “Now, girl!”

  The move galvanized the girl into action. She stripped and handed her much plainer clothes over to Cixi, who got into them. “Liyang, have your apprentice trade clothes with Zaichun. Quickly!”

  “What will you do, my lady?” Liyang asked while this was being accomplished.

  “I will not say,” Cixi said, then turned to address the entire room. Everyone froze and fell silent. “Listen to me, all of you. The Celestial Throne has been taken by a usurper, one who has good reason to fear the true emperor and his supporters. If you feel your lives are in danger, take the remaining gold in my storehouse and the jewelry in my cases and flee. Do it now! Su Shun is not a patient man.”

  Silence for a moment, and then chaos as several maids and eunuchs bolted for the storerooms and strongboxes. So much for loyalty. Cixi, in her plain clothing, was at the door with the Ebony Chamber in a sack when Liyang stopped her.

  “You can’t go alone, my lady,” he said. “Who will sweep the road before you? Who will steer the palanquin? Who will—?”

  She touched his arm to silence him. “Su Shun will be looking for a concubine traveling with her servants. It will simply not occur to him to look for a maid in plain clothes traveling on foot with a servant boy. You have been a good servant and a good friend. You should run as well. Alone.”

  Liyang pursed his lips and nodded.

  The salamander in Lung Fan’s ear glowed softly. She twitched once, then rose. “I must go. I must go now. Yes, now. Right now.” Cixi’s stomach went cold as the Dragon Man walked out the door without a backward glance. Outside, she joined other Dragon Men who streamed from halls, palaces, and pavilions in an eerie stream of black silk, all marching toward the Cool Hall on the Misty Lake. Cixi’s mouth was dry. Were they marching in from Peking as well?

  “Mother?” Zaichun asked. “Are we truly leaving?”

  “We must, Little Cricket. We will play a game as we go. Pretend you are a servant boy and keep your eyes down.”

  “What do I win?”

  “Your life.” She handed him the sack containing the Ebony Chamber. “Quickly, now.”

  Keeping her own head down, Cixi ran with Zaichun through the pavilion and out a servant’s door. With the palace in disarray and without their usual clothing, no one recognized them, or even looked at them closely. The jade leaf fell into the hands of the bribe-hungry eunuch who guarded one of the gates, and then they were on the streets of Jehol.

  Cixi looked around. Word of the emperor’s death hadn’t leaked out yet, and people passed by on the street outside the palace walls as if nothing abnormal were happening. She felt naked without her layers of clothing and her maids and her eunuchs. Still, that was an acquired sense. Her father had been a low-ranking army officer, quite poor, and she had chopped vegetables and scrubbed floors and sewn seams like any other girl for the first sixteen years of her life. It was time to become that girl again, at least for a while.

  “Did I play the game well, Mother?” Zaichun asked.

  “You did, Little Cricket. But we must play a little longer. From now on my name is . . . Orchid, and yours—”

  “I want to be Cricket!”

  “As you like.”

  “Where are we going?”

  She thought again. A little voice told her she had enough money in the form of her jewelry to go anywhere in China. There were a number of nice small cities to the south, where she could live a quiet existence as a moderately wealthy widow.

  But that would leave China in the hands of a usurper warlord, a foolish man who intended to wreck the world. Her back straightened. No. Just as she had told Liyang, it was time for man’s rule in China to end. And although she herself could not ascend the throne—women were not allowed to rule—she held in her hands the means to govern China properly.

  “We’re going to Peking,” she said to Zaichun. “I have friends there who will hide us.” And there I will make this cricket into a dragon, she added to herself. A dragon with an orchid in its ear.

  Chapter Seven

  Yeh laughed and laughed. His jowls jiggled, and he slapped the table, nearly upsetting his teacup. For his part, Gavin nearly whipped his sword from his belt to chop the man’s hand off for such effrontery. His fingers itched to dig into the fat man’s neck and snap his vertebrae one by one. The bastard was—

  He ground his teeth and pushed the thoughts back. Not now. Perhaps it was the plague running away with his emotions, or perhaps it was his own reaction to a man mocking his Alice. In any case, he was in control here. He shot a glance at Phipps, who looked perfectly calm, and at the guards, who also remained perfectly calm.

  No, wait—that wasn’t true. Gavin studied them sidelong. The one with the pistol . . . his left leg was jumping up and down just a little, and tiny movements in his face said he was chewing on the inside of his mouth. He was nervous, very nervous, and trying to hide it. The older man, the one with the sword, was calmer, but he was as coiled as a clockwork spring. They weren’t as in control as they thought.

  “You want to claim reward for you,” Yeh snickered. “Funny.”

  “The notice does not say anything about who may or may not claim the reward,” Alice replied. “It only offers one such. Are you a man of honor or not?”

  Yeh blinked at this. “Why I give you reward? Why I not knock you on head, take you back to Peking?”

  Gavin locked eyes with the younger guard, who stared back. Phipps folded her arms and looked at the ceiling, seeming to ignore her own opposite number, but Gavin knew she was keeping an eye on the room. Men continued to eat and laugh and smoke with no indication they understood the world-class drama playing out in the corner nearby. Gavin wondered how many of them would die if—when—a fight broke out.

  Alice gave Yeh a little smile and reached delicately across to the table to take his plump hand in both of hers. As if soothing a child, she stroked the back of his hand with her spidery fingertips.

  “Mr. Yeh,” she said, “you’re an expatriate, am I right? You are not allowed to cross the border back into your dear homeland, and you are forced to live among us Western barbarians. You find this horrible, I can see.”

  “Yes,” Yeh spat, though he didn’t move his hand away.

  “Now why is it you have been banished, hm? Is it because you and a few others like you haven’t tracked me down yet? Because someone has to stay outside the borders to coordinate the search for me?”

  “It is so.” Yeh leaned forward, his hand still in Alice’s. “We are sacrifices for empire. But now that I find you, I go home. Emperor will use you as he likes.”

  “Now, now.” Quick as a flash, Alice jabbed an iron finger into the flesh of Yeh’s hand without quite breaking the skin. He inhaled sharply at the unexpected pain, a sensation he was unaccustomed to. “Do you know what this spider does?”

  Yeh trembled, and his eyes rolled until the whites showed. A trickle of sweat ran down t
he side of his head. The guards tensed, and this time Gavin half drew his cutlass.

  “Don’t,” Gavin said, knowing that at least one of the guards spoke English.

  “I see you do know, Mr. Yeh,” Alice said. “I also see you’ve worked out what will happen if I break the skin on your hand with this claw. How likely is it the emperor will ever let you reenter your homeland if you carry the cure for the clockwork plague?”

  Yeh remained silent, his gaze rooted on Alice’s finger.

  “Let me tell you what will happen now, Mr. Yeh,” Alice continued. She sounded like a woman entertaining in her drawing room over tea, and admiration for her swelled in Gavin’s chest. “You will give us that delightfully enormous reward, and we will put it aboard our airship. Then you yourself will board, and we will all fly to China. You will authorize us to cross the border—I assume you can do that—and once we arrive in Peking, you will be hailed as a hero for single-handedly delivering the notorious Alice, Lady Michaels, to the emperor. You will be able to go home, and we will be in Peking for reasons of our own. This offer is nonnegotiable and expires in one minute. If you refuse, we will walk out that door and vanish forever. An airship covers a lot of ground, Mr. Yeh, and you will never have this chance again. The time begins now.”

  Phipps pulled out a pocket watch and flipped it open with her metal hand.

  “You dictate nothing,” Yeh said. “Filthy white woman.”

  “You are quite correct, Mr. Yeh,” Alice said with a nod. “I dictate nothing. I am merely giving you the conditions under which I will surrender myself to you, making it easy for you to return to China a hero. Whether you accept these conditions or not is purely your choice.”

  “Forty seconds,” said Phipps.

  “Women set no conditions,” Yeh said. “They obey them.”

  “As you like, Mr. Yeh. But please note whose claw is digging into your hand.”

  “Thirty seconds,” said Phipps.