The Black Dragon was defeated.
Epilogue
—
FOR MORE THAN a decade, the New Year’s Eve gala at the de Rothburg mansion on Fifth Avenue had stood at the very pinnacle of New York’s social calendar. No matter what else they were doing the week after Christmas, whether it was canoeing up the Amazon or deciphering inscriptions in Egypt, Baron Franz and young Angelica de Rothburg would rush back home to Manhattan, turn on all the lights in the house, and celebrate with dozens of the city’s richest swells and brightest wits until dawn. But as the final hours of 1936 ticked to a close, the mansion hosted a much smaller gathering than usual: just seven friends, all clustered in a ground floor parlor.
The Baroness was wearing the same clingy silver dress she had worn three months earlier, the night she first met Sid, Rosie, Hank and the two scientists. As before, it had the effect of rendering Professor Armbruster speechless, leaving Captain Doyle free to fire at will. And with the Baroness’s finest champagne on hand, Doyle’s barbs took on a particular sharpness that had the others rolling with laughter.
Sid grinned like a fool the entire night, clutching the January issue of Startling Scientifiction magazine with both hands. Its cover displayed a lurid image: a robed, Fu Manchu-like Oriental villain held his hands high, with crackling white flames issuing from his fingertips. A curvaceous, scantily clad blonde lay prone before him, her arm thrown across her mouth in terror. And down the right-hand side, just under the ten-cent price mark, were printed the words:
DRAGON IN THE SNOW
A full-length novel by Jackson Stone!
It was his first cover story! And most of it, unbeknownst to the editors and readers of Startling Scientifiction, was absolutely true.
* * *
Nenn Si-Lum’s rebel forces had little trouble taking charge of Shangri-La after the destruction of the Great Machine. With the singing stones gone, all that remained of the Black Dragon’s reign of terror were a handful of surviving Chenggi loyalists, who surrendered; the dragon-ship, which was later abandoned and forgotten in the mountains; and the flamethrowing orbs, which were thrown into the boiling caldera and lost forever.
The Shadow Order, greatly diminished and without their commander, who died in the battle, gave up all notions of joining the Great Khan Fa-Shizam and fighting the Switzers. They disbanded after their expulsion from Shangri-La, going their separate ways as bodyguards, petty criminals and smugglers. None ever attempted to claim their share of Franz de Rothburg’s twenty million dollar retainer.
In Washington, the President and his cabinet gathered around a radio to hear the Black Dragon’s ultimatum, but it never came. Heads rolled in the War Department: those officers who had spread the rumor of madmen destroying islands were promptly fired.
The Black Dragon himself was not seen in Chenggi-Lai again. Whether he had been killed in the explosion or had somehow fled the country was a subject of great speculation. But it did not matter. Wherever he was, alive or dead, he had lost the source of his power. Surely there was no longer anything to fear from Wo Then-Liang, exiled prince of Shangri-La.
But if the adventurers expected a hero’s reception from Chenggi-Lai’s new rulers, they were somewhat mistaken. There was a brief ceremony in the Great Hall, quiet and dignified. Nenn Si-Lum’s speech contained exactly five words: “We thank you. Now go.”
They were taken directly to the airfield, granted the use of one of the Black Dragon’s airplanes, and told never to return. It would be an easy promise to keep: a stone-faced Chenggi pilot, flying at dusk, handled the treacherous flight through the Himalayas. The Americans wouldn’t be able to find their way back even if they had a map.
* * *
The adventurers returned to New York after two months abroad to find a world strangely indifferent to them. There was nobody they could tell their story to, at least not without resorting to the likes of Startling Scientifiction. Sid went home to discover he had been evicted from his apartment. He had to move into a boarding house and write his novel on a borrowed typewriter. Rosie was out of a job, but good nurses were always in demand. She’d be fine.
The only souvenirs of the adventure in Shangri-La were their luxurious Chenggi robes and the ancient amulet of Ando Chee, which now glowed softly in a display case in the Fifth Avenue mansion. But the Baroness had picked up some more souvenirs in Shanghai: four cats now prowled the mansion’s corridors, renamed Franzi, Barty, Djali and Joe, and the complete works of Bartholomew St. Cyr were prominently displayed on a bookshelf in the library. The rest of St. Cyr and Djali’s effects were all bequeathed to the Celestial Mystery Society of Shanghai.
In the mansion that New Year’s Eve, Hank sang, if his raspy warble could be called singing, as Sonny tickled the Baroness’s piano. Rosie hugged the Baroness and kissed Sid, pausing to once again admire his name on the magazine cover. And a few seconds before midnight, Professor Armbruster finally found his voice.
“My dear friends,” he said, “I have a toast. To those we have lost and those who are here tonight, comrades forever. Here’s to courage, to knowledge and to friendship. And above all to adventure! Never again need we wonder what Doc Savage would do. Henceforth and forevermore, men shall ask themselves what we would do!”
The clock struck twelve, and they drank.
THE END
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
—
FORREST DYLAN BRYANT fell in love with the pulp adventure genre as a college student and immediately resolved to write one himself. Twenty years later he finally got around to trying it. Forrest lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife Lisa and their cat, Cipher.
Dragon in the Snow was originally written in thirty days as part of National Novel Writing Month (2009). This fully revised edition was prepared in 2011. Dragon in the Snow is Forrest’s first novel.
SID FRIEDMAN WILL RETURN
Table of Contents
Front Cover
Teaser
Frontispiece
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Note to the Reader
Chapter I - Terror in the Pacific
Chapter II - An Unexpected Delivery
Chapter III - A Pair of Enigmas
Chapter IV - A Visit to Princeton
Chapter V - Cat and Mouse
Chapter VI - Do Not Follow
Chapter VII - Escape from New York
Chapter VIII - Guns and Frankfurters
Chapter IX - Attack of the Sky Vixens
Chapter X - Juggernaut
Chapter XI - The Shadow Order
Chapter XII - A Plan of Madness
Chapter XIII - Taking Yerba Buena by Strategy
Chapter XIV - Earth, Air, Fire, Water
Chapter XV - Demons of the Night
Chapter XVI - A Daring Experiment
Chapter XVII - The Dragon Strikes
Chapter XVIII - Another Piece of the Puzzle
Chapter XIX - Shanghai Underground
Chapter XX - The Parrot and the Viper
Chapter XXI - Danger on All Sides
Chapter XXII - The Temple Trap
Chapter XXIII - From a Distant Land
Chapter XXIV - Stranger than Fiction
Chapter XXV - The Grasping Tendrils of Darkness
Chapter XXVI - Race Across the Orient
Chapter XXVII - The First Wall
Chapter XXVIII - The Second Wall
Chapter XXIX - The Wall of Fire
Chapter XXX - The Grand Palace
Chapter XXXI - A Simple Business Matter
Chapter XXXII - The Great Machine
Chapter XXXIII - Aspect of Destruction
Epilogue
Illustration
About the Author
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