The Dragon Men ce-3

by Steven Harper

  The Dragon Man grinned and worked the controls. The dragon lifted its front leg, and with a delicate claw under Alice’s chin, pushed her face up so the moonlight spilled across it. The Dragon Man began to laugh with glee. He had recognized her-or figured out who she was. It didn’t really matter. Alice jerked the stupid robe up, still trying to get to the sword. The dragon reached for her with another foot, one easily big enough to get around her waist. Alice wanted to scream in both fear and frustration. After coming all this way, it was going to end here.

  A metal wire whipped through the air and wrapped around the Dragon Man’s neck. With a hoik sound, he was yanked backward off the brass dragon. Without someone to guide it, the dragon froze. Alice squirmed free and dashed around it. Behind the automaton was Susan Phipps. The wire snaked from her brass palm, and the Dragon Man lay at her feet, gasping and clawing at his neck. Phipps wrapped the wire around both wrists and braced a foot on the Dragon Man’s chest.

  “Susan!” Alice cried. “Don’t!”

  Phipps yanked hard. There was a wet crack. The Dragon Man twitched once and went still.

  “Oh God,” Alice whispered. “I wish you hadn’t.”

  “You left me little choice.” Phipps coiled the wire back into her hand. “He was under orders from the salamander in his ear, and we couldn’t have done anything else to stop him. The night will be bloodier before long, Alice. You’d best accept that.”

  Alice nodded once, her jaw set. Phipps was right, but Alice didn’t have to like it. She found the plague zombie still huddled near the wall. Before anything else could happen, Alice swiped his arm with her claws and sprayed the wound with her own blood.

  “Be well,” she said quietly as he limped away, taking the cure with him.

  “Can you drive this thing?” Phipps asked pleasantly from the seat behind the dragon’s head. “I don’t see any point in wasting it.”

  The parade continued on its way, with the addition of the brass dragon. Alice’s talent with automatons let her figure out the controls quickly, and the few people on the street assumed the machine was merely part of the mourning. Riding was easier than walking, at any rate. Alice offered Lady Orchid a seat, and the woman gratefully accepted-clearly she wasn’t used to physical labor. She held Cricket on her lap, making it a tight fit behind the dragon’s head. Phipps and the soldiers continued on, unbothered.

  They passed the Forbidden City on their way. Pagoda-style buildings with multiple roofs poked above the high walls, and the moonlight turned the wide moat around it to mercury. It looked as remote and untouchable as a celestial temple, which, Alice supposed, was the entire idea.

  Jingshan Park pushed down against the Forbidden City’s northern border. It was a pleasant sprawl of hills and trees, meadows and ponds, shrines and pagodas. According to Lieutenant Li, who walked beside the brass dragon, the hills were artificial, built up one bucketful at a time to approximate the axis of Peking and to accommodate the principles of something he called feng shui, which neither he nor Phipps could translate.

  “The five hills are placed so energy can flow properly,” Li said. “It is difficult to explain in English.”

  “As long as the secret passage works, the energy may flow as it likes,” Alice replied.

  The soldiers stopped their mournful crying and howling the moment they entered the park, which was deserted after sunset. Everyone stripped off their white robes, revealing armor and brass limbs and swords and pistols, and Lady Orchid unwrapped the Ebony Chamber. The robes they left in a cobweb pile near a fishpond.

  “Some gardener will think himself rich in the morning,” Li observed.

  Lady Orchid climbed down from the brass dragon, taking Cricket with her. “This way,” she said.

  She took them to an enormous tree, easily as wide as four men, and did something to it. A section of bark swung outward, and Alice realized the tree was artificial, cunningly constructed from plaster or resin or stone to look real. The artistry was perfect. Even the leaves looked real.

  Behind the section of bark, a stone staircase spiraled downward. At the top stood a pair of surprised-looking men in the round, peaked hats Alice had learned were the uniform of imperial eunuchs. The men smelled faintly of urine, even from the back of the dragon, and Alice wondered whether Lady Orchid and the soldiers had startled them badly. Neither spoke, and Alice remembered their tongues had been cut out.

  One of the men reached for a bellpull, but Lieutenant Li’s sword sliced the rope above his head. For a dreadful moment, Alice thought Li intended to kill the eunuch as well, but Lady Orchid stepped forward and spoke to them both at length.

  “She’s telling them what’s happening,” Li murmured to Phipps and Alice, even though Phipps understood Chinese. Even from the dragon’s back, Alice noticed that Li stood quite close to Phipps. “She says we’re trying to put the true emperor on the throne and they can help. Most of the eunuchs are unhappy with Su Shun and the way he is spending money on the army-far less silver for them-and will be pleased with the idea of a change. And these eunuchs have a wretched appointment, guarding a door no one uses. So they probably won’t. . Ah, there we are.”

  From the Ebony Chamber, Lady Orchid took two pieces of jewelry, a jade fish and a gold bracelet set with sapphires. The eunuchs accepted these with newly solemn faces and stepped aside.

  “I’m glad you didn’t kill those men,” Alice said, “but I have to admit that I’m rather surprised you didn’t.”

  “Someone might find the bodies if we left them in the park,” Li said. “And I cannot send them tumbling down the staircase. It contains several traps, as Lady Orchid is explaining. On the way down, you must step on the stones with the characters for Long life and eternal health to the celestial son of heaven, may he live forever under-”

  “Wait, wait.” Alice held up her hands. “I couldn’t remember all that, even if I could read Chinese.”

  “Just step where everyone else steps,” Phipps said, “and don’t make a mistake.”

  “What happens to those who make a mistake?”

  “I’m not completely sure.” Phipps cocked an ear toward Lady Orchid, who was still speaking. “But it seems to involve a great number of spikes and slow-acting poisons.”

  “You go first,” Alice said.

  “What are you going to do about that dragon?” Phipps asked.

  Alice got down from the dragon and stared at the steps for a long moment. She spotted the dozens of clever little holes for the spikes Phipps had mentioned, and her mind traced pathways, running automatic calculations. “I think there’s a way to bring it with. I hate to let it go to waste.”

  Meanwhile, the eunuchs, who didn’t seem so sure of their lives now that they had given up the secret of the staircase, fled into the night. Cricket peered at the spiral stairs with interest. Alice had had limited interactions with the boy, but he had so far seemed bright and intelligent, and he hadn’t once complained about the long walk to the park. She wondered if he understood that they were planning to make him a straw emperor, or if he knew that by evening’s end he would have lost either his hand or his life. Doubt dragged at her like a wet cloak. Were they doing the right thing? But if they turned back, how many thousands of others would die in a war between Britain and China? How many young men were even now asleep in their beds, awaiting a death sentence they didn’t even know was coming? How many children would be orphaned?

  She remembered the final moments of her aunt’s life, how Edwina had been forced to die in order to unleash the plague cure on the world. Alice had demanded to know why the world seemed to work on all or nothing, why there was no way to win without so much sacrifice. Aunt Edwina had promised to ask God. Alice herself intended to have a few choice words with the Almighty about the rightness of a world that endangered the lives of children in order to save everyone else.

  Lady Orchid studied the stairs. They were marble inlaid with Chinese characters in jade, and they meant nothing to Alice, though the workmanship was
absolutely stunning. It seemed a terrible shame to hide such lovely art in the dark on the chance that a single man might tread on it. Gavin would have thoroughly appreciated it.

  Gavin. Alice climbed back onto the dragon and glanced upward. Where on earth was Gavin? She had been concentrating on the current plan so she wouldn’t have to think about him haring off-flying off-and leaving her. A strange mixture of anger and worry mingled inside her. She had no idea why he had left after that brass nightingale had sung that song-their song-to him. The voice had been eerily similar to Gavin’s, but it wasn’t his. Perhaps it was a trap, designed to send him into a clockwork fugue and lure him away. But a trap set by whom? And if it were, why hadn’t the person come after Alice as well? She carried the cure. She was the enemy to China. Who here was looking for him?

  It couldn’t be his father. Could it?

  She turned the idea over in her mind. It made a certain amount of sense. Gavin’s voice was similar to the one recorded in the bird, the way a son’s voice might be like his father’s. Gavin’s father had been an airman, and airmen traveled far and wide, so there was no reason the man shouldn’t be somewhere near a large city. If he were alive, he had to be somewhere, and why not Peking? More than one person had prophesied that Gavin would meet his father again, and although Alice had dismissed such things as superstition, some of them had mentioned a science that she hadn’t been able to follow. Perhaps they had been right after all.

  Still, all the explanations in the world didn’t diminish their need for his help.

  From her pocket she took the silver nightingale, the one she had thought unique in the world and only recently come to understand was only one of many. She pressed the left eye and murmured to it, “Gavin, where did you go? We need you.” That was stupid. Why was she holding back? She added, “I need you.”

  She tossed the nightingale into the air. It sprang to life in the moonlight and fluttered away as Lady Orchid began a careful descent down the deadly stairs.

  Still clutching the Ebony Chamber, Cixi finished the phrase to herself: “Under the blessing of dragons.” She reached the bottom, paused, and allowed herself a small sigh of relief. She hadn’t been sure of herself. She had teased the code for the staircase out of Xianfeng more than two years ago after some pillow time together, but she hadn’t been able to write it down and she hadn’t been completely certain of her memory.

  She checked behind her. Zaichun was coming down. She wasn’t worried about him-his memory was excellent and he understood the consequences of making an error. The foreigners, on the other hand, were another matter entirely. Lieutenant Li and his soldiers, whom Cixi desperately needed on her side, were loyal only to the foreigners, so she couldn’t afford for any of them to die. It grated on her to work with barbarians; yet it was also fitting, using foreigners to further the ends of the Chinese Empire. And she did have to admit they had figured out the secret of the Ebony Chamber whereas she had not. Clearly Western thought had some merit to it. Kung was right-when Zaichun controlled the Jade Hand, she would have to open wider relations with the West. It wouldn’t mean abandoning everything Chinese for everything English-the very idea nauseated her-but there would be no harm in picking and choosing a few good concepts. This idea of encouraging girls to read, for example, had merit. Cixi’s mother had fought long and hard to teach her the characters, and if she had not known them, she would never have reached her current position. Reading opened doors. Perhaps Lady Michaels would be willing to stay on as an adviser. No, it would have to be Lieutenant Phipps-she spoke a proper language. And there was another intriguing idea: women with military titles. Reading might open doors, but the army smashed them down.

  Li arrived at the bottom of the steps, followed by Phipps. Cixi noticed the way Lieutenant Li hovered over Phipps the same way a windup hummingbird hovered about a steel flower. Was either of them aware of it?

  With a dreadful crunching sound, the dragon spiraled around the final turn of the staircase. Spikes leaped out of the staircase to snap and ping off the dragon’s feet and underbelly. Alice, her arms and legs tucked in close, sat in the precise center of the seat behind the dragon’s head. It came to a halt at the bottom of the stairs. Cixi backed away, holding the Ebony Chamber like a shield.

  “There,” Alice said through Lieutenant Li. “And now we don’t have to worry about one of the soldiers making a mistake.”

  “Lady Michaels can be. . direct,” Lieutenant Phipps added.

  “I see.” Cixi’s fingers were white around the Ebony Chamber’s dark wood. “Is she aware that it will take one of the Dragon Men most of a week to repair all that? Not to mention the cost in silver?”

  “I doubt she’ll much care.” Phipps touched her monocle. “I imagine she would say something about taking the throne requiring a few sacrifices.”

  “That was funny.” Zaichun giggled. “She’s a dragon lady.”

  “Indeed,” Cixi said as Alice moved the dragon aside for the soldiers.

  “Are we going back home now, Mother?” Zaichun asked.

  “We are, Little Cricket,” she told him, tearing her eyes away from the damage. “You will destroy the cruel man who has stolen your father’s throne and take your rightful place upon it.”

  “Does that mean I’ll have to chop off my hand?”

  Cixi hesitated. “You won’t have to do it yourself, my lucky cricket. It will happen with such speed, you won’t even feel it. And then you will wear the Jade Hand and be emperor of all China.”

  “But. . I don’t want my hand to be chopped off.”

  Anger flashed through Cixi, but she held herself in check. “I know you don’t. But I also know you are brave and that you are willing to make this sacrifice for the good of the empire.”

  Zaichun bit his lip, but he nodded once.

  “And,” Cixi added, “remember that the Jade Hand will allow you to command the Dragon Men. You can make them do whatever you want.”

  “Anything at all?”

  “Anything at all.”

  “Can I make them sing the yellow duck song and then jump into the moat?”

  While they were speaking, the rest of Lieutenant Li’s men came down the staircase. Nothing had gone truly wrong so far. If the Dao’s lessons were at all correct, that meant something would go terribly wrong later. Cixi shuddered to think what it might be.

  The tunnel was high and wide, big enough to accommodate a train. Phosphorescent lanterns glowed at regular intervals, casting a bright white and blue light that made a kind of daylight underground. The floor bricks were red and gold, and landscapes painted on the walls and ceiling changed the claustrophobic underground feel into a pleasant garden stroll. The colors looked perfectly normal despite the strangely colored lighting, and Cixi happened to know it had taken months of experimentation with pigment to figure out how to make a tree appear the proper shade of green when lit by phosphorescent blue. Under normal light, leaves would appear a sickly yellow.

  The group proceeded ahead. Cixi and the dragon remained in the lead, with Phipps and Li as translators. Cixi was already resolving to learn the dreadful-sounding English language. It couldn’t be hard, and it would certainly be convenient. Such thoughts were, she knew, deliberate distractions from fear of the task ahead. But that was the Chinese way-avoid, distract, delay. Confrontation was rare and difficult to deal with, and Su Shun’s gift for it had given him the upper hand. Cixi had found new allies, however, who were talented with it as well.

  They moved quickly down the damp tunnel. Alice still rode the dragon, though now she also brandished the wiry sword Gavin had made for her, while Li carried one of Gavin’s new pistols. Cixi carried only the Ebony Chamber. A moment later, about when Cixi judged they were under the moat, four tongueless eunuchs in pale robes and wide conical hats appeared. Cixi quickly snatched four more jewels from the Chamber, one for each, and explained the situation again.

  “These are my gift to you,” she finished, “and if-when-we succeed in our mission, you
will be granted places of honor in the new court, and we will see if the Dragon Men can fashion new tongues of silver for you so that you may speak once again.”

  That last was a lie. As long as they knew of passage, they couldn’t be allowed to speak of it. Still, three of the eunuchs bowed their acceptance. The fourth began to make a bow, then changed his movements partway through and lunged for a bellpull.

  Li fired his new pistol. It spat a bolt of orange energy that caught the eunuch in the chest. It flung him backward, but not before he managed to grab the rope. He flew through the air, yanking the bellpull as he went, his chest a smoky mess. A gong sounded, and the smell of cooked meat sizzled in the tunnel. The other three eunuchs sprinted off down the tunnel.

  “Uh-oh,” Phipps said. “What did that alarm do?”

  “I don’t know,” Cixi said in a hushed voice.

  A section of wall rumbled aside, and from it stepped a metal creature the size of an elephant. It had the body of a tiger, the claws of a crocodile, the tail of an ox, the antlers of a deer, the beard and teeth of a dragon, and the scales of a fish. Many different kinds of metal came together to create it-bronze, brass, copper, steel, and even gold. Atop its head was a small glass dome, and inside was a pink mass of human brain.

  “Qilin!” Cixi cried.

  The Qilin prowled forward, moving with agility that belied its size. It barred their way ahead of the tunnel. The soldiers fell flat on their faces in terror. Cixi herself quivered, and Zaichun huddled against her. Cixi’s mother had told her a number of stories about the Qilin, a creature of power and grace that punished the wicked by roasting them in its fiery breath. The gods themselves smiled upon the Qilin, and only the dragon and the phoenix were more powerful.