“Mouse, I need to ask you something. Did you mean to summon that dragon? Were you trying to kill the admiral?”
“No!” she said, with surprising ferocity. She glanced toward the front of the boat as if to make sure no one was eavesdropping. But the crew couldn’t have cared less about their child passengers, and their rhythmic chanting with every oar stroke drowned out most other sounds.
“I was just trying to keep the stone away from him at first,” she said. “But I was scared of him, too, in a way I never had been. I knew he could be cruel, but I had never been afraid he would hurt me. Until that moment. But when the quicksilver began to change . . . it was as if I remembered something I had forgotten long ago, and then I knew what I was doing, even if I didn’t know how. Does that make any sense?”
“I suppose,” said Bren. It didn’t really, not to him anyway. But he wanted to trust Mouse. “Just out of curiosity, you told Sean and the others that the admiral was really gone. You are sure about that, right?”
She rubbed her hands together nervously. “No. When the dragon flooded the tunnel and disappeared, I lost all sense of control. Like the stone was suddenly empty.”
Bren slumped a little, not wanting to admit how often he’d looked for blue-eyed birds or other creatures on the island, terrified Admiral Bowman might still be out there.
Their first sighting of land came almost a week into their journey. At first someone thought they’d spotted a ship—a large, black triangle of a sail on the horizon. But as they neared they saw it was an island, if you could call it that. Little more than a rock, cleaved in half so that one side was sheer cliff, and the other a jagged stairway to a sharp point. They circled the pyramid, which was scarcely half a mile around total, but they could find no obvious place to land their boat.
“Nothing but a lifeless rock,” said one man.
“It’s not lifeless,” said Mouse. “Look up there, near the top.”
Bren could just make out the shrubbery at the peak of the pyramid.
“Aye,” said Sean. “But assuming there is any sort of food and water up there, that must be five hundred feet or more.”
“How ’bout we send Mouse up,” said one of the men. “Never saw a more nimble climber.”
“No!” said Bren, suddenly and with unexpected anger. He saw the shock in everyone’s faces and immediately looked down in embarrassment. His hands were trembling.
He hadn’t meant to yell like that. But that horrible day, just a few weeks ago, had flashed into his mind—the day the Albatross foundered. The ship, breaking apart, listing to one side, and Mouse, who had gone above to scout the horizon, being jarred from the crow’s nest and clinging to the side, her legs dangling over the raging sea. And then falling.
Bren could never forget the sight of it, and how he had felt. That he had suddenly lost something that he was just beginning to realize was vital to him. It didn’t matter that Mouse was okay now . . . he couldn’t get that terror out of his mind.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“It’s okay,” said Sean. “I understand. Besides, we’re in no need of food and water right now, and it’s not one of the islands Mr. Tybert speculated about. Hardly worth the risk of trying to make land amidst all these rocks.”
So they rowed on, and soon discovered they had picked up a companion near the towering rock—a shark. Mouse was the first to notice it, the dread grey fin carving the water. The fin would occasionally vanish, only to resurface, time and again, until it had the full attention of every man in the boat.
“It’s an omen,” said one man.
“No, it’s not,” said Sean, eager to stem any talk of superstition that might panic the crew. “It’s just a shark doing what a shark does . . . swimming.”
“Hunting,” said another.
“Then let’s not be prey,” said Sean. “Bring the oars in and use the wind for a while.”
Everyone was happy to take their oars out of the water. It felt too much like trailing your hand in the waves.
“Maybe we should throw it some food, so it won’t be hungry enough to follow us,” said Bren as the dorsal fin once more breached the surface.
Sean shook his head. “Will just make him hungrier, and likely attract more.”
Another disturbing thought came to Bren. What if it was the admiral? Or the admiral’s spirit? He stopped himself—he was being silly. Still, he watched Mouse lean casually against the side of the longboat, as if she were wishing the shark would come nearer.
He had to see the shark’s eyes. That would tell him for sure.
He looked around the boat. It was small, too small for anything like real privacy. But all the men were deliberately ignoring the shark, he noticed, refusing even to look starboard. Even Sean.
“Mouse,” he whispered. “Are you wondering the same thing . . .”
“Yes,” she said, her eyes following the gliding fin.
“Can you talk to the shark?”
She shook her head. “I’ve never tried to talk to a sea-fish. Every animal I’ve ever talked to I could hold in my hand, or at least touch.”
“What about soul-traveling?” said Bren, trying to imagine the soul of his friend in the body of such a beast. “I know you said you’re not sure what your limits are. . . .”
“There’s no connection,” she said. “I don’t know if it’s because it’s a shark, or . . .”
“Or because someone else is already inside it?” said Bren.
He glanced around the boat once more, then silently dipped his hand into their rations bag, fishing for one of the dried pieces of meat. He pulled up a nice stringy bit of some island bird one of the men had trapped. It had tasted like the floor of the vomitorium to Bren, but he would still be in big trouble for wasting a valuable piece of food.
If Admiral Bowman were somehow back with them, though, none of that would matter.
Mouse saw him with the dried meat and grabbed his arm. He pulled away and leaned against the gunwale. “It’s okay, I have this, remember?” he said, showing her his black stone. “You told me it was my protector.”
“It might not protect you from losing an arm, though,” said Mouse.
Bren hadn’t thought of that, and he drew his arm back. But he had to know. He inched his right hand toward the water and immediately began to tremble. He recalled some of the stories he had heard in the Gooey Duck back home, the kind that really made his ears perk up—sharks swarming a body buried at sea as soon as it hit the water, or gathering between ships squaring off for battle, as if they could smell blood before it was spilled. And then there was the tale of the sadistic captain who dangled one of his own men overboard until a shark leaped out of the water and bit off the poor soul’s foot.
Bren pulled back his right hand and switched the meat to his left. If he were to lose a hand, he’d rather lose his weaker one.
He dipped the meat into the water, as far from the side of the boat as he dared lean, keeping his eye all the while on the grey fin some thirty yards away.
Gradually the fin submerged. A spasm ran through Bren’s arm.
He looked to Mouse for reassurance, only for a moment, but in that moment, he saw it all happening in her eyes.
The shark had broken the waves, lunging for Bren’s hand. All Bren saw was a giant pink cavity, not so much a mouth as an abyss, ringed with teeth like some primitive gravesite. The strip of meat fell from his hand, disappearing into the dark chasm of the shark’s mouth, but Bren’s open hand still hung there, his arm paralyzed by fright.
He watched the gaping mouth close around him. He saw the bloody stump where his left arm had been. He felt the cold shock of the wound. He was sure of it.
But then he heard yelling, and saw the filthy faces of the crew above him, and when he held up his hands, both were still there.
“What the bloody hell were you doing?” said Sean.
Bren realized he was flat on his back in the boat. Sean must have yanked him away at the last second.
<
br /> “Shark,” said Bren.
Sean looked around at the others, not sure whether to laugh or be concerned that the boy was daft. “Aye, it’s a shark. I think we figured that out already.”
But that’s not what Bren meant. In the last second before the shark had plunged back into the sea, its head had turned sideways, just enough for Bren to see the large, glassy black eye, soulless, nothing more than a polished stone set in leather.
Not a blue eye. Not the admiral’s eye.
“Get some rest,” said Sean. “In the shade.”
Bren nodded, but he was fine, now. And the shark, apparently with a distaste for bird meat, disappeared for good.
CHAPTER
5
THE EIGHT IMMORTALS
“I must admit, I’m not accustomed to having men fall at my feet,” said Barrett, her sword still raised and the man still on his knees. Not sure what to do, she finally made a standing motion with her left hand and said, “Erm, you may rise?”
The man stood, and his eyes moved from the sword, which Barrett slowly lowered, to Barrett herself.
“My apologies,” he said. “That must have alarmed you.”
“Which part?” said Barrett.
“Please,” he insisted. “Dress yourself.”
He turned away as Barrett slipped back into her blowzy pants and kaftan. She left the head scarf off for now, but kept the sword front and center.
“You can turn around now,” she said. “And I think it’s about time you told me who you are.”
“My name is Yaozu,” said the man.
“Are you alone?”
“Yes and no,” said Yaozu. “I am alone here, now. But I am one of many.”
“How many?” said Barrett. “And are they on their way?”
Yaozu smiled. “With all due respect, you seem mistrustful of me, yet you have not introduced yourself. And you are the one holding the sword.”
Something about the man’s way was disarming, and so Barrett slipped the sword back into its sheath. “I am Lady Jean Barrett of Wolveren Hampton, northern Britannia.”
“Pleasure to meet you,” said Yaozu, bowing slightly.
“Where did you learn English?” said Barrett. “If you don’t mind.”
“I was a language scholar in Damascus,” Yaozu explained. “And if you don’t mind, how did you come to possess that sword?”
Barrett hesitated for a moment, then admitted the truth. “I stole it. From the House of Wisdom in Persia. I was on a mission there, one that put me in danger, and when I was fleeing I nicked this thing you call the Tamer of Beasts. I guess that doesn’t make me sound very honorable, does it?”
“Depends,” said Yaozu. “Is it stealing to take something back from whom it doesn’t belong?”
Ethics. Another one of Barrett’s least favorite subjects. As someone who collected artifacts from other countries, she was always tripping on that one.
“Whose sword is it, Yaozu?”
Yaozu looked at the sheathed sword with a glint in his dark eyes. “Spiritually, the sword might be said to belong to Lu Dongbin.”
“And who might that be?”
“One of the Eight Immortals,” said Yaozu. “There is much to explain, I see. Please, may we sit down and talk?”
Barrett agreed and they sat together on the stone floor, Barrett laying the sword between them crosswise, like a barrier.
“How familiar are you with the history of China?” said Yaozu.
Barrett shrugged. “I’m an antiquary by trade, so I have a healthy interest in foreign cultures. I know the Marco Polo stories, of course, though I don’t know how much to believe. And I know the empire has been shut off from the rest of the world since the Ming succeeded the Mongols.”
“China has a long history of empire,” said Yaozu. “But our people go back thousands of years before the Imperials. The Ancients, many call them. And before them, the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, demigods who ruled Heaven, Hell, and the Middle Kingdom, or Earth.
“As it is told, these demigods allowed the Ancients to use magic to rule the Middle Kingdom so they could concentrate on ruling Heaven and Hell. No sorcery or dark arts, but gifts such as healing and divination, altering weather and domesticating wild animals. But maintaining these gifts, learning them and teaching them, is most difficult. So the Ancients created eight magical objects instead, one for each of the demigods’ gifts.”
Yaozu began to draw pictures in the layer of sand on the stone floor:
“The lotus flower, given the power of persuasion;
“The jade tablet, for divination;
“The flute, which can call the wind and rain;
“The bottle gourd, offering protection from evil;
“The basket of flowers, which can heal;
“The bamboo drum, for summoning;
“The fan, which can bring the dead to life;
“And the sword,” he concluded, nodding at the one between them.
“The Tamer of Beasts,” said Barrett. “So it’s a person? Like a genie’s in here?”
“Not exactly,” said Yaozu. “More like the spirit of the demigod. Which is why the objects themselves came to be known as the Eight Immortals, or the Covert Eight Immortals.”
Barrett gently ran her fingers from the gold cross guard, along the scarlet grip, to the ornate gold pommel. “It is striking. But how do you know this is the real thing?”
“There is one way to be sure,” said Yaozu. He stood and walked out of the building and was gone for several minutes. He returned holding his black silk hat upside down in his hands.
“You want me to tame your hat?” said Barrett.
Yaozu laughed and turned the hat over. A black scorpion the size of her hand landed in front of Barrett, its fat tail curled over its back, dangling a stinger the size of a fishhook. Barrett sprang to her feet and backwards in one motion, colliding with the wall behind her.
“Bloody hell!”
“The sword,” said Yaozu, calmly returning his hat to his head.
Barrett yanked the sword from its sheath and raised it above her head as if she aimed to cleave the scorpion in two, but Yaozu was quick to stop her.
“Lady Barrett, do not kill the scorpion! Subdue it!”
“How?”
“I do not know,” Yaozu admitted. “I’ve never had the good fortune to wield the sword.”
Barrett sidled away from the scorpion, which slowly rotated toward her on articulated legs, continuing to threaten with its tail.
“Okay,” said Barrett. “Subdue it. Let’s see if you can dance, little scorpion.” She pointed the sword at the scorpion, half closing her eyes and murmuring. The scorpion seemed to quiver, and then it raised itself on its back two legs, resting on the curve of its tail, and began clicking its pincers together over its head.
“Yaozu, am I doing that? Or is that some scorpion attack ritual?”
“I believe it is you, Lady Barrett,” said Yaozu, smiling broadly. “One more test,” he added, and to Barrett’s horror he rolled up one sleeve of his robe, scooped up the scorpion, and placed it on his bare, outstretched arm. “Prevent it from stinging me.”
Barrett stood there, wide-eyed, pointing the sword and mumbling again as the scorpion’s tail twitched and twitched, seemingly on the verge of striking. But it didn’t.
“Most remarkable!” said Yaozu.
“Drop it!” said Barrett, and when Yaozu turned his arm over, Barrett impaled the scorpion with the point of the sword as soon as it hit the floor.
“Are you mad?” she said, panting. “I had no bloody idea what I was doing!”
“Ah, but the sword did,” said Yaozu.
She stood there, trying to regain her composure, but her irritation at the stranger with a death wish wasn’t helping. Then it sank in—they were strangers.
“Yaozu, why are you telling me all this? Why not just nick the sword and run?”
He reached inside his tunic, and Lady Barrett immediately brandished t
he sword again.
“Do not be alarmed,” he said. “I just want to show you something.” And he pulled out a small slab of pearlescent green stone, polished to a mirrorlike reflection on one side.
“Is that . . .”
“The jade tablet,” said Yaozu. “I used it to find you.”
“You were looking for me?” said Barrett, the hairs on her neck standing.
“You looked different in the mirror,” said Yaozu. “You looked—”
“More like a man?” said Barrett.
Yaozu nodded. “I wasn’t looking for Lady Barrett, I was looking for the inheritor of the sword. The Immortal who empowered it was considered the true leader of the eight. You plucking that sword from the House of Wisdom . . . it’s a bit like the story of King Arthur, isn’t it, pulling the sword from the stone? I believe you were meant to possess it, Lady Barrett. You must be a most remarkable woman.”
Barrett lowered the sword, breathing normally again. She wasn’t going to argue with Yaozu if he insisted on thinking she was remarkable.
“What exactly would I be leading?” she said. “What are you getting at?”
“How about an expedition to find the rest of the Eight Immortals?” said Yaozu. “You said you were an antiquary.”
“That doesn’t really answer my question.”
“Come with me, back to where I’m from,” said Yaozu. “I will explain more.”
“No offense intended, Yaozu,” said Barrett, “but I’d like you to explain a bit more now. Before I hitch my wagon to your horse. What do you plan to do with these artifacts, assuming they can be found?”
He cleared his throat, causing Lady Barrett to fear that a long story was coming.
“The Ancients never should have created the artifacts. They did not consider that those not guided by wisdom could use them too. Or perhaps they did, but did not care.”
“You’re saying you want to destroy these magical artifacts?” said Barrett. “Or lock them away? Or do you believe that you and these others you’ve mentioned have the wisdom to use them?”
Yaozu evaded the question. “The first step is to find them, and make sure they do not fall into the hands of the wrong people.”
The Dragon's Gate Page 4
