The Dragon's Gate

by Barry Wolverton

  “What . . . is . . . happening,” said Sean.

  Bren was almost too scared to speak, but he reminded himself that he had been through this before, and he calmed his nerves by telling himself that Mouse knew what she was doing.

  “Mouse, is this necessary?” When she didn’t answer, he asked again, more firmly, “What’s going on?”

  She tore her eyes away from the wall and looked at Bren. “It’s not my dragon,” she said.

  Bren’s heart stopped.

  He turned to the others and screamed, “Run! Back up the stairs!”

  Sean ran for the staircase, followed closely by Barrett and Yaozu. Bren tried to push Mouse along next, but she seemed mesmerized by the mercury dragon forming around her. Already several pools had melded and mutated into the dragon’s spine, a long, gleaming row of silver spikes. Bren could see the outline of a mouth and teeth and nostrils on the far side of the chamber, and the beginnings of a tail, a shiny liquid whip.

  The others were halfway to the top by the time Bren and Mouse made the bottom step. When they reached the first turn in the staircase, Barrett was already to the top and leaped onto the dangling leather straps, hauling herself up and out of the hatch. Sean was next, and once Barrett had helped reel him in they made sure Yaozu made it out safely, too.

  Except they weren’t safe, Bren realized as he and Mouse made the second turn, which would take them to the catwalk across the top of the pyramid. He had seen the mercury dragon throw itself after the admiral in the cavern. It was both solid and liquid at the same time, and despite how small the hatch was it could just pour itself through and re-form.

  No sooner had Bren thought this than the dragon, fully formed, sprang from the floor, metal jaws snapping, aiming for the catwalk just ahead of where Bren and Mouse were running.

  The massive jaws with their massive teeth came together like a clashing of swords, but they missed the catwalk, and the dragon plunged back to the floor like a kite that had suddenly lost wind. For the first time Bren felt himself breathe . . . they actually had a chance to get out of here if there was a limit to how high the dragon could go.

  “Come on, Mouse,” he said, pushing her forward. They had both frozen in their tracks when the dragon leaped. But the dragon had a backup plan. Bren looked down in time to see the silver tail slash at the wooden stair, shattering part of the bottom section.

  Bren and Mouse stopped again, which was a mistake. The second swipe from the dragon’s tail took out the rest of the bottom, and the whole ragged staircase began to fail.

  “Hurry!” Barrett screamed. She and Sean had both wedged themselves halfway through the hatch, their arms extended. Mouse ran and jumped, not even going for the leather straps, and Barrett and Sean caught her and pulled her through. Bren had to pause until they reappeared, and when they did he ran and leaped toward their arms as well.

  Except the thrashing dragon had swiped at what was left of the stair, collapsing the whole scaffold, so that Bren pushed off against loose wood falling the other way. He felt himself falling through space, the bottom of the closest leather strap seemingly a mile away . . .

  His hand caught leather, somehow, and when he looked up he saw that Barrett was hanging almost all the way through the hatch while the others held her. She had ripped loose one of the leather straps so that Bren was able to catch it lower.

  “We’ve got you, son,” she said, slowly hauling him in while the others pulled her back up. Bren’s heart was so quick with terror that he could barely think or breathe, but one clear thought did manage to cross his mind—the dragon could jump this high.

  He told himself not to look down, but his eyes disobeyed, and when he saw the gaping metal jaws rising to his legs he lost his grip on the leather strap.

  But he didn’t fall. Barrett had his arms now, and when the dragon’s jaws clanged shut, Bren’s legs were safely away, and a moment later he was being pulled out of the hatch to the outside of the pyramid.

  The five of them collapsed on the nearest step, but Bren forced himself to stand up again and said to the others, “We have to keep going.” He led them down the steps of the pyramid until they reached the bottom. Bren turned to make sure Mouse was with them, and when he did, he saw tiny blobs of mercury oozing through the seams of the pyramid. The dragon had found another way out.

  “Once that thing re-forms, we have no hope of outrunning it,” said Bren. “Trust me.”

  “I believe you, lad,” said Sean. “So now what?”

  He looked for Mouse and found her standing over the pool of water again. “Mouse, we have to get out of here!” He tried to pull her away, but she held fast and said, “Look—show me the Bridge Across the Sky.”

  The water clouded and then came back into focus, and Bren’s heart jumped into his throat. It was as if Mouse had turned a telescope to the south and they were now looking at the stone bridge where Bren had nearly lost his life.

  “Show me the Dragon’s Gate,” she said.

  The Bridge Across the Sky faded from view, and in its place was a mountain range towering above a shabby village. There was nothing like a gate there, much less a dragon.

  “Mouse, we need a way out,” said Bren, turning away from the pool and watching the mercury dragon slowly take shape.

  “Show me the way to the Dragon’s Gate,” she said. This time the pool showed no reflection, not even their own. Bren couldn’t make sense of it.

  “Mouse . . .”

  “Here,” said Mouse. “In here.”

  She pulled her hand away from Bren and jumped into the pool, disappearing below the surface. When she didn’t come up after a few seconds, Bren began to panic. The dragon was forming, but he couldn’t leave her . . . he stuck his arm in the pool, fishing for her, but there was nothing there. He plunged his head into the water and opened his eyes. The water stung but it was clear. He pulled his head back and looked for the others. “Over here!” Bren cried. “I think Mouse found our way out.”

  CHAPTER

  24

  THE OLD WOMAN OF THE MOUNTAIN

  Bren had the sensation of swimming, but not like a boy swims. Rather he felt himself shooting instinctively through the water like a fish, able to see and breathe normally. And then suddenly he needed to be out, to breathe air again, so he leaped from the water onto a stone floor and lay there, dripping wet.

  He sat up and noticed he was in a small, circular room that looked as if it hadn’t been occupied in ages. In the middle of the floor was an opening—a well, he guessed—and along the walls were four arched doorways. Mouse appeared in one of them.

  “Where are the others?” he said.

  Before she could answer, Yaozu, Barrett, and Sean each sprang from the well onto the floor. From the looks on their faces Bren could tell they had no more idea how they got here than he did.

  “Did I just become a fish?” said Sean.

  “All I know is that I’m wet,” said Barrett.

  “Mouse, do you know where we are?” Bren asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “I believe we are near a place called Khotan. Follow me.”

  Still dripping, the group followed Mouse out of the room, down a corridor to a wooden ladder that disappeared through a hole above. They climbed up into another circular room, but this time the four archways were admitting daylight. When he stepped outside, Bren could see desert in all directions, and a tumbledown village in the distance, at the foot of a mountain range. Mouse was heading that way.

  The walk to the village took about an hour, plenty of time for them all to dry as they walked across the sand in the warm sun. Despite the look of the village, it was bustling. The main streets were packed with canvas-covered stalls offering all manner of food and goods—fruits and vegetables; piles of fish; clothing, uncut fabric, rugs; musical instruments; and vendors selling hot food, including kebabs of meat and boiled sheep’s lung. Camels and donkeys crowded the stone streets, as did men and women dressed in colorful clothes.

  There was an e
ntire section of the market devoted to animals—ducks, geese, and chickens hanging by their feet; goats, cows, donkeys, sheep, horses, and camels either being bought, sold, or led to slaughter. Bren had to look away when he saw men openly killing and dismembering these beasts, even though he knew very well he would happily accept a large leg of lamb or pork shoulder for dinner if it were offered to him. Elsewhere was a village apothecary of sorts, selling dried frogs, animal gallbladders, rhino horns, and dried sea creatures for medicinal purposes.

  Bren gravitated to a group of artisans working with jade and silver. Many vendors were simply selling polished stones, which they sprinkled with water to make them appear more lustrous. Others had carved totems similar to the ones Bren had seen during their journey. The metal-workers were selling finely wrought pieces of silver, and, in some cases, tin—teapots, urns, dishes, wind chimes, snuffboxes, candlesticks, horse collars, and more, all precisely shaped and inlaid with complicated designs, mostly religious motifs, on all surfaces.

  But what made Bren stop in his tracks were the houses in the center of the village, once they had finished wandering through the vast bazaar. The homes were made of adobe, and along their fronts were massive wooden plank doors, all of them adorned with script. And some of the script had been struck through with a line.

  “Yaozu, what is that?” said Bren, pointing to one of the wood doors.

  “In olden days, this was how villages conducted their census,” Yaozu explained. “The names of every person living in the house were written upon the door. If someone died, they were struck through. If someone new had come, they were added at the bottom.”

  Bren immediately thought of the recurring dream he had had back on the Vanishing Island—seeing a door with his name and his parents’ names, then his mother’s name struck, with Black’s added, and then Mouse’s, and finally, everyone’s name crossed out except his mother’s.

  “You know this place?” Yaozu asked.

  “No,” said Bren, not really knowing how to explain to Yaozu that he’d dreamed of a place he never knew existed. “I don’t think so.”

  “I promised to take you to the Dragon’s Gate, Mouse, but it would seem you have taken me instead. The mountain where the Black and White Jade Rivers meet is this way.”

  They rejoined Barrett and Sean and the five of them followed the Khotan River to where it divided, at the foot of the Angry Mountain from Yaozu’s story about how the rivers split. Except it was more than a mountain. It was three overlapping hills, which to Bren’s eye looked like they could be three arches of a magnificent gate . . . or in his wildest imagination, the serpentine body of a Chinese dragon.

  “What are we looking at?” said Sean.

  “The Dragon’s Gate,” said Bren. “Isn’t that right, Mouse?”

  She nodded.

  “Can you open it?” said Yaozu.

  “What are you talking about?” said Sean. “I don’t see a bloomin’ gate.”

  Yaozu kept his eyes fixed on Mouse. “Can you?”

  Mouse slowly shook her head. “No. The bones didn’t tell me that.”

  If Yaozu was disappointed, he didn’t show it. “I’ve asked around . . . apparently there is an old woman up the mountain whom people seek out for advice and fortune-telling. She may know.”

  “How do we find her?” said Barrett.

  “She lives next to a tree that bears every kind of fruit.”

  Sean raised an eyebrow, but apparently he had given up questioning Yaozu’s stories.

  “Lead the way,” said Barrett.

  As Yaozu led them along a path up the first of the three hills, Mouse grabbed Bren’s hand and motioned for him to slow down. When there was enough distance between them and the others, she said to him, “I know how to open the gate.”

  Bren stopped altogether. “Then why did you say you didn’t?”

  “Because the gate mustn’t be opened,” she said. “They aren’t here for the right reasons.”

  “Mouse, how do you know . . .”

  “You two coming?” Sean called to them.

  They hurried to catch up, and Bren and Mouse said nothing more as they continued to climb, until finally Yaozu stopped and pointed to something away from the path.

  “There,” he said, and Bren saw it too. A tree, heavy with fruit—gold, red, orange, and pink. Hundreds of pieces, no two seemingly alike. Near it was a small stone house with a wooden door and a stone chimney. There was a garden planted along the side, and a fire pit in front. Before they could approach, a woman came out of the house carrying a straw basket. She was the oldest person Bren had ever seen, her face so creased with lines you almost couldn’t tell which was her mouth. But her eyes were black and bright.

  She started at the sight of the five strangers, but then her eyes landed on Mouse and she dropped the basket.

  “I’ve been waiting for you for a long, long time,” she croaked, motioning to Mouse with a hand so withered it was almost a nub. Mouse went to her.

  “My friends have questions for you,” said Mouse, and the woman’s beady eyes darted in the direction of Yaozu and Barrett.

  “You can each ask me one thing.”

  Yaozu went first: “Did Emperor Qin pass through the Dragon’s Gate?”

  The old woman replied, “He did.”

  “Are the Eight Immortals behind the Dragon’s Gate?” Barrett asked. “The demigods themselves, I mean.”

  The old woman replied, “They are.”

  She looked at Sean. “Do you have a question?”

  Sean was taken off guard. “Me?” He thought for a moment before asking, “Can you tell me how to get these two children home safely?”

  “Yes and no,” she said. “The Black Jade River crosses the mountain and passes through a corridor. Your kind are there, you and the boy. As for the girl, she is home now.”

  To Bren she said, “And you, young son?”

  A million thoughts flooded Bren’s mind . . . so many he couldn’t think straight. There was so much he wanted to know but he didn’t know where to start . . . or if he even knew the right questions to ask to get the answers he sought. Finally, he took two halting steps forward and asked, “Is there a way to see my mother again?”

  His hands began to sweat and his mouth filled with a bitter taste as he awaited her reply.

  “Yes, there is a way,” she said. “Open the Dragon’s Gate.”

  He turned to Mouse, who avoided his eyes. “Mouse . . .”

  The old woman held up her hand. “She must come with me.”

  “No!” Bren almost shouted. “I have to know!”

  But the woman was pulling Mouse into the house. “She will be back, you have my word,” she said, just before the two of them disappeared.

  Bren tried to run after them, but Yaozu stopped him.

  “I’m with Bren,” said Sean. “The old woman could be dangerous!”

  “No,” said Yaozu. “Mouse will be back.”

  Bren forced himself to sit and wait with the others, when all he wanted to do was kick the door in, to ask Mouse whether she would open the gate now that she knew there was a way for Bren to see his mother again. Or maybe Mouse already knew that.

  Finally, after close to an hour, the door opened, and Mouse came outside, alone.

  The whole group rushed toward her, but she stopped. “No, just Bren,” she said, and she took him up the hill, away from the others, behind the Tree of Every Fruit, and held his hands with hers.

  “Are you really not coming with us?” he asked.

  “This is where I am meant to be,” she said, her eyes as opaque as ever. When Bren tried to argue, she cut him off: “There’s something you need to know about the cavern, and the girl there. She was never a sorceress, or an heir to anything. She was a pawn of the magician, Anqi Sheng—the catfish man. Anqi Sheng helped Qin defeat the Ancients because he thought they had lost their way. It was he who wrote the prophecy that one day an heir would be born to restore the Ancients to power. When Kublai Khan�
�s star reader revealed the prophecy, Anqi Sheng feared the emperor, or those who succeeded him, wouldn’t rest until the heir was found, so he sacrificed Sun.”

  “Mouse—”

  “Just listen,” she said. “We don’t have much time. I was the true heir, Bren, born much later, of course, but still long ago. Long before you. Anqi Sheng decided to exile Sun so he could keep the white jade far away from everyone, until I could find it. His decision fated me not to grow up until I made it to the Vanishing Island. He also needed to buy time—centuries, millennia, whatever it took—for the black jade stone, which had been lost through the ages, to reappear.”

  She reached up to touch the black stone around Bren’s neck. “It’s the two stones together where true power lies.”

  “Mouse, I don’t understand. The power to do what?”

  “Open the Dragon’s Gate,” she said. “The power of the artifacts alone is but a shadow, enhanced by you and me, without our knowing it, because of the soul of Li Tie Guai trapped within our stones. Yet he is but one of eight, and divided at that. That’s what Anqi Sheng wanted—to open the gate and release the full power of the Immortals back into the world. But I refuse to honor the prophecy.”

  “Did the old woman tell you all this?” said Bren.

  “Some of it. She also told me she could give me my name, a real name, something I have always wanted. But the cost would be dear. I would become my true age before the sun set. I want you to know I’m okay with that. I’m ready. I don’t want to be a child forever.”

  She grabbed Bren’s hands, and he saw that hers had changed. They were beginning to wrinkle. At first he thought it was just because she was gripping him so tightly, but that wasn’t it. They were aging . . . Mouse was aging.

  “Mouse, what’s happening?”

  “My white stone and your black one,” she said. “They represent a wound as old as time. They are the key to the gate, Bren, but you mustn’t open it!”

  “Mouse, the old woman said I could find my mother. . . .” He choked on his words. Mouse’s eyes had begun to change, too. They were no longer black and opaque, but more of a cloudy, translucent grey. And they were no longer emotionless. They were full of sadness.