The Dragon's Gate

by Barry Wolverton

  “There is only one way for you to be reunited with your mother, Bren.”

  Her hair was turning grey before Bren’s eyes. Her face was changing, too, pruning and shrinking. He looked down at his hands—they were in the grip of an old woman’s hands, her fingers thin, brittle sticks.

  Bren was crying now.

  Mouse pressed her white jade stone into Bren’s hand. The stone was cold in his hands, and Mouse’s hands were cold around his. She was older now than the woman in the house. Her skin was shrinking against her frail skeleton, her skull now showing through her thin hair.

  “I’ve been alive for hundreds of years,” she continued, her voice becoming weak and hoarse. “The Ancients lost power for a reason, and are no more deserving than Qin, or Kublai Khan, or the Netherlanders, or any of the religions that have tried to lay hold to the East. Whoever comes to power, there will no doubt be a prophecy about their downfall, and another child stolen from a family, or some other atrocity by those hoping to make it so.”

  “Then why did you tell me how to open the gate?” Bren cried.

  “Because you must make this decision for yourself,” she said. “Just like I did. You must know what you are capable of, and make your own choices.”

  “Mouse, please don’t leave me.”

  She stepped forward and threw her arms around Bren, and he hugged her back harder than he had ever hugged anyone in his life. It was as if he thought he could hold her tight enough that she would never be able to leave. She whispered in his ear, but the words became wind, and as he was squeezing her, pressing her against him, he felt her body becoming light . . . insubstantial. He closed his fists and heard the crunching of leaves. He clenched his arms tighter but there was almost nothing there, just a swirling mass of dried leaves and bare twigs, and then a great wind blew down the mountain, scattering the leaves and twigs, and Bren stood there, alone, his arms empty.

  CHAPTER

  25

  THE DRAGON’S GATE

  The next thing Bren knew he was being helped up from the ground by Barrett and Sean. He wasn’t crying anymore, but his eyes were puffy and his vision blurry. He tried looking around for Mouse, hoping it had all been a dream, or a trick, but all he saw was the old woman standing there between her house and the Tree of Every Fruit.

  “Lad, what happened?” said Sean. “Where is Mouse?”

  He had to fight the urge to cry again. “I don’t . . . she’s gone.”

  “Gone?” said Barrett. “Gone where?”

  Bren was shaking his head. “Just . . . gone.”

  Yaozu met them and helped lead Bren back down the mountain, where they found a place to stay overnight in the village. They took him to a room, where he realized he was clutching something in his right fist. He opened it and saw the white jade resting there.

  “Is that her stone?” said Yaozu.

  Bren nodded. “She left it with me. She told me how to open the Dragon’s Gate.”

  He could almost hear Barrett and Yaozu catch their breath. Neither seemed willing to ask him about it right now. Instead, Barrett put her arm through Bren’s and said, “Lie down, son. I think you need rest. We all do.”

  Bren obeyed and was soon asleep. At some point during the night he could have sworn an old woman was standing over him, her crabbed hand around the collar of his robe. When he did awake, early in the morning, Barrett was sitting at the foot of his bed, holding the white jade stone.

  “Put that down,” said Bren, more harshly than he had intended. It was the only thing he had now of Mouse, and he didn’t want anyone else to touch it.

  “I’m sorry about Mouse,” said Barrett. “I wish I knew what had happened.”

  “I know what happened,” said Bren, taking back the white jade. He knew what was coming next.

  “You said Mouse told you how to open the Dragon’s Gate. But she told you not to open it, didn’t she?”

  “How did you guess?” he said.

  She patted Bren gently on the leg. “Yaozu will be very disappointed.”

  “But not you?” said Bren.

  She didn’t answer at first. “You’re right, Bren. I wanted the artifacts for more than just their historical value. There are people who are powerless in this world who deserve better. The Eight Immortals could do a lot of good.”

  “Is that what Yaozu believes?” said Bren. “Does he fancy himself some sort of messiah?”

  “You’ll have to ask him,” said Barrett. “But I don’t believe he’s an evil man.”

  Bren didn’t dispute that. “I dreamed the old woman sneaked in here last night, to take both stones. Or maybe it wasn’t a dream. In any case it probably isn’t safe for us to stay here any longer.”

  Barrett stood up. “I’ll tell the others. But let me ask you something first, Bren. Are you sure this is the right decision? That old woman told you that opening the gate might bring you and your mother together again. And it was your mother who gave you that stone around your neck. Don’t you think you were meant to use it? It’s just a question I might ask myself.”

  Barrett left him, and Bren was alone for the next two hours, except for a young girl who brought him something to eat and drink. It reminded him of when he first met Mouse, when he thought it was a young boy bringing him broth when he first boarded the Albatross and was seasick for days.

  As soon as the girl left, he wept.

  Bren didn’t wait for the others, nor did he pack his things. He headed for the mountain between the rivers alone, the black stone in his left hand, the white stone in his right, carrying them as if they were the scales of justice.

  “Bren!” Sean called to him, half running to catch up. “Lad, what are you doing?”

  “Opening the Dragon’s Gate,” he said. “It’s what everyone wants.”

  “Mouse didn’t want it. She told you so.”

  Bren tried to show no emotion, but his voice was cracking. “What difference does it make what she wants now? She had a choice to stay with us, and she chose to leave.”

  “Mouse must’ve believed it was dangerous to do this, Bren. A lot of people could die. You could die.”

  “Maybe that’s not such a bad thing,” said Bren, and he kept walking. Or tried to—Sean had grabbed his arm.

  “Your father wouldn’t agree with that,” said Sean. “Neither would I.”

  Bren saw Barrett and Yaozu running to catch up with them. He laughed. “They want me to open it.” He pulled away from Sean and kept walking until he was standing at the fork in the river at the base of the mountain.

  “Before she left, Mouse told me that to open the gate, the white and black jade stones had to be returned to their rivers at the same time by the same person.”

  He closed his hands around each stone and waded into the Khotan River, until he could reach forth his arms and touch the waters of the Black Jade with his left and the White Jade with his right. He sank his fists below the surface, and as he did so he felt the stones come alive in his grip, thrumming against his fingers and palms. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and opened both hands together.

  Nothing happened right away. The mountain didn’t explode and the earth didn’t open up to swallow them. Still, Bren was afraid to open his eyes. Then he felt something, a slow rumbling along the bed of the river through the soles of his shoes, which had been worn thin as parchment. Slowly the vibration grew in power.

  Bren opened his eyes and turned to the shore to find Sean, but as the quaking amplified, his body began to tremble uncontrollably, his teeth clattering and his vision going blurry. He could see none of the others and suddenly began to panic, the ground sending shock waves through his heart.

  And then the shaking stopped.

  Bren dragged himself from the shallow river and collapsed on the shore in relief. He looked around for the others, but they were no longer there. No one was. He was alone.

  A bird landed nearby. It was a crow. Bren looked closer at the blackish bird, its black eyes, and then it blinked
and its eyes were blue. Bren cried out, or tried to, but his voice was mute, and the bird blinked again and its eyes were black.

  Bren dropped his head, not wanting to look. He grabbed a rock and threw it at the crow, chasing the bird away.

  Did you know a group of crows is called a murder?

  “Who said that?” said Bren, wobbling to his feet and looking around.

  Well, did you?

  “No.”

  I thought surely I must have taught you that up at the lakes. There were so many crows there.

  He stumbled toward the Dragon’s Gate, and there, sitting on a rock next to the Black Jade River, was a woman with dark brown hair tied up upon her head, wearing a homespun grey sleeping gown and slippers. It was exactly how she had looked the last time Bren saw her, lying in bed on top of the blankets. Her hair had been pulled away from her face because she had been sweating so.

  So the stone I gave you came from here, she said, dipping her fingers in the river. I had no idea.

  “It saved my life,” said Bren.

  Did it? I have my doubts.

  “What do you mean?”

  You’re a resourceful boy, Bren. Both in imagination and spirit. It’s the thing I love most about you. But I’m glad it meant something to you. That makes me happy.

  “Is it really you?” he said, and he took several more steps toward her, not quite willing to believe it was true. But his mother stopped him.

  Don’t come any closer, Bren.

  “What? Why not?”

  This is no place for you right now. If you didn’t believe Mouse, believe me. Please.

  “Mom, I don’t understand. . . .”

  Take this back, she said, holding out her fist, then opening it to show him the black stone. If you take it back now, you can close the gate before more damage is done.

  He tried to argue but he choked on his words. His mother stepped closer and gently lifted his hand from his side, folding it over the stone. Her touch nearly killed him, and he had to shut his eyes to stop the tears from flooding out. He didn’t want his mother to see him cry. When he was able to open them again, she was gone.

  “No! Mom!” he called, terrified that he had missed his chance. His heart was beating against his chest, so hard and fast Bren didn’t realize the ground had started shaking again. He looked at the mountain, and there in the center of the three hills a huge seam had opened up from the ground to nearly the top.

  “Bren, come on!” It was Sean, grabbing him by the collar and pulling him away from the river. The mountain had begun to shed rock as the quaking grew more violent. A tumbling boulder just missed them, landing right in front of them. Sean and Bren used it for cover as more went bounding by. And then, almost as suddenly as it had begun, it stopped.

  “Aye, lad, you really do have a death wish,” said Sean, breathing hard. When they felt it was safe to move, they carefully stood and looked around. The ground was cracked and fallen rock was everywhere. It looked as if the whole village had been destroyed.

  Bren looked up at the Dragon’s Gate. It was no longer open, if it ever had been. The long vertical crack he thought he had seen was filled with rock. He realized the hand his mother had touched was still clenched, and when he opened it, there sat the black stone.

  “Sean, what have I done?”

  “You’ve survived, lad,” said Sean. “You’ve survived. I know that’s not what you meant, but that’ll have to do for now.”

  Bren nodded, looking back at the mountain and the Black Jade River and to what was left, if anything, of the village. Then he threw his arms around Sean and hugged him, not letting go for a very long time.

  EPILOGUE

  A WORLD APART

  “Are we even in India anymore?” said Archibald Black as he and the rest of the Second Regiment of the Indian Royal Survey crested yet another bleak hill overlooking another bleak valley.

  “Anything the great Akbar puts on a map of India is part of India,” said Aziz.

  David Owen planted the theodolite on its tripod and surveyed the valley. “I can’t quite get the angle on this one,” he said. “The sun’s too bright.”

  “First it’s too rainy, then it’s too sunny,” barked Hasan. “You Brits need to toughen up! No wonder you’re a second-rate empire.”

  “An up-and-coming second-rate empire,” said Black.

  A bit later, when they stopped for lunch, Owen pulled Black aside. “I’m beginning to feel like an indentured servant.”

  “You’re just now getting that feeling?”

  “Maybe we can send a letter back to McNally.”

  Black gave him a withering look. “And how do you propose to do that?”

  “I’m thinking,” said Owen.

  Black choked down the rest of his dried camel meat. “Wasn’t McNally supposed to come out here for the christening, or whatever you call the big show Akbar put on in Agra?”

  Owen shook his head. “After Whitehall, he’s decided he doesn’t like to travel. A bit ironic for a mapmaker, don’t you think?”

  “His world revolves around him, I suppose,” said Black.

  Owen gripped a piece of camel jerky in his teeth and pulled. When the strip separated, his hand sprang out and hit Black in the arm.

  “Ow!”

  “Sorry. Maybe we could just make a run for it?”

  “That worked well last time, didn’t it?”

  “There are no tigers out here,” said Owen. “Anyway, I drew a map of this part of the world once for McNally. There’s a disputed region northeast of here, not far from where we are now, actually.”

  “How can you tell?” said Black. “Everything looks the same.”

  “Not to a mapmaker,” said Owen.

  Black sighed and sat down on the case concealing the Gutenberg Bible. “Fair enough. But that doesn’t really help us get away from our regiment, does it? We’d need a miracle.”

  Owen finished his jerky and was halfway into his waterskin when they felt the first rumblings.

  “Oh dear God, more elephants?” said Black.

  “I don’t think so, Archibald.”

  It felt like a herd of wild horses at first, a collective trampling of the ground that made Black and Owen tremble where they sat. But it soon became obvious that it was the ground itself that was trembling, from some unseen force.

  “Earthquake!” screamed Aziz, running around frantically. “Run for your lives!”

  “No one move!” Hasan ordered. “Store the equipment and we’ll ride it out!”

  No one did move, or store the equipment—they were stricken with panic. Hasan, their regiment leader, obviously felt he had to do something.

  “We’re on high ground,” he said, his voice being swallowed by the growing tremors. “We have nothing to worry about!”

  No sooner had he said it than the hill they were on calved, sending two great chunks of rock sliding down toward the valley. One carried the weight of almost the entire second regiment, the other Archibald Black and David Owen.

  The chunk carrying Black and Owen broke off cleanly, sliding down the mountain in one great mass like a ship being launched. It started gradually, then picked up terrible speed, causing both passengers to rapidly make amends with their creator, just before the chunk splashed into a large lake on the eastern end of the valley.

  “Archibald!”

  “David!”

  “Archibald!”

  “David!”

  Each had fallen into the water—Owen clinging to the slowly sinking rock, and Black to his valuable trunk. They called to each other over and over until finally Black had pulled Owen onto the trunk with him. They dog-paddled to safety, and when it was shallow enough to walk, they pulled the trunk onto the shore and plopped down beside it. They watched together as the giant rock slipped under the water.

  “Is it over?” said Black.

  He was answered by another trembling of the earth, a long and steady one, but not nearly as severe.

  “If I weren’
t already a religious man . . . ,” said Owen, slapping the trunk. He and Black both laughed, but it was a brief moment of levity.

  “I wonder about the others,” said Black.

  “Should we try to find them?”

  Black shook his head. “I don’t know the right answer to that, David. Morally, perhaps. But we have a chance to get free of here. I think we should take it.”

  Owen nodded slowly.

  “The disputed territory is that way,” he said, pointing to the northeast. “A valley at the foot of the Himalayas. When I mapped it for McNally, the region was called Cashmere.”

  Black struggled to his feet, his clothes covered in dirt and full of holes. He opened the trunk, took out the Bible, and then shoved the empty trunk into the lake. “Lead the way, David. Perhaps we can get a bath and a change of clothes there.”

  Bren and Sean looked for Barrett and Yaozu for days after the earthquake. They never found them. They climbed the mountain where the old woman and the Tree of Every Fruit had been, but her small house had been demolished and the tree uprooted. They couldn’t find the woman, either.

  The damage to the village, both in lives and property, had been severe. They could only wonder at how far away the earthquake had been felt, how widespread the damage. Bren felt sure he would never get over this.

  Sean did his best to keep both their spirits up and to plan their next move. “The old woman of the mountain said I could get you home safely if we follow the Black Jade River over the mountain, through a corridor. How does that sound?”

  Bren nodded.

  “And hey, I went to the inn where we’d stayed. It was a mess, but I found some of our things.”

  Sean opened his rucksack and pulled out Bren’s journal.

  “Remember when I said I grabbed this from the Albatross ’cause I thought it might bring good luck in finding you? Well, let’s consider it our lucky charm in getting home, yeah?”

  Lucky charm. Bren reached for the necklace around his neck, but there was nothing there. Old habits. He pressed his hand against his jacket pocket and felt a lump, and with his heart nearly racing out of his chest he reached in and pulled out the black stone—the stone his mother had given back to him on the mountain. But that wasn’t possible, was it? He quickly put the stone away and turned away from Sean, afraid he might burst into tears again.