Chapter Thirteen

SUNSET SAT UP IN the crook of a tree at the edge of the feast clearing, his eyes shut, his little blue stone held lightly in one paw. The Prosperhill pandas gathered around the base of the tree, staring up at him. Peony bent down and let Maple climb on her back so he could see better.

Rain sat at the edge of the group, watching as intently as the others—well, perhaps not as intently as Pebble, who was sitting right below the tree and practically holding his breath. Rain knew they were watching for very different things. Pebble’s expression was full of wonder. He believed that Sunset would open his eyes and share with them all the thoughts of the Great Dragon, a wise and ancient being.

Rain expected Sunset to lie.

She didn’t know what the lie was going to be, or what he was going to get out of it, but she knew that it would be a lie, and that she was the only one who wouldn’t believe it.

There were more pandas in the feast clearing than ever before, but Rain had never felt quite so alone.

Sunset raised the Seeing Stone higher and higher, so high that there was an intake of breath from the pandas as they thought he might lose his balance and topple from the branch. But Sunset knew what he was doing, and he lowered the stone again slowly and then climbed down the tree, still with his eyes firmly shut. When he stood on the ground again, he opened his eyes with a gasp.

You’re laying it on a bit thick now, Rain thought. Surely some other panda would start to think it was all a bit ridiculous too? What about the fact that he hadn’t done any of this performance last time?

But every other Prosperhill panda seemed completely focused on the Dragon Speaker, waiting anxiously for him begin.

“The Dragon has spoken to me,” Sunset proclaimed. “The words are these: A breeze will carry the scents of summer through the Bamboo Kingdom.”

“Oooh,” said several of the pandas.

“What does that mean?” whispered Frog.

“It could mean lots of things,” Dawn whispered back.

It means the seasons will change and the wind will blow, Rain thought. It means he’s just saying things that he knows will definitely happen so they don’t know he’s a faker.

It means I’m right.

A thrill of vindication that felt like a shudder ran under her fur.

Sunset accepted an armful of fresh bamboo from Pebble, and slumped down to eat it as if climbing a tree and waving a rock around had been deeply exhausting. The other pandas went back to their feasts too, speculating about the Dragon’s message.

“It means good times are coming,” proclaimed Bay. “It’ll be warmer soon.”

“The part about scent must mean something too,” said Pebble. He sat down near Rain, but he didn’t look at her, talking to Bay and Dawn. “Maybe there’ll be a new scent, and when we all smell it we’ll know some change is coming.”

“Or maybe summer won’t come here at all,” said Crag, settling down near them. “The Dragon was always keen on warnings. Maybe it’s saying the best bamboo this year will grow elsewhere, and we’ll have to use our noses to find it.”

Oh, come on! Rain almost interrupted them. How could they find so much to say about such an empty message? But she knew that if she said something, she’d risk tipping off Sunset that she knew he was full of nonsense—and also, Pebble was nodding along to Crag’s stupid theory, crunching his bamboo with a thoughtful frown on his face.

It hurt her heart to let her best friend go on not knowing he was being lied to, but she knew that she still had no proof strong enough to convince him. If she tried to tell him, they’d only argue again, and she couldn’t bear that.

She decided she couldn’t stay here and listen to any more of this. Soon they would decide that the message meant that the sky was green and the river would run backward. She got up to leave, but before she could get out of the feast clearing, she heard her name called and turned to see Sunset trotting after her.

“Rain,” he said. “I wanted to ask, have you made any progress with the river?”

Rain bristled, but tried to hide her annoyance. Even if she’d been searching as hard as she could, surely it would be many feasts before she found a crossing place no Prosperhill panda had ever found before.

“Well . . .” She sat down and scratched her neck with one long claw. “I’ve been looking into it. There are some places where the current’s stronger than in others, but the shallows can be deceptively calm. You can tell—if you’re an experienced swimmer, I mean—when you’re getting into water that’s dangerous, and sometimes it’s just a paw-length farther from the shore. I haven’t found a spot where the middle’s running calm enough to cross, yet.”

“Well, that’s still good progress,” Sunset said, and gave her a friendly grin. Rain suppressed the urge to scowl back at him.

“Thanks,” she said. “I’m glad to help.”

See? she thought. I can lie too. And more convincingly than you can.

“Keep looking,” said Sunset. “And may the Great Dragon guide you.”

Rain nodded, and headed out of the clearing to pretend to go to the river, but a slight chill passed over her as she thought again about her dream. It had been so vivid, so specific. She could almost feel the spray from the waterfall tickling her nose even now. She’d never heard anyone talk about the Dragon having three heads, so why would she have dreamed that up?

She shook herself. She was acting just like the others, trying to drag meaning into things that meant nothing. She needed proof of Sunset’s lies, and she wasn’t going to get it if she didn’t do something.

A few paces from the clearing, when she was sure that there was no way Sunset could possibly see her, she hid underneath a large, spreading bush and waited, listening intently. She heard the other pandas begin to leave the clearing too, some of them talking, some still munching on the last of their feasts. An unfamiliar scent passed by; then she realized it was Maple, his high voice chattering to Peony as they walked. Rain’s heart warmed to see the two of them sticking together. Her mother would protect him. She wouldn’t let Sunset or the monkeys do anything to hurt him.

Finally, she scented Sunset coming closer. She held her breath and kept perfectly still as he padded past. She let him vanish almost completely from sight before she moved, creeping to the next bush, and then a rock, and then the trunk of a large tree, following the Dragon Speaker through the forest.

Where would he go? Would he behave like a normal panda and lie down to sun himself on a rock, or have a between-feasts snack, or just go for a walk up and down the rolling crags? Or was there something else he had planned for this Long Light?

A couple of times she thought he had scented or heard her following him, and she had to press herself into the undergrowth and wait to find out if he would change his course. But although he looked around once or twice, he seemed to be convinced that he was alone, and he carried on walking in the same direction.

This isn’t just a Long Light wander. He’s headed somewhere, Rain thought as she peered carefully around the side of a rock to see Sunset padding straight across a trickling stream, his paws splashing in the cool, clear water.

She followed, treading slowly so as not to let the water make too much noise as she crossed the stream after him.

Finally she reached the crest of a hill and saw, down below her, a large rock under a big, twisted pine tree. Brawnshanks the golden monkey was sitting on it, picking at his fur with his strange long fingers. He looked up toward Sunset as the Dragon Speaker approached him, and Rain quickly hunkered down in a thicket of tall ferns to watch what would happen.

“Good Long Light, O good and wise Dragon Speaker,” said Brawnshanks, and then gave a chittering laugh that was echoed by the troop of monkeys that lazed along the branches of the tree above him. A few of them swung down onto the ground around Brawnshanks’s rock.

“Thank you, friend,” said Sunset, although his voice was cool. “Where is it, then?”

“Oh, close by, close by,” said Brawnshanks. “What’s your rush, clever one?”

Sunset roared. The sound made Rain jump, and the ferns all around her bounced and shook. She had never heard him roar like that. The monkeys jumped too, and a few of the ones on the rock fell off, or leaped reflexively back up into the tree, but they giggled as they went. Brawnshanks scratched himself calmly under the chin.

“Don’t test me, monkey,” Sunset growled. “We have a deal, remember? I have a lot more prophecies to make, and it isn’t working. I need more dream leaf now.”

“So far, as I see it, this deal has mostly benefited you,” said Brawnshanks thoughtfully. Sunset took a threatening step toward his rock. “Don’t worry,” the monkey added, still not moving a muscle, although several of his troop hopped away to keep their distance from the Dragon Speaker. “It really is close by. You sit right here, and we’ll be back with your precious dream leaf.” He patted the rock, giggled again, and then sprang into the trees. The monkey troop took off, whooping and bouncing along the branches and away. Sunset sat down with his back against a tree and huffed in annoyance.

Rain made a decision.

She carefully, quietly extracted herself from the ferns, and then turned and ran, as stealthily as she could, after the monkeys.

It was much more of a chase than she’d had with Sunset. The monkeys moved fast, and sometimes apparently at random, so she would be running from one hiding spot to the next when the whole troop took a sharp turn, leaping from one tree to another, and she had to skid to a halt and plunge into the undergrowth to keep herself hidden.

It’s not all that close, she thought as she peered through the branches. Sunset may be a liar, but it seems he’s also being lied to. . . .

They were much too quick for her to keep up for long, but luckily, they made such a racket as they went that she could easily follow the sound. If that failed, she could scent around for leaves that had recently dropped from the trees and find the ones that carried the strongest monkey smell—sickly sweet from their diet of fruit, flowers, and insects.

She ran on until the sounds grew louder again, and then louder still. She heard the monkeys shouting to each other, somewhere high above her head, and then the trees parted and she found herself at the bottom of a wide space between two large, nearly sheer cliffs, looking up at one of the huge standing columns of rock that sometimes stuck up by themselves between the hills of the Southern Forest. It was covered in moss, vines, and ferns that had managed to cling to the cracks in the rock, and at the top there was a small, wavering clump of bamboo with striped canes and leaves. The whole column looked like a hulking creature, rearing up with its fur standing on end.

The monkeys were swarming up the rock, grabbing the vines and jumping from ledge to ledge. Rain could just make out which one was Brawnshanks—he was a little larger than the rest, and he moved with more purpose, while the rest of the troop swung wildly and excitably around him. He scrambled to the top of the rock and waited for the rest of his troop to catch up and settle near him before pointing at the bamboo, giving out orders in his chattering voice, which Rain had to strain to hear.

“. . . every monkey grab a handful. Nimbletail, you get up there to the top.”

The monkeys began to climb the bamboo trunks, reaching the sprays of leaves and tugging to pull them free. The monkey Brawnshanks had called Nimbletail, one of the smallest, climbed right to the top of one. She clung to the stalk as it wavered back and forth, and plucked the leaves from the very end. Rain’s stomach clenched instinctively as the young monkey dangled over the long drop down to the forest floor, but the terrifying height and wild bouncing movement clearly didn’t bother Nimbletail one bit. Rain had to admit, these creatures had nerves as strong as the trunk of a gingko tree. Soon the monkeys were clambering back down with big bunches of stripy bamboo leaves clenched in their hands and in their teeth.

Rain kept still and quiet as they swung back past her, presumably to deliver the bamboo—the dream leaf—to Sunset.

Rain didn’t need to see the handover. There was something else she wanted to do.

When the sound of the monkeys had died away completely, she emerged from her hiding place and approached the column of rock. She swallowed as she looked up at it. It was taller than the tallest tree she had ever climbed, and she was no monkey.

But the striped bamboo only seemed to grow up there.

She circled the rock, looking carefully at its cracks and crevices before she decided which side would be easiest to start climbing. She picked out a route that looked like it had plenty of claw holds and began, slowly, to pull herself up.

She wasn’t, she reluctantly admitted to herself as she reached from ledge to ledge, the strongest climber in the Prosperhill. She forced herself to take it slowly, and reminded herself not to trust the vines—they were tempting to grab on to, but while they might hold the weight of the monkeys for a few moments, a whole panda was a different thing entirely. She tried not to look down, but she couldn’t help stealing glances between her paws. She looked back after a while, and it seemed like all at once she had made it almost to the top of the tree canopy. The emptiness of the air around her almost seemed to tug on her. She focused quickly on the rock in front of her nose, and tried to pretend that the ground was still just beneath her back paws. . . .

She was nearing the top when her paw slipped on a patch of wet moss and she scrambled, howling with terror, managing to dig her front claws deep into a crack between the rocks while she found her footing again. She stayed quite still for a while after that, clinging on to the side of the column until she felt herself stop shaking.

Finally, she pulled herself up and over onto the flattish top of the rock, and lay flopped there until she had caught her breath, closing her eyes so she could pretend she was just lying on a nice low rock ledge on the side of a hill somewhere.

Then she sat up and carefully shifted so she could look out from the top of the rock without losing her balance. The view was amazing, out over the thick canopy of green and gold, the two steep cliffs on either side framing a view of more hills rising in the distance, bright and lush in the strong sunlight. She glanced down and then pulled back sharply as the ground seemed to waver beneath her, like the bottom of the river on a clear day.

Getting back down was going to be a challenge.

But before that, she had to find out what was so special about this bamboo. Sitting on the mossy top of the rock, she was nose to nose with the small cluster of bamboo stalks, with their strange stripy leaves. She sniffed them carefully. They smelled like bamboo—woody and fresh, perhaps slightly tangier than normal.

Sunset had called this dream leaf. So it had to give him visions, visions he could use to fake the Dragon’s messages. She picked a pawful of leaves and eyed them suspiciously. She needed to be sure. But what if she ate them, was transported into another weird dream like the one she’d had by the river, and fell off the column of rock and smashed her head?

Just get on with it!

Rain made sure she was firmly, securely settled on the top of the rock. Then, very carefully, she nibbled on the end of the bunch of leaves.

“Blech!” She stuck her tongue out and licked at her own fur, trying to scrape off the chewed-up plant bits. They were incredibly, disgustingly bitter. “Ugh, blech!” She shook her head and smacked her jaws.

“Well, he’s definitely not eating this for the taste,” she muttered.

Sunset had said he needed lots of it. With a shudder, she stuffed the whole bunch into her mouth and chewed hard. Bitter plant juices ran over her tongue and she winced, but she kept on chewing and forced herself to swallow. Then she sat back and waited.

Nothing seemed to happen immediately. Rain leaned against the thick, bending trunks of the bamboo.

Come on, dreams, she thought, I’m ready for you. Whatever this stuff is for, I’m ready to find out.

She swallowed another horrible bunch, then another to make sure. But still nothing happened.

She waited for a long time on top of the rock, as Long Light turned into Sun Fall. She didn’t want to start the long, scary climb back down the rock until she was sure she wouldn’t suddenly start seeing dragons on the way down. But finally it looked like no visions or dreams were coming, so she set off, feeling her way carefully backward down the side of the column. By the time she reached the bottom, she still felt nothing unusual of any kind, except for the lingering bitter taste on her tongue.

She started back for the feast clearing with a thoughtful growl in her chest.

Sunset thinks he’ll get visions if he eats enough of that stuff.

But it hasn’t worked for me. So probably it won’t work for him. Are the monkeys fooling him into eating those revolting leaves? But why?

Of one thing Rain was certain: If Sunset thought he needed help making his prophecies, he was no Dragon Speaker. He was nothing of the kind.