DRAGON’S DAUGHTER

Originally published in Witchcraft & Sorcery #6, May 1971.

CHAPTER 1

The singsong girl’s fingers danced and rippled. Her left hand crept along the neck of the lute, advancing, retreating. The strings laughed and sang; they wailed, and sighed, and murmured. As Li Fong savored her loveliness, he recalled what a poet had said, a thousand years ago, about the girl next door…too tall, if an inch were added to her height…too short, if half that much were taken away…another puff of powder and she’d be too pale…another touch of rouge would be too much…

Stilling the voice of the lute, she handed it to him. Its four strings were stretched over ivory frets. The body, shaped like a pear split lengthwise, was of teak. The sounding board was of wutun wood, all inlaid with mother of pearl.

“Tajen, you play?”

As he plucked the strings, Li Fong recited lines snatched at random from Po Chu Yi’s poem in honor of the lute:

“Loud as the crash of pelting rain

Soft as the murmur of whispered words

Frail as the patter of pearls

Poured on a plate of jade”

Li Fong gestured. Before he could fairly say, “Another cup!” she was pouring from the bronze jug. And he said, “You sang of the Uttermost West, of the Mountain of the Gods, and the Dragon Lords. Sing more! Tell more!” So the evening carried on, as such evenings will. Nothing was over looked. Not even that hour of whispered planning, after his promise to buy up her contract and take her home to be his concubine.

Nothing for Li Fong to do but pass the examinations, and be appointed to a post in the Imperial Civil Service. And of course, give presents to various eunuchs and other important persons at the court of the Son of Heaven.

Another jug of wine would not cut too deeply into the gold reserved for such gifts, nor into the silver for living expenses and tuition, the final cramming before the examination.

When Hwa Lan realized that Li Fong actually meant what he was saying, she countered, whimsically. “There is a better way for us, Old Master! We’ll go to the Taoist magician and learn their art. Then we’ll ride the wind, we’ll go to the Mountain of the Gods, and we’ll kowtow to the Dragon lords—we’ll plead for their help! Otherwise aiieeeyah! How unpleased your Venerable Father will be when you start with a sing-song girl—when he’s most certainly got a wife picked out for you!”

Hwa Lan was practical. Li Fong and the wine were not. So, she sang of the Dragon Lady who lived in the Great Desert…or, atop the Mountain.

At dawn, Li Fong awakened with the city. Considering how massively drunk he had been before Hwa Lan crumpled across her lute and toppled into bed he felt fine. Seeing her lying there, beyond the half drawn curtains of her alcove, he wondered what had happened. She’d been sparing enough, and had been urging him to drink less wine.

Something odd about her breathing. Hwa Lan still wore her jade hair pins. She still wore everything.

The bronze jar was empty. On the table was a small porcelain jug. Two matching cups. One empty. He reached for the other. He recognized the smell of that drug from Hindustan.

He had been so drunk that he had escaped being doped. And, so drunk that robbing him had required no fancy work whatever. Instead of gray silk tunic and black trousers, and embroidered boots and embroidered cap, he wore coolie clothes, ragged and grimy.

He was sure that Hwa Lan had had no part in this.

Storming through the wine shop, demanding his clothes and his money had landed him in jail. He did not look like the sort of person who would be admitted as a patron.

That was the wrong day to be in jail. A recruiting party took charge of every prisoner who could walk, gave the jailer a present, and collected a bounty of one silver tael per new soldier, when the detachment arrived at the military commander’s yamen.

That is how it had started.

The Son of Heaven required a lot of soldiers to fight the Uighur Turki barbarian of the Uttermost West. And now, well over two thousand miles from that fatal wine shop, Li Fong was seeing the glamour-lands of which Hwa Lan had sung. Six months of long marching and short rations brought out the difference between song and fact…

The mountains, even from a great distance, loomed up as monstrous fantasies. More and more, they brought to mind Hwa Lan’s music and words. He persisted in his belief, in what he had come to regard as knowledge, that Hwa Lan had played no part in robbing him. His other fixed belief, a growing conviction, no more rational than the first, was that someone spoke to him, usually during his sleep, but at times by day, as he plodded, hour after hour, licking the windblown loess dust from his lips, squinting through the yellow haze and at the sky-glare until waking and sleeping became ever more alike. Finally, he could not tell one from the other.

Li Fong never ate all his ration of parched barley or beans. Always, he saved a bit, building up a supply. This added to his burden, but it lightened his spirit. Prompted by his invisible counselors, who persistently asserted that Hwa Lan had seen great adventure and ultimate victory for him, Li Fong was making plans.

And the camel freighters were interesting fellows. They told of buried cities…of sands which spoke at night…and of the Gods who lived on several of the high mountain peaks.

One night Li Fong stole a camel. This was a smooth escape, without a moment of suspense. Since no one could possibly be so insane as to desert, the sentries were far from vigilant. So, he put the army behind him and looked up at the stars he had come to know, during those long nights of sleeping on hard earth.

“The Sieve now sparkles to the South

And mostly ill drops through.

Slowly, the Dipper tips and spills

But pours no good for you…”

The fact of it was that he recited those pessimistic lines to tone down the exultation which dizzied him.

Wind driven sand whispered and rustled, a dry, thin sound. Flying creatures grazed his face as they swerved. Some were feathered, some were furry, and as to others, he had unpleasant surmises.

The bats betokened a mine somewhere. But, how far… Outbound bats, not homeward faring…not at this hour…

Shortly before dawn, he came upon masonry rising a few feet above the drifted sand. There were stunted poplars. Li Fong halted at the ruin. He found a moist spot, as he had anticipated. He scraped and dug with his sword. Soon a brackish pool accumulated in the basin. After drinking, he crawled to the lee of the cornice of a deeply buried building. The drift was a softness such as he had not known for many a week.

Blazing sun awakened Li Fong.

Hobbling a camel so that the beast would remain hobbled was not one of Li Fong’s skills. He was alone and afoot.

Li Fong shouldered his gear and made for the mountains.

By night, the mountains wore coronets of stars, and crowns of snow. By day, mirage made them dance and weave. Several times, when hunger and thirst and weariness would have kept him from getting up when he lurched and fell, voices urged him on. He found water, and grubbed roots. He ate the seeds from pods. Once, he found the eggs of a wild bird. Several times, he sword-speared a lizard. When he quit the desert and could distinguish trees on the mountain’s upper slopes, Li Fong still had a handful of parched barley in his pack.

Li Fong propped himself upright, with staff of acacia. He tilted his head far back, and stared until finally he could believe that what he saw, so far up, was summit and snow cap, not clouds.

“Omito fu! The Mountain of the Gods!”

Water now, and pine nuts. Sometimes at the rim of a pool, he found lily roots. The air became thin and crisp. Mists billowed.

With flint and steel, he would make fire of an evening. Sometimes there were herbs which he simmered, making soup. He had long forgotten hunger, since he could not recall when he had last eaten other than famine-fare.

So, that sunset, with its slanting lances of red and gold reaching through the branches, when he saw a strange bird approaching him, he regarded it as beauty, rather than as food walking to his fire.

No doubt at all that he could throw the staff and clip the approaching fowl, but this possibility did not interest him.

The bird came without fear. In its gold-flecked eyes was a glint as of intelligence as well as curiosity. Tawny-buff and gold, white and scarlet plumage, with a triple crest and metallically gleaming beak, it seemed to be the origin of all the pheasant-kind, all the more so since the color scheme shifted until no variety had been omitted. This, however, was much larger than any pheasant, although to judge size was absurd. The trees, the escarpments which swooped skyward—all about Li Fong was gigantic. Nevertheless, the bird must be larger than a peacock.

It paced somewhat like a quail, flashing quick paces, yet progressing deliberately, always level, as though skimming the surface. This was a curious, a cadenced pacing.

The bird halted, regarding him, the haggard, the sun-seared, the ragged, and the dried-out. The beautiful and the devastated regarded each other, with interest ever increasing and compelling.

The lances of sunlight shifted.

A vast shadow enveloped Li Fong and the iridescent bird. The shadow was that of wings, tremendously outreaching. This was not the shadow of any cloud. The bird’s eyes gleamed pointedly. The wings flickered. The tail fanned, the feet moved, a pacing which brought the bird no nearer Li Fong. It was as though this creature perceived, and knew something which Li Fong did not.

Then he understood. He recalled Old Master Wong, the calligrapher, who would close his eyes and with a single unbroken motion, brush never quitting the paper, shape four characters, the final ending in an exquisite long prolongation stroke.

“Soaring Dragon: Dancing Phoenix.”

He spoke the words aloud.

There was a blur of gold and red and apricot and persimmon. The shadow shifted and wheeled. Glancing up, Li Fong caught the glint of scales, the gleam of claws. Looking back, he saw neither shadow nor bird.

He saw only a black-robed man who wore a Taoist hat. The man’s white beard trailed to his waist. His face had scarcely a line, yet if he had declared himself to be a thousand years old, Li Fong could have believed him. The eyes half-glinted with humor, yet were half-stern, and entirely penetrating beyond the glance of ordinary men.

Once and a second time, Li Fong touched his forehead to the pine needles. Before he could kowtow a third time, the man helped him to his feet.

“Perhaps you should stay here—perhaps it is better for you to go far from here. But first, you will rest and eat. It is very interesting that you thought of Soaring Dragon: Dancing Phoenix, instead of roasted fowl.”

CHAPTER II.

Li Fong followed the tao shih along a path which presently led to a monastery of brick and masonry. It nestled cozily on a shelf of rock which seemed to have an overlay of soil sufficient for a small group of monks, provided they were not hearty eaters.

As though sensing Li Fong’s thought, the tao shih paused at the entrance. “What you do not know about farming, I will show you. I am Tai Ching, disciple of Master Ko Hung.”

Li Fong put his palms together, bowed three times, gave his own name, and begged leave to abstain from stating his surname.

Master Ko Hung’s life had ended three centuries ago. Whether Tai Ching meant that he had actually been one of the alchemist-magician’s pupils, or merely that he had devoted his life to studying the Pao P’o Tzu, the Master’s final book, was an open question. In any event, Tai Ching undoubtedly knew, from long ago, all the reasons which might make a man wish to conceal his surname.

Li Fong followed the tao shih across a well-kept courtyard. He paused long enough to scrape a bit of barley from his haversack, and put the grains on the altar of the shrine, just beyond the entrance. Having paid his respect to the Gods, the Immortals, and the Buddhas, he resumed his way, until Tai Ching gestured to an alcove in which spring water accumulated in a wall-basin.

“You may wash. Then follow food-smell to the refectory.”

Presently, Li Fong joined the tao shih at the low table and shared the bowl of millet porridge and a platter of greens.

“Long ago,” Tai Ching said, “I made my peace with all living creatures. I eat none of my friends and neighbors. There is only this famine fare.”

Presently, he brought a pot of herb soup.

Finally, Tai Ching said, “When you are ready to go your way, I will give you food to last until you reach the Silk Road. Or, stay and work in the small field. When not working, you may study, and learn according to your talents. Scholars have many reasons for leaving home and taking up the sword. Sometimes a man returns, and again, it may be better that a man does not return.

“One more thing before you sleep. When I am not seen, you will not seek me. When I am in my study, you will not ask permission to enter. Otherwise, go about as you please. Nothing is hidden.”

In the morning, slanting sun reached into the dormitory and awakened Li Fong. With no more self-intent than a puppet-show marionette, he roamed about. On the natural terrace, he noticed several patches of buckwheat, and scrawny little Turkish melons, peppers, and seasoning herbs. Quail regarded him without alarm.

“Why not stay here?” he cogitated. “Far away and out of sight Father will not be embarrassed by my stupidity. He will merely be grieved, thinking I was killed and robbed. Lucky, not being in jail long enough for name to be entered in the magistrate’s books.”

Back in the monastery, Li Fong ate cold porridge and drank cold herb soup. Presently, he resumed his prowl, and soon found the Great Book Room.

After bowing to the image of the God of Learning, he stepped to the writing table. The ink-slab was still moist, and for the first time in many a week, be breathed the camphor-scent of ink. There was a packet of fifty yarrow stalks, and the Book of Change, the I Ching, foundation of all wisdom, and all divination. He would have been amazed had this fundamental book been lacking.

What caught his eye and held his attention, then, was the opened volume near the I Ching. He turned the according-pleated strip, fold after fold “…pass through fire without being burned…through water without being wet…”

He turned several pages, “…to ride the wind…see all, yet not be seen…become a Dragon and yet keep the form of a man…”

Only one chapter was missing: the monograph on making or finding sufficient treasure to permit him to return home, and with honor.

“You don’t need any such a writing,” a woman said. “Listen, and be patient.”

Startled, he glanced about. He caught a flash of shimmering color, the gold of brocade. There was the frail tinkle of jade, and a breath of perfume. When he faced where the woman should have been, he saw only books on shelves.

Shivering, Li Fong decided that he was not afraid. Startled, yes. Perplexed, yes. But afraid not at all!

When he heard softly whispering footfalls, Li Fong was relieved that it was only Tai Ching who entered the Great Book Room.

“Something interests you?”

Li Fong bowed. “My interest is in what you are about to say.”

The priest touched the cover of the I Ching, with its sixty four hexagrams which symbolized the fundamental Laws of Change. “I have consulted the Oracle. To teach you the elements of magic, so that you could be a helper, would not be an error. You might be useful here, as well as in the field.”

The study of magic and philosophy, together with his duties in the garden and in the buckwheat patch, made Li Fong’s life as that of a soldier or of a coolie. His outdoor duties included moving rocks about, to build retaining walls, and then collecting and dumping basket after basket of earth, to make a terrace—just in case, some day, there were many students, and more gardens would be needed…

And, hour after hour, chanting sutras. Hour after hour, intoning mantrams, or sitting on the floor, facing the wall. There were the rhythmic inhalation-exhalations, and there were exercises in not-breathing. Then, as a variant, all these exercises were repeated as he paced the perimeter of the combination meditation hall-dormitory, where twenty students could find ample space, or even forty…

From time to time, Tai Ching came to observe the novice for a moment. At long intervals, he would offer a suggestion. During the conferences in the tao shih’s study, there were cryptic and seemingly pointless questions. Whatever answers Li Fong might give, he could never guess whether he was establishing himself as a hopeless blockhead, or, as a probationer in magic and alchemy.

No praise. No blame. Nothing. Except, the ever present bag of groats and parched beans; four pairs of cord sandals, and a stout staff—just in case Li Fong felt that he had had enough of it all.

One evening, Tai Ching set a mat beside Li Fong’s place. The Master seated himself. He had a small drum. He tapped it with finger tips, and knuckles, and with the heel of his hand. At times, with cupped palm, he made curious concussions which sometimes were a popping sound, and sometimes, a breathing. The old familiar verses, the often repeated mantrams became different from being patterned to accord with the moods, the rhythms of that small drum.

To accord with the drum voice, Li Fong changed the depth and the cadence of his breathing. He became light-headed. His pulse began to play curious tricks, as it got in step with the drum. Suddenly, he could no longer feel the tiles beneath him. He was without weight.

He was now above floor level. This queer feeling was beyond belief until he was looking eye to eye at the figure of an Immortal on the altar. Amazement broke the rhythm of his breathing. He toppled, sprawled, entangled in his mat, as he thumped to the floor.

The drum ceased. The tao shih stood beside him as he clawed himself clear. He said, sarcastically, “As you begin to suspect, you were several feet off the floor. When you learn how to keep your mind on what you are doing, I’ll teach you the next step. How would you like to bumble this way when you’re a thousand feet off the ground?”

He quit the hall.

Problems came with Li Fong’s experiments in levitation. Unpleasant creatures began to collect about him, in a circle. They were somewhat human, somewhat reptilian, and entirely contradictory in their proportions, their coloring, and their locomotion as they ambled about the hall. Without any order or system, individuals would pause, gesture, jeer, and threaten. Sometimes he could understand their obscene mutterings. Often, their language was foreign. These apparitions were never extremely noisy. Nonetheless, Li Fong wondered why Tai Ching never came to inquire about the muttering, gibbering, yelping, and scrambling about.

Inquiring seemed to be not quite the sensible thing to do… And, there was activity in the garden. But he did not glance up from his work when the shadow of great wings hovered about him. Again, he caught a glimpse, from the corner of his eye, of gold-flame-tawny-white plumage. He did not let his glance waver.

He suspected at times that the tao shih was testing him with diverse illusions.

Another afternoon, with sun quite low, a twisting little breeze stirred the dust into small spirals which caught up dry leaves.

There was a breath of perfume somewhat like Hwa Lan’s, yet different.

“…Soaring Dragon… Dancing Phoenix…”

It was as though someone had spoken, except that there had been no sound for the ear to pick up. He straightened, drew a breath. Outdoors as well as within, the entire area seemed bedeviled.

Then came what was speech, beyond any doubt, a voice.

“When he tells you to walk—walk, and keep walking. No fear. You won’t fall. I promise you.”

The voice cut off abruptly, in a tinkle of jade.

Li Fong finally learned to strike and caress the little drum and at the same time, chant in accord: so that with his mat, he would rise to altar level, and higher. He was curious rather than dismayed when, after pausing for the images to regard him, he drifted toward the end of the hall. His course curved until, finally, he came back to his meditation spot. There, he settled slowly to the floor.

The tao shih said, “You didn’t know where you were going.”

“Yes, I did not know,” Li Fong answered.

“Stand on feet,” Tai Ching commanded. “Follow me.”

Taking the drum, he led the way. Tummmm—tumpa-tummm—tum tupa-tuppa-tum and the droning chant which Li Fong repeated until he could feel, inwardly, the vibration of his voice, and of the drumming, and of the tao shih’s chanting.

The standard routine, except— The floor now slanted slightly upgrade. Presently, he suspected that he no longer trod the pavement at all. And then he was following Tai Ching out and over the buckwheat patch. The mountain slope fell further and further away. He was pacing now, with the tips of tall trees at waist-height…knee-height…ankle height…

Far out, the desert shimmered and danced. It seemed that in the glare and the glamour he glimpsed the ruin where his camel had left him stranded. One recruit would not, positively not, go to Hotien…

Without warning qualm or twinge of apprehension, giddiness and terror closed in and took command of Li Fong. He began to sink. His eyes were now level with the tao shih’s feet. Little devils leered, jeered, mocked. Below, rocks began to loom up. He sank faster, faster, a dozen paces or more.

“Sing, man, sing your mantram,” a woman said. “You won’t fall.”

She was over-optimistic. Not falling, not really, but sinking, and ever more rapidly.

“Sing!” she repeated.

“Gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi, SVAHA!”

The mocking devils thinned, faded in sun glare.

He felt a touch at his elbow.

“Chant with the master,” she said.

He found his voice. His wits returned. He caught the beat, the rhythm. He maintained elevation, but could not rise. He was nearly a tree’s height lower than his guide as they circled back.

Li Fong stumbled and rolled when he stubbed his toes against the rocky mountainside. Tai Ching called from the monastery entrance. “I told you to keep your mind on what you were doing!”

“Devils and spirits so I intoned—”

“As if I didn’t hear you!”

“You heard?”

“You were bellowing like a buffalo.”

“What sounds, Master?”

“The mantram I taught you.”

“That’s all that helped? You didn’t—”

“I saw you gain control, so why interfere? A good scare, just what you need to learn wind-walking. Now, fire-walking—waver for the flicker of an eyelash, and you’re finished!”

When he finally stretched out on his mat, Li Fong lay awake for a long time, pondering his adventure. The tao shih had been aware of his probationer’s plight, and had been ready to help, in the event of total failure. On the other hand, he had neither heard nor otherwise perceived the woman-presence.

CHAPTER III.

Li Fong became accustomed to long hours divided between meditation hall and garden. He required less rest, slept lightly, and found it more and more difficult to distinguish between waking and sleep.

One night, a blade of moonlight reached through a wall slot. The brightness aroused him, and then he heard the tinkle of jade, and savored perfume. He said, aloud, “I was afraid that a mantram had driven you away.”

The Presence became ever more immediate, more compelling. Li Fong sat up. After a moment, he knelt. From the corner of his eye, he sensed motion in the darkness. And then she stepped into the moon patch. She was slender, silken-gleaming, and because of her stately headgear, the woman seemed quite tall. Medallions of jade and linked clusters of rubies and sapphires descended from a headdress shaped of kingfisher breast-feathers, and heightened with sprays of peacock plumage. “No mantram can ever drive me away.”

Jade hair pins gleamed as she nodded, gestured reassuringly, and stood there, half-smiling and splendid. Li Fong put his palms together and bowed.

“This beggar is Li Fong, surname forfeited. New name, not yet conferred. Homeless One, quitting the Red Earth.”

“This ill-favoured hag may be called Mei Ling,” she said, bowing.

“Your presence has made my days golden,” he countered, in words which were a play on her name. “In my heart I have thanked you many times for voice without visible presence.”

“Soaring Dragon—Dancing Phoenix.”

“You really were there, then?”

Mei Ling smiled. “Perhaps as the Dragon’s Shadow?”

“Dragon’s Shadow?” he echoed; the implications dazed him.

“How far will you follow me?”

“It would be polite for me to consult Master Tai Ching.”

“You can go a great distance without ever leaving this place.”

“What should I tell the Master, when I return?”

“Whatever he asks, tell the truth.”

Mei Ling beckoned, inviting him into the moon-patch. He moved, hesitated, halted. She said, “Where we are going, coolie’s dress and silken tunic are alike.”

He stepped into moonlight and into the fragrance which Mei Ling exhaled. She was at once tangible as Hwa Lan, and also, entirely mist-and-moon glamour. Awe and apprehension combined to numb his wits. He glanced along the shaft of light.

Mei Ling shook her head. “Leave that to Master Tai Ching. You and I go another way.” Her smile was sweet, most amiable, and also, cryptic, baffling. “I asked how far you would follow me. That was a mode of speaking. Really, you will, you must, lead, far as you dare.”

“I—lead—where?” he groped.

She pointed into the darkness, toward the further end of the hall.

“But—but that’s solid mountain—”

“Straight on, head-on!” From beside Li Fong, she stepped back, and behind him, laying a hand on his shoulder. The fingertips rippled, as though on the strings of a lute. “Unless you lead, how can you follow and go into my home?”

This went further than the wildest Taoist paradox…

Power trickled from her fingertips and spread into his body, invading his veins. Breathing into his ear, Mei Ling said, “If a leader waits to know where he goes, he will never start.”

Borrowed fire made him step forward, and with assurance. A pace, another, and yet another, until he could discern the chiseled heart-rock of the great mountain: a solid, unbroken wall.

Mei Ling moved in such close harmony that there were fleeting contacts of her body, sinuous and rippling. She whispered something which he could not understand. Then came an instant like that interval between wakefulness and sleeping. He should have come up against unyielding stone. Instead, he merged with the heart-rock.

Li Fong knew, though not through any way which he could call “seeing,” that the rock was a void peppered with particles of blurred, indefinite shape, and of indecisive position. He himself was equally nebulous, an emptiness in which wandered indefinite shapes. Here and there, pulsing discs made pinwheels of fire.

As he moved, the luminous gray space became ever brighter, and less hazy, until from indefinite emptiness he came into the solid, the shaped. And Mei Ling caught his hand as they stepped into and emerged from wind-driven mist, to enter an area of gardens, of pavilions—a tiny lake, with high arched bridge—trailing willows—peach trees burdened with ripe fruit. He looked about him.

Mei Ling said, “There is neither indoors nor outdoors, neither heaven overhead nor tiled roof. We’re not enclosed by walls or by horizon.” Dazzling, glowing, she paused, her smile blossoming, as the gradual unfolding of petals. “You experience now what Master Tai Ching has been trying to demonstrate. By wind-walking, for instance.”

“Mountain of the Gods—Home of the Dragon Lords—”

“Not bad,” Mei Ling admitted, “but any name limits, it restricts, it separates-and that is maya, the Great Illusion.”

They entered a small villa. Li Fong had the feeling that the corridors and inner courts were settling down and reshaping, to take steady form. Although he saw no servants, it seemed that an entire staff had just quit the place.

As he went with Mei Ling into a cozy reception room, she said, “I arranged everything before I went to find you. The wine hasn’t had time to get cool. Do sit down and let me pour a cup.” Li Fong wondered whether, in an empire of dreams, he was repeating his experience with Hwa Lan, or whether he would awaken and learn that he had never been robbed nor jailed nor marched across the desert.

As she tuned her lute, he recited, “… Soft as the murmur of whispered words, frail as the patter of pearls…”

She smiled fondly, and carried on, “…dripping on a plate of jade…”

Mei Ling accepted the cup he poured, and set aside the lute.

He said, “Wine game riddle: Dancing Phoenix, or Dragon’s Shadow?”

“Wrong question!” she retorted. “Penalty empty one cup!”

“Wrong answer!” he cut back. “Penalty drain one cup!” Simple compromise: each drank, and Mei Ling poured again from the bronze jar. Then, “The next riddle for you.”

“I listen.”

“Watch, too,” she suggested.

Her words were needless. He could never have done other than watch when, with both arms, and as though making ritual gestures, Mei Ling unfastened her tall and stately head-gear. She raised it clear of her gleaming black hair, and twisted sinuously to set it on a tabouret, well away from a table set with trays of dim dum, and bowls of loquats and apricots and peaches.

“Riddle: Dragon’s Shadow—or, Dancing Phoenix?”

“Both.”

She laughed, mocking him in sweet malice. “Aiieeeyah! How stupid, how silly! Correct answer, Soochow Sing-Song Girl. Drink one cup!”

Mei Ling coaxed the lute into full voice, and sang,

“A lutist from Omei Mountain

With a single touch of the strings

Brought back memory of a long ago meeting

By the nine-stage pagoda at the Lion Bridge.

Now I sit in sorrow nine stages deep

Facing a broken mirror—”

“Sing-Song Girl, when Master Tai Ching teaches me the secrets of alchemy, I’ll make gold by the cart-load, and buy your contract!”

She smiled at him through the dancing flicker of candle flames that stifled behind pinnacles of wax. She snuffed a flame or two, and once more with both arms made the stylized gestures of a sculptured goddess, and flexed her silk-sheathed body. Her finger tips caressed brocaded curtains for a moment, then flicked them aside, to reveal a shadowed and cushioned alcove.

“Even in this place where Time is not,” Mei Ling said, “learning to make gold would take quite too long.” She stood now, a curtain half concealing her; and she beckoned. “There may be no contract to buy. There may also be a contract cost which you would never meet.”

On his feet, he had Mei Ling in his arms as she reached over his shoulders and drew the curtains together behind him. “Where Time is not, it is always now,” he said, and tried at once to kiss her, to trace the elegant curve of her body, and to unfasten the loops which secured her gown.

Mei Ling laughed softly. “Even with help, you couldn’t possibly tend to all that at once,” she said, and deftly plucked the first loop free.

Another candle expired, leaving its lonely companion to stand watch, and coax reflections from the brocaded curtain of the alcove.

CHAPTER IV

“And now,” Mei Ling murmured, “what am I—Dragon’s Shadow, Dancing Phoenix, or Sing-Song Girl?”

“We began as yang and yin,” he answered, “and now, with nothing left to desire, quietly waking-sleep, we still are yang and yin. You are Dragon Shadow, Dancing Phoenix, Sing Song Girl, all at once, and who cares because that is quite impossible?”

She looked up through half-parted lashes. “You’re not really certain. You still wonder whether a mantram would make me vanish.”

He sat up, took her by the shoulders, viewed Mei Ling from arm’s length, and sighed. “You didn’t ask me. You told me. But my wonderings are not quite as you think. Phoenix and Dragon—yin and yang—Moon and Sun—you and I, we held each other so closely that there was only one and no longer two of us. Something strange happened to us and we cannot be quite what we once were.”

Her eyes narrowed ever so little. She almost smiled. “This is interesting, Li Fong. I’m not your first woman. But, I am different, you tell me. Another wine-riddle? Or do you tell me without prize or penalty?”

“No wine game, now. Maybe I can tell you. If you insist.”

“I do insist. Maybe you’ll guess, maybe learn why.”

“This goes beyond words.”

“Try. Even if wrong, your penalty could be a reward.”

“You and I—yin and yang—but finally, we were balanced, neither female nor male.”

“Yes…” Not assent, but breathless urging.

“Yin became yang, Phoenix became Dragon. A moment of each being the other, while the entireness remained unchanged.”

“Li Fong, you really do know. When I was completely Phoenix, I had to have my moment as Dragon—what else could I become? For I had to change—that is the Law. When the Sun reaches the Meridian, midnight begins—remember?”

“All that, aiieeeyah, of course. But you are not like other women. There is something different. You’re trying to talk it away from me, but you can’t!”

“I am so real that a mantram can’t make me vanish. I so intensely female that I reverse and become Fire and Dragon. And my momentary opposite nature is stronger than your ordinary nature! Drink a cup, Li Fong—that is your penalty, before you drive me mad, drive us mad!”

She twisted, flipped herself, in a golden arc, landing poised on her toes. Balanced, Mei Ling whipped the brocaded gown about her, and parted the alcove curtains. Li Fong followed her to the table. Fresh lights had been set out. Incense fumed anew. The refilled wine jug was hot from its bath of water.

“Aiiieeyah, Li Fong, how stubborn, how persistent! Very well, I’ll tell you. My body is no different from the body of an earth-born woman, but I am different. I am fire, Dragon, and Immortal. And until now, never a woman you have known except she was earth, and mortal. You learned this in the only way, at the only moment when it was possible to know the difference.” She filled the cups.

Li Fong raised his, no more than half way, pausing to regard her.

“You said I could not lose. That penalty could be reward. Well, now, Dragon Lady, Jade Lady, Woman of All Women, now that I am right, tell me about the reward that could be a penalty.”

“Another lesson with that tao shih, and you’d be impossible! Tell me your thoughts on the matter.”

“Since I am totally mortal, the more you are my reward, the greater is my penalty.”

“For me, also. But think how much each would have lost, if you had not learned my inner and true nature.”

Li Fong laughed happily. “Cannot win. Cannot lose. As long as we stay here, where it is always now, I am immortal.”

She looked at him over the rim of her cup. “Old Master, you’ve not been wasting your time. Next time you see Master Tai Ching, kowtow three times. Tell me—have you really truly forsaken the Red Earth?”

“Master Tai Ching asked for nothing of the sort.”

“Odd, wasn’t it, how you crawled up out of the desert, and in spite of being starved and dying, you remembered the Soaring Dragon and the Dancing Phoenix. I’ve told you what I am—now tell me who and what you really are.”

So he told her, and their wine became cold as she listened. “Father would be sad,” he concluded, “thinking I had been robbed and killed, but he would be ashamed and embarrassed if he learned the facts. So, better for me to disappear from the Red Earth. He will adopt Younger Uncle’s son, my cousin Shiu Shen. Younger Uncle died last year.”

“That girl, Hwa Lan? What of her?”

“I do not know her as I know you. Nevertheless, I say again, I know she was honest.”

Mei Ling smiled. “You have no fear of mockery. That is very good. It would be so easy to blame a sing-song girl, or a flower-boat girl for whatever your stupidity brought. Now, this matter of being mortal. The Way of Fire is the only way to me.”

“The Way to you?”

“Yes. This tiny world of mine is real, but only relatively so, not absolutely real. To be here with you, I must have my reality partly veiled. For you to be here with me, your reality has to be, has been, somewhat increased.”

“Aiieeyah!” He pounced to his feet. He caught Mei Ling by the arms, looked at her as though seeing her for the first time. “Now I know—what happened to us—during a strange moment—”

“That moment will never leave you. But the Way of Fire cannot make you immortal. The most you can do is to risk the next step, and go with me into the next stage of NOW-NESS.”

He glanced about, as though seeking a gateway.

She said, “While you work in the garden, I’ll shape the next now.”

Her voice was a dismissal. Li Fong asked, “How find you again?

“I have never been away from you. So, after this meeting, could we be further apart? But your earth-habit, too wise ever to be sure of a female creature, is it not?”

“The Way of Fire may burn that out of me.”

Mei Ling turned to a lacquered cabinet. From it she took an embroidered pouch, opened and thrust into it several jewels which she gathered from the drawer. “Sapphire and rubies,” she said, “to keep the gold company,” and thrust the treasure into his hand. “This will remind you that no mantram can ever make me vanish—that there is reality between us.”

Mei Ling nudged him toward the brocaded curtains. “Many ways into our little world, and many a way out of it, Breathe deeply as you leave—exhale a reminder of me, into your world.” Li Fong’s merging with the boundary was as incomprehensible in departure as it had been when he entered.

He walked in cold moonlight, near the pool in the monastery garden. He had an embroidered pouch, amazingly heavy for its size. Sweetness lingered in his nostrils. When he licked his lips, the cosmetic taste assured him that this was no hallucination. Whatever treasure a sleepwalker might have found in his prowlings, a smudge of lipstick was impossible.

Li Fong looked up. What he still termed, in his mind, “last night,” had been lighted by a full moon. Now the frail sliver of a new moon was rising.

He was still grappling with his perplexity when Master Tai Ching emerged from the dark entrance of the monastery.

“The people of the Red Earth enjoy Moon watching,” the tao shih remarked. He listened to Li Fong’s none too coherent queries and statements, then resumed, “That is the new Moon, and you did surely quit this place under a full Moon. That you still fancy that you left ‘last night’ is illusion. Harmless, of course, yet, error.”

“I apologize for rudeness. I intended nothing of the sort.”

Li Fong would have kowtowed, but Tai Ching prevented him. “Please desist. I am neither your father nor your teacher.”

“Venerable Sir, I deserve this dismissal.”

“This is not the sort which you have in mind,” Tai Ching said. “This is recognition. Your return with the perfume of the Dancing Phoenix tells me that you have taken a step along the Way of Fire. She will lead you as far as you dare go.”

“Venerable Sir, there is more than I understand.”

“The Dragon Lady will clarify.”

“But the Way of Fire—is there a point of no return?”

“In this respect, and I know not how much more, your experience has gone further than mine. If you vanish, and I do not see you again, I must conclude that there is such a point.

“Meanwhile, you are welcome to stay here. I cannot accept any of the gold in that purse. Each day, you must work to earn your food.”

The tao shih bowed, and left Li Fong to examine, by the candlelight of the shrine, the rubies and sapphires from the land of the southern savages, the Indian mohurs, and the staters stamped with the head of Flavius Claudius Julianus, Emperor of the Western Barbarians…and gold coined by earlier monarchs…

CHAPTER V.

Whether because of fancy, or out of necessity, Mei Ling waited until the full moon to seek Li Fong. This time, she led the way into her world of everlasting now.

“Sing-Song Girl, or Dancing Phoenix?” he quipped, as she made her way into the reception room.

“We’ll be all things, all at once, Old Master. And you’ve brought the gold and the trinkets back with you—you knew, surely, that I offered them as a gift, and not a proving that you and I had met?”

“Your gift raised questions.”

“Wine game riddles, with penalties?”

Her brows rose, and her smile matched the sweet mockery of her voice. He shook his head. “While you’re still all stately, with your tall headgear, tell me things, before my understanding begins to dance and go wild, or falls on its face. Master Tai Ching says that he can teach me nothing about the Way of Fire.”

“Aiieeeyah! So, he knows?”

“He knew, before I spoke.”

The spray of peacock plumes swayed as Mei Ling nodded. “So, you don’t know whether to study in the monastery, or to come here and take the Way?”

“Yes.”

“Those who quit the Red Earth before they are truly ready sometimes have their regrets.”

“They cannot return?”

“You mean, whether you could not return.” Without waiting for assent, Mei Ling continued, “Was it more difficult to enter, this time, than the first?”

“It was easier.”

“Then?”

“I didn’t find my own way. You came to guide me.”

She smiled tantalizingly. “You’re not sure but what I might through forgetfulness, indifference, leave you tramping the dust of the Red Earth, no longer belonging there, but not able to return to the Land of Fire.”

“Jade Lady, this is not bargaining,” he protested. “This is not distrust of you.”

“All you want is to know what you’re about to do?”

“Of course.”

“Fire,” she flashed back at him, “is knowing without reason! Without thought. Without clod-like intellect!”

He got to his feet. “Dragon Lady, I bow three times. I am a clod of the earth.”

“With one tiny spark which knows! Tell me, Li Fong, why is all this?”

He slapped the embroidered purse to the table.

“With this, I could repay my father for all that I cost him, just to benefit a thief. There is sufficient more to buy land, so that he could establish the family, before he dies. I am sure he has already adopted my cousin, Shiu Shen, to pay funeral respects when the time comes. And it is said that the seven generations just past are ennobled, when a son quits the Red Earth.”

“Aiiieeeyah! Inimitable Li Fong! Becoming half-immortal, and sleeping with me to the weariness, in a world without day or night or time, this will make seven generations of ancestors happy?” She sighed, shook her head, but could not keep her eyes from mocking him. “That would make them envious—unhappy!”

“Penalty! Drink one cup! Only the male ancestors would be envious.”

“You learn, you learn,” she conceded, and moved to the doorway. “See, how lovely-strange the lake!”

Pulsing fire towered without limit. The golden ruddy column became greenish and then clear blue. It expanded until the coping of the tiny lake was in the purple heart. Mei Ling’s lips moved. She made an invocatory gesture. The color changed, until it became—to say white would have been an absurdity, yet to have called it colorless, nonsense equally devoid of meaning.

Wave after wave of heat billowed against Li Fong, yet his garment did not scorch or smolder, nor did hair or eyelashes curl or smoke. Mei Ling ceased intoning the mantram which came to him, clean out, resonant as a war drum, and also, no more than a whisper. She shaped a final mudra.

And, “Svaha!” The pagoda of white-colorless fire stabilized.

Li Fong flipped off his sandals.

“This is the test?”

She nodded. The plume-sprays wavered.

He turned his back to the silent strange flame whose immeasurable heat did not consume.

“Do you lead—do I lead—or do I go alone?”

She regarded him with eyes inscrutable, dark and deep as the gulfs between stars. Whether challenge—warning—or benediction, he could not tell. When, finally, she said, “Li Fong, this is no wine game,” he knew that he was on his own. He had neither an ally, nor any second chance.

Deliberately, he took off her headdress. He unfastened the loops of her tunic, and plucked it, so that it crumpled about her ankles. He nudged Mei Ling, and she stepped clear of the garment.

“Dragon Lady, you knew that I knew where your fire is.” He did not glance back, since behind him there was only a tiny lake, and no tower of elemental flame. “Nice riddle. No penalty.”

“Nice tunic,” she said, smiling, and retrieved garment and headgear. Then, as she went with Li Fong, “You know where the fire is, and you know its Way. No penalty.”

Darkness and brilliance came and went. When they awakened, Mei Ling would serve rice and bean curd with mushrooms, or steamed bamboo shoots and crisp water chestnuts. And always, after breakfast, the Great Book Room invited Li Fong. Learning the Way of Fire had been only the beginning of study.

Sometimes, she would bring tea and a tray of dim sum to the library, and hear him expound what he thought he had learned. Often, she would set him right, and they would laugh, and add to the score of penalties to be assessed at the next pouring of wine.

“Old Master.” Mei Ling finally wondered. “I am still far from sure how you learned the Way of Fire.”

He set down his tea cup. “Dragon Lady, there was no fear of passing through the flame. Why this was so, I cannot say. I knew simply that the attempt would have been no test at all.”

“Aiieeyah! Elegant, spontaneous liar! The way you did take, not too long after we quit the garden—that was an ordeal?”

She snapped her fan shut.

“That is not what I said. Do not make as though to slice my head off with the edge of that fan. The first time I entered the land of here and now you asked me things, and I answered. After many wrong replies, with penalties to match, I had learned more than I’d realized, at the time. So it came about as it did.

“And we were speaking, you remember, before I faced the flame? Speaking of those who quit the Red Earth, and of those who return to it and what might happen to them?”

Mei Ling sighed, spread her fan made a slow gesture with it.

“I remember, and I have been thinking. There is the Great Law, the all-containing Tao, which has its own order. Neither Gods nor Dragons can evade. At times, they cannot even foresee, and in their own way, they are helpless as any man of the Red Earth. Least of all could they help you upset your karma, the sum total of all the lives you have ever lived.”

“You have in mind, for instance—”

“Once it was your fate to be robbed. Once, you were taken out of jail to fight the barbarians in Hotien. What you did not escape, you may meet it again, and be snared. And what you did escape, it may trap you this time, without recourse.”

Li Fong hefted the purse of gold. “Maybe I’d not lose this. But there might be an army I could not desert.”

She recited,

“…not one battle famous in history

Sent all its fighters back again…”

“So, I should forget my obligation to my father, and stay here in the everlasting now?”

“No! That is not the way of the Dragon. I will teach you mantram and mudra to use against whatever assails, whatever traps you. This is not outwitting karma—you will gain only a postponement of it. The enchantment I will teach you is deadly beyond all imagining. I will not tell you its nature. If I did, you might shrink when the time came, fearing that what you set in motion would include you, and destroy you.”

She fixed him with eyes dark and smoldering. He endured her gaze as he digested her words. Finally he said, “When postponed karma is finally paid, the interest is heavy. But I accept that, too.”

“There is more, Li Fong. This enchantment can be used only once, so it should be reserved for uttermost need, and that can be a hard choice. Worse yet, that half-immortality you have won through the Way of Fire will be forfeited. The Great Law accepts no gifts, and it gives no bounties.”

Darkness closed in on Li Fong. Darkness and oppression extinguished all the glow which had built up within him. And when Mei Ling saw the inner blackness come to the surface, she said, a hand on his arm, “Li Fong, it is so simple to avoid all risk. Let me ride the wind, and give this treasure to your father. I will speak your message, and return surely. In this I cannot fail.”

“Teach me mantram and mudra,” Li Fong said. “I must do my own duty. No Dragon can do this for me.”

CHAPTER VI

Li Fong followed the Silk Road eastward. Better, he reasoned, to tramp the Red Earth than ride the wind. In the end, Mei Ling had agreed with him. If he came home with the Dragon Shadow hovering over him, he would be a stranger, not entirely real.

Along the way, he sold his sword, to buy food and shoes. Ragged and dirty, he would not interest bandits. He had only to evade recruiting parties.

As he neared his native village, he learned that the harvest had been poor: and the further he went, the more he realized that his homecoming with gold would be a blessing.

Finally, one evening, he came to the old familiar settlement. He caught the savor of dumplings frying over coals, and the aroma of meat spiced, skewered, and broiling. He followed the appetizing odors to their source, a portable grille, sitting in the alleyway between two shops.

Li Fong ate, and he drank some tea. Finally, after a good suspense build-up, he broke his surly-faced silence.

“Know where Old Man Kim lives?”

The peddler pointed in the general direction. “Know him?”

“Met his son in the army.”

“Which army?”

“Fighting in Hotien.”

“So Old Man Kim’s boy didn’t get killed and robbed.”

“Aiiieeeyah! Might as well have been, so far from home.”

“Wounded or sick?”

“Not too badly, but moving slow. So I said I’d give news he was on the way.”

“Cousin Shiu Shen won’t be happy.”

“How come?”

“Old Man Kim adopted him. Now you tell me, Li Fong is coming home, so Shiu Shen won’t be Number One heir. Li Fong will be sore, with a Number Two heir. Old Man Kim will give you a happiness present, but nobody else will be glad.”

“I forgot people gave happiness presents,” Li Fong grumbled, and took a few cash from his string. “Well, here’s some for you, in case I don’t see you again.”

The advance dividend brightened the peddler. “Maybe the bond-servant, the new one, will be glad.”

“Servant?”

“Could be a slave, don’t know. I hear the old man took her as part payment on a debt. Anyway, she doesn’t like Shiu Shen at all.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Nothing. Nice fellow. She’s just a fussy bitch and don’t want to sleep with him, and the old man thinks that’s funny, and sort of takes her part.”

That was just like the old man…

“What she like?” Li Fong resumed.

“Might be nice, with decent clothes.” He eyed the stranger. “Bandits making much trouble?”

“Not the way I came. I was busy dodging army recruiting. Been having much trouble with them?”

“Anyone your age better get out of sight by sunrise.”

Li Fong decided against waiting for the peddler to alert tomorrow’s market crowd, so that one of the servants would go home with a rumor about Li Fong’s survival. After all, when you’ve reached a certain age, there are no real shocks or surprises. You have had it.

So this was the Red Earth. Quicker he fulfilled his obligation and got back to Mei Ling, the happier he’d be, and riding the wind would not be fast enough…depressing mess…

There was a group not far ahead of him, coolies squatting on the ground, gabbling with another peddler: he featured sausages, judging by the pungent smell. When a yard or so from the palaver, Li Fong paused, and knelt, making a pretext of easing his shoulder by getting out from under the carrying pole from which his two packs of clothing and travel gear were balanced. And, he fumbled with the fastenings of his sandals.

As far as gossip went, or rumors of recruiting parties, this was a waste of time. However, Li Fong did get an unexpected dividend and it jarred him. What he heard was a casual reference to the year-name. Now, and for the first time, he realized that more than six years had elapsed since his mishap in the wine shop. This was hard to believe. It would have been wholly incredible, had he not recalled how amazingly long had been the interval between his first entering Mei Ling’s world, and his return to the monastery.

In a nearby shop, he verified the date. He bought paper, borrowed a brush, and ground some ink. He brushed three columns, rinsed the brush, and laid out some cash. The shop keeper declined the money.

“The moment you dipped that brush, I knew you were a scholar. I cannot let you pay for a trifle. Omitofu! Devils rule these times.”

Li Fong folded his writing, and went his way.

There was a new gate keeper at the old home. This helped a lot.

“Where’s old man Wu?”

“Died couple years ago. Who are you?”

“Got a message for the Master,” Li Fong said, and spread out the sheet of calligraphy.

The gate keeper plucked a brand from the gatehouse hearth, took a look, recognized the fine, formal characters, and reached for the paper. Li Fong drew it back. He dug up a tael of silver and said, “This is more than the master would give you—especially if the news is bad.”

“How bad?”

“Read it and see.”

“Do you think I can?”

“Neither can I,” said Li Fong. “But I think it’s about the son who disappeared several years ago. Look here, it’s late and they tell me it’s a good idea to keep out of sight. Spread me a mat in a corner of the court, and you get another tael.”

“Where’s the ounce?”

“Here it is. And you might hustle up a bowl of rice.”

“A few cash for one of the maids, and maybe I can.”

In a few minutes, Li Fong had a mat spread in the court where he had capered about as a child. Presently, a woman with a candle-lantern stepped from an inner doorway. She balanced a tray on her head. Seeing him in his corner, she set down the light and came forward with tea, a bowl of rice, and some vegetables. Without a word, she went back to her lantern, stood there until he picked up the chopsticks. Seeing that nothing else was required, she quit the court.

Li Fong had no chance to deliver his message. At the first alarm, early that morning, he bolted for cover. The splintering of wood, the yell of the gatekeeper, the screeching of servants, and the chattering of villagers gave him all he needed to know.

Bandits, making a sweep of the village, were closing in on the house of its most important citizen.

Addition after addition, expansion after expansion, had left many an obscure corner, many a hidden catch-all space, often very nearly like a room within a room. Li Fong had to get out of sight. He would be mistaken for the advance agent of the bandits, and killed by an unusually courageous servant. To declare himself, on the other hand, would be a disaster. He’d be seized, either as a hostage, or for ransom. Worst of all, the Dragon treasure was in jeopardy.

Invaders poured into the main court, and faster than servants and farm hands could escape through exits.

From concealment, Li Fong saw his father come out to confront the raiders. The old man wore a gray silk robe, and a black skull-cap. Li Fong could now believe that he had been away six years or more. However firm of purpose, his father was thin, frail, and shaky.

The bandit chief and two henchmen stepped forward from among their men. They went through all the forms of politeness. The old man parleyed: there was the usual bartering, proposal, rejection, and offer in compromise. He beckoned finally to an elderly servant, and gave an order.

The confidential servant quickly returned with heavy bags of silver.

“Where’s the rest?” the chief demanded.

“Two bad seasons in a row. You know that. And the tax collector got here ahead of you.”

“Sometimes he does and sometimes we intercept him.” The bandit ruefully added, “This one had too many soldiers to guard him. Now, there must be more than this to divide among my men—you see how many I have—these are hard times!—soon I’d have no band.” He grinned, rubbed his neck. “Nor even a head.”

“But this is all.”

The chief beckoned. A squad of burly fellows with bamboo sticks and lengths of cord came forward. No command was spoken. This was a well-organized party, with all details ordered in advance.

They lashed the old man’s wrists, neatly trussed him to the spirit screen, and set to work beating him. If they overdid things and beat him to death, there was the confidential servant, who knew all that the master knew. And he would not be blamed for his ready capitulation. He’d reveal every treasure cache in the villa.

Simple.

Efficient…

Li Fong came from hiding. “This is not necessary,” he said to the chief. “This man is my father.”

“You are dressed like his heir.”

The beating ceased. This was interesting.

“I am an army deserter. Like many of you.” He dipped into his grimy jacket and brought out the purse. “I bring ransom from Hotien, from the dog-fornicating Turks.” He poured gold and rubies and sapphires on the paving. “You and I, civilized persons, can agree on this.”

The chief watched one of his men collect the gleaming loot.

“The army didn’t capture Hotien, but wherever you got all this, you did very well.”

“You accept my present?”

“Aaiieeyah! This is generous.” He spoke to the strong-arm squad. They released the old man. He gestured to the others, and they filed from the court. He paused long enough to bow, and to say, “Next year, I promise you, I will not loot your house.”

CHAPTER VII

Li Fong knelt before his father, and three times touched his forehead to the tiles. The old man extended his hand, and Li Fong arose.

“Those jewels—that gold—man, where did you get the stuff?”

Li Fong smiled. “Cousin Shiu Shen, that is as surprising as this business of a maid not wanting to sleep with a fellow as good looking as you are. Now, the food and wine—” Before that was well started, there came wails of misery from outside, the voice of crushing dismay. House servants were coming back. Villagers followed. Some pointed at Li Fong, and cried, “He can help us. He dealt with the bandits—great bags of gold—”

Li Fong caught his cousin’s arm. “What’s all this?” And he got it: the bandits were going to loot the granaries, and, worst of all, take the seed grain, too. Those who could not migrate to a province which had a good crop would stay and starve.

“Those turtle-fornicators,” Li Fong said, bitterly. “I talked to them, as one deserter to another!”

“Son, this is all beyond believing. One of the servants told me a strange story last night. I did not believe her.”

“What I have to tell you is also beyond belief.”

“No, don’t tell me a thing until you’ve eaten, until you’ve bathed, until you’ve rested. You look starved. Yes, and let your cousin get you something to wear. Drink a few bowls of wine.”

“Father—”

“Do as I tell you.”

The old man stalked out of the courtyard. He looked younger already. He was steadier on his feet.

Li Fong eyed his cousin Shiu Shen. Greetings were fraternal, but less than ebullient.

“No doubt Father adopted you. Relax. I am not here to push you out. I’m very likely to go back to where I came from.” He darted to the gate house.

Cousin Shiu Shen caught his arm. “Don’t be a fool! They might have taken your gold and still beaten Father to death.”

“Better flog him to death than starve him!” He shook off Shiu Shen’s grasp. “I am telling those sons of female devils a thing or two, and they’ll never forget it.”

He shouldered his way through the milling pack of farmers, servants, villagers, “Quit your screaming! Where is all this going on?” They pointed to granaries built after Li Fong left town.

They followed him, but at a distance. This relieved some of his apprehension.

The bandits were well organized. They had a wagon train. They had a caravan of pack animals. By putting enough grain in storage, they could sell it, later, at famine prices: it would be as approach. The sun dimmed, as though beclouded. The three bandits noted these phenomena. They ceased their talk about the strange actions of the demented villager, and looked up.

Li Fong approached the chief and his two assistants. They regarded him with interest.

“Honorable Sir,” he began, “Distinguished Lords—possibly I could induce you to desist. Many will starve.”

“They should keep and eat their buffalos,” the chief said.

“Some do not have Your Excellency’s foresight,” Li Fong patiently pointed out. “I respectfully suggest that you take no more than half.”

“Please elaborate?”

“Leave all the seed grain. If you take all that’s in the granary, the starving will eat the seed grain now. Then comes total famine.”

“Accurate observation,” the chief conceded. He hefted a familiar brocaded purse, jingled it. “What inducement do you offer?”

Li Fong kowtowed. “The purse in Your Honor’s hand is all that I had. I beg of you, let these people live. Come back two seasons hence. There will be more for you to take. This is the way of civilized folk.”

“You are persuasive. But my men and I are doing dangerous work. We are not inclined to consider the future. Tomorrow, each may be secured to a stout frame, and sliced a slow thousand cuts. Or, one of us may be sitting on the Dragon Throne.

“You are amiable, appealing, quick-witted, a man of character. Sir, I respectfully suggest that you join us. I promise we will spare your village.”

Li Fong got up from his knees. He brushed dust and chaff from his forehead. “I have been away six years. My father would not be pleased if I left to become a bandit.”

He retreated three paces, and bowed.

He retreated another three paces, and bowed again.

He retreated a third time, a like distance, and said, “Sir, I beg leave to depart. Thank you for hearing me.”

The courteous chieftain bowed.

Li Fong, glancing about as he withdrew somewhat further, noted those who had followed him. He gestured, and hoped that they would retreat. He hoped that Mei Ling had not exaggerated…

There was one who, instead of joining in the retreat, was approaching him. She wore the dress of a peasant, and her complexion was that of a farm woman—but there was no way to disguise Mei Ling.

“Dragon Lady, you came to help me?”

“That is forbidden. I am here to wish you well. And to see you do what must be done. Without fear, without anger, without pity.”

Li Fong raised his arms. Never before had he combined the sound, the cadence, and the gestures. The First staging had to be perfect: mantramic words which had no meaning; the tone, which no untrained throat could shape; and the mudras, which only practiced hands could make.

The chief and his two henchmen were well away from those working at the granary. Curiously, and with a measure of interest, they regarded Li Fong, and his odd doings.

Apart from his own voice, Li Fong perceived other sounds: a curious whirring, a whispering as of a desert sandstorm’s. A misty shape swooped down, circling the trio. The mist became a cloud. As the spirals tightened, the cloud became more dense. The three thus enclosed were startled. They eyed each other, perplexedly.

Li Fong’s voice rose. His gestures became ever more stately. The bandits, now hemmed in, sought to rejoin their men. This they could not do. They began to strike and claw and lunge, but it was as though they hurled themselves against barriers of stone.

The spirals were dragon coils. Scales gleamed. Teeth glistened. Claws twinkled. The monstrous form began to glow. There was a tremendous roaring as a column of Fire reached from earth to mid-heaven. The bandits busy at the granaries quit their wains and ran for the nearest horizon.

The fire subsided. The dragon coils faded, leaving ash, and molten gold. The rubies and sapphires had endured the heat.

Li Fong said, “Dragon Lady, if I’d known, I don’t think I could have done this thing. My first, and my final magic. And that half-immortality you helped me win, I’ve lost that.”

“But no bandit or tax collector will ever loot this village again,” Mei Ling told him. “And, all you’ve lost was your fraction of immortality. We can ride the wind back to my home.”

The people were recovering from their awe. Li Fong’s father was hobbling along, the elderly servant following.

Li Fong sighed. “Dragon Lady, these are my own people, as they never were before. In your land of here and now, there’d be a few sleepings together and studyings together, and I’d come to the end of my mortal lifetime, before it fairly started.”

“I didn’t foresee this,” Mei Ling said. “I saw only that there was a risk. And from this which has happened to us, you know that Dragon Folk also have their sadness.” She pointed as the people came nearer. “See that one over there? In the dress of a servant? That one is your Hwa Lan.”

Recognition grew. No cosmetics. No gleaming silks. No jewels. No lute. But, beyond any doubt, Hwa Lan, the sing-song girl. “But—how—what—this is—”

“She is really as honest as you told me. I learned this, last night. In a little more than five years, she bought her contract. She told your father what had happened, and offered herself as a bond-maid to prove her good faith. He was free to keep her as a slave, or sell her to recoup some of his loss.”

Mei Ling beckoned, and Hwa Lan came nearer. “Go, Li Fong—” She nudged him. “Always, the Dragon’s Shadow protects you and her. Don’t look back. I ride the wind alone, to my own land.”

“Dancing Phoenix—” Li Fong choked back the words. For a moment, he stood in a circle of aloneness, in the vacancy made by her departure. Then he stepped into the Red Earth, and faced Hwa Lan.

“Last night,” she said, “you didn’t recognize me, and no wonder! Each time we meet, I’m a slave.”

He turned, and pointed to the scorched circle.

“I still don’t know what happened,” Li Fong said. “Wasn’t lightning, but surely fire from Heaven. The strangest thing—the bandit chief and two of his men, burned to ashes. Now, when the gold they had is cool enough to pick up, I’ll buy your contract, and we’ll find you a new lute.”

“And something to wear, and a bronze wine jug,” she said, happily. “Just like it was when we met. And I’ll sing of the Uttermost West, and the Mountain of the Gods—”

“Hwa Lan— Jade Lady—” He sighed, looked far away, and then shifted his glance to meet her glowing eyes. “Songs of the Red Earth are much better.”