The Dragons of Heaven (22 page)

“That explains so much,” I groaned. I didn't expect her to understand the meaning behind my cryptic statement, but her foxy mind snapped right to it.

“Long courtship, was it?” she asked with another sly grin, but I sensed no malice in this one.

“You have no idea.”

“And do you appreciate the results?”

I just smiled and changed the subject.

T
he next several
days were a slog, but I managed to make it through the informal conversations without insulting anyone, and I even managed to soften up some of the hard-liners. At least, they started talking to me instead of my belly.

Fang Shih, who I mentally referred to as Mr Dung Heap, took a particular liking to me. He took over Jian Huo's workshop, and I sat with him as he crafted dozens of little toys and trinkets for the children: schools of sunset-hued carp and phalanxes of hard-shelled turtles, a miniature army and a palace for them to guard. I anticipated a lot of hopping and cursing in my future when I ended up stepping on the tiny wonders.

While he worked, he made it his personal mission to drill me in my addresses. Every so often he would repeat my “dung heap” mistake and roar in what passed as laughter for him. We even made a game of his instruction, figuring out ways to mispronounce the honorifics so that they became horribly insulting. The realization that I was a diphthong away from calling Tiger a mangy, fig-eating herbivore did wonders for my pronunciation.

Si Wei and I also became good friends, much to Jian Huo's dismay. At first I paid some heed to his dire warnings that fox-women, Si Wei in particular, couldn't be trusted – that her friendship was a pretense for some other design. But I'd developed some keen insight into reading Jian Huo, and I suspected that his reservations were just the normal reservations of a guy who didn't want his current girl talking to his ex. It was cute in a normal kind of way, and after the first few dire frowns, I just smiled away his surly warnings, kissed him on the cheek, and waddled off to gossip with my new girl-pal.

I was more on my game by the time the Great Spirits arrived. I still suffered cramps, and I felt like a cow, but with several more allies in my corner I was able to greet our newcomers with gracious equanimity.

It was a good thing too, since I had to greet the other Guardians of China. Feng Huang was the Phoenix, Guardian of the South. Greeting her was easy enough since she was a regular visitor. I could navigate my awe at being in the presence of such a majestic creature. Lao Hu was the Tiger, Guardian of the West. Greeting him was more nerve-wracking. I got the impression that he might eat me even if I didn't screw things up. Gui Dai was the Tortoise, Guardian of the North, and that conversation ended up taking half the afternoon. I had all the time in the world to mentally rehearse my response while he was making it through his address.

The weirdest thing was having to greet Jian Huo as Lung Huang, the Dragon Guardian of the East, since Jian Huo's eldest sibling had not deigned to grace us with his presence. The traditional words flowed, but a large part of me wondered what would have happened if I messed things up. Would Jian Huo have cursed my womb simply because tradition and honor demanded it? I thought about asking Si Wei, but I left it alone. I didn't want to know.

Then there was the
qilin
. Viridian flames wreathed her slender body, and there was a wildness about her that diverted the eye, as if looking too closely, too directly, would send her fleeing. She woke my deepest girly-girl instincts regarding unicorns. I was ashamed to meet her in my pregnant state, even though I knew that Chinese unicorns didn't have anything to do with virginity or purity. I was reminded of
The Last Unicorn
, and Molly Grue's weeping accusation:
Where were you when I was new? … How dare you come to me now, when I am this!
For all that I was happy in my chosen life, meeting the
qilin
made me want to cry for the girl I hadn't had the chance to be. I never hated my grandfather so much as in that moment. I choked on my greeting; my eyes filled with tears. I was terrified that I'd messed everything up, but she just gave a delicate nod of her head and lowered her twin horns to rest on my belly: her promise that she would not forsake my children as I had been forsaken.

There was also another
huxian
, but this one was aged beyond time. She was Jiu Wei – nine-tails – and according to Si Wei, she was the first and most powerful of the fox spirits. Even with her advanced age, her amber eyes twinkled, and her silvered hair caught the eye of more than one spirit in attendance. I was utterly charmed by her, and I stayed up late into the evenings chatting and drinking far too much tea with her and Si Wei.

We were such a merry party that it seemed doubly strange that the morning of the seventh day should find us all so somber. After breakfast we gathered in the garden, as we had on the first and fourth days, to await our final guests. Nobody dared mention that it was an exercise in futility. Jian Huo sat on a bench near the entry gate, pensive gaze fixed on the mountain trail. I sat next to him, holding his hand against my belly. Not even that could chase away his gloom.

We waited well into the morning, the clear view into the far-below valley mocking our vigil. Our guests mingled uneasily, trying to show with their patience that they respected Jian Huo's pain over the great gulf that separated him and his siblings.

Finally, at no signal that I could tell, Jian Huo stood and walked away. The guests breathed a collective sigh of relief that the vigil was over. They began speaking amongst themselves. Si Wei ventured my way, but I waved her off. None of this was my fault; none of it was about me. Didn't ease my guilt any, and I preferred to wallow in solitude.

I gazed blindly down into the valley for I didn't know how long before I realized that a front had been building. Low clouds moved in to obstruct the clear view, roiling and rising at a much faster rate than was normal for a meteorological event. I stood, staring for a moment longer to make sure that I was seeing what I thought I was seeing.

“Jian Huo?” My voice wasn't loud, but the urgency in it silenced the low murmurs of our guests. He joined me, gaping down at the fog-shrouded valley.

Si Wei was at our side an instant later, her voice low and urgent. “My Lord, have you prepared her to greet them?”

“No. I didn't… I didn't think they'd–”

“Men!” She rolled her eyes in exasperation. “My Lord, without proper guidance your bride is certain to cause insult. I will offer myself as adviser. In return, you will forgive me the debt I owe you.”

Debt? What debt? This was the first I'd heard of it. I was also a little insulted that they thought I couldn't hack a few dragons. I mean, I handled my own just fine.

Jian Huo closed his mouth, considering her offer. “The debt you owe me is great. What you offer in return is small.”

“Yeah,” I piped up. “Plus, I've managed just fine so far. How hard could it be?”

They both regarded me as if I'd sprouted two heads, and Jian Huo had a look of dawning horror on his face. He turned to Si Wei with a desperate nod: “Done.”

T
he preparations
that followed could never be termed frenetic – they were too meticulous for that – but there was a sense of harried urgency to them. Si Wei was in her element.

First, she declared that my clothes and hair were too casual for such an occasion. I tried to argue that the dragons were only minutes away, but Si Wei shushed me and told me that since they had kept us waiting, it was permissible for us to keep them waiting. Si Wei whisked me away to my rooms to dress me, roping in Jiu Wei and Song Yulan to help out. Between the three of them, they lectured me thoroughly on how not to insult the gods knocking at our gate.

Thus it was that an hour later, swathed in brocade robes of green, red, and gold; red hair hidden by an elaborate headdress; face whitened with rice powder and features limned with black, I picked my way down the steps into the garden. My headdress wobbled with every step. I would have been embarrassed by my
hanfu
, but I was too busy concentrating on not falling down the long flight. Splatting at the feet of your guests was not in the standard greeting protocol.

At least I'd done this twice already. As Lady of Jian Huo's house, it would be my duty to acknowledge the new arrivals. Until I did they would not be considered guests of the house. Paying attention to Si Wei's subtle gestures, I maneuvered toward Lung Wang, the eldest among the dragons and the true Guardian of the East. Lung Wang had an agelessness that transcended gender. Of all Jian Huo's siblings, she looked the least human. Her face was a porcelain mask, her eyes deep pools of turbulent water, or maybe storm clouds chasing across the sky. I bowed low, awe replacing my nervous jitters. I'd grown so accustomed to Jian Huo that I forgot how striking and terrifying he had been on our first meeting. Now I remembered.

My fancy hat didn't go tumbling across the dragon's feet, which I took as a good omen. I parroted the lines of the formal greeting, and Lung Wang nodded her acceptance. I couldn't tell if she approved or disapproved. I'd learned to read Jian Huo, but my dragon was an open book compared to his eldest sibling. Whatever the case, Lung Wang stepped aside, and I moved on to greet Jian Huo's other siblings, so I suppose it didn't go too badly.

It was good that I had Lung Wang's acceptance, because my next greeting was to Lung Tian, and his disapproval was plain as anything. Everything about the Celestial Dragon was martial and masculine – in-your-face masculine. He sneered at my greeting, forcing me into more docile and feminine speech forms to assuage him. I got the feeling that he'd been hoping to get a rise out of me so that he could denounce me. Even Si Wei was bristling by the time Lung Tian accepted my greeting and moved aside for his younger siblings.

The next greetings were less fraught. Lung Jiao, the Horned Dragon, was rumored to be the most powerful of the guardians. He was also deaf, and he followed my greeting only by the shape of the words on my lips. He accepted it with the same, aloof nod as Lung Wang.

Lung Shen, the Spiritual Dragon, was the first of those I greeted to have taken female form. Si Wei had given me the gossip on her. She had been furious when Jian Huo had sided with my grandfather, and she'd been one of the strongest advocates for his exile, but in the intervening years she had taken a
laowai
lover of her own. Now she was in the glass-house quandary. While she wasn't likely to be giving me cheek-kisses any time soon, she was also not likely to give me too much grief. Lung Fu Cang, the Dragon of Hidden Treasures, was also in female form. I gathered from Si Wei that Lung Fu Cang preferred to be female. Both Lung Shen and Lung Fu Cang accepted my greetings with detached cordiality.

Lung Ying, the Winged Dragon, who often served as his siblings' messenger to the human world, gave me the first real smile I'd seen from any of them. He was double-take handsome – a younger, more roguish version of Jian Huo. Si Wei sighed beside me, and I fought back a grin. I wasn't the only girl around here with a thing for dragons. My greeting to Lung Ying lasted several minutes longer than any of the others because he kept changing the traditional phrasings so that we ended up bantering. It reminded me of some of my sessions with Fang Shih. With a rueful smile, I ended the exchange with a promise that we would speak at much greater length during the coming days.

As I faced my next and final dragon, I wished that the exchange with Lung Ying had lasted longer. Lung Pan, the Coiling Dragon, glared at me with undisguised hatred. Si Wei had warned me that Jian Huo had been close with his youngest sibling, and that Lung Pan had taken her brother's choice as a personal betrayal. Her youth showed in the way that she was barely able to make it through the greeting. She had no facility with the complex verbal manipulations of Lung Tian. She growled her responses through clenched teeth while the other dragons and many of the spirits looked shocked at her overt rudeness. Speaking with her made me feel years older than her, even though I knew that she was older by aeons. I tried to play down the severity of her rudeness, but I think she recognized that she had lost face in our encounter, and that she was in my debt for not calling her on it. It only made her glower more.

With all of the dragons greeted, I turned to the assembled guests to announce that the gardens and house were open for their enjoyment.

Before I could, a shout from one of the guests drew everyone's attention: “Another is coming!”

Oh, god. No.

I wanted to groan, tear out my hair, hide my face deep in my robes. “Another” could mean only one being: Lung Di, Jian Huo's fellow exile. Si Wei and I shared an aggravated glance. Jian Huo looked furious, as did most of his siblings. Only Lung Wang and Lung Jiao appeared unconcerned, and with Lung Jiao I wondered if it was because he was deaf and hadn't heard the shout.

Jian Huo and his other siblings strode to the gates. I wished I could just follow the old mantra of never getting involved in family quarrels, but the formal greeting period had not been closed, and I was the arbiter of such things during the formal greeting. Sitting this one out would be a catastrophe in the long-term. Lung Jiao regarded me with studied indifference, and I wondered if maybe he did know who was coming up the mountain and was waiting to see what I'd do.

Taking another breath, I called out in carrying tones, “Stop.”

Lifting my robes a fraction, I teetered through a startled throng, no longer quite as concerned about my wobbling hat. Everyone stared; even Jian Huo seemed to be looking at me as for the first time. I made it to the gate and looked down the path. Perhaps a hundred feet off stood a handsome man. Looking at him, I would never have guessed he was guilty of any of the things Jian Huo had described to me in our time together.