Shadow Sister (15 page)

“So someone must have known that
nagas
were dragons.”

“Yes. One of the monks who brought the stories to Huaxia long ago. Perhaps one of those who founded the White Horse Temple in Luoyang.”

Using his few words of Sanskrit to communicate with the blue dragon, Tao discovered that he was indeed a
naga
. He had lived with many other
nagas
in a huge forest that had been home for so long his ancestors had sat at the foot of Buddha. In this forest, it rained often and the trees grew tall. Discovering these three facts took more than an hour of stumbling Sanskrit and guesswork. Tao tried to find out if the
naga
had a name, but he couldn’t make the blue dragon understand what he meant.

“I will give you a name. There are many
nagas
in the sutras.” He tried to remember their names. “Pandaraka. Samkhapala. Mucalinda.”

“Those names are too hard to pronounce,” Pema said. “Give him a simple name. What is Sanskrit for blue?”

That was a word that Tao did know. “Sunila.”

“That’s a good name,” Pema said.

Tao patted the
naga
on the head. “Sunila. That’s what we will call you.”

The blue dragon was unaware that he had a new name. He was more interested in the strange smells emanating from the kitchen.

“Kai’s been in there a long time,” Pema said.

When Kai eventually emerged, Tao told him that he thought the blue dragon was a
naga
. Also that they had given him a name.

“I think Sunila is an excellent name.”

“Is your meal ready?” Pema asked.

“It is.”

Kai carried out three bowls of food on a tray and proudly sat them on a low table. Tao lit a small oil lamp. Pema and Tao stared at the food. Tao moved the lamp closer to the bowls.

“There are three courses,” Kai explained.

“What are they?”

Kai pointed to one of the bowls. Tao peered at the watery grey liquid with feathers floating on top.

“Firstly, sparrow broth.”

Kai picked up the bowl and drank some of the soup. “Very tasty,” he said. “I first had this at an imperial palace in the presence of an emperor.”

Then he pointed to the second bowl. “This is the main course. I created the recipe myself – baked field mice with worm sauce.”

Tao could see the mouse tails and ears. Kai hadn’t bothered to skin them.

“And finally, fried cicadas.”

Kai stood back and waited for Tao and Pema to admire his creations. When they just stared, Kai pushed a bowl of sparrow broth towards Sunila. The
naga
sniffed it suspiciously, as if it might be poisoned. He wouldn’t eat it. Kai offered him some of the main course. Sunila licked the worm sauce off the mice. He ate one fried cicada and then spat it out.

Mist streamed from Kai’s nostrils. “This is good dragon food,” he said, though Tao was sure that wild dragons didn’t cook. “I do not understand why he does not like it.”

Tao fetched a jar of honey and spooned a little over the mice and mixed some into the remaining sparrow broth. Sunila made a chirruping sound and buried his snout in the bowls, eating everything.

“It is a great shame that you cannot eat any of this food, Tao, because you do not eat the flesh of animals,” said Kai.

He was about to fill Pema’s bowl, but she stopped him.

“Thanks,” she said. “I’m sure it’s very tasty, but I’ll leave it for you two dragons.”

Tao went into the kitchen to cook some vegetables.

Sunila was pushing the bowls around the courtyard in his enthusiasm to lick them clean. Kai picked up some chopsticks, delicately selected a baked mouse and nibbled off its head. He chewed it thoughtfully.

“I think it needs a little more salt.”

Tao needed a night of undisturbed sleep, but spending time with Pema had made his heart race and he lay awake. The moon was high in the sky and although it looked no bigger than a plum, moonlight flooded through the window, casting a soft shadow of the rock outside. The moon shadow was shifting slightly, rippling on the floor. There was no wind, even if there had been, it shouldn’t have affected the moon shadow. Tao shut his eyes but opened them again immediately. He didn’t like not knowing what the shadow was doing. Every tiny sound was amplified. There were creaks and bangs and a scratching sound.

Just as he was dozing off, a crash jolted him awake. The lamp next to the bed had fallen off the little table and smashed to pieces. He couldn’t understand how that had happened. Fortunately, he hadn’t left it alight or the spilled oil would have burst into flame and burned the house down. A night bird called, startling him and making his heart thud. He was becoming as frightened as a child.

Tao went out into the courtyard. He didn’t want to be alone. Kai was asleep in his straw-lined hollow in the goat pen. His scales glowed softly in the moonlight. He had tried to make Sunila sleep somewhere else, but the
naga
had crept up after Kai had fallen asleep and was as close as he could get to him without actually climbing into the hollow. The blue dragon glowed too, but not as brightly as Kai.

Tao understood how Sunila felt. He wished he could lie closer to Kai. A dragon wasn’t warm and cuddly, but even feeling his scales sticking into him would have been a comfort. Instead, he settled down on Wei’s couch.

Kai had said he would sleep outside so that he could guard Tao. He seemed to have forgotten that his hearing was rather poor. He slept so soundly nothing disturbed him. He didn’t hear the night birds or the howling of a wolf. Tao heard them all.

Darkness surrounded him. A current of cold air chilled his skin. He had been walking in the mountains and he had somehow wandered back into the underground passage again. Everything was black. He was searching for the glowing pool, but he couldn’t find it. The gust of cold air grew stronger. Icy fingers dug into his arm. He opened his eyes, expecting to see nothing but darkness, but instead he saw mist issuing from the nostrils of a blue snout only a handspan from his face.

Sunila made a sad sound. He was hungry, and had been prodding Tao with his talons. Tao lay there, relieved to have left the nightmare behind.

“Thank you for waking me, Sunila,” he said.

It was very early, and Tao still hoped he could go back to sleep, this time without bad dreams. But the
naga
was persistent. He grabbed the edge of the quilt with his teeth and pulled it off. Tao felt the morning chill on his naked body, and a dragon tail wrap around his ankle as Sunila tried to drag him out of bed.

Tao was fully awake now, and it didn’t seem like the
naga
was going to leave him alone. He got up and put on his clothes.

“What do you want?” Tao said.

Then he remembered that the dragon didn’t understand Huaxia. “Food?” he said in Sanskrit. “Grain?”

He wasn’t sure he’d got the words right, but the dragon’s blue eyes blinked at him expectantly. Tao didn’t know the Sanskrit name for worms, but in any case he had no intention of going out looking for them so early in the morning.

“Honey?” he said.

Sunila put his paws up on Tao’s knees and bumped Tao’s nose with the end of his snout. It hurt, but from the loud purring sound he was making, Tao knew he’d guessed correctly.

“You are doing very well with communicating, considering the small number of Sanskrit words I know. You deserve a reward. We can walk over to the orchard and see if the bees will allow me to take some more honey.”

Out in the courtyard, Tao almost ran into Pema, who looked like she was still half-asleep.

“You’re up early,” Tao said. “I’m taking Sunila to the orchard to get more honey. Do you want to come? It will wake you up.”

“I suppose so.”

Tao was about to go out through his tunnel.

“I’m not crawling through a hole in the ground and bramble bushes,” Pema said. “I’ll only come if we can go through the gate.”

Tao didn’t argue, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask Pema to help him lift the bar. Fortunately, Sunila ran ahead and lifted the bar for them.

Pema yawned. “He’s very different to Kai. Kai is like a dragon-shaped person, but Sunila is more like a very large blue dog.”

It was a lovely morning. Sunila was leaping through the grass, enjoying his freedom. Pema stopped to collect windfall persimmons. She handed one to Tao and he bit into it. The sun shining on the dew, the sweet fruit in his mouth and Pema’s chatter made the terrors of the night ebb away. He really had believed that he returned to the darkness and the ghosts were with him again. But that was a dream. Perhaps the moving moon shadow was a recurring nightmare that seemed real at the time.

He allowed himself to imagine a life like this – feeling free like the blue dragon – walking through the fields when he felt like it, growing his own food. With Pema. It was his family’s land. He had every right to be here. Couldn’t he be Kai’s dragonkeeper here just as well?

Tao went to the pomegranate tree and waited for the bees to come and welcome him again. They buzzed around him. Pema stood back, afraid that she’d get stung.

“They won’t hurt you,” Tao said as he reached into the tree hollow and broke off another piece of honeycomb.

Sunila was trying to take the honeycomb from Tao’s hand.

“You can’t have it yet. This has to last for several days. I can’t keep stealing the bees’ honey. They need it to feed the baby bees.”

Sunila tried again to grab the honeycomb, saliva dripping from his mouth.

“You didn’t say it in Sanskrit,” Pema said.

“Maybe not, but I’m sure he understood my meaning.”

He put the honeycomb in his sleeve where the
naga
couldn’t get it.

“You told him he could have some,” Pema said. “He’s been looking forward to it.”

“I’m punishing him for his bad manners. He’ll have to wait until the evening meal.”

Tao repeated the words in Sanskrit, to make sure Sunila understood. Sunila made sounds like tree branches creaking in the wind and hung his head and his tail.

“The smell of the honey is making me hungry,” Pema said. “Let’s go and have breakfast.”

They started to walk back to the compound, but a yelp made them turn round. Tao ran back to the pomegranate tree and found the
naga
shaking his left paw, which was covered with bees. Others were swarming around him, buzzing angrily and d iving at his head.

Before Tao could get near the bees to calm them, Sunila had started running. He made a sound like howling wind. The bees were buzzing furiously after him, the whole hive. He was frightened, and with good reason. If so many bees stung him, he might die. Tao didn’t know what to do.

Sunila stopped dead, stood up on his back legs and, to Tao’s astonishment, unfurled a pair of small wings. He flapped them awkwardly from side to side, and took off, rising vertically. The bees seemed as surprised as Tao and Pema, and didn’t follow him. When he’d reached a certain height, Sunila changed the angle of his wings, flew towards the compound and landed on top of the wall. They raced after the
naga
.

Kai was waiting for them at the gate.

“He’s got wings!” Tao exclaimed.

Kai didn’t seem surprised.

“Did you know?”

Kai looked away. “I have seen him flutter his wings before, but I did not know how close they were to maturing. This is his first flight.”

“You should have told me.”

Tao knew that wings were a very touchy subject with Kai.

“We can continue this conversation once we are inside,” the dragon said, herding them back through the gate. “Can I remind you that we are supposed to stay hidden, and yet all three of you are trying to attract as much attention as possible, laughing and strolling around the countryside, with that beast making a din loud enough to be heard many
li
away.”

Tao blushed. He had been enjoying Pema’s company so much, he’d forgotten all about being cautious. He was annoyed that he’d allowed himself to be distracted by Pema. Kai was right; he’d hardly thought about his plans to help needy people since she’d arrived. And he’d risked revealing their hiding place.

Kai replaced the bar.

Pema was watching the
naga
up on the wall. “What’s he doing up there?”

Bits of straw fell down.

“It looks like he’s making a nest,” Tao said.

“Not a very good one,” Kai added.

“Perhaps he feels safer up there.” Tao remembered his own experience in a dragon’s nest. “
Nagas
might nest on high mountain ledges, or perhaps in tall trees.”

Tao knew Kai was cross with him, but the dragon wasn’t entirely without fault. He hadn’t mentioned Sunila’s wings. That was Kai’s pride. Sunila had wings but he didn’t.

“Dragons don’t get their wings until they’re at least a thousand years old, do they?” Tao asked, although he already knew it was true. “Sunila must be older than you, Kai.”

Sunila flapped down from his nest. He had bee stings on his left paw and several on his ears, which had no scales to protect them. He was scratching the stings and making a high-pitched whining sound that was very annoying.

“I know they hurt, Sunila.” Tao was now wishing he hadn’t been so strict with the
naga
. “But you mustn’t scratch them. I’ll make you a bee sting remedy.”

Tao went to the kitchen and mixed crushed garlic with vinegar and honey.

Pema was watching him. “It seems strange that bees’ honey should be part of the remedy for their stings.”

“My father always had a jar of this balm for when he got stung.”

Tao dabbed some on Sunila’s stings, which were starting to swell. But the
naga
immediately tried to lick it off.

“You need to bandage them,” Pema said.

She went into Meiling’s room and brought out one of Tao’s sister’s discarded gowns. The cloth was beautiful, deep maroon with a pattern of pink cherry blossom and blue butterflies. Pema unceremoniously ripped strips from the hem and handed them to Tao, who made Sunila sit on his haunches and hold up his foreleg. He bound the colourful bandage around Sunila’s swollen paw. So that he could easily undo the bandaging and reapply the balm, he tied the strips of cloth with a bow. Then he bound strips around the
naga’s
ears. Sunila inspected his paw, now adorned with a colourful bow. With the other paw he felt the bows on his ears.