Shadow Sister (2 page)

“Kai! There’s a scorpion. Catch it!”

The dragon moved his head slowly from side to side. “I will not.”

Tao was sorry to disturb the creature, but he managed to trap the scorpion under the melon gourd he used as a bowl. While he was wondering what to do next, the creature had escaped and stung him. Kai came to Tao’s rescue and squashed the scorpion with a large stone. The dragon consented to taste it. After he roasted it over the coals, he actually enjoyed eating the scorpion, and added it to his list of favourite delicacies.

The scorpion bite made Tao sick for three days. He accepted that it was karma for killing the creature.

Snake tongue was even more difficult to locate. Kai felt a kinship to all scaly creatures, and wouldn’t kill a snake. Tao couldn’t contemplate killing one himself. It was by chance that they startled a hawk in the process of eating a small snake. The bird flapped away and dropped his meal. Tao was relieved that he wasn’t responsible for the snake’s death. He cut out the dead reptile’s tongue and Kai ate it raw. Since small creatures like scorpions and snakes were so difficult to catch, Tao was very glad that they didn’t need to capture a tiger for its blood.

The previous night, Tao had made Kai eat the cockroaches as the next phase of the experiment and now Kai was still groaning about their effects on his stomach. Tao tried to take the dragon’s mind off the pain.

“You haven’t recited a poem for a while,” he said.

“You do not like my poetry.”

“It’s improving,” Tao said, though he didn’t mean it.

Tao had grown tired of Kai’s riddling and one day, after twenty-five riddles in a row, he’d put his fingers in his ears and refused to listen to another one, let alone answer it. Kai had sulked for a
li
or two and then started reciting poetry of his own composition.

Kai didn’t need a lot of encouragement now.

“When my insides ache

And make a gurgling sound
,

The contents spurt

All over the ground.”

Tao could have been critical about the metre of the poem, not to mention the subject, but he kept his thoughts to himself.

Kai stopped walking again. “I need sweetie berries to settle my stomach.”

“I’ll search for some wolfberries if we can keep walking until sunset.”

Kai reluctantly trudged up the mountain track, groaning as he went. Tao tried to do some walking meditation to distract himself from his blistered feet and aching calves, but his meditation skills had deserted him. This wasn’t the life he’d imagined when he’d decided to go on an adventure with Kai. His mind was full of thoughts. What would they have for their evening meal? Where would they sleep that night? And, more importantly, where were they going?

Tao had spent seven or eight happy years being a devout novice at Yinmi Monastery, with the full expectation of living the quiet, contemplative life of a monk for the rest of his days. But then one night Kai had turned up at his monastery, and Tao found himself on an adventure, breaking every rule Buddha had set down for novices. He’d expected that the adventure would end, and his life would return to its normal measured pace but it hadn’t. He abandoned his dream of becoming a monk and left his monastic life to travel with a dragon.

Although Tao had failed to be a good novice monk, he was trying hard to be a good Buddhist. He still followed the novice’s precepts as best he could, refusing to eat the flesh of animals. He did now allow himself to eat after midday, and he’d given up straining the water he drank to rescue any tiny creatures living in it. He no longer wore monk’s robes and he didn’t carry an alms bowl to beg for food. As a novice, Tao had relied on the charity of others to feed him. Now he was learning how to forage for his own food, since Kai’s idea of a tasty meal wasn’t always to Tao’s liking. It had taken hours of meditation and much careful consideration before Tao decided that it was all right for him to sacrifice the lives of a scorpion and three cockroaches for the cause of saving Kai from pain and discomfort, perhaps even death.

Their journey had started unexpectedly when they fled from the monastery where the evil monk Fo Tu Deng was about to take control from the abbot. Monks were permitted only five possessions, and Tao had less than that at first – the clothes he wore, his staff, a vial of yellow oil, and a shard of purple stone. He was no longer a novice monk, but Tao had been determined to have no more than five possessions. He couldn’t survive with the traditional possessions of a monk; instead he would carry his own five unique belongings. He’d added a water skin to make up the five. Then he’d realised that he wore a wolf tooth on a leather thong around his neck. Instead of discarding it, he sharpened it and used it for cutting. That meant he had six possessions. And he needed to cook food, so he’d found a melon gourd and firesticks. The nights got colder and a blanket became essential. Nine possessions, not five. Then there was so much to carry; he’d woven a bag from willow twigs. Ten possessions, and that wasn’t counting his bark list and charcoal. It was not an auspicious start.

Tao had enjoyed their wanderings at first, letting the fall of his staff decide which direction they went, but his feet were sore and he needed a purpose. He wondered if he’d made a mistake abandoning his dream to be a monk for this uncertain life of wandering.

Kai poked him in the arm with a talon. “You won’t find any sweetie berries if you allow your thoughts to keep wandering.”

Tao ignored the dragon. He didn’t want to lose his train of thought.

“When we left Yinmi, you said we were going on a quest,” he said. “We’ve been labouring up and down mountains for weeks and I still don’t know what our quest is.”

“You did not like any of my ideas.”

“Hunting for bears because they taste good is not a quest for a Buddhist who doesn’t eat meat.”

“I had other suggestions.”

“I’m not interested in searching for hidden treasure either. I have no need of treasure.”

“I am waiting for heaven to suggest an appropriate quest.”

Ever since Kai had announced that Tao was a dragonkeeper, his dragonkeeper, Tao hadn’t known where his life was heading. His and Kai’s destinies were entwined, he was sure of that, but he wished he knew what being a dragonkeeper meant. So far Kai had been rather vague about what it entailed. The dragon had also said Tao couldn’t become a true dragonkeeper until he had accepted the bronze mirror that had been owned by Kai’s previous dragonkeeper – and by his father’s dragonkeepers before that. It was confusing. Tao was honoured that the dragon thought he was worthy of such a role, but he was only fifteen. It sounded like the job of a much older, more experienced person.

Somewhere to the west, on the top of a mountain, far from humans, was a place Kai called the dragon haven. This was where the other members of his cluster lived. Kai was the leader of that diminishing band of dragons, or so he said, but he had left his home when he became bored with life on a remote mountain top. That was where the dragonkeeper’s mirror was kept.

“We need a proper quest, Kai,” Tao said. “Shouldn’t we be heading towards the dragon haven?”

“That is where I am going. But it will be a long and slow journey. We cannot get there before you are ready to take up your role as dragonkeeper.”

“I am ready.” Tao didn’t mention the doubts that were nagging him. “I’ve left behind everything I’ve ever known.”

“Like a craftsman, first you must learn the appropriate skills.”

“Yes, but what are they? You haven’t told me yet. And how far is it to this dragon haven exactly?”

“No more speaking,” Kai said. “My stomach still hurts.”

That made no sense at all to Tao, but when the dragon wasn’t in the mood to talk, there was no point pressing him further.

Tao knew that he was descended from Kai’s previous dragonkeeper, a young girl called Ping. There were three characteristics that marked out a dragonkeeper – using the left hand, being able to interpret a dragon’s sounds, and having second sight. Kai had said that Tao was the first of Ping’s descendants to have the characteristics.

He glimpsed the drooping branches of a wolfberry tree not far from the path. There was one thing he had learned about dragons – they loved the fruit of the wolfberry tree. He pushed through the undergrowth to get to it. Birds and animals had long since stripped most of the tree of its fruit, but he searched each branch and managed to find a few of the red berries, now darkened and wrinkled. He found more that had fallen to the ground. There were mushrooms growing at the foot of the tree and he picked some for his evening meal.

“Here, Kai,” Tao said. “I’ve found you some sweetie berries.”

Kai took the berries. Tao was expecting him to grumble that they weren’t fresh, but he didn’t. He ate four and put the rest behind one of his reverse scales, and then set out along the path again. Tao followed him.

One thing had changed since Tao met the dragon – he had developed what Kai called second sight. The visions were difficult to unravel, like puzzles, but he had learned to interpret them – eventually. That gave Tao confidence that he really was a dragonkeeper. He hadn’t called up a vision since they left Yinmi. He didn’t want to squander this gift. For all he knew, the number of visions could be limited.

“I would like worms for dinner,” Kai announced. “I wish they were not so hard to find.”

“Worms are easy to find!” Tao was tired of listening to the dragon complain. He pointed at the damp earth. “You can see where they’ve burrowed into the earth.”

Kai dug holes in the soft earth, grumbling when he still couldn’t find any worms.

“You’re pretending they’re hard to find, so that I’ll do it.”

“I am not!” Kai said, digging an even bigger hole and flicking dirt into Tao’s eyes.

“You’re doing it wrong,” Tao said. “You don’t need to dig, that scares them off. This is what you do.”

He laid his hands flat on the ground. “You can feel them below the earth.”

“My paws are always in contact with the earth.” Kai was getting annoyed. “I never feel worms.”

Tao waited patiently with his palms on the damp soil. Before long worms emerged and Tao put them in the gourd. More creatures were about to meet their end because of him.

“Hmmph,” Kai said. “I suppose there has to be
one
thing you can do better than me.”

A few months earlier, Tao’s life had been filled with holy pursuits – meditating, transcribing sutras and learning Sanskrit. Now it was all about finding worms for a lazy dragon.

The sky was dark and heavy, the landscape was colourless and the sun hadn’t shown its face all day. Night had been reluctant to leave the land that morning, and all day darkness had been lurking not far away, eager to shroud the world again.

Tao didn’t have the energy to continue. He could see a rock face with a slight overhang not far away. It was probably the closest thing he would find to shelter that day.

“Let’s stop here for the night,” he said.

Kai didn’t object. He went off to hunt, while Tao did some meditation.

When Kai returned with two mice and a squirrel, Tao was sitting next to a pile of twigs and sticks, neatly set to make a fire.

“I suppose you’d like to cook those.”

“Of course I would,” the dragon replied, a little perplexed.

“Go ahead.”

Tao looked smugly at the dragon.

“Could you light a fire?” Kai asked.

“I could,” Tao replied.

“
Will
you light a fire?” Kai said. “Please.”

“I will.”

Tao reached for his firesticks. He was pleased there was more than one thing he could do better than Kai.

The next morning, Kai was walking slowly, head down, studying the path. He had eaten all the worms Tao found the day before. What the dragon failed to mention was that eating worms made him fart. Tao was keeping a good distance between them.

“Where are you going?” he said when Kai wandered off the path to examine the foliage of the undergrowth and low-hanging tree branches. “I don’t think we should stray from the path.”

“I will only be a moment.”

Tao was glad that at least the dragon was no longer feeling sick.

If Tao was a dragonkeeper, as Kai said, then his job should be more than running around finding him worms and wolfberries to eat, things that a full-grown dragon could manage perfectly well on his own. Tao had no intention of being a dragon servant. But if he could find a cure for the dragon’s iron sickness, then he would be worthy of calling himself a dragonkeeper.

Unfortunately, so far none of the ingredients they had tried lessened Kai’s reaction to iron. However, Tao noticed that they had other effects. Kai had stepped on a large thorn and had been complaining for days about how sore his paw was, but after eating the scorpion tail, the pain disappeared. It made sense that the other ingredients in Sha’s brew had some medicinal purpose too. The day after Kai had eaten snake tongue, Tao noticed that he was having trouble keeping up with the dragon. He’d concluded that eating it had given Kai speed.

Kai was still fossicking around in the bushes.

“Hurry up,” Tao said.

The dragon took his time, picking up some stones and sniffing them thoughtfully before returning to the path.

“You said you weren’t going to take long. We’ve been in this same spot for at least half an hour.”

“Humans are so impatient,” Kai said, as he finally set off again. “I was speaking in terms of dragon time.”

Tao followed him, trying hard not to be annoyed.

“Did you notice any effect from eating the cockroaches?” he asked. “Apart from the vomiting.”

“It is too early to be sure, but I believe that the cut I had on my tail is healing very quickly.”

“Cockroaches must have healing properties.” Tao was pleased. His hypothesis was proving correct. Each of the ingredients of the tigers’ blood potion had a useful effect on the dragon.

“I do not care what they do. I will not eat so much as a cockroach feeler again.”