Dragon Moon (13 page)

They were making good progress, but Ping still didn’t know where they were going. She didn’t even know the name of the place they were seeking in the west. Was it Rising Moon Village, or Prosperous Village? She hoped that it lay somewhere near where Danzi had written the name on the map. That was the only clue she had.

Ping decided to continue following the Great Wall west, keeping it just on the horizon so that they didn’t attract the attention of any imperial guards. When the wall turned sharply south, they followed it.

They passed very few people. Kai was quieter than he had been. The muscles on his legs had doubled in size, so his thighs were like the thighs of a tiger. The pads on the bottom of his paws were calloused from walking faster and farther than he was used to.

The landscape changed. They were crossing a dusty, yellow plain. To the west was a stark range of pointy, brown mountains. To the east, beyond the line of the Great Wall, and hidden behind low hills, was the Yellow River. At certain times of the year, the wind blew the fine, yellow soil beneath their feet into the great river, giving it its name and colour.

Kai kept glancing over to the low hills in the east.

“Can you see something?” Ping asked.

“No,” he replied.

One night Ping woke to see Kai sitting, staring at the full moon. His green scales were luminous in the moonlight as if they were made from jade.

“What are you doing, Kai?” she asked.

“Nothing,” Kai replied, but he continued to stare at the pale yellow sphere as if he expected to find some meaning there.

Each morning brought another uncomfortable, dusty day identical to the last. The sun was hotter now. Every day it shone down from a cloudless sky. The yellow earth was very fertile, but even the best soil is useless without rain. There was nothing growing anywhere. Ping’s mouth was constantly full of dust, which the horse kicked up in clouds as it walked.

They passed only one person—a merchant travelling in the opposite direction. His head was wrapped in a piece of cloth, leaving just a slit through which his eyes were visible. He led two camels piled high with goods that he was no doubt going to trade with the Ma Ren. He didn’t acknowledge Ping as he passed, but his eyes lingered on the horse.

After two weeks, a thin, straight line appeared on the southern horizon as if it had been drawn there with a brush and straight edge. It was the Great Wall. It had
stopped clinging to the Yellow River and turned west to march across the yellow plain.

“Are we going to return to the Empire?” Kai asked.

“Hou-yi said he had never heard of Long Xiang. I’m sure the place we’re seeking is within the Empire. Can you see the features that Hou-yi described—a small hill shaped like a resting camel, a dry riverbed, a dead tree with five branches?”

Kai peered towards the wall. “I can see the camel-shaped hill.” He pointed to the south-east.

“Good. Then it’s time to leave the road, head towards the wall and look for the hidden tunnel Hou-yi told us about.”

Later that afternoon, the wind picked up, whining like a miserable dog. It peppered Ping’s hands and face with sharp grains of sand. When she wasn’t fighting with the horse, she was fighting against the wind. She was losing both struggles. The horse took no notice of her commands and the wind blew gritty earth into her eyes. Ping pulled out the remains of her nightgown. Dust had seeped into the bag and the cloth was dusty brown instead of white. Following the merchant’s example, she wrapped the cloth around her head. It protected her face, but she was still constantly blinking away dust and grit. Now she had sore eyes to add to her list of discomforts. Kai kept his head down. His bright green scales made him stand out in the yellow landscape, but they protected him from the sand.

Once or twice Ping looked over her shoulder, half-expecting to glimpse someone ducking behind a rock.

“Can you see anyone following us?” Ping asked Kai.

“No, but even for a dragon it is hard to see through this dust.”

The mountains to the west had disappeared behind a curtain of wind-blown sand. Ping relied on the sun, which glowed an eerie orange through the dust, to guide her. The wind grew worse. Soon the dust completely blotted out the sun and Ping could see nothing. The horse refused to move, but Ping didn’t want to stop. She was afraid that they would disappear beneath the sand. She got off and led the frightened beast.

The wind didn’t die down that night. They kept walking until they were too exhausted to stand. They stopped and slept under the shelter of Ping’s bearskin and the saddlecloth. When Ping woke during the night, they were almost covered by a deep drift of sand.

By the morning, the wind had stopped blowing. The air was clear again. And the Great Wall was towering over them. If they had walked another two or three
chang
in the dark, they would have walked into it.

Kai stirred under his bearskin. “Don’t come out until you’ve shape-changed, Kai! We’re practically under the wall.”

The dragon emerged in the shape of Ping’s little brother. Everything looked bright and unfamiliar after being shrouded in dust for a day and a half. The wall wasn’t made of stone as it had been in the mountains. The builders had constructed it out of the earth itself, packing it down until it was as hard as rock. The surface of the wall was smoothed flat with clay so that it was impossible to climb. An arched gateway had been cut through the wall. Its name was carved in the mud bricks that formed the arch—Shabian Pass.

Ping looked around. “Can you see the camel-shaped hill?”

Kai scanned the horizon in all directions. “No.”

Ping peered up at the sun. “We must have strayed further west in the dust storm.”

There were three watchtowers within the space of a couple of
li
. It was nothing like the deserted stretch of wall that Hou-yi had told them to head for. Even though it was very early, imperial guards were patrolling the walls, scanning the land, and staring down at the strangers with the horse.

“The guards have seen us. We can’t look for the hidden tunnel,” Ping said. “We’ll have to go through the gateway. If they get too inquisitive, I’ll bribe them with gold.”

The guards at Shabian Pass looked more disciplined than the ones they’d seen elsewhere along the wall. They were wearing their correct uniforms, their weapons shone in the sunlight and they were pacing along the ramparts. Ping thought it was strange that these guards, who were even farther away from the capital, Chang’an,
were more orderly, more conscientious in carrying out their duties.

Ping led the horse to the gateway. A guard grabbed her arm as she was walking through. “Where’s your permit?”

The boy next to her was shifting and shimmering. Kai could only attack in his own shape.

“No! Don’t change back into your own shape,” Ping told the dragon. “No matter what happens.”

Other people entering the gate were showing pieces of calfskin with red seal imprints on them. The guard looked at the horse. It was dusty after their journey, but it was still a handsome beast, towering over a donkey that pulled a cart out of the gateway.

“I was separated from my family during the dust storm,” Ping said. “My father has the permit.”

“No one can enter the Empire without a permit,” the guard insisted.

“I don’t have one, but I do have this.” Ping pulled a gold piece from her pouch. It was worth more than the guard would earn in a year.

He glanced around, snatched the gold from her hand, hid it under his tunic and then waved them through. Ping and Kai passed through the gateway and suddenly they were back in the Empire again.

A small town had clustered around the gateway. The houses were shapeless lumps made of packed earth, like the wall. Everything was the same dirty yellow
colour. There was a smell of dog urine and rotten meat.

It was still early, but a few people were stirring, setting up market stalls and stocking them with wrinkled vegetables and fly-blown meat. Their clothes were nearly as dusty as Ping’s, so even they looked as if they’d been fashioned from the sandy earth.

Merchants and traders from other parts of the Empire were wandering through the market, but they weren’t interested in the poor quality food. They inspected other stalls which displayed gold buckles and felt saddlecloths, which the townspeople must have bought from the Ma Ren. Imperial guards looked down from the wall, spears in their hands, crossbows slung on their backs, watching every move the townspeople made, as well as looking out for barbarian attackers.

Being back in her own land should have given Ping comfort, but instead she felt afraid. She didn’t like towns. In villages, everyone knew each other. There was always an elder to speak to, and she only had to convince him that she had no plan to rob the villagers. In a town, people were less friendly—to each other as well as to travellers. There was no single person to speak to, and she had to persuade everyone she met that she meant no harm. And though townspeople almost always had more money than villagers, they were less generous. No one invited them into their home to spend the night.

“Not stopping for breakfast?” Kai asked. His nose had sniffed out the one stall that sold roasted meat.

“No. I don’t like this place. I want to leave as soon as possible.”

The horse didn’t seem to like towns either. It was pulling at the reins and whinnying.

Ping looked over her shoulder. No sooner had she passed through the gateway than the feeling that she was being followed returned. Just as she turned, she was sure she glimpsed someone ducking out of sight. Ping put her arm around Kai’s shoulder. She could feel his scales. It reassured her.

Ping saw a hat through the crowd that looked out of place among the dusty caps and headscarves of the townspeople. It was jet black, square, with beads hanging from each corner. Somehow the wearer had managed to keep it free of dust. Ping realised why the guards at Shabian Pass were so alert and well-presented—the hat belonged to a visiting government official. The official climbed the steps to inspect the guards on the wall. He had red ribbons hanging from his waist, so Ping knew that he was a very important minister. The guards stood to attention.

At the bottom of the steps there was a carriage. It was well-made and painted with a pattern of bamboo stems and leaves. A woman wearing a blue gown stepped down from the carriage. She looked just as out of place as the minister. She held a sprig of dried jasmine flowers
to her nose and a servant held an umbrella over her head to protect her from the sun.

“Pretty lady,” Kai said. “Like Princess.”

As Ping got closer, she could see that the woman, though older than Princess Yangxin, was beautiful. But she wore an expression of distaste and impatience that Ping had never seen on the Princess’s face. Another servant was clearing a way for the minister’s wife, moving the people aside so that his mistress didn’t have to touch them. Ping was intrigued. Why was this woman so determined to walk through the market, when she could have been up on the wall with her husband, above the dust and the smell and the grimy people? Though Ping knew she should be heading straight out of the town as quickly as possible, she found herself following the woman, pulling the horse behind her.

The servant led his mistress to a stall at the back of the market. Several merchants were crowded around the stall, but they stepped back to allow the lady to see. It was a stall displaying the most delicately carved jade jewellery Ping had ever seen. She remembered the Princess’s earrings and the jade hair decoration she had worn the first time she saw her at Ming Yang Lodge. How did such beautiful work find its way to this distant, dusty town? The stallholder had hung his wares on a length of string, so that his stall was festooned with jade earrings and necklaces. The breeze caught them and they gently brushed against each other. They made
a lovely tinkling sound that sounded like Kai when he was happy. The minister’s wife quickly purchased three pairs of earrings, two necklaces and a bracelet. Then she hurried back towards her carriage.

“Where does this beautiful work come from?” Ping asked the stallholder.

He looked Ping up and down, from the torn and grimy cloth wrapped around her head to the worn and misshapen shoes on her feet. Ping realised that she must have looked even shabbier than the inhabitants of Shabian Pass. The stallholder ignored her—until she pulled some copper coins from her pouch.

“The jewellery is made at Long Xiang,” he said. “Tinkling Village.”

Ping’s heart beat faster. She held out a handful of coins.

“Where is that village?” she asked as the man took several of the coins from her hand.

“It’s at the foot of the mountains,” he said, pointing west.

Since she hadn’t objected to the number of coins he’d taken, the stallholder took another. “I’ve never been there myself, but it’s near Xining. That’s where I buy my wares.”

Ping thanked him. “Did you hear that, Kai?” Kai nodded. “Tinkling Village. That’s where Father wants us to go.”

Ping saw a movement out of the corner of her eye and whipped around. She was positive she saw someone crouch down behind a market stall when she turned to look. The feeling that someone was following her was stronger than ever. The guards were striding back and forth on top of the wall, watching her. The town felt stifling. The horse didn’t like being enclosed in the street. It tried to pull away from Ping.

“Hey, watch out for that horse,” the jade seller shouted anxiously. “If it kicks my stall, you’ll have to pay for anything that gets broken.”

Just as Ping was turning away from the jade stall, she saw the minister making his way through the crowd towards them.

“That’s a very handsome horse,” he said.

Ping would have quite happily given the man the horse, but she didn’t want to attract any more attention. She bowed politely.

“It belongs to my master, Sir,” she said. “He asked me to fetch it from the stables, but it got away from me. My brother and I had to chase it.”

“Perhaps you could take me to your master,” the minister said. “So that I can check that he has a permit to import a horse from outside the Empire.”