Shadow Sister (16 page)

Pema giggled. “He looks sweet.”

Sunila didn’t need to understand what she was saying. He was aware that she and Tao were chuckling, and that Kai was making his jingling-bell sound. This indignity wounded the
naga’s
pride more than the stings had wounded his hide.

“Can’t you give him some honey to cheer him up?” Pema asked.

Tao was about to fetch the honeycomb.

“You are treating him like a spoiled child,” Kai said. “He must learn that honey is precious and he can only have a small amount each day. Then you must wean him off it, until he will eat whatever food is given to him.”

“How are you going to explain that to him?” Pema said.

“Honey. Scarce. No eat.”

That was the best he could do with his limited Sanskrit.

The painful stings, undignified appearance and lack of promised honey made the
naga
most unhappy. He stopped making the whining sound, much to Tao’s relief because it was giving him a headache, and flew up to his nest on the wall.

“Now what’s he doing?” Pema asked.

Tao looked up. Jets of mist were pouring out of the
naga’s
nostrils.

“He’s sulking. Kai also breathes mist from his nose when he’s not happy.”

Kai was watching too. Sunila was producing more and more mist. It was thick and dark grey, nothing like the fine white mist that curled lazily from Kai’s nostrils when he was cross.

“I’ve never seen Kai make that much mist!” Pema said.

Tao could see threads of mist issuing from Kai’s nostrils, though he knew that he was trying not to. Sunila’s mist didn’t thin and drift away like Kai’s. It hung in front of the
naga
and collected into a cloud. Sunila continued to produce mist, but the cloud didn’t grow bigger. Instead it became denser, darker. The mist stopped streaming from Sunila’s nostrils, but he was still concentrating on the cloud, as if willing it to do something. It did do something. It rose a little and drifted away from the wall and into the compound. Tao, Pema and Kai, their heads upturned, watched this spectacle. The grey cloud stopped above Tao’s head. Sunila opened his wings and flapped them so that they clashed together in front of him, making a sound like distant thunder. Then he stopped. The air was still and heavy. Sunila let out a screech. Suddenly, drops of water poured from the cloud. It was like a heavy shower of rain, but it fell only on Tao. It lasted no more than a few moments, but in that time Tao was drenched. The cloud became pale and thin, more like Kai’s mist, and then faded away.

Tao stood there dripping. Pema applauded. Sunila seemed very pleased with himself, and Kai was trying not to look impressed.

“Can you make rain, Kai?” Pema said.

“The dragons at the dragon haven can make rain, but it is a long and exhausting process. It takes many dragons to produce a cloud that contains enough moisture to bring rain. Afterwards, we are spent and must sleep for several days.”

“Sunila doesn’t seem at all tired,” Pema said.

Tao sat shivering in the courtyard. Pema had wrung out his dripping jacket and trousers and spread them on bushes, but the weak autumn sun had failed to dry them. He didn’t have any other clothes, so he was wearing Meiling’s cherry blossom and butterflies gown, which only came down to his knees because of the strips ripped from the bottom.

“I wish I could light a fire,” Tao grumbled.

Pema was watching Sunila, who was flying around the walls, getting used to his wings, dipping and banking to one side and then flipping over.

“Look at that!” she said. “He can fly upside down!”

“We cannot let him fly around,” Kai said. “Nomads might see him.”

“How can we stop him?”

“We must lure him down and tether him,” Kai said.

Tao didn’t like the idea of restraining the
naga
. But he knew Kai was right. He fetched the honeycomb from the kitchen. Most of the honey had dripped out of it. He held it up and called out to the
naga
, who flapped down into the courtyard.

“Here you are, Sunila,” Tao said. “You can have this. If you chew it, you’ll get lots of honey.”

The
naga
took it from Tao. Kai found a length of rope and slipped it over the
naga’s
head. Sunila was too busy chewing the honeycomb to object. Kai led him to the goat pen and tied the rope to a strong pole.

“It’s a shame to tie him up now that he can fly,” Pema said.

“We have to,” Tao said, though he felt the same way.

Tao spent the rest of the day in the garden and was glad when it finally got dark and he could light the fire, dry his clothes and begin preparing the evening meal. He opened one of his mother’s jars of pickled vegetables, cooked some millet that he had found growing wild and steamed some greens. He also made a dish of stewed pears flavoured with ginger and honey.

He took the food out to Kai and Pema.

Sunila’s meal was the same as theirs, but liberally sweetened with honey. He ate noisily. Kai complained that the
naga’s
share of the pear dish was bigger than his. Tao enjoyed watching his friends as they ate the food he’d made, complimenting him on the flavours. For a boy who knew nothing about cooking, he thought he was doing a pretty good job of preparing meals for everyone.

When Sunila had finished his food, he started to whine and to pull at the rope around his neck. Tao went over and patted him.

“I’m sorry, Sunila. You must only fly at night when there is no moonlight.” Tao patted the
naga
again, before leaving the goat pen and shutting the gate behind him.

“Nagas must have exceptional weather skills,” he said. “Do you remember the sudden snowstorm on the mountain, Kai? I think he created that because he didn’t want us to find the bodies of the Shenchi villagers. I have never heard of a dragon making snow.”

Kai didn’t answer.

“And the hailstorm, when the nomads were attacking him,” Tao continued. “I heard a screech and a sound like thunder before the storm came.”

A large spider was spinning a web in a corner of the pavilion. It was an orb spider, as big as Tao’s hand, with bands of yellow on its body, and yellow stripes on its long legs. Pema refused to sit near it, but Tao wasn’t afraid of it.

“Why are there so many insects?” Pema said, batting away mosquitoes.

“It’s because my mother isn’t here. She was always ordering the servants to kill all the
wuji
, though she knew Wei liked them. Not so much as an ant was permitted to live.”

Tao turned towards the setting sun, feeling its golden light on his face. The mosquitoes flew towards him, circling around his head.

“And why are they biting me and not you?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps your blood tastes better.”

Moths started to gather around him.

“It’s you, Tao,” Pema said. “The insects are attracted to you.”

“Pema is right,” Kai said. “You refuse to kill insects because of your beliefs, and Wei got great pleasure from observing insects. They are drawn to you because of your
qi
.”

“No Buddhist would harm an insect. There’s nothing unusual in that. Insects are creatures of the world that work hard all their short lives.” Tao wasn’t smiling. “Ants and bees never think of themselves as humans do. They are always working for the good of their communities. They are powerful in their own small way, and they teach us a lot, if we take the time to observe them. I am sure I have been an insect in a previous life. We all have. We should respect their place in the world.”

“You love the insects,” Pema said, “and they love you.”

Pema lifted her feet off the ground. “Look! There are beetles too, all around your feet.”

The beetles were small and shaped like miniature shields. They had dull brown shells and looked like tiny monks gathering around him, eager to hear his words.

Kai’s jingling laughter rang out. “The insects are attracted to your
qi
– yours and Wei’s.” The dragon considered Tao for a moment. “This is your
qi
power.”

“Don’t make fun of me, Kai.”

Pema couldn’t interpret the dragon’s sounds. “What’s he saying?”

“That my
qi
power is attracting insects.”

“What is
qi
power?” Pema asked.

Tao explained the ways that other dragonkeepers had concentrated their
qi
and transformed it into extraordinary skills – strength to lift huge stones, ability to hurl things a
li
or more, agility that enabled them to leap across rivers. He told her about Ping’s power, and how she could make objects move.

“And yours is attracting insects?”

“It’s Kai’s idea of a joke,” Tao said. “Not a very funny one.”

“I am being completely serious,” the dragon said.

“I haven’t discovered my
qi
power yet.”

Several moths settled on Tao’s shoulders as if to contradict him.

“So you aren’t Holy Boy any more,” Pema said. “Now you’re Bug Boy!”

Tao didn’t like it when Pema laughed at him. He wished he could make objects fly across the room or lift heavy objects so that she would be impressed by him, instead of amused.

Was this really his
qi
power? An ability to attract insects?

Pema was chuckling. Kai was jingling.

Tao picked up his bowl of pears and stood up. He was still wearing his sister’s gown. They laughed and jingled louder. Tao stalked off to Wei’s room to eat in peace, slamming the door behind him.

Tao woke in the middle of the night as he knew he would. The moon shadow didn’t even pretend to have the same shape as the rock outside. It disconnected itself from the shaft of moonlight and moved of its own accord. It rippled and stretched and lifted itself up from the floor. It had depth and shape.

Tao tried to shut his eyes, but he couldn’t. He had to watch the moon shadow.

Gradually, the rags of moon shadow took on more shape. Some tendrils elongated and then twirled around each other, merging into two thicker appendages, one on each side. Others curled and twisted, radiating from a rounded shape at the top. Tao shivered. The resulting spectre looked as if it had a head with hair, and arms ending in long wavy fingers. Below, there was a rippling patch of shadow streaked with pale moonlight that resembled a billowing gown. The pieces of moon shadow kept drifting apart and reforming. Tao watched in horror as two circles of darker moon shadow collected on the dark head. They were eyes. The moon shadow held together. It had a human form, but it was transparent. The shadow eyes glared at Tao. He could no longer deny what he saw in front of him. It was a ghost.

Tao wanted to shout out to Kai but he couldn’t speak. And anyway the dragon wouldn’t have heard him. The moon shadow ghost seemed more solid, but as it drifted around the room, it passed right through a chair and a chest. He waited until it had drifted to the other side of the room before he ran through the shafts of moonlight and out into the courtyard. He leaped over the fence around the goat pen.

Tao found his voice. “Kai, there’s a ghost.”

The dragon didn’t stir. Tao pulled his beard hard.

Kai woke, indignant. “Why are you doing that?”

“There’s a ghost. In Wei’s room. Come quick.”

“You have been dreaming.”

“No.”

Tao kept tugging Kai’s beard until he got to his feet, grumbling. He refused to hurry. The moon went behind a cloud. By the time they reached Wei’s room, the ghost had gone.

The clouds had cleared by morning, and Tao didn’t want to think about the ghost and darkness, he just wanted to be out in the sunshine. To take his mind off the terrors of the night, he had to keep busy. The first thing he needed to do was check on Sunila’s bee stings and reapply the balm.

Kai was still curled up in his hollow, but there was no sign of the
naga
.

“Where’s Sunila? I hope he hasn’t escaped!”

The dragon yawned and stretched. “There is no need to panic. He was annoying me during the night. Before you were annoying me. He was trying to creep into my nest. I moved him to the stables.”

The stable door was open. Inside, a loop of rope lay on the ground among a colourful tangle of torn bandages.

“He
has
escaped!”

Tao searched the compound from wall to wall, but couldn’t find the
naga
anywhere.

“He must have flown away.”

Tao was surprised to find Pema up already, eating left-over grain and pears in the peony pavilion. She hadn’t seen the
naga
either.

“Perhaps he’s made himself invisible.”

Tao put out some grain mixed with honey, hoping that would attract the
naga
, but he didn’t appear.

“What exactly did you say to him, Kai?”

“I … told him he was a pest … and I may have said that I wished we had left him in the forest to starve.”

“What a terrible thing to say!”

“But he would not have understood me. He cannot interpret my sounds as you can.”

“Neither can Pema, but she can guess what you mean. Sunila can too.”

“He’ll come back when he’s hungry, won’t he?” Pema said.

When he hadn’t returned by midday, Tao asked Kai to go and search for him.

“You can shape-change. No one will see you.”

“What if he does not want to be found?” Kai said. “Searching for a dragon who can make himself invisible is a waste of time.”

“We said we were going to help people. We should be helping all creatures, including
nagas
.”

“He is free to go wherever he wants,” Kai said.

Pema went back to the servants’ quarters where she slept. Tao wondered what she did in there.

“This is your fault, Kai,” Tao said. “You’ve been jealous of the
naga
ever since we captured him.”

“That is not true.”

“It is. He has the power of invisibility and he can fly. You’ve been like a child with a new baby in the family.”

The dragon couldn’t stop mist curling from his nostrils. “You have been treating him like a pet. He is a wild creature in need of … discipline.”

“Well, if you won’t go and look for him, I will.”