Heart and Soul (47 page)

“You don’t look right in those clothes now,” he told Nigel, and smiled. Then the fox-man looked toward Jade. “And you cannot wear British clothes if you are going farther into China to awaken the rivers.”

Jade nodded. The man showed them each to relative privacy behind some bushes. Nigel changed very quickly, afraid something would happen to Jade while he was separated from her. She must have had the same idea, because as soon as he came out from behind his bush, holding a bundle of clothing, she came from behind hers as well.

The old man took the bundles of clothing from them. “I shall send them to the Dragon Boats, shall I?” he asked.

“No,” Nigel said. “To the Hotel Victoria. It’s where our other luggage is.”

This won him raised eyebrows—though he was not absolutely sure what that meant—and then a stiff little bow. “Very well.” The man picked up the mirror from the table, and offered it to Nigel.

Nigel examined his reflection and was, at once, both surprised and not. It was not his face as he was used to it, and yet it was still his face. Had he had a Chinese brother, in every detail having Chinese features where Nigel had British ones, he would have looked like that image in the mirror. Nigel’s newly black eyes shone with the sort of lapis-lazuli shine that showed now and then in Jade’s, but other than that he was an unremarkable Chinese man. A little taller than average, perhaps, with features a little more chiseled. And his hair, which he had cut in Hong Kong, might now be black, but it retained its very short and fashionable cut, so that he looked like a Chinese man who patronized British barbershops. Which he supposed was not that unusual.

The elderly man was bowing before them. “Now go, my lady, my lord, and wake the rivers.”

With those words, he led them to the door to the interior of the apothecary, and from there to the street. The flowerpot horse remained tied where they had left it, but this time—unafraid of being seen—they pulled back the curtains of the carriage, so that as they drove they could have a view of Canton.

Jade still drove, since she knew where they were going. And besides, Nigel was far too interested in the passing landscape to be able to think of the reins, much less of this strangely fragile-looking animated piece of pottery.

Though he was fairly sure that Jade had said it was porcelain, the horse did not look like porcelain. The carriage must have been a late addition, because it did, indeed, look like glazed porcelain. White glazed porcelain, painted all over with little blue flowers, looking much like a vase that Nigel’s mother used to have in her receiving room. If Nigel remembered correctly, it had been brought back from China by his great-great-grandfather after a brief visit for either trade or war; at a distance of centuries, it was hard to tell. But the horse itself looked like it had been dragged through hell and war. It had no glaze left and it was clear that here and there its flanks and its head and its poor muzzle had been supplemented with clay of various grades and several colors. It could be a horse, and, in fact, Nigel was assuming it was, or it could be a goat or some other misshapen creature.

As the horse trundled along the streets, with various chair carriers and other such little carriages with ceramic horses, more than a fair share of pedestrians got out of the way. An opening appeared in the crowd amid a flowering park, and Nigel glimpsed a building that looked like the classic little pagodas made of cork or ceramic that people brought from China. This one, however, rose seven stories from the ground and ended in a pointy little spire. In front of it was a ceramic beast that looked much like the little horse—as though time and passing fads had changed it so much that it could be a camel or horse, or perhaps a goat.

“It is the Flowery Pagoda,” Jade said, seeing him look at it. “It is said that the Buddha statue within is a marvel to behold. Do you wish to see it?”

Nigel shook his head. “Perhaps another time,” he said, then realized what he had said and sighed. “I hope that if your brother—that is, when your brother wins his throne back, he’ll grant me a pass, so that I can visit China. For now, I want to do what I must do, and return the rubies to their proper place as soon as possible.”

Jade shot him a quick look and smiled. “I’m sure my brother will give you a pass to visit China,” she said. “We owe you much.” She blushed slightly.

Feeling bad, as though he were holding their debt to him over their heads, he said softly, “No, it will all be more than repaid if you allow me to see China. Remember, I used to dream of traveling and never thought it would happen.”

She smiled at him—a fugitive expression. They’d now climbed down the hills far enough that they were looking at the lowest street that ran along between the city and the Pearl River. On the river, in barges and boats and improvised rafts of different kinds, appeared to be another city—a floating one, but just as populous. From the look of most of the boats, Nigel wondered if they ever moved. In fact, they were so closely packed together, it seemed if one wanted to move, all the others must, perforce, be dislocated.

Jade drove along the waterfront, passing knots of Chinese businessmen engaged in conversation, and other strolling groups. Nigel was too unacquainted with the culture to identify most of the passersby, but he thought they looked more well-to-do than pedestrians in other districts.

From the boats on the water rose exactly the same noise as if it were another part of the city—turbulent and routine, filled with crying children, with screaming women, with calling men, with the noises of work and leisure.

Jade drove until they were at a narrower point in the river.

“I beg your pardon,” she said, “but I did not think we needed witnesses for this event.”

She smiled a little. “I have no idea how to do this,” she added as she climbed down from the carriage.

“If you are looking for guidance from me, I’m afraid you must be disappointed, for I’ve never, in my experience, varied though it’s been, woken a single river.”

She sighed. “We shall have to improvise together, then.”

As they approached the river, Nigel reached between the buttons on his shirt, and fished for the little leather bag suspended on a string from his neck. From within, he took the ruby, which, being cloaked, looked rather dull and dingy. He held it carefully in his palm.

“I suppose,” he told Jade, “we will have to uncloak it. And your power signature, too.”

“I assumed there is no other way,” Jade said.

“Well, then, we might as well do it rapidly.”

“Wait,” she said, and grabbed at his wrist. “You must know first that I expect us to be attacked by Zhang as soon as you decloack that ruby or very shortly after. He will sense the power and will come for it like a bee to honey. And if he sees my power signature with it…”

“What do you propose we should do?” Nigel asked.

“You? Nothing. Let me battle with him entirely on my own. Remember, I have dragon powers that more than match his dragon powers. I can defeat him.”

“But your powers of transformation have been destroyed,” he said. “By whatever it was the Tiger Clan gave you.”

“And restored by one of those pills I took.”

“Are you sure?”

“Quite sure. I could feel the magic returning.”

Nigel nodded. “Then I am going to pull away the cloaking of the ruby’s power now and you decloak your power signature. I trust you to call the dragon. Is the dragon the spirit of the river?”

“Yes,” Jade said. “The more ancient dragons had the power to call on rivers and to rule over rivers. They became…fused with the rivers, their bodies and minds and their magic a part of the river’s flow. If I understand correctly what the oracle told me, some of them became the rivers themselves, and as unthinking and mindless as if they were just a body of water. From what I understand, if my dynasty is to rule again, we will have to wake them.”

Nigel raised the ruby and, with his other hand, performed the minimal gesture necessary to pull away the cloaking of its power. In the next moment, the ruby glowed, its light shining forth and reaching into the river and through the river.

The water of the river, which had been a heavy, dull green—making Nigel think that the river must serve not only as water supply, but also as sewer and rubbish heap to the entire city—now glowed through with red light and became, itself, jewellike. It resembled the fusing of emerald and ruby, shining with a bright, interior light.

Jade seemed to have forgotten how to speak for at least a moment, and then took a deep breath, as though she were drowning. “Spirit of the river, oh ancient dragon, Grandfather and Ancestor, come forth from the depths to listen to the voice of Red Jade, sister of the Dragon Emperor, daughter of the Dragon Emperor. Your humble servant.”

For a long, held-breath moment, nothing happened. Then the water of the river surged, and waves formed. From downriver, where the concentration of boats was, they heard wood knocking upon wood.

And then, suddenly, it looked as though the waters of the river rose vertically—a tower of red and green.

Nigel dropped the ruby at his feet, and knelt immediately to pick it up. When he looked up he realized the tower of red and green was actually a glimmering redand-green dragon, about ten times larger than Jade’s dragon form, but having the same mischievous catlike face that all Chinese dragons seemed to possess, and a half-puzzled, half-amused grin.

“What do you wish, oh Granddaughter, that you have woken me from centuries of dreams, and brought a jewel of power from the other side of the world?”

Jade, audibly nervous, cleared her throat. “I wish, oh Grandfather, that you speak for me and for my brother and for my dynasty in the council of dragons, when it meets to confirm my brother Wen as True Emperor of All Under Heaven.”

The mischievous cat face grinned. “It will be done, oh Granddaughter.”

As it had appeared, it vanished, in a whoosh, leaving waves that denoted it had once more plunged beneath the water.

Nigel, his hand trembling, cloaked the ruby. But there was no one waiting, and they did not see any blue dragons in the sky.

“I wonder why not,” Jade said, as they resumed their carriage. “Surely we’ve left a wide enough trail for anyone to follow. And he knows my power signature.”

“Perhaps you wounded him so much that he had to go somewhere to recover?”

“I very much doubt it,” Jade replied. “Villains are never that easy to kill.”

PLANNING THE STRIKE

“Now,” Zhang said. He sat in a room in Hong Kong
and scanned the mainland with his power. “Now I can feel her power.”

But the colonel who had been assigned to him—and Zhang did not like it at all, for it proved that they did not trust him—shook his head.

“My dear sir,” he said, in a bored tone. “Don’t you realize they are waking the rivers? The river dragons would maul us all if we interfered with her now.”

“But then…” Zhang said, his hands clenching tight, “how are we to recover the other ruby at all?”

The colonel smiled, a slow, supercilious smile. “Well,” he said, “after they wake the rivers, as our students of Magic Tradition tell us, they must go to where the palace of Yu the Great used to stand, so that her brother will be confirmed Emperor.”

“Her brother will never survive the underworld.”

The colonel looked at his nails, as if they presented a fascinating prospect. “No, of course not. But don’t you see? That leaves us free to capture the sister and the British traitor. And then we will reward you.” He looked at Zhang. “I think you must find where the palace of Yu was, don’t you?”