“More than I can count,” I said. “And some are far larger than this. But you need not concern yourselves with that just now; I have something to show you.”
The governor’s menagerie was no miserable zoo, with animals kept in iron cages. Instead it was a series of beautiful gardens, with their bars, where necessary, concealed behind trees and flowering bushes. The most splendid of these gardens housed a pair of ci lêng, a species known in Scirling as the azure or eastern dragon; the latter name derives from their natural range, which lies in the eastern part of Yelang, and the former derives from their lovely blue scales.
Our Draconean companions reacted to these with astonished delight. Just as I had told them of the vast number of humans in the world, I had told them of other dragon breeds; and just as my words had failed to convey the true reality of humankind, so too had it fallen short of describing dragonkind. Despite my cautions, the sisters hurried through the gate and into the garden, where they sat utterly still until the ci lêng lost their wariness and came to investigate. There is no sight quite like a trio of previously mythical Draconeans sitting in a Yelangese garden with two azure dragons wending between them like curious cats; and in that moment, I felt as if all my suffering the previous winter had been more than worth it.
But of course we had a great deal to do, and not much time in which to do it. Nor, for that matter, did we have many resources to work with. The governor’s dragon-men were of course no help, as they were all loyal to the Taisên; and Tom and I knew perishingly little about the breeds of western Dajin, on account of having been thrown out of Yelang before we could study more than a few. But the dragon-men had kept books detailing their arrangements, which Thu translated for us, and from this we were able to learn the means by which they fed, cared for, and worked with their charges. Kahhe, who was the best of the sisters at training mews, shook her head over the latter parts. “Is that how humans do it? No wonder you can’t manage much.”
I grinned impudently at her, buoyed by my excitement. “Very well—let us see you do better.”
They set to it with a will, despite certain obstacles. True to Tom’s predictions regarding the mews, our friends from the Sanctuary were too well adapted to high elevations and cold temperatures; the warmth of eastern Yelang in Gelis was as punishing to them as the Akhian desert in Caloris was to me. Fortunately the governor, being a wealthy man, had storehouses of ice brought down from the mountains. The four Draconeans took refuge there during the hottest parts of the day, working with the azure dragons in the morning and evening.
But they pushed themselves to their limits, for Giat Jip-hau insisted on swift action, and with good cause. The Khiam Siu rebellion needed momentum; their victory in Tiongau could not be allowed to grow stale, or the Taisên to gather themselves to resist. The moment of truth was upon us before we knew it.
*
It came on a brilliantly sunny day. The last of the resistance within Tiongau had been defeated; in celebration, the Khiam Siu and the people of the city were staging a great festival. Despite the destruction wrought by fighting, the burned houses and the grieving survivors, a raucous procession wound its way to the plaza in front of the governor’s palace. There were drums and fireworks, dancers and priests, and an enormous puppet of a hong lêng, the dragon associated with the Yelangese emperor himself. This was carried by a whole crowd of puppeteers, and when I saw the puppet later, it reminded me a great deal of the legambwa bomu the Moulish had used to chasten me into shedding the burden of witchcraft, so many years before—albeit much larger and more brilliantly decorated.
I did not see the puppet until later because I was not standing with the soldiers on the steps of the palace, awaiting the emergence of Giat Jip-hau. I was with Tom, very gingerly leading a pair of leashed azure dragons through the corridors like enormous greyhounds, and hoping very sincerely that they would not decide to turn against us without warning. The ci lêng were relatively tame, as dragons went, but just as a cat or a horse may snap at its owner, so too may such creatures—with very injurious consequences.
The corridors, though grand, had not been sized for dragons. From behind us came a delicate crash. Tom and I both stopped, wincing. I cast a glance behind me, and saw that the tail of Tom’s dragon had brushed against a vase in an alcove, knocking it to the floor.
“Do I even want to know what that was?” Tom asked.
“As there is nothing we can do for it now,” I said, “perhaps it is best if we just continue on.”
We made it to the great entry hall without further incident, and stood to one side, where we could not be glimpsed through the towering double doors. We had not been there long when I heard the footsteps of a great many people approaching, and then someone saying something in Yelangese. I turned just in time to see a Khiam Siu captain wipe the floor with a silk drapery, clearing away a souvenir left behind by one of the dragons before his emperor could step in it.
“Oh dear,” I said involuntarily. “I, ah—my apologies.”
If the incident troubled Giat Jip-hau, he did not show it. Perhaps his mind was so occupied by the impending ceremony that it simply could not accommodate any new sources of agitation; certainly mine would have been. He merely said, “Will it work?”
“I believe so,” I said. Then, because that was clearly insufficient: “Yes.” I prayed it was true.
He answered with a brief nod, and his entourage swept past us to the doors.
The roar from outside was tremendous when Giat Jip-hau appeared. I peered around a pillar long enough to see him raise his hands for silence, and obtain the closest approximation to it one can hope for from such a large crowd. But even had I been able to understand more than a dozen words of any Yelangese tongue, I would not have been able to listen to his oration; my leashed dragon was very determined to chew upon the gilded carvings of another pillar, and it was all I could do to keep her from swallowing a mouthful of wood and gold.
In a way, I was grateful for her mischief. It kept me from dwelling overmuch on what came next.
Thu seemed to appear out of nowhere, almost vibrating with excitement. “It is time.”
Tom and I emerged from the great entry hall into dazzling sunlight and the renewed roar of the crowd. It seemed all of Tiongau was arrayed in the plaza below us, and every last one of them was shouting at the sight of the two ci lêng—for I have no illusions that a pair of Scirling strangers occasioned any notice, when there were azure dragons to see. The common people of Tiongau would never have seen the beasts except in paintings, and their presence next to the self-proclaimed emperor of Yelang was as wondrous to them as the sight of a Draconean had been to me.
But we had only begun to astonish them.