Read an excerpt
Animate
paper centipedes and shape-changing foxes aren’t standard fare at a
government conference. But then, neither is Lord Bai.
Nanjing, 1421
“What
do spells, copying, and writing have to do with pirates?” Lord Bai,
White Dragon of the West, whined—no, repined in a light baritone
befitting his human form.
It was a reasonable question for a
gathering that billed itself as China’s First Imperial Conference on
Magic Piracy. But he could have misunderstood the conference’s keynote
speaker. Professor Yeoh was orating at the front of the hosting
restaurant’s second floor banquet hall, while Bai hid among the sorcery
students at the back.
“Not ‘copying and writing’—copy rights,”
whispered the student beside him. “Like Professor Yeoh said: All
magicians are endowed as creators with certain unalienable rights,
including the right to profit from all original spells, amulets, and
charms.”
“Even if somebody else does the copying?”
“Exactly.”
But
didn’t writers pay printers to publish their work? Or was it the other
way around? Who knew with humans? The longer Bai spent at the
conference, the more at sea he felt.
Based on the invitation sent
to Master Lao, Bai’s self-appointed human teacher, Bai assumed the
conference concerned pirates and magic treasure—subjects dear to every
dragon’s heart. When Lao forbade him to attend under threat of several
exceptionally creative dooms, Bai had grown even more excited, certain
it was one of those conferences—a four-day, Mandarins-only orgy of dim
sum and dancing girls. But Bai had searched the venue from foundation to
rafters and found no pretty women, no pirates, no treasure.
No food.
None
for the students anyway. The attending scholars lounged around
capacious tables, feasting at the Emperor’s expense on every delicacy on
the restaurant’s menu. But between the professionals’ gourmet paradise
and the students’ hellishly hard benches lay a wide aisle patrolled by
waiters more vigilant than soldiers on the Great Wall. Bai couldn’t even
savor the aromas thanks to the mages’ fondness for patchouli and the
absence of anything resembling a breeze. The sliding doors to the loggia
had been shut for “security reasons.” In the middle of summer!
Concealed
within his perspiring human form, the spirit of Bai’s dragon tail
thrashed irritably. He was experiencing a growth spurt and overdue to
molt, magnifying his discomfort. He longed to depart, only he couldn’t
risk drawing attention to himself. Lao didn’t look like much, but his
sorcery could boil a dragon’s eyeballs in their sockets.
That’s
when Bai saw it: the answer to his unspoken prayer. A fat red
centipede—his favorite treat from the time he was a little wyrm—wriggled
into the aisle.
Another steam basket-laden waiter barreled
toward the door. Caution fled. Lunging off the bench, Bai snatched his
prize from under the very shoe of doom. He popped it into his mouth.
It
tasted like paper. He spat it into his hand. The centipede was
paper—cheap red paper covered in smeared black ink. What was a paper
magic centipede doing crawling around a magicians’ conference? Was it
some kind of joke?
Bai glanced at the students. As far as he could tell, they were all enraptured by Yeoh.
Could
it be a message? Bai scanned the tables for a likely sender. Officials
of the Department of Rites, their blue-violet robes emblazoned with the
embroidered panels of their respective ranks, fanned themselves with
painted silk paddles. Shaven-headed Buddhist monks traded superior looks
with Daoist priests in crimson coats. Women physicians from the
Imperial Palace held court behind latticework screens. At the
foreigners’ table, Arab scholars and Delhi astrologers scribbled notes
with reed pens instead of brushes. No one was looking at the back of the
room, not even Lao. The scrawny old reprobate rested his cheek on his
upraised hand. Faint snores ruffled his wispy moustache. From the
platters and wine pots massed around him, he had, as usual, consumed
enough for three.
“That’s the least of what we can expect if this
deplorable state of affairs is allowed to continue,” Yeoh warned. The
silver gilt designs on his wide purple sleeves flashed as he thrust a
pearl-ringed forefinger overhead. “The criminals engaged in the
unlicensed reproduction, distribution, and sale of our spells, philters,
and talismans are pirates as surely as the Wokou marauders of the
Eastern Sea. Magic piracy is not a victimless crime. These spells are
our livelihood. Every unauthorized copy is theft and should be punished
as such. By stealing our intellectual property, they steal the rice from
our mouths, strip the altars of our ancestors, and beggar our children.
They must be stopped!”
Applause thundered in the closed room.
Conferees jumped to their feet, including several at Lao’s table. Lao
jerked awake. Bai lowered his head and clapped furiously.
Another red centipede crawled into the aisle.
“Thank
you, Professor Yeoh, for your brilliant summation,” the master of
ceremonies boomed as the centipede inched across the floor. “Friends and
colleagues, the issues are clear. The stakes couldn’t be higher. Now,
let’s hear some solutions!”
A wizened scholar jumped from his
seat. He jerked a brass wand from his sash and sliced the air in a
wobbly arc. “There can be only one!”
Everybody ducked, including
the students. Bai bisected the centipede with a discreetly extended
claw, hoping to learn its origin. The halves reverted to paper. Each
scrap sported the partial outline of a centipede and the characters of a
basic animation spell, which only established it wasn’t made by Lao.
His perfectly scissored paper servants needed no ink.
“Close the printing presses!” the old scholar bawled.
The crowd shifted. The papers skidded away on the draft. Not good.
“Professor
Deng,” the master of ceremonies soothed, “we want to protect legitimate
printers, not close them down. We need printers to publish our books.
More importantly, we need them to print the money for our salaries.”
“Paper money! Bah!” Deng flapped his wand. “Silver was good enough for my daddy, and it’s good enough for me.”
“I hope your daddy’s silver was good enough,” Lao drawled. “He ran the Imperial mint.”
Deng squawked as laughter burbled across the room. The master of ceremonies bleated, “Gentlemen! Gentlemen…and ladies!”
Phantom
spines rippled uneasily under Bai’s human nape. Paper servants had no
will of their own. Someone directed those centipedes his way. But who?
The why was easy. Many magicians coveted a dragon’s abilities—to fly, to
summon storms and disperse them, to speak any tongue—and the medicinal
value of their individual parts.
Maybe he owed his tutor an
apology. Maybe Lao’s threats were a misguided attempt to protect him.
From paper centipedes? They were spelled for motion, not poison.
Besides,
how would anyone know there was a dragon to find? Other than a faint
smoky tang to his perspiration, practically imperceptible amid the
patchouli-pickled primates, there was nothing to distinguish Bai’s
current guise from that of a young human man. Unlike lesser species,
dragons transformed completely, including their shadows. A powerful mage
might detect the subtle difference in his aura, but only if they
concentrated. But who, other than Lao, was strong enough and knew to
look?
Engrossed in a quarrel about the cost of astrology manuals,
none of the assembly seemed aware of his presence. Then again, anyone
using something as inconspicuous as a paper centipede was trying hard
not to be noticed. They wouldn’t reveal themselves if they thought
anyone was looking. Bai needed to act oblivious.
He pretended to
stifle a yawn and slumped forward. Several overlong moments later, a
russet-robed wizard with a fat topknot of white hair eased a bamboo tube
from his sleeve. Shielding his face with one hand, he angled the tube
under his mustache and inflated his cheeks. A red pellet dropped to the
floor, unfurled into a centipede, and crawled toward the aisle.
The
dragon waited until the centipede was a hairbreadth from his shoe
before “accidentally” grinding it into the floor. The wizard’s shoulders
fell. Color drained from his face. One of his companions mouthed a
question. Bai retrieved the centipede and snuck across the aisle.
He
hadn’t realized the aisle acted as a metaphysical barrier as well as a
physical one. Once he crossed it, a dozen powerful magical auras blazed
in his dragon sight like New Year fireworks. Crap. That changed
everything. If the owners of those auras trained their occult senses on
him, magic centipedes and Master Lao would be the least of his problems.
He
was considering a strategic retreat when Deng hoisted his wand again.
Suddenly everyone was too busy dodging the professor’s swings to notice
the dragon in the middle of the room. Bai hurried to the wizard’s table.
There was something odd about the group’s magical auras—not strong, not
bad, just…musky.
Bai could handle musky. He bowed.
“Did you lose something?” He dropped the centipede on the table.
The
wizard squealed and sprang from his seat. The master of ceremonies
called for order, Bai peered at the wizard’s incongruously delicate
hands. He didn’t smell like an old man, either. Bai seized the wizard’s
whiskers. Beard and mustache came away in his grasp, revealing a smooth,
sweetly rounded face with lips too pink and ripe for any man. The
wizard was a woman. A very pretty woman.
All thoughts of danger and centipedes fled from Bai’s head. “Hel-lo,” he purred.
The
young woman screamed. Her voice rang like a giant bronze bell,
vibrating through muscle, bone, and brain. Bai’s vision blurred. Humans
rocked in their seats. Some lost control of their bladders.
Hoisting
her robes over her shapely legs, the woman darted toward the
paper-screened doors to the loggia. Bai gave chase, muscling aside the
dazed magicians staggering from their seats. The woman burst through the
latticed panels and leapt onto the railing overlooking the street.
He lunged. She jumped. Her robe grazed his fingertips as she plunged out of reach.
Hair
spilled from her topknot, darkening to black as the strands swirled
around her shoulders. Her robes billowed. For an instant she seemed
suspended midair. Then she vanished. Her garments crumpled against the
road in front of the restaurant. A three-tailed fox scuttled from under
the pile. She dashed between the feet of the nearest sedan-chair driver,
lashing her tails against the man’s bare legs. He started. The poles on
his shoulders pitched dangerously.
The woman was a fox? That
made no sense. Foxes were masters of illusion, but even the strongest
was no match for a dragon. Why tease him with centipedes, then run away?
Behind him, Lao yodeled, “Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiii—”
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