Трой Деннинг - The Veiled Dragon

A flicker of orange-yellow light caught Tang’s eye, and he began to hope it would not be necessary to turn around. He dragged himself forward. When the flicker became a diffuse gold-red gleam pushing its way through the murky water, he realized he had to be nearing Cypress’s lair. The glow was the color of flame, and fires do not burn underwater. More importantly, where there was light, Lady Feng was also bound to be. The prince pulled himself forward with renewed vigor—only to come to an abrupt stop as he reached the end of the rope.

Tang did not even consider going back for another length of rope. Instead, he sucked the last dregs of air from his waterskin, then untied himself and swam toward the light. He began to count heartbeats, not because he feared he would drown before he reached the end of the passage, but to give him some idea of how far it was back to the rope. The golden glow brightened slowly. His count had reached thirty by the time it was as large as a head. At fifty, his lungs began to ache for air, and the light was no larger than a harvest moon. When the count reached seventy, his limbs grew so heavy and weak that he could hardly move them. Yellow-orange radiance filled the whole passage ahead, and still the ceiling held Tang beneath the water.

The prince blew out the last of his breath and swam another dozen strokes. His count reached a hundred and ten, and the orange glow was so bright that he could see his hands silhouetted against it. His heart began to beat faster, pounding inside his chest like a forge’s trip hammer, and a trickle of sweet-tasting water seeped between his lips. At the count of a hundred and thirty, the golden light began to sparkle and shimmer, and the prince realized he had made a terrible mistake. Whatever it was, this radiance was too strong, too brilliant to be firelight. Perhaps his testimony to the Chief Judge had come too late; perhaps the spirits of his dead soldiers, angry at his hesitation, had created the luminescence to trick him. One hundred and sixty …

The ceiling lifted off of Tang’s back, and his head suddenly popped out of the water. With a great, racking groan, he sucked in the musty cave air, continuing until it seemed his lungs would burst. An orchestra of blissful purling echoed all around the prince, giving him the feeling that he had died and, despite his many faults, surfaced in the Land of Extreme Felicity. He exhaled and drew in even more air, as though he were trying to drain the cavern of its last wisp of dank atmosphere.

The chamber itself only added to Tang’s impression that he had surfaced in a place of eternal paradise. The ceiling and walls were draped with jewelry both ancient and new: thumb-sized diamonds set into gold rings, blood-red rubies strung end-to-end in long chains, emeralds as large as cat eyes dangling from ear clips of pure platinum. From dozens of ancillary passages poured streams large and small, all passing over beds of pearl and opal before they fell into a sparkling lake that filled the lower half of the cavern.

Unlike the brown soup at the other end of the passage, the waters here were as clear as glass, and the bottom of the entire pool was covered by minted coins of every imaginable size and kingdom. A short swim away, the coins rose up to form the glistening beach of an island made entirely of precious ingots—and more gold than silver. In the center of the isle stood a single oaken staff—no doubt Yanseldara’s—with three gnarled branches rising at the top to grasp a huge orange topaz. From the depths of this gem burned the fiery light that illuminated the entire chamber, glimmering so brilliantly that the prince could hardly make out the form of the tall, willowy woman standing beside it.

“Lady Feng!” Tang swam to the island, then stopped on the shore and bowed to his mother. “Will Third Virtuous Concubine honor her humble son with audience?”

The woman stepped away from the staff and peered down the slope at her son. Unlike most Shou women, she showed every day of her age—and then some. She wore her gray hair pulled into a tight bun that did little to lessen its unruly appearance, and her skin was as ashen and flaky as lizard scales. The crow’s-feet at the corners of her eyes fanned out like spiderwebs to veil her entire face, while the curious way that she cocked her head only emphasized the contrast between the pop-eye through which she saw the outer world and the squinty white orb that was usually turned inward to watch the spirit world.

“Tang!” she said at last. “What do you do here?”

“I come to rescue you, Lady Feng.” The prince held his bow. It was not unusual to have an entire conversation with the Third Virtuous Concubine without receiving permission to rise. It was a good thing she was not a queen; he would have had to kowtow. “I also come to destroy Cypress’s spirit gem.”

“No. You mustn’t!” She began to pick her way down the ingot slope. “Cypress would know!”

“It does not matter. He already tries to kill me for rescuing you.”

“You risk life?” Lady Feng slapped Tang on the back of the head. “You are Shou prince!”

“Rescuing you is only way to redeem honor of Ginger Palace.”

“Do I ask to be rescued?” Lady Feng grabbed Tang’s chin and pulled his head up, then waved her arm around the glittering chamber. “Here is more wealth than all Imperial treasuries!”

Tang scowled at this, for his mother had always been too wise to value wealth above freedom. “What good are these riches? Whole room of gold and diamonds is worth less than nothing if it makes prisoner of you.”

Lady Feng’s squinty eye rolled in its socket, perhaps in dim recognition of the wisdom she herself had imparted to the prince. Her pop-eye, however, darted around the room from bauble to bauble, as though checking to be certain that each one remained in its place.

“Do not argue!” she ordered. “Wealth shown is wealth lost to thieves.”

Tang shook his head sadly. “You have dragon sickness.” He started up the ingot slope. “Show me where Cypress hides spirit gem; then we leave.”

“Go no farther, Tang.”

Tang stopped in his tracks. When Lady Feng assumed that tone, she was not a woman to be trifled with. His mother was capable of killing a man with the merest wisp of an incantation. Though he believed she loved him as any mother loved her child, she was a Scholar of Yen-Wang-Yeh, and to scholars of the Great Judge, life and death were merely aspects of one existence; even a son could not be sure his mother would care which state he happened to occupy.

After a moment’s consideration, Tang realized how to solve his dilemma. He faced his cronish mother. “I only try to protect your treasure, Lady Feng. Cypress thinks it belongs to him. We must destroy him.”

Lady Feng’s pop-eye flashed in anger, but the squinty one rolled around to study him. It was horribly bloodshot, with a milky iris and a black pupil that seemed as deep as the Well of Eighteen Hells itself, and Tang had not seen it since he was a little boy.

“Tang, you try to trick me?”

For the first time since his battle with the wyverns, Tang felt like a coward. He let his gaze drop and nodded. “But only to protect you from Cypress. Whether you understand or not, dragon sickness has made you his prisoner more than chains.”

The squinty eye trembled as though from a palsy, but continued to linger on Tang’s face for a long time. At last, Lady Feng said, “Tunnel is long. If we destroy spirit gem, how do we escape?”

“We carry extra air.” To demonstrate, Tang opened his water skin and filled it with breath. “Then I pull us through passage on rope I leave tied to other end.”

Lady Feng eyed the air sack for a long time, then reluctantly nodded. “But we do not smash gem until we are outside.” The squinty eye rolled back into her head, and she added, “Then we destroy Cypress and come back to cave of wealth!”