Dragonkeeper 2: Garden of the Purple Dragon (6 page)

As she walked back to the hut, she thought about the invisible thread that had drawn her to this place. Danzi had explained to her that second sight developed after spending time with a dragon.

“I’d forgotten so many things Danzi told me,” Ping said. “I’d forgotten about my second sight and my
qi
power. I don’t even know if I can still summon it.”

Qi
was the life force that flowed through all living things. The old dragon had taught her how to harness the
qi
within her so that she had the strength to fend off attackers much stronger than herself. She could also make the concentrated energy shoot from her fingertips. It had taken many weeks of practice to master this skill.

“It’s been so long since I practised the
qi
exercises,” Ping said to Hua. “If we hadn’t left Black Dragon Pool, I might have completely forgotten about Danzi’s teachings.”

Every event under Heaven has its reason
—or so the old dragon had told her.

She stood on the grassy slope outside the shepherd’s hut and faced the lowering sun. She took deep breaths just as Danzi had instructed her, breathing in the sunlit air. Morning sunlight was richest in
qi
, but the orange afternoon light would do. Then she began the exercises the dragon had taught her—slow twisting movements of the arms and legs. She hadn’t forgotten them, but she was rusty. She couldn’t balance on one leg without wobbling. There were exercises for the mind as well to help clear away all thoughts. She resolved to use the winter months to practise the exercises and regain her skills.

“And if I have to practise
my
skills,” she said to Kai. “You have to practise
yours
. We have to go down onto the plain and buy another goat. And we won’t be able to do that until you can stay in one shape for at least an hour.”

Kai blinked back at her. Ping couldn’t tell whether he understood.

“You have to earn your supper tonight,” she said. “You have to shape-change into something and stay that way for at least a minute.”

He scratched his ear.

Ping had been wondering if it was easier for him to shape-change into simple objects. She picked up the little dragon and set him down in front of a rock.

“Change into that,” she said.

The little dragon looked at the rock and changed into
an identical rock. Ping was delighted.

“Good boy, Kai,” she said. “Now stay like that for a minute and …

Before she could finish, he had popped back into his dragon shape and was squawking at her again.

She pointed at the rock. “No, stay like that.”

Kai turned into a rock again.

“That’s it!”

The dragon didn’t stay in the rock shape for very long, but at least he wasn’t turning into everything in sight.

“That was good, Kai,” Ping said, though she wasn’t entirely sure the dragon had understood what she was saying. He only seemed to turn into things that he could actually see, and there was nothing much else in sight but rocks.

Hua came back from his search for food. He stopped in front of the rock-shaped Kai. The rock turned into another rat, identical to Hua. The two rats sniffed each other suspiciously for a moment or two before one of them transformed into a dragon.

“I’ll see if I can find you some insects,” Ping said to Kai. “Just in case you did it on purpose.”

The following morning, after another comfortable night’s sleep in the shepherd’s hut, Ping got up early to practise her
qi
-concentrating exercises as the sun rose. The little dragon was busy eating his breakfast. Hua had gathered a number of fat worms and an impressive
collection of moths for him.

Ping faced the rising sun and began her exercises, focusing on each move, breathing in the cool morning air and the golden sunlight rich in
qi
. After she had completed the sequence of exercises, she sat down to practise concentrating her thoughts. Kai had finished his breakfast. He came and sat in front of Ping and turned into a cooking pot. The cooking pot belched.

“I’m going to count backwards from five hundreds,” Ping said. “Let’s see if you can stay in that shape while I do that.”

Ping couldn’t count backwards without closing her eyes, but whenever she opened one eye to check on the dragon, he was still sitting in front of her in his pot shape. She finished her counting and then began another exercise. She stared at the distant mountain and imagined following the path of a beetle on it. Kai stayed in his pot shape.

“That’s good, Kai,” she said when she’d finished. “You can turn into your proper shape now. I want to clean your ears.”

He remained in the shape of a pot.

Grass seeds sometimes got stuck in the dragon’s ears, causing them to produce dark, smelly wax. Ping found a small twig and chewed the end to make a soft brush that she could poke into his ears, but Kai was still in the shape of a cooking pot.

“That’s enough shape-changing for today, Kai.”

The pot didn’t move.

For the rest of the day, no matter how much she coaxed him or tempted him with a plate of squashed snails, Kai still wouldn’t change into his proper shape. Ping thought that if she didn’t take any notice he might get bored with the game, so she busied herself around the hut, but every time she looked at him out of the corner of her eye, he was still a pot.

She wondered if he understood more than she had thought. Perhaps he knew she was going to clean out his ears.

“Okay,” she said. “I’m not going to clean your ears. I’ll never clean your ears ever again. Let them get smelly. I don’t mind.”

It was no good. He remained a pot. By late afternoon, she was starting to get worried. She reached out to pick him up. Though she could see a pot, her hands closed around a small scaly body. It was an uncomfortable sensation that made her feel dizzy and see specks of light in front of her eyes. She had to wait a few moments for the dizziness to pass, and then she carried Kai inside.

“Please, Kai, turn back into a dragon. Is it because you haven’t got any milk? Is that the problem?”

The pot didn’t reply.

“If that’s it, we’ll go in search of a goat tomorrow. You’ve learned how to stay in one shape for a long time, so we can go to a village.”

The pot didn’t move.

“Tomorrow,” Ping said anxiously. “First thing. We’ll go out and find a goat or a sheep.”

Despite the comfort and warmth of the shepherd’s bed, Ping didn’t get much sleep that night. The pot at the end of the bed wasn’t having any trouble sleeping—she could hear it snoring.

“Perhaps he’s stuck,” she thought to herself. “Shape-changing must be very hard to do. He might not be able to change back.”

The next morning, Kai was still in his pot shape. The cicadas Hua brought for Kai’s breakfast were left untouched. The pot was making a miserable whining sound and Ping was convinced he couldn’t change back.

There was no one she could turn to for help. Even if she went in search of a herbalist or physician, she could hardly tell them her dragon was stuck in a pot shape. They would think she was mad.

“What can I do, Hua?”

The rat blinked. He couldn’t help her either.

Ping carried the pot to the well, hoping the chance of a swim might entice Kai to change back. It didn’t.

She was a terrible Dragonkeeper. The day before, she’d been congratulating herself on her skills. But what was the point of finding a pleasant place to spend the winter if she didn’t have any idea how to help Kai when there was something wrong with him? If only he would speak to her with his mind like Danzi used to.

She didn’t practise her qi-concentrating exercises. She was too worried.

“What use could I have for my
qi
power up here on the mountain anyway?” she asked the rat.

“Perhaps I could kill snails and caterpillars without having to get up,” she said.

Her second sight had been most useful when it had warned her that the dragon hunter was nearby. In that way, it had never let her down. She shuddered at the memory of Diao, the man who had hunted them across the country, who had tried to kill Danzi and take the dragon stone.

“At least I won’t be needing my second sight for that anymore,” she told Hua.

The words were barely out of her mouth when she felt heaviness in the pit of her stomach. Her heart pounded. She stood up and looked around expecting Diao to emerge from behind a rock.

“It’s impossible,” she told herself. “He’s dead.”

When the dragon hunter had confronted her on one of the peaks of Tai Shan, she had sent out a bolt of
qi
power which had knocked him back so that he lost his footing. She had seen the dragon hunter tumble over the edge. She had heard his bones snap when he landed below. But she hadn’t seen his body. What if he’d survived? What if his bones had mended? The feeling of foreboding made her want to run and hide. She sniffed the air. It was crisp and clean. The air wasn’t tainted
by the sickening smell of uncured hides that always accompanied the dragon hunter, but the lump in her stomach was unmistakable.

The sun went behind a cloud. It was only a small cloud, but it covered the sun completely. The foreboding grew stronger. The hairs on the back of Ping’s neck prickled. Her blood turned to ice. She spun round.

There was a man standing between two rocks. He was wearing a dark, hooded cloak. He was perfectly still, as if he’d been there for some time. He pushed back his hood. Ping stared at the face and all hope drained from her. The man had a bald head and a short beard of orange-coloured bristles. He wore a patch over one eye. On his right cheek was a dark mark. It wasn’t Diao. It was the necromancer.

“Where’s that doddering old dragon?”

The necromancer’s voice was harsh and rasping, like a blade scraping across a stone. Ping had been longing to hear another human voice for months, but this was the one voice she had never wanted to hear again. She stared at the necromancer in disbelief. It had never occurred to her that he would be able to track her down.

The mark on his cheek was a tattoo of a monstrous animal with bared teeth and skulls hanging from its mane. Around his waist hung dreadful weapons—a long sword with a curved blade, a saw-toothed knife,
a hatchet, a thin double-edged dagger. Their cutting edges were sharp and shiny.

“It doesn’t matter how feeble it is,” the necromancer continued. “As long as it’s still breathing.”

He was talking as if the old dragon was no threat, but his eyes were darting around, keeping an eye out for Danzi.

“And where’s the little one?”

Ping glanced at the cooking pot sitting on the edge of the well. “I don’t know what you mean.” She prayed that Kai didn’t choose that moment to change back to his proper shape.

“I saw it with my own eyes when I was spying on you up on Tai Shan. That dragon stone cost me a lot—in effort and gold—and you stole it from me. Anything that hatched out of it is mine. It won’t fetch as much money as the big one, but it’ll still be worth a bit. Once I get it to Wucheng, I’ll butcher it. Fresh dragon parts are worth a fortune.”

Ping felt anger bubble inside her like water coming to the boil.

Wucheng was the town where sorcerers and magicians purchased ingredients for their spells and potions. The most prized component was the heart of the dragon.

Both Diao and the necromancer had held the dragon stone in their greedy hands. She had stolen it back from the necromancer while he slept. When he came after her, she and Hua had fought him and escaped, leaving him
struggling on a muddy river bank.

His mouth twisted into an ugly grimace, exposing stained and chipped teeth. Ping realised it was supposed to be a smile.

“You got a nasty shock when you found your goat dead, didn’t you?” he cackled. “I enjoyed watching you run like a startled rabbit.”

He would have been a laughing stock in Wucheng when word got around that a young girl had got the better of him. Ping was glad she’d shamed him.

He moved so close that Ping could smell his foul breath. The ugly smile on the necromancer’s face turned into a snarl.

“I need that dragon and its whelp. And I can’t wait any longer.”

He pulled a heavy sword from his belt and dug the point into Ping’s cheek. She felt its sharp point break the skin and blood trickle down her neck.

“Tell me where the old dragon is and I won’t kill you.”

“He’s gone far away where you’ll never reach him. He’s flown to the Isle of the Blest and he’s taken the baby with him.”

She summoned her
qi
. Even though she was out of practice, the hatred she felt for the necromancer enabled her to focus it easily. She thrust out her left arm and his sword dropped from his hand.

“Don’t waste my time with your pathetic tricks,” he
sneered. “They’re no match for my powers.”

He raised his hand and Ping felt herself being lifted into the air by an invisible force. She tried to focus her mind. Just summoning that one burst of
qi
had exhausted her. The
qi
blow had startled the necromancer, but it hadn’t hurt him. He sensed Ping’s weakness. He allowed her to drop down to the ground, the ugly smile back on his face. Ping backed away from him, trying to make her mind do her bidding, to think of a plan, to refocus her
qi
.

The necromancer picked up his sword. Ping’s hatred was replaced by fear. He was right. Her powers were pitiful. He would defeat her easily.

Hua appeared on top of one of the rocks. His bright blue eyes glared at the necromancer. His fur stood on end gleaming bluish in the sunlight. He looked huge and unearthly. The confidence drained from the necromancer’s face like water through a strainer. But he only hesitated for a moment. He grabbed the neck of Ping’s gown and raised his sword ready to strike her. Hua launched a spitball. It hit the necromancer with a small explosion and a flash of flame. He let go of Ping and beat out the smouldering patch on his cloak. Hua launched another spitball. The necromancer yelped with pain as it hit him on the head. Ping could smell burning flesh. She jumped back, out of his reach. It was only then that she realised she was on the lip of the well. She tumbled backwards. As she fell, she saw the
necromancer lunge towards Hua with his sword. The rat was quicker. Sparks flew as the sword clanged on the rock.