The Dragon Men

Su Shun stood beside the emperor’s scarlet bed, his brass half face gleaming in the sunlight filtered through the frosted glass of the doors. He was bending over Xianfeng’s wasted form. The blessing of dragons turned a tiny number of people into Dragon Men, it turned a certain number of people into shambling zombies, but most people it simply killed. And emperor or not, Xianfeng turned out to be no better than a commoner in this case. Xianfeng’s breathing came in short gasps as the blessing progressively paralyzed his muscles and fever ravaged his body.

“Father!” Zaichun cried from Cixi’s arms. He squirmed away from her and ran to Xianfeng’s bed. The eunuchs boiled out of the way, and Cixi followed in the path he cleared. “Father!”

“What are you doing here?” Su Shun snapped. “Guards!”

Xianfeng turned fever-bright eyes on Zaichun. “My. . son!”

The guards from outside rushed into the room, swords and pistols drawn. But Xianfeng raised the Jade Hand. “No. . back. .”

The guards obediently backed away. Su Shun looked outraged, but he could say nothing. Cixi gave him a grim smile.

“What of your succession to the throne?” Cixi said urgently. “My lord, who shall rule after you die?”

Xianfeng dropped his hand. The light was fading from his eyes. The water clock in the corner ticked away the time. Thirty seconds left, according to what Lung Fan had said. The room was dead silent. Everyone-guards, eunuchs, Su Shun-was listening with every fiber of his being. Cixi held her breath.

“My. . throne. .,” Xianfeng whispered.

“Your son is here!” Cixi said. Even now she couldn’t bring herself to order the emperor to choose Zaichun, but she slid the boy closer to the emperor’s side. Zaichun looked confused and unhappy, and he reached for his father’s Jade Hand. Everyone held his breath. The water clock dripped away the seconds.

“My. . throne,” said Xianfeng. “Eighteen. Eight. . teen.”

He exhaled once more, then went still.

Several things happened all at once. The Celestial Scepter dropped off Xianfeng’s forearm and fell toward the floor. The water clock chimed. A fast-thinking eunuch dove sideways and caught the Jade Hand before it could touch the ground. Cixi’s maids and the other eunuchs set up a screaming wail and tore at their clothes. Su Shun’s eyes met Cixi’s, and she knew they both had the same thought. The emperor had not declared Zaichun his heir. He had declared no one his heir. And Su Shun was the most powerful man in the room.

Both Cixi and Su Shun moved at the same time. The eunuch was cradling the precious Jade Hand against his chest. Su Shun snatched a pistol from one of the guards and shot the eunuch in the head. The pistol boomed against Cixi’s very bones. She caught up the shocked Zaichun and ran for the door. For a fraction of a second, Su Shun started to aim his pistol at Cixi, then changed his mind and grabbed the Jade Hand from the dead eunuch instead. The pause gave Cixi extra time, and when she passed one of the tables, something made her snatch up the Ebony Chamber, with its gold dragons and phoenix latch. She ran for freedom, clutching the box and towing Zaichun with her. As she left, she had just enough time to see Su Shun raise a guard’s sword high and hear the meaty thunk as Su Shun chopped off his own hand.

“What now, my lady?” Liyang panted. “Oh, what now?”

They were in Cixi’s dressing room at the Pavilion of a Thousand Silver Stars. Terrified maids were rushing about the room, looking busy while accomplishing nothing. Zaichun sat on the floor beside her, trying to be a man and not cry. Cixi idly stroked his hair. She herself felt a strange, icy calm, as if she had gone through terror and come out the other side. She had faced down the emperor and lost, but she was still alive. Once Su Shun recovered from attaching the Heavenly Scepter, he would doubtless come after her, but she should have a few minutes, and she meant to make them count. At the moment, she was examining the Ebony Chamber. The inlaid dragons seemed to move in impossible patterns, and when she looked at them, she realized the dragons were actually created of a design of smaller dragons, and those smaller dragons were made of yet smaller dragons. It hurt her eyes. The phoenix latch had three numbers on it, all on little wheels that could be spun to create numbers between zero and 999. She thought a moment. Xianfeng’s official lucky number was seven, but that was too obvious. This was the eleventh year of Xianfeng’s reign. But no, that would mean resetting the Chamber every year. Wait-when Xianfeng died, he had said eighteen. Cixi also knew that Xianfeng’s official lucky number was seven, but when the emperor was young, a fortune-teller had once said his lucky number was eighteen, and that he secretly preferred that one. Cixi set the latch to 018.

The lock popped open. Heart beating fast, Cixi opened the box. A single piece of paper with her son’s name and the emperor’s seal on it would change everything. She looked inside.

The Chamber was empty.

Despair washed over her. It didn’t seem to matter what she did or how hard she tried. The universe was conspiring against her with tiny events. The emperor had failed to sign a small slip of paper. That feather she had slipped on had delayed her a few crucial seconds. Now the empire had chaos instead of a tidy succession. She and Zaichun were as good as dead.

But, no. Sometimes the universe could not be allowed to win. Sometimes one had to strike back at the universe. Resolve filled Cixi. There was no time to stop, no time to give in. The Chamber was still open. Cixi swept the contents of one of her jewelry cases into it, sending jade and gold and silver tumbling inside. Two pieces-a jade leaf and a gold hairpin-fell to the floor, and these she kept separate. Then she scrambled out of her elaborate concubine’s clothes with the help of her startled maids and, in her underthings, grabbed the arm of a passing chambermaid, the lowest ranking girl in the room.

“Give me your clothes,” she said. The girl stared, openmouthed, until Cixi slapped her across the face. “Now, girl!”

The move galvanized the girl into action. She stripped and handed her much plainer clothes over to Cixi, who got into them. “Liyang, have your apprentice trade clothes with Zaichun. Quickly!”

“What will you do, my lady?” Liyang asked while this was being accomplished.

“I will not say,” Cixi said, then turned to address the entire room. Everyone froze and fell silent. “Listen to me, all of you. The Celestial Throne has been taken by a usurper, one who has good reason to fear the true emperor and his supporters. If you feel your lives are in danger, take the remaining gold in my storehouse and the jewelry in my cases and flee. Do it now! Su Shun is not a patient man.”

Silence for a moment, and then chaos as several maids and eunuchs bolted for the storerooms and strongboxes. So much for loyalty. Cixi, in her plain clothing, was at the door with the Ebony Chamber in a sack when Liyang stopped her.

“You can’t go alone, my lady,” he said. “Who will sweep the road before you? Who will steer the palanquin? Who will-?”

She touched his arm to silence him. “Su Shun will be looking for a concubine traveling with her servants. It will simply not occur to him to look for a maid in plain clothes traveling on foot with a servant boy. You have been a good servant and a good friend. You should run as well. Alone.”

Liyang pursed his lips and nodded.

The salamander in Lung Fan’s ear glowed softly. She twitched once, then rose. “I must go. I must go now. Yes, now. Right now.” Cixi’s stomach went cold as the Dragon Man walked out the door without a backward glance. Outside, she joined other Dragon Men who streamed from halls, palaces, and pavilions in an eerie stream of black silk, all marching toward the Cool Hall on the Misty Lake. Cixi’s mouth was dry. Were they marching in from Peking as well?

“Mother?” Zaichun asked. “Are we truly leaving?”

“We must, Little Cricket. We will play a game as we go. Pretend you are a servant boy and keep your eyes down.”

“What do I win?”

“Your life.” She handed him the sack containing the Ebony Chamber. “Quickly, now.”

Keeping her own head down, Cixi ran with Zaichun through the pavilion and out a servant’s door. With the palace in disarray and without their usual clothing, no one recognized them, or even looked at them closely. The jade leaf fell into the hands of the bribe-hungry eunuch who guarded one of the gates, and then they were on the streets of Jehol.

Cixi looked around. Word of the emperor’s death hadn’t leaked out yet, and people passed by on the street outside the palace walls as if nothing abnormal were happening. She felt naked without her layers of clothing and