The Dragon Men

“Hold still, darling.”

Phipps hesitated. “It ties each Dragon Man to the emperor. I’ve never seen it in action myself, but I’m told no Dragon Man can disobey a direct order from the emperor, and it’s the salamander that forces obedience.”

Gavin was almost panting. He felt panicky, hemmed in. The idea that some despot could give him an order and he’d have to jump at it like a puppet horrified him deeply. He supposed it wouldn’t bother the Chinese or even the British, people who were used to kings and emperors, but Americans didn’t have kings, and he had only recently found his freedom in the air. Now a fiery salamander was going to drag him back down?

He suddenly remembered Feng Lung again. The Gonta family had captured Feng in Ukraine and experimented on him; into his head they had drilled an enormous spider that forced Feng to obey any orders given to him. He couldn’t even sit down unless someone told him to. In the end, he had let himself die, partly to save Gavin and Alice’s lives, but also to end his own pain. Was this how he had felt? Nausea oozed around Gavin’s stomach, and he took several deep breaths to keep from throwing up.

“Lieutenant Li was put in a terrible spot,” Phipps continued. “The nightingale brought him the salamander and the news that you were a Dragon Man. No doubt this is what the border guard meant when it said you were special. It must have alerted the authorities, who sent the bird and the salamander.”

Gavin remembered. Alice’s hand was gentle but insistent on his ear. She could use only one hand because the other had corks on the fingertips. He braced himself for more pain, though it didn’t come. The soldiers didn’t move.

“It’s illegal for someone of his rank to lay hands on a Dragon Man.” Phipps crossed her arms. “It’s also illegal for a Dragon Man to run about within Chinese borders without a salamander. Clearly, the emperor wants Alice in his hands immediately, so they didn’t want to delay the ship at the border until someone of the correct rank could arrive with a salamander. Someone would have to put this salamander on you now, and that fell to Li.”

“Good for him,” Gavin growled. “I hope he gets a raise.”

“You don’t understand, Ennock,” Phipps said. “You’re flying with dead men.”

Alice dropped her hand, and both she and Gavin looked at Phipps. The soldiers still hadn’t moved. The Lady’s engines purred along, and more farmland coasted beneath them, the fresh green fields below at odds with the conflict in the clouds above.

“Go on,” Alice said tiredly. “Tell us the rest.”

“Li laid hands on a Dragon Man,” Phipps said. “It’s a form of treason, really. And when a commanding officer commits treason, he and his men are put to death. All these men will be executed the moment we reach Peking.”

“But that’s terrible!” Alice protested. “Li only did as he was ordered, and these men did nothing.”

“In China,” Phipps said, “the emperor’s merest word is more important than a thousand human lives, and every command must be obeyed, even if it means death. They see it as an honor to sacrifice themselves to the emperor, and they’ll be buried with great ceremony.”

Gavin belatedly realized no one was guiding the ship. He set the Lady to hover and walked over to Li. It felt odd to stand over a kneeling man. “Is this true?” he asked.

Li said something, but his face was still facing the deck and Gavin couldn’t hear.

“Get up and talk to me,” Gavin said, not sure whether to be uncomfortable or outraged. The salamander made an unfamiliar weight on his ear.

Li came reluctantly to his feet and bowed deeply. The treacherous nightingale was still on his shoulder. “My deepest apologies, my lord. You will, of course, want to strike off my head immediately.”

Phipps translated, and Gavin let her.

“I will, of course, want to do no such thing,” he said. “What were you thinking?”

Li looked stricken. “If I am not properly executed, my lord, my family will live in shame for generations.”

Gavin thought of his friend Feng and his complicated views on what was just and honorable, and how those views had ultimately cost him his life. He understood, though he didn’t sympathize. He fingered the salamander in his ear. Part of him was furious and wanted to wield the executioner’s sword himself. But how many of these men had wives? Children? How many little ones would cry because Daddy’s head had been cut off? His own father had disappeared, dead or as good as such. Could he take the responsibility for putting all those other children through the same thing?

No. The person responsible for the salamander was not on board this ship, and it wasn’t right for Gavin to take his anger out on any of them. He thought a long moment with the ship hovering high over foreign farmland. Despite his decision, it was hard to make the words come-the anger was still there.

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” he said at last, with Phipps translating. The words were clipped and forced.

“Thank you?” said Li.

“For delivering the salamander. To me.” The men. The innocent families. He had to think of the families. Abruptly, and to Li’s surprise, Gavin switched to Chinese.

“I am glad you were able to properly give me my salamander. As I requested. Because I know you would never touch a Dragon Man without his express request. And I clearly requested it.” Gavin ground his teeth. “Because, as we all saw, I wanted the salamander, and I needed your expertise for its insertion. I. . thank you, Lieutenant.”

Li dropped to the deck and kowtowed again. “My gratitude, great lord.”

Gavin couldn’t bring himself to respond. Instead, he strode to the gunwale and stared at nothing for a long time. Eventually, Li and the soldiers rose and silently stole away, as if they were afraid Gavin was a bomb that might go off at any second.

Alice slipped up beside him without speaking for some time. Then she said, “That was a good thing you did. Phipps tells me that as long as you keep the salamander in, the men’s lives may be spared.”

“May be?”

“Nothing’s certain. Phipps says this is a strange area for Chinese law. But you’ve helped, and I know it hurt you a lot.” She stroked his arm. “You’re the bravest man I know, Gavin Ennock.”

“There’s other difficult news, I think,” he said to change the subject, and he repeated the conversation between Li and Phipps to her, the one about the emperor’s planned invasion of Europe to take place once he was sure the clockworkers were gone and Alice’s cure was neutralized.

“You’re right,” she said. “That is bad news. The question is, how do we stop it?”

“I don’t know.” He glanced at the spider on her arm. “You can start the cure spreading through China, if you get the chance.”

Alice’s face was tight. “If they don’t kill me.”

“You only have to scratch one person to spread it.”

“It’s not that simple, and you know it. Any number of factors could slow or even halt the cure entirely. The person I give it to might die or stay home or simply not transmit it to anyone who can carry it. A mountain range can block its passage for years, as could a desert. Or it could simply fade away like some illnesses do. That’s what seems to have happened in Europe, anyway. No one truly understands how diseases spread, and my cure spreads like a disease. I need to ‘infect’ as many people as possible, and even then, there’s no guarantee it’ll reach the entire world.” She sighed sadly. “Sometimes I think the plague will be with us forever.”

He didn’t know what to say just then, so he kept silent, though he tightened his grip on her hand. Phipps had taken the helm and was piloting.

“And now it occurs to me to ask,” she continued, “how you learned Chinese so quickly.”

“The plague is accelerating. A bad sign.”

“But you haven’t had a fugue in days, darling,” she said. “That must be a good sign. I think it’s those clockworker fugues that are bad for you. They burn out your mind faster, like a candle or even a firework. The more you give in to the plague, the more it takes from you. Perhaps,” she continued hopefully, “you’re going into remission or even getting better.”

“Don’t do that.” Gavin rapped the wooden helm with his knuckles, then stamped his foot and whistled two notes. “It’s bad luck on an airship to say what you think will happen. It means the opposite will come true.”

“Is that what that little dance was about?”

He looked sheepish. “You have to distract the sprites so they don’t remember what you just said.”