The Dragon Men

“Don’t speak that way!” She grabbed his hand. “It frightens me when you do. I’m losing more and more of you every day.”

He looked at her concerned, beautiful face, trying to etch every feature into his mind so he wouldn’t forget her, no matter how much of his mind the plague burned away-her honey brown hair and her small nose and her pointed chin and her warm eyes. He couldn’t possibly forget any of it. Could he? He fingered the salamander that circled his ear and felt a sorrow that threatened to crush him. He had learned of his status as a clockworker only a few months ago, but it felt as if a lifetime had passed, as if he couldn’t remember a time before it. His back ached where the pirate’s whip had left deep, ropy scars after the attack on the Juniper.

“I’m trying to stop,” he said. “I am. It’s very hard to stay aloft.”

“Would you play, then?” She pointed at his fiddle case, which was lying on the deck near his wing harness. “Perhaps it’ll keep you focused. Certainly it gives me pleasure.”

“I wouldn’t mind, either,” Phipps said, “and I’m not in love with you.”

Gavin flashed a smile at that. He set bow to strings and played “The Wild Hunt,” letting the music slide and soar. The song rushed and roared about the deck, pushing at the ropes and rebounding from the envelope. Alice closed her eyes and Phipps tapped her feet. Gavin’s smile widened. He loved getting a listener lost in the music, towing someone along and sharing the beauty. Provided he didn’t make a mistake and spoil the loveliness. A faint hot draft wafted over him, whispering over black silk, and for a moment he was in another place. Cobblestones, clopping horses, and the smell of open sewers. A man with pale hair played flawless fiddle, his fingers flying over the neck. He grinned down at Gavin and started to say something. Then the memory was gone. The song ended, and Gavin lowered the fiddle.

“You were thinking of your father again,” Alice said, not quite accusingly.

“More and more often,” Gavin admitted. His back still ached. For a moment, the spot where the mechanical nightingale had pecked him itched, and he scratched it idly. “When I’m not thinking of you.”

“You know, I think that’s the first time I’ve heard you use flattery, Gavin Ennock,” Phipps said, and Alice laughed.

“All women like flattery,” Alice said, “even when they’re waiting to hear from-”

“Lady Orchid!” Phipps interrupted.

They all turned. Lady Orchid and a worried-looking man in a white cap were coming up the gangplank. Lieutenant Li preceded them, holding a phosphorescent lantern in one hand. In the other, he held a black box with dragons on it.

“We would like to speak,” Lady Orchid said.

Chapter Twelve

Dragons embossed in gold twisted across the surface of the box, and they engaged Alice’s eye. Hypnotic, really. Rather like the Impossible Cube, but pleasant, without inducing a headache.

Everyone got to his feet as the new trio boarded the ship. Gavin attempted a bow in the Oriental fashion. A smile quirked at the edges of Lady Orchid’s mouth, though Alice couldn’t tell whether it was a smile of approval or disdain. Since they were trying to be optimistic, she settled on approval.

Gavin scrambled about for chairs for everyone. Kung hesitated a moment, but Orchid settled into hers as if she had used them all her life, though Alice didn’t remember seeing anything but a low stool in the grand house, and Yeh had sat on pillows back in Tehran. Did the Orientals even use chairs? Li was the only one who remained standing. He set the box on the table in front of Lady Orchid. The dragons looked as though they were dancing. Gavin was avoiding looking directly at the box, and Alice wondered nervously if the dragons might draw him into one of those awful fugues.

“I am Prince Kung,” the man said. “Emperor Xianfeng was my half brother.”

“I am sorry to hear of your loss, sir,” Alice said formally.

“Thank you.” He took a breath. “It is. . strange to speak with foreigners, but still interesting.”

“In what way?” Phipps asked.

“You do not know our manners, just as we do not know yours, though it was good of Lord Ennock to make an attempt.” He nodded at Gavin, who flushed slightly. “You speak too bluntly for us, too forthrightly. On the other hand, we have little time, and our usual ways to discuss will fail. So I will be. . forthright. I have learned English because I feel our two worlds, East and West, would be better off in cooperation than at war. My half brother did not feel as I do, and General Su Shun definitely does not. He intends to invade the West as soon as he can confirm the death of Lady Michaels.”

He repeated this in Chinese for Orchid’s benefit.

“We know this,” Gavin said. “We also know that Lady Orchid wants to put her son on the throne so she can rule as regent.”

“That is so,” Kung replied with a nod. “Normally, we would work out a careful, subtle plan to discredit Su Shun and push him off the throne, or even assassinate him through a careful campaign of poisons. But we simply do not have time.”

“He is already partly discredited,” Orchid said in Chinese, with Kung translating. “The emperor cannot be one who is disfigured by the blessing of dragons. He must be unsullied so his body may accept the power of the Jade Hand.”

Phipps crossed her arms in a familiar gesture. “So the emperor must be physically perfect, but once he ascends the throne, he becomes disfigured. Interesting.”

“Not disfigured,” Kung replied. “Enhanced. The Jade Hand is a piece of heaven. Therefore, it does not mar. It improves.”

“But my arm and my eye”-Phipps held out the former and tapped the latter-“are disfigurements?”

“They are not the Jade Hand.”

“It makes as much sense as declaring a bit of glassy carbon valuable,” Gavin said. “I think the point Prince Kung wants to make is that the fastest way to change power is to steal the Jade Hand and give it to Lady Orchid’s son.”

“Wouldn’t that mean. . cutting off the boy’s hand?” Alice asked in a hesitant voice.

“Yes,” Orchid said simply.

A moment of silence followed.

“Su Shun cut his own off when Xianfeng died,” Kung said at last. “It’s been that way since the time of Lung Fei.”

“Wait,” Alice said as something occurred to her. “If you are-were-Emperor Xianfeng’s half brother, you must also be half brother to Jun Lung, the Chinese ambassador to England.”

“Ah, yes.” Kung nodded. “My brother shares my views on East-West cooperation, though he was more or less exiled for his pains.”

“Was he a Dragon Man?” Gavin asked. “His family name was Lung.”

Kung shook his head. “Coincidence. Lung was once common as a family name until it became customary for Dragon Men to take that name, but here and there you will still find a Lung who has not received the blessing of dragons. Xianfeng was a Lung before he took his Celestial name. My brother is even more aggressive about cooperation with the West than I, and the ambassador position was granted him to get him out of Peking, I am sorry to say.”

“Along with his son, Feng,” Alice said leadingly.

“Feng, yes.” A vague look of distaste crossed Kung’s face. “We do not speak of my nephew.”

Alice leaned forward. “Because he was disgraced for not being able to follow into Jun Lung’s profession.”

“You know of this?” Kung looked startled.

“Feng was my friend,” Gavin said. “I saved his life, and he saved mine. More than once.”

“Where he is now?” Kung demanded.

Alice and Gavin exchanged glances. There was an uncomfortable pause, and then Gavin finally said, “Sir, I regret to inform you that Feng has died.”