'Are you sure you're ready for this, you lying barrel of lard?' he called.
Ong let the door flap fall closed behind him and turned around.
'Why,' he asked, 'would you assume I was lying?'
He took a step forward. The foot that left the ground was human. The foot that came down was not.
'Blessed Lliira,' gasped Tycho.
'Mother of dogs!' cursed Li.
Toes twice as long as Tycho's fingers, each with a membrane of webbing stretched between them and tipped with a thick claw, dug into the hard ground. The creature's hind and forelegs were short, like a crocodile's, but its body was long and sinuous. It reared back on a whiplike tail, and a neck almost as long and thin arched against the night. Scales glittered blue-green on the creature's back, glossy yellow on its belly-a belly as unmistakably fat as Ong's.
Do you think that familiarity, Ong had asked Ibakha, will protect you from a dragon's wrath?
In a streamlined, wedge-shaped head that carried pearl-white horns and thick whiskers of red and gold, Ong's angry eyes stared down at them.
'Perhaps,' he said in a deep, rolling voice, 'you don't understand as much as you think you do.'
His fat chest swelled with breath.
The rushing sound of air struck terror through Tycho like a cold sword. With a yelp of fear, he hurled himself to the side-and straight into Li. They slammed into the ground together. Tycho managed to twist around just in time to see massive jaws gape wide. Fire? Ice? Poison? He squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the agony of the dragon's breath.
Except that instead of agony, the dragon's breath enveloped him in gentle coolness. He opened his eyes to thick mist and heavy drops of water falling on him. He touched his cheek.
'Rain?' he breathed.
Li's hand clapped over his mouth. Tycho could just make out his friend's face as he scanned the gray darkness overhead.
Somewhere above, something moved. Tycho caught a brief glimpse of a long body writhing through the air- Ong had no wings, but he flew like a snake crawling along the ground-then it was gone, vanished in the mist.
'Honored ancestors watch over us,' groaned Li, releasing Tycho.
Tycho wiped water from his eyes. The rain was beginning to come down harder.
'He flies without wings, he breathes rain clouds,' the bard choked. 'What kind of dragon does that?'
'A chiang lung a dragon of the east, guardian of rivers,' said Li. He kept his gaze on the darkness overhead, one hand raised to shield his eyes from the rain. 'Ong really is a water spirit, Tycho!'
'He didn't look very spiritlike to me!'
'Lung dragons aren't like the dragons of Faerun. They're mandarins of the Celestial Bureaucracy. They hold posts assigned by the lords of the spirit world.'
'He's a bureaucrat?' Tycho hissed
'An angry bureaucrat who could kill us with a swipe!' Li snapped. He scanned this mist. 'Where is he? What's he doing?'
From somewhere across the oasis, muffled shouts penetrated the mist-the travelers from the caravan, though it sounded like they were shouting more in wonder at the rain than in fear at a dragon soaring through the night. Ong was hiding in his own rain clouds, Tycho realized. The caravan couldn't see him. He and Li were the only ones who knew what danger they were in.
'He's toying with us!' Tycho cursed. 'Li, we have to get to the caravan! There's enough of us together to make a stand!'
He whirled around, groping along the muddy ground for his abandoned strilling.
His fingers closed on wet wood just as Li shouted, 'Down!'
From the corner of his eye, Tycho saw mist billow as a long shape came rushing down from the sky. He didn't wait to see more, but just threw himself flat in the mud. The wind of Ong's passage howled cold along his back and the lash of the dragon's tale caught him, sending him tumbling across the crowd like a toy. He ended up on his back, gasping for air.
Ong was climbing again, gaining height before making another pass. Rage and terror lurched in his belly but Tycho sang out desperately, hurling a discordant note after the vanishing dragon. Magical sound, strong enough to knock a man off his feet, blasted through the clouds and rain. Ong just laughed, a deep chuckle of grim amusement. The clouds opened and rain poured down in heavy curtains. Tycho's guts churned. His magic wasn't enough even to shake the dragon!
The noise of the spell had, however, brought cries of alarm from the unseen caravan. At least they knew something was wrong. Tycho half-staggered, half-slid along the wet ground to Li. The Shou was as muddy as he was.
'The caravan!' Tycho shouted at him over the sound of the rain. 'Which way?'
'Here!' Tycho called as he swung around. Human shapes loomed in the darkness. He bit back a yelp of surprise.
'What have you done, Faroon?' snarled Chotaris voice.
A hooded lantern slid open. Its light turned the shadowy clouds to glowing mist, but Tycho could see Chaka, Ibakha, and all the other Tuigan women as well. Many of them were clutching knives.
'Close the lantern before he sees the light!' he urged frantically. 'It's Ong-he's a dragon!'
'Of course he is!' spat Ibakha.
'Hold your tongue!' Chotan screeched. Tycho blinked and Li stared, but Ibakha stood tall and proud. Beside her, a wrinkled old woman rolled her eyes. Chotan glared at the old woman. 'Khui!'
Khui gave her a suffering look.
'Enough jealousy, Chotan!' she said as calmly as if they were standing around a campfire. 'We all have to move aside eventually.'
The old woman's Shou was flawless, better than Chotan's or Chaka's. Tycho's mouth fell open.
'Y-you…' he sputtered. The women of the oasis turned to stare at him. 'But…'
'You truly understand nothing, Tycho Arisaenn.'
The night air stirred and a wind blew down from above. It pushed aside the rain clouds, clearing an eye of calm before the pavilion though mist still cloaked the rest of the oasis. Tycho and Li stared up as Ong eased his bulk down to float protectively over the women, moonlight and lanternlight combining to flash over his scaly hide.
'You stand on the threshold of the east but still think that you are in the west,' Ong continued. 'This is no longer Faerun!'
Li made a strangled noise in his throat. Ong's head dipped down until it swayed level with the Shou's.
'And you, son of Kuang. You presume to judge me?' he snarled. His head thrust forward. Tycho could smell his breath-it carried the wet scent of mud, mist, and green leaves. 'I have spoken no lies tonight! I am an exile, three hundred years condemned to the westernmost post of the Celestial Bureaucracy by powers greater than you can imagine. Once I was the spirit of a mighty river. Now I am guardian of a sluggish pond, my reach bound by an oasis!'
Tycho swallowed.
'Well,' he said weakly, struggling to force back his terror, 'I guess that would explain why you've gotten as a fat as a lord.'
Ong reared back and roared at the sky, the sound of his voice like thunder rolling across the oasis. Out of the silence that followed, new sounds rose: terrified bleats and bellows of frightened animals, shouts of fear and panic from the caravan.
'Ong!' warned Khui. 'They'll know you're here!'
Ibakha gasped. Even Chotan looked worried.
The dragon's jaws ground together.
'Three hundred years,' he snarled at Tycho and Li through clenched teeth. 'Three hundred years of hiding like a beast, unable to reveal myself. The love of my Tuigan beauties sustains me. The tavern that you so despise, Kuang Li Chien, is my connection to the world. To lose either would be true condemnation. In jest or in truth, I will not let you take them from me!'
Three hundred years of hiding, unable to reveal, myself.
