“Ai!” he whispered to the Taoist monk, still wrestling his fear. “I had a terrible dream.”
“Tell me what you saw, and perhaps I can divine the meaning,” the monk suggested.
It had been so vivid, Huang Fa could still feel where the dragon’s tooth had hit him. He reached down to touch the spot—and found the dragon’s tooth lodged in the hair of his sheepskin vest.
The monk gaped at the tooth.
Huang Fa peered all around the plains, to see if someone could have thrown it, but all that he could see was rippling fields of grass.
That’s when he knew. The sorcerer had thrown the tooth at him—a distance of more than 300 li.
“It does not take a divine scholar,” the monk said, “to know that sorcerer has rejected your apology.”
#
Darkness came, and with it came the howling of wolves and the cries of hunting cats in the desert. Huang Fa and the monk loped up a hill, and far in the distance, miles away, they spotted the bright-colored silk pavilions of the caravan. The pavilions, made in the peaked Arab style, had lamps and campfires lit within, and each glowed a different color like radiant gems in the desert in shades of ruby and tourmaline, diamond and sapphire. The pavilions beckoned, but Huang Fa’s legs felt like lead. “A march of a single night would bring us to the wizard’s caravan.”
“I cannot go on,” the monk begged, panting. “The stars are strangely dark tonight.” He leaned over and grabbed his knees, trying to catch his breath.
It was true. There was a cloudy haze across the heavens, obscuring the River of Stars. Huang Fa had a star chart, painted upon a silken map, that could help guide a man across the desert at night, but on a night like this it would be no use. “We should camp,” the monk suggested. “A man who races headlong in the night is sure to fall in a hole.”
Huang Fa considered lighting a knot of grass and using it as a torch, but felt reluctant to do so. It might attract unwanted eyes. He glanced behind him, with an uncanny certainty that he was being watched.
#
In his dream that night the feral children stalked him.
He dreamt first that the moon was out, as bright as a mirror of beaten silver, and by its light he saw a strange creature—grand and majestic. It was an elk, he thought, or something like an elk. Its hair was as pale as cotton and it stood taller than two men; its antlers had many tines and were so broad that a man could have lain between them. At first he thought that there were cobwebs between the tines, but then he realized that it was a thickening of the horn, unlike any that he had seen upon an elk before.
The creature mesmerized him. Never had he seen such a regal animal, so full of power and strength.
Then he heard a rustling behind, and realized that something was creeping toward him through deep grass. He whirled and glimpsed pale bodies, naked children sneaking on all fours, like wolves on the trail of a wounded ibex. He was not sure if they were after him or the majestic elk.
In his dream, he knotted a clump of dry grass and struck a flint with his knife, igniting it. He raised his makeshift torch in the cold air, hoping that it would frighten the feral children away, but they only growled low in their throats, crawling ever closer. Their eyes glowed strangely in the night, the color of blood sapphires, and they were close enough so that he could see their teeth filed down to fangs and the glint of their green jade daggers in their hands.
Some were nearly men in size, others mere toddlers.
In that dream, the monk was not beside him, and Huang Fa called out in terror, “Where are you, my friend?”
Lost in the distance, the monk called back, “I have chosen to take the Way. You should have, too.”
#
Dawn came with muddled results. Huang Fa awoke, with the monk shaking him insistently. “Something is wrong,” he whispered. Huang Fa sensed it before he even opened his eyes. The air felt stifled, dead, and for a moment he just lay in his blankets, imagining that dawn was hours off.
“The sun is up,” the monk warned, “but it is a day unlike any I have ever seen. A storm comes.”
Huang Fa squinted. The whole world had gone red, from heaven above to the earth beneath. On the horizon was a red cloud, a wall of filth, filling the air, rising incredibly high, taller than thunderheads. The sun could not pierce through it, and so it seemed more like night than morning. Indeed, the sun was less than a sooty smudge, and the grim light that filtered through was the color of a poor ruby.
“My friend,” Huang Fa shouted, leaping to his feet, “the Yellow Wind is coming!”
“Yellow Wind?” the monk asked.
“Yes, a dust storm out of the Gobi! One blew over our village when I was but a child, but it will be worse here! Quick, grab our blankets. I will get the horse. We must find shelter!”
The fine mare was tied to a small tree, peering east with her ears slanted forward, eyes dull with terror and fatigue. Her right knee was bent forward, as if her hoof was sore. She wheezed, and muscles in her shoulder spasmed. She lost her balance and stumbled a bit.
Resting a palm on her snout, Huang Fa found that she was feverish. She did not respond to his touch. She did not lean in for affection or shy away nervously. It was as if he didn’t exist, as if he were a ghost.
She coughed lightly, trying to clear phlegm from her lungs, and then just stood,
