But spending too much time near humans was risky. If one saw you during your ascension, that could ruin everything. Byam would have moved when the humans settled by the lake, if not for the ample supply of cows and pigs and goats in the area. Byam had got tired of seafood.
It wasn’t always good to have such abundance close to hand, though. Byam had been studying extra hard for the past decade in preparation for its ascension. Just last month it had been startled from a marathon meditation session by an enormous growl.
Byam had looked around wildly. For a moment it thought it had been set upon, maybe by a wicked imugi – the kind so embittered by failure it pretended not to care about the Way or the cintamani or even becoming a dragon. But there was no one around, only some fish beating a hasty retreat.
There was another growl. It was coming from Byam’s own stomach. Byam recollected that it hadn’t eaten in about five years.
Some imugi were known to fast to increase their spiritual powers. But when Byam tried to get back to meditating, it didn’t work. Its stomach kept making weird gurgling noises. All the fish had been scared off, so Byam popped out of the water, looking for a snack.
A herd of cows was grazing by the bank, as though they were waiting for Byam.
It only meant to eat one cow. It wanted to keep sharp for its ascension. Dragons probably didn’t eat much. All the dragons Byam had ever seen were svelte, with perfect scales, shining talons, silky beards.
Unfortunately Byam wasn’t a dragon yet. It was hungry, and the cows smelt so good. Byam had one, and then another, and then a third, telling itself each time that this cow would be the last. Before it knew it, almost the whole herd was gone.
Byam cringed, remembering this, but it put the memory away. Today was the day that would change everything. After today, Byam would be transformed. It would have a wish-fulfilling gem of its own – the glorious cintamani, which manifested all desires, cured afflictions, purified souls and water alike.
So high up, the air was thin and Byam had to work harder to keep afloat. The clouds brushed its face damply. And – Byam’s heart beat faster – wasn’t that winking light ahead the glitter of a jewel?
Byam turned for its last look at the earth as an imugi. The lake shone in the sun. It had been cold and miserable and lonely, full of venomous water snakes that bit Byam’s tail. Byam had been dying to get away from it.
But now it felt a swell of affection. When it returned as a dragon, it would bless the lake. Fish would overflow its banks. The cows and pigs and goats would multiply beyond counting. The crops would spring out of the earth in their multitudes…
A thin screechy noise was coming from the lake. When Byam squinted, it saw a group of little creatures on the western bank. Humans.
One of them was shaking a fist at the sky. ‘Fuck you, imugi!’
‘Oh shit,’ said Byam.
‘Yeah, I see you! You think you got away with it? Well, you thought wrong!’
Byam lunged upwards, but it was too late. Gravity set its teeth in its tail and tugged.
It wasn’t just one human shouting, it was all of them. A chorus of insults rose on the wind:
‘Worm! Legless centipede! Son of a bitch! You look like fermented soybeans and you smell even worse!’
Byam strained every muscle, fighting the pull of the earth. If only it had hawk’s claws to grasp the clouds with – or stag’s antlers to pierce the sky—
But Byam wasn’t a dragon yet.
The last thing it heard as it plunged through the freezing waters of the lake was a human voice shrieking:
‘Serves you right for eating our cows!’
THE SECOND THOUSAND YEARS
If you wanted to be a dragon, dumb perseverance wasn’t enough. You had to have a strategy.
Humans had proliferated, so Byam retreated to the ocean. It was harder to get texts in the sea, but technically you didn’t need texts to study the Way since it was inherent in the order of all things. Anyway, sometimes you could steal scriptures off a turtle on a pilgrimage, or go onshore to ransack a monastery.
But you had to get out of the water in order to ascend. It was impossible to exclude the possibility of being seen by humans, even in the middle of the ocean. Even though they couldn’t breathe underwater, they still launched themselves onto the waves on rickety assemblages of dismembered trees. It was as if they couldn’t wait to get on to their next lives.
That was fine. If Byam couldn’t depend on the absence of humans, it would use them to its advantage.
It was heaven’s will that Byam should have failed the last time. If heaven wasn’t ready to accept Byam, nothing could change that, no matter how diligently it studied or how much it longed to ascend.
As in all things, however, when it came to ascending, how you were seen mattered just as much as what you did. It hadn’t helped back then that the lake humans had named Byam for what it was: no dragon, but an imugi, a degraded being no better than the crawling beasts of the earth.
But if, as Byam flashed across the sky, a witness saw a dragon… that was another matter. Heaven wasn’t immune to the pressures of public perception. It would have to recognize Byam then.
The spirits of the wind and water were too hard to bluff; fish were too self-absorbed; and there was no hope of hoodwinking the sea dragons. But humans had bad eyesight and a tendency to see things that
