Chapter Two hundred one (Patreon)

As the darkness drained from Chi Yincang’s eyes, Kaz turned to Lianhua. She gave him a smile that would have been more reassuring if it hadn’t been so shaky.

“He just wants to ask you more questions,” Lianhua said, and Kaz nodded before glancing at the two males. Chi Yincang was as impassive as ever, but Raff actually looked worried for a moment before his usual grin took over his face.

“Well,” Raff said cheerfully, “nothin’ we can do about that now. There’s another rabbit waitin’ for you and your lizard though, Blue, and I’m thinkin’ your stomach might wanna do something about that.”

Kaz nodded again, reaching up to stroke Li’s head as they all returned to the far end of the cavern. His previous good mood was entirely gone, and he felt as if the weight of the mountain on his shoulders had been replaced by the weight of the world.

<It’s not your problem,> Li told him, though he could tell she wasn’t quite as confident as she tried to sound. <You don’t have to take care of Katri, or the other kobolds, or figure out how to stop the humans from killing cored beasts. We just need to find my family, so I->

She broke off, and Kaz could feel her confusion. Li’s goal had been the same since she first heard about the great black dragon chasing off her parent and siblings: find them. But what came after that? Did Li fly off with them, leaving Kaz alone? She claimed she wouldn’t, but to other dragons, Kaz was nothing more than a tasty snack.

Following his tunnel of thought, Li said, <No! I just want to know they’re safe. Then you and I can go and explore the world. Find somewhere without humans or dragons or kobolds, and be happy. Together.>

Kaz accepted the rabbit Raff handed to him, and tore off a leg, passing it up to Li. The first rabbit was already gone, bones and all, and Li’s belly bulged slightly, though that didn’t stop her from taking more.

The rest of the meal passed in near silence, each of them thinking their own thoughts, none of which seemed to be happy. Only Kyla, who had no idea what the earlier conversation meant, though she had to have heard at least part of it, seemed cheerful as she fed her fuergar tiny scraps of meat. Mei could probably have eaten a whole rabbit by herself, but she seemed pleased to be doted upon by the puppy, and Kyla in turn was almost giddy each time the little pink paws delicately accepted an offering.

Eventually, there was no more food, and they sat in silence broken only by the sound of the stream, until Lianhua finally slapped her palm against the dirt floor and looked at Raff.

“What are we walking into?” she asked, her tone firm.

Raff sighed and shrugged, running his hair over his close-cropped hair. “You? Not too much, I hope. They obviously know we headed for Scarabus together, and unfortunately, they’ll also know we were staying together at the Old Crow, along with these two.” He tilted his head toward Kaz and Kyla.

“Your gramps is a pretty big muckety muck though, Lianhua, an’ I doubt they’ll confront you directly. They’ll probably want you to tell ‘em where we’ve been, but they’ll ask nicely. Worst case, they kick you an’ Chi out of Holiander, and send an ‘escort’ with you to make sure you don’t contact anyone. Normally, I’d recommend you hightail it out without waiting for them to help you, but you gotta go get Yingtao, and there’s no way she’s not under surveillance.”

Lianhua’s expression shifted from concerned to surprised by the time he finished, and she immediately said, “But what about you?”

He shrugged. “What about me? The less you know, the less you can tell anyone, and they’ll have ways to recognize the truth.”

Lianhua’s lips flattened. “We can’t just-”

Chi Yincang laid a hand on her shoulder, cutting her off, then offered Raff a shallow bow. “We appreciate your understanding,” he said.

“What understanding?” Lianhua asked, outraged. “There are two girls missing, and our friend is in trouble. We need to help!”

The males exchanged glances, and Raff shook his head. “I’m just a merc,” he reminded Lianhua gently. “You paid me to guide you an’ keep you safe, and I did that. Once I have my gold, we’re nothin’ to each other.”

Kaz watched this, understanding that they were both right. Raff was like a male assigned to guide a tribe through territory that didn’t belong to them. Like Kaz himself, in fact. But everything they had gone through together had created a relationship far beyond their original one. He didn’t want to say goodbye to Raff and walk away, never knowing what became of the good-natured human.

Looking from one to the other, Kaz asked, “What’s the city like? Cliffcross? Is it similar to the ones in the mountain?”

Lianhua looked mutinous, but Raff smiled appreciatively. “Lots of buildings and roads,” Raff said, “but otherwise, not much. Some parts of it are fancy, and you can’t walk there without a pack of private guards starin’ at you sideways. Other parts, someone’ll steal the clothes off your back as soon as look at you. Right now, they’re gettin’ ready for the Solstice Tournament, so things’ll be even crazier than usual. People will be there from everywhere. Elves, dwarves, people of all types. One good thing, there’ll be lots of traders, so I won’t stand out as much as I usually do.”

Kaz’s ears twitched curiously, and Raff gave a short laugh. “My mother’s from the south, past Cape Locke. Her family are traders, and while they have enough money to buy half the city, they can’t claim a single title. Shocked the whole country when she married my father.”

He held up his arm, turning it so Kaz could see the brown of his skin. “Most folks in Holiander are almost as pasty as Lianhua here, though those who work outside can turn almost as brown as me. Let’s just say me an’ my siblings stand out at parties.”

Kaz blinked. “Humans change color?” he asked. Nothing in the howls had ever mentioned such a thing!

This time, Raff’s laughter sounded genuine, and his teeth flashed in a grin. “Only if they spend a lot of time in the sun. During Tournament time, you’ll see a lotta pretty ladies with umbrellas like Lianhua’s, tryin’ to keep from turnin’ red.”

Kaz very much wanted to see a red human, so he hoped that one of them would forget their umbrella. Were they red like ruby, or red like blood? It didn’t sound like it was intentional, so what caused the shift? Was it possible that the sun actually made them change? Would it make him change colors?

He covered the fur on his arms protectively. He hadn’t enjoyed being without it, but there was one more thing he wanted to try before they used the sleeping cloths Raff and Chi Yincang had laid out nearby.

Turning to Lianhua, Kaz asked, “Would you help me with something?” His ears flattened. He wasn’t comfortable depending on anyone other than Li, but he had promised.

Her eyebrows lifted, and she glanced at Raff, who seemed thoroughly absorbed in picking the last bits of meat from his rabbit. Sighing, she gave in and nodded, offering Kaz a smile.

Kaz stood, and Li flew off of his shoulder, already well aware of where they were going. Lianhua followed after them, until the light hovering by her shoulder illuminated Kaz’s new bundle of paints and brushes, already abandoned by the side of the stream.

Leaning down, Kaz pulled the rest of his charcoals from their places, crossing to the fresh, blank wall beyond the stream. Quickly, he began to sketch, long lines forming arms, legs, chest, and head of a new figure. Once the outline was done, he started on the details, adding facial features and a wild mop of long blue fur on top of the head.

When he was done, he turned to Lianhua, waiting for her reaction. The female’s eyes were wide, and there was a sort of suppressed amusement behind them that made the fur on the back of Kaz’s neck rise. Seeing it, she lifted her hands placatingly.

“It’s all right, Kaz,” she said, “but I may see where you went wrong the first time.” She hopped over the stream and held out her hand for the black charcoal stick. With easy, confident motions, she drew smaller feet inside the long ones Kaz had sketched, then reduced the nose and ears by half.

“An adult human’s shoulders should be two and one third times the width of his head, and he should be seven and a half heads tall.” She measured the head between her hands, then moved that down to show that either the head of Kaz’s figure was too large, or the body was too short.

Quickly, she moved to the side and drew a new figure, using the size of the head to determine the proportions of the rest of the body. The details were rough, but she seemed very confident about the actual sizes.

When she finished, she turned and gave him a rueful smile. “I told you I had lessons. I read all the books, and I know how it’s supposed to work, it’s just that when I actually go to do it, it doesn’t. I truly admire people like you and Yingtao.”

Kaz tilted his head, and Li came to land on his shoulder, feeling the sadness Lianhua’s words had caused. “Oda thought that art was nothing more than pretty lies. She hated it, but it was the only thing I was ever good at. I would have given anything to be able to do what you do. Read, and write, and learn things.”

Lianhua sighed. “I will teach you, Kaz. In fact, we can start now.” Turning to the wall, she drew a line from her figure’s nose, then sketched in three short lines joined by a curve.

“This is the rune for ‘nose’. Each rune has four quadrants, and we can apply modifiers that tell us who the nose belongs to, what size it is, when we saw it, and whether it is acting or being acted upon. The other runes nearby clarify the meaning of the modifiers, so this,” she drew two dots and a long swoosh that went from upper left to lower left without touching the main rune, “tells me this is someone else’s nose, in the past, and it’s doing something.”

The next rune was familiar, and Lianhua’s eyes twinkled as she drew it. “I’m sure you remember this rune. Its placement tells me we’re talking about his nose, not yours, mine, or Raff’s. Speaking of which-”

Lianhua glanced back at the campsite, from which Raff’s usual soft muttering could be heard. “Raff has an unusually large nose, so you don’t have to make yours like his.”

Kaz scratched his muzzle, and was about to answer when Kyla did it for him. “Big noses are better,” the puppy said, jumping across the stream to join them. She didn’t quite make it, and the tufted pink fur on her paws turned dark and flat as she splashed into the water.

Nodding in agreement, Kaz turned to look at Lianhua. The human female looked between the two kobolds, then at Li, who was rubbing her own snout with her front paws, her eyes crossed as she tried to see it.

“All right,” Lianhua agreed with a sigh, touching her own nose, which was so small that it nearly vanished in her pale face. A smudge of charcoal trailed her fingertips, but she didn’t seem to notice.

“What’s the dragon’s nose doing?”Kyla asked, pointing at the symbols on the wall.

Lianhua started to shake her head, then froze. Slowly, she reached out and touched the rune for the first Diushi emperor. “What is this rune?” she asked carefully.

Mei splashed across the stream to join Kyla, seeming not to care that she was now thoroughly drenched. Standing on her hind legs, she reached up toward Kyla like a pup asking its den mother to pick it up. Kyla did so, snuggling her wet fuergar close.

“Kyla?” Lianhua prompted.

The puppy rubbed one of Mei’s round ears as she said, “That’s the rune for dragon.” She looked over at Li, and a hint of something like awe appeared in her golden eyes. “The last of the dragons died when the other kobolds rebelled, but the Woodblades had paintings and carvings of them everywhere. That’s why we knew what Li was, even though she’s a lot smaller than the pictures showed.”

Li hissed softly. <I’ll be bigger than any dragon before! Bigger than Qiangde even! I’ll be so big that when I fly overhead, no one will be able to tell if the sun is still shining. So big that when I shed, one of my scales will be able to crush a mountain. So big…>

She continued, but Kaz was watching Lianhua absorb what Kyla was saying. If the rune for dragon was the same as the rune for the Diushi emperor, what did that mean?

Turning back to the wall, Lianhua drew another rune. Four lines, left to right, the second from the top thickening on each end. One line, top to bottom, dividing them all, then another line below, not touching any of the others. It was the first rune Lianhua ever showed Kaz, but she wasn't looking at him.

“What does this mean, Kyla?”

Kyla took a step back, her paws dipping into the water again. “Master,” she said. “Forbidden. The number seven.”

Slowly, Lianhua shook her head. “No,” she told them. “That means dragon.”