Chapter Eighty-seven (Patreon)

Lianhua froze, and a tiny squeak emerged from between her lips before she clamped them shut. She shifted as if she would stand, then settled back into place. “I… You… Can you… explain?”

He could tell she was desperately trying to remain calm, but her gaze was avid as she stared at him. Among kobolds, such prolonged eye contact could be seen as a challenge, but he knew she didn’t mean it that way, so he raised the book and, barely able to force out the words, asked, “May I draw it for you?” Her eyes widened, but she nodded, so he began to sketch.

Kobolds didn’t read. They didn’t need to. There was nothing that couldn’t be communicated through words or howls, with one glaring exception. When a tribe settled in a new den, warriors and gatherers were sent out to investigate the surrounding territory. Each of them carried a piece of chalk or other soft stone, allowing them to mark which tunnels they had explored, and what they found there, so no one else would waste their time going over the same ground.

There were common symbols the puppies of each tribe learned: an arch for a cavern, an inverted triangle with three lines protruding from the bottom for a lopo, a pointed oval for a drop of water, or a circle for a pool. Most of the things a kobold would expect to find could be easily communicated with a few strokes of chalk. Sometimes, however, a gathering group would stumble over something more complicated, and when they did, someone had to draw an image to represent it.

It was the one and only thing that Kaz was better at than anyone else in his tribe, but Oda had hated it. As soon as everyone memorized the territory, she had all the chalk markings washed away, claiming it was because she didn’t want to make things easier for any tribe who tried to take their resources or attack their den. There was some validity to this viewpoint, but there was enough space between tribes in the upper levels that most incursions were accidental, and no one attacked without any warning at all, since that would only earn them the contempt of nearby tribes.

Privately, Kaz suspected that Oda hated the pictures for no other reason than that Ghazt loved them. Kaz remembered his father drawing on the walls simply because it made him happy. He created sketches of Kaz, Katri, Rega, and a dozen other members of the tribe, along with images of serene pools and menacing beasts. He had taught Kaz about creatures and plants that no longer existed in the Deep, but were beautifully captured in strokes of pigment that he promised to teach Kaz to make when he was old enough. He died before he was able to keep that promise, and Oda had made sure Kaz never had an opportunity to draw anything other than what was absolutely necessary.

Now, Kaz’s hand shook as the ink flowed smoothly over the clear white paper of the page. He had been longing to write, to draw in this book since the first time he saw it. He was sadly disappointed by what he produced, though he was able to recognize the nine levels, and the tall, rectangular buildings. The little figures were barely dots, however, and since he only had the black ink produced by the pen, he couldn’t properly convey the depth of the carvings, much less the red glow of the now-missing stone in the central square of the tunnel-building.

Lianhua leaned forward, clearly enthralled, and when Kaz’s hand finally stilled, she gasped, “You’re an artist! Why didn’t you tell me?” She turned amethyst eyes on him, and for the first time, they held something that could be interpreted as admiration.

Kaz’s ears folded back, but Li whistled happily in his lap. She was glad that someone was finally appreciating him properly. She sent an image of Lianhua bowing to Kaz, and his ears lowered even further as he pictured himself taking a deep breath and blowing the ridiculous picture away.

He shoved the book back at Lianhua, looking away. “I’m not,” he told her. “Kobolds aren’t artists. There’s no time for art when you have to spend every moment finding food so your tribe can eat, or defending your den from beasts.”

The words spilled out, and he almost shuddered to hear his mother’s voice in his own, but how many times had she told him that since Ghazt died? How many times had she taken his chalk or made him scrub away his sketches? How long had it been since he simply stopped trying?

Lianhua bit her lip, clearly aware that she had stumbled over something that bothered him a great deal. Finally, she cleared her throat and held up the book, still open to his drawing. He looked away. It was so terrible, if she had given him a chance, he would have torn it out and used a rune to burn it.

“I want to see it,” she said. “Your drawing is beautiful, Kaz, and it’s far better than my attempts to sketch some of the animals and plants we’ve seen. I need to see this mural myself, though.”

Relieved that things were returning to the path he had expected, Kaz lifted Li into his arms. She grumbled, but he had asked her about this on their way to find Lianhua, and she had agreed, albeit with great reluctance.

With a thought, he urged Li to use her camouflage ability, and felt the power extend around them as she did so. Lianhua gasped, though she didn’t look away, and Kaz had Li drop the power again.

“Li will keep you hidden and show you the way. It’s not hard. After you’re over the wall, you just go left until you reach the wall, then follow it to the right until you get to the carving. If Li pulls your hair, stop, and stay completely still until she does it again.”

The dragon had wanted to bite Lianhua’s ear, as she did Kaz’s. He had only managed to talk her out of it by showing her some grisly pictures of what might happen to them if Gaoda or Chi Yincang found teeth marks on Lianhua’s skin. Privately, he doubted Li could damage the human female’s ki-filled flesh, but he knew from experience that the dragon underestimated how much a solid chomp would hurt.

Lianhua looked from Kaz to Li. “But what will you do? Are you going to stay here until we get back? Can’t she hide us both?”

Kaz’s tail drooped. This was the part he wasn’t happy about, but he could see how far Li's power extended, and it barely covered him. When he'd asked her to make it larger, she had tried, but it had only expanded a few inches. In fact, the only way it would even cover Lianhua was if Li kept it at the maximum extension for their entire journey, which would exhaust the little dragon. There was no way to keep both Lianhua and Kaz concealed with any certainty, and Kaz had learned long ago never to depend on luck. 

“No,” he said. “At least not for long. I’ll stay outside your hut while you’re gone. That way, if anyone comes looking for you, I can tell them you’re sleeping. As long as you’re back soon, no one will even know you left.”

Lianhua grinned, reaching out toward Li. The dragon unwound from Kaz’s arm, transferring to the human’s arm, then her shoulder. While Li made her reluctance very clear, she didn’t actually seem nearly as unhappy as she had when Lianhua was carrying her through the fulan. It seemed that reminding her of everything Lianhua had done to help them had been beneficial after all.

They both stood, and with a mischievous glint in her eye, Lianhua drew out several pillows and laid them on the ground, then tucked a length of fabric over them. With a few deft pokes, she made the pillows into something that was about the right shape for a small human, lying on her side.

“I used to do this all the time at school,” she said, seeing Kaz’s surprise. “As the granddaughter of a clan leader, I had my own room, but the dorm-mistress checked on us in the evenings, to make sure we were asleep like good little lords and ladies. She didn’t enter the room, though, so if I could make a convincing enough substitute, I was able to go out at night, so long as I stayed within the town inside the sect compound.”

She saw Kaz’s look and misinterpreted it, adding, “I could do this with a rune, now, but then I didn’t have enough ki or enough control. Besides, we’ll probably be leaving tomorrow, and I’ll need all the ki I can cultivate between now and then, especially if we encounter more fulan.”

He sighed. “We’ll have to go back through the fulan, at least to reach the proper set of stairs. Zyle must have been desperate to convince us to bring Civ and the others here, because he has to know there’s no way I’ll take you down from here. There are too many tales of whole tribes vanishing when the mosui are angered, and too much mystery about them. I have no idea how to reach the stairs on the next level from here, or how dangerous the mosui would be to you. There are just too many unknowns to risk actually going down those stairs.”

Lianhua’s face fell. “But we need to see the city!”

Kaz shook his head. “We need to live. If you want to venture into mosui territory, we should do it from the bottom level of the nine, and make sure we know the fastest path of retreat. That way, if we’re discovered, and they can’t be reasoned with or overwhelmed, we can continue toward the Deep and leave the mosui behind. There are more ruins and artifacts of the ancients in the Deep than anywhere else.”

“That you know of,” Lianhua corrected, and he saw the same stubborn look in her eyes that Katri sometimes got right before she did something that would get him in trouble.

“I promised to help you discover what happened to the Diushi,” he reminded her. “And I will, at least if there’s anything inside the mountain that will tell us. But knowingly walking into danger on the chance that there might actually be the remnants of a city beneath us, and that that city might have something to do with your lost civilization, would be foolish.”

She nodded stiffly, then turned and pushed open the door. Kaz felt the shroud of Li’s power fall around her as she did so, and quickly reached out to catch the door before it could fall closed behind them. The last thing they needed was for someone to hear it and look this way.

When Kaz stepped outside, Lianhua and the dragon were nowhere in sight, but the cord that bound Kaz and Li hung in midair, ending next to the wall of a nearby hut. Kaz lifted his nose and sniffed, still able to catch Lianhua’s scent, but it was far fainter than it should be. They were well hidden, and he didn’t think anyone else would even be able to find them, so long as they didn’t move.

Turning his attention toward the small open area where he had last seen Raff, Kaz pitched his voice so it would reach just far enough and said, “Go on that direction until you reach the low wall. Watch out for guards. They’ll come by every three to five minutes, so as soon as one is out of sight, you’ll have to go over the fence. Then left, right, and straight on. Stop as soon as Li tells you to, and wait until whatever she saw is past.”

From the corner of his eye, he saw part of the wall shift, then move, turning into a pale female with a golden dragon clinging to her shoulder. Without a glance back at him, Lianhua slid around the corner of the hut, vanishing into the shadows almost as thoroughly as Chi Yincang.

Left alone, Kaz settled in front of the door to the vacant hut, trying to look as bored as he could while also completely blocking the way. He thought it had taken less than an hour for him to find the map and return, and Lianhua had a guide and a goal, so surely she would be back very soon.