The idea that humans might travel through the Gate wasn’t a new one to Kaz, not entirely. Lianhua had mentioned that some humans cultivated in order to become strong enough to try passing through, seeking the source of the monsters who appeared on the night of no moon. Was Snen saying that they really could do that, and, in fact, had no choice? But why? What made monsters come here, and powerful humans go there? Wherever ‘there’ was. Or did the Gate open to different planes, or worlds, each time?
Before he could ask, they were interrupted by Lianhua’s excited voice. “Kaz! I’ve got it!” They all turned, even Intong lifting his large head to look toward the female who was running across the dirt. She had her robes clutched in her hands and stray tendrils escaping her hair, looking much more like the female Kaz knew.
When she reached him, she held her book open, then saw Snen and Li craning their necks to see. Kyla arrived just before Raff, adding to her audience, and Lianhua clicked her tongue before tucking the book away and pulling out a long, polished stick instead. The dirt was mostly dry by now, but still moist enough to move easily, so she set one end of the stick on the ground and began to write so everyone could see.
With a glance at Snen and the others, Lianhua said, “All right, this is the set of runes Kaz initially showed me.” She drew the complex mess with an ease that belied her claim to have no skill at art. Then, turning, she drew ‘silence’, followed by the remaining sprawl of lines.
“Occasionally, we’ll find old documents, usually made of vellum, that have been scraped down and reused. Sometimes there are lingering remnants of the old ink, allowing us to use a rune to separate them, lifting one document from the traces of the one before. The oldest document recovered in this way was the ‘Way of the Wind’, a series of poems that predated the Diushi Empire. This was particularly exciting because the Diushi absorbed preexisting countries so thoroughly that it’s difficult to be certain which parts of their national identity were a result of-”
Several people cleared their throats at once, and Lianhua blinked, bringing herself back to the topic at hand. “Of course, the point is that I’m actually used to taking apart runes. Sometimes the scraped sections are so thin that even our best efforts can’t separate them, and using the surrounding context to interpret them is something of a hobby of mine. When I was studying with the Zhe sect, I found a parchment discussing the way some people would unconsciously shift the stem of the next rune in order to allow space for the remnant below.”
She started to draw a completely different rune on the ground, then stopped as Yingtao gently touched the back of her hand. Pink rose in her cheeks, and Lianhua tried again. “When Kaz originally showed me this particular set of runes, the rune for ‘silence’ was fairly clear. I suspect that was the last one used, and it also has a rather unusual closed counter, which is a space inside the rune which is entirely enclosed by the strokes of the rune.”
Shifting her stick, she pointed to the ‘silence’ rune. “That left us with this,” she pointed to the sketch where ‘silence’ had been removed, “but without further context, I couldn’t really narrow it down further. I thought that it might have something to do with sticky, or sweet, because those runes have a particularly deep descender, but I now believe that had to do with the way the rune was stretched.”
As if she couldn’t help herself, Lianhua began to draw rune after rune, naming them as she went. “Honey. Sugar. Candy. You can see how this descender makes up the majority of the rune. Some people even draw it down through the line below, which is intended to be decorative, but in fact leads to great confusion in readers, especially when rendered in only one color of ink. Which is why any good scribe should ensure-”
This time when Yingtao coughed gently, she followed it up with a glance up at the darkening sky. Kaz didn’t know what that meant, but Lianhua’s ears were pink when she spoke again. “Without that extreme descender, the options actually increase significantly, but now that I know where the runes were found and what their purpose probably was, I believe I have the answer.”
She stopped, slightly breathless and looking triumphant. Kaz exchanged a look with Li, who said,
Kaz didn’t think it was anyone’s fault, but he shrugged. Looking back at Lianhua, he asked, “So what are they?”
“Oh! Ah, yes,” Lianhua said. She took her stick and drew four more runes. It was getting dark enough that the humans leaned forward, straining to see, but Kaz, Kyla, Snen, and Li had no difficulty.
“The first one is ‘insensate’. That one was more difficult than you’d think, because obviously there has to be a rune blocking the dragon’s intelligence. But ‘insensate’ is more than just another word for stupid - which was also an option - because it means lacking in sense or reason, but also lacking sympathy or compassion. That would make it difficult for them to form relationships, and explain why dragons went from powerful but sometimes even heroic or wise characters in the most ancient stories to the beasts they are today. They’re probably also not terribly good parents.”
Snen nodded at this. “Dragons often ignore their eggs, or, in the worst case, crush them underfoot. We usually take the eggs and keep them in the same incubation chamber as those of our own young. That’s why I could care for Intong’s egg personally, rather than simply training him after he hatched, as most xiyi do now.”
Kaz thought about how Li’s parents had cared for their offspring, turning the eggs and keeping them warm. The one Jianying injured or killed had brought the dragonlings the ki-rich food they required right after hatching, even though it was already wounded at the time. Had their curse already been fading, or were they simply so kind that some of their caretaking instincts broke through this rune?
Li leaned against him, puffs of cool vapor pouring from her nostrils. She was sniffling as she watched his memories of her parents caring for the nest, even though the same memories showed her own egg drifted further and further from the center of the pile, small and all but forgotten.
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Li’s head jerked up.
Kaz winced. This was why he hadn’t mentioned it. Hadn’t even allowed himself to think about it too hard. The moment Li had a real clue about where her family was, she would want to go, but he felt a rising compulsion to return to the mountain. Plus, he had promised to take Heishe into the mountain, and while she’d given him some time, he didn’t think she was that patient. The time when either he or Li would have to make a difficult decision was quickly approaching.
Lianhua, unaware of their silent conversation, had drawn another rune, and was discussing the shape of it, and how its loops, brackets, and a rounded terminal had allowed her to identify it. “-so obvious I don’t know how I missed it, even given that I didn’t know where it came from.” She looked up, beaming, only to find everyone else staring at her.
“So what is it?” Raff demanded, pulling at his breastplate so he could scratch his armpit, all the while pointedly ignoring Reina, who wrinkled her nose at the sight.
“Oh, yes. ‘Stall’. Specifically ‘stall cultivation’. This is probably intended to keep the bearer from developing any more ki than they were born with. It would prevent any of the dragons from becoming more than a two or three-ki beast, making sure no new Divine Dragons could arise.”
So, stupid, uncaring, unable to grow, and unable to communicate. Whoever had done this truly, deeply hated dragons.
“Pellis’ pink petunia,” Raff muttered. “And there are two more? What are they? And, uh, can y’ keep it short, Lianhua? I’ve got dirt in places I usually only wash every other month.”
Lianhua blinked, and then her eyes flicked to Reina, who had actually stepped away from Raff at this comment. Lianhua’s lips twitched, and she nodded. “This one is ‘ephemeral’. We know that Jianying and Qiangde lived a thousand years or more. Snen, how long do dragons usually live now, if they don’t get sick or injured?”
Snen hissed thoughtfully. “The oldest dragon I’ve heard of lived about fifty years. It takes twenty before they can produce young, and they often die at thirty-five or forty after having produced only one clutch of eggs. I truly believe that the only reason they’re not extinct is because we xiyi have cared for them all this time.”
This made Li look at the xiyi in a new light. She had liked him and Kus Ukark in spite of herself, but now she softened further. Kaz was sure that the obvious affection between the xiyi and the dragon Intong was also helping.
“And the last?” Kaz asked, interrupting his dragon’s thoughts. They made him very uncomfortable, and he didn’t really want to think about why.
“Yes, well, that one actually is ‘sticky’,” Lianhua tugged at a strand of hair, bringing it toward her mouth before Yingtao gently removed it from her fingers and tucked it back into her elaborate hairstyle. Lianhua made a little face at the other female, and they exchanged a warm smile before Lianhua went on.
“Actually, it’s ‘viscid’, and I only figured it out after I removed the others. For obvious reasons, it’s not commonly used unless you’re looking at records from an ancient glue factory. Which I’ve done, so once it was there in front of my face, I knew what it was. Rather than simply ‘sticky’, it means something like ‘having an adhesive quality’, modified by a stroke in the time quadrant which tells us it’s meant to be forever. This is probably the one that makes it all transfer from one generation to the next.”
Kaz frowned. “All of these words seem…complicated? Perhaps even unnecessarily so.”
Lianhua nodded. “Definitely. I can think of half a dozen simpler runes that could have been used instead of any of these. Perhaps the complexity was required for them to work as intended?”
Kaz didn’t think so. If another of the dragons in Qiangde’s court had been behind the plot, surely they wouldn’t have cursed the entirety of their own race forever. That argued that the traitor probably wasn’t a dragon. Which left all three races of kobolds and their various progenitors.
Snen claimed the xiyi had only been participants in the rebellion and cursing the dragons, and he didn’t think the mosui were capable of something like this, even if they wanted to. That left Kaz’s kobolds, but Kaz had actually seen some of his own people in Qiangde’s memories, and they certainly hadn’t seemed resentful or aggressive. The Magmablades seemed the most likely culprits, but they probably hadn’t been involved or Kyla would know something about it. That left the three creators of the kobolds.
Kaz had met Zhangwo, and the progenitor of the mosui didn’t strike him as being particularly intelligent. Cunning, yes, but not someone who formed and followed plans. Lianhua had even said that while his record-keeping was good, it was clear from them that his ‘experiments’ weren’t methodical enough to produce useful results. The fact that the mosui had been considered a failure even in Qiangde’s time supported this idea.
Nucai, on the other hand, was a meticulous plotter. He was the creator of the xiyi, so he had the closest ties to them. In addition, he rarely allowed his emotions to overwhelm him. Even when Kaz upset all of his plans by saving the Tree, he only sent the Irondiggers and the monstrous beast to capture him.
The ancient being had some use for Kaz, and hadn’t allowed his fury to take control. He was also surrounded by books and scrolls, with his pen constantly writing runes all over the pages that lay before him. Surely he had to know every rune in the world by now, and might even find some entertainment in using ones that others wouldn’t. It would be a sign of his superiority and intelligence. He would certainly be the best suspect, if it weren’t for his loyalty to Qiangde, which persisted to this day.
Which only left the mysterious Dongwu. The creator of Kaz’s race of kobolds was the only female of the three. According to Qiangde’s memories, Dongwu had joined him not out of fear, like Zhangwo, or arrogance, like Nucai, but because she felt that her own people didn't appreciate her, and she wanted to prove herself.
Had she eventually become disillusioned with Qiangde and his cruel experiments? Had she decided to stop him, and wanted to be sure another like him was never born? She had to be intelligent, in order to produce the most successful kobolds, at least to Qiangde’s mind. Was she a scholar, like Lianhua? Someone who reveled in words, longing for those around her to acknowledge that she was as intelligent and capable as her male counterparts, if not better? Was that why female kobolds had so much power in their society; even more than was called for because of their ki?
Kaz shook his head. Again, it didn’t really matter who had killed Qiangde or why. What mattered was that he now knew all of the runes blocking the dragon’s upper dantians. Rather than tearing them out, as he had inadvertently done with Li, surely he could now simply erase them one by one, avoiding damage to the dantian and ki channels.
Turning to Snen and Intong, Kaz said, “I’d like to try again to remove Intong’s curse. Are you ready?” He knew Intong didn’t really understand, not yet, but Snen nodded, only the faintest hesitation visible behind an otherwise calm expression.