It was strange being human-shaped. The ground was too far away, and when he washed the charcoal dust from his body, the touch of the cool water against skin that was not only bare but meant to be bare made him shudder. Kaz much preferred his own shape, his own fur, and very definitely his own tail and ears.
There were only two good points to the change. First, his new pants fit. Second, his broader shoulders meant that Li no longer needed the shredded remnant of his pack to rest on. Kaz was able to take everything out of it, tucking it all away into his pouch. As he did so, he found his fingers lingering on a small, triangular piece of carved stone.
Raff and Lianhua were asleep, leaving Kaz, Li, Kyla, and, presumably, Chi Yincang still awake. Kyla was fascinated by Kaz’s transformation, constantly finding slightly different ways to ask him if he could show her how to do the same. She had described her ideal ‘human female’ several times, as well, and to Kaz’s amusement, it was never the same twice.
Li, on the other hand, was only awake because Kyla was, a fact that she loudly lamented to herself, and - slightly less often - to Kaz. The dragon was still wary of the puppy, and she didn’t want to be asleep while Kyla was awake, especially since Kaz also planned to sleep soon.
Peering over Kaz’s shoulder, Kyla let out a gasp that broke through her latest explanation of exactly how and why she should also look like a human. Of course, Kaz wasn’t arguing that fact, simply stating that he didn’t believe she could currently achieve the same change, and it was potentially dangerous to try.
“Is that the cover for the Woodblade?” Kyla asked, sounding like she was choking on the words.
Kaz folded his furless fingers around it and pushed it into his pouch. He hadn’t thought she could see it from where she sat, but perhaps his new eyes weren’t quite as good as kobold eyes after all. During the shift, he had clung to the idea that he could see well even in low light, and it seemed to have worked, but maybe he just couldn’t tell the difference in the soft light cast by Kyla’s ki-orb.
Kaz gently touched a finger to Li’s nose, stopping a small burst of water droplets. Looking at Kyla, he sighed and said, “Yes. Do you know what it’s for? Does it have a purpose, other than keeping the knife from accidentally poking anyone?”
He kept his voice low, though he knew by now that even if he convinced Kyla to whisper for a while, it wouldn’t last. He should probably use a sound obscuration rune so the others could sleep, but judging by the snoring, it wasn’t really necessary, plus he was far too tired. So tired, in fact, that he had had difficulty sleeping, which was why he had decided to reorganize his belongings.
Kyla stared at him. “Shouldn’t you have asked that before you took it out of the mountain?” she demanded. Then, as if she couldn’t control it any longer, she let out a soft yip of laughter, ears twitching with mirth.
“Oh, I would have liked to see moth- Idla’s face when she realized it was missing,” she said. Much of her humor drained away as she corrected herself mid-sentence, but Kaz was glad to see that she still looked bemused.
Shaking her head, Kyla admitted, “I don’t know what it’s for, exactly. I do know that one time, and one time only, the other chiefs called for… for Vega, and when she went, she took the cover, but not the rest of the Magmablade. So it has to do something.” She shrugged.
Kaz frowned, tugging the little piece of stone back out of his pouch now that he was fairly confident that Kyla wasn’t going to try to grab it. They both looked at it, and Li actually came close enough to Kyla that the puppy could have touched her. Even Mei deigned to open one eye long enough to be sure that her kobold wasn’t doing anything that needed her attention.
“Those are leaves,” Kyla said, pointing to the delicate shapes carved into the smooth surface. Kaz pulled the triangular stone away, causing the puppy to give him an aggrieved look. “I wasn’t going to touch it,” she said reproachfully. “Even if I was, I don’t have any Woodblade power.”
Kaz looked at her sharply. She did have Wood ki, just not much, and he was certain she was aware of it. How else had she gotten out of the hidden den, bypassing the chip of blue ki-crystal that served as a lock? He supposed there were probably other ways that didn’t require a spark of blue ki, but he was still somehow certain that Kyla knew what forms her power took.
“It didn’t take much to remove it from the knife,” he told Kyla, watching her reaction.
Her ears twitched, but she looked away. “It has nothing to do with me. I was just curious.”
Kaz looked down at the lovely piece of carved stone, and sighed softly. He liked Kyla. He even trusted her, at least as long as they were in the world outside the mountain. But this was related to kobolds, and he still hadn’t figured out exactly why she was really there. It was certainly possible that she had snuck out, just as she claimed, but it was also possible that she was sent to keep an eye on him, and report back to the others, or perhaps just Ija.
“My mother - Rega - gave me the knife and the hilt right before she died.” He deliberately didn’t mention the book she’d also given him, and which he’d subsequently given to Katri. He now believed that that book had been written by Oda, and Rega might have meant it for him, not his sister. He’d never know for certain, though.
Kaz turned the little triangle, seeing the way the elongated ovals seemed to shift, moving over solid stone. “This is the last thing I have from her,” Kaz went on, putting the stone back in his pouch before he could change his mind. “I returned the knife and hilt, but the cover is mine.”
He looked up, meeting Kyla’s gaze, which promptly slid away. Regretfully, Kaz reminded himself not to take the stone out again until Kyla returned to the mountain. He would have to think long and hard to decide if he was willing to give it up just because Vega once took hers somewhere without the blade.
“I’m going to sleep,” he told the puppy, and she nodded, eyes fixed on her hands as she gently stroked Mei’s soft belly. The fuergar was already noticeably plumper than she had been when they found her, but she wasn’t nearly as greedy as a certain dragon. When the rodent was full, she stopped eating, instead of continuing to force down bite after bite as if she’d never see food again.
Kaz curled up on the piece of bedding Raff had laid out for him, and waited for Li to press herself against his belly. Someday, Li would be large enough that she could curl up around him, but for now, he enjoyed the soft vibration of her purrs against his stomach.
A moment passed, and then fabric shushed softly as it was dragged in his direction. The corner of it flopped against his lower back, which only made Kaz uncomfortably aware of his current lack of a tail. Then Kyla’s back pressed against his own, and Mei settled into the spot between their shoulders. Unlike Li, she didn’t seem to trust them quite enough to allow herself to be held while she slept, but she didn’t want to be far away, either.
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Neither kobold spoke, and all four soon drifted to sleep.
=+=+=+=
“You what?” Lianhua’s shriek seemed to echo off the surrounding trees, which had become larger and further apart as they traveled. The whole group came to a halt as Raff pulled his horse to a stop so he could turn and look at Kaz and Lianhua.
Kaz sighed. This was exactly why he had put off telling Lianhua about the vision he’d had when he touched Qiangde’s core. Still, Raff said it would take three more days of steady riding to reach Cliffcross, and at least Lianhua’s inevitable questions would be better than constantly thinking about how foreign his own body felt.
“When you dropped that dragon’s core on me, I saw the dragon - Qiangde’s - memories of his last day,” Kaz repeated.
Lianhua’s mouth opened, then closed. Without looking down, she touched the pouch at her waist, removing a pen and another of her small books. Opening this to the first page, she looped her ‘reins’ around a protruding lump on her ‘saddle’ and stared at Kaz expectantly.
Raff rubbed his hand over his face, mumbling something about kobolds and madness, then shrugged and clicked his tongue at his horse. The large animal started off again, ears turned to the side and tail swishing lazily, a clear sign that the beast wasn’t worried about whatever its rider was doing. Lianhua’s smaller animal fell in behind, as did Kaz’s mule, followed by Chi Yincang’s black steed.
Kyla had rejoined Kaz, bringing her fuergar with her, and since Kaz himself was a fair bit larger in his new shape, the sturdy mule seemed less than pleased with the situation. Fortunately, Li was quite happy flying loops around the wide trees, because Kaz thought his beast might simply refuse to carry any more weight.
“Well?” Lianhua urged, and Kaz returned his attention to her. She looked impatient, and he hid a smile. He had already learned that the humans could now tell what he was feeling much more easily than they had been able to before, and Lianhua wouldn’t like it if she knew he was teasing her.
Giving in, Kaz began to recount his memories of Qiangde’s final hours. At first, Lianhua wrote steadily, but soon enough her pen scratched to a stop, and she simply stared at Kaz, mouth agape. Thanks at least in part to her utter shock at the secrets Kaz revealed - starting with the fact that the entire Diushi Empire had been created by an ancient dragon who was trying to learn why humans could ascend, while beasts couldn’t - she managed to hold her tongue through the entire recitation.
At last, however, when the only sound that hung between them was the muffled clip clop of the horses’ hooves against the soft soil, she pointed a shaking finger at Kaz and said, “You’ve known this for how long, and never said a word?”
He winced.
Kaz glanced up, sending negation and adding a head shake just to let the dragon know he really meant it. Li could undoubtedly hurt Lianhua by now, and he didn’t think it would help anyway. Though he had to admit that it was possible Li was right.
“I was too tired, and then we were too busy,” Kaz defended. “You tend to lose track of everything else when you learn something new about the Diushi.”
“He’s got a point, Lianhua,” Raff said. Cold amethyst eyes stopped any further words in his throat, and Raff coughed, staring at the neverending expanse of trees that stretched out as far as they could see.
“That’s because,” Lianhua said softly, turning her glare on Kaz, “the world of academia believed that we knew all we would ever learn about the Diushi! We’ve been dredging out hints and possibilities from nothing for centuries. And now not only have we discovered where they went, but also where they came from, which shouldn’t be possible. Not after two thousand years!”
She looked down at her book, then very deliberately drew two crossed lines on the page, the scraping sound far too loud to Kaz’s ears. Kyla looked up at him, her expression far too cheerful as she murmured, “You’re in so much trouble.”
Kaz glared down at the puppy, half tempted to send her tumbling off the mule. She could sit with Lianhua. The human female had a larger mount, and Kyla actually seemed to enjoy it when the human stroked her tufted pink fur. Maybe Lianhua would calm down if she could pet the puppy for a while? He could feel Li’s enthusiastic encouragement, and images of Kyla falling down in a series of ever more amusing and unlikely ways filled his mind.
“So,” Lianhua said finally, “the first Diushi emperor wasn’t even human?” Her voice was tightly controlled, but there was something behind it that was almost frightening.
Kaz nodded. “He was a dragon. At least, if you believe that what I saw was real.” He, for one, absolutely did believe it, but now that he had told Lianhua, it wasn’t his responsibility to convince her. If she chose to disregard his story, that was her right.
Slowly, Lianhua tucked her book back into her pouch, and her empty hands lifted. At first, Kaz was afraid that she was going to yell at him some more, but then she began waving her fingers through the air as if she was turning the pages of an invisible book. She had told Kaz that she had a mental ‘library’, where she kept images of many books. He had seen her do this once before, when she was looking through that invisible collection to find a particular fact.
Now, he almost thought he could see the book in her hands. It was a large, heavy thing with more pages than any book he had seen before. It was covered in cloth the color of ruby… No, darker. Garnet, perhaps? With golden runes on the side where it was bound. But then her hands moved as she put that one away, pulling out another, and Kaz shook his head, looking down into Kyla’s eyes, which were rapidly fading back to boredom now that it was clear Lianhua wasn’t going to yell any more.
He had to be imagining it anyway. There was no way he could see someone else’s image.
Lianhua’s finger tapped sharply on an invisible page, and she looked up, saying, “In 112 AD - After Diushi - Kong Yahui wrote the poem, Dragon of the Emperor, based on paintings he had seen of the first Emperor with a blue and gold dragon rampant in the background. He described it as a great and noble beast, using it as a metaphor for the Emperor himself. Since dragons are mindless, murderous animals, this was roundly reviled. Everyone knows the Diushi primarily expanded through use of guile and diplomacy, rather than force, so the comparison was far from apt.
“But Shi Kong was a scion of the remaining imperial line. After a period spent as a social pariah, he insisted that when he was a child, he read a book containing stories about the first emperor and a wise and powerful dragon. Shi Kong vanished soon after. His family claimed that he had been overcome by the stress of his court duties, which were too much for his artistic temperament, so he retired to the countryside so he could write. Yet he never released another poem, in spite of being quite prolific before this incident.”
The unseen book was returned to the shelf, and another was taken out. Lianhua’s hand actually sank beneath the weight of it, intangible as it was.
“In 370 AD, the last of the cultivators who were born in the Old Diushi Empire died. He had spent his life attempting to ascend, but ultimately failed. In his last days, he often sang a song wherein a great dragon became Emperor of the world. His great-great-granddaughter, Xiang Dao, who sat with him every day, recorded more than a thousand verses. Many of them were nonsense, but a hundred or so told tales of the dragon Emperor, who gathered humans to him, then left his court behind when he grew bored with it.”
Another book.
“In 871 AD, a repository of Diushi records was found in a defunct official building. It contained the most complete list of items from the Diushi treasury ever. Among those items were a number of dragon cores, as well as dragon scales and claws. All were listed as belonging to previous emperors. Specifically, the sixth through the tenth. But the rune used for ‘belong to’ was modified by an ascender most closely translated as ‘made by’. We assumed those emperors made a practice of hunting dragons, but what if-?”
With each book, Lianhua’s voice became more and more excited. It all sounded less than convincing to Kaz, but Lianhua had managed to figure out where the Diushi went based on records that hundreds of other humans had access to. She was like a kobold tracker, sniffing out a trail anyone else would have abandoned long ago.
Kaz settled back on the fabric pad protecting the mule’s hide from rubbing against the straps of the packs laid across his back. Perhaps this wouldn’t be so bad after all.
As if she’d heard the thought, Lianhua turned blazing eyes on him. “Tell me again,” she demanded. “Slowly.”