The butler was waiting at the door as usual when Yuelan arrived home from school. He bowed in greeting and gave her a friendly smile. “Welcome home, Miss,” he said to the sixteen-year-old girl with black hair and almond eyes the color of green jade.
Yuelan nodded her head and smiled at her father’s butler. “Thank you, Mr. Cheng. Is Father home?” She dropped her blue messenger-style school bag on the floor and let the butler help her with her jacket.
“Prime Minister Long is in a meeting with the heads of the Xie and Fang corporations at his office. He informed me that he would be home for dinner this evening and hopes you will join him,” the butler informed her as he hung her jacket on a nearby coat rack.
Yuelan picked up her school bag and slung the strap over one shoulder. “That shouldn’t be a problem. Since he isn’t home right now and I’ve already finished my school work I’m going to head over to the Royal Library after I change out of my uniform. I’ll take the bus, so no need to disturb Ban Li.” The girl lifted a thin-fingered hand in an almost wave and headed toward the marble stairs covered in a red carpet runner that led to the second floor of the prime minister’s mansion.
Her suite was in the southeast corner of the mansion and Yuelan opened the door to reveal a sitting room decorated in cream and lavender with gold accents. She left her messenger bag on the loveseat and headed for the walk-in closet. The long-sleeved, white blouse, bow tie, tan vest, and blue plaid skirt of her uniform came off and she put on a soft pink blouse with elbow sleeves and a bow just over the right side of her collar bone and a pair of white skinny jeans.
Yuelan studied her reflection in the full-length mirror in her closet and reached for the brush on her dressing table to pull her waist-length dark hair into a side ponytail with an elastic and a lace, sky-blue bow. The teenage girl liked these clothes and there was no need to change the simple, diamond stud earrings she had found in her mother’s jewelry box, so she picked up a cream, leather purse with fringe and checked to make sure her wallet was inside before leaving her room and heading back down the marble stairs to the entrance hall. “I’ll be back by dinner,” she told the butler as she walked back out the front door.
***
Using the bus, it took half an hour to get through the capital city to the ancient library Yuelan had access to only because her father was the prime minister. Normally it was reserved for scholars who received special permissions from the government or government officials, but Prime Minister Long Ansheng had requested special permission from the emperor for his daughter to be allowed inside. Yuelan had gone there once with her father when she was six years old, not long after her mother had died, and the librarian at the time, an elderly man who had since been replaced by his grandson, had requested Yuelan be given special permission to come into the library on her own whenever she wanted. Of course, she had to have an adult escort her when she was younger, but it had quickly become one of her favorite places to go. The librarian had provided her with many interesting things to read: legends written by hand on ancient scrolls that he read to her when she was young and newer, printed books talking about many different magical creatures.
Yuelan spent the trip to the library thinking about the scrolls the librarian had recommended she look at last time. She stared out the window as the skyscrapers with apartment buildings and businesses passed by and cars sped past to her left, some heading the opposite direction and some in different lanes going the same way.
The library looked the same as always as she got off the bus. Large wooden doors with serpentine dragons and other elegant carvings all covered in red paint and gold leaf. The circular handles attached to dragon heads were also gold plated. The entire building was built in the style of the ancient palaces of the emperors.
Yuelan walked up the wide, stone steps and through the one open library door. The doors hadn’t been modified to open electronically, so the librarian would open one door at opening and then close it when the library’s hours had concluded. The girl felt a familiar shiver of cold as she walked in among the antique desks, chairs, and shelves. The lights in the library were rather dim and Yuelan had never been able to find a lightswitch for them. The only lighting was the glowing orbs hanging from the ceiling from chains that gave off a soft light perfect for reading.
To Yuelan’s surprise, none of the scholars or public officials were in the library. She was familiar with most of them and often had interesting discussions about their studies. Her light-blue wedge heels tapped on the stone floor as she moved through the shelves in search of the librarian, Long He. Sometimes she couldn’t decide if it was odd or not that Long He’s name was the same as his grandfather’s. She supposed it wasn’t uncommon to name someone after a family member though. The librarian hadn’t told her where the scrolls were located, so she would need his help finding them. Yuelan was excited to see the ancient scrolls with drawings of dragons, kilin, mythical foxes, and the divine beasts of the four directions, the black tortoise, the white tiger, the azure dragon, and the vermillion bird.
“Mr. Long?” Yuelan called softly as she continued to search every bit of the public areas of the library. Apparently the librarian had a set of private rooms where he lived and kept watch over the valuable texts inside. “Mr. Long He?” she called again.
Still no answer. Still no other people inside the library. Yuelan started feeling nervous. She had never been inside the library without anyone in it with her before and her active mind started envisioning scenes with ghosts or dead bodies that she might come across. Perturbed, Yuelan headed for the doors of the library again and when she saw they were closed she stared at them in confusion for several seconds before moving to the one that had previously been open and tried to reopen it while wondering why she hadn’t heard such a heavy door closing.
The door was heavier than Yuelan had expected. It took a lot of straining and all her efforts to get it to budge just enough for her to be able to get outside.
Yuelan stared at the area around her, unsure of what had just happened. She lifted a small hand to twist a lock of her long, dark hair around a slender finger. The sixteen-year-old girl looked out at the mountains before her and the narrow, dirt path leading to the library she’d just exited in search of the missing librarian. The tall apartment buildings, shopping centers, paved roads, and noisy cars that had been around the library when she’d entered had disappeared, replaced by trees, a dirt path, and unfamiliar, mountainous wilderness. How she had gone from the bustling capital city where the nearest mountain was barely visible in the distance to the middle of what appeared to be a secluded mountain area, Yuelan did not know. Anxious, she headed back inside to try and find Long He again.
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She went back through the ancient, wooden doors intricately carved with five-toed, serpentine dragons and started to grow more concerned. The library looked exactly the same as the one she’d first entered, but as she wandered through the shelves of books and scrolls she couldn’t see a single soul. “Hello?” she called, speaking louder than she’d ever been allowed to in a library before. “Is anyone here?” There was a tremble in her voice that hadn’t been there when she had been searching the library before going outside.
There was no reply.
Yuelan continued her search of the library as her worry and fear steadily grew until she had scoured every part of it--except for the private area that was behind a set of locked doors. There was no sign of anyone, not even a fly or a mouse.
Yuelan’s fear grew to panic and her eyes stung as tears started to form. She ran out of the library again to look around for any sign of other human beings. If she could find a village or a town perhaps she could figure out where she was and how to get home. There wasn’t a hint of any other person except for the dirt path leading from the library down the mountains, so Yuelan started to walk along it as quickly as she dared. Running downhill in heels of any kind was never a good idea. Before long she caught sight of two people walking toward her. They were too far away for her to be able to tell if she knew either of them, but the sight of their clothing made her freeze.
The two pedestrians walking toward her on the path had masculine frames, but both had long hair that reached their waists with part of it pulled back and held in place with hair pins--one of them with a crown that had a polished shine to it. They were also both wearing ancient-style robes tied closed with belts that had decorative items of some sort hanging from them. One man wore white and had white hair while the other wore dark robes that, from Yuelan’s distance, could have been blue or black. The man in dark robes also carried a weapon that looked very strange to Yuelan’s eyes: the man had a sword at his waist. Were they cosplayers? Actors in a movie or play?
***
“I am surprised Your Highness wished to come with me to the library,” the man in white was saying to his companion as they walked toward the library--neither man had spotted Yuelan yet. Even though his hair was white, the man looked to be only in his early thirties. “Is there something in particular you are looking for?”
“I’ve heard you have the original manuscript of the prophecy there,” replied the other man, who looked to be the younger of the two men, probably in his late teens or early twenties. His robes were dark blue and embroidered with black, hornless, five-toed dragons. “I wanted to take a look at it.”
The white-haired man smiled. “I do have the original copy, as I am the one who wrote it down when it was given by the priestess, after all.”
The man dressed in dark blue chuckled, his voice a light baritone. “It’s comments like that that cause other people to fear you, Lord Long,” he told the other man. “Nobody knows your age. You look younger than Father Emperor, but you occasionally make comments that indicate you’re much older than any of us.” A movement ahead of them on the path caught the younger man’s attention and he stopped walking to look ahead. On the path and looking very nervous was a pretty young girl in very strange clothing. He’d never seen anyone who wasn’t wearing robes or a gown. “Was there someone living with you, Lord Long?” he asked, his expression stiffening.
Lord Long looked in the direction the prince was looking and saw the girl. He took in her white pants, pink blouse, and heels without surprise then looked back at the prince. “Please give me a moment, Prince Guangfeng. The girl is the daughter of a close friend of mine. She likely just arrived at my library, so I haven’t had an opportunity to speak with her yet. I will do that now and get her properly attired.”
***
Yuelan watched the man in white suddenly speed up and hurry toward her and she let out a stifled sob of relief when she recognized the familiar face of the librarian. She ran toward him, but almost immediately stumbled as her ankle started to roll. After that she slowed down. “Mr. Long!” she called once he was close enough. “What’s going on? Where is this? I came to the library and couldn’t find you to ask about the scrolls you mentioned, so I was going to go home, but...Mr. Long there aren’t any mountains or forests in the capital!”
“I’ll explain inside, Miss Yuelan,” Long He promised as he reached a hand out to hold her elbow and support her back up the path and into the library. “Though you’ll probably think I’m a bit crazy.”
Yuelan frowned. “You’re not going to give me some ridiculous sci-fi explanation or something, are you?” she asked the librarian. “I can’t think of any way I could walk into the library in the capital and walk back out of it in the middle of the mountains! And the library looks exactly the same!” She let Long He help her up the path, since it was a little too steep to be easy to walk along in her current footwear, but even though she kept asking questions about what had happened, the librarian didn’t give an answer until he’d let go of her elbow and they were inside the library.
“I’ll explain as we walk,” Long He told her. “Let’s go to the living quarters in the back. You’ll need to change your clothes. The clothes from Kilin will stand out quite a bit in this world.”
“‘This world’?” Yuelan repeated, her eyes narrowing as she looked up at the librarian. “What do you mean ‘this world’?”
“Do you remember the Legend of the Dragon Priestess that you read a couple of years ago?” Long He asked. He watched Yuelan nod her head before he continued. “Tell me about it.”
Yuelan frowned a little, but did as he was asked. “A woman with powerful magic saw humans and magic creatures were at odds, so she sacrificed her magic to separate the world into two with the help of her dragon companions. She sent the magic creatures and humans who could use magic to the new world she’d made and left all the rest on the original world. According to the legend, the library was built on the location where she separated the worlds and one of the dragons remained there to guard the bridge while the other became known as the divine beast the Azure Dragon of the East.”
Long He sighed and nodded. “Exactly. Welcome to the world the priestess created.” He pushed a door open and ushered her through it into a small room set up as a living room with antique, wooden furniture that included a tea table carved with koi fish and a few chairs.
Yuelan frowned. “Is this some sort of joke? That’s just a legend, Mr. Long.”
Long He smiled. “I can prove it. Have a seat, and I’ll show you.” He took Yuelan’s arm and half-forced her onto a chair before taking a couple of steps back. The librarian’s form shimmered for a moment before it was replaced by a silver, miniature version of the dragons carved on the library doors.
Yuelan let out a startled shriek and the chair fell backward with her still on it.