In the Heavens and On the Earth

IN THE HEAVENS AND ON THE EARTH Christopher Stasheff

The Dragon of China heard the bray of a trumpet from afar. It was harsher than those played by the people who were his bone and muscle—it was piercing, and seemed off-pitch. In irritation, he lifted his head from his claws—he had been uncommonly weary lately; his blood had seemed to grow thin. Those barbarians from the steppe had been spicy indeed, and had invigorated him long after he had digested them and spat them out—but after a century and a half, that surge of energy had dwindled, and he had become sleepy, very sleepy, scarcely able to waken to greet the sun each morning before he lapsed back into torpor. He had roused himself briefly so that his people could fight those wild men from the north, those Manchus, but he had fallen into lethargy again quite quickly, and began the work of digesting them, absorbing them into his bone and blood. "Conquerors" they called themselves; fodder, he found them.

But they lay like lead within him, scarcely invigorating him at all; there was too little of the new in their ideas, too much of the old. They made the Chinese who were his body wear pigtails as a sign of servitude, but other than that, they seemed to have very little to offer, and he absorbed them almost at once.

So, everything considered, he welcomed the notion of something new.

Looking up, he saw a man riding toward him with a long lance, one that flared out to guard his hand. Strange indeed he looked, clad all in metal that gleamed like silver in the sunlight, riding across the clouds with a banner emblazoned with a cross. That shell would be a bother; the Dragon would have to peel it off him before he could dine.

The little man saw the Dragon and gave a shout, levelling his lance and kicking his horse into a gallop.

The Dragon stared in indignation. Could this insignificant insect dare to challenge the mighty cloud-rider? Negligently, he lifted a claw to flick the challenger away. . . .

The spear stabbed into his foot, and the dragon roared in pain and surprise. He flicked indeed, and the lance went spinning. Then he drew his talons back for a blow that would knock the temeritous barbarian tumbling—but the shiny little fellow raised his hand and cried, "Hold!"

Out of sheer surprise, the Dragon withheld his blow. Then the novelty of it caught his interest; anything that would alleviate the boredom of millennia was worth investigation. He lowered his vast head to the rider's level and demanded, in a voice that rattled his silver clothing, "Wherefore should I hold?"

"Because I am England!" the rider cried. "Know, decadent serpent, that I am Saint George, and the power of God resides in me!"

The arrogance of the creature, the sheer, overweening pride of him! But he was amusing, so much so that the Dragon ignored his bad manners and asked instead, "The power of god? What god is that?"

"The Lord Most High!" the little rider cried. "Jehovah of the Thunders! The One, the only God!"

"There are hundreds of gods." The Dragon was disgusted by the barbarians ignorance. "And the One is the Tao, the summation and whole of which all things are part. The Ch'an call it 'Buddha.' "

"Blasphemy!" Saint George cried, and drew a silver sword.

With a flick of his claw, the Dragon knocked it whirling from his hand. "You are rude indeed, barbarian. Know that it is you who blaspheme, by daring to challenge the Dragon of China!"

"You shall submit to God's will! I shall wrest that submission from you, for I am a saint!"

"What is a 'saint'?" the Dragon asked, interested.

"Why, it is. . . ." The rider floundered a moment, then demanded, "Are you so ignorant that you do not even know of God and sainthood?"

"You try my patience," the Dragon said in irritation. "Beware, for you cease to be amusing. Tell me plainly what a saint is."

"A saint is a soul that has won to Heaven, and the presence of God!"

The Dragon recognized the concepts, if not the words themselves. "Ah. One who has achieved nirvana, one who has become one with the Tao. A bodhisattva, a sage."

"You speak gibberish!"

"You bore me." The Dragon flicked the little rider away; he spun rolling across the clouds. His horse whinnied with alarm and sped after him. The rider struggled to his feet and cried, "I shall subdue you! My lance shall pierce your heart!"

"Then you had better find it first," the Dragon said, and lowered his head to his paws again, as the rider went searching frantically through the clouds for his spear. He ceased to matter to the Dragon, who sank back into tranquility. . . .

But not into sleep. There was a strange thrumming in his blood, and when he did lapse again into unconsciousness, the germs of concepts sprung from the thrust of the lance percolated through his blood. Unseen, invisible, they began to spawn new ideas, in the heart of China.

There had been others who had come, similar to this barbarian, but they had not disrupted the Dragon's sleep. Minor pinpricks they were, traders at the edges of China, borne by the sea or having toiled across the desert. Long had the Dragon imbibed the traces of nourishment borne by such men, with their strange hairy, nobby faces and round eyes. Their holy men had labored in both court and village, but had disguised themselves and their ideas so much in the cast of China that they had not waked the Dragon. Only this brash Englishman had had the effrontery to challenge him outright.

But perhaps he would have his uses. The Dragon would absorb him, as it had absorbed all who had sought to conquer; they who came to slay, made excellent dinners. Perhaps, in his blood, this "saint" would cleanse him of those presumptuous Manchus, who dared claim they had the Mandate of Heaven.

How ridiculous! As though Heaven could choose any barbarian to rule the Middle Kingdom! They were a cancer in the blood. This Englishman would be so, too, and perhaps the two cancers would cancel one another.

But the Englishman was only the vanguard; when the Dragon woke again, he saw Saint George riding at the head of a band of half a dozen—and their names were Saint Andrew, Saint Mark, Saint Ignatius, and Saint Louis. There was also Emperor Frederick with a long red beard, who was no saint. The Dragon knew all this, because the men shouted their names and titles as they came. He all but laughed at the notion of this crude barbarian daring to call himself an emperor. He restrained himself only by remembering that these poor ignoramuses had no idea of the grandeur of the Son of Heaven.

They had grown larger, too.

"Avaunt, demon!" they cried. "We shall slay you, we shall free your people from your depravity!"

This was too much, too rude. The Dragon reared back, bellowing in anger. The riders—still small to him—shouted incomprehensible prayers to their God and spurred their horses. The Dragon flailed at them, sending a horse rolling away, a rider head over heels—

But lances pricked him.

The stabs only angered him further; he thrashed about him until he had knocked them all away, all the little shell-men—but they were big enough now that they might make a meal. He plucked one from the ground—Saint George, by his cross—and husked him. The barbarian howled in anger, still trying to strike with nothing but fists, as the Dragon popped him into his mouth.

He stuck in the Dragon's craw. Something sharp sent the lightning of pain shooting through the Dragon.

The Dragon bellowed in pain and spat him out. The little beast had drawn a hidden dagger, two hidden daggers, and had ripped the Dragon's throat. Now, at last, the Dragon's anger turned white-hot, and he raised a paw, hovering over the horseman. . . .

But before he could strike, a strange lethargy crept over him—not the weariness that had beset him for decades, but a heaviness of limb and mind that dulled his senses and sent him sinking back into torpor. As he sank into the paralysis of trance, he realized that the daggers had been poisoned.