Tycho stared at his empty fingers then at Ong. The tavernkeeper looked back with a flat expression. "Ong…" he began. "Get out."
Tycho could feel blood rush to his face, but Li was the first to move. The Shou pushed his chair away from the table sharply and stood up, leaning forward with his fists on the tabletop.
"Your tavern reflects your soul," he said in distaste, "and both offend me. I don't find this so amusing as Tycho does. I'll leave with pleasure. Perhaps I understand now why you were exiled from the Great Empire."
Ong scowled and said, "Or perhaps you do not. Are all the sons of Kuang so rude?"
Li's breath hissed between his teeth and his hand reached for the sword he hadn't worn. Tycho jumped up.
"Whoa! Easy!" he said, hands held between the two Shou. "Easy, both of you. This is-"
"Oh, be quiet!" Ong snapped. He jerked his head toward the door. "That is the way out. Go, take this ill-bred dog with you, and never foul my presence with your flatulent singing again!"
Tycho stopped and turned slowly to glare at Ong, meeting him harsh gaze for harsh gaze.
"If my singing is flatulent, then I guess no one will listen when I break wind with a new song." He gave Ong a thin smile. "What do you think, Li?" he asked over his shoulder. "The Water Spirit's Lie?"
"For a song," said Li, "it smells very good."
For a moment, Ong regarded them with narrow eyes, then rose slowly from his seat. His massive chest rose and fell with deep, slow breaths.
"If you will not leave on your own," he growled, "maybe you will leave if I take you outside myself!"
"Outside?" Tycho spread his arms. "If you want to try something, O great guardian of the oasis, try it right here."
"It's bad enough when customers break up my tavern," Ong grumbled as he stepped around the table and walked to the door flap, holding it aside for them. "I don't want to do it myself."
Li passed though stiffly, as if the tavernkeeper were invisible, but Tycho spat at Ong's feet as he passed. Outside, the night air of the steppe was cool and still. On the other side of the oasis, the caravan lay silent, the shapes of carts, beasts, and sleeping men indistinct in the moonlight. Nearer to hand the yurts of the Tuigan settled into similar silence as the women of the oasis finally took to their beds. A few paces from the pavilion, Li turned and dropped into a disciplined fighting stance, his hands up and open. Tycho, however, stripped off his strilling and loosened the sleeves of his shirt, stalking back and forth and swearing angrily under his breath.
"Are you sure you're ready for this, you lying barrel of lard?" he called.
Ong let the door flap fall closed behind him and turned around.
"Why," he asked, "would you assume I was lying?"
He took a step forward. The foot that left the ground was human. The foot that came down was not.
"Blessed Lliira," gasped Tycho.
"Mother of dogs!" cursed Li.
Toes twice as long as Tycho's fingers, each with a membrane of webbing stretched between them and tipped with a thick claw, dug into the hard ground. The creature's hind and forelegs were short, like a crocodile's, but its body was long and sinuous. It reared back on a whiplike tail, and a neck almost as long and thin arched against the night. Scales glittered blue-green on the creature's back, glossy yellow on its belly-a belly as unmistakably fat as Ong's.
Do you think that familiarity, Ong had asked Ibakha, will protect you from a dragon's wrath?
In a streamlined, wedge-shaped head that carried pearl-white horns and thick whiskers of red and gold, Ong's angry eyes stared down at them.
"Perhaps," he said in a deep, rolling voice, "you don't understand as much as you think you do."
His fat chest swelled with breath.
The rushing sound of air struck terror through Tycho like a cold sword. With a yelp of fear, he hurled himself to the side-and straight into Li. They slammed into the ground together. Tycho managed to twist around just in time to see massive jaws gape wide. Fire? Ice? Poison? He squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the agony of the dragon's breath.
Except that instead of agony, the dragon's breath enveloped him in gentle coolness. He opened his eyes to thick mist and heavy drops of water falling on him. He touched his cheek.
"Rain?" he breathed.
Li's hand clapped over his mouth. Tycho could just make out his friend's face as he scanned the gray darkness overhead.
Somewhere above, something moved. Tycho caught a brief glimpse of a long body writhing through the air-Ong had no wings, but he flew like a snake crawling along the ground-then it was gone, vanished in the mist.
"Honored ancestors watch over us," groaned Li, releasing Tycho.
Tycho wiped water from his eyes. The rain was beginning to come down harder.
"He flies without wings, he breathes rain clouds," the bard choked. "What kind of dragon does that?"
"A chiang lung a dragon of the east, guardian of rivers," said Li. He kept his gaze on the darkness overhead, one hand raised to shield his eyes from the rain. "Ong really is a water spirit, Tycho!"
"He didn't look very spiritlike to me!"
"Lung dragons aren't like the dragons of Faerun. They're mandarins of the Celestial Bureaucracy. They hold posts assigned by the lords of the spirit world."
"He's a bureaucrat?" Tycho hissed
"An angry bureaucrat who could kill us with a swipe!" Li snapped. He scanned this mist. "Where is he? What's he doing?"
From somewhere across the oasis, muffled shouts penetrated the mist-the travelers from the caravan, though it sounded like they were shouting more in wonder at the rain than in fear at a dragon soaring through the night. Ong was hiding in his own rain clouds, Tycho realized. The caravan couldn't see him. He and Li were the only ones who knew what danger they were in.
"He's toying with us!" Tycho cursed. "Li, we have to get to the caravan! There's enough of us together to make a stand!"
He whirled around, groping along the muddy ground for his abandoned strilling.
His fingers closed on wet wood just as Li shouted, "Down!"
From the corner of his eye, Tycho saw mist billow as a long shape came rushing down from the sky. He didn't wait to see more, but just threw himself flat in the mud. The wind of Ong's passage howled cold along his back and the lash of the dragon's tale caught him, sending him tumbling across the crowd like a toy. He ended up on his back, gasping for air.
Ong was climbing again, gaining height before making another pass. Rage and terror lurched in his belly but Tycho sang out desperately, hurling a discordant note after the vanishing dragon. Magical sound, strong enough to knock a man off his feet, blasted through the clouds and rain. Ong just laughed, a deep chuckle of grim amusement. The clouds opened and rain poured down in heavy curtains. Tycho's guts churned. His magic wasn't enough even to shake the dragon!
The noise of the spell had, however, brought cries of alarm from the unseen caravan. At least they knew something was wrong. Tycho half-staggered, half-slid along the wet ground to Li. The Shou was as muddy as he was.
"The caravan!" Tycho shouted at him over the sound of the rain. "Which way?"
"Here!" Tycho called as he swung around. Human shapes loomed in the darkness. He bit back a yelp of surprise.
"What have you done, Faroon?" snarled Chotaris voice.
A hooded lantern slid open. Its light turned the shadowy clouds to glowing mist, but Tycho could see Chaka, Ibakha, and all the other Tuigan women as well. Many of them were clutching knives.
"Close the lantern before he sees the light!" he urged frantically. "It's Ong-he's a dragon!"
"Of course he is!" spat Ibakha.
"Hold your tongue!" Chotan screeched. Tycho blinked and Li stared, but Ibakha stood tall and proud. Beside her, a wrinkled old woman rolled her eyes. Chotan glared at the old woman. "Khui!"