“I have no idea what you mean.” Ngoc Bich turned toward one of the workers, who was dragging a wooden statue of some god with a halberd. “I gave you enough, I feel. Now if you’ll excuse me—”
“I won’t.”
Madeleine drifted away from the conversation. There was something about the first dais that attracted her gaze, and she wasn’t quite sure what; but the angel magic sang in her veins and in her bones, drawing her irremediably to the golden throne and the figure seated on it.
It was a good likeness — idealized in the way all statues were; but staring at the broad, open face creased in its enigmatic smile, she could almost get a sense of who he was — no-nonsense, disinclined to be patient or diplomatic, with the sharpness of a razor. So why the dais, and why the statue? She knew little of Annamite customs, but this looked like a throne room; except were throne rooms meant to be this subdued, this somber? Something was… not quite right.
At the back, behind the dais, was what looked like a secretary of wood inlaid with gold tracings, adorned with two large porcelain vases, and a large three-tiered bronze container with elaborate handles, and a crouching lion at the top of its dome, and two incense sticks in a hollow halfway up the structure. Two bowls held bananas and mangoes, and a candle burned on the right side. An altar, though she didn’t know to what god: there was a red sign with characters over it, but of course Madeleine couldn’t read it.
Madeleine found herself reaching for the fruit, stopped herself just in time. Instead, she nudged her stolen angel magic to life, willing it to pick up what scraps of meaning it could from the table and from the emotions that had to be roiling in the room.
There was… hope, and love, and awe — and a sense of loss, of grief so powerful it overwhelmed everything else. The red sign over the table — no, not a table; an ancestral altar — the red sign said THE KING OF DRAGONS, THE EMPEROR OF GREAT VIRTUE, ADMIRABLY FILIAL, LONG-LIVED AND PROSPEROUS, ADMIRER OF THE ARTS, DESTINED TO UNIFY THE WARRING PEOPLE, and the fruit and the candles were offerings, so that the soul of the dead might look kindly upon their descendants. She had a vision, for a split moment, of a younger Ngoc Bich bowing before the altar, lighting a stick of incense; saw the tears streaming down her face. Which meant—
Which meant this wasn’t a throne room.
It was a mausoleum.
Which meant—
Her heart in her throat, Madeleine looked at the second dais; and found, among the artisans, one working on a second red sign, carefully filling in the outline of characters with golden paint. THE PRINCE OF DRAGONS, PHAM VAN MINH KHIET PHILIPPE, ADMIRABLY FILIAL, BLESSED WITH HEALTH AND CONTENTMENT, WHO WAS BORN IN THOI BIEN IN TIMES LONG GONE BY, AND CAME TO US FROM SILVERSPIRES.
Philippe.
There was no time. Isabelle was still embroiled in her bitter argument with Ngoc Bich, futilely trying to get her to admit where Philippe was.
Whereas Madeleine knew.
She drew her power to her like a mantle, and ran toward the dais.
SIXTEEN. THE DRAGON KING
PHILIPPE woke up in darkness, and remembered the stories about dragon kingdoms.
There was always a princess in those stories, and an absent king; and a fisherman who found, by mistake, entry into the dominions of dragons; who rescued the princess in her shape as a human or a fish, who performed a service for a beloved general, who threw back a bauble that turned out to be invaluable treasure. The stories were all the same, and they all ended the same way: the fisherman met the princess and was smitten by her unearthly beauty; and married her, ruling by her side as a human consort. In some stories, they came back to land and founded a human dynasty.
This was not one of those stories.
He was lying on something dark, and damp — the smell of rot was more pervasive here, wherever they had brought him; and there was another smell, a sharp, unpleasant one that brought tears to his eyes.
Cave. It smelled like a cave; like the temples of the Five Elements Mountains in Annam, the smell of incense drifting over that of dampness. He tried to rise, but an unbearable pain flared in his wrists and ankles, pulling him back to his bed. It wasn’t rope they had bound him with — spikes, nails?
He tried to see the khi currents in the room: water, of course, and a hint of wood, but all of it was claimed for. He tried to call some of them to him; to soothe his wounds, to pull the spikes from his limbs; but the currents remained where they were, obstinately pointing leftward, where Ngoc Bich or the dragons were, no doubt. He needed to — he tried to sit up again, but the pain was too much; he didn’t have the guts to pull the things from him, not in his weakened state.
Within him, the darkness rose. Philippe could guess at the shape of Morningstar, crouched against one of the far walls, ready to impart his fake wisdom, his platitudes about power and its uses — it struck Philippe, suddenly, that his human self might well be older than Morningstar, that all the Fallen’s so-called wisdom might well be nothing more than the fraud of a youngster — a darkly amusing thought, save that it was all so terribly tempting to prolong the vision for a little longer, to feel Morningstar’s terrible, seductive presence, that hunger of a moth for a flame, that easy magic that would reduce his bonds to dust, if only he reached for it….
He needed to… Ancestors, he wasn’t that much of a fool — not a Fallen or one of the magicians, giving in to weaknesses like this — he’d risen to Heaven on abstinence and strength of will, and he could do it again. Just find the place, the perfect place within him where everything was quiet and still; with the pull of water, the memories of blue-misted mountains, the soft rocking of a boat in a river…
“It’s stronger than you,” a voice said, next to him.
What? Philippe almost backed away; and stopped himself in time, remembering what would happen to his body if he did.
There was a man, standing by him — no, not a man, a dragon, with green skin and antlers at his temple, and a beard that fell in braids around the pearl under his chin. He looked for all the world like the images of Khong Tu in the temples, though he wore, not court clothes or scholar’s robes, but ceremonial armor. He was, quite unmistakably, dead, with the particular translucency of ghosts.
Philippe had had enough of ghosts, vengeful or not. “Look,” he said. “Wherever you came from—”
“I didn’t come from anywhere. I was always here. Or nearly always,” the man said. He reached out, and touched Philippe’s wrists — Philippe couldn’t shift himself out of the way in time. A cold, oppressive feeling stretched from the dragon’s fingers, until the pain had been numbed away. “You’ll forgive me. I’m not what I once was.”
“You’re—” Philippe looked again at the pearl, at the strength of its radiance; at the headdress with its nine five-clawed dragons. “Why couldn’t I see you before?”
The man smiled. “Being there doesn’t mean being obvious. There’s… value in remaining hidden.”
“You’re the Dragon King.”
“The Emperor of Great Virtue,” the king said, forlornly. “There’s an awfully long posthumous name, but I’ll spare you that. Why don’t you use Rong Nghiem Chung Thuy?”
No. One did not name the dead; especially not dead emperors. “Chung Thoai,” Philippe said, adroitly replacing syllables — it had been such a long time since he had to do this, his brain felt full of cotton. “If you wish.”
The king smiled. “Chung Thoai, then. And you’re Minh Khiet?”
“Does everyone here know my name?” Philippe asked, of no one in particular, and the king didn’t answer. There was no need to. “How about what I’m doing here? I’m not—” He stopped then, looking into the darkness. “I’m not dead yet, am I?” The boundaries between life and death were fluid, but surely he’d have known. Surely there would have been servants of the King of Hell coming with a mandate, to take his soul away?