EVEN DRAGONS DIE, chapter eight

Ayre would have rather had his wings clipped than admit that he was disappointed when he didn’t see the sight of the pretty human male waiting for him outside the caves at the end of his shift the next day. He had been thinking about Fuego ever since his abrupt departure, his grin forever etched in his memory, his final words still echoing in his head. I’ll see you around! It was a promise, wasn’t it? Ayre knew that promises were sacred among dragons and humans alike and so he was convinced that Fuego would continue his pursuit the next day. He had trouble closing his mind and falling asleep that night, going over their encounter and wondering whether he should have been more gracious towards him.

“Nu Ayre, what’s with you today?” asked a middle-aged treasure-hunter who was walking next to him along a massive wooden drawbridge that led into the city.

“What do you mean?” asked Ayre, blinking in surprise; he was so deep in thought he hadn’t noticed that he had a companion.

“It’s the way you brood today,” replied the treasure-hunter with a chuckle. “It is different from your usual thoughtful silence.”

Ayre looked at him in further surprise.

“My usual thoughtful silence?”

The elderly human nodded.

“You don’t talk much but you listen a lot. You absorb every word that you hear and you usually look like a starved child in a sweetshop.”

Ayre was alarmed to realise that his eavesdropping manner hadn’t been as inconspicuous as he had believed it to be.

“Today you don’t talk and you don’t listen. Today you brood, brood, brood… So what are you brooding about, nu? Or – ” he paused and looked slyly at him “ – should I say ‘who’?”

“Who?”

The elderly human pointed at Ayre’s stupefied face with his gnarled blackened finger. “You won’t fool an old man like me. This kind of brooding usually means one thing.” He grinned, stretching his broad flat face even wider and exposing his missing teeth. “What’s her name?”

Ayre, graceful since birth, stumbled over an uneven piece of bamboo plank. Partly, Ayre’s unusual attack of clumsiness could be attributed to the shock that he felt upon hearing the treasure-hunter’s words and realising that he had so easily guessed at the nature of his brooding if not the exact details. Another reason was the impatient jostling of the other treasure-hunters around them that had considerably intensified now that they had reached the city gates. Before Ayre could reply, they were swept off the bridge into the winding street and soon lost each other out of sight in the crowd. Ayre sighed with relief as his ears were filled with chatter of too many voices intermingled with bursts of laughter, music and susurration of the river below.

The drawbridge, Ayre knew, would be lifted as soon as it would be cleared, leaving a wide gaping ravine between the caves and the city. Then a large squadron of royal guards would take their place on special platforms stationed around the mountain on different levels, accessible only from within the caves, to make sure that no one would sneak inside at night or had stayed behind after the shift. Ayre assumed that they were using secret passageways, well-concealed within the walls of the rocks that formed the mountain, but he hadn’t had a chance to look for them yet as another set of guards kept watching over the treasure-hunters throughout their shift, making sure that they didn’t stray from their designated area and that no gem, no matter how small, went missing down their clothes, which were thoroughly checked before they were allowed to step outside.

Though it was true that Ayre didn’t talk much, he would on occasion ask questions about the history of the human kingdom over a bowl of rice at the tavern whenever he found himself sharing a table with his fellow treasure-hunters. Their tongues were usually quite loose at the time under the effects of white spirit they loved to imbibe after their long shift in order to help them to relax. Ayre had discovered that after dragons disappeared (though, naturally, none of the humans were aware of that part) and the caves were left unattended, there were so many cases of theft that the royal family issued a decree by which any person found on site would be executed without a trial. Later, they would hire the first group of treasure-hunters to work down there. However, to ensure that no one was tempted by the riches of the caves that belonged to the royal family (Ayre could just imagine the furious look on Aybo’s face if he ever heard that), they ordered to have a deep moat dug out and a drawbridge built that would connect the caves with the city during the day but separate them during the night.

Then tragedy struck. Ayre’s father would probably say that it was just punishment for human’s greed that befell them. But something went wrong during the digging of the moat and the water from the river that flowed down the mountain flooded the valley where the human kingdom was tucked in between a mountain on one side and sloping hills covered with bamboo forest on the other. Most of the dwellings, including the royal palace, which towered above the rest of the kingdom in the very centre of the valley, were swept away, forever disappearing under water, while countless lives were lost. For a while the city turned into a floating mass grave and was a ghastly sight.

The royal family was not in the city during the flooding and never took responsibility for all the deaths. Instead, they gave each surviving family a gem for each lost life and invited foreign experts to help them deal with the undesirable consequences of their actions. The bodies were caught out like fish and placed in rows on an enormous bamboo raft (Ayre imagined that it must have been as wide and as long as the drawbridge) that had been prepared beforehand. Once the bodies were dry, the monks performed their traditional farewell rituals and the dead were set on fire.

There were attempts to drain the flooded kingdom next, but because of its extremely low situation, much of its land could not be recovered from its watery grave. It was now broken into hundreds of small islets of irregular shape, divided and intersected by channels of water wide enough for narrow boats to navigate them. The city now became a floating city with survivors now living on boats and occupying themselves with fishing and collecting water plants, while the islets were used for cultivation of rice. They were inhabited chiefly by monks whose task it was to oversee the crops. The biggest island was to be the home of the new temple.

However, neither the floating city nor the islets were big enough for the royal family that needed to accommodate not only their palace but also their harems and their courtiers. That’s why they cut down the bamboo forest that covered the sloping hills, fortified them with white stone, and built another part of the city for the royals and the rich. By virtue of its situation it was called the High City. From the bottom of the valley its winding streets looked like stands of a coliseum, leading upwards towards the crowning jewel of the High City – the royal palace.

It naturally followed that the other part of the city would be known as the Low City. Sprawling at its feet in a chaotic fashion, it gradually acquired bridges and ladders that connected the islets in an almost maze-like style with rickety streets that went whichever way (including upwards) and which locals navigated with practiced ease among bamboo plants and mangrove trees that grew all around and that children climbed like monkeys.

Ayre was making his hurried way towards his usual bathing spot, barely touching shifting planks beneath his feet and jumping over gaps in bridges that appeared through merciless wear and tear. The piece of rock with the pool of water he had taken a fancy to was located away from the Low City behind a curve not easily accessible as it lacked ladders and bridges and as such regarded as uninhabitable, which stopped most people from venturing there. Despite his original intention, Ayre decided not to change his favourite bathing spot, convincing himself that it wasn’t because he was hoping that Fuego would stop by again, but simply because it was a really good spot and he was unlikely to find one just as secluded.

If he had spent more time washing himself than usual, there was no one to point it out to him. He had been listening intently for the approaching footsteps but Fuego never came. On his way back to the city, Ayre berated himself for making a tactical error when he chose to rebuff Fuego’s advances rather than welcome them. Having carefully studied the situation from different angles just like he was taught during his training, he concluded that if he had been a little bit quicker (if only he hadn’t been taken so completely by surprise), he would have surely known to use the human male’s attentions towards him in order to learn some valuable information and maybe even gain access to the High City, which was open only to humans who belonged to the upper class or those from the lower class who they hired to look after their houses, gardens, and animals.

Ayre heard that because the streets there were so sturdy the upperclassmen could use elephants as their preferred means of transportation. Ayre had never seen an elephant in his life (animals didn’t like dragons and stayed away from their settlements) but he had seen their impressions and he had often heard their sonorous trumpet-like calls since his arrival. Ayre was pretty sure that Fuego belonged to the upper class and as such could easily take him there. Perhaps he was even familiar with the royal palace Ayre desperately wished to infiltrate.

He ate alone as none of his fellow treasure-hunters were around and then went to the temple to calm himself down and subdue any thoughts about Fuego that continued to wash over him like waves on a tempestuous sea. He tried pushing them away but his mental efforts failed him. Ayre wondered if his neglect to meditate for so long had weakened his abilities and vowed to meditate every single morning and evening from now on. Just before he entered the temple, he sternly told himself that it didn’t matter that Fuego hadn’t sought him out again. He would find another way to get into the royal palace. He could always wait till dark and fly over the city in his dragon shape, making himself invisible and studying the palace from above.

The human temple bore unmistakable testimony to the human belief that their land was blessed with protection and prosperity by a formidable dragon race, because its walls and its many pointed roofs were decorated with dragon-shaped symbols. Inside before the altars there were round platters with gold leaf imprints of dragons among red and orange flowers; there stood silver bowls with incense and oil and tall yellow candles burning in silver candle-holders. The scent was so overpowering that when Ayre stepped foot inside the temple for the very first time, he had a sneezing attack that almost ended up with his setting the whole thing on fire. Luckily, the worshippers who were there at the time blamed it on the strong wind that knocked over several burning candles.

The temple consisted of the main hall where worshippers came to make merit and a long hall that connected the temple with a number of cell-like rooms for private worship. The rooms were equipped with a rough bamboo mat and a single candle. Somehow the scent was even stronger here. His mind already affected by the vapours, Ayre lit the candle, placed the mat in the centre of the room, and sat down. Crossing his legs before him and putting his hands on his knees, he closed his eyes and began to meditate.

Upon leaving the temple with the first rays of the rising sun, Ayre felt a profound sense of relief. His mind was unburdened and his spirit untroubled. He felt more clear-sighted than ever before and he was ready to implement his plan into action. He was focused throughout his shift down at the caves and even helped to clear several blocked passages by removing large pieces of solid rock with his bare hands to the astonishment of his fellow treasure-hunters, earning not only their praise but also their respect. He hoped that from now on there would be no more jokes about his delicate appearance, because he had shown them what he was really capable of; and it didn’t matter that they had no idea that as a dragon he was much stronger than any human could ever be.

A few days later Ayre was standing on an outcrop of a rock, taking off his shirt, when he heard a voice he didn’t think he would hear ever again coming from within a gap in an otherwise thick wall of bamboo plants that fringed the bank.

“Did you miss me?”

Ayre started in spite of himself before quickly covering up his reaction with a loud scoff.

Fuego, however, was grinning knowingly when he asked: “Did I scare you?”

Ayre’s dark eyes flashed with indignation. “What a ridiculous assumption,” he replied. “Just as your foolish insinuation that I had missed you.” Ayre crossed his arms on his bare torso and glared.

“I would have come sooner,” continued Fuego as though he hadn’t heard him, “but I was… detained.”

He began to take off his clothes.

“So… shall we swim… Ayre?”

Having said that, Fuego jumped into the pool and began to cut through its waters with a perfect breaststroke.