The Sign of the Dragon
THE SIGN OF THE DRAGON
Copyright © 2020 by Mary Soon Lee
All rights reserved.
Published as an eBook in 2020 by JABberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.
ISBN 978-1-625674-90-6
Poems from this collection first appeared in the following publications: Apex Magazine; Crowned: The Sign of the Dragon, Book 1; Dreams & Nightmares; Eye to the Telescope; Grievous Angel; Heroic Fantasy Quarterly; HWA Poetry Showcase, Volume II; Ideomancer; Ligature Works; The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction; Main Street Rag; Mirror Dance; Mithila Review; Mythic Delirium; Open Mouse; Polu Texni; Red Rock Review; Rune; Ship of Fools; Silver Blade; Songs of Eretz Poetry Review; Spillway; Star*Line; Strange Horizons; Tales of the Talisman; Uppagus. Additionally, poems are forthcoming in Heroic Fantasy Quarterly and The Magazine of Speculative Poetry.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
JABberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Author’s Note
Interregnum
Guarded
Training: Weights
Succession
Grief
Map
Not So
Training: Stances
The Horse Lord
Tutor
Horses
Training: Horse
Shazia
Wedding Gifts
Training: Sparring
Wolf Moon
Crossing
Pigeon Six
Setting Out
Thirty-Eighth War...First Battle
Rose
Khyert
Moon Swan
Thirty-Eighth War...Second Battle
Leong
Midnight
Thirty-Eighth War...Third Battle
Tsung’s Battle
Down
Donal
Surgeon
The Matter of the Horses
Training: Running
What Xau Ran From
The Queen’s War
Night
Memorials
Stables
Training: Dark
Dragonslayer
Companionship
Training: Carry
Rope Skipping Chant
Naming
Decoration
A Handful of Nights
Artoch
Afterward
What Xau Remembered
One Week
Bedtime
Help
What They Brought
Route
Camp
Aftershock
Scalpel
Scared
Girl
Cure
The Way of Things
In Honor of the King
Training: Injury
Micha
Threshold
Riddle: Twins
Absence
Letter to his Young Son
Thirty-Ninth War...Commencement
Fault
Polton
Justice
Winter Reaping
Messengers
Brothers
Demon Fire
Necromancer
Rank and File
Linny
Night Attack
Angshan
Moon Dark
Midsummer’s Day
Burnt
Training: Endurance
Dragon
Aldford
Before
Demon
The Demon’s Crew
Debt
Daybreak
Numbers
Darkness
Mending
Training: Shield
Tirron
Returning
Han Chen
Riddle: Maiden
After
Victory
Queen Fian
Demon Stain
Dark Harvest
Brighid
Matters of State
Two Kings
Respect
Diversion
Enlai
Boys
Mei
Second Sight
Incident
Blame
The House of Memory
Petition
Her Thousand Faces
Duty
What King Donal Said...
Solstice
Schedule
Riddle: Auspicious
Summons
Jumble
Fallen
Captain
Outspoken
Sickbed
Letters
Bespeaking: Riddles
First Day
Foreboding
Ever After
Welcome
Li
Before Kings
Viewpoint
The Ride Back
Postponed
Distraction
Wake
Eirdre
Bench
Tiarnan
Dream
Swords
Wolf Throne
Harp
Widow
Harmouth
Opus
Riddle: Instrument
Hands
Shade
Lipoh
Mistaken
Huang
Decision
Atun
What Atun Learned
Jun Xi
Traveling
Discretion
Ford
A Chain of Horses
Not Like This
Surfacing
Busy
Why the King Wept
Dread
Hero
Homing Pigeons
Vengeance
Dark Arrow
Diplomatic Communique
Meeting
The Voice
The Hidden Queen
Fraught
Monster
Training: Hostage
Another Week
Basics
For Her Birthday
Inheritance
Keng
Riddle: House
Stay
Everywoman
Training: Guards
Undone
Amber
Portraits
Monster: Puppeteer
Eligible
The Nine
Tomb Sweeping Day
Arrow
Nothing
Ripples
Honor
Delayed
Ferry
The Ride
Vigil
Partners
Unsaid
Remembrance
Prophecy
Meddling
Questions
Ying
The Hundred Dragons of Sumbral
The Path to Peace
Dragon Breath
A Gift
Fire Bones
Training: Staff
Escort
The Dead
Interlude
Fire
Cyrus
Dawn
A Warning
Again
Reasons
The Border
Heat
Her
Him
Monster: Oasis
The Horse Woman
Negotiation
Stepmother
King’s Guard
Veto
Extracts from the Recollections...
Entourage
Between
The Wild Horses Came Hastening
Fealty
Sheep
The Eighth Son of Ganbataar
Anchor
Khidyr
Proposition
Paired
Summer’s End
Homecoming
Satisfactory
Tian
Monster: Sister
Dragon Mountain
Allies
Khan
Loyalty
Target
Oath
Recruits
Bridge
Way-Fort
Bowl
Lantern Festival
Coast
Monster: Opening Gambit
Spy
Lotus Moon
Five Arrows
Kingship
Gan
Counter Gambit
Veneer
Yunxu
Conclusions
Since Sumbral
Further Extracts from the...
Monster: Tahj
Boyhood
Joy
Maneuvers
Addendum
Reunion
The Imperium
Beneath the Blade
Equinox
Logic
Bloodshed
Wounded
Daunted
The Imperial War: Onset
Boatman
Impostor
First Lesson
The Imperial War: Second Battle
How the Battle Turned
Collaboration
Journal
Gul
Pyre
Tenth Lesson
Between Battles
When King Xau was Gone
Taunting Fate
The Imperial War: Third Battle
Double Duty
Inside the Tent
Quiet
Seventeenth Lesson
The Imperial War: Fourth Battle
Convergence
Judgment
Enough
Peace Terms
Parting
Supplemental Extracts from the...
March
Words
Lair
Perspective
Desert
Water
Besieged
Game
Shards
Breath
Comfort
Beast
Last Watch
Return
Mortal
The Sign of the Dragon
Execution
Addendum to the Recollections...
Burial
Coronation
The Sign of the King
The Cat’s Epilogue
Two Weeks
A Note on the Title
Acknowledgments
Original Publication
About the Author
To Lucy, William, and Andrew,
who were there during the writing,
and in memory of my parents,
who gave me Xau and Donal,
though I didn’t realize it at the time.
This ebook edition of The Sign of the Dragon is being published during the coronavirus pandemic. The author’s share of any proceeds from 2020 sales will be split between the following charities: Doctors Without Borders, the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, and the Trevor Project.
INTERREGNUM
Sixteen years old, fourth son,
still they sent him to the mountain
together with his brothers
before their father’s body stiffened,
the kingdom suspended without a king:
four princes, one crown
(a crown he had no use for,
a crown of war, alliances, duty).
He slept on straw near his horse,
displacing the stableboy,
waited for his eldest brother to return
triumphant, ready for the throne—
then brother after brother vanished
into rock and ice and cloud.
The steward took his sword,
his shield, sent him out at dusk:
no torch, no guide, no horse,
no servant, no food, no water.
Snow deepened under his boots;
he waded through drifts,
fell once, twice. The wind mocked him;
he thought of the warm stable,
the bed of straw, his horse,
sleep—but sleep meant death,
so he stumbled on. The wind
called his brothers’ names.
He shouted back his own name;
the wind laughed. Snow fell.
He walked half-blind; sleet kissed
his forehead. The wind said sleep.
He sang to drown it, sang hymns,
nursery songs, drinking songs,
dirges, ballads, marching tunes,
the love songs his mother had favored
(she who was bartered for peace
to a man she’d never met).
He fell, pushed himself upright,
saw a black cloud speed against the wind.
She landed beside him, her breath ash,
snow steaming from her wings.
He knelt, but did not beg,
and asked after his brothers.
“One slept. One fought. One pissed
himself. They didn’t taste like kings.”
She laughed. “And you? What will you
pay for a crown, little princeling?”
“Nothing. I don’t want it.”
She flamed, and he saw himself reflected
in her scales, a kneeling, shivering boy.
“Then why,” she asked, “are you here?”
“Because they sent me.” He stopped. “No.”
He was so tired, he couldn’t think—
“Because the kingdom needs a king.”
He struggled to his feet.
“And what will you pay for the crown,
little princeling? Gold? Men? A song?”
“My freedom!” he shouted at her.
“Well,” she said, “that’s a start.”
∗
Years later, on a spring morning,
his queen asked, greatly daring,
about the woman whose name he cried
in his sleep. “Not a woman,” he said,
his heart on the mountain
where he entered his kingship.
GUARDED
Waking, that first morning,
in the king’s bed—his bed—
dawn brightening the paper windows,
Xau saw the guard, Gan,
standing in the same position
he had been in when Xau fell asleep.
(Had he stood there all night?
Or silently paced the room?
What if he’d needed to piss?)
Xau didn’t know what to say,
but he would not say nothing.
Xau got out of bed, bowed to Gan,
poured a cup of water:
“Thank you. Are you thirsty?”
Gan stared at the boy, the king,
standing there in his pajamas
holding out a cup of water
to him, the guard.
A small thing,
but the boy’s father
had never done it.
“Thank you, Your Majesty.”
Gan bowed back,
took the cup, drank.
TRAINING: WEIGHTS
Tsung, used to masking
his reactions so opponents
did not anticipate his moves,
showed none of his disappointment
as he assessed the boy
who would be both his charge
and his student:
sixteen years old,
close to full height,
but the boy could not even lift
the medium-weight bar.
Clear then to Tsung that the boy
was not his father’s equal,
was not his brothers’ equal.
Un-muscled, overlooked
fourth son.
Now king.
The boy, Xau,
struggled to hold the lightest bar,
sheened in sweat,
arms trembling,
but at least he held it,
didn’t use his newfound rank
to demand a rest.
Small consolation
to carry away
when training was done,
when Tsung instructed the guards
who would protect the boy
for the rest of the day,
when Tsung himself returned
to his darkened room
and burned incense
for Xau’s father,
the weight of that loss
hard to lift.
SUCCESSION
One king dead, a new one crowned.
The royal court seething with rumors,
fibs, fears, fancies, phantasms, fictions.
Gossip for innkeepers, beer drinkers,
wine merchants, vintners, sots, soldiers,
servants, slatterns, strumpets.
Mothers name their sons for the new king;
little girls name toys after him;
little boys crown themselves with twigs.
The royal bees in the royal hives
huddle in clusters, shivering,
waiting for spring, ignorant of kings.
GRIEF
The new king to his steward:
Is it required that we visit
our father’s grave?
Then we choose not to.
To the guild master:
We may be young,
but we are old enough to count.
Where are the missing barrels?
To his tailor:
Take it in an inch.
To the palace barber:
For such little stubble as we have,
we prefer to shave ourself.
To the captain of his guard late at night:
Secure the stables.
Let Khyert—the boy who sleeps there—
let him be.
Thank you.
To Khyert the stableboy:
It’s all right. Stay.
We are no different than we were
a month ago when you helped us
muck out Micha’s stall.
To his generals:
How many cavalry at that outpost?
To his senior advisor:
We will fight for them,
if necessary, die for them,
but we will not weep for their approval.
To the captain of his guard, another night:
Check the stables. Let Khyert stay.
Thank you.
To Khyert the stableboy:
You’re welcome. Your old blankets
were more holes than blanket.
Good.
Her near front fetlock?
Micha likes the snow.
To his generals:
If they attack, what options remain?
To his senior advisor:
We will fight for them, die for them.
It appears we will even consider
marrying for them.
On being shown the portraits of his dead brothers:
Give them to our sister.
To Khyert the stableboy:
Let us help you with that.
To a visiting envoy:
Perhaps. We are of an age to marry.
To his tutor:
War looms. Lessons are done.
To Khyert the stableboy:
We are angry, not sad—
our father should have warned them.
No.
We are fine. We will be fine.
No.
We... miss our brothers.
To his tailor:
Take it in again. We were too fat before.
To Khyert, four years later:
We never thanked you for your kindness.
Thank you.
MAP
Vast forests here
diminished to a
handful of trees.
Above the name
of every city:
three tiny houses.
Down the eastern edge
ink horses gallop
over ink rivers.
Beyond their hooves
a reddened swath
of hostile lands.
To the west,
lines of arrowheads
mark the kingdom’s
mountain border,
flecked by flame
where dragons dwell.
The northern seas
a wash of blue,
dotted by islands
where stirs an evil
unguessed by those
who drew the map.
NOT SO
An hour till dawn,
Princess Mei sat on her bed,
zither on her lap,
playing her tangled thoughts
into the notes.
Two months since her father died,
since the steward took away her brothers
to select the new king.
Mei, not considered—
A knock on the door: “Come in.”
—Xau, her fourth brother, now king.
“We heard you playing. Are you well?”
Mei nodded. “Are you?”
“Well enough.”
Xau sat on the floor
as his guards searched her rooms.
He looked tired, rumpled, thinner,
more boy than king.
In public, Xau so assured.
Now, not so.
Mei hesitated, then blurted out,
“Will you really marry her?”
“Yes.”
“But you’ve never even met her!”
“Shazia has never met us either.
We need to secure peace with at least one
of the countries threatening us.”
Mei wanted to ask
whether she, too, would be married
to someone she’d never met;
two months ago
she would have asked.
Now, not so.
Instead she sat opposite Xau
and they played cards
as if nothing had changed,
as if their brothers were still alive,
as if Xau were not king.
Only at the end,
day brightening the paper window,
Xau said to the floor
so that Mei could barely hear him,
“Sometimes we cannot breathe
for men looking at us.”
Then he got to his feet,
composed, the king again,
bowed and left.
Xau had found his path.
Mei unsure what hers would be
or whether any part of it
would be of her own choosing.
TRAINING: STANCES
Two months since the boy Xau
came to the throne,
two months in which Tsung—
captain of the king’s guards—
had watched the boy
for the better part of every day,
but something awry, that afternoon
in the innermost courtyard of the palace,
that Tsung could not identify.
Xau’s shift from Leaning Horse
off-form, stiff, his stance in Snake
rigid rather than solid,
and before the training session
the boy had been scathingly sarcastic
when the Finance Minister
tried to manipulate him.
The boy unimpressive as a warrior,
yet a natural ruler:
considered but decisive,
impartial, measured.
Except today.
The minister had been shaking by the end,
just as the boy shook now
when Tsung touched his shoulder
to correct his position.
A crane flew into the courtyard,
landed near the boy,
who held motionless in Snake
as the bird stepped delicately
right up to him
and tilted its head
inquiringly.
The boy’s face opened, gentled,
and it came to Tsung then
that what he’d seen before was a mask,
measured and deliberate
as a training stance.
The boy crouched down,
laid his fingers on the crane’s
feathered softness.
A long stillness,
Tsung aware of something passing
between crane and boy,
something that hurt to watch.
Then the crane flew away.
The boy’s face closed.
The boy returned to Snake position,
completed his exercises.
It wasn’t until next morning
that Tsung remembered how Prince Keng
used to call the boy Little Crane,
Keng the only one of the older princes
who had paid attention to the boy,
Keng who would have turned twenty-four
the day before.
THE HORSE LORD
Three months into his kingship,
the young king rode to claim fealty
from the horse lords.
They bowed to King Xau,