船到江心，补漏迟
chuán dào jiāng xīn, bǔ lòu chí
Once the ship has reached mid river, it's too late to plug the leak.
It's too late to change course now.

"Explain to me, again, how you lost your charge," snapped Kageyama.

"I— she was right beside me one moment," said the guard. The other two guards stood shamefacedly behind him. "And then she wasn't. I saw her ahead of us, with her maid. And then I lost them in the crowd. I assumed they had turned in to the inn already."

"You are either lying, or incompetent," growled Kageyama. "Either way, I have no further use for you." The guard froze, thinking the fox meant to kill him, but Kageyama had already turned away, his attention elsewhere.

"The spell, has it found her?" he asked Sanli. An array of golden characters hung in the air before the prince. Sanli studied them, watching them twist and shift in the air into a semblance of the streets surrounding the inn.

The prince shook his head, his mouth tight. "She's too far away."

"I can not smell her, in this rain. We have no choice but to search." He signaled one of the guards to stay behind, and the other two to follow him.

I stood to join them, and Kageyama shook his head.

"You. You stay here."  Kageyama pointed forcefully at the carriage, where Ermi's tearful maid sat.

I heard it in his voice, though he did not say it. It's your fault she's missing. The dragon took her because of you.

He was right. I could not deny it.

Zakhar patted my shoulder awkwardly. "Wait here with the carriage. If Ermi comes back on her own, tell her to wait here." Then he followed the other men to the exit.

"We'll comb the streets. They can't have gotten far." I heard the fear in Kageyama's voice, beneath his urgency. It unnerved me.

Then they passed through the gate and into the street beyond, and I was alone in the courtyard.

Well, not entirely alone.

I stalked to the door of the carriage and threw it open, then dragged Ermi's maid out by the hair, causing her to cry out.

"What are you doing!" the guard shouted.

Kageyama had not thought to interrogate her, either because he did not suspect her, or because he was above intimidating women.

I however, was not above such things.

I slammed the maid against the carriage, pinning one of her hands above her head. "Tell me where she is, or I will break your fingers one by one," I snarled.

The woman sobbed harder, and I began to doubt my instincts.

One way to make certain.

I wrapped my free hand around the maid's littlest finger, preparing to wrench it to the side.  Behind me the leftover guard leapt forward to intervene.

Suddenly the woman spoke through her sobs, voice thick with tears. "They, they took her just across from here. They pulled her down an alley. I— they offered me coin at the festival to look the other way. I did not think, I didn't realize—I- I thought it was YOU they were taking—"

I let the woman's hand go. She fell into a crying heap at my feet.

"More," I said. "I need more information than that!"

"They, they had cloaks on, but I could tell by their shoes, they were sailors."

"Chh—" It was nothing I couldn't have figured out on my own. Where would a dragon take its prize? To the sea of course.

I raised my hand to take my frustration out on the maid. "The ship!" she cried. "One man said something to the other about the ship being moored at berth 89," the woman shrieked, cowering under my raised arm.

At last, something useful. "Tie her and watch her well!" I ordered the remaining guard. "If the men return, tell them to head to berth 89." Then I turned and sprinted out of the courtyard, shoes skidding on the wet stone.

I headed for the ocean once more, shielding my face against the rain to try and see. It was dark, darker with the storm. The lanterns of Zhanghai, although spelled to withstand wind and rain, flickered precariously in the storm, casting shifting shadows over the now empty streets.

I reached the ocean. The ships moored along the harbor side bucked and tossed like angry horses in their stalls. I searched, trying to find the marking for the berths.

Finally, set in the stones of the pier I found the number carved in old numerals. 二十八.  28.

I had a long way to go.

I turned and ran along the pier to the next berth, checking to make sure it was going up. 二十九. 29. I kept running.

The rain soaked me, and the wind pulled at the long loose sleeves of the yukata. The stupid ornate obi acted as a sail, catching the wind and pulling me to the side. The tightness also hindered my ability to run. I caught at the thing, trying to pull it off me, but it held firm, like some hobbling bond. The maid had tied it too tight and too well to simply pull off without first undoing the knot at the back.

Finally, at berth number 88 I stopped, crouching behind a stack of crates. Ahead of me along the docks, I could see lights, and men loading cargo onto the ship moored in bearth 89. 藍貓, Lan Mao, the name of the ship read. The Blue Cat. The figurehead on the front was of a kitten, winged, the blue paint peeling off its paws. A rather benign looking figurehead for a crew of kidnappers.

At first, just like with the maid in the courtyard earlier, I doubted myself. Perhaps this was just a normal vessel and the maid had heard wrong. Or the ship that had been here had already left?

Then I heard one of the men call to another: "The girl won't stop crying. What should we do?"

"Gag her, until we're out at sea. We don't want anyone hearing," another replied.

My pulse surged, and I nearly did something very foolish and rushed forward. But I caught myself. There were at least ten men within sight, and likely more on the ship. Too many for me to take unarmed. Or possibly even if I was armed, depending on their martial skill.

To make it worse, they appeared to be done loading. Several men attended to the rope moorings, untying them one by one and throwing them to their crew mates onboard. I was surprised they meant to set sail in this storm, but knowing the nature of their cargo, I supposed they couldn't afford to wait.

My mind frantically sought a plan, but nothing came to my mind. Thousands of years I had roamed this earth, and I couldn't even outsmart a few skin sellers? Perhaps it was best for me to wait, and regroup with the men. I would tell Kageyama and Sanli what I had seen. They could get the whole royal fleet out to search for The Blue Cat, before it got far. And it was not like Guang Han would kill Ermi. He needed her for marriage. For her name.

Suddenly I thought of Ermi at the Midsummer Banquet, sobbing in the center of her dress like a strange sea creature. I thought of her joyful face today, when I had told her I would come with her to the festival, and knew there was no way I would leave her alone on that ship.

Damn.

The ship was moving away, the gangplank about to separate from the dock. And still I could not think of anything.

So what did I do? I did something very foolish, and rushed forward.

"Wait!" I called over the storm. "You fools forgot me!"

I launched myself off the dock, across the churning waves, onto the gangplank.

*~*~*~*~*~*

The sailor who bound my hands in front of me had terrible breath. I almost wished he was binding my hands behind me, so I would not have to smell it.

Around him, the rest of the crew had recovered from the shock of me throwing myself on board, and were leering at me with varying degrees of nastiness.

"Guang Han told you to collect me, didn't he?" I asked the man who was binding me. Carefully I tested the knots. They were firm. No escaping this without a knife.

"Oh, he asked us to do something with you," he confirmed, smiling a near toothless smile. And there it was, the cause of the bad breath. Poor oral hygiene.

Another man grabbed my hair and used it to push my head forward, forcing me to stare at my feet. The wooden comb I had worn fell and clattered to the deck.

The man used my hair to maneuver me to a set of steps and down into the bowels of the ship. Just before it went out of sight, I twisted my head and caught one more glimpse of Zhanghai, its lights fading away in the rain as we moved further out into the bay.

Then I was below deck, looking at the steep steps and my hands tied in front of me and trying not to fall as the ship bucked in the storm. It did not help that I had lost one of my shoes in my leap to the gangplank.

"Move!" the man behind me grunted, pushing at my head.

My precarious balance failed, and I slipped down the last couple of steps, landing on my knees with a curse.

"ERMFMF!" I turned to where the muffed cry had come from. Amid crates and barrels and bushels of cloth, a girl was crouched, tethered by her bound hands to a ring of iron set in the ship's side.

"Ermi!" I cried, struggling toward her.

Ermi was gagged, and her face streaked with tears, but other than that she appeared unhurt. I felt relief fill my heart such as I had not expected.

Before I could reach Ermi, the man who had forced me below deck grabbed me and tied me in a similar fashion to another ring across from Ermi's.

I carefully watched him tie the knot. It was a complicated one, and well made, the man being a sailor as he was.

The man moved toward a hammock strung between two beams, and I realized he meant to stay down here with us. That would make what I had planned more difficult. I could wait for him to fall asleep, but with each passing moment we got further from Zhanghai, and our chances of a successful escape got slimmer.

I frantically tried to think of a way to figure out their intentions for the both of us, and to get the man close to me again. "You, you'll regret this! I am Guang Han's betrothed!" I cried in my most indignant voice.

The man rose to the bait, turning back and chuckling. "Oh I know who you are love. Seems your engagement is off. Boss Guang offered a higher price to whoever killed you then to the one who caught the little princess."

"Then why haven't you killed me yet?" I said defiantly.

"Hah, why waste good flesh? We'll sell you in Wa when we get there. It's as good as a death."

"And Lady Ermi? You can't possibly think you could get away with selling a princess..."

"Of course not. The girl is to go to Boss Guang's estate in..." it suddenley occurred to the idiot that I was prying him for information. "No more talking," he said, striding back toward me to give me a sharp backhand across the face that caused Ermi to cry out against her gag.

I mumbled something under my breath, and the man slapped me again, causing me to fall forward against the wall of the ship. "I said no more talking!"

I mumbled the phrase again. Despite the order he had just given, the man asked me suspiciously, "Wait, what did you say?"

I grinned up at him, showing my now untethered hands. "I said you should have tied my hands behind me."

I leapt up, slamming my head into his chin, causing him to stumble backwards with a shout.

I was on him even before he fell. He was a big man, but I had the advantage of surprise. I grabbed his head with both my hands, still bound before me, and then drove it down against the floor of the ship as hard as I could, using the momentum of our fall to add force to my blow.

When the man continued to move beneath me, I drove his head down again. And again.

At last he was still, though the movement of his chest beneath my legs told me he was simply unconscious. I struggled to my feet and hurried across to Ermi to untie her bonds.

"Ermi, listen to me, they will have heard his shout. When they come down here pretend you're still bound—"

But it was too late. More sailors had already come thundering down the steps from the deck above. They pulled me away from Ermi before I could even touch the princess's bonds.

"You bitch," said one with the terrible breath, and, just as I had knocked out his crewmate seconds before, the man drove my head hard against the planks of the ship.

I blacked out.

*~*~*~*~*~*

My unconsciousness came instantly, but regaining consciousness took some time, during which my mind was lucid, but my body was still beyond me. During that lucidity, left alone in my mind, I had plenty of time to contemplate the foolishness of my actions.

I should have waited, on the dock, or ran back to search for Sanli and the others. My pride had not wanted to admit it, but they would have been better able to handle the situation than I.

I should not have come to the festival. I should not have engaged myself to Guang Han. I should not have followed Sanli to Zhanghai in the first place. A thousand such regrets flitted around my head. It was foolish, arrogant of me to think I could still affect the goings on of the world as I once had.

I was nobody now. A rather durable human, with no name and no power.

I felt a shivering tickle brush across my skin, and heard the timber of the ship creak. Gold light flickered across my closed eyelids. I realized we must have passed out of The Wall, beyond the circle.

I heard a noise nearby, and groggily blinked my eyes open. My head throbbed, and I suspected if I had been a normal human I would not have woken up. Beneath me, the deck bucked and swayed, and yet I could hear the howling of the storm had died somewhat. I realized it was my own disorientation that caused the deck to move so.

Shakily, I turned my head toward the noise. Beside me stood a man all in black, cradling an unconscious Ermi in his arms.

I struggled to sit up, and found now not only my hands but my feet were bound as well. I tried to shout out, but my mouth had been gagged with a dirty rag. I tried not to think where the sour taste came from.

The man in black heard my struggles and turned toward me, and I found myself looking at a pair of unnaturally symmetrical eyes.

"Shhh," said Zhen, raising a finger to his lips. He gently laid the princess down on the deck. "She's sleeping now. They had to drug her, after they knocked you out. She was near hysterical poor thing, screaming and crying. I think she thought you had died."

Zhen moved away from the princess and came to crouch before me. "We both know better though, don't we? We know you can't die." He tilted my chin back, and his cold eyes studied me with interest.

I glanced around. The man from earlier, who I had knocked unconscious was gone. Another had taken his place in the hammock. I wondered why he did not wake. Then I saw the long sickle shaped cut across his throat. The snake had already made sure he would not wake again.

"What are the limitations, I wonder?" said Zhen, turning my chin side to side, as though inspecting an animal he wished to buy. "How many drops of poison can you withstand? If I drive a knife through your heart, will it still beat?"

The clinical look in the snake's eyes scared me. He would do all those things and more, just to satisfy some sick sense of investigation.

I briefly debated trying to shout for help, and then gave it up. Zhen would slit my throat before I could yell. Gagged as I was, few would hear. And who would come to help? Violent skin sellers, who probably had just as painful plans in store for me, after I had attacked one of their number.

Things did not look good for me.

Zhen drew one finger along the side of my cheek, and I resisted the urge to recoil. "I've enjoyed watching you, this summer, Lady Yunyou. You're quite a contrary woman. You say one thing, and then do another. Take the little princess for example. You scorn her, ignore her, and yet you threw yourself onto a slaver's ship in a storm... for what? So she wouldn't suffer alone?" Zhen laughed. "Put me in quite a pickle, that jump. My orders being to follow you. Luckily they were all so busy with your entrance no one noticed me come aboard."

Zhen withdrew his hand and sat back on his heels. "You surprise me so, Lady Yunyou. I'm half tempted to help you." As he said this, Zhen reached forward and slid a finger under my gag, as if to lose it. "But... you got me into a lot of trouble with my new employer. The second prince didn't like that I tortured you. Normally he isn't so picky about how I get results. And then you and the kitsune had to go and destroy my shop! It had a lot of sentimental value, you know? That's something I really can't forgive." He let the gag go, and I fell back.

Zhen sighed dramatically, then brightened. "So when this opportunity presented itself, I thought 'Perfect!' A chance to redeem myself with my dear princely employer by saving his sister, and to make sure you disappear. And what better revenge than for you to be sold as chattel in Wa? An eternity of soul crushing servitude. Sounds like a suitable fate for a woman as proud as yourself."

Zhen patted my cheek and then stood. I hoped my hatred was conveyed in the glare from my eyes. I guess it was because Zhen said "Now, now, don't look at me like that. I would have a hard time saving both of you. It's in the little princess's best interests to leave you here."

Zhen bent to gather Ermi's body up in his arms. "You know, both the princes think you're someone special. The remains of a god." He hefted Ermi up in his arms, and I studied her face. "But you know what I think?"

I did not care what he thought. I was worried about Ermi. The rise and fall of her chest was faint, and her face was very pale. I wondered what drug they had given her to sedate her, and how much of it.

"I think," continued Zhen, and I realized the man was used to holding conversations on his own. "That it doesn't matter what you once were. You're nothing now." He turned toward the stairs to leave.

I started to thrash angrily, and yelled against my gag. "Buh-buh-buh," said Zhen, turning and shaking his finger at me. "Do you really want to alert the slavers I'm here? It makes the little princess's chances of getting out of this much slimmer." I stilled, silenced. "That's it. Good girl. Quiet now."

He placed a foot on the steps, then turned back to wink at me jauntily. "Enjoy slavery."

I watched him walk slowly up the steps, soundlessly. At the top he peered out into the small square of sky. Then he slipped away, Ermi in his arms, and I was alone below deck with the corpse of the sailor.

*~*~*~*~*~*

I gave Ermi and that damn snake five minutes to escape, and then began to struggle again. To no avail. The knots held tight.

I sank back against the wall of the ship, my head still throbbing. I was exhausted, wet, cold and hot. I wanted to sleep, and wake up healed and with a clear head to deal with this problem. But I knew every second was precious.

I looked around me. Bushels and boxes and barrels of things surrounded me on all sides. Surely, in one of them was something I could use to cut myself free?

But everything was nailed shut or tied down, or too far for me too reach.

I glanced over at the dead sailor in the hammock. He would probably have something sharp. But again, he was too far away.

I slumped back against the metal ring, angrily chewing at the gag. My eyes scanned the hold of the ship around me once, twice, thrice. Again and again, searching for some method of escape.

And then it occurred to me. I could see the contents of the hold. It was bright down here, when it should have been dark.

I craned my head back. A glass lantern swung on a hook, just above my head.

I tried to stand to reach it, but my hands had been tied behind my back, close to the ring, and I could not stand to my full height. So instead, I lay on my back, stretching my bound legs up, up, my bare toes reaching toward the lantern—

My toe brushed the bottom of the lantern. I did not have enough reach to unhook it. I would have to knock it down.

So I did.

I twisted my face as the lantern fell and shattered to the deck beside me. Immediately heat seared against that side, as the oil from the lamp spread across the deck. It caught a nearby bale of cotton, which went up in a whoosh and a gust of hot air.

Shit. I had not thought the fire would spread so quickly.

I dragged part of the broken lamp toward me, managing to maneuver it behind myself. I sawed on my bonds, first on the rope affixing me to the iron ring. When it gave, I looped my still bound hands around to my front, slipping off the disgusting gag at last.

By now the ship's hold and its cargo was well and truly aflame. The heat and smoke caused my eyes to sting, and my already addled head to spin. Flames licked at the body of the sailor in the hammock, causing the ropes to sizzle and break and the body to fall to the floor.

A shout came from above deck. They had noticed the fire. "Bring water!" somebody called.

I did not have time to cut the rest of my bonds free with the broken glass. But there was a quicker way to do it.

I steeled myself, and stuck my hands into the flaming bale of cotton.

Immediately, despite my mental preparation, I screamed. I had experienced many different types of pain in my life, but burning always seemed to me the worst. Even Zhen's needles could not compare. There was something about your flesh being consumed by the fire, like a predator eats is prey, that caused the pain to work in more ways than one.

Gasping, sobbing, I pulled my hands from the bale. They were pink and raw, bits of skin charcoaled and hanging loosely. I smelled burning meat, and with a lurch of my stomach, realized it was me.

But my pain was not for nothing. The hemp ropes binding my hands had caught, and were singeing, tightening as they twisted and burned,until I was finally able to pull them apart. I fell to my knees, fighting to stay conscious as agony washed over me.

I think I did lose consciousness, because the next thing I knew I was being roughly dragged up the stairs and onto the deck, coughing smoke from my lungs. I was thrown to one side and forgotten in the mad rush of the sailors to put out the fire. Some were throwing wooden pails tied to ropes overboard, pulling them up filled with seawater, and passing them to a chain of other sailors, who then threw the water onto the deck, down the stairs, anywhere they could in an attempt to douse the spreading flames.

A forgotten bucket of seawater sat beside me on the deck. I plunged my hands into it. The salt water stung painfully for a moment, then the cold water numbed the raw flesh.

Already, I could feel an itching tingling spreading, as my skin started to regrow. I had realized early that the shallower the wound, the faster it healed, as if Yan's magic was spread thickest at my skin's surface.

Soon new skin had started to crawl across the raw red, and I removed my hands from the bucket, pulling myself behind a nearby crate to try and hide while I undid the bonds around my feet.

Dawn was approaching, and a pale light grew in the east. I could see, to the west behind the ship, a black ribbon of land, and affixed to that ribbon a cluster of golden gems: the lights of Zhanghai. It was too far for even me, with my unnatural endurance, to swim.

I would sink to the deeps, and be lost among the currents.

This far out, we must have already passed through the Wall. Thankfully, looking around, among the crew there did not seem to be any mu'ren. If there were, that would make my escape even more difficult.

The crew had gotten the fire under control only to be met with the next problem: the ship was listing to one side. Now instead of throwing water into the hold, a chain of men had formed to drain it. They passed the buckets to each other with frantic looks on their sweating red faces.

I wished I was not in quite so much pain and duress, otherwise I might have enjoyed their panic.

I looked around the deck for something buoyant I could use as a float to help support me back to land. It looked as though a small skiff had at one time been tied alongside the ship but was now gone. I saw the neatly sawn off rope and suspected I knew how Zhen had escaped with the little princess.

Suddenly a hand wrapped around my ankle, and I was dragged from my hiding spot behind the crate.

"You bitch. This is all your fault." Foul breath and a terrible tooth line assaulted me before a hand struck me across the face.

My head snapped to the side and I fell to the deck. He raised his hand to hit me again, but was interrupted. "Captain, the hold's filling too fast, and the skiff is gone, what should we do?!" a pale sailor asked the foul breathed man.

In answer the man turned back to me, his beady black eyes murderous.

I crawled backwards on my hands and knees, the tender new skin of my hands tearing on the rough wood of the deck. I struggled to my feet and fled to the rear deck of the ship, sprinting up the small staircase. I leapt to the rail, intending to throw myself overboard, float or no, and try my luck with the sea.

Before I could leap however, something grabbed the ornate bow of my obi and yanked me backwards, throwing me to the deck.

That damn obi.

"I don't care what you're worth in Wa, I'm killing you here!" The toothless captain snarled, spit flying from his mouth like it was escaping. A long thick knife had appeared in his hand, with a hook in the end. The kind used for gutting very large fish and animals.

I struggled backwards on my hands and knees again, but the man stepped on the bottom of my yukata to hold me still. He reached forward with one hand to grab my collar, the other holding the wicked knife at the ready. I put up a hand, to try and shield myself from the worst of the foul breath captain's attack.

And then the man froze. His angry black eyes looked past me, at something looming behind. The sun had just broken the horizon, and in the dim light I was very aware of a shadow falling across the deck. The cries of the men had fallen still, and all I could hear was the sound of falling water.

I turned my head.

The first thing I saw was the rosy light of dawn glinting across thousands of bronze red scales. Water ran over the scales, sluicing off them and falling to the deck in a rain of sea water. As the water fell, the rising sun crested the horizon and caught them, turning them to pink gems falling through the air.

The water fell from a long neck that stretched up, towering, taller than the mast, and so thick four grown men together could not encompass it with their arms, fingertips touching.

Grasping the side of the ship, and causing it to list even more, were two clawed feet, each toe as long as a man. The claws at the end of each toe shone like steel and were easily the length and thickness of my arm.

Five in all.

At last, I craned my neck up, every muscle in my body quivering-tense, to see the dragon's face.

Long whiskers hung from a thin snout. Lips curled back to reveal teeth of a similar steel like color as the claws. They ranged in size, some needle thin and the length of my hand, and some, such as the big fangs near the front of the dragons muzzle, perhaps the length of my forearm or more.

A huge bronze eye, pupil slit, was trained on me. Just the one. Where the other should have been was a sunken socket.

Guang Han.

*~*~*~*~*~*