The Draco Society Trilogy

Chapter 5:

Chapter 5:

Phoebe’s scream woke Helena. Her eyes opened in a flash. She immediately recognized the glade where she initially awoke in the land of the immortals. Phoebe gripped Helena’s hand tight enough she couldn’t shake free. She leaned on her elbow with her free hand on Phoebe’s shoulder, and that was when she encountered the green snake constricting around her friend’s body.

The snake body’s diameter matched Helena’s waist. The thing was huge. Helena grabbed the snake’s head while Phoebe struggled to remove the reptile from her body. The three of them began rolling about the meadow, wrestling to free Phoebe from the crushing grip. Helena could hear her friend’s breathing as it grew labored as the creature tightened the grip on her midsection.

Memories came flowing back to Helena. In the past, she never remembered her trips to Kunlun Mountain. Now they all seemed to assail her mind at once. Minute intricacies of her first visit flashed back to her.

“Dammit, Greenie, let go of my friend, or I will kick your ass again! Shouldn’t you be practicing to free Lady Bai!” she shouted at the top of her lungs and punched the green snake in the head.

Still being crushed, Phoebe couldn’t scream again when the snakes head morphed into a woman’s beautiful face and began to speak. “It’s you!” Helena felt the grip on Phoebe relax slightly as the reptile drew its attention to Helena. “You never beat me. Your life was spared by that meddling stag. He isn’t around now to save you. Don’t tempt me, or you will die.”

“I’ll ask again, why are you wasting time on us when you should be saving your friend that you swore you would save?”

“I should kill this woman now for dishonoring her family by taking a Western name over her Chinese name.”

“This woman is a better friend than you will ever be. She took the Western name to honor her friend. Unlike you, who abandoned your friend to be imprisoned forever. We are here to find and rescue another friend! You should be researching a way to destroy Leifeng Pagoda and free your friend Madam White Snake, not rolling around in the grass with us. What kind of companion are you?”

Before her eyes, the snake with the woman’s face transformed into a beautiful young Chinese woman dressed all in white and green. Her arms and legs wrapped around Phoebe’s mid-drift. “I have been trying for centuries to free her. You have been trying for hours. Don’t speak to me of commitment.”

“And yet you are here and not at Westlake.”

“There are too many painful memories surrounding the broken bridge.” Greenie untangled herself from the two mortals.

“If I find a way for me to help you, I will,” Helena said while she helped the awestruck Phoebe to her feet.

“Just like a Westerner. You think nothing can be done without your help. China was building the Great Wall before your countries existed.” Greenie turned her back to Helena and began walking away.

“If you don’t want my help, all you have to do is say so. It’s not a competition. I was only trying to help.”

“Just leave my glade and leave me be.” Greenie walked to the far side of the meadow and disappeared into the brush.

Phoebe overcame her awe-induced muteness and spoke softly, “Was that the demon Green Snake from the legend?”

“Yeah, she’s not nearly as powerful as the stories make her out to be.” Helena turned her back to Green Snake and inspected Phoebe for injuries.

“How did you ever learn about this legend? It’s Chinese.” Phoebe looked into Helena’s eyes.

“I guess subconsciously, I remembered some of the things I saw here. I met her...” She motioned behind with her left hand. “The first time I came to this strange place. I remember that now. Once Sigmund showed me my parents’ library and workshop, I would sit in their chairs for hours reading everything I understood and some I didn’t. I guess my subconscious knew I needed to read up on Chinese mythology and folktales.”

“Why would your parents own that book, and it was translated into English?”

“I never thought of that before. They collected so many different books. But a number of them were on mythologies of different cultures.”

“Like what?”

Helena started leading Phoebe toward the crag made of black jade. “There was Chinese mythology, of course, along with ancient Greek and Roman. All were translated into English. I found one book that was in Hindi, a copy of Ramayana, with notes and translations written in the margins. My parents were searching for something from antiquity. Some of the notes were in my mother’s handwriting and some in my father’s. This was from a time they were still working together. Several of the stories I found interesting and studied them. A few just didn’t hold that much interest to me. The story of Lady Bai and Xu Xian spoke to me. It reminded me of my parents, two people from vastly different worlds falling in love with one another.”

“I don’t know what to say. It appears we did the impossible. We’ve traveled to Kunlun Mountain.” Phoebe reached for Helena’s hand and rubbed her eyes with the other.

“Yeah, about that. We need to be careful. This is where I met the demon fox Daji before she used me to escape into the mortal world. She took great pleasure in warning me that this place wasn’t meant for mortals and that it could be very dangerous. I wish I would’ve taken her warnings more seriously.”

“I’m not even sure I believe we are truly here. This is more like a dream than reality.” Phoebe squeezed Helena’s hand.

Helena returned contact. “I can assure you it’s very real. Things that happen here will follow us back.” With her free hand, Helena pointed toward the pinnacle of black jade in front of them. “Now we need to climb that and find Master Ao. In his cave is the pool of water we can use to find Gertrude.”

Helena listened to the fear rise in Phoebe’s voice as she spoke, “I don’t think I can climb that.”

“Trust me, things here are not always as they seem. We have a brief stop to make before we start climbing those steps.” Helena estimated where the magic stream was at the bottom of the steps of Master Ao’s cave. She had to fill buckets of water from the stream enough times that its location was burned into her memory. She had to admit though her legs were in better shape than they had ever been.

Distance didn’t seem to work the same on this mountain as it did in Helena’s world, or perchance, time worked differently. The talking stag, Lu Tong, once told her time worked differently here in the land of the immortals. Helena figured the reason really didn’t matter. She was staying here until she found the information on Gertrude, or Master Ao slapped her with the willow branch, which he had a nasty habit of doing when he no longer wanted to discuss a subject.

Helena found the stream she was looking for. Without hesitation, she bent and sipped a handful of the water. She stopped Phoebe before she followed her example. “Su Daji once told me this was poison for mortals. The water refreshes me...”

Before Helena continued, Phoebe knelt and drank a handful of water. “I’m so sorry, I couldn’t wait. I’m just so thirsty, and this stream seemed so inviting. If it was poison, how long do I live before I die?”

Helena had never thought of that before. She had assumed, when she first drank the water and gained her strength, there were no after effects. She never thought the poison might take some time to affect her. “I never thought of it that way.” Helena shook her head.

“I guess we all die someday. Not everyone gets to pick the way life ends. The water does make me feel stronger, more ready to do anything than I have ever felt. We should go find Green Snake. I want to wrestle her to see if she can still wrap me in her coils.” Phoebe laughed.

Helena was concerned about Phoebe’s behavior, but she assumed the change was from the effects of the invigorating water. “Let’s get going. The water won’t last forever.” They moved toward the steps hewn into the jade wall.

“You know, legend has it, the immortals eat peaches that grant them their long life. Wouldn’t it be something to live the life of an immortal?”

“I don’t think so. From what I’ve seen, they are not much different from humans.”

“I think, technically, they are mostly human. They just possess incredibly long lives, so they learn more.”

At the steps, Helena began taking them two at a time, not pausing until the first switch back to ensure that Phoebe was keeping pace with her. She found her two steps behind her breathing as if she were taking a Sunday stroll through the city streets of San Francisco.

This time, she took the energy and counted all the steps to the top. Precisely four thousand, broken up into four switchbacks of a thousand steps each. It seemed like that should be some number to remember, that four thousand must hold some importance to be so exact but now she couldn’t think why.

At the cave, she found Master Ao sitting right where she expected him to be.

She timidly stepped before the old man dressed in white robes.

Before she spoke, he began, “I see you’ve come again, and this time you brought a friend.”

“Master Ao, I need your help. A friend of ours has gone missing,” Helena pleaded.

“Chow Kam Ting, you should tell your friend here that she trifles with significant powers she will never understand.”

“He knows my name. How could he know my name?” Helena heard the fear in Phoebe’s voice and felt a tug on her hand when she turned to leave. “We don’t belong here. We should have never come here.”

“You should listen to your friend. You always come here asking for favors. What have you done for me?” He spoke without opening his eyes.

“What’ve I done for you? How about carrying those bloody buckets of water up those dangerous steps so you can enjoy a bath?” Helena took a step forward and drug Phoebe with her. “You once called me a guardian. Now I remember everything from my visits here. I’m here to help someone I care about. To me, that’s being a guardian. Now get off your fluffy butt and show me where Gertrude is.” Helena took another step closer, sure to stay out of range of the willow branch that would send her home.

“Mistress, you go too far. I don’t think you understand who that is. Please, you must be more respectful,” Phoebe begged with Helena.

“I understand he is Dragon King of the Eastern Sea. I could go into more detail, but I don’t want to bring up past failings.” Helena tried to push his buttons without outright confrontation. However, she could tell Phoebe knew exactly what she was talking about.

Dark storm clouds began to form overhead. Helena could see a frown had crossed over Master Ao’s ordinarily peaceful expression. “I have done my best to train you, and now you enter my home and try to mock me.”

“Please, Master, I only want to help my friend.” Helena risked the willow branch and stepped closer. She pointed to the pool of water between them. “I know you can show me where she is. That is what I need to learn. Let me be the guardian you think I am.”

“Helena, please, you’re going to get us both killed.” The strain in Phoebe’s voice a direct correlation to the stress her body felt. Helena knew Phoebe had let go of her hand and dropped to her knees. “Please, forgive her. She doesn’t know what she’s doing.”

“Stop saying that, Phoebe. I know what I’m doing. I know who he is, and I know what he’s capable of. I also know if I use the dagger, I can force him to do it.”

“Dagger? What dagger?” Phoebe asked while her forehead was pressed to the black jade floor.

“He knows what dagger I’m talking about.” Helena stood with her hands on her hips waiting for Master Ao to relent, unsure what she needed to see.

With a wave of his hand, faster than Helena thought possible, Gertrude’s tear-stained face appeared in the pool of water. Wherever she was, it was dark.

“Phoebe, she’s alive!” Helena moved a step closer staring intently at the picture. “But where is she?”

An impossibly deep growl came from low in the body of the old man sitting near her before he waved his hand again, and in the pool was the unmistakable image of the Russian Count Alexei Stroganov.

Helena cried, “Damn it. I thought he was dead!”