Nar-Nuteng: Helping Black Dog search for his Empress Part 3 (A student comes home and assists her mentor)

I arrived at Beatrice’s castle after traveling from Banua to see her. I wanted to show her how much I had learned—and I wanted to be tested.

Jumei greeted me and explained that Beatrice had gone on a short mission with two companions. He welcomed me to stay until she returned.

Not long after I arrived, the servants told me that one of the prisoners wanted to speak with me.

It was Chuluun, who I had once known when we had ventured into the Valley of the Five Fires, both of us under the banner of Bo Jing.

Chuluun insisted that his arrest had been a mistake. He seemed certain that once I understood what had
happened, I would help him.

I was not so certain.

I asked one of Beatrice’s fox children what had happened when Chuluun was captured. They told me that he had been associated with the Dragon Claw and, more seriously, had apparently tried to seize their younger brother.

That made me much less inclined to trust him.

I began asking questions about the Dragon Claw. What I learned was disturbing. They are more than a group of fighters. They seem to be a cult. Those who become deeply involved begin to lose themselves, physically and mentally. Their transformation starts in the hands: scarring, damaged fingers, and eventually the development of terrible dragon-like claws. They become increasingly cruel, but also extremely dangerous fighters.

I asked the servants to look closely at Chuluun’s hands the next time they brought him food.

They reported that there was indeed unusual scarring.

That did not prove that everything he had told me was a lie, but it certainly did not reassure me.

Two of Beatrice’s fox children later took me to the site where Beatrice and her companions had fought members of the Dragon Claw. Remains of the battle were still scattered there.

What disturbed me most was the evidence of what had happened after the battle was over.

Something very large—apparently a giant cat—had come to the site, eaten from the bodies, and crushed some of the skulls.

I did not know what to make of that.

A day or so later, a servant arrived from a neighboring castle carrying an invitation to a martial arts tournament. The host was Lord Temur of Willow Crossing.

Beatrice has around twenty bodyguards known as the Blackbirds living at her castle. The past ten years in Happy Valley have been remarkably quiet, and the prospect of attending a martial arts tournament immediately excited them.

Soon afterward, Beatrice returned with her companion, a man whom she introduced as Black Dog. I didn't ask any questions.

We compared what we had learned.

I told her about Chuluun, the scarring on his hands, and the evidence of the enormous cat at the site of the battle. Beatrice told me that a strange and unusually intelligent black cat had been following her during her travels.

Neither of us thought that was a coincidence.

I asked whether Jumei could attempt to remove whatever curse was affecting Chuluun. He performed the necessary rituals, although afterward I could not tell whether they had truly worked.

Beatrice and I were also suspicious of the tournament invitation. The Dragon Claw were clearly operating in the region, and a gathering of skilled fighters would be an obvious opportunity for them.

We asked Jumei to keep that possibility in mind when preparing his spells.

Before we left, I spoke with Chuluun again. I told him that he could accompany us, but that this did not mean we trusted him. We would be watching him closely.

He accepted those conditions.

We returned his armor but not his weapons.

Beatrice chose the rest of our party carefully. She included one of her fox sons, who is particularly gifted at communicating with cat Animaji while they are in animal form. Several of the Blackbirds also came with us.

Beatrice decided that we would attend the tournament.

Interjection from Black Dog: “I wondered why my lady wanted to delay our travel west to watch, or perhaps even participate in, her neighbor’s martial-arts tournament. As usual, the wisdom in my remaining silent was proved by events.”

The walk to the neighboring castle was almost festive. The Blackbirds had spent years protecting a peaceful valley, and they could hardly contain their excitement at the prospect of seeing—and perhaps entering—a real martial arts tournament.

But shortly after we arrived, one of the young women approached Beatrice and me with troubling news.

She had seen a black cat following us on the way to Willow Crossing—presumably the same cat Beatrice had seen during her travels.

That evening, our hosts gave us an elaborate dinner. During the meal, Beatrice asked Lord Temur whether Jumei might bless all the fighters before the tournament began the following morning.

That sounded innocent enough.

Our actual intention was more practical.

If any of the fighters were secretly affected by the Dragon Claw curse, Jumei would have an opportunity to remove it.

That night, we divided into two rooms. Beatrice slept with her “mysterious” partner and her son. Chuluun stayed in the other room with Jumei and the rest of us, where we could continue watching him.

Sometime in the middle of the night, I woke to the loud cry of a cat.

I saw it darting away.

Then I saw something far worse.

Two men with enormous clawed hands were attacking Chuluun in his bed.

They were not trying to frighten him.

They were trying to kill him.

As they attacked, they shouted something like:

“You can never leave the Dragon Claw.”

I yelled for Jumei.

He woke immediately and used magic to hold both attackers completely still. Once they were restrained, he turned his attention to Chuluun and healed his wounds.

By morning, there was no longer much room to doubt what we were dealing with.

We met with Lord Temur and explained what had happened.

To our astonishment, he seemed genuinely shocked that we considered the Dragon Claw dangerous. His own son had been training with them. He dismissed much of what people were saying as superstition and insisted that Dragon Claw was simply an effective fighting technique.

So we showed him the two frozen men.

We explained again that these men had broken into our room in the middle of the night and attempted to murder Chuluun while declaring that no one could leave the Dragon Claw.

That was considerably harder to dismiss as superstition.

Afterward, Beatrice and I looked at one another.

We had both come to the same conclusion.

The cat was not hunting us.

The cat was helping us.

Beatrice: Helping Black Dog search for his Empress Part 2 (back to the Happy Valley)

We spent the night in Dadu South at an inn. The Emperor, still disguised as a common man, stayed in my room. We decided that Saran should sleep in the small adjoining room.

I was awakened twice during the night.

The first time, there was a cat sitting outside our window. The Emperor told me it had been watching us for quite some time.

I know Animaji well. The father of my older children is Animaji, as are those children themselves. Animaji possess a strange kind of magic that allows them to exist as both fully human and fully animal. This is not the same as a magician casting a spell to change form, nor is it a disguise. An Animaji in animal form moves, reacts, communicates, and inhabits that body naturally. There is a great difference between an Animaji who truly is a cat or an eagle and a magician who has transformed into one for the first—or even the fifth—time.

The Emperor and I both sensed that this cat was more than an ordinary animal. It seemed intelligent, and the fact that it had remained at our window watching us for so long made me deeply suspicious. We tried to speak to it and summon it closer, but it eventually disappeared into the night.

We returned to bed.

Later, loud knocking woke us again. Local guards were at the door. They demanded to see our hands.

The Dragon Claw have been outlawed in Dadu South, and those deeply involved with the cult are cursed. Their fingers can be lost or transformed until their hands resemble claws. The guards were checking travelers for signs of membership.

The Emperor’s hands and mine were perfectly human.

Then they asked for Saran.

I became concerned. Saran’s hands are still human, but he bears distinctive scars from his time with the Dragon Claw. I did not believe turning him over to these guards would help us find Nambui. Whatever else has happened, the Emperor, Saran, and I all want the same thing: to find her and her son and help them escape whatever terrible situation they have become involved in.

So I told the guards that Saran had already left.

After they were gone, we went to check on him.

He really had left.

There was no note. He had abandoned his heavy armor, sword, bow, and much of his baggage. He left money behind, although he appeared to have taken whatever purse or wallet he normally carried. His horse was gone.

Among Saran’s belongings was a silk handkerchief that had belonged to Nambui. I took it with the rest. At the time, I was more concerned with what its presence might reveal about Saran than with whether the object itself might help us find her.

I was immediately worried.

We gathered what Saran had left and went down to the stable. The stable boys were making jokes about him, although I could not understand what they meant. I did not know whether they had seen something important or were simply amused by a strange traveler.

I could not know why Saran had left. Perhaps he had gone after Nambui on his own. Perhaps he had been frightened. Perhaps he had returned to the Dragon Claw.

But if he had betrayed us, then the danger was considerable.

Saran knew that the Emperor was traveling disguised and without anything close to the protection normally surrounding him. If he returned to the cult and told them what he knew, they would know exactly how vulnerable the Emperor was.

He also knew the location and defenses of the Happy Valley. He had already entered my fortress once, using Hei-Yao’s map and following a Dragon Claw plan. If he had returned to them, he might help organize another attack—this time against my home, my children, and the Emperor.

I decided we should not retrace the route we had taken before. If Saran had betrayed us, I did not intend to make it easy for him—or the Dragon Claw—to find us.

Instead, we left Dadu South by a more southerly route through Jingzhou, heading back toward the Happy Valley and my fortress.

My hope was to speak with Jumei. He is an old friend of mine and a cleric who has traveled with me for years. Every party needs a cleric. I wanted to know whether he possessed magic that might help us locate Nambui and her son.

I wondered particularly about magic that could seek a familiar object.

It was then that the Emperor told me something I had not known.

The light-green hairpin I wear was a gift from him, and he explained that he gives such hairpins to the women who have been most important to him as lovers.

Nambui has one like mine, but dark green.

I did not find this upsetting. I have never wanted to own him. He has a wife, and I have always understood that. What exists between the Emperor and me is unusual, but I accept it for what it is. He saved my life long ago, and over time we developed a deep understanding, affection, and respect for one another. I do not need what we have to resemble anyone else’s idea of love in order for it to matter.

For half a day we rode together.

During that journey, we spoke more openly about our lives than we had before.

Our conversations continued at the inns where we stopped, lying together in rooms where no one knew him as Emperor and no one required anything from either of us.

I told him something of my past, including the time I nearly died while pregnant with my older children. He knows the broad shape of my life and sees something heroic in it. But living through those events never felt heroic to me.

“You think more highly of me than I think of myself,” I told him.

“You can tell a story about that that sounds like the story of a heroine, but living it, reflecting upon it, it doesn’t feel like a hero’s journey.”

He spoke about the pressure of being Emperor—the constant responsibility, danger, and weight of other people’s expectations. I began to understand more clearly why he so often keeps things light, even when circumstances are grave.

Earlier in our journey I had told him, “This is not going to be a romantic holiday,” because I did not think he was taking the danger seriously enough.

Now I understood him better.

His lightness is not necessarily a failure to understand what is happening. Sometimes it is how he survives the enormous pressure of his position.

We also spoke about the woman I had been when we first knew each other. He once offered me an imperial position, expecting me to understand it as a great honor. I refused it as though he had offered me an unpleasant job.

“It’s one thing to refuse the Emperor,” he said, “but never before had someone refused an imperial post as if she thought she was too good for it.”

He had been furious.

“And I thought, what arrogance, I’m going to make her pay. But that was a different man then.”

The man lying beside me could see the past differently.

“Perhaps that man never did forgive her, but this man knows there was nothing to forgive.”

Our agreement had required me to remain for a time in the Women’s Palace. Eventually, after our son had been born and weaned, I left. Yet he told me that while we were together, he never felt that I was merely waiting for the day when I would be free of him.

“During that time, I never had the idea that she was counting the days, or if she was, she was counting them the same way that I was, each one a treasure.”

I had seen the man behind the Emperor. He understood that allowing that man to be seen was both liberating and dangerous.

He also acknowledged the way I had disturbed the comfortable story he had been telling himself about Nambui.

“It was her idea that I should look for my missing Empress, and it took me by surprise.”

His first thought upon learning that Nambui had gone had not been fear for her. He admitted, “I thought only, this is a great opportunity finally for me to visit Beatrice.”

“As always,” he said, “the way she hurts me is by telling the truth and making me aware of my own lies.”

I do not think Nambui has ever liked me. We have, in some sense, been competitors. But whatever feelings exist between us, she and her son may be in danger. I could not permit the Emperor to treat her disappearance merely as an opportunity to spend time with me.

There were gentler admissions as well.

“You light a fire in me,” I told him. “I’m somewhat ashamed to say that you’re the only man I’ve ever loved in this way.”

He has long known that other people consider him ugly. When he was asked how I make him doubt their judgment, his answer was simple:

“The way she kisses me.”

By the end of that ride, I think we both understood our love—and the separate lives we had built around it—in a new way.

Then the practical world interrupted us.

We encountered imperial soldiers who informed us that we were required to sell them our horses. The army needed mounts for the southern campaign, and drought in the west had made suitable horses increasingly difficult to obtain.

I looked to the Emperor. He quietly confirmed that this was, in fact, the law and policy followed by his soldiers—and that it existed under his own authority.

Naturally, the soldiers had no idea that the traveler whose horse they were requisitioning was the Emperor himself.

They paid us twenty-five tael for each horse.

We accepted the money and continued on foot.

Travel became much slower. Ground we might have covered in half a day on horseback now required more than a day of walking. We found inns where we could and continued toward Jingzhou.

Despite the delay, there was comfort in traveling together. We have been on other journeys, even if they were not journeys across land: the journey to have a son together, and the journey to heal me when I was frozen.

“So it’s not our first journey or our first puzzle that we’ve solved.”

In Jingzhou, we went to a monastery. One of the monks recognized me because we had met before.

I am not particularly difficult to recognize in this part of the world.

I come from Cynidicea, where my people lived underground for generations without natural sunlight. We adapted to that environment. My hair is white, my skin is extraordinarily pale, and my eyes are the palest blue. Even the shape of my eyes is different from most of the people here. In this region, I stand out immediately.

The Emperor, fortunately, was not recognized.

I asked the monk about the Dragon Claw.

He told me that they had humiliated several martial monasteries in the region some months earlier. Their contests had since been prohibited in Jingzhou, but he had heard more recent reports of Dragon Claw activity in the wretched taverns and villages outside Xi’an.

At least we now had a western lead from someone other than Saran.

I also asked about using magic to find Nambui through her dark-green hairpin. The monk told me that such magic could sense an object only if we had already come very near it—close enough that we would almost have found Nambui by ordinary searching. It could help within a fortress, a monastery, or a small cluster of buildings. It could not reach across the hundreds of miles that might lie between us.

That was not nearly enough.

So we continued toward my fortress in the Happy Valley.

We had lost Saran.

We may have been watched by an Animaji whose identity and purpose we did not know.

The Dragon Claw might now know that the Emperor was traveling with very little protection. Saran might have given them that knowledge, along with a path back to my home.

But we also had a new lead. The Dragon Claw had been active in the wretched taverns outside Xi’an, and I intended to ask Jumei whether his magic could discover anything more.

After several days, the Emperor and I reached the Happy Valley. I returned to my children and my fortress carrying Saran’s abandoned weapons, Nambui’s silk handkerchief, and more questions than answers.

Beatrice: Helping Black Dog search for his Empress Part 1 (A long trail east)

 

(Beatrice’s Account)

I am Beatrice, a warrior from Cynadicia. I now have a fortress in the Happy Valley near Khanbaliq, where five of my children—young-adult Animaji, part fox and part human—make their home. My youngest son is eleven and fully human. His father is the Emperor, and my child is being raised in Khanbaliq.

It is an unusual arrangement, but the Emperor and I understand one another. He once saved my life, and over the years we have developed a real respect and affection for each other. I know his nature well enough to appreciate him without expecting him to become someone he isn’t.

Recently, he arrived at my fortress disguised as a common man, bringing our son for a visit. He also brought troubling news: his wife, Empress Nambui, and her young-adult son had disappeared.

Nambui and the Emperor have never seemed particularly close, and I have never been entirely certain what to make of her. Still, whatever my doubts about her, I was immediately concerned. A missing woman and her son are in danger until proven otherwise.

Saran, Nambui’s fiercely loyal bodyguard, provided our best clue. Before she disappeared, he had seen Nambui and her son speaking with men at a Monastery of the Two-Fold Path outside Khanbaliq. When she prepared to travel, Saran asked to accompany her. She refused.

Saran’s own actions complicated matters considerably. He became involved with Dragon Claw and even broke into my fortress on their behalf. We fought. During the confrontation, however, he began to understand what Dragon Claw truly was. Whatever mistakes he has made, I do not doubt one thing about him: his loyalty to Nambui is absolute.

The Emperor, Saran, and I set out on horseback to find her.

I had to remind the Emperor early on that this was serious. At one point, I told him plainly:

Beatrice: “This is not going to be a romantic holiday.”

I did not think he was treating the situation with quite the urgency it deserved. But I also know him. I wasn’t offended, and I didn’t waste time judging him for being himself. We had work to do.

We traveled through Yuzhou, Luoyang, and Dadu South, staying in inns and asking questions wherever we could. In Dadu South, we learned something important: Dragon Claw has been outlawed there and in Su Qi Port because of the brutal and unfair duels they have inflicted on innocent people.

The Emperor: “You wouldn’t last long as an emperor if you couldn’t operate in multiple modes at once. Beatrice was wrong about one thing: this was a very romantic holiday. I had never stayed at an inn before, although I still knew how to find the best ones—especially the one by the river. And I won’t even tell you what we did there.

“But in addition to admiring Beatrice, I was also listening closely to what people were saying—and not saying.

“People in Yuzhou laughed at Saran because they remembered him coming through a month earlier and asking the same questions. He had been so eager to hear good news that he allowed himself to be misled by the man who told him to keep going east. Beatrice bought another man a horse so he could leave town after telling us the obvious: the liar who sent Saran farther east was a Dragon Claw agent.

“It was difficult to find an inn in Luoyang because people remembered seeing Saran with members of Dragon Claw. Those members had left town a week earlier, traveling west. All the same, we did find an inn that suited our purposes.

“And then we went even farther east. In Dadu South, an imperial magistrate—too hungover
to see through my disguise and recognize his own master—told us about the local policy toward Dragon Claw: Execution Based on Suspected Affiliation.

“These people need proper laws. Perhaps Beatrice is right again, and I am not taking my job seriously enough. And yes, I am concerned for my Empress and my son. This was not about her needing some time alone.

“Back to you, Imperial Consort of Truth and Beauty.”

Beatrice: “I don’t really care for ‘Imperial Consort.’ It sounds like a prostitute.”

The Emperor: “Yes. How about—”

Beatrice: “How about I just finish this so we can have dinner?”

Saran: “Beatrice has told this generously. I followed the lie because I wanted it to be true. I accept the answers-- and power-- that Dragon Claw offered without considering their motives. I still do not trust Bearice's reasons for seeking Her Imperial Highness—but she is treating Nambui’s disappearance more seriously than Nambui’s husband, and for now that is enough.”

 

We found no clear trail beyond that, so we decided to retrace our route through Luoyang and Yuzhou and look more carefully for what we may have missed.

I increasingly suspect that Nambui and her son were not simply abducted. They may have gone willingly, at least at first. Nambui can be secretive, and she deliberately left Saran behind despite his devotion to her. The men at the monastery may have offered her and her son something they wanted.

Perhaps magic.

That worries me more than a simple kidnapping would.

Dragon Claw may be teaching them magic, but I have seen enough of this world to know that power is rarely offered freely. I fear what they may demand in return—and what it could cost Nambui and her son if they have placed themselves in the hands of people they do not understand.

I have told the Emperor my larger concern. Dragon Claw may intend to turn Nambui and her son against him. If they can use the Emperor’s own family to overthrow or kill him, they could throw the empire into chaos while claiming some kind of legitimacy for themselves.

I do not yet know that this is what has happened. Nambui may have her own reasons for leaving, and I will not condemn her before I know the truth. Saran himself is proof that a person can become entangled with Dragon Claw without fully understanding what they serve.

But I cannot ignore what the evidence is beginning to suggest.

We need to find Nambui and her son, understand what they have become involved in, and get them away from Dragon Claw if they are still willing to leave.

And we need to do it quickly.

The Chronicle of Beatrice of Cynidicea: Black Dog Comes to the Happy Valley

Beatrice had long ago stopped expecting peace.

Once, she had been a daughter of Cynidicea, a place of masks, secrets, and decay. But that life felt distant now—like a dream half-remembered. Her present was carved from harder things: survival, bargains, and love that demanded sacrifice.

She was a mother.

She had brought six children into the world—her five Animaji, fox-blooded and bright-eyed, now grown into fierce and clever young adults of eighteen. They had been raised within the stone walls of her castle, a place she had built with gold that came at a cost she rarely spoke of.

And then there was the sixth child.

A son.

Eleven years ago, Beatrice had been frozen—held between life and death, her body suspended like glass. It was the Emperor who had saved her… or claimed her. The terms of her release were never spoken plainly, but she remembered enough: warmth returning to her limbs, breath flooding her lungs, and the quiet, terrible understanding that followed.

The boy had been left behind.

She had not seen him since.