Travel Log 007 - Han

Mo-Lung, Seat of the Han Court - Mo-Lung rises from misty canals like a lacquered dragon: crimson roofs, jade-tipped gatehouses, and - so the locals mutter - a government that squeezes taxes as tightly as a pearl diver grips breath. Guards in lacquered lamellar prowl every bridge, yet hushed alleyways buzz with talk of an underground circle called the Whisper Lanterns plotting gentler governance. My plan was merely to sketch pagodas and sample dumplings; fate, alas, packed other amusements.     Episode the First - The Park of Ten Thousand Peonies   Two mornings after arrival, I joined new acquaintances for a stroll beneath willows bowed with paper prayer tags. While admiring koi the size of chamber pots, my boot discovered a root as treacherous as any tax collector. Down the embankment I tumbled, each somersault peeling away another layer of clothing until scarf, sash, and most of my modesty fluttered into the underbrush like startled sparrows. A knot of elderly philosophers witnessed the entire performance; one applauded (I choose to believe in encouragement rather than mockery). I emerged scratched, scarlet, and clutching what scraps remained, vowing to invent an outfit proof against gravity.   Episode the Second - The Dinner of a Thousand Shards   Days later, my hosts - gentle tea-merchants with surprisingly sharp elbows - invited me to supper. Midway through ginger duck, a servant’s elbow clipped a serving tray. Porcelain, duck, and a river of plum sauce cascaded across the tatami. In lunging to rescue someone’s heirloom bowl I snagged my new brocade dress on a bronze brazier bracket; the gown parted like theatre curtains, presenting the audience with an unauthorized encore of the Peony Park spectacle. We salvaged dignity with two silk napkins and an emergency sash fashioned from the table runner. The merchants proclaimed the incident an omen of prosperity, though I suspect it was merely an omen of my continuing wardrobe attrition.   Episode the Third - The Curtained Catastrophe   This very afternoon the same coterie escorted me through the Silk Arcade’s riot of spices and bamboo flutes. We paused at a modest noodle parlor whose doorway draped a beaded curtain of tiny jade hooks. As I stepped through, one hook seized the strap of my freshly mended top; with a crisp snap the garment surrendered, unveiling far more than the menu of lunchtime specials. To their credit, my companions deployed jackets, scarves, and an entire parasol in record time, forming a defensive phalanx while I re-tied rebellious knots.   -- G. Smallbottom, Stung in Mo-Lung  

Mist-Tongue Lake, Ojiro (Northern Han) - Rumour along the rice-road spoke of a "Dragon King in rain-bow scales" dwelling in a remote mountain lake. My curiosity and a chronic inability to refuse folklore led us north-east through cedar valleys until we stood on a shingle shore veiled in pearl-grey mist. There, beneath a crooked pine, sat an elderly fellow: long snowy beard, reed hat, and a wooden flute whose notes drifted over the water like dragonflies.   When his tune ceased he bade us good morning and produced a jade sphere the size of a clenched fist. "A simple wager," he rasped. "Run to that copse yonder and return before my melody ends - the stone is yours. Fail, and you spend the night in my humble company." The distance looked a mere sprint, and the melody he demonstrated felt leisurely enough. Pride - and the gleam of polished jade - sealed my acceptance.   I limbered up; the old man smiled a smile that could curdle tofu, then lifted the flute. Instead of one placid song, he trilled three impossibly swift arpeggios and, with theatrical flourish, snapped the flute clean in two. "Ah," he chuckled, "the music now plays never." With no melody to finish, our victory was impossible; the wager lost at the starting line.   True to the bargain, we passed an uneasy night in his lakeside hut. He served nettle tea and told riddles older than the empire, each more perplexing than the last. At dawn, his laughter deepened into a rumbling thunder. The hut splintered around us as his form stretched, scales unfurled, and whiskered jaws emerged where beard had been. In heartbeat the kindly elder became a serpentine colossus shimmering with every hue of sunrise. With a final chuckle - now a gust that rattled the pines - he slipped beneath the lake’s mirror surface, jade sphere clutched in taloned claws, leaving only swirling bubbles and the tattered halves of a wooden flute.   I have, at least, the memory - and a valuable lesson: when a stranger offers wagers measured in music, check the instrument’s durability first.   -- G. Smallbottom, Never underestimate a dragon