Justin Peacock                                                                Words: 2368

jbpeacock@mail.com

Climbing the Dragon's Scales

by

J.B. Peacock

1

When Sifu stepped into the trees, the light of dawn was shining through the leaves and reflecting softly off the bark, bathing the forest in a maroon and gold glow as far as he could see. It was his favorite time to be here, in the warm light rising on the far side of night. Sunbeams gathered in the massive arched roots of the giant fig trees, illuminating the hollows and nooks that all the children of the monastery liked to hide in when they played out here.

The trees groaned as the touch of the rising sun warmed their limbs. The spiced southern wind  rustled their leaves. Maroon shadows danced on the yellow dirt between the trees. The waking birds in the trees called to their fellows to join in as they welcomed the sun with their most beautiful songs. The young student listened carefully to what each one said.

He was taught that living things are the voices of the spirits. Each has a way to express itself, whether it be a single tree or a whole forest. Flocks of birds and herds of grazing animals often were of a common mind and each had a language. Being of the same spirit, that language can be understood. It was meeting Narya in the sacred forest that drove the lesson home,  

It was with Narya’s help that he learned to speak with the birds. They sang songs of praise to spirits of the south, who sent their offerings of incense to the spirits in the mountains in thanks for the water they sent as the dry season began. He could smell the ocean and cinnamon, clove, nutmeg and citrus and a hundred other smells on the edge of perception. Master Tri would say,” Life celebrates itself in times of plenty.”

 Sifu wandered the forest and tried to feel out the life around him, just like Narya showed him. She would be here somewhere, but he took his time searching and enjoyed his slow stroll toward the river bank. Yesterday's lesson was about the river and he thought he would see for himself while he waited for her.  

He squatted on the soft earth and reached his mind out to the water. His masters said the river was like the Tao. It is in everything, the part of him that he shares with everything. He relaxed his mind and let himself feel the river, thinking how all things flow to it, just like the Tao.

“Sifu!”. It was Narya. “You better be careful or you’ll fall in.”

Sifu smiled. His friend emerged from the trunk of the massive tree to his right and moved to push him in. She looked like a normal girl, if a little tall for her age. Her hair was the same purple-burgundy of the leaves and fell around her head in thick, unruly locks. She was his closest friend, a spirit of the forest who was born of the trees themselves. In a moment, she could disappear into one and appear anywhere in the forest that she chose.

 He laughed and dodged around her, running back toward the road with her in pursuit. They played at tag for a few minutes and then climbed into the canopy of a tree to look out at the mountains. Sitting on a massive branch and staring up at the Dragon’s Teeth, the peaks that enclosed the valley, Sifu wondered at the nature of the mountain spirits.

“Have you ever met at mountain spirit?”, He asked Narya.

“Sure. Some are nice, but they tend to be the strong silent types.”

“I knew you would say that.” Sifu laughed and shoved her a lightly.

“Master Tri says that we need to understand as much about sentient things as possible. Especially the ones in our environment, because they are a part of the system along side us.”

“Master Tri is a wise man. He knows how to be respectful of things. She said.

“It’s almost like each spirit has their own language, you need to try to see it their way. You can’t expect them to meet you in the middle, either. Always trust your gut. It’s the doorway to deeper understanding.”

Sifu thought about this, but couldn’t think of anything to say.

“Hey, I’m bored. Let’s play hide and seek.”, she said. Then she was gone.

“Okay, I guess I’ll look first.” He said to the trees. He heard her giggle and it sounded like it was coming from all around him. He sighed.

It didn’t take long to find her. Sifu was no slouch. She was a sucker for a prat fall. He made a slow circuit through the trees and when he felt like he was neaer enough, he pretended to snag his toe on a particularly big root. He went down on his hands, ready to spring. He heard her snickering just a few feet above him, on a slender trunk jutting from the main mass of the tree. In a breath, he was off the ground and clinging to the mass of roots and creepers three feet off the ground. With his right hand he reached up to where Narya was hiding, pretending to be part of the tree. She giggled as they climbed down and it became musical laughter when Sifu tripped over a root as he was backing away from the trunk. He laughed with her and she sat down next to him among the tarnished silver jumble.

“Want to see a trick?”, she asked him. She winked and disappeared, then appeared in the branches of a tree above him. “Hi!”, she waved and smiled at him.

“You always do that! Especially if I win too many games. How do you do that anyway?”

She reappeared on the ground before him. “You really want to know?...You have to climb the dragon’s scales.” She could tell from his blank expression that he did not understand.

“You know the story of how the dragons created the world and the first sacred tree? They used their bodies to make everything. Most people hear about it, but they don’t think it’s real. They don’t know that the reason you can’t see the Dragons is because they’re too big and we’re too close. If you take a step back, you can see.”

“What?” Sifu said.

“Like this.” She took Sifu’s arm. His sight blurred and he felt himself stretching with it. She was there with him. Solid. The anchor around which everything shifted. He felt himself falling backward.

There was movement all around him, as if he were falling through the middle of a jumble of countless blankets and each one was being pulled past and around him in different directions. As his vision came into focus, he could see patterns of scalloped lines in the air that moved every which way. They surrounded and moved through everything. There was a green pattern in the air sliding to his right . A silver pattern moved diagonally upward and to the left. Everything in the forest was outlined with emerald fire. He turned to Narya. Blue and silver webs covered her, maroon lines bled out from her and into the patterns of the air, earth and trees around her.

“The Dragons are the substance of the world. The patterns are their scales. They are everywhere and in everything. Their motion is the movement of life.”, she said.

At every point the silver and green patterns met, they glittered like emerald fire. Sifu looked up to follow the green pattern into the sky, but as he tilted his head back, a bold red pattern appeared directly overhead. The falling sensation intensified. More colored patterns appeared and the spaces between the lines of each pattern shrank. The scales grew so dense that he couldn’t see the individual dragons anymore, just a swimming pattern of rainbow lines and tiny scale-shaped motes in his vision.

The falling sensation was gone. “Am I always gonna see them?”, Sifu asked.

“Not if you don’t want to, but the Dragon’s have their own time. If you stayed here too long, you would get lost. It’s all the same moment to them.” Narya looked at the branch above them. “Go ahead and climb up.”

Sifu poked the air and the scales resisted. He grabbed a handful out of the air and pulled it toward him, stretching the lines. The scales felt alive when he touched them. “Climb, don’t pull.”, Narya laughed. Sifu gave a quick chuckle. He meant to climb.

He focused and grabbed the scales again. It was simple enough to pull himself up, though the scales gave a little under his weight. He put a foot up and tested it. It felt solid, so he took another step up. It was just like climbing a ladder, now that he could see the rungs. He climbed the scales up through the air to the branch. He stepped out through the Dragon’s scales and when his feet were on the branch, the scales were gone.

“I did it!” A huge grin spread across his face.

Narya looked up at him and smiled. “Good job! Come on down, but this time do it yourself!”, she called from the ground below him. Sifu looked down at her and then closed his eyes. He stepped back, like she had shown him. He could feel the dragons this time. He felt their breathing, their movement through his hands as they passed by and through each other, their pulse drawing him into harmony with them. It was powerful and raw.

It was dark here by himself. The sensation was much deeper with his eyes closed. He knew that he was within himself, but somehow still falling. The falling stopped and he was outside himself, staring at a black spot in the void. At this thought, he had the sensation that something was behind him. The hair on his neck stood up.

He turned around and stared into a bright white light, The light dimmed to reveal the long, snake-like bodies of the dragons as he had seen them in the pictures on the walls at home. They were all represented, wrapped around each other in a giant knot. The knot began to unravel and a black space opened in the center as they parted, revealing the cosmos beyond them. A beam of light from one of the dark corners of that infinite field of worlds shot toward him. He turned aside and it passed him. He followed it and saw it strike a little glass globe. Sifu leaned closer.

Inside the globe was a single massive bodhi tree with silver bark and purple leaves. The beam of light had burned a hole clean through the glass and flames were beginning to lick up around the tree. Soon, black smoke filled the glass and poured out through the little hole into empty space. It emptied slowly until all that remained was ash. Sifu didn’t want to see anymore. He opened his eyes and saw the forest, with the Dragon’s scales that made it solid. He climbed down the rainbow lines and stepped forward.  He’d had his fill of the Dragons’ place for now. The bell rang up the hill.

“See? Nothing is too big, you just have to know it’s there. Then it takes looking, and you have to take a step back to see it. Even dragons follow the Tao.” She kissed his cheek. “Now go eat breakfast. You can come back later, if you want.”

“Even Dragons follow the Tao…” Sifu wrestled with his thoughts before saying,” Narya, do you think I might be from somewhere else?”

“Sure, I know it. You’re an orphan, you have to come from somewhere else.”

“I mean, what if there is somewhere outside the Dragons? If even they follow the Tao, what else could be out there that’s as big as they are?”

“Huh…. I guess I never thought about it. I suppose there’s no reason you couldn’t be from somewhere else.”

“There has to be a spirit who knows, maybe a forest spirit, or an Ifrit or a Djinn in the southern plateau.”.  

“I don’t know any plants or animals or other spirits who would know either.” Her expression changed, as though a light turned on in her head. “I bet the Dragons would know! I would ask your master.”

“Master Tri knows the Dragons?” Sifu grinned wide.

“Yes. When I was young, he visited each one and gathered their power to defeat the Golem Lord Alhazar, He would know how you could see the Dragons and ask your question.”

“I’m gonna ask him after lessons!” Sifu shot to his feet. In the distance he heard an adults voice calling his name.

“You’d better get going, your breakfast is getting cold. ome tell me what he says when you talk t him. Try and get him to tell you the story, I would love to hear that.” Sifu ran up the hill to where his Master waited.

He fell to his knees at Master Tri’s feet. Facing the ground, he said “Sorry for my tardiness Master.”

“How is Narya this morning?” Master Tri was stern and strict, a straightforward man of few words. Sifu thought that he was the sort of man who could be terrifying, if he were not in a good mood. Fortunately, Master Tri was always in a good mood and fair in his punishment.

He gestured for Sifu to rise and Sifu followed Tri to the mess hall. “Well, Master. She showed me how to climb the Dragon’s Scales today.”

“Did she?” Tri stroked his beard.

“Yes, and she told me you once fought a Golem Lord and met the Dragons!”

“I think I will have to have a talk with Narya, Yes, it’s true.”

“Will you tell me the story?”

“It's very long…. Yes, I will, but as punishment for your tardiness you must stay in the horse stance while I tell it.”

“Awww.”

“Now go eat breakfast and when you are through, come meet me in the yard. If I were you I would eat lightly.”

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