Keepsakes
November 2002

I wish to apologize to the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco for certain liberties I have taken with their physical reality.

"Why aren't you coming to the ballet?" Pol asked.

"Bring it around the narrow end twice. Under again, then up in the center of the main loop, right under your chin," Taz said. "My grandmother sent me an edict, written on silk, complete with red bindings and the eight tassels: she says I'm to go to the Museum. And down through the other two loops so it's on top of the narrow end. Now, without disarranging the main knot, gently tighten it all by pulling on the narrow end." He finished putting in his pearl cufflinks, and donned his tailcoat. "So to the Museum I go."

As Pol finished tying his tie, Taz stepped up beside him and inspected the images in the mirror. "You're taller," Taz noted.

"An inch since I've been living here," Pol said. Pol eyed Taz's clothes.

"You can get by in just a suit, but I have to do the full rig," Taz said. "The invitation said white tie or national dress; although since the remodel isn't complete, I think overalls and hardhats would be more to the point. The Consuls General the two Chinas are going to be there, and I need a disguise. Tails seemed most appropriate."

"You're not going to take the cable car in that, are you?"

"I considered it, but I hired a limo," Taz answered, adjusting the handkerchief in his breast pocket.

"Too public to teleport?"

"Too public to teleport discreetly. Inside, the museum is going to be full of guests, docents and security agents of various nationalities; outside, it will be surrounded by mobs of protesters, also of various nationalities; banners, in various languages; and local police. Undoubtedly there will federal observers scattered through both groups. I am endeavoring to be part of the group that's let in. The limo will be only one of many. I probably won't even be noticed."

"It'll be a while," Taz told his driver. "Go on to the garage and wait. When it's over, I'll call and walk over. It's going to be a even worse mess here afterward." He got out. The limousine moved forward half a car length and stopped again. Taz walked between two double-parked cars, around another limousine sporting CD plates that was parked in the no parking zone, across the small patch of sidewalk being kept clear of protesters by police, and up the shallow steps between monumental incense burners tended by Museum docents and watched by SFFD members. A quick glance to either side of the doors revealed large fire extinguishers tucked into the shadows of the stone urns that had been part of the original Main Library decorations.

He was unprepared for the number and depth of the local spells. Demon excluders and protections from spiritual dangers were thick in the foyer, and grew thicker as he entered the lobby proper. Inside there were also blessings murmured in several languages by priests or shamans or visiting saints. Occasionally, a small bell was rung or a stone chime was struck. The holy activity was around the edges of the lobby. In the center was an array of greeters and inspectors.

He noticed there were three varieties of security agents: First there were the local staff in their dark red blazers. They were the regular Museum guards, although there seemed to be more of them than usual. The other two kinds were approximately evenly divided between muscle and savants. The savants all had glasses(probably with cameras in the frame), earbuds and wand barcode readers; the muscle all had a subtle stiffness about their torsos, as if their kevlar vests were sticking to their skins. Very briefly, Taz considered importing a string or two of lighted firecrackers. He decided that would be more trouble than it would be amusing.

He handed over his invitation. The Museum staffer scanned it, then handed it off to the visiting savant immediately to her right. The savant scanned it. He listened to his earbud while inspecting Taz, then said something to the muscle standing behind him, and passed the invitation to his right. Another earbud wearing, wand wielding, savant took it.

Taz relaxed. This would take a while.

Eventually, his invitation was returned. He was invited to take the escalator to the top floor, where wine was being served.

 

The room was nearly bare. When the Museum opened, there would probably be several displays or exhibits up here, but at the moment, there was one very long, narrow room, with a balcony on the north side running from east to west, allowing a view of the lobby four stories below.

There were six Consuls General, plus spouses and staff, in the receiving line. Emily Sano, the Museum director, in red, black and gold brocade, was a living buffer between the diplomats and the local donors, many of whom had relatives among the protesters outside.

There were more Museum guards, a large group of waiting docents and more visiting security guards. There were also waiters surrounding the only furniture in the immediate area: a table with bottles on it, with bartenders behind it. Glasses were filled, trays were loaded, and burdened waiters began to circulate with their offerings.

Taz handed his invitation to a docent, who glanced at it, handed it back, then presented him to the first Consul General. She used English, but pronounced his current use name correctly. She probably spoke modern Beijing dialect as well as he did, but using one language and not all six meant five governments would take offense. English was a tactful compromise. Taz supposed the Nordic-American blonde, in her western black and white beaded evening dress, was a tactful choice too.

Taz did not linger in the receiving line and kept to standard banalities in English as he sped through. He took a glass of champagne, and relaxed a little. There was a docent-led tour starting, and he fell in line, ambling west with the others.

"The bare bones tour, we're calling it," the docent said. "You may never see the walls like this again."

Taz wasn't a fan of industrial style architecture: The earthquake retro-fit had no doubt brought the building up to code, but it left bare girders visible all along the walls. Centered between two upright steel I-beams was an elaborate Korean ox-horn inlay clothes chest on a display pedestal. Pictures of chests and other furniture for storage were on the walls.

"This floor will house changing exhibits of domestic artifacts. Practical, everyday items, with a practical, everyday use. Brooms, dishes, baskets, bedding, wooden gardening and cooking tools, even modern packaging. Just to give you a sense of the future, we brought out of storage one emblematic object, and images of others.

"The freight elevator will normally be screened from view with movable screens that can give full access. The ceiling lights raise and lower; also dim and brighten. Some of the baskets and mats are dyed with vegetative dyes " which give very fugitive colors, so the lighting for those exhibits will...." The docent, still talking, walked further into the long room.

The elevator silently opened. A young oriental woman, wearing a full length blue and black silk taffeta strapless dress, walked out. Taz recognized a yunü, and wondered what she was doing here. The yunü glanced around and caught her breath sharply. She seemed alarmed. She hurried directly to him and started to bow.

Taz caught her arm and kept her upright. "Stop that," he said in a sharp whisper. Still softly, he continued: "I am of the household of the Eldest Dragon, and named by my grandmother Dianchi."

"Yes, I know. Where is it?" the yunü said.

"Where is what?" Taz asked.

"You were supposed to take it. Don't you have it?"

"You came looking for me?"

"Yes. We thought it would be here. We thought it would be simple..."

"Stealing from humans," Taz said, "isn't as simple as it used to be."

"It's not stealing!" the yunü said.

"Quietly," Taz said. "Who's we?"

"The Eldest Dragon."

"My grandmother wants me to take something from here? She's a patron!"

"It's hers and she wants it back."

"Look around," Taz said. "There's nothing here."

"I see that," the yunü said. "It was difficult to get in. No one mentioned all the spells."

"I don't see why you're surprised," Taz said. "With these local populations? Nobody hangs on to antique ceremonies like exiles. Ritual blessings happen regularly here; sometimes they're real."

"It doesn't matter," the yunü said. "It's not here, we can leave."

"No," he said.

"Your grandmother orders you..."

"In her own hand, she ordered me to represent the family here," he said. "If you have an edict from her ordering me to leave at once, we will. Otherwise, following her orders, I came here calmly and deliberately and without fuss and I will leave the same way. If you want to leave, do it discreetly and without alarming any humans here. Meet me at Jingwu's house."

"We can't do that," the yunü said.

"Why not?"

"Anyuanjun Jingwu is not to know any of this."

"I'm living at her house," Taz said. Stranger and stranger; however, here and now was not the place or the time for more questions. "Meet me at the Inn, the roof garden. Oh, and who are you?"

"Feng Tailin."

Putting some distance between him and his over-eager accomplice, Taz returned to the reception area. Taking another glass of champagne, he considered his situation. His grandmother was having a whim. It happened. At least, according to legend, it had happened in the past, so it could be happening again, in the present. He couldn't return to Kunlun Mountain and ask for clarification; the next time the Eldest saw him, he had better have what she wanted. Asking another yunü or one of the jintong to come here might get her or him into trouble. His grandmother apparently wanted him to do this with Tailin and no one else. He didn't know why that should be so or why he couldn't go to his foster mother for advice; he did know that the Eldest had a whim of iron and that he owed her obedience.

Ignoring the moral aspects and the complications, he had no idea what she wanted or how to get it. There were over 17,000 items in the Museum's permanent collection. Some were always there, some were rarely on display, some might not yet be catalogued.

He needed to talk more with the yunü Tailin, that was obvious. Until he did, there didn't seem to be anything constructive he could do. He put his glass down, and prepared to follow the current tour guide.

He noticed the reception line was breaking up.

"Madame Sano, would it be possible for my nephew to view the basement?" a member of the Japanese delegation asked. "He is going to CalTech, and would like to see the earthquake devices."

"The basements are not scheduled, and we may be short of time," Emily Sano said, "but let me see." She spoke quietly with an aide, who moved away and spoke into her collar. She nodded to Emily, who nodded to the Japanese delegate. "He will have time," she told him. Emily waved one hand toward one of the docents. "Miss Leigh knows all about the foundation retro-fit. Sharon, escort Mr. Hokasawa's nephew to the basement. You can use the freight elevator."

Sharon nodded with calm assurance. "This way. The excavations struck bedrock at a depth of 39 feet and continued another ..."

The elevator doors opened. "This is the second basement." The mixed group moved out of the elevator, Sharon leading.

"Moving exhibits in and out will be a little like one of those magic squares," she said. "A four by four grid with fifteen movable little squares that you can't lift up? You move them around until they're in numerical order; sort of a flat Rubik's cube? We put either what's coming in down here in the storage basement while we move the old exhibit out of the first basement and then into the trucks, or the other way around. As you can see, we use high damping elastomer rubber-steel plate sandwiches to isolate the whole new support structure."

At the back of the group, Taz looked at the nearest blue enameled metal cube. He looked down the wall at more metal cubes. He looked across the room at still more metal cubes. There were a lot of metal cubes along all four walls and down the long center of the sub-basement, dividing it into two. Taz noticed that the un-lit side of the basement was empty, but in the huge room the tour group now occupied, he saw groups of wooden crates, aluminum trunks, and sturdy tables carrying flat fiberglass cases. There were also two fork lifts and a neat row of handcarts.

"Not a fluid damping system?" the nephew asked.

Taz sat on a wooden crate.

"We have space constraints," Sharon said. "In the entire process we did use we lost ten inches of floor dimensions on every interior bearing wall above the base isolating systems and a foot on every exterior wall above and below ground..."

Taz opened the nearest aluminum trunk. It was full of black high density foam, with a vase-shaped absence in the center. "And this is also where you leave the crates the exhibit items come in," he said. "So the upstairs isn't cluttered."

Sharon heard him: "Just for this first special exhibit. Normally, the crates would go back to the warehouse, but since the display was only for tonight, we kept them here. The curators like to keep a tidy staging area. This will be empty again tomorrow."

"An excellent habit," Taz murmured.

"There are nearly two hundred rubber-steel sandwiches in the foundations," Sharon continued. "Each one can support...."

Taz tuned her out, thinking fast. Since what his grandmother wanted wasn't here, if it was in San Francisco and currently in the keeping of the Asian Art Museum, it might be in the storage warehouse. The exact location of the warehouse was closely kept. It wasn't secret, exactly, but it was not announced. Certainly, he could get Emily or one of the curator staff to tell him, but then he would have to remove the memory of that interaction. If the crates were going back to the warehouse, and he could follow them, he and Feng Tailin could search for whatever his grandmother wanted at the warehouse.

What did he have that he could follow? Saliva, blood, yes, he could trace either of those, but his foster mother wouldn't like him using either fluid. Jingwu was against leaving anything so personal where humans might find it. In recent years, as human science encompassed more and more ways of identifying human, or in their case, human appearing, bodies, from smaller and smaller samples, she had become more and more tidy.

Nothing from him, then. What else did he have? His hand came up to one of his pearl studs. Jingwu had given him the studs and cufflinks, back in the 1850s. She had gone to some trouble to get the natural, perfectly matched pearls, he knew.

Sighing, he grasped the pearl in his left cufflink, and pulled it away. Holding it in his right palm, he contemplated it. The calcium carbonate was just calcium carbonate. It was the nacre the individual oyster added that was unique. Each pearl echoed the ocean surrounding the oyster, as it changed with local seasons and tidal rhythms, great storms and even distant volcanoes. He savored the uniqueness of the pearl, then crushed it to dust. Now to touch as many of the crates, cases and trunks as he could.

"Here?" the driver asked. He eyed the street scene dubiously: Narrow, dark and dirty.

"Here," Taz said.

The driver pulled the limo over.

Taz exited the long car. He started walking back towards the alley that was one of this evening's pedestrian entrances to the Inn.

The limo accelerated smoothly away, back towards the lights.

Tonight the Inn had a stark stainless steel look. The registration desk was a curved metal mirror, steel tubing and black leather formed the seating and the lobby art was a metal mobile. The elevators had striped black enamel and stainless steel doors. Taz nodded to the clerk, and took an elevator up to the roof garden.

The yunü jumped up from a chair near the elevator as the door opened. "I thought you were never coming," she said.

"It's only 2219," Taz said. He shook his head at an approaching server. "Now," he told the yunü, sitting down, "tell me exactly what my grandmother wants."

"The Eldest wants you to fetch her wine cup," Feng Tailin said.

"Any wine cup? Or does she desire a specific style..."

"She had it made, about three thousand years ago. She wants it back."

"So if she had it three thousand years ago, why doesn't she have it now?" Taz asked.

"It, ah, it was a token. She gave it to a human; or so I was told."

"A token of what?"

"An appreciation of service," Tailin said.

The yunü appeared embarrassed. Taz had no idea what she might be embarrassed about and continued: "What service did a human do the Eldest Dragon?"

"I have not been informed."

"And how did the museum get it?"

"He was buried with it. Recently, other humans dug it up and it's now here."

That, at least, made some sense. Recently, as far as the Eldest Dragon was concerned, could be anytime in the last century, which was when many archeological digs had occurred.

"Is my grandmother certain the cup is here?"

"Oh, yes," Tailin said. "And she will be angry if there is too much delay in returning it to her."

"I need to think about this."

"No," the yunü said. "You need to get it."

Annoyed, Taz frowned. Living in the human world was a skill that most of the yunü he met had mastered to some degree. The yunü who visited his foster mother had other skills, ranging from warfare to child care to tactics in various aspects of peacefully interacting with mortals while achieving immortal goals. He once had listened to two yunü plan a shopping trip with more forethought than Tailin demonstrated in what apparently was not a simple family errand.

"We'll get to that in due course," Taz said. "What does it look like?"

"I don't know."

"Oh, great. Is there a description, a picture? Who made it?"

"Dai. You call him Dai now."

"He made cups? I didn't know that."

"He made this one. We need to find it," the yunü insisted.

"Don't thrash around. I'll look for the warehouse tomorrow."

"We should go now..."

"No. Take a room here. I'll talk to you tomorrow, probably very late afternoon or evening."

"I await your celestial highness's plea...."

"And don't call me that." Feng Tailin didn't look happy, Taz thought. He didn't care. He wasn't happy, but he wasn't about to rush around in a hurried panic, attracting a lot of attention and accomplishing nothing.

He had to talk to Dai and he had to discover where the warehouse was; not necessarily in that order, but before he planned anything else. Apparently he needed to keep the yunü on a leash, or she might get him expelled, if not arrested by human police. Well, she couldn't get into trouble with humans at the Inn. "Stay here. Don't leave the Inn. Don't go around San Francisco. I don't want anyone's attention focused on you, or on me. Tomorrow," he repeated.

Taz took the elevator down to the lobby.

How to find Dai the Tinker was a problem. Jingwu would know, but he couldn't ask her. Ah. The Concierge might help. Instead of immediately teleporting home, he sought out the Concierge's office. Tonight, the office was staffed by an Interlux.

"Where can I visit Gypsy Dai? Tonight, if that's possible?"

The Interlux glanced down at her desk, and typed quickly. "Dai is in his workshop. The portal is open, and is located over in Richmond, across the Bay." She recited the address.

Taz nodded. "And can you get me a picnic basket? Lots of finger food, a little good wine, desserts, fruit."

"For Dai? We know what he likes."

"Yes. Uh, when?"

"Now," the Interlux said. "We keep a couple in stasis. One is bigger than the other."

"I'll take the bigger one."

A glass-blower, working late, put the new hollow pumpkin in the tempering oven. A rattle of the gate caused him to look up. A tall Chinese man, in white tie and tails, carrying a large hamper, walked across the parking lot and into the other studio. The glass-blower shrugged. Stranger visitors had called over there.

"I was hoping you remembered a wine cup you made for my grandmother."

"Who's your grandmother again?"

"The Eldest Dragon."

"Oh, I remember her. Pretty little thing. Nice form. She wanted something simple."

Taz didn't try to assign subjects to Dai's sentence fragments. He himself would never describe his grandmother as a 'pretty little thing', but he was intellectually aware both his grandmother and Dai had already experienced long, complex, lives before he himself was even hatched. How complex, how intertwined, those lives might have been, he found he wasn't ready or willing to explore. "The cup has been taken," he said. "Can you tell me what it looks like? She wants me to find it."

"Just a moment." Dai went out, and returned carrying a wooden box. The box, about 15 centimeters square and 10 centimeters high, was made of three different kinds of rosewood, with an inlaid design in a pale fruit wood in the top panel. The sides had phoenixes and dragons carved in bas-relief. He slid the lid out of the grooved sides, and took out a small footed bowl. It was ceramic, with a variable glaze showing an overall fine crackle finish. The main color was a pale ivory, but there were areas that had flecks of purple, red, blue and black embedded in the glaze.

"I made her two of them. I think she gave one to a mortal lover, and hers was broken in the most recent demon attack."

The most recent demon attack was before Taz had been hatched, at least a couple of thousand years ago. That was consistent with the other cup being found in a tomb. "I thought your stuff didn't break?" Taz asked. He put the cup back on the work bench.

"The singletons, the uniques, don't; this one won't. I put a lot of work in them. Your grandmother's cups were only a 'limited edition'. This is my file copy." He picked up the cup.

"It's beautiful," Taz said.

"That was a lucky day," the Tinker said. "The wheel was in tune, the clay was ripe, the kiln was friendly. Not the style any more, but still, this has nice form." He put the cup down on his work bench and smiled at it.

"Can you make another?"

"I could, sure, but why?"

"The mortal died and his cup was buried with him. It ended up in the Museum here. Grandmother wants it back."

"She won't be fooled by a new one. They'll look alike, but their auras will be different. Time on Earth changes everything." As he spoke, he was shaping the air in front of him. Swiftly, a replica cup appeared next to the original. He handed the new cup to Taz.

Dai was right: the auras of the two cups were easily distinguishable. There was a freshness to the new cup that even Dai's file copy, which had never been on Earth, lacked. "No, she won't be fooled, but the humans will? Right?" Taz said. "Assuming it's at the Museum and I can find it and I can make the switch," he added in a mutter.

"Your problem," Dai said. His hands shaped the air again. A second rosewood box appeared next to the first.

"What would you like?" Taz asked.

"Pearls," Dai said. "Ocean pearls. Baroque, saturated hues of all colors; not dyed and not cultured. Jewelry is getting interesting again."

"Enchanted?"

"Blank."

"Size?"

"Thumbnail or bigger. Fifteen."

"I'll bring them to you," Taz said, sealing the bargain.

In the morning, he waited until Jingwu had dragged Pol out of the house and down to the Tai Chi session in Russian Hill Park before he teleported to the lobby of the Inn. He called Tailin, telling her to join him for breakfast on the roof.

As they ate, he told her about his visit to Dai.

"He wants what?" Tailin asked.

"Pearls," Taz said. "Don't yell."

"Your celestial..."

"Stop that. He did me a favor just talking about the cup. I took his time: it's a fair trade. The Eldest wouldn't want me not to pay all my debts."

"You don't need a fake cup!"

"I do need a replacement cup," Taz said. "Eat your grapes."

"I don't see why."

"I'm not going to explain again. Don't worry about it. We're doing this my way. Now, strive for a little patience. I have to visit my nephews."

"Wait!! Your what?" Tailin demanded.

"Renyi, Fangxian, Ruiman, Guangjing and Junxin: my nephews. The sons of Liaosong, Jinsi, Kechan, Zhengsui and their six husbands."

"Oh," the yunü said. She seemed relieved. "Them."

"Who else?" Taz said. "They're the only nephews I have."

"I just never remember that their mothers were also granddaughters of the Eldest."

"They still are: I have eight sisters," Taz pointed out. "The boys' mothers and Liyan, Xunke, Jiaoya and Lanzi. We're all grandchildren of the Eldest."

"Yes, but the Queens of the Sea aren't included in the Succession."

"No one is, until Grandmother gets around to formalizing it," Taz said. "Which she shows no sign of doing any time soon."

Taz shifted to his dragon form and teleported to the arrival area of the palace of the Sea Kings. He was the visiting list; after all, he was their brother by marriage. Still, he followed the most formal protocol: arriving in the correct form, at the correct place, then inquiring after everyone's health in a strict order of precedence before he asked to see the boys.

"The young princes are in the study hall, your celestial highness," the Orca doorward said. "They are doing their homework."

"I won't disturb them long."

"I'm trading with Tinker Dai, and I need some pearls. So where can I go oystering?"

"Well," Renyi said, "we know a couple of good places." He glanced at his brothers.

"But," Ruiman said, "we were just there."

"And it's going to be a while before it's worth checking on them," Guangjing said.

"We made necklaces for our mothers," Fangxian said.

"But we do happen to have a few pearls left over," Junxin said.

Ruiman said, "If you'd like to see them."

"Sure," Taz said. "I need an idea of what's available."

"We're willing to help," Renyi said.

"And it's not as if we need these," Fangxian said.

"So we might be able to give you what you need," Guangjing said.

Guangjing went over to one of the cabinets that lined an interior wall. From a lower shelf, he produced a sharkskin pouch.

The pouch looked as if it could hold two liters of wine, Taz thought.

Renyi brought out a tray from another shelf, and put in on the writing table. Guangjing opened the pouch and spilled the left over pearls onto the tray in a heap.

"Good," Taz said. "Nice colors and some black ones. I can pay off Dai and replace the one Jingwu gave me."

His nephews exchanged glances. Ruiman, who, as he often reminded his brothers, was the first hatched, gathered up all the pearls and put them back in the sharkskin bag.

"I don't need all of them," Taz said.

"Package deal," Fangxian said.

"We're willing to be generous, Uncle Taz," Guangjing said.

Ruiman said, "And we're glad to help."

"We like Jingwu," Junxin said. "But this is a trade."

"Right?" Renyi asked.

"It'll be easy," Fangxian said.

"And you'll like it," Guangjing said.

"Why do I get the idea your mothers won't like this at all?" Taz said. He had an uneasy sensation of being outnumbered.

"They don't mind us going among humans," Fangxian said.

"They just don't want us going alone," Junxin said.

"We were going to ask Jingwu if she would take us," said Ruiman.

"But we already owe her because she helped the orca we sent to her," Fangxian said.

"And we haven't figured out a way to pay her back for that yet," Renyi said.

The boys spread out, moving around him in what could have been an affectionate closeness, but which made Taz feel not only outnumbered, but also surrounded.

"So it's you," Guangjing said.

"What's me?" Taz asked.

"We want to ride the roller coasters."

"Starting with the one on the coast."

"Then going over the hill to the next two."

"And then north of the Bay, where there are five of them."

"You've looked into this, haven't you?" Taz said.

The five boys nodded.

"We used Great-grandmother's net access," said Junxin.

"We made a list," Fangxian said.

"We're not asking to go all the way to Florida," Renyi reassured him.

"Or to any of the ones way inland."
"Just the ones around where you live."

"We think we'll be less noticeable there."

Taz frowned. "How long did you have in mind for this to take?"

"A week," Guangjing said.

"Each," Ruiman added hurriedly.

"One day at each park," Taz said.

The boys consulted by eye again, then looked up at their uncle. Guangjing shook his head: "One day for each roller coaster."

Damn, Taz thought. If he couldn't handle them here, what was going to happen when they were loose among the humans? "All right," he said, "but one of your tutors or nurses must come with us. We're going to pass as humans, which means you kids do what we grown-ups tell you. If I have to send one or all of you home, I want another adult to make sure you get back here."

The boys were thoughtful for several moments; then, Ruiman said, "Chengxian."

"No," said Renyi. "He'll want us to sit quietly and watch the humans."

"No he doesn't; and we never listen to him anyway," Ruiman said.

"Here, yes, he doesn't make a point of our paying attention," said Renyi. "But we'll be out in front of strangers, and worse, out in front of humans, and he will insist we act befitting our station."

"He does," Guangjing agreed. "He tried to, at Great-grandmother's."

Junxin nodded.

"Who then?" Ruiman asked.

"Binheng," Renyi said. "We'll tell him it's a gravity experiment. He can watch and take notes or he can ride with us and take notes. Either way, we get to ride."

"OK," said Fangxian.

"Good idea," Junxin said.

"OK," Ruiman said.

Taz sighed. He thought he might have made a better bargain, but it probably would have taken too much time. He didn't trust the yunü not to get into trouble left to herself. "I've got some errands to run, so we'll do this in about three weeks."

"That's a long time to wait," Junxin said.

"The moon's full then and the parks will be open later," Taz said.

"OK," Ruiman said again, and handed Taz the bag of pearls.

"So when were you with the Eldest?" Taz asked.

"We were there for the Peach Harvest, and for about two months after that," Renyi said.

"How was she?" Taz said.

"She was Great-grandmother," Junxin said.

"Same as always," Ruiman said.

"And the staff? The rest of the Household? Were they happy? Busy?" Taz asked.

"Great-grandmother's place always runs smoothly," Renyi said. "Why do you ask?"

"Weird rumors," Taz said.

"Nothing weird there," Guangjing said. "New cook, but he's really good."

"Honeyed pecans and alligator pears," Renyi said.

"Oh," Fangxian said. "When we ride the roller coasters, we get some of the pink fluffy stuff."

On the way back to San Francisco, Taz detoured to a desert island. It was small, sunny and empty. There were no humans around; in fact, there were no people, human or otherwise, around. It even lacked the clichéd palm tree. He relaxed in the absence of Jingwu and of Feng Tailin. He didn't want to lie again to the first or re-argue the same grounds with the second. Still in his dragon form, he set a ward around the island, then stretched out on the hot sand, and rolled over onto his back, exposing his underbelly to the sun.

The problem was, Taz thought, he had no male role model. His current teachers didn't know what he really was; neither did any of his fellow students. He was reluctant to go to Martin, the other male he had been in contact with recently, for counsel. He didn't know the vampire that well. He was Jingwu's lover certainly, but Taz was unsure what she might have told Martin. Since most of his own former teachers and Jingwu's lovers and students in the past had been mortals, and were now either dead or otherwise out of touch, the most capable males he still knew, other than Martin, were the Sea Kings, the Innkeeper and Dai. These were even more peripheral to his current life than Martin was. Moreover, the Sea Kings were roughly his own age, and although absolute in their own realm, here they were just as much in awe of their grandmother-in-law as everyone else in the family.

Which meant taking advice from someone he trusted, even if she was a woman.

Which meant accruing another debt. Although in this case, he might be able to do a direct trade. He took the sharkskin pouch from its private universe and sorted through the pearls. He owed Dai fifteen colored pearls, but there were many times that number of pearls, in various sizes, shapes, and colors. Ah, that one was nice: baroque, yes; large, also yes; but of a cool gleaming white. Since he had already bought the bag of pearls with the promise of roller coaster rides, he could spend this pearl where it would do him the most good.

"I'd like to see Ms Polias."

"Taz?"

"My name is Long Dianchi. I want to consult Ms Polias."

The receptionist assumed her professional face. "One moment," she said, and rose and departed the lobby. Shortly, she returned: "Please wait."

"You may want to smile at the staff when you leave," Nancy said.

"Is that appropriate even if I'm a client?"

"Possibly not." Nancy turned away from the small table overlooking the city and sat at her desk.

Taz took the client's chair. He took out the baroque white pearl. "I need a consultation," he told Nancy, placing the pearl before her.

Nancy eyed the pretty thing on her desk. "It's not that simple," she said. "As long as you are a minor, and here, Anna says what happens to you. If you are in difficulty, she is the one you should go to. If your problem is with her, the Eldest, as the senior of your nearest in blood, should be the one to hear your complaint."

"I'm not sure how hypothetical I can keep this, but let's assume for the moment I can't take either of those actions," Taz started.

"So, since, for a time in the last century, in Paris and at Bletchley Park, you were my day-to-day guardian, an arrangement apparently acceptable to both Jingwu and Grandmother, I came to you. That seems logical to me," Taz ended.

"I am one of your accepted advisers. Yes, that will work, but in that case, take back the pearl," Nancy said.

"OK." Taz slipped it back into the pouch, and waited.

"If this is a conversation between two members of an extended family, pearls are not exchanged for counsel. Do you have your grandmother's edict with you?"

"These orders were spoken."

"By the yunü," Nancy said.

"Yes."

"Was she chosen carefully for this task? Is she known to reliably relay messages?"

"Not to me. I haven't met her before. She," Taz hesitated. "She does not know what the yunü who visit Jingwu know, or act the way they do. Jingwu likes...."

"Competent people," Nancy said.

"I don't think Tailin is as competent as Jiding or Xiulin, but she just may be nervous around humans."

"Which makes her a strange choice for this task." Nancy shook her head. "I dislike depending on positive vetting, but I think that is a way to proceed now. We will inquire about the yunü's reliability as a messenger, which a careful grandson may legitimately do, and I hope to garner some of her history in the process. "

"Me?"

"No, not you yourself. That's what we say if we are questioned. I will ask one of the associates to talk to a friend of hers, as she often does. Have you met Cheng Shenwei?"

"No, I haven't."

"I may introduce you after this is over. How soon do you need some reassurance about the yunü?"

"I'd like it soon," Taz said. "I'd like it tonight, in fact, but I can stall awhile longer. Nancy," he continued. "Anna...."

"Is out of this loop. Yes, I know. Young dragon, I may not know your grandmother as well as your Jingwu does, but I do know her well enough to think what has been set before you may very well be of her sending; not necessarily everything, but certainly parts of your problem remind me strongly of her. However, I cannot tell what is definitely hers and what we may term a mistake in translations."

"So what do you advise?"

"Find out what you can and be ready to fulfill the letter of what you have been told to do."

"Theoretically that means waiting until the cup shows up in an exhibit at the Museum," Taz said.

"Possibility not that literally," Nancy said. "Since we are already worried that the yunü may not be a reliable conveyer of messages."

"She keeps worrying about delays."

"There is no point in hurrying into a scandal," Nancy said. "Your grandmother's position as a patron involves some personal investment in the well-being of the Museum. That well-being will be compromised if the Museum is seen as a careless guardian, and that might be considered to reflect badly on your grandmother."

Taz nodded. That was a good point. He could use that.

Feng Tailin frowned. "That doesn't matter. This Museum is only a human thing."

"But Grandmother is their patron," Taz said. "Her reputation is tied up with theirs."

"But they're only humans!"

"You didn't take a good look around when you were there. She is not their only important patron: there's more than one other Immortal on the Founder's Council."

"Are you sure?"

"It's not something we can be mistaken about," Taz said. "I haven't been introduced to all the members, but I do know there are others beyond the ones I know."

"Oh," the yunü said.

Taz considered her. His grandmother knew about the other members, and there was no reason, as far as he could see, for her not to tell the yunü about them. Either his grandmother was forgetful, which would be very bad, or the yunü had not, for one reason or another, been thoroughly briefed by her. He was uncertain how to interpret that. He said: "So I must go carefully enough to avoid any scandal."

"I guess that's a proper filial concern," Tailin said.

"It seems that way to me."

"I have a spa appointment," the yunü said. "If it's all right with you?"

"Go ahead. I'm still looking where all the cases from the basement ended up. There's still a few places to check out." That was a lie. He knew where all the cases were, and he had a good idea where the Museum's collections were kept. He did not want the yunü to know how far along in locating the cup he actually was.

Taz was sprawled on another deserted sunny beach. He stretched, scratching his back scales on the sand. He enjoyed the solitude. Oh, there were dolphin minds around, but they were busy with dolphin doings; shark minds were deeper and slower, and not as intrusive as the dolphins; the great whales were far off and very faint. He rolled over, letting the sun heat his back, and continued mulling over his problems. A quote from The Art of War popped into his mind:

Thus, what enables the wise sovereign and the good general to strike and conquer
and achieve things beyond the reach of ordinary men,
is foreknowledge.

Right, Taz thought. Easier said than done. Foreknowledge is in short supply here in the physical world. I should assume a worst case scenario, because that's where all plans start, but what is it? What is the worst that can develop from this situation? Will I be arrested? Expelled? Making grandmother lose face? With whom? How? Making Jingwu lose face? Again, with whom? What's the purpose here? All of them? How would that work? If this were just a prank, what would I do? And how would I stop me? That depends on the ultimate purpose...and that gets me back to the unspecified worst case. What do I do now?

Consider the terrain.

Another quote from The Art of War. This one was actually somewhat to the point. If he had the cup, what would happen? He didn't know. Where would it happen? That he might be able to discover. He stood up and shook all over, dislodging the sand that tended to cling to his scales. He would catch Feng Tailin at breakfast.

"Look, once I get the cup, do I just give it to you?" he asked.

"No! No, you take it to the Eldest," the yunü said.

"Damn," Taz said. "I was hoping to get in some surfing before I went back to school."

"Surfing isn't as important as delivering the cup to your grandmother."

"Well, crossing off all the embassies, there are two places of interest, both warehouses." He didn't tell her he had decided the larger warehouse, which wasn't completely climate controlled, probably held stone work and pottery. The more delicate ephemeral works, involving silk, reed, wood and paper and the like, probably could be found in the climate conditioned facility.

"The cup is in one of them?"

"Probably. They're unlabeled and patrolled."

"What does that mean?"

"Whoever is guarding them doesn't want outsiders to know what's inside," Taz explained. "There are no signs, no doors labeled 'Office', no cars in the parking lot, yet there are humans inside. Outside, there are a lot of cameras and apparently random patrols of other humans. Getting in will not be easy, but it can be done. I need to see if there's a pattern I haven't detected yet. Being interrupted might alert the humans and make everything harder."

"Once we get inside, can you find it?" the yunü said.

"Probably, but I may have to wait until the cup is displayed at the museum." He had no intention of waiting, but he was wary of telling Feng Tailin his plans. Having seen Dai's original, he could find the cup; if the Museum had more than one object of Dai's making, he might have to examine them one after the other until he found the cup, but that would not be difficult, it would just time consuming.

"That would not be good," Feng Tailin said. "Ideally, you should bring the cup to the Spring Moon wine tasting."

"And you can't take it?"

"No. That wouldn't do."

So it's not going to be a simple human-style mugging, Taz thought. I don't have to worry about being ambushed and hit over the head. It's going to be subtler. I should have expected that; after all, we are longs. There's something about the cup, me and Grandmother together, in front of a crowd, because there's always a crowd for Spring Moon wine tasting, that's bad. Or dangerous. Or potentially embarrassing. Grandmother and I are the same as we were last year, at least I think we are, at least I am, as far as I know, so it's the cup that changes things. The variable is the cup. I need to take a close look at the damn thing.

In his bedroom at Jingwu's house, he took out the rosewood box from its temporary place in his scholar's cabinet and opened it. His bedroom faced south, and when he carried the new cup over to the window, the sunlight played over the glaze, highlighting the specks of color and the fine cracks. He turned it over, examining the join where the stem met the cup, inspecting the interior of the hollow pedestal, searching for a pattern in the cracks, a code in the colors. As far as he could see, it was a wine cup; oh, it was beautiful, with a profound, quiet air of perfection and tranquility, but it was only a wine cup. If Dai said this was a copy of the original, it was an exact copy, just as both his grandmother's and her lover's had been.

I leave an identical copy in the museum and take the ancient cup to grandmother. No human will ever know....

His thoughts came to an abrupt halt. What if there was a crack in the lover's cup? His grandmother's cup had broken, so the copies out in the world were subject to the wear and tear of daily life, unlike Dai's file copy, the original, which was not breakable or even damageable. The Museum pictures would show that.

Oh, hell, Taz thought. I don't need a perfect copy of the original. I need a perfect copy of the Museum's cup. Revised plan: Get the Museum's cup, bring it here. Compare the two. If they're identical, except for their auras, slip the new copy in the old copy's place. If I need a worn new copy, go to Dai. Put the worn new copy into the old copy's place. And I don't need Feng Tailin along while I'm doing all this. She probably would riffle through everything, setting off alarms all over the warehouse and getting the humans to run around like disturbed ants. It'll be simpler if I do this alone.

Nine hours later Taz had the Museum's cup.

The search hadn't been dangerous or difficult, only delicate and long.

By himself, he had had no problems avoiding all the humans, all the detectors and all the alarms. What had taken the time was the huge number of items in the warehouse. While most crates could be dismissed immediately, the Museum did have other works by Dai. One was a life sized wooden statue of Ganesha, which was easy to find and easy to rule out. Another was a folding screen, which was concealed in nine flat cases; each case had to be opened, the contents examined, and the cases resealed. The third was a bronze bell, with dragons and tigers in bas relief around the circumference. That one was interesting. It was only a little bigger than the cup, and for several moments as he gently opened its crate he thought he had found what he was after. He found the cup next. It was in a large metal case which was approximately a cube, 18 inches on a side. He opened the latches and removed the padded lid. The rosewood box was surrounded by contoured foam cushions. He lifted it out, put the lid back, replaced the empty metal case in its spot on the shelf, and returned to Russian Hill with the rosewood box.

Telling the two cups apart was no problem: Dai was right, their auras were very different. Taz arranged some lights around his desk and shifted to his dragon form.

Humans would need to use mechanical aids, digital photographs or comparison microscopes. Dragons had much better vision and memory than humans did.

He inspected the cups. Yes, they were identical, down to the dots of color and the pattern of the cracks. However, the color of the cracks was darker on the older cup. He touched its bowl with his tongue.

Fruit, but not grapes, not plum.... Peach wine. What the cup held last was peach wine. Let's see if I can do this, he thought. No reason to disturb Dai if I can manage a little manipulation.

He took the new cup and moved to Jingwu's wine cellar where he filled the cup with whiskey from the kilderkin. The liquid grew darker, with a smokey-peaty aroma. Remembering the complex flavors of a ripe peach, he slowly shifted contents of the cup away from his favorite Islay whiskey to a peach wine. The task required concentration. The result was a faintly peaty-peachy scented pale amber liquid. He swirled the wine around the cup a last time, poured it into one of the crystal glasses beside the kilderkin on the counter, shifted it back to whiskey and carried the full glass and the empty cup back to his room.

The cups' crackalure were now the same shade. He drank from the crystal glass and considered the rosewood boxes. Ah, the Museum had stuck a tiny inventory label on the bottom. Other than that, the boxes resembled each other in all respects save the slight wear on the sliding lid. He took the new lid and gently ran his scaled finger along the edges of the lid and of the groove in which it rested. He slipped the lid back in its box, and nodded. The way the lids moved in their grooves felt the same. He moved the label to the new box, taking care to firmly affix it in the same position with the same orientation, put the cups in their proper boxes, and closed the lids.

He shifted to human, tossed back the rest of the whiskey. He put both boxes in the upper sections of the scholar's cabinet and locked them away.

Now what? he thought. A night out, he decided. No, better yet, it's only early afternoon in Maui. Between the beach and the casino at the Inn there, I'll find something to do, and maybe even someone to do it with. Preferably a complete stranger. One who had no relatives and no agenda.

He told Zomas he wouldn't be in for dinner that night and probably not in at all the next day, gathered his gear, and went to Peahi.

Taz appeared in Jingwu's Chinese Chippendale living room.

She was there, looking over her assignment board. She smiled when she saw him. "And what did you do on your vacation?"

"Surfing, girl, surfing. Girl, poker, girl. Sleep, girl, surfing, home. How are things here?"

Jingwu chuckled. "We went to the ballet."

"Again?" Taz said.

"The Hard Nut."

"How did the kids like that?"

"Julia liked the dancing, and Pol didn't understand the role of the pig."

"It's subtle," Taz agreed. "But why are you so pensive?"

"After the performance, we went up to Chez Panisse. A Berkeley magic type noticed the children and started to approach us," she said, closing the landscape by Birk over the schematic by Dai.

"Children? Not just Julia? Pol, too?"

"Pol's growth spurts involve more than just his height. His talent is maturing, too."

"And this is a problem?"

"I don't know. The approach was probably innocent, possibly even well meant. Welcome to the Sorcerous Siblinghood, or whatever politically correct term they're calling it over there at the moment. But if strangers can notice him, it seems I need to make some changes."

"You never planned on keeping him curbed."

"No, of course not, but now may not be the best time to release him," she said. After a moment, she added: "It always comes down to timing, and, at that, too soon may be better than too late." She shook her head, rose, kissed Taz's cheek, and said, "I have litter patrol. Zomas put some dinner in stasis if you're hungry."

Taz regarded her thoughtfully for a moment, then said: "Just bed, I think."

She smiled, and blinked out.

Taz chose to climb the stairs up to his bedroom, thinking with every step.

Timing isn't everything, Taz thought, and put down his coffee cup.

Since it wasn't raining, he had opted for breakfast outside. He was on the dining room deck, listening to the red-headed parakeets squabble over the last sunflower seeds. His thoughts continued: Or rather, timing isn't enough.

Yes, a simple adjustment of when he delivered the cup to his grandmother, which would automatically change who was present, would also change what happened. Giving the cup to his grandmother now, and privately, rather than later, and publicly, would avoid the set-up Feng Tailin was attempting to arrange.

I don't like being manipulated, he thought. Whatever that annoying girl is up to, getting the cup to Grandmother now will thwart... His thoughts abruptly filled in the appropriate cliché: thwart her nefarious scheme. He smiled. Which would be fine; but then what? She goes off and starts another plot, and maybe the next one is better? I could just kill her. Which will solve the problem for good....unless " she's only a yunü, after all " there are more plotters. How can I stop her plot, discover who's behind her, and not embarrass Grandmother?

He speared the last bit of blini with his fork, and gathered up the last trace of sour cream and caviar filling on his plate.

One thing is sure, he thought. I can't trust Tailin with the cup, even briefly. And that means I do need another copy. Complete with box. Boxes. Yes, that will help. And a fire cracker; or a muffled equivalent. I need to visit the Concierge, the warehouse, Dai, the warehouse again, the Inn again and finally, the warehouse a third time, before I visit Grandmother. And I have to go in that exact order.

"Another copy?" Dai asked. He watched as Taz unwrapped a dish of tiny quiches from another picnic hamper. "Ah. Why another copy?"

"I'll need another box, too. There's a tricky little bit of work in the substitution at the Museum," Taz explained.

Dai waved one hand in dismissal. The other was conveying a quiche to his mouth. "Your business," he said, and ate the quiche. He dusted crumbs off his hands, and left his workshop.

He returned with his original rosewood box. Opening it, he took out the cup. "One cup, one box?"

"Two boxes. One of these, too." Taz gestured at the storage box he had abstracted from the warehouse.

"Ugh. Humans do practical OK, but I could ..."

"Uh, Dai: I need it exactly like this."

"Ugh," Dai repeated. "Aluminum. What's this stuff?" He poked a finger into the padding in the lid.

"Foam padding."

"I see. Yes, ugly, but practical. No charge. I won't sign it, though."

"That's fine. Take your pick from these," Taz said, and put the sharkskin bag on Dai's workbench.

Dai was shaping a copy of the cup as Taz spoke. The copy of the rosewood box followed quickly. He took up the newest cup, examined it closely " apparently just for the pleasure of looking at it " nodded, and put it in the new box. The aluminum box, complete with padding, was created with a casual toss of one hand.

As Taz put the new rosewood box in the new aluminum cube, where it fit perfectly, Dai was reaching for another quiche.

After a quick stop at the warehouse, Taz went, empty handed, to the Inn. It had shifted location and configuration while he was away, and now resembled a Nineteenth Century American summer resort. At the desk, he asked where he could find the yunü Feng Tailin.

"Yes, she's back," the clerk said, after a glance at the pigeon holes behind him. "I believe she is in her room. She's now on the fourth floor, room 439."

Back? Taz thought. Back from where? I told her to stay in the hotel. Never mind. He rode the elevator up to the fourth floor and found 439.

Inn rooms haven't changed much, Taz thought. A bed, a table, something to sit on and space for packs. Just like what Jingwu had back when I was a kid. Oh, now there're closets and hangers and upholstery and innersprings and drapes, but it's still a room at the Inn.

He sat at the table.

The yunü joined him, and waited.

"We'll do it tonight," Taz said. "Wear soft dark clothes, soft dark shoes, and no jewelry. I don't want you to clank, thud, or rustle. The first noise you make, I'll send you straight back to Kunlun Mountain. Be ready by 2030, about two hours from now. I'll bring the replacements we need. We'll watch the shift start to change at 2100, then we'll switch the new cup for the other cup."

"Oh, yes. I'll be ready, your celestial highness," the yunü said. "I'm so relieved. I mean, your grandmother will be pleased."

"I certainly hope so," Taz said. Celestial highness, he thought. I should have known from the first time she called me that she wasn't from Grandmother. He nodded to Feng Tailin, and took the elevator up to the roof to teleport home.

Taz lifted down the aluminum cube and handed it to the yunü. From near the door came a muffled thud.

"Go," Taz said, very softly.

The yunü's eyes went wide. She didn't move.

"Go!" he snapped, still softly.

The yunü vanished, clutching the metal storage container.

Taz put the aluminum crate he had brought back into the proper place in the shelves. He made a quick grab of the remnants of the firecracker, then ported silently out of the warehouse.

The door to 439 was ajar.

Taz pushed it completely open. Feng Tailin was not here, but the aluminum cube was. Inside was the wooden box and inside the wooden box was the cup.

Or rather a cup. What was in the box was not a copy of Dai's cup made by Dai. That was obvious at first glance: not only was the aura different, the cracks were too large and in the wrong pattern. Still, he picked it up.

It feels funny, Taz thought.

He put it on the table. It wobbled.

That changes things, Taz thought. Apparently Feng Tailin and her gang, if she in fact has a gang and isn't just a lone thief bent on stealing one of Dai's cups, are moving now. Well, Nancy said I should be ready to fulfill the letter of the message the yunü gave me. I can't see waiting will improve matters. Too soon is better than too late. He nodded to himself. Putting the strange cup back in the real box, and both into the cube, he put everything in a private spatial pocket, an undetectable fold in the local space-time fabric, and went down to the lobby. From there, he went directly to his grandmother's home on Kunlun Mountain.

The jintong doorwards were surprised.

"Your celestial highness," one of them got out. "We were not informed of your arrival."

"No, this is an unannounced visit," Taz said. "I realized I need to see my grandmother."

"Uh." Neither doorward moved aside. They weren't exactly blocking the gate " they were in human form and the gate was designed for longs " but they made no move to open it.

The doorward who wasn't speaking had been busy: Behind the silent jintong, two yunü Taz knew personally appeared. They wore simple, daily garb, showing they were off-duty: Jiding had on boots, long trousers and a knee-length over-tunic. She wore her mirror as a necklace: a small silver disk on a silver chain. Lijin wore her mirror as a pin fastening her plain loose robe.

He nodded to them, and repeated: "I need to see my grandmother."

"Taz," Lijin said. "You may want to rethink that."

"Why?"

"Your sister is here," Jiding said.

"Oh, hell. How did they find out about the roller-coasters?"

There was a startled silence, then: "What roller-coasters?" Jiding asked.

Lijin said, "Nothing about roller-coasters that we know of. The Second Princess attends the Eldest Dragon today, so perhaps.... "

The Second Princess was Liyan, Taz's youngest sister.

"Oh," Taz said. He was silent for a moment, then he said: "I will see my grandmother."

Liyan had firm and frequently voiced opinions regarding the folly of their grandmother employing yunü and jintong about the Palace. There was nothing, she claimed, that a human-form servant could do as well as a long. Taz had never agreed with that, finding his own human form capable of many activities that his long form made awkward.

The jintong were in a difficult position. Taz was family; the doorwards had no right to interfere with his lawful actions; seeing his grandmother was a lawful act: lacking direct orders from the Eldest, they could not impede him, even if his youngest sister was already with her. The guardian jintong were clearly unhappy and looked to the yunü. The two yunü looked at each other. Jiding shook her head and stepped back. The doorwards, still looking unhappy, stepped away from the gate.

Taz felt a certain sympathy for the jintong, but he was not about to stop now. He nodded to them, then pushed open the gates. Flanked by Jiding and Lijin, he walked the wide, winding path through the reception garden. After the last bridge, spanning the stream just before the beginning of the Great Pool, where the path divided, he stopped. "Where is the Eldest?"

"She and her guest are in the Hall of Pheasant and Quail," Lijin said. "You'll have to shift."

Taz nodded and took on his human form. He arranged his formal dress: the five layers of robes, each in a different brocade; the large and the narrow aprons, each heavy with gold and silk embroidery; and the three colored scarves, each of a different length and width. His now long black hair fell down his back. He summoned, and handed to Lijin, a delicate lotus crown, then rolled his hair into a bun on the top of his head. The yunü slipped the crown over his chignon.

"Taz, where is Anyuanjun Jingwu?" Jiding asked.

"Earth. Take this," Taz said, taking a bulky aluminum cube out of his pocket universe.

"Does she know you're here?" Lijin said, as Jiding took the cube Taz handed her.

"Probably not. I don't know. Hold this," Taz told Lijin and handed her the rosewood box he had placed in his folded pocket universe before leaving Jingwu's house earlier that day. He opened the packing case, took out another rosewood box and put that one into his private universe. He took the rosewood box from Lijin and put it into the aluminum crate. He put the lid back and fastened all the clasps. He took the aluminum cube by its handle in the top.

The yunü watched the switch and looked at him, curiosity plain in their eyes.

"Taz?" Jiding asked. "What's all this about?"

"A surprise," he said. "Come along." He took the fork in the path that lead to the Hall of Pheasant and Quail. As they followed Taz, the two yunü looked almost as unhappy as the jintong at the gate.

The Hall of Pheasant and Quail was sized for humans, not longs. The eponymous motifs were displayed in frescos, carvings on the doors, ceiling and furniture, mosaics on the floor and textiles. Other motifs of peace and order were also employed as decoration. Jiding and Lijin opened the double doors and he walked in. The yunü remained outside, shutting the doors behind him. Smart girls, Taz thought. He stopped between two pillars, each carved with nine dragonflies amid begonia blossoms, and bowed.

His grandmother was seated in a carved throne, on a shallow dais. A small offering table, holding the second copy he had bought from Dai " the bright new, unaged, copy of his grandmother's lover's cup " stood on another, slightly taller, table to her right.

In front of the dais, by the taller table, stood Liyan, unattended even by lesser longs, and looking awkward and bad tempered in her human guise.

And now I know who, Taz thought. And I know what: her target wasn't Grandmother or Jingwu, it was me all along. I'm supposed to look like a fool in front of Grandmother. As for why, I bet this is all about the Succession. She really wants it. Well, after all this, after having come this far, I can only go on.

In their human forms, dragons were not as formal as they were in their natural shape. The Eldest did not demand that her grandson approach her from the seven directions at once. Taz followed the simpler ritual, walking straight forward on only two feet. He dropped to his knees before the dais. "Primordial lord and revered Grandmother: I have completed the task you gave to me."

"Stand up and greet your sister."

Since his grandmother had called Liyan his sister, not using her name or any of her titles, emphasizing that this was a family occasion, Taz knew how to respond: "Yes, Grandmother." He rose and turned: "I see with awe and joy the face of my youngest sister."

"I see you," Liyan said.

"And which task did I set you, Grandson?"

"I was told, Grandmother, that you wished to have what was yours again."

"So I did. Do you have what was once mine?"

"So I do."

His grandmother smiled. "You may show me."

Liyan smiled, without looking any less annoyed.

Taz bowed, and dropped to his knees again. He took the aluminum cube, removed its lid, and banished the cube and lid into his personal pocket universe. He placed the rosewood box before him on the floor, slid the lid open, and took out the cup " the cup he had stolen from the Museum, the cup that was one of Dai's original copies, the cup that had been his grandmother's lover's " and, rising smoothly to his feet without removing his hands from the cup, bowed to his grandmother and set the cup beside the fresh new copy on the offering table. As he had once noted, the difference in their auras was readily apparent. He stepped back in front of his grandmother and again bowed. A quick glance sent the rosewood box and lid back into the temporal-spatial pocket, leaving the floor uncluttered. He waited.

As she looked at Dai's two cups on the offering table, Liyan's smile changed to a faint frown.

"Ah," the Eldest said. "This is indeed mine. And the Museum? Will they be content with what they have?"

"I believe so," Taz said. "I purchased two copies from Dai the Tinker, and to an untutored eye, they are the same as this one. I made some minor adjustments to the copy of the cup I left in the warehouse, and I do not believe the Museum will notice theirs is not what it was last week."

"Well done," his grandmother said. "And what do you ask as a reward?"

"Only that henceforth your tasks for me come as edicts, on scrolls of silk and in your own hand, that I may treasure them forever." And, he thought grimly, that never again can I be misinformed or tricked. At least not this way.

His grandmother chuckled: "That is easily done. Anything else?"

"That you take into your household and under your protection a yunü currently calling herself Feng Tailin."

Liyan's face became a neutral mask.

"And what has this yunü done to deserve so well of me?"

"She has lied to me and attempted to use and deceive me. She shows some promise as a courtier, although she is very young and lacks polish."

The Eldest nodded. "Where is she?"

"I believe she is in Liyan's household at the moment."

"Indeed? How unusual. Granddaughter?"

"I have no memory of such an attendant," Liyan said.

"Nonetheless, you will find her and bring her to me," the Eldest Dragon said. "You may go about this task at once."

oOo

Author's Notes:

1) The Chinese languages, in this case the dialect known as Celestial Mandarin, have many homophones, which can easily lead to visual puns. For example, there are more than 27 characters pronounced 'shi'. The meanings of the characters include two family names, pig, ten, stone, lion, master(n), poetry, wet, bachelor, attend upon/serve, and assorted. This means you can say: Shi shi shi shi shi shi Shi and mean Ten assorted stone lions attended upon Master Shi. It also means you can indicate a lion by drawing a picture of a stone. In many examples of visual media there are unobtrusive puns, double meanings and examples of wishful or hopeful thinking.

In this chapter, Taz enters the Hall of Pheasant and Quail. The character for pheasant is transliterated as 'zhi', as is the separate character for 'order'. Quail is transliterated as 'anchun'. The transliteration for 'peace' also includes 'an'; therefore, the quail is used as a pictorial shorthand for 'peace'. The other name for the hall in which Taz meets his grandmother is 'The Hall of Peace and Order'.

2) I am still trying various presentations of the POV character's thoughts. Here, I do not use italics or quotation marks, just 'Taz thought' or 'thought Taz.' If the reader had noticed, is my current practice clear or confusing?

3) yunü = jade maidens; jintong = golden boys; long = dragon.