The Strange Case of the Disappearing Dragon (An Ennin Mystery #32) Read online

  And yet here was my master, dragging us out into this rural area, where squalid huts were dotted here and there among the fields, and the aging men and women laboring to get in the crops stooped and watched us pass with rheumy, disappointed eyes…

  ‘It was here,’ said Takayama at once, pointing at the ground dead in front of him. ‘Here is where I saw the flying statue.’

  Then he seemed to reconsider, and instead jabbed his soil-blackened finger up at the cloudy sky.

  ‘I mean, up there – I looked up, just as it spoke to me – and then it spat fire…’

  ‘It was low above you, then,’ questioned my master, and secretly I rolled my eyes at this farce.

  ‘Oh, very low, Ennin-sensei,’ returned Takayama earnestly. ‘I mean, scarcely ten or twenty feet.’

  ‘Which way was it coming from?’

  ‘I… I’m not sure… Just the flames, coming from the mouth and illuminating its head, just after it spoke… Then the flames stopped, and it disappeared – though I saw that it had risen slightly higher in the air…’

  My master at once commenced walking in circles around Takayama and me; circles which got ever wider, so that he left the narrow path we were stood upon and trespassed upon the fields either side. Then he gave a slight yell, so that I hurried over to see what had caught his attention –

  A groove in the ground, a couple of feet deep and several feet long, like that made by a plough. It had dragged up a number of carrots, which was what this strip of land was principally being used to grow…

  ‘Master?’ I said quizzically.

  ‘The dragon flew low, Kukai… So low that we can see here how its tail dug into the ground,’ returned my master, that intense light once again shining in his eyes.

  Takayama had followed me over, so that he also heard my master’s words.

  ‘You believe me then, Ennin-sensei?’ he cried, almost with delight. ‘You admit that I am telling the truth about what I saw?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ returned my master, his voice a little distant. I realized just how fast his mind was turning, assimilating this strange new information which seemed entirely nonsensical to me.

  ‘The dragon flew over these fields, from the direction of the temple, and soaring so low that its tail dug into the earth, then managed to pull itself up and cross over one of those mountains ahead,’ continued my master, looking at the rocky crags covered by sparse vegetation.

  ‘And looking at this cloudy sky, which may later result in another moonless night, the male dragon which remains upon the temple roof could possibly decide to spread its wings this very evening…’

  I glanced incredulously at my master. We had shared many a strange, indeed at times devilish adventure, but this was still ridiculously farfetched. Flying dragons? No – flying gold dragon statues? The whole thing was ridiculous beyond words!

  ‘If so, then I’ll be ready and waiting for it right here!’ cried Takayama – and to my great alarm he suddenly produced (from out of two inside pockets, located either side of his kimono) two flintlock pistols, of the type introduced to Japan by the gaijin.

  Moving faster than the wind, my master moved in on Takayama and snatched the pistols from out of his very hands.

  ‘For pity’s sake, give me those things before you do yourself or someone else an injury,’ he said. He looked at the identical weapons, the dark wood embossed with silver and gold metal work, the ornate trigger and its guard nothing so much as a work of art.

  ‘However did you get these?’ demanded my master.

  ‘Won them, from some gaijin sailors in an inn by the harbor a few years back,’ answered Takayama indignantly. ‘We were playing cards, and I bet money and they bet them. And I won. They work, too; I got the gaijin to show me how to use them. The Chinese still have to light a cord and touch it to gunpowder in their guns, so that the things are nothing more than miniature cannons… But these guns, you just pull the trigger and it fires instantly, through the flintlock mechanism…’

  ‘One shot apiece?’ asked my master.

  ‘One shot apiece – then you have to reload.’

  ‘Give me the shot you have for them,’ demanded my master; and with a sour expression, Takayama obliged, handing over a small, greasy sack, the mouth of which was drawn closed with string.

  ‘Thank you,’ said my master. ‘Please accept this, by way of recompense.’

  And to my surprise – to say nothing of Takayama’s – my master handed over a pouch of coins, which would certainly have covered the cost of the guns and, dare I say it, have been of far more use to the aging, impoverished farmer than the actual weapons.

  ‘Come, Kukai,’ said my master then. ‘We have to return to the temple, and speak with the priest again as soon as possible. For we have to obtain his permission, if we are to be able to instigate the first part of my plan...’

  ‘Which is, master?’ I asked hesitantly.

  ‘To climb inside the remaining golden dragon on top of the temple roof, Kukai – the male of the pair – and there wait until such time as it takes flight…’

  4

  The priest had said that one man could ‘comfortably’ climb inside the statue. Now both my master and I were crammed inside, with barely room to move. We crouched, the struts of the statue’s internal wooden frame jabbing uncomfortably into our sides. We had a small lamp, for otherwise we should have been sat in pitch-darkness. We had the key for the closed and locked hatch beneath our feet, so we were not imprisoned, but I knew this confinement must be agony for my master, given his hatred of enclosed spaces. (Something previously mentioned in such cases as The Cursed Temple and The Empress and the Monk.)

  ‘As soon as we hear any noise outside, Kukai, we must extinguish the lamp,’ whispered my master. ‘There are a number of small gaps in the exterior of this statue – the reason we can breathe inside here, although the air remains somewhat stuffy – and so any light may be seen.’

  ‘The priest seemed to consider us mad, master, once you told him how we wished to hide inside here,’ I declared.

  ‘He took out the gold and silks that have been stored inside here, as ‘offerings’, for approximately one hundred years, anyway – so he’ll have some compensation if he never sees this statue or the other one again,’ returned my master. ‘It’s as well I told him to ensure that he and the other monks remain well inside the temple, just in case there should be any –

  ‘But hush! Extinguish that lamp!’

  So finished my master urgently, as at once I heard the slightest patter of footsteps upon the tiles of the roof outside. In immediate, pitch darkness, I strained to hear other noises. The slither of what I thought might be a rope being dragged towards the statue… Whispering between several men… A slight, metallic sound like bolts being turned…

  Then the hoarse croak –

  ‘Get back up here.’

  The voice chilled me. Was this the same voice Takayama had believed belonged to the dragon? In this darkness, scarcely able to move, virtually imprisoned and defenseless save for one of those single-shot flintlock pistols I now had on my person (my master had the other), it seemed a lot less easier to scoff at such a fanciful tale.

  Suddenly I could not help but gasp, although immediately my master’s hand moved to cover my mouth.

  ‘The dragon begins to fly,’ he murmured in my ear. ‘But, rest assured, I believe he will not fly for too long – just as far as those mountains we saw earlier today…’

  I felt us rising up and up… Was I going mad? What force had caused this gold statue to rise up into the air, after its bolts had undoubtedly been removed by whoever had managed to get up onto the temple roof?

  How long we traveled through the air for, I cannot say. I don’t think it was more than twenty minutes, though it felt like hours. Then, all of a sudden, the base of the dragon statue hit what I assumed was the ground with a hard jolt. Then I heard something else land beside the statue; something which sounded a lot larger.

  ‘Unt
ie the ropes from around the head and tail, cover that statue with a sack and let’s get it carried down to the boat, quickly,’ said the same voice that had spoken before, although now it sounded just a little less evil. It remained a particularly sinister and fear-inducing voice, however.

  I heard something being dragged over the statue – this large sack, obviously – and at once I knew that my feeling of panic must be the same as my master’s. I said earlier that there were little gaps, here and there, in the gold metalwork surrounding the frame of the statue, which served to let in just enough air so that my master and I could breathe.

  But with this sack covering the statue, would we now stifle to death…?

  ‘Master, the key…’ I said as quietly as I could, though terror caused my voice to tremble, there in the total, imprisoning darkness. ‘For pity’s sake, let us open the hatch and – ’

  ‘Patience, Kukai, just a few minutes more,’ returned my master. ‘They cannot be carrying this statue far – they surely landed their hot-air balloon at a spot close to where they have their boat moored, which I assume they have in turn assured is sited well away from the other ships in the harbor.’

  ‘A hot-air balloon?’ I murmured incredulously.

  ‘You have heard of such a thing, perhaps? The farmer Takayama spoke disparagingly of Chinese firearms; yet the science of making a large balloon full of gas rise up into the air, carrying a basket of people below it and also sometimes some sort of heavy load below that, is well advanced in that country, at least.

  ‘So tonight, as on the last near-moonless night,’ continued my master in the lowest possible voice, as we felt the statue being carried along, ‘the hot-air balloon was launched from its remote spot on the side of one of the mountains – carried there from the ship belonging to that suspiciously well-behaved group of wokou we saw earlier – and launched so that it sailed towards the temple with the two valuable gold dragons upon its roof. Doubtless the pilot of the balloon is highly-skilled, and so able to navigate even by the least possible light.

  ‘There above the temple roof the balloon hovered, as several pirates dropped down using ropes, doubtless carrying a few small lamps shielded by a shutter so that the flame is protected from the wind – and, also, so that the least possible light may be seen by any prying eyes.

  ‘It was quickly realized that only four bolts needed to be undone in order to free the dragon statue, and once this was completed ropes were tied around the head and tail of the dragon, and the men returned inside the large basket of the balloon before the statue was lifted into the air.

  ‘But it is heavy – hence the way the tail of the lopsided dragon carved a furrow in that field the other evening. The pilot of the balloon was obliged to send a burst of flame into the gas-filled expanse of canvas above him, which illuminated the head of the dragon below and which Takayama – what with his poor eyesight, and being somewhat in a state of alcoholic ‘refreshment’ – misinterpreted as being flames blown by the dragon itself.

  ‘The words he heard were, I suspect, the leader of wokou we saw earlier – the man with an eye-patch – admonishing the pilot for having flown so low.

  ‘And if I’m not mistaken, we are now being carried onto the boat. Courage, Kukai, we will be out of here in just a few minutes – but from now on, be sure to have your pistol close at hand…’

  5

  ‘This statue feels a damn sight deal heavier than the one before,’ grunted a male voice (not the sinister voice of before), as the vessel which contained us was deposited unceremoniously upon what – if my master was correct – was the deck of a pirates’ ship.

  ‘Much more things inside it, gold and such, I’m betting,’ declared another man. ‘Let’s get this sack off it, and break open the lock. There was a good deal inside that large statue, too – which is also worth a fortune in itself!’

  ‘We’ll do that,’ said the sinister voice. ‘And then we’ll go and get the balloon, fold it up, and with its basket bring it on ship and set sail, while it’s still dark. We may have moored up out of the way of the other ships, and kept ourselves to ourselves to avoid any undue attention, but the daimyo of this region won’t turn a blind eye to our presence forever, and he’ll have a good few samurai at his disposal…’

  I heard the sack being hurriedly pulled off the statue, and at once the pitch darkness inside lightened ever so slightly.

  ‘Gun ready, Kukai!’ urged my master in my ear, so that I pulled the weapon from inside my kimono. My short knife was also inside the same pocket, as it always is – a fact which (as the regular reader will know) once saved my master’s life, in the case I entitled The Black Death.

  There came a general hammering at the base of the statue, something being forced inside the lock of the wooden hatch and then twisted around, so that the lock was broken. The statue was lying lengthways, and with an effort my master twisted himself around, so that he was lying facing the entrance to the interior of this gold dragon. (The hatch was located by the base of the twisting tail, which was a part of the statue too narrow for any person to enter).

  As quickly as I was able, I followed my master’s example, so that we were both ‘upside down’, as it were, to our position of before. There we lay in wait, our pistols drawn and cocked, as the lock was broken and the wooden hatch wrenched open with an awful grinding sound.

  It was dark outside, the night remaining almost moonless; but still it was instantly much lighter inside the statue than it had been even with the sack removed.

  ‘Back up, please,’ said my master, his words directed at the two dirty, hairy faces which were peering incredulously back at us. ‘Back right up, and raise your hands…’

  As the two men did as requested, my master wriggled with snakelike speed out of the statue. A little slower, I did the same, so that I emerged behind him with my pistol also pointing at the group of men – six of them, the same number as had entered the inn earlier that same day – stood upon the deck of a not-overly large ship with square sails.

  The man wearing the eye-patch – the captain – was the first to recover from his surprise.

  ‘Oh, well done,’ he declared, his single eye burning with cheated rage as it observed us. (There were a number of burning torches tied to the masts of the ship – but well below the sails – which served to illuminate the scene.)

  ‘I am Ennin,’ said my master, his voice strong. ‘Perhaps you have heard of me?’

  ‘Too many times,’ returned the captain, his hands twitching at his sides.

  ‘Kindly refrain from drawing your swords,’ continued my master, ‘or I and my servant will shoot you down like rats.’

  ‘Them pistols only got a shot apiece,’ declare another man, his words at once causing the other pirates to start moving cautiously towards us. ‘You’ll get two of us, perhaps – but there’re still four more…’

  ‘Idiot,’ returned my master, and his contemptuous, icy tone instantly ceased the pirates’ advance. ‘These pistols come from the Imperial City itself, specially made by the finest gunsmith there is there. They each carry no less than six shots apiece, in fact, and my servant and I have had plenty of practice at using them…

  ‘But please, if you doubt my words, just try drawing those weapons you carry upon your hips…’

  My master told such lies with flawless perfection, and I did my best to keep my expression suitably confident, while inwardly praying that none of the pirates would call our bluff.

  Six shots apiece? Really, was there any such weapon in the world? Sometimes, I thought, my master played things just a little too close for comfort…

  Thankfully, these pirates obviously believed him, for they backed away from us, and my master said –

  ‘The other statue – where is it?’

  ‘Down in the hold,’ returned the captain shortly.

  ‘Go and get it, and bring it up here – with two other men,’ said my master. ‘Also, ensure that whatever you found inside it – gold, silks and such –
is replaced. The rest of you, sit down there, with your hands upon your heads. Before you do – remove your weapons, and throw them overboard. All of you.’

  With a number of grunted curses, the pirates did as ordered.

  The other gold statue of the dragon was soon dragged upon the deck of the ship, and my master then ordered that it and its mate be removed from the boat and placed upon the old wooden jetty. With more vicious oaths concerning the general parentage of my master and me, the pirates obeyed.

  ‘Now,’ said my master, once we were all stood upon the jetty, the pirates assembled in a small group with the two pistols still trained upon them. ‘I could summon the daimyo of this region – who is currently close – and his samurai, and have you captured.’

  At once, the captain turned noticeably pale even in the torch-lit darkness.

  ‘For mercy’s sake, Ennin-sensei, have we not done exactly as you ordered?’ he declared, his tone somewhat less strident than before. ‘You know what will happen to all six of us, if you hand us over so casually…’

  ‘Probably nothing worse than you yourself have done to others,’ retorted my master, and the sudden venom in his voice surprised me.

  ‘But still,’ continued my master, giving vent to a sigh. ‘I cannot just consign six men to certain death – and one that will almost certainly not be ‘quick’, if we are to look at past examples.

  ‘So, albeit with some reluctance… Just go, now, and do not look back.’

  The six pirates looked quizzically at once another.