At that moment, of course, Ah Cheung was distressed, a state of affairs that Wang-Mu would normally have savored. But there was no time. "Help me, human, and be rewarded. Those who seek to disturb my hillside must suffer."

Ah Cheung considered, his broad mouth creasing. "The developers are no problem," he said at last. "They could be frightened away, or otherwise dissuaded. But there will always be developers. In the same way, the district head is just one man. But behind him stands the remnants of the British Empire."

Wang-Mu laughed, making the sound an underground spring makes when it is about to burst through the earth. "What do I care for empires, waning or otherwise? I, who once chose to protect Koxinga the rebel from all the forces of the Qing."
Koxinga had been among the few mortals whom Wang-Mu could respect. The fall and rise of empires had meant nothing to Koxinga, who had kept trying until his death to restore the Ming Dynasty in place of the Qing Dynasty established by the Manchus. The fleeing Koxinga had shown kindness to a tiny girl, just as Ah Cheung had. Koxinga only recognized the dragon at his side when Wang-Mu led his thirst-wracked troops to water. She had shown him where to plunge his sword into the sand to expose a spring, an act they still celebrated in the Dragon Boat festival. Later, when the Qing caught up to Koxinga at sea, Wang-Mu created a storm to allow him to escape.

"You are nothing like Koxinga," Wang-Mu told Ah Cheung. "He would not respect these British any more than he did the Manchus."

"You haven't seen the might of the British," Ah Cheung replied. "Perhaps even Koxinga would fear them if he saw them." So Wang-Mu agreed to go and see the seat of power, welcoming the chance to walk the island again. She wanted to go out in her dragon guise, but Ah Cheung dissuaded her.

At first, Wang-Mu was pleased with the changes to the island called Hong Kong, which had been nearly unpopulated when she had settled there. Where before the craggy hills had mostly been covered with poor shrubs, the settlers had planted banyan trees whose curved limbs cooled for yards around. There were lush stretches of green wherever Wang-Mu looked on the first hour or so of their walk.

Then the two of them arrived at a populated area, and Wang-Mu was startled. Machines roamed everywhere, giving off dark smoke. Into those machines were crammed hundreds of people, and hundreds more swarmed on the street. The street was lined with gray and brown mansions in unfamiliar styles, carved with images of lions and birds, but no dragons.

The crowding was the worst aspect, especially while Wang-Mu was in the form of a small child. Reflexively, she gripped Ah Cheung's hand, so as not to be separated. The smells and sounds were overwhelming, flesh and grime everywhere. She barely listened as Ah Cheung explained that hundreds of thousands had lately arrived fleeing something in China called the Great Leap Forward.

Ah Cheung looked down at the girl clutching his hand, something like protectiveness in his face. "I'll buy you some ice cream," he said with a slight smile. Then the crowd surged again and Wang-Mu was nearly swept off her feet.

Feeling trapped, Wang-Mu let go of Ah Cheung's hand and surrendered to instinct. Immediately, she was in her natural form, thrice the height of the humans around her. She flapped her wings and raised her torso above the crowd, hissing and extending her thin tongue.

"Wang-Mu, no!" Ah Cheung shouted, almost inaudibly. From above, the crowd looked less distressing. People were staring at the massive winged serpent and her ferocious round eyes. They trampled each other trying to get away. Wang-Mu felt a forgotten rush of pleasure at the crowd's terror.

"Listen to me!" Wang-Mu roared. "This island I will sweep into the sea today. You must all leave for the mainland. I intend to leave nothing."

Then Wang-Mu leapt over the buildings, flapping her small wings to give her extra lift. She was out of practice at flying, but she was eager to reach the water and swim. The water's edge lay just beyond.

Sliding into the water was welcome, returning to a forgotten home. Wang-Mu amused herself swimming in circles until her own tail swished past her face like a frenzied elongated fish. The water churned as she played in it, making herself forget the crowds.

The pleasure faded as Wang-Mu swam towards the heart of the colony, where Ah Cheung had told her she would find Government House. This time she was annoyed by the clutter of boats in the water. Dark and noisy, they were as big as Wang-Mu herself, sending off foul pillars of smoke. They passed over and around her with no consideration, rumbling away as if usurping her status as queen of water serpents. Among them were also thousands of smaller wooden junks that blocked out the sun when Wang-Mu passed under them.

Wang-Mu came ashore by the harbor, then stared at the assortment of mansions piled into the space before the green hillside. Once again, there was panic, and once again Wang-Mu's nostrils took in the unfamiliar fog of the city. Among the masses of people were stone inhabitants: A large Westerner, perhaps a local deity, and two stone lions in the Chinese style. The cohabitation seemed freakish to Wang-Mu, and she vowed that neither man nor lions would protect the city.

The answer was simple. First Wang-Mu would use her Pearl of Ebb to remove all the water from Hong Kong harbor, leaving the black ships in a field of mud. Then, when the ships were mired, Wang-Mu would use her Pearl of Flow to bring back the waters, in greater amounts than before. The irritating boats would all be covered over, along with most of the island and the peninsula which faced it. Once the plan was made, Wang-Mu was inclined to put it into effect instantly.

Then she remembered Ah Cheung, who had protected the frail girl that was Wang-Mu's human form. She recalled his hand holding hers, his watchful smile. All the villagers had taken her part and sheltered her. She owed them a debt. For them, she must balance out the destruction she planned to wreak. She pondered for a moment, then slid back into the water.

Ah Cheung was sitting despondently at the Da Long village gate, not answering the others' questions, when Wang-Mu came walking up the steep trail from Chai Wan in her human form. Instantly, Ah Cheung brightened. "There you are! I feared that you would do something terrible!"

"It has been delayed only. None on this island will be spared." Wang-Mu was aware that it unsettled Ah Cheung to hear these words in a child's light voice. "But I did not come back here to frighten you with the coming destruction."

From her silk cheong sam the girl pulled a small green scale. "This is from my crest. It will protect the entire village from the flooding, and make you a powerful man besides." She held it out to Ah Cheung, who stared at it.

"You are generous," Ah Cheung said when a few silent moments had passed. "I am aware of the legends about those who have been gifted by dragons, in the distant past. They were spared terrible catastrophes, and became high officials and wealthy men. But I cannot accept your gift."

Wang-Mu snorted in disbelief. "I offer you both safety and favor and you decline! What kind of fool are you? Do you really want your whole village to die with the rest?"

"If I accept your scale, I will be condoning your mass murder." The dignity with which Ah Cheung spoke only added to Wang-Mu's anger. She felt her shoulders tremble.

"What is it to you if strangers perish? They are not your parents, your teachers, or your offspring. They have no relationship to you. Also, you cannot stop me from killing them. By saving your village, you are not condoning anything. Be realistic, little man," the girl said.

There was another long silence while Ah Cheung considered. "You are right," he said. "But still, I can't accept it. I would be profiting from the deaths of innocents, even if I cannot shape your decision to destroy. Also, have you considered how the gweilos will react to the drowning of their colony? They may blame China and start a war."

"All this talk of empires and human affairs!" Wang-Mu grew angry with the man. "I am like a tidal wave or typhoon. Humans can cower from my rage and then fight each other when I am gone. I don't care." Ah Cheung wanted to talk further, but dragons do not discuss.

Instead, she set out to build a magical flood wall for the village, which she could not bear to see destroyed. She swam in the cool waters near Repulse Bay and collected seaweed and coral. From the hills around the village she harvested willows and banyans, from which she built a frame, using seaweed to tie the logs together.

The villagers watched as she dragged large slabs of rock into position in the wall. Wang-Mu noticed Ah Cheung was gone, but he had obviously told the other villagers not to help her build. Wang-Mu used precious stones, pearls and pieces of granite to plug holes in the wall, then coated the side facing the ocean with a special paste made of crushed leaves, gold dust and sand from a particular part of the ocean floor.

It was extremely hard work, and Wang-Mu tired, but the result was spectacular: a glittering wall at least twice Wang-Mu's height. The light played across its ornaments, the best of land and sea. Wang-Mu couldn't wait to see what it would look like under water.

Wang-Mu saw a crowd of villagers staring at the glow of the sea-facing wall. With them was Ah Cheung, and he was holding the arm of a Western man, whose other arm another villager held. The Westerner, dressed in all white with large pads on his shins, was staring at Wang-Mu, gaping beneath his large mustache.

The man said something in his foreign tongue, indicating what Wang-Mu hoped was the proper amount of awe. Ah Cheung said in Cantonese that this was Harrington-Smythe, whom they had abducted from his cricket match, and who did not understand why the marvelous creature was building a wall. How could they explain to him that the dragon is both destroyer and preserver?

Wang-Mu saw a leader of the feared British at bay. Ah Cheung had confronted their might after all. Her heart rejoiced that she had inspired him to best this general, or whatever his rank was. There was something of Koxinga in Ah Cheung after all.

When he had recovered, Harrington-Smythe promised not to develop the hillside, which would become a park instead. Ah Cheung and his villagers promised to bring offerings eachh year to pacify the dragon. Wang-Mu loathed the idea of compromise, when she had her heart set on destroying the vile city.

She looked at Ah Cheung, who stood defiantly in front of her wall. She tried to imagine the inrushing waters smashing him against it, his insides painting it indelibly. He could not die just when he was finding his courage. She would not allow it.

She wasn't aware she'd made a final decision until she realized she was looking up at Ah Cheung from her small girl form. He took her hand. "Very well," she said. "But the offerings had better be good. Now take me home."

Then she turned her back on the villagers and let Ah Cheung lead her around the newly built wall. She left him at the foot of her hillside.

That only left one minor question: what to do about the beautiful wall, which would attract attention. Wang-Mu was already dozing off when she overheard Ah Cheung explaining that the developers, instead of disturbing the hillside, could build a shopping center using the existing wall on one side. How to explain the existence of the Dragon Gate Cineplex and Souvenir Emporium to Wang-Mu was a problem that Ah Cheung hoped would be left to his descendants.

The end

Copyright c)2001 Charles Anders

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