The Fifth Claw, Chapter Two: The Power of the Pearl

The dragon pearl was rumored to have many powers. It could grant life and longevity, bestow all manners of blessings, and confer wisdom upon its bearer. Each was supposed to have a unique power that could only be manifest in the human world, and the disciples enjoyed trying to guess what theirs would be.
“I heard that if you combine a pearl from each of the eight dragon sects, you would possess unimaginable power. The ability to bring the dead back to life!”
“Or even open up another portal to the human world!”
“No one can send a dragon to the human world, except the Great Four-Headed Dragon,” Sei scoffed at the suggestion. “Ne guards the only way there and back, right at the center of this world.”
“Well, maybe there is another way.”
“Yeah, if you can get eight dragon pearls together. You don’t even know how to get to the next sect.”
“There are eight sects out there, and only four directions – front, back, left, and right. Just pick any direction and you’ll find two that way.”
“Dragons are supposed to be smart, Hanriu. Have you any idea how undragonlike you sound?”
“Well, even if you find your way to the other sects, which dragon do you think is just going to hand over their precious pearl, and say, ‘There you go. Have fun now bringing your dead xianbei to life. I’m off to get me another pearl.’”
“Well, it is said that in the age before now, the Age of Might, dragons went around from sect to sect challenging other dragons to a contest of their martial skills. The victor could demand anything of the vanquished, even their pearls.”
“Sei could do that. I’m sure nir Dragon Pearl Roll technique would beat the other sects!”
“When are you going to become Shizi?”
“Shifu says that if I keep up my practice, it might be as soon as a hundred years.” Being Shizi before one was two thousand years old was an incredibly rare achievement and certainly one to take pride in, but Sei had never been one to boast. Some dragons were incredibly proud, but Ryu had never met such a one among the Qian sect.
“A hundred years! I wouldn’t even have my horns grown out yet.”
Ryu always pretended not to pay any attention to the small talk, and no one ever paid any attention to nem. They simply treated nem as if ne wasn’t there, and that arrangement suited nem just fine. It wasn’t that ne didn’t enjoy company, or social conversation. However ne always thought things changed when ne got involved, and not in a good way. They tried not to show it but it was clear to nem that ne didn’t belong. Ne had no fifth claw like everyone else. And ne was sure they all knew ne had no pearl. Ne was the only one never to talk about it, or show it off like the other disciples did.
Because I had no pearl to show off.
Yet now that ne had one, ne did not quite know what to do with it. No one would believe it was nirs. Everyone knew the size and luster of the pearl reflected the wisdom and power of the dragon it belonged to. Sei had the largest and brightest pearl among all the thirteen disciples in Qian sect. Ne was, after all, the oldest at a thousand six hundred and forty-seven years, and already had well-developed horns that marked nem as a chi-lung. Even though Bakkyo dwarfed everyone else in physical size and strength, nir pearl was only of average size and one of the dullest. It glowed a monstrous blood-red, and was the only one amongst theirs of that particular coloration. Sei’s was a twin-banded silver-gold, and everyone else’s was some variation of gold. Gold was the traditional color of the Qian tien lung.
Shigong’s pearl, mine, appeared as various shades of that most precious of colors all at once. When ne peered closer, ne thought ne could see all kinds of images in it. Things that were not rocks sticking out of the ground, with hair made of eyes that were green, red and yellow. A sky that was not always dark and burning, but changed color to a clear azure. Creatures that were not dragons drinking from pools, streams and rivers. Oh so much water everywhere!
It was fascinating, and Ryu knew ne was looking at scenes from the human world. Ne yearned to talk about it, and there was only one who’d listen. One who’d been made to do just that.
Ne would have to sneak out of the temple for that. Not a terribly difficult task when no one ever paid attention to you. Ne cast a surreptitious look in the direction of the chattering disciples, gathered in the middle of the resting chamber. No one would notice even if ne suddenly jumped up and performed a display of histrionics. And no one did when ne silently slinked off.
The temple was a majestic edifice of rock that towered over every neighboring peak. It was known to be the highest point in this entire world. Since every mountain pointed inward towards the Airy Core, the apex of the Qian temple was the closest one could get to the center of the world, where the portal to the human world was. Ryu had lived nir entire life in the temple, but ne had always felt the portal to be agonizingly out of reach.
It mattered not how close one actually got to it. The portal was guarded by the Great Four-Headed Dragon, which formed an impermeable range of mountains that completely closed off it off. The only way to get to it was if one was let through. Only the most powerful five-clawed tien lung were allowed the privilege of being sent to the human world. Outcasts like nemself stood no chance of even being considered.
Ryu made nir way down to the Stone Gardens. With the entire world barren and populated mainly by rock, melted rock, and re-solidifying rock, there was absolutely nothing remarkable about the place. The only thing that distinguished it from other rocky places was that the stones here were sculpted and carefully arranged in various patterns. The Stone Gardens surrounded the Qian temple on all sides. There were eight sections, with each neatly bounded to one of the temple’s octagonal faces. Each corresponded to the different dragon sects, and displayed all kinds of collected relics and literature of that sect.
Every disciple had to learn about all the other dragon sects. They would begin with the Qian at the most inward face pointed directly towards the Airy Core, as Shifu had drilled through endless repetitions that ‘the beginning of all knowledge is the understanding of oneself’. Then they would go on to the Kun sect at the opposite end. ‘There is nothing only black or white, or even gray. Nothing has only one face.’ The order in which the others were learnt about was not strictly enforced, but left to the preferences of either the master or the student.
The spot Ryu headed for was not in any of the sections. It was right on the boundary between the Kan and the Xun sections, at the very periphery of the Stone Gardens. The periphery was marked by a low wall of packed stones that acted more as a visual marker than as protection or deterrence, since it could be stepped over easily. It was beyond this wall that Ryu reached for a stone that rested against it from the outside, that no one would ever pay attention or notice to.
“Shin,” Ryu addressed the stone, breathing over it as ne did so.
“Huh, what? Who’re you? How do you know my name?” Came a sputtering response.
“I made you. I gave you life. And your name,” Ryu explained, with the merest hint of impatience.
It happened every time. Shin never remembered who ne was, or even what they had talked about the last time, but that suited nem fine as well. If questioned, Shin would give nothing away. Shifu had always warned against using the gift of divine breath to create life lightly, and would surely punish nem if ne found out. Ryu had never understood the fuss. Power was given for a reason – to be used, not to be hidden away or ignored.
“Look at this.” And Shigong’s golden pearl was produced from its hiding place.
When Ryu had first shaped Shin, ne had fashioned only a slit for a mouth and a hole for an ear. Ne had not wanted to be identified. It was only after ne realized that Shin would remember nothing anyway that ne had decided to carve out an eye. That eye now widened until it was the entire expanse of itself, squeezing its ear and mouth out of sight.
“Now that is simply gorgeous. Do you mind if I spend some time alone with it, get to know it a little better?” Shin winked slyly at nem.
“Are you nuts? This is a dragon pearl, and you’re just a stone.” Despite being Shin’s creator, Ryu had absolutely no idea, and no control over whatever it was going to say. It was the only thing that ever managed to surprise nem.
“And you’re just a four-clawed dragon that wants to go to the other side,” came Shin’s sardonic comment.
Ryu never shared, but Shin somehow always knew exactly what was hidden in nir heart, or unspoken in nir mind.
“It’s where I belong.” Ryu’s reply was curt and cutting. It was odd how a stone could rile nem, when everything else could not.
“Ever heard the saying ‘Home is where the heart is’? You belong with me,” Shin smacked nem a kiss. “But I really don’t mind if you take a long, slow walk around. Far away. Think about it. Oh, and uh, leave that beauty behind.”
No one Ryu knew talked the way Shin did, and ne was convinced that it came from the other world, from the humans. Like nem, Shin was a fragment of that world, out of place in this one.
“It’s mine.” At least until tomorrow.
“Hey, what’s mine is yours, what’s yours is mine, right? Of course I don’t actually have anything, but you are welcome to that. Wow, it is huge! Are you sure it’s yours? How do you even fit it down that pointy chin of yours?” Shin prattled.
Ryu demonstrated, hiding it beneath nir chin and then revealing it. “It can’t be seen, unless you want it to be.”
“And why wouldn’t you want to show off that piece of perfection? If it was me, I’d take that to town and paint it gold.”
Ryu had no idea what a town was. It was odd that Shin seemed to know about things that ne had never ever heard of or learnt about. But the question it had asked was one that had been on nir mind all that time.
“Because it’s not really mine. Everyone would know if I showed it off. It’s Shigong’s.”
“Whoever that is is one lucky dragon,” Shin remarked with envy. “It is a dragon, right?”
Ryu did not bother to answer. Shin’s responses were always irreverent, usually impertinent, and often confusing. However talking to it somehow managed to help nem get the answers ne sought. There was no pride in passing off Shigong’s pearl as nir own. Even if the other disciples somehow all went agape over it, what would ne do with all that temporary envy anyway? No, even if Shigong let nem keep the pearl forever, it didn’t feel right. Whatever emptiness had been there before was still there. A pearl a hundred times bigger wouldn’t be able to fill that void.
Shigong had probably known that was what ne would learn. That was why ne had let nem have the pearl. Ryu felt manipulated somehow. Ne detested doing what ne was supposed to, or learning what others intended nem to. Without nir own pearl, ne already felt soulless enough, and now they would rob nem of nir will as well? Ne determined to return the pearl at first light the next day.
The moment the ground turns bright.
Returning the pearl to its hiding place, ne picked Shin up to place it back outside the low wall.
“Aww, already? We were just starting to hit it off. Can’t you give me another moment with that beauty? Cos I got this feeling inside all tingly that’s telling me that I’m never gonna get to have another chance like this again. Pleeeease?” Shin begged whiningly.
Ryu stared at the stone clutched within nir claw. Ugly and imperfect though it was, it was nonetheless nir creation, born of nir breath and shaped by nir will. Compared to the brilliant jewel that beamed with smug awareness of its potency and value, this deformed and incoherent rock was the more beautiful. Ne would grant its wish, simply because ne could.
“One night,” Ryu stated.
Then ne tucked the stone next to the pearl and returned to the temple.

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