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Seh pulled the dragon scroll map from the small of his back and laid it on the table. Ying fought the urge to lunge for the scroll. He reached out, taking it carefully with both hands. Ying unrolled it and immediately felt energized. It was the same feeling he got just before a lightning storm hit. He noticed that the hair on his arms was standing on end.

As the initial excitement faded, Ying began to look the scroll over. He realized right away that it wasn't old. It was a recently made copy. He turned to Seh. “What happened to the original?”

“I modified it so that it was no longer accurate and let Tonglong steal it,” Seh said. “This is an exact copy of the unmodified version. I … made it when I could still see.”

Ying grinned. “Good trick,” he said. “I bet you drove Tonglong crazy.”

Seh nodded.

The small round eye peeked over Ying's shoulder. “Wait, that's not a map. It's just a sketch of a person. Those are pressure points, right?”

“I saw a sketch on the other side, too,” a different round eye said. “Looked like chi meridians to me.”

Hok pushed a lantern toward Ying. “There are sketches on both sides. Hold the scroll in front of the light, Ying, and watch how the two sketches blend together.”

Ying followed Hok's instructions and, sure enough, a map came clearly into focus. Seh had done an amazing job. Ying had traveled quite a bit during his days in the fight clubs, and he clearly recognized that the main chi meridian channel running from the figure's head to its belly button was the Grand Canal, China's great north/south waterway.

The round eyes began to chatter around Ying in their native tongue, and Ying tuned them out. He set about memorizing every detail of the map. It wasn't all that difficult, as he'd long ago memorized pressure point and chi meridian charts. He aligned the places he'd traveled with the different sections of the map, and in no time Ying could tell what each major area represented.

The head of the figure symbolized Peking, China's capital and home of the Emperor's fabled palace fortress, the Forbidden City. The main chi meridian running from hand to hand represented the Yellow River. Different pressure points highlighted dif ferent cities, including Jinan. The map was a work of genius.

Ying thought about the chi meridians shown in the sketch and realized that they were all rivers, not roads. Most dragons were water creatures, and the mapmaker had made waterways the key to this dragon scroll map. Ying had always felt more connected to the earth than to water, but perhaps he would come to feel closer to water over time. It appeared as though he would be spending a lot of time on it, following the map to its end point far to the south.

A thought came to Ying, and he paused. A water creature! Of course!

Ying hastily rolled up the scroll map and handed it to Hok with a gleam in his eye. He had the beginnings of a plan.

“Okay, little sister,” Ying said. “Here is what we are going to do … ”

Tonglong sat at the stern of his dragon boat with twenty of his best men. They were well hidden by heavy brush and the approaching darkness. Beyond them, anchored downstream in the center of the Yellow River, was HaMo's rented barge.

Tonglong adjusted his long ponytail braid and glanced down at the note he'd received from HaMo earlier in the day. He crumpled it and threw it overboard.

The note had begun oddly enough with an apology. HaMo had said that he was sorry for having crushed two of Tonglong's men to death. He also apolo gized for taking Charles. However, he said that he was certain Tonglong would quickly get over these things after hearing his proposal.

HaMo said that he was going to use Charles as bait to capture Hok, along with the fabled dragon scroll map that he knew Tonglong wanted. HaMo had managed to squeeze information out of Charles and learned that the dragon scroll map in Tonglong's possession had been altered. However, Hok's brother Seh had a copy of the correct map. HaMo said that he would soon have it and offered to exchange Charles, Hok, and the map for ten thousand gold pieces.

HaMo had designated a place to meet Tonglong the next morning to make the exchange. However, Tonglong was not about to give ten thousand gold pieces to anyone. He would take what he wanted. A few hours ago, his men had discovered the location of HaMo's rendezvous with Hok, and they had disposed of a backup team HaMo had positioned in this very location. Tonglong's men were learning fast, and he was proud of them. HaMo was in for a big surprise.

“Sir,” a soldier whispered from the bow of the dragon boat. “A skiff is approaching.”

Tonglong squinted in the fading light and saw a well-cared-for skiff heading downstream toward HaMo's boat. Standing at the back of the skiff, steering along with the current, was a girl with short hair in a battered white dress. It was Hok, and she was alone.


Tags: Jeff Stone Five Ancestors Fantasy