Listening to Rain

Chapter 14 - Aboard the Dragonfly

The pirate Byung Nhak relied on the strong sea breezes that night for a quick exit from the Qiong-zhou harbor. Much later that morning, Li Wei woke in an unfamiliar room, among unfamiliar smells, and unfamiliar motions. Realizing that he had woken in a different place from where he had gone to sleep, Li jumped up. He tried to make his way to the sliding pinewood door in the small room. It took a few minutes for him to steady himself enough to reach the door. Flicking the latch and sliding it open, Li found he was in a narrow hallway. There were three sliding doors facing him and two more to his left on his side of the hallway, with large doors at either end. He turned right and made for the end of the hall where he could see the most light. Some water was seeping under the door. He grasped its iron handle and slid it open.

The fresh sea air assaulted his senses. A pale, misty ghost world greeted him. He held onto the doorframe. The whole world seemed to be gently rocking, as he looked up at the huge black matted bamboo wing of a sail, stretched taut, that disappeared above him into the mist. A current of air pushed on it, heeling the ship slightly over to one side. Over the side of the ship, he could hear rushing water, which occasionally flew up onto the deck. A spray of seawater hit him—warm and salty to the taste. The rushing air blew at his moustache and pulled at his neatly tied hair. His robe flapped playfully as currents of warm air flowed across the deck.

His knees responded by giving out. He was on the way down, when a small but strong, hand grabbed his arm, allowing him to catch himself. The hand belonged to a wrist decorated with a red jequirity bean bracelet.

"You've been drugged and must rest," she said in strangely accented Chinese. The voice belonged to a young woman. The loose ends of her faded blue headband streamed in the wind with flying strands of black hair. She was dressed in reds and blues, a silk tunic and loose pants. Four sheathed daggers, each hilt top set with a black pearl, adorned the black sash around her thin waist. Her face, as deeply tanned as her bare feet, turned up to him with a familiar smile as her long silver earrings seemed to take flight in the gusts of wind.

"Where? Well, that's obvious. How? Who?" said Li, looking over the deck of the ocean-going junk that was plowing through the seas. He could now dimly make out the bases of two more masts in front of the main one. While this was not as strange as the bronze ship that had brought them to the island, Li was at a loss.

How have I traded a hot, insect infested room at the prefectural yamen for a sea-going junk? In the middle of the ocean!

The air and the sense of motion were intoxicating. He felt swept away by the power of the ship driving through the waves, racing before the misted wind.

"Come, have something to eat. The drug makes you hungry," said the young woman, breaking into Li's reverie. She showed the way to a low table set up in front of the cabin.

"This is only simple sailor's fare. Our captain will come back to meet you as soon as we clear this fog," said the girl, gesturing toward the ship's bow.

Further, down the deck beyond the towering main mast and between the two foremasts (technically, the head mast and the port foremast, as the masts were staggered), was a group of sailors. One of them was standing in the bow, where the head mast raked forward from the deck, waving his arms. The other sailors relayed the motions, silently down the deck to some point behind him. Li turned around. On the high deck behind the cabin stood the helmsman with the ship's great tiller in his muscular arms. And behind him the other two masts: the port mizzen and the tail mizzen.

The young woman looked up and down the deck and then up into the low hanging mist with a smile, "The captain is guiding us through the fog. These are dangerous waters off the coast of Qiong-zhou, many shoals and reefs. We're using the fog as our cover till we clear the Sea Hawk patrols. Then we can make for the high seas where no one can catch the Dragonfly."