The Dragon and the Lotus (Chimera #1) by Joseph Robert Lewis Read Free Book Online Page B

house and garden. We hunted birds together, back when there were birds to hunt. Even when he was small, he was a good hunter. Sharp eyes and sharp ears. And he can be very quiet when he wants to.
    “One day while we were in the forest, I found a man peeing on a rock. His clothes were ragged and filthy, but he had a sword on his belt and a helmet on his head. The soldier saw me before I could run, but I waved Naveen back and he hid in the trees behind me,” Chandra said. “At first I thought the soldier was going to kill me where I stood. He spoke Persian. I had no idea what he was saying, but I recognized the sound of the language from travelers I had met on the road. He came toward me, his hand on his sword. But then he spoke in Hindi, though not very well. He wanted to know if there were people nearby. He wanted food and water.”
    “What did you say to him?”
    Chandra shrugged, his eyes dull and lifeless. “I was going to say no, but then I thought of how terrified my wife would be at the sight of this man wandering through her precious little village. I thought it might change her mind, and that she and Naveen would come back home to me. So I said yes. I pointed the soldier toward the village and he nodded, but he went off in the wrong direction. So I stayed with Naveen in the trees to wait and be sure that he was gone before we went home. And then he returned, leading a whole troop back through the woods toward the village. We watched them go past. I didn’t know what to do. I told myself that it would be all right. They just wanted food and then they would be on their way. They didn’t kill me, after all. So I took Naveen home and waited.”
    “And the village?”
    He shook his head and covered his eyes again, his shoulders shaking, his voice cracking as he said, “An hour later, everyone was dead.”
    Asha looked away to the north, to the edge of the bamboo forest where the aether mist was seeping out into the sunlight. “And Naveen doesn’t remember what happened?”
    “No. And I couldn’t tell him. I just couldn’t. I can’t.”
    “I believe you love your son,” she said. “So I won’t tell him the truth, and I won’t tell you to tell him the truth either. But it would be better for you both to leave this place and find a new home.”
    Chandra nodded. “You’re right. But I can’t move him like this. He’s too sick.”
    “He’s not sick,” Asha said. “He’s possessed.”
    The man stared at her. “That’s ridiculous.”
    “It’s not and he is. His high temperature, the racing pulse, the sensitivity to light and sound, and the strange things he’s saying. I’ve seen this before. He’s possessed.”
    “By a ghost?” Chandra looked back at the house. “By a ghost of someone who died in the village?”
    “No. By the ghosts of everyone who died in the village. All of them.” Asha sniffed. “I’ve never seen a heart rate like his, beating so fast you can barely hear the individual beats at all. If we don’t stop it soon, his heart will fail completely and he’ll die.”
    “You have to help him! Isn’t there something you can do?”
    Asha slipped another long sliver of ginger into the corner of her mouth. “Maybe. How do I find the village?”
    4
    It was a long hour’s walk along a seldom-used path through the forest down to the bottom of the valley. As Asha descended the trail she felt the air grow steadily cooler and the white mist swirling around her feet brushed her skin with a sharp chilling caress. The path itself was carpeted in brown bamboo leaves. Here and there a long slender branch lay across her way, and from time to time she found a young bamboo shoot in the center of the trail, some of them as high as her shoulder.
    She walked softly, pausing every few steps to listen to the vast stillness around her.
    Still nothing.
    Still no birds, no crickets, no anything.
    Eventually the trees thinned and parted. Asha stepped out onto the edge of a grassy field dotted with