The dragons were the last of Heaven's warriors to leave their home, and of the dragons, Embar Dea was the last to go. She did not think she would see Cloud Kingdom again. The Mother of Dragons had once told her that you can feel your death approaching, and Embar Dea did not think it would be long now. But it was an honorable way to go: to battle the kuei, ancient enemies of dragonkind. The kuei were planning to invade Heaven, so Prince Rish had been informed by the Emperor; they must strike first.
The older a dragon becomes, the closer it draws to the truth. Rish was too young, but as soon as Embar Dea heard this, she knew it to be a lie. It surprised her, that the Celestial Emperor should lie to his oldest allies, but then such things had happened before. So she went to Rish and told him.
The Prince was silent for a long time after Embar Dea had spoken. They were alone in the great mist-filled hall of the Cloud Palace, the seat of the Dragon Kings. An opalescent light swirled through it, like liquid pearl, concealing the old dragon and the young.
"Do you believe me?" Embar Dea said in a moment of terrible doubt, for it had also been known for old dragons to go mad.
"I believe you," Rish said, slowly. "Of course. But what are we to do about it? This kingdom was granted to us thousands of years ago by Heaven, it is the only place in all the worlds where we can build a home. Hell won't have us, because of the kuei and the old enmities. Earth will not—they would hunt us down and exhibit us in zoos, you know that. And we are too big for the pastures and orchards of Heaven. If the Emperor takes Cloud Kingdom away from us, then where are we to go?"
"We should not be under the mandate of another," Embar Dea hissed in frustration.
"Indeed we should not. And yet, we are. Embar Dea, you are the oldest of us all and I have great respect for you—" and here Prince Rish, to Embar Dea's embarrassment, bowed his great head "—but you were born in a time when politics was not so important, when China respected Heaven and when dragons were honored within it. Now the world of humans has forgotten us and Heaven is closing in upon itself and only Hell is still the same, or so it sometimes seems to me."
"So you are saying that we must do as the Emperor asks," Embar Dea said. She sighed, and the mist rose and sparkled at the touch of her breath. "Then I will go with you."
And now she was flying at the end of the great skein of dragons pouring out from Cloud Kingdom. She did not look back; there was little point. Instead, she stared straight ahead, at the golden, the green, the scarlet, all manner of dragons, with the silver-black shape of Prince Rish at their head. Embar Dea knew there had been lamenting, that the King of All Dragons was no longer there to lead them, but times were different now. She flew on.
Cloud Kingdom fell away into the soft, clear light of Heaven. Embar Dea looked down and saw fields and rolling hills below, small temples on summits, rocky crags with pouring waterfalls. A wild, yet managed, land, mirroring China itself. They flew over a wall, snaking across the hillsides, and soon they came to a great plume of water cascading down a mountainside that marked the start of the river that on Earth was known as the Yangtze. As they flew on, it widened, until the landscape beneath them was recognizably populated with small cottages, large mansions, orchards filled with blossom and fruit and the faint light of floating stars. Embar Dea looked ahead and saw the edge of the Sea of Night, a dark line in the distance, and before it lay the Eternal City, with its fortress walls and its palaces.
Around the city gathered the troops of Heaven, mounted on unicorns and lion-dogs and deer. Beyond them, were immense engines: catapults and creaking wheeled citadels. Hell had tanks and guns, Heaven had arrows and bows, yet Embar Dea knew that, somehow, they were equally matched. Heaven had a strong, clear magic; she wondered whether this was still the case, or whether it now carried undercurrents and shadows, the betraying trails of secrets and lies.
The lion-dogs raised their chrysanthemum heads and roared as the dragons flew overhead, the sound reverberating out from the city walls and causing, somewhere, a ringing sound like a gong. Moments later, as they came in sight of the Imperial Palace, Embar Dea realized that it was indeed a gong: a circle of bronze the size of a house, situated at the summit of the citadel itself. It was the signal for the descent into Hell.