The Emperor's Gift

-3-

“Yes, how can such a thing be? Our captain is afraid of spiders and mice yet his mother is the dragon lady. I would rather take orders from that woman than her cowardly son.”

“Fool, you do take order from her.”

“Those Tigers had cannons. With a junk like that we would give the orders.”

Our captain is a boy. Though the sailors mock him, I think well of him. He has left his home and family to seek his dreams. He is the captain of this junk and he is the captain of his dreams. When night falls I will creep into his cabin. I want to see this boy. Now it is day and time for me to sleep.

While the boat maneuvers the shallow waters of the canal I sleep, I sleep for miles and miles. The shadows grow long and a twilight hush falls over the sailors. For the first time since I left the shrub I feel so alone. The air is indigo now and the first stars appear. I do not wish upon them nor do I feel like singing. Who is there to sing to, who is there to sing with? What must my mother and father be feeling now? I did not even say good-bye. I know that if I had waited to say goo

I hear the most beautiful music. It is not the chirring of crickets, it sounds like music played on a silver harp with strings made of rays of starlight.

“I play the music of dreams come true.” The voice sings in an airy whisper. “ I sing the songs of regret.”

There is a soft green glow coming from a dark corner of the boat. A lounging spider strokes the sliver threads of her web. “Come, you know you will. Why hesitate? Who can resist the beautiful? No, not you, come, I will teach you to sing. That is why you have come so far isn’t it, to sing? You have never heard such a melody as mine. I will teach you more than anyone ever has. Come closer and feel my vibrations.”

She is right I had never heard such music. I have been warned never to approach a spider, yet I creep closer. I do not know how to resist. Her translucent skin glows as if a flame glimmers within.

“I will instruct you in the entanglements of desire. I will school you in the snares of success. Come closer and learn.” She sings in a smoky voice as one who tells tales and whispers secrets. She draws me nearer. “You can tell the moth by the flame.”

 I hear, but do not hear, the sound of oars stirring the water. She is the flame and I am the moth. A dingy approaches The Dragon Moon.

 How marvelous is her music! “I will teach you everything.” She sings in a small voice. I am very near her now. What inner light makes her shine?

Shadows sway in a lantern’s blush. A dark silhouette tiptoes across the floor. The lantern’s light reveals the hideous form of the spider. She drools sucking on the internal fluids of a firefly. That is why she glows. Her corpulent body is covered with black hairs. She stares greedily at me with her thousand hungry eyes. I fly away to a far corner of the junk back within a crate of tea. I can hide but I know the spider is there in the dark waiting and watching.

The flapping of the ropes in the wind, the lapping water, the creaking deck all startle and set my heart racing. There are voices coming from the boy captain’s quarters. I want to fly away but I am afraid to move. I cannot stand hiding and waiting for the spiders approach. I carefully creep to the boy captain’s quarters. A woman sits near him on his bed. She is wearing black silk pantaloons like a Turk. She wears a pearl handled dagger and a silver revolver. She speaks softly and kindly like the spider. I chirr a warning to the boy. He lifts up his shining face in the light of the lantern. There are tears in his eyes.

“You are a fine captain. I am proud of you. Soon you will command a feet of junks. Do all your men obey you son?”