On Qu Yuan and the Loss of
the Great Dragons
(Forbidden
Book)
It's rare for any book banned by the Divine
Inquisition to have an actual printing history: once something gets to the
publishers, it's generally considered too late to suppress it without somebody
noticing. In this particular case, the
Host was fortunate in that the printer was a reclusive 19th Century enthusiast
who had expired, gone to Heaven and idly mentioned that he had been in
possession of a tome purporting to explain why there were no more dragons. A team was dispatched to destroy the print
run, not to mention wreck the printing press itself. There was a faint chance that an ethereal
with the right configuration of strands might be able to somehow reconstruct
the book from the press, or at least the True title of the book. This was deemed too risky to permit.
As the above suggests, On Qu Yuan and the Loss of the Great Dragons
is not the actual title of the original work (which supposedly only exists in
Yves' Library, and only available to those with a legitimate
need-to-know). The gist of the text is
available in abstract form, carefully filtered and rewritten to remove whatever
'flavor' might have lingered from the original; more security. Copies of the abstract are not permitted off
of the celestial plane, and are certainly forbidden to be brought on the
ethereal plane.
This may seem somewhat paranoid, but an examination
of even the abstract explains why the necessity for this much care. The document narrates the circumstances of
the death of Qu Yuan, a Chinese poet and minister of
the third century BC. Before his exile, Qu Yuan was associated with one of the nations that existed
prior to the establishment of the Qin Dynasty. He is renowned in Chinese history for his
skill in poetry and his devotion to his country; the latter was what killed
him. Upon hearing that the capital had
been conquered, the poet wrote what would be his final work and committed
suicide via drowning. The efforts of
others to save him eventually resulted in the Duan Wu
festival, which involves boat racing and offerings of food to river dragons.
So far, so mundane - but it's the esoteric aspects
of On Qu Yuan
and the Loss of the Great Dragons that is of interest. The book makes it clear that Qu Yuan was what modern usage would refer to as a Soldier
for the Chinese gods. His falling from
favor and eventual suicide was part of a long-term campaign to determine what
influences would be paramount over the newly-formed Imperial Chinese
dynasty. Qu
Yuan's faction lost on both a physical and metaphysical level: the Qin Dynasty was notoriously hostile to anything that did
not fit its rather legalistic and ruthless view of the world, and lasted just
long enough to permanently influence all future dynasties. Qu Yuan apparently
realized that this would happen, and devised a plan to ameliorate matters.
What was at issue was who was to have ultimate
control over the ethereal Chinese spirits known as 'dragons'. Qin Shi Huang, the Qin king (and soon to be Emperor) was obsessed with control
of water (which is, of course, the primary element associated with dragons);
and his obvious plan to associate itself with the Yellow Emperor argued that a
further correspondence was in the works.
Like many Chinese officials, Qu Yuan was
simultaneously drawn to both Confucian and Taoist thinking, and he devised a
way by which he could guarantee the independent existence of the dragons. The poet crafted the metaphysical equivalent
of a legal document that 'bound' the dragons to him, personally. The quotes are in place because Qu Yuan's end of the bargain was that he could not himself
command the dragons to do anything;
they were made independent of any human influence (including, emphatically,
that of the Qin Dynasty). Qu Yuan then voluntarily
gave himself to the water in order to power the agreement, briefly manifested
as a Ghost in order to instruct the local villagers in the best way to maintain
what rituals would be useful to sustain the effect and ascended to the Chinese
afterlife through sheer force of Will.
The Qin Dynasty, stopped at the onset from
acquiring access to the water-based power offered by dragons, instead tried to
access earth-based power; but terra-cotta figurines, liquid mercury and burying
Confucian scholars alive were not enough to keep the dynasty operating for more
than a few decades.
And all of that was just in the abstract. The full text explains in clear and concise detail
how Qu Yuan did all of this, indicates six of the
most likely major mistakes that somebody trying to recreate the original pact
might make, discusses how to adapt the rituals to the modern era and engages in
some exceptionally worrisome and informed speculation on Why Dragons Don't
Exist Anymore, not to mention How To Bring Them Back. It, in fact, does everything except provide a
list of ingredients.
This is a problem for the Host. The continuing nonexistence of dragons is one
of the more potent symbols of Heaven's power over the ethereal gods; having
them come back would not be a disaster, but it would be a serious blow to
prestige (which concerns the angels working in the ethereal plane as much if
not more as it would their superiors).
It has not yet been established that the ritual listed in Qu Yuan and the Loss of the Great Dragons
would counteract whatever-it-is that keeps dragons from existing permanently in
the Symphony, but the consensus of the best researchers Heaven has is that the
possibility is there, and that it's a good one.
Fortunately, the Horde has not really become involved - most of Hell
simply doesn't care, and the ones that do usually approve of the lack of
dragons anyway - so the Host simply keeps an eye out to make sure that no
corporeal copies exist, that nobody takes a celestial copy outside of the
library and that as few entities as possible know the book's True name.
Oh, yes, for those wondering: the last time anyone's
seen Qu Yuan was during Uriel's
raid on the Chinese pantheon's home Domain.
He hasn't since shown up in Heaven and nobody's reported that he's shown
up in Hell (he wasn't precisely a candidate for that anyway), so what happened
to him is anyone's guess. Although most
people in the know assume that whatever happened to him included at least a
nodding familiarity with the Nineteenth Century publishing industry...