IN> May 27, 2001

[Moe Lane]

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 is 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...


-- 
Liber Licentae Moeticae
http://www.stormloader.com/users/moelane/innomine.html
Last Updated 01/16/06 - now with non-IN material