Free The Dragon and the Lotus (Chimera #1) by Joseph Robert Lewis

in dark shades of crimson and violet, they came to a crossroads and Asha paused. Priya stood beside her, the bamboo wand in her hand, the milky lotus blooms glowing softly in her hair. “Which way now?”
    “Chandra said there was fighting somewhere to the west. The Persians may be in Rajasthan. And as far east as this valley, apparently. I’m not eager to stumble onto a battlefield any time soon.”
    “Neither am I. But where there is a battlefield, there are usually people in need of help. Perhaps in need of medicine,” Priya said, petting the small mongoose. “After all, what’s the point of traveling across the country, of seeing all these places and learning about medicines, if not to help people?”
    “I don’t know. It’s never as simple as just handing someone a cup of tea, is it?” Asha said. “We’ll go south for a while. Maybe we can find some place warm where people need help, at least for a season or two.” Asha started walking. “I’m tired of these mountains and ghosts. They’re depressing.”

Chapter 3
The Shining Scales
    1
    Asha gazed out over the still surface of the vast blue waters. The lake stretched out to the horizon where only a thin black line marked the far bank. A warm breeze rushed across the wide open fields behind her, rippling through the endless rows of jute and beans and the distant mango orchards to gently push her toward the lake where the wind sent a thousand tiny wavelets to wrinkle out across the water.
    “You like it here,” Priya said. The nun plucked the little mongoose from her shoulder and set him on the ground. “Jagdish likes it too.”
    “Jagdish likes it wherever you are. I think he’s addicted to the smell of lotuses in bloom.”
    Priya smiled. The dozen white lotus blossom nestled in her thick black hair were always in full bloom, always open and exhaling their unmistakable scent. The nun insisted that the roots in her scalp did not hurt her at all.
    Enormous white clouds drifted serenely across the sky, riding the wind wherever it took them and casting enormous shadows on the face of the earth. Wide-winged and long-legged birds sailed overhead in the thousands, flocking in every direction at every height. They swooped down by the dozen to flutter and splash into the lake where they swept back their wings to float and bathe and fish.
    To her left, Asha watched a crested grebe strut regally along the bank. It paused to consider her, displaying its proud white mask and black crown, and then it slipped into the water to join its companions. Asha stepped back onto the dirt road that followed the lake’s winding shore line and said, “There are worse places in the world. Much worse.”
    For the next hour they strolled along the water’s edge and Asha described for Priya the birds gliding across the lake, the tall flowers on the shore, and the expanse of farmland to their right. Hundreds of tiny figures stooped in the fields, poking and weeding and prodding and snipping. Priya tapped the road lightly with her long bamboo rod, tracing the edge of the grass and nudging little pebbles out of her path.
    In the distance, Asha saw a dark shape towering above the hills. The ancient temple rose sharp and sheer to a level roof, a rectilinear silhouette of black on sky blue. She wondered idly how many hundreds of statues, how many countless painted gods stood posed along the tiers of the temple walls, and which one presided over the region. Shiva, probably . She didn’t wonder very long. It never mattered unless there was a festival, and then it only barely mattered. At least, not to her.
    She chewed on the sliver of ginger in the corner of her mouth. “There’s a town up ahead. We’ll probably get there by supper time if we keep up the pace.”
    “But you don’t want to keep going this way, do you?”
    Asha sniffed. “It’s a nice lake. I’d like to stay here a day or two and look at the frogs, and snails, and maybe the lilies. You never know when you might