Dragonkeeper

Dragonkeeper is a 2003 young adult (YA)/children’s fantasy novel by Australian author Carole Wilkinson. It is the first book in the Dragonkeeper series, which includes two trilogies and a prequel. The first trilogy centers on Ping, a former enslaved girl and the last Dragon Keeper, and is set during the time of the Han Empire in historical China, while the second trilogy follows a novice monk named Tao and is set 465 years later. In Dragonkeeper, Ping rescues Danzi, the last, aging dragon of the emperor’s collection, and takes him on a journey to the Ocean. The two encounter constant dangers along the way, including a fierce dragon hunter who is determined to sell Danzi’s body parts to the highest bidder. As Ping becomes the true Dragon Keeper, she discovers her hidden strengths and abilities, learning about Friendship and the Meaning of Loyalty, grasping The Complexities of Responsibility and Coming of Age, and Combating Systemic Exploitation and Cruelty.

Carole Wilkinson started her writing career in her forties after a career of working in laboratories and has since written over 30 books. She was first inspired to pen Dragonkeeper when she researched dragon-themed mythology and came across a story about an emperor who kept dragons until the beasts’ caretaker failed to care for them properly and pickled a dead dragon to hide his crimes. The Dragonkeeper series became the 2004 Book of the Year, as recognized by the Children’s Book Council of Australia.

This guide refers to the 2005 Scholastic paperback, which was originally only available through the school market.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide contain depictions of graphic violence, death, child abuse, animal cruelty, and death by suicide.

Plot Summary

A young enslaved girl (whose name is later revealed to be Ping) lives in the remote mountain palace at Huangling, where she is regularly abused by Master Lan, the lazy, aging man who neglects his duties of watching over the remaining Imperial Dragons. (The dragons were banished to Huangling long ago due to the emperor’s fear of them.) Now, the girl takes care of the dragons alone and has no friends except for a rat named Hua (“blossom”). The girl spends most of her time with Hua and often sneaks away to the long-abandoned imperial palace to look at art. However, she is content with her life despite its limitations, and she believes that the far-off places depicted in the palace murals are not real.

One day, the female dragon dies, and the girl assumes her death was a result of the girl not knowing how to properly care for her. Master Lan knows that he will be blamed for the dragon’s death, so he hauls the dragon’s corpse out of the dungeon and pickles it to hide the evidence. This makes the girl feel guilty, and she begins to take better care of the remaining dragon, whom she discovers is hiding a large, smooth rock (later revealed to be an egg). One day, the emperor arrives with his retinue, which includes a cruel dragon hunter named Diao. They all eat the pickled dragon, not knowing what it is. The girl is horrified to overhear the emperor’s plans to sell the remaining dragon’s body parts to Diao, so she frees the dragon, and they escape together.

The dragon, Long Danzi, reveals that he can speak psychically to the girl, Ping. He demands that she help him to reach the fabled Ocean so that he can heal himself, but she only agrees when she learns that the emperor has declared her a sorcerer and has ordered her to be found and executed. Because Danzi’s wing was injured in the escape, the two must travel on foot while Danzi uses his limited shapeshifting ability to avoid detection.

As they journey, they stay with kind farmers, who give Ping a gown that belonged to their deceased daughter. Danzi forces Ping to bathe and comb her hair, then begins to teach her the history of dragons, explaining that they were once wild but grew accustomed to captivity after the emperors captured them long ago. Danzi is the only remaining wild dragon. He also teaches Ping about the life force known as qi and begins to train her in how to channel it. However, she is only able to harness her anger in order to control the qi.

Ping and Danzi meet a young scholar who tells them that the emperor has died from food poisoning. (The text implies that the pickled dragon meat was the culprit.) Danzi notices that the proximity of Ping’s iron knife has harmed the dragon stone, so they detour to the capital city of Chang’an to meet his old friend, a seemingly ageless herbalist named Wang Cao. Wang Cao cures the dragon stone and gives Ping money to obtain new supplies. When Ping sees the dragon hunter, Diao, in the marketplace, she and Danzi hurriedly head to the remote town of Fengjing. They are initially welcomed, but they soon discover that Diao is there. At the dragon hunter’s insistence, the villagers imprison Ping and Danzi, and Ping uses her qi to free them. However, Diao has already claimed the dragon stone, devastating Danzi.

Ping and Danzi continue their journey without the stone. One night, Ping finds a lake where other villagers are about to sacrifice a young girl to a lake dragon in exchange for rain. The villagers nearly sacrifice Ping instead, but Danzi rescues her. At her request, Danzi makes an arduous flight into the clouds to bring rain to the villagers so that they will stop trying to sacrifice girls for the sake of a good harvest. Danzi is severely injured by the attempt, but Ping heals him and stitches up his injured wing once more.

Danzi leads Ping to the Yellow River, where she befriends a boatwoman named Jiang Bing, who agrees to ferry them toward the ocean. Ping grows closer to Jiang Bing during the journey and begins to fantasize about a life on the river with this new mother figure.

When Jiang Bing brings them to Wucheng, an eerie city of magicians and sorcerers, Danzi reveals that he led them there so that they can hunt for the lost dragon stone. Ping’s qi allows her to locate the stone psychically, and she follows its call and finds it in the possession of a necromancer. When she and Danzi take the stone, the necromancer chases them and reveals that Jiang Bing was his pawn all along. Ping escapes with the stone but returns to the boat to rescue Danzi and Hua as well. They sail away, leaving the necromancer behind.

On the boat, Danzi teaches Ping some more qi exercises and tries to explain that she is the hereditary Dragon Keeper and is descended from one of the two original families of dragon keepers. He offers her a dragon mirror, which will bond her to his bloodline forever. Before she can accept this heirloom, the boat collides with the emperor’s imperial ship, which is taking him to a remote hunting lodge. To Ping’s disbelief, the new emperor, Liu Che, is a boy not much older than herself. Against his minister’s advice, Liu Che befriends Ping and takes her and Danzi to the lodge. He offers Ping the role of Imperial Dragon Keeper and decides to keep her and Danzi there. He turns the hunting grounds into a wildlife preserve for Danzi’s use, and Ping grows closer to Liu Che despite her resolve to free Danzi. Before she can escape, the herbalist Wang Cao arrives at the lodge at Liu Che’s command. Wang Cao drugs Ping and escapes with Danzi, believing that he himself should be the true Dragon Keeper.

Heartbroken and despairing, Ping is unsure how to go on. Liu Che invites her to climb Tai Shang Mountain with him so that Heaven can confirm his rule. She travels as far as she is allowed to, then watches as Liu Che’s rule is confirmed. As she prepares to leave, she looks over toward a neighboring peak and sees Diao attacking Wang Cao and Danzi. She scrambles over to them. Wang Cao has been fatally shot by a crossbow bolt, and Hua is mortally injured, but Ping uses her qi to throw Diao off the mountain, saving Danzi.

Danzi takes Hua into his care and reconciles with Ping. Despite her knowledge that the emperor will never forgive her, she resumes her journey with Danzi. However, as they finally reach the ocean, Ping drops the stone, which hatches into an infant dragon—Danzi’s son and the last free, imperial dragon. Danzi names his son Long Kai Duan and leaves him in Ping’s care. He then takes Hua and himself across the ocean to the Isle of the Blest so that they can both be healed. Ping is determined to be Kai’s protector for the rest of her life.