The Way of Things: Upper Kingdom Boxed Set: Books 1, 2 and 3 in the Tails of the Upper Kingdom (120 page)

There were eyes everywhere. Old,
decayed and shriveled, eyes lined the oily floor. Eyes sat in nooks in the
pocked walls, sat on urns, sat on rocks. Eyes dangled from the cables, attached
by the veins and tendons and hooks. Symbols of eyes were carved into the stone
of the walls, the floors, the posts and beams of this crumbling Ancient cavern.
It was almost impossible to walk without having to step over them.

Long-Swift shuddered. This was a
nightmare.

To their left, there was a shape
moaning on the ground. It was Yisu, curled up on himself in the shadows.
Long-Swift crossed carefully to where the villager lay, writhing on the floor.
He rolled him over with the toe of his boot and immediately, Yisu’s hands
sprang up to cover what was left of his face.
 
It was a caricature of horror, mouth frozen wide, tongue
stiffly protruding to one side. Breath was coming in short, shallow gasps and
there were bloody holes where his eyes had been.

Long-Swift swung his sword
downward, pressed the tip onto Yisu’s chest.

“You should never bed a girl
without her father’s consent,” he said. “Not even your eyes will absolve you of
that.”

And he drove the razor-sharp
point down, ending the man’s flailings.

“I see you,”
hissed a
voice inside his head and he swung around, gripping the sword with both hands.
There was no one but the Bear.

“I am Khan Baitsuhkhan,” called
the Bear into the darkness. “First Khan of All Khans, Son of the White Wolf,
Father of the Jackal. Ruler of all Peoples of the Earth. You may call me Bear.”

“Bear cub,”
hissed the
voice inside their heads.
“Rat-ling.”

“I am here for an Oracle, if one
exists in this pathetic excuse for a hovel.” The Khargan turned in a slow
circle, his Lion Killer gleaming deadly in the oil light. “Show yourself,
Little Needle.”

“Little Needle…”

Laughter now like the rumble of
distant thunder and they could see a shape rise in the darkness. Long-Swift
swallowed as a creature twice the size of the Bear began to move. From another
corner he saw a second shape, this one small and distorted and shining in the
oil light. It dragged itself toward the bigger, the palms echoing as they
slapped along the floor. It reached the mountain shape and began to climb,
heaving its skeletal body up and up, before sliding under the skin of the
massive shoulders, home. The mountain turned and trudged toward a pit made of
bones. Slowly, he waved a large hand and fire erupted in the hearth.

Long-Swift and the Khargan
exchanged glances before moving cautiously around the fire. They were astounded
at what they saw.

It was the biggest dog
Long-Swift had ever seen. Easily the size of two Khargans, with pelt the colour
of ink and arms the size of men’s torsos. His ears were cropped to tiny points,
his muzzle blunt with many layers of folding, swinging jowls and his long
rotting tail dragged on the floor as he moved. He wore little clothing and
watched the fire with one small, drooping eye.

Over his right shoulder, the
hideous pale face of a hairless dog whispered in his ear. It also had only one
eye, large and bulbous, and an appalling lack of teeth. The lower half of its
body was gone, sewn into the back of his companion.

The Eye of the Needle and the
Eye of the Storm. Two oracles. One body.

Long-Swift glanced at the
Khargan. There was no way even a man like the Bear could stand against such a
mountain.

“We know why you are here
,
”
came the voices together, almost as one. The Storm was a half-beat behind the
Needle and it created a disparate, echoing effect as they spoke.

“Why are we here?” asked the
Khargan.

“You fear the Khanmaker and
his Army of Blood.”

“I fear no one, Needle and
Storm. Not even you.”

“You need Magic. We have
Magic.”

“You will serve your Khan with
all your skill. It is your duty.”

“We have no duty, only
pleasure and pain. How will you pay us?”

“You have already been given two
eyes,” growled the Khan. “I will give you none of mine. I do not need you that
much.”

“You need us more.”
The
hairless dog shifted in its cradle of flesh, held out his bony hand. Two eyes
swung from his fingers by a measure of tendon and vein.

“We will accept these, then,
as down payment on your debt. Two prophecies for the Khan of Khans of Ulaan
Baator, Son of the White Wolf, Father of the Jackal. Ruler of all Peoples of
the Earth.”
It cackled like a crow.
“Muunokhoi Gansorigar of Gobay.”

The Bear’s birth name, known
only by Long-Swift and the Bear himself.

With a flick of a bony wrist,
one eyeball was tossed into the fire. The flames hissed and the Eye of the
Needle began to convulse.

“The fall of
Ulaan
Baator,”
he moaned and the Storm swayed slowly with him.
“The fall of
Ulaan Baator at the steel of Ulaan Baator. The girl has seen it. The eyes have
seen it. The head of the Head of Ulaan Baator falling at the feet of Ulaan
Baator on the Deer Stones of Tevd.”

The cavern echoed with the groan
and hiss and then silence for a very long time. Finally, the creature called
the Needle wheezed and pushed the second eye into its empty socket. It squealed
and howled, the Storm a heartbeat behind.

“And you, Swift Sumalbayar,
son of Swift Sumalnagar, also of Gobay. What would you give to see your Khan
victorious?”

“My life, Oracle,” said
Long-Swift. “But not my eyes.”

“Swift as swift, but one is
swifter. Singer of Songs caught by the Lover of the Lover of Lions. On the
Field of One Hundred Stones, a Khan rises, a Khan falls and an Abomination
sleeps in the gar of the Khanil! It is Abomination! Aaaaah!!!
”

The Eye of the Needle shrieked,
clapped a hand over the new eye and slowly, as if in a trance, the Eye of the
Storm did likewise.

“No eyes, the Magic will
betray us all. Ancestors and bones rise from the ashes. A trio of dragons race
through the skies. The world ends in ash and flame at the feet of Ulaan Baator
and Blasphemy will rule the day. The Khanmaker and the Magic and the Army of
Blood! The girl has seen it. The eyes have seen it. The Kingdoms of the World
will fall on the Deer Stones of Tevd.”

It was several long moments
before the Oracle grew still and took a deep breath, and then another. It
sounded like the breaking of ice. It sounded like an avalanche.

The Needle pulled the second eye
from its socket. This too was tossed into the flames to the smell of burnt
hair.

“We accept,”
they said as
they raised their ghastly faces to the Khan. Black tears were running down the
cheeks of the Needle.
“We will help the Khan of Khans defeat the Magic of
the Enemy. For a very small price.”

“And what would that be?” asked
the Khan.

“The eyes,”
they said
.
“Of the Khanmaker.”

Shar Ma’uul

There was a small crowd
gathering around the screens as all the duty staff of the lab had gathered to
see. Even a few from the Compound and Medicore had shown up, although the fetus
wasn’t due to be harvested for days yet. They were waiting on Persis Sengupta,
the linguist, to decide whether the writing was in fact, a form of Chinese or
merely the anxious scratchings of a terrified animal. Stranger things had
happened in forty-five years since they had been awake.

The animal herself had
finished her writing and was sitting cross-legged on the floor. She had dumped
all the pink jellied food pellets in order to use the tray and had placed them
all back after sniffing each one and making a face. Her mouth was moving now,
eyes closed, and it seemed she was singing to herself. The small crowd was
enthralled and for some reason, Dell felt a wave of relief. If the staff liked
this new addition, it might mean better treatment for her, perhaps a reprieve
from display in the Compound. Animals never did well when they were on display.

“May I see?” came a voice and
the staff parted as a tall elegant woman came through the lab. Persis Sengupta
paused to study the screens and she smiled at Dell. He could not bring himself
to smile back. She was so very elegant and he was only a junior keeper.

“Is there a way for me to
speak into that cell?”

“Yuh,” said 6 and everyone in
the lab held their breath as he raised the volume.

The sweet sounds of singing
floated up from the screens and now Dell allowed himself to smile. Only birds
sang so sweetly, birds and human sopranos, and this animal was no bird.

“Zǎo ān,”
said the
linguist into the speaker and the animal looked all around.

“Hello?” she said.
“Zǎo
ān! Ni shi shui?”

“This changes everything,”
the linguist said softly and Dell nodded.
“Wǒ de míngzì shì bǎo
sheng. Nǐ jiào shénme míngzì?”

“
Wǒ de míngzì shì
Fallon Waterford-Grey,
Huánghòu fǎyuàn xuézhě.”

“Empress?” Persis shook her
head. “I must be translating wrong…”

The animal rose to her feet,
stared up toward the speaker in the ceiling.

“Wǒ yǒu wǒ de
yīfú?”

“She wants her clothes…”

“Wǒ de zhàngfū?”

“Her husband…”

“Hé yī dà bēi de chá?”

“And a big cup of tea.”
Persis Sengupta turned to look at 6. “I need to speak to someone in security.
This is not an animal. It is a weapon of war.”

***

The jaguar slid off his horse to
stare at the most unnatural sunrise he had ever seen.

He had traveled all night in the
darkness and with very little moonlight, he had trusted only the goodwill of
his horse to keep from falling. They were very high up and normally, his heart
would be in his throat but for some reason, he felt nothing at all. Even the
thought of plummeting to his death down the mountainside wasn’t so bad. He had
fallen before and survived. Perhaps a fall from these peaks would do the trick.
There would certainly be no Alchemists or physicians to pick up the pieces of
his shattered life. No one to stitch him together or bind his broken bones or
feed him broth through a waterlily reed.

He sighed and looked out over
the gorge, eastward where the strange sun was rising. The sky was yellow, as
yellow as his mother’s eyes and the sun hung like a brilliant white lantern
suspended from a golden ceiling. Behind him, the Great Mountains shone
purple—mighty and regal and very, very cruel but here, as the Lower
Kingdom lay before him, he was surprised to see it flatten into hills and
valleys and rocky plains. It didn’t seem possible but there it was, almost
friendly and certainly easier for horses. The gateway to the Lower Kingdom lay
across this one last gorge.

There was another bridge.

Wide, flat and Ancestral, it
spanned the gorge on iron legs and he wondered how long it had been there. It
looked much safer than the rope bridge across the
Shi’pal
but then
again, he could see places where the railings had rusted through and others
where the square grey stone had crumbled away. He didn’t care. It could fall
out from under him and he would be dead from either the fall or the vast
crushing weight of the stones on top of him. But his horse would die too and
that would be a loss. It was a good horse.

He could hear the owl swooping
from above and he reached out a hand, catching a chiwa that dropped from the
sky.

“Thank you,” he called and the
owl arced a wing and soared over the gorge and for the first time in his life,
Yahn Nevye wondered what it would be like to be a bird.

He turned to the horse.

“Do you want this? I don’t like
chiwa. It’s too stringy.”

The horse snatched the rodent
out of his hand, tossed its head several times to break the bones, and dropped
it to the ground. Holding it down with a hoof, it began to tear the furry body
with its fangs.

Nevye sighed again and looked
back over the strange yellow plateau of the Lower Kingdom.

“Shar.”

“Yes,” he said to the horse.
“Yes, that’s right. That’s the word for yellow. Shar.”

“I find you, Shar.”

Now, his heart did leap into his
throat and slowly, he turned to see the Oracle appear from the trail behind
him. Everything he had ever believed in the world was changed in that instant.

He caught her as she ran into
his arms.

***

They left the village of
Lon’Gaar before the sun’s brooms had swept the sky but it was easy to follow
the trail. While the night’s snowfall had covered Nevye’s tracks, it recorded
the Oracle’s perfectly and Kirin was hopeful they would meet up before long.
The girl was at most three hours ahead of them, the jaguar perhaps six. Kirin
shook his head. Her brother, Naranbataar, was on foot once again, still
refusing a horse even after one was offered. He seemed tireless and Kirin
wondered if it was the stamina of dogs that made them such fearsome enemies.
But they were brutal as well and he vowed that, no matter what he had promised
the Seer, he would never forget that simple fact.

The morning grew bright very
quickly, the sky as clear as a summer’s day in
Pol’Lhasa
and the sun was
warm on their backs as they followed the mountainside north. In fact, Kirin was
surprised at the sunshine. He wondered how high they were, higher likely even
than
Sha’Hadin
or the Inn at the Roof of the World. The air was thin and
it required many breaths to fill his chest, and he wondered if that was why
dogs had longer noses, to breathe more air.

The terrain was far less harsh
than he had expected. It seemed the mountains were flattening, as if their Good
Mother were stretching her arms thin over this land. Peaks of purple could be
seen in the distance but for the most part, the land was gray and gold and
rolling. Sandstone, he knew and he wondered if the dogs mined these mountains
for ore. He couldn’t imagine it, not dogs and not with these roads. They were
little more than goat paths for it was well known that in the Lower Kingdom,
there were no true cities, only tribal villages, trading posts and Ancestral
ruins. Nothing that could be truly called civilization, not like the Upper or Eastern
Kingdoms.
Indeed,
thought Kirin to himself, he wondered if there was
little more than wilderness, shale and snow.

He shook his head, knowing it
was his pride talking. The road through the eye of the needle would be a long
one for him.

The Alchemist was riding at his
side and he tried not to look at her. It would be his undoing. She still held a
power over him and he would be hard pressed to resist. He prayed they would
return to the Army before nightfall. He still had Ling’s letter tucked in under
the yori. He hadn’t read it yet and he wondered why that was.

Sherah looked over at him as if
reading his thoughts and smiled.

“Thank you for letting me
accompany you,” she said.

“I needed a translator. Nothing
more.”

“Of course.”

Naranbataar had paused on an
outcropping of rock and Kirin watched him as he breathed the thin air, sifting
the scents. They reined their horses in to wait. Finally, he left the rock and
joined them. Traveling freely alongside, young aSiffh tossed his head and
snapped. The dog laid his ears back but Sherah said something to him and he
grunted. Kirin thought it sounded like a laugh.

He shook his head again.
Easier
for a khamel
, the Seer had said. He would never understand his life.

“Ask him if all of his land is
like this?”

“Like this?” said Sherah.

“Yes. Flat, hilly, rocky.” He
swept his hand toward the terrain before them. “Bleak.”

She spoke and the dog answered.

“Vast,” she corrected. “And
wide. He says much room for people and many yaks. He calls it the Plateau of
Tevd. The Cradle of the Moon.”

“Plateau of Tved,” he repeated,
rolling the words on his tongue as if they might find a home somewhere.

“Tevd,”
said the dog. It
sounded natural, earthy. “Holy Place. Cold.”

Kirin studied him, the Imperial
words sounding as odd on a canine tongue as canine words did on his.

“We call it Shibeth,” said
Sherah.

“Shibeth?” he frowned. “This is
Shibeth?”

“Of course.”

He couldn’t believe they were in
Shibeth. He had never been to Shibeth. It was taboo, forbidden, lost to them.
It was an Ancient province, indeed a holy one. The Ancestors had divided the
three Kingdoms from Shibeth according to history, given its capital,
Lha’Lhasa
,
to the cats. Many dynasties of war with the dogs and treaties with the
Chi’Chen
had cost them most of Shibeth including
Lha’Lhasa.
It was still a matter
of bitter political debate but cats are, after all, a political people.

“No war
Chanyu,”
said
Naranbataar.

“Chanyu?”

“It is their word for their
people,” said Sherah. “People of the Wolf.”

“Tell him this is not a mission
of war,
sidala.
But we will fight if we must.”

“He knows this,” she said. “But
still.”

The dog—Kirin found it
hard to think of him by his name—began to speak to the Alchemist and by
the tone of his voice, he was angry.

“What is he saying?”

“He is worried for his sister,”
she said. “He fears she is being led down dangerous roads by Shar Ma’uul.”

“Nevye,” Kirin growled. That was
one sentiment he shared with the dog. Perhaps the dog would throw the jaguar
over a cliff, sparing Kirin the trouble. Perhaps he would shoot him with an
arrow. He chased the thought from his mind.

“Asalan
kill Shar
Ma’uul?”

“Asalan?”

The Alchemist smiled, her golden
eyes gleaming.

“Lion.”

Kirin grunted now.

“Asalan
kill Shar
Ma’uul.” The dog grinned wickedly. “Naranbataar
bayartai.”

Somehow, Kirin didn’t need a
translation for that.

Together, the three of them
turned back onto the road to Tevd.

***

“So you not see this?” she asked
and he shook his head.

“No,” he said. “No, I don’t see
many things.”

“You are not Oracle.”

He looked up at her. She was so
very young.

“I am nothing,” he said. “I was
a soldier, but now, I am really nothing at all. Or maybe…”

He shrugged, looked down at the
ground. It was stone, earth and some snow. “Maybe I’m a little bit of
everything. I don’t know.”

“I think that is best way.”

He smiled to himself. Her accent
was adorable.

“Tell me story of Shar,” she
said and she knelt beside him in the learning pose, open and trusting like a
child. “Come please. Tell me.”

“It’s not very interesting.”

“I am judge, Shar.”

They were alone, sitting high
above the bridge with only mountains and pines, a horse and an owl for company.
Hunts in Silence sat on an outcropping of rock, watching them with huge yellow
eyes.

“Stand up,” he said. “Back
against that rock.”

Eagerly, she did and he grabbed
a stone, drew a very tight half-circle around her feet in the snow.

“Don’t move now,” he said,
looking up at her. “You are standing on a ledge over a very steep drop and if
you move, you will fall. Do you understand?”

She clapped her hands and
laughed and he realized that she was very beautiful. He swallowed and took her
hand, pulling her back to the ground. “Now you may sit, but don’t move from
this ledge. Your legs may dangle over but don’t move your body. Do you
understand still?”

She nodded, lowered her body to
the ground. She was lithe and graceful. A dancer.

He sat back on his haunches.

“I used to be a soldier,” he
said. “From the beginning of my life, I was a soldier. I ran the fastest in my
entire village. I shot the farthest arrows. I could throw a dagger through the
heart of a bushbuk from across a clearing. I was the very best soldier in all
of
Keralah.
That’s a very big province in
Hindaya
and because I
was the best, I was promoted very quickly to the Governor’s personal guard.”

“Impressive,” she said and her
tail moved from side to side in the snow. He thought it odd. His tail would
lash when angry or irritated, hers when happy. They were so very different.

“Since I was the best soldier
but still a very young soldier, they made me the personal guard over Tilka
Ragnar-Poole, the Governor’s only son.”

“Oh, very good!”

“No, very bad. Tilka was very
bad. He was a horrible boy. Brought much dishonour on his house to his father’s
shame. But still, it was an important position and I did it very well.”