The Way of Things: Upper Kingdom Boxed Set: Books 1, 2 and 3 in the Tails of the Upper Kingdom (23 page)

“I
spoke out of turn, earlier. I meant no offense.”

Still
nothing.

 
“I thought you were
going to hurt the child. I assumed ill of your character and your family. For
that I ask that you forgive me. Please.”

She
stopped dead in her tracks, and he almost bumped into her.

“You assumed?”

“Yes.”

“You
assumed?”

“Yes,
I assumed. I was wrong.”

“You
assumed. You did not
see?”

“I
was not ‘in your soul,’ as you put it. To do so without permission or purpose
is dishonorable. But regardless, I was in the wrong. And I’m very, very sorry.”

 
Her stare was cold,
inscrutable, as if she were weighing him in the white hot fire of her eyes. He
allowed himself to be weighed in that scale for it seemed the only means by
which she had to judge the world around her.

So beautiful a measure,
he
noted,
but the scales unbalanced.

“You were not wrong.”

And
for several moments longer, her gaze did not waver until she turned, resuming
the march down the steep road and leaving the Seer standing alone.

 
A golden-orange hand
brought him back into the sunshine.

“Hey,
can I join you?”

 
“Please do,” he said.

And he held up the last kz’laki,
the crispy honey coating only now beginning to melt and slide down onto the
leather of his glove.

“Do you like these?”

“A
honey-roasted banana! I love honey-roasted bananas! My father used to make them
for special occasions! Why? Don’t you like them?”

“They’re disgusting.”

“Well, thanks! I love them.”

He offered her his arm and
naturally, she took it, leaning into him with such casual familiarity that he
quickly forced the Major out of his thoughts.

“Did you have a good day, my dear?”

“Mmhmm,”
she said through a sticky mouthful, “Interesting places, markets. Real
maelstrom of the feline condition. Great joy, great poverty. Everyone trying to
claw out a meager little existence up here in the remotest of places, on the
most barren of peaks. The past and the future meeting and mingling on one
crazy, crowded, busy street. So, am I really going to have six kittens?”

Even
though she was the one with the mouth full of banana, it was Sireth who almost
choked.

“What
– what was that?”

“That’s
what you said last night.
‘Kittens. Six kittens. Six grey striped kittens.’
”

“I
said that?”

“Yep.
I know ‘cause I was there.”

“Ah.
Yes. Well...”

He began to wish that one of those
deep muddy ruts might turn his ankle after all, for a fall might distract her
long enough and prevent him from explaining. He cleared his throat.

“Now, that was not necessarily a
vision, my dear. I was not in my own soul, now was I? You said so yourself.
Perhaps, this, this tiger who speaks through me has, has a
family.
Yes,
a family of kittens. And naturally, being tigers, they would be striped?”

She
grinned at him. “You are a terrible liar.”

“I
know.”

“Do
you think I’m naive?”

“Did
I say that too?”

“No.
No, just asking. Do you?”

“Well,
perhaps. After a fashion.”

She
sighed and tossed the stick to the side of the road.

“Figures.”

“But that’s not necessarily a bad
thing, my dear. It connotes a certain pureness of heart, one that is not
encountered nearly enough in these days. It is something that we at
Sha’Hadin
seek for years on end to achieve.”

“Naivety?
You seek to achieve naivety?”

“No,
but a form of it. Innocence. Guilelessness. Lack of prejudice. Those sorts of
things.”

“Oh.
Wow. I should have been a monk.”

He
patted her hand, wisely choosing to hold his tongue, and together, they
continued the last leg of the journey, down to the Inn on the Roof of the
World.

 
And at a broken window,
high atop the Inn on the Roof of the World, a figure stood, thinking and
planning and wishing he had never seen the madness that was about to befall
them, a madness which would so completely crack the foundations of the
Matriarchy and send their Kingdom crumbling into utter chaos. As he stood
there, high above the Roof of the World, he cursed himself for ever thinking he
could possibly be Enough.

 
Truth be told, he
wasn’t certain there was anyone who was.

The sun was sinking down behind
strange, unfamiliar peaks, but nonetheless, in the distance, he could still
count torches dotting into existence as shadows fell across home and farm
alike.
Not so different,
Kirin thought,
and perhaps no different at
all.
The thought afforded him some measure of comfort for he had found none
these past hours as he sat by the broken window in the Inn at the Roof of the
World. In fact, he was grateful for it, for tonight, comfort was a blanket he
could not chance wearing.

Tonight, the falcon had returned.

There
was a knock at his door.

“Come.”

He
recognized the footfall immediately and smiled as his brother dropped himself
down at his side.

“Hello
Kirin. You been here all day?”

“I
have.” He reached over, to run his thumb along the needlework of Kerris’ new
cuff. “Very nice.”

“Glad
you like it. You paid for it, after all.”

That brilliant smile flashed for
him, brighter even than the setting sun and for a brief instant, the Captain’s
burdens seemed to lift a little from his shoulders. His brother had uncanny
abilities.

“The Scholar tells me you got a
note from the Empress tonight.”

Kirin looked down. He was still
clutching the parchment tightly in his grasp, crushed and well worn from
reading. It smelled faintly of lotus.

“Yes.”

“So
we’re heading out in the morning, are we?”

“Yes.”

“But
not to
DharamShallah.
”

“No.”

“Can you tell me where?”

“I
don’t know.”

“Ah.
Well. That’s always good news for a Guide, isn’t it? Now how about why?”

Kirin
weighed the question carefully, his response even more so.

“Kerris, there is a threat to the
Kingdom. A threat which may overturn everything we know. Destroy our society.
Change
things.”

“Dogs?”

“Worse.”

“We
haven’t finished then, have we?”

He
finally turned to regard his twin, as blue eyes met blue for several long
moments.

“No,
we have not finished.”

“And
you really don’t know where we are going?”

“We
should find that out tonight.”

“Hence
the opium?”

Kirin
growled, his tail lashing once as it lay curled at his feet.

“How did you know about that?”

“I had a few drinks in the
marketplace with the Alchemist. She’s been quite chummy of late. Anyway, she
said you’re going to give it to the Seer, in hopes of finding out where this
‘tiger’ is hiding.”

“Something
like that.”

Kerris
shifted position on the hard mahogany floor, chewing his bottom lip a moment before
speaking.

“Well, now don’t take my head off
when I tell you this, Kirin, but I have
sampled
minute quantities of
opium on rare occasions—” He held up a grey palm. “— when I was
much younger, of course. Not much, though, or often, what with it being
illegal, and all...”

The
Captain glared at him.

“Yes.
Right. Anyway, it’s been my experience that opium tends to make things a little
distorted, a little unreal. I would hesitate to trust anyone under its spell,
let alone try to follow his directions. We could be riding in circles for days
on end. In fact, we could ride straight off the edge of the earth.”

“We
have no choice, Kerris. Apparently, opium is an integral part in the Ritual of
Farsight and that the monks of
Sha’Hadin
have been using it for
generations. benAramis assures me it is quite effective.”

 
 
“Oh, I’m sure it’s effective, Kirin,” Kerris
grinned. “I just find it funny that you, of all people, would be so ready to
bend Imperial law to accomplish this task. It’s not like you.”

“Yes,
I know.” Kirin smiled now. “Perhaps somewhere, underneath all this gold, there
is a small streak of silver?”

His brother laughed easily,
enjoying the compliment and the mutual good humor between them, for it did not
come often enough. The Captain of the Guard was always busy with important
matters, whereas nothing Kerris did was important. It was the way of things.

He
sighed and picked at a crust of mud on his yak-hide boots.

“So, do you need my help tonight?”

“Need it? No. Desire it? Always.”

“I’m
not sure what I can do.”

“Neither
am I.”

Kerris
turned to gaze out the window.

“Because
I think I’m having problems again...”

The
weight that had been so thankfully lifted began to slide back.

“Problems?”

“Forgetting problems.”

“Oh.
Those.” He nodded slowly.
This was not good.
“You haven’t had those for
awhile.”

“My arms. My back...” Kerris shook
his head. “No recollection whatsoever.”

“Do
you remember the avalanche?”

“There
was
an avalanche, then? I told you.”

“Yes,
you did.”

“So
what happened?”

“You
and the Scholar almost went over a mountain edge. She climbed up your back.”

“Ah.
Right.
’Climb.’
I see. Is Quiz alright?”

“Quiz
is fine. The Alchemist gave you something for the pain. Perhaps that has
affected your memory.”

“Well
you see, that’s not all.”

Blast.
This was very bad.

“Tell me.”

“The other morning, when I was out
with the Scholar, there was an incident. She remembers it all quite vividly,
but me...” He shrugged, dropping his hands into his lap. “Maybe you should find
yourself another Guide, Kirin. Someone who won’t forget his way back home.”

“Nonsense.
You are the best Guide in the Kingdom, and there is no one I would rather have
to lead our expedition, ‘forgetting problems’ or no. Do you understand this?”

Kerris
said nothing, so his brother nudged him with the point of an elbow.

“Besides, First is luck and you are
our lucky omen. You saved the Seer, remember? You told that little boy.”

“Yes,
I do seem to remember that.”

“Good.
Now, it is still early and we have many hours before the Second Watch. Have you
eaten?”

Kerris
grinned, shaking off the blanket of self-doubt with a toss of his head.

“No and it smells delicious. I say,
this Inn has quite the remarkable kitchen. Perhaps I shall retire here when I’m
an old man.”

“Then I will join you and we shall
grow old together.”

Like
sunlight and shadow, or the interlocking wheel of Yin and Yang, the brothers
rose to their feet and went down for supper.

***

Fallon
stretched her slender arms over her head and breathed deeply the cold evening
air. Despite being a jungle girl, she had to admit that the mountains in
moonlight were breathtaking and she stepped out of the light of the Inn to
afford herself a better view.

She
could grow to like this.

Peaks
of silver floated like ice floes over the wispy white water of cloud that rose
up from the valleys. Torches burned from faraway homes and even farther still,
she could imagine the Cave of a Thousand Eyes, pouring light in golden streams
from its many gaping mouths. That sight would stay in her memory forever. She
could almost hear chanting.

No, she
could
hear chanting.

Ears
pricked, she drew her cloak tightly around her shoulders and followed.

This
wasn’t the deep, somber mantras that had underscored life in
Sha’Hadin
,
but rather, scales, throaty and sensual, sliding up and down in pitch like a
tune on a zither. It was faint but growing as she tracked it back behind the
Inn towards a large outcropping of rock. Silhouetted against the moon was a
pile of boulders, precariously balanced as if by some playful giant, towering
many times higher than a man out of the mountainside. And beyond that, she saw
the singer.

Cross-legged
on the very edge of the mountain, the Alchemist sat clutching the red satin
pouch in her palms as an offering to the stars above. Silver smoke flowed from
her lips into red satin folds and for a moment, the pouch seemed almost to
pulse with life, throbbing like a heartbeat, swirling with smoke within.
Impossible,
Fallon blinked as she carefully braced her boots against ruts
in the steep frozen ground. Slowly, al Shiva lowered the pouch to her side.
There was no movement now as it floated and bobbed on its tether but the
Scholar was certain the pouch was just a little fuller than before.

Go
back to the Inn,
whispered a voice inside her head.
This is no place for
naive young tigresses with altogether too much curiosity and not nearly enough
common sense.
Go back and enjoy a cup of tea with that handsome grey
lion, take another look at the Fhae’roh’s bangle about his neck. Something,
anything, other than be witness to such strange, otherworldly events.

But with a scrunch of her nose, she
silenced the voice and sneaked closer.

Next,
the Alchemist produced a golden bowl, large and shallow, quite similar to her
father’s wok back on the farm. She held a long stemmed chalice up to the
moonlight and it seemed as if that same silver smoke rose like mist from the
depths of the glass. When she poured the contents into the bowl, there was a
roar of rushing waters and the surface grew still.

“Sahidi,”
Sherah murmured.

“They
live?”
said the waters.

 
“Still,
sahidi.
But the way to
Pol’Lhasa
is barred. There was an avalanche.”

“Your
destination?”

“Tonight,
sahidi.
The Ritual of Farsight.”

“Learn
it.”

Fallon
craned her neck, for upon that strange, still surface, she could see a face
reflected in the moon’s pale glow. A striped face, as white as the moon, as
cold as the mountain peaks which surrounded them, stars sparkling deep within
empty, soulless eyes.

Those
eyes flashed at her.

“Who?!”

Sherah
whirled and Fallon jumped back, her boots slipping on the frozen ground. She
yelped and grabbed for the rock, praying that her claws would hold and that she
would be spared yet another edge-of-cliff adventure. She wasn’t at all certain
that the Alchemist would be such a ready climb.

Her
claws clung fast, boots kicking at the shale beneath her feet, trying to regain
some sort foothold. Sherah was beside her in an instant.

“You are safe,” purred the throaty
voice. “You shall not fall.”

She
offered Fallon a long, speckled hand, and the tigress accepted, picking her
steps carefully to where the Alchemist had been seated. Together, they stood and
gazed over the sheer cliff-face, where tiny bits of shale were already more
than halfway to the valley floor below.

“Who
was that?” asked the Scholar.

“Who
was whom?”

“The face. The face in the water.”

“There
was no face in the water.”

“But
I saw—”

“Moonlight.”

“And,
and stripes. I saw a striped face in the water. I know I did.”

Sherah
smiled at her. “You saw your own face, reflected in the moonlight.”

“But
the voice—”

“There
was no voice.”

“But
you were talking.”

“I
was praying.”

“To
whom?”

“Prayer
is an intimate matter. But we should get you back to the Inn. You’ve had a bit
of a fright.”

“No.
No, I’m fine, really.”

Sherah
turned slowly, and golden eyes held green.

“No. You’ve had a terrible fright.
You almost fell from a cliff, yet again. We shall go back now and I will tell
no one. Perhaps then, they will allow you to remain with us for our work is not
yet done. Otherwise, the Captain may have to send you home to the jungle, to
your mother and father and all of your happy, married sisters...”

Fallon felt her thoughts floating
away, just like those silver mountain peaks adrift on seas of cloud. The
Alchemist reached up to smooth away the strands of orange mane that had fallen
into her face. It was a soothing touch, reassuring, almost maternal and Fallon
was surprised to find tears coursing down her own cheeks.

“Don’t
tell them, please? I don’t want to go back.”

“Shh.
Of course I won’t. It will be our little secret.” al Shiva wrapped a protective
arm around the thin shoulders. “Besides, the grey lion grows fond of you.”

“Really? You think so?”

“I
know so.”

“Wait!
Your things—”

Fallon tossed a backwards glance
over her shoulder, to where the red satin pouch, golden bowl and chalice had
lain.

“Things?”

There
was nothing there.

“Oh,
never mind. My mistake. I’ve had a bit of a fright.”

And
like sunlight and shadow, or the interlocking wheel of Yin and Yang, the two
women began the trek up the steep paths to the Inn.

***

“Major?”

There was no response.

“Major, are you quite alright?”

“I’m fine.”

Sireth
laid down his hookah pipe and rose to his feet. Major Ursa Laenskaya was
already standing. She had been since he had retired to these chambers to
meditate, smoke and prepare himself for tonight’s journey. However, against his
better judgment, she had insisted on remaining in the same room and as the
night had worn on, the opium’s heady vapors grew thicker, more noxious by the
hour. Her usually sharp eyes had become dulled, her acid tongue less cutting
until finally she had grown quite still. Somehow, she had managed to keep her
feet beneath her and he was in fact impressed that she was not swaying.

“It
is time to go down now.”

“Yes.”