The Way of Things: Upper Kingdom Boxed Set: Books 1, 2 and 3 in the Tails of the Upper Kingdom (54 page)

Kirin

***

Kerris shook
his head.

“It’s not
good, Kirin. That wound should have been treated immediately. Not only has it
festered, it looks like the original arrow may have pierced the lung. I wish
I’d been told.”

The Captain
straightened, placed hands on hips. “You could barely walk, Kerris, let alone
treat an injured horse. Can she be saved?”

The grey lion
made a face. “At the pace we’re keeping, it would have been better to leave her
at the garrison.”

“I’ll tell
Ursa.”

“Sorry.”

Kirin ran a
hand along the chest of the Imperial horse, the one that had carried Major Ursa
Laenskaya to and from battles for almost 5 summers. The horse did not flinch,
but its breathing was rasping and wet, and he knew his brother was right.
Still, the thought of losing yet another of their party was not a pleasant one,
especially one as magnificent as this. He set his face and turned to where the
others were sitting.

It was
evening, a warm evening with red skies, faint breeze, and a roaring fire. Quiz
had run down a young antelope, bringing a welcome change from their normal
rations of milk paste, jerky and figs. They were nearing the border of
Khanisthan
, had traveled through several
towns and villages, but mostly their company had been wild hares, gazelles,
vultures and the occasional badger. It had been a week since the delay in
Sri’Daolath
and Solomon had come every night
since.In his terms, ‘the Humlander was operational’, and Kirin could only take
that to be a good thing. He was dreading their meeting.

Kneeling at
the fire, twisting the skinned and roasting antelope on a makeshift spit, Ursa
glanced up as the Captain approached. His face said it all, and silent as a
shadow, she rose to her feet and left. He did not watch her but crouched down
to poke at the flames with a stick.

“Is it bad?”
asked the Scholar, tugging the tassels on her desert tunic. The bedrolls were
spread, two leopards already fast asleep, preparing for their turn at sentry
later in the night, and a somber mood had settled over the little party. All
that could be heard is the distant wind, and the crackling of the fire.

“Yes,” said
Kirin softly. “It is bad.”

“Will she
have to…” she let her words trail off as she suddenly realized the answer to
that question, and she covered her mouth with her hand. Sireth rose to his feet
and the Captain watched him go, walking in his long, ground-covering strides in
the direction opposite the horses. It was into the setting sun, and Kirin had
to squint to follow, but when he was but a speck silhouetted in the distance,
the man settled himself to the ground in what was likely a meditative pose.
Indeed, the mood was heavy all around.

“We need to
find water,” said the Alchemist, daring to meet his eyes with her golden ones.
There was no challenge in her gaze, no game, and Kirin found himself grateful.
She had been fairly ostracized from service these past days, as neither Kerris
nor the Seer would allow her to treat them, and it seemed as if she had finally
begun to understand the toll her cryptic ways had on others. Trust was, after
all, a freely given commodity. Once lost, it was not easily regained. “We have
little left for tea.”

Kirin nodded.
“Kerris says there are hot springs in two days’ time. Have we enough to last
until then?”

“It will
last,” she said, and she attempted a smile. He was weary of punishments, so he
sent it back, half-hearted though it may be. It seemed to be enough.

“I love hot
springs,” sang the tigress. “Sometimes my father would take us up the mountains
to hot springs near
Parnum’bah Falls.
Mother, do they stink! But after one dip in the water, you sleep like a
kitten.”

Again, Kirin
managed a weary smile. He had been unable to shake the sinking feeling in the
pit of his stomach for the last few days since the garrison. Actually, if he
put his mind to it, the sinking feeling had been there for weeks, if not
months, quite possibly since the journey into Farsight, that wonderful terrible
night at the Inn at the Roof of the World. He had just kept pushing it away,
further back and deeper in. The complications caused by the Seer’s temper, the
Alchemist’s mysteries, his brother’s vices and his own dark, dark glass just
seemed to compound the sensation.

And of
course, there was Solomon.

He could hear
the sounds of footfall, and he looked up to see Kerris approaching.

“We’re going
to try and treat her,” said the grey lion. “Sherah, would you fetch your bag of
noxious potions? We might need a little alchemy if the beast is to be saved.”

The
expression on her face was remarkable to behold, and Kirin wished he hadn’t
seen it. It made his heart turn in his chest. Quickly, but still with fluid
grace, she unfurled her long body and rose to her feet, turning with a sharp
motion that made the coins in her hair snap and jingle with the movement. And
then she was gone, rummaging through her bed roll and pack for the pouch
containing her ‘medicines’, digging out several and slipping up to Kerris’
side.

“I have never
worked on a living horse before,” she purred, and this time, Kirin did not
bristle. He had begun to wonder if her way of speaking was not as much a
practice of seduction or deception, but rather just the way she had learned to
speak. She had, after all, been raised in the company of Alchemists. “I am not
certain what I can do.”

“Neither am
I,” said Kerris. “But we’ll give it our best. She’s a fine horse. I’d hate to
lose her.”

“Of course.”

And the pair
turned, backs to the sunset and left the fire for the company of horses.

“She really
wants to help,” said Fallon Waterford as she reached over the fire and plucked
at a strip of roasting flesh. She blew on it a few times, and popped it into
her mouth. “Yum. When you’re hungry, even milk paste begins to taste good. But
this….yum yum yum…” She licked her fingers and smiled at him.

He smiled
back. “As always, I would like to know your thoughts.”

“My
thoughts?”

“As Scholar
in the Court of the Empress, I would hope ‘thoughts’ might be your stock in
trade.”

“Ha. Funny.
My thoughts are that I’m glad they’re going to try to save the horse.”

“I didn’t
mean about the horse.”

“Oh. Oh,
alright. Um…” She plucked at another strip of flesh, chewed thoughtfully,
wrapped her arms around her knees. “Are you talking about Sherah, you and your
brother? Or the incident back in
Sri’Daolath,
or Solomon trying to meet up with us in his strange horseless cart? Or the
nature of cats and authority? Or…”

He cocked his
head as he looked at her. She really was a perceptive creature. “You may speak
your mind,
sidala,
on any of these.”

She laughed.
“Oh no. No no no. If there’s one thing I’ve learned on this trip, it’s that I
need to learn when to hold my tongue, not the other way around!”

“Now that is
a shame.”

“No,” she
corrected, “It’s good. I’m growing up.”

He grinned.
“That is also a shame.”

She looked
down, her smile wide and warm, and she tugged at the tassels on her tunic once
again. She took a deep breath.

“I, I, I
think this trip is useless.”

He stared at
her.

“Now don’t
get me wrong, I’ve had a magnificent time. The things I have seen, the things I
have done, a girl like me just doesn’t get to do stuff like this everyday, so
for me, this is the adventure of a lifetime. I’m so completely, wonderfully,
blissfully happy…”

“But…?”

“But, this is
a huge venture, and as you know, I believe Solomon is a dog, so to travel so
very far to meet up with a dog, in, you know, dog territory, well, it seems
rather useless. There seems to be no more threat, and he doesn’t seem to be the
threatening sort, so, really, um, why are we going through all this? Even if he
was a cat, it’s still a terrific bother to cross so much territory, lose so
many horses and leopards…you know, for a harmless … dog…”

Her voice
trailed off and she watched him, this time only slightly afraid. At least
that,
he thought, was progress. She bit
her lip.

“Unless…”

He looked up
at her. “Unless?”

“Unless
there’s another agenda, one that I’m not aware of.”

He could not
think fast enough. Blast, but she
was
perceptive,
more than he’d given her credit for. It was dangerous for her to think so much.
He could not bring himself to lie, not to her, so he said nothing.

“Wow,” she
breathed. “Wow. I’m just… wow… I think I’ll shut up now.”

“Perhaps that
is a good idea.”

And they said
nothing more for some time.

***

“What year is
this?”

Kirin took a
deep breath. It was late and Solomon was chatty and that made things dangerous.
“It is the second Year of the Tiger in the reign of Empress Thothloryn
Parillaud Markova Wu, of the FangXiang Dynasty.”

“Okay, that’s
not really helpful.”

“I’m sorry,
Solomon. I do not understand your question, then.”

“Never mind.
I don’t know how to explain it, and it won’t really serve any purpose any way.
It’s just that I think I’ve been down here a lot longer than was planned, and
that has complicated things. I can’t get a hold of Max –“

“Who is Max?”

Fallon leaned
forward, tiger stripes dancing in the firelight. “He’s mentioned Max before,
remember? The very first night, back in
Sha’Hadin.
He said, “Get this procedure back on track, Max, or this cold is going to kill
me.” I remember, ‘cause I was there.”

The Seer
blinked, rolled his eyes back into his head as he thought. “Max is not really a
person, Fallon. He’s a computer, which probably means nothing to you, and he’s
housed in a satellite that is orbiting the earth, which probably means even
less. Do you guys even know the earth is round?”

“Round?”
Kerris lifted his head from his arms. “Round?”

“Never
mind—“

“No, no,”
urged Kerris, fully awake now. “I’ve seen things, roundy things, with what
looks like bumpy sketches of water and land – the horn of
Hindaya
,
Hiran
and
Hirak
, the land
of the
Chi’Chen
… They were very old,
most of them were broken, but they always made me wonder…”

Fallon was
staring at him, emerald eyes wide, but Kirin cut her off.

“Is this
important, Solomon? How does that help us meet up with you?”

“Oh, it
doesn’t. In fact, it will just be more of a problem. Your world sounds so, so
different that the one I left…”

The fire was
sizzling and the rocks glowing. The faces against the fire were toasty warm,
their backs cold and dark. Night in
Khanisthan
was sharp and brutal, even in the middle of summer, and each and every one was
lost in their thoughts, wishing in their own way for the very different worlds
they had left.

Kirin cleared
his throat. “So, can you get your… Hum…Hum-land…dee—“

“Der.”

“Yes. That.
Can you get it moving?”

“If I can get
it out of the ground, yes. We’re deep underground, remember? The hydraulics
aren’t working, so –
Whoa!”

Suddenly he
ducked, arms thrown over his face and they all leaned forward, careful not to
touch him but ready to move if needed. It was still fresh in Kirin’s memory -
the time on the Wall, when Solomon had bolted and the Seer had almost gone over
the edge as a result.

“Solomon…”

Breathing
heavily and blinking, wild-eyed and disoriented, the Seer began to sit up, the
faintest hint of a smile playing at his lips. “Whoa…whoa, okay…” He muttered to
himself, rubbing his face and eyes. “Hot damn…”

“Solomon,
what has happened? Are you injured?”

“No, it’s
just that the lights… the power just came on, that’s all. I’ve been in the
dark, with only the generators and head beams for light, and like,
pow
, everything just came back on. Hey,
maybe the computers…”

And this
time, he pushed up to his feet. They all did likewise. It seemed very much like
the time back on the Wall. He touched the back of his head. “Hey, Max? Max, can
you hear me? Are you there?”

But before
there was time for a response, the Seer staggered and Kirin could tell the
connection was severing. They had seen this almost every night for months now.
Usually it was just a closing of the eyes, a long deep breath and gone, but
sometimes it was harsh, abrupt, violent.

His breathing
had changed yet again, and Kirin leaned in, curious, apprehensive and stilled.
The Seer’s bird-like gaze grew glassy, as if focused on something very far far
away. His brow drew in as if puzzling.

“Sidi,”
asked Kirin.

“It’s so
hot…The dragon…”

It was Sireth
this time – the accent said as much – but this was no conversation.

“Which
dragon,
sidi?”

“The metal
dragon…He’s burning up…”

Kerris shook
his head. “There are no metal dragons. Only fire, water, wind or earth. Never
wood, never metal…”

“The metal
dragon… he’s burning…he’s falling…”

“Falling from
where,
sidi?”

“Wait, wait…”
The Seer growled and closed his eyes tightly, as if trying to see more clearly.
He raised one hand in the air. “Falling…from the sky…He’s falling from the sky…
From the sky? Ah, there you are, Path. I’ve missed you too.”

And as
always, in a feat of timing that rivaled even the most professional of kabuki
actors, the falcon, Path, swooped down from the stars in a jingle of talon
leathers and bells. She settled on her master’s outstretched glove, home.