The Way of Things: Upper Kingdom Boxed Set: Books 1, 2 and 3 in the Tails of the Upper Kingdom (86 page)

“I’m sorry,” was all she could
say.

“I killed my cousin too.
Jiin-mark. I think it was my twelfth summer, but I’m not sure.” He still hadn’t
looked at her, kept his eyes fixed on the flashes in the distance. “We were on
a tour of the temples of
Ahnkor’Whath,
and I heard some water calling from the rock. We weren’t supposed to leave the
group, we weren’t supposed to climb the stones, but we did, and I struck the
stones with a stick I was carrying and the water exploded out like a hot
spring. Knocked Jiin-mark right off the ledge. He fell and broke his neck, he
did. Just like that.”

“Kerris…” She knew where this was
going.

“In the fall of my sixteenth
summer, I killed Sunitha Windemere-Planck. She was a nice girl, a lioness maybe
more tiger than me. We got along so very well that our parents were making
plans between them. She was from a nice family – not Royal like ours, but
nice enough, and they were afraid no one would want her because she liked to
run and explore and throw rocks and climb trees. And my mother was afraid,
well, you know, but anyway, we got along famously and that summer I built a
boat. I had heard stories of the
Chi’Chen
boats, and how they sailed along on the water, so I built one in secret,
and we took it out in the Imperial fisheries, and it began to sink and she
drowned. I didn’t know she couldn’t swim. Didn’t even think to help her. I was
busy trying to save my damned boat…”

He lifted his hand as if to study
it. Sparks were appearing out of the air, buzzing and crackling around his
fingers. It was amazing and terrifying at the same time.

“I left home then. Didn’t go back
for almost five years. They didn’t miss me. Not one bit.” The sparks were now
arching from fingertip to fingertip. “I did find Quiz then, however. Quiz and
the lightning. My only friends.”

She took his wrists.

“No. Kerris, tell her no.”

“Sometimes
the voices are so loud.”

“Kerris,
please. You’re scaring me.”

He turned to look at her. “He
can’t die.”

“He won’t, Kerris. But if you
call the lightning right here, right now,
I
just might.”

He stared at her for a long
moment, before making a fist, dispersing the sparks into the night sky. She
released her breath. They could hear thunder rolling in the distance as if in
protest. They continued to sit and watch.

“I don’t understand anything
anymore,” he said after a while. “But then again, I never really did. I’m not
terribly clever that way. Not like you are.”

“I’m not so clever. Not in
important ways.”

“No, no. You are really a very
clever woman,” he said with insistence. “The way you figured that out, with the
Seer.”

“Oh that,” she shrugged, pleased.
“It just made sense.”

“Not to me. Obviously not to the
Seer.”

“I guess I just took some time to
think about it, that’s all.”

“Maybe you’ll make guru at the
University some day.”

“Oh, I’m not going back to the
University.”

“But I thought…“

Now it was her turn to look out
at the storm playing out in the distance. “Nope. Not going back.”

“Oh.”

“I’m staying with you.”

“Oh.”

“Yep. I’ve been thinking about
this quite a bit lately. Believe me, have I been thinking about this. And so, I
have realized two rather important things about my strange and peculiar
situation in life. Would you like to know what they are?”

“Yes,” he said, a smile slowly
beginning its way back to his face. “I believe I would.”

Her emerald eyes flashed and she
tucked her arms between her knees. “Good. Well, the first thing I realized is
that while I do learn a lot from books, I learn even more from doing, and I
have never done so much as this past year spent with you. All of you. I’ve
learned how to ride a horse, how to make maps, how to stand like a soldier.
I’ve seen more places than I’ve ever read about, and I’ve eaten strange food
and slept in strange beds and encountered rats and dogs and bears and so many
other cats. And I’ve learned about us, about our Kingdom and who we are as a
people and why we are that way. Some of it is good, yes, very good, but some of
it is very, very bad and I don’t think I would have learned that by all the
books I could ever have read. Some things you need to live, and I have lived
this past year in a way I’ve never lived before.”

She paused to take a breath.

“And the second thing is that I
love you, Kerris Wynegarde-Grey. And I don’t really know if you can understand
that because you are afraid of being loved and you run away before anyone gets
the chance to love you, so my love has to be independent of your behavior and
exist purely because it does and I do and you do, and even if you don’t love me
back, that’s okay because I am going with you, wherever you go, if not in body,
then in heart and soul and spirit because you have changed me for the better
and while I miss the girl I was, I love the woman I have become. And I think
that in your own odd, quirky way, you do love me too, but even if you don’t
then you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you
need
me, that there is something about me that balances you out and
makes you whole, and sometimes, just sometimes, when life is going good, and
there are no rats or dogs or bears or really nasty cats, or even with them, or
maybe even
because
of them,
sometimes, together, we are wonderful.”

He stared at her.

“My,” he said after another
while. “You
have
been thinking about
this.”

She nodded, smiling.

And they sat, side by side, for a
very long time afterwards, and fell asleep together on the rocks. Solomon awoke
them at dawn.

***

Some things are best
unremembered.

Bandages and the crush of her
hair, ointments and salves and her hands, working and healing, her body soft,
her mouth fierce and giving. She was a ghost, a spirit, a vapor, wrapped as she
was in the color of the night, more beautiful than he had remembered. She was
as welcome as she was forbidden and he had found himself kissing her before he
could stop, before he could even think to stop, and the rest of the night was
as a dream, half wish, half terror, all wrong but unchangeable. Like Metal.
Like Earth.

He wondered if they could smell
the incense on him.

The Seer offered him a cup of tea
and he reached for it but his hands were shaking. He tried to cup it with his
palms. It was very difficult, and his tail lashed once. He hissed at the pain
that simple action caused.

The Seer took the cup back.

“Here,” he said. “Try these.” And
he pulled gloves of thickest leather from his obi.

The Captain glanced up at him.
“But those—”

“—Were for protection from
the outside world
.
I do not wish to
remain closed to the world any longer. Besides, it seems I have a much more…
comprehensive
form of protection, now.”

Behind them, the Major grunted.

Kirin raised his hands as the
Seer slid the gloves on, over the bandages. The leather was soft from years of
wear but thick enough to provide some support for his fingers. He flexed them.
It was helpful.

Sireth passed him the cup a
second time, and this time, he was able to accept.

The tea felt good in his mouth.

“You are very lucky to be alive,
Captain,” said the Seer. “The dogs were hard on us all.”

“The dogs.” He glanced up
sharply. “Where? Are they—?”

“Dead.”

“And Jet barraDunne? The
Alchemists?”

“All dead, at least according to
Solomon and the Scholar. There was a fire.”

He nodded and sipped his tea.
Again, things best unremembered.

A shadow passed across the shaft
of sunlight and Kerris was in the cavern. His hair was sticking up all over his
head and he looked like he had just been roused from sleep. The moment he saw
his brother, he sagged against the cavern’s wall, looking as though even a puff
of breath might knock him down.

Kirin smiled a weary smile at
him, which Kerris caught and after a moment, sent back. And for that moment,
there was peace in the little cavern on a mountaintop in
Turah’kee.

***

They spent another two days in the little cavern on the mountaintop
in
Turah’kee,
fishing, hunting, healing. They had agreed to Solomon’s
‘Plan B’, which involved returning to
Ana’thalya
with the intention of
finding a boat and sailing to
Kanadah.
It had become obvious to them all
that the Kingdom would indeed tear itself apart with the return of an Ancestor,
and while was it not possible for him to return with them to
Pol’Lhasa
,
killing him was now out of the question. Neither could he be left on his own
for he would surely die. So, Solomon had met with little argument when he once
again broached the topic of ‘Plan B’. When the Captain had regained strength
enough to walk, they began the arduous task of walking back to the Humlander
and to the city. 

 
Even with Quiz and the
large sun-powered vehicle, it took them the better part of the week before the
crumbling towers of the city came into view. They had come by a different road,
this one along the rocky coast, and the waves roared far below against the
cliffs. It was late afternoon, the autumn sky hazy and grey, and faraway
buildings stood as silhouettes in the waning sun.

With the towers in view, Quiz and Kerris had called a halt.

“It’s not far,” said Solomon, as the hatch of the Humlander swung
upwards. “We should keep going.”

But little Quiz had planted his feet, ears alternately pricked
forward, then laid back. Kerris swung off and surveyed the road.

“No,” he said finally. “It’s not safe.”

“What do you mean, not safe?”
Solomon stood beside the grey lion. “We’ve been on this road all week.”

Kerris shook his head. “There’s
metal buried under the earth, and that’s generally not a good thing. Not on an
Ancient road.”

“How do you know there’s metal? I
don’t see anything.”

“No, you don’t
see
it…” He frowned, casting his eyes
along the land on both sides of the deteriorating road. He turned back to his
brother, seated in the vehicle. “We should camp here for now. This may take
some time.”

The Captain nodded. Both Major
and Seer slid from their perches atop the Humlander, beginning the process of
unpacking their limited supplies for the night.

“I don’t think we need to stop,”
grumbled Solomon, shaking his head. “The city is only a few hours away.”

“Bad things happen on Ancient
roads,” said the Major.

“Bad things like what? Honestly,
we are two, maybe three hours away from the docks. We can catch some fish, bunk
down there for the night.”

Kerris simply shook his head and
continued surveying the road.

Fallon had dismounted from the
mountain pony and was stroking his cheek. “What’s wrong, Quiz? We’re stopping
now. Why are you still upset?”

For the pony’s ears were still
flattened, his eyes round and wild. He stretched out his neck and let out a
very loud neigh, which was oddly enough, answered.

They all moved forward to stand
in a line, eyes straining in the dim light. A dark shape was moving toward them
very quickly, and when Quiz neighed again, the creature answered back. It was a
horse, black as night, long mane and tail waving like banners as it moved.
Fallon clapped her hands.

“My horse,” she shouted. “It’s my
horse, the one I took from
Sharan’yurthah
.
I thought I stole it, but Sherah said it was okay. Oh, I’m so glad. He’s so
beautiful. He’s the best horse I’ve had so far!”

The earth thudded as the black
hooves hit ground in a three-beat gait, like music.

“No, no not good, not good.”
Kerris glanced at her, at Quiz next, then back at the horse. He stepped
forward, began to wave his own hands in the air. “No!”

“Come on, boy!” shouted Fallon.
“I’m right here—“

“No, no! Back, back!”

Suddenly, there was a flash of
yellow light, and a sound like the roar of thunder, and a wall of air lifted
them all off their feet, sending them flying backwards onto the road. Dirt,
rock and sticky bits rained down all around them and it was several moments
before anyone dared move.

 
“Oh mother,” whimpered the tigress as she finally sat up and
stared at the deep blackened pit on the road. “That was my third horse…”

Of the great black horse, nothing
recognizable remained.

***

The trip into the city of
Ana’thalya
took considerably longer than
expected, simply because of the horse. Its fateful death had convinced all of
the necessity of taking care on these roads, and the dangers that still lived
within and around all Ancient places. Kerris on Quiz naturally took the fore,
leading the Humlander most carefully, and a journey that should have taken
hours stretched to take the better part of the day.

The Captain was restless.

The others had elected to walk as
Solomon drove the great sun-powered vehicle, and the Captain had also tried.
But his knee, the one which had so seriously wounded by the rats of
Roar’pundih,
had begun to cause problems
once again, and he was forced to sit next to Solomon and merely watch as the
land groaned slowly by.

The last time he came into this
city, he was astride alMassay, and his chest tightened at the memory. alMassay,
noble warrior, trusted friend, hacked to pieces like a common steer. He would
never have such a friend again.

He sighed and looked down at his
hands, at the gloves of thickest leather that now covered them. They were
adequate, completely adequate, and one might never know the horrors that had
been visited on them, covered as they were in this way. And in the same manner,
the kheffiyah. Completely adequate, protecting, covering, hiding. Now, if he
could find something for his tail, he might even have all outward appearances
of a normal lion.