The Way of Things: Upper Kingdom Boxed Set: Books 1, 2 and 3 in the Tails of the Upper Kingdom (88 page)

“Ah my, my. I think I bedded
her.”

Kerris stared at him. “Who?
Sherah? You bedded Sherah? When?”

“The night I slept.” He nodded.
“I’m not certain. Perhaps she bedded me. It’s hard to remember…”

“That little powdery white thing.”

“Hm. Yes. But I think we did.” He
turned his face to his brother, sighed. “Perhaps, under all this gold…”

A sly grin slowly spread across
Kerris’ face.

“Some hope for you yet, brother.”

When they returned to the fire,
they were met with the sounds of singing.

***

Thick
grow the rushes

Their
white dew turns to frost.


He
whom I love


Must
be somewhere along this stream

I
go up river to search for him,


But
the way is difficult and long.


I
go down stream to look for him,


And
there, mid-water


He
is there.

Close
grow the rushes,


Their
white dew not yet dry.


He
whom I love


Is
at the water’s side.


Up
stream I seek him;


But
the way is difficult and steep.


Down
stream I seek him,


And
away in mid-water


There
on a ledge,

He
is there.

Very
fresh are the rushes;


The
white dew still falls.


He
whom I love


Is
at the water’s edge.


Up
stream I follow him;


But
the way is hard and long.


Down
stream I follow him,


And
away in mid-water


On
the rocks and shoals,

He
is there.

They sat for a very long time by
the fire, sometimes quiet, sometimes singing. It was very late but no one
seemed in the mood for sleeping. Fallon and Kerris had been taking turns from
the First Imperial Book of Songs, and when they chose to sing together, the
harmonies were skilled and sweet to the ear. Both Seer and Major had joined the
fire at some point and had sat very close together. Even the Major seemed
content with their songs.

Finally, Fallon sighed.

“Why is there no air?”

All eyes turned to look at her.

“Stupid girl,” the Major hissed.
“Just take a breath. There is much air.”

She waved her hands across her
face. “Oh, no. No, that’s not what I meant. In the Temperaments, there is Fire,
Water, Earth, Wood and Metal. But there are six elements. Why is air not a
temperament?”

They continued to look at her.

“Well,” she moaned. “It’s a good
question.”

“It’s a very good question,
Khalilah,” answered the Seer. “There are a few differing opinions on this.”

The Major snorted. “Oh, you are
the Scholar now.”

“Sometimes.” He grinned. “But it
is generally agreed that Air is Life.”

“Life?”

“Yes. Life. Think on it. Air is
around all things, forever and for always, and all the elements react
differently to it. It can, at one turn, blow out a flame, or on another, cause
a fire to rage just a little higher. Air rusts metal, erodes earth, blows sand,
creates steam or evaporates a pool. It dries wood or blows down trees. Air
works, for good or ill, on all these, just like life works on all of us.”

“For good or ill,” muttered Kirin
quietly.

“Yes,” the Seer smiled. “For good
or ill.”

The Scholar hugged her knees.
“Wow.”

Kerris was looking at her
strangely and there was silence for some time. Until he began to sing.

Kiya! Kiya! Cry the ospreys

on sandbars in the water

an elegant common girl,

The nobleman wishes to marry

the floating-heart is what she grows,

left and right the water flows


That elegant common girl,


awake, asleep, he seeks her.

He seeks but cannot find


awake, asleep, thinking of her,


endlessly, endlessly


turning, tossing from side to side.

the floating-heart is what she grows,

left and right the water flows


the elegant common girl,


harp and lute make friends with her.

the floating-heart is what she grows,

left and right the water flows



the elegant common girl,


bell and drum delight her.

It was a very old song,
transliterated from the scraps of parchment known as the Shih-Shingh, or the
Very Ancient Book of Songs. It was a love song, a young nobleman a-courting a
lovely but common water-lily farmer. They all sat quietly now, knowing what he
had sung and why. The fire made crackling sounds, the waves rushed and roared
on the sand, young Mi-hahn chirruped happily as she pulled at the remnants of a
roasted fish. Kirin studied his brother, who, for the entire song, had kept his
eyes glued on the figure of the tigress. For her part, she sat, arms wrapped
around her knees, watching the flames dance. She did not once look at him.

Finally, Kerris sighed.

“Fallon.”

Now she did look up. He had never
called her by her name. Never. Even when they had been lovers. Never.

“You are a remarkable woman. As
smart as a mountain pony, and just as stubborn. As fierce as a snow leopard, as
pure as the snow on
Shagar’mathah
. As
strong as a yak, as silly as a kite. You are Wood. You reach to the skies and
bring everyone up with you. You are Wood, giver of life and you bend in the
wind. Nothing can break you and you give life to all things.”

There were tears shining in her
eyes. Kerris went on, not caring that the others were present.

“You were right the other night.
I do need you, just as Fire needs Wood. I think that is obvious to everyone
here. But you were wrong about one thing. I am not so much afraid of being
loved as I am afraid of being un-loved. I keep waiting for you to decide that
you do not want me, that you have grown weary of the game of a-courting a grey
lion, or that some day, some fine strong and smart tiger will come along and
take you back to the University and you will disappear from my life like a wave
on the shore. But you keep coming back. You take me from one end of myself to
another and it’s bloody painful, and honestly, sometimes I wish I could stuff a
boot in your mouth to keep you from talking, but to tell the truth, I can’t
imagine my life any longer without you and your songs.”

He sighed again, poked at the
fire with the stick, sending sparks high up into the night sky.

“So, I suppose, what I’m trying
to say, is this: Fallon Waterford, Scholar in the Court of the Empress, will
you marry me?”

***

No one slept that night, and at
first light of morning, the Captain performed two ceremonies of marriage, one
for the Geomancer and the Scholar, the other for the Major and the Seer. He was
still, in fact, the Captain of the Imperial Guard, with all authority under the
sun, and while there were no families present to give consent or dowries or
documents, it was nonetheless a legally-binding act, joining four houses in the
covenants and sacraments of marriage.

It wasn’t until later in the day
that they found the boat.

THE YEAR OF THE TIGER – A LAMENT

by Empress Faisala the Wise,
Third Dynasty, Year of the Tiger

The Year of the Tiger brings war.

The Year of the Tiger brings change.

Kingdoms rise, Kingdoms fall.

Nothing is the same.

The Year of the Tiger means joy.

The Year of the Tiger means strife.

Beginnings end, Endings begin,

The heartbeat of life.

The Year of the Tiger brings change.

Nothing is as it seems.

Big adventures, Grand schemes,

Nightmares and Dreams.

The Year of the Tiger brings war.

The Year of the Tiger brings change.

People rise, People fall.

Nothing is the same.

An Imperial Wedding is a blessed
event. There is little in all the history of the world that can compare to the
beauty, splendor or spectacle. It is drawn out for over a month, beginning with
the dawn procession of the groom into the Royal City. It was the day of the
Winter Festival, the shortest, darkest day of the year, and so every hour of
sunlight was celebrated with music, dancing dragons, horses and khamels,
acrobats and jugglers in the parade of honor as Andreas Wolchenko Verona Chiraq
and his entire family, arrived from
Abysinnia.
From sunrise to sunset, the caravan wound its way through
Pol’Lhasa’s
narrow streets, bringing a riot of color to
DharamShallah’s
winter cloak. Gold and
red were the predominant hues, gold being the color of the Kingdom and
therefore, the color of its chosen suitor. Red was the color of the bride, of
life and love and the succession of the Pure Races. Flags and banners and
streamers of gold and red flew from every high place, and flapped from every
window. Every doorway in every building had been given a new coat of paint, in
either red or gold, and all the street lamps had been outfitted as well. It was
marvelous.

Each member of the suitor’s
family was borne in a palanquin of red or black, and carried on the arms of
four leopards. In a palanquin of gold, Chiraq himself was carried by an escort
of seven fine tigers, dressed in silks and armor. But he remained hidden within
the painted walls, as he had been since leaving
Abysinnia
for the last time. As was tradition, he was not allowed
to set foot on Kingdom soil until he set it in
Pol’Lhasa,
and from then on, he would never leave until he was
carried out in a palanquin of a very different sort.

It had been a very long journey.
But it was the way of things.

And so, at sunrise, the entire
caravan arrived at the stepped courts of
Pol’Lhasa.
Only the gold palanquin went up, up and up into the heart of the Imperial
Palace, and all the crowds waited in hushed silence. The snow was thick, the
air cold, but no one dared leave, for after what seemed like hours, finally
fireworks erupted over the peaks of the palace, announcing that the suitor’s
foot had indeed touched down on holy ground.

The celebrations then started in
earnest.

Every day, a new spectacle. Every
night, an old tax lifted, if only for a month. Each day, the Imperial
storehouses were opened and delicacies distributed to the people of the city.
One day, mooncakes, the next, licorice, the next, marzipan, and the next
dumplings. New Imperial coins were stamped and distributed to children, and the
people were buzzing with excitement. It was the countdown to the wedding, which
would take place at the cusp of the New Year, as the Tiger would sheathe its
claws, and the Rabbit leap over its head and onto the Celestial stage.

The Year of the Tiger had been
turbulent, ferocious even, changing moods as completely as the orange and black
stripes of its namesake. The Rabbit, however, heralded peace, tranquility,
prosperity. A year for all to rest from the previous year, to rebuild and regroup,
to enjoy and even languish, for after such a year, it would be allowed.
Diplomacy would reign, discretion would rule, and the people would return to
simpler, gentler ways. With such a marriage, at such an auspicious cusp, life
promised to be very, very good for a while.

In another place, very far away
to the West, the Winter Festival was being celebrated but for very different
reasons. You see, the boat was ready.

It had taken them days once they
found the building that housed the ‘
Marh’eeyen
Ahrkhives’,
and the finding of it had been quite by accident. One pair of
newlyweds had been exploring the coastline and the sharp call of metal had
literally drawn Kerris Wynegarde-Grey toward a steep, unnatural-looking cliff.
Between his extraordinary senses and the Scholar’s natural intuition, they
discovered a door in the rock and set back to immediately find the Ancestor.

The door that led the way into
the EUS Marine Archives was only partially visible, hidden as it was by
centuries of sand. It would have been impossible to open, if it hadn’t been for
the Seer. As the Major, Kerris and Solomon pushed and pried, tugged and dug at
the door, benAramis merely wandered away. No one missed him, until the door
itself began to hum. He had made his way around the mountain and managed to
scale it to the top. Like the Humlander, the ‘
Marh’eeyen Ahrkhives’
were powered by the sun, and its strange
panels on the roof of the mountain had been simply covered by many years of
dirt and sand.

They worked together now for the
better part of a month, under the direction of Jeffery Solomon. Several ‘boats’
were in ALDD, he had said, or “Air-Lock/Dry-Dock”, and while those words meant
little to most of them, it had sent the ever-active mind of the Scholar
a-spinning. Computers were up and running, schematics and charts and drawings
were available, and she was both fascinated and learning quickly. It was
terrifying yet amazing at the same time, and the Captain found himself with
little to do, but watch.

He was unbelievably proud of his
people.

The Major spent her time hunting,
fishing, scouring the ruins of the city for usable items, making elaborate yet
effective equipment from scraps and sea weeds. The Seer’s new abilities were
apparently boundless, and he spent most of his days in meditation and
falcon-training. Kirin found it hard to believe they were married, for the
Major’s temper had in no wise diminished and she was as fierce and
uncompromising as ever. However, they would regularly slip away from the group
and return hours later, contented and quiet. It was the way of things.

The other newlyweds were much
more demonstrative, and Kirin regularly found himself wishing his brother was
more discreet. Apparently, for this couple, kisses were not things to be hidden
from the eyes of others and they enjoyed each other’s company quite clearly.
Kerris was a great help with the boats, following Solomon’s directions to the
letter, getting them cleaned and ready for the trip. He was strong, eager and
proving to be an ‘able seaman’, as Solomon called him. Fallon, for her part,
was a brilliant assistant and clever administrator and she readily prepared
maps and charts and lists of supplies that would be needed for the boat to
safely cross the world.

Yes, he was unbelievably proud.

It was the Month of the Winter
Boar when the first boat rolled from its ALDD and onto the water of the sea. It
was an amazing sight to behold, that a thing so solid could live its life on
the surface of the sea. It looked like a seabird, with a pointed prow and squared
off end, and Solomon had called it a ‘Fair Lady Fibre-Light Power Yaaht.’ Of
all the ships in the ‘
Marh’eeyen
Ahrkhives’,
this would be the one that would take him across the world in
comfort and safety. It was also powered by the sun, and they had spent many
days cleaning the panels before it rolled down the rusting ramp and onto the
sea. They watched from the shore as it bobbed and rocked on the waves for a
moment, gave a sickening boom, pitched forward on its pointed prow and promptly
sank to the bottom, spraying up plumes of foam as it went.

Kerris had turned to Solomon
then. “Was that supposed to happen?”

The Ancestor was speechless,
before turning and trudging back to the docks, muttering all the while about a
drawing board.

The second boat they tried was,
in Solomon’s strange words, a Greek Fishing Trall’her. It had poles and posts
sticking out of it at odd angles, and Kirin did not think it nearly as
impressive as the Fair Lady Fibre Light Power Yaaht. But apparently it was a
working vessel while the former had been built for luxury, and Kirin could see
it well enough. But that too sank after weeks of preparation as soon as it hit
the waves. It seemed that ‘Air-Lock/Dry-Dock’ might be able to slow but not
stop the natural decaying process and that while the ships seemed sea-worthy
hoisted up as they were in the ALDD, they in fact might be little more than
crumbling memories of another time. It seemed to all of them that ‘Plan B’
might not be enough.

So, the week before the Winter
Festival, the last chance of Plan B was released from its airtight prison. It
was a strange looking creation as it sat high above the ramps in the Archive
building. It had three very tall poles on the top, a rather small body and a
deep white fin on the bottom. Solomon had called it a sailing yaaht or skhooner,
and had mentioned that not only was it powered by the sun, but that the posts
would be rigged with canvas to catch the wind as well. Kerris was fascinated by
this and immediately the Captain knew that of all the ships in the ‘
Marh’eeyen Ahrkhives’,
if any had a
chance to work, it would be this one. Kerris was lucky that way. It was the way
of things.

And so, his people worked on this
sailing boat for the better part of the week, cleaning and scrubbing and
powering up computers, all things he was forced to watch and not do. His hands
had begun to heal, the tips rounding over on themselves, and the pelt growing
back white. White was an unusual color for such a traumatic injury, but then
again, he had never known of any cat with such an injury. His fingers could
have grown back purple for all he could expect. His head and tail as well had
begun to heal, pelt growing in places, leathery brown skin in others. At the
very crown of his head, there was a patch of mane left that had not been torn
from his scalp, and it fell down his back like a thin queue. Still, the
kheffiyah worked well. He was never without it.

Solomon had insisted that the
salt in the sea would help and he had taken to bathing in the waters every
afternoon while his people were busy doing other things. It did not bring him
pleasure as it did his brother, but still, he found it not nearly as bad as
expected, and had even found that if he stayed very still, there were fishes
that would swim around his legs unafraid. For some strange reason, that pleased
him and of all the things on this part of the journey, it was perhaps the most
unexpected.

One afternoon, Ursa had brought
him something she had made. It was a thick shaft of elaborately braided
leathers, interwoven with golden threads from Sherah’s bag of noxious potions.
It had leather laces on one end, and a fine golden tassel on the other.

“For your tail,” she announced as
he turned it over and over in his hands. “This will make it look better.”

“Thank you,” he said, for he
didn’t know what else he should say.

“Your brother can help you if you
wish. The mountain pony has found the packhorses. They are in sorry shape.” And
with that, she turned and walked away, leaving him with the tail leathers and
many questions.

It fit like his gloves.

So, on the day before the Winter
Festival, they sent the schooner rolling down the rusty ramp and into the
water. For some reason, it did not immediately sink, rather bobbed and rocked
and bobbed and rocked as it settled onto the waves as if home.

They all exchanged glances,
waiting for something to happen, but still the strange white boat just bobbed
and rocked, looking for all the world like a gull floating on the surface of
the waves.

Fallon was the one to breathe
first. “Wow,” was all that she said.

Solomon did not look away from
the ship. “Kerris, can you, um…”

“Drop anchor?”

“Yeah.”

“Right.” And with a deep breath
of his own, the grey lion trudged into the water and began the task of swimming
out to the boat and dropping the huge piece of iron they called an ankhor. He
was a speck in no time.

Finally, Solomon looked up at
them all and smiled.

“Her name is ‘
Plan B’.”

***

It is a peculiar thing that, in our Imperial tongue, there is only one
symbol that separates the word “hope’ from ‘home.’

It was the day of the Winter Festival, and the sailing ship had stayed
afloat over the very long dark night. So upon waking, to see it sitting off the
coast, still bobbing and rocking and intact, a mood of quiet hopefulness
settled onto our little party. The days had grown bleak as of late, and cold,
although nothing at all to rival
DharamShallah, Sha’Hadin
or much of the Upper Kingdom, and the
arrival of the Winter Festival and its shortest day meant only good things
ahead. Sunrise would come just a little earlier each day, sunset just a little
later. Hunting would be just a little bit easier, and perhaps we could grow
just a little bit fatter because of it.

The Year of the Rabbit would soon be upon us.

And so it was with that sense of quiet hopefulness that we sat around
the fire, nibbling the last of the roasted crabs and shellfish that Kerris had
gathered from the shore. Solomon was planning on setting out at first light,
and it was a bitter and sweet thing for us all. Fallon had sung a very sad,
very beautiful song. The Seer had stunned us all with a display of fireworks
from our lonely firepit, and the Major presented Solomon with a set of fishing
hooks she had fashioned from scraps of metal and twine. She had also gathered
olives, oranges, figs, tomatoes and wild peppers in large barrels, as Solomon
was not a cat and could not live on fish alone for the journey. She was, and is
still, an amazing, unpredictable woman.