The Way of Things: Upper Kingdom Boxed Set: Books 1, 2 and 3 in the Tails of the Upper Kingdom (92 page)
Authors: H. Leighton Dickson
The steps beckoned. One hundred
steps to his destiny. One hundred steps to those familiar halls, where he had
lived and worked and loved in secret. She was married, gone forever. His heart,
his soul, gone forever. Only duty remained. Only duty and honor and the sorrow
that they brought.
It was the way of things.
And then he smelled it, above the
tea and pipe tobacco and musk. Incense, heavy and heady and it brought him back
so many ways. Into her eyes, into her arms, lost in the very thought of her.
Sherah al Shiva, Sherah al Shaer, the Alchemist.
Kunoichi.
Traitor,
lover, kindred spirit. He could
turn, he knew beyond all doubt, he could turn and find her there, her eyes, her
arms, her long strong hands. He could find himself home in her arms. They could
slip away together, live like gypsies untamed and free. Travel to
Aegyp
on wild desert horses, make love
openly under the stars. He ached at the thought.
There were one hundred steps
leading to the Palace.
He could turn. She would be
there.
One hundred steps.
He could turn…
With a long deep cleansing
breath, he squared his shoulders and began up the first of the stairs leading
to the palace.
The End
If
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I
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To
be continued in Book 3 of Tails from the Upper Kingdom:
SONGS
IN THE YEAR OF THE CAT
By
H. Leighton Dickson
Available
on Amazon
Songs from the Year of the Cat
(Book
3 in Tails from the Upper Kingdom)
by
H.
Leighton Dickson
Copyright
© 2013 H. Leighton Dickson
All
rights reserved.
ISBN-10:
1491032758
ISBN-13:
978-1491032756
To
Graeme and Geoff,
For
keeping me in ideas and sushi
Foreword
If
you’re reading this, you probably know it is the third in a series. The
characters are established in Books 1 & 2 but continue to change and
develop (as we all do) over the course of these next books. I will make a few
comments re: the languages – yes, Mongolian and Chinese, with artistic
liberties. Most languages other than English have formal and informal
nouns/pronouns etc, and that would have a strong influence on how a character
such as Kirin would speak. I have tried to infer the formal/informal speech
patterns in subtle ways but I think you’ll get the drift. Also, like the first
books, city names, locations and even monasteries are all based on real places
and you can have fun google-mapping along with the story. We live in a
marvelous world – one even more fantastical than anything we could dream
or imagine!
Kirin
According to the
Book of
Truths
, the Year of the Rabbit is a peaceful one. It is elegant and sweet,
a gentle breath after the roaring of the Tiger. A year to conduct sensible
business, to embrace family, to go on trips. It is also a year to assert the
efforts of diplomacy, for a war will never go well in the Year of the Rabbit.
There is simply too much peace for that. At least, so says the
Book of
Truths.
The
Book of Truths
is a
very old book, translated into all tongues of the Empire -Hanyin and
Shaharabic, Farashish and Hindih. It has also been transcribed for all the
reaches of the Empire as well, from Lanladesh to Shiryia, from Hindaya to Aegyp
but not in Nam. There is a small and curious problem with Nam. You see, in Nam,
there is no word for rabbit.
In Nam, it is simply called the Year
of the Cat.
It is a mystery, but cats are,
after all, a mysterious people. And so, we begin our story with the birth of a
baby, the weeping of a dog and a cup of hot sweet tea, naturally in the Year of
the Cat.
***
It was raining on the little
pukka house in Nam. The roof was thatched grass, the walls pikes of rattan
bound together like a fence. It sat up on stilts, this little house, had no
window and only a flap of canvas for a door. Despite its appearance, it did
remarkably well at keeping the rainwater off and ground water out on this cold,
rainy night. It was a night for candles, lamps and braziers of sizzling
coal.
And incense. Above all else,
it was a night for incense.
Inside, a woman lay on the
wooden floor, propped up on spotted elbows, breathing. Two others - a young
jaguar and an old leopard - hovered at her knees, linens and oil basins at the
ready, while an ocelot sat with her, mopping her forehead with cloths and
humming in strange, exotic keys.
“It is a big baby, isn’t it,
Farit?” asked the young jaguar. She had large eyes and bindhi dots the colour
of jade. “A boy, I’m certain of it.”
“Oh, it’s a boy, Xuan,” said the
ocelot as she stroked the mother’s forehead. “It is obvious by the way she was
carrying. All in the front.”
“Oh yes. All in the front.”
The woman on the floor nodded.
She wore only a kimonoh of black silk, perfect for childbirth and her long
black hair was damp with sweat, falling wildly about her shoulders. Her pelt
was smooth butter cream, spots tiny and well-placed, and a black stripe painted
her face like the falling of a tear. Even now, in such a state, she watched
everything with great golden eyes rimmed with kohl.
“Yes,” she breathed in a voice
deep and smoky. “I have prayed for a boy.”
“It is the Year of the Cat,” the
ocelot named Farit smiled. “Your prayers will be answered tonight, Sherhanna.
Only good comes in the Year of the Cat.”
“Are you really an Alchemist?”
asked young Xuan. “Hy’Unh only accepts gold as payment. Are you going to turn
something into gold?”
“Of course,” said the woman
called Sherhanna.
“We don’t see many cheetahs here
in Nam,” said young Xuan. “I think it’s too hot. Although I’ve heard Aegyp is
hot. Is Aegyp hot, Sherhanna?”
“Enough talk,” said the leopard
named Hy’Unh. She was very old with few teeth, multiple hoops through nostril
and brow and more rings on her fingers than in the bark of a tree.
The midwife. “Push now.”
Sherhanna breathed out, clutched
her knees and pushed. She did not scream. She did not cry out. Rather, she
remained focused and inward, willing some muscles to contract, others to
stretch. She had been through this before. Pain, she had learned, was simply a
matter of perspective, a means to an end. Tonight, with the birth of this baby,
her sins would be forgiven and the world made right. Tonight, everything would
change.
“Push!”
“Just a little more,” said
Farit. “This is good, Sherhanna. Very good.”
“Push, now!”
There was a very long moment
when all time seemed to stop and the world grew very small. Sherhanna's black
claws drew blood in the pelt of her thighs and the breath burned in her chest
as everything was thrown into that one final, deliberate act.
“Enough,” said the midwife. “The
head is out. Breathe now, child. Breathe.”
Sherhanna did, letting her head
fall back into the jaguar’s arms. She closed her eyes, exhausted. She was not
done yet but still.
“Much hair,” said Hy’Unh. “Very
dark. Few spots.”
“See?” said Xuan. “This is good,
Sherhanna. Very good.”
“Just a little more now,” said
Farit. “For the shoulders.”
She did. It was easy. Just a
little push and she felt the wobbly mass pass through to the crowing of her
midwives.
“A son!” cried the jaguar. “A
perfect son.”
“A golden boy,” said the ocelot.
“Spotted, but odd. Not cheetah spots...dapples. Lion.”
A few minutes more for the
afterbirth but soon, the old leopard was bundling the child in wraps of linen.
Lamplight reflected from the many hoops in her old face. She looked up and
smiled.
“He has a tuft,” she said,
passing the cub into the woman’s waiting hands. “His father a lion.”
“Of course.” Sherhanna took the
child, drew him to her breast. The baby blinked sleepily, made rooting motions
with his mouth.
“You should name him Su’tu.”
Xuan smiled and rocked proudly on her heels. “I am learning Namyanese. It means
Lion.”
“No. His name is Kylan.”
“Kylan. Yes.” The old leopard
nodded but the young jaguar shook her head.
“I do not understand. Kylan?”
“Namyanese for unicorn,” said
Farit as she began to wipe the blood from the bowls, the floor and Sherhanna’s
legs. “It is good luck.”
“U-nee-corn? But I don’t speak
Imperial. What is Kylan in Hanyin?”
“Such a child...” The midwife
shook her head and stomped away, her boots sounding hollow on the rough wooden
floor. Sherhanna merely smiled a cryptic smile, her eyes fixed on the cub.
“Kylan,” she said softly,
stroking the golden head with the tip of a finger. “For his father.”
“Oh that’s wonderful!” said
Xuan. “What is his father’s name?”
“Kirin,” she said. “His father’s
name is Kirin.”
***
3 months later
Kirin Wynegarde-Grey sighed and
looked around the high walls of the Outer Court. He was not sure how long he
had been waiting, but there had been a change of guard once already so it had
to have been hours. Once again, he studied their faces, those leopards who
stood so perfectly still at their posts, swords at their hips, staffs clutched
silently in their hands. He didn’t know these men. He didn’t know them.
He knew he shouldn’t be
surprised. It had been almost two years, after all. Two years since he had been
here last in the rich, beautiful halls of
Pol’Lhasa
. It had only been
last night that he’d marched up the One Hundred Steps as if in a dream but had
been stopped by the leopards at the doors of the Outer Court. They had not
known him either, those leopards and he had marveled at how much could have
changed in a world that did not embrace change. There was a time when he knew
every guard in the Palace, knew the names and families and stations of every
leopard posted in
DharamShallah
and its surrounding district. There was
a time when they would have known him as well, but that time had long passed.
He was unrecognizable, now.
It was well into morning and
people had come and gone. Servants, civilians, ministers, all rushing about
with duties and concerns and business in the Heart of the Upper Kingdom. He
watched them, his gloved hands folded between his knees, his tail bound in
strips of gold, his
keffiyah
falling across his shoulders like a mane.
He had seen a few eyes dart to his sash, the tattered sash that had once marked
him as noble but now only made him feel old. It was the way of things.
He had asked to see either the
Minister of Defense, of Arms, or of Horses or even Chancellor Ho himself. The
guards had exchanged glances, they had nodded but that had been hours ago.
Perhaps watches, although he couldn’t be sure.
What was worse, they had not
even brought him tea.
And so he sat in the outer
chamber of the Palace, waiting. Another change of guard, signaling yet another
watch and he was growing weary, but if the last years had taught him anything,
it was patience. Patience and a shattering of that damned glass.
He could still smell the
incense.
He closed his eyes and waited
some more.
It was entirely possible that he
had fallen asleep but at some point he heard a voice.
“Kirin-san? Is that you?”
He opened his eyes. It was
Master Yao Tang St. John, Minister of Horses, staring down at him with a
strange, worried gaze.
He smiled.
“Yao-san,” he said, for the
first time in his life using an informal greeting for the man. He could think
of no other words.
“Why are you sitting here?” The
man was a lion, but a strange, small, thin one, with a high top-knot and a
thin, reedy voice. “Does Chancellor Ho know of your arrival?”
Suddenly, everything felt at
once like home and wrong.
“I can’t say, Yao-san. I have
asked.”
The small man straightened,
smoothed his robes, glanced around at the leopards of the Outer Court.
“Well, yes, well...would you
like me to petition on your behalf, Kirin-san?”
Kirin smiled again, marveling at
how easily it came to his face now. “That would be acceptable, Yao-san. Thank
you.”
“Good. Very good.” And with a
little more smoothing and glancing, Master Yao Tang St. John rushed from the
antechamber and into the beating Heart that was
Pol’Lhasa.
Pol’Lhasa,
he breathed.
The most beautiful, most glorious place in all the Kingdoms, with her tall
ebony beams, winged rooftops and stained cedar walls. She was an explosion of
colour,
Pol’Lhasa
was, and every inch of wall, roof and floor boasted
more patterns than an AmniShakra Wheel. Monkeys, lions, sea shells and birds
all carved into her wood, dragons and cranes brushed like stories into her
windows. Every inch of the Palace spoke something - a history, a legend, a
prophecy. Sitting high over the city of
DharamShallah,
the Palace was at
once the heart, soul and will of the Upper Kingdom.
He did not belong here anymore.
“Captain?”
The voice echoed and immediately
all leopards stood a little taller. He turned his head to see the small Sacred
figure of Angelino Devine de Fusillia Ho, Chancellor of the Upper Kingdom, at
the far Red and Gold Door. He was clad in lush blue robes and it made Kirin
smile to see how very tiny the man was to wield such power. He had seen far too
much in this past year. Nothing could possibly be strange any more.
And so he rose to his feet,
bowed, fist to cupped palm, as the Chancellor moved along the long hallway
toward him. His flattened face was round and very white, for he was of Pershan
descent, and his yellow eyes had the look of both wonder and suspicion.
The Chancellor did not bow.
“Kirin-san, we...” But he did
swallow and that told Kirin more than anything he might have said. “We were not
expecting your return...so soon...”
“Ah. I would have thought the
kestrels-”
“Only that a small party was
returning. You are looking well.”
Kirin smiled.
“Please, would you care to join
me in my office. I have tea.”
It was the kindest thing the
Chancellor had ever said to him.
“Of course,” he answered, and
followed the man into the heart of
Pol’Lhasa.
***
Jalair Naranbaatar awoke to the
sound of weeping.
He sat up far too quickly, threw
a quick glance around the outcropping of snow and rock that served as their
shelter tonight. They were traveling very lightly, and had no poles for a gar.
The night sky had been their tent, their neighbours hares, ruffed grouse and
badgers. It took only a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, his
pointed ears swiveling for the sound.
Several paces away, his sister
sat cross-legged under the stars, tears coursing down her grey face.
“Setse,” he whispered as he
crawled out from under the skins to her side. He gathered her hands into his.
“Setse, I’m here. Tell me.”
“Ulaan Baator,” she moaned and
began to rock back and forth. “Ulaan Baator, I see him…”
“You’re not thinking clearly, Setse. Ulaan Baator is a city,
the city of the Khan. Do you see the Khan? Is that who you’re seeing?”
“No, Rani. I keep telling you. I
see Ulaan Baator, the man. Kuren. Kuren Ulaan Bator.”
He sighed, squeezed her hands
but looked to the north. Ulaan Baator—Red Hero, city of Khans since
before the people could remember. Also called Kuren by some of the more
northern people. She had been saying the same thing for weeks now. A Red Hero,
dragons, eyes and blood.
His sister was rocking more
violently now, gripping her knees so that he could see blood beneath her
rabbit-skin wraps.
“They are coming for me, Rani,”
she whispered. “I can feel them.”
“We’ll keep running. We should
be in the Mountains soon.”
“The Khan has sent a Legion.”
“Two can move where a Legion
cannot. We’ve eluded them all so far.”
She took a shuddering breath,
and he squeezed her hands again.
“I’ll fight a Legion to keep you
safe.”
“They will kill you if they find
us.”
“They will kill you if they take
you to the Khan.”