Snow in the Year of the Dragon Read online

  Thoom thoom thoom thoom.

  He lay on his belly in the rug of black and white bear with only the linen kimonoh for covering, waiting for the dizziness to subside. Earlier that morning the Stonelilies had got to work on the back of his knee. All day long they had worked, using needles and hot stones and burning sticks, and, while it had been painful at the time, he had to admit that at the moment he was experiencing no pain whatsoever. He wondered if there was some form of medicine in the needles – a root or leaf extract that amplified the work. He could ask the Alchemist but could not be sure if she would answer with the truth or a riddle. She was cryptic to her bones. It was best not to think of her.

  Thoom thoom thoom thoom.

  It sounded like thunder. It sounded like the drums of war.

  In the middle of this waking dream, the cold air began to rumble and the Stonelilies shrieked with alarm. He pushed up on his elbows, the thin bolt of mane falling past his cheek as he turned his face. It had to be a dream, for the far wall was glowing, a circle of grey, then blue, then white before disappearing entirely with a shower of sparks and leaving a hole the size of a lion. A dream, he was certain, for such a thing was not possible.

  And then a voice.

  “Chinmoku, josei, my grannies. Don’t move or I’ll puncture your lovely throats. Just one claw each and you’ll die long, slow but beautifully colourful deaths before you even make it to the floor.”

  It was then that he remembered that anything was possible if Kerris Wynegarde-Grey was involved.

  “Kirin? By the Kingdom, what have they done? Needles?”

  Familiar hands roaming over his body, tugging the points from his pelt.

  Kirin wondered if there was blood.

  “Kirin, are you alright?”

  Thoom thoom thoom thoom.

  Was it the blood in his ears? Had his life become so entwined with war that even his pulse was a drum?

  He shook his head to clear it, felt his stomach lurch as Kerris helped him sit up.

  “There. How’s that?” said Kerris. “They’ve dipped those needles in a brew, I’m a-thinking.”

  “How did you get here?” he asked. His throat was dry, his voice hoarse. “They wouldn’t let me leave the room.”

  “There is more than one way to get into a room,” and the grey lion cast his eyes to the wall. “The Maiden is good for many things.”

  Kirin followed his gaze to see a hole large enough for a cat. He wondered if and when the Snow would come for the device now that the secret was out.

  “Tut,” he heard a Stonelily say and Kerris’ head snapped up.

  “I said don’t, lovely,” he said pleasantly. “Else I’ll ask the wall to close and the steam to boil your bones.”

  The woman froze in her tracks as the water bubbled angrily in its bed. The elements carried more of a threat than his voice ever did.

  Kerris leaned forward.

  “I can’t ask the wall to move, really,” he said in Imperial. “These walls are Ancestral and they don’t speak. I’m not sure I could do a thing with them …”

  Thoom thoom thoom thoom. Jingle and song and thoom thoom thoom.

  “Kerris,” Kirin said. “What’s that noise?”

  “You need to get up,” said Kerris. “We need to show you something.”

  “Your clothes,” said Kirin. “How did you get your clothes?”

  “Yours are here too,” said Kerris. “I’ll help you with that in a moment. Come.”

  Kerris pulled him to his feet, holding him steady as the room continued to spin. He flexed his knee, surprised to find it pain-free for the first time since Roar’pundih.

  Fallon Waterford-Grey stood by the window-wall, arms wrapped around her ribs, striped tail silent and still. She threw him a quick glance but not a happy one. He wondered why. She was a creature of sunshine and wind.

  “They call it the Square of Frost Flowers,” she said softly.

  “Come see,” said Kerris.

  The room spun like a child’s toy so they made slow time to the window-wall to stand beside the tigress. He looked down, following her gaze to the village below. It was dawn and the light was thin, with torches burning all throughout the tent-city.

  Thoom thoom thoom thoom.

  Hundreds of soldiers, Snow all, marching through the Square of Frost Flowers, their swords and arrows gleaming in the firelight, their boots stomping in perfect precision. They were leaving the city like a golden wave, early morning crowds throwing petals in the air as they marched past.

  “Why?” he growled.

  “I don’t know,” said Kerris. “But look there…”

  And he pointed a long grey finger to a platform at the base of the mountain where the army marched past.

  Kirin narrowed his eyes, making out the sight of two men strapped to poles. Snow, he realized, the men were Snow, but they weren’t strapped to the poles and he was suddenly grateful that Kerris was holding him as now the room lurched at the sight. The men were impaled, bleeding from mouths, nostrils and eyes. The crowd tossed fruit peels and flower blossoms at their bodies, singing in their strange, lilting, Chi’Chen tongue.

  “What are they saying?” he whispered. “Peace, Brothers, Snow? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Find Peace and Enlightenment, Lost Brothers of the Snow,” said Kerris.

  He looked at his brother. “Why would they kill members of their own?”

  “They didn’t.”

  “They didn’t kill them?”

  “They’re not their own.”

  And Kerris pointed to another pole where only a severed head reigned.

  “They’re ours.”

  Kirin’s heart stopped in his chest.

  On the top of the pole sat the helmed head of Li Yamashida, General of the Army of Nine Thousand Dragons.

  Honesty

  The Great Golden Lion towered over the small wooden seat.

  A riot of colour. The hassassin of an Empress

  The Great Golden Lion towered over the small wooden seat.

  I will not leave.

  The Great Golden Lion towered over the small wooden seat.

  Pine, cedarwood, coconut, Dragon’s Blood Bark.

  Dragon’s Blood Bark

  Dragon’s Blood Bark

  Sireth benAramis opened his eyes.

  He was in the War Room again, and he doubted it was a good idea. His thoughts had teeth now and he wondered if it was the Alchemy. This new life after the old one was all still so raw.

  His wife was sham’Rai.

  He wondered if their marriage would be annulled somehow. If Chancellor Ho would make certain there was a law in some old book that a sham’Rai could have no land or property or spouse of his/her own. He thought he’d read it somewhere, at sometime. Perhaps in Sha’Hadin a lifetime ago. He could barely remember.

  This new life. He honestly preferred the old.

  He sighed and looked around the room. The same as the day before but empty now, save the two leopards guarding the door. They must have thought it strange – the Last Seer of Sha’Hadin sitting cross-legged on the map floor directly on top of Swisserland. Naturally, they wouldn’t know that, and truth be told, he didn’t know that. He trusted Kerris and Solomon and their unnatural way with maps.

  The Great Golden Lion towered over the small wooden seat. He had placed seven sticks of Dragon’s Blood Bark in the mouth of the statue and the room was heavy with the musky sweet odor. He’d had an idea earlier on, had formed a dangerous plan to save the honour of the Empress and the baby in her belly. It would likely not work. It would also involve treason, so he dared not tell his wife.

  “Have you seen our future, my Seer?” the Empress had asked. “Do you know what is to come?”

  He had seen a metal dragon land in the streets of DharamShallah, he had told her, Ancestors climbing the steps of the palace, but he had to admit it was a bit of a lie. The Ancestor had been Jeffery Solomon, and he had no idea of when. He’d once told the Captain that Time wa
s little more than an old woman’s knitting, but that too was something of a lie. Time was an esoteric thing on the Vision plane, quite unlike that old woman’s knitting. Perhaps truth, like time, was esoteric and perhaps now, he was lying to himself.

  The truth was simple. He didn’t want to know their future. He didn’t want to try. He would be happy taking up a position at Agara’tha. He would even be happy training Alchemists, as impossible as that was, and would even be happy with this brother of Jet barraDunne serving under him. It would be like every other thing he had ever done in life – difficult and fraught with prejudice, and because of that, familiar territory. But War Advisor and husband to a sham’Rai? Neither was a comfortable fit.

  Too many thoughts were crowding his mind. He had one job now, given him by the Empress. See the enemy. Secure the course of the Empire.

  Chairs were sounding so sweet.

  He closed his eyes, released a deep cleansing breath as he turned his thoughts to the metal dragon. Kerris and Fallon had described it many times – how it rode the air like a soaring bird but carried them inside its belly rather than on its back. Ancestors were a strange people to have constructed such a thing.

  He let his thoughts wander to the one Ancestor he knew. The brown eyes and peltless face, the quick humour and the big heart. Solomon was in Lost Railya searching for Ancestors but now, when he sought for the familiar mind, there was nothing. Nothing but ice and he shuddered at the memory. The ice had almost killed them both, once upon a time.

  He lived to serve the Empress.

  He looked up as a man in blue robes slipped in.

  “Oh forgive, wise Seer,” said Master Yeo Tang-St. John in his thin voice. “I was hoping to make an adjustment to the rotation of the Imperial Stables, and my notes are at my station. I shall return later.”

  “No, no,” said Sireth from the floor. “Please come in. I needed another space since the Room of Enlightened Shadows is under repair.”

  Another lie. Perhaps one day he’d be good at it.

  The Master of Horses smiled a toothy smile and moved into the room.

  “I have heard,” said Tang-St. John. “Master Turlington said that Master Han said that it was almost as if a herd of animals had trampled through it.”

  Sireth smiled, liking the man immediately.

  The Minister crossed the floor toward his low desk but slowed, sniffed the air. Turned to look at the Great Golden Lion and the many sticks of incense in his great golden mouth.

  “Dragon’s Blood Bark?” he asked.

  “I am entreating the Guardian of Pol’Lhasa.”

  “The Guardian?”

  “Yes,” said Sireth. “The symbol of the Upper Kingdom is a golden lion, is it not?”

  The Master of Horses looked puzzled, frowned.

  “It is on the Fanxieng Imperial crest,” he said. “But I do not think—”

  “It’s magic,” the Seer said too quickly.

  Tang-St. John’s eyes grew wide. “Magic?”

  “Yes, magic. As the Last Seer of Sha’Hadin and the First Mage of Agara’tha—”

  “And newly appointed War Advisor to the Empress,” added the Master of Horses.

  Such a dangerous game.

  “Yes, that,” said Sireth. “The Empress had asked me to use all of my skills to serve the Empire. How better to do that than to call on powers even greater than my own.”

  “With incense?”

  Sireth rose to his feet, slowly approached the tiny wooden chair dwarfed by the statue. Naturally, Tang-St. John followed.

  “With Dragon’s Blood Bark,” he said. “Known the world over to augment and improve male passions and power.”

  Tang-St. John blinked several times.

  “But how will that serve the Empire?”

  “War is a man’s game. Our Empress—”

  “—May she live forever.”

  “—May she live forever.” The Seer plucked another stick, held it to the charcoal brazier, watched as the tip caught and glowed. “Will need to be guided by this symbol as she decides our course with wisdom and strength.”

  Lies. Games. Manipulations. Vanity.

  He placed the stick in the lion’s mouth, turned to look at the Master of Horses.

  “And the Great Golden Lion will give her a sign.”

  “What kind of sign?”

  “A magical sign,” he said. “It will be a miracle and it will unify all the people.”

  Tang-St. John thought for a long moment, before reaching out to take a stick.

  “Then I will pray for this as well. Thank you, sahidi. I believe the Empress has chosen well.”

  Sireth nodded and returned to the spot on the floor that was possibly Swisserland. He folded his long legs and lowered himself to sit, palms held loosely in his lap.

  Footfall as another man appeared at the War Room door.

  “Master Turlington!” exclaimed Tang-St. John. “Come join me as we pray for a miracle!”

  “A miracle?” exclaimed Master Turlington and he stepped into the room. “What is this miracle?”

  “It’s magic!”

  Sireth closed his eyes once more.

  ***

  Teeth and claws teeth and claws and scales and heads two heads four eyes flash red in the darkness the ice cracks the stones move the mountain begins to stir

  A hand on his face—

  He opened his eyes. Setse was smiling at him, the tips of her lashes covered with frost, and his heart swelled at the sight of her. How quickly she had become his world.

  Alagh stirred in his arms, and he held his breath, desperate for the boy to continue sleeping. It had been a hard night for the Oracles of Blood. Visions and convulsions, dreams and prophesy, a living cavern of breathing walls and floors of teeth. He had seen it too – fleeting scraps of images, not quite memories, not quite future. The gifts of the Oracles were raw and jarring, not at all the same as life in Sha’Hadin and the vision plain.

  Holding the boy, he pushed to his feet, the snow falling from his cloak like powder. Behind him, aSiffh rose as well, shaking out his mane and making it snow anew. The young stallion blinked slowly before ambling off towards a frozen carcass for breakfast.

  Setse smiled again.

  “Look, Shar,” she said. “Look at our home.”

  Nevye looked up at the mountain. The morning sun gleamed on the sandstone, sparkled off the sheets of snow. Tsaparang. In some ways, it reminded him of Sha’Hadin – the rocky rises and icy slopes of the Cliff of a Thousand Eyes. In other ways, it reminded him of Pol’Lhasa, her many angled rooflines and even more steps. There was a strange otherness to it and he knew it had to do with the Ancestors. They built with straight lines and golden domes and elements that whispered danger. Even the chorten at his back rippled with Ancient chi. What it had to do with teeth and claws puzzled him, but then again, he had never been skilled at interpreting dreams.

  “It’s beautiful,” he said.

  “There is darkness inside,” she said. “We all feel it.”

  “We will fight the darkness,” he said. “We can’t turn back.”

  “I have a dagger,” she said. “You have a sword.”

  “But we also have children.”

  “They are Chanyu,” she said. “They will fight like warriors.”

  He remembered how Doshan had held the sword without flinching, how Sev had killed the tsaa buga with her arrows. In his arms, Alagh was deep in sleep, his frosted lashes soft against his gaunt young cheek. They were brave and valiant and far too young to fight.

  “Give him to me,” came a voice and Nevye looked to see Zorig stir from his mound of hide. “He’ll keep me warm while you go explore the mountain. Kill off any teeth and claws before I get there. There’s a lot of steps and I’m too old to fuss.”

  Nevye passed the boy into the old man’s arms. Zorig grunted and rolled over, becoming little more than a hide tent once more.

  “Where’s Balm?” Setse asked.

  They glanced around a
t the many small icy mounds, noticed one depression in the snow, spied the tracks that led up the mountain.

  Nevye sighed.

  Setse slid the dagger from her boot and looked up, a dancer with the spirit of the moon and a will of iron. She had never been more beautiful.

  He gripped his sword and together they pushed through the new snow toward the mountain.

  ***

  “Lesson One.”

  She circled the Empress draped in folds of black silk.

  “You are weak.”

  “I am Iron,” said the Empress.

  “You are a blade of grass, a cricket. Anyone could step on you. Anyone could kill you.”

  “My Bushona Geisha would stop them.”

  The riot of women huddled close by, watching, whispering, furious. The Room of Dancing Cranes had been emptied of all servants and staff, save Ursa, the Empress and the Bushona Geisha.

  “No,” said Ursa. “They would kill your killer, but you’d be dead, crushed like a cricket under a boot.”

  The Empress raised her chin, refusing to move as the snow leopard circled her like a cobra.

  “You should allow me to remove my crown.”

  “Would a killer allow you such courtesy?” And she reached forward, swatting the War Crown with her hand. The Empress gasped and the Geisha grumbled in the distance. “Was the hassassin in your rooftops waiting for a private moment? Or was she waiting for the perfect shot?”

  And she slapped the Imperial shoulder. The Empress whirled, tassels swinging about her beautiful face.

  “This is not a good first lesson,” she growled.

  “It is your only first lesson.” And the snow leopard slapped again, this time an arm.