Snow in the Year of the Dragon Read online

  ***

  The road to Lha’Lhasa was a long, winding treacherous one, so it was decided that a small party would forge ahead, allowing the army to follow at a more sustainable pace as they moved through the mountains. On the advice of Chi’Chen general Li Yamashida, they left the Nine Thousand Dragons at a large plateau with stretches of frozen grass and bands of curious, slow-moving yaks. There was not nearly enough food for them all, Kerris thought. Hunger would cripple the army long before cold or war ever could. He wondered if there were enough yaks in all the kingdoms to feed these horses.

  It was with such misgivings that they left the plateau and the Nine Thousand Dragons, setting out up the narrow pass on the road to Lha’Lhasa. It was a strange and diverse group with more cats than dogs or monkeys. Himself, his wife, his brother, the Alchemist, her baby and two soldiers comprised the feline contingent; Khan Long-Swift Sumalbaykhan, Jalair Naranbatar and two foot soldiers the canine; General Yamashida and two Snow Guards the simian. Fast, light, and experienced with travel, the lot of them. Even still, it had taken several days of climb and plateau, climb and plateau, before they made the Celestial Mountain Gate and the entrance to the fabled Chi’Chenguan Way. There was no Great Wall to protect the city, no barrier of any sort to keep the teeth and arrows of the Lower Kingdom out of this northern borderland. In fact, it was as if the Chi’Chen exalted in the city’s vulnerability. Lha’Lhasa was sacred to feline, canine and simian alike.

  Beside, they all knew nothing ever built could protect Lha’Lhasa so fiercely, so completely, as the Snow.

  They had camped that night on a rise in full sight of the Celestial Mountain Gate, allowing the Snow to alert the city and relay messages before the dawn. They did not sleep but rather drank tea and kept warm by the fire until light of morning. And in such a pure, true, white, morning light, Kerris understood how the Celestial Mountain Gate got its name.

  It was not so much gate but wall. Higher even than the Great Wall, it rose from the rocky valley up the mountainsides at steep angles. ‘Like a dam’, Fallon had said, and Kerris had thought it a fitting description. It was impossible to scale, impossible to force, and banners flapped very high up in the mountain winds. It was carved, stone upon stone, with stars, suns and moons. In those carvings, there were holes. At least one hundred Snow guarded the gate, the tips of their arrows visible through those holes like spikes.

  The small party studied the Gate from the rise, breaths frosting in the early morning sun.

  “They’re ready for us,” said Yamashida and he pointed a long blond finger. “The smoke has changed from white to black. They have sent for an emissary from the Capuchin Council.”

  “We be easy targets,” growled Long-Swift, new Khargan of the Lower Kingdom. He was a tall man and lean, with quick dark eyes, scarred ears and thick grey pelt. He carried ala’Asalan, the lion-killer sword, across his back. “Arrows rain if we approach.”

  “Not if the General leads,” said Kerris. “Li can carry the banner of the Rising Suns. Besides, they’re expecting us.”

  “And they open that gate?” asked Swift. “It take thousand men to open that gate.”

  “Or one Maiden,” said Naranbatar. Like the Khargan, the young man wore the weapon strapped to his back. Kerris grinned. One breath of the Maiden and the gate would disappear.

  “That would be an act of war,” said Li Yamashida and the Khargan growled at him.

  “Keep us out be act of war.”

  Yamashida grunted and Kerris looked at him.

  The General himself was Snow and his pink face, down-turned mouth and small eyes were always serious. So different from Bo Fujihara, Kerris thought. Or most monkeys for that matter. Monkeys were known for their happy natures and smiling faces. Not the Snow. Taller and broader than most Chi’Chen, they looked built for war the same way tigers were built for work, lions for rule and jaguars for crime. It was the way of things.

  “What do you suggest then, Li?” asked Kerris. “Would it be best for you and your men to approach first, or should we go as a united group under the Rising Suns banner?”

  “Or our new banner,” sang Fallon Waterford from the back of her horse, and she smiled. “It might make them curious.”

  “Oh, they’ll be curious,” grinned Kerris. “When a group of cats, dogs and monkeys comes a-knocking on their door.”

  He looked over at his brother, seated atop the blood-bay stallion and staring out over the rise. His eyes were fixed on the gate but this morning, like many other mornings of late, his mind seemed elsewhere.

  “Kirin? What do you think?”

  The Shogun-General looked back, blinked slowly. Under the bronze-hammered helm, he looked older than his twenty-six summers.

  “United,” he said. “We go as one under both banners.”

  “Agreed,” said the Khan. “United.”

  Long-Swift looked at his wife. She was standing at his side, rocking the baby on one hip. She gazed up at him, golden eyes heavy-lidded and hiding.

  “Unification,” she purred. “It is the only way.”

  “Right then,” said Kerris. “Fallon luv, do you have the banner?”

  The tigress held it up like a child with a new toy. She had been working on it in the weeks since the Field of One Hundred Stones. It was an inked mosaic of red Yang sun, white Yin moon and twin dragons encircling both. She had attached it to a staff and now raised it high above them. In a heartbeat, one of the Snow lifted the Chi’Chen flag and soon, the only sound was the snapping of fabric in the high mountain wind.

  “Impressive,” said Kirin.

  “That’s the point,” said Kerris and he glanced around at the odd group. “Shall we head down?”

  “We head down,” said Yamashida and the General tugged on the rein of his tough little horse. It tossed its head, taking the first tentative step down the slope into the valley of the Celestial Mountain Gate.

  ***

  Pol’Lhasa, Dharamshallah

  Year of the Dragon

  “You are afraid,” she said.

  Sireth benAramis looked down at his wife. She seemed completely at home here in this hallway, the antechamber to the Throne Room of the Empress. Her armour and her weapons adorned her like the brass medallions on the walls. She was a soldier and the wife of a priest, as silver as the moon and bright as the stars. He couldn’t imagine life without her anymore.

  “I suppose I am,” he said. “I’ve never been here before.”

  “It is just a room.”

  “In the palace.”

  “It’s just a palace.”

  “Is there another?”

  She snorted, looked away.

  He sighed, letting his eyes drift to the leopards along the walls. They were watching him without watching and he applauded their tact. They could kill him with a look, he’d wager, and feel no remorse. His wife could do the same, although there might be remorse. He liked to think so after a year of marriage.

  He let his eyes fall now to the black and red door at the far end of the room.

  “I won’t change my mind,” he said finally.

  “You will,” she said. “We talked about this.”

  “We talked. I didn’t agree.”

  “This time, you must.”

  “I will not now, nor will I ever, bow.”

  “You will,” she growled. “And completely. Knees, elbows and forehead to the floor.”

  “I’ve never bowed like that in all of my life.”

  “You must,” she hissed. “She is the Empress of all things.”

  “And I am the most important man in the Kingdom,” he said. “You said it yourself. Why should I bow?”

  “Because it’s the Way of Things.”

  He smiled.

  “And when have I ever followed the Way of Things?”

  “You must now. Knees, elbows, forehead.”

  “Never.” He steeled his jaw.

  “You are impossible.”

  “That is true, and yet, here I am.”
/>
  She snorted again and he released a cleansing breath. She was right. He didn’t ascribe to court etiquette purely for the fact that he had never, in all his life, been to court. From Shathkira to Sha’Hadin, from a governor’s mansion in Kha’Bull to a magistrate’s home in Sharan’yurthah. From a torturer’s tent in Turah’kee to the head of the Army of Nine Thousand Dragons in Tevd. None of them were Court. He’d exchanged prayers and petitions for politics and principalities and power. In Pol’Lhasa, he was sincerely out of his depth. He knew he should bow out of respect alone and he wondered why the thought irked him so, wondered at the stiffness of his spine and the white-hot fire that still glowed in his belly. He was a rebel and a gypsy to the core. A gypsy in a palace.

  The Palace.

  And yet, he was also right. Sireth benAramis, last Seer from the Council of Seven, lead of the Magic and newly appointed High Master of Alchemy. Not First Mage, not yet. That required a commission from the Empress herself. Still, he was the most important man in the Kingdom, by far the most powerful, and a little voice inside told him these leopards who watched without watching should bow to him.

  “Vanity,” he said softly. “I am a foolish, vain man.”

  “Pah,” she grunted. “Show me a man living who isn’t.”

  He grinned and looked down at her again.

  “Be gentle tonight.”

  “If you bow, I will try.”

  “I love you,” he said.

  “You need me.”

  “That too.” He allowed his thoughts to be drawn back to the door. “The little, white-faced man despises me.”

  “Chancellor Ho despises everyone.”

  “He is the one who conspired with Jet barraDunne…”

  “And Yahn Nevye.”

  “And Yahn Nevye.” He clasped his hands behind his back, sharpened his thoughts. “He is telling her that we have not been kept waiting and that, in fact, we have yet to reach the Black and Red Door.”

  “You can hear him?”

  “He is lying to her. Why? Why would he lie to his Empress? What could he possibly have to gain?”

  She shifted next to him and he could feel her agitation. He was, in fact, agitating. Sometimes, he wished he were still the man he had been before his death. He doubted even gloves could keep the world out now.

  “I’m sorry, my love,” he said finally. “But I feel the need to correct him.”

  He strode forward toward the great door. Ursa scrambled as four leopards smoothly slipped across his path, blocking the door with polished bos. Without slowing, he clapped his hands together then flung them wide. The door boomed like a cannon, swinging open on bronze hinges and slamming against the walls with a crash. His hair and robes billowed as in a windstorm and all eyes in the throne room turned to see.

  He was a master of grand entrances. It was vanity but cats are, after all, a vain people.

  After a moment, the winds died and there was silence in the room. He could hear the chirrups of a young falcon, likely hooded. He quieted her with a thought.

  “I will not be gentle,” Ursa hissed at his side. “Never, ever again.”

  He peered through the fence of staffs while his eyes adjusted to the dim candlelight. The crowd stared, open-mouthed, until a lion appeared before him, bearing two swords at his hips.

  “I am Shyam Smith-Honshu, Captain of the Imperial Guard. Your entrance to this room is forbidden.”

  “She is expecting me,” said the Seer.

  “Who are you and why are you here?”

  Ursa stepped forward, bowing with hand to cupped fist. The captain did not do likewise.

  “Sireth benAramis of the Council of Seven, last Seer of Sha’Hadin.”

  A murmur ran through the crowd as all eyes turned now to the far end of the room and the small woman on the wooden chair.

  “Chancellor Ho?” the woman asked. “I thought you said my Seer was not yet in the palace.”

  “My mistake, Excellency,” answered a white-faced man. “May I present to the Imperial Council Sireth benAramis, last Seer of Sha’Hadin.”

  He turned his face to them, smiled without his eyes.

  “And alas, sidala, there is no Council of Seven.”

  Another ripple went through the crowd. Sireth did not need to hear to know the word ‘mongrel’ was on every tongue and suddenly he remembered why he would not bow.

  “I would be honoured to meet my Empress,” he said, “But this fence of eager soldiers is preventing me from entering the room. Might I request they be moved in favour of walking? Unless of course, you’d like me to provide entertainment by setting the bos on fire with the chakra of my mind?”

  Another murmer. They believed him and were terrified. Every single one.

  “Never,” hissed Ursa. “Ever.”

  The Captain grunted and nodded at the leopards. Immediately, staffs were withdrawn and the soldiers stepped back. Sireth strode into the room, his eyes locked on the woman. He didn’t need his eyes for anything else. The walls were scarlet-stained cedar – he could tell by the smell. Beams of ebony, columns of ivory and a high winged roof – known by sound. The touch of timbers ran the length of a ceiling carved with behemoths and dragons, cranes and monkeys. Temple chimes rang, brightly colored peacocks nested freely within the walls, and banners of blue and gold hung from very tall windows. Stained glass painted light from the late morning sun.

  The Throne Room of the Empress reduced to mere furniture when compared with the gold of her eyes.

  Directly in front of the wooden chair, he stopped and all sound in the room ceased, save his thudding heart. He should bow now, he knew. Ursa had dropped to the floor behind him; he could feel her eyes stabbing holes in his back. He could feel the consternation of the white-faced Chancellor, could feel the held breaths of all the Imperial Council, the burning chests, the racing thoughts, the gripped swords of indignation. Bow, he ordered himself. Bend the knees and all else will follow.

  He slipped his hands into his sleeves and stood, as upright as a tree, staring at the tiny woman on the modest seat, raised two steps above the floor. What he could see of her was exotic and fine. Her black cheeks dotted with white paint, her lips red like cherries, her eyes as gold as the evening sun. She was staring back at him, not intimidated, not irked, merely curious. It was an interesting combination and he resisted touching her mind for she deserved respect, if not a bow.

  She stared for a long moment, until her hands, completely covered in blue silk, pushed up on the arms of the old wooden seat. She stood, her posture perfect like a swan. Even on such risers, she barely met his eyes.

  There was no one else in the entire room now, although he suspected everyone had dropped to their knees the moment she had risen to her feet. There was only the Seer and his Empress, brown eyes locked with gold, weighing each other, seeking to know and be known. He felt immediately the iron will and sharp mind, her hidden heart and her skills at diplomacy in this very room as much as in the world of kingdoms and empires. He knew her love of falcons and peacocks and songbirds and her people. And he could hear another heartbeat very faint within her, one she was so desperate to hide.

  When it was born, there would be no hiding anything. She would be ruined, or made.

  The leopards along the walls were sharp at attention. He could feel the weight of their eyes on him, swords and bos ready for the slightest movement. He should light one, he thought, but then, Ursa would be right. It was vanity.

  He smiled.

  “There is a proverb,” he began. “’To attract good fortune, spend a new coin on an old friend, share an old pleasure with a new friend, and lift up the heart of a true friend by writing his name on the wings of a dragon.’”

  “We share a friend,” she answered. Her voice was like doves. “You have given him the wings of a dragon.”

  “And you have lifted his heart.”

  Boldness, he thought. Behind him, Ursa’s tail lashed, the only movement in the room.

  “Perhaps we can s
pend a new coin together,” she countered.

  “Or an old pleasure?”

  “You should bow.”

  “I know.”

  And then she did something most unexpected. Thothloryn Parillaud Markova Wu, Most Blessed Empress of the Upper Kingdom, smiled.

  “You are my equal, Sireth benAramis,” she announced to the entire room. “I am honoured to have you as my advisor, confidante and new friend.”

  “Oh, what good fortune,” he breathed, relieved.

  “And you?” to Ursa behind him. “Major Ursa Laenskaya, late of Captain Wynegarde-Grey, now guardian of the Seers and protector of Sha’Hadin.”

  “Excellency,” said Ursa from the floor.

  “Rise. I am honoured to be in your company.”

  Slowly, reluctantly, Ursa obeyed and slowly, reluctantly, breathing returned to the Throne Room.

  “All rise,” commanded the Empress. “We are in the presence of heroes.”

  Behind him, Ursa swallowed. He could feel the racing of her heart. It was as loud as running horses. The Empress turned her golden gaze back to him.

  “The young falcon,” she said.

  “Mi-Hahn,” said Sireth.

  “You called her from the wild?”

  “She called me.”

  “I did not think such a thing happened in Sha’Hadin.”

  “It happened in Turah’kee.”

  And she surprised him by stepping down those two steps to stand before him. She was as small as a child. Just like Petrus Mercouri. Sacred.

  “Walk with me,” she said and he fell in at her side as she turned toward the far corner. A trio of falcons sat on an iron frame, hooded and belled. One bobbed eagerly, wings outstretched, razor-beak open.

  “She is learning,” said the Empress. “But she likes to sit on heads.”

  “Do this,” said Sireth and he held a fist over his head. Even hooded, the falcon lit from its perch onto his hand.

  “Remarkable,” she said.

  He pulled his hand down, bringing the bird with it, rotating it until she was comfortably perched on his thumb. He stroked her downy breast, wishing now he could leave this room for Sha’Hadin or even Turah’kee. His road would be longer still, he knew.