Snow in the Year of the Dragon Read online

  She narrowed her eyes, nodded once, and pulled the door closed with great golden rings. He approached the tiny woman at the heart of the whole world.

  The Empress did not look at him.

  “You have never been to DharamShallah,” she said.

  “Never,” he answered.

  “What are your thoughts?”

  At their feet, the city sprawled to the mountains with homes and temples, schools and storefronts. Smoke rose from early-morning chimneys and lanterns flashed along the busy streets. People of all races moved to and fro, in and out, up and down, some on horseback, some in carts, most on foot. Banners flapped in morning winds and birds raced through skies that went on forever.

  “It is the surface of a river,” he said. “Always rushing but never leaving.”

  “Always changing but never changed,” she said.

  “Just so.”

  He studied her profile from the corner of his eye. Sharp, elegant, controlled. Metal, he thought. She was a creature of iron and steel. Dragonborn in a dragon year. Bad luck for her, if he was given to superstition.

  He felt Ursa move to stand behind them, could hear her heartbeat steady and strong.

  “You know why I wished to speak with you?” the Empress asked.

  “I do,” he said.

  “You do not approve?” she asked.

  “I am a mongrel in love with a snow leopard. What should I say?”

  “You are my Seer. You should advise me.”

  “Then I will.” He clasped his hands behind his back. “Do what do you wish.”

  She smiled. It was swift and fleeting, but still.

  “You know what I wish.”

  “Then do it,” said the Seer

  “It is impossible,” she said. “With the rise of the Ancestors, our kingdom is fragile. I must be strong so the people stay strong.”

  “And doing what you wish is weakness?”

  She thought a moment.

  “It would involve change. Now is not the time for change.”

  “Perhaps it is precisely the time for change.”

  “Not in a Dragon year. It would invite chaos.”

  She turned to look at him now and he marveled at the gold of her eyes, completely understood how his friend had lost himself there. He had lost himself in a pair very much like these, so many years ago.

  “Have you seen our future, my Seer?” she said. “Do you know what is to come?”

  “I do not know,” he said, releasing a long breath. “I have not tried.”

  “Try.” She looked back out over the city. “There are spies everywhere.”

  “Are they in the palace?” asked Ursa. He was proud of her for speaking. She was as brave as a winter bear.

  “Everywhere.”

  “Are there people you can trust? Rooms where no one can hear?”

  “This terrace only,” she said. “Otherwise, I am a bird in a cage.”

  “You are a Dragon,” said the Seer. “Cages cannot hold dragons for long.”

  The Empress lowered her lashes and he knew he had said a good thing.

  “Who protects you?” Ursa asked. “You move through the palace in a cloud of women. Are any trained to fight, to kill, to die?”

  “They are the Bushona Geisha,” said the Empress. “They are trained.”

  “By whom?”

  “I do not know.”

  “You should know. I would know if I were Empress.”

  “Perhaps you should train them.”

  “I would not train them,” Ursa said. “But I would train you if you wished it.”

  The Sacred woman turned to the snow leopard and Ursa straightened, allowing herself to be measured. It was like night meeting day, Sireth thought. Ebony, gold and Imperial silk set against moonlight, ice and warrior’s steel.

  “I do wish it,” said the Empress after a moment. “But I wish many things. Few of which come to pass.”

  “I will train you.”

  “It will take too long.”

  “Three lessons,” said Ursa. “Three lessons and you will be ready.”

  “I will consider it.”

  She turned back to the balcony, laid her hands on the rail.

  “My Seer may grant me a wish, however.”

  “Anything,” he said.

  “I wish for you to stay with me in Pol’Lhasa.”

  Sireth blinked slowly. That was not the plan.

  “Why?”

  “You question your Empress?”

  “I question my wife and that is infinitely more dangerous.”

  The Empress smiled again, freely this time. It was a beautiful thing.

  “It is for selfish reasons,” she said finally. “I am at a loss without my Shogun-General.”

  “As, I am certain, he is without you,” he said. “I would be there with him still if it weren’t for Unification.”

  “Unification of the Arts and the Gifts,” she said. “This is possible?”

  He moved to stand beside her now, placed his own hands on the rail, felt the years of ministers and monarchs shoot through his palms and up to his teeth.

  “Not only possible, but necessary,” he said. “If our Kaidan is to be believed, the Ancestors are as powerful as they have ever been.”

  “There was a weapon,” said Ursa. “Like a bamboo staff but thicker. It made holes in the deer stones like a blade through paper. Others, it completely erased. I have never seen anything like it.”

  “We have no such weapons,” the Empress said.

  “We have people,” Sireth said. “Through Unification, our people will be our weapons.”

  “The Gifts and the Arts combined,” she said.

  “The army called it The Magic,” said Ursa.

  “The Magic,” the Empress breathed the word as if it were incense. “Is there Magic in this world?”

  “Magic is merely a word,” he said. “I do believe there are things we don’t understand, especially about ourselves as a people. I died by an arrow to the back, and yet am here. Kerris Wynegarde-Grey can move mountains with his thoughts. Sherah al Shiva can drink the memories of men and collect them in a floating purse. The Necromancers of Jia’Khan traded eyes for lives. Four cats and one dog were able to create a shield of will that protected an entire army from the hail of arrows. Our world is complex and terrifying and we have few enough Scholars to make sense of any of it.”

  “It’s Magic,” said Ursa.

  The Empress stared off over the city. One could watch her thoughts as if spinning silk.

  “So the Last Seer of Sha’Hadin does not believe in Magic?” she asked finally.

  “He does not believe in Magic,” he said.

  “What is Alchemy, then?”

  It was a test, he knew.

  “Fire powder and incense and perhaps a little more.”

  “More?”

  “There is always more,” he said. “The Alchemists have a profound understanding of the nature of the elements that make up our world. Perhaps the Arts are simply the Gifts, but in a different form. Physical opposed to esoteric, corporeal instead of spiritual. Surely they share a root and I must find this root in order to bring about Unification. I simply don’t know where to begin.”

  She raised her chin slightly, eyes still glued to the horizon.

  “I will draft a parchment instating you as First Mage of Agara’tha,” she said.

  “Pah,” said Ursa. “A First Mage who does not believe in Magic.”

  Sireth smiled. “I was expecting as much.”

  “The Acting First of Agara’tha is Lor barraDunne.”

  The smile froze on his face. Behind him, Ursa hissed.

  “Well, I was not expecting that,” he said. “Lor barraDunne. Is he a brother?”

  “Yes. Younger but skilled nonetheless.”

  “Is he as treacherous?” growled Ursa.

  “Not yet,” said the Empress. “He has not spent as much time in Agara’tha, as in the School of One Hundred Thoughts. He is an Alche
mist and a Scholar and stands ready to assist with your transition.”

  Ursa’s tail lashed behind her.

  “I will kill this barraDunne if he even speaks his brother’s name.”

  “Jet was zealous for the integrity of the Empire,” the Empress said. “I’m convinced his brother will not make the same mistakes.”

  “He will make other, more crafted mistakes,” said Sireth.

  They stared out in silence over the city, watched the smoke lift up on the breeze to become one with the cloud and the snow.

  “You will leave at dawn tomorrow to take up your position and bring about this Unification.” The Empress paused. “With, or without, Magic.”

  “I can begin,” he said. “But I am afraid there are many who will oppose.”

  “You do not bow in the presence of your Empress,” said the Sacred woman. “Yet you are afraid of a little fire powder and incense?”

  Before he could stop himself, he laughed and once it was out, he didn’t feel like reining it in. So for the first time in living memory, laughter echoed from the Imperial palace down to the streets and roadways of DharamShallah, welcome and fleeting like the first snow of winter.

  It was silent for a while after the laughter faded, leaving the hum of the wind and the distant clamor of the streets. From the corner of his eye, he noticed a tear running down her ebony face. It broke his heart in many places.

  “Three lessons,” she said after a long moment. “We will begin tomorrow.”

  “Then you are my pupil,” said Ursa. “And we begin now.”

  She slid one of her many shir’khins from the plates on her arm, held it out to the woman in silk. The Empress took it, studied it for a moment in the thin morning light.

  “Instead of a chick or a mongoose,” said Ursa. “This is not your first lesson.”

  The Empress slipped the disk into her sleeve.

  And they remained that way on the balcony until the Chancellor called them in for the tea.

  ***

  Kirin hated it at once.

  They had been riding all morning, flanked by grim mountains and grimmer Snow. According to Yamashida, this was the fabled Chi’Chenguan Way, the legendary road for troops moving between the Celestial Mountain Gate and Lha’Lhasa. To Kirin, it had looked little more than a dry riverbed – arid and stony and surrounded by jagged peaks. It was fairly even, however, and the thin-legged monk kept a relentless pace despite that fact that he wore no shoes. The dogs also walked, including their Khargan. Long-Swift could easily keep up with the horses and over the past weeks, he’d more than earned his name by the length of his strides. The Snow rode thick little buckskin horses with stripes on their legs and manes like black bristle brushes. Unlike traditional Chi’Chen horses, there were no beads woven into forelocks, no braids in the tails, no signs of paint or brand. They were like their riders – tough and utilitarian. One didn’t waste time or chi decorating animals bound for war.

  War. Kirin shook his head. This was a mission of unification, but it was becoming hard to shake the feeling that it would not be an easy transition. Kerris had long abandoned his attempts to chat with the thin-legged monk and even the Scholar was quiet, choosing this time to wisely keep her thoughts to herself. Now, the silence had become like the sun – thin, draining and brutally cold.

  They got their first glimpse of the city by noon, far off and hazy and surrounded by mountains. It grew sharper as they neared, however; first, just a mass of dark shapes at the foot of a large hill. Shapes that eventually became huts, then houses, then larger dwellings that looked like barracks, giving way to a city that sprawled across the plain like the spokes of a wheel. At the center of the city was a very large hill, and on the crest of the hill, a palace.

  The high winged rooftops, the blackened cedar beams, the multitude of windows rectangular and dark. And the steps. Far more than One Hundred Steps, as if to make the climbing harder, and therefore, holier.

  Yes, Kirin hated it very much.

  Lha’Lhasa, the Seat of the Capuchin Council and the easternmost Palace of the Rising Suns.

  He ground his molars, knowing he shouldn’t feel as he did. Lha’Lhasa was older than Pol’Lhasa, in fact the very model for it if the Scholar was to be believed. It was only natural, then, that they would be almost identical; both rising over their valleys like monarchs, causing all eyes to lift heavenward in reverence, wonder and awe. Sitting atop the crest of the hill in the middle of the riverbed, it was surrounded on all sides by mountains like the points of a crown. And Lha’Lhasa was the gem, the crystal, the glorious centerpiece of such a crown, indeed the fulcrum of an entire world. It was only natural that such a place should be holier than Pol’Lhasa, and it was only natural that one should compare. It was wrong but it was natural, and cats are, after all, a natural people.

  But there was something, he also realized amid his grumbling, something simply ‘off’ in this city of lethal expectation. It was only as they entered that he noticed the lack.

  Whereas the jewel of Pol’Lhasa danced with life and colour, Lha’Lhasa seemed a dark gem. There were no flags waving from her courts, no banners of ceremony or garlands of wealth. Rather, ravens lined her high walls and perched, unbothered, atop her pillars. At her feet, row after row of buildings, flat and bent over as if in genuflection, but on their rooftops, crows instead of sentries, snow instead of Snow. It was silent; the moaning of the wind the only sound save the creak of leather and the crunch of heavy feet, and the realization struck him like a fist.

  It was empty.

  In fact, he realized that he had not seen people at all on this road since the Celestial Mountain Gate. Now, as they rode through the city in the shadow of the palace, he looked around at the houses with their dark windows and darker birds. Golden pillars blackened with age, doors closed, chimneys sealed. It was a strange sensation, and sad, for he knew he was looking at a city of ghosts.

  Lha’Lhasa, table of the Ancestors and home of all the Empires of the World, sat abandoned by her people, little more than a whisper on the wind. He glanced down at Kerris on the back of his mountain pony, only to see the same questions on his brother’s face. If Lha’Lhasa was empty, what did it mean for the Capuchin Council? And more importantly, where was the thin-legged monk leading them and why?

  The monk raised a hand and the entire party came to a halt. He looked to his left. He looked to his right. He folded his legs and dropped to the ground, laying the lantern to rest upon the stones. Immediately, the Snow guards formed their horses in a circle around them, locking them in a prison stronger than iron. Swords were held across their thighs, although the blades were nowhere near as sharp as the eyes.

  “Are we having a break?” asked Kerris but the monk did not move. “Li?”

  Yamashida swiveled in the saddle, nodded swiftly but not surely. If Kirin hadn’t been riding with the man for weeks, he might have missed the furrowed brow and tense shoulders, might have misread the clenched jaw for determination and not confusion. This man was a General in the Chi’Chen army but clearly, he was as puzzled as a new recruit at the sight of their holiest of cities left to waste in the white Chi’Chenguan sun.

  “Right,” said Kerris and he slid off his pony to pull out his pack. “Since we’ve had no food in days, I think I’ll have tea.”

  “Oh tea!” sang the Scholar and she too slid from the back of her horse, bringing the baby along with her. “You might have tea too, dearest Kylan. Would that be fine with you, ‘Rah? We can make it with extra milk and honey.”

  Atop the back of her night-black mare, the Alchemist smiled down at her.

  “Of course,” she said.

  Soon, a small fire was burning and a pot bubbled with brewing chai. Kerris had been right. While the tea was welcome, it did not begin to dull the angry teeth inside their bellies. And so, they waited for the monk, some sitting, some standing, all wrestling with their own thoughts. For his part, Kirin wished the city held more than ravens.

  Cup in han
d, Kerris ambled over to stand beside him. A smile was fixed on his face, but it was a knife. The Snow were always watching and Kirin had no faith that they were unlearned in Imperial.

  “This is very odd, Kirin,” Kerris said quietly. “The Emperor assured me that we would have a reception with the Capuchin Council.”

  “But where, Kerris?” Kirin asked, also quietly. “Did he say where?”

  “Lha’Lhasa. I’m sure of it.”

  There was a footfall and they looked up to see the Khargan. He did not drink tea.

  “This be wrong,” he growled. “That city too clean.”

  “Too clean?” asked Kirin. “What do you mean?”

  “No smell of death. No smell of life. Just ravens and lies.”

  Kirin released a cleansing breath. As much as he was a soldier, he was a diplomat, and this raised many questions about the state of the Eastern Kingdom. He cast his eyes to the mountains, certain that he saw the glint of steel. He studied the troops, flanking them like prisoners. Surely they would have been killed before opening the Celestial Mountain Gate had that been their aim. No, they were being taken somewhere. He could only hope it would involve the Capuchin Council. They would either have an explanation for the Emperor’s false orders, or their disregard of his true ones. But could anything possibly explain Lha’Lhasa?

  Seated cross-legged on the stony ground, Fallon cradled the baby in her arms.

  “Oh not to worry, dear Kylan,” she said in a singsong voice. “It’s just the funny way of monkeys. They like to make a big show out of things when, really, everything is just very simple. Monkeys don’t like simple, despite what they tell you.”

  The baby smiled at her, flailed his little fists.

  “He wants moving,” said Naranbatar. “Too much time in arms.”

  “Well then, let’s give him some freedom,” said Fallon and she lowered the child onto the stones between them. He rocked back and forward in an attempt at a crawl. His tufted tail lashed behind him and the young dog smiled, entranced.

  The scent of incense floated down as the Alchemist knelt beside her, holding a clay pot in her long, strong hands.

  “You have not touched your tea,” she said.