Snow in the Year of the Dragon Page 7

  “Oh, yah, I know,” said Fallon. “I’m not really feeling up to it right now. I’m too hungry and when you put tea in a hungry belly, sometimes things don’t end up so well. Take it from me!”

  And she laughed to herself.

  “This is special tea,” said Sherah, and she filled the Scholar’s tin cup with a golden-green brew. “For your condition.”

  “My condition?” Fallon’s head snapped up. “What? Am I sick?”

  “Not yet.” The Alchemist smiled. “Your belly is not only hungry.”

  “What? Why? How? What?”

  Suddenly, her emerald eyes grew round.

  “Oh! Do you think…?”

  “I know.”

  “Wow, really? Again? So soon…?”

  “Your children are weaned and your husband is eager.”

  I am destined to have more kittens with the woman I love.

  Fallon let out a puff of breath.

  “It’s not a good time. I mean, Ancestors and politics and strategies and war...”

  The earth kills everything.

  “Oh mother…” She bit her lip. “Do you believe in destiny, ‘Rah?”

  “Destiny is Dharma’s gift, sister.” The Alchemist lowered her eyes. “But she is a cruel mistress. We may have fate without destiny if we defer her for too long.”

  We’re not going to die here.

  “Fate without destiny,” said the tigress. “That’s sad.”

  “It is yuanfen. For those who do not find redemption.”

  And the cheetah pushed the tea into the tigress’ hands.

  “Drink.”

  She rose to her feet and slipped back to the fire. Fallon cupped the brew in both hands, letting the heat radiate into her palms and up her wrists. She glanced over to her husband, watched him rub his arm and chest. It was affecting him, draining him, wearing him down.

  We’re not going to die here.

  But what if he did?

  Numbly, she let her eyes wander over to the baby as he crawled toward the young dog.

  “See?” said Rani, catching her eye. “He happy now.”

  “Yes,” she said, forced a smile over her tea. “Happy.”

  Beside them the Alchemist tended the fire and hummed to herself in strange, exotic keys.

  Finally, after what seemed like hours, the monk stood up. He picked up the lantern with his long tail and began to walk. The flanking Snow grunted and gestured with their weapons.

  “They don’t need to do that, Li,” said Kerris. “We’re not prisoners.”

  “Protocol,” grumbled Yamashida. “We are unknown, and therefore, suspicious.”

  “Diplomacy needs protocol,” said Kirin as he mounted his horse. “But it also needs respect. There is no honour in neglecting that.”

  “The Snow are ruled by honour.”

  “Your Snow are,” he said. “But these?”

  “All Snow. It is our way.”

  “I look forward to seeing that proven, then.”

  Yamashida frowned but mounted his weary horse. Together, they followed the thin-legged monk once more until the city of ghosts was far behind them and the mountains rose up sharply on all sides.

  The sun was waning now, laying her thin yellow head onto a pillow of mountains and Kirin wondered if she were old here in the Eastern Kingdom. He had rarely seen an old monkey. They lived with youthful faces and young pelts until suddenly, they were ancient. Their coats went grey and their hairless faces puckered like withered apples, and he wondered if it was because of the old, Eastern sun.

  Yet another hour and the Chi’Chenguan Valley angled southeast. Curiously, the monk angled southwest toward the surrounding mountains, and Kirin felt his pulse quicken, fought the keen of his fingers for the hilt of his sword. The flat stone of the riverbed gave way to steep cliffs rising up with unnatural precision. As they entered the shadows, the air grew colder still.

  “Metal,” Kerris hissed. “Ancestral metal.”

  “On the mountains?”

  “In them.” The grey lion breathed deeply as if tasting the air. “And water. Steam. Boiling water. Fire, water and metal.”

  Kirin breathed deeply, noticing the scent on the wind. He had smelled it once before, in the box canyon of Hiran. There, hot springs had filled the air with the smell of eggs. Here, there was just a hint, low and murmuring under the breeze.

  “This is a very old place,” said Kerris.

  In fact, it was golden.

  The sky was golden, the mountains were golden, the stones of the riverbed golden. It was hard to tell them apart now with the setting of the sun. Thin air and low light called all things together, and Kirin could understand how this was truly the cradle of the world where everything had been born. The elements blended with unnatural ease – stone became sky, river became earth. He was glad he was riding, for to walk would necessitate knowing where one’s feet were, and in this golden light, he had little hope that they would stand.

  Suddenly and without warning, the monk stopped.

  Cliffs towered above them now, rising above the plain in an almost unbroken line. Sheer cliffs of snow and shale, ice and slate. The squadron of Snow halted, flanking them on both sides as the party came to a stop. For their part, the horses were grateful.

  The monk raised the lantern, its flame flickering in the mountain wind and he turned to them. For the first time all day, Kirin saw his face.

  Black skin, creamy pelt, eyes as shiny as raindrops. The hat was pulled down low on his forehead, and his torso was wrapped in many layers of wool. But legs and feet were bare, apparently unaffected by the brutal cold. He stamped one foot on the ground once, twice, three times, cast his shiny eyes across the party assembled before him. They came to rest on Kirin.

  “Shogun-General of the Upper Kingdom,” said the monk. His voice was high and thin, like the sound of wind through grass. “You wish to speak to the Capuchin Council.”

  So informal, thought Kirin. Diplomacy needed respect. He chose to remain in the saddle, emphasizing the point.

  “I do.”

  “It is no easy task. They are the Rising Suns but look, the old sun is setting.”

  Behind him, Kerris drew in a sharp breath. ‘Rising Sun’ was the term for the Eastern Empire, often reserved for the Emperor himself. To say ‘the old sun is setting’ was an insult. Politics, he thought. Another clue for the Lost City of Lha’Lhasa.

  “The Capuchin Council,” he began. “What would they have me do, sidalord monk?”

  “Prove your worth,” said the monk. “Find them.”

  Kirin studied him, his small serious face, his furry hat and bare feet. It was a puzzle and Kirin was weary of puzzles. He was weary of games; he was weary of secrets; he was weary of the unnecessary wiles of clever men. He swung down from his horse, one hand coming to rest on the hilt of the katanah as he moved to stand before the monk. A charge ran through the Snow but he ignored them, kept his eyes locked on the small man. He was the size of a Sacred, barely reaching his chest. He could crush his skull with one hand.

  “Kerris,” he said, not looking. “What does the earth tell you?”

  “The proof falls to you, Shogun-General,” said the monk. “Not a insignificant cat on an irritable pony.”

  Kerris laughed. Kirin shook his head.

  “That ‘insignificant cat’ is your Emperor’s Kaidan, monk. He could find your Council in two heartbeats or less.”

  “Forgive my disrespect,” said the monk, bowing. “Kaidan is revered by the Capuchin Council and a hero to the people of the Rising Suns.”

  “I have none of the gifts that Kaidan has,” Kirin continued. “He speaks the language of the elements. I do not.”

  He took a long, deep, cleansing breath.

  Duty

  He turned to his party, still seated on their horses.

  “I have none of the gifts of my companions. Not the intellect of the Scholar, or the heightened senses of the Khargan, or the mystical powers of the Alchemist. All I have
is Bushido, the way of the warrior and yet, this is a mission of peace.”

  “You have everything you need,” said the monk.

  Respect

  “I do, in fact,” said Kirin. “For I have you. You yourself are the only clue and so, I must put myself in your shoes. Except that you have none.”

  The monk smiled.

  Swiftly, Kirin slipped the kabuto from his head, feeling his scalp prickle with the cold. He tucked the helm under his arm and stepped forward to stand directly behind the monk, towering over him. He cast his eyes out over the Chi’Chenguan Way, the mountains that rose up all around it. Breathed in the cold, golden air, welcomed it into his very heart where the Bushido lived, centered and strong.

  Curiosity

  “You bring us through an empty city,” he began. “Only to make us wait for hours just outside of it. The Council is not in Lha’Lhasa.”

  The monk said nothing.

  Certainty

  “The Chi’Chenguan Way continues southeast but you have brought us southwest to a place where the air smells of metal, and the elements bleed like ink. The Council is not in the Chi’Chenguan Way.”

  The monk grunted, clearly enjoying the game. For his part, Kirin wished it to be over.

  Discipline

  “You made us wait a specific length of time,” he said. “So that we would reach this place at sundown and not earlier. That is significant.”

  He heard the Scholar gasp.

  Honesty

  “The sun rises in the east, but as you said, the old sun is setting. So we must not look to the west but to the east where the new sun rises…”

  Destiny

  He did. They all did. The cliffs towered over them, painted a glimmering gold from the setting of the sun. It was nothing but rock and stone and shadow and wind. Wind, billowing and buffeting as if flowing around one thing and through another.

  The only glass you can polish is your own.

  He looked down at the monk in his furry hat and bare legs. The man’s dewy eyes weighed on him, expecting failure, hoping for it.

  Courage

  Kirin lifted his boot, brought it down on the earth once, twice, three times, just as the monk had done earlier.

  There was a flicker to his left and in the stretching shadow, Kirin could see a sliver of light dancing upon the rock. It had been impossible to see from his former position.

  Integrity

  “This mountain,” he continued. “Is unnatural. Am I right, Kaidan?”

  “It’s Ancestral,” said his brother. “Nothing involving the Ancestors is natural.”

  Again, Kirin looked down at the monk. The man smiled at him now, revealing very few teeth. As unpleasant as it was, he had to admit, it was a welcome change from all the frowns.

  Mercy

  Kirin turned and began to walk, keeping his eyes fixed on the flashing of the light. The sliver became a blade, a slim flickering slice in the rock of the mountain. It beckoned as surely as it warned.

  “Look there,” yelped Fallon from the horses. “There! Can you see? It’s a crevasse, but hidden like an illusion!”

  Hope

  As he approached, it seemed to materialize out of the solid rock. A high narrow opening that folded inward, forming a trail into the mountainside, wide enough to accommodate several men marching side by side. Deeper in, he could see that the slice was a mirror several stories high, turning on great cogs and reflecting light into the entrance and down the dark sheltered trail. He looked up. High above he could see the Snow with bows drawn all along the cliff face, some on ridges, some in what appeared to be windows, camouflaged by stone, and fabric painted to look like stone.

  Honour

  The Virtues of Bushido.

  “Magic,” came the voice of the new Khargan.

  “Ancestors,” said Kerris.

  Kirin paused, looked back.

  “Shin Sekai,” the monk called out to him. “Welcome to the New World.”

  curiosity

  The crevasse opened gradually, allowing the great mirror to illuminate the cliff sides with reflected light. Gold flickered across the stones at their feet and up to the Snow watching from above. The device was massive – easily three stories high and as they neared, Fallon could see it pulled to swivel on a track with gears and pulleys. Similar to the Celestial Mountain Gate, she reckoned, and she wondered if it were also leftover from the Ancestors. First the Gate, then Lha’Lhasa, now this. She had been right earlier. Monkeys never liked simple things.

  Oh, how she wished for simple things now.

  The Alchemist had said she was pregnant. It was possible. In fact, the more she turned it over in her mind, the more it made sense. She had weaned the twins months ago, so the timing was right. She had just put the fatigue down to weeks of winter but the symptoms were the same. Sireth benAramis had promised her six and she stole a glance at her husband riding beside her. In the mirror-light, his face was gold on one side, deep shadow the other. Sun, moon and stars all rolled into one. He would be either thrilled or terrified, and at a time like this, he could afford to be neither.

  How would she tell him?

  She fought the tightness of her chest. This was her path. She had chosen it on the shores of Ana’thalyia when he’d sung the Song of the Osprey and she’d agreed to marriage. She would fight the sinking dread and rising panic, and find the way of hope and life and wonder.

  She wasn’t a warrior, but she had a code all the same.

  Slowly, silently, the party of cats, horses, monkeys, and dogs passed by the mirror-device, their reflections twisting and bending as they went. Its bronzed surface was warped by cold and pitted by age. Figures in hooded robes tended the device, angling the gears, adjusting the plates, hauling the cables. They were bulky and a little larger than the Snow, and Fallon frowned at the sight of a white muzzle poking out from beneath one of the hoods.

  She leaned across her saddle.

  “Kerris-your-name-was,” she said quietly.

  “Love of my life,” he answered, just as quietly.

  “Is that a bear?”

  He followed her gaze as the figure leaned down to pull a cable. The hands were wide and black with great long claws emerging from the fingers like those of dogs or bears. The snout was distinctly bear-like and her husband looked up from the back of his pony.

  “It can’t be Gowrain,” he said. “The Snow wouldn’t allow even one bear anywhere near the Council.”

  “So what is it?” she said.

  “That’s a good question. I suspect we’ll find out once we reach the city.”

  “Curious,” she said and she craned her neck to look behind them as the mirror groaned, angling on its track to throw more light on the trail ahead of them. There was movement on a ledge high above and she narrowed her eyes. While it was impossible to see anything other than rolling gears and straining cords, she could have sworn there was another robed creature watching her from the ledge. It had a wide white face and large sad shadows for eyes but it slipped away into the dark gold of sunset.

  She was glad Naranbataar still had the weapon strapped to his back. Bears were lethal, the Snow even more so, but nothing in all the world could compare to the Breath of the Maiden. They would be safe as long as they had the Maiden.

  She sat back, trying to still the racing of her thoughts. Perhaps it was a race of Chi’Chen that she simply wasn’t familiar with. Perhaps it was a type of bear that had joined their fates to those of monkeys. Perhaps it was a new creature entirely. She’d always been told she had an active imagination but then again, she was very tired. Sunset, exhaustion, and gigantic mirrors changed things.

  Movement up ahead and the sheer walls flickered as from firelight. Suddenly, the crevasse opened like a flower blooming to life, revealing a night market of tents and flapping stalls. Lanterns swung from ornate carved posts; fire pits threw light and heat in every direction; the smell of sweet grass and roasting vegetables set her mouth to water. It was a city in a canyon, sur
rounded by sheer cliffs that became one with the black night sky.

  “Shin Sekai,” she breathed. “The New World.”

  As they rode into the heart of the canyon-city, she could see monkeys of all races working even this late into the evening. Black faces and white pelts, grey faces and golden pelts, blue faces and orange pelts. Big noses, tufted eyebrows, tiny mouths, moustaches; they were all so different. Some were cooking over open fires, others tending large kilns. Others wove intricate patterns with very fine wool, using feet and tails to help with the tasks. All stopped to gape as the horses passed by.

  Once again, the monk raised a hand and the party pulled to a halt in front of a cluster of kilns. The Snow surrounded them like a river around a rock.

  “Wait,” said the monk, and he hobbled off, disappearing in the shadows thrown by the tents.

  A war raged between black night and firelight, and Fallon gazed up at the cliffs surrounding the city. Out of the mountains themselves, light beamed out from long horizontal stripes. Within those stripes, figures stood, watched, moved. She realized that, like the monastery of Sha’Hadin and the Cliff of a Thousand Eyes, the very mountains surrounding Shin Sekai were inhabited. Homes were carved directly into the rock, their rooms open without window or glass.

  A crowd had gathered around them, surrounding even the Snow. Half shadow, half gold, it was strangely oppressive. A young Chi’Chen pressed its face against its mother’s leg but peered at her through the firelight. The mother tapped her thigh and the child scrambled up her body like a tree, wrapping its arms around her neck as if home. Fallon smiled, thinking of Soladad and Kirin, their bright eager eyes and tiny catching claws. Suddenly her heart ached for her children, so far away, and her hand moved to her belly. Six grey striped kittens. Life was so different with even two, and she wondered when she would feel the next pair growing inside.

  Would she tell him?

  Finally, the monk returned with a taller man dressed in robes of blue-dyed wool. His shiny eyes searched the party to fall upon Yamashida alone. The General dismounted his horse and they all followed suit. After so long in the saddle, the ground felt strange under her feet.

  “I am Tomi Moto,” said the man in blue robes. “First Minister of the Rising Suns.”