“Will you take us to see the medicines now?” Sherah asked Jae’un. “My sister needs to see a midwife.”
The Stonelily glance from her face to her belly and back again.
“Baby?” she asked.
The Scholar bit her lip and, for some reason, the tears threatened to spill from her lashes.
“It’s a difficult time to be a mother,” purred the Alchemist.
“Always bad time,” said Jae’un. “Woman Tent. Come now. Chi’Chen medicine best for babies.”
She whirled to the Snow and launched into a series of shrill commands. They argued briefly but within moments, the pair snorted and spun on their heels, leaving the women alone in the market. Fallon looked at the cheetah, fought the tightening of her throat.
“Thank you,” she said, for once at a loss for words.
The Alchemist smiled.
“Of course.”
“Come now!” snapped Jae’un and she pushed off through the crowd.
***
Balmataar’s laughter echoed through the great hall of Tsaparang.
“Frozen!” he barked.
“The claws come behind,” moaned Setse. “The claws come behind.”
“Balm, come here,” Nevye growled.
“Stupid rats,” said the boy. “They’re all frozen solid!”
He kicked one of the rounded forms with his boot.
“The claws come behind,” Setse moaned again and Nevye swung round to take her arms.
“Setse, rise above your gifting,” he said. “You control it. You know this. You are stronger than this.”
“Teeth and claws, two heads and two,” she moaned. “I try, Shar. But the dreams dance in my eyes until all I can see is teeth and claws, two heads and two.”
“Frozen like icicles!”
And for emphasis, Balm speared one with the bonestick and the cavern echoed with the crack. The echo did not fade however, but rang again and again like thunder following lightning, booming deeper, darker, throughout the cavern.
“I can burn them,” the boy laughed. “Burn them with the fire that I have learned to make. Then I will be Oracle of this mountain.”
“The claws come behind,” whispered Setse.
“Balm, can you not feel it?” snapped Nevye. “The echo of thunder and blood? This mountain is alive.”
“And I will make it dead.”
“Come here, Balm,” growled Nevye. “And we can leave together.”
The boy held his gaze for a long moment, ignoring the echo before raising his stick and bringing it down once more onto the rat’s rounded back. With a crunch, it speared the creature like a fish in a stream.
Suddenly, the great court boomed as a huge shape burst in from a black stairway. A winter bear bounded across the court’s stony floor, crushing the frozen bodies under its massive feet. Balmataar dropped to the ground, covering his head with his arms as the creature rose high on its back legs, towering over the boy with the golden eye. It bellowed and the entire chamber shook.
In the dim sizzling light, Nevye could see two heads.
The winter bear had two heads.
Two heads and two.
“Claws of Nüür!” cried Setse, and suddenly, she was the granddaughter of the Blue Wolf once again. Clutching her dagger, she leapt onto the floor, springing from rat to rat until she was at the boy’s side. Great white claws gleamed and she swung her dagger up to meet them.
“Setse, no!”
The great claws sliced the air in front of her face, slamming down and impaling another frozen rat with a crunch. The bear reared back, holding the carcass high on the ends of its claws. It bellowed again, the roar echoing from both mouths, and Setse crunched her eyes tightly as the breath blew hot across her face.
“Nüür, nat es!” cried a voice. There was another shape on the stair.
It was a dog, small and tattered, and in the dim light, Nevye could see the blue eye of an Oracle. He turned to them.
“Idiots! Fools! We will let the rats have you if you don’t leave now! Nüür, warrior, goddess, bringer of life and death! Leave them. They are dust! They are bones!”
With that, he turned and scurried up the steps, disappearing immediately in the darkness. The bear swung one of her heads and in the glow of the fire powder, Nevye saw the gleam of leather armour across forearms, chest, and shins. Strips of tattered cloth swung from her loins and he could have sworn there was a club tied to her hip. The massive head swung back and forth between cat and dogs before she shoved the rat carcass in one set of jaws, dropped to four legs and lumbered up the stair. There was silence for a long moment in the cavernous court of Tsaparang.
Setse sank to her knees, trembling but whole.
There must be hope, she had said, or this journey is worthless.
He stepped down into the court of teeth and claws.
***
The mountain was not a natural one, and Kirin knew there was only one explanation.
Ancestors.
It was obvious. Hallways were carved from the flat grey stone that characterized most Ancestral sites. Chi’Chen hewn torches glowed from the walls and mirrors reflected their light down corridors that smelled of sharp metal and old oil. It had grown warmer with each footfall and Kirin felt sweat begin to roll beneath the leather plates of his uniform. It was an odd sensation. The heat and the darkness reminded him of the kitchens of Sha’Hadin, where he had fanned the flames and saved Sireth benAramis. He hoped the man had finally met the Empress. Prayed that he had bowed.
As the Snow led them deeper into the mountain, he ran the last moments with the young dog through his mind. It was certain that Moto had lied, and that at least part of the army in the square was headed to the Celestial Mountain Gate. If they got there, the Nine Thousand Dragons would be severly reduced under a hail of Chi’Chen arrows. They were boxed in, helpless and contained unless the Gate were raised, or as Kerris had suggested in an earlier conversation, razed.
He was proud of Naranbataar. Although he had never used it in combat, the boy had practiced with the Breath of the Maiden on the journey to the Gate. He was determined to prove himself, and more than that, willing to offer his life to see the Dragons freed. However, he was riding with soldiers who would be happy to see him dead and would need little incentive to make it so. It would take all of his ingenuity to stay alive until the Gate. All would be lost if he did not bring down the Gate.
However, if Moto was telling the truth and there were a second army moving in from the East, he found himself wondering whom it could be. Ancestors already? If so, their alliance was doomed, for Shin Sekai was in no way ready for a battle unless the Dragons were unleashed to meet them. Even then, there was no chance without a strategy and there would be no strategy if the army’s leaders were trapped in the web of the Rising Suns. This was going from bad to worse, and he was beginning to regret the decision to come here at all.
No one spoke as they journeyed through the mountain, and slowly, the grey stone gave way to white. This was clearly an Ancestral compound, and he wondered if Kerris had seen anything like it during his time across the sea. Dull blue triangles dotted the walls alongside empty glass cases, and he tried not to imagine Ancestors roaming the halls. They were gone for a reason. As much as he liked Solomon, the man still had no right to come back.
Finally, they reached a section of rusted mesh in the walls, flanked by a system of chains and pulleys. Beside them stood a pair of stocky, robed figures, and Kirin narrowed his eyes. These were not monkeys.
“Xióngmāo,” said Moto, the first words spoken in ages. “Servants of the Suns, as are we all.”
“Fallon’s bears,” said Kerris.
“The Xióngmāo are the guardians of the Rising Suns,” said Moto. “And the Suns are the guardians of Shin Sekai. They will usher us into the New World.”
And he nodded at the robed figures. As one, they gripped the chains and pulled them downward, hand over clawed hand. The mesh wall rattled aside, revealing a p
latform of bronzed mirror, and Tomi Moto turned to face the leaders of the Nine Thousand Dragons.
“Prepare for the bounty of the Rising Suns.”
As he stepped onto the platform, the floor echoed beneath his feet. Long-Swift growled.
“I can assure you it is quite safe,” said Moto. “The Xióngmāo control its rise, and the Xióngmāo never fail.”
“I know this device,” the Khargan said. “It not natural. The Eyes of Jia’Khan lived beneath such as this.”
“Ancestral tek,” said Kerris. “It’s very old.”
“I’m beginning to understand,” said Kirin, “what happened to Lha’Lhasa.”
“The Suns are waiting,” called Moto.
With a deep breath, Kirin strode forward and onto the platform. The metal echoed under his boots, clanged as the Scales of the Dragon struck the floor behind him. Kerris next, then Long-Swift. Surprisingly, no Snow joined, and with a shudder, the platform began to rise, up, up and into the New World of the Rising Suns.
***
Ursa stepped into the high rooftop terrace known as Whisper of Willow.
Thothloryn Parillaud Markova Wu stood in the first light of early morning, wearing no armor or silk, no tassels or beads, not even the war crown. Her night black hair was pulled back in a high queue and she wore only a rough linen sparring gei with tabi slippers. She could have passed for any one of the servant girls in the Palace, save for the fact that she was Sacred.
The morning air was cold and the Bushona Geisha hovered at the edges of the terrace, all pink and teal and red and blue. In the distance, the Fang of Kathandu gleamed purple and the city sparkled silver in the late spring frost. A lone willow tree grew from a large clay urn, dozens of chips in its golden bark.
“Lesson Three?” asked the Empress.
For the third time, the snow leopard paced a slow circle around the woman at the center of the world, measuring her strides, her breath, her distance. Her head was cool, her heart steady but the blood was hot in her veins. Her palms rested on the hilts of her twin swords. Balance was a warrior’s whole world. One element out of line and death would be the price.
“You look like a child playing in your sensei’s robes,” Ursa said. “Did you dress yourself this morning?”
Ling said nothing.
“No chick in your sleeve? No little mongoose?”
Circling slowly, warily, ears straining to hear any rustle from the Bushona Geisha now behind her. She had no pretense of kinship or camaraderie with them. They would kill her as soon as they dared.
Ling said nothing, merely followed her as she circled, pivoting on the pads of her slippers, arms held firmly but delicately before her. Graceful, Ursa thought. She would be a better pupil than the Scholar had ever been.
“Have the Mad Flowers been trying to teach you?” she asked.
Ling nodded.
Silence. Breath.
“Pah,” Ursa snorted. “I am not impressed. Show me something, little cricket.”
Ling waved her fingers like a magician, and two disks appeared, glinting in the morning light.
Shir’khins, Ursa realized, suddenly understanding the slashes in the willow bark.
She grinned, slid both swords from their sheaths.
The Bushona Geisha stirred.
“No,” growled the jade Geisha, a cheetah, taller than any of them.
“Not fair,” snapped the red, a jaguar with flowers in her spotted hair. “The Empress has received no training in weapons.”
“Oh?” asked Ursa, not taking her eyes off the Sacred woman as she circled. “And tell me, when does an hassassin play fair? When does a ninjah wait for you to be trained?”
“These are lessons,” said the plum, a panther with elaborately hennaed cheeks. “Meant to teach and inspire.”
“Are they?” Slowly, she raised the katanah above her head, drew the kodai’chi silent across her chest. Home position. “Little cricket?”
Ling said nothing. Her golden eyes were fixed, her face an ebony mask, and for the first time, Ursa’s heart thudded inside her. Fierce, young, disciplined, angry. A young dragon indeed. It would be exhilarating to stoke the fire in this one.
Silence. Breath.
And with a war cry, the sham’Rai lunged forward, swinging the katanah down in a lethal arc, sweeping the kodai’chi savagely where the Empress’ belly had been but the young woman wheeled and a shir’khin whipped through the short distance between them. It pinged off steel to sail over the side of the winter terrace and into the wind.
“Good,” said Ursa and she stepped back, bringing the swords to home, katanah raised, kodai’chi crossed. “Again.”
Again, she cried and lunged and again, a shir’khin sliced the air between them, this time deflected by the hilt of the short. But this time, the sham’Rai did not step back but stepped forward, advancing the range of the deadly blades, forcing the Empress to wheel and pivot as she sought a third disk and then a fourth. Shir’khins split the air and the Geisha dodged to avoid them as they clinked into stone and ceramic and clay.
The Empress cried out as the tip of a blade opened a tear in her sleeve, a faint ribbon of red showing against the linen. The Bushona Geisha leapt forward but the Empress silenced them with a hand. She studied the blood for a long moment, before her golden eyes slid back to her teacher.
Silence. Breath.
With a cry, the Empress lunged, sent another disc flashing in the sunlight, then another and another. Ursa flung herself backwards as the discs sailed past, taking locks of silver with them as they went. The snow leopard twisted in mid air, deftly landing on hands and knees, and without missing a beat, she sprang forward, catching the Empress at the waist and bringing her down to the Whisper of Willow’s stone floor. Empress and sham’Rai in a tangle of black and silver and steel.
The Geisha erupted like a flock of birds.
“Yield,” snarled Ursa.
“No!” the Empress snapped and she thrashed under the snow leopard’s weight.
Ursa grabbed both wrists, crossed them under the night black chin, ground her elbows into the linen ribs.
“Yield!”
“Never!”
She tightened her grip on the bleeding arm, twisted the bone until the woman cried out.
“Yield and I will stop hurting you!”
“You can kill me but I will never yield!”
“Why?” barked the sham’Rai. “Tell me why you will not yield?”
“I am a Dragon!” shrieked the woman.
“What about the pain?”
“I feel no pain!”
“Not true! Tell me!”
The Empress seethed beneath her, her breath coming in ragged gasps, her golden eyes narrow and sharp.
“It fuels me,” she snarled. “I am more than my pain.”
“What about the blood?”
“It strengthens me.” Deep breath. “I am more than my blood.”
“What is your destiny?”
Silence. Breath.
The snow leopard jerked the wrists up and the Empress stifled a cry.
“What is your destiny?!”
“A Dragon creates its own destiny!”
Swiftly, Ursa rolled off and the Geisha swept in, but the woman flung both hands up in the air.
“No!” she snapped, and pushed herself up from the floor. She stood, fists clenched at her sides as Ursa retrieved both swords and sheathed them before turning.
Silence. Breath.
“Courage, like blood, is yang,” said Ursa. “And pain is a matter of perspective.”
And without warning, the snow leopard swung a savage backhand. It was met by the bleeding forearm in a perfect block.
Ebony and ivory, gold and blue, Empress and sham’Rai. Opposite yet the same.
Silence. Breath.
End.
The cry of a falcon carried across the sky and they looked up to see Mi-Hahn the exuberant sweep in from the city. Ursa raised her fist above her head and the bird settled
onto it, beak wide, wings outstretched. There was a parchment bound to her thin leg and the snow leopard took it, reading quickly as the bird hopped to her shoulder, home.
She looked up.
“Your War Advisor asks that you join him in the War Room.” She threw a glance at the Bushona Geisha, the riot of colour now standing on pins and needles. “Dress her. She is the Empress of all the world.”
Ursa turned back to the monarch, bowed fist to cupped palm.
“End of your lessons.”
“I command that you give me more.”
“Pah. Crickets. They chirp and annoy.”
The women moved in with the silks and the crown.
***
The Tent of Women was at the end of the Woman’s Road. It was, in fact, a series of tents attached by ropes and cables and bright yellow sheets. Small gardens grew in clay planters and Fallon understood the need for the kilns. It seemed a strange many things were grown out of doors here in the New World, and the weather was not obliging of its own. The kilns threw heat in all directions, causing the ice to thaw and the snow to melt, creating water for the plants. Here, in this narrow alleyway between the Ancestral walls, the marketplace was almost pleasant.
Eyes followed them as they moved through the tents. Pink faces and black, grey and blue, all working together without regard for caste or race. Or maybe that’s just how it seemed to her. Shin Sekai was not Bai’Zhin and, while she had spent several months riding with the Army of Winding Rivers and then the Army of Blood, her understanding of this complex people was barely adequate to be serving as the wife of an ambassador.
She reached down and touched her belly; fought the tightening of her throat.
What a life, she mused, where such a happy thing brought with it more than its share of sadness. No, she wasn’t adequate by a long shot.
She could feel the Alchemist’s golden eyes on her, quickly removed her hand.
Jae’un paused at a flap of leather and beads.
“Haiya,” she said. “Tent of Women.”
And she held open the flap as the cats peered through.
It was beautiful.
Snow in the Year of the Dragon Page 20