He glared at her from the fire, his blue eyes glittering and cold.
She steeled her will and pressed on. “You don’t want him to die, you said as much the other night. But you kill each other day in, day out, with your words, with your ways, and I believe you don’t want him to die, but why then Kerris, oh why won’t you help him live?”
He said nothing for a long moment, then slowly rose to his feet. Instinctively she swallowed, for it was common knowledge that an angry lion was a dangerous one, but she thrust out her chin and awaited the blow that would surely come. Instead, he simply walked past her, paused a moment with a look that killed her now a thousand times over, and left her standing by the fire. To his credit, he was heading in the direction of his brother, yak-hide boots sinking slightly with each footfall in sand.
She released her breath and sank down to her knees.
***
He found her up the worn stone steps that led back to the city. The sun had set and she was kneeling in a patch of thin moonlight, her long marbled hair rising and falling on the breeze. It was cold, but not too cold, and he could see her breath. The short sword lay at her knees.
He knelt beside her, but did not touch.
Her chin, soft and silver, was still quivering. “I dishonored him. I did not think.”
“You did not mean to.”
“But I did. It was shameful. I am ashamed.”
He looked down at the short sword, kodai’chi. “This will not bring his honor back.”
She said nothing. He took that as a sign.
“He values you, Major. He needs you. He always has, but especially now. This ritual does nothing but make life harder on everyone.”
Still, she said nothing, so he reached out slowly, pushed the sword aside. She made no move to stop him.
“He does not need me,” she said finally, her voice barely a whisper.
“Yes he does. Very much.”
“I am not needed.”
“Major—“ he began but she hissed at him, cutting him off.
“You do not need me!”
It was as if she had hit him, the force of her, small as a baby bird, heart of a dragon.
“Oh, Major. That is not true.”
“You have your eyes. You have your Alchemy, your new talents with fire and water and who knows what else. You have your Scholar, who can figure out any problem with her quick mind and quicker tongue. You have a falcon who can see enemies and you are Kenshi, equally good with staff and sword. You have had a wife who has born you a child. I …”
Her voice cracked now, and he saw her wrestle for words. “I am not able to do the same.”
The images struck him, such a small girl, so many men, pain and bleeding and scars. It was amazing that she had bedded him at all.
They sat for a long while in the moonlight.
“I do not need a child,” he began softly. “I do not need a falcon. I do not need a sword or a staff or gloves or any new talents with fire or water. I do not need the quick mind or the quicker tongue of the Scholar – the grey coat needs her much more than I. Nor do I need my eyes, for I see far clearer with your hands on me. I do not need even Sha’Hadin, my dear beloved Sha’Hadin, and I would gladly never return if it meant I could keep you by my side.”
Now he did reach for her hand, pelt to pelt, ran his spotted fingers along her silver marbled ones. He pressed his palms into hers, raised their hands high. “I have all I need with you. With you I am the man I was meant to be. With you I am steel. With you I am home.”
Through the moonlight, her eyes glimmered and he thought it looked rather like tears. And for the first time that he could remember, Major Ursa Laenskaya smiled at him, a wide, happy, teary-eyed smile, before she launched herself from her knees and pushed him to the ground, covering his mouth with fierce kisses.
Above them, the young falcon swooped and danced, announcing her joy and happiness, and as for the cats, they did not get up for some time.
***
There was a cliff in the way.
“Damn,” he cursed, and hated himself for the cursing. And so he roared at it, struck it with his fists, cried out from the pain sent stabbing up his arms, and he hit it again, and again. The sea roared back at him, splashing him with water and adding insult to his injuries. He could feel the blood begin to seep out from under the bandages and into the leather of the gloves but he hit this damned mountain again and again and again, until there was nothing left in him. He closed his eyes and turned, leaning back against its rough wet rock. The kheffiyah snagged, and with another snarl, he yanked it off and threw it in the waves. He sagged down into the sand, leaned his head back, hissed at the pain, bent it forward instead.
He wished he were dead.
He did not need to open his eyes. He could hear footfalls in the sand. Could hear those boots splash into the surf, could hear the drip and drag of fabric being rescued, and finally his brother slid down the cliffside next to him.
“Mountains,” said Kerris. “Big buggers. Very hard to move.”
Kirin released a long breath. He felt very weak. “I wish I were dead.”
“I know. It doesn’t really ever go away.”
“What do you mean?”
“That empty sucking feeling that eats you from the inside out. The Scholar would call it despair. I’m not entirely convinced. It comes and goes, depending on Dharma.” Kerris shrugged. “Drinking helps.”
He turned to look at his brother. “This? This is what you feel?”
“All the time. Ever since I woke up and everyone was looking at me strangely. I lost my mane and my father and it was all my fault. It’s a damned bugger, life.”
“I’m sorry. I never knew.” He dropped his head. “No, that’s a lie. Maybe I did. I simply never wanted to know.”
“Ah well.”
Now he studied his brother’s face as Kerris stared out across the waters. Sunshine and stars waxing and waning, the battle against the darkness that had plagued him for years, and he felt a pang of regret. It was true, he had never wanted to know. Had never wanted to wade into the depths of the darkness. It was like a well of black water. He had feared it, he knew this immediately, and therefore, like so many other things that he feared, he had dismissed, belittled, chased it away with a word or a thought, so it might not stain his own glass.
He reached over, plucked at his brother’s tunic, revealing the long line of stitches. They would be needing to come out soon. “I’m sorry for this.”
“Me too. It itches like mad warthogs.”
“I shouldn’t have done that.”
Kerris shrugged again.
“I was angry. And wrong. Very wrong. You know this, yes?”
It seemed to take several moments for Kerris to answer. “Well, I do have this annoying habit of poking beehives with sticks. It’s not surprising I get stung on occasion.”
“Still. I am so very sorry.”
Kerris smiled, held up the dripping kheffiyah in one hand. “You will need this. I love you, Kirin, but you are very ugly now.”
Weakly, Kirin grinned.
“How does it feel?”
He couldn’t help it. In another life, he would have simply answered the question. But now, everything was turned on its ear.
“It itches like mad warthogs.”
And he started to laugh. Kerris joined him, and soon the laughter turned, as laughter often does, into tears, and the brothers sat side by side against a bugger of a mountain on the shore of a sea, laughing and crying and wishing somehow that life had been very, very different.
After a time, the laughter subsided, leaving pebbles of breath in its wake. Kirin looked up at the moon.
“Ah my, my. I think I bedded her.”
Kerris stared at him. “Who? Sherah? You bedded Sherah? When?”
“The night I slept.” He nodded. “I’m not certain. Perhaps she bedded me. It’s hard to remember…”
“That little powdery white thing.”
“Hm. Yes. But I think we did.” He turned his face to his brother, sighed. “Perhaps, under all this gold…”
A sly grin slowly spread across Kerris’ face.
“Some hope for you yet, brother.”
When they returned to the fire, they were met with the sounds of singing.
***
Thick grow the rushes
Their white dew turns to frost.
He whom I love
Must be somewhere along this stream
I go up river to search for him,
But the way is difficult and long.
I go down stream to look for him,
And there, mid-water
He is there.
Close grow the rushes,
Their white dew not yet dry.
He whom I love
Is at the water’s side.
Up stream I seek him;
But the way is difficult and steep.
Down stream I seek him,
And away in mid-water
There on a ledge,
He is there.
Very fresh are the rushes;
The white dew still falls.
He whom I love
Is at the water’s edge.
Up stream I follow him;
But the way is hard and long.
Down stream I follow him,
And away in mid-water
On the rocks and shoals,
He is there.
They sat for a very long time by the fire, sometimes quiet, sometimes singing. It was very late but no one seemed in the mood for sleeping. Fallon and Kerris had been taking turns from the First Imperial Book of Songs, and when they chose to sing together, the harmonies were skilled and sweet to the ear. Both Seer and Major had joined the fire at some point and had sat very close together. Even the Major seemed content with their songs.
Finally, Fallon sighed.
“Why is there no air?”
All eyes turned to look at her.
“Stupid girl,” the Major hissed. “Just take a breath. There is much air.”
She waved her hands across her face. “Oh, no. No, that’s not what I meant. In the Temperaments, there is Fire, Water, Earth, Wood and Metal. But there are six elements. Why is air not a temperament?”
They continued to look at her.
“Well,” she moaned. “It’s a good question.”
“It’s a very good question, Khalilah,” answered the Seer. “There are a few differing opinions on this.”
The Major snorted. “Oh, you are the Scholar now.”
“Sometimes.” He grinned. “But it is generally agreed that Air is Life.”
“Life?”
“Yes. Life. Think on it. Air is around all things, forever and for always, and all the elements react differently to it. It can, at one turn, blow out a flame, or on another, cause a fire to rage just a little higher. Air rusts metal, erodes earth, blows sand, creates steam or evaporates a pool. It dries wood or blows down trees. Air works, for good or ill, on all these, just like life works on all of us.”
“For good or ill,” muttered Kirin quietly.
“Yes,” the Seer smiled. “For good or ill.”
The Scholar hugged her knees. “Wow.”
Kerris was looking at her strangely and there was silence for some time. Until he began to sing.
Kiya! Kiya! Cry the ospreys
on sandbars in the water
an elegant common girl,
The nobleman wishes to marry
the floating-heart is what she grows,
left and right the water flows
That elegant common girl,
awake, asleep, he seeks her.
He seeks but cannot find
awake, asleep, thinking of her,
endlessly, endlessly
turning, tossing from side to side.
the floating-heart is what she grows,
left and right the water flows
the elegant common girl,
harp and lute make friends with her.
the floating-heart is what she grows,
left and right the water flows
the elegant common girl,
bell and drum delight her.
It was a very old song, transliterated from the scraps of parchment known as the Shih-Shingh, or the Very Ancient Book of Songs. It was a love song, a young nobleman a-courting a lovely but common water-lily farmer. They all sat quietly now, knowing what he had sung and why. The fire made crackling sounds, the waves rushed and roared on the sand, young Mi-hahn chirruped happily as she pulled at the remnants of a roasted fish. Kirin studied his brother, who, for the entire song, had kept his eyes glued on the figure of the tigress. For her part, she sat, arms wrapped around her knees, watching the flames dance. She did not once look at him.
Finally, Kerris sighed.
“Fallon.”
Now she did look up. He had never called her by her name. Never. Even when they had been lovers. Never.
“You are a remarkable woman. As smart as a mountain pony, and just as stubborn. As fierce as a snow leopard, as pure as the snow on Shagar’mathah. As strong as a yak, as silly as a kite. You are Wood. You reach to the skies and bring everyone up with you. You are Wood, giver of life and you bend in the wind. Nothing can break you and you give life to all things.”
There were tears shining in her eyes. Kerris went on, not caring that the others were present.
“You were right the other night. I do need you, just as Fire needs Wood. I think that is obvious to everyone here. But you were wrong about one thing. I am not so much afraid of being loved as I am afraid of being un-loved. I keep waiting for you to decide that you do not want me, that you have grown weary of the game of a-courting a grey lion, or that some day, some fine strong and smart tiger will come along and take you back to the University and you will disappear from my life like a wave on the shore. But you keep coming back. You take me from one end of myself to another and it’s bloody painful, and honestly, sometimes I wish I could stuff a boot in your mouth to keep you from talking, but to tell the truth, I can’t imagine my life any longer without you and your songs.”
He sighed again, poked at the fire with the stick, sending sparks high up into the night sky.
“So, I suppose, what I’m trying to say, is this: Fallon Waterford, Scholar in the Court of the Empress, will you marry me?”
***
No one slept that night, and at first light of morning, the Captain performed two ceremonies of marriage, one for the Geomancer and the Scholar, the other for the Major and the Seer. He was still, in fact, the Captain of the Imperial Guard, with all authority under the sun, and while there were no families present to give consent or dowries or documents, it was nonetheless a legally-binding act, joining four houses in the covenants and sacraments of marriage.
It wasn’t until later in the day that they found the boat.
Home
THE YEAR OF THE TIGER – A LAMENT
by Empress Faisala the Wise, Third Dynasty, Year of the Tiger
The Year of the Tiger brings war.
The Year of the Tiger brings change.
Kingdoms rise, Kingdoms fall.
Nothing is the same.
The Year of the Tiger means joy.
The Year of the Tiger means strife.
Beginnings end, Endings begin,
The heartbeat of life.
The Year of the Tiger brings change.
Nothing is as it seems.
Big adventures, Grand schemes,
Nightmares and Dreams.
The Year of the Tiger brings war.
The Year of the Tiger brings change.
People rise, People fall.
Nothing is the same.
An Imperial Wedding is a blessed event. There is little in all the history of the world that can compare to the beauty, splendor or spectacle. It is drawn out for over a month, beginning with the dawn procession of the groom into the Royal City. It was the day of the Winter Festival, the
shortest, darkest day of the year, and so every hour of sunlight was celebrated with music, dancing dragons, horses and khamels, acrobats and jugglers in the parade of honor as Andreas Wolchenko Verona Chiraq and his entire family, arrived from Abysinnia. From sunrise to sunset, the caravan wound its way through Pol’Lhasa’s narrow streets, bringing a riot of color to DharamShallah’s winter cloak. Gold and red were the predominant hues, gold being the color of the Kingdom and therefore, the color of its chosen suitor. Red was the color of the bride, of life and love and the succession of the Pure Races. Flags and banners and streamers of gold and red flew from every high place, and flapped from every window. Every doorway in every building had been given a new coat of paint, in either red or gold, and all the street lamps had been outfitted as well. It was marvelous.
Each member of the suitor’s family was borne in a palanquin of red or black, and carried on the arms of four leopards. In a palanquin of gold, Chiraq himself was carried by an escort of seven fine tigers, dressed in silks and armor. But he remained hidden within the painted walls, as he had been since leaving Abysinnia for the last time. As was tradition, he was not allowed to set foot on Kingdom soil until he set it in Pol’Lhasa, and from then on, he would never leave until he was carried out in a palanquin of a very different sort.
It had been a very long journey. But it was the way of things.
And so, at sunrise, the entire caravan arrived at the stepped courts of Pol’Lhasa. Only the gold palanquin went up, up and up into the heart of the Imperial Palace, and all the crowds waited in hushed silence. The snow was thick, the air cold, but no one dared leave, for after what seemed like hours, finally fireworks erupted over the peaks of the palace, announcing that the suitor’s foot had indeed touched down on holy ground.
The celebrations then started in earnest.
The Way of Things: Upper Kingdom Boxed Set: Books 1, 2 and 3 in the Tails of the Upper Kingdom Page 73