She nodded swiftly and Sireth dropped his eyes, heart sinking like a stone.
She was sham’Rai now, no longer the wife of a priest.
“War Council, this is a decision forged in a time of war,” said Ho with a surety he likely did not possess. “There will be no debate.”
There was a murmur from the War Council until the Empress herself raised her face and all tongues fell silent.
“This is the Year of the Dragon,” she said, each word slow and precise. “In it, we find ourselves at war, but not with the Kingdom of the East. Not even with the Kingdom to the North. No, we find ourselves at war with the rising Ancestors who will seek to rule once again.”
The politicians and warriors in the room exchanged glances.
“A kunoichi was allowed entrance to the Palace tonight,” she said. “By one of my trusted own.”
What she was saying was sacrilege. Every one of them would die before that happened.
“I do not fear death, but I do fear it. I fear it for what it would mean for the Kingdom.”
A hush. Not a breath. Not a heartbeat. She continued.
“But it is a Dragon Year and I am Dragonborn. Nothing will remain unchanged. We must fight to maintain the integrity of our Empire and our right to reign over it as we and we alone choose.” Her eyes were liquid fire. “Because of this, I embrace my destiny as Dragon Empress.”
And all hearts ceased to beat as Thothloryn Parillaud Markova Wu reached up to do something not seen in the War Room, the Throne Room or in any room in the history of the palace or even the world.
She removed her crown.
Her hair, as black and shiny as a moonlit night, was almost as elaborate as the crown, with many braids in many patterns piled on her head. She looked small and fragile without the headdress as counterbalance. She carried on, unmindful.
“I have called for the War Crown to be restored from the Ministry of Military History and Archives.”
Ursa turned to receive an object, wrapped in silk.
A drawing of breath of every man in the room as the silks fell away, revealing a headdress of obsidian metal. Black and gleaming, it was a hammered dragon coiled like a cap, with black silk tassels swinging on either side. The War Crown of Pol’Lhasa.
“Tonight, I put it on...”
Ursa stepped behind her, dwarfed by the great golden lion as she held the crown above the Empress’ head. Lowering, lowering, until the dragon coiled about the Empress’ head, home.
“And I will not remove it until there is peace once again in our land.”
There was utter silence in the War Room. To the Seer, it was deafening.
Slowly, Thothloryn Parillaud Markova Wu rose to her feet.
“This is a new time, and a terrible time. The Way of Things is overturned in favour of a new way. We may not agree with the change, but we cannot stop it. We must change, as a Kingdom, as a people, or we will be subjugated by another Kingdom. That is the Law of the Dragon.”
She swept her great golden eyes across the men in the room.
“You are all men of wisdom and of honour, but I am asking you to be more than that now. I am asking you to be willing to not only accept this change, but to be the very instruments of it. You lead the people in what they think and you must model for them a new way. You must bend like a river, yet be as resolute as the mountain. This will be difficult but I know each and every one of you. You must do that which is right.”
Barely a breath in the room as every man drank in her words.
“Sireth benAramis,” she said and suddenly, all eyes fell upon him. “You are the most trusted man in the Kingdom.”
Certainly the most hated now as he watched Ho shift uncomfortably behind her.
“Last Seer of Sha’Hadin and First Mage of Agara’tha, I now add a new title to your name.”
This was not what he’d wanted. This was never what he’d wanted. All he wanted was a quiet life and some chairs.
“From now until peace,” she continued. “You will be my War Advisor. Does this position suit you?”
War Advisor? He knew nothing about war. Only about conflict and cats and will and desire and sorrow and death.
So perhaps he did know about war after all.
“I live to serve the Empress,” he said.
“Join me then and counsel me on how best to prepare my people for war.”
With that she held out her hand, completely covered in black silk. He took it, grateful for the barrier, and together they turned and swept from the room, followed by the new sham’Rai, the Bushona Geisha and a very downcast Chancellor Ho too many steps behind.
All under the gaze of the Great Golden Lion.
***
He had been walking for the better part of an hour, following the green along the white corridor. He’d met no one and would regularly stop at the plex walls to study the city spread out around them. Buildings topped out at three stories, most low and red, others partially white and he realized that it was because of the sand. The soil here was a mixture of iron oxide and clay, and the wind literally covered the buildings in red dust. Some areas had been cleaned, others not and he wondered at the discrepancy.
He heard voices and as rounded a corner, he saw two men sitting side by side on the floor. They scrambled to their feet as he approached, pulling machetes from straps across their backs almost as an afterthought.
“Hey!” said one of the men. Young, maybe Dell’s age with a wide face and dark curls to rival his own. He held the machete awkwardly but Solomon could see the sharpness of the steel. “Who you men?”
Dialect, he wondered, or slang?
“Dr. Jeffery Solomon, Supervisor Seven, SleepLab 1, Switzerland. Who are you?”
The men exchanged glances.
“Uh, I’m Jarrah Wanbarra. This Romeo. He don’t have no last name.” The one called Jarrah swallowed. “You posed to be out? Reedy say you can be out?”
“I’m a doctor,” he answered. “I said I’m posed to be out.”
Romeo nodded vigorously. “Doctor.”
But the machete was trembling, making both it and its bearer dangerous. He remembered Kirin’s hands. He knew what such blades could do.
“Where you from, Doctor?” asked Jarrah.
“Kandersteg, Switzerland. Sandman 1.”
“Hey,” said Romeo and he nudged the other. “Sandman.”
“Shut it, Romeo.” The one named Jarrah shook his head. “Don’t mind Romeo. It weren’t his fault the chamber leaked. Reedy shoulda let him die.”
“But he dint,” said Romeo. “Reedy saved me.”
Solomon cursed under his breath. It was clear these young men were not Armand Dell’s killers, and he reckoned the few weeks of training afforded him by a lethal snow leopard would enable him to disarm these fellows rather swiftly. That wouldn’t serve him, however. He needed to find Ward and Sengupta before he did anything rash.
“I came with two others,” he said. “Do you know where they are?”
“Others?”
“Yah,” he said. “Two women. Tall, short hair—”
“Oh, the women,” said Jarrah.
And Romeo grinned. “The women.”
“Do you know where they are?”
“Ask Reedy.”
“Reedy?”
“Yah.”
And they smiled at him.
“And do you know where Reedy is?”
“Where Reedy always is.”
“And that is?”
“Dis way.”
The young men threw the machetes across their backs and headed along the corridor in front of him. Solomon shook his head. Clearly these men had no clue about security. He only need step forward and slide the blades from the straps across their backs and he could drop their heads to the floor in two swipes. He could delimb one and disembowel the other before he could say ‘Ursa Laenskaya.’ But they were just boys, no different than Dell. Idealistic, naïve and full of themselves. Five thousand years had a way of knock
ing that out of you.
He also noticed that, like him, they weren’t wearing wires.
He followed, and the green light happily kept pace until they stopped at a wall with familiar triangle. It didn’t open automatically, unlike most ArcEye doors, and he watched as Jarrah looked up to the sliver of dubious sky above.
“Jarrah Wanbarra,” he said and the door slid aside. He jerked his head. “In there.”
“Aren’t you going in?” asked Solomon.
“Nah, not allowed. Reedy gets mad.”
“It’s not good when Reedy gets mad.”
Dell’s blood inside the sac.
“Yah,” said Solomon. “I gathered.”
He peered into a large room, filled floor to ceiling with screens and plex.
“I don’t see anyone,” he said. “Are you sure this is the room?”
And he turned back but the men were gone.
It’s not good when Reedy gets mad.
The strange, screened room began to hum.
“Come in, Doctor Solomon,” came the lazy voice from the D-bots and the Griffen. “Or would you prefer to chat in a public corridor?”
Solomon narrowed his eyes. “Public is good.”
“Jiān Ward told me you’d say that.” The voice was rich, fluid, sardonic, male. “I prefer private, sir. The walls have ears in Dreamtime.”
Solomon stepped into the room and the screens began to rotate and twist. Slowly, hypnotically, they rotated in on themselves, weaving thin blue lines in the air like a spider’s web. There were stations with screens, and walls with screens; transparent screens with blue and white lights, and plex screens with orange lines and dashes. Some two dimensional, others three, twisting, twisting as he looked up into a slowly spinning sky. He could see flashes of a man sitting at one of the stations, chin in hand, but it was hard to see him clearly because of the weaving blue lines and the screens.
“Do come in now,” said the man. “I’d like to say that I don’t have all day, but well now, that would be lying.”
And he smiled.
No discernable accent, or perhaps all of them combined. His hair was a mass of wild silver, his cheeks pockmarked with age. His eyes were heavy-lidded; his smile wide and weary. He looked familiar somehow, but then again, he was human. In this world, familiarity was a fleeting thing.
“What is this place?” asked Solomon.
“Which place?” asked the man. “Dreamtime or the Qore?”
“Either. Both.”
The man sat back. He was wearing a dirty tan jumpsuit, much like the one Solomon had been wearing when he’d awakened in Kandersteg.
“You are at the center of all things, Doctor,” said the man. “The Qore of Dreamtime, SleepLab Ops. Everything runs from here.”
“I see.”
“Do you?”
The man was sharp and smooth. Like glass.
“You look familiar,” Solomon said. “Do I know you?”
The man smiled again.
“Matty Reedy. I’m the caretaker of the SuperPit Sandfield, Sandman 3.”
“Where’s Damaris Ward and Persis Sengupta?”
“Sleeping,” said Reedy.
“Sleeping?” said Solomon. “Literally or metaphorically? Because if they’re dead—”
“Literally, Dr. Solomon,” said the man. “It’s exhausting here in Dreamtime.”
“You killed one of my people.”
“Ah, yes.” The man turned his eyes to a screen. “Armand Dell, zoologist. He had a Beta 22 metavirus in his system. He wouldn’t have made it any more than two more days.”
“Two more days to find an antiviral.”
“Wouldn’t have helped,” said Reedy. While his skin was covered in age spots, he looked as strong as an ox. “We don’t have the facilities for containment.”
“Looks like a pretty damned contained facility to me.”
“Doctor Solomon,” said the man. “I understand your distress and I am sorry for it, but as caretaker of this place, I have a great deal of responsibility on my shoulders considering we have no Supers in cryo anymore. It’s been a very long time, but I suspect you know that.”
“You’ve lost them all?”
“None left in cryo, sir, so yes.”
Solomon frowned. “Did they die?”
“Oh no, Doctor, not die.”
And he smiled again.
It was a game, Solomon knew. One he’d be forced to play without his wire and with both Ward and Sengupta on the line.
“Alrighty then,” said Solomon. “And the subs?”
“Well, that part gets a little sketchy…”
“Draw it out for me, Matty.”
“Well, how ‘bout I show you?”
His heart skipped a beat. Memories of the sub-chambers and the rats of Kandersteg – sporadic lighting, shattered plexi and shredded people. Blood and ice in equal measure.
“I’d like that.”
“Just a tick.”
Matty Reedy reached back to pinch the nape of his neck and the screens flickered in Qore. A wire, thought Solomon. Damned Matty Reedy was wearing a wire.
“All ready now,” said the man and he rose to his feet. He was tall, lean, haggard. “Let me tell you a little about our world Down Under, shall I?”
As they headed out into the wide, white corridor, Solomon threw a glance over his shoulder. Where Reedy had been sitting, there was no chair.
***
The black silhouette of a mountain rose up before them. It was not a tall mountain but it was broad, formidable, and it spanned the entire horizon. After the last hour struggling across an uneven plateau, it was enough to stop them in their tracks. It would be treacherous to scale in the darkness but he had made them a promise. Tsaparang called like a beacon. They would not, could not spend yet another night without hope.
With a child in each arm, he turned, looked back at the weary band following him. It was a canine river, he thought, with Setse trudging at its tail. She had a child clinging to her neck and looked as if she’d drop to the ground at any moment. Each Oracle that could walk was carrying their weight in frozen meat. aSiffh himself carried a tsaa buga across his back and dragged two behind by strips of pelt. The constant climb had been difficult for the young horse. Apparently, four legs were not always better than two.
They had crossed a wide plateau this last hour and through large conical rocks dotting the plateau like a forest of clay. They were stone sentinels, covered in snow but reeking of gold, and he wondered if they were Ancestral. He would believe it. Their world was a wondrous, dangerous place because of the Ancestors.
A shape swept through the sky above them. They never heard Silence. The wings of an owl made no sound and not for the first time, Yahn Nevye wished for the wings of an owl.
He waited as Setse struggled to his side. The young Oracles were exhausted and Zorig looked worse than death.
“We stop now, Shar,” she panted. “We have shelter with these stones. We sleep here tonight and go up the morning.”
“But Setse, it’s right there,” he said and swept an arm up to the mountain. “We can make it tonight and be safe.”
“I don’t see it, Shar. Here…” She touched her eyes, and then her forehead. “Or here.”
“You don’t trust me.”
“I do, Shar, with my life and with theirs. But it’s night and we’re so tired. These chorten will shelter us and we can build a fire out of the wind.”
“Chorten?”
She indicated the large stones that dotted the plateau.
“The Clay Forest is Ancient.”
Clay forest. She had echoed his thoughts, down to the very words he had formed in his mind. They were almost as one.
“I know,” he said and he sighed. “Yes, I know. We can rest here tonight. Tomorrow, we go home.”
And he held his hand out to her.
She took it. Clutching the lump of wax in the other hand, he closed his eyes. He sent his thoughts far ahead, sweeping upwards to an
cient candles preserved by ages of dry and cold. He felt them catch one by one by one all throughout Tsaparang, and its history echoed like a falcon cry through his bones.
He heard her gasp and pressed on, lighting another and another and another with his thoughts. Behind them, the children squealed with delight and he heard Zorig laugh.
“Shar, you did it,” Setse said. “You found it.”
He opened his eyes and looked up. High above them, lights flickered in the night sky. Up up and up, the mountainside danced with candlelight.
“Tsaparang,” she said, and she reached up to touch his face. “Our home.”
He pulled her hand to his chest, turned to look at the children.
“Oracles, tonight we sleep in the Clay Forest,” he said loudly. “But tomorrow, we go to school.”
Their triumph was broken by the cry of a child.
“Two heads!” Alagh wailed. “Two heads and two. The mountain waits with teeth and claws.”
“Two heads and two,” cried Sev and she clutched her skull, dropping to her knees.
“Teeth and claws,” moaned Doshan and he, too, buckled to the ground. Setse rushed to catch them as one by one, the Oracles of Blood fell, caught in the grips of the now familiar convulsions. Resting against one of the chorten, Balmataar began to laugh.
Teach them, whispered the bonestick. Beat them into readiness.
Nevye’s spotted tail lashed once. Dark thoughts, he growled to himself, from dark places. He would have to destroy the totem soon, hoped he wouldn’t have to destroy its Oracle as well. He might, to preserve the unity of the others, but it would start him on a road best not traveled. Not with the mountain above dancing with light.
Tomorrow, we go to school.
A promise as elusive as hope and summer.
***
Thoom thoom thoom thoom.
Kirin blinked slowly. The world was a dream, twisting and distorted, and he wondered if he was still asleep. Or perhaps he had in fact drowned in the bubbling water and this was merely a portal to the next life. He didn’t know what he believed about that, about other lives after death. He had enjoyed many good debates with Sireth benAramis on their return to DharamShallah in the months after the Plan B had left the shore. But still, even after all the miracles and magic he had witnessed in these last years, if in fact an afterlife existed, he doubted very much that it would look like a monkey cavern. He was more certain that it’s devas would not look like Chi’Chen Stonelilies.
Snow in the Year of the Dragon Page 15
