Snow in the Year of the Dragon

by H. Leighton Dickson

  “We use them, Tony. We don’t stay underground like you do.”

  “If we can take care of the NPM, we may not need to stay underground anymore.”

  “Wouldn’t that be lovely?” She shook her head. “Are you thinking infiltration or annihilation?”

  He sighed now.

  “I don’t know. We’re not spies. We’re not Special Forces. Hell, we’re not even army. None of us were expecting to have to deal with this. We thought we’d wake up and it would have all gone away.”

  “It hasn’t gone away, Tony,” she said. “And we need to destroy it in such a way that it never comes back.”

  He nodded, knowing that she was right.

  “What about Jeffery’s creatures?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m hesitant to kill anything or anyone due to an accident of location. I’ve studied the screens. They seem opportunistic, settling in the ruins of old cities, and building on to them. They don’t know what they’re playing with at the NPM, but at the same time…”

  He let his words trail off.

  “At the same time,” Cece finished for him. “We can’t risk another Hinga.”

  “Exactly.” He looked up at her image, blue and stony like ice. “Have you ever heard the term, ‘Winter Water’?”

  She frowned.

  “Winter Water?”

  “Yuh.”

  “Is it an old catch?”

  “I have no idea. It was the first post from the Everest Spike 2 years ago. ‘Winter Water’, then nothing.”

  She grunted and her blue face rippled in the darkness.

  “I’m losing the link,” she said. “I’ll get my people on those REDmarks, see how many suits we can spare.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t thank me, Tony,” she said. “Just do it.”

  And she was gone.

  He drummed his fingers on the console, chewed his bottom lip.

  “And if I don’t,” he muttered to himself. “You will, won’t you, my dear Cece? Then we’ll have a mutiny, an insurrection, and another civil war on our hands. But Marathon will be protected because of all this god-damned snow.”

  He shook his head and bent back to his notes.

  ***

  After a long uneven climb, they passed under the first snowy lintel, perfect in its sharp angles and straight lines. Nevye was surprised it was still intact, given the wind and the snow and the age. They were high above the plain now, could see the canyon-like valley that stretched to the Scales of Khunlun. He could see the chorten, standing like stone guardians, and the mounds of snowy hide that covered the sleeping Oracles of Blood. He watched aSiffh, merely a speck, as he dug through the snow for frozen tsaa buga. It was a beautiful land and harsh, and the morning wind bit his eyes like needles.

  Balm’s footprints swung right, disappeared into the first of the roofed structures. There had been a door at one point but now, only a bump where hinges had once been. Inside, a long drift of snow from an even longer winter, and their boots sunk deep as they stepped into the room. Frost hung from filmy cobwebs across the ceiling and light fell in shafts from tiny holes, once windows, on either side. Against the far wall, a huge face glowed out of the shadows, its paint cracked by weather and faded with age.

  Suddenly, his sword seemed profane, and he fought the urge to drop to his knees.

  “Ancestor,” breathed Setse.

  He moved in closer, inhaled deeply the cold, dry air.

  “This is a holy place,” she said, reading his thoughts.

  “A Ancient monastery, perhaps,” he said. “Like Sha’Hadin or Agara’tha.”

  “It is a good place for our school. The Ancestors have willed it.”

  They followed the steps out another door, up to a second building with walls painted a faded red. Passing beneath a high portico, they moved inside, stepping over the snow blown in drifts across the stone. Pillars of cedar rose to the ceiling strung with icicles and in the centre of the room towered a crumbling statue. It was missing most of his many arms and was also glazed in red.

  “A durgha,” said Nevye.

  “He is a fierce warrior,” said Setse. “He will protect us.”

  The sharp morning breeze blew in through a window, bringing with it a strange scent. Setse lifted her head, her sense of smell far keener than his. It was one of the many things he had learned after so many months with dogs.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” she whispered. “Teeth and claws. Two heads and two.”

  He looked around. Doorways led out of the antechamber in many directions – some to the daylight, others deeper into the Ancient monastery. He looked at Setse.

  “He’s gone down,” she said. “Toward the living court.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Toward the teeth and claws.”

  “But not the heads.”

  “Not the heads.”

  “The heads come to us.”

  “I don’t think our weapons will help if the heads come to us.”

  They pressed onward, up and into the ruin. With the raw instinct of Oracles, they followed Balm’s path as it led from building to building, each in various states of decay. Paintings flaked on every wall, statues crumbled in every corner. Stone steps were worn smooth by the elements, walls pitted and corners rounded with the passing of time. Corridors rabbited like tunnels, some opening into very large rooms with walls painted in faded tones of red and gold. It was beautiful and terrifying; fragile yet iron and they couldn’t shake the echo of danger. Such was the way of Ancestors.

  The trail led to a corridor that turned forked in two, one path leading up into sunshine, the other leading down to the dark.

  He looked at her.

  “There is much more if we go up.”

  “Balm is down.”

  “Balm is mad.”

  “He is one of us. We find him down, then we explore the up.”

  He reached into his cloak, pulled out a small pebble of red powder and squeezed it tightly. Light flared within his palm, sizzling and popping and he held it out, bathing the dark steps in unnatural light.

  The stairway was cold and dark, the old stone pressing in from all angles, the footing rough and uneven. There were no windows in this part of the stair and Nevye could see his breath as they made their way deeper down. He was grateful for the firepowder in his gloved hand. It gave light and some warmth.

  “I feel him,” said Setse. “He’s terrified.”

  “He’s dangerous,” said Nevye.

  “We are all dangerous,” she said. “But there must be good in us somewhere. There must be hope or our journey is worthless.”

  He sighed, his breath frosting now in front of his face. The light from his palm flickered across the stone as the stairway widened before him. The air had changed and he knew there was another large room ahead.

  “It is a hard path for Oracles,” he said. “But Balm is toying with Necromancy. I have no wish to be Storm to his Needle.”

  “You owe your life to Necromancy,” she said. “Perhaps you are sensitive to its voice.”

  He cursed her insight. She knew him too well.

  They slowed as the stair opened on a vast chamber with high, pebbled ceiling and rough, rocky walls. There were many dark openings in the stone and Nevye knew they were tunnels but there was neither light nor breeze coming from them. In the middle of the room, Balmataar stood frozen in place, an armful of bones clutched to his chest. His breath frosted in front of his face and his golden eye gleamed in the light of the Alchemist torch. Terror rippled off him in waves.

  “Teeth, teeth, teeth,” moaned Setse. “The court of teeth and claws.”

  “The court of teeth and claws,” Nevye repeated.

  He held out his sizzling hand, and slowly, peered into the room. It was like a mosaic made of round stones, each shining in the darkness. There were dozens of them, slick with ice and covered in frost; large, child-sized stones piled on top of each other acros
s the floor, up the walls, along the ceiling.

  There was something very wrong about these stones.

  He frowned and angled his hand, sending the light up the nearest wall to study them. These were not ordinary stones, fashioned by the earth and worn from time. No, they were carved into the shapes of animals, with etched limbs, chiselled hair, sculpted tails. Carved with such marvellous detail as to look almost alive.

  His heart froze in his chest.

  “Setse,” he said. “We must leave now.”

  “The court of teeth and claws,” she moaned.

  Walls, ceiling and floor, the great court of Tsaparang was filled with rats.

  ***

  She watched him as he blew across the stick of incense, laid it in a small bronze bowl at his knees. The room filled with the scent of alder and orange.

  “Close the door, Major – I mean, sham’Rai-dala. Forgive my familiarity.”

  Ursa ground her teeth but did as he asked, sliding the rice paper door shut with a click. He had been praying, that much was obvious from his rounded blue back, the scuffed bottoms of his tabi slippers, the white tail peaking out from the hem of his robes. She was surprised. She had never thought of Chancellor Ho as a religious man. Then again, if she was honest, she never thought of Chancellor Ho at all.

  “Do you pray, sham’Rai-dala?”

  “No,” she said.

  “The wife of a priest does not pray?”

  “Praying will not sharpen my steel.”

  “But it serves to sharpen the will.”

  “Does it clean a blackened chi?”

  He straightened, released one, two, three deep breaths. He was helpless before her, this man who had orchestrated the fall of Sha’Hadin and plotted the death of the Captain. He, who had set a kunoichi on them all and destroyed their lives in the tents of Turak’hee.

  One jab to his kidney and her fire would be cooled. One shir’khin to his throat and she would be free.

  He rose to his feet and turned, a smile fixed on his flat white face.

  “Did you think to kill me just now?”

  “If I did,” she lied. “You would not be praying to your ancestors, but meeting them.”

  He moved to his low desk, folded to his knees once again. The papers were neatly stacked beneath an inkpot and brushes, stamps and wax. A teapot waited beside two clay cups, thin wisps of steam curling from the spout.

  “Would you like tea?”

  “Why did you summon me?”

  “So direct. It must be the army.”

  She said nothing. He began to pour.

  “Congratulations on your new position. Our Empress is wise to trust you.”

  “I will protect her from all enemies.”

  “Then you will serve the Empire well.”

  “I will serve the Empire with my last breath against those who seek to destroy it.”

  “I know what your husband is doing.”

  The lap of the liquid, the scent of the leaf.

  “The Great Golden Lion, the Dragon’s Blood Bark. The rumours have spread throughout the Palace.”

  “Gossip and superstition,” she growled. “There is nothing new in that.”

  “Your husband plays a dangerous game.”

  “My husband is skilled at games, else he would have been dead long ago.”

  “If he loses this game, he may yet die. The honour of the Empress—”

  She slammed her boot down onto his desk and he flinched, the tea splashing across his fingers. She leaned forward, long marbled tail lashing behind her.

  “Honour?” she snarled. “You talk to me about honour?”

  He did not move.

  “You know what the dogs did to Captain Wynegarde-Grey,” she began. “You may even know what the dogs did to Jet barraDunne, but do you know what the dogs did to my husband?”

  She brought her face down low to meet his.

  “Do you know what they did,” she hissed, “To me?”

  He blinked before yellow eyes met blue. He held her gaze a long time.

  “And yet,” he said. “You wish us to join them.”

  “Why did you summon me?”

  “I know you do not believe this, sham’Rai-dala, but I am loyal to the Empress.” He set his lush white chin. “I will also serve her with my very last breath.”

  “I would expect no less of her Chancellor.”

  “Your husband believes there are spies and hassassins in Pol’Lhasa.”

  “I have killed one. Why do you doubt?”

  “I need to know who has paid them.”

  She could see silver hairs mixed in with the white. She wondered how old he was.

  “You are a frightened little man. I will not help you.”

  She slid her boot off his desk. There was a mark from the heel and he studied it for a long moment.

  “I am not your enemy, shamRai-dala.”

  “Lies from your worm tongue.”

  She turned and strode to the door, paused.

  “I have fought with dogs and against them. I have fought with monkeys and against them. I have fought with cats and against them. I have trained an Ancestor and now I train an Empress. Your days in Pol’Lhasa are numbered, frightened man. Count them well before they are gone.”

  She did not look back, nor did she close the door behind her.

  ***

  “This is not allowed,” said Tomi Moto.

  “You have killed my General,” growled Kirin. “That is not allowed.”

  “General Yamashida was uncooperative.”

  “As I am being now.” And Kirin’s hand fell to the hilt of his sword. The hands of the Snow fell to theirs. “Will my head find a similar resting place?”

  “You are an emissary from another land,” said Moto. “Unfamiliar with our ways and culture. However, General Yamashida is Chi’Chen, and therefore under the reign of the Rising Suns.”

  “Has there been a coup in the Eastern Kingdom, sidi?” asked Kerris at his side. “One that Bai’Zhin and Pol’Lhasa are unaware of?”

  “No coup,” said Moto. “The Rising Suns command respect.”

  “As does your Emperor,” said Kirin. “As do the emissaries from the Upper and Lower Kingdoms. Without order, there is anarchy.”

  “Chi’Chen order is without equal.”

  “You are courting war with three empires. Is that really what the Suns wish?”

  Moto tightened his wide mouth. He was flanked by a troop of well-armed Snow and had been summoned by the Stonelilies after yet another ‘hole’ had appeared in the wall, allowing the Alchemist, the Khargan, Naranbataar and baby Kylan passage from their rooms. Moto and the Snow seemed to be at a loss and it had suddenly become apparent that, for all their swagger and sneer, the Chi’Chen were afraid of them.

  “Why have you sent troops toward the Celestial Mountain Gate?” said Kirin. “Are the Nine Thousand Dragons to feel the heat of the Rising Suns?”

  “The troops are not for the Celestial Mountain Gate.”

  “Mere exercises, then?”

  “Shin Sekai is a jewel amoung cities, and as such, there will always be threats. An army is presenting from the east. Scouts marked them two days ago. They will be here by sunset if not intercepted by the Sacred Snow.”

  “An army?” asked Kerris. “Within your borders?”

  “The Suns will explain all.”

  “Then you will have no issue,” Kirin began, “If we send one of our own to verify that there is no threat to the Nine Thousand.”

  “You are alive, your wounds tended, and you have dined on the finest of Chi’Chen delicacies. Still, you do not trust my word.”

  “General Yamashida might have something to say about your word, my friend,” said Kerris.

  “The Chi’Chen way—”

  “Chi’Chen way wrong,” the Khargan snarled, his first words in the debate, and the Snow gripped their weapons, bristling.

  “Say no more about the Chi’Chen way, sidalord Moto,” said Kirin. “Lest you w
ould have us believe the Chi’Chen quarter of the Dragons also falls under the reign of the Rising Suns. You have already killed three of our party. Prove to us you will not kill the rest.”

  And Kirin’s tail rapped once, the Scales of the Dragon showering sparks across the stone floor.

  Moto straigtened.

  “Choose an emissary to return to the Celestial Mountain Gate,” he said. “We will send four Snow as accompaniment. He will verify the survival of your Nine Thousand Dragons, and return with confirmation. Is this acceptable, Shogun-General?”

  “We choose Jalair Naranbataar,” said Kirin. “Aide to Khan Sumalbaykhan of the Chanyu. He will bring instructions to the Dragons on the manner of their upcoming deployment – one-third for each empire for defense. He will return before sundown tonight, alive and unharmed, or there will be war.”

  He steeled his jaw.

  “And Tomi Moto will have caused it.”

  The man’s small eyes flicked to the young dog standing at the Khargan’s side, the Maiden strapped across his back.

  “What is this weapon he carries?” said Moto.

  “The Breath of the Maiden is no weapon,” Kerris lied. “It’s an ancient horn that calls the army. There are nine thousand of them, after all, and it’s rather difficult to shout. Isn’t that right, Rani?”

  Naranbataar swallowed, nodded quickly and Kirin smiled to himself. The young dog was proving not only resourceful, but fearless as well. Perhaps there was hope for the Chanyu yet.

  “But you see,” said Moto. “That is not the tale told by the Stonelilies.”

  “No disrespect to the esteemed Stonelilies,” said Kerris, “But it is the tale told to you now by the esteemed emissaries of the Upper and Lower Kingdoms.”

  “Your call to honesty seems rather one-sided, Kaiden of the Emperor.”

  “Believe whom you will, but woe to you if you believe wrongly.”

  Kerris’ smile was a knife. The four Stonelilies waited by the door, glancing between them all as if their very fates were being decided. This was a new and dangerous game and everyone feared for the outcome.

  “Very well,” said Moto. His eyes swung to the katanah at Kerris’ side, the Brother Fangs resting at Kirin’s hips, and ala’Asalan slung across the Khargan’s back. “Your man may take this magical horn. But you will leave your swords here.”