Snow in the Year of the Dragon

by H. Leighton Dickson

  She leaned forward, looked down into the courtyard that had once been the tent city. Everything was a mess – the kilns little more than toppled bricks, the impressive alleyways of food and flowers now mounds of soggy green. But people were beginning to move, digging through the chaos, and helping each other. Even the terrible Snow were helping, and she realized that, behind their grim, stoney faces, they were still Chi’Chen, prone to song and sadness just like all the others. She wondered if it was the abruptness and speed of the process that had caused that chaos, and if, under normal circumstances, the mountain’s rise would have caused no ripple at all.

  “’Rah, come and see it. It’s beautiful.”

  There was no response. She threw a glance over her shoulder.

  “’Rah?”

  The cheetah had not moved. She was still tucked in against a shattered wall, golden eyes gleaming like beacons in the shadow.

  “We can go now. I think we’re safe.”

  The woman shook her head and shrunk bank, tightening her grip on the silent child in her arms.

  And suddenly, Fallon knew. It was like a dagger to the chest, a sudden stab followed by the cold rush of dread, forming an icy waterfall down her spine.

  Dharma – elusive, cruel, relentless Dharma – had finally been paid.

  ***

  “She has lost the baby,” Ursa said to the little man in blue robes.

  He paused for a long moment, incense stick in hand, before laying it in the bowl. The office filled with the smell of myrrh and cinnamon.

  “That is tragic news,” Ho said and he turned to look at her. “The Golden Lion gives and the Golden Lion takes away.”

  “It is better for the Empire.”

  “That is true.”

  “It is better for you.”

  “This is also a truth.”

  “One of the Bushona Geisha is a spy.”

  The change was like the wind.

  “Which?”

  “I don’t know yet. But I will.”

  “A spy for whom?”

  “I don’t know yet. But I will.”

  The Chancellor grunted.

  “Have you heard from your husband?” He smiled a little, but it did not reach his eyes. “He must be in Agara’tha by now.”

  “The falcon has not returned.”

  “Despite his breeding, or lack thereof, he is a good man. He has served his Empire well today and thus, has earned my gratitude. Anything he wishes, if it is within my power, will be granted. Tell him this, please.”

  She paused now, hands curled into fists at her sides. One thought and a shir’khin would kiss his forehead. Just one, and she would be free of his lies forever.

  “I live to serve the Empress,” she said, and left the room the way she had come.

  ***

  Five blue faces.

  Sometimes, it seemed that his entire life was bound to the shadow and these five blue faces. Carr, Jorgenson, Washington, Portillo and Claire. Each one of them a scientist and a leader. They were the stones upon which the future would be built. Or destroyed, if things went south.

  “The fifteen are ready, Claire?” Paolini asked and Crystal nodded, her face flickering in the blue.

  “Yuh,” she said. “They’re prepped to launch on your word, Tony.”

  “How long are we looking at?”

  “The drones take eighteen hours,” said Portillo. “So the REDmarks will be slightly more.”

  “Twenty-four hours, then,” he said. “Sound right?”

  The five blue faces nodded.

  “Alright. Launch the REDmarks immediately,” he said. “Because we have another development.”

  “Kalgoorlie,” said Cece. “We all picked it up, I think.”

  All heads nodded.

  He sighed.

  “Whatever the hell happened to light the NPM probably triggered Sandman 3 as well.”

  “That’s powerful tek, Tony,” said Washington.

  “Could we be looking at it the wrong way?” asked Jorgenson. “What if the waking of Sandman 3 was responsible for lighting the NPM?”

  “Well, it sure isn’t a coincidence,” said Portillo.

  There was silence for a long moment.

  “We’re still scrambling,” said Cece. “Whatever the cause, we can’t risk an outbreak again. I doubt we’re any more resistant now than we were back then.”

  “We scramble,” said Paolini. “Crystal, give them their orders and send them out now.”

  “Got it, boss,” she said. Her screen flickered and there was one less face in his world. He looked over at Washington.

  “Cade, your site has the best comms. Can you follow up with Kalgoorlie? It will change things if they’re awake and responsive.”

  “Do my best.”

  And Washington folded up on himself and disappeared.

  “Get some sleep,” he said to the others. “We’ll need our wits about us tomorrow when this all gets real.”

  Portillo and Jorgenson flickered to darkness, leaving him with the stony face of Celine Carr.

  “So,” he said. “We’re doing this? We’re starting a war?”

  “You can’t start a war with animals,” she said. “You dominate and rule, or you surrender and they tear you to shreds.”

  “Surrender is not an option.”

  “We take the Nine Peaks Mountain, and we leave such a hole that these creatures will never dare presume again.”

  He could have sworn that there were sparks as Cece’s face disappeared into darkness. He sat for barely a moment before tapping the SmartALYK and the ionspace crackled into life before him.

  “Replay,” he said.

  And he watched with horror, and a goodly amount of awe, over and over the images of the CD Shenandoah compound and the grey lion that fought like a man. He wondered what the lion would think when the REDmarks fell.

  ***

  One would think, after these last two years, that I would be used to a great many unusual things. And in truth, I am, but nothing, nothing at all, could have prepared me for what I had seen that day in the Nine Peaks Mountain. The Khargan of the North, kneeling to tend a Chanyu-like creature on four legs. He stroked its head, silenced the whimpers with his large hands, removed tubes and wires with a gentleness I’d never had thought from a man so rough. All around me the Xióngmāo moved, cleaning and healing and imposing quiet order in the chaos. I realized that they were the true caretakers of this terrible place, and I wondered if there were ancestral versions of them to be found somewhere encased in glass and ice.

  Kerris was oblivious to all of this. He stood, hands on hips, before the heavy door that had cut him off from his wife. Of all of us, he had the most experience with Ancestral tek and I could see him studying the construct as if trying to discern its workings. I wondered if he was trying to speak to it the way he spoke to rock and earth and wind and sky. I doubted that Ancestral tek would listen to anything a cat had to say.

  But before long, the strange triangle glowed blue and the door shuddered into itself with a groan. Without waiting, Kerris bolted through, leaping past the crushed body of a Snow guard as it slid to the floor. I moved forward, curious but dreading, when the Khargan pushed past me. I waited, giving them both time. Like Kerris, he was a husband, bound to his wife in ways that had nothing to do with me. The baby was an accident, an oversight, a problem. Still, I found it strange the need to see him, to ensure he was safe and alive in the care of his incomprehensible mother.

  He was my son, but he was not mine.

  There is no honour, the Seer had often said. There is only desire and the sorrow that it brings. This, I had begun to understand far too well.

  The sound of a distant war horn echoed through the room. A tug at my sleeve and I looked down to see a bear, wet, haggard and bloody. He pointed to the tall window.

  I peered back into the room. Kerris was holding his wife. She was weeping but I couldn’t see the Khargan or the Alchemist. Neither could I see my son and once more,
dread closed its fist in my chest. I wanted to see. I wanted to know.

  I wanted so many things.

  The bear tugged again.

  Duty

  Respect

  Curiosity

  Certainty

  Discipline

  Honesty

  Destiny

  Courage

  Integrity

  Mercy

  Hope

  Honour

  The life of a soldier. The virtues of Bushido.

  My life. My only virtues. I was nothing without these, yet with them, I was all things.

  I was Shogun.

  With a cleansing breath, I turned to the window.

  - an excerpt from the journals of Kirin Wynegarde-Grey

  HOPE

  The rough-hewn banner snapped in the wind over the plateau of the Chi’Chenguan Way. It was colourful and proud, an inked mosaic of red Yang sun, white Yin moon and twin dragons encircling both. Surrounded by torches, it was a hand-made symbol of unity, now the last hope for the chaos that was the New World.

  It was dark now, the frail sun having set in the west and birthing the cold curved blade of the moon. Rising Suns. Setting Sun. The politics of the Eastern Empire and the Fall of Shin Sekai. Kirin could imagine it all, played out over the lonely plateau that the dogs called Tevd.

  They stood outside the massive city gates, which only days ago had been little more than an optical illusion. A place where he had solved a riddle and proved his worth and been led into a labyrinth of cliff and mirror, fear and death. The barefoot monk had returned to wait with them, as had the Stonelily named Jae’un. There was no Capuchin Council. There were no Rising Suns. Tomi Moto was dead, and the Snow were directionless, lost without a cause to defend. Now, they stood, their long row of torches slicing the Chi’Chenguan Way like a fiery log in a dark river. It was a stoic purpose but the Snow had done it swiftly and with precision. He hoped they’d rise to the challenge if given a city to rebuild, but tonight, hope was little more than a tattered banner, flapping in the night wind.

  Behind them, the Nine Peaks Mountain loomed like a massive quiver of arrows and he marveled how it could be so similar yet so different at the same time. Everything was changed. What had once been flat cliffs were now sheer gleaming walls that towered over the surrounding plain the way Pol’Lhasa towered over DharamShallah. The way Lha’Lhasa towered over the Chi’Chenguan Way. Now, they all waited as the thundering of horses shook the very ground beneath their feet, feeling like the calm in the path of two approaching storms. Life or death for all kingdoms would be forged tonight at the foot of the Nine Peaks Mountain.

  He looked over at his brother, standing with his arms folded across his chest, face fixed on the thundering mass approaching from the east. Beside him, the Khargan, sharp eyes searching the mass approaching from the west. At his knee was the canine creature from the mountain, head low, hackles raised on the back of its neck. Kirin looked away, knowing there were lion animals and tiger animals and all manner of cat animals being tended by the Xióngmāo. It was incomprehensible. Or rather, something he didn’t wish to comprehend.

  And there were so many things he didn’t wish to comprehend.

  The Nine Peaks Mountain. The place where the Ancestors had created all things. For Kirin, it would always be the place where things ended and the world had changed forever.

  His son was dead.

  She had sat, cross-legged, in a tent of shadow and silk, rocking over a single candle and a bundle of black cloth. His heart had lurched at the sight, closing a fist around what was good and noble and pure. Like him, he doubted she felt anything at this moment, rather burying everything behind walls of brittle stone. He knew the feeling. He had lived that way for years. It was more home than the walls of the House Wyngarde-Grey.

  So much lost in these last years. So much lost.

  The Khargan left them at that point, and Kirin didn’t want to know what he was thinking. He was a good man, but some things pushed limits.

  He knelt before the candle, not caring that there was no twinge in his knee for the first time in years. The baby was so small, and he was grateful he couldn’t see the golden pelt. Still, the fabric hinted at head and shoulders, arms and legs swaddled tightly in strips of black linen.

  “I am sorry,” he’d said. He was clumsy. Words had never been his strength.

  She’d said nothing, continued to draw symbols on the ground with a piece of chalk.

  “The Nine Thousand Dragons are approaching,” he’d continued. “And the River of Steel from Emperor Watanabe. I must be there when they meet to prevent unnecessary fighting.”

  “There will be wounded,” she said after a long moment.

  “You do not need to do this.”

  She did not look up.

  “Naranbataar will be wounded,” she said. “Bring him here.”

  I am familiar with all manner of dead and dying, she had told him so long ago. He’d not known, then, the depth of her familiarity.

  “I will bring him,” he said, and he’d slipped out of the small tent, leaving his heart with the candle and the cloth.

  “Quiz!” shouted Kerris and Kirin looked up, breathing deeply and blinking in the darkness.

  The smell of horses was strong on the night breeze and the row of torches glinted off saddle and steel. The massive dark wave that was the Nine Thousand Dragons was almost upon them, slowing in the long, practiced, weary way that armies do. Two captains swung from their mounts as the mountain pony scrambled to his master’s side. Kerris caught the long face in his hands, pressed his forehead to the pony’s brow.

  “So glad to see you, my friend,” said Kerris and he rubbed the crescent of white. “You are the best general an army could have.”

  Three captains – one lion, one monkey, one dog – stepped up to Kirin. The cat bowed, fist to cupped palm. The monkey held out a long shape and Kirin’s heart thudded in his chest.

  “Maiden,” growled Long-Swift, taking it. He passed it to Kerris, who slipped it across his back.

  “Where is he?” asked Kirin. “Where is Jalair Naranbataar?”

  The army moved aside as two dogs pushed through, dragging a body.

  “Take him to the Alchemist,” snapped Kirin.

  “Sir,” said the lion. “He’s as good as dead, sir.”

  “Too many arrows,” said the dog.

  Kirin turned to the Khargan.

  “Your wife can heal him,” he said.

  The Khargan stepped over, lifted the chin of the young man who’d run at his side.

  “He has heart of Blue Wolf,” said the Khargan. “But there is no hope. Only thing is good death.”

  He reached for ala’Asalan, snarled when Kirin grabbed his arm. The Shogun-General leaned in.

  “Your wife asked me to bring him to her. Do this for her, please.”

  He set his jaw.

  “And there is always hope, my friend.”

  There was silence for a long moment before the Khargan nodded swiftly. He turned to the men.

  “Follow monkey woman. She lead you to tent of the Khanil.”

  Jae’un bowed and led the three through the massive city gate. They passed a wave of Xióngmāo carrying baskets and barrels of food. Caring for the armies of the world.

  The blast of a war horn carried over the thunder of hooves and again, they turned. The eastern army had slowed, approaching the row of torches like a slow tide.

  “I understand one of the Capuchin Council has survived,” Kirin said quietly.

  “Tomas Jun-Pak, yes,” said Kerris. “This will not be a good day for him.”

  The River of Steel was a large assembly of small horses and golden armour riding beneath banners of white and red. At the fore, a man rode in robes of black and red and wearing an elaborate wool hat. He dismounted, and six others moved immediately to surround him, holding the banners high over his head. He stood for a long moment in the torchlight.

  “By Ho’s louse-ridden sleeping cap,” K
erris muttered. “It’s Watanabe himself.”

  Hiro Takahashi Watanabe, Emperor of the Eastern Kingdom, Divine Ruler of the Empire of the Sun.

  Kerris shook his head, marveling.

  “He never leaves the Palace,” he said. “This is remarkable.”

  Kirin looked down at the barefoot monk.

  “Your people live or die in this moment,” he said.

  The blue monk swallowed, slipped his bare hands into his sleeves.

  Life,” he said. “We choose life.”

  Together, the blue monk, the Shogun-General, the Khargan and Kaidan, Ambassador to all Empires, stepped forward under a rough-hewn banner made by a tigress.

  ***

  Carrying armfuls of old texts, the Xióngmāo led her through corridors once lined with Snow. Those corridors were empty now, much like her heart.

  She walked aimlessly, intrigued but numb, her boots merely following their familiar pattern, the young bear propped on her hip. She had seen no Snow and curiously few other monkeys. But the Xióngmāo were everywhere, cleaning, scrubbing, organizing, healing. This was their place, their holiest of holies. At one point, they’d moved through a large chamber with nine cases in various states of destruction. It didn’t take her long to realize it was in the Chamber of the Rising Suns.

  Only four of the cases were standing; the others were either toppled or shattered entirely, their contents splashed horrifically across the floor. Bears worked quietly through the debris, moving body parts, mopping thawing pools of gel. One bear straddled a case, trying to pull a dead monkey out of the ooze with a wire and she thought it looked like he was fishing. It was a strange thought, to be sure, but no stranger than anything she had been witness to in this city. In the cases were huge tailless monkeys, some intact, some in pieces on the floor. She wondered if they were what Kerris had once called Apes. She’d never seen one, but he’d assured her that they had existed. He’d said the same of dragons, and she vowed never to doubt him again.

  It was the end of the Capuchin Council. The fall of the Rising Suns.

  The smell was overpowering so it was a blessing when they left to enter a vast bright garden with fields and soil as far as she could see. She walked past vine-covered window-walls that flickered with blue light, breathed in the heady green smell of bamboo and poppies and warm, damp soil. It was clear that these gardens had not been affected by the unnatural rising of the towers. Bands of Xióngmāo were busy working, rolling great barrels filled with grass and rice, and carrying baskets overflowing with fruit and greens. For the armies, she knew, the Nine Thousand Dragons and the River of Steel. She wondered how it would be possible to feed all the men, let alone the thousands upon thousands of hungry horses. Horses were, by nature, carnivorous. Grass could keep them sated, but it was meat that kept them tamed.