Swallowtail & Sword: The Scholar's Book of Story & Song (Tails from the Upper Kingdom 4)

by H. Leighton Dickson

  He rolled the door and stepped down into the straw. The oranges, feathers, water and tray were gone, flung against a far wall, indistinguishable from the refuse on the floor.

  He sighed.

  “Only one firefly,” he said. “Today, Death wins. I have tried, my silent friend, to give you a reason to live but it is not my choice. It is not the Governor’s choice. It is not even your choice, ultimately, although your will is strong, Yama is stronger. Yama is always stronger. Forgive me for failing you.”

  “Why are you here?” the man whispered. “What is it to you if I live or die? That has only ever mattered to one woman and one child and they both are gone.”

  “And you wish to join them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you join them when you die? Or will you experience nothing at all?”

  The man looked up at him. In the very faint, flickering light, it seemed as if the man’s good eye was brown.

  A trick of the light, surely. There was only one firefly.

  The mongrel looked away.

  “You are waiting for death,” Petrus continued. “For her black cold embrace that will blot out your pain. This is something I understand but not all roads lead to NirVannah, my friend. There are better, more effective ways to mourn your loss.”

  No response.

  “You have gifts. You have been struggling with them your entire life.”

  Nothing.

  “Your gifts have destroyed your life, I know this. But more than this, our people have destroyed your life. Our proud, harsh, unyielding people.”

  “You know nothing,” hissed the man.

  “Then tell me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t wish to see you dead. I wish to understand.”

  “There is nothing to understand. I killed a man and will die for it. It is the way of things. Please go away and leave me to Dharma.”

  “They said that you killed a lion.”

  Silence.

  “You didn’t kill a lion, did you? You would know if you had killed a lion. You have lion in you, that is obvious.”

  “I have the entire Kingdom in me.”

  “That, I believe.” Petrus grinned. “These soldiers, they think the man was a lion.”

  “These soldiers are imbeciles.”

  “Was he your kin?

  “He was a lion.”

  “Your brother?”

  “Go away.”

  “I cannot. You called me from the mountains so I came.”

  “I called no one.”

  “You called me.”

  “Then go back to the mountains.” The man tried to move, the sound of the chains echoed in the quiet cell. “I await my death with yearning.”

  Petrus sighed, shifted on his heels. The firefly had stopped flashing. He batted the lantern and the light resumed.

  “Do you know what they call me? The brothers of Sha’Hadin?”

  “I don’t care.”

  “They call me ‘the Ancient of Sha’Hadin.’”

  “Because you are old.”

  “Because I am patient.”

  The man looked up again and this time, Petrus could see the beard. Mountain lion, he realized. There might indeed be all of the Kingdom in this one man.

  “Do you have a blade?” the man asked.

  “No,” said Petrus. “I am a monk. I carry fireflies.”

  “I have been here, in this cell waiting for death for weeks now. But she eludes me.”

  “Dharma is a cruel mistress.”

  “I had a wife. A daughter. A life. I made chairs. Good chairs.”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  “And someone took it all from me, a man these imbecile soldiers do not know, have never known—”

  “Not like you.”

  The man’s tail lashed once.

  Good, thought Petrus. A fighter.

  “And not like you,” the man snorted. “Oh Sacred monk. How many servants do you have in your mountain palace?”

  “No servants,” said Petrus. “We do have goats but they are not very cooperative.”

  “Please leave.”

  “Was he your brother, this lion who murdered your wife and daughter?”

  And with a roar, the man flung himself to the end of his chains but was yanked back by the shortness and collapsed in a clanking heap on the floor. Petrus had not been expecting the lunge, had not felt the build up of fury but to his credit, he had not budged, the man’s claws missing his nose by a whisker.

  He could see the back now, quite clearly. The glistening rippled black leather that was typical of scorched pelt. It was oozing and covered in maggots. He could smell the death on him, the decaying of the flesh of his back and chest and face. He could hear the labored breathing, the gasps that sounded like sobs, the moans that would break a heart when suddenly, the last firefly died and the cell was plunged into darkness.

  Petrus sighed again.

  “There,” he said. “You are dead. Embrace the NirVannah, the beautiful black of nothing.”

  “I am not dead,” the voice croaked. “You are still here.”

  “Maybe I am God. Or maybe,” he leaned forward, seeing without seeing. “Maybe I am the Devil. That would explain much, don’t you think?”

  It was quiet at first and he had to listen very carefully but soon the cell was filled with sounds other than sobs. He was laughing. The mongrel rolled up to sit with his back against the wall, wiped his sunken cheeks, draped his shackled arms across his knees once more. Petrus could see it as if with his eyes. The darkness painted pictures with sound.

  “Ah yes,” said the man. “You may be the devil at that. I am in Naraka.”

  “Only the first of the Ten Courts,” Petrus grinned. “I wonder if I will be in all of them?”

  The man snorted.

  “There is only one way,” said Petrus through the void. “To redeem this.”

  “There is no redemption. There is no forgiveness. There is only misery and death and Dharma.”

  “There is redemption,” said Petrus. “And there is forgiveness, along with misery and death and Dharma. Come with me to Sha’Hadin.”

  “What is Sha’Hadin?”

  “A place where you can be alone if you wish. A place where all men grieve and grow with their grief into trees.”

  “Trees?”

  “Your eyes are brown, yes?”

  “Unnaturally so.”

  “I have flipped the Wu-Zhing cycle for you, so Day Five was the first day and Day One is the fifth. That is today. Day One. Wood. Trees. Brown. Air. Anger. And of course, Life.”

  He reached down in the darkness, found the lantern, held it up.

  “Blow.”

  “What?”

  “Blow. With the last bit of your life breath, blow out and see what happens.”

  “Then will you leave me in peace.”

  “If you wish it, I will leave.”

  There was the sound of links rattling, a burnt body leaning forward, a deep breath and an exhale through cracked lips and a gasp as suddenly, the lantern burst into life. Fireflies long-dead spun and danced, their swollen bellies alive with light. He clicked open the latch, releasing them into the cell and they rose to the ceiling casting light and shadows across the walls. Not only five now but fifty, sparkling like water, twinkling like stars, lighting the stripes of tears down the mongrel’s face.

  “If you come to Sha’Hadin, you will serve with me on the Council of Seven. You will council the Imperial Court. You may even become the most powerful Seer in all the Empire one day.”

  “Impossible…”

  “Your wife and daughter are not gone,” said Petrus. “They will never be gone. Not while you are alive. And while you are alive, who knows the roads you will walk, the journeys you will take, the lives you will touch.”

  More tears now and he could see the slice through the orb of the eye, through both brown and black like a vein of ore in a mountainside.

  “Day One
is Life,” said Petrus. “Do you wish this to be your Day One, the first day of New Life? Dharma has orchestrated it all. You only need reach out your hand to take it.”

  He grunted.

  “My hands are in chai—”

  With a crack, the shackles fell away from both hands and feet.

  “What? How?”

  Petrus smiled, rose to his feet.

  “We’ll tell them I melted them with the chakra of my mind. I do like that image. It is rather mysterious and powerful.”

  He reached down a hand.

  “I am Petrus Mercouri. What is your name?”

  The man stared at the hand, shook his head.

  “I have had many names,” he said. “But all of them Untouchable.”

  “Untouchable or Brahmin. It means nothing to me.”

  “Sireth,” said the man after a moment. “Sireth benAramis.”

  “I am honoured to make your acquaintance, Sireth benAramis. Come, let me help you stand. I have a friend lynx who would be pleased to tend your wounds.”

  And the mongrel called Sireth benAramis took the hand of the Ancient of Sha’Hadin. At the brush of their fingers, Dharma laughed from her seat high in the Celestial throne. She reached to spin the Wheel of Life, setting the Five Elements back in the correct order. She had held it off for five days, five days of Cosmic Chaos all for the Ancient of Sha’Hadin, the Brahman she had loved through all the yugas of time and space. The dragon, Kakbhushubdi, watched her from the stars and breathed flames across the void, sending scales raining to earth like fireflies.

  One such firefly struck another dragon, a dragon of wings and mirror and metal in the highest skies, a dragon called MAX, and miraculously, another journey was begun.

  A Dream in the Palace

  Across the Stone Bridge I soared

  Until I came to the Lotus Throne,

  Wandering through halls and towers,

  I saw firsthand the supreme causes.

  When a fragrant vapor suffused my clothes,

  for the first time I felt clean,

  When the sound of a bell reached my ears,

  in a heartbeat, I was golden.

  The wooden lad and the stone maiden,

  the host within the Palace,

  Green bamboo and yellow blossoms,

  I now see their meaning.

  Remembering the past, I lean into the wind

  and let out three long sighs;

  On the azure waters,

  the moon's bright reflection glows

  like a jewel.

  The Breath of Butterflies

  Year of the Dragon

  Early butterflies

  Rise on prayers with the sunlight

  As evening comes, die

  She was flying on the wings of the swallowtail, the flutter of lace and yellow powder, the strength of eagles on the wind. She floated above the city, watching the glow of lanterns blink like eyes through the windows. High above the city, the Imperial palace was a silhouette against the sharp white spear of Kathandu, Fang of the Great Mountains. Even with butterfly eyes, she could see the banners of her family flapping in the night wind. Twin dragons and lotus. Driven first from the North, the banners roared and changed direction, driven now as if from the south. An omen, she thought. She wondered how she could be sleeping when the whole world was about to change.

  Ling opened her eyes, grateful that the room was still dark. A lone candle on the floor and embers in a distant hearth flicking dark shadows across the walls. Mialah was there, kneeling at the foot of her bed. She was young for a ladies maid, and an ocelot, but Ling liked her and that was Enough for the Regent’s Court. But it would all change soon. Within hours if the physicians were to be believed.

  There was a mongoose on her pillow and it raised its head, blinked shiny eyes in the candlelight and yawned, tongue curling up between razor teeth.

  She sat up, allowing the silk to slide from her shoulders and Mialah rose to her feet to tend it.

  “Blessed morning, sahidala. How were your dreams?”

  “I was flying on swallowtail wings,” she said but her throat grew tight. “Is she…?”

  Odd how she couldn’t find her words. They were lost like leaves in winter. Like butterflies.

  “Living still, sahidala,” said Mialah. “Would you like tea, sahidala?”

  Ling nodded, remaining frozen as the maid removed the silk from the bed, lifted a kimonoh over first one, then the other arm. Mialah held up a pair of yellow slippers and Ling slid first one foot then the other into them. She let the young woman help her to stand as the sash was wound around and around her tiny waist, finally to cinch at the back with a tug. She stood while Mialah brushed her very long hair until it shone like silk, then she began to braid it into seven long thin braids, which she piled into seven tight coils atop Ling’s head. Finally, a pin. Mialah held up a tray.

  “The Swallowtail,” said Ling. “I wish to feel like a butterfly.”

  “You are every bit as beautiful, sahidala.”

  Ling turned to the mirror as the maid tucked the pin deep into the braids. She turned her head first one way, then the other but could not see the pin. Only those behind her would see it. Odd, she thought. A butterfly from behind, like a fading memory.

  “Soon, you will not call me sahidala.”

  “No, sahidala,” said Mialah. “Soon everyone will call you Your Most Royal Excellency.”

  “I should be happy.”

  The ocelot peered over her shoulder, into the mirror.

  “It is the way of things.”

  “I would like to see her.”

  Mialah opened and closed her mouth.

  “Tell them I would like to see her.”

  “But it is forbidden—”

  “Tell them. I am her daughter and soon-to-be Empress of the Upper Kingdom.” Ling raised her chin, stared at herself in the mirror. “It is my last request as daughter. Do not make it my first as Empress.”

  Mialah curtsied and fled the chamber.

  Turning, Ling held out a hand. The mongoose climbed into her sleeve and up, poking its head out at her folded collar and curling itself around her neck.

  She looked back into the mirror, wishing she could see something of the butterfly pin in her night-black hair. It was a memory, like her dream. Like her childhood.

  Soon, she would be Empress of all the Upper Kingdom, the youngest ever to set slippered foot in the Great Hall. She hadn’t even seen her thirteenth summer yet and had very small slippers.

  Outside her window, the first brooms of dawn brushed the shadows of night and she moved to the eastern window above the Guardian’s Courtyard. Soldiers were performing funerary drills, lions and leopards and a few other races moving in orchestrated precision. Once her mother died, her body would lie in state for seven days guarded around the clock by her personal Panther Elite. Then, it would be taken to the Vault of the Emperors deep in Kathandu herself, where she would be viewed by thousands of mourners as they streamed in procession past her carved ivory case. Then, after seven weeks of official mourning, she would be interred in a family crypt, sealed away forever with her ancestors and all those who had gone before her.

  The Year of the Dragon was bad luck for a Dragon-born. Ling was in her twelfth summer, her second Dragon year. Her mother’s last. Very bad luck indeed.

  She leaned her forehead against the pane, eyes straining to see a specific figure amongst the regiment of Imperial gold. He was young to be training with them but his father had been Captain of the Guard so it was understandable. She knew he spent more time with the regiment than he did at his own home, where his widowed mother still ran the estate with propriety and honour. His only brother was frequently away and she wondered at the dynamics of a family like that, if there was love or simply duty. Perhaps a mixture of both. Families were complicated things. She wondered if there was any family without its share of pain or loss.

  There, she spied him moving with the Guard, as tall as any of them. An impr
essive feat given his fifteen summers. His face was serious but then, it always had been. He was a serious young man and more so now with the burden of family falling upon him. There were no butterflies in his life, no moments of play or fun or freedom. Just duty and calling, sword and staff and strategy. She wondered if he would be a diplomat or remain a soldier all his life. She didn’t care as long as he remained in Pol’Lhasa. She could face any future knowing he was in it.

  There was a rap at the ebony door and Mialah reappeared with a trio of women. The Mistress of Walking, the Mistress of Eyes and the Mistress of Communications and Letters – all in a riot of colour and pattern. As one, they curtsied and stayed bent as a man in blue robes swept past. Ling straightened, slipped her hands into the sleeves of her kimonoh. Men were not allowed in her bedchamber but this was a special time, a solemn time. She would be breaking many traditions on her road to the old wooden throne.

  “Sahidala,” said the man, a Sacred Pershan with lush white coat and flat face. He bowed elaborately, while she merely bent her knees.

  “Vice-Chancellor,” she said.

  He cast his yellow eyes around the room, smoothed the blue robes at his thighs before smiling. It was a small smile, brief and without his eyes.

  “Your girl says you have a request?”

  “I do,” she said. “I would like to see my mother.”

  “She is not well, sahidala.”

  “She is dying, Vice-Chancellor. You may say it.”

  “She is dying, sahidala. She will likely be with her ancestors before noon.”

  “I would like to say goodbye.”

  “But sahidala—”

  “I cannot see why it is not permitted. I am her daughter.”

  “It…” He thought a moment. “It is not the Way of Things.”

  “Is my father with her?”

  “He is not, sahidala. He is waiting in the White Tea Room.”

  “Does he wish to see her?”

  Another small smile on that flat face.