“Parnum’bah Falls is beautiful,” said her father and he rubbed his hands over the fire urn. It was half as tall as he. “More beautiful than columns and steps. The banyan trees are like nothing in the world.”
Her mother rolled her eyes.
“Look at the students, Fallon,” she said. “They all look so happy to be here. So busy with their studies and their thinking.”
Cats of all races moved up and down the steps, congregating at the fire urns, laughing at philosophies, arguing over politics. Their arms were filled with books, brushes, ink pots and parchments. They seemed so animated, Fallon thought. So engaged in the process of learning, of debating, of so thoroughly dissecting ideas with others who were as sharp, or sharper, than themselves.
Her father grunted.
“They are happy because they are not working.”
“They are working, Sharan,” said her mother. “But with their minds.”
“Their minds don’t build houses. Their minds don’t feed families.”
“But their minds might think of new ways to build houses, or better ways to feed families.” She leaned in, like a conspirator. “You could be one of them, Fallon. You should be studying with them.”
“She should be working with the pheasants,” said her father. “Who else has such a way of separating the chicks? Pheasanting is delicate work.”
“But you have Jael and Richard to help with the pheasants,” said her mother. “Our Fallon has a mind for learning.”
“Our Fallon will never find a husband in a place like this. Look, how many tigers do you see among them?”
And he waved his arm for emphasis.
Fallon swept her eyes across the crowds. Lions, Leopards, Cheetahs, Servals and Caracals. Even Jaguars and a precious number of Sacred cats moved along the columned courts, but her father was right. Tigers were workers, it was a fact and here, in the highest seat of learning in the Kingdom, there were very few striped pelts in sight.
She sighed again, fought the tightening in her throat, hugged her journals to her chest.
“So?” asked her father. “It’s settled. Can we go now? We could pay Sanjay to take us back tonight.”
“Sharan, no,” said her mother. “Fallon has her interview tomorrow. It would be dishonourable to leave without first letting her sit.”
“It would be more dishonourable to embarrass herself and the family name.”
“She won’t embarrass us.”
“But I might,” said Fallon and she bit her lip. “What if I forget everything I’ve learned? What if my mouth runs away with my tongue, like it does so very often? What if I try to say something and it just comes out wrong and the guru shakes his head and asks me to leave? What if I fail and have to go back to the pheasantry with the eggs and the chicks and live in Parnum’bah Falls for the rest of my life?”
Her father stared at her.
“That would be failure? To be a pheasant farmer in Parnum’bah Falls?”
The air left her body, a kite without wind.
“No, Pappa! See? My mouth and my tongue, they always get me into trouble.”
Once more, her throat grew tight but her mother laid a hand on her arm.
“You will sit for the interview tomorrow, my daughter. To not do so would be failure.” She smiled and her eyes gleamed like emeralds. “Regardless of how it ends, you will make us proud.”
“I know how it will end,” grunted her father. “But yes, you will sit for the interview. The Waterford name is an honourable one.”
“Yes, it is,” said her mother. “But it is not tomorrow yet. Today, you can explore the city. How does that sound?”
“Oh, the city,” breathed Fallon. “Look, Pol’Lhasa! The highest, most beautiful place in all the Kingdom! I can’t believe I’m here, seeing it with my own two eyes!”
“Who else’s eyes would you be seeing it with,” grumbled her father but he smiled at her. A little smile, despite his fearsome face.
She beamed at him.
“So, Fallon, go and find the registrar and let him know you’re here and prepared to sit the test tomorrow,” said her mother. “Your father and I will be waiting for you at the inn. I need a rest.”
“Your mother needs a rest,” said her father. “And I need a drink. I hope they have handia in Dharamshallah. Do you think they have handia in Dharamshallah, Fayah?”
“If they don’t, I’m certain they have something else, Sharan. Will you be able to find your way back to the inn, Fallon?”
“Oh, that’s not a problem, Momma. I can find my way to the inn and back a hundred times. It’s the Registrar that I’m worried about finding.”
“And you think you’ll be safe with all these strangers?”
“Oh, that’s not a problem either. As long as they speak Hanyin or Imperial. Or Farshi. Or Hindi. I could possibly even muddle through Shaharabic if I had to. Oh no!” She bit her lip. “What if they speak Manda’Rhin?”
Her mother smiled and patted her arm.
“We’ll see you soon.”
And together, her parents turned and headed back down the steps to the road.
Fallon sighed, watched them disappear into the crowds of the busy street. It was a sunny day at summer’s end and the light was like nothing she had ever seen. Strong and brilliant and very white, not at all what she would have expected, but then she should have expected it, being so close to the clouds as the city was. Dharamshallah was the very roof of the world, and the School of One Hundred Thoughts was the second highest tile on that roof.
The highest was Pol’Lhasa.
She could see it in the distance at the very end of this same street, towering over the city like a crown. Architecture was the truest test of culture, she had read, and Pol’Lhasa was so very beautiful. With her steep stepped courts, blackened cedar beams and high, winged rooftops, all the city bowed at her feet. Behind her, Kathandu, Fang of the Great Mountains.
Interesting, she thought, how the street began at Pol’Lhasa and ended at the University. She wondered if it was intentionally engineered. The street itself was interesting, a steep cobbled valley between the two high points, lined with Imperial offices, museums, restaurants and shops. It was simply called ‘the Road of Enlightenment’, and every address a certain number along ‘the Road of Enlightenment.’ She smiled. Whoever had named it had to have been a clever person.
She sighed again, loud and long, turned with her armful of journals to face the building. Still several sets of stairs before the outer courtyard, and even the stairs were impressive. Like the fire urns, railings were plentiful, likely due to the sheer number of steps and therefore exhausted steppers. She watched students move up and down, going to class, going to placements, going to lectures. She shrugged, grinned. Going for handia or rice beer or curry. Going to watch a kabuki or a piglet race or a puppet theatre with a boy or a girl. Going to spend time with each other and sneak in a kiss or two.
She hugged her journals. The prospects were endless.
But the more she looked, the less she saw stripes.
She frowned.
Cheetahs, lions, leopards, caracals, sandcats, servals, ocelots and lynx. A few snow leopards, fewer clouded but the more she looked, the less she saw.
No stripes.
Her heart began to sink, slipping from her throat down to somewhere beneath her knees. No stripes. What was she thinking?
“What am I thinking?” she asked out loud.
“The philosophy department is on the second floor,” muttered a caracal as he trotted up the stairs with two others.
“Oh, I didn’t mean—”
“This is a university,” grunted another boy. “For Seers, you need Sha’Hadin.”
“Maybe she’s here for the Domestic Animals Class?”
“Yah, you forgot your yak!”
The boys disappeared up the steps but the sound of their laughter carried on for ages.
“Ha!” she called weakly. “That was funny. Sort of, sort of funny. Not re
ally.”
She climbed up the next set of steps. Really, they were very high up here, she thought. The air seemed thin, pale. Like the light. Not like the jungle.
“Excuse me,” she called out to a young lioness. “Can you help me find the Registrar’s office?”
The woman shook her head and continued on her way.
“Um, thanks anyway. Bye now. Have a great class. Or whatever you’re doing. Or going. Wherever you’re going, I mean. Not… not doing…”
No stripes. Why were there no stripes?
She studied the main building now, noticed that despite its splendor, it was stained with soot. The three winged rooftops, the red stained walls, the bronze medallions, all stained with soot. One Hundred Thoughts stained with soot.
“I have a thought for you,” she muttered to herself. “Where are the tigers?”
Naturally, no one answered. No one was paying her the least attention.
She turned back to overlook the streets. Tigers galore in the shops and restaurants, sweeping the Road to Enlightenment and pulling the rikshahs that congested the streets. Tigers in their element – the workforce. Digging, building, selling, farming. Their minds don’t build houses, her father had said. Their minds don’t feed families. He was right. Tigers did.
And her heart, which had bottomed out somewhere beneath the soles of her father’s boots suddenly grew hot and began to rise from its cellar until her chest was burning and her jaw was set. She would do it. She would sit that test and pass it if it killed her.
“Now,” she snorted. “The Registrar.”
And she whirled, flinging her foot for a giant step forward but catching the ankle of a man rushing past. They both stumbled; she fell, losing the journals from her arms but he was surrounded by students and they caught him before he could go down. His books, however were not so lucky, and they flew in a rain of paper and parchment, littering the steps like leaves in autumn.
“Oh no!” Fallon cried and she scrambled to her feet. “Oh, I’m so, so sorry! Your books!”
“My books!” he wailed.
“Idiot,” growled a young lion. Several of the students began to pick up as many books as they could, while others chased the papers blowing across the courtyard.
“My journals!” she moaned. “Oh mother. What have I done?”
“What have you done?” grunted the man and for the first time she realized he was Sacred.
“Oh most esteemed sahidi,” she said, gathering armfuls of paper and parchment. “It’s my first day here and I’m so lost and so terribly sorry. I just wanted to find the Registrar—”
“And so you thought tripping someone would bring the Registrar to you?”
“No, sahidi. I’m just clumsy.”
“The University won’t help you with that.”
“No, it won’t.” And her throat grew tight with every armful until she rose to stand, waiting for him to put his books back in order. Students of all races helped and soon, there was a pile of His and Not His. She could tell by the size of the Not His that many of her sketches were missing.
A young cheetah jogged up.
“I rescued this from the fire urn,” he said, passing a set of architectural drawings into the Sacred man’s arms. The corners were blackened and scorched. “These were the only ones that weren’t destroyed.”
“Thank you, Khalif,” the man nodded and nodded again. “It took years to finish those.”
“I’m late for class,” said the lion and he glanced at her. “Idiot.”
Lion and cheetah turned and trotted down the steps, a sleek golden pair.
“Are you a teacher?” she whispered, throat far too tight for normal speech.
“No one is a teacher here,” he said. “No one is too old or too proud to learn. Except perhaps our lions.”
He passed what was left of her journals into her hands.
“What did you say about the Registrar?”
“Nothing,” she said. “Nothing. I was just talking out loud. I do that too much, it seems.”
“Are you a student here?”
“No, no I’m not.”
He peered at her, his eyes small for a Sacred and she wondered at the sharpness of his vision.
“Not many tigers in the School of One Hundred Thoughts. They don’t have the intelligence for higher reason. They’re happier in the fields and the bars.”
She hugged her journals, held her tongue.
“His office is in that building,” he said, pointing. “Third floor.”
She nodded.
“Be more careful with those feet.”
And he continued on down the steps, making a sharp left and disappearing into the crush of bodies moving along the student paths.
She looked at the journals, bindings broken, pages stuffed in like straw in a mattress. The sketches of birds and butterflies, of leaves and mushrooms and moss. Her drawings of blossoms as they matured into fruit, of seeds that sprouted and became trees or food. The cycle of insects, and the insects that ate insects, and the birds that ate insects, and the birds that ate birds. Studies of rock and weather patterns and water and lightning. And finally, the dissections of the Chi’Chen scout, from skin to muscles to organs to bones.
Like straw in a mattress.
“You’re right, Pappa,” she said, determined to still the quivering of her chin. “I am good with the chicks and Parnum’bah Falls is very beautiful. I don’t need this place. I don’t want this place and one day, I will find my place. But you’re right. I want to go home.”
No one commented, no one even heard.
With a whimper, she tucked the journals under her arm and headed off down the steps.
***
According to the innkeep, her parents were not at the inn, but neither had they left with Sanjay for home. They had gone out for handia, a regional brew made with rice and herbs, almost a beer, although Fallon had never had either. The innkeep didn’t know which establishment they were visiting, but he did think they had planned to be back by noon. Her belly was talking and she had a few coins in her pockets so she tucked the tattered journal under her arm once again and set off down the Road of Enlightenment to find her parents, or lunch — whichever came first.
The sun was strong this early morning even though the air was cold. Life in mountain city, she thought; so very different than the heat of the jungle. The cobbled road was busy with shopkeeps selling from storefronts and merchants selling from carts. Brightly-dyed silks were sold next to rough linens, pearls sold next to corn-cob pipes. She could smell tobacco and fish, fresh hay and ginger and she was pleased to discover that she could still smile as she walked down the steep road on the way to Pol’Lhasa. There were so many people here, so much life, so much chi and she found herself enjoying it. The white sun, the thin air, the mountains and the people. Not the University but everything else.
At the very bottom of the road, she slowed, attracted by the scent of honey-roasted bananas. She wandered under a orange flap to see an old sandcat selling candied fruit. The woman smiled at her, tiny eyes disappearing into the wrinkles of her pelt and Fallon realized she had very few teeth remaining. Likely due to the candy.
“You want?” asked the woman in Hanyin.
“Oh, well, maybe…” Fallon reached a free hand in her pocket, dug for a moment before pulling out three coins. “This is all I have. Pappa gave it to me when I stopped a fight between the pheasants. What can I buy for this?”
The woman glanced over her cart of fruit.
“A special for you. Banana, orange and mango, honey-roasted in bowl, covered in peanuts. Yes?”
“Oh yes!”
And humming, the woman set to work.
Fallon grinned. People only hummed when they were happy, and this woman was happy, making a living selling candied fruit from a cart. She wondered if the woman was married, if she had grandchildren, if she lived here in Dharamshallah near this Road of Enlightenment. There were windows above the shops, perhaps homes for merchan
ts or soldiers or court officials. There could be worse places, she thought, than to live here.
Coins traded for chopsticks and the transaction was made. Fallon set off up the road this time, the bowl of candied fruit in one hand and her mattress of journals tucked under her arm. Slipping in and out of the crowds was delicate work but she did manage and finally she stopped, entirely winded but triumphant, at the foot of a set of massive stone steps leading to the palace. There were leopards guarding a plaque so she wandered over.
“One Hundred Steps,” she read out loud. “Hm. One Hundred Steps down the Road of Enlightenment to the School of One Hundred Thoughts. Wow. That’s pretty profound, don’t you think?”
The leopards did not even look at her.
“Is there anywhere I can sit?” she asked. “I mean, it’s a bit of a walk from the University first downhill then uphill and I really want to eat this fruit bowl but I need two hands and well, look at my journals. Honestly, I should have left them in the room but I wasn’t thinking. I usually do. Think, that is, but I didn’t, so um, is it allowed for me to sit somewhere? There’s a big shrine over there. How about on the step of that shrine?”
And she swung her hand to point at a limestone structure that was as big as a house, with many steps and a golden peak at the top.
“Do you think that would offend anyone, like a person or a god or a scary spirit thing who might be living there? True, there’s not much shade but honestly, there’s not that much sun so I should be fine. I’m a jungle girl, you know. Parnum’bah Falls, the pheasant capital of the entire kingdom. But with much bigger trees.”
She glanced from one leopard to the other. Still, neither had looked at her, not even made eye contact. She raised her fruit bowl.
“Are you hungry? You can have some if you want. I have five sisters. I’m very good at sharing.”
Swallowtail & Sword: The Scholar's Book of Story & Song (Tails from the Upper Kingdom 4) Page 13
