The Alchemist paused to look up from her investigations. Her painted eyes narrowed and a crooked, almost wicked smile slid across her face. She ran bloody fingers through her black hair, and stretched out her arms, arching her long back like a drawn bow. She yawned.
“You want him, don’t you?”
“I still, I don’t know what you mean.” The tigress furrowed her brow. “I mean, I’m a tiger, he’s a lion. We couldn’t, we wouldn’t...”
“Of course.”
Sherah al Shiva licked her lips before turning back to the open ribs.
“Regardless. He is easy on the eyes.”
“Oh.” Fallon sighed. “Yeah. Sort of.”
“With an agreeable voice.”
“Oh. Yeah. I love the accents of lions. They sound so sophisticated.” She sighed again. “Not like tigers. I’m probably the most sophisticated tiger in the jungle, and that’s not saying much.”
“I can help you.”
“Okay.”
There was silence for a very long time afterward, save the cracking and sucking and occasional sigh.
***
“Tastes good, doesn’t it, Quiz my boy? Sweet, lovely hay, with ground- up pheasant garnish. Chom chom chom.”
Kerris Wynegarde-Grey rubbed the shaggy neck as the pony dove nose-first into the feed. Almost as carnivorous as cats, he thought, with teeth for both grinding and tearing. He ran his hand down the shoulder to the legs, straight and sturdy and strong of bone. No scrapes or soreness, no signs of swelling. One by one, he applied pressure to the fetlocks, lifting each hoof in turn to check for rocks, chips and tell-tale bruises. All fine. The creature was as sound as a yak. Almost as shaggy. He straightened up and winced.
To bad the same couldn’t be said for its rider.
“I must go now,” came the voice of Rodreigo as he tidied up the brushes, wraps and linements in a far stall. “I must get back for Lamentations.”
“Lamentations?”
He could see the boy quickly lower his head and immediately Kerris cursed himself. He really could be thick sometimes.
“Yes,” Rodreigo whispered. “The Ancient of Sha’Hadin is no more.”
“Sorry. I think I’ll stay here, if it’s all the same to you. I just want to keep an eye on the horses. It was a long journey.”
“Yes. From the Palace.” The boy grinned at him now, eyes bright with candlelight. “Are you really a stableboy?”
“Me? No, not really. Feels like it, sometimes...”
“A soldier, then? Lions make the best soldiers, it’s true.”
“Not grey lions, I’m afraid. Coat clashes with the uniform.”
“So you are grey. I couldn’t tell in the torchlight. This is a good omen. You will save the last Seer, I know you will. This is a very good omen.”
Kerris shook his head.
“Good night, Rodreigo. See you in the morning.”
“Good night, sidalord grey lion. Sleep well.”
The candlelight disappeared along with his footsteps and Kerris was finally alone.
With an arm draped across his pony’s back, he glanced around the monastery’s dark stalls, savoring the aroma of cedar and leather. Tall beams of mahogany braced the ceiling, for like Sha’Hadin itself the stables were hewn out of mountain rock and the earthen floor was carpeted with sand and shaved pine. Quiz pulled away with a mouthful of hay and pheasant entrails, snuffling the ground and turning tight circles on the floor. His front legs folded, and within seconds, the pony was lying down. He let out a deep rumble of breath and his brown eyes blinked slowly.
Kerris sighed. “Looks comfy, my friend.”
He ambled back over to the door of the stable, took one long last look at the night sky and the strange new star. He could hear the clouds talking to each other, could feel the snow gathering in the north but the star was silent. He pulled a small stick out of his pocket. It had red tassels on the end and a word etched in its shaft.
“Snake?” he muttered to himself. “Now why in the Kingdom would it say that?”
At least there was no lightning.
He stuffed the stick into a deep pocket and stepped back inside, looking for and spying the loft up a narrow pole-ladder. Within seconds, he too was sprawled in the fragrant hay, yawning and stretching, not even having the time to say goodnight to the moon before he was fast, fast asleep.
***
The Captain was amazed at how much warmth was put out by such a faltering fire. Or perhaps, it was the tea, hot and sweet, that they cupped in clay bowls in their palms. But whatever the cause, as the three of them sat around the hearth, eyes mesmerized by the glowing embers, they were warmed indeed and grateful for it, for the story was chilling.
“The first night,” said the Seer. “When Agis died, we suspected nothing. He had seemed healthy but he had seen 83 summers. Then the next night, Meelosh Hunyadi died in his bed at the End of the Second Watch. Again, 75 summers. But simply because we are isolated, does not mean we are insular. That morning, Na’rang was sent out, with a message notifying the Empress of the deaths. And that night, that third night, the remaining 5 of us kept vigil right here in the Hall. And that third night, Kim Li Poh died, right here in the Hall, with all of us present. I can assure you, it was not a pleasant thing.”
“Can you describe it?”
“In vivid detail, Captain. For the next two nights, we kept vigil, none of us eating nor sleeping but giving ourselves over to the meditations which we believed would hold the answers. So, when Lashlin deWinter then Diamont ibn al-Fayed, died within our very circle, one each successive night, we felt it. We lived their deaths, we died with them, man by man.”
Patiently, Kirin waited as the man took time to arrange his thoughts.
“Last night, Petrus and I agreed to hold AhmniShakra—”
“Imperial Tongue, if you please,” snarled Ursa, her tone anything but sympathetic.
“Ah, yes. I forgot. The ears of the Pure Races are small and delicate. I must remember to use little words.”
Kirin bit back a smile. There was something to be said for a man who could hold his own against the Major.
“What is AhmniShakra?”
“It is, it is something we...” The Seer held up his hands. “May I?”
The Captain nodded.
First one, then the other, Sireth benAramis removed his gloves, revealing even more of his mixed heritage by the small cheetah spots running up the backs of his hands. As he moved toward the Captain, the tip of a silver dagger came between them. Kirin waved it away. The hands slipped under his hair, at the base of his skull, fingers spread wide, thumbs pressing deeply into his temple. One brown eye locked with blue.
And suddenly, Kirin was seeing double.
More specifically, he was seeing himself, a flat, two-dimensional version of himself, yet still seeing the Seer. There was another heart pounding his blood, another chest filling with air, breathing for him, with him, another voice in his head, not his own. It was a most peculiar thing.
As suddenly as it had come, it went, leaving him blinking and rather short of breath.
His headache, however, was gone.
“AhmniShakra,” said the Seer, pulling the gloves back over his hands. “That was only the first level. There are, of course, seven.”
Kirin nodded again, with a sudden appreciation for the power and the danger, inherent in the Gifts of Farsight and Vision.
“Tell me what you saw.”
“We had initiated Seventh Level at the Opening of the Second Watch. We saw you were coming, also that you would be too late. And this time, the assault - for I can think of no other term - fell upon Petrus near the Middle of the Watch, not at the end as with the others. It was as swift as it was complete and it almost overwhelmed us both. Indeed, I believed we would both succomb this night...”
Sireth closed his eyes, reliving as he recounted.
“There was ice. Ice, everywhere. Above and below and within. We were frozen, solid, unable to move, un
able to breathe. There was no air, there was not even the drawing of breath for our lungs were full of ice. Our hearts would not beat, could not, for they too were frozen like stone. It was as if we were within a mountain glacier and our eyes could focus on nothing but the whiteness of snow. There was a name on our lips, a name we could not speak, but our minds cried it over and over, even as the panic seized us in its iron grip. It was then that Petrus pushed me out, for his heart was older and he was dying, as surely, as savagely as Agis, or Kim Li or Lashlin...”
He shook his head.
“It was more than a vision, much more than a dream, for we could not break loose from it. It seized us, not the other way round and it would not let loose until one of us was dead. It was an assault, Captain, from a living soul, upon a living soul and it was as cold as the grave. But colder, so much colder.”
“What was the name?”
“It is gone from my memory. But it is dying.”
“What is?”
“I don’t know. But it’s falling from the sky and it is dying.”
“What is falling from the sky?”
“I don’t know.”
“This name, did you recognize it?”
“I don’t remember it.”
Ursa snorted. “Useful visions.”
For the first time, Kirin saw the Seer’s tail lash but he said nothing. There was something, however, something in the way the man avoided his gaze. It quickened his blood.
“Is there anything else you can recall?”
The Seer lowered his eyes, the pause significant.
“Nothing.”
“In all your meditations, all your vigils, you saw nothing else? Nothing? None of you?”
“Captain, believe me when I say that there is nothing more I can tell you.”
They had him.
Kirin glanced at Ursa, her sharp, feral stare never having left the man since they’d been seated. She seemed to be deciding which part of him to cut and eat first.
The Captain gritted his molars.
“You are young, sidi, to be sitting on Council.”
“And you are young, my friend, to be Captain of the Imperial Guard.”
“Not yet forty-nine summers?”
“Forty-five.”
“Ah. Year of the Snake.”
“Yes.”
“And a Council Member for less than two?”
“What of it?”
“Well, you must be powerful then.” Kirin rose to his feet, smoothed out his garments, allowing his gaze to wander the earthen bowls, now dark, cold, empty. “Indeed, the Empress maintains your visions are never wrong.”
He watched the man carefully while appearing not to, watched him grow wary, guarded. Kirin began to move slowly about the chamber.
“And why this time, in the Middle of the Watch, not the End? You saw us coming, also that we would be too late. We arrived before the End of the Watch when the deaths had previously occurred. It should not have been ‘too late.’”
Sireth glanced at the Major, as if looking to her for clarification, or of all things, reassurance.
“I don’t understand—“
“These assaults, as you call them, are obviously carried out by a very powerful soul. Perhaps one that has learned to project such thoughts into older, more trusting ones. I’m sure it wouldn’t take much to stop an aged heart such as Mercouri’s, would it?”
“How dare you?” the Seer growled and for the second time, Kirin saw his tail lash. He rose to his feet, Ursa a sleek, white shadow.
“How dare you suggest—“
“I suggest everything. And nothing. It is simply my job.”
“Your job? Your job? I am no fool, Captain, nor am I naive. I know full well how I am regarded in the Courts of Pol’Lhasa. But the Empress Herself approved my confirmation despite the debates and I admired her greatly for it. Pray tell me then Captain, how a woman as revolutionary as she, can surround herself with people who simply ‘do their jobs’?”
“Cut out his tongue,” snapped the Major. “Then blind him completely.”
The Captain was not a man who relished his power. Indeed, he bore it in all seriousness and at this precise moment, when he should have been furious, he felt strangely calm. With a deep breath, he straightened his back, slid his palm away from the hilt of his sword. It had gone there of its own.
“As the Captain of Her Excellency’s Guard and Under Her Absolute Authority, I hereby abolish the Council of Seven. As a result, Sireth benAramis is removed from the Office of Council Member and is placed under my jurisprudence. Responsibility for the running of the monastery of Sha’Hadin falls directly upon my shoulders now and will be so until my order or that of Her Excellency Thothloryn Parillaud Markova Wu.”
Sireth benAramis gaped at him, the look of a man with a dagger thrust through his heart.
“How can you do such a thing? We have done nothing but serve and serve, then die in that service!”
“Major, I order you to accompany this man to his chamber. See that he sleeps and sleeps well. You are not to let him out of your sight for an instant. If he resists, you have leave to kill him. Is that understood?”
“Yes sir.”
The Captain turned to regard the Seer, who was shaking his head in disbelief.
“How can I sleep? With what you have done, abolishing the Council, bringing Sha’Hadin under control of the Army… It is better she kill me now, for I shall in no wise sleep.”
“I am also no fool, sidi, nor am I naive. I wish to believe you an innocent man. If you are so, then you are in danger and thus in need of rest and strength for that which faces you tonight. If you are guilty, then you will die by my hand so you may as well enjoy your dreams, for they shall be your last.”
Ursa slunk in at his side, her pale eyes gleaming in the dim light. She stood on tiptoe, for the Seer was a good head taller than she and she stretched up her small chin, so her lips were only a breath away.
“Better to be tending goats...”
Sireth pushed off, his long legs taking him out of the Hall of the Seers in seconds, his robes billowing, tail lashing. And behind him, the Major, heels clacking like the rattling of many spears.
For a long moment, there was silence in the Hall of the Seers.
Kirin Wynegarde-Grey shuddered and released the breath he had been holding. He had, within a heartbeat of a heartbeat, almost killed the last Seer of Sha’Hadin. The brazen words had deserved it. Even now, he wasn’t entirely certain why he hadn’t.
With the remains of the mouse hanging from her talons, the falcon was watching him.
***
Two figures arrived at the home of the Chancellor Angelino Devine d’Fusillia Ho. They were not greeted in the conventional fashion - that being a message carried by sentry from the outer wall through the gardens to the house proper. Rather, the Chancellor met them himself at the gate, clothed in a scandalously lush bearskin cloak and he accompanied them inside the garden wall. They remained outside under the careless, sleepy gaze of the moon and the new star, bright as a child of the sun.
It was a winter garden, a study in contrasts, expressly designed to be viewed under a blanket of snow. Hedges and shrubs formed dark accents to geometric carved stones, the path soft and white. Lanterns burned from many lamp stands and candles were hidden under bushes and mounds of rock. The high stepped courts and black winged rooftops of Pol’Lhasa were visible from here and its distant windows flickered with light. This garden was a place of wonder and secret. The Chancellor did much of his business here.
“Well?” he said in a quiet voice. One of the figures, clad in sweeping black and silver robes, motioned to the other in brown at his side.
“This is Yahn Nevye. Yahn Nevye meet Chancellor Ho.”
The two men exchanged bows, the man named Nevye’s being deeper, with the formal fist to palm salute, for he was nowhere near the Chancellor in status. This did not stop the Chancellor, however, from a bow of his own. Etiquette was one of the many
things that separated cats from animals.
“You are aware of the situation?” the Chancellor asked.
“I am, Magnificence.”
“And?”
“It is a tragedy, Magnificence.”
“This is not our doing,” said the Chancellor. “We did not cause this. I will have you know that before we proceed. What has happened is not only tragic, it is sacrilege, a crime against the Kingdom that we cannot begin to comprehend. I myself know Petrus Mercouri. He is a dear friend, and cousin to my wife’s mother. If he dies tonight, if he dies...”
The Chancellor broke off and the two other men allowed him his silence. A long moment before he took a deep breath.
“If he dies tonight, then something I cannot accept will follow. I will not accept. It would be worse than no Council at all. I am led to believe you share my sentiments.”
Nevye glanced at his companion before nodding.
“What happened two years ago was also sacrilege, Magnificence. From Untouchable to Brahman. That is unnatural. I too know and respect Petrus, but his decision has compromised the Council. It should not have been allowed.” He raised his hands. They were gloved in thick leather. “I was but one voice.”
“So you left Sha’Hadin?”
“Yes, Magnificence.”
“And since then, you have been at Agara’tha?”
“Yes, Magnificence. The First Mage’s dream is upon us.”
“The First Mage has as many dreams as he has wives,” said Ho. His face was smiling. His voice was not. “To which of them are you referring?”
The man in black and silver spread wide his hands. “Indeed, I have many dreams, Magnificence. But the first and last, best dream is to see our Kingdom strong and without compromise. To see our people strong and without compromise. To see our Empress strong and without compromise. This situation may serve all three.”
“I trust you have someone already in place?”
“Of course.”
“Kunoichi?”
“The best. Perhaps, the very embodiment of this dream.”
The Chancellor turned to Yahn Nevye. “Is this so?”
“It is.”
“Very well. As I have said, we did not cause this, but we can use it. Two of our worst tribulations will collide in very short order, if they haven’t yet. I believe we are being tested, being given an opportunity to take Bushido to the highest level. We must not fail.”
The Way of Things: Upper Kingdom Boxed Set: Books 1, 2 and 3 in the Tails of the Upper Kingdom Page 8
