To Walk in the Way of Lions
(Book 2 of Tails from the Upper Kingdom)
by
H. Leighton Dickson
All rights reserved.
ISBN-13: 978-1478127093
Copyright H. Leighton Dickson
Khanisthan and Desert Horses
Most Beloved Excellency,
We are leaving the Phun’jah and the Great Wall, for the roads and byways of Khanisthan. It is now difficult, if not impossible, for us to contact you by falcon. Therefore, accept this message as a farewell, until and unless our fates lead us otherwise. There are messages bound herein from those of us who wished and I know that you will see to it that each is delivered to the appropriate hand. My own is also enclosed for yours alone.
Captain Wynegarde-Grey
It has often been said that, as DharamShallah sits high on the Great Mountains as the jeweled crown of the Upper Kingdom, then KhahBull, in the eastern flank of Khanisthan, beats its bloody heart. She is a wild city, a proud city, an angry city. She has a history, to be sure, but one so shrouded in myth and folklore that it is impossible to determine which tales are true, and which merely wish. It is easy to believe that this one city fought off for ten generations a siege of dogs. There is no rat problem in such a city, as her legends would tell of a lone piper, leading all vermin from within its walls to scorching death in the salt flats beyond, and that even today, bodies of the vile creatures still can be found, etched in red stone. It is easy even to believe the boasts of unearthing relics from Ancient days beneath her very foundations, statues of Asherbupal and ThanThanagoth, and the restoration of their feline faces smashed in from ages long past. These cats are such people.
No matter its history, glory or riches, the one thing that cannot be ascribed to KhahBull is Kaidan. Kaidan belongs to DharamShallah, to Mepal and to the Royal Houses. The Great Mountains are his mother, Shagarmathah his bride, the courts of Pol’Lhasa his home. (I know this is true, for I know Kaidan himself. He is everything people say of him, and more.
They had been entertained that night in the governor’s mansion, a fine house overlooking the minarets of the city and the ribs of the Mountains. The governor, a small, grey-striped man of Sacred blood, had been most intrigued by their journey, for it was not often that he had guests from Pol’Lhasa. Of course they said little, but accepted his hospitality nonetheless, and slept well in beds stuffed with feathers for the first time in weeks. That morning, they left the horses with the governor’s stable commander, a fine lion by the name of Harrison Omar-valDelane, and made their way into the fabled heart of the city, the Waterless Gardens.
Now this is an odd name, to be sure, for it is neither garden, nor waterless. It is paradoxical and poetic, but cats are, after all, a paradoxical, poetic people. It was a marketplace, as huge as most cities, with shops under tent flaps and shops in three-story buildings. There were shops that sold pearls, and shops that sold elephants. There were shops that sold meats and shops that sold animals to make the meats sold in other shops. In fact, next to the canton-city of LanLadesh and the sprawling bustling wreckage that is Cal’Cathah, it is said that KhahBull is the busiest, most profitable marketplace in all the Upper Kingdom. This too, is easy to believe. Many taxes are gathered there.
The Captain hated it on sight.
As he stood at the entrance to the markets, hands on hips, blue eyes sifting the crowds that moved all about him, he was a most impressive, imposing sight. His long mane, held off his face in its simple queue, fanned in the dry breeze, along with the tattered golden sash. His tail, normally so still and reserved, whapped the dusty ground in frustration. Like a rock in a river, he just stood there, tides of people flowing around him, buyers and sellers alike, coming and going, ebbing and flowing, everyone giving him a wide berth. He was a lion. He wore Imperial gold. It was, and still is, the way of things.
He set his jaw and turned to face his people.
“This is to be an enjoyable day,” he said, forcing a smile. “You are all free to do whatever you wish. Go wherever the desire takes you. The governor has given us unlimited credit. All you need do it present your rings—“ He indicated the ring he wore on his right thumb. It bore a stamp pressed in gold. “And the merchants will indulge your purchase. One of the few benefits of our stations, I should think.”
“It hardly seems fair,” muttered the Seer. “To work hard for a living, only to be left with only a promise of remittance at the end of the day...”
“They will be reimbursed,” he said.
“Will they?”
“Of course. The governor is an honorable man.”
The Seer gazed at him for several moments, then looked away. “Of course he is.”
Kirin ground his molars. This was to be an enjoyable day, he reminded himself. It would not do well to start it off with a futile debate. “We must meet here tonight, at or just before the curfew gong. Is that understood?”
Everyone nodded, but no one moved. They were still looking at him.
“Very well. Go. Enjoy yourselves. Go.” And he spread his hands, feeling for all the world like a mother ushering her children to a forbidden playground. “Go.”
Without a second look, the Seer whirled and strode off into the crowds, the Major his silver shadow. They were gone in moments. The tigress too, and the cheetah, and finally the leopards, still in uniform, but off duty, all disappearing into the crush of bodies that was the Waterless Gardens. All but one.
He turned to see Kerris, leaning against a stone wall, arms folded, the end of a smoking cigarash in his teeth.
Trust Kerris to know there was something else afoot. Things had been strained between the brothers these last days. An un-named but familiar wall had sprung up between them and neither had possessed the will to bring it down. It had always been there, it just ebbed and flowed like the tides, never really cresting, never reaching the shore. Dark eddies under the surface, swift currents running deep. It was the way of things.
“I pulled the sticks this morning,” said Kerris as the Captain moved to lean against the wall at his brother’s side. “They said ‘Lightning’ and ‘Red’…”
Kirin’s heart sank. He glanced up at the sky, vast and blue with only wisps of clouds.
“…But I hear no storm. The air is quiet.”
Kirin frowned. “Maybe the sticks are wrong?”
“Maybe.”
They said nothing for some time, and neither of them looked at the other. The smoke from the cigarash was giving him a headache. He sighed.
“Are you up to a little shopping?”
“Depends,” Kerris said. “On the governor’s coin?”
“Mine. I believe our party is ill-prepared for the next leg of our journey. I would like to improve this situation.”
“Hmm,” the cigarash waggled up and down as he thought. “Leather uniforms have no place in the desert. You and Ursa and Sherah will be dead of sun sickness before the week’s up.”
“So...?”
“So. We need new clothing and…”
“And…”
Kerris’ eyes dropped to the ground for a heartbeat, deciding the best approach to his next request. He looked up now and set his jaw. “And horses.”
“Horses?” Kirin blinked. That was most unexpected. “But we can avail ourselves of the Governor’s Stables—“
“Not Imperial horses, Kirin. Desert horses.”
He studied his brother’s face for a long time. He honestly didn’t know what to think. Kerris was such a puzzle. He continued.
“Desert horses are smaller, tougher than Imperial horses. They are bred for desert living, can go for days without water, like khamels. In fact, I was considering whether
or not we might need khamels, and if our journey was to remain in these dry places, I would seriously recommend them. But if this ‘Swisserland’ is so much farther beyond, then horses are still preferable. Khamels are a bugger to ride in mountains and jungles both, and they can’t be trusted to forage during the night and return back for duty the next morning. Horses can.”
Kirin let his own eyes wander the crowded streets of the Waterless Gardens as he thought it through. It was a sensible request.
“I will not give up alMassay,” he said finally, turning to look back at his brother. “I would rather die with him in the heat than leave him in some Governor’s stall.”
“And I Quiz,” said Kerris, smiling for the first time in days. “I don’t think he’d let me go anyway. He’d tear the damned place apart and catch up with me even if I was on the other side of the world.”
Kirin grinned at the thought. “The Major might need some convincing…”
Kerris pushed himself off the wall, puffed a few good smokey puffs on the cigarash before tossing it to the ground and crushing it under his boot.
“Oh, her grey can come, that’s not a problem. As long as we have desert horses as the majority of the caravan, we should be ahead of the game. Besides, I’ve found a local breeder who happens to have a few nursing mares. Remember that milk paste I was talking about…”
And side by side, the brothers left the gate and disappeared into the currents of the Waterless Gardens, and for a time, the light and dark halves of the interlocking Tao wheel fit.
***
“That one.”
“No no, Dansin! Don’t choose that one! Choose that one!”
“Um…”
Sireth smiled at his audience. “Choose, please.”
The jaguar frowned, chewed his lower lip. “Very well, sidi. I know it is under that one.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
Sireth lifted the coconut shell with a flourish. There was no peanut underneath.
A rousing cheer went up from the audience, and the jaguar dug about in his wide trousers for coins. The peanut rocked gently under the middle shell, unpicked by any in the crowd, and Ursa shook her head. The last Seer of Sha’Hadin had made himself a tidy sum this afternoon, utterly confounding and entertaining shopkeepers and tourists alike that had wandered his way.
“My turn! Let me try!” shouted a young tiger in the crowd, but Sireth raised his hands.
“The games are over, friends. I must now go and spend my earnings. Perhaps, I will simply redistribute this wealth to some of your poorer neighbors along my way.”
Ursa shook her head again. He had seemed completely in his element today, in and out of the crowds and stalls of the Waterless Gardens, but truth be told, it hadn’t disturbed her overmuch. After the night spent at the gypsy caravan, she had been much more at ease with his radical lifestyle and unorthodox tastes. At least he hadn’t bought her a kz’laki.
As they strolled through the marketplace, he counted the coins in his palm. “Enough for one of those blades you liked, perhaps. Have you seen one yet?”
She tossed her head. “Pah. I have no need for any dog-blade. My steel is sharp enough.”
“Then what shall I do with this?” The coins jingled in his palm. One wedged in the sliced leather of his glove. She grinned. She had given him that slice.
“New gloves.”
He laughed and his good eye glinted in the bright sunshine. “No, but a seamstress perhaps. That is a brilliant idea, Major. Thank you.”
She pursed her lips, and said nothing more, but he could not help but notice that she raised her chin just a little higher, and together, the pair set out to find a leather craftsman somewhere in these Waterless Gardens.
***
It was sheer luck that she happened on a bookstore.
She had wandered alone for a good two hours, taking in the sights and smells of the marketplace. This was so different from the market on the narrow mountain path on the road to Sha’Hadin, but then again, perhaps not so different. People were people. They all needed to live.
So when luck led her up to this storefront, she couldn’t believe her good fortune, let out a squeal of delight, and stepped inside.
The smell made her close her eyes.
The smell of old, old books, older paper, dust and leather covers and ink, and she breathed in deep, letting it take her back to the university and the most wonderful place on earth - the library. She wondered why smells could do that so easily, transport a cat to such places in their memories more quickly than thought or sight. Just one of the many things she turned her mind to when she stopped to think
There were a few patrons in the shop, two young jaguars, a caracal and an elderly lion, all browsing quietly and she smiled to herself as she began the delight of examining the spines of so many books, arranged on tall ebony shelves that reached to the ceiling. The just-as-tall windows, she noticed, were not drawn, but slatted, as sunlight was as dangerous to books as candle and flame, and the high sun caused beams to slice through the dusty air like ribbons.
Some of the books were new, written in monasteries and universities scattered about the kingdom. Some were volumes of poetry, song-lyrics and legends. A series on the exploits of Kaidan – his adventures, his captivity, his negotiations. Others were manuals, how-to books on animal husbandry, religion, modern warfare. There was also tome upon tome of the history of the Upper Kingdom, the geneologies of the Empresses, the concessions with the Chi’Chen, the expansion of the borders. Her fingers were itching to pull each and every volume from its shelf, lovingly fold open the jackets, gently turn the pages, and breathe it all in.
“May I help you, sidala?”
She turned to find a middle-aged tiger standing before her. His eyes were small – unusual for tigers, who typically had such large, deep-set, beautiful eyes – and his lips tight –again, unusual for tigers. In fact, he was rather on the thin side as well for, unlike herself, most tigers were solid of bone and body, even tending to pack on the occasional extra pound or two. Tigers were, of all of the Pure Races, very fond of their suppers.
“Oh, yes,” she said, rather nervously. “Um, I would like to buy a book…”
She waggled the Governor’s ring under his nose. He snorted derisively.
“And what sort of book would the tigress like to purchase on the promise of such unremarkable, undeliverable, unredeemable credit?”
“I would like a book on…” She scrambled for words, for truth be told, she had no idea what she was looking for. Her tongue peeked out the corner of her mouth. “A book on…”
“Yes, sidala?”
“Fighting.”
“Fighting?”
“Yes. I would like to learn how to fight.”
For only a heartbeat, there was silence in the bookstore, until the shopkeep threw back his head and laughed.
In fact, all the patrons of the bookshop threw back their heads and laughed, and yet again, Fallon Waterford felt the blood rush to her cheeks. Quite to her surprise, she also found her fingers curling into her palms, and she wished she were Ursa Laenskaya. No one would laugh at her then.
“Yes,” she said, her voice trembling and tight. “A, a book on fighting, and a book on men.”
More laughter now, and she could hardly bear it, but bear it she would, for she realized that she wanted those books.
“Fighting…and men,” gasped the shopkeep. “Oh my dear sidalady tigress, you are a pearl among customers…”
A strange calm fell over the tigress. She straightened her spine, narrowed her eyes, magined she was a snow leopard. The laughter soon stopped.
“Warfare books I have, sidala, but books on personal fighting? Of those, I have none,” he said, wiping tears from his eyes. “I cannot help you there. There is a garrison nearby if you wish tactical training, and of course, several masters of the Martial Arts of all varieties and temperaments, even here in the Gardens…”
He seemed to cat
ch himself as he observed her reaction, cleared his throat, tried to gather his wits about him.
Fascinating, she thought to herself. A valuable lesson learned. She folded her arms across her chest.
“Ah my, yes, but books on men…” He leaned into her. “Those I can help you with…”
He grinned, his tight lips spreading wide across pointy teeth. She shuddered. She did not like this bookseller. Not one bit.
“Back here, sidala. I have an entire room of books for such ‘particular’ tastes…”
With a snort, she followed him through a wall of beads and shells, into a dark, dimly lit alcove full of books with dark covers. He pulled several down off different shelves and passed them to her.
“See here, sidala, these even have illustrations that show you what to do and how…”
She was a booklover. She was a Scholar in the Court of the Empress. She was a student of feline anatomy and physiology. It took several moments for her to realize that she was not looking at fine literature or volumes of poetry or treatises into the souls of the male cat. In fact, it wasn’t until she had studied page after page of illustrations that her emerald eyes began to grow round, and her heart leapt into her throat.
“But you, sidala, seem to me a woman of class and taste, not simply a female indulging in the lusts of the flesh. So for you, this here is the most beautiful of all, a book of poetry and love, illustration and conjugation, romance, art and skill all bound in one miraculous work…”
With trembling hands, the shopkeep handed her a small leather-bound text, blood-red in colour, with gold leaf. “It is a copy of an Ancient manuscript, transliterated and re-illustrated for the Upper Kingdom. It is called ‘The KhamaShuthra.’ If you know this book, you will know all you need to know about men.”
She held it in wonder. She had heard rumors of this book, a book of love and love-making. It was forbidden in the University, where male and female lived and studied together in purity the pursuit of more ascetic, cerebral things. But holding it, here and now, feeling the soft suede under her fingertips, the delicate rice-paper parchment that crackled with the turn of each page, the organic tang of the ink and the colors, oh the colors of the graphic illustrations, she felt the whispers of possibility and danger and the power of life, and she saw the dancing blue eyes of Kerris Wynegarde-Grey, his taunting smile and strong, graceful body, and she realized that she wanted this book, more than anything she had wanted in a very long time.
To Walk in the Way of Lions Page 1
