To Walk in the Way of Lions

by H. Leighton Dickson

  Immediately, the howling quieted and the grotesquely grinning clouds shrank back, leaving wave upon wave of rain and rain only, a wide-eyed tigress and two brothers huddled in the streets.

  ***

  Golden eyes watched from a shadowed awning, until brown leather blocked the view. Sireth benAramis leaned against the wall, arms folded across his chest, dark mane dripping with rainwater. He cocked his head and smiled at her.

  “Impressive, wasn’t it?” he purred.

  She smiled back, a crooked smile that pulled into one cheek. “Lions are impressive, sidi, no matter what the circumstance.”

  “Indeed. The First Mage has trained you well. Has he any idea of the breadth of your powers?”

  “Powers, sidi?”

  “What are you? Earth?”

  “Of course.”

  “You are helped by Fire and you weaken Metal. Naturally.” He looked at his hand, began to pull at the fingers of one glove. Her smile faltered. “What do you have under your arm?”

  “Supplies, sidi. Nothing more.”

  Free of their prison, his long speckled fingers reached for her, knowing she was far too proud to pull away. He brushed her package.

  “Ah, Fire Powder. Anticipating rats, are you?”

  “Danger is a constant companion is the Dry Provinces.”

  “Yes.” His fingers reached to her forehead, her cheek, her brow, not touching but hovering just above, causing the tiny hairs of her face to stand on end as they traveled.

  Still, her mask would not crack. In fact, she smiled all the more.

  The fingers reached further still, to the strands of spider silk holding the little red pouch.

  “And this, sidala? Why are you never without this?”

  “It protects me. The way a snow leopard protects a priest.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Do you wish to kiss me again, sidi? Is that why you are here?”

  His own smile was very wide now, his good eye glittering and dangerous. “It was a good kiss, yes?”

  “Yes.” She leaned closer towards him. “It was.”

  He leaned closer towards her. Their lips were but inches apart. “Leave them alone, both of them, or I will kill you.”

  “Of course.”

  And he pulled on his glove and left the wall and the Alchemist and there were no longer lions on the street.

  ***

  Dearest Mummie,

  I’m not certain when I’ll be back. Kirin seems to think this will take some time. Not to worry. I have Quiz. He’ll see to it that I’m safe. Seeing lots of sights. Maybe I’ll find something extraordinary for you.

  Love you forever,

  Your Kerris

  ***

  There was indeed hot cocoa in the kitchens of the Governor’s residence, and she walked very slowly, balancing three frothy mugs in her hands. The house was very large, with golden-guilt statues, cedar doors and stained windows, and the terracotta floors were cool to the step, even with fires roaring in almost every room. The servants had offered to carry them for her, but being the youngest of six, she was more than used to doing things on her own. A cornerstone of her independent spirit, she’d always reckoned. Her family had never really known how it had shaped her. She’d learned to obey quickly, get whatever chore done and out of the way so she’d have more time alone, to wander and get lost, and then found again in the most miraculous ways. Compliance secured freedom, or a form of it.

  She paused at the great wooden door, both hands full of ceramic. She tried transferring all three mugs into one hand, but that only served to slop a splash of brown onto the tile. She tried kicking the door with her foot, but it was slippered at the moment, and the soft silk made no sound against the wood. She tried tapping it with her chin, her elbow, was even contemplating banging the door with her forehead, when, as she leaned in to do so, she heard a strange and wonderful sound.

  The Captain of the Guard was singing.

  She knew it was he and not Kerris, for Kerris sang always, and was completely sure of notes, had an intuitive feel for melody and was comfortable with the range of his voice. But this was different, tentative and soft, like a new father singing kitten songs to a firstborn. Or, she realized, an older brother singing those same songs to comfort a distraught younger one.

  It broke her heart, and yet warmed her to her very toes.

  So carefully, she set the mugs down on the floor and rapped on the wood. After a moment, Kirin Wynegarde-Grey opened the door and she almost didn’t recognize him. Mane loosed, uniform exchanged for simple linens, he looked as if he had stepped out of a very different life, a very different world, and it suddenly made her wonder about the choices cats make that lead them one way or another, and about how many Broken Roads he himself had faced in his lifetime.

  “Um, I, um, didn’t want to, you know, intrude or anything…”

  He smiled at her, an old weary smile, and she realized also that this incident with Kerris had not been his first.

  “I have cocoa…”

  He brightened. “Ah yes, thank you, sidala.” And when he bent to help her with the mugs, his hair swept the floor before his fingers even reached. “This is precisely what we both need.”

  “How…um…”

  He rose and looked at her, holding both mugs now, brows raised, waiting for the questions that he knew were coming.

  “Um, how is he?”

  “He will be fine in the morning, sidala. Thank you for all your help today.”

  “Oh, anytime, you know. I’m just always, you know… around…”

  “I know.” He made a move to turn back into the room, but paused. “One more thing, if I may ask of you…”

  “Oh, yeah sure.”

  “Tell Sireth and the Major that I will not be meeting with Solomon if he comes tonight, and that I do not wish Solomon to be leaving his ‘Swisserland’ yet, not until I have met with him first. Is that clear, sidala?”

  “Yep. Clear.”

  He smiled again. “You should sleep now.”

  It was as kind a dismissal as she could have hoped for, and as he turned to close the door with his heel, she spied a glimpse of grey, wrapped in a thick woolen blanket, sitting on the floor in a far corner of the room. He looked very ill, and the door closed on that last sight, ensuring that she would not sleep one wink at all that night.

  ***

  Dearest Momma, Pappa, Devon, Tamsin, Rowan, Soren and Bronwyn,

  I cannot begin to describe the things I have seen and done since joining this sojourn from the University. I am traveling in the company of lions, under the Imperial banner, and I have met the Empress herself. I have been in the Palace of Pol’Lhasa, the monastery of Sha’Hadin, several battleforts along the Great Wall and am now leaving KhaBull for the Dry Provinces. This is the most amazing adventure I’ve ever been on. Oh yes, my birthright has been amended to grant us status in the Court of the Empress, so I think Pappa can charge more for his eggs.

  Say hello to Tor, Wat, Shin, Jael and Richard for me, and give all the kittens many, many kisses. I love and miss you all.

  Fallon Waterford, Scholar in the Court of the Empress

  ***

  The views along the HighWay through Khanisthan were fascinating. The Great Mountains, which had still towered over the fabled city of KhaBull had begun to recede, as if their Good Mother were looking away from these wild children, intent on lavishing her attention upon the more beautiful, talented or troubled ones instead. Khanisthan was independent. Kahnisthan did not need her Mother’s attention. Or perhaps, she did not want it.

  Sireth benAramis sighed from atop his new mount. The colors of this region intrigued him. Sands of gold, peaks of orange, outcroppings of purple, all beneath a vast blue sky, but it all seemed discolored somehow, hazy. In fact, everything in sight seemed to be stained like old tea, and he realized that it was the sunlight here, subjecting everything under its brush as if the sun herself laid her head down on the foothills, spilling her golden tresses across
every rock and grain of sand, giving even the blue a tawny hue. So very different from the stark boldness of the mountains or the jeweled depths of the jungles. He had painted mountains and jungles before. Never a strange, sun-soaked, tea-stained land like this.

  He let his gaze wander across the river of horses that wound ahead of him, marveling at the lack of color now on horseback and he wondered whether it really had been the grey coat who had purchased their new clothing. It all smacked of the Captain as each and every rider (leopards included) were outfitted in desert gear of a most practical, pragmatic nature. He himself had traded his brown leather outer garment for rough-hewn linen of a similar shade, (although he had insisted on wrapping it like a more traditional kimonoh), and he had only begun to become accustomed to the kheffiyah that draped over his head and shoulders, protecting both from the blistering desert sun. In fact, the entire garb reminded him of the multi-layered robes of Sha’Hadin, layers upon layers of clothing to keep the elements at bay, to be added or removed as the need arose. He had also insisted on using the orange sash, which usually bound him from shoulder to hip, as an obi instead of the drab black one provided. Some things he would not set aside. Ritual was important to civilized society, and cats were, after all, a civilized people.

  Both the Scholar and Alchemist were draped in silks and linens, exchanging forest greens and sultry blacks for undyed fabrics, similar in colors to the sun-soaked landscapes. The Scholar’s father’s menswear had been traded for desert menswear, all of it covered in a dull tan thobe, cinched at her narrow waist with a sash of ox-blood brown. The Alchemist still wore black, but a goat-pelt black, no trace of silver vestments to be seen. Clearly, she had not approved, and had taken great care to arrange the fabric so that glimpses of pale golden pelt peaked through at unexpected intervals. They both also wore headcoverings called khemhirs, in tan and black, but again the Alchemist had jewels and coins woven into the very fabric of her clothing so that they caught that remarkable sunlight and scattered it in all directions.

  Even the Captain, riding his proud Imperial horse, wore similar linens but, like himself, still insisted on keeping some elements of his former uniform. His sash of Imperial gold still billowed like a banner at his waist, and his thick leather obi sported both long and short swords.

  It was a desert officer’s uniform, more formal that those of the civilians, but less so than the one he worn previous and he still managed to make it seem imposing and regal and serious. But of course, thought Sireth, that could just have been the Captain himself. He would look that way no matter what he wore.

  Only Ursa, stubborn, wild, willful Ursa, had flatly refused the new clothing, and he could tell it was taking its toll on her. She was breathing in swift shallow breaths, her hair piled atop her head and her silver pelt was marbled with streaks of sweat. He knew the Captain was keeping an eye on her, lest she succomb to the heat and drop unceremoniously off her mount. It would happen any time now, he knew.

  And finally, their outfitter, Kerris, completely at home in layered tunics of natural linen, but he was so far ahead of their party on that little mountain pony of his that he was no more a speck and puffs of dust in the distance. He had made himself scarce these last days after the marketplace, tending the new horses, nursing mares and three foals that were now traveling with them. There was a darkness rising in him, the Seer could tell, since his night in the Lhahore jail cell, and it was threatening to overtake him. He understood it well, that darkness. He fought it himself at times.

  He was forgetting something.

  Rather, he was not remembering something, and that was worse. His memory had always been sharp, but now, there was something nagging, something he knew, but couldn’t recall to mind, something that he had needed to tell the Captain. There was a danger in store for them and the success of this mission, but it was gone. Gone from his mind after the kiss from the Alchemist…

  He narrowed his eyes, the one now focusing singularly on her black-robed back. What could she do, this cheetah, this sorceress, this puzzle wrapped in black silk? Could she really have summoned the storm in the marketplace the other day? Could she have made him believe she was his wife, known her voice, her smile, the name of his daughter? Could she really have snatched a vision out of the mind of the most powerful Seer of Sha’Hadin? She would have to be not only Alchemist, but Seer as well, a practitioner of both Arts and Gifts, a first fruit of Jet BarraDunne’s dream of Unification.

  He might have to kill her after all.

  As if sensing his thoughts, she turned in her saddle, her painted lids lowered, her golden eyes locking with his, and she smiled cryptically before turning back to face the front, nodding as the Scholar rambled on and on about the quality of tea and desert horses.

  He shook his head, closed his eyes, and slipped away, all under that remarkable, tea-colored Khanisthan sun.

  ***

  “Well?” asked Kerris, as he skidded his mountain pony to a walk beside alMassay. The great Imperial horse grumbled and Quiz laid back his ears and snapped. A Big Yin and Little Yang. It was the way of things. “What do you want to do?”

  “We’re riding under the Imperial banner,” Kirin sighed. “Do you think they’ll chance it?”

  “Well, there appears to be eight of them, and there’s only nine of us. The road is narrowing, they have the advantage and we have horses and women. It’s very tempting.”

  Ursa trotted her horse up to the brothers, and they were three riding side by side in the setting desert sun. She snorted.

  “Let them come. The leopards and I will finish them in no time.”

  “And can you guarantee that we won’t lose a cheetah or tigress or mongrel in the fray?”

  Kerris leaned back, surveyed the hills that were growing darker under a deepening red sky. “No, love. We need a plan.”

  She spat on the ground, but did not argue.

  It had become clear to all but the civilians that their caravan was being watched for some time now, as the low lying hills that flanked the road constricted, leaving only a narrow path between the slopes. Bandits, most likely, after fine horses and finer women as Kerris had said, an Imperial banner only serving to increase the temptation, not deter it.

  “We can keep going until nightfall,” Kerris suggested. “We should be able to make Dowlath’Yarh in 3 hours or so. It’s a garrison town. They won’t touch us there.”

  “And if they attack before nightfall?”

  “If they have bows, we’re dead anyway. It doesn’t matter when they attack.”

  Ursa snorted. “We take the leopards and ride straight down their throats. They will not be expecting that, and they will scatter like chaff on the wind.”

  “She has a point,” Kerris grinned. “And not just at the end of her blade.”

  Kirin grunted wearily. This was not at all what he was hoping for, although he knew that bandits were a very real and constant threat on the byways of Khanisthan. A part of her wild bloodthirsty nature, of course. He turned to study the caravan, the Scholar and Seer now watching with growing concern, the Alchemist not concerned in the least. The leopards had faces like stone, giving nothing away, awaiting orders that would keep them riding onwards or heading for the hills and the evils awaiting them there.

  The Captain sighed.

  “Kerris, take the civilians, the mares and foals and go as fast as you can towards Daolath’Yar. Once you start moving, they will know something is afoot and will likely begin their attack. We will do as Ursa suggests. The leopards, the Major and I will split up and bear down on these bandits from opposing directions. Hopefully, we can keep them occupied until your group is out of range of their bows.”

  Kerris sighed now. “We’ll lose the foals. They’re exhausted as it is. We can throw them over our saddles. Pray they don’t struggle too much – carrying a struggling foal on the back of a galloping horse is a bugger even for an experienced –“

  “Kerris,” his brother interrupted. “It’s not the safety of the
horses that concerns me.”

  “Ah, yes. Just say the word.”

  The Captain turned to Ursa. She was as tight as a strung bow.

  “We have four leopards. Give them their orders. Be discreet.” There was not a discreet bone in her body. She peeled off like an arrow, released.

  Kerris grinned. “Our leopards know what’s going on, guaranteed. As do our bandits I suspect.”

  Kirin sighed. “Tell the women, please. I’ll tell the Seer. Be ready to move in a heartbeat.”

  “Right.” The very soul of discretion, Kerris Wynegarde-Grey eased back on his pony, causing the animal to slow its rapid trot and fall in line with both Scholar and Alchemist. It looked perfectly natural. Normal. Discreet.

  Kirin circled alMassay and brought him around at the side of the Seer’s new desert mount. Sireth did not look at him, kept his gaze fixed ahead, but there was a hint of a smile on his lips.

  “Bandits?” he asked, as if it were the most natural question in the world.

  “Yes,” said Kirin. “Eight. We’re riding into a noose.”

  “I know.”

  “Ursa, the leopards and I are going to take this straight to them, but I want you and the women to follow Kerris as fast as you can. There is a garrison ahead. We will join you there.”

  “And if you don’t make it?”

  Now, the Captain turned to look at him.

  “Vision?” he asked, brow arching.

  “Odds. Your arrogance will get the better of you one day.”

  “Likely, sidi. But not today.”

  “Naturally.”

  Kirin shook his head. The man was impossible. He looked off to the hills, once the Mother’s Arms, now alien and dangerous, and not at all protective. Could see flashes of movement, puffs of dust, darker shadows against the rocks. He could also see glints of metal – bows most likely and felt a constriction in his chest. Kerris had been right – bows in this terrain were decidedly superior, and these bandits had the advantage of cover as well. It was a risky plan, but he could think of no other. It was rash, bold and unpredictable, and that, he wagered, gave them an advantage themselves. It might be the only thing that would save them.