The Way of Things: Upper Kingdom Boxed Set: Books 1, 2 and 3 in the Tails of the Upper Kingdom (2 page)

She raised her arms, palms
upturned. Suddenly, she was Kahli, with many palms and many arms, moving,
undulating like many serpents flowing from the shadows of her body. He watched
for a moment, spellbound before shaking his head. The incense.
Of course.
Only two hands, naturally,
both completely still, awaiting the scroll that would end her divinations and
bring her up from
Agara’tha
into the light of morning.

He placed the parchment in one and
backed away. The wax melted without a touch, the scroll unfurled on its own.
Her black lashes flicked down for the briefest of seconds as she read, then she
slid her eyes to look at him. He was a senior in the Empress’ Panther Guard,
having faced dragons and dogs and the great leathery behemoths that roamed the
foothills of the Lesser Kingdoms. But never had he seen such a look as the one
sent him by Sherah al Shiva that night.

“You shall accompany me. How
delightful.”

She rose to her feet and her legs
went on, and on, and on. When she approached, he could make out her pelt,
smooth, fine, the colour of churned cream. Her hair was as black as night,
rising from a peak in the centre of her forehead. Her eyes, spaced wide apart,
seemed both wicked and wise, the insides golden, the heavy lids painted with
colors found only in stone. The tip of her thick, spotted tail curled about her
ankles, and she wore both choli and salwar of black silk. Her midriff was bare
and silver vestments hung from her hips, like curtains to a shrine.

He swallowed. She smiled.

“Some say the caverns of
Agara’tha
are tombs,
sidi,
waiting to claim lost souls in sleep. A man may get
turned around in such darkness, in such shadow. But do not be afraid...”

Long strong fingers brushed his
chin as she passed and she paused to lean into him, fanning his neck with her
breath.

“…I believe I know the way.”

He believed she did.

***

Emerald eyes gazed out the small
open window, drinking in the breathtaking splendor that was the palace of the
Empress. According to her studies, architecture was the truest test of culture,
and
Pol’Lhasa
was so very beautiful. With her steep stepped courts,
blackened cedar beams and high, winged rooftops, she towered over the city like
a monarch. In her many rooms, torches had begun flickering into life as the sun
rose from behind
Kathandu
, the Fang
of the Great Mountains. This was her view every morning. It sent her to sleep
every night. She still marveled that she was here at all.

And so, with a dreamy sigh, Fallon
Waterford dragged her eyes from the window and back to the cramped, cluttered
room which had served as her home these past eight months. It was so very
different from her real home in the foothills near
Parnum’bah Falls.
There
she and her parents and sisters
had had all the space they could ever need. Groves of banana, flocks of crested
pheasant and glacier-fed rivers stocked with fish. Again, she smiled, for
thoughts of home brought pleasant memories.
A
tiger’s paradise,
her father had called it, and she heartily agreed. She
would be enjoying it all still, if only she hadn’t been so cursedly,
maddeningly, wonderfully clever.

Sighing, she snatched the scroll
from her workbench, the ink still dripping and fresh. She cleared her throat
and began:

“THE YEAR OF THE TIGER – A LAMENT

by Empress Faisala the Wise,
Second Dynasty, Year of the Tiger

The
Year of the Tiger brings war.

The
Year of the Tiger brings change.

Kingdoms
rise, Kingdoms fall.

Nothing
is the same.

The
Year of the Tiger means joy.

The
Year of the Tiger means strife.

Beginnings
end, Endings begin,

The
heartbeat of life.

The
Year of the Tiger brings change.

Nothing
is as it seems.

Big
adventures, Grand schemes,

Nightmares
and Dreams.

The
Year of the Tiger brings war.

The
Year of the Tiger brings change.

People
rise, People fall.

Nothing
is a water buffalo.”

“Water buffalo??
Water buffalo?!”
With a dramatic cry,
she crumpled the scroll and tossed it to the floor. There were many scrolls
discarded there.

A pheasant peeped at her from its
bamboo cage and she rolled her eyes at it with shrug.

“But it’s so
hard
to write in MandaRhin! It’s so different from anything else.
Bad enough to memorize it but to have to write it as well! Oh mother! Imperial
is so much easier! I don’t know, Sica, sometimes I think I’ve bitten off far
more than I can chew here, and believe me, I can chew a lot…”

The pheasant tucked its head under
its wing, dismissing her.

“Yes, yes, I know. Mother would be
proud, but father, father would be pulling out his fur. ‘You’re a
girl!’
he would say.
“
What
girl
needs to know
how to write poetry in MandaRhin? Just find a fine young tiger and settle down
like your sisters. Have kittens, be happy.’”

Her golden-orange face grew
wistful, the exotic stripes of darker fur creating worry-lines along her brow.
Truth be told, there may have been some ink.

“I wonder if he’ll ever understand.
I
am
happy now, here, in the University. The things I am learning, Sica!
The ideas! The books - Oh, the books! I have never dreamed there could be so
many books, all in one place! Who needs men when you have such books?”

The pheasant rebuked her.

“Okay, men would be nice too.”

Grinning, she reached out to close
the window, drawing the iron latch toward her with a click.

Naturally, her reflection came with
it.

The face in the glass was that of a
tigress, not having yet reached her 18
^th
summer, with a slim,
graceful build atypical of her Race. Her pelt was tawny-orange, her arms, legs,
back and tail banded with black. Splashes of white accentuated her long throat,
curved ears, and bright, wide eyes. Rings of kohl exaggerated her lashes and
arched over her brows to create a perpetual expression of wonder. The stripes
ran off her forehead like a river delta, her mane from her face like a
waterfall. It cascaded to her shoulders only to curl upwards on itself once
there, and each strand of hair was tipped in snowy white. Her mouth was small
but generous, and frequently contorted into a variety of smirks and smiles,
pouts and frowns, for she was both a creature of sunlight and a creature of stars.

She stared at that face in the
window glass.

What
had her mother always said?

“’But Fallon, dear, you have such
nice markings...’” She yawned, stretched, blew a stray lock of hair from her
face. “Yep. Right up there with Good Family and Plentiful Harvest.”

Her mutterings were interrupted by
a knock at her door. She froze, stared a moment at the pheasant, then scurried
to the door and flung it open. There was a panther standing before her, a
shoulder-to-hip standard identifying him as a messenger from the Palace.

In her surprise, she closed the
door in his face.

“Oh dear, oh mother, oh dear… A
messenger from the Palace. Oh dear…”

She opened the door again.

“Oh! Hi. Um, I was, um... just
resting, here –
there
–
for a moment...I thought you might be a man. I mean, well, you
are,
um, a man…but..um, oh never mind. So?
Who are you?”

“Fallon Watherford?”

“No.
I’m
Fallon Waterford.
We haven’t yet determined who
you
are.”

There was no reaction, none
whatsoever. The guard handed her a scroll and without so much as a nod, stepped
back into the University’s dark hall, hands folded stiffly behind his back.

She stared at the scroll.

“Is it written in Imperial?”

He nodded.

“Well then, it’s a good thing I can
read Imperial, isn’t it? I mean, what if I didn’t read Imperial? What would you
do then?”

He stared at her.

“Because I’m having a real problem
with MandaRhin, let me tell you. Even writing Hanyin. Mother, that is tough.
Imperial is so much easier. You can’t read, can you?”

He continued to stare.

“Well then, never you mind. Thanks
for this. Thanks a lot. Really sweet of you to deliver this in person... to
me.
Fallon Waterford. That’s me. Not
you.
Me.”

She closed the door and sagged
against it.

“Oh, Mother. I really am hopeless,
aren’t I?”

The scroll was sealed with the
Empress’ personal seal and she swallowed back a rush of nerves. But quickly,
her curiosity got the better of her and she peeled it open, her eyes growing
larger by the moment.

“Oh no, oh dear, oh no. Oh, Fallon
Waterford, what have you gotten yourself into this time? The Palace? Me?”

She glanced down at her garments,
at the loose man’s tunic and leggings and kujuh coat of forest green, at the
russet suede over-vest and bootlets and belt. Her father’s clothes.

“I can’t go to the Palace like
this. I’ll have to change my clothing, brush my hair, to brush my face, my
tail!”

She peered out the door. The guard
was still waiting.

“I can’t go to the Palace like
this! I’ll have to change my clothing, brush my hair, my face, my tail!”

“Now.”

“Okay.”

She stepped out into the hall and
closed the door behind her.

***

A pair of ocelots were talking
softly as they passed through the antechamber toward the prayer room called
Green Tea. It was for Imperial guests, and some of the best gossip could be
found just outside Green Tea’s rice paper doors.

“It is a dragon,” said one. “A fire
dragon, lost in its search for the sun.”

“It is a dragon, to be sure,” said
the other. “But Kaidan’s dragon. The one he rode to the moon. It has fallen in
love with the moon and is going back.”

“With Kaidan?”

“Nonsence,” hushed the other. “Who
would belive such a thing.
Without
Kaidan,
of course. He has other things to do than visit any place twice. I hear he’s
a-courting the virgin
Shagarmathah…”

“No!”

“Indeed!”

Kirin rolled his eyes. ‘Kaidan’ and
his adventures. Popular myths. Stories for kittens. People confounded him
sometimes. But still, their curiosity was understandable. There
was
a new star in the heavens. It was
brilliant and bright and had set everyone’s imaginations racing as it rose and
fell with the moon. Diviners and worshippers alike were set on discovering its
meaning. He paid it no mind. Stars had little to do with panthers or armies or
negotiations. Although they could help with New Year’s spectacles, if only he
had the skill to move them.

The woman at his side growled at
the ocelots, and they hurried to leave the antechamber. With a snort, she
resumed her pacing and the chamber filled with the sounds of sharp, angry
clacking. Kirin gritted his teeth and tried instead to focus his gaze on the
great red and gold door at the far end of the hall. It was impossible because
of the clacking of her high boot heels. In fact, he’d often wondered if she
indulged those heels in order to compensate for her size, as she was a rather
small woman. Those heels, along with her long, marbled tail lashing from side
to side and her long, marbled hair swinging in straight, coarse lines across
her back, it almost worked. Add to that the facts that she wore a uniform of
white doeskin, bore both long and short swords and sported blades strapped all
over her thin, muscular body, she
was
rather imposing. A snow leopard
among snow leopards. Swift. Fierce. Lethal. She was his right hand.

And right now, she was giving him a
headache.

“Patience, Ursa,” he sighed. “They
are on their way.”

Her ice-blue eyes flashed at him.

“The summons went out over an hour
ago, before the sunrise. This is insubordination and it is completely
unacceptable.”

“Can civilians be insubordinate,
Major?”

“Obviously. Can they even speak
Imperial?”

“We shall soon see.”

“Pah. I have no with to be
discussing Imperial matters in Hanyin.”

He grinned and turned his back but
from the corner of his eye, he watched her. She was perhaps the most striking
woman he had ever known. A study in the colors of ice and snow and cold winter
skies, her pelt as silver as a full moon and just as untouchable. Beautiful,
remote, and confrontational, she had clawed her way through the ranks at
breakneck speed, literally carving herself a path through those who stood in
her way. It was only when he had realized that she was closing in on his job
that he had found it necessary to remind her of one of the First Laws of
Nature.

Lions are bigger.

Good thing too, for she had almost
killed him.

Unconsciously, he raised a hand to
rub the old wound and was distracted by the feel of braided leather. He had not
had the time to inspect his uniform, the laces, straps and buckles that
outfitted him and he hoped he looked honourable. His hands searched for creases
– found none. He adjusted the brigandine across his chest and shoulders,
straightened the epaulliets and tightened the golden sash that had loosened at
his waist. Like the Major, he wore both long and short swords and his hands
fell to the scabbards of their own accord.
Katanah
and
Kodai’chi,
a warrior’s blood
brothers. He sighed, not for the first time wishing he’d had a mirror in his
office. Only perfection was acceptable when the Captain of the Guard was
summoned into the presence of his Empress.