The Way of Things: Upper Kingdom Boxed Set: Books 1, 2 and 3 in the Tails of the Upper Kingdom (65 page)

First one boot dropped to the
floor with a thump. “I can assure you that it is still in one piece.” Then the
second. Kerris grinned. “Go to sleep now. You’ll probably feel worse in the
morning.” He glanced over his shoulder at the window, which was taking on the
indigo light of dawn. “Or maybe afternoon, by the looks of things. Well, I’d
better go.”

As he rose to his feet, Kirin
grabbed at one of his hands.

“Kerris…”

And they remained as they were,
one sitting, one standing, both waiting and very terrified, saying nothing for
what seemed like a lifetime. But then it was over, and Kirin let it go. And the
hand too.

“I’m glad you’re back,” he said
finally, his voice little more than a whisper.

“Am I?” asked Kerris. “I mean,
I’m here, but am I back?”

“Please.”

He took several backwards steps
toward the door. “I don’t know. I don’t think it’s good, for anybody.”

“We need you, Kerris. We will
never find Solomon without you.”

“Then that would make him one
very lucky monkey.” Kerris smiled, but his eyes did not. “Good bye, Kirin.”

And very quietly, he left the
room and closed the door behind him.

***

He could barely keep his eyes
open, he was so very tired. People never seemed to stop coming and going in
this place, and he had to admit the drink was catching up with him. It was very
early morning, but not yet dawn, and he had questioned every barkeep, every patron,
every working girl in the
Yellow
Scorpion,
but to no avail, and he was beginning to believe that this idea
had been a waste of time. Perhaps not an entire waste, as the drink had been
good, the life he’d found here reassuring, and running into the grey coat had
been an unexpected blessing. He was also grateful he’d lived long enough to see
the Captain drunk. That, he had to admit, was worth the entire night.

He rose to his feet, took one
long last breath, and walked over to the door of the Inn, almost running into a
young woman rushing in.

Kerris had been right. She was
very brightly colored indeed.

“Sidala!”
he called after her in Shaharabic, and as she spun
around, he could see that she was a jaguar, with long hair pulled back into a
tight knot at the nape of her neck, and jewels adorned almost every exposed
inch of her rosetted pelt. He could see the sundial, the one from the
battlefort at Lahore, as shiny as could be, just below the curve of her elbow,
and her heavily-painted eyes ran up and down the length of him as if
considering.

He was very glad that the Major
was not here.

She sidled up to him, grin
tugging into one cheek.
“Sidi?
How
may I serve?”

Her voice was high and musical,
and she sounded far too young to be working at a place like this.

“I am interested in… in… the
sundial…” He was at a loss for words.
Honestly,
what was he thinking?

“Sundial,
sidi?”
She was very close now, her perfume as thick as the incense
and smoke in this place.

“Yes,” he realized how strange he
must surely sound. “This object here…” And he waved a gloved finger at the
metallic band on her arm. “I believe you received this from a grey lion
recently?”

She pouted. “Lion,
sidi?
I don’t know if he was a lion, but
he was grey…” And suddenly she laughed. She sounded like a little girl. “Why?
Did he steal it from you?”

“No,
sidala.
But I do need it back.”

“But he gave it to me and I like
it.” She pouted, arched her back, curled her tail, using everything in her
arsenal of tools to turn his bones to jelly. “Why ever would I give it to you?”

Yes, he was at a loss for words.
He was a monk. He had no money save the few coins he had earned gaming in the
Waterless Gardens
and those he had spent
on far too many bowls of Arak tonight. He had no jewelry, no bangles to
interest this magpie of a woman, no weapons, no valuables, nothing.
What ever had he been thinking?

He sighed. “Forgive me,
sidala.
I was presumptuous. I should not
have asked.” He turned to leave. A ringed hand caught his sleeve.

“Wait,
sidi,
let me think…” She pulled him closer, biting her lip and
slipping her hands inside his robe to the many layers underneath. Her lids
narrowed and she seemed to be studying something. “Perhaps we can make a trade,
yes?”

Yes,
he thought to himself. He was very glad that the Major was not
here.

***

She tugged the hood over her head
and closed the door with a soft bump of the latch. The hall was dark, only one
lantern burning in its recess, and the wooden walls glowed with ages-old stain.
It was one thing that did seem to remain constant throughout this long endless
journey, the fact that cats of all provinces loved their decor. Carvings,
etchings, paintings and stains. With the exceptions of the battleforts, all the
walls she had seen were a treat for the eyes, telling stories, layering colors,
playing with patterns. It said something about the sensory nature of cats. It
was not surprising, for cats are, after all, a sensual people.

Her heart was breaking and the
tears stinging in her eyes, but her mind, ever the leader, was set on leaving
this place this very night. The Captain would be furious - he might even send
out search parties for her, shut up the city as soon he he’d learned of her
flight, but she didn’t care. She would lose her status as ‘Scholar in the Court
of the Empress,’ but if she was honest, that was only a title she had given
herself. She had never really counseled the Empress in anything, and her value
to the Captain was the only thing she could use against him. She would take
that away by taking herself away, and she was certain he would be hurt. That
was, after all, her intention.

She paused at the door, still
holding onto the latch as if not wanting to let go.
What had she become in all of this,
she wondered? Was she really
growing up, like she had insisted so many weeks ago, or was she simply growing
hard? Perhaps they were the same. She had seen it in her parents, in her
sisters, in their husbands. It was naive to think one could remain happy and
optimistic under the heavy hand of life. Dharma was a cruel mistress, the Fates
even worse and she had given in to them, not fighting hard enough to see
herself through. No, she was changed, and it remained to be seen whether or not
the change was for the better.

So with a bitter sob, she turned
and took several quiet steps down the hall, pausing only slightly as she heard a
door open then close. She lengthened her stride, hoping to slip away into the
shadow before anyone could see, but a voice called down the hallway that
stopped her in her tracks.

“Sidala?”

The voice,
his
voice. The same as the Captain’s, but different, musical and
free, and ever so slowly she turned to see Kerris Wynegarde-Grey standing at
the end of the hall.

She had never been certain if a
man could swoon. She knew that it was reported of women, especially high-born
women (lionesses mostly), and that it was a condition of high emotion, but she
had never actually seen it, and always had doubted its veracity. But as the
grey lion staggered toward the wall as if his knees were buckling, her first
thought was that he was about to swoon upon seeing her. Silly, she knew, but
that
was
her first thought.

Her second was that she should
help him, so she scurried down the corridor to his side, not knowing exactly
what he needed to keep his balance, but if felt good just to have her hands on
him nonetheless. He was staring at her, breathing very hard.

“You…you’re
alive?”

It sounded almost like an
accusation.

“Oh, um, yes. Alive. Not running
away, or anything. Just, you know… alive.” He was clutching her arms, a strange
expression on his face. She suddenly realized that this conversation, right
here outside the Captain’s door, was not helping her in her leaving, so she
snagged one of his hands and dragged him down the hall and into her room. He
sagged back against the door, looking for all the world as if his brother had
struck him once again.

“Now don’t tell anyone, okay?”
she whispered. “I am actually just…well, I
am
leaving, and the Captain will just have to deal with it. I can’t do this
anymore.”

He had taken her hand, was
turning it over and over in his, as if studying its absence of color. “You’re
alive,” he said again softly.

“Of course I am,” she responded.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”

He reached out now to touch her
chin, to run his fingers along the white splashes that had changed her from
sweet to striking. Then her hair, the wild ripples of white, the unruly texture
that before had been so very ‘ruly.’ She held her breath until he had finished
exploring, watched the frown lines soften and a hint of a smile take their
place.

“No one’s ever lived before.”

“Wow. I thought your brother…”

“Never that close.”

“Well,” she brightened. “I guess
I’m just special.”

And when he smiled at her, the
sun, moon and stars all rolled into one. “Yes, you are.”

And when he kissed her, all
thoughts of leaving vacated her head and she felt like she just might swoon.

And when he took her in his arms
and later to the bed, she thought she was the happiest she’d ever been in all
her life.

***

He opened the door and ever so
softly, closed it behind him. The sun had still not come up, but the sky was
purple and red now, casting warm shadows into the room. He had the sundial and
he needed to meditate, but he stopped short, realizing that he was not alone.

The Major was sitting on his bed,
back against the wall, knees up, picking her teeth with the tip of a blade.

He was tired, and in no mood for
explaining.

She rose to her feet and
swaggered over to him, tossing the dagger from hand to hand. Even in her
bootheels, she only came up to his chin.

“Did you have a nice night?” she
asked. Her tone was bland, her eyes glittering.

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I did.
But I must meditate now.”

“Oh. You must meditate, must
you?” She began poking at the fabric of his robe with the tip of the blade, and
he sighed again. “Is that what they do at the
Yellow Scorpion?”

“You were following me?”

“Of course. It is my duty. What
was her name?”

“Stelljianna. I needed the
sundial.”

“And so you bedded her for a
sundial?”

“If you were following me, then
you would know I did not bed her.”

“So you say.”

He reached down and drew open the
crossed front of his robe. There were only tan and brown layers underneath.
Nothing remarkable, certainly nothing of interest. She said as much.

“She noticed my sash and liked
the color. We made a trade. A sash for a sundial. It seemed fair.”

Ursa raised a snowy eyebrow.
“Your sash.”

“Yes.”

“Your priest’s sash. The orange
one.”

“Saffron.”

 
“Pah. She is a bigger idiot than you.”

“Fortunately.” He tried to smile,
but he was so very tired it didn’t actually make it to his lips. “Now, please
Major, if we are to find Solomon, I must use the sundial as a conduit, and seek
his thoughts. I will need silence –“

“I thought you needed opium.”

“Silence will suffice.”

She stepped back, allowing him to
fully enter the room. “Very well. Meditate. I will watch over you.” And she
slunk back into a corner, slid down into a crouch and pulled the dagger up to
her face, using it to clean her teeth in a most dangerous fashion.

It depends on how much you love her.

He sighed, folded his long legs
to the floor, and fished the sundial from a deep robe pocket. He removed his
gloves, took a deep breath, picked up the bangle with his bare fingers and was
gone.

***

“Tea,
sidi?”

Kirin winced. He had lived
through his share of battles. He had fought dog soldiers in the high lands of
Shibeth
, had battled his share of
behemoths and villains and criminals. He had on more than one occasion been
unlucky enough to fight the swarms of rats that frequently cropped up within
their borders. But rarely did he feel as bad after such a fight as he did now.

He pushed himself up from his
bed, to find a long speckled hand holding a porcelain cup out for the taking.
He could smell it so strongly and it set his mouth a-watering. He took it from
her, allowing the heat from the cup to warm his hands and help bring him back
to life from the snake pit he had been dreaming in, and met her eyes with his
own.

A garden of wonders in every
blink.

“Thank you,
sidala.”

“Of course.” She adjusted her
position on the floor, turned her head so as to better study him, which of
course caused him to cast his own eyes down over his body. Yes, clothed. Safe.
Why did she always make him feel so exposed?

“The Magistrate is holding a gala
for us tonight,” she purred.

“For us? Why?”

She smiled, a tug into one cheek.
“I do not know,
sidi.
I did not ask.”

“Interesting.” He sipped at his
tea, staring into its clear golden depths. He thought of his plans to leave
well before dawn tomorrow, to leave her and the Scholar behind. For the best,
he knew. It was only a road to death. Death on all sides and at its very end.
There was no hope for him now. There was only honor and the preservation of it.
In that, he realized that ultimately, both he and the Seer were right, for the
battle for honor was indeed a battle against desire, and the preservation of it
did bring sorrow.
Yes,
he thought,
that was most interesting.