To Journey in the Year of the Tiger (Tails from the Upper Kingdom) by H. Leighton Dickson

Author:H. Leighton Dickson [Dickson, H. Leighton]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2012-06-22T04:00:00+00:00

***

Fallon Waterford stretched her slender arms over her head and breathed deeply the cold evening air. Despite being a jungle girl, she had to admit that the mountains in moonlight were breathtaking, and she stepped out of the light of the Inn to afford herself a better view.

She could grow to like this.

Peaks of silver floated like ice floes over the wispy white water of cloud that rose up from the valleys. Torches burned from faraway homes, and even farther still, she could imagine the Cave of a Thousand Eyes, pouring light in golden streams from its many gaping mouths. That sight would stay in her memory forever. She could almost hear chanting.

No, she could hear chanting.

Ears pricked, she drew her cloak tightly around her shoulders and followed.

This wasn’t the deep, somber mantras that had underscored life in Sha’Hadin, but rather, scales, throaty and sensual, sliding up and down in pitch like a tune on a zither. It was faint, but growing as she tracked it back behind the Inn, towards a large outcropping of rock. Silhouetted against the moon was a pile of boulders, precariously balanced as if by some playful giant, towering many times higher than a man out of the mountainside. And beyond that, she saw the singer.

Cross-legged on the very edge of the mountain, the Alchemist sat, clutching the red satin pouch in her palms, an offering to the stars above. Silver smoke flowed from her lips into red satin folds, and for a moment, the pouch seemed almost to pulse with life, throbbing like a heartbeat, swirling with translucent smoke within. Impossible, Fallon blinked as she carefully braced her boots against ruts in the steep frozen ground. Slowly, al Shiva lowered the pouch to her side. There was no movement now as it floated and bobbed on its tether, but the Scholar was certain the pouch was just a little fuller than before.

Go back to the Inn, whispered a voice inside her head. This is no place for naive young tigresses, with altogether too much curiosity and not nearly enough common sense. Go back and enjoy a cup of tea with that handsome grey lion, take another look at the Fhae’roh’s bangle about his neck. Something, anything, other than be witness to such strange, otherworldly events. But with a scrunch of her nose, she silenced the voice and sneaked closer.

Next, the Alchemist produced a golden bowl, large and shallow, quite similar to her father’s wok back on the farm. She held a long stemmed chalice up to the moonlight and it seemed as if that same silver smoke rose like mist from the depths of the glass. When she poured the contents into the bowl, there was a roar of rushing waters and the surface grew still.

“Sahidi,” Sherah murmured in that tone which set blood to boil.

The waters began to talk back.

“They live?”

“Still, sahidi. But the way to Pol’Lhasa is barred. There was an avalanche...”

“Your destination?”

“Tonight, sahidi. The Ritual of Farsight...”

“Learn it.”

Fallon craned her neck, for upon that strange, still surface, she could see a face reflected in the moon’s pale glow.

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