Naamah's Curse - Jacqueline Carey [158]
Datar raised his brows. “In eleven years, she has not found a way to defeat the Falconer and the Spider Queen. I do not see why one sickly dakini will change anything.”
A coughing fit took me, loose phlegm rattling in my chest. I doubled over in the saddle, swallowing hard against the pain in my throat when the fit ended. “Well,” I said in a hoarse voice. “We will see.”
“Why?” There was a rare note of genuine curiosity in Manil Datar’s voice. “Why do you care?”
I touched my aching chest, where my diadh-anam called futilely to Bao’s—so near, and yet so far. “Someone I love is there.”
“Bad luck for him,” Datar said wryly. “Or maybe not. Maybe he is happy there.”
I shook my head, setting off another wave of dizziness, steadied myself against the pommel, and sneezed. “No. He’s not.”
Manil Datar nudged his mount, moving away from me. “Bad luck for both of you,” he said over his shoulder. “Come, we are losing time.”
Rounding the shoulder of the mountain, we began the long, perilous process of making our descent. By the end of the day, we were back below the treeline and the peak of Kurugiri was behind us. In our camp, I gazed at its silhouette surrounded by a nimbus of gold and crimson, the heights catching the light of the setting sun long after shadows had settled on the long, low slope we travelled.
“I will find a way, Bao,” I murmured. “I promise.”
FIFTY-SIX
Sanjiv had called my ailment the mountain-sickness, and I’d hoped that as we left the mountains, I’d leave my sickness behind.
Not so.
It had sunk its claws too deep into me to let go that easily. Downward and downward we proceeded, travelling on a steep decline toward the valley that held the tiny kingdom of Bhaktipur. My eardrums strained and popped. Over and over, I swallowed against the pressure, even though it still hurt to swallow.
The pockets of snow dwindled.
The air grew thick and moist, and it seemed my head thickened with it. I could no longer breathe the Five Styles, forced to breathe through my mouth only.
If not for my illness and the persistent yearning of my diadh-anam, I would have been glad. We were venturing into inhabited territory, and after the rigors of the mountains, I was pleased to see stone houses with thatched roofs, fields of reddish soil planted with sorghum and millet, farmers working in the fields. For once in my life, I’d had a surfeit of wilderness.
As we worked our way downward, spruces and cedars gave way to more exotic flora, plants and trees I’d only seen growing in the glass pavilion in Terre d’Ange: poinsettias, oleander, towering ferns. There were forests of rhododendrons growing taller than I ever imagined they could. When they were in bloom, it must be a spectacular sight. Even on the verge of winter, the sense of lush greenery was overwhelming after the stark rigors of the mountains. There were unfamiliar gnarled trees with roots that crawled like great serpents above the ground, trees with thoughts as slow and ancient as any I’d encountered save Elua’s Oak.
Birds with bright plumage flashed amid the branches, and agile little monkeys with ancient wise-man’s faces chattered at us.
After so long in the heights, the kingdom of Bhaktipur seemed like a fairy-tale place, a charming city nestled in a green valley. I gazed around in wonder as we entered the narrow, bustling streets. Here and there, cows wandered untended, seemingly free to roam the city. The architecture was a mix of pagoda-style buildings familiar from Ch’in, and domes, arches, and minarets I guessed was a more traditional Bhodistani style. Folk clad in brightly colored garb made way for our caravan as we pushed through the crowded streets. We arrived at midday, and it was warm enough that I was sweltering in my thick woolen Tufani attire.
In a square, Manil Datar called a halt. “Here, our path divides, Moirin,” he said, pointing south toward the far end of the valley where the mountain range