Five Odd Honors (4 page)

Pearl stopped and sipped from the tea Shen had brought her.

Des, perhaps seeking to relieve her from talking about an unpleasant subject, took over.

“But over a century has passed since the Exile, and over that time, various of the branches have lost contact with the lore of the Lands. Seven can be counted on, but five have fallen away. Rather than undertaking the near-impossible task of training those five, we had decided to ask five of the original twelve to resume their roles and assist us in opening the way to the Lands.”

Pearl was determined to speak the final lines herself. “Now it seems that my father—who never liked having me as his successor—has decided to turn the situation to his advantage. He will make me agree to let him be the Tiger. In return, we will have access to the Monkey. Is that how you all interpret the situation?”

Heads fair and dark inclined in agreement.

Nissa said, “But I suppose we had better ask Thundering Heaven what he wants, hadn’t we? Just in case we’re wrong.”

Silence met Nissa’s statement, then Pearl nodded slowly. “I suppose we should, but I don’t think I am the one who should do the asking.”

“And the question should not be a leading one,” Shen added, “in case we end up accusing Thundering Heaven of something he has not contemplated.”

“Let Loyal Wind do the asking,” Pearl said. “I, for one, have no desire to journey into the afterlife any sooner than I must.”

“If Loyal Wind agrees to speak with Thundering Heaven, his doing so will save us a great deal of time,” Des agreed. “Travel through the afterlife is time-consuming for the living. Since Brenda reports that Nine Ducks has agreed to support our mission, perhaps she could accompany Loyal Wind as a witness.”

“And backup,” Riprap added. “If Thundering Heaven has captured the Monkey, we don’t want to give him an opportunity to add the Horse to his menagerie.”

Nissa asked, “Do we tell our allies about this latest development or do we wait?”

“Wait,” Pearl said decisively, and was glad to see Des and Shen both nod immediate agreement. “Let us see what Loyal Wind and Nine Ducks learn from my father. At this point, all we would do is worry our allies, and invite empty speculation.”

“I can agree with that,” Nissa said, and the other two apprentices nodded.

Shen sighed and pushed himself to his feet. “I’ll work the summoning ritual and speak with Loyal Wind. Horse’s partner is Ram. We don’t have the Ram. If Brenda would assist me, since Loyal Wind seems to have found an affinity with her, I believe our summons would be stronger.”

Brenda nodded and rose from the table, her motions containing an easy grace Pearl remembered her own limbs once holding.

“Sure, Shen,” Brenda said. “I’m done with breakfast. Let me put my dishes in the dishwasher.”

Shen and Brenda left the room together, heading for Pearl’s office, where an ancestor shrine had become a more or less permanent fixture. Pearl thought about her father’s choice of captive—or ally—if he had in fact managed to convince the Monkey to join him in opposing the current Orphans.

Monkey sat in opposition to Tiger on the zodiac wheel, a strange choice for an ally, but sometimes opposition provided a far stronger link than a more randomly chosen sign.

Rabbit, Tiger’s partner sign, would have been of little use to Thundering Heaven as a hostage because the Rabbit’s line—currently represented by Nissa Nita—had been one of the few to never stray from fidelity.

Pearl got up from the table, managing strength if not Brenda’s easy grace, and turned to Riprap.

“If you’re done with your breakfast, young man, I wonder if you would care to join me outside for a bit of weapons practice? For some reason, I have a great deal of nervous energy to work off—and I think I need to practice using my left hand.”

Loyal Wind rose along the incense of summoning and listened to Shen Kung’s request.

“I will do as you ask,” he said. “How shall I send news of what I have learned? I cannot manifest in the world of the living without help, and I am reluctant to once again interrupt someone’s dreams.”

Brenda Morris shrugged her slim shoulders. “I don’t mind. It was just a dream. This is a lot more important. Still, it would be a pain if you had to wait until night to find someone in the right frame of mind.”

“I agree,” Shen said. “I have no plans for today that should take me far from here. At the beginning of each hour, I will meditate for a few moments upon the Horse. That should make it easy for Loyal Wind to contact me.”

“Better meditate on both the Horse and the Ox,” Brenda said, with what Loyal Wind thought was somewhat less than proper consideration for his feelings, “just in case Loyal Wind isn’t in a position to contact you.”

She looked at Loyal Wind with those strange eyes that were rounder than those of a person should be, yet still held some of the shape of her long-ago ancestry. Brenda’s expression was serious, and he realized that she had been perfectly aware that he might be angered by her words.

“No offense, Loyal Wind,” Brenda continued, “but if I’ve learned anything this summer, it is that the one thing to include in any plan is that plan going wrong.”

“No campaign plan survives first contact with the enemy,” Shen said in a soft voice. “Von Clausewitz. It’s not a bad thing to remember.”

“I will remember it,” Loyal Wind agreed. “I will.”

After he
left the living, Loyal Wind located Nine Ducks. Since the Ox was interested in what he had to say to her, this proved quite easy. If Nine Ducks had been actively blocking him, Loyal Wind might have had to search for days—or even months or years.

This gave Loyal Wind food for thought. He shared his conjecture with Nine Ducks when he found her. She was seated in a garden pavilion, contemplating the antics of a small flock of her namesake birds as they grubbed in the mud beneath the shallow waters of a lake whose surface was so still that the ducks seemed to dive into their own reflections.

“That is interesting,” Nine Ducks replied. “So you wonder if Thundering Heaven meant you to learn that he had Bent Bamboo in his care.”

“I do,” Loyal Wind agreed. “Or if not me, perhaps one of the Orphans. After all, if—as we all believe—Thundering Heaven’s goal is not so much to stop us from reopening the way into the Lands as to force Pearl Bright to renounce her connection to the Tiger, then he must have wanted to be found.”

“Yes. Otherwise, he would have had to issue a challenge, and that would have put him in a weaker position.”

“What is Thundering Heaven like?” Loyal Wind asked. “You know I was the first of the Exiles to die. After my death, I paid little attention to the affairs of the living. When I died, Thundering Heaven was a young man, somewhat brash, but certainly without this bitterness of character everyone seems to take for granted.”

Nine Ducks fell silent, considering. “I cannot speak of Thundering Heaven without speaking of things that may cause you pain, Loyal Wind.”

“Speak. I am learning to accept that choices I made when I myself was in pain caused others harm.”

“Very well.” Nine Ducks fell into thoughtful reverie, reviewing events from nearly a century before.

Loyal Wind did not attempt to speed her along. Time had a certain fluidity in the afterlife. Events in the world of the living were not so urgent that a minute or two would matter. Indeed, if they were, nothing either of them could do would change things in the least.

At last, Nine Ducks began. “When we were exiled from the Lands,

Thundering Heaven had been appointed the Tiger for only a short time, his predecessor having been killed in the early stages of our downfall. At the time of our exile, friends of Thundering Heaven’s family attempted to appeal his exile on the grounds that Thundering Heaven’s crimes were not equivalent to our own . . . and that, being young, he could be taught new loyalties.”

“I remember,” Loyal Wind said. “I think that appeal might have been granted, for Thundering Heaven’s family was a powerful one, but Thundering Heaven himself refused to be shown mercy.”

“For two reasons,” Nine Ducks agreed. “First of all, Thundering Heaven would not renounce his chosen allegiance, never mind that it was of short duration. Second, Thundering Heaven wanted to assure his family’s protection. He said that if he—and they on his behalf—accepted the new emperor’s pardon, then they would become supplicants. However, if he accepted exile with the rest of us, then, although the family would be forced to bear the stain of having a traitor listed among their ranks, their property and persons would be safe.”

“Noble,” Loyal Wind said, “if impulsive and brash. What changed him?”

“You, in part,” Nine Ducks replied.

Loyal Wind knew what was coming next, but forced himself to listen.

“I am certain you recall,” Nine Ducks began, “how after we were forced to accept that our exile might extend beyond the natural life spans of at least some of our number—for some of us were of advanced years—we took steps to assure that what we had brought with us from the Lands would not be reacquired by our enemies upon our deaths.

“Therefore, we bound the Twelve Earthly Branches, one each to the biological lineages of each of the Twelve Exiles: the First Branch to the Rat, the Second Branch to the Ox, and so on. Our next task was to assure ourselves of heirs. I was already past the age for bearing children, so I adopted a Chinese child.”

“Your Hua,” Loyal Wind said, hearing Nine Ducks’s voice catch, and wishing to give her a chance to recover.

Or perhaps to delay her
, he thought,
before she must speak of my own shameful behavior.

“My Hua,” Nine Ducks continued. “The male Exiles did not face the problems the females did, for a man may father a child long after a woman’s days for bearing have passed. You, Loyal Wind, took the easiest course, associating yourself with several women of easy virtue, women who could be bought or who were bored enough to smile upon the advances of a not unhandsome face.

“Your reasons for pursuing your duty in such a detached manner were not without merit. You sought not to give your heart to another, because your heart was already taken by Water Cloud, our Rooster. You and your beloved could not risk bearing a child together, lest the route of the Branches become confused, but I believe you thought that once the route of inheritance was secured, you could again become lovers.”

Loyal Wind could not bear this dry narration of his pain. His own voice came harsh and rough from his throat when he spoke.

“Yes. I loved Water Cloud. I thought she loved me. She had said she did, but her manner of fulfilling her own obligation to provide an heir made me doubt. I had thought she might follow in your course, and adopt a deserving Chinese child. At worst, I thought she might wait until her body was ripe and offer herself anonymously to some man. I did not think she would go so far as to prostitute herself to one of our enemies.”

Nine Ducks leaned forward in her chair and patted his hand. “Perhaps, Water Cloud, the Rooster, already realized what was being murmured about my Hua, how Hua bore no blood-tie to the Lands, and that this would not only prevent her from returning, but also would prevent the rest of us as well. Perhaps Water Cloud sought to strengthen our tie to the Lands, giving her heir both father and mother who carried the link.

“Whatever Water Cloud’s reason, you did not react in a reasonable fashion. Instead, when you knew what she had done, and that she carried a child who all the auguries showed would inherit her affiliation, you sought . . .”

Nine Ducks looked directly at Loyal Wind, her old eyes compassionate. “To me, at least, your reasons for acting as you did have always been as murky as were those of your lady love. You sought out your rival, but did so in such a fashion that—despite being our war leader—your own death was almost assured. Did you seek his death or your own?”

“My own,” Loyal Wind said, his breath coming in a rough rasp. “I can no longer deny it. My own. I could not face a future where even if Water Cloud and I were free to be lovers, I would be forced to face that the child she dandled was the child of my enemy, that the child I would teach as my heir was the lightly gotten work of a sordid night. The future was black in my eyes, and so I sought an ending.”

Nine Ducks nodded. “And found only an eternity of exile, for the wheel seems stalled for those of us from the Lands, stalled until we can resolve matters we set awry.”