Five Odd Honors (63 page)

“Brenda,” Dad said patiently. “It’s over. Completely over. The Thirteen Orphans have fought their final battle. The Exiles are home—or as home as they’ll ever be. For us, it’s over.”

“For you, maybe,” Brenda said, “but I’m not sure it is for me. I’ve made friends, Dad. I’m not about to walk out of their lives, like I’m closing a book after reading the last page or after watching the final episode of some really good TV show. They’re my friends. Real friends.”

“Who are your friends?” Dad countered. “Honey Dream, who you bitch at most of the time? Righteous Drum? If you mean Flying Claw, get real. He’s not your type. He was never your type. He’s even less that now. Or have you fallen for that green-eyed Irish fairy? He’s pretty enough, but you . . .”

Gaheris Morris stopped talking, maybe seeing the anger Brenda felt flooding her face. She stared at her father, feeling her expression grow as hard and cold as Li Szu’s had before they’d broken through his rainbow and taken him down.

“Dad. This has nothing to do with Flying Claw or Parnell. And everything to do with all of them. Damn it. This may be over for you, but it’s not for me. I’ve changed, Dad. Can’t you see that? I’ve changed. I’ve slid in blood. I’ve fried a man with fire so hot that his face melted. I’ve been tortured—secondhand, but I know how much even that hurts. I can’t go back and pretend that it’s going to matter to me how many people the Celtic Culture Club can get to come to a clog dancing show or whether USC wins homecoming. I can’t. And I won’t.”

Dad played a new card. “And your mother? Do you expect me to explain to her that my weird family heritage is corrupting her one and only daughter?”

“I’ll talk to Mom. Me. By myself. As you say, she knows a bit about the Orphans’ heritage already. I think Mom’s going to understand, maybe even better than you could.”

Brenda didn’t feel like pulling punches, although arguing made her feel weak and tired now that her initial adrenalin was ebbing.

“Mom has always been better at listening than you, and a whole lot better at seeing people for themselves, not as pieces in some grand scheme. I think she’ll understand.”

Dad now turned what, for him, was his trump card. “And who do you expect to pay for your year or years of self-discovery? Me? Seems I’m already going to be out the tuition and books and dorm fees I’ve paid for this year.”

Brenda had been ready for this, at least, but she knew Dad was going to hate the answer.

“I’ve talked to Albert. He’ll hire me. He says the fact I’m ‘exotic’ looking will be an asset. I’m not going to be a counter girl, either. He’s going to train me to handle set up and act as a liason for those big events he does. Best of all, I can do most of my work for Your Chocolatier electronically, which means I can stay at Pearl’s and save rent. She’ll teach me and Nissa both.”

“And the tuition?”

“Pearl’s loaning me—loaning, not giving—the money. I’m going to pay her back weekly, and pay some room and board.”

“So you’ve got it all planned.”

Gaheris Morris’s face grew thin-lipped with anger, those lips turning white, but when he continued speaking his voice was very, very even.

“Well, do what you want, young lady, but I’ll expect an apology when it all goes sour. Tell me this. Why do you think you’ll be able to visit with your new friends here in the Lands? Didn’t I tell you the days of the Orphans are over?”

“You did,” Brenda said, “but I figured you meant that wrongs were righted and like that.”

“I meant,” Gaheris Morris said, getting to his feet, “that there is a very real chance that we’ll be returning to the Lands what our ancestors took away. Returning our affiliations with the Earthly Branches. Ask Pearl what she’s been negotiating these last several days. Ask Shen. Ask these ‘friends’ you’re so loyal to. Ask them what they want to do to us all.”

The group of sages and mages filed from the room. Most were grey-haired and wrinkled, as fit expectations, but unlike what one would expect if traditional China was serving as your model, they were almost evenly split between male and female.

That’s one good thing Li Szu did when he burned the books,
Pearl thought.
Many of the texts of which he disapproved were Taoist, and the Taoists always valued individual merit more highly than accidents of birth.

She was thinking about something else Li Szu had done that was proving to be useful in a manner he surely had not intended, when Brenda Morris burst into the room through a side door.

“Pearl! Shen!”

Her outburst drew a few mildly disapproving looks from the final group of sages, and Brenda visibly calmed herself until they had finished their dignified exit.

“Pearl! Shen! Dad says you’re working on a plan to take the Earthly Branches from the Orphans.”

Pearl and Shen, who had been politely standing to either side of the main door to thank their departing visitors, shared a worried look. Then, shutting the door after the last of the departing guests, Pearl motioned for Brenda to take a seat on one of the several vacated benches while she and Shen resumed their own chairs.

“You could say that,” Pearl admitted, “or you could say we’re working on a plan to strengthen the Lands against further exploitation.”

Brenda was sitting on the edge of her chair, her entire body tense, but when she spoke her voice was soft and under control.

“But doesn’t that undo everything we’ve been working on? I mean, from the start, when Righteous Drum and all came to our world, they wanted the affiliations. We fought like crazy to keep them. Now you’re just willing to give them up?”

Pearl sighed and rubbed her hands over her eyes and cheekbones.

“Willing? No. Able to accept that what our ancestors did seriously hurt the Lands? Yes. Willing to accept that the Lands remain vulnerable for as long as the force of the Earthly Branches remains split? Yes.”

Shen cut in. “Brenda, we were going to talk to all the Orphans later today, but we were trying to get enough information together that we could anticipate most of the questions.”

“I’m not surprised,” Pearl said, “that Gaheris found out. We haven’t exactly been keeping this a secret. I am a little surprised he spoke to you.”

“I think,” Brenda admitted, “I pissed him off.”

“You told him about your plans not to go back to USC.”

“Yeah.” Brenda fell silent, then visibly shook herself. “Can you tell me what’s going on?”

Pearl nodded. “Here’s the short version. In Chinese cosmology, the underlying supports of the universe are the Twelve Earthly Branches and the Ten Heavenly Stems. Righteous Drum’s conjecture that the Earthly Branches were severely weakened when the Orphans retained their affiliation when they were exiled from the Lands has been confirmed.”

“Are you sure?” Brenda said. “I mean I’ve gotten to sort of like Righteous Drum—Honey Dream, too—but that doesn’t mean they don’t have an agenda of their own.”

“They’re not the only ones saying this,” Shen said. “Their faction was overthrown fairly soon after Righteous Drum brought Honey Dream and Flying Claw to our world. Li Szu learned of Righteous Drum’s theories and immediately set a group of scholars to work researching the problem. Those are the people you saw leaving here just now. I’m not going to go through everything they told us, because much of it was nearly too esoteric for me. . . .”

“And would be completely over my head,” Brenda said good-naturedly. “That’s fine. So you’ve decided to cave in, that the good of the Lands means more than your own good? What’s this going to do to you?”

Pearl smiled dryly. “First, we haven’t ‘caved,’ as you put it. We’re still discussing the matter. However, we cannot ignore that something our ancestors did has severely harmed this universe. Moreover, it’s likely that as long as the Lands remain in a weakened condition, they’re going to be vulnerable to further invasion. We’re not sure, but it seems likely that Li Szu had allies, allies who have made themselves scarce, but who know about this weakness, and who may attempt to exploit it again.”

“I remember,” Brenda said, “what Waking Lizard said, and later how Thorn and Twentyseven-Ten and them said that the captain who led their attempt on us a few months ago wasn’t someone they knew. Okay. Still, it doesn’t seem right that you guys should give up so much, something that you’ve fought so hard to keep.”

“Sometimes,” Pearl said, trying hard to hide how much the idea of renouncing the Tiger distressed her, “life isn’t fair. That’s just the way it is.”

“There’s only one answer,” Loyal Wind heard himself saying as Shen and Pearl finished briefing them on the situation regarding the Earthly Branches, the Lands, and the Exiles’ role in what had caused this corruption of their place of birth.

Loyal Wind thought that especially Pearl and Shen tended to forget how intimately the five former ghosts were involved in the situation. After all, except for Nine Ducks, all of them had reincarnated so that they appeared younger than the Orphans’ Tiger and Dragon. That made it easy to overlook that when Pearl and Shen spoke of choices the “Exiles” had made, that five among the number they addressed were, in fact, those very Exiles.

Loyal Wind didn’t think they overlooked this consciously, but emotionally, separating the five people who had become their allies—even their friends—from those distant and revered Exiles whose adventures had been the stories told to them in their childhood.

But the Exiles and we “ghosts” are one and the same,
Loyal Wind thought, even as he continued to speak.

“The Exiles did the damage. The Exiles must take the first steps to repair that damage. We five should give up our affiliation to the Earthly Branches and accept what ever occurs as a result of this.”

His statement met with nods of agreement from the other four Exiles. Copper Gong’s crisp nod indicated that Loyal Wind had anticipated what she had been about to suggest herself.

“A good beginning,” agreed Nine Ducks. The Ox sat upright in her padded chair, but still looked far from her usually robust self. “I remember how we all laughed over our cleverness—over how we were going to trick those who had thought to render us inconsequential. Now, with the passage of years and evidence of what happened to the Lands through our actions, what we did seems less clever than petty. I agree with Loyal Wind. It is our place to begin setting things right.”

The meeting had been restricted to the Thirteen Orphans alone. Deborah still did not trust her health, and so had not been able to come, but Nissa had returned via the Gate. Now Gaheris Morris—something tight around his eyes indicating that he’d probably come to this gathering straight from another argument with Brenda—spoke.

“Noble suggestion,” Gaheris said, a dryness to his tone indicating that he wasn’t thrilled that Loyal Wind had capitulated so quickly. Clearly Gaheris had been planning to argue against any relinquishment of the Branches. “Let’s say—and my willingness to speculate doesn’t indicate I agree that this is the best course of action—we do as Loyal Wind suggests and do our best to break our affiliation with our Branches. How do we go about it?”

Shen Kung said, “I’ve consulted with Righteous Drum. The spell he worked out—the one that separated the Branch from the holder—should still work.”

Loyal Wind noticed that Shen looked rather uncomfortable as he said this, nor did he wonder why. Shen had been among those whom Righteous Drum had successfully attacked, and the end result had been such vague behavior that his wife and son had been led to believe that Shen was suffering from some form of senile dementia.