Nine Gates (41 page)

Righteous Drum, who had moved to carry a small bag into Pearl’s office, now emerged again into the foyer.

“I believe they are. They have decided that purely physical protections are a good addition to spells, especially since although Riprap can work protective charms if he has time to concentrate, he is not swift enough to do so when the situation calls for quick response.”

Pearl noticed Honey Dream’s lovely upper lip curl in a slight sneer, but didn’t comment. If Honey Dream hadn’t yet learned that real courage involved doing something even when you weren’t sure you were completely safe, then nothing Pearl could say would change the young Snake’s mind.

Instead, Pearl offered refreshments. All declined politely, wishing to avoid the distraction that pressure from a nagging bladder would offer.

Those who would be participating in the summoning ritual retired into Pearl’s office to begin the rituals of purification.

Pearl paused before following, sensing that Nissa wanted to speak with her.

“Lani’s outside with Wong. I have a book, but is it okay if I use my phone or hook up a computer? I haven’t checked in back home in a day or so.”

“Absolutely,” Pearl assured her. “I don’t expect we will need to call on you. Just don’t do any spells. We might as well avoid conflicting ch’i currents.”

“That’s not a problem,” Nissa said. “Good luck.”

As Righteous Drum had predicted, the purifications went smoothly now that everyone knew their parts. At the beginning of the Double Hour of the Horse, Shen struck the chime, motioning for Pearl and Honey Dream to come forward and light the red candles.

The introductory prayers were tailored to their subject, and Pearl made herself listen to every word, every note of Shen’s voice rising and falling as he recited them, knowing her concentration would add to their persuasiveness.

When Albert came forward and lit the large bundle of
incense in front of the Exile Horse’s portrait, she realized she was holding her breath and forced herself to breathe in and out, encouraging the ch’i within her body to circulate and gain strength.

Kneeling on the cushion in front of the altar, Albert invoked the ghost of the Horse in much the same words he had used for the Ox. Not a single word revealed the uncertainty he had confided in Pearl when he had called her that morning.

“What if we can’t find a guide? What if the behavior of my father and grandfather has alienated the Ancestors from us?”

“We’ll manage,” Pearl had said with complete confidence. Not articulating the thought of what that failure might mean.
Even if we fail, we’ll manage.

The ghost of the Horse manifested swiftly, showing no trace of the eddying hesitation Exile Ox had shown. Pearl reflected how the Horse—like the Tiger—was a warrior sign. What was the Bible quote? “He saith among the trumpets. Ha! Ha!”? Eager for action was the Horse.

Pearl Bright had never known the Horse. Loyal Wind had died before the Orphans had left mainland China, first for Japan, later for the United States. Nor were there any photographs of him, for he had died when the Orphans were still very much wanderers. She watched as the smoke took shape, wondering how closely he would resemble the ink-brush portraits Des had found in his great grandmother’s portfolio.

Her first reaction was surprise at how young Loyal Wind was—only in his early sixties. Influenced by her father’s stories, in which the Horse was the wise war leader whose death had been a horrible shock, one which had forced Thundering Heaven into prominence, Pearl had forgotten that when Loyal Wind had died, he had been over a decade younger than she herself was now.

The Exile Horse was not precisely handsome, not in the way Flying Claw was or her father had been, but there was a strength of character to him, a firmness in the lines etched
on his face that spoke of decisiveness. He wore a mustache and a small chin beard, not a goatee, but a slight ornamental tuft. His armor resembled Flying Claw’s—although the cut was that for a calvary man, not a foot soldier.

“You have called me,” the ghost said, “and I come both as duty bound and in thanks for the offerings that have made my afterlife bearable. Why do you call?”

“We seek your aid, Honored Ancestor,” Albert said, bowing deeply, then rising so he might address the ghost face-to-face—a choice that emphasized that although he was supplicant, he was also emperor.

“My aid? What aid can a dead man be?”

Albert explained, thoroughly and carefully, yet his earnestness creating of his words a type of poetry.

But the ghost of Loyal Wind did not seem to be swayed.

“So finally, after these many years,” Loyal Wind said when Albert finished, “you are ready to fulfill the task your ancestors set for you—and not because you are dutiful, but because you dread a threat to this world—a world your father or your father’s father should have forsaken long ago?”

The ghost was shaking with barely repressed fury.

“I gave up the one true love of my life because I believed in that goal. I accepted her belief that our—or at the very least our descendants’—return to the Lands Born from Smoke and Sacrifice was more important than our private happiness. And you tell me this is the end result—over a century later our descendants are still in exile, and some, my own included, were permitted to fall from adherence to our task because it began to seem unimportant?”

Loyal Wind clenched his fists at his side, and to her astonished horror, Pearl saw that he was transforming. No longer did the semblance of an entire man stand before them, but one horribly and mortally wounded. Loyal Wind no longer wore armor, but worn, baggy trousers and loose smock, such as a working man might wear. His left arm was missing from the elbow down. Blood streamed from a gash on his right thigh. More blood ran from a cut on his brow, flowing
across his face, staining his teeth red as it flowed into his mouth.

When he spoke bloody spittle accompanied each word.

“And you wish me to help you? I gave my love. I gave my life. What more do you want of me?”

Pearl pushed herself to her feet, using Treaty—still sheathed—as a support, for she wasn’t so young that she could kneel for long without some stiffness settling in her knees. She stood with her head held high, legs slightly spread, Treaty’s point pressed into the carpet between her feet.

“What do we want?” she echoed. “Perhaps nothing, seeing what you have become. My father taught me to honor and respect you. You were the paragon against whom he balanced his every action. While your son was but an infant, my father had to be not only Tiger, but Horse—and he took on those responsibilities gladly.”

Loyal Wind narrowed his eyes, as if he were seeing her for the first time. “What are you? A female Tiger? Abomination!”

“So my father thought,” Pearl agreed, “and yet I have remained faithful despite that.”

“Empty faith to a cause never pursued,” Loyal Wind sneered.

“Perhaps. Perhaps you would have felt differently if you had lived, but looking upon you, I believe what I heard whispered is true.”

“Whispered?”

“When I was a small child,” Pearl said, “many of the Exiles were still alive. Everyone talks around children as if they are idiots, even more so when that child is despised and rejected by her own father. I was not an idiot, and I liked to listen. I heard the stories—speculation that your death had not been a tragedy, but an act of cowardice, a selfish suicide that destroyed others’ hopes.”

“I did not suicide! I died in honorable battle.”

“Did you?” Pearl challenged.

“I did!”

“I heard you sought that fight out of jealousy. Look at yourself. Where is your armor? Where are your lance and sword?”

“I…”

“You sought your death,” Pearl said. “We see the evidence before us.”

She softened her tones, becoming conversational but no less relentless. “You may have thought your death did not matter, but you left the Exiles with an infant to coddle, rather than a warrior to lead.

“Your heir did well enough. The Rooster made sure he did not go either unloved or untaught. He lived a long life—long enough to watch his own son die of cancer—but without your guidance, he was always a follower, never a leader. Unlike the Exile Rooster’s daughter and heir—who taught both son and then grandson—your heir had no one to instill in him belief in the cause.”

“I didn’t…” the ghost protested, but his wounds still bled and his protest was empty.

“My father didn’t much like having me as his heir apparent,” Pearl said, “but at least he didn’t leave me untaught, at least he never left his responsibilities to others.

“You turned tail and ran. Now when we come to you, offering you a chance to redeem the honor you so besmirched, you have the gall to act as if we are the beggars. You should be kissing the young emperor’s feet, weeping in thanks that he is willing to offer you a chance at redemption!”

Loyal Wind stared at her, and as he did, the wounds on his body began to close. He still wore the ragged peasant’s costume in which he had died and the raw cuts were visible through the tears, but the bleeding had stopped.

Movements stately, he went onto his knees and bowed, first to Albert, and then—to Pearl’s astonishment—to her. Still kneeling, he raised his head to look at them.

“Now I know,” he said, “why we fear female tigers. They are indeed ruthless.”

Pearl wanted to apologize for hurting him so deeply, but
then she remembered—her words had actually stopped the bleeding. There was no lying to oneself after death. Loyal Wind must have had a terrible afterlife, sustained by offerings from those he had betrayed.

Albert held out a hand, motioning for Loyal Wind to rise. “Will you join us, Loyal Wind? Or if you cannot bear to do so, will you at least consider retaking your bond with the Horse so that the Exiles may at last return home?”

“I will,” Loyal Wind said, still kneeling, “be your guide, and I will help you to make your thirteen complete, so that the ninth gate can be opened, the unwilling exiles returned home, and perhaps your homes and families secured, as we once sought to secure our homes and families. This I swear, on the Horse I once was, on the warrior I will again be.”

Pearl heard a muffled sob, and glancing over saw to her surprise that it came from Honey Dream. The young woman’s eyes were not the only ones that shone with tears. Shen was frankly weeping, tears coursing down his face, but he made no move to wipe them away, nor to protect the costly embroidered satin of his shenyi.

Albert, however, had maintained a stern dignity worthy of an emperor. “I accept your service, and welcome you into our company. My son, I welcome you home.”

The triumph that burbled through their company as the news spread that the Exile Horse had agreed to assist them sustained everyone until evening when they all assembled on Pearl’s back patio to finalize the next stage of their plans.

By then Honey Dream, at least, was feeling very apprehensive. She’d heard some of what her father and Shen had been discussing, and didn’t like it at all.

As was right and proper in a matter that so involved magic, the two Dragons assumed charge.

“We believe,” Shen said, “that we have come up with the best possible means of connecting the Nine Yellow Springs
to our Nine Gates—best because if done correctly, connecting each gate and each spring will not involve separate journeys into the underworld.”

“That’s a relief,” Riprap said. “I’m not crazy about going to Hell once, much less nine separate times.”

“But you will go if this is needed?” Righteous Drum asked.

“Absolutely,” Riprap assured him. “What’s the plan?”

Righteous Drum looked at Shen, who nodded for him to continue.

“By now, none of you need to be told that words have power,” Righteous Drum began, “but those of you who were not reared within the culture to which we all share an ancestral link may not realize that this power extends into puns—especially puns based upon homonyms.”

“Words that sound alike,” Brenda muttered, as if reminding herself.

Honey Dream restrained a desire to roll her eyes. She didn’t like certain elements of this plan in the least, and only by acting as reasonable as possible could she hope to amend them.

“Words that sound alike,” Righteous Drum agreed. “I will leave Desperate Lee the task of explaining the finer aspects of the various Chinese languages, and ask you to simply accept that in tonal languages, the opportunities for such puns are nearly infinite.

“‘Men’—meaning ‘gate’ or ‘door’—actually has fewer associated sounds than many other words, but there is one that is particular significant for our needs, for ‘men’ can also mean ‘family.’”

Des nodded. “Probably because those within your gate or door would be considered your family.”

“Quite possibly,” Righteous Drum agreed. “This is a very good relationship for our needs, because what we will do when we have arrived at the Nine Yellow Springs is request that they make a ‘men’ or ‘family’ with the ‘men’ that are the Nine Gates. The fact that this ‘men’-to-‘men’ relationship is
needed to enable the gates to function as a ‘men’ or family-group of gates makes the association particularly potent.”