Nine Gates (54 page)

Every step Brenda hobbled toward where Righteous Drum sat on a knoll beneath the outspread branches of the magnolia tree, the voices of the Nine Springs became clearer. Their sounds
did not resolve into words, rather her mind re-formed, gaining the ability to understand sounds that were not words.

The sensation was not in the least strange, rather the opposite, as if understanding the voice of falling water, of the winds through the branches of the towering magnolia, even of the grass rejoicing as it regrew where the Leech’s intrusion had stripped the rich soil bare, was more natural than not.

Welcome! Welcome! Thanks! Joyful Thanks!
said the falling waters in plinking and splashing notes.
We were parched. Weary. Worn to nothing.

Brenda found herself smiling. The springs shared an exuberance with Lani, but rather than being the exuberance of innocence, this was the burbling joy born of deepest wisdom, the wisdom that has learned how to value the being of now, because change is inevitable.

Flying Claw was standing to one side of Righteous Drum, and if the sunshine of his smile at seeing her up and moving belonged to Brenda’s memories of Foster, the alertness of his stance belonged wholly to Flying Claw.

For the first time, Brenda did not see these two elements as in contradiction, but as the wholeness they were. Foster could not have possessed the warm personality that had touched her heart had those qualities not been his—had not been Flying Claw’s—before his memory had been stolen.

This did not make Flying Claw the least bit less dangerous—a killer who could play with small children as one of their own combined a terrifying mixture of untouched innocence and lethal experience—but with this revelation Brenda felt she was one step closer to understanding Flying Claw, and to regaining her beloved Foster.

As Brenda exchanged greetings with Flying Claw and Righteous Drum—accepting the one’s pleasure and the other’s thanks—Riprap gently lowered Deborah to the turf a few feet from Righteous Drum.

Then Riprap settled himself into a cross-legged seat a few paces away. His dark brown eyes were unfocused, and
Brenda knew without asking that his heart and soul were full to overflowing with the wonder of hearing water and wind given voice.

Riprap and I are luckier
, Brenda thought,
than the Landers. They grew up knowing what is to us miraculous was possible, even if not commonplace. For us the wonder has the freshness not only of discovery, but of revelation.

And the waters said,
“Family! Family! Gladful family! Your gates. Our waters. Connecting. Spreading. We shall. You will. When you would cross, speak to us. We will come.”

A new voice, sighing, breathing, tickling with an undercurrent of solemnity that was not devoid of joy, interjected itself into the springs’ continued affirmations.
“Pai Hu wishes to speak with you. Quickly. Faster even than ghost horses upon the winds may carry you. Upward the waters will lift you, lift you high even as the suns rise into an eternally daylit sky.”

Brenda recognized this new speaker as the magnolia tree. Through the tree’s joy at having the monster who had cut through its roots banished, the springs that fed it saved, she felt a touch of fear vibrating beneath the otherwise matter-of-fact announcement.

No wonder
, Brenda thought.
If the White Tiger of the West has news urgent enough to demand our rapid return, then I’d be afraid—even if I was a tree who reincarnates the suns.

Loyal Wind had stood to one side, listening to this interchange, his expression thoughtful.

“The time has come for us to part,” he said, “for you return to the lands of the living, whereas my place is among the dead. However, when I am needed—and I know my duty to my descendants is not yet ended—then do not hesitate to call upon me. Like the Nine Yellow Springs, I will answer.”

Righteous Drum bowed where he sat, but that he did not attempt to rise said volumes as to how exhausted he remained.

“If we may beg a further favor of you, Loyal Wind…”

The Horse bowed in return. “I would be pleased to be of aid, brave Dragon.”

“Please then, seek out the ghosts of the Exile Ox, Ram, and Monkey. Tell them we will need their help if we are to open a way back into the Lands Born from Smoke and Sacrifice. I realize that as one who is not among their descendants, I am perhaps speaking out of turn, but as one who is an exile myself—very eager to return home—I beg this favor.”

Loyal Wind’s serious mouth sketched a thin-lipped smile. “I wholly understand. I will seek my old associates and endeavor to sway them to your—our—cause.”

The thin-lipped smile broke into a wide grin that crinkled around Loyal Wind’s usually serious eyes as he laughed with unexpected gusto. “Indeed, you ask what I intended to do myself. After years of considering myself a failure, I find myself offered the opportunity to be part of a winning campaign.”

“We appreciate your help,” Righteous Drum said, and the others murmured their thanks in a rippling echo that, to Brenda, didn’t seem all that different from the voice of the Nine Yellow Springs.

When Loyal Wind and the horses had departed, Deborah asked no one in particular, “Just how do we go about getting back to Pai Hu? Do we go sit on the springs?”

“As the suns rise,”
promised the Nine Yellow Springs,
“so you will rise. We have strength now. Strength and to spare.”

Deborah made as if to rise, but the voice of the magnolia tree patted her back into place. “Wait. You are wounded, and nothing to lift compared to the sun.”

Afterward, no matter how she struggled to articulate the experience, Brenda could not put what happened into something as restrictive as words.

There were rainbows and mist, but there was also an enormous yet delicate flower with the creamy petals of the largest magnolia blossoms in the tree that dominated their garden back home in South Carolina.

Was she a little grey rat who rode up through the sky in the boat that was the flower? Did she dissolve into the rainbow
and become water beads and light? Did she stand over a geyser and laugh as it carried her through the layers of the universe, straddling the force of the cosmic pulse?

Brenda never could explain. Later, after several attempts, she realized that she didn’t really want to try. To do so would be to force what had been her first taste of a broader understanding of that cosmic pulse into the limitations of the human mind.

She arrived outside the raw pine door that was the first of the Nine Gates. Despite a sensation of having been surrounded by water, she was completely dry. She remained tired, and her strained muscles still ached, but her soul exalted from the joy and delight of that wild journey. This was very good indeed, for as she looked around the jungle glade, seeking Pai Hu, Brenda immediately realized that something was terribly wrong.

The greensward on which the five of them now stood felt brittle beneath her feet. The color of the grass was similar to winter lawns spray-painted a uniform, artificial green. The leafy, viny jungle spread about on all sides, but the foliage was stiff and unmoving.

Like a painted backdrop on a stage
, Brenda thought,
not like living vegetation.

The flowers were still lush and of impossibly brilliant colors, but they seemed fake—and not even good imitations: plastic molds rather than painted silk.

Worst of all, the Pai Hu who spoke to them from the edges of the jungle was a ghost of his majesty at their first meeting, a translucent projection, still holding color, but lacking substance.

“Pai Hu!” Flying Claw cried out, and something in his voice reminded Brenda of a child seeing his father reduced by sudden illness. “What has happened to you?”

“The dream has taken hold, each moment, each breath, I am being unmade,” the White Tiger of the West replied.

“Who? What? How is this happening?” Flying Claw protested. “It is impossible.”

Pai Hu coughed, reprimand and laughter in one hoarse breath.

“Nothing is impossible, fierce little kitten. Your denial—no matter how heartfelt—cannot change that. The force of which I dreamt is taking hold, gaining strength far more rapidly than I had ever imagined—even when I imagined it could be and did not think it all some taste of insanity.”

“How long do you have?” Riprap asked. “I mean, until it has you entirely.”

“I have strength yet,” the White Tiger said. “My realm is vast, and my power is great. I am resisting. However, I can feel myself slipping. Without help this is a battle I will lose. I warn you. If I lose my battle, the one that will come to you will be far closer to being impossible.”

“Nothing is impossible,” Flying Claw retorted. “Hold fast, Grandfather. We will find what is eating away at your vitals.”

Righteous Drum nodded agreement, but his expression, though thoughtful, was also a little afraid.

Brenda felt a flash of understanding. She knew without need of explanation that the Leech that had preyed on the Yellow Springs, the danger of which the golden horse had reminded her, and this last disaster were all connected.

“We’re with you,” she said. “All of us, both here and those at home. We’ve made a bunch of promises, and we’re not going to break a single one.”

At Brenda’s affirmation—an affirmation that was not hers alone, but belonged to them all—the White Tiger seemed to grow more solid. The ground beneath their feet regained some of its verdant resilience, and the flowers some of their perfume.

“Remember the nature of the universe,” Pai Hu said, and then he was gone.

But the renewed greenness remained, and Brenda took this as a reason for hope. Deborah turned to face the pine door, walking toward it as quickly as she could on her damaged ankle.

“We’d better hurry,” she said. “I can’t see how we’re going
to keep our promises without the others’ help. In any case, this place may not stay solid for long. I, for one, have no desire to be set adrift to join Loyal Wind and his herd ghosts.”

“If there even will be ghosts,” Righteous Drum said. “What threatens the guardian domains threatens all the realities they touch—those of the living and those of the dead.”

Honey Dream and Waking Lizard ran through the warehouse toward the pine door that marked the way into the westernmost guardian domain. There was no reason for them to run, but Honey Dream’s blood fizzed with a heady mixture of anticipation and dread, so that walking sedately was all but impossible.

Clearly the reason behind Waking Lizard’s matching her stride for hurried stride was not the same. He was still bouncing, almost skipping, and little snorts of laughter as he recalled the trick they’d played on Franklin Deng and his obnoxious allies showed that in him the Monkey was ascendant.

Never mind, better a lively monkey than a tired old man. Honey Dream would do the thinking for both of them.

She was lowering herself into a bow in front of the pine door, an invocation to the Men Shen who guarded the portal rising to her lips, when she felt a surge of ch’i from the door.

“It’s active!” she said. “Someone is returning…”

“Or,” Waking Lizard cut in, suddenly serious, the hard whip he’d carried with him over the fence spinning in his hands as he ran it through a complex defensive maneuver, “someone has overcome not only our allies, but the Men Shen as well.”

Yanking the door open from this side would not only have been unnecessary, but potentially dangerous as well, so Honey Dream stepped back a few paces, and tried to calm her wildly racing heart. What would she see when those rough
pine panels swung back? Nothing good, surely. Her father’s voice had been so loud within her thoughts.

The door swung open and Deborah Van Bergenstein limped over the lintel. She looked surprised, but relieved to see them. Honey Dream tried not to feel hopeful when she saw no pity touch the Pig’s expression.

“I should have guessed,” she said, and now Honey Dream noticed that her ankle was tightly wrapped, and her trouser leg smeared with blood, “someone would come searching for us by now. Or did Pai Hu call you, too?”

Her words made no sense, but that hardly mattered. Another figure was taking shape within the door, the image indistinct, as if seen from a great distance, then becoming more and more solid with every breath.

Riprap came through so close behind Deborah that he nearly trod on the woman’s heels.

“Sorry,” he said, giving Deborah his arm to lean on and hurrying them both clear of the door. “I didn’t want you alone here in case…”

Riprap seemed to see Honey Dream and Waking Lizard for the first time. A tired grin lit his dark face. Honey Dream noticed that he, too, was bandaged. Fear for her father lit a cold fire in her soul.

“Good to see you,” Riprap said. “Did we get folk worried by being gone so long?”

Honey Dream was vaguely aware that Waking Lizard was speaking, but her attention was wholly fastened on the door where another figure was taking shape. This one seemed about the right height, and there was something painfully familiar about that stocky round build.

“Ba Ba!”

She nearly flung herself into Righteous Drum’s arms as he stepped over the threshold onto the warehouse floor.