Nine Gates (57 page)

“You’re an elf!” Brenda demanded, and the words were as much question as exclamation.

“These days,” the woman said, and her voice was melodious and familiar, “we really prefer the term ‘sidhe folk.’ It retains a certain amount of dignity that the other lost in Queen Victoria’s reign—despite the efforts of good Tolkien and others to restore it.”

Brenda remembered then. Remembered the face in the pool during her first visit to the guardian domains, remembered the golden horse, and knew why this creature, no matter that this was the first time she’d actually seen her, seemed so familiar.

“You!” she gasped.

The sidhe woman looked pleased. “You recognize me, then? That’s very nice.”

“I’ve met you twice before,” Brenda said. “As a face in a pool—I’d forgotten that until just now—and a golden horse named Leaf.”

“Three times, actually,” the woman said. “Your grandmother Elaine introduced us when you were just a little thing.”

“Grandma Elaine?” Brenda felt shocked. Grandma Elaine was eccentric, yes, but did this mean her claims of consorting with the fairy folk were true?

“Close,” the sidhe woman said. “Your grandmother was very receptive, but she lacked the gifts that let you sit and talk with me this way.”

“You mean the Rat thing?” Brenda asked.

“The Rat thing, yes, and…” The sidhe woman paused, considered for a long moment, so long that indeed Brenda didn’t think she’d add anything, and then went on. “And a little manipulation on the part of Gaheris Morris. He was in over his head, you see, and decided that you might as well come into a bit of your inheritance ahead of time, rather than it all being lost. When he tapped into your—shall we call it ‘psyche’? Such a pretty word. Your psyche, he wasn’t as neat as he thought. He left a little tear, and that’s still there.”

“Is that why you can talk with me only like this?” Brenda said. “I mean. I’m asleep, aren’t I?”

“Oh, I could talk with you in other ways,” the sidhe woman said, “but those would cause difficulties. In any case, for a creature such as myself, in between spaces are easier. More natural, really.”

Brenda wanted to ask a million questions, but she remembered how the golden horse had cut off so suddenly.

“Are you here to warn me about something? Tell me something I need to do?”

“Clever. You really are a good Rat. Better than your father, if only you would accept it, but that’s neither here nor there.”

Brenda was beginning to feel the aches in her body, and she suspected this meant she was dangerously close to waking.

“Would you, please, kind lady, beautiful lady,” she said, struggling to remember the courtesies that had been used in the stories Grandma Elaine had read her. She didn’t think she’d gotten them right, but she didn’t think they hurt either. “Please, tell me what it is you’ve come so far and under such great inconvenience, to tell me.”

The sidhe woman smiled. “Prettily spoken. Very well. I wanted you to know that the others are right. If you don’t save Pai Hu and his fellow guardians, the rest really won’t matter.”

“Is that all?”

“Isn’t it enough?”

“Not really. What’s in it for you?” Brenda threw tact out the metaphorical window. “Sidhe folk are Irish or Celtic, if you prefer. Pai Hu is distinctly Chinese. Are you friends? Maybe. But I think it’s something else.”

“The Rat smells a rat,” the sidhe woman said. “Shall I tell her? Why not? It will be amusing.”

Brenda wondered if she was reading the sidhe woman’s thoughts, as the sidhe woman had clearly been able to read hers, or if the creature was scatty—or talking to someone else. To this she got no answer, unless the sidhe woman’s expression turning serious was an answer.

“You speak of human nationalities—or racial and cultural designations—as if we were bound by them. I’d like to state with imperious dignity that this was not so—but I’d be lying and lying would not serve either you or me at this time.”

She paused, and Brenda kept her mouth shut and her mind focused on the pattern of sunlight spilling through the
window. Nothing that could distract. The aches from her body faded, and she guessed she was falling more deeply to sleep.

Odd to sleep with one’s eyes open, and ears listening.

“Essentially,” the sidhe woman said, “what preys on Pai Hu will turn its attention to my place sooner or later. Our ‘Lands Beneath the Hills’ are much like the guardian domains: shapable, permeable, vulnerable to the right sort of attack. The attackers have gone for us in the past, but we have been able to rebuff them—your stories do not show us as a warlike people without reason. We will not be able to rebuff them if they come after us armed with what they will have drawn from the guardian domains, from the Lands…”

“But who is the enemy?” Brenda said. “How can we succeed where someone like Pai Hu cannot?”

“You can succeed because you are realer than Pai Hu. Trust me on this. And you can succeed because—at this moment—you are of secondary, even tertiary importance. But that will not last, and if you do not act, the enemy will grow stronger.”

“But how can we attack something we’ve never heard of, that we don’t know how to find?”

The sidhe woman met Brenda’s gaze. “Go where Pai Hu has gone—is going. They are not destroying him. They are devouring him. Go to the belly that is swallowing the beast.”

The morning following the expedition’s return from the Yellow Springs, Pearl looked around at the group gathered in her family room. The two invalids were up, although Righteous Drum had been settled on the sofa, rather than in one of the chairs around the long table. Honey Dream sat on a chair pulled next to that sofa, anxious to tend to her father’s least wish.

Repentance? A desire for redemption?
Pearl wondered.
Or simply an all-too-acute awareness of how easily she might have lost him?

Pearl didn’t expect they’d ever know exactly, but she did know that Righteous Drum had been told just how close Honey Dream had come to betraying them—and that the girl had insisted on doing the telling herself.

Waking Lizard had reported that soon after the four from the Lands had returned to Colm Lodge, Honey Dream had gone to her father’s room, first making clear to Flying Claw and Waking Lizard that “No one needs to tell my father what I’ve done, because if he has strength enough to listen, I will tell him myself.”

So that matter was wholly settled. A copy of Des’s video showing the events outside the warehouse had been sent in a sealed package to Broderick Pike of the Rosicrucians. An identical package—including a copy of the letter requesting Pike keep the recording, as it contained evidence for a possible action Pearl and Albert were contemplating against Franklin Deng, Tracy Frye, and several of their associates—had been sent to them. Pearl thought the threat would be enough to keep that cabal in check, at least for now.

So now
, Pearl said,
we can focus on the matter at hand.

Among the last to join them were Brenda and Deborah—and not because either had slept in. Deborah had insisted that Brenda take a long shower, and then had rubbed ointment into the numerous bruises and grazes that marred the young woman’s skin. Over twelve hours of sleep had done a great deal to restore Brenda’s strength, but she settled into the recliner that had been reserved for her without protesting that she’d be “fine, just fine,” as Pearl had expected her to do.

The remainder wore fresh bandages. Deborah’s limp was markedly less.

But still
, Pearl thought,
we’re a sorry lot to take on something that’s eating a universe, for the distinction between the guardians and their domains is a fine one indeed.

Nissa came in last, finishing a call from one of her sisters on her cell phone. It was clear to Pearl that Nissa missed her sisters, but the dread Pearl had felt that the young mother would gather up her daughter and head for the familiarity of
the Virginia mountains had not materialized. Joanne was very happy to help settle Lani into a routine of playdates, like the one she’d left for shortly after breakfast. Pearl had overheard Nissa talking with one of her sisters—Nancy, she thought—about schools.

Our Rabbit may be wiser than the rest of us. We’re still thinking in the short term, from crisis to crisis, but she’s digging in.

Pearl glanced at Albert as Nissa pocketed her phone and settled into one of the chairs around the long table. He took a last swallow of coffee, and began.

“Last night, we agreed that if we don’t do something about whatever is going after Pai Hu—and presumably the other guardians and their domains—any effort on our part to set up the Nine Gates will be useless. Does anyone have any thoughts about how we should begin?”

Albert glanced between Shen and Righteous Drum as he concluded, obviously expecting the Dragons to be the most likely to have a practical answer. Pearl was certain she was not the only one to be surprised when Brenda spoke up.

“We need to follow Pai Hu,” she said. “He can still talk to us—even if it’s hard for him—so he’s still alive.”

“Follow him?” Albert repeated, clarifying, not mocking.

Brenda nodded and bit her upper lip. “Look. It doesn’t make sense, and I know it, but most of this doesn’t make any sense. I had a dream, and in that dream Pai Hu was, well, sort of there in the West, but he was also being pulled elsewhere. I mean, if he was a usual sort of person, this wouldn’t make sense, because we can only be one place at once.”

This time she was the one who glanced at the Dragons. Shen made a seesaw motion with one hand.

“That’s not quite accurate. You yourself have had some experience with projection, that time you helped Pearl repair her wards. However, I don’t think that’s what you’re talking about—you mean that the White Tiger is physically in more than one place at once.”

“That’s it,” Brenda agreed. “He’s being stretched or dragged or something. That’s going to leave a trail. We can follow that trail and find out who is pulling on the other end, then stop them, like we stopped the Leech.”

Albert rubbed his short beard. “Interesting… I had some such thought yesterday, but couldn’t make it clear to myself. Yes. I agree. This might be the way to do it.”

“I agree,” said Righteous Drum, his voice rusty. “We are fortunate in that we have two Tigers, and that Pai Hu has befriended us, given us the freedom of his domain.”

He glanced over at Shen, and Shen continued, “Just as we have two Tigers, we also have two Dragons. Some time ago, when Des took you young people off on that first field trip, Righteous Drum and I made some preliminary overtures toward the Azure Dragon of the East.”

“How do you do that?” Riprap asked.

Shen shook his head. “Ask me when this is over. We have no time for theory. What we did was nothing fancy—a feeling-out. Rather like sending a note to someone you’ve heard of, but don’t know personally, saying that you might be in the area, and could a visit be arranged if you do come.

“What disturbed us was how minimal the response we received was. At the time, we thought the Azure Dragon was probably waiting to see how Pai Hu responded. Now, though, we wonder if as Pai Hu suspected, all the guardians were under assault.”

Nissa leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Shen, are you saying we have one chance and that’s it?”

“I’m saying,” Shen said, “that what Brenda suggests may be our best chance, and if so, we had better make it good.”

Of course
, this didn’t settle matters. They needed strength, yet their company was far from strong. Even the relatively short initial meeting drained Righteous Drum enough that he went off to rest and meditate on the parlor sofa. Clearly, he couldn’t go charging off into the West and beyond for
some days yet. Shen, while a powerful enough Dragon, was the first to admit that he was not Righteous Drum’s equal in matters of practical application.

“I’m like a writing instructor who’s never sold a novel,” he said to Pearl privately when they’d broken into smaller groups to brainstorm. “Or an archaeology professor who last did fieldwork in graduate school. I’m sound on theory. I don’t know how I’d do in practice. I mean, look at the shape Righteous Drum is in.”

“He overestimated how well he was healed from losing his arm,” Pearl reminded Shen, patting her old friend on his own sound right arm. “Remember that.”

“I will, I will. Still, I’d be happier if we could arrange matters so that Righteous Drum could go along.”

“I’d be happier,” Pearl agreed, “if all of us could. Brenda is talking to Gaheris right now, explaining that we’re going to need him and finding out when he can come.”

“If he did,” Shen said, counting off people on his fingertips, “that would give us twelve—thirteen with Brenda. Not a large army, but still, enough to allow for various approaches and tactics.”

“As I see it,” Pearl said, “one of our problems is going to be whether or not whoever is attacking Pai Hu will know we’re coming after him. From everything we’ve heard, the Leech was difficult enough to defeat, and it was relatively mindless. Whoever is behind this is far from mindless.”

“I agree,” Shen said. “And probably very powerful as well. I’ve been thinking about that a lot—ever since we first heard about Pai Hu’s ‘nightmare.’ What can attack a universe?”