Nine Gates (64 page)

“Not even when you crossed to the other side?” Pearl persisted.

“If you stuck your foot out a window,” Pai Hu said, “would you see the colors of the flowers that grow in the bed planted beneath? Once I realized my danger, I did nothing that would help myself be drawn through.”

“Not even peeking,” Pearl nodded. “Yes. I can see that.”

“But the gate is sealed,” Flying Claw said; despite his confident tone, Pearl knew he was looking for reassurance. “And the guardian domains are safe—you are safe. We will be able to cross to the Lands.”

“Yes. When you are ready, you will find the remaining eight of your nine gates established.” Pai Hu looked as embarrassed as a gigantic tiger could—which was not much. “My associates and I have decided that using the gates—while somewhat cumbersome—will be a wise safeguard. They will remain closed until you and your associates need them, and so the integrity of our realms will remain intact.”

“Wise, as well as generous,” Pearl said. She turned to Flying Claw. “The others will be starting to worry. Shall we return?”

“After you, Aunt,” he said.

“Very well.” Pearl Bright stepped forward, knowing that she could trust him at her back.

Honey Dream wondered that the Orphans were so surprised when they realized that something like thirty-four hours had passed during their sojourn into the West and beyond.

They could take so much, do so much, then be flabbergasted by something as ordinary as different time streams.

There was much talk about jet lag, and where various people should be dropped off. In the end, Deborah opted to come to Colm Lodge, so she could keep an eye on Thorn and Twentyseven-Ten. Thorn, in particular, would need skilled care.

Brenda volunteered to drive Pearl and Gaheris to Dr. Andersen’s office. Apparently, Deborah and Nissa both agreed that something called an X-ray would be needed to discover just how to best treat Pearl’s broken hand. A call had affirmed that the doctor would make himself available.

Brenda offered to take Albert, as well, but he refused.

“I think I can deal with this,” he said, touching his swollen eye. “I believe I can see well enough to drive if I am careful. I will tell my associates I was injured in a martial arts exercise. It’s true enough.”

“Well,” Gaheris said, laughing as he fingered his injured face. “I don’t want to try and explain this to Keely. Maybe the doc can give me something to ease the redness.”

“Perhaps that would be wise,” Albert said.

Honey Dream wondered if she had imagined the emphasis on the first word. Looking at the expressions on Pearl and Brenda’s faces, she thought not.

Gaheris Morris was a complicated person, but then most Rats were.… A troubled and conflicted sign, as the tales of how the Rat came to be first among the twelve made very clear.

But it was evident that Albert Yu, among others, did not need to be told this.

At Colm Lodge, Flying Claw assisted Deborah. Honey Dream sat in Waking Lizard’s room for a while and allowed herself to weep.

I’ll have to watch out for myself
, she thought.
I’m glad Waking Lizard was there to watch out for me when I needed watching.

After drying her tears, Honey Dream drifted into her father’s quarters. She found him sitting in a chair near an open window, wearing a pair of clean cotton trousers and a sleeveless shirt that did nothing to hide his amputated arm.

“The Nine Gates are in place,” he said. “As soon as we assemble the Orphans, we will be able to go home. I wonder what your mother will think of this.”

He shrugged the shoulder that held no arm.

“She will be glad to see you alive,” Honey Dream said.

“I will be glad to see her,” Righteous Drum said, “alive.”

And Honey Dream, thinking of the defeat and chaos they had left behind them in the Lands, knew his words for a prayer.

Brenda sat in the waiting room at Dr. Andersen’s clinic, drowsing as thirty-four hours without sleep started taking their toll.

Or was it just everything that had gone on during those hours? All Brenda knew was that the large coffee she’d picked up from the café downstairs didn’t seem to be touching the sudden tiredness that hit her.

But she’d manage. She knew she would.

A woman was sitting next to her. Brenda guessed she must have dozed off, since she hadn’t seen the new arrival come in. Then Brenda recognized the red-gold hair, the leaf-green eyes.

“You!”

“Me. I came by to say you’ve done very well. Thank you. Those of us who dwell in the interstitial places are safer now.”

“Safer? Don’t you mean safe?”

“You closed a door. A nasty door, true. You destroyed a trap. A singular trap, but the trapper is still free.”

“Is this supposed to make me feel good?”

“Since when,” the sidhe woman laughed, “did you ever get the impression that making you feel good was anywhere on my agenda? I did come to thank you, though, and my thanks are not without meaning.”

“You’re welcome,” Brenda said, and tried not to sound ungracious.

The sidhe woman leaned forward and pressed her lips to Brenda’s forehead. Instantly, all the weariness vanished. Brenda blinked, and straightened in her chair.

The sidhe woman was, of course, nowhere to be seen.

Brenda smiled.

Not too bad. Really not too bad. Nine gates. Four guardians. One mysterious lady with an agenda all her own.

Brenda thought about when they’d all parted back at the warehouse. Flying Claw had turned before helping put Thorn into the van. He’d waved and smiled.

“See you tomorrow.” Three words. Not “I love you,” but pretty good words.

So Flying Claw is a friend. A scary friend, sometimes, but really a friend. I trust him. I trust Righteous Drum. I even trust Honey Dream—at least where most things are concerned.

I’m going to miss Waking Lizard, and I wish I’d gotten to know Chain, but that’s backwards, and right now I’m ready for forwards.

One of the inner doors opened, and Dad came out. The red slashes on his face were faded, and probably would be nearly gone by the time he got back to South Carolina. She wouldn’t be surprised if Dad found a bit of business to do to make sure he had time to heal before Mom saw him.

“You look perky, Breni.”

“I’m feeling good,” she said. “The coffee must have kicked in. How’s Pearl?”

“Old bones break,” Gaheris said, “but Auntie Pearl’s are
going to heal—and without surgery. Healing will take time, and she’ll need to rebuild the muscle, but the break should heal cleanly. If she’s careful, she’ll be swinging a sword with the best of them.”

Pearl emerged a few minutes later, her head held as high as if she were walking down the red carpet at the Academy Awards. Her broken hand was neatly wrapped in a bright pink cast, suspended against her chest in a sling printed with tiny multicolored hearts.

Dr. Andersen came out with Pearl, insisted on taking a look at Brenda’s formerly wounded stomach, and pronounced himself satisfied.

“No scars, just what I want for a pretty girl.”

Brenda wondered. Not all scars showed, but she was willing to bear hers if that was the cost for all she’d learned.

“Are you up to driving us home, Brenda?” Pearl asked.

“I’m ready,” Brenda said, jingling the car keys as she pulled them from her pocket, “for anything.”

Brenda Morris
was growing accustomed to having really odd dreams, but this one was about to get star billing.

She’d been half reclining on the grassy bank bordering a dancing, laughing stream. A handsome young man was seated next to her.

The young man’s eyes were wide, round, and exactly the color of freshly opened spring leaves. His hair, the red-gold of dark honey, was curly, cut just long enough to look untamed without being in the least feminine. He had a wonderful mouth, full-lipped and sensuous. A moment before, he had been singing.

At least Brenda heard music: robust and rhythmic as any rock-and-roll piece, but flavored with harps and flutes rather than electric guitar and drums. She didn’t know what you called this type of music, but she knew she liked it. She also couldn’t remember the name of the young man who was sitting next to her, but she felt fairly certain he was about to kiss her, and she liked that, too.

Brenda felt a little odd about how much she hoped the young man with the green eyes and the red-gold hair would kiss her.

This was a dream. Certainly it was all right to let a man kiss you in a dream, even if… you loved another man? Something like that.

For a moment Brenda had a vision of that other young man, the memory of his face suspended between her and the youth with green eyes. This face had slanting, almond-shaped eyes, dark and serious. It was framed by silky black hair worn as long as her own, caught back with a leather tie.

This second man was as handsome as the green-eyed youth of her dream, but far less real. Brenda couldn’t even remember his name.

The young man with the red-gold hair cupped Brenda’s cheek in one of his musician’s hands. There was an urgency in the brilliant green of his gaze, an urgency Brenda didn’t think was entirely related to the kiss his lips still shaped.

Something was buzzing in her ear.

Brenda shook her head, moving out of reach of that cupping hand. She smelled horses. Sweaty horses. Hay and manure.

What had happened to the stream? Where was the grassy bank? Suddenly, Brenda was sitting upright on a straw bale, the freshly cut straw a brighter gold than the hair of the young man who sat next to her, bolt upright and looking distinctly uncomfortable. A moment ago he’d been wearing…

A cap-sleeved tunic? Yes! He’d been dressed like a page or young squire from that book of Arthurian tales her grandmother Elaine had loved to read aloud when Brenda had been too small to read for herself.

Now the young man wore denim coveralls and a short-sleeved, red-plaid cotton shirt. The music in the background blended temple bells and brass chimes incongruously with banjo and fiddle. The green-eyed youth no longer looked as if he were about to kiss Brenda. Now his expression was distinctly annoyed.

A chestnut horse had thrust its head in over the half-open door. Then a man stood there instead, a Chinese man with a full mustache and very short beard. He was wearing ornate armor and a helmet upon which a pair of the longest plumes from a pheasant’s tail were set. These caught a faint breeze, giving the Chinese man an illusion of motion although he stood perfectly still.

Brenda recognized the new arrival at once.

“Loyal Wind! What are you doing here? For that matter, what am I doing here? I was sitting on a stream bank. There was a…”

She looked around. The young man with the green eyes had vanished like the dream he had been.

“Why am I in a barn?” Brenda concluded, not really wanting to explain that she’d been sitting on the riverbank with a young man who was not the dark-eyed, black-haired young man whose name she could now remember perfectly.

Flying Claw. His name was Flying Claw.

Loyal Wind chose to answer her last question. “Perhaps you are in a barn, Brenda Morris, because I am the Horse, and where else would you expect to find a horse?”

“In a parking lot,” Brenda muttered.

Loyal Wind looked startled, and Brenda hastened to explain.

“A joke some little kids I knew told over and over. They had just discovered knock-knock jokes, but they didn’t understand the logic behind them… Oh, never mind. What’s going on? What are you doing in my dream?”

The barn was gone now. Brenda and Loyal Wind were standing, facing each other on a dry and barren steppe. Cliffs could be seen in the distance, burnt-orange, barren of all but greyish scrub growth in shadowed crevices.

“I am a bit surprised to find myself in your dream,” Loyal Wind admitted. “I sought to bring a message to one of the Thirteen Orphans. I had thought my desire would connect me to Deborah or Riprap since they were among the Orphans who traveled to the Nine Yellow Springs under my guidance. Still, you took part in that journey as well. The Rat is the sign opposed to the Horse on the wheel. There is a strong attraction between opposites.”