Thirteen Orphans (47 page)
“Dragon,” she said, challenge in her voice, “you are surrounded. Why not surrender and do what you should have from the first? Talk with us. Tell us what brought you from your own land into this.”
“And why,” Nissa said, moving forward to stand alongside Riprap, an amulet bracelet ready in her hand, “you’re trying to steal our memories.”
“I seek not to steal, but to retrieve,” Righteous Drum said. “But rarely do thieves give back what they have taken willingly—and much less so when the stolen goods have become family heirlooms. I do not suppose that if I asked you to hand over what you so arrogantly call ‘your memories,’ then you would give them to me?”
“Certainly not!” Pearl snapped, and her defiance was echoed by the other three.
“Then I must take them!”
The Dragon had been standing loose-limbed but alert. With these words his stance changed. He held his arms bent at the elbows at an angle just shy of ninety degrees, and thrust slightly to the sides of his torso. His hands were held palms up, fingers curled and slightly clenched. It was an angry stance, filled with contained power.
Pearl concentrated on mentally sketching a series of characters learned long ago. Within a few breaths she could see the power shaping in Righteous Drum’s hands. Glancing at her three companions, she could see that, like her, each of them had activated some form of protective spell. Like her, the choices had been Winds, for coming in they had known they would need to deal with someone who would have a special relationship with dragons.
The Dragon was also protected. Pearl could see the faint, wispy coils of spirit dragons tracing a protective pattern around his body. No wonder Riprap’s knuckles were bloodied. He’d probably swung at the Dragon and his blow had met something far less yielding than the body of a slightly overweight, fifty-something scholar.
The wealth of protective spells also explained why Righteous Drum had not spread about more smoke or something even more deadly. At least for now, his opponents were shielded, but Pearl sensed this would not last. If this Dragon was anything like the Dragon of whom her father had told tales, if he was even anything like his exile descendant, then Righteous Drum would have long experience with the power of wind being used to counter that of dragons.
Pearl stood, knowing that Treaty would be useless for the moment, unless …
“Riprap, Nissa, Des … Toss out the strongest attack you have stored. Now!”
The two younger people responded blindly to the command in her voice. Des gave a thin smile, and threw the bracelet that was already in his hand. She and he had selected this spell together, for although it took a great deal of ch’i to work, it relied on neither dragons, nor winds, nor water—the last the element dragons are most likely to control.
There were triple crashes as carefully worked polymer clay became dust. Then three versions of the same dramatic sending rose: the Twins of Earth, the Twins of Sky, and the Twins of Hell.
Each pair stood armed and armored, magnificent male and deadly female versions of the same warrior principle. Each was dressed in the elaborate costumes of a China of old, but the details varied according to appropriate symbology. The Twins of Earth wore shades of brown and bronze, and their dark hair was bound with strands of rough gems. The Twins of Sky wore white and pale blue, their attire embroidered with signs of clouds and the sun. The Twins of Hell had dark red skin. Although they were as strikingly beautiful as the others, there was something of the demon about them. Their teeth verged upon being fangs. Their eyes were burning red.
The Twins of Earth carried long swords and shields. The Twins of Sky bore bows and daggers. The Twins of Hell held balanced in two hands long, forked spears that in some versions of the Chinese hell—as in the latecomer Christian—demons used both to herd and to torment their miserable charges.
The triple pairs of Twins occupied the same demi-plane as that in which surged and swam the dragons that wreathed Righteous Drum, otherwise the small apartment might have been so crowded that none could move. Pearl was glad of this, for her plan demanded that she, at least, be able to move swiftly and freely.
The Twins knew for what reason they had been summoned, and there was no need for them to be given commands. The Twins of Sky shot forth arrows at the dragons that wreathed the space above Righteous Drum, while the Twins of Earth and Hell attacked those that protected the man’s lower reaches. Opaqued within the writhing spirit forms, Righteous Drum showed admirable poise as he continued to concentrate on whatever spell he had begun.
Pearl watched, a Tiger poised to spring. When a particularly well-aimed blow on the part of the female of the Twins of Hell left open a gap in Righteous Drum’s protections, she leapt forward. Treaty’s edge slipped through the gap in Righteous Drum’s arcane shield, and Pearl brought the flat of the blade against Righteous Drum’s arm and shoulder.
Her hope had been to disperse the contained ch’i he had been building before it could take whatever form he intended, but what her action actually did was send the spell forth before its time.
Four sharp-beaked firebirds with eyes and talons of wet ink sprang from their maker’s hands. Their flames were red-hot, tinged with yellow. The heat from these proved sufficient to consume the lesser winds that protected Nissa and Riprap, but the winds protecting Des and Pearl retained some protective force, although they were much diminished.
As the firebirds swallowed the winds, they transformed, becoming darts of yellow paper scribbled over with elaborate characters in green, yellow, white, green, the colors appropriate to each of the four who stood there: Tiger, Dog, Rooster, and Rabbit.
Pearl brought Treaty around in a rapid cut that should have reduced the dart that was heading for her to shreds, but Righteous Drum had learned from his encounter with Des and his Rooster’s Talon. This dart could dodge, and it did. Then it did something horribly clever, riding along the edge of Treaty’s blade, using the sword itself to penetrate the final shreds of Pearl’s failing defenses.
Once the dart was inside her winds, Pearl might as well have tried to parry falling rain. The yellow paper caught her across her face. There was a moment of silence, and then she felt herself being sucked outside of her body. Disembodied Pearl watched in horror as her body staggered back a few steps, then collapsed, a puppet doll with its strings cut, onto the sofa.
Oddly, though, Pearl could still see, although the perspective was weirdly distorted, as if she looked out through the sides of a soap bubble. The angle of vision seemed nearly omniscient. She could as easily focus in on the remaining Twins as they fought the remaining guardian dragons as she could the struggles of her three companions.
From this peculiar perspective, Pearl watched as Nissa staggered back, yellow paper sinking into her face, green ink rewriting the text of her mind. Nissa stood staring down with some slight curiosity at a crystal globe that rested on the wooden floor where she had been standing. Then, her expression blank, she backed from the room and took a seat upon the edge of the Snake’s cot. There she folded her hands and waited.
These spells are more complex than the ones that took our allies before,
Pearl thought.
The Dragon obviously did not want us wandering about, shouting protests, wondering where we were. He has sought to paralyze us, then to separate our bodies and minds, but not our memories from our minds. How very interesting.
Pearl thought.
The Dragon obviously did not want us wandering about, shouting protests, wondering where we were. He has sought to paralyze us, then to separate our bodies and minds, but not our memories from our minds. How very interesting.
Des and Riprap had fared better than Pearl and Nissa. Riprap’s spell appeared to not have “taken,” for when the yellow dart came home to its target, he tore it from his face. For a moment he stood, confused, yellow ink running against his dark skin. Then the confusion passed and Pearl had the satisfaction of seeing the big man move, not to spring upon their enemy, but to draw a fresh protective amulet from his wrist and renew his defenses.
The one true combat veteran of the lot of us,
Pearl thought.
I shouldn’t be surprised that he reacts so intelligently.
Pearl thought.
I shouldn’t be surprised that he reacts so intelligently.
Des’s protective shield of winds had been weakened, but not entirely broken. He quickly enhanced it with a second spell. This, chosen at random, was not very powerful, but it was enough to blow back the spell that sought his memory. The Twins and guardian dragons had done for each other. They faded to wherever sendings reside, leaving a curious stillness behind them.
Into that stillness, Righteous Drum, the Dragon, spoke. “You have used your most powerful spells, and I still stand untouched. Two more of your number are in my crystals. Why not quietly surrender? You will not know that you have lost anything. I give you my sworn word that I will make certain that your bodies are returned to someplace safe—Pearl Bright’s residence will do, I am sure—before you come out of my haze.”
“Then,” Des said bitterly, “we resume our lives, our brains scrabbling to create whatever bridges they can to justify our lost memories?”
“That is correct.”
Riprap was staring down at the piece of yellow paper he’d ripped from his face, his brow furrowed with concentration.
“I’m not much at reading Chinese characters yet, but I spent a fair amount of time studying the first spell—the one Foster threw at me, the one that didn’t hit. This spell isn’t complete. Pearl didn’t fail as entirely as you want us to believe, did she, Righteous Drum? She interrupted your spell. I’m betting we’re not the only ones who have used our most powerful spells.”
“Do you want to test that theory hand to hand, spell to spell?” Righteous Drum hissed, sounding rather like his daughter at that moment, for all that the timbre of his voice remained low and menacing.
“I think I must,” Riprap said, his fingers running down the bracelets on his arm. Pearl knew he had marked their edges with different textures so he could read their class—if not precisely which spell was which—by touch. “Losing my memory of the Dog probably wouldn’t change me much, but Pearl and Des? They’ve shaped their whole lives around living up to their heritage. Maybe they’ll end up like that Albert Yu, a sort of weird parody of themselves, but maybe they’ll end up like Foster, who’s practically a zombie, for all he moves and thinks.”
Riprap’s fingers had come to rest on a bracelet while he talked, and now he stripped it off, flinging it to the floor at Righteous Drum’s feet. Pearl saw the manifestation of Wriggling Snakes. The small spectral reptiles began twining up Righteous Drum’s legs, both inside and outside his pants legs.
Riprap didn’t wait to see how effective the distraction would be, but surged forward, almost roaring with bottled-up tension. He didn’t have a weapon, but his big hands were weapons in themselves.
Righteous Drum responded by invoking another dragon spell, this one offensive, not defensive. A dragon with scales the color of iron ore and a rather grouchy look in its mud-brown eyes appeared. It launched itself at Riprap, stopping him in midstride with a slam of its body into his. Riprap’s new protective spell was enough to save him from gross injury, but not sufficient to keep the summoned dragon from wrapping its coils around his body.
Pearl wondered if Riprap could see the fearsome monster that now coiled around him, breathing a sour miasma into his face, or if he was wrestling blind. She wondered, too, how long Riprap’s protective spell could protect him from breathing the tainted air, and what effect the taint would have. She didn’t think it would be mortally poisonous, but certainly the effect would not be pleasant.
Meanwhile, Des had not wasted the opening Riprap’s attack had given him. He threw a bracelet directly at Righteous Drum, and Pearl saw the form of one of the least traditionally named spells—Gertie’s Garter—wrapping its bindings around Righteous Drum’s upper body, restricting his arms, as Riprap’s snakes were doing his legs. Spell cast, Des moved forward, his Rooster’s Talon poised to block any possible thrown spells, his right hand fumbling to slide another bracelet free for use.
Righteous Drum ignored the approaching Rooster, reciting a sequence of what had to have sounded like nonsense to Riprap, and probably to Des. Pearl, however, recognized the sequence as what she had been taught to call a Purity Hand, and groaned, knowing that in a moment both Wriggling Snakes and Gertie’s Garter would have been consigned to oblivion. Then what would Righteous Drum do? To this point his desire to steal his victim’s memories had made him take care not to harm their bodies, but how long would that constraint last?
He might decide that tracking down and assaulting Des’s heir would be easier than dealing with Des himself. Would he have the means to know where the power passed?
Then Pearl caught a glimpse of something so interesting that she was distracted from these unhappy thoughts and even from the battle in front of her.
The kitchen window was sliding open. When it was open about eighteen inches, a slim hand gripped the sill. A moment later, Brenda Morris pulled herself in, carefully lowering herself onto the kitchen counter. Her face was drawn and an aura of bleak tragedy lit her dark brown eyes.
Brenda looked like someone who felt she had very little left to lose, and who was spoiling for a fight. Suddenly Pearl’s soul, abstracted as it was, experienced a sensation curiously like hope.
Brenda’s knees were shaking as she rested her weight on the counter of a narrow, poorly lit kitchen. Climbing across the open air that separated the window from the rickety wooden staircase was an experience she suspected would haunt her nightmares, but it had been necessary. She’d had a bad time, though, hoping the window wouldn’t jam, hoping that if it did, she could get it open.
It had been both unlocked and slightly open, and she’d balanced over a nasty drop, while she forced the window far enough open that she could pull herself across and in.
Those gymnastics lessons weren’t a complete waste of time,
she thought.
But I don’t think I can ever tell Mom just how useful they turned out to be.
she thought.
But I don’t think I can ever tell Mom just how useful they turned out to be.
The air in the cramped kitchen smelled of sulfur and of something else that made Brenda want to cough and rub her eyes. She restrained the impulse. Given what she already knew about the situation, even a cough could be fatal.
From outside the kitchen she could hear Riprap grunting as if under some intense strain, and someone else chanting in Chinese. That was all she could hear, and the relative quiet bothered her more than any manner of commotion could have done. Was she too late? She saw Treaty’s case lying on the kitchen counter, but the sword itself was gone. Then, as she lowered herself to the floor and ventured forward, Brenda saw Treaty itself fallen to the boards of the outer room, just behind a man dressed rather tastelessly in a yellow button-down shirt and khaki trousers.
Righteous Drum, the Dragon,
she realized.
He came back or maybe even was here when they came in. Everything’s gone to hell!
she realized.
He came back or maybe even was here when they came in. Everything’s gone to hell!
Then Brenda saw what rested in Treaty’s case in place of the long sword: eight crystal spheres, each containing the likeness of an animal. Eight of the Thirteen Orphans—or at least their memories. This was what Pearl and the others had come to find, and that at least they had succeeded in doing.
Maybe everything isn’t quite gone to hell,
Brenda amended, following what she was sure was a pack-rattish impulse, and stuffing the crystals into a variety of pockets.
Brenda amended, following what she was sure was a pack-rattish impulse, and stuffing the crystals into a variety of pockets.
They felt heavier than they should have, each one heavier than the one before.
I guess this is what they mean by the weight of responsibility,
Brenda thought, and stepped out into the larger room.
Brenda thought, and stepped out into the larger room.
Des and Righteous Drum were circling each other. Brenda could see by the faint glow that haloed them that each had at least one protective spell in place, and that they were trying to find ways to penetrate the other’s defenses.
Riprap was tearing at open air that glowed pale yellow in the dying remnants of the All Green spell Brenda had cast in the park. He looked as if something was squeezing the breath out of him, and he was trying to pull it loose.
Pearl sat limply on the worn sofa. Nissa could be glimpsed seated in an almost identical attitude on the edge of a cot in the farther right of the two bedrooms. The absolute lack of interest they showed in the struggles going on before them told Brenda that the Dragon was ahead in this match. Two down, two to go, and both Riprap and Des were visibly fading.
Suddenly, everything she had been through in the last couple of days came to a head. Brenda privately thought of herself as a “firebrand”—one of the possible translations of her name—for far longer than she had thought of herself as a Rat. She didn’t exactly have a temper, but she hated bullies. That hatred was one of the things that had drawn her into student government.
Slim, dark of hair and eye, with skin of golden ivory when the rest of her family was either German or Irish fair, Brenda had come in for a lot more unkind teasing than her parents had ever realized. She’d given as good as she got, and now a sense of incredible unfairness rose in her and gave her a courage that she hadn’t known she possessed.
“God damn it all to hell!” she yelled. “I have just about had enough of you, Mr. Dragon, you and that pushy tart of a daughter of yours. You came into our lives and decided you could remove parts of them just like they were tumors or something. Well, I’m sick of your interfering. I’m sick of my dad acting like a weirdo. I’m sick of spending my summer taking a crash course in Chinese calligraphy. I’m sick of just about everything. Do you understand?”
Brenda knew she wasn’t making a heck of a lot of sense, but that didn’t matter. She was wearing the strongest of the defensive spells she had left—she hadn’t been about to climb over those windowsills without something to cushion her fall if she lost her balance. She still had up the All Green. The weakening spell didn’t offer a lot of detail, but what it did show her was that the bright ch’i that had emanated from the Dragon on their last visit was much depleted. Des and Riprap weren’t the only ones reaching their limit.
Stooping, Brenda retrieved Treaty from where it lay on the bare boards of the floor and held it in front of her in one hand, using a stance borrowed from a movie. Then she fished into her pocket for one of the crystal globes. This one had a yellow Ox in it, and remembering the stories Pearl had told of First Ox and her adoptive daughter Hua, Brenda felt a protective connection to whoever it was locked in there.
She held the Ox crystal up in her free hand so that the Dragon couldn’t miss what she had.
“I was there the night Pearl made her deal with you. You probably didn’t notice me. I was the doorkeeper.”
“I noticed you,” Righteous Drum said mildly. “And I can see from how you grasp the hilt of that sword that you don’t have the least idea how to use it. Put Treaty down. I offer you what your idiot friends were overconfident enough to reject: an end to this all. Give me the crystals and I will leave.”
“Hah!” Brenda said. She marched over to where Riprap still struggled with the invisible whatever the hell it was. “I remember the pact you made with Pearl, the pact you made to rescue your daughter. Our allies were to be safe from further interference by you and yours. Very well. I think I’ll try an experiment. I wonder if whatever is hurting Riprap can do so without harming the crystal as well?”
Worked up as she was, Brenda didn’t stand around like some villain from a comic book making speeches. Instead, she suited action to words and stuffed the crystal into the open collar of Riprap’s shirt. For a moment, nothing happened, but then Riprap relaxed slightly, and she guessed that whatever was squeezing him wasn’t doing so quite as hard.
In her hand, Treaty seemed to pulse, and Brenda knew that the strange magics the Exile Tiger had put into his chosen weapon were alert to a potential violation of an oath sworn upon its blade and name.
I’m glad I remembered how vulnerable the Foster crystal was to magical manipulation. Now, before the Dragon thinks of some attack that won’t harm the crystal …
Brenda grabbed a second crystal from another pocket—there was a white monkey in this one—and stuffed it down Riprap’s collar to roll down after the Ox. She didn’t wait to see whether Riprap was able to get free now. Instead, keeping Treaty raised, she pulled out a third crystal—this one holding a yellow sheep—and called to Des.
“Hey, Des. Basketball. Remember play four? Catch!”
Des grinned, and when she feinted right, he went left and neatly caught the crystal sphere as she passed it underhand. It wasn’t a basketball, but it flew straight and true, like it wanted to go where it was heading.
Treaty’s pulsing was visible now, a soft green light haloing the blade, becoming firmer, framing the metal with a sharpness that Brenda felt pretty certain would cut through even the dragons she could faintly glimpse circling Righteous Drum. Brenda found she was grinning from ear to ear. She suspected she looked a bit crazed.
“Treaty doesn’t like whatever it is you’re thinking, Mr. Dragon. I have absolutely no idea what it will do if you carry through, but I don’t think you’ll like it. And I figure that I’ll just have to go along with whatever Treaty wants. I doubt a Ratling like me has the ability to control a sword of truce when it sees that truce broken.”
“What are you?” Righteous Drum asked, his voice hoarse, with anger perhaps, perhaps with fear.
“I’m absolutely nothing at all,” Brenda said. “I’m a college student who has had my summer really screwed up. I’m Gaheris Morris’s daughter—although I think you knew that already. What am I? I don’t know. Do you want to push harder and help me find out?”
She had dug out the crystal holding a magnificent red Horse, and tossed that to Des to back-up the first crystal. She still held four crystals, and now she moved to place one—a yellow Dragon, which she thought oddly appropriate—on Pearl’s lap. Pearl’s hand moved with something like determination, making Brenda think that Righteous Drum’s hold was not as absolute as he might have thought. Within seconds those swollen-knuckled fingers were wrapped tightly around their prize.
There was no need to worry about protecting Nissa. As soon as whatever he’d been fighting had loosened up, Riprap had moved to the doorway of the room in which Nissa sat limp and uninterested. Brave Dog of Riprap’s father’s stories would have been very proud of his descendant. Brenda knew
she
wouldn’t have cared to cross that ferocious watchfulness.
she
wouldn’t have cared to cross that ferocious watchfulness.
Des spoke into the tense silence that had risen in the wake of Brenda’s hysterical harangue.
“Righteous Drum, why don’t you give it up? I have no more idea than Brenda how Treaty might take oath-breaking, but I suspect you do. The man who enchanted that sword was one of the original Thirteen Orphans. That means his magical traditions were probably closer to what you know than to the bastard versions we use now. Exile Tiger’s daughter has carried the sword since his death. Neither of them has ever been known to give an inch and if the legends are true that artifacts take after those with whom they associate then that’s going to be one ornery sword.”
The Dragon crumpled all at once. If Brenda hadn’t been so strung-up, she might have pitied him, for the pure weariness and grief that washed over him made Righteous Drum’s face suddenly look far older.
“All right! All right! I will honor the truce.”
“Sorry,” Brenda said. “That’s not enough. I want Pearl and Nissa back like they should be.”
The Dragon made a gesture and there was a sound of breaking stone and a ringing as of shattering glass.
“Done.”
“And I want the other crystals broken and the Orphans’ memories all returned to them. And I want you to promise you will leave us all alone from this day forth.”
Brenda had been collecting the crystals as she spoke, using the bottom of her shirt as a makeshift basket. Now she spread out the fabric, displaying the spheres in a mute command for him to act.
Righteous Drum held up his hand. “Wait! Before we speak of these things, I beg you. Have you harmed my daughter?”
Brenda blinked. She hadn’t realized that her sudden appearance might make Righteous Drum think that Brenda had somehow defeated Honey Dream, or at least severely disabled her. For a moment she was tempted to maintain a mysterious silence, but then she remembered that whatever else Righteous Drum was, this truly was a father who loved his daughter.
“No. Honey Dream is fine—but no thanks to you or to me. Foster stepped in when she was going to try something on me. I’d figured she would, and came prepared, and things might have gotten ugly.”
“Foster?”
“Flying Claw,” Brenda clarified unnecessarily. “Yeah. He stepped in. She gave him back his memory, but apparently he didn’t forget everything we’d done for him and he wouldn’t let her harm me.”
“Ah. So she is well?”
“She was the last time I saw her, back at the park. Foster was with her. Now, about those other things I want. No dawdling while you wait for reinforcements. Get to them.”
Righteous Drum stiffened, his face a mask of purest misery. “Wait. I am bound by conflicting loyalties. I wish to obey you, but it will not be easy.”
“You broke the other two crystals easily enough,” Brenda retorted. She’d glimpsed purposeful movement over behind Riprap and knew Nissa was safe.
“The spell was incomplete,” the Dragon said. “The complete spell is harder to break.”
Pearl spoke from beside Brenda, taking Treaty from the younger woman’s hand.
“Thank you, Brenda. I appreciate all you have done.” Then she turned to the Dragon. “My allies and I asked you to explain matters to us not long ago, and you weren’t interested. Give me a good reason why I should care to listen to your excuses now?”
“Because,” Righteous Drum said, “I beg you …”
Nissa had come to the doorway of the room in which she had been sitting, and now stood with her hand on Riprap’s shoulder.
“Pearl, let Righteous Drum talk,” she said. “We want to know what brought him here, don’t we? But I don’t think we should hold our coffee party here. For one, Lani’s going to be back home and wondering where we are. For another, I suspect your house is a lot safer for us than any place this man has been living. Brenda is right to wonder if he’s just stalling, waiting for reinforcements.”
“Or for his ch’i to build up again,” Des agreed. “Pearl, are your household wards up to letting this Dragon in the gates?”
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