Thirteen Orphans

by Jane Lindskold

“Almost everything,” Righteous Drum said, “has happened before. That makes it no less unpleasant when it happens to you. Your Dog has implied that since our allies have lost the war, we will need to remain here. I, for one, have no desire to remain in this universe. I have family in the Lands Born from Smoke and Sacrifice, as well as friends and students. I could not abandon them, especially if the situation is as dire as the Monkey reports.”

  Brenda nodded. She could understand this response. The uncomfortable beginnings of an idea were growing at the back of her mind. She was about to explore them further when almost simultaneously the doorbell rang and there came a rapping on the side gate.

  “They’ll wake Lani!” Nissa said, springing to her feet and moving inside the house to listen for cries from upstairs.

  Brenda ran for the gate.

  “Stop making all that noise! We hear you!” she called, keeping her voice low. A hammering in her chest told her, before she’d even slid aside the panel in the door, who would be there.

  Honey Dream the Snake stood with her hand on the wrought iron ring that served as a knocker. Flying Claw, looking almost familiar in the clothes Foster had worn when he had left the house that morning, stood a few paces behind her. From the way he was glancing up at the windows on the second floor, Brenda realized that he had remembered that Lani was likely to be in bed.

  The expression made him seem almost familiar, but the gaze he turned on her remained three-quarters a stranger’s.

  “Hang on,” Brenda said, “and keep it down. I’ll tell Pearl you’re here.”

  She did. With a deep sigh and mutterings about letting enemies within her wards, Pearl said to let them come in, so Brenda went and opened the gate. The other two came in past her, and she couldn’t resist sniffing just a little as Flying Claw went by, wondering if regaining his memories had changed his familiar scent.

  Brenda thought it had, and wondered if the new odor blended in had anything to do with Flying Claw, or only that he’d spent the last few hours doing a lot of worrying and sweating.

  As Brenda closed and latched the gate, locking a massive array of locks that made perfect sense on a movie star’s garden gate, Honey Dream launched into her report.

  “Flying Claw and I were talking, and I was filling him in on things that had happened when we both felt this surge. Flying Claw recognized right away that someone was attempting to establish a link to our bridge.”

  She’s still trying to prove to her dad that Foster—Flying Claw—was worth coming after, Brenda thought. Well, recent developments are going to make Righteous Drum really unlikely to argue the point. He said there were many Tigers, many Snakes. I guess that’s not the case any longer. There’s just these guys … and us.

  “We went back to the apartment and did some investigating.” Honey Dream glanced over at Flying Claw. “This is really your part. You figured it out.”

  Flying Claw stood very straight. “Our bridge home has been broken. It is not merely barred against us. It no longer exists.”

  “You are certain?” Righteous Drum’s question was snapped out in the tones of a commander seeking confirmation, not as an expression of either hope or doubt.

  “I am.”

  “So we are stranded here,” Waking Lizard said, his tone filled with disbelief.

  “For now,” Righteous Drum replied. “Only for now. There are other routes. That bridge was only the fastest and most efficient. Flying Claw, could you tell if the bridge was destroyed deliberately, or merely as a side result of our enemies pursuing Waking Lizard?”

  Flying Claw reflected. “I think the destruction of the bridge was not done deliberately. After all, why should they create more labor for themselves when they come after us?”

  Pearl cut in, forcefully interjecting herself into a conversation that had been—since Honey Dream’s arrival—dominated by the four from the Lands Born from Smoke and Sacrifice. Brenda saw the others start, as if they had been so absorbed in their own problems that they had momentarily forgotten where they were—or that others were listening.

  “Why should your enemies come after you?” Pearl asked, but Brenda thought the older woman already suspected. “Is the urge for vengeance so strong—or is it something else?”

  “Why will they come after us? Think on it, Tiger Lady,” the Dragon said, and his tone was not in the least mocking. “They will come after us for the same reasons we came after you—and with even greater cause. Four of the Earthly Branches have slipped their grasp: Tiger, Dragon, Snake, and now Monkey. Moreover, if they learn why we came here—as they surely will—they will almost certainly wish to come after the fragments that were already lost.”

  “Soon?” Nissa said, and something in the way she stood made Brenda think she was about to rush up the stairs and grab Lani, though where they could hide would be anyone’s guess.

  “Probably not too soon,” Waking Lizard said. “When I fled—and I admit, that’s what I did—our enemies had not yet consolidated their hold on the Jade Petal Throne. They will need to anoint their emperor first. Then there will be alliances to make, diplomatic ties to affirm. But they will come, never let yourself believe otherwise. They will come.”

  Brenda felt the thought she had been exploring snap into shape. “Not if we go after them first.”

  “Offer ourselves up in sacrifice?” Righteous Drum asked in shock.

  Riprap laughed. “You don’t know Brenda. She means we should go after them rather than waiting for them to come after us. I’m not sure I don’t agree.”

  Nissa was slowly lowering herself back into her chair, momentary panic replaced with calculation.

  “Count me in,” she said. “Lani and I couldn’t hide forever, and the others coming here would put my sisters and their children at risk.”

  Des smiled and touched the amulet bracelets encircling his wrist. “I, too, am a parent, and although my children are Brenda’s age, I would not have them endangered.”

  Pearl shook her head. “Not so fast, my friends. I understand your impulse. I even share it, but there are two questions that must be answered before we can commit to anything.”

  Honey Dream sneered at the older woman.

  “Like what you might face on the other side or how dangerous the journey might be?”

  Brenda fought down an urge to punch the Snake, even though some wiser core within herself knew that Honey Dream was voicing her personal fears. Pearl must have realized that as well, for she shook her head and even managed a kind, almost motherly smile.

  “No, young lady, not that at all.” She turned to face Righteous Drum and Waking Lizard, but her body language did not shut out Flying Claw. Only Honey Dream was snubbed as if a child, unworthy of consultation.

  Pearl says more with a gesture than I can with a thousand words, Brenda thought, swallowing a smile, and the best thing is that no one can call her on it.

  “I must know two things,” Pearl said, “before we can agree to help you.”

  “And if we refuse?” Righteous Drum retorted.

  “I should think that would be obvious,” Pearl replied, and her smile was dangerous. “If we do not aid you, then we must be against you. Do you really want enemies behind you, as well as in your homeland?”

  Righteous Drum blinked slowly and scanned his small cohort. “Ask your questions.”

  “Very good,” Pearl replied. “The first is this. If we agree to help you, will you agree to free those who remain trapped within your crystals?”

  Righteous Drum opened his mouth as if to speak, but Pearl held up a slim hand for silence. The implicit command in the gesture held him.

  “Second, we have arrived at the conclusion that someone advised you upon your arrival in our world. Will you tell us who that advisor was?”

  Pearl paid great attention to the silence that followed her two questions. She had called the statements “questions,” but she and all the others knew them for what they were: demands.

  The silence stretched, but Pearl di
d not expect heated debate to break out among the four who might give answer to her questions. Three, in the case of the second matter, for she doubted if the Monkey knew the identity of the informant.

  Debate was something that happened among equals, and the Chinese were not strong believers in natural equality. They had some of the finest hierarchical markers ever evolved by a society, with an elaborate system of academic examinations to provide a release valve to bleed off pressure.

  An interesting contrast to how American society works. In the United States, we cultivate the illusion that all are equal, despite numerous indications that this is not so. The Chinese, in contrast, have long cultivated the illusion that anyone—in particular any man—might prove himself superior, never mind that an illiterate peasant would find reading a promotional examination, much less studying for one, impossible. Still, it is the release valves that let a society continue to function.

  So Pearl waited, knowing that the Dragon would be the one to decide whether an immediate answer would be forthcoming. He outranked both the Tiger and the Snake in age and experience. The Monkey had come to him as a supplicant. She waited, and saw her own allies put aside their more contentious natures to imitate her. At long last, Righteous Drum the Dragon spoke.

  “I can see why you would not wish to work with us while we held your friends and relatives as hostages against your actions—never mind that we have sworn not to harm them. You would be rightly concerned. Moreover, it is to our advantage that we release them.”

  Snake’s mouth twisted in an ironic grimace. “Why should we make it easier for our opponents to collect the Earthly Branches? Let them do the work. Let them figure out how to parse souls.”

  “So you will free the remaining Thirteen Orphans?” Pearl asked.

  “A compromise,” Righteous Drum countered. “We will free some of your number—say half—as a sign of goodwill. The rest will be freed after the alliance between us is signed.”

  “Very well,” Pearl said. “As long as we may choose the half who will be released. Now, as to the other matter … Who aided you?”

  Righteous Drum met her gaze. “That is more difficult. I would prefer not to reveal that person’s identity, but rather to assure you that since our informant would no longer need to inform us, any danger—or difficulty—this person could offer you is ended. Our informant acted under coercion. When that coercion is lifted, you would have no reason to dread further difficulties.”

  Riprap was frowning. “But how do we know that you wouldn’t apply that same coercion again?”

  “I cannot explain the nature of the coercion without revealing the identity of the one who acted as our informant and advisor. All I can say is that if we become your allies the source of the coercion will no longer exist.”

  Nissa’s frown mirrored Riprap’s. “Can you tell us at least this much? Was the one you call your informant one of the Thirteen—our Thirteen?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was he—or she—one of those gathered here?”

  “No.”

  Des looked no more happy than the others, but he shrugged. “Righteous Drum does have a point, Pearl. If their informant was one of us, and if we’re going to need every one of us—as I suspect we will—then can we afford to reduce our strength?”

  Brenda was nervously rubbing her hand along the edge of her jawbone. “But if we don’t know—how can we trust each other, how can we trust knowing that someone was willing to help these people perform lobotomies on us?”

  “Trust,” Pearl said, hearing the acid in her voice and quickly moderating the tones, “is highly overrated. I prefer vigilance and carefully worded contracts.”

  Brenda looked at Pearl, startled, realized the anger that had touched Pearl’s voice had not been directed at her, and relaxed.

  “So you say we should agree to these terms?”

  Pearl let herself smile a slow cat’s smile.

  “Rather, let me say that this can be a starting point on which we can base our contract.”

  She reached down and touched the sword Treaty, which, cased, had not left her side since she had regained her senses in that ramshackle apartment in Japantown. The hum of the blade underscored her words.

  “I am rather good at negotiating contracts.”

  Some days later, it was all settled. Brenda did her best to help with the treaty that Pearl was working out with Righteous Drum. She knew that document was vitally important, that she should keep alert for loopholes like the ones that had slipped into the first pact.

  But two things kept distracting her.

  One was having Gaheris Morris back and himself again. Brenda had grown so accustomed to having her father not knowing what was going on that she found herself having trouble settling into their former relationship once his memory was returned. Unlike Pearl and Nissa, who reported having been somewhat aware of events going on in the immediate vicinity of the crystals, Gaheris and the others remembered nothing out of the ordinary.

  They recalled the events of the intervening weeks—or in some cases, months—since their memories were captured, but other than a few, their Dragon and Albert Yu in particular, who reported unusually vivid dreams, the excision had been complete.

  Gaheris Morris was no different from the others. He remembered nothing, and while this bothered him, he seemed to take it in stride. It was Brenda who had difficulty accepting his attitude. She realized she was being unfair, but she felt betrayed both by her father’s lapse and then by his inability to see how difficult he had made things for her. He’d forced her into the Rat’s role without the Rat’s abilities. He hadn’t been there for her, and wasn’t that what parents were for?

  Worse, he had no better guess than anyone else as to why Brenda should have maintained that tenuous connection to the Rat. In fact, Brenda thought—though she knew she could be wrong, could be projecting or something—that Gaheris even resented her managing not only to cope but also to handle her role as the Ratling with something of a flourish.

  As much as it pained and confused her, Brenda found herself almost glad for this newly complicated relationship with her father. It almost managed to keep her from thinking about the other person who was troubling her: the other Tiger, Flying Claw, Foster.

  He wasn’t living at Pearl’s house now. Pearl had arranged for the four refugees to have a nice suite at a rather exclusive local hotel. She intimated to the hotel manager—without actually saying so—that her guests were associated with the Chinese film industry. This covered their varying abilities to speak English and any oddities of behavior. After all, film people were weird already; being foreign was just a garnish.

  But the four refugees in groups of various sizes came over to Pearl’s house on a daily basis. Flying Claw had even agreed to swear to a preliminary treaty, agreeing to cause no harm while within Pearl’s house, so that he could interact with Lani much as before. The little girl had been agitated and aggravated that “Foster,” as she persisted in calling him, was no longer staying with them. When “Foster” had not been permitted to come into the house and play with her, her unhappiness had escalated to dangerous levels.

  So not only did Brenda have to see Flying Claw every day, he was in and out of the house, the sound of his laughter mingling with Lani’s, the entire situation making Brenda almost believe that things could go back to the way they had been.

  They couldn’t though. There was Honey Dream seated by her father, going over the terms of the treaty with a sophisticated knowledge and care that reminded Brenda again and again that, although they were within a few years of each other in age, Honey Dream had long been an adult, whereas Brenda—as her confused reactions to her father brought home to her more than ever—was still, at least in some situations, a child.

  There was Flying Claw himself, for although he laughed and played with Lani almost as he had before, there was a reserve to him that had not been there. The competitive light that had shone when they played Yahtzee or basketball was pre
sent almost continuously now, a watchfulness, a tiger crouched and ready to spring.

  Brenda couldn’t decide how she felt about this new version of a man she had thought she loved. To deny the love seemed like treachery, but if Foster was truly gone, why should she love the stranger who had stolen his face and form?

  By odd coincidence, the new contract was completed on the third of July. It seemed auspicious to everyone—even those from the Lands, once the significance of the date was explained to them—that the contract be signed on the fourth.

  “Fitting,” Righteous Drum said, “for the signing of this Declaration of Independence of which you speak was also in its way a formal declaration of war.”

  Waking Lizard grinned. “Also all the fireworks will be certain to frighten away the evil spirits.”

  The opposition—soon to be formally transformed into allies—arrived shortly before the appointed hour. Three of them—Tiger, Dragon, and Snake—were attired in their most formal robes. Monkey’s had been shredded, but he was clad in a robe Des had loaned him. With his long white hair and beard combed, Waking Lizard looked much more formal than Brenda had ever seen him—even impressive.

  Their own group was much less uniform. For her own private reasons, Pearl eschewed whatever robes she possessed in her role as Tiger, and instead wore a neat summer suit in pale green linen, much as she would have to a business meeting. Des had packed his Rooster robes, silvery white garments so elaborately embroidered that the under color was almost lost. Gaheris Morris wore one of his business suits, black, of course. Albert Yu, still a stranger to Brenda, although he had been at Pearl’s house daily for the negotiations, wore what looked like emperor’s robes.

  The other four were less formal, partly because shopping for dress clothing had not been high on their list of priorities. Des, their fashion consultant in all things, said that as long as they wore something in which their zodiac animal’s color dominated, even torn clothing would be appropriate.

  Therefore, Riprap wore jeans and a pale yellow button-down shirt. Nissa wore a summer dress in a floral print with plenty of green foliage. Lani bounced around in overalls with a bunny on the bib front.