Five Odd Honors

by Jane Lindskold

  The vomeronasal organ could operate passively, like all sense organs, but its particular sensory abilities were enhanced when Pearl curled back her lips and drew air into her mouth, tasting it as a wine connoisseur might a rare and unusual vintage. She breathed in now and caught faintly, distant and a touch rank, the odor of a male tiger.

  In nature, the territory of a female tiger may overlap that of several male tigers. Additionally, tigresses will share territory with their cubs, even when those cubs are two or three years old. Male tigers are far more exclusive in their choice of co-residents. A dozen leopards sharing their territory will not bother them, but a single rival tiger crossing over is a deadly challenge.

  In this thick and tangled jungle where Pearl now opened tiger’s eyes and surveyed her domain, Pearl’s instincts were those of a male tiger, for in the Chinese zodiac, the tiger is the most yang of all the signs, and although yang is not the same as male, the essense of male is very much yang.

  Thus, when Pearl Bright scented the presence of a male tiger, she considered whether or not to announce her presence.

  Flying Claw had raised the matter in his briefing.

  “Since you are not the challenger, there is no need for you to make your presence known. However, there are those who feel that failure to do so indicates cowardice.”

  Pearl had replied, “It seems to me that refraining from announcing myself would indicate prudence. Why give away my location before I must?”

  However, now that Pearl’s heart beat strong and steady in a tiger’s chest, the issue did not seem so simple. She sniffed the air again, and the scent of that other tiger annoyed her. Lifting her head and drawing in breath, she roared.

  A tiger’s roar is an impressive sound, loud enough to carry three miles. Pearl listened to the reverberating rumble fade, then roared again. Why not? It felt good.

  Then she set out to find the invader, noting with some disdain that although he was the challenger, he had not chosen to roar in turn.

  Despite having a sense of smell far keener than a human’s, a tiger does not hunt by scent as does a wolf or dog. Sight and sound are far more important to a tiger—those senses and the strange combination of scent and taste granted by the vomeronasal organ. Pearl’s mind—human intellect meshing with the instincts and training of the tiger—sought to use all of these senses to their best advantage. Yet, she found herself at war with emotional—or perhaps merely hormonal—urges from the tiger’s body.

  Her territory had been invaded. She was angry. Enraged. Threatened. Her primary desire was to find the invader and show him just who was the biggest, strongest, most dangerous tiger in all these jungles. Her intellect fought an increasingly futile battle against these tigerish impulses.

  In vain did Pearl warn herself that this invader tiger was no more a simple animal than she was herself. This tiger embodied Thundering Heaven, a man who had devoted himself with exclusive fanaticism to the arts of war, the arts he believed made him most suited to be the Tiger.

  There had been no acting in the theater for him, no standing on her mark before movie cameras, no long years of mostly rote physical training, training pursued because it was customary, because it helped her keep a trim figure well past menopause.

  Pearl’s intellect knew all of this, but the tiger she had become knew its own strength, gloried in the flexible power of bones and muscle and sinew, felt the sharpness of fangs with a tongue that could rasp through skin and scour flesh. The tiger felt her/his weight as paws left deep pug marks in the damp jungle soil.

  This tiger Pearl had become knew only that there was an invader, and that the invader must be dealt with. Clamoring with increasing futility from the depths of a mind striped red and white with fury and angry heat, Pearl felt the tiger taking charge, and wondered—from the depth of her doubts of her own abilities to win against Thundering Heaven in a purely physical contest—if the domination of the tiger might not be best.

  Thus the Tiger prowled deeper into the jungle, and the fragmenting threads that were Pearl Bright took note of what a strange jungle this was, a thing the Tiger, confident that this was his realm, did not note.

  Amid the thick-boled, vine-shrouded, broad-leafed trees that were what Pearl would have expected a jungle to contain were elements distinctly anomalous. Roses intertwined with jungle vines, their flowers recognizable as modern hybrids: the dark red of Don Juan, the butterscotch of Jactan, the cream-edged-with-rose of Handel.

  Once Pearl noticed the climbing roses, she became aware of the presence of shrub roses as well: hybrid teas neat and perfectly mannered despite their keeping company with broad-leafed bananas, thick stands of bamboo, and other, less recognizable jungle foliage. The messy profusion of floribunda and polyantha blossoms seemed perfectly in place in the verdant confusion.

  The Tiger growled. He had not noticed the roses except as fleeting perfume impeding his ability to read the trail. However, he noticed something far more important.

  Slashed bark on the trunk of a forest ancient, strips curling down fresh and bright, sap beading in the new wound, showed where the invader had left his mark. Pearl reared onto her hind legs, and extended long claws to cross his mark with her own. She was not able to reach quite as high as the invader had done, but to her satisfaction, her claws scored far deeper.

  Alongside the claw-marked tree was what at first glance looked like another tree trunk. It was broader and straighter, a far better choice for a marking post, and Pearl idly wondered why her opponent had not chosen it. She reached to mark it as her own, but when her paw touched it, she felt it move.

  Dropping to her haunches, Pearl sniffed. With her first intake of breath, she realized that this was no tree trunk but a plaster column, overgrown with moss and twined with vines and roses.

  She shook her head and coughed, voicing confusion. Raising her head and looking around, she now noted other such columns. They were arrayed in a semicircle around a raised dais of considerable size. There was something familiar about the place, a familiarity that had nothing to do with her Tiger’s life.

  In a moment, Pearl remembered. This was a stage set from one of her greater successes as a child actress. She had played a slave girl in ancient Rome, a talented child who had soothed the broken heart of a lovely patrician woman who still mourned a child lost to her some years before. Of course, by the end of the movie, Pearl’s character had been proven to be that missing child—reported dead of fever, but actually stolen away by pirates.

  Pearl had spent hours on this particular set, practicing and then filming complex song and dance routines that later would be intercut with shots of the admiring (and decadent) Romans.

  Unsettled, Pearl paced away from the vine-grown memory, but this last recognition had returned some balance between her mind and that of the Tiger, as if the beast realized that additional help would be needed to navigate these hunting grounds.

  Even as Pearl searched for the invader tiger’s pug marks, his scent posts, and noted the eerie silence that marked the jungle folk holding their collective breaths lest the hunting tiger take note of them, Pearl took in other unusual landmarks.

  There were traces of stage sets—usually from productions notable for some achievement on her part: a starring role, a flamboyant dance, a poignant song. There were fragments of the life Pearl had lived: the bedroom window from her first apartment canted between two trees, a favorite end table set neatly in the middle of a stream, a window box bright with purple and white petunias, a dress neatly arrayed on a hanger, a pair of ballet shoes, an antique teacup.

  Seeing these things anchored Pearl in herself, confirmed her in a dual nature in which the animal elements of the tiger were no longer dominant. This was her territory. She was the Tiger. She—Pearl Bright—specifically and uniquely her.

  Pearl was caught up in the realization of what this strange landscape might mean when there was a snarl behind her. The snarl became a blur of orange striped with sun and shadow, then a bright slice of pain in
the vicinity of the back of her neck.

  Pearl ducked, jerking the skin of her neck scruff loose before the fangs that sought a solid hold could fasten tightly. She knew full well that a tiger’s favorite hold is on the scruff . If powerful jaws cannot break the neck vertebrae beneath, then, with a slight readjustment, a crushing grip can suffocate the victim.

  She ripped herself free, seeing the blood that welled forth sparkle in the air like liquid rubies as she spun and attacked her yet unseen opponent.

  Fingernails like claws had been a cliche of the “bad girl” when Pearl had been younger. Even now she often made a quiet statement of her formidible femininty by painting her long, perfect nails a deep scarlet. But in reality fingernails are nothing like claws.

  Fingernails do not slide from sheaths within the toes as Pearl’s did now. She pivoted on her hind legs, reveling in the flexibilty of a torso that would let her strike directly behind even though the lower portion of her body was still oriented forward.

  Fingernails are not curved like hooks, nor are they sharp and thick enough to rake through a dense fur coat and draw blood from beneath the hide. Claws are and claws can. Pearl saw the flash of ivory fangs as the tiger who had attacked her snarled and sprang backward.

  But her attacker did not retreat. Neither did she. Snarling, he reared onto his back legs, swiping out with his right paw in feint and challenge. Pearl noted the reach of that slashing paw. It confirmed what she had noted at the signpost tree. Her opponent was larger than she was, his reach greater.

  Pearl dared hope she was the stronger, but she could not be certain, not until they grappled. Grappling was not a test she was eager to make, for if she guessed wrong, she might not come away alive from that deadly embrace.

  Tail lashing, Pearl struck back—right paw, left paw, right—gauging her opponent by his reactions, seeing if he could be led.

  Despite the blood that darkened his fur where her claws had cut, he was unfazed. Pearl flattened her ears and snarled at the confidence he exuded. He had no doubt who would win this match. He was even playing with her, aware of her uncertainties.

  Raw anger powered her next blow.

  When Pearl struck there was nothing of the test about it. Her opponent—Thundering Heaven, she suddenly remembered—her father, Thundering Heaven, grown sure of his superior reach, did not dodge in time. Pearl caught him solidly on the side of his head, cutting into an ear. It was not a deep cut, but beads of blood dripped from the dark ear tip to stain the white fur of the spot that dotted the back of his ear, dripped into the white face ruff below.

  Thundering Heaven snarled and lashed out at Pearl, but she was ready for his counterattack and sprang backward. He lunged, rearing up to take advantage of his greater size, springing forward. She leapt to one side, trying to get an angle from which she could reach his vulnerable hindquarters. He scooted them out of her reach, reorienting with incredible swiftness.

  They sparred, occasionally drawing blood, but neither doing more than scoring the other’s coat. Eventually, on each, golden orange fur acquired added stripes of muddy, dark red stripes that, trickling into the white fur of ruff and underbelly, marked the course of a wound in vivid scarlet.

  They snarled, chuffed, and hissed as they fought. Soon both were panting, foam and saliva dripping from open mouths . They were well enough matched—her greater dexterity eliminating the advantage of his greater size and weight, both of them skilled in combat—that Pearl began to feel the battle could go on forever.

  Or at least until one of them made a mistake, and as they grew weary, one of them was certain to make that mistake. Thus far she had avoided close combat, where forepaws would grip shoulders and rear paw would rake belly and flanks. Yet that moment was approaching, for soon neither of them would have the strength to dodge. Close combat—and mortal wounds—would be inevitable.

  As Pearl slashed out with her right paw, lunging to bring her fangs to bear at an apparently open spot on her opponent’s right shoulder, she forced herself to consider.

  Pearl tried to remember the location of the ruins of the theater where once she had sung and danced the role of a Roman slave. She had been circling back to take another look at those ruins when Thundering Heaven had sprung upon her. They shouldn’t be far away.

  Pearl waited until Thundering Heaven was rearing back to bat at her again with paws that were beginning to slow in the rapidity of their blows—but then so were her own. This time, instead of blocking and counterattacking, she wheeled and began to run.

  Pearl knew the danger of this tactic, for tigers prefer to spring on their prey from behind, so much so that the sight of a face apparently staring at them—as in a mask worn on the backside of the head—has been known to dissuade even a confirmed man-eater from attacking.

  Pearl had no mask. Indeed, the sight of her apparently fleeing should give Thundering Heaven the renewed strength of confidence.

  Yes. He was giving chase. She ran harder.

  Even on the damp ground of the jungle, Pearl could hear him coming after her, hear the dull thuds of his paws hitting the ground. She ran, long body stretching out with each leap, rear legs gathering in behind to push off almost before they touched. Panic at what would happen if Thundering Heaven should come close enough to leap onto her back gave Pearl the added speed she needed to stay just that far ahead.

  Mossy green over glimmering white, the pillars of the stage set showed against the browner trunks of the natural trees, obvious now that Pearl knew what she was looking for. She did not dare slow, but ran near to one of the pillars, cornering like a horse on a barrel racing course, close but not too close. She wove in and out of the pillars, thinking crazily of Little Black Sambo with the tiger chasing him, racing round and round the tree until at last the tiger turned into butter.

  Pearl cut closer, closer, not quite touching but feeling her fur brush against the moss-covered, vine-shrouded plaster. Her control was perfect, that of a dancer who could perform complexly choreographed routines, that of an actress who always kept within her spot. Then it happened.

  Thundering Heaven—larger than she was, made furious by having his prey in reach but ever just out of reach—cut too close to one of the pillars. Had the pillars been the trees they resembled, this would not have mattered. He maybe would have bruised a rib, but would have come on hardly hindered.

  But these were not trees, but plaster pillars. A full-grown tiger can weigh more than six hundred pounds, and Thundering Heaven was a very large tiger indeed, a very large tiger running with all the strength of his powerful hind legs.

  Thundering Heaven crashed into the pillar, and the pillar broke. The upper part swayed and snapped, falling heavily to smash not onto Thundering Heaven—that would have been too much luck—but into the next nearest pillar.

  Pearl, hearing the thud of impact, the snarl of rage and indignation that burst from Thundering Heaven as the “tree” broke, dared wheel about.

  She saw her attacker momentarily halted, ears and whiskers twitching in every direction as he sought a clear path out of the rain of falling plaster.

  Plaster is neither rock nor wood, but heavily packed, sodden with drifting mist, it is not insignificant either. Moreover, not just one but several pillars were falling.

  Pearl stood on her hind legs and pushed with her forepaws against the nearest intact pillar. She shoved hard and the pillar toppled, bringing with it another pillar, for a mesh of vines had grown between, netting them together.

  It was a sensational sight, but Pearl knew this mess of falling plaster was only a distraction. She had regained some of her wind. Now, while Thundering Heaven was distracted, she did the one thing Flying Claw had not told her was essential to winning this battle.

  Had not told her, because he could not have known.

  With a surge of ch’i, Pearl forced herself back into her human shape. The jungle had told her what each Tiger must learn for herself—or himself—the secret that each Tiger will not tell even the most beloved
apprentice.

  Yes. To be the Tiger, and to maintain your place as the Tiger, you must be able to shape a tiger and to hold your own in a fight in that form.

  But you are also human. It must be both as a human and as a tiger that you confront your challenger. Let the tiger alone rule and even the best fighter may well lose, for the challenger will come at you with all the fresh, raw arrogance of the tiger’s form—a form that, in anticipation of this battle, he will have practiced to perfection. Let the human alone rule, and you will never have the strength to wear down your opponent.

  So Pearl stood as a human while the slobbering, snarling, bleeding, plastercoated tiger that was her father’s ghost paced up to her.

  She raised her hands and shaped the Tiger’s wind, the wind of the eastnortheast, and caused it to place a barrier between them.

  Then she did the little spell called Dragon’s Breath and from it sent forth a gust of flame to scorch the whiskers of the tiger that was Thundering Heaven.

  And somewhere in the back of her mind Pearl heard her mother’s voice reading from The Jungle Book, about how the hunter Buldeo had bent to scorch Sher Khan’s whiskers, because if you don’t scorch his whiskers the tiger’s ghost will haunt you. Overhearing, her father had commented that the kuei—the ghosts of those the tiger killed—are far worse than any tiger’s ghost.

  “Back,” Pearl said, and Thundering Heaven’s bloodied ears flattened against his head at the sound of her human voice. “Leave this place, or I will begin to fight you in all earnest.”

  Pearl had expended a bit of the ch’i she had stored before coming to answer this challenge, but she still maintained ample reserves. She used some now, so that she might augment her senses both to match those of the tiger and to see things arcane as well as natural, for she did not trust Thundering Heaven not to attempt to fool her with some spell of his own.