Thundering Heaven’s aura held the brilliant shades of anger and fury. The colors of intellect and rationality were present, but pale within that raging storm. He crouched close to the earth. His ears were pinned back and his fur was tousled as he tested the barrier made by the east-northeast wind.
Pearl studied him, wondering if this creature possessed even the intellect to talk to her.
“Take your human form,” she commanded, adding as a goad, “if you can manage to do so that is. If you do not, I will force you into it.”
The crouching tiger snarled. The angry aura dampened slightly and the intellect flared as Thundering Heaven retook his human form.
The transformation was swift, but for the briefest moment, Pearl clearly saw something that nearly shocked her into losing control over her spells. A woman’s form, spectral and wraithlike, stood behind Thundering Heaven.
Malice flowed from the woman like cold wind sweeping off a glacier. Then the woman vanished—but feeling that lingering chill, Pearl did not think the specter was gone.
Pearl seized the moment her father needed to orient himself to enhance her protective spells. A wind alone could not protect her from the malice she had felt. Who was Thundering Heaven’s strange ally? Pearl had not recognized her.
But neither did Thundering Heaven seem aware of her. He now stood on his own human feet. Unlike Pearl, who had healed herself in the act of accepting her dual nature, he remained battered, blood seeping from various wounds, his mien cringing, but Pearl had no doubt that if his ears had been able to move, they would have been pinned back and a defiant snarl would have twisted his features.
“Do you admit yourself fairly beaten?” Pearl demanded of Thundering Heaven. “Or must we continue this ridiculous battle?”
Thundering Heaven had appeared to Loyal Wind and Nine Ducks as a warrior in his prime, but looking beyond his wounds Pearl saw that to her he had manifested as he had looked when she was a rebellious young woman in her early teens, and he, although past his prime, still a powerful disciplinarian.
She wondered if this was a conscious choice, if he sought to intimidate her with old memories, or if this was simply how he saw himself in relation to her.
If Thundering Heaven was hoping to intimidate, the form was not a bad choice, for Pearl’s skin prickled with goose bumps of remembered fear when his familiar voice spoke.
“Fairly beaten?” he said. “Beaten, certainly, but could you hold your own if you let that wind drop?”
“That is not the point,” Pearl said. “I will not let this wind drop, nor release any of my other protections. They are my right as the Tiger, as much mine as claws or fangs. Why shouldn’t I use them?”
“Would you fight me spell to spell?” Thundering Heaven snarled.
“Would you?” she replied with insulting mildness.
“No,” he said, and the one word was like a tiger’s chuff . “No. Not with me worn, and you in your glory. I thought you would fight this fairly.”
“I have,” Pearl said. “I am the Tiger and this is my jungle. No warrior fights with fists when he can raise a sword. Now. Will you honor your agreement and surrender Bent Bamboo, the Monkey, to me, or must I continue to batter you?”
“I will,” Thundering Heaven said, and the words were pulled from him in halting cadence, “give Bent Bamboo the Monkey to you—or rather I will let his ghost come to meet with you. But convincing him to take up your cause . . .”
Thundering Heaven laughed, and it was an ugly sound.
“That will be your problem.”
Loyal Wind and Nine Ducks found Bent Bamboo, the Monkey, waiting for them in the little bit of paradise that was to him as the pavilion by the lake was to Nine Ducks.
Given the philandering that had defined the earlier years of the Monkey’s life, Loyal Wind would have expected Bent Bamboo to find his ideal afterlife in a pleasure palace or perhaps in a garden where lovely women outnumbered the flowers.
Instead, when they entered Bent Bamboo’s chosen domain, they found themselves in a drugstore soda fountain. The only available seats were at the long counter. There were ample empty stools. Down at the end of a counter a man wearing a drab brown uniform was sipping a cola and flirting with a waitress as she scooped ice cream into various curvilinear glasses.
Backing the counter, occupying both booths and small, round wire-legged tables, were young people. Most seemed to be about high school– aged, on the threshold of adulthood, very much enjoying their ability to show their independence.
One young couple sipped something frothy and very pink from a single tall,fluted glass. Four young men in a booth laughed loudly over something a shy, bespectacled young man had said as he paused by their table. A rosy blush crept over the speaker’s face, but he didn’t seem entirely displeased. Down by the register, a girl hardly large enough to see over the counter dug in a little purse for coins to settle her bill.
Loyal Wind had died in mainland China, so in life he had never been inside such a place, but he had maintained an awareness of the world of the living. After some consideration, he decided the soda fountain might be just right for a Monkey—a place of easy socializing, of physical indulgence, even of casual carnality.
None of those gathered in this busy establishment seemed to notice the man and woman who had just taken their seats at the counter, not even though Loyal Wind wore leather armor adorned with highly polished metal studs and a pheasant tail– plumed helmet, and Nine Ducks a heavily—even overly—embroidered yellow shenyi.
Only one person noticed them, a counterman clad in white trousers, white shirt, and white shoes. He looked about twenty-five, just a little older than the majority of his customers. His most notable features were large ears that stuck out like jug handles from the sides of his head and wistful brown eyes that were far too sad and old for his youthful face. A white paper hat perched on his short-cropped black hair, maintaining its place in defiance of both logic and gravity.
When the counterman turned, Loyal Wind was not in the least surprised to recognize Bent Bamboo, the Monkey. Bent Bamboo ambled over to them, his gait loose-limbed and slack, then gave the counter in front of them a few lazy swipes with a damp rag.
“I suppose,” Bent Bamboo said in a tone of voice that would have been more appropriate if he were asking for their order, “this is where you tell me just how badly I’ve screwed everything up, not just in listening to Thundering Heaven, although anyone in their right mind could see the glint of madness in his eyes, but as far back as when we made our initial pact, and then later when I led you to believe that the wrong boy was my new heir apparent.”
Nine Ducks looked at the Monkey, her expression holding sorrow rather than anger. “I suppose we could, but since you’ve figured it out for yourself that would be a waste of energy. Why don’t we talk about whether you’re willing to join with us in our new venture, in our chance to make it all right again?”
“You mean this idea,” Bent Bamboo said, “that you have about some of us resuming our association with our Branches, taking them onto ourselves so that the Ninth Gate can be opened and the Exiles—both more recent and the original Thirteen—return home again.”
“That idea,” Nine Ducks agreed mildly. “Do you have a problem with that?”
“Lots,” Bent Bamboo said. He turned away from them and went to fetch two glasses of ice water from the prep area behind him. “For one, how is that going to solve the problem of the Earthly Branches being split between the Lands Born from Smoke and Sacrifice and the Land of the Burning? Have the living realized that merely opening the Ninth Gate will not be sufficient, that this will not cause the Branches to rejoin? Are the newcomers from the Lands—Righteous Drum and all—prepared to accept this?”
Loyal Wind sipped his water, deciding this was Bent Bamboo’s way of fulfilling the traditional offering of food to a guest. The water tasted very good: crisp, clean, and bright, like a handful of newly fallen snow.
Keeping his voice low—
for he could not quite believe that the chattering people around them were simply adornments of a lonely ghost’s fantasy—Loyal Wind replied. “The Orphans—at least those who have remained aware of their heritage to some extent—are aware that simply opening the gate will not solve the problem. They have promised that, if necessary, they will do what they can to put their new allies in power again. In turn, the new allies seem resigned to accepting that the Earthly Branches are split and will remain so.”
Bent Bamboo had listened politely. Now he returned to the service counter. When he turned to face them, he set before each a cut crystal dish of sherbet hued in brilliant shades of yellow, orange, red, and vibrant, unrealistic green. The confection smelled vividly of tangy fruit juices. Loyal Wind reached for his spoon without hesitation.
If there was one good thing about being dead, it was that no one could poison you.
“So there is an understanding for after the Ninth Gate has been opened,” Bent Bamboo said heavily. “That’s good. From what Thundering Heaven hinted when he was convincing me to join his side, the balance of power has shifted since Righteous Drum took his two young associates off on what was supposed to be a quick jaunt.”
Loyal Wind wanted to know more, but he also didn’t want to seem surprised. “We have had some indication of this, from prisoners our living associates took when they were attacked. Also, Waking Lizard . . .”
“The Monkey who died,” Bent Bamboo said, his tones even more gloomy.
“Waking Lizard spoke of strange weapons and new tactics,” Loyal Wind went on. “However, he was the first to admit that he was no warrior, and could do little more than repeat secondhand what he had heard their Horse—”
“Who also died,” Bent Bamboo interrupted, sotto voce.
“—had said before what would be his final battle.”
“Died,” Nine Ducks said, tasting the word far more thoughtfully than she had the sherbet she had been spooning up with quiet enthusiasm. “Have you encountered either Waking Lizard or this other Horse here in the afterlife? Waking Lizard is likely still working his way through the intricacies of judgment and adjustment. . . .”
“Monkeys are not entered in the judges’ books,” Bent Bamboo said, “or so the legends say.”
Nine Ducks ignored him. “But that Horse . . . I wonder. Now that I consider, probably he is also still caught up in transition. Not more than a few months can have passed since his death. So much has happened in so little time.”
Loyal Wind felt Nine Ducks was forgetting their purpose in seeking out Bent Bamboo.
“Those others are no longer essential,” he said. “What is essential is learning whether or not Bent Bamboo will join us in helping to open the final gate.”
“Am I the last hold out?” Bent Bamboo asked.
“You are,” Nine Ducks said. “I have been speaking with the others. Even Gentle Smoke, the Snake, whose heir lives but is very elderly, and therefore unfit to make this journey, has agreed to temporarily retake her hold on the Sixth Earthly Branch and assist us.”
“Temporarily,” said Bent Bamboo slowly. “So that’s all we get out of this—to turn a key in a lock, then go back to our afterlives?”
“We had better hope we can do that much,” Nine Ducks said bluntly. “The Earthly Branches have clung to their association with the living, shunning the dead. The plan the Orphans have come up with assumes that we will be able to reassociate ourselves.”
“So it’s not certain,” Bent Bamboo said. A slow smile spread over features that had been somber. “Well, nothing like a challenge. Count me in.”
“Who was that woman?” Brenda asked the morning following Pearl’s battle against Thundering Heaven.
Morning was something of an exaggeration. After sitting up so late, just about everyone in the household had slept in. It was closer to lunch by the time everyone had assembled around the long table.
Their number had been augmented by two. Des had driven over to Colm Lodge, briefed Righteous Drum and Honey Dream, and then brought them back to Pearl’s house.
Brenda marveled that Des could have done this—and not because he’d managed to remain clear-eyed and alert despite the late night they’d all had. Des, like the Rooster, awoke alert and with a clear head.
No, what made her head ring as if her hold on reality was shaking was that all of them had been witness to Pearl’s response to Thundering Heaven’s challenge. All of them but one: Flying Claw claimed to have seen nothing other than his companions drifting into a light trance, leaving him to sit alone, aware that momentous events were occurring but unable to witness them.
Last night, they’d told Flying Claw enough to assure him that Pearl was the victor. Then they had all stumbled to their beds, more exhausted than their late vigil merited. Clearly, the contact with Pearl’s vision had drained their personal ch’i.
Crowded together into their shared bathroom, brushing their teeth and hair, Nissa and Brenda had speculated why Flying Claw alone hadn’t shared in the vision.
“Maybe it’s because he’s a Tiger, and c ouldn’t know the secret of the Tiger’s test,” Brenda had said, patting back a yawn.
“Maybe it’s because he’s not an Orphan,” Nissa said, adding hastily as Brenda, too tired to hide how this statement wounded her fragile sense of belonging, started to protest. “I mean one of us, one of our tradition. Stop being a pill, Breni. You’re not the Rat. You never let us forget it. However, you are Gaheris’s heir apparent. You are one of us.”
“I know,” Brenda said around her toothbrush. She leaned into Nissa, in a sort of sloppy hug. She spat out toothpaste and wondered if she had the energy to rinse her mouth. “I’m an idiot. I’m sorry. I’m too tired to figure out anything complex now.”
“In the morning,” Nissa agreed. “That will be soon enough. It had better be.”
So now it was morning, and if Brenda didn’t feel exactly chipper, she didn’t feel much more groggy than she usually did before her first cup of coffee.
She poured that coffee, and grabbed a large chunk of pecan coffee cake from one of a series of bakery boxes set on the counter. It was after she’d drunk half the coffee and was heading back for a container of yogurt that she asked her question.
“So,” Brenda repeated, pulling her head out of the refrigerator in case everyone hadn’t heard. “Who was that woman?”
“Woman?” Righteous Drum asked. He glanced over at Des with vague indignation. “You didn’t tell us about any woman other than Pearl herself.”
“I didn’t,” Des said, “because I hadn’t had a chance to ask anyone else if they’d seen her. I mean, it was just a split second, there at the end, right after Pearl forced Thundering Heaven to take back his human form. Is that what you’re talking about, Brenda?”
Brenda nodded, her mouth full of raspberry yogurt. It tasted amazingly good, better than usual, and from this she deduced that even after eight hours’ sleep she was still suffering from mild ch’i depletion. Apparently, one didn’t ride along on someone else’s vision without paying a price.
For a moment, Brenda felt a touch indignant. Pearl, sitting there at the end of the table, looked fine, but then she’d stored up a ton of ch’i beforehand. Why hadn’t the rest of them been warned that their vigil might turn into something more? Why hadn’t they been told to prepare?
Because, moron, Brenda answered herself, they didn’t know. The Orphans have always passed their connection to the Branches along by a biological inheritance chain. This was the first challenge any of us has ever had to face.
She grinned to herself. And Pearl met that challenge just fine.
Des had been polling their assembled company. It turned out that everyone had seen the woman—or wraith, as Riprap insisted on calling her, saying what he’d seen had looked female only by virtue of some gut instinct.
“I mean, what I saw did not look like a woman,” Riprap clarified. “Skinny, translucent, almost transparent. Long hair flying all over the place. A really n
asty expression, like she wanted to eat Pearl’s liver.”
Everyone nodded, and Pearl added, “I also had the distinct impression that the wraith was female. I don’t know why, but I feel firmly convinced that was so.”
“So we weren’t,” Nissa said, looking up from the crayon-scrawled piece of paper Lani had just thrust into her hands, “seeing part of Thundering Heaven—maybe his po ghost, I mean.”
“I drawed a ghost,” Lani said. “A pink one. A girl ghost.”
Nissa nodded. “That you did, Bunny. Go draw us a boy ghost, okay?”
Righteous Drum had been considering. “I don’t think so. There is nothing in our tradition to account for such a thing.”
“A mystery,” Shen said, “and one we should not forget. However, before we get sidetracked, I want to tell you all that Loyal Wind has been in touch. Bent Bamboo, the Monkey, will join us. Nine Ducks has secured the cooperation of Copper Gong, the Ram, and Gentle Smoke, the Snake.”
“So with the addition of the five ghosts, we have a full company,” Pearl said. “The Thirteen Orphans can at last be assembled.”
“If,” Shen said, glancing with a touch of apprehension at Des, “we can convince their affiliate Branches to join with ghosts.”
Brenda knew why Shen had looked at Des. From the start, Des had been the least enthusiastic about this plan, largely because he had a healthy distaste for what he insisted on referring to as necromancy.
But Des only inclined his head in a small, reassuring nod.
“I’m all right with it, Shen. What’s the plan?”
“We never did quite work out the precise details,” Shen said, “since doing so seemed a waste of time until we knew if we could convince the ghosts to cooperate. How shall we begin?”
Honey Dream, quiet, suspiciously passive—at least to Brenda’s way of thinking—to this point, spoke. Like the rest of her, Honey Dream’s voice was lovely, even if she was inclined to get a little bit too much into the Snake thing and hiss on her s’s.
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