“You seem to know something of us,” Des said cautiously, “enough to give some of us one of our names.”
“Ox, Tiger, Snake, Horse, Ram, Monkey, Rooster, Dog . . .” Li said. “Dangerous names to bear in this Land at this time. When you are sniffed out, take care.”
“Does everyone here have your ability to sniff ?” Riprap asked.
“A good question from a Dog,” Li said approvingly. “No. Everyone does not, but then those who hunt you will not be everyone—only some rather dangerous people.”
“Who?” Copper Gong began, then she stopped herself with visible effort. “Please, Honored Li. What has happened? Some of us have been away from the Lands for many years, but from what we have been told, these changes are relatively new.”
“They are,” Li agreed. “Only a few months old, but that is long enough to feel as if they have lasted forever.”
He held up his cup. Wordlessly, Des refilled it.
“Let me see, how to begin?” Li said, shifting his crippled leg into a more comfortable position. “Perhaps with the fall of the last emperor to sit upon the Jade Petal Throne.
“As all of you . . .” Li glanced at Riprap and Des, then amended his words. “As most of you know, although the Lands consist of many and varied kingdoms, there is one kingdom that, especially in matters of magic, is considered the most important. This is the Jade Kingdom Under Heaven. The ruler who sits on the Jade Petal Throne is considered the greatest emperor of the Lands. He—or occasionally she—is advised by the human incarnations of the twelve signs of the zodiac, human embodiments of the Twelve Earthly Branches.
“In an ideal universe, this high emperor would be just and his advisors wise. In fact, this has rarely been the case. The right to sit upon the Jade Petal Throne is highly contested, and a catalog of dynasties that have ruled the Jade Kingdom Under Heaven reads like a mongrel’s pedigree.
“But those of us who reside in the Lands grew accustomed to this. Especially for the hsien, which human backside warmed the smooth, cold stone of the Jade Petal Throne hardly mattered. Dragons, ghosts, spirits, demons, and supernatural creatures of all sorts—including immortals such as myself and my seven associates—went about our long and interesting lives, aware of the changes of rulership as mortals are aware of changes in the weather—inconvenient at times, but rarely lasting long enough to make a notable difference.
“Something like a hundred years ago, the Lands began to change. The battles contesting the right to hold the Jade Petal Throne became more violent. Emperors hardly had time to be fit for their coronation robes before they were displaced and those robes became shrouds. I cannot say I paid much attention, but one of my associates, Ts’ao Kuo Chu, has some interest in law and related matters. He commented that the power of the twelve advisors and the Twelve Branches had been attenuated and stability thereby threatened.”
Loyal Wind exchanged glances with his associates. They knew perfectly well why this had happened, for when the twelve advisors had become the Twelve Exiles, they had arranged to maintain their connection to the Earthly Branches. They hadn’t known if this would weaken the Earthly Branches in the Lands, but they had known this was a possibility.
And we didn’t mind one bit, Loyal Wind thought, trying to decide whether ornot he felt guilty about it. We hoped that if there was weakening, that we might be able to return home—either by invitation or because we could exploit the link.
Judging from the ironic twinkle in Li’s shining eyes, he was perfectly aware of who his audience was, and that he was telling them a tale intimately connected to their own lives.
“Then,” Li said thoughtfully, “a short while ago, things went completely wrong. I was sitting with my associates in a pavilion on one of the Fortunate Isles. We have resided there for quite a long time, gotten it arranged to our satisfaction—you know, pavilions angled to catch the morning sun and the afternoon breezes, convenient streams in which to cool the wine. . . .”
He held out his cup and Des poured in a bit more wine. Loyal Wind saw the Rooster stare into the neck of the bottle and frown, heft it as if trying to surreptitiously judge how much it contained, then frown again.
Bet it’s nearly as full as when they started, Loyal Wind thought. Li of the Iron Crutch wouldn’t want to run out of wine while telling a good story.
Li sipped his wine, nodded thanks to Des, and went on.
“There was this sensation. . . . I don’t know how to describe it except that simultaneously I felt squeezed and shoved. A wind was blowing with terrible force, howling in my ears. Yet when I looked around me I noticed that nothing on the Fortunate Isles was affected. Not a blossom was dislodged from its tree. Those leaves that shifted did so as if beneath the pleasant caress of the lightest breeze.
“Maybe leaves and grass and flowers weren’t affected, but I certainly was being blown. If I wasn’t nearly bald already, I think the very hairs would have been blown from my head. A good thing my crutch is iron, otherwise it might have been swept from my grasp. I held on to my crutch as if it was an anchor. Then, blown and pushed and squeezed, I found myself shoved right off our chosen Fortunate Isle—or the island pulled out from under me.
“I went tumbling ass over tea kettle, and when at last I was no longer being squeezed and blown and pulled I came to a stop here. Or I should say, not here precisely, as in on this lakeshore, but in this changed world.”
Li of the Iron Crutch gestured around him, at a sky that was streaked lime and violet, at grass that was a nice shade of pale pink, at the waters of a lake that, very strangely in contrast, were a clear and lucid blue flecked with small whitecaps.
“How long ago was this?” Copper Gong asked.
“Time is not something I am accustomed to measuring, dear lady,” Li said, “having reached a portion of my life where I am blessedly without appointments. Moreover, it is difficult to measure here. The sun rises and sets, true, night follows day, or day night, but sometimes I’m not sure I can tell the difference.”
They all nodded. They’d noticed the phenomenon themselves. Had Des not equipped several of their number with mechanical timepieces and reminded them to keep these wound, they might have been in a similar predicament themselves.
Even so, Loyal Wind thought, I doubt if those watches are keeping accurate time. There was that night when the sky glowed indigo and the stars seemed so near that we could see their colors and hear them sing. Time seemed to move faster then.
“Well,” Copper Gong said resignedly, “it couldn’t hurt to ask. Do you have any idea what caused the storm that drove you from your island?”
“And have you reunited with your associates?” Flying Claw asked anxiously.
Loyal Wind knew the young man was thinking of his own family and that of Righteous Drum and Honey Dream. Thus far, they had seen nothing of any human community.
“I do not have any idea what caused the storm,” Li said. “I do know that my associates and I were far from the only inhabitants of the Lands to be disrupted. I have met numerous hsien—lesser deities, immortals, creatures of land and sea—who report having encountered a similar storm. I have also located my associates.”
He smiled at Flying Claw, appreciating the young man’s concern. “Their tales are similar to mine. We have dispersed throughout these altered Lands, seeking our island home, but none of us has found it. We have found other islands, empty palaces, deserted gardens, statues, but our own beloved Fortunate Isles, where the Queen Mother of the West has held her tranquil reign, those have been swept beyond our reach—or perhaps we beyond them.”
Gentle Smoke asked the question Flying Claw was too polite to press. “Is there any place where there are settlements of mortals? We have been traveling for many days in various directions, and we have not seen even the smallest village.”
Li scrubbed at the lobe of one ear with a long finger.
“I have not seen any,” he admitted slowly, “but there is a feature of these changed Lands that you have not ye
t encountered.”
Whereas when the immortal had told of his own adventures he had seemed cheerful, even enthusiastic, now his expression grew serious and the words came slowly.
“Please, sir,” Riprap said. “Tell us about it.”
Li frowned. “If you move toward the Center, you will find a forest, a forest unlike any I have ever seen or heard described. It is lifeless. Beneath the feet is drab grey rock—featureless rock without grain or strata or pattern. The surfaceis neither smooth nor rough, but is so hard that each step on it jolts through one’s bones—at least if they are old bones like mine.
“From this grey soil grow trees made entirely of stone, wind-polished so that the browns and whites and greys and pale blues of the stone shine in the sun.
“Above this expanse of stone is sky, white sky ungraced by a single cloud. My understanding is that this forest is about two days deep if one crosses in a straight line—I did not do so, but I spoke to a hsien who did. And crossing in a straight line is difficult in a forest. The hsien to whom I spoke said it took her more like three days, and her feet were bruised from the passage.”
Li of the Iron Crutch fell silent. Again, Riprap prompted him.
“And on the farther side, closer to the Center?”
“There is a wall of water, water falling straight down from a sky that holds not a single cloud. The hsien to whom I spoke could not penetrate this wall. She tried, but in two steps she was nearly drowned.
“She was rescued by a dragon who had crossed the watery zone. The dragon said that the wall of water was as high as the sky and easily as wide as the stone forest. As the dragon swam through the water wall, although breathing underwater offered no challenge to one of his kind, the force of the falling water beat upon his frame ceaselessly, pummeling him to the marrow in his bones.”
Again Li paused. This time Loyal Wind himself prompted, “Honored Li, on the other side of the wall of water, what did the dragon find?”
“The dragon found a sea of fire, not molten lava but living flame, rising and falling as would waves of water. This sea was interrupted by little islands, coals of fire, each as large as a house.
“Heat billowed up from the coals, making the very air melt and rasp against the throat whenever one drew breath. The dragon went no farther, nor did the dragon find anyone who had dared cross that fiery sea. When the dragon had recovered a little of his strength—and he found this very difficult since these regions seemed singularly devoid of ch’i—the dragon retreated.”
“And found the hsien,” Flying Claw said, “and rescued her.”
“Yes,” Li said. “She was a little mountain spirit, very delicate, like a wisp of milkweed.”
“No humans lived in these places?” Flying Claw asked.
“Not that either the mountain spirit or the dragon saw,” Li of the Iron Crutch replied.
Flying Claw spoke as if thinking aloud. “And no people here, and this strange barrier between us and the Center—where the humans might be.”
“Are you thinking,” Riprap said, “what I think you’re thinking?”
“That we should try to cross the stone forest, then swim through the wall of water, go over the fire and learn what is beyond?” Flying Claw said. “I am. We have known from the start that it is likely we must reach the Center, for at the Center is the Jade Kingdom Under Heaven.”
“Yeah,” Riprap admitted. “That’s what I figured you were saying. Well, we’re not equipped for such a trip. We’re going to need to hit headquarters first.”
Li of the Iron Crutch smiled sagely at them. Despite the fact that, by Loyal Wind’s estimation, the immortal had now drunk at least enough wine to fill two bottles—if not three—of the size Des held, he seemed unimpaired beyond a certain rosy glow.
The immortal rose from the blanket, leaning against his iron crutch, and smiling benignly at them all.
“If you find our island,” he said, “could you return it? We rather miss it, you know. It has been our home for quite a long time.”
“By all means,” Flying Claw said solemnly. “Regaining our homes is what this is all about, isn’t it?”
Is it? Loyal Wind thought as he readied himself to return to his horse form.
A bit of doggerel he’d heard Riprap recite one day came back to him, slightly altered.
Ours not to reason why. Ours just to do . . . then die.
Nissa flew back to Virginia with Lani soon after she and Pearl had settled the matter of their relocation.
“It’ll be easier to explain to my sisters in person why I’m moving,” Nissa said. “For one thing, they won’t have several days to sit around thinking about ways to convince me to come home. For another, they won’t have the sentimental argument—‘but you’ve forgotten how lovely and perfect things are here.’ It’ll also be easier to speak with administrators at my college about transcripts.”
Despite these decisive assertions that Nissa planned to come back, Pearl found staying cheerful very hard as she waved good-bye at the airport security gate.
I wonder how long until I get a call asking if I’d please ship back the things she and Lani left, Pearl wondered as she drove away from the airport. Family can be so very persuasive. How will Nissa feel once she sees Lani running around with her cousins, part of a happy, noisy mob?
So absorbed was Pearl in her thoughts that initially she didn’t pay much attention when her town car began first to vibrate, then to shake.
“What the . . .” she said aloud, quickly glancing over the dashboard,checking various gauges. Nothing was running too hot or too cold. The gas gauge showed full and none of the warning lights glowed.
The car continued to shake. Pearl looked around. None of the other cars on this relatively quiet road seemed to be experiencing any difficulty.
Not an earthquake, then.
Pearl pulled off at a strip mall devoted to various professional offices: two lawyers, an insurance agency, a travel agency, and a dentist. All the businesses were closed for the day. Nissa had opted for an evening flight in the hope that Lani would sleep through much of the trip.
After pulling into one of the parking spaces, Pearl shut off the car’s engine. The shaking persisted. Frowning, she reached for her cell phone and was only mildly surprised when she found herself in a dead zone.
Pearl’s pulse quickened as she tried to school her ch’i to shape All Green, a spell that would permit her to see magical workings. Although All Green was considered quite a difficult spell by the three apprentices—since it involved altering one’s own aura, not summoning something already present as in Dragon’s Tail or Dragon’s Breath—Pearl considered All Green a routine working. It was one she had done almost daily when she was a young woman studying under Thundering Heaven.
Today, however, Pearl could not line up the images in her mind. The bamboo twisted, yellowed, and dried. The pair of green dragons—an image of increase, usually almost too ready to form in the company of vegetative bamboo—now refused to take shape.
The town car continued to shake. Pearl fumbled for the door handle. Her fingers were so weak that she could hardly wrap them around the latch. With a colossal effort, she unlatched the door. Leaning against it, she shoved.
The heavy door hardly moved. For once Pearl regretted her fondness for big cars, regretted letting her chauffeur go, regretted not having Nissa take a cab to the airport. Her chest was beginning to ache, pins and needles shooting up her arms, through her blood. Her head throbbed.
Even so, Pearl was a stubborn woman. Moreover, she was quite strong for one of both slight frame and advanced years. She shoved her shoulder and upper body against the door. The town car was well maintained. This time the door swung out. Pearl hauled her feet around and half fell from the car.
Grabbing at the upper edge of the car door, Pearl pulled herself mostly upright. The pressure in her chest was growing more intense, the prickles spreading to her legs, growing to burning intensity in her arms. Her head was pounding so ha
rd that she could barely remember her name, much less something as complex as how to hit the emergency numbers programmed into her cell phone.
If they’d reach anyone.
I’m having a heart attack, Pearl thought, dragging herself a few steps away from the car. No great surprise, given how I’ve been pushing myself.
She looked back at the sleek, dark blue bulk of the town car. Perhaps she’d had more success with the All Green than she had thought, for what she saw was a faint double image. One was of the town car sloppily parked over three spaces. The other was of the same car vibrating like a cartoon character that had walked into a wall.
“Boing!” Pearl said, and giggled shrilly. “Boing!”
The shaking had spread to her legs. She managed to sit more or less decorously on the nearest curb, glad in some illogical part of her mind that she’d worn a pants suit, not a dress. She’d hate for the paramedics to find her crumpled over with her underwear showing, her stockings bunched up and full of runs.
Sitting up was proving to be too much of an effort. Breathing hurt. Pearl couldn’t feel her feet or hands. How did she want them to find her? Flat on her back, or curled on her side? Curled would look better, like a sleeping child.
I never got my will rewritten to make sure Nissa benefited. I hope my brothers aren’t too greedy, that they’ll be guided by the letter I wrote my lawyers, even if I didn’t get to sign the revised draft.
An uncountable segment of time passed. Pearl mostly concentrated on normally autonomous actions like breathing in and out. When she had attention to spare, she counted her heartbeats. They seemed rather more frequent than usual, and very erratic.
Not promising.
A low rumbling sound intruded upon Pearl’s derailing train of thought. The rumbling diminished, then vanished. There was a short, sharp bang. An erratic tapping, staccato and sharp. A shadow came between her and sunlight she hadn’t consciously registered until it was gone.
Pearl opened her eyes and fought to focus. A man’s face swam in and out of her field of vision. A familiar face, a Chinese face, but not one she particularly liked.
Five Odd Honors Page 17