Five Odd Honors

by Jane Lindskold

Albert arrived with Righteous Drum and Honey Dream shortly after Nissa and Brenda came down from putting Lani to bed.

  Over dessert, coffee, and tea, Parnell once again explained his true nature. Albert had a few questions, but catching Pearl’s signal that she and Shen thought Parnell had something to offer, did not push overly hard.

  Righteous Drum and Honey Dream had some questions of their own, but they were less aggressive than might have been expected. Once again, Pearl had to remind herself that in the Lands other worlds were accepted—not as a matter of speculation or faith as was the case here—but as a reality as definite as the history of their own world.

  And not as an origin myth, Pearl thought, such as that of P ’an Ku, or Prometheus, or even that of God creating Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden, but as fact harder, drier, and more real than current scientific speculations about the age of the Earth. Honey Dream and Righteous Drum know how their world came to be, that it is an offshoot of this one, so why shouldn’t there be other worlds sharing some strange linkage with our own?

  “Is this all of us, then?” Brenda asked. “Will Deborah be coming back?”

  Unspoken was: And what about my dad?

  Albert ignored the unspoken question. “Deborah hopes to join us, but she can’t for at least a week. She caught chicken pox from one of her grandchildren.”

  “Oh!” Brenda said. “That’s not good for old—”

  She caught herself and corrected, “Older people, I mean. Is it?”

  “It’s not great,” Albert agreed. “Deborah’s doing all right, but she certainly shouldn’t travel while she’s still possibly infectious.”

  “Lani,” Nissa said, “hasn’t been vaccinated yet. I’d been waiting until she was a bit older. My sisters raised a huge fuss. Now I wish I had ignored them.”

  Now, Pearl thought, when your attention is going to be needed elsewhere. Now, when you couldn’t sit at her bedside or be with her while she soaks in a tub of cool water and cornstarch. I agree. . . . Childhood illnesses have their place, but not now.

  “Okay,” Brenda said, when it became apparent that no one was going to clarify Gaheris’s status. “Then what are we going to do? Nissa filled in me and Parnell a bit while we were driving back from the airport. Somehow our scouts have been captured and it doesn’t sound as if their captors are very nice. I think Nissa said something about Li Szu being involved, but I admit I can’t figure out how that’s possible.”

  “Li Szu,” Honey Dream echoed with a shiver. “The creator of the Lands Born from Smoke and Sacrifice, the ruthless one who did not hesitate to order the murder of both scholars and wisdom if that would simplify the task of establishing empire.”

  “Li Szu,” Parnell said, his Irish brogue a marked contrast to Honey Dream’s light, clipped words. “Li Szu who is more of a threat to this universe and others than you seem to realize.”

  “What,” Albert said politely, “does one of the sidhe know of a Chinese official from the time of the founding of the first empire?”

  “I’ll tell you,” Parnell said. “I’ll be glad to have it said. It has been a weight on me, a heavy weight indeed.”

  “Brenda stared at Parnell. “You knew Li Szu was our enemy? Before we did, I mean?”

  Parnell nodded. “I cannot pretend otherwise, acushla.”

  Brenda saw the surprised expressions that crossed the Orphans’ faces at this endearment, so casually employed. Nor did she miss the look of calculation that flickered across Honey Dream’s to that point carefully neutral features.

  Of course, the translation spell would politely decide to translate from the Irish, and now Honey Dream has heard Parnell call me “darling.” She’s figuring I’ve transferred my affections and Flying Claw is fair game.

  Brenda’s face got hot, but that moment of embarrassment made her only more determined to find out what Parnell knew. After all, Flying Claw was the one to whom Li Szu offered the greatest danger. Whether Flying Claw loved her or Honey Dream or neither of them hardly mattered if he was imprisoned . . . or dead.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I feared you would not believe me. As Albert Yu has said, why should a member of the sidhe folk know anything of a Chinese official from long ago?”

  “And why should you?” Albert asked.

  “Because Li Szu proves a danger not only to this world and the Lands, but to our world as well. Indeed, Li Szu is a greater danger to us at this point, because we do not fit into his conception of what the universe should contain.”

  “Let’s back up,” Shen suggested. “Parnell, do your people have any idea how Li Szu came into power?”

  Righteous Drum added, “I have wondered about this since Gentle Smoke’s message came to us. Li Szu is very important to the creation of the Lands, but in all our history, he has never belonged to the Lands.”

  Brenda thought she understood, but she figured she’d better make sure.

  “You mean that even though Li Szu’s advice to Shih Huang Ti led to the Burning of the Books and the death of all those scholars, Li Szu himself was never part of the Lands?”

  “That’s right,” Honey Dream said, and Brenda winced at the familiar snap of disdain in the Snake’s voice. “After all, the reason Li Szu advised the books be burned, the scholars slain, was to eliminate them from the ideal Chinese empire he wished to help Shih Huang Ti create. He was not among those who died—well, not until somewhat later.”

  “I remember asking my father about what happened to Li Szu,” Pearl said.

  Pearl paused. For the first time since her return home, Brenda noticed how tired Pearl looked. Nissa had mentioned that Pearl had been having horrible nightmares, but this looked like something more. Pearl looked somehow attenuated, stretched out, as if even when awake she wasn’t quite able to focus on what was going on around her.

  “Thundering Heaven said,” Pearl continued, “that regarding Li Szu the histories of the Lands were unclear, even contradictory. In most records, Li Szu vanishes after the death of Shih Huang Ti in roughly 207 BC, six years after the Burning of the Books. However, Thundering Heaven also said that he had heard one tale wherein Li Szu was among those who oversaw the building of the first emperor’s tomb. You all recall that Shih Huang Ti was obsessed with immortality?”

  They nodded, and Nissa added, “Shih Huang Ti is the one who ordered all those terra cotta warriors made, and not just warriors, but representations of other types of people, too. They’ve found statues of musicians and acrobats and jugglers and all. And chariots, with dead horses to pull them.”

  “The tomb,” Pearl continued, “has never been fully excavated, because if the contents are even half as grand as the legends say, modern archeology does not have the technology to preserve what would be found.”

  “Does this have anything to do with how Li Szu ended up in the Lands?” Honey Dream asked acidly.

  “It may,” Pearl said. Brenda had to admire how well the Tiger kept a civil tone, for Honey Dream’s had definitely been challenging. “From what Thundering Heaven told me, one tale said that Li Szu arranged to have himself interred along with his emperor. However, unlike Shih Huang Ti, Li Szu did not die before entering the tomb.”

  “You mean,” Nissa said, her voice shaded with fascinated horror, “he had himself buried alive? Has he been alive all these centuries?”

  Parnell, who had listened patiently through this, now cleared his throat.

  “My people did some investigating. Li Szu has been not quite alive, but not entirely dead, either. In death, spirits usually lose interest in the matters of this world—unless there is something to hold them to it.”

  “An unfulfilled oath,” Righteous Drum said, “or a suicide clinging to the life he rejected.”

  “That’s right,” Parnell agreed. “Li Szu had unfinished business. He was determined to continue overseeing the empire he had helped create. Events, however, did not work out precisely as he had planned. The greatest shock for Li Szu was that, althoug
h in life he had known nothing of the Lands Born from Smoke and Sacrifice, in death he became aware of them.”

  “He must have been fascinated,” Shen said, “but horrified as well.”

  “Horrified?” Honey Dream said indignantly, immediately defending her homeland. Then she nodded, “Yes. I understand. The Lands were created from all Li Szu wished discarded, destroyed. What he discovered was that he had perpetuated—strengthened, even—what he thought worst about Chinese history and culture.”

  “That’s about it,” Parnell agreed. “But although Li Szu brooded over the injustice of these circumstances for centuries there wasn’t much he could do until . . .”

  Parnell paused and looked very uncomfortable. Albert Yu rubbed a hand along the line of his beard.

  “I’ll guess,” Albert said. “Until our ancestors, the original Thirteen Orphans, were exiled from the Lands Born from Smoke and Sacrifice, and decided to exploit a loophole in their exile to retain their links to the Twelve Earthly Branches.”

  “That’s it,” Parnell said. “In taking with them their affiliation to the Branches, the Orphans weakened the inherent magic of the Lands. Exploiting this weakness, Li Szu was able to regain a life of sorts in the Lands.”

  Brenda had been listening intently, her mind sifting through the implications, sliding possibilities back and forth as one might beads on the wires of an abacus.

  “Li Szu,” Brenda said, her voice indicating she was open to correction, “is dangerous not because he’s the ruler of the Lands, but because of the type of person he is. He doesn’t believe in anything except what he thinks is right, and what he thinks is right is pretty limited.”

  Parnell nodded. “That’s how my people see the situation. A quirk of fate or possibility or what ever you choose to call it put a monomaniac in control of not merely a world, but a universe. We fear that Li Szu will not be content with reshaping the Lands, but that when he has done so, he will extend his reach elsewhere.”

  “Here?” Nissa said.

  “And into the sidhe,” Parnell said. “Perhaps the sidhe first. The clay of which the Land Under the Hills is made malleable. While that has advantages, in a situation such as this, that malleability makes us very vulnerable.”

  “But to go against the creator of a universe, on his own grounds?” Shen asked. “Do we have a chance?”

  Parnell nodded, perhaps a bit too intensely, Brenda thought, as if he must convince not only them but himself.

  “I think so. We have several things in our favor. One is that Li Szu is bound by the rules he himself has made—in which he himself believes. Most importantly for us, Li Szu believes he needs the full power of the Twelve Earthly Branches in order to reshape the Lands.”

  “Does he?” Brenda asked. “I mean, from what the scouts reported, Li Szu has already done a lot of reshaping.”

  “I don’t know if he is correct,” Parnell said. “What is important is that Li Szu clearly believes this is so.”

  “What I am most worried about,” Righteous Drum said, “is that the taking of our scouts is an elaborate trap. Li Szu must be behind the attack that cost me my arm, the attack that brought Twentyseven-Ten, Thorn, and Shackles here. At that time, they crossed the guardian domains by means of a dormant spell set in Waking Lizard. I do not think our enemies will find crossing the guardian domains again easy—if at all possible.”

  “No,” Pearl agreed. “The four guardians are allied with us.”

  She looked narrowly at Parnell. “I wonder if Li Szu could use another land that shares some of its nature with our own to invade us?”

  Parnell shrugged, and his grin was distinctly saucy. “I won’t say we of the sidhe haven’t worried about this possibility. In many ways, the sidhe is more like the guardian domains than it is like this world.”

  “Another reason, then,” Pearl said, “that you would wish to aid us. I approve. I prefer enlightened self-interest to altruism, no matter how carefully that altruism is presented.”

  “Trap,” Righteous Drum repeated. “But how do we save our allies without being taken ourselves? Li Szu must be waiting for us. We have what he most desires—not only the remaining Branches, but I am the creator of the spell that permits the Branches to be separated from their host without passing on to the Orphan’s heir.”

  “He’ll be watching for a rescue, all right,” Parnell agreed. “So we need to be where he won’t think to look.”

  Loyal Wind was suspicious, but not terribly surprised when he was let out of the box cell perhaps twenty-four hours after being stuffed in again.

  He’d suspected this might happen. They’d clean him up again, maybe let him regain a little strength, then threaten him with reimprisonment.

  So he wasn’t surprised by the bath and massage or the clean robes. He was a little surprised by the sumptuous meal he was served, but not too much. Food fantasies were a horrible stage of fasting. This elegant meal would doubtless haunt him in the days of starvation to come.

  For Loyal Wind was determined not to give in to Li Szu.

  Once again, Loyal Wind was escorted into the deliberately unostentatious throne room that Li Szu seemed to favor. Here he did encounter something that startled him out of his detached contemplation.

  Unlike his other audiences with the despot creator, this time he was not alone.

  A half circle of chairs was arrayed before the dais upon which Li Szu was seated, and in these chairs waited Loyal Wind’s companions.

  No. One was missing. The one Loyal Wind had feared would be missing. Flying Claw was not present—nor was there a chair set for him.

  As Loyal Wind exchanged formal greetings with Li Szu and accepted a seat in the last empty chair, one in the center of the semicircle between Bent Bamboo and Copper Gong, he studied the three women and three men who had arrived before him.

  They all looked healthy enough—but Loyal Wind knew not to trust that impression. He didn’t doubt that to external observation he himself looked fairly healthy. He suspected that his meal had included some drugs to help him bear the pain of his tormented joints, for he had been able to walk without undue stiffness.

  And, yet, perhaps I should trust appearances. Li Szu implied that several, if not all, had betrayed our cause. Perhaps this is a final attempt to sway me to their side.

  Yet Loyal Wind wondered. The semicircle was tight enough that he could not study the others without showing deliberate discourtesy to Li Szu—something he was not prepared to do. However, he could see the two at the opposite ends of the crescent without moving more than his eyes.

  At first glance, Des Lee seemed much as ever, well groomed after the peculiar fashion he favored, his forehead shaved high, his mustaches neatly trimmed. But Loyal Wind thought the color on Des’s head was too light, as if he had only recently been shaved. Des had always been slim, but there was a new gauntness about his high cheek-boned features.

  And Gentle Smoke . . . The Snake was neatly attired, her hair shining with cleanliness. Yet there was something in how she sat in her chair, a stiffness to her bearing that Loyal Wind recognized all too well. He might have missed it, but she was jittery as well, jumping when a servant with a tray holding green tea and various small savories came up beside her.

  Loyal Wind could not inspect the others without being too obvious. Conflicting emotions warred within him—hope with anger, triumph with despair, for the very things he was relying upon as evidence that his fellows had not betrayed him was also evidence that they had been treated as harshly as he. . . .

  His rage against them as he crouched in his dark cell, believing himself betrayed, had been in itself a betrayal.

  “I am certain that all of you are pleased to see each other once more,” Li Szu said, a new note in his voice making Loyal Wind focus his attention. “But I am certain that you all have noted the absence of one of your number.”

  He paused provocatively, and Riprap, less schooled in proper court behavior, or perhaps simply beyond caring, spoke with rough
aggressiveness.

  “Flying Claw! Where is Flying Claw?”

  The big man seemed about to say more, but perhaps cued by the shocked expressions that flitted across the faces of the servants, he drew in his breath and held back.

  “I have made no secret of what I want from you. You—or in two cases, your ancestors—took with you some of the force of the Earthly Branches. I wish this returned, but the provisions you made that upon your deaths the Branch would pass to your heir has made this difficult for me. I also have not been able to learn the precise nature of the spell you used to create this perversion of the natural order.”

  “I told you,” Nine Ducks said flatly, “the Exile Dragon crafted the spell. None of us know the details, only our part in it.”

  “Convenient, convenient,” Li Szu said. “I’ve heard the same from others. I’m not certain I believe it. However, we were discussing Flying Claw.”

  He paused and sipped delicately from his teacup. Defiantly, Loyal Wind drained his own, drinking from the dainty bit of nearly translucent porcelain as he might have from a leather water flask in the field, and holding the cup out for more.

  What did he care if he pissed himself? He knew what was coming, and might as well enjoy what little pleasures he could before the return of humiliation and pain.

  Li Szu’s gaze had traveled over them all, daring another outburst. There was none, but not, Loyal Wind thought, because they were all cowed. Rather, faithful or traitor, each wanted to know what had happened to their young Tiger.

  “Flying Claw,” Li Szu said at last, “was a different matter. His affiliation was to a Branch of the Lands. Traditionally, in the Lands, simply willing a release can permit the Branch to pass on. In some cases, this is to a designated person, in others to someone who wins a contest or challenge.”

  The means of passing varies with the Branch, Loyal Wind thought, as we know far better than do you. Stop showing off how much you’ve learned about this world you created by merest accident and let us know the worst.

  He hadn’t missed the use of the past tense. He didn’t think the others had either.