Thirteen Orphans

by Jane Lindskold

  “They’re animals. The ones at the top are a pig and a rat, then there’s a bull or something …” She traced her way around, as if reading the face of a clock. “Big cat … tiger from the stripes. A bunny, a dragon, a snake, a horse, a sheep or goat, a monkey. Is that a chicken? Then a dog and back to the pig.”

  She frowned, chewing the inside of her lip in thought. “That sounds familiar … Why am I thinking of food?”

  Brenda straightened and looked at her dad and Auntie Pearl, punching her fist into the air in triumph.

  “I’ve got it! They’re the animals from the Chinese zodiac. I’ve seen them on menus. That’s not a chicken. It’s a rooster. The bull is usually called an ox. This one sort of looks like a water buffalo.”

  Then Brenda frowned. “But what are they doing mixed up with mah-jong tiles? That makes no sense. The zodiac and the game aren’t related, except that both are Chinese.”

  Auntie Pearl said gently, “But apparently they are related, at least for Albert Yu.”

  “And for you,” Brenda said, “and Dad. You knew what you were seeing here. You talked about the tiles like this Albert Yu had been reading tarot cards or Ouija boards.”

  Her dad gave her something like his usual grin. “And where did you learn about those? Been messing about with the occult, have you?”

  “Dad! You can buy tarot cards in the bookstore in the mall. They’re not occult. They’re just kind of cool.”

  “Occult,” interjected Auntie Pearl, her tone saying she did not care for them to be distracted, “means ‘hidden’ or ‘secret.’ It is derived from the same root as ‘occlude,’ I believe. Sometimes, the best way to hide something is to hide it in plain sight.”

  “You’re saying that mah-jong hides something?” Brenda challenged.

  “I am indeed, but for you to know what was being hidden, and why, you would need to subject yourself to a long and rather complicated story, a story that begins with the exile of the Twelve and the creation of the Thirteen Orphans.”

  Brenda stared at her. “A true story?”

  “Perfectly true, I assure you. I heard it from my father, and he was one of the Twelve.”

  Brenda almost expected what came next.

  “Your great-grandfather was also one of the Twelve,” Pearl went on. “He was the Rat. My father was the Tiger.”

  Brenda looked at her dad, but he was no help at all. He was nodding seriously, and when he saw Brenda looking at him he managed to twist his lips around into a smile.

  “It’s true, Breni,” he said. “My grandfather was Exile Rat, and I’m the Rat now. The reason that I brought you here is because all the omens say that you will be the Rat after me.”

  “I don’t get it,” Brenda said, looking at the printed image on the cloth. “I don’t even like rats. I don’t think that’s my year anyhow. I’m a rabbit or a sheep or something. Something not really cool, anyhow. Not like a tiger, or a dragon, or even a horse.”

  Pearl said calmly, as if Brenda wasn’t talking crazy, “The designations to which you refer are comparatively modern, hardly more than a thousand years old. The Twelve Earthly Branches were not originally associated with animals at all. The Twelve Animals that we are speaking of don’t have specific counterparts on Earth at all. They belong to the Lands Born from Smoke and Sacrifice.”

  “Smoke and Sacrifice,” Brenda repeated woodenly. “Twelve. Thirteen. Zodiac animals off a restaurant place mat. I don’t get it. And I still don’t understand why you aren’t calling the police. Albert Yu was supposed to meet Dad and me here a couple of hours ago. He wasn’t here, and his office has been messed up. He’s a wealthy guy, I bet. Someone might have kidnapped him for ransom or something. But instead of calling his wife or the police or something, you two stand here and talk about mah-jong tiles being messed up.”

  Her voice had shifted from stiff to tense, almost shouting, before she finished.

  Dad came forward and put a hand on Brenda’s arm. She shrugged it off, but didn’t move away.

  “Brenda, listen to me,” Gaheris Morris said. “I did call Albert’s number, both at home and his cell. No answer. He doesn’t have a wife. He’s divorced. He has kids, but they don’t live near here. He has an invalid mother who probably wouldn’t be helped by knowing we can’t find him.”

  “Does old Mrs. Yu know about Tigers and Rats and stuff?” Brenda asked. She knew she was sneering, and she knew she sounded nasty, but she couldn’t help herself. This was all too much.

  It wasn’t too much because she couldn’t believe it. It was too much because somewhere deep down inside she did believe it. Her dad could be a rogue and he could be a rascal, but he had never been the sort of mean practical joker he would need to be to pull a trick like this on her.

  So either Brenda had to accept that all these impossible hints were real, or she had to accept that her dad was nasty beyond belief. She knew what she was going to believe, and she drew herself up. Taking a deep breath, she quirked the corner of her mouth in an apologetic smile.

  “Sorry. I lost it there. I’ll try not to again. Do we have time for a long story or should we try and find this Albert?”

  Her dad squeezed her shoulder, a quick sort-of hug he’d adopted when she’d gotten as tall as him.

  “How about we do both?” he said. “Auntie Pearl, Brenda’s right. Knowing why we had come here today, seeing the tiles out and messed up—and, honestly, knowing that Albert is intensely security-minded—made me jump to conclusions. How about I go and make some sensible inquiries? I’ll check Albert’s schedule with the folks in the shop. I’ll go by Albert’s house and make sure he didn’t somehow forget our appointment. If that doesn’t tell me anything, I’ll call hospitals and police stations for accident reports. Meanwhile, you two can stay here and wait for Albert to come trailing in, making excuses. While I do that, Brenda, Auntie Pearl can fill you in just like she did me when my granddad died.”

  “You’ll be careful, Gaheris,” Auntie Pearl said sharply.

  “I will be very careful,” he promised. “And you two lock the doors. I’m going to leave the spare keys with you and ring from below to be let in. That way, if you hear anyone at the door …”

  He trailed off, and Pearl Bright continued the thought.

  “It will probably be Albert. I will expect to hear from you every half hour. If you do not call within thirty-five minutes, I will call you. Understood?”

  Brenda expected Dad to protest, say something about being a grown man, but he didn’t.

  “Understood.” He squeezed Brenda’s shoulder again. “Listen carefully, Breni. I didn’t really believe any of this the first time I heard it, but I do now. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Brenda watched Dad vanishing down that ebony and silver stair. She felt suddenly terrified, but she fought the terror down. Everything was going to be fine. Albert Yu would come trailing in. They’d talk to her dad every half hour. Everything was going to be fine.

  Nonetheless, Brenda watched fixedly as Pearl Bright locked Dad out. Then Brenda licked her lips.

  “Is there a bathroom?”

  “Through there,” Pearl said, nodding in the direction of a door. “And I’m going to want something to drink. Do you drink jasmine tea?”

  Brenda nodded. When she came out of the bathroom, her face and hands freshly scrubbed, she was feeling a lot calmer.

  Pearl had opened one of the waist-high cabinets, revealing a two-burner stove. Water had been set to heat and Pearl was unwrapping a package of shortbread cookies.

  “Where do I begin?” Auntie Pearl said. “I could go all the way to first causes, but I don’t think you need that quite yet. Would you settle for events more intimately connected to our families?”

  “You mean us, here and now?” Brenda said. “I think that would be best.”

  “Very well,” Pearl said, “then suffice to say that in a land so far away that you will not find it on any map, there was an emperor, and that emperor had twelve advisors, all
of whom were scholars, skilled in the arts of magic.”

  Brenda opened her mouth to protest, then stuffed a piece of shortbread in instead. She saw Pearl Bright give a small smile, and realized that it was the first smile she had seen from that elegant lady. Oddly, it made her feel a great deal better.

  Pearl noted the water was boiling, rinsed the pot, then poured more water over the tea leaves.

  “Now, this emperor had advisors other than the Twelve, and not all of them were as devoted to their master as were the Twelve. Several were, in fact, traitors.”

  Pearl noted Brenda’s restraint with pleasure. Smart girl. More of a Rat than she knew. Clever enough to know that Pearl wouldn’t lightly invite ridicule. Clever enough to swallow a cookie to cover swallowing her words.

  “These traitors,” Pearl went on, “devised an elaborate plan to overthrow their emperor. It went very well, so well that soon all that stood in the way of the new emperor and his allies were these twelve advisors. The Twelve were offered the opportunity to go into exile if they ceased fighting on their deceased emperor’s behalf. They elected to do so, even though this meant abandoning their families and homeland forever.”

  “Tough choice,” Brenda said sympathetically.

  “Very,” Pearl agreed. “My father never stopped wondering what might have happened if the Twelve had chosen to continue their battle. He usually arrived at the same conclusion. They might have defeated the usurpers, but in the course of doing so much of what they sought to preserve would have been destroyed—including their families. And they might have lost. And there would have been even more destruction, because battles among the powerful are terrible indeed.”

  “Their families,” Brenda said. “How did they know their families wouldn’t be destroyed after they weren’t there to protect them?”

  “Permitting the families and their property to survive untouched was one of the terms of surrender,” Pearl explained. “If the usurpers had violated that term, the Twelve would have had tremendous incitement to return from exile.”

  “I see,” Brenda said. “Still, I bet those people who had to stay behind didn’t have an easy time of it, even if they still owned their property. There are lots of ways to make someone miserable without touching either of those things. Any school bully knows that.”

  “I agree, but when the alternative is total obliteration, accepting social ostracism and other such penalties seems a reasonable option.”

  “Still, I bet the wives and children didn’t like being left behind.”

  Pearl checked the tea, and found it to her liking. She poured the pale liquid into two of Albert’s translucent antique Chinese teacups, wondering how much more she should tell Brenda at this point. The young woman was taking the tale very well, but perhaps that was because she was viewing it as a tale, nothing more.

  “Those who were left behind certainly didn’t like it much,” Pearl agreed, “but they weren’t given a choice. The usurpers wanted insurance that the Twelve would not violate the agreement. The families were that insurance. Their role as hostages was specifically written into the treaty—as was the reverse, that if anything happened to their families, the Twelve would be free to return.

  “However, as careful as the usurpers were, they were unaware the Twelve had one remaining advantage. It was a small advantage, and if the Twelve had been ruled by the spirit of their surrender agreement, they certainly should have given it over. However, they decided not to do so.”

  “That was taking a big risk,” Brenda said. Her expression was very severe. “What could be worth the risk of having their families killed, and probably starting the war all over again?”

  “The emperor,” Pearl replied, “or, rather, his very young son by a lesser wife. The usurpers thought they had wiped out anyone with a better claim to the throne than that which was held by the man they had elevated to emperor. However, the Twelve had succeeded in keeping this boy—he was only two years old—in hiding. When they went into exile, they took the child with them. Only after they had arrived at their destination did they arrange to let their enemies know.”

  “I bet the new emperor and his supporters weren’t happy.”

  “They were furious. However, they could not do anything about what the Twelve had done without risking that word would leak out that a legitimate claimant to the throne lived. So they decided to let the Twelve keep their child emperor, and concentrate on the future, or so the Twelve believed.”

  Brenda sipped her tea. Her fingers were very long, and wrapped around the bowl-shaped cup almost hiding the device painted on the porcelain.

  “Believed?” the young woman asked.

  Pearl nodded. “The Twelve had good reason for their belief. For the first several years, they were left in relative peace, but this was not because they had been forgiven or forgotten. Rather, the new emperor was solidifying his rule. Only when the assassination attempts began did the Twelve realize their danger.

  “As you must have guessed, the land of the Twelve’s exile was China. Ethnically, the Twelve could blend in there fairly well, and they had chosen to reside in a bustling region that was attracting people from all parts of not only the Middle Kingdom itself, but of greater Asia and the world. In a village, their oddities of speech and custom would surely have been detected. In a teeming metropolis, they were not.

  “When the attempts on their lives began, the Twelve fled, first to other cities in China, then briefly to Japan. Eventually, they emigrated to the United States, because there was room enough to spread out. The relocation also put an ocean between them and their enemies. With this last and greatest move, they found some peace.”

  Pearl glanced at Brenda, but the young woman offered no question or comment. However, she was not in the least bored. Her listening silence was so alert that Pearl imagined her whiskers twitching.

  “After one of their number was slain, and several others severely injured, the Twelve also took precautions to preserve and enhance their greatest single asset—their ability to work magic.”

  Brenda’s perfect eyebrows rose, almost involuntarily, but she said nothing. Pearl poured herself a small amount more of the jasmine tea, took a fortifying sip, and went on.

  “The details of that great assault must wait for another time, but by the time it came, the Twelve had learned much about hiding. They had also learned that multiplicity and a veneer of openness were their greatest protections. As long as their enemies believed that killing the Twelve and their young ward would end their problems, they would persist. However, if the power the Twelve held could be passed to another, and if the tools for utilizing that power would be readily available, the task would be much more difficult. Therefore, from various Chinese card games, the Twelve adopted mah-jong. Encoded into the one hundred and forty-four tiles is a wealth of magical lore—including the ability to ascertain the well-being of each of the Thirteen Orphans.”

  “And that’s what you and Dad think Albert Yu was doing,” Brenda said. Although she was obviously attempting to sound matter-of-fact, doubt crept into her voice.

  “That is what we know he was doing,” Pearl said with faint emphasis. “I have told you that I am the Tiger, and your father is the Rat. The other ten advisors also had designations that corresponded with one of the animals now associated with the Chinese zodiac.”

  “Now?”

  “As I mentioned earlier, the association is relatively recent,” Pearl said, knowing she was getting off on a tangent, but feeling she must not reject Brenda’s questions. “Long before that, the animals already were associated with various traits. Only later were they linked to the Twelve Earthly Branches of the astrological calender.”

  “And so the wizards called themselves by those animal names.”

  Pearl nodded, although the reality was far more complex.

  “You keep saying twelve,” Brenda said, “but there were thirteen animals printed on that cloth, and you keep mentioning the Thirteen Orphans. Since there are thir
teen exiles in your story, I can guess that the last animal—the cat—must stand for the boy emperor.”

  “Precisely,” Pearl said. “Just as none of the original Twelve are alive, but their power has been inherited by their children or, in far more cases, grandchildren or great-grandchildren, so the original boy emperor grew to be a man. He had a son, and that son had a son. That son is Albert Yu.”

  As if the name had been a prompt of some sort, there was sound from the door leading into the ebony and silver stairwell.

  “Dad must be back,” Brenda said. “I’ll go let him in.”

  She rose, but before she could take more than a few steps, the door to the stairwell swung open and a man who was very clearly not Gaheris Morris entered.

  He was dressed in a dark suit that showed its expense in perfect tailoring rather than ostentation. His shining black hair was worn longer than a typical businessman usually would permit himself. His close-cut beard and mustache gave him something of the look of a stage magician—albeit, one who hailed from the mystic Orient, not any place in Europe.

  He had been holding an umbrella, and this he dropped into a tall porcelain urn, before turning to greet them. Pearl noted that Albert did not seem to find it the least odd that they were in his private office, without his having let them in.

  “I am sorry I am late,” he said affably. He gave Pearl a polite bow and extended a hand to Brenda. “You must be Brenda Morris. I am Albert Yu. Will Gaheris be along soon?”

  Pearl felt something inside her tighten as she listened. The voice was right, as were the clothing and the appearance, but something else was very wrong.

  Brenda did not know Albert Yu, so she answered politely.

  “Dad drove over to your house,” Brenda said, “when you didn’t come for our appointment. I could call him. Let him know you’re back.”