Five Odd Honors

by Jane Lindskold

  “Then there’s Lani. Right now it doesn’t matter to her that she doesn’t have a dad around, but she’s not stupid, and some of the older kids, well, they’ve been saying a few things that aren’t exactly kind.”

  Pearl could imagine. Lani was probably the result of a one-night stand—an accident that had occurred even though Nissa had been on the pill. “Pill Virgin” might be an affectionate nickname between adults, but children would make cruel comments.

  “I’d like to explain to Lani in my own time, in my own way, that just because I was dumb doesn’t mean I didn’t want her, that I don’t love her as much—maybe more—than I could any ‘planned’ child. She’s my gift-of-God baby, and I don’t want anyone to sour that. So that was another reason I’d been thinking about moving.”

  Pearl said hesitantly, “So you’d consider moving here? I could help with arrangements. I’ve done a little research into schools, and there are plenty of places where you could continue your degree. Dr. Andersen would be of help when you are ready to find a job. I have no desire to cut your feet out from under you and make you my dependent.”

  “Thanks. . . .” Nissa grinned, suddenly relaxed. “That’s good. I wouldn’t want to find myself in the place of that hypothetical niece or nephew. If Lani and I could take over the whole suite we’re sharing with Brenda now—eventually, I mean—then I think we’d be very comfortable. I could use my room as a bedroom and office of sorts, and Lani would have a nice play area.”

  Pearl nodded. “And I was thinking that . . .”

  That easily, the matter was settled between them. Pearl flat-out refused to let Nissa pay rent, pointing out that the house had been paid for long ago and that maintenance would have to be dealt with in any case.

  Nissa agreed, but insisted that she would chip in for groceries and household supplies.

  Pearl agreed, although she didn’t feel this was at all necessary. She was quite well off, rich even, and despite her Chinese upbringing and her fondness for her brothers and their children, felt no requirement to refrain from spending what she had earned in order to leave them a considerable inheritance.

  Besides, Pearl thought. Nissa is family in a way, too. Our ancestors may have thought of themselves as Orphans, but they were very odd Orphans, with very strong bonds.

  Pearl smiled as Lani came barreling in through the back door, her hands full of newly cut roses. As she accepted her makeshift bouquet, Pearl realized she was happy, happier than she had been in a long, long time—maybe almost forever.

  Just over two weeks had passed since Gaheris Morris had laid down the law regarding his daughter’s continued participation in matters related to the Thirteen Orphans.

  Brenda had hardly spoken to her father the entire flight back to South Carolina, but when her mom met them at the Greenville/Spartanburg Airport, Brenda couldn’t keep up her sulk. Keely McAnally was so clearly pleased to see her only daughter that Brenda would have felt like a complete heel to shun her.

  Mother and daughter had spent a great week together, shopping to get Brenda what she’d need for her return to college, visiting the various grandparents, watching the boys play soccer and baseball, talking about everything under the sun—although Brenda had been forced to be a bit inventive about exactly what her internship with Pearl Bright had involved.

  Brenda’s younger brothers, Dylan and Thomas, had eventually decided they could show their big sister they were glad to see her. The water balloon fight in the backyard one hot sticky night was just about perfect.

  Gaheris was often off at work. Dutifully, he reported to Brenda about the progress the scouts were making in the Lands. The news was always the same. No significant change.

  She called Nissa a couple of times, but the three-hour time difference made connecting hard. Even when they could talk, there was so much they weren’t allowed to talk about except in the most circumlocutious manner. Increasingly, the summer of magic and weird wonder began to feel rather unreal.

  Other than wishing she knew more about what was going on in the Lands, Brenda enjoyed her time at home. She honestly regretted when she had to go downstate and resume her life as a resident student at USC. She might have asked to transfer somewhere closer to home, but she knew it was too late in the school year, and that her parents would never agree.

  Despite Gaheris’s notorious penny-pinching, he had agreed with Keely that there was one place where cutting corners was not in order. Although USC’s upstate campus at Greenville/Spartanburg would have been close enough to home for Brenda to commute, both her parents had wanted Brenda to have the whole college experience. That included sharing dorm rooms with strangers and not having her parents quite near enough to solve all her problems for her.

  Gaheris did complain that cell phones made it far easier than it had been in his day for a college student to run to Mom or Dad for help. He probably would have cut Brenda’s cell phone contract if he hadn’t gotten a better deal on it than he could have gotten for a land line in her room.

  Teaching me to be in dependent, Brenda thought a trace ruefully as she strapped tape onto the boxes she was taking with her. Dad couldn’t have had the least idea just how much this summer was going to force me to learn to think for myself.

  Despite being a bit sad when they unloaded the last box, took her out to an early dinner, then hopped in the van for the drive home without her, Brenda couldn’t help but feel a sense of anticipation at being back at USC.

  Brenda had enjoyed her first year on campus. Her preassigned roommate hadn’t been too much of a horror—a bit more of a party girl than Brenda was, but they got on well enough. This year, Brenda was going to room with Shannon, the best of her new college friends. They’d corresponded over the summer via e-mail, with Brenda giving Shannon the highly edited version of her internship.

  Lately, she’d talked about the pretend internship so much that it was beginning to seem almost as real as what she’d been through. Only the amulet bracelets—one for Dragon’s Tail, one for Dragon’s Breath—that she wore on each wrist provided a constant reminder of how real it all had been.

  Shannon wasn’t in their shared room when Brenda returned after dinner with her folks.

  Not quite in the mood to seek company, Brenda put the leftovers from dinner into the little fridge, then set about unpacking her most necessary clothing. She’d just finished stacking her panties when she heard a key rattling in the lock.

  Turning, Brenda saw Shannon coming in, accompanied by a very tall, carrot-haired, freckled young man. They were giggling and speaking in clumsy Gaelic.

  Brenda had met Shannon at a club devoted to things Irish: the Gaelic language, folk dancing, history, literature, and even less serious things like food and (very under the table, since technically only the seniors and the graduate students could legally imbibe alcoholic beverages) drink.

  They’d ended up sitting next to each other during a reading from Synge’s Playboy of the Western World, stifling giggles since half the people seemed determined to read in what they fancied was an Irish brogue, while the other half stuck to their own—largely Southern accented—modern American English. By the end of the “performance,” although they hadn’t shared a word, they were well on the way to being fast friends.

  Neither of them exactly knew what they wanted to major in, and that had helped, too, since they found themselves taking mostly the same required general courses. Then their shared fondness for fantasy fiction—and some science fiction, too—had cemented the bond.

  So Brenda wasn’t surprised that Shannon’s male companion looked as Irish as only an Irish American could. Shannon’s crushes always ran that way, and usually lasted until her male companion learned Shannon was as serious about her Irish Catholicism as they wished she was not.

  “This is Dermott,” Shannon said with a wave of her hand. “I met him at church this summer and told him all about the club.”

  Promising, promising, Brenda thought, offering Dermott her hand, and seeing his
mild look of surprise that Shannon’s friend from the Celtic Culture Club looked not in the least Irish.

  “And this,” Shannon said, motioning to someone Brenda hadn’t seen because he was standing behind Dermott, “is a new transfer student. Dr. McGee asked if I could pick him up from the airport. He’s from Ireland.”

  Brenda could have guessed this from the combination of “transfer student” and “Dr. McGee” since the latter was the sponsor of the Celtic Culture Club.

  The transfer student eased himself into the room around Dermott—who finally remembered to stand to one side.

  “My name,” the newcomer said, in a voice touched with just the faintest music of an Irish accent, “is Parnell. You must be Brenda. Shannon’s been telling us all about you.”

  Brenda blinked. Parnell was only slightly taller than average height, but something about him made tall, brilliantly colored Dermott seem pale and washed out. Parnell’s medium length curls were a dark blond, but when the sunlight drifting through the window caught his hair, it shone the red-gold of honey. He had a good build, neither thickset nor thin, but definitely athletic. Yet what caught Brenda’s attention were his eyes, large and of a clear leaf green.

  “Have I met you before?” she blurted before she could think.

  “In your dreams.” Shannon giggled. “I told you. We just picked him up from the airport.”

  “In your dreams,” Parnell agreed with a faint smile. He had a very nice mouth. “Lovely phrase. You must have kissed the Blarney stone, Shannon.”

  Shannon, who was also fair, with wheat-colored hair she wore in a thick braid, and a curvaceous figure that Brenda had envied until Shannon had confessed how often she had back aches, colored right up to her hairline.

  Dermott cut in. “We’re going out for coffee,” he said, reaching out and taking Shannon’s hand with a proprietary air. “And then we’re going to walk around campus and show Parnell where some of the buildings are. Want to come along?”

  “Absolutely,” Brenda said, dropping the lid on her suitcase closed. “Let me grab my bag.”

  In your dreams . . .

  Loyal Wind was concentrating on the footing over a particularly rocky spot when he heard Riprap say in a choked voice, “Tell me I’m not hallucinating, but I see an old man over there, on that lake. He’s gliding over the water. . . .”

  Loyal Wind flicked an ear back and heard Riprap fumbling with the binoculars he wore around his neck.

  “And he’s balancing on what looks like a crutch—a metal crutch?”

  “I see him, too,” Des said, his voice tight with excitement, excitement that was quite merited given that this was the first time they’d seen anyone even vaguely approaching human in all their days of travel. “Powers above and below, could that be who I think it is?”

  Flying Claw shifted his weight—Loyal Wind felt the grip of his knees and turned to bring them to where they could both see the lake they had been skirting for the last several days.

  “If you mean Li T’ieh Kuai, Li of the Iron Crutch,” Flying Claw said, and although the young man tried to keep his tones laconic, a thrill of emotion colored the words, “yes, that is who I think I see as well.”

  “Li of the Iron Crutch,” Des repeated. “One of the Eight Immortals. Is he real here then?”

  Horse, Ox, and Ram, along with their various passengers, had moved toward the lake. Now Bent Bamboo said, “If by ‘real’ you mean, are the Eight Immortals said to dwell in the Lands—a long with dragons, ghosts, and various hsien—the answer is yes. If you mean is such an encounter common, not in the least.”

  Gentle Smoke’s hissing Snake voice came from where she currently hung about Riprap’s neck.

  “My teacher claimed to have seen several of the Immortals once. Han Hsiang Tzu, the flute player, was performing in the marketplace. Everyone was dancing or singing, and Lan Ts’ai Ho had spilled the flowers from his basket onto the pavement and was using the basket to collect coins from the audience.”

  “Li of the Iron Crutch,” Riprap said. “I’ll ask later who that is, and why I should be impressed. What I want to know now is do you think we can flag him down and maybe learn something about what happened here? None of the hsien we’ve spoken with have been anything but confused. That looks like one purposeful old man.”

  “We can try,” Loyal Wind said, slowing and shrugging his skin to tell Flying Claw he should dismount, “but if Li doesn’t wish to stop, I don’t see what we can do. We don’t have any means of traveling over water.”

  Flying Claw swung down, and in a moment Loyal Wind was a man again. He accepted both the binoculars Flying Claw offered him and a pair of loose trousers. Donning the latter, he raised the binoculars and focused in on the distant shape now receding over the waters of the lake.

  Riprap was waving a piece of cloth—a bandana, he’d called it—back and forth and bellowing loudly, “Mr. Li! Mr. Li! Please, come back. We’d very much like to talk to you.”

  He paused for breath and said, “Or is it Mr. Iron Crutch?”

  “No, Li is correct,” Gentle Smoke assured him. “Try again. I think he was turning.”

  Riprap resumed his polite call. This time Flying Claw and Loyal Wind joined in. Bent Bamboo added some surprisingly loud calls, given that they came from his monkey chest. Copper Gong bleated.

  “Undignified,” she admitted in a pause, “but I think we must catch his curiosity.”

  “Well,” Des said with a laugh, “we’re a pretty curious group.”

  Nine Ducks had divested herself of her passengers and was in the process of returning to her human form. Des had helped remove the luggage the Ox had carried, and was now digging through his pack. Raising his head, he added his voice to the general clamor.

  “Please, Honored Li, we would be able to entertain you. We have a small amount of wine. . . .”

  Loyal Wind had the binoculars to his eyes, and saw the wake cut through the waters by the iron crutch change angle and shift direction.

  “He’s coming toward us! Good thinking, Des. Do you really have some wine?”

  “I hope he likes California merlot,” Des said. “I brought a bottle, well, just in case we needed to bribe someone or get them drunk.”

  “Explains why,” Nine Ducks said, straightening her hastily donned shenyi and brushing her hair into order, “your pack was so heavy. Here I thought the weight was the lamp oil and water purification systems and medicines you insisted on hauling along.”

  “Li is definitely coming in to shore,” Flying Claw said. “We should prepare.”

  He bustled around, spreading one of the blankets from his bedroll. Des was removing a wine bottle and some collapsible drinking glasses from his pack.

  “I hope,” he muttered, “one bottle is enough. From what I recall, the Eight Immortals liked their wine.”

  Riprap said, “Why is this Li traveling on a crutch—an iron crutch, if I understood what you said a moment ago?”

  “He’s crippled,” Copper Gong said, as if that was something any idiot should know. “Cripples use crutches.”

  “But not,” Riprap said with heavy patience, “to go surfing. In fact, my usual experience is that metal poles sink—and that an iron crutch would be awfully heavy anyhow.”

  “Don’t stress over it,” Des advised. “Worry more about us running out of wine, okay?”

  “For now,” Riprap said, glancing to where their guest was about to bring his unlikely vessel to shore. “For now.”

  Riprap squared his shoulders and, with Flying Claw and Loyal Wind, headed down to meet their guest. Seen up close, Li proved to be an old man, balding, resoundingly ugly, clad in the casually wrapped robes of a Taoist scholar. “Old” was probably the wrong word for him, for although Li’s skin was wrinkled and his bright eyes set within wreaths of lines, there was an aura about him that defied the weariness and illness associated with age, transforming them into a pure vitality.

  “A man made of polished obsidian,” said Li in a voice
that was high-pitched,but not in the least effeminate. “An obsidian man who smells like a Dog. A Tiger who walks on two legs, and a half-naked Horse. Indeed, I am glad I decided to accept your invitation. Did I hear a Rooster crow that there was wine?”

  “Imported,” said Des, walking forward and offering a small cup, “from a very far land.”

  “From a land where Fire transforms,” said Li, “into Earth and from there into Water, Wood, and Metal. Yes. I never thought I would drink such a rare vintage. Truly, this is a wine to be savored.”

  Li sipped the wine, leaning on his iron crutch, surveying the group assembled to meet him. All had resumed their human shapes, but even so they were a motley group. Des and Riprap wore the clothing of their homeland. The three women and Bent Bamboo wore shenyi. Loyal Wind, responding to that “half naked” comment, quickly pulled on a rumpled tunic. Flying Claw wore armor.

  “A curious party of traveling companions,” said Li, returning the cup to Des with a slight inclination of his head. “Nearly as strange as myself and my fellows, although we have had many more years to cultivate eccentricity.”

  He leaned on his crutch and limped with a certain ease that spoke of his familiarity with that form of locomotion. When he came to the blanket Flying Claw had spread, he eased himself onto the ground and raised his hand in anticipation of the cup of wine Des was already handing to him.

  “An excellent vintage,” Li said. “Will no one join me?”

  Nine Ducks smiled. “I am making tea,” she said, indicating a small spirit stove where, true to her place as a member of the House of Construction, she already had a small kettle heating. “You are welcome to join me.”

  “Ah, I will stay with the wine,” Li said. “Please, make yourselves comfortable. I should ask why you wished to talk with me, but truly that would only be a formality.”