Five Odd Honors

by Jane Lindskold

  It was a meticulously groomed visage, the brows neat, the hair dark, shining black. Only tiny lines around the eyes and mouth gave away that this was a man in his sixties, rather than twenty years younger. It was the face of Franklin Deng.

  Franklin Deng, who resented that the Thirteen Orphans possessed a wealth of lore that he felt should be shared—at least with their Chinese associates, most especially with him. Franklin Deng who, while not precisely an enemy, was certainly not a friend.

  Deng was talking to her, switching between English and Chinese. His tone, at first imperious and autocratic, softened. Pearl felt a hand on her wrist, then on her chest. She tried to summon the proper indignation at the familiarity and failed. To her horror, she thought she might even weep with gratitude that if she must die, at least she wouldn’t die alone on a strip mall sidewalk.

  Pearl heard faint beeping as Deng worked at a cell phone. She heard his faint curse as the phone failed to connect. She heard him speaking to someone.

  “. . . and put through a call. Not to 911. She’d hate that. Call . . .”

  Pearl didn’t hear who the other was to call.

  The rumble of a car engine starting up, pulling away. Soft sing-song chanting, the words Chinese, sung in a high-pitched nasal register. Following the meaning was beyond her. Cantonese was her fourth or fifth language. Right now, the inflections kept getting tangled up with the Chinese languages that were more familiar to her tired, aching brain.

  Breathing didn’t seem to be as hard. Was her heartbeat stabilizing? She forced herself to count carefully. Yes! The pain was less. Definitely less.

  Pearl didn’t know if this was good—except that hurting less had to be at least somewhat good. Or was it? She’d heard that there came a point in dying where the body began to shut down, the pain began to diminish. That was why some people—those white-light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel types—said it was so hard to come back from death into life. You had to fight back into the pain.

  Pearl had never run from a fight in her life. She concentrated, forced herself to attend to what Deng was chanting.

  Something about metal, about spirits of metal. Calling on fire, fire that melts metal. About melting metal, forcing away that which dwelled in metal, an entity that hid from fire.

  Pearl guided herself through the rhythm of the words, aware now of a new presence—or rather of something that had been present, but concealed from her until Deng had driven it from hiding. An elemental spirt, one of those that anchored itself in metal.

  Pearl felt a shiver deep within her soul. The element associated with the Tiger was wood. Wood absorbed strength from earth, but was destroyed by metal. If one was hunting a Tiger, sending a hsien, or spirit, that thrived in metal would be a good choice. She recalled how her car—a metal beast, for all that so many parts were plastic these days—had vibrated, then shook, as if possessed by a will of its own.

  “Car,” she gasped. “My car.”

  Franklin Deng glanced down at her, then nodded crisply. He waved both hands expansively in a gesture of warding, then rose from her side and walkedover to the town car. Pearl turned her head, the motion taking a terrific amount of energy. Deng placed his hands on the hood of her town car and resumed his chanting.

  Gone was the high sing-song note. These words were strident, commanding. Deng repeated them. Pearl caught a few. The dialect he was using was an archaic Cantonese, even more unfamiliar to her than the modern version. Even so, she grasped some of his meaning. A spirit had taken root in her car. Deng sought to force it out.

  He was succeeding, but at what cost? The pain in Pearl’s head and chest were returning. The hsien was willing to depart, most willing if it could fulfill its mission and take her with it. By urging the spirit to depart as quickly as possible, Deng had inadvertently given it new strength. Unfortunately for Pearl, the quickest way for the spirit to depart would be for it to fulfill its mission, to take its victim. Then the bindings that had brought it to this place would be broken.

  Does Franklin Deng know this? Does he seek this indirect way to murder me? He might even be praised for what he had done, condoled for accidentally contributing to the death of the old woman he sought to save.

  But then, if my death was what he desired, Deng could simply let the hsien go ahead and finish what it was about.

  A ripping sensation coursed through Pearl’s flesh.

  Pearl almost screamed in pain and fear, but pride—pride and a deep fear that all she might manage was a pathetic squeak—kept her breath within her tortured lungs. Taking the ch’i she would have expended on a scream, Pearl strove to fight back.

  She became aware of the hsien’s hold on her as if it was centered in five hooks set within her flesh. She concentrated, focusing in on releasing the hooks.

  One. The first hook was set within Pearl’s right arm, a sharp claw shaped like an octopus’s beak. The hsien was unprepared for resistance from its victim, so Pearl popped the hook free without too much effort.

  Two. Left arm. The hsien reset its hooks more deeply, diverting some of its attention from resisting Deng’s banishing spell, but Pearl had a free arm now. She reached over and found the hook by touch. Blood ran hot and wet as she grabbed hold and tore.

  Three. Four. Both legs. Not too difficult to remove these hooks—if your definition of “not too difficult” included agony akin to adhesive tape pulled off sun-blistered skin. More blood flowed, ruining her stockings and the trousers of her favorite summer casual outfit.

  Franklin Deng’s chanting had taken on a new note. Pearl heard astonishment, but redoubled purpose as well.

  Despite Deng’s holding much of the metal hsien’s attention, Pearl trembled as she contemplated the final hook set within her. This one was anchored deep within her heart. If she pulled this one out, she would probably die. Yet to leave it in place also meant death.

  Metal is destroyed by fire. Wood creates fire. Wood is the Tiger’s element. Tiger Bright. Tiger burning bright.

  Pearl Bright envisioned her heart as something shaped from the hardest, densest wood—from heart wood. Both the Chinese and the American within her chuckled at the pun. Pearl took the time to make her vision perfect: the heart polished smooth, rubbed with fine oils, the grain visible in complex, circular patterns.

  Wood burns. So do hearts, as anyone who has ever loved or hated knows with absolute certainty. Hearts burn. Pearl, with a kindling of hatred and a spark of love, set her own heart aflame.

  Now Pearl did scream, loud and shrill. Tears streamed down her face, but their dampness did nothing to extinguish the fire within her. A burning heart aches beyond bearing, but despite the pain humans can live with a heart of fire.

  Metal, by contrast, cannot survive within that burning heat. Pearl screamed and wept, feeding the fire within her, bearing the increased pain as her heart grew hot enough to melt gold, hot enough to melt silver, hot enough to purify iron into steel, and beyond that to heats that burn steel into a smoking, viscous puddle and then to ash.

  As the final hook was burnt away within her, Pearl swallowed a final scream. Franklin Deng was staring at her, his hands raised in invocation.

  “It’s gone,” he said. His voice was a little hoarse.

  “Yes.”

  “And you owe me.”

  “Probably.”

  Pearl looked down at herself. The wounds in her arms and legs were real, the blood trickling from them in a slowly clotting stream, but when she touched her chest all she detected was a residual heat.

  Human hearts do burn. And cool.

  “Thank you, Franklin,” she said.

  They might have said more, but at that moment a car—Franklin’s car, driven by a Chinese American Pearl vaguely recognized—pulled up and disgorged Dr. Broderick Pike of the Rosicrucian Museum. With him was a severe looking woman Pearl vaguely recognized as a member of the museum’s staff.

  Both started running as soon as they saw her sprawled, bloodied and battered,on the sidewalk. The driver turn
ed away, and Pearl guessed from the angle of his shoulders he was fighting the urge to vomit.

  I must look pretty bad, she thought, relaxing to accept the others’ ministrations. For the first time, she became aware of the roughness of the sidewalk, of the cooler patches in shadow as it gave up the heat stored during the day.

  Questions were being asked, mostly by Pike, and answered by Deng. Awash with exhaustion, Pearl lay back and let the woman—who seemed to have a good knowledge of conventional medicine—examine her wounds. Blood was washed away, an IV hooked up.

  “No drugs,” Pearl rasped.

  “No drugs,” the woman agreed. “Just liquid. You’re badly dehydrated. Do you know your blood type?”

  Pearl told her. She heard the woman making a phone call.

  Dr. Pike had hunkered down next to her. “Pearl, is there anyone staying with you at your house?”

  “No.”

  “Shall I call one of your brothers?”

  “Albert Yu.”

  “Right.”

  More beeping. Voices. Pearl felt herself being lifted into the backseat of Franklin Deng’s car. It was less crowded than she thought it should be, and she heard the woman explaining.

  “Dr. Pike is staying to make sure the blood is washed off the sidewalk. He’ll arrange a tow for your car. It seems fine, both on a mechanical level and otherwise, but we thought it best not to take chances.”

  Pearl nodded. She drifted off to sleep. Later, she woke as they transferred her into a building. Not her house. She forced her eyes open and recognized one of the private buildings on the Rosicrucian Museum grounds. She drifted off again.

  When next she woke, a new voice had joined the conversational symphony, and her head was much more clear.

  Albert Yu saying, “Franklin, I deeply appreciate your saving Pearl—and I’m sure she will, too, but I admit I’m a bit puzzled as to how you happened to be so opportunely present.”

  Franklin Deng: “I have been monitoring the activities of your cabal. I admit, after being told so very pointedly that I should not interfere, I almost did not. However, after further thought, it seemed to me that what was happening was that someone—or some thing—was interfering with Pearl. Therefore, I was not interfering with you so much as facilitating your progress.”

  Broderick Pike, very, very dryly: “I admire the logic, and certainly applaud the end result. When I remained to clean up the area around the car, I found no traces of residual mana. The attacker left a faint signature on the vehicle, a psychic footprint. It was already fading out, but I made a recording.”

  Pike’s voice muttering a few words in corrupted Latin. Then Franklin Deng: “I’ve seen something like that. Embodiment of the element of metal—much as the dragon can be embodied water.”

  “Yes,” Albert agreed. “I have done some studying of the indigenous Chinese traditions, and my understanding is that these spirits are not at all well known here—not as dragons are, for example.”

  A slight noise, probably mild indignation from Deng who, as Pearl knew all too well, resented that the Orphans had access to his traditions while he did not have access to theirs.

  Albert went on. “But from what I have gathered from talking to Uncle Shen—that is, Shen Kung—and Righteous Drum—one of our allies—the magical traditions in the Lands embrace a much wider variety of supernatural entities. They also have a considerable attachment to elemental magics.”

  Dr. Pike: “So are you saying you suspect this attack came from your enemies?”

  “I do.” Albert’s tone shifted slightly, containing both amusement and acid. “Not that I do not think Franklin Deng or one of his allies is incapable of such a summoning, but I do not think it likely in this case.”

  Pearl found herself stifling a chuckle and turned the sound into a little moan, such as an injured person might make upon coming conscious.

  “Aunt Pearl? How do you feel?”

  “Tired. Home?”

  “I can take you to your house. We’re next door. Dr. Pike brought you to the museum to give me time to drive from San Francisco.”

  “Deng okay?”

  “Yes. Franklin’s fine. He burned quite a lot of ch’i aiding you, but he’s recovering well.”

  “Good. Thank him.”

  She raised her head slightly from the pillow as she spoke, but now she let it sag back as if even that small effort had been too much. If she was honest with herself, she would have admitted it almost had been, but she wasn’t in the habit of being honest when it came to admitting weakness.

  Pearl felt herself being moved, possibly onto the same stretcher that had once carried a battered Waking Lizard. The thought made her sad.

  Waking Lizard has gone ahead, she thought. I wonder when I’ll follow. Not quite yet, please heavens. So much I want to do. So very, very much I want to do.

  The evening was warm and pleasant, a breeze from somewhere breaking up the August heat so that the four University of South Carolina students’ walk to the coffee house was actually quite nice. The sidewalk wasn’t really wide enough for more than two to walk side by side, and so Brenda found herself walking with Parnell.

  He grinned at her, his green eyes dancing with mischief. “I guess I challenged him.” He tossed his head to indicate where Dermott was walking with Shannon. “I didn’t mean to . . .”

  Brenda snorted disbelief. “Yeah, right. You flirt with a guy’s girlfriend, and you don’t think he’ll take offense?”

  Parnell’s grin didn’t fade, and Brenda was glad that scattered light from the street lamps hid the blush she could feel burning in her cheeks.

  “Parnell,” she said, desperately searching for a way to change the subject. “That’s not a really usual name.”

  “Know where it comes from?” he asked, turning that wicked grin on her. “There’ll be a prize if you’re right.”

  Brenda thought about asking what prize, then decided she didn’t want to risk his answer.

  “My guess is Irish history. Charles Stewart Parnell. Home rule. Rumblings of rebellion, all that.”

  “Charles Stewart Parnell, called by many Ireland’s uncrowned king,” Parnell agreed cheerfully. “That’s the answer. The rebel leader brought low by a woman—or by the Catholic Church. Depends on how you want to look at the situation with Mrs. O’Shea. Really, Parnell’s become almost a mythical figure.”

  “A lot to take on,” Brenda said, thinking of the Orphans, of dreams, of a young man with long black hair who didn’t laugh quite this easily, but warmed her heart when he smiled. “Being mythic.”

  “You’d know,” Parnell said, “wouldn’t you?”

  He reached out, and Brenda thought he was going to take her hand, but instead he touched the mah-jong tile bracelet on her left wrist.

  “Wouldn’t you?” Parnell repeated.

  Brenda blinked at him, but she wasn’t going to say anything. That lesson had been drummed into her over and over again. You didn’t talk about magical things except with those you knew were in on the secret. You didn’t e-mail about them. You didn’t talk about them on the phone. Despite the eerie familiarity of those green eyes, Brenda wasn’t going to break that rule here.

  “Shannon,” she called, “just where are you taking us?”

  “Koffee Klatche,” Shannon said. “They’re open late and they have desserts—unless your summer in healthy California has made you swear off ice cream.”

  “Absolutely not,” Brenda said. “It has made me very much swear on to desserts. I want a sundae. Butterscotch and hot fudge on pecan chocolate ice cream.”

  Parnell made a mock expression of horror. “Good thing the euro is strong right now.”

  Shannon looked surprised. “You’re treating?”

  “Sure. Least I can do when you and Dermott came to get me from the airport and then agreed to show me about. If you want to hit a pub . . .”

  “Not legal,” Dermott said primly. “We don’t need to get busted our first couple of days back.”


  “Do we ever need to get busted?” Parnell asked, touching up his brogue just a bit.

  Brenda laughed, and Dermott’s wooden expression melted away.

  “I guess not,” he admitted, “but I’ll take you up on the treat and thank you for it.”

  After quantities of ice cream—the two boys decided to compete to complete a massive confection called an Ice Age—t hey walked for a while, showing Parnell the older section of campus around the Horseshoe.

  Shannon had worked that summer as a tour guide for prospective students, and knew lots of cute little facts. They were having quite a good time, but eventually Shannon started yawning.

  “Sorry,” she apologized. “Long day.”

  Brenda laughed. “I guess it is. Midnight here is nine at Pearl’s. Made Mom crazy that I couldn’t seem to adjust.”

  As if on cue, her cell phone rang. She glanced at the read-out and saw Pearl’s home number.

  “I guess someone there has forgotten, too. Just a sec.”

  She stepped a few paces away and answered the call.

  “Hello?”

  “Brenda, this is Albert.”

  “Hi.” Brenda tried to remember if Albert had ever phoned her, and decided that he had not. Her pulse quickened and she took a few more steps away from the others. “Have you heard from—”

  “The scouts? No. I’m calling because Pearl had an accident tonight.”

  The way he inflected “accident” made Brenda think he meant otherwise. Remembering the rules about communicating via phone, she quickly sought a way to ask.

  “Anything like when she got those thorns—was it twenty-seven or only ten?—in her hand?”

  “Something like that,” Albert said. “She’s going to be fine, but she wanted everyone to know. You know how superstitious she can be. She keeps saying bad things happen in threes.”

  Brenda doubted that Pearl had said anything of the sort. Despite having spent the formative years of her life on stage and screen, Pearl was probably the least superstitious person Brenda had met.

  I guess it comes from knowing what’s real and what’s not, Brenda thought. Aloud she said, “I understand. I’ll be really careful. I have those lucky bracelets she taught me how to make, and I don’t take them off.”