Well, other than those funky corsages guys’ mothers make them get for prom, Brenda thought.
This early in the term, homework wasn’t exactly exhausting. Midterms were comfortably far away, and other than for her German and English Lit classes, Brenda had very little in the way of daily assignments. There was plenty of time for long walks in the evening, when the humid heat seemed comfortable by contrast to the day. The USC Columbia campus had grown large and rambling in its more than two hundred years of existence, always offering another turn, another side street between mostly quiet buildings.
Brenda and Parnell were walking along a tree-lined concourse when Parnell suddenly cut off in the middle of an amusing anecdote he’d been telling about three bottles of beer, five guys, and a set of parallel bars.
“Very well,” he said softly, and Brenda wondered if he was even talking to her. “We are alone.”
Parnell turned to her, his green eyes serious and seeming somehow several shades darker. “Look, Brenda. I wasn’t supposed to need to get into this so quickly, but Pearl’s being attacked has changed matters.”
“Getting sick,” Brenda corrected, but her words were a fencer’s sword, raised to block and parry. “Having a heart attack.”
“Getting attacked,” Parnell said. He paused, his usual glibness completely vanished.
Brenda felt her blood run hot and cold, her pulse quicken, and her breath come shallow. She had remembered Parnell’s resemblance to the handsome squire in her dream—the dream that had been interrupted by Loyal Wind’s contacting her with the news about Thundering Heaven and Bent Bamboo.
However, there had been no way—especially not within the rules and regulations Pearl and Des had explained bound not only the Orphans but the indigenous magical traditions as well—to raise the point. She simply could not say, “Hey, did I dream about you one night? You were dressed like a squire from a book of Arthurian legends.”
At best, that would have sounded flirtatious. At worst, really, really dumb.
“Attacked,” Parnell repeated for the third time. “By a spirit—a hsien—with a specif c affinity for metal.”
Brenda blinked, but didn’t admit to anything. Pearl and Albert had, between them, managed to—if cryptically—get across at least that much. She’d needed to go look up what element was associated with the Monkey and the Rooster, but at least what Pearl and Albert had said would have come across to an eavesdropper as nothing more than Chinese astrology.
I’ll listen. I won’t volunteer anything, but I’ll listen.
Parnell steered Brenda to a comfortable seat next to a spreading oak. The trunk was wide enough that they could both lean back against it, intimate, but not unduly cozy.
Parnell glanced at Brenda, then decided that her silence could be taken as a reply.
“Brenda, before you end up the next target, there is information you should know.”
Brenda made a noncommittal sound that might be taken as “Go on.”
“Last month, you had several conversations with a woman who—for sake of convenience—I’m going to call Leaf.”
He glanced at Brenda, then continued. “Leaf is a relative of mine. She had a feeling that your father was going to try and keep you from getting much more involved in the Orphans’ business. Gaheris is probably right to do so. They’re involved in some dangerous matters.”
“Orphans. Leaf.” Brenda heard herself talking even though she’d resolved to stay quiet. “You know?”
“A bit. Enough. Enough to know that you never told the Orphans about your dreams about Leaf. You passed on her warnings, but you never said where they came from.”
“Yeah. Well, it’s not like Leaf was telling me to ask them to do anything other than what they wanted to do anyhow,” Brenda said. “They—we—really didn’t need a distraction.”
“Fine reasoning,” Parnell said approvingly. “Anyhow, what you did for us—for Leaf and all—put a stopper in the business, but it’s not over, as you well know. Leaf decided that we owed you a bit of protection, since you wouldn’t be living in Pearl’s warded domain. I’m that protection.”
“You?”
Brenda remembered some of the things Leaf had told her about herself. Her traitor tongue spoke ahead of her resolve.
“Are you sidhe folk?” Spending time with Shannon had made fresh all the Irish myths and legends they both loved. “A member of the Tuatha de Dannan, like that?”
“Sidhe, sure,” Parnell said.
A little whisper in Brenda’s brain, memory of a joke she and Shannon had come up with last year around exam time, when they’d sat up way too late.
Tuatha de Dannon, the yogurt fairies, cousins to the Keebler elves.
Brenda swallowed a hysterical giggle. She’d gotten used to the Chinese stuff , learned to take it almost for granted. She hadn’t had much choice, not with Albert Yu getting brain-raped right before Brenda was supposed to meet him. She’d believed all that stuff Auntie Pearl and her dad told her because it made more sense than not believing.
But Brenda’s encounters with Leaf had been dreamlike, and here was the boy of her dreams—quite literally—sprawling on the ground next to her, telling her that he was an elf.
“Sidhe,” Parnell went on, considering, maybe wondering about the weird little smirk that Brenda knew was twisting her lips, even though she was trying her best not to giggle. “But not really Tuatha de Dannan. Look, before I get into other matters, I’d better clarify what we are.”
“Okay,” Brenda managed, letting out the swallowed laughter on the exhalation. “Go ahead.”
“When I say we’re sidhe, we’re not talking all those noble, elfy-welfy Tuatha de Dannan types with their lineages going back to dubious Spaniards and all those interminable battles over cows. Those tales are the result of the later residents trying to supply themselves with retroactive history.”
Brenda nodded. “Like those stories that talk about ‘real’ Irish being descended from Milesius of Spain after he beat all the Formor. Stuff for people who don’t want to believe that they’re descended from savages who painted themselves blue, or worse, from the savages who came in and wiped the blue people out.”
“Right,” Parnell said. “You understand pretty well.”
“Hey,” Brenda said, “I grew up believing I was of mixed German and Irish descent, more Irish than German, but both. You aren’t going to find another pair of cultures as fond of creating mythic histories to make them feel better about their ancestry.”
“I’m not going to let you distract me,” Parnell said with one of those winning grins. “We can debate that later. I’m going to tell you about my own ancestry.”
“Go on.”
“Like I said, forget the noble elves with their high brows, pointy ears, and fondness for elevated music and poetry. We’re talking the underbelly stuff , the Little People who weren’t always so little. We’re talking the breath and pulse of islands.”
“Islands?”
“The United Kingdom: England, Scotland, Wales, and, of course, Ireland. Biggish islands dotted around with some really dinky islands, the whole brimming to the eyebrows with myth, legend, folklore, poetry.
“Islands are weird places, Brenda. Land that belongs more to water than to earth. Ever wonder why the old stories held on so hard there? Why Saint Patrick could banish the snakes but not the bogles? One word for you, chicky: islands. And islands are in you, girl. The blood of islands.”
Brenda listened, mesmerized, hypnotized, but she forced herself to protest.
“But Grandma Elaine, she’s the one who told me all the old legends. This underbelly stuff isn’t what she loved. She loved just what you’re sneering at, all the pretty stories: King Arthur, Finn, Deidre of the Sorrows, heck, even Robin Hood. Are you saying those aren’t part of the blood of islands, too?”
“They are. Those who know that the monsters are real, can you blame them for dreaming of all the rest?”
Very softly, Brenda replied, “N
o.”
“Even in the pretty stories,” Parnell went on, “there are hints of older lore. Gawain playing the beheading game with a knight who keeps growing back his head. Cuchulain’s battle transformation from a normal human into something pretty horrible. The Formor, who even the Irish can’t seem to decide are monsters or are just somewhat irritating kin of the prettier folk.
“But I’m not here to tell you stories you already know, Brenda Morris. What I want to do is to prepare you for the idea that those stories are real—as real as you are. You spoke of your grandma Elaine, but remember, you inherited from your mother’s side as well.”
“Oh,” Brenda paused, thinking this over. She’d grown so accustomed these last few months to thinking of herself as Gaheris’s heir that she’d almost forgotten what came from her mother’s side. “Parnell, why is it suddenly so important that I know this now?”
“Because, acushla, when the trouble comes that I think is coming, we’re going to need your help. And believe me, Brenda Morris, as much as we want your help to forestall the storm before it can hit us, I think you’re going to need our help to keep from being blown away.”
“I’m not ready,” Brenda said, hating herself for admitting this, but knowing it was true.
“Ready or not,” Parnell said, “the trouble will come.”
Between errands to hardware stores, sporting goods emporiums, grocery stores, and even odder establishments, the Orphans still found time to speculate about just how the attack on Pearl might have been worked.
“After all,” said Riprap, his big, broad hands surprisingly delicate as he folded bandana-sized pieces of brilliantly colored synthetic fabric into a zip-top bag, “if we can figure that out, we can also figure out how to defend you.”
“We don’t have much to work with,” Albert reminded him. “We know the magic was centered on Pearl’s car. That’s it.”
Riprap shrugged. “Okay. That still helps. Who has access to the car? After all, she keeps it in her warded garage, not parked on the street. That limits access.”
Des, who had been making up small packets containing miniature bottles of wine and spirits, freshwater pearls, and tiny vials of perfume, glanced up, his expression concerned.
“Do we eliminate members of the household?” Des said. “All of us who have stayed here have access to the garage and anything in it.”
Pearl didn’t answer. Albert took over. He looked uncomfortable. “I was going to eliminate our own automatically, but—”
Pearl, who had been observing all the preparations from her recliner—she was still inclined to get tired—cut in.
“But I insisted we work an augury.”
“The results?” Riprap asked, his deep voice gruff , his hands pausing in their work as if he was prepared to spring to his feet and head out after the malefactor the moment he learned his name.
“They were,” Pearl said, “undecided.”
“Undecided?” Riprap said, the word almost a bark.
Albert frowned. “Yes. Auguries are not perfect, especially if the target has the sense to muddle them in advance.”
“I guess there must be ways,” Riprap agreed reluctantly. “It’s always like that with weapons. Someone invents the perfect solution to a problem, then ten other people get to work on countermeasures. Okay. So is that ‘undecided’ reading saying that Pearl could have been attacked by someone within our own group?”
“It’s possible,” Albert said. Pearl could tell he hated even admitting to that option, “but I don’t see it as very likely. There are other, much more reasonable solutions.”
“Oh?”
“Pearl’s car hasn’t been in the garage all the time,” Albert said. “Given all the people who have been staying in this house, both the car and the van have been out a great deal.”
Des frowned. “But would someone have been able to work a complex spell without being noticed?”
Albert made a disapproving sound. “Sure. Put up the hood, pretend to be checking for engine trouble. Slap a prepared amulet down where it would be concealed in the workings. If the spell was meant for Pearl in particular, the casting might have been done weeks ago. She hasn’t had much reason to drive lately.”
Pearl nodded. “That’s true. I rarely drive if I can get someone else to do so.”
“Or,” Albert continued, “the spell could have been meant to hit any one of the Orphans at a time when he or she was alone in the car. I did some checking. Lately, there have been so many people here that at least two people have gone out at a time—usually more.”
“True,” Riprap said. “Okay. So the spell could have been done weeks ago. That’s no help at all.”
“Were we able to learn anything about the nature of the spell itself ?” Des asked.
“No,” Albert said. “Nothing. Pearl’s attacker covered his—or her—tracks carefully there.”
Speculation continued, but Pearl tuned out the conversation. She and Albert had been over the matter in great detail earlier. Despite Albert’s dislike of the ambivalence of the result of the augury, she found herself considering what that ambivalence could mean.
The unhappy reality was that their most obvious enemies—those who had come recently from the Lands—were now bound to them by very carefully worded treaties, treaties that made such an attack all but impossible.
Pearl found herself wondering if they had been careful enough with Twentyseven-Ten and the other two former prisoners. Her car had been parked at Colm Lodge many times. Meddling would be easy enough for someone there—and with little chance of interruption.
Both Twentyseven-Ten and Thorn were magically adept. Twentyseven-Ten had a considerable amount of both talent and training. Moreover, he was a product of the same hard school that had produced Flying Claw.
And like Flying Claw, Pearl thought uneasily, his goal was to be the Tiger.
If Twentyseven-Ten and Thorn had worked the spell in conjunction, they might have been able to find a loophole in the prohibitions against their causing harm, since two parts of a spell done separately would not, in themselves, be dangerous, especially if the third component for making the spell activate was the presence of a person or a certain set of circumstances.
But Pearl didn’t raise that possibility. She was tired of debate and wrangling. In the end, very little would be changed. Everyone was alerted now to these new dangers. The scouts must set out again.
And what if the one who placed the spell was one of us? she thought unhappily. But who? I can’t really believe anyone in our number would want to kill me. But perhaps I am becoming naive and trusting in my old age.
Pearl Bright sighed and let her eyes drift shut in sleep. Sleep, that close kin to death. Death which still prowled in the jungles of her mind, wearing her father’s face.
The scouts passed through the Nine Gates, heavily burdened, but cheerful, ready to face a challenge they could see.
“We’ve been fighting shadows for too long,” Flying Claw said as he oriented his compass to find the most direct route to the Center. “I long for an opponent I can touch, a mountain I can climb.”
The three ghosts who possessed quadruped animal forms had opted totravel in them so that they could serve as pack animals. Bent Bamboo traveled as a human. Gentle Smoke alternated between her snake and her human form, for the snake could often penetrate where the larger creatures could not. More than once her scouting saved them the need to backtrack.
After several days hiking in as straight a line as was possible, they came to the first of the barriers Li of the Iron Crutch had mentioned, the Forest of Stone Trees .
The Immortal’s description didn’t do the place justice.
“It doesn’t look like a forest,” Riprap protested. “It looks like someone set up a bunch of agate pillars at random—sort of a maze without solid walls. Then they stretched a sheet over it to substitute for the sky. Gives me the creeps.”
Loyal Wind thought the pillars bore some resemblance to living tre
es. True, they lacked leaves or branches, but the striations of the multicolored stone did resemble the grain of living wood.
Copper Gong, still in ram form, was sniffing the ground. She looked up, nostrils flared.
“The ground from which these ‘trees’ spring smells rather like cement,” she said, pawing the surface. “Feels like it, too.”
“What bothers me,” Des said, leaning back, hands on hips, to look at the sky, “is how that white sky starts exactly at the edge of the stone field. Makes the whole thing look like a stage set.”
Nine Ducks had cut into the edge with one hoof.
“The same here,” she said. “Look. Under the surface, the ‘cement’ edge is as clean cut as if it had been poured in a mold.”
“What bothers me even more,” Flying Claw said, consulting his compass, “is how quickly we reached here. I calculated our rate of progress during our prior visit, and again this time. It seems to me that we have found this Forest of Stone Trees too soon. Surely we covered at least as much distance during our much longer, earlier exploration.”
Loyal Wind realized that once he would have been automatically aware of such an anomaly, but altered versions of time and space were so much a part of what was “normal” in a ghost’s life that he had not noticed.
“You are right to be alert to such oddities,” Loyal Wind said. “However, I wonder if somehow our journey was facilitated by the spirits of the Lands. Li of the Iron Crutch did tell us that many hsien found themselves exiled from their former homes. Perhaps word has spread of our desire to set things right, and the Lands themselves are helping us.”
Riprap had been unpacking footgear from one of Nine Ducks’s packs. Now he paused, his dark features troubled.
“I wonder who else might know we’re coming,” he said. “I can’t help remembering Thundering Heaven’s nasty attitude and that odd sword of his.”
Five Odd Honors Page 20
