Thundering Heaven looked even stronger than he had when Loyal Wind had fought him for possession of Bent Bamboo.
Fought, Loyal Wind thought, and lost.
There was also something about Thundering Heaven that indicated that, like the other “ghosts,” he too had reclaimed a connection to his mortal life.
And therefore, he is very dangerous, for a ghost cannot usually do physical harm to the living.
Loyal Wind’s sword was in his hand, and he found himself longing for his magical steed. He knew how to fight on foot, but beginning a battle that way seemed unnatural.
Flying Claw had also drawn his sword.
“You! I dreaded monsters but—”
Thundering Heaven laughed, a bluff , hearty sound at odds with the menace in his eyes. “But never one of the original Thirteen Orphans. How do you know I have not come to join you, to help you in your noble quest?”
Confusion touched Flying Claw’s eyes, but Gentle Smoke, who had taken advantage of the interlude to drop from her tree, spoke from where she now rested atop the packs that Nine Ducks carried.
“Because to this point the price for your help has been one we have not agreed to pay.”
“A point,” Thundering Heaven agreed almost affably. “A point. Of course, I could have reformed. I could have been impressed by my daughter’s courage and creativity. I could have come over to the view that if she could defeat me, she was worthy of the Tiger’s stripes.”
“Have you?” asked Flying Claw, not quite relaxing, but clearly hopeful.
“Actually,” said Thundering Heaven, his affable expression transforming into something very nasty, “I have not.”
He motioned slightly, and Loyal Wind felt himself seized from behind. H etried to spin, to get his blade into his attacker, but he could not move. Looking about him, he saw that his companions were also held—and not by any human, but by the limbs and branches of the forest itself. Even Gentle Smoke, relatively small in her snake form, had been wrapped around by vines and lifted from Nine Ducks’s back into the air, where she thrashed impotently.
“I heard you speculating as to the nature of the area dedicated to the element of wood,” Thundering Heaven said, his tone conversational, his sword still held lightly even though Flying Claw snarled and strained against the branches a mere arm’s length away.
“In each area,” Thundering Heaven said, “the element was presented in a fashion somehow alien to its nature. Wood is here permitted something that is usually denied it, the ability to move with the speed and grace of an animal. Of course,” Thundering Heaven gave a self-deprecatory cough, “it does so at my command.”
Flying Claw had ceased his furious struggle, probably realizing, as had Loyal Wind, that all the action did was wear him to the point that if an opportunity for attack did present itself, he would be too exhausted to take advantage of it.
“So you reign here?” Flying Claw asked. “Is this perversion of the Lands your doing?”
“Perversion? Tut-tut.” Thundering Heaven sneered with the magnificent insolence of a cat. “My master will be of ended to hear you speak so. No, kitten. I do not reign here. The one who does is the one who created these Lands Born from Smoke and Sacrifice.”
“Shih Huang Ti,” Des Lee said, his eyes wide with wonder. “The first emperor himself?”
Thundering Heaven shook his head. “Shih Huang Ti but gave the orders that enabled the plan to be carried out. The true creator is another.”
“Li Szu,” Bent Bamboo said, and there was no wonder in his eyes, only fury at finding himself bound so that his strength and cleverness were equally useless. “He’s the one who created this perversion of our home?”
“Li Szu,” Thundering Heaven repeated with amused calm. “The one who is setting everything right once more. He has a good many questions for you. Will you come along peacefully, or must I have my servants drag you?”
Loyal Wind spoke quickly, before Flying Claw could offer a challenge, or Riprap, who had not ceased straining at his bonds, could do something even more foolish.
“We will come with you.”
“Wise,” said Thundering Heaven, “very wise. Conserve your strength, for if you plan to defy my master, as I sense you do, you will need every iota.”
He smiled again, the expression slow and mocking. Then he nodded to the trees and the captives’ bonds were loosed.
“Come,” Thundering Heaven said. “The creator, Li Szu, awaits. He is very impatient to get about his work.”
“Parnell!” Brenda shouted, dashing over to the tree into which he had vanished and running her hands over the trunk.
She didn’t know quite what she was hoping to find, the seam of a door, maybe? What ever it was, she didn’t find it. She leaned back against the tree, sliding down to land with a decided thump as her jeans-clad behind hit the soft grass.
Brenda was aware that she was still hoping to trigger some response by accident. How often had she seen that happen in some movie? The despairing heroine angrily thumps her fist against the wall, accidentally triggering just the right knothole or hidden switch.
Clearly that wasn’t going to happen here.
What had Parnell said before he’d vanished? He’d told her that her attitude had raised a lot of doubts about how much help she’d be. And that she had to prove herself by getting herself home.
“Prove what?” she muttered angrily.
Brenda waited awhile, hoping against hope that Parnell would show up and tell her his leaving was just a bad joke. She got a couple of drinks from the spring. When her fury at being abandoned so callously had ebbed enough for her to think straight, she considered her options.
She thought she remembered the basic route she and Parnell had taken to get here. They’d walked down a hill, into a forested valley, then eventually entered that cavern. They’d walked downhill through those dark, damp tunnels for a considerable distance. Then the trail had shifted upward again, finally emerging here.
Can I retrace my steps? Brenda thought. And even if I made my way through all of that and made it back to that hill, what would I do?
She remembered her comment to Parnell back at USC when he’d simply pushed the tree to one side and led her through.
“That easy?”
Her face burned hot. Now that she was on the doing side, “that” didn’t seem easy at all.
Do I even need to go to that same tree? Parnell didn’t. When he left, he did it right here. This time he seemed more to walk into the tree, but I’m not sure how he did it mattered. I’m not certain he even needed a tree. That might have just been a bit of show for my benefit.
She thought a while longer.
Damn!
Her butt was starting to hurt. Soft grass or not, she didn’t have quite enough padding back there to really enjoy such a rural seat. She rose and stretched. Might as well take a look around. That couldn’t hurt, could it?
For safety’s sake, she took one of the ribbons out of her hair (she’d done it up nice because she thought she might be going to the fairy court) and used it to mark the spring. Parnell had told her it was safe to drink from there, and so she’d better not lose sight of it.
Remembering Wasp’s somewhat malicious moods, Brenda anchored the ribbon several times, pulling the knots really tight. She hoped that would be enough to keep her marker from being removed. She knew that a more permanent mark would be to score the bark on a tree or break limbs from a bush, but remembering the sort of plantlike nature of many of those to whom Parnell had introduced her, Brenda thought this might not be a great idea.
Then she started exploring.
First, she walked down to the mouth of the cave. It was very dark. As Brenda thought about re-entering, the faces she’d glimpsed seemed creepy rather than evocative or enticing. She wasn’t sure she really wanted to go back that way—and she’d feel a real idiot if she walked up to the top of the nearest hill and glimpsed the other side of the caverns.
Besides, she t
hought, looking at the two candle lanterns, I don’t have any matches, and I can’t see in the dark.
Deciding to check her theory about the extent of the caverns, Brenda walked upslope to the top of the nearest hill. In the distance was something that might be the shadow of the forest, tucked down in a dell, but she couldn’t be certain.
She located the sun overhead. Mining some vague Girl Scout memory, she stuck a twig in the ground and examined the shadow it cast. There wasn’t much of one.
“Okay,” Brenda muttered to herself. “About noon. When the shadow gets longer, I’ll have an idea which direction is west. I’m not sure what good knowing the directions will do, but it’s something.”
Continuing her hike, Brenda soon discovered that she was surrounded by gently undulating hills covered in green grass and ornamented by the occasional tree or copse of trees. No nearby stand of trees seemed extensive enough to be the forest Parnell had walked her through, and there were no wide rivers.
She decided to return and check where “her” spring might lead. Once it overflowed the shallow basin into which it trickled, the spring became a narrow stream for maybe fifty feet before spreading into a pool just about as big as a bathtub. The pool had a rocky bottom, but it didn’t overflow, so Brenda guessed that the bottom must be just porous enough to leak down into the caverns below.
Brenda sat down by the pool to rest. Surreptitiously, she glanced around, hoping to see someone—even Prickles or Sluggy—whom she might ask for help.
She’d seen some animals—squirrels that dashed up the trunks of trees, rabbits that flashed cotton tails and rocketed off at her approach, a field mouse that scampered by with bulging cheeks.
There were many birds, from a hawk or eagle that was hardly more than a dark speck against the brilliant blue of the sky to hosts of songbirds who only quieted when she came right up to their perches. A couple of times Brenda startled mourning doves or some such bird from where they’d been resting on the ground.
They sprang skyward in a flurry of wings, trilling mild protest.
But, although she looked, Brenda didn’t see any of the local residents, not even Wasp. A few times she thought she heard giggling and whispers.
Of course, Brenda thought, I haven’t exactly asked for help, have I? And they didn’t
hide themselves when Parnell and I were walking through. They didn’t exactly come out and beg for an introduction, but I saw a lot of them. Damn!
She considered a while longer, fragments of almost forgotten fairy tales and more recently seen movies flickering through her mind.
“Goblin King . . .”
“I am Zorro!”
“Once upon a midnight dreary . . .”
“There once was a king who had three sons . . .”
“And the cat said . . .”
“With eyes as big as saucers . . .”
“Three wishes, no more . . .”
“I am Arthur, King of the Britons . . .”
One thing was certain, if nothing else was, no one in fairy tales or real life got anywhere lying around, waiting for someone to offer help. Even the stupid son in the fairy tales got on his feet and walked into the dark wood.
Besides, she was getting hungry, and those same fairy tales kept reminding her of the consequences of eating fairy food.
“Really,” Brenda said aloud, mostly because she was tired of hearing nothing other than bird song and the bright plashing of the stream. “Really, the Chinese tradition of greeting someone with the offer of a meal seems very civilized. A cheeseburger—even a bacon cheeseburger and fries—doesn’t last too long when you’ve been hiking.”
She found herself wondering about other necessities of life. So far she hadn’t needed to pee or worse, but what would she do when the need arose? Here, where people walked in and out of trees—or maybe empty air . . . She squinched her eyes shut, embarrassed at the images that arose.
“Well! I’m just going to have to figure out how to get back, that’s it.”
Brenda remembered several stories, including a movie she’d really liked, that centered around someone struggling to get something that they could have had for the asking.
“I would like,” she said to the nearest moving thing, a robin, who paused in its grubbing in the soil near the base of a tree to turn a bright eye on her, “to go home, please. I wish you would direct me to the nearest route. Please.”
The robin looked at her, then went back to grubbing for bugs.
Well, Brenda thought. If there was an answer there, it was “Dig up your own bugs, lady.” Or find your own door. Okay. I didn’t really think it would be that easy. Now, should I ask someone specif c to help? Wasp was here earlier, and I thought I might have seen Oak Gall. Prickles is actually pretty nice. If he’s around . . .
Brenda considered, then shook her head. No, if this was something someone else could do for her, then why would the sidhe folk need her? Why would she need to prove anything to them?
What did she know that might get her home? A little bit of the Orphans’ magic? Brenda was still wearing her usual pair of amulet bracelets, but neither Dragon’s Tail nor Dragon’s Breath seemed particularly useful in her present situation.
Still, Brenda felt heartened, as if finally she was on the right track. What else did she know?
She was the heir to the Rat. The Rat’s direction was north. Its color was black. Its element was water. She’d turned into a rat twice, but the first time had seemed more or less like a dream. The second time she’d had help—and had been in the afterlife, which didn’t quite abide by the usual rules.
But, Brenda thought with a breath-catching flash of excitement, this place doesn’t either. Parnell and Leaf both mentioned that the sidhe lands are more like the guardian domains—places that exist because they’re between other places that define them. What I know might work more easily here than if I were to try it back at Pearl’s.
A plan began to take shape. She went back to the spring, wondering if she felt more comfortable there because it was her only real landmark and source of refreshment or because the Rat’s element was water.
There was a border of silty sand alongside the little stream. Brenda smoothed a surface on which she could write. The twig she’d used to measure the course of the sun—now definitely westering, but still far from setting—made a good stylus.
Pulling off the Dragon’s Tail bracelet, Brenda studied the characters. The basic Dragon’s Tail called for either a pung (set of three) of dragons or a pung of winds, followed by a run of one through nine in any one suit.
Des Lee had taught them to tailor what tiles they chose to their own sign. Although Brenda was not yet the Rat, that was still the sign he suggested she guide herself by.
Therefore, Brenda’s bracelet had a pung of north winds, followed by a pair of red dragons. She’d suggested green dragons, since those stood for increase and therefore strength, but Des had said since the caster stood in the center of the Dragon’s Tail for protection, the red dragon tile, which bore the character for “Center,” was best. For the same reason, Brenda had made her run of one through nine in the bamboo suit, because bamboo was both strong and flexible.
Brenda drew a few experimental characters, and discovered that damp sand held the images longer and with less distortion than dry. Then she smoothed out her images. Returning the Dragon’s Tail to her wrist, Brenda pulled off the Dragon’s Breath and examined it.
The Dragon’s Breath sequence consisted of one of each dragon tile, the last of which was paired. This was followed by five pairs in any one suit.
For this spell, which sent a blast of hot fire at an opponent, Des had agreed that the green dragon was the most useful, because it increased the heat and intensity of the fire. The suit he’d suggested for the pairs was characters, because what the elaborate Chinese ideograms actually stood for were the numbers one through nine, followed by the word “wan,” or “ten thousand.”
In the Chinese tradition, ten thousand
wasn’t just a specif c number; it had dual symbolic associations. The first was with scorpions, because some Chinese lore held that these always appeared in huge hosts. The other association was with the idea of vastness. In fact, some older books translated “wan” as “myriads,” rather than as a specif c number.
“Rather,” Nissa had said, “the way kids say ‘lots and lots’ or ‘billions and zillions.’ ”
Between the two bracelets, then, Brenda had samples of many of the basic mah-jong tiles. She was missing the dots suit, but that one was the easiest to remember. And she didn’t have the other three winds, but she was pretty sure she could do the west wind character without messing it up.
“Note to self,” she said aloud, feeling more cheerful, “make a bracelet that, even if it won’t do a spell, will show the range of characters. And practice more!”
She considered what sequences she had memorized and wrote them in the sand so she wouldn’t get befuddled and forget. “All Green,” which let one see magical workings, was one she’d worked hard to commit to memory. Then there was “Knitting,” which let you share ch’i with another person.
“And only with someone you trust,” Brenda reminded herself.
There were several simple wind spells, mostly good for minor defense or pushing something relatively lightweight out of the way. Still, Brenda made note of them.
Then she paused, reaching deep into herself to see if she remembered a spell that might be her way out of here, one she was afraid she wouldn’t remember because she’d only had to do it from memory once—and that time she’d only had to work part of it.
Nine Gates.
To Brenda’s relief, memory did not fail her. The sequence called for three ones and three nines in a suit, then one of each tile in a chosen suit. The fourteenth tile was chosen so that it would designate which of the nine gates was being created.
Brenda drummed fingertips against her lower lip, considering her options. She didn’t need nine gates—at least she dearly hoped she didn’t. She just needed one: one to take her back to USC. Come to think of it, she wasn’t sure she could summon sufficient ch’i to make nine gates in succession.
Five Odd Honors Page 29
