Five Odd Honors (10 page)

Albert glanced at the very expensive gold watch he wore on his right wrist. “It’s getting late in the day. The Double Hour of the Rooster is nearly upon us. Des, why don’t you and Shen come back with me to Pearl’s house, and we’ll set things up to contact Nine Ducks.”

“I need to go back, too,” Nissa said. “Lani’s going to be missing me.”

Brenda vacillated. Part of her wanted to stay here and see if Flying Claw might want to talk or something, but despite the fact that she was beginning to think he might actually like her—or maybe because of that—she was reluctant to thrust herself forward. Then there was the sly smile she’d seen Honey Dream give her, like the other woman could read her thoughts.

“I’ll come with you,” Brenda said. “The snacks were great, but we should probably put some dinner together.”

Matters ended up with all of Pearl’s house hold returning, with one addition. Flying Claw had been speaking to Shen and now he addressed the company at large.

“In the Lands,” he said, “we have a ritual for challenging the established holder of a Branch affiliation. Because of my own training, I know the ritual for a challenge between Tigers. Perhaps this would be of some use.”

Pearl smiled at him. “Thank you, nephew. I believe it might be. Thundering Heaven will have a lot more trouble refusing to fight me if we present the challenge to him with proper ritual flourish. Can you come to my house and tutor me in the details?”

“Gladly.”

Brenda felt her heart leap at the thought that Flying Claw would be coming “home” with them. Immediately, she scolded herself.

He’s coming to help Pearl, not to spend time with you.

But rationality didn’t change her feelings a bit. She still felt ridiculously happy.

None of
the living—not even Des and Shen, who stood as guards when Albert, through the intermediary of Nine Ducks, issued Pearl’s challenge—would ever know exactly what Albert Yu said to Thundering Heaven to make the Exile Tiger accept their terms.

By the end of the Double Hour of the Rooster—about seven in the evening—Pearl’s house hold had all assembled in the family room. Albert, looking more weary than ever, gave them the news.

“Thundering Heaven has accepted, but he’s not giving you much time to prepare, Aunt Pearl. He insists that if you two are to meet, the meeting must take place at this next Double Hour of the Tiger. The meeting will take place within the traditional challenge format. I had no choice but to accept on your behalf, but I will admit, I only had a hazy idea what I might be getting you into. I hope Flying Claw has been able to fill you in on the details.”

Riprap rose angrily to his feet from his seat at the table where he’d been eating a slice of pie.

“Double Hour of the Tiger!” Riprap protested. “That’s three in the morning! Pearl’s already been up all day. She’ll hardly get any sleep.”

Pearl favored the strong young man with a dry smile. “I believe meditation will serve me far better than sleep. We are fortunate Thundering Heaven accepted my challenge at all. I am not going to risk a postponement.”

Pearl turned her attention to Albert. “Flying Claw has briefed me, and I am willing to accept a challenge within the traditional forms. However, there are few enough hours for me to gather my ch’i. If you all would excuse me . . .”

“Of course,” Albert said, echoed by the rest. Concern showed in tone and expression as it did not in the matter-of-fact words.

Shen reached out to snag Pearl’s hand as she went by him.

“Ming-Ming, if I can assist . . .”

She shook her head. “Help Flying Claw ready the altar. I’ll be down at two-thirty.”

Pearl turned and headed, not for her office, which was too filled with distractions, but for her rooms on the second floor of the house. She had her own suite there, including a private bathroom, and now, more than ever, she felt a need for privacy.

Initially, she could not settle into meditation. Restlessly, she paced back and forth in the space between the foot of her bed and her dresser. Back and forth, barefoot on the thick Persian carpet she had bought herself twenty years ago, and that still held its jewel tones, as bright as on the day she’d fallen in love with the edge of a pattern peeking out of a heap of carpets on a dealer’s showroom floor.

Pearl let herself pace, using the motion to slowly calm her roiled nerves, as she had done years ago before stepping out on a stage or before a camera.

Forth and back. Pearl moved to a comfortable reading chair, let her head relax against the padded rest. Raised her feet on the ottoman. Without looking, she tugged the nearby light off, knowing exactly where she would find the chain.

She sought relaxation, muscle group by muscle group, starting with her feet, moving up her legs, into her torso. She located the flow of ch’i moving within her, sought to facilitate the various threads. Imagined that the ch’i was a stream within her, a sparkling ribbon, golden, as sunlight on clear water is the color of light.

Breathed deeply, slowly, regularly. With each pass through her, down each limb, up and around, through heart and lungs, liver and spleen, stomach and intestines, the shimmering stream became brighter, shedding the poisons of exhaustion and nervous energy, collecting the ch’i pocketed in little nooks of dream and vision throughout her mind and body.

The stream moved through Pearl Bright, collecting force and reaching out beyond her to touch the greater flow of ch’i that moved through her house. Feng shui was old news to Pearl by the time “fung shew-ee” became the hottest new trend in New Age home decorating. Her house could have served as a textbook example of how to maximize good energies and minimize bad.

Now Pearl connected her personal stream to that greater river, cycling this environmental ch’i into herself, creating reservoirs. She concentrated on building an image of the Tiger she would most like to be, for when she crossed to do battle with Thundering Heaven she must cease being Pearl Bright and become wholly the Tiger.

Pearl saw
the concern on her associates’ faces transform into something like awe as she descended the stairs to the ground floor. All the residents of her house hold, except for Lani, who would have gone to bed hours ago, were present, as was Flying Claw. Each of them evinced signs of having drunk too much coffee or tea in an effort to stay awake and alert until this late hour.

Nissa had a reddish smudge on one cheek that showed she, at least, had probably dozed in some awkward position, head resting against fist or perhaps against the headrest of a chair.

Pearl had pulled herself from meditation a half hour before, taken a quick shower, and done an abbreviated tai-chi routine to limber up bones and muscles that, beneath honest assessment, did not need limbering.

Her entire body was humming with stored ch’i, so much so that Pearl entertained the fancy that the elaborate shenyi she now wore, elegantly embroidered with symbols of luck and prosperity, as well as with countless representations of the Tiger in all his moods, floated around her aura instead of hanging against her physical form.

“Are the preparations made?” Pearl asked, smiling benificently at them all, but granting special attention to Flying Claw and Shen, who would have done most of the work.

“They are,” Shen said. As she came close to him, he said in a soft whisper, “You look fantastic, Pearl.”

“Thank you, my friend.”

The furniture in Pearl’s office had been rearranged. Her desk had been slid back to make more floor space. Sufficient chairs for the assembled company had been arrayed in this open area.

The most comfortable of the chairs, a twin to the reading chair in Pearl’s bedroom, had been placed close to the altar that dominated one end of the room. Someone had draped the chair with a piece of green fabric. Pearl recognized the top from a sheet set, but the drape did add a touch of elegance to what would otherwise have been a prosaic setting, so she restrained the flippant comment she might otherwise have made.

The altar at the far end of the room now included various items related to the Tiger, including photos of herself and of Thundering Heaven. The red tapers that usually stood at each corner had been replaced with ones in a vibrant emerald green.

“Everyone wanted to stay with you,” Albert said almost apologetically, indicating the circle of chairs. He’d changed from his suit to casual trousers and a short-sleeved sports shirt. “I tried to tell them we couldn’t be of any help, and we might be a distraction, so the choice is yours.”

“Anyone who wishes to do so can stay,” Pearl said. “I will not be distracted, and if people want to watch me sleeping in an armchair, then I don’t mind. I’ll even admit to being touched by your concern.”

Flying Claw stepped forward. He wore the same jeans and tee shirt as he had earlier, and carried no weapons. Nonetheless, he managed to give the impression of being girded for battle.

“Those of us from the Lands,” he said formally, speaking careful English, “wish to extend our wishes for good luck.”

“Thank you,” Pearl replied. “Now, the Double Hour of the Tiger is nearly upon us. Let me go forth.”

Nissa stepped forward to settle Pearl in the chair.

“The Rabbit is the Tiger’s partner,” she said, “so Flying Claw said I should help light the incense and strike the bells.”

“By all means,” Pearl said, amused despite herself. She could imagine the conversation. Nissa’s voice: bright, alert, alive with concern.

“Is there anything I can do to help? I feel I should. Pearl’s risking herself for all of us.”

And Flying Claw kindly manufacturing this bit of business. Certainly there had been nothing like it in the briefing he had given her earlier.

What Flying Claw had told Pearl had been much less elaborate and much more frightening.

Pearl let the words run through her head as she settled herself in the chair.

“This is a battle between Tigers, so tigers you must be. The ability to manifest a tiger form is necessary, so that manifestation in itself is the first part of the test. Afterward . . .”
He had shrugged and tried not to look concerned.
“Tigers, especially male tigers, do not share their territory. You must defend yours against one who would take it from you.”

Pearl relaxed into the chair and began the process of separating her spirit from her body. Astral projection, as the practice was dubbed in Western magical traditions, was not new to her. Although the magic of the Thirteen Orphans included it among its practices, there was no simple spell to facilitate the separation, no simple sequence through which she could run and “Hey, presto. Here’s the body. Here’s the soul.”

Pearl thought this was because the process of separation must, by definition, be unique for each person. What could be more personal than finding what was the essense of oneself and then sending it forth? This could not be done without a very strong sense of who that self was.

Fresh from hours of meditation, Pearl did not find the process of separation unduly difficult. More difficult was shaping that self into a tiger. A superficial shaping, an image of the self as the animal self, was not too hard to manage. Even Brenda and Nissa had done this, and, despite Nissa’s Rabbit affiliation, they were hardly more than apprentices.

What Pearl needed was one step beyond. Nissa and Brenda had only shaped the form of their animal. Pearl must shape not only the tiger’s body, but its soul as well. When she had done so, that body and soul would be as key and passport into the domain she must defend—a domain that was one and the same as her right to be the Tiger.

Within the interior of her mind, Pearl found and recognized the soul that was and would always be Pearl Bright, no matter what changes were made to her body.

Next, she twisted that self—herself—around, reshaping, losing hands, gaining paws, stretching her spine, extending and adding, so that she came to possess a long and lashing tail.

With the addition of the tail, Pearl’s orientation changed, her center of gravity running parallel to the ground beneath her, no longer struggling to remain upright against the ground’s pull.

Tigers have binocular vision, so what Pearl saw did not change, but her range of color changed subtly: not to black and white, as most humans believe “animals” see, but within a more narrow scope, with different emphasis. Darkness no longer seemed an impediment, and every flicker of motion was noted and registered.