Five Odd Honors (12 page)

Pearl knew the danger of this tactic, for tigers prefer to spring on their prey from behind, so much so that the sight of a face apparently staring at them—as in a mask worn on the backside of the head—has been known to dissuade even a confirmed man-eater from attacking.

Pearl had no mask. Indeed, the sight of her apparently fleeing should give Thundering Heaven the renewed strength of confidence.

Yes. He was giving chase. She ran harder.

Even on the damp ground of the jungle, Pearl could hear him coming after her, hear the dull thuds of his paws hitting the ground. She ran, long body stretching out with each leap, rear legs gathering in behind to push off almost before they touched. Panic at what would happen if Thundering Heaven should come close enough to leap onto her back gave Pearl the added speed she needed to stay just that far ahead.

Mossy green over glimmering white, the pillars of the stage set showed against the browner trunks of the natural trees, obvious now that Pearl knew what she was looking for. She did not dare slow, but ran near to one of the pillars, cornering like a horse on a barrel racing course, close but not too close. She wove in and out of the pillars, thinking crazily of Little Black Sambo with the tiger chasing him, racing round and round the tree until at last the tiger turned into butter.

Pearl cut closer, closer, not quite touching but feeling her fur brush against the moss-covered, vine-shrouded plaster. Her control was perfect, that of a dancer who could perform complexly choreographed routines, that of an actress who always kept within her spot. Then it happened.

Thundering Heaven—larger than she was, made furious by having his prey in reach but ever just out of reach—cut too close to one of the pillars. Had the pillars been the trees they resembled, this would not have mattered. He maybe would have bruised a rib, but would have come on hardly hindered.

But these were not trees, but plaster pillars. A full-grown tiger can weigh more than six hundred pounds, and Thundering Heaven was a very large tiger indeed, a very large tiger running with all the strength of his powerful hind legs.

Thundering Heaven crashed into the pillar, and the pillar broke. The upper part swayed and snapped, falling heavily to smash not onto Thundering Heaven—that would have been too much luck—but into the next nearest pillar.

Pearl, hearing the thud of impact, the snarl of rage and indignation that burst from Thundering Heaven as the “tree” broke, dared wheel about.

She saw her attacker momentarily halted, ears and whiskers twitching in every direction as he sought a clear path out of the rain of falling plaster.

Plaster is neither rock nor wood, but heavily packed, sodden with drifting mist, it is not insignificant either. Moreover, not just one but several pillars were falling.

Pearl stood on her hind legs and pushed with her forepaws against the nearest intact pillar. She shoved hard and the pillar toppled, bringing with it another pillar, for a mesh of vines had grown between, netting them together.

It was a sensational sight, but Pearl knew this mess of falling plaster was only a distraction. She had regained some of her wind. Now, while Thundering Heaven was distracted, she did the one thing Flying Claw had not told her was essential to winning this battle.

Had not told her, because he could not have known.

With a surge of ch’i, Pearl forced herself back into her human shape. The jungle had told her what each Tiger must learn for herself—or himself—the secret that each Tiger will not tell even the most beloved apprentice.

Yes. To be the Tiger, and to maintain your place as the Tiger, you must be able to shape a tiger and to hold your own in a fight in that form.

But you are also human. It must be both as a human and as a tiger that you confront your challenger. Let the tiger alone rule and even the best fighter may well lose, for the challenger will come at you with all the fresh, raw arrogance of the tiger’s form—a form that, in anticipation of this battle, he will have practiced to perfection. Let the human alone rule, and you will never have the strength to wear down your opponent.

So Pearl stood as a human while the slobbering, snarling, bleeding, plastercoated tiger that was her father’s ghost paced up to her.

She raised her hands and shaped the Tiger’s wind, the wind of the eastnortheast, and caused it to place a barrier between them.

Then she did the little spell called Dragon’s Breath and from it sent forth a gust of flame to scorch the whiskers of the tiger that was Thundering Heaven.

And somewhere in the back of her mind Pearl heard her mother’s voice reading from
The Jungle Book
, about how the hunter Buldeo had bent to scorch Sher Khan’s whiskers, because if you don’t scorch his whiskers the tiger’s ghost will haunt you. Overhearing, her father had commented that the kuei—the ghosts of those the tiger killed—are far worse than any tiger’s ghost.

“Back,” Pearl said, and Thundering Heaven’s bloodied ears flattened against his head at the sound of her human voice. “Leave this place, or I will begin to fight you in all earnest.”

Pearl had expended a bit of the ch’i she had stored before coming to answer this challenge, but she still maintained ample reserves. She used some now, so that she might augment her senses both to match those of the tiger and to see things arcane as well as natural, for she did not trust Thundering Heaven not to attempt to fool her with some spell of his own.

Thundering Heaven’s aura held the brilliant shades of anger and fury. The colors of intellect and rationality were present, but pale within that raging storm. He crouched close to the earth. His ears were pinned back and his fur was tousled as he tested the barrier made by the east-northeast wind.

Pearl studied him, wondering if this creature possessed even the intellect to talk to her.

“Take your human form,” she commanded, adding as a goad, “if you can manage to do so that is. If you do not, I will force you into it.”

The crouching tiger snarled. The angry aura dampened slightly and the intellect flared as Thundering Heaven retook his human form.

The transformation was swift, but for the briefest moment, Pearl clearly saw something that nearly shocked her into losing control over her spells. A woman’s form, spectral and wraithlike, stood behind Thundering Heaven.

Malice flowed from the woman like cold wind sweeping off a glacier. Then the woman vanished—but feeling that lingering chill, Pearl did not think the specter was gone.

Pearl seized the moment her father needed to orient himself to enhance her protective spells. A wind alone could not protect her from the malice she had felt. Who was Thundering Heaven’s strange ally? Pearl had not recognized her.

But neither did Thundering Heaven seem aware of her. He now stood on his own human feet. Unlike Pearl, who had healed herself in the act of accepting her dual nature, he remained battered, blood seeping from various wounds, his mien cringing, but Pearl had no doubt that if his ears had been able to move, they would have been pinned back and a defiant snarl would have twisted his features.

“Do you admit yourself fairly beaten?” Pearl demanded of Thundering Heaven. “Or must we continue this ridiculous battle?”

Thundering Heaven had appeared to Loyal Wind and Nine Ducks as a warrior in his prime, but looking beyond his wounds Pearl saw that to her he had manifested as he had looked when she was a rebellious young woman in her early teens, and he, although past his prime, still a powerful disciplinarian.

She wondered if this was a conscious choice, if he sought to intimidate her with old memories, or if this was simply how he saw himself in relation to her.

If Thundering Heaven was hoping to intimidate, the form was not a bad choice, for Pearl’s skin prickled with goose bumps of remembered fear when his familiar voice spoke.

“Fairly beaten?” he said. “Beaten, certainly, but could you hold your own if you let that wind drop?”

“That is not the point,” Pearl said. “I will not let this wind drop, nor release any of my other protections. They are my right as the Tiger, as much mine as claws or fangs. Why shouldn’t I use them?”

“Would you fight me spell to spell?” Thundering Heaven snarled.

“Would you?” she replied with insulting mildness.

“No,” he said, and the one word was like a tiger’s chuff . “No. Not with me worn, and you in your glory. I thought you would fight this fairly.”

“I have,” Pearl said. “I am the Tiger and this is my jungle. No warrior fights with fists when he can raise a sword. Now. Will you honor your agreement and surrender Bent Bamboo, the Monkey, to me, or must I continue to batter you?”

“I will,” Thundering Heaven said, and the words were pulled from him in halting cadence, “give Bent Bamboo the Monkey to you—or rather I will let his ghost come to meet with you. But convincing him to take up your cause . . .”

Thundering Heaven laughed, and it was an ugly sound.

“That will be your problem.”

Loyal Wind
and Nine Ducks found Bent Bamboo, the Monkey, waiting for them in the little bit of paradise that was to him as the pavilion by the lake was to Nine Ducks.

Given the philandering that had defined the earlier years of the Monkey’s life, Loyal Wind would have expected Bent Bamboo to find his ideal afterlife in a plea sure palace or perhaps in a garden where lovely women outnumbered the flowers.

Instead, when they entered Bent Bamboo’s chosen domain, they found themselves in a drugstore soda fountain. The only available seats were at the long counter. There were ample empty stools. Down at the end of a counter a man wearing a drab brown uniform was sipping a cola and flirting with a waitress as she scooped ice cream into various curvilinear glasses.

Backing the counter, occupying both booths and small, round wire-legged tables, were young people. Most seemed to be about high school– aged, on the threshold of adulthood, very much enjoying their ability to show their independence.

One young couple sipped something frothy and very pink from a single tall,fluted glass. Four young men in a booth laughed loudly over something a shy, bespectacled young man had said as he paused by their table. A rosy blush crept over the speaker’s face, but he didn’t seem entirely displeased. Down by the register, a girl hardly large enough to see over the counter dug in a little purse for coins to settle her bill.

Loyal Wind had died in mainland China, so in life he had never been inside such a place, but he had maintained an awareness of the world of the living. After some consideration, he decided the soda fountain might be just right for a Monkey—a place of easy socializing, of physical indulgence, even of casual carnality.

None of those gathered in this busy establishment seemed to notice the man and woman who had just taken their seats at the counter, not even though Loyal Wind wore leather armor adorned with highly polished metal studs and a pheasant tail– plumed helmet, and Nine Ducks a heavily—even overly—embroidered yellow shenyi.

Only one person noticed them, a counterman clad in white trousers, white shirt, and white shoes. He looked about twenty-five, just a little older than the majority of his customers. His most notable features were large ears that stuck out like jug handles from the sides of his head and wistful brown eyes that were far too sad and old for his youthful face. A white paper hat perched on his short-cropped black hair, maintaining its place in defiance of both logic and gravity.

When the counterman turned, Loyal Wind was not in the least surprised to recognize Bent Bamboo, the Monkey. Bent Bamboo ambled over to them, his gait loose-limbed and slack, then gave the counter in front of them a few lazy swipes with a damp rag.

“I suppose,” Bent Bamboo said in a tone of voice that would have been more appropriate if he were asking for their order, “this is where you tell me just how badly I’ve screwed everything up, not just in listening to Thundering Heaven, although anyone in their right mind could see the glint of madness in his eyes, but as far back as when we made our initial pact, and then later when I led you to believe that the wrong boy was my new heir apparent.”

Nine Ducks looked at the Monkey, her expression holding sorrow rather than anger. “I suppose we could, but since you’ve figured it out for yourself that would be a waste of energy. Why don’t we talk about whether you’re willing to join with us in our new venture, in our chance to make it all right again?”