Five Odd Honors (16 page)

“Our first challenge,” she murmured, and fought her inner Tiger’s urge to lay her hand on Treaty’s hilt and snarl.

That wouldn’t help,
Pearl chided herself.
Pretend you’re at some government office. You wouldn’t expect that pulling a gun there would speed you along—at least not in the right direction.

The functionary startled Pearl by stepping into the path and greeting them with a perfectly meaningless, perfectly courteous smile.

“The unrecognized emperor, Albert Yu, and his associates? You are expected. Please, follow me.”

The functionary turned in the direction of a wide, four-lobed opening in the wall, a door after the plum-blossom fashion. Carved stone steps made passing over the lintel easy to manage with perfect grace, even when wearing long robes.

Pearl glanced back and saw her own surprise at the of cial’s welcome mirrored on faces living and dead. Albert inclined his head slightly.

“We mustn’t keep Yen-lo Wang waiting, Tiger. Proceed.”

Pearl stepped gracefully over the curved lintel of the plum blossom door, following the functionary with a measured tread. The others followed suit. There was a quickly swallowed profanity as Deborah fumbled with her skirts, but otherwise the only sounds were the staccato notes of birdsong and the slight crunching of gravel beneath their feet.

They passed along avenues lined with plum trees and stands of bamboo. Decorative beds of chrysanthemums or elaborate pots of orchids accented these taller plants. Plum blossom, orchid, bamboo, and chrysanthemum were known to the Chinese as the “gentlemen of the garden.” It was certainly no coincidence that these were the same plants most often represented on the “flower and season” tiles of a mah-jong set.

We haven’t had time to teach the apprentices so many of the finer workings
, Pearl thought.
We have had so little time to prepare. Crisis to crisis, besieged on all sides.

She smiled ruefully to herself as she stepped after the functionary through yet another plum blossom door.

Or we had nearly a hundred years in which to prepare, and are now paying for our procrastination
.

After they passed through this second door, more humans began to take their rightful place in the landscape. Courtiers in brilliant and complex robes that Pearl was certain would have set Des to muttering about anachronisms. Sages in simple attire, gathered in quiet discussion in a picturesque grove. Scholars seated at open-air desks, poring over long scrolls and taking notes with neatly tipped brushes.

Last, and for Pearl most important, there were soldiers, resplendent in elaborate armor, each of whom glanced at the functionary, read messages in the deep borders of his olive green sleeves, and then let their company pass without challenge.

Other than the guards, none of the humans gave their company more than passing notice. They did not ignore them, only politely averted their gaze from improper interest in another’s business.

The functionary led the way up a rise from which a palace was now visible. The palace was nestled into a hollow of a south-facing hill that overlooked an almost perfectly oval lake upon whose dark blue waters plea sure barges sported. The light laughter of women and sounds of lutes, flutes, and the higher see-saw notes of the two-stringed violin were carried to their ears by a sportive breeze.

When they had all mounted to this vantage, the functionary paused to allow them a moment to admire the perfection of the landscaping, then set off along a road that rounded the lake and led toward the palace.

The palace possessed many doors and open windows, some screened with beautifully carved lattices. The building was topped with curved pagoda-style roofs built from blue-green tile that contrasted nicely with the pale beige of the exterior walls and the red accents painted around the doors and windows. The roof tiles rose in pleasing asymmetry, as if the wavelets on the lake below had taken on solid form and risen to crown the building.

The sense that the palace might have as easily been at the bottom of the sea was enhanced by the carp and dragons set along the cornices—an old charm against earthquakes, for everyone knows that earthquakes come from the motion of dragons, and it is hoped that the dragon will mistake the carvings for her children, and therefore avoid harming the building by impetuous motion.

“If this is hell,” Albert muttered, “I might just be ready to die.”

“Afterlife,” Shen corrected softly, “and I’m astonished. From my studies, I had expected Yen-lo Wang’s court to be less a place of leisure, more formal, more austere.”

If the functionary in the olive green robes heard this, he did not react. He led them up a broad path toward the largest of the curve-topped doors.

Their shoes no longer crunched on gravel, but tapped against slightly roughened marble tile laid in intricate patterns and etched with auspicious signs and symbols.

Auspicious for whom?
Pearl wondered.
The judge or the to-be-judged?

Within the palace the air breathed the pleasant coolness that reminds one that one has been out beneath the sun. Liveried servants hurried forward, offering them iced drinks and moist towels with which to wipe their faces.

Pearl accepted a towel gladly, but—remembering both the Greeks’ Persephone and Chinese tales about fishermen who dined in the dragon king’s palace beneath the ocean, only to return home to find that, like Rip van Winkle, time had passed them by—she only mimed sipping from the thin golden goblet.

Glancing at her living companions, she saw that they were following suit, but that the five ghosts were drinking deeply.

After all,
she thought,
what do they have to lose?

When he saw they were all refreshed, the functionary in the olive-drab robe motioned for them to follow him once more.

“This way,” he said politely, indicating wide double doors at the far end of the entry chamber. “Yen-lo Wang awaits you.”

This time the functionary stepped to one side and let them pass through unescorted.

Pearl drew in a deep breath, adjusted her already perfect posture, and walked through the door.

As she entered the room the murmur of voices and scratching of pens stilled, so that the people within seemed a part of the ornate furnishings.

The audience chamber was vast, the floor tiled in enormous squares of a highly polished golden-brown stone. A wainscot of contrasting ice-blue bricks, bordered at the chair rail level in dark mahogany, provided a contrast. Above the rail the walls were painted a warm umber. From a red screen accented in blue, cream, and bronze hung banners embroidered with clouds and dragons.

Pearl had the impression the chamber had been very busy a moment before, but now clerks and ministers, flunkies and scribes raised hundreds of pairs of eyes to study the new arrivals. Chief among those who turned a critical gaze upon them was the one they had come to see: Yen-lo Wang, King of the Fifth Hell, judge of the dead.

Yen-lo Wang sat in a chair upon a raised dais set in the center of the back third of the room. At least Pearl assumed he sat on some sort of chair or throne. His robes, styled like those of an emperor, many-layered and elaborate, hid his seat and most of the dais as well. On his head he wore an elaborate headdress that Pearl thought was a crown of some sort, one that left his face—adorned with a neat goatee and long but nicely barbered mustache—open to view.

Pearl was glad. She’d never much liked the square-brimmed headdress with its curtains of pearls or tiny gemstones front and back that emperors were shown wearing in so many of the old paintings. Those curtains were meant to shield the eyes of the Son of Heaven from seeing anything ugly, but in Pearl’s less than humble opinion, the more ugliness rulers saw, the more prepared they would be for the responsibilities of rulership.

When they had all entered the room, Albert spoke softly: “Time for me to earn my keep, Pearl,” and stepped around her to take the lead.

Albert knelt and performed the kowtow, touching his forehead lightly against the polished surface of the floor nine times—the highly formal three times three kowtow. Honey Dream had offered the argument that since an emperor technically outranked a king—even a king of hell—Albert was offering a terrific show of humility by kowtowing at all and only need offer three touches, but Albert had overruled her.

“I haven’t ever seen a situation where you get in trouble for being
too
polite,” he’d said. “This is a king whose help we’re seeking, and neither I nor my ancestors ever were emperors in fact, only in theory.”

When Yen-lo Wang motioned for Albert to rise, Albert did so with admirable grace, demonstrating that although he spent most of his time selling expensive chocolates, he hadn’t forgotten his physical training.

Albert then spoke traditional greetings in appropriately flowery cadences. Pearl found herself impressed.

Albert has taken his role so seriously,
she thought proudly.
Maybe we’re lucky the Exile extended until he could represent us rather than his father or grandfather.

At Yen-lo Wang’s request, Albert presented his entourage and the six supplicants. The kowtow proved a challenge for stout Deborah. Shen’s stiff old knees didn’t like all that bending and groveling much either. Pearl did her best not to act smug as she went through the motions without even a popping knee joint.

For the ghosts and for young and supple Honey Dream none of these formalities offered any problems. The grace and exactitude of their obeisances did much to erase any bad impression that might have been left by the more awkward members of the company.

Yen -lo Wang surveyed them all thoughtfully, then spoke. “You come to me with a request.”

Albert inclined his head in acknowledgment. “We do, Yen-lo Wang. We ask that these five who have entered your keeping be permitted to return to the state of the living, so that they may again take upon themselves their affiliation to the Earthly Branches they once embodied. This will enable the Ninth Gate between the Lands Born from Smoke and Sacrifice and the Land of the Burning to be opened so that three who were barred from their homeland may return.”

“This is all you desire from me?”

“Yes, great Yen-lo Wang.”

Yen -lo Wang asked more questions, which Albert answered adroitly, always emphasizing the dead’s need to carry out a vow they had taken when alive. He carefully avoided the question of whether the Exiles were perhaps violating an earlier vow by trying to return to the Lands, even after death. To Pearl’s surprise Yen -lo Wang himself never raised the matter.

Instead, the judge of the Fifth Hell turned his attention to the six supplicants. First he asked Honey Dream how she, Righteous Drum, and Flying Claw had come to be barred from their homeland. Pearl knew Yen-lo Wang had to be perfectly aware of the situation, but guessed he was seeing what spin Honey Dream would put on the matter.

The young Snake spoke well, with none of the flashes of temper she often demonstrated when her personal desires were involved.

After questioning Honey Dream, Yen-lo Wang cross-examined the five ghosts. Copper Gong, the Ram, was passionate about her desire to fulfill her own ancient vow of finding a way to have the Exile legally remitted. The other four, although less fervent, spoke of duty and responsibility.

At last, Yen-lo Wang leaned back in his throne and motioned that they were to all wait while he deliberated. Once or twice he held out a hand and a clerk ran forward with a transcript of the spoken testimony. Other times he requested a particular scroll of the teaching of some philosopher or called a clerk to brief him regarding a case that might offer precedent.

Pearl schooled herself to the waiting stillness she had learned long ago as an actress, when rehearsals—especially once she graduated to film—seemed to consist mostly of waiting while some light or camera was joggled into place. She caught Deborah glancing longingly at the chairs neatly arrayed behind the table where underclerks busily wrote up heavens knew what complicated assessment of the situation, but the Pig did not move from her stance. Shen had slumped slightly, but as his expression was thoughtful and intent, this might have been as much because he was distracted as because he was tired.

When Yen-lo Wang at last addressed them, Pearl nearly jumped, then mentally chided herself for permitting herself to be caught off guard.

“I will grant your request,” Yen-lo Wang said without preamble. “There are precedents, and the need is great. Indeed, as the Ninth Gate cannot be opened except by the entirety of the Thirteen Orphans, and so many of the Thirteen Orphans have fallen away from their training and thus would not be available to participate, one might say the participation of those who are now my subjects is vital if this goal is to be achieved within the lifetimes of Honey Dream and her associates. However, my granting of the ghosts’ liberty will extend only for as long as is necessary, no longer.”

“Thank you, your August Majesty,” Albert said, not bothering to conceal his relief. Pearl, who knew Albert well, saw something else beneath the relief, a touch of confusion or surprise.

That expression vanished almost as soon as she noticed it, but she thought Yen-lo Wang had noted it as well.

Effusive and appropriate thanks were offered on all sides. Then the olive-drab-clad functionary stepped from the crowd of his fellows to lead them from the palace.