Nine Gates (35 page)

“I agree with Des,” Pearl said. “Our return is not the most important thing.”

“Perhaps not most important,” Righteous Drum said, “but very important. I do not believe the four of us can forestall our enemies from coming after you. We will need help, and until we can reconnect with what allies may remain to us, you are our best hope.”

Until
, Brenda thought,
you reconnect. And then? I think Honey Dream figures I’m extraneous now. Is that attitude going to extend to the rest of us once you’re where you want to be?

But she didn’t say anything, figuring a challenge would do no good at all, and would probably do a lot of harm.

“I’m wondering,” Shen said, “if we can work on both problems simultaneously. We need to learn if we can contact and perhaps work with the ghosts of our ancestors. And, in case you’ve forgotten, we’re going to need to link each of the Nine Gates to the appropriate Yellow Spring.”

This time Brenda did speak up. “I can’t forget, especially since those Yellow Springs start somewhere that people keep referring to as ‘Hell.’ My family wasn’t exactly religious. Mom’s family was Irish Catholic, but she’d dropped that I think even before she and Dad got together. Dad was even less religious. But even I know that Hell is not a nice place.”

“Maybe,” Nissa asked hopefully, “the Chinese hell isn’t so bad?”

Unconsciously, they’d both addressed their comments mostly to Des, probably because the habit of viewing him as their teacher had become ingrained.

“I don’t know precisely how it is in the Lands,” Des said, glancing over at the Landers, clearly inviting their clarification, “but the Chinese view of the afterlife has evolved over time. As I understand it, at first it was a lot like that of the ancient Greeks—pretty featureless. Later, as ancestor worship took hold, the idea grew closer to that of the ancient Egyptians. How much a person enjoyed the afterlife had as much to do with the offerings left by his or her descendants than with the life he or she had lived on Earth.”

“Unless,” Righteous Drum agreed, “they had behaved particularly heinously. Then some argued there was punishment. Others that since punishment of the dead was fairly useless, that the condemned would suffer annihilation.”

“Nasty,” Riprap said.

Des nodded. “It was after Buddhism came into China from
India that the conception of the underworld really got complicated. First of all, the Buddhists were firm believers in reincarnation. Secondly, they had an elaborate system of ‘hells’—different regions of the afterlife, where the dead were treated more or less well depending on how they’d behaved when alive. The Taoists got jealous, and they developed their own more elaborate, more colorful series of hells.”

Shen laughed, a boisterous sound that Brenda hadn’t heard before.

Their game of “Dragon” last night did Shen a lot of good
, she thought.
He seems a lot more relaxed.

Shen stifled his laugh. “Sorry, Des. I didn’t mean to interrupt, but I was thinking about the uniquely Chinese twist given to this system of reward and punishment.”

He turned to the rest of them. “Des already mentioned how the traditions of ancestor worship held that offerings to the dead would influence how the dead were treated in the afterlife. Well, when the various systems of hells came into fashion—I guess you’d call it that—no one, especially the various temples who benefited from the offerings, wanted them to stop. Gradually, the idea came in that those offerings would enable the dead to bribe the officials in the underworld, so that the dead could arrange for better treatment, or for remission of punishment.”

Riprap laughed. “Man, you’ve mentioned that the Chinese were both business-minded and bureaucratic, but this takes the cake—bribes and corrupt officials in the afterlife?”

Pearl sounded mildly annoyed as she replied, “I don’t see how that’s much different from the prayers for the dead that many Christian sects offer. I seem to recall in my childhood people buying Masses for the dead, and the dead getting so many years off of purgatory for rosaries said for them.”

“I dated a Catholic once,” Nissa said. “I think all of that went out with some Church counsel. I’m pretty sure both purgatory and limbo got dumped, but I could be wrong.”

Brenda didn’t know either. Her Grandma Elaine was a
practicing Catholic, but hadn’t put the least pressure on any of her grandchildren to attend services. Her grandfather Fritz had been what Brenda privately thought of as a habitual Catholic. He went because he always had, not for any other reason.

She looked over to where the four Landers were listening to this convoluted explanation. Righteous Drum looked quite interested, Honey Dream bored. Waking Lizard was clearly amused, and Flying Claw’s brow was furrowed with thought.

Des suddenly recalled that this wasn’t a general theological discussion, and looked over at the Landers.

“Righteous Drum, I think Buddhism came into China in the first century
A.D.
—that is, well after the burning of the books gave birth to the Lands Born from Smoke and Sacrifice. Does any of this apply?”

“I believe it does,” Righteous Drum answered. “I know who Buddha is, and the influence of his teachings is present. Reincarnation is also a familiar doctrine, as is the concept of what you referred to as an ‘elaborate system of hells.’”

“Reincarnation could make our trying to get in touch with our ancestors more difficult,” Des said, and Brenda, remembering his initial protest, thought he was as much relieved as not.

“I think,” Flying Claw said, “that it will not be an obstacle for us. As I told you, my family regularly made offerings for the comfort and care of Thundering Heaven’s spirit. We, at least, do not consider ourselves Buddhist, although we do honor to the most noble of their deities.”

“Like Kwan Yin,” Honey Dream said, her expression softening, becoming almost wistful. “The Merciful Goddess, she who hears the cries of the world. My mother always did her honor, but otherwise, no, I do not think we believed our ancestors would be reincarnated—at least not without very good reason.”

Righteous Drum’s expression confirmed this. “There are many traditions in the Lands, but that which we—and your own ancestors—belong to is more Taoist than Buddhist,
more animist than either, for our roots are in the old magics of the universe.”

“So,” Riprap said, and Brenda could hear that “sheepdog” tone in his voice, the one that said he was going to keep them on track or die trying. “We’ve resolved two things. One, we’re going to go ahead and establish the gates, whether or not the Orphans can use them. Two, since it is unlikely that the spirits of the original Orphans have been reincarnated, they’re out there, somewhere, and we might be able to use them to help us not only get into the Lands, but to do something about the Nine Yellow Springs.”

“Admirably put, Watson,” Des said. “Shen, which of our ancestors do you want to try getting in touch with first?”

Shen sat straighter and looked more professorial than any of the professors Brenda had encountered in her freshman year in college ever did.

“I think that we should refrain from troubling any of the ancestral spirits who have a living, trained successor since we might attenuate the power of the Earthly Branch as that power is currently invested. That leaves us four: Ox, Horse, Ram, and Monkey.”

“What about Snake?” Nissa asked. “Didn’t we decide we couldn’t take the current Snake with us? Didn’t we get her mah-jong set for that reason?”

“True,” Shen said, “but that situation is going to be complicated enough without complicating it further. I say we should leave the Snake out of the matter until we are ready to return to the Lands.”

“Even if her refusal to cooperate might stop us flat?” Nissa asked.

“Even so.” Shen smiled wickedly. “Snakes are diplomats, attuned to the need for compromise. I am hoping we will be able to persuade her if she finds herself the last block to our success.”

Riprap guffawed. “Otherwise, she might find the spirits of her former associates making the afterlife hell for her.”

“Ouch,” Brenda said. “That’s bad.”

Shen ignored Riprap’s joke, his attention on Nissa.

“I’m fine with leaving the Snake out of it for now,” she said. “I just wondered if we couldn’t deal with three problems all at once.”

“Let us stay with what we have,” Shen said. “Surely that is enough.”

Honey Dream didn’t miss the fleeting look Shen Kung gave her when the subject of the Snake came up. Nor had she overlooked that unlike her father and Flying Claw, she and Waking Lizard were in a somewhat different position.

Whereas the Dragon and the Tiger were both held by living Orphans, Orphans who—following that disgusting and highly inappropriate system established by the Exiles—would pass on their affiliation with their appropriate Branch to their designated heir apparent upon their deaths, the Snake and the Monkey were in a different situation entirely.

True, the Branches were held, but in one case by a senile old woman, in the other by a child who knew nothing of his heritage. These situations meant that the Orphans themselves were willing to try and undo the safeguards set in place by their ancestors.

If the Orphans detached the Earthly Branches from those who held them here, could she grab hold? True, the plan was that the ghost of the Exile Orphan would take over, but surely a living affiliation would be more appealing, more dynamic, more useful.

In any case, surely the Earthly Branches had never intended to permit themselves to be stolen away from the Lands.

But it seemed that Honey Dream reacquiring the full powers of the Snake must wait, for attempting to sever the Snake from its current holder was being delayed.

Perhaps the Monkey, then?

She was about to suggest this, when Shen said, “My first thought was the Horse. Not only was the Exile Horse a very fine soldier—a leader of armies—he also was the first of the
Exiles to meet his death. Initially, I thought this would mean he would have less emotional baggage, less attachment to his heirs and their rights. Then I remember how he died, and…”

Shen trailed off, and to Honey Dream’s astonishment, he looked directly at Desperate Lee. What connection could Des have to a man who had died before the Exiles had even departed China?

Brenda Morris had noticed the odd interchange, too, and she spoke out directly.

“What haven’t you told us, Des? I noticed that when you were filling us in on the various Orphans you skipped over the Horse rather quickly.”

Des licked his lips, and looked both amused and embarrassed.

“This particular story touches my family, as well as that of the Horse, for the Exile Horse was in love with the Exile Rooster—my great-grandmother. Indeed, the Horse and the Rooster may have been lovers before the Exile, but they soon learned that this was a situation that could not continue.”

Des looked around the group gathered at the table as if he’d be glad for someone to interrupt, but no one did. After a swallow of tea, he went on.

“When the decision was made that the various Branches must be bound to specific lines of descent, the need to keep those lineages perfectly clear became a requirement. Birth control wasn’t as easy in those days, even with magic, and Exile Horse and Exile Rooster were forced apart.

“Exile Horse took a concubine—a series of concubines, really, for he would not give his sole attention to any woman other than the Rooster. Eventually, one young woman bore a child who was his son and heir. Exile Horse acquired custody of the child, keeping the mother on as wet nurse but making quite clear that he did not intend to marry her.

“Exile Rooster, however, was more creative in her choice
of a father for her heir. In order to assure a strong connection to the Lands Born from Smoke and Sacrifice, she seduced one of those adepts who had come in pursuit of the Exiles. Eventually, she became pregnant by him. The Exile Horse was slain not too much later by his beloved’s lover.”

“Oh!” Brenda pressed her fingers to her lips. Honey Dream was pleased to see her embarrassed by the exclamation, but no one else seemed to have noticed the Ratling’s loss of control.

Des continued, speaking more quickly now. “I don’t know whether Exile Horse went after the other man in a fit of jealousy, or if the reverse was true. Maybe it was just chance. Whatever the circumstances, the end result was the same.”

Shen nodded. “And I suspect that those very circumstances are going to mean that Exile Horse might not have strong ties to his familial line—after all, he hardly knew his infant son. Additionally, he may hold strong resentments against his former allies. With him, as with the Snake, we may do better approaching him when our goals are nearly accomplished. Whatever else he was, he was a war leader, and will not wish to be the reason the battle is lost.”

Riprap nodded. “Fine. No Snake. No Horse. We have Ox, Ram, and Monkey left. Any preferences?”

“Ox,” Pearl said. Honey Dream had the distinct impression the older woman was surprised to hear herself speak, but Pearl recovered smoothly and went on. “Exile Ram was driven, obsessed even. Exile Monkey had an irresponsible streak. Exile Ox, however, was possessed of both forethought and steadiness.”