Nine Gates (9 page)

Today’s lesson, Des had told them, would be choosing one of the more elaborate spells and encoding it into an amulet bracelet. Making such bracelets had been one of the first lessons they had learned, but the more complex patterns remained time-consuming and demanding—and they were none of them ready to cast more complex spells without physical tools.

“I’m kneading enough clay for all of us to get started,”
Riprap said. “Want to grab some molds and dust them with cornstarch?”

Brenda did so, preparing enough that each of them could make a complete set of fourteen tiles. She also took down the jar of modeling tools. The incising tools were the most important, but there were tools that made smoothing the clay easier. Then, too, the same tool that fit her hand comfortably vanished into Riprap’s big mitt. Better to let each pick out what worked best.

In any case, the tools weren’t what mattered, rather the end result—and the one who did the crafting.

When the Thirteen Orphans had been exiled from the Lands Born from Smoke and Sacrifice, they had faced an almost insurmountable challenge. Each of the twelve adults was a skilled adept in a peculiar form of magic. However, in their new environment, they lacked anything but their essential knowledge. How could they preserve what they knew?

A new insight interrupted Brenda’s review of this now-familiar tale.

“Hey! I just had a thought.”

Nissa looked up from her notebook. Riprap gave her an encouraging nod, his hands still busy working the clay. Neither teased her as her brothers would certainly have done, remarking that this must be a landmark day because “Breni had a thought!”

Fleetingly, Brenda missed her family, her friends, the relatively normal life she’d left behind in South Carolina. She shoved the emptiness away, letting enthusiasm take its place.

“Remember how Des and Pearl told us the Twelve wanted to find a way to encode their magic so it would be preserved, but so at the same time they wouldn’t be tied to any particular book or staff or whatever?”

The other two nodded. Riprap inclined his head toward the oblong boxes in the center of the table as he spoke.

“They encountered mah-jong. It was already around, although a relatively new game, played as often with cards as with tiles. Its five suits, three standard, two of honors—as
well as the flower and season tiles—offered a wealth of possible symbolic significance. So they decided to create a sort of mnemonic tied to the mah-jong tiles in which they could record their knowledge.”

“A book,” Nissa added, “that couldn’t be taken from them because it was being mass-produced all over. Des hinted that some of the Orphans had something to do with the trend away from using cards to tiles for mah-jong, that they were looking to make sure the symbols would be preserved in a more permanent form.”

Brenda had let their words wash over her while she let her insight take firmer form. She realized she was bouncing lightly on her toes with barely contained excitement.

“That’s right. But I bet I know why the Twelve were so eager to encode their lore—and why Pearl and Des are so wiggy about our writing things down.”

The other two looked at her, their expressions showing they were a step behind, but only that. Brenda hastened to articulate her revelation.

“It must have to do with these other magical traditions—the indigenous ones that Des mentioned earlier. I bet the Twelve didn’t want to write anything down in a form that could be stolen, so they did this instead.”

Nissa put her hand over the open page of her notebook as if suddenly fearing a spy could read what was written there.

“I think you’re right, Breni. We know that the various spells take a lot of concentration. Probably back in the Lands when they wanted to do some complex working, they had tomes they could use as an aid to memory. They probably planned to reproduce those tomes as soon as they were settled here, then realized how easily their knowledge—the one really unique thing they had in their favor—could be stolen.”

“And how vulnerable they would be,” Riprap said, “if someone stole their tricks. Wow. Byzantine.”

“Chinese,” Brenda corrected with a grin. “Which, the more I learn about their history and philosophy, the more I believe
means thinking in a fashion more twisted and convoluted than those Eastern Europeans ever could imagine.”

“So the Twelve did write their magic book,” Nissa said, “but not only did they write it from memory, they wrote it in code. I wonder…”

She trailed off, her hands stilling, her expression growing serious, her turquoise eyes widening a little in fright.

“What?” Brenda prompted.

“I wonder how much they forgot,” Nissa said slowly. “How much they left out because they couldn’t remember all the details or find a way to fit them into the mah-jong code.” Nissa shivered, and suddenly got very businesslike. “I wonder how much more the people from the Lands know, and how much more they’ve invented in the past century.”

Riprap started tearing the white clay into three roughly equal segments.

“A century,” he said, reaching for the tool jar, “during which they’ve been busily at war while our ancestors were forgetting almost everything they ever knew.”

Brenda slid into her accustomed seat. “Why don’t we each do a set of the Twins?” she suggested. “They’re about the most powerful and yet versatile spell any of us knows, and right now I’d feel a lot better if we replenished our armies.”

The Twins to which Brenda referred were a triplet of associated spells. Like all the spells they had learned from Des and Pearl, the names came from mah-jong limit hands. Brenda wasn’t quite sure whether the spells had given the limit hands their names or the other way around. It didn’t really matter—or maybe it did, because when the spells manifested they often resembled their names.

The Twins were, respectively, the Twins of Heaven, of Earth, and of Hell. The spells were rendered as a series of figures corresponding to those found in a mah-jong hand: fourteen in all. Not surprisingly, given the name of the hands, they consisted of pairs, but not of the same pairs.

“Who wants which?” Brenda asked.

Riprap opened one of the boxes of mah-jong tiles and spilled them onto the table. These were all modern sets, the tiles cast in plastic. Traditional sets were made from bamboo and ivory—or bamboo and bone.

Each of the Thirteen Orphans had a family set, handmade, each slightly different from the others. These antique sets were surprisingly durable, the bamboo and bone worn smooth from the caress of many fingertips. Brenda had the Rat family set in her bedroom. Sometimes she opened the box and shuffled the tiles around on the small desk that sat in front of the window in her room. They moved easily, and occasionally she would find herself drifting into a wakeful sleepiness, a wonderful receptivity, but nothing ever came to fill that space that couldn’t be explained as the waking dreams of an overtired mind.

And certainly they’d been kept busy enough lately what with lessons and meetings and a house full of people to be kept fed and clothed. Pearl had both a maid and a gardener who came in a few days a week, but as the Orphans’ business required a certain degree of privacy, everyone else pitched in to do laundry, prepare meals, and run errands.

Brenda broke from her revery as Riprap snapped three tiles—one printed with black, one with green, one with red—down onto the table. “Pick,” he suggested, shuffling them. “Red is Hell. Black can be Earth. Green Heaven.”

Nissa darted out her hand. “Green. Heaven. Let’s see. That’s the one that depends on honors pairs or terminals. Doesn’t leave me too many choices.”

Brenda pulled one of the remaining tiles. “Black. Okay. I get Earth. I never can remember… When I’m making pairs, can I have more than one set of a number? There are four of each tile.”

Des’s voice came from where he’d quietly opened the door, his entry covered by the sound of the mah-jong tiles clattering against the table.

“You could,” he said, “but only if you’re looking to invoke
the symbolic strength of a particular number. Since we haven’t gotten to that aspect in much detail, why not spread out the numbers?”

Des hadn’t really meant the last as a question, but Brenda couldn’t resist a flippant answer.

“Because it’s easier to inscribe ones and twos than it is to do eights?”

“Do ’em,” Des said in his teacher voice. “You need the practice. In fact, in your case you might want to concentrate on the characters suit. It remains your weakest.”

“Because,” Brenda muttered, not really disagreeing, “it’s so much harder to draw those Chinese numbers than it is dots or bamboo.”

“Not when you practice,” Des said. “Nissa, you’re going to do the Twins of Heaven. You might consider crafting your terminals as dots since they can be imagined as resembling the heavenly bodies.”

Like the Moon
, Brenda remembered with a shiver.

“Riprap,” Des went on, “Hell works better when everything is a little chaotic.”

“And no honors or terminals,” Riprap agreed. “Pity. I like doing those. They’re hard, but somehow satisfying.”

Des grinned. “Don’t try and show up Brenda, Riprap. She’s not really lazy. She’s a Rat and knows the value in being underestimated. Look, I didn’t come up here to chivy you. Righteous Drum and I are taking a break from discussing history, bridges, and gates.”

He turned to go, then stopped. “Nissa, I hope you don’t mind, but Flying Claw took Lani over to the Rosicrucian Museum gardens.”

“Not at all,” Nissa said. “She’s safe there with him, and when I checked on her a few minutes ago, I thought that even with Flying Claw in tow, she was probably keeping Wong from getting anything done in the gardens this morning.”

“Probably,” Des said with a smile that meant “definitely.”

“Now, remember, concentrate. Don’t race and—Riprap, Brenda—no getting competitive.”

They promised, Brenda all the more easily because Des had called her a Rat. She wasn’t really. The Rat was her dad, but for a little while, when her dad’s memory had been stolen, she’d been the best Rat they’d had. She hadn’t quite gotten over suddenly not having a place.

Maybe
, she thought as she packed the first bit of polymer clay into a rectangular mold, smoothing the exposed surface so her finished tile would be perfect,
I wouldn’t mind so much if there were other heirs apparent here—like there would have been in Shen Kung’s school—but here where everyone is formally affiliated, it’s hard to be the only trainee.

Brenda banished those thoughts from her mind as she picked up her favorite inscribing tool and forced all her concentration into the “one character” she was drawing. The little eddy of ch’i trickling from her into the tile reassured her that she had achieved proper focus and concentration, and of something else.

She might not be the Rat, but she certainly wasn’t nothing either.

Pearl woke
in the guest room of Shen’s house and was pleased to find herself feeling rested. That wasn’t always the case these days. A shift in time zone, a long day’s travel, could wear her out. But today she felt good, strong, even happy.

She could hear Shen and Umeko moving around, but didn’t go out to say good morning. A shower first, then makeup and clothes. Image was important, not only to herself, but to others. Pearl had learned that when as hardly more than a toddler she’d gotten her first role dancing and singing in a local musical.

When she was dressed, Pearl went out and found her hosts in the kitchen. The money Shen had inherited from his grandfather had assured that even with New York’s escalating prices, they could own a house rather than rent an apartment. They lived in a part of Queens that had once had an active Chinatown, and still had shops that sold a wide variety of “Oriental” foods and goods.

It was a pleasant area, but after San Jose’s more moderate temperatures, Pearl could feel the difference in the heat and humidity that crept past the air-conditioning.

“Good morning, Ming-Ming,” Shen said, setting aside his newspaper. “Have you eaten?”

The traditional Chinese greeting, even spoken as it was this morning in English, was familiar and heartwarming.

“Even after last night’s wonderful dinner,” she replied, “I could eat.”

“Tea?” Umeko asked. “Or coffee? We have both.”

“Tea,” Pearl said.

Her hosts were in bathrobes, their casualness a welcome in itself. Pearl settled into one of the chairs around the kitchen table and accepted the fragrant green tea gratefully.

“How did your class go last night?” she asked.

“Fairly well,” Umeko said, placing an assortment of ready-prepared breakfast foods on the table, then shaking cereal into a bowl for herself. “There’s one young woman I think has real vision—if only she’d trust herself enough to let it out.”

They talked in this fashion for a while. All of them were old enough and secure enough in their professions to have done at least some teaching, whether formally or not. After the meal was ended and they had all assisted in the clearing up, Umeko announced she was heading up to her studio.

“The morning light doesn’t last long this time of year. I want to take advantage of it.”

Pearl suspected she was politely making herself scarce. It was kind of Umeko, but she really must assure Shen that she didn’t mind.

When they withdrew to his study, she raised the subject.

“Oddly,” Shen said with a sad smile, “it’s not so much that Umeko thinks you would mind, as that for the first time since I confided our family’s odd history to her, Umeko is uncomfortable with it—even resents it.”

“Because of what was done to you?”

Shen looked very uncomfortable. “Umeko has told me that when my memory was stolen, my personality altered—so much so that she and Geoffrey feared that I might have had a stroke.”

Staring down at his gnarled hands with the same embarrassment that Pearl remembered from when he had been forced to admit some boyhood transgression, Shen went on.

“For the first time since Umeko and I married, I felt like an old man—felt the difference in our ages. I was forced to admit that I might subject my wife and son to caring for some drooling, senile idiot. That the truth is that someone had the gall to steal my memories—only making me
seem
on the verge of senility rather than actually being there—does not make the situation easier to forgive.”