Read Online Five Odd Honors by Jane Lindskold - Free Book Online Page B

and beard like those of a Chinese immigrant of a hundred or so years ago. If Albert resembled anything out of Chinese history, it was the idea of the exotic Orient as embodied by the stage magician. His dark hair was worn long enough to cover the top of his collar. His chin beard and full mustache were neatly trimmed yet saturnine, just a little wicked . To d ay, as most times Brenda had seen him, Albert wore a neat business suit. His only concession to the early August heat was the absense of a jacket and a slight loosening of his tie.
    Brenda thought that, despite his neat attire, Albert looked rather haggard.
    And no wonder. Albert is trying to run his fancy chocolate business, but unlike Dad he doesn’t keep cutting out on us. He’s really serious about being the leader of the Thirteen Orphans, but in a way, he’s like me. He has a place, but he doesn’t. I mean, there were twelve exiles, each tied to the zodiac. He’s the Cat, descendant of a kid who himself was a son of an emperor who got overthrown. What good is an emperor without an empire—who hasn’t had an empire for three generations?
    Brenda knew some of her thoughts were colored by her father’s rivalry with Albert—a rivalry that dated back to when they were both boys. She also knew she was reacting to the fact that—unlike Gaheris Morris—Albert was here. He had a job. He had his own business, but he was here. By comparison, her own dad fell short.
    Although with Albert’s arrival their company was technically complete, every chair filled, still they all felt the absence of Waking Lizard.
    But that rascally old Monkey won’t be joining us,
Brenda thought sadly.
He won’t be here to puncture Righteous Drum’s pomposity with a casual “Drummy” or pull the best of the egg rolls right out from Riprap’s fingers with a dart of those long fingers. Damn. I hope I don’t start crying. . . . Somebody had better start talking or I think I’m going to lose it.
    Perhaps sensitive to the prevailing tension, Albert assumed the role of informal chairman with a natural assumption of leadership that wasn’t in the least offensive.
    “Shen, will you tell us what Loyal Wind reported?”
    “Nine Ducks, actually,” Shen said. “Loyal Wind began the report, but he was weaker than he had wanted to believe, and Nine Ducks took over. You see, it seems that Loyal Wind’s meeting with Thundering Heaven went a bit out of control. Loyal Wind, well, he overstepped himself.”
    Shen then proceeded to recount with just the right mixture of dry fact and sensational detail the encounter between the three ghosts.
    Brenda listened with a mingling of anger and dismay. Yes, they had all had expected Thundering Heaven’s ultimatum, but this . . . Despite everything Pearl had said about her father, despite everything Thundering Heaven’s callous dismissal of his daughter and heir had implied about him, she had not expected him to be so vicious.
    Shen finished by relating Nine Ducks’s assertion that she believed that given time Loyal Wind would recover from his injuries. Silence fell, broken only by the sound of melting ice cubes shifting in the pitcher of lemonade.
    Then Albert asked the question they were all thinking.
    “Well, Aunt Pearl. How do you think we should respond to Thundering Heaven’s ultimatum?”
    Pearl was parting her lips to give what was doubtlessly a carefully considered reply when she was interrupted from a very unlikely corner.
    Springing to his feet, his silver-ringed hair snapping behind him like a tiger’s tail, Flying Claw almost snarled the words, “There is only one answer that is acceptable. Pearl is your Tiger. Nothing must change that. Nothing!”
    Brenda was astonished at the ferocity of the young man’s words. Until very recently, Pearl had been far from kind to Flying Claw. True, Pearl had never been precisely cruel, but Brenda felt Pearl had done little enough to earn this loyalty. Judging from the expressions on the faces of