Five Odd Honors Read Online Free PDF Page A

shared his conjecture with Nine Ducks when he found her. She was seated in a garden pavilion, contemplating the antics of a small flock of her namesake birds as they grubbed in the mud beneath the shallow waters of a lake whose surface was so still that the ducks seemed to dive into their own reflections.
    “That is interesting,” Nine Ducks replied. “So you wonder if Thundering Heaven meant you to learn that he had Bent Bamboo in his care.”
    “I do,” Loyal Wind agreed. “Or if not me, perhaps one of the Orphans. After all, if—as we all believe—Thundering Heaven’s goal is not so much to stop us from reopening the way into the Lands as to force Pearl Bright to renounce her connection to the Tiger, then he must have wanted to be found.”
    “Yes. Otherwise, he would have had to issue a challenge, and that would have put him in a weaker position.”
    “What is Thundering Heaven like?” Loyal Wind asked. “You know I was the first of the Exiles to die. After my death, I paid little attention to the affairs of the living. When I died, Thundering Heaven was a young man, somewhat brash, but certainly without this bitterness of character everyone seems to take for granted.”
    Nine Ducks fell silent, considering. “I cannot speak of Thundering Heaven without speaking of things that may cause you pain, Loyal Wind.”
    “Speak. I am learning to accept that choices I made when I myself was in pain caused others harm.”
    “Very well.” Nine Ducks fell into thoughtful reverie, reviewing events from nearly a century before.
    Loyal Wind did not attempt to speed her along. Time had a certain fluidity in the afterlife. Events in the world of the living were not so urgent that a minute or two would matter. Indeed, if they were, nothing either of them could do would change things in the least.
    At last, Nine Ducks began. “When we were exiled from the Lands,
    Thundering Heaven had been appointed the Tiger for only a short time, his predecessor having been killed in the early stages of our downfall. At the time of our exile, friends of Thundering Heaven’s family attempted to appeal his exile on the grounds that Thundering Heaven’s crimes were not equivalent to our own . . . and that, being young, he could be taught new loyalties.”
    “I remember,” Loyal Wind said. “I think that appeal might have been granted, for Thundering Heaven’s family was a powerful one, but Thundering Heaven himself refused to be shown mercy.”
    “For two reasons,” Nine Ducks agreed. “First of all, Thundering Heaven would not renounce his chosen allegiance, never mind that it was of short duration. Second, Thundering Heaven wanted to assure his family’s protection. He said that if he—and they on his behalf—accepted the new emperor’s pardon, then they would become supplicants. However, if he accepted exile with the rest of us, then, although the family would be forced to bear the stain of having a traitor listed among their ranks, their property and persons would be safe.”
    “Noble,” Loyal Wind said, “if impulsive and brash. What changed him?”
    “You, in part,” Nine Ducks replied.
    Loyal Wind knew what was coming next, but forced himself to listen.
    “I am certain you recall,” Nine Ducks began, “how after we were forced to accept that our exile might extend beyond the natural life spans of at least some of our number—for some of us were of advanced years—we took steps to assure that what we had brought with us from the Lands would not be reacquired by our enemies upon our deaths.
    “Therefore, we bound the Twelve Earthly Branches, one each to the biological lineages of each of the Twelve Exiles: the First Branch to the Rat, the Second Branch to the Ox, and so on. Our next task was to assure ourselves of heirs. I was already past the age for bearing children, so I adopted a Chinese child.”
    “Your Hua,” Loyal Wind said, hearing Nine Ducks’s voice catch, and wishing to give her a chance to