Thirteen Orphans (26 page)
Soon after their arrival in San Jose, Brenda had come down early one morning and seen Pearl out on the patio, alone except for her cats, going through some moves Brenda had thought were tai chi. Brenda had asked about the routine. Pearl had explained that actually they were sword drills, and that when she’d warmed up she’d repeat them with her sword. Brenda hadn’t asked more, but now she wondered whether Foster—another Tiger—practiced with equal devotion, or his daily routines had been taken from him along with his memory.
Foster counted, one through ten in English, then switching over to Chinese as the count took itself around the bend in the wall in front of Nissa. He reached awkwardly in front of the fair-haired woman and lifted out the appropriate tiles, setting them aside where they would be used to make up for bonus tiles, or for the fourth tile in a kong. No matter what, the hand must contain a minimum of fourteen tiles at the end.
Just like there must be the Thirteen Orphans,
drifted a stray thought through Brenda’s jumbled mind.
What happens when there are only four Orphans left, four and one confused junior Rat?
drifted a stray thought through Brenda’s jumbled mind.
What happens when there are only four Orphans left, four and one confused junior Rat?
The game progressed haltingly. Brenda and Nissa both played with a polite convention that the name of a tile should be spoken aloud when discarded, then discarded faceup, so that the other players would have an opportunity to claim it. Foster had clearly learned his game in a more competitive school. His discards were spoken, then flashed down, blank side up in the center of the square. Nissa kept reaching out and turning them faceup, and Foster seemed to think this was a comment on his ability to pronounce the English equivalents of the tiles.
Brenda wanted to explain that this was just a game among friends, no need to be so competitive, but she didn’t have the words and her impulse failed her. Was this a glimpse at Foster’s true soul, the soul of the Tiger, the soul of the swordsman?
No,
she chided herself, watching as Nissa called out “mah-jong” and turned out the part of her hand that had remained concealed to prove her claim. Foster laughed and patted his palms together in polite approval.
He’s just playing the game as he has been taught. That’s all.
she chided herself, watching as Nissa called out “mah-jong” and turned out the part of her hand that had remained concealed to prove her claim. Foster laughed and patted his palms together in polite approval.
He’s just playing the game as he has been taught. That’s all.
Brenda’s own hand was a mess, hardly any more organized than the mix of tiles she’d drawn at the beginning. Nissa had appointed herself scorekeeper, and snorted as she counted up the minimal points Brenda had managed. Foster was already knocking over the old wall, turning over the tiles, getting ready to shuffle for a new hand. Brenda forced herself to pay attention. She was enough her father’s daughter that she didn’t like making such a poor showing.
The hands went around the table. They weren’t really keeping score for an overall game, just one hand at a time, seeing if they could all manage to play out each hand without needing to pause and explain some rule or other. Foster’s version of the game was a little different from the one Brenda knew, but then so was the version Nissa had been taught. The variants mattered little in this simplified version, although the scoring could be tricky.
The four-person version of the game often ended in a stalemate, each player holding on to honors tiles in the hope of getting a higher score. A three-person game, such as the one they were playing, almost always went to mah-jong because the lack of one player created surplus tiles.
Something like six games in, Brenda had her hand almost ready to go out before the last of the four walls was even breached. All she needed was a one dot to complete the “pillow,” or pair, that would complete her set of fourteen.
She’d managed to clear her hand of all suits but dots and honors. She had a nice concealed kong of green dragons and a exposed kong of the round’s wind—west in this case. It was a good scoring hand, but would go for nothing unless someone mah-jonged and the hand was scored.
All Brenda needed was the one of dots, and only one had been discarded. She hoped no one else already had them set in their hand as a concealed pung or chow.
“Brenda’s fishing,” Nissa said. “She hasn’t changed a single tile in her hand for a while now.”
Foster grinned. “Go fish!”
Brenda drew a tile from the wall and glanced at it. “Red dragon! I could have used that earlier.”
She discarded it in the center, but no one claimed it. Brenda really hadn’t expected anyone to do so. There were two red dragons out there already, and unlike the suit tiles, which could be used in chows, honors were useful only in sets of three or four—or as a pair to complete the hand.
The lone, unmatched tile in Brenda’s hand stared up at her like a single eye. She had an exposed pong of four dots, a concealed pong of eight dots, her four lovely west winds, and that fine concealed kong of green dragons. All she needed was that last one dot, and she was beginning to believe it was sitting in someone else’s hand, part of a chow, perhaps, or, with a certain amount of irony, as someone else’s pillow.
They drew more rapidly now, each player knowing what tiles he or she could use. Nissa claimed one of Foster’s discards, and Brenda held her breath, waiting for Nissa to call mah-jong and go out. That was one of the things that made mah-jong fascinating. The person to go out got a bonus, but didn’t necessarily gain the most points.
Brenda counted tiles in the wall. Four draws left for each of them. Foster’s lips were pressed together, his gaze darted over the tiles in the discard area. She thought she saw them narrow, as if he’d noticed a discard he hadn’t seen before, and realized he couldn’t make some play good.
Three draws. Two draws. They went into the final round. Nissa drew a three bamboo and slapped it down in the discard heap.
“I’m dead,” she proclaimed.
Foster drew a five characters and said something in Chinese that sounded rude as he put it down next to Nissa’s tile.
“Five character,” he said, almost as an afterthought.
Brenda reached for the last tile, noting that Nissa was already starting to spill her tiles out of the rack, because a round in which no one went mah-jong wasn’t scored.
“Wait,” Brenda said. “I’ve got a tile yet, and I want to see which one of you has my …”
She stopped in midphrase. The tile she’d turned over was one dot, the tile she needed to complete her hand. She snapped it into place, turning her rack so the other two could see.
“Mah-jong!” she cried, but even as she said the words, even as she went through the familiar motions, she was aware of a roaring in her ears.
Brenda pressed the heels of her hands against her ears. The roaring sounded like ocean waves beating hard against a cliffside, pummeling the rock into minute grains of sand. There was a sense of pressure, as if something was pushing against the walls of her mind.
Nissa also had her hands to her ears. Foster’s expression was shifting from mock anger that Brenda had managed to go mah-jong with that final tile, to confusion at their odd behavior. He was rising to his feet, reaching out toward Nissa, who sat in the seat closet to him, saying something, probably in Chinese.
At the other side of the house, there came a muffled crashing sound as the door to Pearl Bright’s study was flung open. The older woman was coming down that hallway, stalking like the tiger she was, shouting something that Brenda couldn’t quite make out.
Brenda lowered her hands from her ears, since with Pearl’s appearance the roaring sound seemed to have moved back a little. She wanted to quest after the sound, try to figure out its source, but she forced herself to concentrate on what Pearl was saying.
“What have you been doing? Have you been showing anything to this boy?”
Pearl snarled the last two words at Foster, who stepped back as if she’d slapped him.
“No,” Nissa said. “We were just playing mah-jong.”
“With Foster.”
“With Foster,” Brenda said, moving around the table to put herself between Foster and Pearl. “It was my idea. I thought he might be able to play, and that it would be nice for him to play something other than Lani’s baby games. We’ve been playing for hours now, ever since Nissa came down from putting Lani to bed.”
Pearl glanced at the discard tiles, at the pad of paper that they’d been using to score the hands, at the plate of cookies and the carafes of tea and coffee.
She also turned a long, hard look at Foster, and must not have found anything to fear there, for something of the tightness around her mouth went away.
“I must have fallen asleep,” she said, and her tone was no longer angry, although it was far from apologetic. “Or I would have heard the tiles. I came around when something tripped my wards.”
“Is that what I feel?” Brenda asked. “The crashing sound?”
“The crashing sound,” Pearl said, “is something trying to break through the wards. You say you weren’t trying to do spells?”
“No!” Brenda said firmly.
Nissa shook her head and added. “We weren’t even playing with limit hands. I mean, that would be dumb. Anyhow, how could we have explained those to Foster?”
Pearl moved over to the table, assessing the tiles before each player’s seat with a quick, experienced gaze. Foster’s hand elicited a mild “He would never have gone out. Nissa has his last wind.”
Nissa said almost inconsequentially, “I have so much trouble making myself discard honors.”
Pearl didn’t seem to hear. She was staring at Brenda’s hand. “Brenda, you went mah-jong. Did you do it by drawing the last tile, and, by chance, was that tile one dot?”
Brenda felt confused. “It was, but how did you know?”
“I know what’s outside my wards,” Pearl replied. “You inadvertently completed a limit hand when you drew that last tile. It’s a very, very rare hand, so rare it’s probably not even on the list Des made up for you. If you complete a cleared hand with one dot and draw it as the last tile of the wall, that is called Picking the Moon from the Bottom of the Sea.”
“You’re kidding,” Brenda said. “That’s so … obscure.”
“Most limit hands are,” Pearl agreed. “It’s hard to believe you did this accidentally, but in a three-person game, it’s not as unlikely.” She sounded like she was trying to convince herself.
“Pearl,” Nissa said, “you said you knew what was outside your walls. Is it dangerous? Should I get Lani out of bed?”
Pearl shook herself from her meditation on the tiles.
“Why? So the child can distract us further?” Then she softened. “No. Lani will be fine as long as my wards hold, and they should hold long enough for us to banish what Brenda has unwittingly summoned.”
Pearl turned to Foster, but the young man seemed to have already gathered that he was less than welcome.
“Foster go to bed,” he said. “I go. Good night.”
Pearl hesitated, obviously uncertain whether Foster might be more dangerous here where he could see them do incomprehensible things, or alone in his room. Foster waited for her to accept his offer to leave.
“Yes,” Pearl said, then added a few sentences in Chinese.
Foster replied in the same language, and then he bowed formally to her. He waved more casually to Nissa and Brenda.
“Thank you,” he said. “Good night.”
Brenda looked at Pearl. “What did you say to him?”
“I told him that he was to go to his room, but that I didn’t blame him for the commotion. He replied that he thought your play so incredible that he was glad to stop while he had some luck left.”
“That’s it?” Brenda said. “He didn’t think we’d all gone nuts?”
“I don’t know what he thought,” Pearl said, “but if he had any doubts about our sanity, he was too polite to voice them. Now, as to dealing with your inadvertent summoning … I promise I’ll give you the lecture on the moon and all its potentials another time. Right now, what you need to know is that the moon is a powerful symbol to have invoked. Another problem is that this summoning is going to be creating emanations that will attract the attention of others—both creatures and practitioners of magic. Are you with me?”
As Des had repeatedly drummed into his students the need to set protective spells there were no questions.
“Very good. What I want is your support while I do three spells. One will banish the summoning. One will misdirect any attention that it has brought. The last will reinforce the wards. Have you learned either Knitting or Triple Knitting?”
“Knitting only,” Brenda said for both of them. “Des said we didn’t have enough control for the other.”
“Fine,” Pearl said. “What that means is that each of you is going to need to feed me ch’i individually, rather than our being able to unite as a team. No matter. Do you need to get your notes?”
Both women shook their heads.
“Fine. Come down to my office. I’ll feel more secure there.”
Brenda didn’t feel the need to ask “Secure from what?” Pearl was going to try something very complex, especially for someone who had already been tired enough that she’d fallen asleep over her books. This was not the time for a casual interruption, and, although Pearl was very good at what she did, comfortable surroundings would bolster her abilities.
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