Five Odd Honors by Jane Lindskold Page B

pillar. She shoved hard and the pillar toppled, bringing with it another pillar, for a mesh of vines had grown between, netting them together.
    It was a sensational sight, but Pearl knew this mess of falling plaster was only a distraction. She had regained some of her wind. Now, while Thundering Heaven was distracted, she did the one thing Flying Claw had not told her was essential to winning this battle.
    Had not told her, because he could not have known.
    With a surge of ch’i, Pearl forced herself back into her human shape. The jungle had told her what each Tiger must learn for herself—or himself—the secret that each Tiger will not tell even the most beloved apprentice.
    Yes. To be the Tiger, and to maintain your place as the Tiger, you must be able to shape a tiger and to hold your own in a fight in that form.
    But you are also human. It must be both as a human and as a tiger that you confront your challenger. Let the tiger alone rule and even the best fighter may well lose, for the challenger will come at you with all the fresh, raw arrogance of the tiger’s form—a form that, in anticipation of this battle, he will have practiced to perfection. Let the human alone rule, and you will never have the strength to wear down your opponent.
    So Pearl stood as a human while the slobbering, snarling, bleeding, plastercoated tiger that was her father’s ghost paced up to her.
    She raised her hands and shaped the Tiger’s wind, the wind of the eastnortheast, and caused it to place a barrier between them.
    Then she did the little spell called Dragon’s Breath and from it sent forth a gust of flame to scorch the whiskers of the tiger that was Thundering Heaven.
    And somewhere in the back of her mind Pearl heard her mother’s voice reading from
The Jungle Book
, about how the hunter Buldeo had bent to scorch Sher Khan’s whiskers, because if you don’t scorch his whiskers the tiger’s ghost will haunt you. Overhearing, her father had commented that the kuei—the ghosts of those the tiger killed—are far worse than any tiger’s ghost.
    “Back,” Pearl said, and Thundering Heaven’s bloodied ears flattened against his head at the sound of her human voice. “Leave this place, or I will begin to fight you in all earnest.”
    Pearl had expended a bit of the ch’i she had stored before coming to answer this challenge, but she still maintained ample reserves. She used some now, so that she might augment her senses both to match those of the tiger and to see things arcane as well as natural, for she did not trust Thundering Heaven not to attempt to fool her with some spell of his own.
    Thundering Heaven’s aura held the brilliant shades of anger and fury. The colors of intellect and rationality were present, but pale within that raging storm. He crouched close to the earth. His ears were pinned back and his fur was tousled as he tested the barrier made by the east-northeast wind.
    Pearl studied him, wondering if this creature possessed even the intellect to talk to her.
    “Take your human form,” she commanded, adding as a goad, “if you can manage to do so that is. If you do not, I will force you into it.”
    The crouching tiger snarled. The angry aura dampened slightly and the intellect flared as Thundering Heaven retook his human form.
    The transformation was swift, but for the briefest moment, Pearl clearly saw something that nearly shocked her into losing control over her spells. A woman’s form, spectral and wraithlike, stood behind Thundering Heaven.
    Malice flowed from the woman like cold wind sweeping off a glacier. Then the woman vanished—but feeling that lingering chill, Pearl did not think the specter was gone.
    Pearl seized the moment her father needed to orient himself to enhance her protective spells. A wind alone could not protect her from the malice she had felt. Who was Thundering Heaven’s strange ally? Pearl had not recognized her.
    But neither did Thundering Heaven seem aware of her. He now