My worst nightmare unfurled before my, well, not-eyes.
This was Cassius’ revenge. He would condemn me to reincarnate without my memories, without my mind. He would sentence me to an eternity of lives as thoughtless animals who moved through the world with no strategy, no awareness of how their actions might impact humans and karma totals. It would be like my lives as an earthworm.
“Try not to scare any small children,” Flicker had advised all those centuries ago, before I’d learned or bothered to learn his name. I’d thought it was inane advice, for how could a worm with no eyes tell whether the coolness of the shadow that fell over it came from the shoe of a human child or something that wasn’t human at all?
Then Cassius had flagrantly violated regulations by kicking me from Green Tier down to White, Flicker had found the courage to file an official complaint against a god, and the Goddess of Life had decided, perhaps on a whim, to grant my request to keep my memories when I reincarnated. Since then, Flicker’s advice about not scaring small human children had been my lodestar.
And now – now – Cassius was back as the Assistant Director of Reincarnation, the unchallengeable authority in the Bureau for most of the year, with absolute power to destroy me. Could you literally destroy a soul? I didn’t know, but he’d erase me in the figurative sense. Just as I had erased him, his family, his dynasty, and his empire.
If I could take it all back, I would.
His dark eyes were scrutinizing me, waiting for any hint of dismay that he could seize on and gloat over. Think! There had to be something I could say to improve this situation! Even if all it did for now were to lay the groundwork for future improvement.
What would I have done, back when he was emperor and I was a thousand-year-old nine-tailed fox?
I floated above the table and attempted to tilt seductively. Since I was a ball of light with no distinguishing features, this had no effect. I soldiered on anyway, like One Ear in that fight against the joro spider chieftain, Lodia in that fight against the oystragon, Stripey and Bobo in any number of fights against my enemies.
Aww, but Heavenly Lord, surely that’s a little harsh?
If only I could have accompanied my wheedling with the dip of a fan, the brush of a tail! Maybe then I could have elicited more than a fake scowl.
“The laws of Heaven are clear, and I, as a star god loyal to the Jade Emperor, am sworn to uphold them with incorruptible integrity.”
How he got through that sentence was a marvel greater than anything in Heaven or on Earth.
I drifted closer, testing whether I could dim my glow to convey my penitence. Nope. My soul had one brightness.
Of course you are! I would not dare suggest otherwise. Your integrity shines in the night sky as a star!
Okay, not my best line. But seriously, how was I supposed to stroke his ego when all I could see were Bobo’s shocked eyes and when all I could hear was Stripey’s sniggering? How was I supposed to flirt with anyone with such an audience in my mind?
Surely, in your infinite mercy, you might find a way to apply the laws with justice and compassion?
“Justice and compassion,” Cassius mused. He leaned forward, planting his elbows on Flicker’s documents and wrinkling the thin paper. (Thinner and finer than anything that South Serica, the only kingdom to remember the technology of paper production, could make.) He laced his fingers under his chin. Go on, I’m listening, said his eyebrows.
How many times had he, as emperor, leaned across his massive, carved rosewood desk, ready to listen to me, to be cajoled, flattered, bribed? I relaxed slightly. We’d always understood each other, Cassius and I.
I know I have – what was the right word here? “Erred”? “Wronged you”? “Transgressed”? – I know I have abused your patience and that of Heaven in the past, for which I deserved the strictest punishment. (Which I had already, in my opinion, more than served.) Which I have received and accepted. I have been attempting, in some paltry way, to atone for the trouble I caused then.
Cassius had to benefit from the influx of offerings to the Kitchen God, didn’t he? As the highest-ranking official in the Bureau most of the year, he had all the power he could wish for to arrogate offerings to himself. Certainly they weren’t going to clerk office renovation, because the floor didn’t look any newer or even cleaner than it had.
I ask only that I be given a chance to continue to atone.
“And your atonement. What form would it take?”
I would set things right on Earth, Heavenly Lord. I would mend what was smashed. I would be the advocate of Heaven’s will, reminding all of their duty to the gods.
There. I thought I’d left that vague enough to tempt him without committing me to any specific course.
“Ah, yes. You refer, I presume, to your formation of a Temple to the Kitchen God and your announcement of the re-founding of the Serican Empire?”
I bobbed down, then up. Just so, Heavenly Lord. Although I stand ready, as ever, to take guidance on such affairs.
In my mind, Stripey wheezed with laughter. Hush, you, I thought at him.
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“You do, do you?” Cassius steepled his fingers and considered it for so long that I began to hope I’d hooked him. Then he gave a curt shake of his head. “No, Piri. Soul Number 11270,” he corrected himself. “I shall not be swayed by your wiles. Clerk.”
Still prostrate on the floor, Flicker asked, “Yes, Assistant Director? How may I be of service?”
“Reincarnate this soul normally. Her feeble attempt at bribery shall not pervert Heavenly justice.”
Yeah. Sure it wouldn’t. I just hadn’t found the right way to bribe him. I’ll get you, I vowed silently. Someday, I will see justice actually done.
“Erm, yessir! I mean, Heavenly Lord! I shall reincarnate her at once!”
Flicker scrambled to his feet. Dust bunnies cavorted across his black robes, but he was so flustered he didn’t notice.
“Piri – um, Soul Number 11270 – um, I mean.” He clenched his fists to calm himself. When he spoke again, it was in a passable imitation of the drone he’d used in the beginning, before we got to know each other. “Please state your name and nature for me.”
Piri. I hesitated, then amended it to, Pip. Sparrow.
Flicker’s fingers twitched, habit telling him that he needed to confirm that information against my curriculum vitae. Which was still crushed under Cassius’ elbow.
“Thank you. Now, if you would dip yourself in the Tea of Forgetfulness – ”
Wait! Flicker wouldn’t do this. He couldn’t do this. Weren’t we allies? Friends, even? Wait, Flicker, you can’t –
“If you do not dip yourself in the Tea of Forgetfulness, I will be forced to dunk you.”
No! Flicker! Please! You can’t! What am I reincarnating as? What if I harm humans by accident? Don’t do this!
A wince crossed his face. His eyes darted towards that smug, smiling god behind his desk. He took a deep breath. “It is against the regulations to provide souls with such information beforehand. Not that it will help you without your mind. Piri, will you please just cooperate, for once in your many, many lives?”
Some part of me registered that this was as agonizing for him as for me, but panic drowned it out. Wait! There has to be another way! I can – I will – please don’t –
Cassius covered a fake yawn with his sleeve. His eyes danced. “Clerk, I don’t have all day. Will you or will you not do your job?”
I’m sorry, Flicker mouthed before he lifted his hand.
I saw his finger straighten to point at me. Then I was sailing through the air, towards the vat of Tea of Forgetfulness.
Flicker! Flicker! No!
Splash.
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Sniff. Sniff.
Nose twitching. Smell of decay. Rot. Death.
No large shadows. Nobody walking. Safe to go out.
Scurry scurry scurry.
Food smell. Apple core. Still good. Nibble nibble nibble.
Itchy. So itchy. Scratch scratch scratch scratch scratch.
Light! Door opening! Loud scream! Running for hole! Scamper scamper scamper!
Shadow coming closer! Nearly at hole! Run run run!
Large shadow overhead. Dark shape coming down!
Run!
Crunch.
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Cassius was there to gloat again when I entered Flicker’s office. The clerk was groveling on the floor, so haggard that his skin barely glowed. Under bright sunlight, I might have taken him for a human.
Psst! I whispered. You all right?
He gave a fractional nod.
Overhead, Cassius pronounced in a passable imitation of the Kitchen God’s jovial boom, “Ah, Soul Number 11270! We meet again. Please state your name and nature.”
I’d had plenty of time to figure out the latter while I was recovering in the archival box. My soul still ached with phantom pain from getting crushed by a cooking pot.
I had no name, I replied as evenly as I could. I was a rat. Heavenly Lord.
“Not just any rat,” he corrected cheerfully.
Cassius – cheerful? Of all the moods I’d seen him in or provoked him into, bubbly good cheer had not been one of them.
What’s wrong with him? I hissed at Flicker.
The clerk mouthed, “He’ll tell you.”
Indeed, Cassius affected magnanimity. “You may rise, Piri. No need to stand – or should I say grovel? – on ceremony.”
He’d always been most dangerous when he was pretending to be clever. I floated up so he could see all of me.
“Still Black Tier?” he marveled. “Even after the life you just led? Truly, the Accountants favor you.”
The life I just led? I searched my memories, but I only hazily recalled dark passages and dashes to sneak food when no humans were around. I didn’t think I’d bitten any humans. Had I stolen too much of their food?
I do not understand, Heavenly Lord, I murmured.
He’d always delighted in knowing more than anyone else. (In practice, what his ministers had done was pretend that they hadn’t read – or, in some cases, written – the reports on his desk.)
“You don’t even know!” I half-expected Cassius to clap his hands, though of course that was beneath the dignity of a god. “You killed so many people and you didn’t even know it! Come now, Piri, I expect more from you than that. At least, in the past, when you killed someone and earned negative karma for it, it was on purpose.”
I certainly had not earned any negative karma on purpose, but there was no advantage in contradicting him. I am not what I once was, Heavenly Lord.
“That you most certainly are not.” He heaved an exaggerated sigh and rotated my curriculum vitae so it faced me. “Have a look.”
Warily, in case he decided to smash me for fun again, I sank down to read it. Words leaped out at me. North Serica. Plague. I froze from the edges of my soul to my very core. Oh no. The empty rooms. The stench of decay. The old apple core no one had thrown out. The itching. The incessant itching. My fur had been home to the fleas that carried the plague, and I had paid for it in karma.
My only consolation was that the fleas had probably earned more negative karma.
Is the plague still going on?
If it had burned itself out, if I reincarnated as a rat again, then maybe I wouldn’t accidentally spread the murderous disease.
Cassius shook his head in mock sorrow. “Alas, for too long, humans have neglected the Commissioners of Pestilence. They will not be so swiftly appeased.”
Oh dear. And with humans dying in droves, there wouldn’t be enough people to till the fields or cook the foods or weave the cloth to offer the gods. An idea began to form in my mind, and I worked it out as I spoke.
And justly are the humans punished, but surely, if a god, full of compassion, were to extend his hand to them now, in their darkest hour – if he were to avert their punishment, lessen their torment by persuading the Commissioners of Pestilence to dowse their ire – that god would be beloved by humans everywhere. For he would be the true Divine Intercessor, would he not?
As I conjured the vision of adoring masses pouring into temples, sweeping aside the statues of the Kitchen God and replacing them with Cassius’ own image, his eyes lit up. His lips quirked into his genuine smile.
“But he would also be a traitor to his own Director, would he not?”
I tipped myself from side to side. Not necessarily, my lord. It would all depend on how it is framed.
The altars were, after all, wide enough for two images. More, even. Enough to add all the Commissioners of Pestilence themselves if we wished.
“I will think on what you have said,” he told me, and I could tell that he meant it. “For now, it is time for your next life.”
In the interest of preserving his good mood, I flew myself over to the Tea of Forgetfulness. Maybe, if I tried hard enough, I could will myself to keep my memories. I will remember, I will remember, I will remember, I chanted to myself.
I did not.