Scurry scurry.
Food smell. Bread smell. No human smell.
Creep creep. Sniff sniff.
No human smell. No cat smell.
Run!
Nibble nibble. Cheeks bulging. Eat faster. Nibble nibble gnaw gnaw gnaw.
Door slamming. Trap! Cage! Hand reaching, grabbing, pressing down.
Thrash! Bite!
Metal shining, rising high, coming down.
Squeak!
Thud.
----------------------------------------
“Tsk tsk, Piri,” said Cassius when I entered Flicker’s office again.
I was still a glowing black ball, but who knew how much longer that would last? I was pretty certain that I’d bitten the cook who grabbed me and beheaded me with a cleaver. Please don’t let me have given her mad-dog disease. Please don’t let me have given her the plague.
Cassius shook his head sorrowfully. “At this rate, in a few lives, you’re going to drop back down to a bird.”
Whew. I was expecting him to say “Green Tier.” To be honest, being a sparrow hadn’t been so bad. I recalled the feel of wind flowing over my wings, of gliding across the sky with Stripey. If only Bobo could have flown with us.
“You don’t seem nearly as concerned as I thought you would be,” Cassius observed. “For someone who’s spent her lives clawing her way up the hierarchy by any means imaginable – and many unimaginable – you are remarkably blasé.”
Pay attention, I scolded myself. You can’t afford to daydream when you’re dealing with Cassius.
I dipped a low, contrite bow, brushing the top of Flicker’s head to encourage him while I was at it. Who knew how long he’d been prostrated on the floor, and that position had to be hard on his joints.
Heavenly Lord, if it is the will of Heaven that I reincarnate once more as a sparrow, who am I to complain? I couldn’t resist adding, The Accountants are just.
The jab didn’t perturb Cassius in the least. No matter how much the clerks revered the Accountants, to a god, they were no more than a higher class of servant. What could they do? Revolt and refuse to ply their abacuses?
“Are you hoping that reincarnating as a sparrow will allow you to see that peasant girl again?” I thought he was referring to Taila until he went on. “If so, best hurry and drop down the karma scale. The Goddess of Life will eliminate her sooner rather than later.”
The Goddess of Life was behind the assassination attempt on Lodia? But why?
Not Aurelia? I blurted out. I mean, the Star of Reflected Brightness?
Savoring my shock, Cassius steepled his fingers like a villain from a marketplace play. Actually, marketplace play-actors would have done a better villain impersonation. “The Star of Reflected Brightness? My, my, that’s quite an accusation. What evidence do you have against her?”
From floor level came a gasp. Cassius and I both surveyed Flicker, me with interest, Cassius with amusement.
“Because, you see, if you have evidence of malfeasance, I have a duty to warn my poor, besotted employee.”
Flicker seemed to have stopped breathing. “You knew?” he breathed.
Cassius’ fake benevolent smile was wasted on the nape of Flicker’s neck. “But of course. I am, after all, Assistant Director of this Bureau. It is my duty to oversee the moral edification of my employees.”
Clearly, Flicker’s relationship with Aurelia had progressed much further than I’d imagined. The two had also been a lot less discrete than I would have expected from either of them. Had they truly believed that just because both were unattached and worked in separate Bureaus, Heaven would condone the pairing of a star goddess with a star sprite? Had Aurelia truly believed that they were safe from Cassius just because she was no longer his empress? If so, she was a lot more foolish than I’d given her credit for, and it was Flicker who would pay the price.
Nothing! I said loudly. I have no evidence of anything against the Star of Reflected Brightness! It was merely baseless assumption on the part of an ignorant soul far removed from the center of power. I am grateful that you have corrected my misunderstanding.
That was enough to distract Cassius from tormenting Flicker and to return his attention to me. Good. When it came to playing games with Cassius, I was much better at it.
I dipped another bow. Forgive me for wasting your time on idle speculation, Heavenly Lord. I interrupted what you were saying earlier about the Goddess of Life?
“What I was saying about the Goddess of Life…? Ah, yes, she is, unfortunately, quite incensed against that human girl.”
Why? What has the human girl done to offend Her Heavenly Ladyship?
I avoided using Lodia’s name. Cassius could find it easily enough if he wanted to sabotage her file, but I wasn’t going to put it in his mind.
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Cassius spread his hands. “You are aware, I am sure, that the Goddess of Life left this Bureau to form her own? She feels that, as Director of Human Lives, she should be the one with a temple network on Earth.”
But that would be too easy to remedy!
“Would it?”
Yes!
All we had to do was add her image to the Kitchen God temple altars. If we kept adding gods, we might have to commission wider altars, but that was trivial. What was more complicated was updating the Temple’s name. I had to consult with Katu on a good name. He was sure to concoct something appropriately grandiose. It would all be so simple to arrange – if only I had a way to communicate with any of my friends.
Cassius’ sharp voice cut through my thoughts. “As easy to remedy as, say, re-casting me as the Divine Intercessor in your little theology?”
Sigh. I should have known that Cassius wouldn’t want to share an altar with anyone else. Heaven forbid people remember that there were any other gods who mattered. So petty. So spiteful. But that was just Cassius, wasn’t it?
You really haven’t changed, have you? I thought. Even I’ve changed, but you are who you always were. I wonder – would casting you back into the cycle of reincarnation transform you into a better person?
Idle speculation that was best saved for later.
Heavenly Lord, if I might be so bold as to request a meeting with the Goddess of Life, I am sure that we can work out a satisfactory arrangement.
“Mmm, I shall think upon it. And now, it is time for you to move on to your next life.”
From the floor, Flicker croaked with great daring, “CV.”
Cassius shot a murderous glare at him. “Ah, yes, we need to review your curriculum vitae together, do we not? The formalities must be observed.” He shuffled the pages, even though I was positive they had been in order to start with. “Soul Number 11270. You were reincarnated as a rat in North Serica, where you proceeded to steal food from starving humans, transmit plague to them, and severely injure the hand of the human who killed you to make into meat buns.”
Did I earn any positive karma for feeding them with my corpse?
I had no real hope that it would offset all the negative karma, and Cassius did not disappoint me. “You did, but it was a pittance compared to the harm you did them. Oh, Piri, your true nature always shines through, does it not?”
I’ll work on that, I said, annoyed enough to let it show.
“You do that.”
And with an airy wave, he sent me splashing into the Tea of Forgetfulness.
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In Flying Fish Village:
The typhoon came out of nowhere. One instant, the sky was bright blue and sunny and Bobo was racing a village boy up a coconut palm. The next, the sky curdled into grey glops that grew and grew until they coated everything from the mountains to the far side of the sea. The wind howled and shook the coconut palm so hard that the fronds lashed Bobo’s sides and coconuts fell, thud-thud-thudding onto the beach below.
“What’s happening? Is this normal?” she called at the village boy.
With his arms and legs wrapped around the trunk and his eyes squinched shut against flying sand, he shook his head. “No! I’ve never seen a storm come up so fast! The Dragon King of the Western Sea must be angry with us!”
“But why? What did we do?”
Since the oystragon’s attack, no one, not even the villagers, had dipped so much as a toe, claw, or tail tip into the water. The children and Steelfang had been agitating to go swimming again, but the elders had held firm.
“Bobo! Kid! Get down at once!” called Floridiana’s voice.
Bobo craned her neck all the way around and upside down to see the mage below, bracing herself against the wind. A sleek form swooshed past: Den, offering a ride to the kid. The boy transferred his death grip from the trunk to Den’s neck, Bobo slithered down the trunk, and they all raced back to the village.
It was organized chaos there. Humans and spirits scrambled to take down their drying fish before the wind swept away the next years’ worth of food.
A howl split the air. Steelfang was sitting on his haunches, head thrown back. “Listen up everybody! Her Imperial Majesty has an announcement to make!”
The villagers didn’t stop what they were doing, but they did stop shouting instructions to one another.
Sphaera floated up in the air so everyone could see her. With her scarf and skirts whipping around her and the fur on her tails waving in the wind, she called, “Good people! This must be a dastardly second attempt to assassinate the Matriarch!”
Bobo nodded along. Yes, yes, that made sense. Of course the Dragon King was embarrassed by and angry over his failure. Of course he would try again.
Floridiana, however, sucked in a sharp breath. “What is that fox playing at?”
“What is ssshe playing at?” Bobo repeated, confused.
Before Floridiana could explain, one of the spirit guests from the mountains called, “Then all we have to do to stop the storm is offer her to him!”
“Yeah!” shouted some of the other guests.
“That,” said Floridiana grimly. “That is what she’s playing at.”
At getting the demons to offer Lodia as a sacrifice to stop the typhoon? Where was the girl anyway? Bobo stretched herself up to her tippy tail and scanned the crowd.
“Where is ssshe? Where is Lodia?”
“I left Dusty with her. She’ll be safe with him – ”
A furious neigh pierced the wind. “Let us go, ruffians! Scoundrels! Dastards!!!”
A horde of demons thundered through the village, pushing along a bucking horse and the white-faced girl clinging to his mane.
Hand on her seal, Floridiana ran towards them.
Bobo raced after her, screaming, “Ssstripey! Ssstripey! Where are you?” before she remembered that he was a mortal crane now and couldn’t do anything. “Den! Den! Do sssomething!”
Wingbeats sounded next to her. I’m here, said Stripey.
“Ohhhh, Ssstripey, they’re going to offer Lodia to the Dragon King! We have to ssstop them!”
We will.
His certainty reassured her. “How?”
He jabbed his beak in the direction of the ocean. By doing that.
A bellow split the air. “Grow!”
Hanging midair between the village and beach, blocking the demons’ path to the water, was a massive dragon. His body was as thick as a coconut palm. His horns rose through his mane like stag antlers. His scales gleamed and his fangs glinted.
“Halt right where you are!” bellowed Den.
The demon horde wavered. Those at the front slowed, and those at the back plowed into them. Dusty’s neck darted out, and his big front teeth snapped down on a wild boar’s ear. The pig squealed.
Sphaera’s contempt tinkled through her laugh. “Do you fear the master of Caltrop Pond?”
A ripple ran through the horde: the demons preparing to charge Den. He was a dragon, true, and larger than each of them individually, but there were so many more of them.
Floridiana planted herself right under Den, seal paste dish open in her left hand, inked seal held up in her right for all to see.
In the breath before the demons gathered their resolve, the sun broke through the storm. A ray of golden light fell through a crack between the clouds.
Wait, it wasn’t sunlight that was falling towards them. It was a star, glowing as bright as the sun.
“It’s a messsenger from Heaven!” Bobo gasped. She raised her voice, “Everybody ssstop! It’s a messsenger from Heaven!”
The star crashed to the ground right in front of her and flared so bright that it blinded everyone.
Under the cries and moans that followed, Bobo heard a familiar voice mutter, “Ow.”
She opened one eye cautiously, then the other. “Hi, Flicker! Didja come to sssave Lodia?”
The star sprite who was Rosie’s friend stopped in the middle of brushing off his robes. “Yes. I came to warn you that – ” Then he spotted Lodia hunched over on Dusty’s back, the demon horde surrounding them, Den and Floridiana blocking their path, and the typhoon winds that howled around them. “What in name of the Jade Emperor is going on here?!”