The True Confessions of a Nine-Tailed Fox

It was both, as it turned out, that nearly stopped me from putting on my festival.

One morning, I was listening to Katu rehearse his sermon when a dull roar began to drift through the windows, coming from all directions. Confused, he interrupted his fulsome praise of the Kitchen God with an undignified: “Huh? What’s that? That’s not thunder, is it?”

Before he finished his questions, I’d already shot out the window. Because I knew that sound. Oh, how I knew that sound. The howl of many furious crowds coalescing into one, of a city forced past its breaking point until it exploded into an incoherent, undirected rage….

As much as Anthea yearned for the City of Dawn Song, I doubted that she missed the mobs.

Hovering above the Temple, I scanned our neighborhood. The alleys, lanes, and boulevards were packed with people – tradesmen, craftsmen, housewives, pickpockets, laborers, flower sellers, street urchins – all crashing along like a flood, the outer fringes breaking off to charge across courtyards and trample gardens and bang on doors and bellow for the inhabitants to come out. Nearly drowned out was the slamming of shutters and the grating of furniture, as the nobles barricaded themselves inside their mansions.

I flew higher still, surveying the capital of South Serica. The ground-bound mob filled every street in every neighborhood, while a cloud of bird and insect spirits darkened the air above the rooftops, all converging on the palace. It was daytime, so the rioters weren’t torching everything in sight, but this still wasn’t good. Not good at all.

All of a sudden, a hawk spirit dropped out of the sky above me, talons outstretched.

I shrieked, folded my wings, and plummeted back towards my own roof.

“What’s going on?” called Bobo’s anxious voice from below. “Pi– Pip, what’s going on outssside?”

Diving through a chimney, I zipped through the hallways until I reached our main workroom again. Thank goodness the hawk didn’t follow.

Shut the windows! Bar the doors! Hurry! It’s a mob!

“A mob?” Bobo and Katu asked blankly.

Right. Neither of them had ever lived in a place where the population density was as high as in Goldhill, so neither of them had ever seen a mob capable of toppling governments. I had, that final night in the City of Dawn Song, as the rebel army approached and the inhabitants went mad.

Panicky footsteps and hoofbeats. Floridiana dashed into the room, propelling an unruffled Camphorus Unus in front of her. Dusty galloped in behind them.

“What’s going on? What do we do?” the mage demanded of me.

“Why’s it happening? Why’re they doing that?” the baby horse spirit neighed.

Camphorus Unus simply clasped his hands in front of him and awaited my orders, solid, reliable tree that he was.

More frantic footsteps heralded the arrival of my priests, some still half-dressed with their hair loose and their robes hanging open. (Floridiana hadn’t yet trained their slum slovenliness out of them.)

“Mage, Mage, what’s going on?”

“Why’re they rioting?”

“My family! I gotta get home!”

I, too, looked at Floridiana, curious what she would advise, but she was at as much of a loss as Bobo, Katu, and Dusty. For all her traveling, for all her mage learning, for all her history-text-reading, she had never confronted an angry mob herself – or even observed one from the fringes, it appeared. Like the rest of them, she turned to me with pleading eyes.

As well she should.

Taking my place on one of Bobo’s coils, I drew in a deep breath and addressed them. Everybody, pleassse calm down –

“Drop the act!” yelled one of the priests, a young man who was too bold for his own good. “We all know already!”

The others bobbed their heads.

You all know what, precisssely? My cold voice was at complete odds with Bobo’s panicky twitch.

Undaunted, the first priest called, “We all know it’s not really the snake talking! It’s the bird!”

Floridiana spun and turned on him. “Silence! You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“S-s-s-s-sure we do,” quavered the oldest priest, a decrepit old man who tottered about with a cane and who, Dusty had reported, acted as a sort of grandfather to the youngest priests. “W-w-w-we ain’t blind.”

“Nor deaf neither,” called an old hag of a priestess. “The snake changes personalities when the bird’s around!”

Bobo performed a guilty, side-to-side wiggle.

They were all wasting time that we didn’t have. All right! Fine! You win, okay? I’m a talking bird, and if you tell anybody, you’re going to be in big, big trouble with the gods!

The priests just shrugged. “Why’s it matter?” one asked. And: “Who’d we tell?”

Good. Just keep thinking along those lines, and we may all get out of this alive. I glared at each of them in turn, but they didn’t seem impressed. Back to the original topic. You wanted to know what’s going on out there? Well, that’s what we call an angry mob.

Floridiana, Bobo, and Dusty sucked in quick gasps. Camphorus Unus’ placid expression never faltered. The priests continued to look unimpressed.

“Duh,” said the young boy-priest with an eye roll. (I’d never heard the slum slang before, but the intent was clear.) “We’ve seen mobs before.”

I blinked. You’ve seen mobs before?

“Yeah, ‘course we have.”

Um – why? Mobs had not been a common occurrence in the City of Dawn Song. At least, not until close to the end, after we could no longer suppress news that the Jade Emperor had recalled the chimera from Cassius. Then the ultimate proof that Heaven had withdrawn its favor, combined with rumors that the rebel dukes’ army was approaching the city walls, had set off the riots.

Did this mean that Jullia’s dynasty approaching its end? If only she were a proper Daughter of Heaven with her own chimera, so I could tell! I hated this guesswork at whether she and her government were salvageable.

If you’re so knowledgeable about mobs, young priest of the Kitchen God, what do they usually want?

“Rice,” said the boy at once.

“Food,” said the other old hag.

“An en-en-en-en-end to the War o’ the Wilds,” said the old man.

I cocked my head and listened to the roaring crowd outside, but I couldn’t make out individual words. Bobo, can you tell what they’re saying?

With her spirit’s senses, her hearing was much better than mine. “It’s hard to tell what they’re sssaying, but I think…I think…sssomething about a battle? Losssing a battle…maybe?”

Uncharacteristically, Camphorus Unus spoke up without a direct invitation. “Rumors have been circulating in the marketplace that the Queen’s army suffered a devastating defeat in the west. The inhabitants fear that the demons are coming for them. Some have been calling for the royal court to recall the army to defend the capital.”

I thought back to the map I’d seen in the Lychee Grove Earth Court. In theory, South Serica extended from the eastern coast to the mountain range in the west, although demon monarchs had claimed perhaps a third of the western lowlands. If they were advancing on Goldhill, that wasn’t good. Demons could move fast.

And you’re only telling us this NOW?

“I beg your pardon, but I did inform you four days ago. At breakfast?” he prompted.

Had he? I searched my memories. Oh, yes, I did maybe vaguely remember him mumbling something about an army and a battle, but Jullia’s army was always fighting battles against demons, so I hadn’t bothered to listen. Military dispatches were so boring. I’d been more focused on teasing Dusty about the piece of lettuce he’d managed to get in his forelock.

Also, when Katu wasn’t angsting over the optimal word choice in his song cycle to the Kitchen God, he was agonizing over fresh disasters in the west, and you did desensitize to atrocities after a while. After all, you only had so much time and energy for outrage and sympathy, before you turned your attention back to your own, more pressing concerns.

All of which was to say that no, I hadn’t known about the defeat, or the danger that demons might pose to the capital, or the imminent danger that the mob did pose to my festival to honor the Kitchen God and collect offerings for him. In frustration, I threw up my wings and glared up at Heaven (or, to be more accurate, the ceiling beams).

Why? Why do you do this to me? Tell me: Whyyyyy?!

The others’ gazes followed mine up to the beams, carved and gilded with scenes of life on Earth, each watched over by the Kitchen God’s paternal figure. The most irritating priest interrupted my dramatic scene of anguish.

“If the demons are a-comin’, then the Queen’s gonna need soldiers. To defend the capital.” His voice trailed off meaningfully.

“No!” gasped Bobo. “You can’t go! You’ll get hurt! You’ll get killed! It’s too dangerous!”

“Yes, the snake speaks truth,” seconded Dusty, thrusting out his chest and tossing his gleaming mane. “Trust me, for I have been through a mighty battle and lived to tell the tale.”

The priests didn’t look nearly as awed as he hoped, but then again, neither did I.

Floridiana stared at the troublesome priest she’d saddled us with. “You would rather die on the ramparts than stay in the Temple where it’s safe?” she asked incredulously, before she corrected herself, “I mean, where you can serve the Kitchen God?”

I could have told her that she needn’t bother keeping up a pretense of piety. I knew where this conversation was headed.

And indeed, a middle-aged priest who, if I recalled correctly, had a wife and way too many children back in the slum, put his hands together inside his sleeves, in the pious gesture that the priests were rehearsing and trying to turn into second nature before the festival. He almost nailed it, which meant that the slum dialect that accompanied it was even more jarring. “If I had my druthers, I’d rather stay here and serve the Kitchen God, mage. But they’ll be payin’ good rice for people to fight. My family’s gotta eat.”

“Now see here! We’re also payin’ – I mean, paying – good rice for you to stay here and serve the Kitchen God!” Floridiana retorted, so upset that she slipped into a slum accent herself. Spending so much time with the priests was having a deleterious effect on her diction and demeanor: She was falling back into childhood habits.

The oldest priest quavered, “W-w-w-w-we’ve been workin’ here for weeks, and we haven’t seen a grain o’ rice.”

“That’s because it isn’t time for you to be paid yet!” Floridiana snapped. “I told you at the start: You’ll be paid every month! Also, we’re still waiting on the rice shipment. Camphorus Unus?”

Unperturbed that she’d redirected the unpaid priests’ ire at him, the steward nodded a slow, stately nod. “Indeed, there has been a dearth of grain in the city of late. But the rice merchant sent word only yesterday that he has received a shipment from the farms and that our portion will be delivered on the morrow.”

Out of nowhere, the boy-priest piped up, “I was listenin’ to the master carpenter yell at the goldsmith’s apprentice. He said, if the gold leaf is any later, he’s gonna charge ‘interest’.”

“Y-y-y-y-yes, w-w-w-w-we are charging interest.”

“’Less you want us to join the army.”

Poor Floridiana just gaped at the priests she’d recruited.

Unburdened by excessive amounts of empathy, I decided to step in. I fluttered my wings and cleared my throat.

No one noticed.

I flapped my wings and cleared my throat harder. When all eyes turned my way, I puffed myself up to look bigger and hence more wrathful.

Am I understanding you correctly? You are taking advantage of a national crisis to hold the Temple to the Kitchen God hostage over pay negotiations?

(I might have projected outrage, but inwardly, such a display of concentrated self-interest warmed my heart.)

Have you forgotten everything that we have done for you? We have fed you! We have clothed you! We have housed you! We have educated you! And why do you think we selected you, of all the people in the capital, when we might have hired those who do not need to be fed, clothed, housed, or educated at the Temple’s expense?

I glared at each of the ex-slum-dwellers in turn, making sure I held their gazes until they wavered. Where they had freely challenged Floridiana’s authority, they quailed before me. One by one, they hung their heads – which gave them a good view of the hems of their embroidered silk robes and the toes of their comfortable, well-fitting slippers, all reminders of how they had benefited from my charity.

I let them stew in shame and confusion for a moment before saying sternly, It is because we represent the infinite mercy of the Kitchen God, who intercedes on behalf of all of us on Earth before the Emperor of Heaven.

The boy-priest opened his mouth, but at a glance from one of the hags, he shut it again.

I hardened my tone still further. If, however, you have determined that you no longer wish to avail yourselves of the Kitchen God’s compassion, then, by all means – go. We do not need priests who will place petty pecuniary squabbles above our divine mission.

I didn’t know how much they actually understood, but that wasn’t the point. They grasped the gist of what I’d said, and they certainly knew the command, “Go.” Told that they weren’t indispensable, as they’d come to believe they were, given the actual option of leaving their warm, soft beds and easy work and hearty meals to join the army and probably get eaten by demons, they hesitated.

I gave them the final push. Well? Have you made up your minds? The Kitchen God will not wait forever for your answers, and neither will I.

One by one, they shook their heads and mumbled something about their devotion to the great god. As they slunk back out into the hallway, I nodded to Camphorus Unus, who told them, “Barring further upheaval in the city, the rice will be delivered to us on the morrow. You will receive your appointed stipends.”

And a bonus, for the sakes of your families, I added before I could stop myself.

Ugh. Why I had promised them that? Now we’d have to take it out of the offerings intended for the Kitchen God. I did my best to salvage the situation with: Consider it a token of the Kitchen God’s infinite love.

As the priests exploded into shouts of gratitude, I just hoped the god was listening.