The True Confessions of a Nine-Tailed Fox

The blaze of light that exploded out was even brighter than the lightshow Flicker had put on when we quelled the riot. On reflex, I clapped my wings over my eyes. Since I was hovering midair, however, I immediately started to fall and had to flap my wings to stay aloft. As soon as I removed that layer of feathers, the world went peach and pink and excruciatingly painful. If I hadn’t known where that light was coming from, I’d have sworn that it was pressing down on me, forcing me to the ground to prostrate myself before the glory of the Divine Intercessor.

Ha! As if I’d grovel to the Kitchen God!

Oh. Wait.

I should, if only for show. He was almost certainly monitoring these proceedings, wherever he was.

Swallowing a sigh, I drooped to the ground, lowered my belly into the grass, and let the dirt get all over my feathers.

I couldn’t see anything, not with Flicker blazing away like that, but I heard a thump and guessed that Stripey had landed next to me. A large shadow fell over me, decreasing the pressure from the light. I gasped and sucked in a deep breath.

Who knew Flicker had it in him to shine so bright? When had he grown so much in power?

Or had he always held this much power, and simply lacked the confidence to use it?

If the latter were the case, I could think up ways for him to use it.

Although Katu must have been as blinded as the rest of us, his prayer continued. “O Divine Intercessor! Grant us your protection! Show us your Heavenly might! Let these demons turn upon one another tooth and fang! Let them eradicate one another! Let them purge themselves from this Earth!”

As soon as he finished the final sentence, Flicker pulsed once and snapped off his light.

That was the signal to the foxling.

Eyes still blinded, beak and throat pressed flat against the grass, I listened as hard as I could for a sign that she would obey my command.

“Let them purge themselves from this Earth!” shouted the human on the stage, and then Lady Piri’s servants switched off the light at last.

Had it been bright! Sphaera had doubted – just a tiniest bit – when Lady Piri’s representative had warned her that the light would be blinding beyond belief – but of course she should have trusted in Lady Piri. She had no idea where Lady Piri had found such a bright light on Earth – she had no idea such a bright light existed on Earth! – but of course Lady Piri had managed it. Sphaera should have known better than to doubt her.

And now – now it was her turn to shine.

Sphaera opened her eyes a slit. All around her, demons had cried out at the light and the furious pressure of it, and many of them were still hunched over. The weaker ones were huddled on the ground, clawing at their eyes.

Naturally, the chieftains, who’d had centuries to accumulate power, hadn’t been affected as badly. Pallus the manul unballed himself from around Prince Pouff, letting the kitten totter on his own paws. Steelfang the wolf bared his teeth in a huge grin, saliva dripping off the points of his canines and searing the grass where it landed.

Sphaera leaped to her feet on the litter, tore the scarf from around her shoulders, and flung up her hand, letting the filmy silk stream out for all her allies to see. “Everyone! It’s time!”

“Time for what?” screeched the vulture, who’d somehow stayed aloft.

“Fox Queen! What’s going on?” brayed the yak.

Of all the chieftains she had summoned to that conference with Lady Piri’s representative, only the vulture and the yak had rejected the great nine-tailed fox’s teachings, and so they and their vassals knew nothing of The Great Plan. She didn’t answer them. Instead, she sat down primly, folding her hands in her lap like a demure young maiden.

Steelfang, on the other hand, raised a howl that made every fur on her tails stand on end. All over the battlefield, packs of wolves he’d planted near the vulture’s and yak’s vassals attacked.

It was chaos. Dazed and disoriented, none of the demons expected their allies to turn on them just shy of the capital. Although, honestly – what kind of demons were they, to expect alliances to be honored?

Stunned, the vulture backwinged and screeched, “What have you done? Traitor! Kill her!”

A pair of eagles dove at Sphaera, who didn’t bother to lift a finger.

Nearby, the peacock chieftain shook himself and flared his tail in a dazzling swirl of colors that caught the attention and sucked it in, in, in, so far in that the world around you faded to nothing….

Sphaera hastily looked away before he mesmerized her too. She couldn’t afford a distraction right now, not even such a handsome one. Later, when she had free time, though….

Mere feet above Sphaera’s head, one of the eagles lost himself in the hypnotic swirl and hung vacantly midair.

The leopard chieftain bunched up his hindquarters and sprang. His leap carried him all the way to the vulture chieftain, and before he began to fall again, his jaws snapped shut on the bird’s claw. The vulture screeched and raked his other claw across the leopard’s face. The leopard couldn’t roar without releasing the bird, but he jerked his head from side to side, shaking the bird. Locked in combat, the two plummeted.

Meanwhile, Pallus and his manuls yowled and started up a purr that was echoed by a rumble in the ground. The land heaved and tossed like branches in a winter storm. Prepared for this tactic, the wolves used the waves to jump higher, further, faster.

Not so their enemies. Caught off guard, they stumbled and tripped, and their hesitation proved their doom.

The yak chieftain’s own right-hand demon charged out of the horde, horns lowered, to bellow a challenge. “Weak one! Faithless one! You have forfeited your right to lead us!”

He barreled at his liege. When the two locked horns, a crack split the air and a shock wave blasted out from them. Gopher and rat demons sailed in all directions.

Sphaera clapped her hands with glee. Oh, what fun! She’d never seen demons fly that way before!

“Steelfang!” She’d lost sight of the wolf, so she pitched her voice to carry over the battlefield. “A bet! Five pounds of flesh on the challenger!”

Far away, Steelfang’s ears and forehead appeared above the churning mass of demons. His amber eyes found the dueling yaks and assessed them. “Done!” he shouted back. Then a herd of gazelles barreled into him, and he vanished from view.

“Try not to die! I plan to collect after this!”

An angry howl indicated that he wasn’t dead yet.

Sphaera giggled, then controlled herself and composed her face into a serene smile, emulating that painting of Lady Piri watching two humans duel to the death. If Lady Piri could set the last imperial court at one another’s throats and watch it all play out with perfect elegance – then so could she.

“Maybe I should abdicate and dedicate myself to the service of a god,” Jullie said bitterly. “Maybe I’ll even pick your god. He’s going to need a new Temple after the demons get through with Goldhill. I have estates elsewhere. I can build him a new one.”

Wrapping her arms around herself, she slid down the tree trunk, heedless of the way the embroidery on her robes caught on the bark. Fine silk threads snapped. Anthea winced. Those dragons were maimed beyond even Lodia’s ability to repair.

More cautiously, she perched on a root next to Jullie and put an arm around the Queen. After the silence had dragged on too long, she cast about for something to say to cheer up her liege. “Well, if the Temple fails to hold back the demons here, then we’ll certainly need a new High Priestess.”

Jullie choked out a laugh. “Me? High Priestess? Can you imagine it? All these years of you begging me to renovate the palace kitchens, and I haven’t even repainted the Kitchen God’s altar! Why would he want me as his High Priestess?”

“He loves everyone on Earth and forgives all their trespasses,” Anthea said before her brain caught up to her mouth.

Where had that come from? Kitchen God most certainly did not love everyone on Earth and forgive all their trespasses. The Divine Intercessor was only Len Katullus’ rosy view of him, promulgated to the masses to fool them into donating offerings to the Temple. Anthea knew better. The Kitchen God was a god. He didn’t love, or forgive, or remember to love or forgive. It wasn’t in his nature. What was she doing, spouting Piri’s propaganda at her friend?

To distract herself from that line of questioning, Anthea scanned the horizon to the west. Then she grabbed Jullie’s arm. “Look! It’s starting!”

Jullie’s head whipped around, but it was a few moments longer before her human eyes made out the brightening sky. A column of gold light shot up into the Heavens. “They did it! They really did it!”

“They did! They did!” Too excited to hold still, Anthea bounced up and down. “She really did it! She really kept her promise!”

Under her arm, she felt Jullie stiffen. “Was there ever any doubt that she wouldn’t?”

Anthea had never conveyed her private thoughts about Piri and the Temple’s plan to the Queen. “Well…it’s Piri,” she said lamely. “Trusting Piri is always a gamble.”

“Hmmmm. I would have appreciated it if you had informed me beforehand of all the risks. Especially as regards the trustworthiness of its authoress.”

Now that she believed she would hold her throne, Jullie was back to being a monarch. That was the problem with monarchs, Anthea thought. You could get close to them, you could be their friend – but they would always be a monarch first. They didn’t have the luxury of ordinary friendship.

For some odd reason, she thought of Lodia’s mother, who’d trusted in her friendship with the Queen and lost it because of that.

“Did we have any other choice?” Anthea countered. “We were out of options. I believed that any gamble was better than certain death. And – ” she nodded towards the west, where her spirit hearing picked up battle cries – “it appears that I was correct.”

She wasn’t sure how much Jullie’s human ears could hear, but after frowning and listening, the Queen nodded. She stood up and brushed the wrinkles from her robes as best she could, although nothing could save the embroidery. “Then we had best return to the throne room.”

It worked! It worked it worked it worked!

It was all I could do to keep from hopping up and down with excitement. The foxling made quick work of the insubordinate demons, just as she’d sworn she would!

After the dust settled, the survivors regrouped and began to advance again.

The cheers from inside the city choked off. Katu lowered his arms and folded his hands together inside his sleeves. Floridiana, Lodia, Dusty, Miss Caprina, and the bears got to their respective feet, hooves, and paws, watching the demons warily. Stripey and I took to the air once more.

As the demon horde drew close enough for me to make out individual figures, I saw that the foxling had positioned her litter in the center at the very front, the demon chieftains – and one bright green bamboo viper – arrayed behind her.

There’s Bobo! I called down to Floridiana and the others. I see her!

There was a collective sigh of relief.

On marched the demons. The silence in the city was complete. The residents seemed to have stopped breathing while they waited to see what would happen next.

Six feet from the stage, the demons halted.

All eyes were on the foxling as she placed first one, then the other dainty slipper on the grass, rose unhurriedly from the litter, and sank into a graceful genuflection. In the next heartbeat, all the chieftains prostrated themselves, followed by the demons behind them, in a wave back to the last stragglers.

“All hail the Divine Intercessor!” cried the foxling in a clear, sweet voice that carried all the way into the city.

“All hail the Divine Intercessor!” repeated the other demons.

The whoops that erupted from the city drowned out anything anyone else might have tried to say.