The Heavenly Fox Read online

  "Where is he?" Springshadow asked.

  "In one of the numerous and varied hells. Which one is probably of little concern to you. Will you hear his message?"

  Springshadow licked her lips. "Must I?"

  The goddess shrugged. "You may refuse. Shall I tell him you do not want to hear what he has to say?"

  Springshadow finally shook her head. "I am no coward, to be afraid of a mere ghost. You have learned what passed between myself and Xiaofan and I do not deny it. I did what I had to do and would do so again."

  "I have accused you of nothing, nor do I intend to do so. I do not judge; that is not my dominion. Will you hear what Xiaofan wished to tell you?"

  "I will," Springshadow said. She made an effort to keep her gaze level. "Though it is safe to assume that Xiaofan will accuse me of much. Mostly justified, as I said. No matter. If it will ease Xiaofan's suffering, I am willing to bear the brunt of his hatred. It's the least I can do. What does he say?"

  "He wants you to know that he understands why you did what you did. He says that he still loves you."

  "Oh," Springshadow said. For a long time, that was all she said. Then she sighed. "What an idiot."

  #

  Hours later Springshadow and Guan Shi Yin sat together in front of Springshadow's hearth. Somewhat to the fox’s surprise, the goddess had gladly accepted a cup of tea, and they had talked so far into the night that it was almost morning.

  "It's not that I really expected you to be impressed by Xiaofan's chivalry," Guan Shi Yin said after they had become better acquainted. "You're a fox. And that sort of nobility is easier for humans to both generate and appreciate...no offense intended."

  "None taken," Springshadow said. "I suppose it's something like being color-blind. My eyesight as a fox is very keen — I have no problem with shadows and edges, for instance, but I just can't quite get a handle on ‘red’.”

  “Or human feelings?”

  Springshadow shrugged. “Those too. The basic motivations are easy enough: hunger, lust, fear, and such. Foxes and humans share those. A lot of the rest of the human perspective is just a mystery to me. Though I daresay I've gotten quite good at mimicking it."

  "I dare say," Guan Shi Yin agreed and sipped her tea.

  "What do you think Xiaofan was trying to accomplish by this message to me? I mean, honestly? He's dead, he's in hell, and he was placed in a particular hell by the Lord of the Underworld's judgment, so it's reasonable to assume he belongs there. Why should I feel guilty about that?"

  The goddess shrugged. "I'm not saying you should. I delivered the message because Xiaofan prayed to me and said that my doing so would ease his suffering, and so I agreed. Easing the suffering of individuals is what I do. I know that, as the Buddha teaches, desire is the root of all such suffering, but I don't pretend to know all the shapes and manifestations that desire takes. Everyone's a little different."

  "Would it help him if I asked you to tell him that I love him too? And that I'm sorry for what I did to him?"

  "Is either true?"

  Springshadow thought about it. "I don't think so. I had some affection for Xiaofan, but I killed him to get what I needed, which does not sound like love to me. As for the second, definitely not."

  "Then I can't deliver that message," Guan Shi Yin said, and this time Springshadow was sure that the goddess was smiling, if ever so faintly. "I can neither lie nor knowingly carry a lie. A not always convenient virtue, I'll grant you."

  Springshadow shrugged. "Well, then. It was just a thought."

  Outside her mountain cave the sky was turning pale. Springshadow rose and walked out to the cave entrance, Guan Shi Yin following. The dawn sky was just visible as a yellow-orange streak to the east, a streak that was growing wider and brighter and coming closer by the moment.

  "It's almost time. How do you feel?" the goddess asked.

  "I feel...expansive," Springshadow said. "Like there's more to me than I thought there was."

  "I'd say your spirit is preparing itself. Ah, that will be Wildeye."

  The wild-haired Taoist roared up on his golden cloud, disturbing the sound of the morning birds. He hopped off onto the broad ledge in front of Springshadow's cave, while his cloud flitted up to circle the mountain peak, idly. "Sorry I'm late. Have I missed anything?"

  "Much," said Guan Shi Yin, "but if you're referring to Springshadow's apotheosis, you're still on time."

  Wildeye looked as if he wanted to go back the way he'd come when he saw Guan Shi Yin, but he merely spared a grudging and hasty bow in the goddess's general direction and went up to Springshadow. "It won't be long now."

  The first direct glimmer of the sun was visible over the mountains. For a moment Springshadow gazed in wonder as its glow enveloped her, before she realized that glow was not a reflection of the sun but was arising from within herself. She stared at her hands, now glowing like molten bronze in a furnace.

  "I-I can't contain it!"

  The expansive feeling she had before was nothing compared to this. She felt at once like Springshadow greeting the dawn on her One-Thousandth Birthday and the dawn itself, spreading to encompass the world and everything around it. She was Springshadow, and yet she was also Guan Shi Yin and Wildeye, and a hermit on the next mountain dreaming of a woman, and an immortal two mountains over from that who was not dreaming of anything. She was all those things and becoming more all the time. She was exhilarated. She was terrified.

  Somewhere in the distance she felt a touch on her shoulder and knew it was Guan Shi Yin, because she herself was Guan Shi Yin, or the other way round, and every other way there was.

  "You're just touching the Universal Truth," said the goddess's voice, at once distant and yet more intimate than a whisper. "You won't forget, but you'll stop dwelling on it after a while. Helps one to function. Even a goddess."

  "What Universal Truth?" Springshadow asked, but even as she asked, she knew. There was no Guan Shi Yin, no Wildeye, no hermit two mountains over or an immortal on the next peak. They were all the same thing. Everything and everyone, aware or not, was the same thing. And, for that moment, Springshadow was that everything, all that was or would be. Just before she felt that surely she would succumb to that knowledge and become everything forever, she felt another hand on her other shoulder. That was Wildeye.

  "Time to come down, girl."

  It was like a bucket of cold water in the face. Springshadow felt herself shrinking down like a doused fire until she stood on the mountain ledge and was just Springshadow again. But that other knowledge, that other awareness and certainty, was still there, like a letter locked in a box that she could read at any time and call back everything that the letter evoked. She felt a little dizzy.

  "That wasn't very nice," Guan Shi Yin said.

  Disoriented as she was, it was a moment or two before she realized that Guan Shi Yin and Wildeye were arguing. "She touched the Universal Truth and was this close," Guan Shi Yin held her two index fingers barely a whisker's width apart, "to transcending. And you had to spoil it!"

  "And watch my friend fall into that trap of oblivion? Not a chance, Immanence."

  Springshadow groaned and found a convenient rock to sit down on. It was a familiar rock, one she had used to take the evening air on countless occasions. But it felt different to her now, somehow...wrong. She tried to focus on the two squabbling immortals. "What are you two going on about?"

  It occurred to Springshadow that she could know exactly what they were squabbling about. She had the key. She decided that, for now, it was simpler merely to ask.

  "Part of the process of apotheosis is an introduction to transcendence. Some choose to remain in that state," Guan Shi Yin said. "It looked like you had chosen that path when this oaf intervened."

  "And who was it had her hand on the girl's other shoulder? Your contact had as much to do with her return as mine."

  "At least I didn't call her back."

  "No, but you do want her back. You want her as she is now! Do
n't bother to deny it," Wildeye said. "You know you can't lie to me. You can't lie to anyone."

  Guan Shi Yin scowled at him but finally sighed. "It's true. I need her."

  "For what?" Springshadow asked. "And what the heck is wrong with my rock? If feels like its grown a knot."

  "That's not the rock, girl. That's you,” Wildeye said. “Stand up."

  Springshadow stood up. Her form was somewhere between fully human and fully vulpine; a transitional form that gave her human hands and other aspects of humans that were useful, without fully surrendering her fox senses, and she'd used it often. Only now there seemed to be more to it. Several "mores", actually. "My tail feels funny."

  "Say rather your tails, girl," Wildeye said, and started counting.

  "You're a Heavenly Fox now, Springshadow. Look up," said the goddess.

  Springshadow looked up. There, in the distant sky far beyond the clouds, far beyond the mortal world yet clearly visible, clearly reachable, was a magnificent floating city with towers of gold and walls of the finest jade.

  Wildeye gave a grunt of triumph as he finished his count. "Nine! And each as magnificent as the last."

  "What are you babbling about? Nine what?" Springshadow said, unable for the moment to take her eyes off of Heaven and the floating city.

  "Tails, of course," he said. "Yours."

  That finally got Springshadow's attention. She quickly glanced behind her like a courtesan checking her appearance. It took her a moment to understand what she was seeing, but she finally saw what Wildeye saw — fox tails.

  Nine in all, and all, as Wildeye said, belonging to her. Attached.

  "Nine?!"

  "Nine." Wildeye nodded in grudging respect. "You have to admit," he said to the goddess, "that's pretty damn impressive."

  (())

  Part 2

  It was the sight of the multiple tails that finally pulled Springshadow's attention off the City of Heaven. "Nine what?!"

  "Tails," Guan Shi Yin said. "Don't tell me you didn't know about that part? A Heavenly Fox grows extra tails as an indicator of the level of their spiritual powers. At least one extra, often more. Nine is, as Wildeye pointed out, very impressive."

  "Why would I want extra tails? The one I had was quite good enough!"

  Wildeye shook his head. "It's not a question of wanting them, girl! You're a Heavenly Fox, so now you have them. That's the beginning and end of it."

  Springshadow, when she paused to consider the matter, realized it was very silly to dwell on the fact that she had nine tails, considering what had just happened to her. And yet it was hard not to do that very thing. With all nine fanning out behind her, she felt more like a peacock than a fox. On an impulse she transformed into her full human female appearance, and was somewhat relieved to see that her multitude of tails also vanished, along with the rest of her vulpine attributes.

  "At least I can transform into a human if I want to sit down."

  Wildeye frowned. "And if you remained purely fox, you wouldn't need to sit down. You could curl up like an honest fox, tails and all. Really, girl, why do you insist on being neither one thing nor another?"

  Springshadow scowled. "I'm an immortal now. I'm not feeling inclined to accept limitations. I think I'll go experience the world as an immortal. My world now, as an immortal, including Heaven."

  "Do what you think you must," Guan Shi Yin said. "Then come see me when you are ready to be serious."

  "What are you talking about?" Springshadow asked, but the goddess had already disappeared, winking out like a candle flame but not even leaving so much as a wisp of smoke behind.

  "I'd watch out for that one, if I were you," Wildeye said.

  Springshadow frowned. "The Goddess of Mercy? Of all the immortals in the heavens, I'd think she would be the one least likely to intend harm to anyone."

  "Intend? No. But all immortals have their own spheres and their own purposes, and the Goddess of Mercy is no different. More, she wants something from you. She said as much."

  Springshadow frowned again. "She also said that I should 'go see her when I was ready to be serious'. What does that mean?"

  Wildeye scratched under his beard, looking thoughtful. "I don't know. She does not lie, but she can keep silent when it suits her, and what she hasn't said echoes like thunder to me. Where thunder is, there you'll find lightning often as not."

  Springshadow shook her head. "I went through all that I have gone through, done all I have done, so that I would never have to worry about anything ever again, and I'm not going to spoil that by fretting about Guan Shi Yin. There's nothing she can do to me. There's nothing anyone can do to me."

  Springshadow stepped to the edge of the mountain ledge. "And since I'm an Immortal like you, I want a cloud like yours."

  Ever since the age of five hundred, Springshadow had known the trick of conjuring a small white cloud that could bear her weight when she needed to travel far and swiftly. Now that same cloud had developed a golden tint, identical to Wildeye's. When she summoned it, the newly golden cloud floated up even with the top of the ledge, purring like a cat.

  "It's an aspect of being Immortal," Wildeye said. "All you had to do was ask. Now what?"

  "Now I am going to take a closer look at Heaven. Do you wish to come?"

  He sighed. "I'm not exactly welcome in the Jade Realm these days. But you go. Have fun."

  "I intend to."

  Springshadow stepped onto her eager cloud and soared up to Heaven, higher than she had ever gone before. As she was just getting used to the changes in herself, it took her a moment longer to realize how much her cloud had changed as well. Where before its cloud-nature made the silly thing extremely reluctant to rise above the other, non-magical clouds that dotted the sky, now it leapt past those timid wisps of vapor like an arrow grazing a flock of geese and left them far below in seconds.

  What had been impossibly distant, out of sight, out of bounds, was now spread open before Springshadow like a scroll she couldn't wait to read. Heaven seemed incredibly vast, even for someone used to traveling by flying cloud, but it was no longer impossible. She saw a city with palaces and walls of jade, people of serene countenance and perfection going about their business just as they would in any other city. Granted, some of the denizens appeared a bit strange, but so far she saw nothing she had not seen before at various times in the Middle Kingdom of Earth: dragons, Qilin, gods, goddesses, sages, students and scholars of various ranks from high to low, kings and queens.

  Springshadow enjoyed the sight of all this for a long time, but eventually the mere act of seeing Heaven wasn't enough. She had to become part of it, as was her right. She ordered her cloud, now flying higher than the Jade City itself, to descend. Springshadow landed on a broad, pristine street on her golden cloud, and since this was the Jade City, no one took any notice of her. So much so that as one portly man wearing scholar's robes came rushing down the street, he practically collided with her, and it was only her nimble fox reflexes that prevented it.

  "Please excuse me," he said, though his voice was already fading in the distance. He hadn't even broken stride.

  Springshadow frowned. "What was — "

  She didn't get to finish as another man in scholar's robes, somewhat taller and slimmer than the first but otherwise very much like him, came hurrying down the street. Springshadow was careful to stay out of this one's path, but she reached out quickly as the man passed and tapped him on the shoulder.

  "Excuse me?" she said, but the man was already three paces past her before he managed to stop.

  "Yes, what is it?" he asked, looking rather distracted.

  "Pardon my ignorance, but where are you going in such a hurry? What could be so pressing in this place?"

  For a moment the man simply stared at her as if she had just grown an extra head. "Pressing? Why, the Official Examinations, of course! This will be my third attempt to qualify as Scholar, Second Level."

  "That sounds exciting, and I hope you succeed,"
Springshadow said. "But what then?"

  "Why, the studies and exam for Scholar, First Level, of course."

  She blinked. "And then? What will you do?"

  "There are always the advanced grades, such as Order of the Red Quill for composition, the Auditors for Special Merit, the Fellowship of the Jade Tablet, the — "

  "Yes, yes," Springshadow interrupted, "I mean, what will you do once your examinations are completed? What is your ultimate purpose? What do you want to do?"

  He seemed to consider the question somewhat ridiculous. "The exams are never completed. There is always another level, something new to aspire to. Now if you'll excuse me, I mustn't be late." In a moment he was hurrying down the street again, wide sleeves flapping behind him in a breeze of his own making. Soon he was lost even to Springshadow's keen sight.

  "That was very strange," she said aloud and to no one in particular.

  Yet, upon reflection, Springshadow realized it was not really so odd as all that. After all, Xiaofan had been such a scholar, studying for the official examinations. Granted, a scholar's place and prospects in the Middle Kingdom had always depended on how well they did on a series of official examinations, but there were limits. At least, Springshadow had believed there were such, even though sometimes it seemed to her, even then, that Xiaofan was more intent on the examinations themselves than the purpose behind them. Which, Springshadow had always believed, was to better oneself. That was no more or less than what she herself had wanted, in the process of becoming a Heavenly Fox. Perhaps the people of the Jade City had a different perspective.

  "If so, then why are they doing the exact same things?"

  Springshadow didn't get an answer from the denizens of the Jade City itself. She saw them coming and going on the same street. Her surroundings were strange and wondrous, and yet familiar, all at the same time. If the streets were of alabaster and the walls of the compounds and the walls of the palaces were all of jade, the construction techniques were no different, if more refined, from what she was used to seeing on the streets of the capital.