Tony Pi - [BCS294 S01] - These Wondrous Sweets (html) Read online

  We needed to get out from under the crows’ eyes, but that meant carrying out a strategy instead of relying on instinct.

  I must take over now, Hungerer, I said.

  Hungerer resisted. The chase was still on.

  Then we work together, reason and instinct. Go to that grass, swallow the caramel figurine there, then into the pagoda.

  Within moments, we-the-Tigress gulped down the snake-and-gourd from its hiding place. Bubbles of air burst through the top of our back as that hollow candy filled with water.

  Crows in the sky now numbered seven.

  We leapt the distance to the open doors and scrambled up the tower steps. Flowers were carved everywhere into the wood of the pagoda. Legends told that the tower was dear to spirits and immortals and good fortune came to those who scattered petals from its highest tier. We’d welcome such a blessing now.

  Each of the upper levels visible from the outside had four windows, and as we clambered onto the third level, a sun-eyed crow flew through the south window and out the north.

  Ignore it. Up further, I instructed.

  Fourth level, windowless.

  Onto the windowed fifth, where two crows crisscrossed the level through different windows.

  We could hear footfalls upon the stairs below.

  On the windowless sixth level, I asked Hungerer to stop. We’re hidden from the crows’ eyes here. Now we vanish into the snake.

  I willed my soul to leave the water tiger and enter the caramel snake. But while I began to fill the snake-shaped candy, a force kept Hungerer out.

  I cursed myself for not realizing this before, but the shengxiao spirits protected their domains fiercely. Of course the spirit of Snake would never allow the power of Tiger inside something that bore its shape!

  With my leaving, Hungerer claimed control of the water tiger, which kept its shape. This wasn’t supposed to happen. We were supposed to let the conjuration splash away into harmless water. Now Hungerer became the decoy Tigress, ruling it with pure animal instinct. When the archers caught up to it—

  A wild idea came to me. The snake wasn’t the only candy here.

  Hungerer, you’ve one chance, I cried. Enter the gourd and we can dispel the water Tigress!

  But the footfalls below were growing louder, and without me in the same body to hold it back, Hungerer followed its own impulses. With a roar, it turned back down the stairs to maul its attackers.

  I knew Hungerer was putting itself in mortal risk, but as much as I wanted to save it, I had to save myself. The snake-me, still coiled around the candy gourd, whipped my tail to break free of the water tiger’s bulk and onto the steps. We started to roll down the stairs, still full of water. However, with what strength I could muster in the snake body, I halted our downward tumble on a broad step and hauled the gourd to the side.

  Shouts, roars, and the caw of crows rose from the level below.

  I feared for Hungerer and cursed myself for not thinking through my plan more carefully. I wished I could’ve left the gourd to it for a last-minute escape, but I couldn’t risk them finding my candy inside the decoy. All I could do was lie here and pretend to be a child’s discarded treat.

  No more roars, only caws and voices... and the sound of something shattering.

  “Ice? The Pale Tigress was nothing but water and ice?” a man said.

  Poor Hungerer!

  “Another trick, likely from the same one who sent those tea-and-wine rats against us when we tried to kill Gongsun,” said another man.

  “Perhaps the black arrow’s captured him,” said the first.

  Captured? Did the enchantment somehow trap Hungerer inside that arrow?

  “We can’t assume that,” said the second. “We’ll find and kill this water sorcerer.”

  “I agree, but we must move. More of the magistrate’s men are coming.”

  There was a clamor as they fled, but I stayed motionless, waiting for the noise to die down.

  When silence finally came, Snake-me began to uncoil from the gourd—

  —and stopped moving when I saw a crow watching me from two steps up, tiny suns dancing inside its eyes. I froze too late, however; the crow had already seen me move. It hopped down towards me.

  I flung the gourd at it, then slithered down the stairs. Ahead, pieces of ice that were once the tiger decoy. Perhaps I could hide among—

  The crow seized me in its claws before I could reach the shattered ice. It stretched its wings to fly.

  I struggled and tried to constrict its torso, but my sticky snake body was simply caramel and no match for its beak and talons. If it decided to tear me apart, it could.

  Dare I call out to the spirit of Snake and beg for its power? I’d once asked for venom from it, perhaps I could again. But what more would it ask of me in return?

  The crow had taken me into the air and was swooping down the winding stairs.

  Then I remembered that this candy-snake shell still held water, and that a snake could shed its skin.

  I flowed my soul into the water, already formed in the shape of a snake, and right before I abandoned the caramel body for good, I forced open its mouth.

  With the slickness of water, Snake-me sloughed the candy-skin and fell writhing onto the steps. I thought the impact might splatter me apart, and it did rattle my thoughts, but somehow I held onto my serpentine shape.

  The crow ripped the candy snake, tossed the pieces aside, and winged its way back towards me. It landed and pecked at me as I tried to escape down the stairs. While its beak passed through my watery body harmlessly, each hit splashed water away from me. It took all my will to keep my shape, but how long until the crow destroyed me?

  I couldn’t think of a way out. But if we saved the Pale Tigress, perhaps it was worth—

  A black arrow flew through the air from an angle below and impaled the crow against the next step up.

  As the crow died, one light in its eyes faded away, but the other fled its corpse, floating into the air.

  It was a firefly but unlike any I’d ever seen. It flew up around the turn of the stairs. I couldn’t slither after it; the steps were too steep for my snake body.

  Nong loomed over me. He dislodged the crow-on-an-arrow from the wooden step and tossed it inside his rattan basket, along with the caramel gourd. He extended a hand, palm up. “Let’s get you back.”

  Nong returned me to my body in his home. I slithered onto my own forehead and sent my soul back into my flesh. The water-snake lost its form and became the wake-up splash on my brow.

  With a yawn I sat up and wiped the water away from my eyes, but then Worry ran in and licked my face with a spit-laden tongue. I laughed and gave him a hug. I needed it.

  I turned to Nong. “Thank you for coming when you did, Nong. I wouldn’t have survived otherwise.”

  “I aim to please,” he said. “I saw six crows fly away, but not the seventh, so I rushed there as soon as their last man left.”

  I examined the crow-and-arrow in the basket by candlelight. “Is this the arrow that wounded the Tigress?”

  “It is.”

  “The hunters thought they might’ve caught me inside the arrow, which means the bird-and-worm script might be for a binding spell. Perhaps that’ll help the magistrate decipher the words,” I said. I wondered if these arrows still held some of my strength and the Tigress’s. If so, what did that mean? And if we could figure out their secret, could we then undo their enchantment and return to our full powers? Do you think Doctor Yan managed to slip away? They’ll be looking for her now.”

  “You succeeded in luring away her crows, so I’d guess yes,” Nong said.

  “Good. I suspect we’ll need the Pale Tigress at full strength soon.” I told him about the strange firefly that escaped.

  Nong frowned. “Crows with firefly eyes?”

  “I don’t know what they are, but the firefly eye that got away saw what I could do with water and caramel,” I said.

  Nong put a hand on my shoulder.
“I’ll warn the magistrate.”

  He and I left unsaid what we both feared.

  That demon crow or firefly had seen my caramel animals, and I was the only candyman with those skills in Chengdu. Before, the Ten Crows didn’t know that I was the sorcerer who opposed them.

  Now, I might well be their next target.

  Worry, mouth tight and ears tilted forward, faced the door and raised his tail high. He meant to guard me, whatever threats might come. By this simple act of fellowship, Worry reminded me that even without my powers returned to full, I would never stand alone against the Ten Crows.

  © Copyright 2020 Tony Pi