Serpentine

by Cindy Pon

  Nanny Bai.

  “Please, give me the bamboo switch. See, poor Skybright is bleeding.” It was Golden Sparrow, the head servant who managed the household. “The young mistress can’t stop shivering. She’ll catch her death kneeling on the ground without clothes.”

  Between her own labored breaths, Skybright could hear people sniffling behind her.

  “She needed to learn,” Lady Yuan said, then broke into a deep, long sob.

  Skybright turned her head. Zhen Ni’s mother stood alone, her face pressed into her hands, the bamboo switch on the ground beside her. Nanny Bai and Golden Sparrow had thrown themselves onto their knees, crouching by Lady Yuan, their arms raised in supplication.

  “She needed to learn,” Lady Yuan said again in a trembling voice, brushing the tears from her cheeks. “We don’t do what we want. We do what we must … ”

  Nanny Bai and Golden Sparrow led Lady Yuan out of the bedchamber, followed by wide-eyed handmaids who had come to see what the commotion was about. Zhen Ni and Skybright did not let each other go for some time, as they tried to control their shaking limbs.

  It was Lan who finally broke the silence. “Zhen Ni?” she said in a tremulous voice.

  Skybright had forgotten she was still in the room.

  “Lan,” Zhen Ni replied softly, and the tender way she spoke her name told Skybright everything.

  Skybright gritted her teeth, trying to manage the pain that shook from her arms and back through her entire aching body. A sheet rustled and she heard Lan’s light footsteps as she handed her mistress her robe, then gently swept Zhen Ni’s black hair from her brow and caressed her cheek. “I’m so sorry,” Lan said, her voice breaking. Her mistress nodded once and drew on her robe.

  Zhen Ni stood and took Skybright by the hand, led her to the vanity, and sat her on the padded stool in front of it. “Oh, Skybright,” she said with a sharp gasp. “Lan, could you bring warm water and some washcloths?”

  The girl hurried out.

  “We need to get this off of you before the blood dries.” Zhen Ni unhooked the buttons on Skybright’s tunic. Her hands trembled, jumping like nervous finches. “You’ll have to raise your arms,” she said, after she had undone all the buttons.

  Skybright did so, wincing as the muscles on her shoulders and upper back tightened. Zhen Ni slowly peeled the tunic from her. The silk was wet and sticky, like shedding a second skin. She cried out as the material lifted from her.

  “Oh, Skybright,” her mistress said again, and dropped the tunic at her feet.

  Skybright saw that the back was shredded, smeared in her own blood. Zhen Ni’s fingers fluttered over her shoulders, her arms, as if she didn’t know where she could touch her without causing pain. Skybright caught her mistress’s wrist. “I’m all right. I’ll heal.”

  Tears streamed down Zhen Ni’s face, and she shook her head. “I’m so sorry. It should have been me taking those thrashings. It’s my fault.”

  Skybright managed a small smile. “What kind of handmaid would I be, if I didn’t take my mistress’s place?”

  Zhen Ni bowed her head, silent sobs shaking her body, and there was nothing Skybright could do but clasp her mistress’s shoulder in comfort. Finally, when her mistress’s crying slowed, she asked, “How did your mother find the silk shorts?”

  “I was a fool,” Zhen Ni said in a tired, bitter voice. “I panicked that morning and shoved it in the back of my wardrobe and forgot about it completely. Mama must have found it when she was taking an inventory of my clothing.” She grasped Skybright’s fingers and peered up at her. “I love Lan, Skybright. Do you understand? I love her.”

  Skybright sighed but said nothing as her mistress laid her head in her lap, and she stroked her hair. She remembered asking Zhen Ni if she loved Lan that morning she had discovered them together. What does it matter, Zhen Ni had replied.

  We do what we must.

  Lan returned with a large porcelain bowl filled with warm water, and Zhen Ni tenderly wiped the blood off of Skybright’s back and arms as best she could. Skybright hunched on the stool, gripping a sheet to her chest, and gritted her teeth against the pain. Nanny Bai came a little while after to apply a salve onto her wounds.

  Lan was sent away the next morning.

  It was only the daily rituals and routines that kept Zhen Ni going in the days following Lan’s banishment from the Yuan manor. She rarely spoke. She didn’t eat. She never laughed. The mischievous shine in her eyes dulled to a blank stare that saw nothing around her. It was as if Skybright was watching her mistress wither away. She tried to cheer Zhen Ni, by suggesting her mistress play the lute while she sang for her—something that she had always enjoyed. But she refused. Skybright requested all the dishes that Zhen Ni loved to eat: crab meat soup, braised pork ribs with carrots, deep-fried shrimp in a spicy sweet sauce. But her mistress ate as if she tasted nothing, if she remembered to bring the food to her mouth at all.

  The one thing Zhen Ni never forgot was to help clean Skybright’s wounds and apply Nanny Bai’s salve each day. It pleased her mistress that she was healing well. Skybright, in turn, was physically exhausted, and spent each morning sleeping in, allowing Rose to take over the task of dressing Zhen Ni for the day. Her mistress had insisted that she take all the rest she needed to recover. But she made a poor companion to her mistress due to her injuries, when this was the time Zhen Ni needed her the most.

  Twice in the night, Skybright had woken in serpent form, only to shift back with ease by recalling the coolness winding through her lower body. She had long since taken to sleeping unclothed, and would drift back to slumber as a girl once more. Her last waking thought was always of Kai Sen, of the warmth of his laughter, and the heat of his embrace.

  Nine days passed like this, each a mirror image of the other, dragging so slowly it was intolerable. It was now the middle of the eighth moon, and the nights had become oppressively hot. Skybright’s back was full of scabs, and they itched horribly. She tossed from side to side on her narrow bed, unable to sleep. Giving up, she dressed and wandered out into the warm summer night and into the narrow alley behind her bedchamber. The ancestor altar she had set up was gone, but she still came, hoping that Kai Sen would visit, that she would see his dark form crouched low on the top of the wall, that she would hear him whisper her name.

  She wondered how he was, and hoped that he was well.

  A shadow shimmered in the blackness, and the ghost she recognized as the leader of the spirits she had seen flashed into view. He appeared alone. “Mistress Skybright,” he said, and bowed his head.

  “I’m afraid I’ve taken the altar down since the Ghost Festival ended.”

  The spirit nodded. “Most spirits have returned and stay in the underworld now that the festival is over. Our gratitude for your offerings. But the breach is still open, so I escape once in a while to roam this realm and gather news.”

  “The demons are still escaping then,” she said.

  The ghost floated toward her. He had been a large man in life. “Yes. The monks are battling day and night. I’ve seen the young man with the mark on his throat, the one who can see us too. The one you call Kai Sen.”

  A surge of emotions flooded her so strong she pressed a hand over her heart. Kai was all right.

  “I can lead you to him.”

  “Could you?” She could see Kai Sen again, make certain that he was well. “I’ve tried to find him myself, but have had no luck.”

  The spirit led her into the forest, a glowing orb. Skybright paused beneath a giant tree to strip off her clothes, heedless of modesty. She wasn’t able to travel safely or fast enough through the trees in human form, and was useless without her serpent senses. The spirit hovered over her when she stopped, then zipped off again when she was unclothed. She chased after it, morphing into her serpent form while she ran, shape shifting seamlessly. The world opened to her as she slithered after the bright ghost, and her body vibrated with pleasure to be
so free again, so filled with life.

  Oh, how she’d missed this!

  The spirit flew through the trees at a breakneck speed, but Skybright was able to keep pace. They delved deep into the forest, moving down Tian Kuan mountain, further than she’d ever gone. Finally, the spirit halted where the forest abruptly ended, opening into a wide clearing. A low plateau jutted from the mountain’s slope across from them. Some monks had converged on the plateau, while others were spread below. They held a torch in one hand and a sword in the other, reminiscent of the last time she had seen them. Only this time, the number of demons and undead that were attacking appeared endless.

  Fetid undead swarmed like locusts, hoping to spread their disease to the living with a bite or lingering touch. Giant demons with goat, ox and horse heads overran the battlefield, all swinging enormous axes. Skybright caught sight of a demon with a vulture’s head and black wings sprouting from its massive shoulders. The creature’s muscular thighs were covered in brown feathers, and tapered to two talons, which the demon would use by thrusting its knife-like claws into a monk, disemboweling him with one sharp twist.

  She searched the chaotic scene for Kai Sen. He was on the far side of the slope, a blur of motion with his torch and saber. Had he been fighting every night since the last time they had seen each other? He was as fit and lithe as ever, but she could see the strain in his features even from this great distance. His arms and tunic were covered in black smears.

  The bright spirit orb had winked out when they reached the battle, and Skybright said a few words of gratitude to the ghost in her mind, even if he couldn’t hear her. She slithered along the tree line, hidden, winding her way closer to where Kai Sen was fighting a hoard of undead, decapitating then setting them on fire. The night was lit by the stumbling creatures wreathed in flames. Skybright kept a safe distance in the trees, so no one would see her. She’d give a small triumphant hiss each time Kai Sen slew a demon or undead creature. Then something strange began to happen.

  An undead thing seeming to sense her hopped into the thicket, arms extended. She slithered deeper into the forest, but it followed. Skybright strangled it as she had done once before, snapping its head from its body with her coils, and slid closer to the fighting again. Each time she drew near, another undead creature would veer toward her, sometimes followed by others. Skybright lured them deeper into the forest again and again, and killed them each the same way, until the earth was littered with corpses, the air thick with their musty stench.

  Finally, there was a pause in their pursuit, and she hovered, hidden amongst the trees. Kai Sen was battling the vulture-headed demon alone. The monster towered over him, almost twice his height. Skybright had seen the thing kill another monk tonight, and her heart thudded hard against her ribs. How could she help Kai Sen? She slithered closer to the forest edge as an undead creature jumped toward Kai Sen, whose back was turned to it. Skybright hissed softly and it pivoted toward her, and she killed it with ease by snapping its head off with her thick coil before hefting the body into the trees.

  The demon and Kai Sen circled each other, eyes locked, the demon’s glowing a fiery orange and Kai Sen’s so intensely dark they seemed to gleam. He began chanting a mantra in archaic Xian in a deep, strong voice that she barely recognized. The demon swung its giant axe and Kai Sen sprang out of the way, slashing his saber across the demon’s torso as he did so. It shrieked, an inhuman cry that reverberated into the night. The demon bled a thick black ooze. It kicked out a lethal talon in fury, and Kai Sen dodged it easily, thrusting the saber deep into the demon’s thigh. It screeched again, swinging its axe wildly, and Kai Sen flipped out of the way, as if carried by invisible wings. He never ceased in his chanting. The demon turned to track its prey when its wounded leg gave out, and it crashed onto one knee. Kai Sen darted in at that moment to plunge the saber into the beast’s throat, and it was as if time stood still before the monster fell forward and Kai Sen leaped away, pulling his saber just in time.

  He kneeled to swipe his blade across the demon’s thigh, wiping the blood against the feathers. He was breathing hard, she could tell, by the rapid rise and fall of his chest. Another undead creature hopped toward Kai Sen’s bent figure, arms outstretched. Oblivious, he remained by the fallen demon, head bowed.

  Without thinking, Skybright slithered past the tree line, hissing. It twisted around, as if called to, and jumped toward her. She slid backwards into the safety of the forest, but before it reached cover, a torch lit its ragged clothes, and its long hair caught fire. The thing stumbled in a tight circle twice before crumpling to the ground.

  Kai Sen stood behind it, illuminated by the blaze.

  Skybright gasped—a gasp that erupted as a long hiss. He leaped over the flames and was upon her in an instant, chanting again in that strong voice. She tried to slide back, face averted. The words of his mantra lilted and swelled. It was a spell, she realized, and it immobilized her, rooted her serpentine body to the earth. She threw an arm up to protect herself, only to see Kai Sen raise his saber in one smooth motion.

  Terrified, unable to speak, her arm jerked aside and she looked him full in the face. Kai Sen’s dark brown eyes widened even as his saber fell. It was only in the last moment, and with amazing deftness, that he checked his stroke, and the blade sliced across her cheek instead of decapitating her. He had stopped chanting as he stumbled back and released her from his spell. She didn’t feel the cut, but tasted the warm blood on her lips. Skybright swiped her muscular coil, knocking him from his feet, and slithered into the forest.

  He sprang up in one breath and chased after her. She felt his pounding footsteps vibrating through the earth. He was fast, faster than any man she had ever seen, but she was faster. Her serpent senses let her know exactly where all the obstacles were in the vast forest, and she could have navigated it with her eyes closed. Her heart was in her throat as she slid amongst the ancient cypress trunks, feeling the distance increase between herself and Kai Sen. Blood pounded in her ears.

  Then something sharp pricked the side of her neck. The world grew hazy, and darkness seized her like a giant fist.

  “She hasn’t woken?” The rich voice resonated, echoing across the chamber.

  Skybright opened her eyes to mere slits, trying to gauge where she was. It was still night, and torches blazed along the cavern walls. A squat man stood some distance from her, dressed in crimson robes. He spoke to a tall, young monk beside him. She was in a cage with thick wooden slats. A small twitch of her tail let her know that she was somehow still in serpent form.

  “We’ll interrogate her when she wakes. Imagine what we could learn from her. She might even change into her human form. If so, do not let her beauty deceive you.”

  “Yes, Abbot Wu.”

  “She’s the first shape shifter we’ve seen since the demons began crawling out of the underworld. The opportunity is too great. Call me the moment she wakes, brother.”

  The young man inclined his head. “Yes, Abbot Wu. But what will we do with her after?”

  Skybright closed her eyes before the abbot turned to consider her. “Kill her, of course. Then we can cleanse the site.”

  She heard the crunch of gravel as the two walked away, and her stomach twisted. She tried to rise, push herself up with her hands, but was too weak. Her vision blurred, and the world tilted. Skybright laid her head down and lost consciousness once more.

  When she awoke next, she felt someone scrutinizing her so intensely it was like sunlight on her skin. Cautious, she opened her eyes to slits again, not wanting the person to know that she was awake.

  Kai Sen crouched in front of her, his hands gripping the wooden slats.

  She almost jerked back to see him, and it took all her will power to keep still, to keep her face smooth, as if she were asleep.

  “Skybright?” he whispered.

  Her chest ached to hear his voice, to feel his presence so near. She could smell him, his wonderful scent made str
onger by her serpent senses, and it stirred something primal within her.

  “Is it … truly you?” His voice broke. “It can’t be. This is the hell lord’s work.”

  Skybright didn’t breathe, too afraid that she would give herself away with a hiss. She was grateful she couldn’t cry in serpent form, because then Kai Sen would have seen the tears slide down her face.

  He rose and ran out of the cavern, his footsteps light.

  She watched until he vanished into the darkness, although she could feel his easy tread for some time after. Skybright curled her coil tighter after she lost track of his vibrations, and her chest felt hollow, as if he had carried her heart away with him.

  Skybright awoke to faint morning light, her mouth dry and bitter, like it had been stuffed with dirt from the graveyards. No one was inside the cavern, and the torches burned low. She pushed herself up with shaking hands. Her body ached, and it felt as if her face was pulled too tight, like a poorly fitted mask. The cage wasn’t tall enough for a person to stand in, but she could rise on her serpent body. Skybright gripped the thick slats of the cage with numb hands. They would be impossible to break.

  But the center slats weren’t resting flush against the rest. Skybright touched one, and it swung outwards a little, a square door that wasn’t latched.

  Kai Sen.

  Her heart raced as she pushed through the cage. The only nearby human was outside the cavern, pacing. She slithered to the opening and glimpsed the tall monk who had been speaking with the abbot. His back was half-turned to her, and she slid as fast as she could toward the tree line in the distance.

  He caught the motion and shouted in surprise, giving chase. But he ran slower than Kai Sen.

  Skybright’s head pounded and her cheek stung, but she slithered faster than she ever had across the forest floor, as squirrels and rabbits leaped out of her path. She lowered herself so her long serpentine body fully connected with the ground and gathered its power, propelling herself at an inhuman speed through the trees. She drew her arms close to her sides, and tucked her chin, so she was more streamlined. The monk was no match for her. It wasn’t until she glimpsed the tall monastery walls that she got her bearings and veered toward home. Her clothes were still where she had left them when she followed the ghost the previous night—what seemed like a lifetime ago. She shifted into human form and pulled her clothes on before running back to the Yuan Manor.