by Kij Johnson
My hands recalled the Three Joints and Nine Resemblances of the dragon-shape, drawing the soft shell long and plucking limbs, antlers and frills of golden sugar. On the dragon’s head I molded a chimu lump, without which it could not fly.
I twisted off the airpipe. Almost done save the final touch. Breaking the bamboo stick in two with my teeth, I jabbed a sharp point into the back of my hand and drew blood.
Dragons only come alive when you dot their eyes.
I settled on the dirt in the shadow of the wall, hoping my body would be safely hidden here, and called to the spirit of Dragon.
O Sacred Dragon, hear me! I, the insignificant Ao Tienwei, humbly ask your aid.
A voice like thunder echoed through my head. You are not one of mine, Water Rat, though I know you from your tributes of art, it said, calling me by the sign of my birth year. What will you ask, and what will you give in return?
Lord Dragon, Chengdu burns and I must quench the flames. Water I have in plenty, but not strength enough to fly. Legends tell of your dominion over water and sky. If you would lend me your power, I’d soar and save the city, bringing you new worship and reverence.
It considered it. Your proposal pleases me, Water Rat. Fly with my blessings.
A thousand thanks, Sacred One.
I lobbed the blood-eyed Dragon underhand into the air and cast my consciousness inside, becoming the small caramel creature. Starlight on my chimu lump pulled me towards the new moon sky, and I floated over the wall and down into the river.
I bobbed thrice before sinking into the frigid depths. I felt my sugar-body begin to dissolve, and welcomed the simultaneous sensations of drowning and fading. That was the trick to elemental possession; my first tries failed because I fought those fears when I should have embraced them. As my senses seeped from hardened candy into sweetened water, I asked the river to accept my offering in trade for a moat’s worth of water. The river savored the candy and gave me what I asked, but left to me the shaping of the river-water.
I began molding the water into likeness of the candy-dragon. I’d never attempted so prodigious a conjuration before, a horse being the largest water-shaping I’d succeeded at. It took all my strength to merely break the surface with my water-dragon head, but as my manifestation took shape, Dragon power welled inside me and lifted me heavenward. As my sinuous body escaped the Jinjiang River, my undulations freed startled fish from my frame and threw them back into safe currents. I gave thanks to Dragon and flew, grander than any conjuration I ever dared.
Below, the gardens and pagodas grew small like tray landscapes, while the folk on the streets might as well be tiny dough figurines. I spiraled in the air to get my bearings. More the impression of a dragon than a detailed rendition, this grand manifestation was slow to respond to my thoughts, but it would have to do.
Points of red lantern lights dotted the city below, though the fires in Lesser City shone fierce through billowing smoke. I dove for the scene of the fiery devastation.
All along the street, blazes raged out of control. The yuanzi girl and her parents huddled by the overturned stall in front of the doomed teahouse, cradling a sign that boasted ‘fragrant tea from river water’. A bandaged Lun fought alongside the others to put out what fires they could, while the magistrate in charge grabbed a snake-halberd and cut down a string of lanterns, hollering for other soldiers to do the same.
A handful of men saw my coming and cried out in astonishment. All turned to look, with some men thinking it best to flee, while others gaped in bewilderment and forgot their tasks.
I ignored the stares and twisted through the air, spewing river-water at the flames licking the sky. The blasts of water worked wonders at extinguishing blazes, but each spray diminished me by a like sum and rippled the veneer of my dragon-shape. I did my best to hold the dwindling manifestation together and surveyed the rooftops with liquid eyes.
There! The fire monkey hid in the high flames and blinding smoke of the brocade shop to my left, its flicking tail betraying its place. I angled my flight towards the demon, our eyes meeting at last. For good or for ill, the sorcerer now knew I pitted my magic against him.
I spat a cauldron-sized pearl of water at the monkey, but the agile beast vaulted out of the way onto an adjacent roof and raced across black tiles. I rushed through rising steam after it, but the monkey was too small and nimble to target with bursts of water.
In spite of my laggard reflexes, I could still fly faster than the beast could run. I overflew the beast and walled off its progress forward with watery coils, but the monkey grabbed the roof’s edge and swung through the back window of a wineshop. I gave chase and spewed a great measure of water through the opening, but the monkey leapt out of a front-facing window as the flood struck. In single-minded pursuit, I threaded my body forcibly through the narrow frames, stripping more water from my manifestation. I emerged slimmer, overshadowing the market street where the fire monkey had landed between the magistrate and Lun.
The magistrate lowered his halberd and sliced at the fire monkey, while Lun hoisted his bucket and readied to throw.
Trapped between the fearless official and a wheelwright with a bucket of water, the fire monkey hesitated.
That moment of indecision was just enough time for me to gamble it all.
High above the trio, I purposefully shaped away my chimu lump and my ability to fly ended abruptly. I fell bodily on top of them, river-water overflowing the bounds of my dragon-shape as the conjuration collapsed. The impact sent my awareness tumbling out of the elemental conjuration.
For the first time, I lost all of my senses.
In the past, ending a conjuration meant my soul would fly back to my body. I had never been stripped of every sensation: no sight, no sound, no pulse racing or hackles rising on the back of my neck.
Nothing but naked fear and solitude.
I tried picturing my body, from my dry eyes to the growl of hunger in my belly, from the itch between my toes to the sting of the wound on my hand.
But still I could not return.
Did I overreach myself, conjuring with too much water? What if I were trapped like this forever?
What I’d give to feel my heart pound in terror!
No, stop obsessing over why and think about what-now. I shouldn’t let this predicament cool and harden into permanence while I fretted; I ought to shape the situation while it was malleable. I might be bodiless but I still had memory and thought, purpose and principle. If an escape didn’t exist, I’d make one.
I remembered asking my father to teach me sweet possession when I was sixteen. Father was a difficult master to please, finding fault in my interpretations of the Dragon. “You must pay tribute to the animal with your artistry.”
“But why?” I asked. “Paintings, sculptures, and calligraphy last. Candy figurines don’t.”
Father swatted the back of my head with his folding fan. “The sugar opera may be fleeting art, but it’s no excuse to slacken! Show respect for the animals before you ask to wear their shapes, in particular the spirits of the twelve signs. Revere them, my son, lest they find cause to meddle in your affairs.”
I took Father’s lesson to heart. It took months of practice to render a Dragon to his liking, thereby completing a Tangren’s zodiac repertoire. At last, he consented to teach me the spying skill. “Always begin with taste,” he said, handing me a golden Tiger impaled on bamboo. “Lick and burn the sweet flavor into your memory.”
Taste, of course!
I meditated on the flavor of my family’s secret sugar blend: brown layered on cane, dusted subtly with musk-flavored sugar. As the memory of that taste crystallized in my mind, I caught a tinge of it coming from beyond remembrance. I latched onto the taste and willed myself towards it.
My senses returned, though not to my body as I hoped, but back inside the rabbit-on-a-stick beside the toppled yuanzi stall. I wore a drenched and sticky hollow candy-skin, a small comfort compared to my own skin, but a skin nonetheles
s.
From this low angle, I could only see the hulking remnants of the stall on the paved road, but my rabbit ears revealed my surroundings in full. In the distance, fire-fighters chattered about the Water Dragon and the Fire Monkey battle as they threw water onto flames. I heard no urgency in the men’s voices, which likely meant the fires were under control.
There would be legends told of this night, which ought to please Dragon.
Behind me, the magistrate questioned Lun and the yuanzi girl about the mysterious monkey. “And it attacked you without provocation?” he asked in a calm, scratchy voice.
“Yes, Magistrate Gongsun,” Lun replied. “All I did was, um, offer candy to Miss Deng when the fire monkey crawled out. I stared, it stared, and then it jumped me!”
I animated the belly of the rabbit-shell and eased myself off the bamboo stick. The wall where I hid my body wasn’t far by human scale, but at caramel-rabbit size it might as well be a li away. Perhaps if I invoked the Rabbit’s speed . . . .
“Candy, hm? Tell me about this candyman,” Gongsun urged.
“Tangren Ao?” Lun spoke my name with cheer. “He’s a pleasant man, nosy but generous. He’s from Ji’nan, I think.”
“Did Ao make any monkey figurines?” Gongsun pressed.
“What? Surely you don’t think he’s behind the fires!”
I cursed my luck. The judge was right to suspect a human behind the arson, but did he have to suspect me?
“Answer the question, son,” Gongsun said. “Monkeys or not?”
“Well, why wouldn’t he in the Year of the Monkey? Magistrate, he saved me from burning alive. I’d rather believe he brought the dragon.”
I was heartened to hear Lun defend me so.
“Perhaps, or perhaps not,” Gongsun said. “Regardless, I have questions for him. Guards! Find this candyman.”
If they brought my body back, I’d be spared the trek. On the other hand, I’d have to lie my way out of another charge of sorcery or flee the city.
“Magistrate, wasn’t it just a duel between spirits?” Miss Deng asked.
“It might be, Miss Deng, but magic isn’t the sole providence of gods and demons. I must consider all possibilities, including a magician with a vendetta against you or your family.”
“A vendetta?” She sounded surprised.
“It burned your teahouse first. I do not doubt that it was personal. Any trouble with the gangs? Unpaid gambling debts?”
Miss Deng paused. “My father may love Constellation Dominoes, but he knows his limits.”
“We shall see,” Gongsun said. “What of this candyman? Did you know him?”
“No, he never crossed the street.”
Gongsun sighed. “Try to remember everyone who came to your stall. If this arson is an act of planned revenge, the instigator is likely as meticulous and ruthless in covering up his crime. We must find him before he has that chance.”
As Miss Deng recounted further details for Gongsun, I wondered if I might have seen my foe. But countless people had passed my stall since I set up shop this afternoon. It could be any of them.
Instead, I considered how the sorcerer might have enchanted the yuanzi-pot fire. An elemental conjuring required an offering in the shape of a primal animal. If his power were akin to mine, then he must have offered something in the shape of a monkey to that fire. But how?
I softened the rabbit-candy and hopped to the soup-pot apparatus, knocked over during the chaos. Among the bits of burnt wood lay the charred halves of a walnut-shell. They must have made that cracking sound I heard.
If an offering had been sealed inside, the flames would have to burn through the shell or melt whatever held the halves together. The sorcerer would have had time to flee the scene.
The small walnut couldn’t fit a Tangren’s sugar animal. But perhaps a different kind of food offering, like a dough-figure, would suffice. A master of dough-sculpting could easily hide a tiny painted monkey in the hollow.
But one detail still puzzled me. The soup-pot apparatus sat on the ground, too low for anyone to easily feed a walnut to the fire without attracting attention. Surely Miss Deng would comment if someone tampered with the fire?
Unless the scoundrel responsible had been short.
I’d have noticed a dwarfish man among the street performers, but those kids—had Pest and Snot gone for yuanzi? I couldn’t remember, but Miss Deng could have easily dismissed the antics of boys at her stall.
Of course, neither boy could be the arsonist. By the looks of them they were anywhere between nine and twelve years old, too young to plan arson. Besides, the monkey was setting fires at the same time they were running away with candy loot. The sorcerer must have bribed them to plant the walnut in the fire. And if the magistrate was right about the mindset of the arsonist, then the boys were in grave danger. A promise of more spoils would surely lure them into a trap!
Squishy footfalls grew loud behind me. I froze.
Giant fingers hoisted me by the ears in front of great, scrutinizing eyes. Magistrate Gongsun.
The Sichuanese man in his early fifties suffered his wet official’s robes without complaint; the wing-tips of his black hat, once extending stiffly to either side, now sagged from the wet of river-water. “So this is the candyman’s handiwork,” he boomed.
Had he seen me move?
A guardsman raised a call. “Magistrate! We found the candyman unconscious by the town wall. What should we do with him?”
Gongsun glanced in that direction. “Lay him down by his stall and watch him.”
My body! I reached for it with my mind but still couldn’t grab hold. How close did I need to be?
If I squirmed out of Gongsun’s hand, I could hop to my body and try to awaken, and if I did I’d tell the magistrate my fear for the children’s safety. But would he believe my story? I had nothing but guesswork.
But maybe I could find solid proof. Those kids took so many sugar figurines that they couldn’t possibly have eaten them all. If I could find one of those shells . . . .
What had they taken? A fistful of Monkeys, a pair of Pigs, a Horse, and a Snake. I’d made only one Snake in recent days, as that sign never sold well outside its Year. Unless the boys ate it already, that was my best chance to find them.
I opened my awareness and sought caramel in the vicinity, reaching as far as the walls of Chengdu. My mind probed each instance like a tongue discerning a shape, hoping to find the serpentine candy. We’d hunt for secrets this way, my father and I. He never shied from using the dirt we uncovered to blackmail rich men.
When I located the Snake, my mind darted through the connection into its coils, but I left a thread of sugary taste so I could find my way back to Rabbit. Half-wound about a bamboo stick, I saw through dotted molasses that the older boy held me in his right hand and Horse in his left. The younger kid trailed behind him with a bundle of Monkey candy. I caught only dizzying glimpses of our surroundings awash in red light, like the shadowy foliage of a park or garden.
Snot tugged on Pest’s sleeve. “Let’s go home.”
Pest stopped. “Not yet, brother.”
“You go then,” Snot said, his voice wavering. “I’m going home.”
“Fine! I’ll keep everything for myself,” Pest said.
Snot ran off while Pest continued onward alone. A familiar pagoda loomed before us, and I realized where we were: the Flower-Strewing Tower. The sorcerer must have intended to watch the streets burn from the tower once he ended his conjuration.
I had to get Pest out of here now, but how? I hadn’t blooded the Snake’s eyes so I couldn’t shape water, leaving me only this candy-body to defend him. But I could petition the spirit of Snake. O Snake of Ten-Thousand Years! I, Ao Tienwei who did not give you proper notice, ask your help to save a life.
I taste you, Tangren Rat, Snake answered. What succor do you seek, and what losses will you suffer?
A beardless man in the garb of a scholar emerged from the pagoda. His eyebrows were s
o sparse that I’d almost say he had none. He was one of the suitors that Miss Deng had rebuffed!
“Where’s your brother?” the willowy scholar asked.
“The crybaby went home,” Pest said. “I did what you asked. Where’s my money?”
The man smiled. “I left the sycees in a pouch under that bench there. The gold’s all yours.”
No time to answer Snake. I softened and sprang off the bamboo, landing on the path between the scholar and the boy. They startled and backed away. I reared up, shaped and hardened caramel fangs, and mock-attacked Pest.
Frightened, the boy turned to run, but saw the stone bench and couldn’t resist. With candy-horse still in one hand, he scrambled to the seat and fumbled under it.
There’s nothing there, kid, run!
“So you were the water dragon, Tangren?” the scholar-sorcerer said in a low voice. “Stop interfering with my revenge.”
He raised his foot and stomped down. I slithered away in the nick of time. Grant me venom, Snake!
My price—
The scholar started towards the kid.
Anything, Snake! I coiled and sprang for the man’s ankle, sinking fangs deep into his flesh. The scholar cried out and stumbled.
So be it, Snake said.
Something flowed through my fangs into the scholar’s blood.
I heard the rattle of rocks, then small footfalls receding. The kid saw through the sorcerer’s lie at last.
I had no time to celebrate. Pillar-like fingers pulled and ripped me in two.
The shock again sent my consciousness reeling, but I caught the thread of sweetness and followed it back to Rabbit. My rabbit-self lay on the table at my stall. A towering Magistrate Gongsun stirred through the pot of cooling caramel beside me.
With Pest still in danger, I abandoned caution and leapt off the table, catching the magistrate by surprise. He grabbed for me but clawed only air as I landed on top of my body’s chest.
