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.
"This is all wrong."
In an instant Guan Shi Yin was standing by her side. "Really? What did you expect?"
"Paradise!" Springshadow said. "Isn't that what Heaven is?"
"This is it," the goddess said. "Isn't it marvelous?"
"Well, of course. But why is it the same? I mean, so much like the Middle Kingdom?"
"What should it be?" the goddess asked.
"Different," Springshadow said.
"So you're saying that paradise should be something other than a comfortable place where people enjoy the bliss of their higher natures?"
"Yes! No! I don't know. It's just that, well, I don't know what I expected or wanted, exactly. I simply know that this isn't it."
Guan Shi Yin raised an eyebrow. "I must say you discovered the question far sooner than I thought likely, even for a fox."
Springshadow blinked. "What question? And why 'for a fox'?"
"The 'Is Heaven All There Is?' question. Though it's not really a question. The only reason anyone has the sense to ask it in the first place is because they already know that the answer is 'no'. And as 'for a fox', it's just that, being an animal, your mind works differently than a human's. Human beings tend to see, not themselves, but an idea of themselves. What they think they are or pretend they are or want to be. For such beings, such a place like this is paradise. They take what they find here and work out a way to fit their idea of themselves into it, so how can it be any less than what they expect?"
Springshadow sighed gustily. "Pardon me, Immanence, but I didn't understand half of that."
"Good. It's smoke and mirrors to a fox anyway. You know what you are. You know what you see. And after less than an hour within the gates of the Jade City, you're confused and disappointed. As I said: quick. Sunflash took a full week."
Sunflash. Springshadow was familiar with the name, of course. He was a legend among fox kind, one of the first to prove that what Springshadow had been taught as a kit was true, that foxes could achieve the state of Heavenly Foxes. He had not been seen in the Middle Kingdom for centuries, but Springshadow's attention wasn't really on him at the moment.
Springshadow sighed. "You're saying that Heaven is not for the likes of me."
Guan Shi Yin smiled. "Yes, I am saying exactly that. Yet you're still new enough at being an Immortal that you think this is a bad thing, some failing in you. Quite the opposite, I'd say. Heaven can be as much a trap as any hell."
"Why didn't you warn me?"
"Because you wouldn't believe me. Now your understanding has already progressed beyond this place."
"But I don't understand! Does this have anything to do with that feeling I had when I first transformed? That I was everyone? That everyone was me?"
"You know it does."
"But what does it mean?"
Guan Shi Yin smiled again, and despite the goddess's reputation for compassion, Springshadow did not think it a very kind smile. It was more the smile she herself might have worn just before eating a particularly tasty bit of meat.
"That's the second question. And you'll have to work for the answer to that one," the goddess said.
Springshadow was quiet for a while. She finally turned to the goddess and said, "I won't do it."
"Do what?"
"Whatever it is you want me to do. I won't."
"Without even knowing what it is? Why not?"
"Why should I? I'm an immortal. Why should I accept obligations?"
Guan Shi Yin smiled that same disturbing smile. "No reason. Unless..."
Springshadow frowned. "Unless what?"
"Unless in, say, another thousand years, you can think of a reason."
The goddess disappeared again. Springshadow wasn't sure if she should be relieved or not, but either way she was alone again, except for all the multitudes of the Jade City. Springshadow felt very much alone indeed.
For want of a better plan, Springshadow ascended on her cloud again and explored the Celestial City from above. It was, as before, both familiar and new, and so grand and vast and fine that, at least for a while, she was able to forget her disappointment. Her fox nature found her looking for something green that was not simply jade, and after a while she found it — an open park near the center of the city, with trees and grass and many separate, wondrous gardens with birds and flowers in abundance.
Springshadow bade her cloud to take her to the park, and it settled her in a secluded place near benches of marble, fine woods, and jade. For a little while Springshadow resumed her true fox form, contemplating a little sport hunting mice and bugs under the trees and flowers, but whenever she tried to slip quietly through the undergrowth and bushes she found that her nine tails flared out behind her almost like the broad tail of a peacock, and brushed limbs, dislodged petals, and basically rendered the idea of moving quietly anywhere except the open areas completely moot.