Dijun came back from the palace exuberant. He did not pass the details to me, but once he'd dismissed the servants he pulled me against him, clasping his mouth to mine. He tasted of victory; his tongue fed me loss.
Each time I would turn tense then uncoil in stages, yielding into softness that he'd take for desire. He would suckle at my breast while I thought of flight and limitless skies. A tedious chore to get through; nothing more. I had even learned to gasp and tremble, for I did not want to face again the anxious brittle questions—Do I not please you? which hid What is it that you think of; has another man caught your eye? So learned and lovely, my husband; yet so afraid that I would slip loose of his arms, dance free of his house.
The crane snapped forward. Dijun jerked away. His blood, viscous-hot, dripped from the crane's beak.
"Ah," he said, holding his hand away from his silks. "Tame to you, fierce to all else; my gift to you has been most perfect to your tastes."
Sourness rolled over my tongue, the first stepping-stone on the path of silence; silence as he spoke and drew me into a trap where I could not breathe, could not be heard. I tried. Oh, my older self, my mother-self, I tried. "It was born of your blood."
"But shaped by your request." His edged regard grazed over my skin, fine and honed, and my stomach clenched; had he felt in me that disinterest so near to unwant? Then he chuckled, loudly false. "Let it be. It is nothing. Shall we dine together? Matters of court have kept me so occupied and I've missed you, in all ways."
In his presence even celestial repast turned to dust in the mouth.
* * *
Once, Dijun incinerated three of his servants for having mislaid his tablets. Spirits with origin in instruments were made of wood; remained wood, bamboo, and camphor. Soon they became ashes and scented smoke. I did not love them, I would never care for them. Yet I knew it was the fear of him that made them dog my steps, report my every move to him in scrolls left by his desk at dusk.
One morning I summoned them and showed them fire. "I will be in my garden," I told them, "to tend my plants. I will not have moved, gone anywhere, spoken with anyone. Do you understand?"
They looked at one another, at me.
It was so easy for courage, or cowardice, to fruit cruelty. Discarding Dijun's lessons of control and restraint I opened my hand. Blue heat ambered; paled to white. Soundless even now, they shrank away. "Are you mute? Have you no language? Answer me!"
I singed and seared them. And they finally spoke with throats meant for music, with voices meant to be heard: every word a note, all of them together a song. They said yes. They called me mistress. They swore obedience.
Mount Kunlun reared high enough to elude submersion. I did not entertain illusions; others would have already combed every shadowed pool for mortals. Were Jia and Lin alive, they would have been found. Even so I searched, rattling the minutes in the abacus of my skull, tallying them into the hours I had until Dijun returned home.
The fish-kite was a yellow slash in the sky's watery murk, whipping at the end of a tether wind-pulled taut. I followed it, and thereby discovered the twins.
They genuflected in a fall of bronze headdresses and rustling scales and introduced themselves as Nuwa and Fuxi. They orated and moved in perfect harmony; smiled simultaneously, perpetually at peace in their oneness. Sister-brother, wife-husband, sharing a single snake tail that served as stomach and tool of perambulation.
Sheltered in their immense coils, Lin and Jia lay asleep. "We have put them to dreams," Nuwa said; Fuxi continued, "full of easy prey and quiet so they would not alarm and flee. We smelled a goddess on them and have kept them safe. Are they for you?"
"They… are." I risked touching their scales. "What are you?"
"We are of a kind." "Disaster has ever been our domain, and it came to us that we are wise to mending the heaven-breach, of restoring mortalkind to this earth. This we would set to for a little boon. Will you grant us this, or bring us to one who may?"
It wasn't for me to grant anything, and they were so large that I could not imagine carrying them back to heaven, let alone with two mortal girls. We managed by and by, and I directed them to Xiwangmu—she had authority I did not, and I wanted least to be given credit for Nuwa and Fuxi. Dijun would never forgive it. Lin and Jia I entrusted to Guanyin. Under my husband's gaze, I was not myself, not my own. The girls, who knew themselves so well, did not need to witness that.
The twins wanted permission to marry. To his credit—or some said discredit—the emperor swiftly gave them that, so long that they did not procreate. They accepted that clause serenely, and set to baking clay that would become humans full-grown: no need for infancy and childhood, no want for the slow process of pregnancy. Fuxi took up my husband's charts and made them fit for mortals so they might predict and avoid the next calamity. Nuwa sheared off the tip of their shared tail, which in aplomb grew into a second snake, black on gold. This creature she coaxed to fill the roaring gulf the broken pillar had left. In days it hardened, scabbing over that wound in heaven's sea.
There remained only the matter of the extinguished sun.
The shape of Dijun's thought on this became evident when he reminded me that in both of us an illimitable flame burned, that we had a duty, and did I not miss our courtship? I avoided him. I considered cuckolding him so he would cast me aside. It would be scarce challenge to find a fisher boy, seduce him, and rut with him, if the idea did not clog my throat with disgust. Dijun excited me little enough; other men interested me even less. Had the cloud-girl inspired some want in me, some longing at all, I would have invited her into my bed and flaunted her before my husband.
I heard that he laid down the rules and ceremony of nuptials for mortals new-made, in the fashion of our own wedding: the veil, the sacred husbandly lifting, the loosening of hair. Man and wife.
But those days softened from desperate to bearable through the liberty I had purchased with wrath. My wanderings were not half so blithe as they had been in my maiden days, but it was good all the same to step free, even under this sky. The flood abated by degrees. At the foot of Kunlun muddy mounds, once huts, began to emerge. A lonely pagoda finial; the head of a statue. I went to the empty place where my house had once stood. I could not transmute it to what it had been; to do so required having one's name registered to that plot on heaven's census, and mine was appended to Dijun's now.
Then came a night when I could not find the crane. This had never happened; it—she—had learned the routine so well, like breathing, like flight. My husband to my relief was absent, which gave me free reign to question the servants. But this time, however I threatened, none of them would answer in words, holding in their collective silence as though it could shield them from my anger. One pointed, paper sleeve charred by my hand, toward the obsidian maze.
On black pavement I found the crane, limp and still. Every bone in her wings had been broken. Dijun was slight, never a warrior, but I'd felt how unhesitating his grip could be, and bird bones were so fragile.
I did not waste tears. From each branch and bramble in my orchard I stripped orchids and okra, lilies and lychees, sunflowers and starfruits. Hands trembling I fed the crane. Her bones did not mend; her ligaments did not knit. When she had swallowed every fragrant and hot thing, she shuddered: a spasm of gullet and shattered pinions. From her beaks ten black pearls fell into my hand.
She laid her long neck across my knee, for mercy. I gave her that. Once she had gone cold, I flung her up into the sky one last time. Her body, if not spirit, would remember the way.
The pearls I spilled into a silk pouch, which I tied shut and slipped into my robe. I had seen Nuwa make life from craft and memory, children without mating. I knew what I had to do.
* * *
Under blackness crane-corpse lit, I entered His Majesty's palace. It had many gates, many walls, tiered one over another and bisected by a stair that did not end.
Guards in stone and lamellar barred my way. I melted the metal on their glaives
, burned black marks into their armor. A storm of twenty wings and thirty taloned feet passed through them, and they gave way.
My wish had been for: impervious, aloof, untouchable. My reality, when I reached the throne room, was one of breathlessness and trembling knees. Kneel and I would have snapped; kneel and I would have fallen, to such depths that no godhood or fire could have saved me. I remained therefore standing. The crows hid my terror, scarlet beaks and dark eyes holding close to me as a shield. My own court. Arrogance, then, would serve me.
The few immortals in attendance pinned me with their scrutiny. Behind him the emperor's throne hissed, scales rustling, claws unsheathing. His Majesty quieted both throne and gods with a motion. "Xihe, we have long missed your grace and company, though we did not expect the size and unusual nature of your entourage."
To ground myself I ought to have murmured ritual greetings, every respectful phrase. All that tumbled out of me was, "Majesty, I have an answer to the question of bringing back daylight."
A sharp intake of breath, by whose cadence and pitch I recognized as my husband's.
"Might we see a demonstration?"
"Outside, Your Majesty. I would not wish to ruin the roof."
Gravely he led; royal body, royal head: the limbs of the court must perforce follow. My husband among them; my beautiful husband with his traps at the ready, his snares snapping after my heels. I did not look at him, would not look at him. My voice would not be taken; my courage would not be shaken. The crows moved with me and there I took refuge.
In the courtyard I whispered to one of the crows perching on my shoulder. He leaped into the night, strong as summer morning, and blazed. The emperor shielded his eyes with his sleeve. Courtiers drew back from the stab of midday heat. Dijun had gone utter white.
The emperor gave a contemplative nod. "How did you come by them?"
"They are the sons of my flesh and my husband's blood." I did not tell them I had given birth through my eyes. Feathers slick, leaving me like tears. Cartilage passing through my lashes to harden on the other side; blood-brooks on my cheeks. I smiled slowly. "My children, Your Majesty, every last one of them."
Dijun's proximity rippled against my skin. He would claim us all, wife and progeny, and we would return to his mansion, where in his hexagonal rooms my path would wind around itself until the only way was back. There he would part my thighs and with a kiss murmur, More sons, most precious of wives. "I will want an engineer to help me build a chariot. In this my sons and I will ride, bringing day to mortals and heavens alike. We will glide high and in this way avoid all earthly frights. No flood will ever again cause winter unending or night everlasting."
Dijun fell back. He could not object; could not admit he'd been told none of this, that this plan was none of his, that he did not know his wife. The shame would fall on us both but on him hardest for being unable to master me, inkstaining indelibly what he thought the pellucid waters of his honor. I had strangled his words in the crib of his throat. I had given back the silence he'd forced into me with his mouth.
This was my moment of becoming, and I savored it, every bite, more potent than the best of my orchard.
Taming mounts was no difficulty. Carps newly reborn were docile, and drawn to my power they would acquiesce to anything. With them pulling the chariot I brought Lin and Jia to an inland town where survivors—not Nuwa's clay offspring—had gathered to try again and heal. Fuxi and Dijun had laid down the customs of marriage, man to wife, but this small corner I claimed for myself; wife and wife would live without reproach. I visited them often.
My sons grew in bounds, greedy in their eating, until they stood as tall as I. Soon I had to fly with only one of them at a time, for together their joy would crisp and cook the earth to ashes. After the first three dawns they began to speak, a jabbering chorus of Mother! Their first utterance, their first reality. On the easternmost shore, beyond gods and humans, I nursed a tree to grand heights, mulberries like embers on its boughs and leaves that would cut to pieces anyone other than us. Each sunset I watched my crow-children sleep on the branches.
My sons' laughter was music, and they knew no sorrow.
* * *
It was long after the end, and out of ten sons only one remained to me, the last, the youngest; here approached the part of my story which is known best.
Even then it was such a quiet, submerged part. Mortals learned the legend of how ten sun-crows rose and terrorized the earth with their fatal light, how heroic Houyi—heaven's best marksman, Dijun's champion—shot them down. Xihe went barely mentioned: the suns' mother, nothing more, for the function of giving them birth must be fulfilled by some vessel.
I'd told my sons of what Dijun had done to me, to the one who preceded them as my child of the heart, but they were sons, not daughters: a gulf no motherhood could cross. They wanted only to be a family. In the end I could not impose my hate upon them, for I wished their existences unmarred; I wanted them steeped in bliss. They were only mortal. Few realized that they were not divine, inheriting neither Dijun's agelessness nor mine. They would pass, and some other way would have to be devised to light the world.
Dijun told them: I sometimes long for a fancy to see the sky subsumed by your wings. The brilliance of you all together, for heaven and earth to behold.
My sons had been uncomplicated creatures. Born to be loved. If their father expected a little gesture to earn his, why then, they would gladly give it.
The feathers of my youngest were growing rime, aging before their time. Absorbing the work of his brothers was more than he was made for, and in time he would fade. It was terrible for a mother to mourn her children—but when my offspring was mortal and I was not, what was to be done? Life was change.
He fell asleep, my last son. In the sky a dead crane drifted.
A footfall; a radiance. "Xihe."
"You ever visit uninvited, husband," I said without looking at him. "It seems you do not understand the meaning of unwelcome."
"You were a delight once."
"These days I'm rather delighted with myself." I turned my attention to scrubbing one of my dragons' necks. "Heavenly etiquette is all that stands between you and the event of your eyes being pulped between my dragon's teeth. I'd personally gouge them out with my thumbs. Since our wedding night I've longed to do this."
His robes rustled as he backed out of the dragon's reach. "You would not. And could not."
I looked down at my arms, at muscles hardened over centuries. "How precious that you think so."
"In celestial census we remain spouses, Xihe. What would befall you if you attempted to murder your own husband?" He drew closer. "And witness what has transpired after you left me. Your sons dead. You cannot govern yourself, much less them. One child is all you have left to live for."
I could not keep from laughing. "That's what you think?" I stepped into the chariot and tugged the reins. The paired dragons arched and reared. "I live for myself, Dijun. For that I have been made; for that I have been born—for myself, not for you, not even for my sons."
Life was change, and not even the mother of suns would forever stay the same. The limitless skies opened for me. Into them I soared, flames pouring out of me in a roar, a dragon's gate carved into the night.
Mine alone to leap.
Woman of the Sun, Woman of the Moon
It is the aftermath of the world’s end, and nine birds–nine suns–lie dead while Houyi cradles the curve of her bow, her fingers locking around the taut hardness of its string. The tenth sun, the last, has fled. Chastise them, Dijun said, a father’s plea. But there is the land and the horror and the dryness, desiccated corpses in empty dust trenches that were rivers not long ago. There are dead dragons, too, and snake women with bright eyes–and is it not right to bring down the suns, is it not what Houyi is meant to do? She is a god who protects; she is a god given a duty.
The birds are dead. They no longer burn, but the places where they have fallen will long after be black sco
rch marks, indelible. There will be consequences. It does not matter that her first shot meant to warn: wing clipped, the eldest sun plunged and shattered on the earth. Seeing their brother fall they attacked, and she had to defend herself.
Behind her Chang’e is inhaling and exhaling shallow scraps of air. They will not let this pass. What will you do now? Where will we go?
And the archer whispers, I saved them all.
She knows, as she has known since she notched that first of nine arrows–even in the firestorm of their rage she was a peerless shot, one arrow per bird all she needed–that for her there will be no thanks. They have transgressed enough, wife and wife, and this shall be the final insult tolerated.
So Houyi only takes Chang’e’s hand and says, I am sorry.
Night comes, and with it the first drops of rain. Somewhere a dragon king or queen serpent stirs and tastes the air with a forked tongue. The Sea Mother sifts sand out of her eyes, which have been so parched, so dry. Out of their bellies and mouths rivers will surge forth, tides will rise bright-green with brine, and the world can go on as it did before the convening of ten triple-legged suns. This is their duty, as the murder of sun-crows has been hers.
* * *
Houyi sometimes thought she might have been mortal. But all she remembered was the bow and slivers of wind which she soon learned to pin to wood with arrowheads. Neither mother nor father commanded her early recall.
Easily enough she was accepted under the jade roof, for new yearly new deities swelled the court. When the time came to instate her, some consternation arose. What she was, ought to be, seemed evident from the divine weapon and quiver on her back. Whether she should be titled accordingly was a matter of debate.Archer-God denoted a militarial register: should she be appointed general, marshal, or captain in the bargain as other deities of similar associations were? Wasn’t there a young man from the realm below, skilled with the same weapon? Houyi could perform as his follower, his hunter, and she could keep the bow.
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