Chapter Eight Kasu
The moment she heard him, Kasu launched into a run, heading straight for the source of the sound.
She found Arun in the middle of the forest, hanging from a large branch by his ankles.
He gripped his sword in one hand and was waving it about in an attempt to cut himself down, but all he’d managed to do was look a bit like a flailing chicken about to be butchered.
Kasu glanced at the vine binding Arun’s ankle to the branch. On closer inspection, she noticed the tip squirm and poke at the toe of Arun’s boot as if searching for a way in.
A vine snake. The mindless monsters dwelled exclusively in the shadow forest, laying traps for unsuspecting passers-by. Using their long, rope-like bodies, they would create snares that, if stepped on, would tighten around the victim’s ankles and yank them off the ground into a nearby tree.
Once swinging in the air, the razor-tipped branches of the forest would skewer the victim, leaving a fresh corpse for the vine snake to devour at leisure. Arun had only managed to avoid such a grisly fate by severing the branches near him as he swung about.
“Are you just going to stare or are you planning on helping me?” he shrieked as he tried, and once again failed, to cut himself free.
At the sight of his struggle, Ruo burst into fits of hooting laughter. Arun’s face burned a bright red. He swung his sword with renewed vigour, though he still could not reach the vine snake at his ankle.
“Terrible aim, teeeerrible aim,” the faces on the trees murmured sleepily.
“How sad, how sad, how sad.”
“Pathetic.”
“Which one of you said that? Speak up so I can turn you into firewood!” Arun roared.
Kasu stared at him, unimpressed.
“Well?” He turned his outrage on her. “Are you going to help or not?”
Holding back a sigh, Kasu marched towards the trunk. “Hold still and stop picking fights with the trees.”
Using the faces that protruded from the bark as footholds, she ignored their indignant protests and climbed until she was level with the right branch and shimmied along.
Vine snakes were weak things that had to trap and trick their prey.
As Kasu expected, as soon as she approached, this one fled, darting down the tree trunk and disappearing behind some roots.
She lunged forward to catch Arun before he could fall, but even as her hand wrapped around his ankle, she lost her grip on the branch and slipped off.
She landed with a grunt right on top of the human.
Her hand was trapped between her body and the hard planes of muscle that made up Arun’s chest. The drumbeat of his heart pounded against her fingertips.
Before she had a chance to collect herself, he pushed her off.
“You’re awfully heavy for a ghost.” He glared at the ground, his cheeks the faintest red.
Kasu’s nostrils flared as she stumbled to her feet.
Her hand tingled where she had accidentally touched him, but she shoved it into the pocket of her dress and refused to think of it.
This was the second time she had saved him, now.
A little thanks wouldn’t have gone amiss.
Perhaps he didn’t because he was a prince, and princes never thought about thanking anyone, the ungrateful leeches.
“I thought ghosts would be more, you know … floaty,” Arun remarked.
“Well, you must not know much about the ghosts of the under-realm.” Kasu sniffed, her indignation straining against the bars of politeness. “I thought I told you to wait for me.”
At least Arun had the decency to appear remorseful. “I didn’t think you were telling the truth,” he said quietly.
Kasu shoved the aura mask against his chest. “Here. With this, you’ll be able to walk among the ghosts and demons of the under-realm without anyone discovering your true identity.”
“This is it? It doesn’t look like much.”
“I fought a duel with a seven-foot-tall demon for that mask: be grateful, human!” Ruo huffed. Though if Kasu recalled correctly, Ruo had fallen through the ceiling, set the Sage of a Thousand Faces’ house on fire and then fled.
With a sceptical look on his face, Arun tied the strings of the mask around his head.
After a moment, the white-painted wood shimmered and faded, turning invisible. If Kasu hadn’t known it was there, she would never have guessed Arun was wearing a mask at all. The scent of burnt sugar and fresh bread also disappeared. She did not want to admit that she missed it.
“Well?” he asked. “Did it work? How do I look?”
“Not as beautiful as me,” said Ruo.
“You look like any old average ghost.”
He nodded, satisfied. “Now I can start looking for my mother. Now I can finally get to the bottom of what happened to her…” The determination in his eyes wavered and he deflated. “I’m not sure where to start.”
You could start with a thank you. Kasu tried and failed to keep the thought from fully forming. She would meditate on it later.
In the meantime, she tried to make sense of the person in front of her. The aura mask saved him from one danger, but it also enabled him to plunge headlong into another. Even for a ghost, the city could be perilous. If Kasu wanted to keep Arun alive, she couldn’t wipe her hands of him yet.
As if on cue, Arun’s stomach growled.
Kasu sighed. “Let’s get you some food.”
“Now?”
There was no better time than now. The cooks would be finished with the preparations for tomorrow’s meals and the staff dining room would be empty. Besides, Kasu had also skipped dinner; her stomach was beginning to growl too.
“There’s a dining hall below the dormitory,” she said. “You can’t plan anything on an empty stomach.”
“You’re still helping me?”
“Is that a problem?”
Arun shook his head. “No, it’s not a problem,” he said, though his eyes remained full of caution.
His suspicion is understandable, Kasu reminded herself. Demons often did mortals favours with the goal of lowering their guard – it was natural that Arun might think she was doing the same. Suspicion was good. It would keep him alive.
The dormitory was open at all hours, though Kasu had a hunch that this was only because the door was too old and warped to lock properly.
At this time of night, almost everyone would be asleep, but she tiptoed inside all the same.
Checking that the coast was clear, she led Arun and Ruo through the creaking hallway and down the steps into the basement where the staff’s meals were served.
The stone room was filled with round tables and wooden chairs arranged in rows so tight there was hardly any space to walk between them.
Red lanterns strung on long, knotted ropes dangled from the ceiling, emitting a dim, sickly glow.
Though the kitchen had fallen silent and the ovens had grown cold, the air was still thick with the smell of roasted meat and the sharp, acrid stench of salted fish.
Searching through the cupboards at the end of the kitchen, Kasu found slices of dried fish, half a chicken, a small pot of rice, salted duck eggs, fried human fingers wrapped in leaves and a container of eyeball soup.
Leaving the fingers and eyeballs behind, Kasu tossed the slices of fish to Ruo and carried the rice, eggs and chicken to the table where Arun was sitting.
“Nothing weird will happen to me if I eat this, will it?” Arun eyed the food with caution.
“Weird?” said Kasu.
“People say that if you eat the food of the under-realm you’ll never be able to leave.”
“That’s nonsense. Although, it is filled with ghost qi, so if you eat too much at once you might get sick.”
“Ghost qi?”
“You know what qi is, don’t you? Qi is the life force that maintains all things.
Ghost qi is – well, as the name suggests, it’s the ‘life’ force that maintains ghosts,” said Kasu.
“We eat food fortified with ghost qi to maintain our forms and sleep to conserve our strength. The ghosts you mentioned earlier, the ones that are – what was the word you used – ‘floaty’? Those ghosts are weak and on the verge of fading away, and once you fade away, that’s it.
There’s no coming back. No reincarnation. ”
To fade away was a true death. Kasu sometimes wondered if it was a peaceful process, though she had never considered it an option for herself.
Even if she was freed from her contract with Lady Camellia, she didn’t want to fade into nothing.
She was going to be reborn. To feel the sun on her skin again and breathe in the scent of freshly cut grass.
A small house on the edge of an apple orchard. The smell of blossoms perfuming the air. Someone waiting for her to come home.
Whenever Kasu dreamed of being reborn, she dreamed of those few, simple things. She would never achieve them if she let her body fade away into nothing.
“But isn’t it better to be a bit floaty? If you have bodies, can’t you get hurt?” asked Arun.
“Are you trying to find out if you can get rid of me?” Kasu eyed the hilt of his sword. “We can burn up our qi to heal from most injuries, although if we use too much we’ll fade away. There are also certain blessed weapons forged in the heavens that can harm ghosts.”
Arun looked thoughtful as he took a bite out of a chicken leg. “Aren’t you going to eat too?”
Kasu picked up the pot of rice and spooned some out into an empty bowl. “I don’t eat meat; it’s against the Heavenly Principles. I also don’t eat food that contains too much spice, salt or sugar,” she added when Arun attempted to push the salted eggs towards her.
Arun looked aghast. “Really? What do the Heavenly Principles have against flavour?”
“Food is fuel for the body. It serves a functional purpose. Eating for pleasure distracts the mind from greater things.”
That was Heavenly Principle number two hundred and three.
Kasu decided to ignore Arun’s scandalized expression in favour of taking another bite of her rice. The path of the Heavenly Principles was a difficult one; Kasu didn’t expect others to understand her extraordinary devotion to the noble way.
But Arun’s mother must have been even more extraordinary.
She had told herself that she just wanted to keep Arun safe, but she was curious about his mother too.
How could someone ascend and fall so quickly?
Against her better judgement, and the warning of Heavenly Principle ninety-three – Do not insert yourself into affairs that do not concern you – she wanted to know.
“How did you become a ghost, anyway?” asked Arun.
Kasu looked at him as if he had just asked her what colour her underwear was. “That’s a personal question.”
He raised his hands in the air. “Well, forgive me for wondering why a ghost and a demon are helping me. Most of the stories I’ve heard about you lot aren’t exactly about your mercy and generosity.”
“Ruo isn’t a demon; they’re a curse,” said Kasu.
“What’s the difference? Or is that a personal question too?”
“A demon is a human who has committed an unspeakable sin. A curse is a type of spirit born from a human heart.”
“I am a being made from the purest refinement of human hatred and resentment. Lowly demons look upon my beauty and tremble!” Ruo cried.
Burnt flakes fluttered from the piece of fish hanging limply between their fangs.
The speckled pupils that dotted the cat’s eyes spun in different directions, a handful coming to rest where Kasu and Arun were sitting while the remainder traced the movements of a small cockroach scurrying along the wall.
Many demons found Ruo unsettling. Or disgusting. Curses were not common in the under-realm. There was something primal and fearsome about them.
If only those demons knew that the most Ruo had ever terrorized was a family of three-legged crows nesting under the eaves of Camellia House.
“So a curse and a ghost.” Arun took another bite of his chicken, but his gaze never left Kasu. Perhaps he thought that she was trying to gain his trust only so that she could devour him later. Kasu pushed the memory of that fresh bread and sweet sugar scent out of her head.
“Ghosts come to Camellia House from all over the city, and here gossip flows as freely as wine. Come to the gambling parlour tomorrow morning and you might hear something that will lead you to your mother. Give this to the bouncer and he’ll let you in.”
Kasu stood and handed Arun a tightly wrapped bundle of human fingers from the kitchen.
“Just remember one thing,” she said. “No matter what you do, never ever take off your mask.”