As it turned out, the clerk’s bosses hadn’t deemed me worthy of becoming a frog. Reincarnate Piri the former fox spirit as something with four legs and a brain? Heaven forbid!

Literally.

Thus, I spent my first life in Green Tier as…an oyster. Not a pearl oyster. Just a regular oyster in an oyster reef off the eastern coast of Serica. I didn’t even end up on any human’s plate. No, I was spawned; I drifted with the ocean currents until I came to what my oyster senses told me was an acceptable permanent home (on top of another oyster’s shell); I glued myself to it; and then I lived on it for the remainder of my twenty-odd years. Needless to say, my list of deeds was very short. However, according to the clerk, even if I didn’t benefit any humans directly, I did earn a token amount of positive karma for being an “ingeniator oecosystematis.”

“Oysters are natural engineers of the ecosystem,” he lectured as I pulsed in dismay at my half-page curriculum vitae. “One subgroup in the Bureau of Academia studies these creatures, which have a significant impact on their habitat….”

Funny, in my thousand years as a fox, I’d had a pretty significant impact on the world I inhabited, but no one had ever praised me for being an “engineer of the ecosystem.”

So then why did I get negative karma for bringing down the Lang Dynasty? Didn’t that make a significant impact on Serica? I’d feel pretty insulted if Heaven claimed it hadn’t – although, to be honest, not as insulted as Cassius.

The clerk cut off with a sigh. “It did – ”

In fact, at my trial, didn’t Lady Fate claim that I had personally converted Serica into a “wasteland dominated by thieves, demons, and petty warlords”?

“She did. But that’s not the type of impact the scholars were referring to when they coined the term.” The clerk bit out his words, annoyed that I was taking the definition so literally. “They meant creatures that act in ways that increase the number of other types of plants, animals, etc. that can live in that environment.”

I took a moment to parse that sentence. Then I protested, Hey, I did do that. Look at all the new types of humans that sprang up after the fall of the Lang Dynasty! Thieves –

“Piri,” pointed out the clerk with some asperity, “if you check the annals of history, you will find that thieves have existed throughout human existence. I wouldn’t call them new. Just more numerous now.”

True, but I wasn’t done. Petty warlords. Don’t try to tell me those existed under the Lang Dynasty. After the founder had proclaimed himself Son of Heaven, he and his successors had made sure to execute anyone with delusions of regality. Mimicking the clerk’s speech style, I declared, My actions have created a habitat where entire new breeds of warlords and petty kings can flourish!

“Uh….” He looked as if he wanted to disagree but couldn’t.

And don’t forget the demons! The Imperial Mages used to engage in practices of – what did the scholars call it again? – severe overhunting. They completely depleted the demonic population of Serica.

In his driest tone, the clerk said, “Demonic diversity was very much not a consideration when the Bureau of Academia defined the ingeniator oecosystematis.”

Then what kind of diversity are we talking about here? I demanded. (I knew the answer, of course, but I wanted to force him to admit it. Yes, my soul was just that sweet and kind and pure and gentle. There might have been a reason I’d spent two centuries in White Tier.)

Releasing the same kind of long, weary sigh that Cassius’ accountants gave when they heard I was throwing another party – er, hosting another state banquet for the more dissolute elements of noble society in order to impress Imperial might upon them and reform them into honest and upstanding subjects of the throne – the clerk massaged his temples. “In the Bureau of Academia’s definition of diversity, there is the implicit assumption that it benefits humans, because human prosperity generates a more stable and higher-quality supply of ritual offerings to Heaven, which in turn benefits the gods and goddesses. Happy now?”

Not really. Yes.

“Good. Now, if we’re done quibbling over terminology, we have a drop-in appointment with – ”

A drop-in appointment? Is that more Heavenly terminology I’m not aware of?

“ – with the Assistant Director of Reincarnation,” he finished with a glare. “While you were filtering water and cycling nutrients, I received a reply to the complaint I filed. We have been invited to attend the Goddess of Life’s weekly office hours. As she is an extremely busy individual and does not, in fact, have the time to hold office hours every week, I suggest we go now. Unless, of course, you’d prefer not to discuss your grievance with her in person?”

I launched myself straight into the air. Why didn’t you lead with that? Let’s go!

In all my lives so far, I hadn’t seen much of the building that housed the Bureau of Reincarnation. It was called the Hall of Vermillion Clouds, but as far as I knew, it was windowless, utilitarian, and had nothing to do with clouds of any sort, vermillion or otherwise. Now the clerk led me out through the waiting room (completely empty, suggesting that his boss had cleared his schedule for this definitely-not-scheduled meeting) and into the hallway. Turning the opposite direction from the archive, he opened a door to reveal a dark, narrow stairwell.

In near silence, two endless lines of clerks were crawling up and down the steps, all dressed in the same black cotton robes and moving with the same stiff gait as my clerk. Noticing our open door, the line traveling up slowed, and we merged into it smoothly. Red-clad star children trotted past, clutching message scrolls and weaving around the adults’ legs with ease.

As we approached one level, a door opened and a star sprite dressed in white entered the stairwell. At the sight, all the clerks and couriers pressed themselves to the walls to let her pass.

Who was that? I asked once she was several floors down and we were moving again. My voice echoed around the stairwell, earning us scowls.

With a wince, my clerk bobbed his head at his colleagues. Then, before I could repeat my question, he murmured, “One of the apprentice accountants.”

Huh. An apprentice accountant. In deference to the other clerks’ sensitive hearing, I floated right next to my clerk’s ear and buzzed into it, Do accountants outrank clerks by a lot?

“They undergo years of special training,” he whispered back. “Also, they’re not part of our Bureau. Accounting is technically a subdivision of the Ministry of Wealth, although it’s been applying for centuries to split off and form its own department.”

That did seem to be a popular pastime around here. In that case, I’d bet the accountants weren’t too happy about Cassius waltzing in and “correcting” their math. I filed that away for future use. Why does Accounting want to split off? After all, wealth and the accruement thereof should appeal to it.

But my clerk replied, “The primary mandate of the Ministry of Wealth is to oversee the financial situation on Earth. However, Accounting divides its attention between the financial situations both on Earth and in Heaven. As such, it believes that its mission is fundamentally misaligned with that of the larger department.”

I couldn’t suppress a wistful sigh. I’m impressed.

“You? By Accounting?” My clerk looked puzzled by the envy in my tone.

Yes. Well, more generally too. He still looked confused, so I explained, I thought I was good creating bureaucratic labyrinths, but obviously Heaven mastered that eons ago.

His only response was a glare.

After an interminably long and boring climb, we finally reached the top of the stairs. The clerk pushed open the final door and led me into – an ambush. On the senses, that was.

The top floor of the Hall of Vermillion Clouds, where the Goddess of Life held court when she wasn’t off agitating for her own bureaucratic fiefdom, was a vast, hexagonal space. On three sides, it was enclosed by screens of fragrant cypress wood pierced with latticework. The other three sides were open to the bright blue sky. Borne on a gentle breeze, gauzy vermillion clouds drifted in and twined around columns that soared up to support a ceiling carved with scenes of life on Earth. Figures of peasants, no more than an inch tall, waded through rice paddies behind their water buffalo; women tended to silkworms on mulberry leaves; and servants staggered under the weight of poles balanced over their shoulders, with boxes hanging from both ends. As the scenes spiraled in towards the center, the setting shifted from the countryside to the city, where people jostled in the streets, cheered at weddings, hawked goods in the open-air market, and crowded around makeshift stages to watch street performers. At the very apex of the ceiling was a palace complex with intricate halls and pavilions and gardens. As I stared up at it, I began to make out familiar buildings: the main palace, where the emperor held court and conducted official business. The empress’ hall, the private quarters of the Imperial family. And there, next to a cool green pond that overflowed with lotus blossoms in the summer, my pagoda.

It had been a wonderful pagoda. With its gold roofs and jade walls, it had towered over the capital, visible for miles in all directions. I’d designed it myself – “as a symbol of the splendor of the Serican Empire” – and it had been my favorite place on Earth. When I wasn’t busy advising Cassius, I’d spent as much time there as I could. Sometimes I’d “invited” the empress, who’d gritted her teeth but come anyway. Sometimes I’d brought the little princes and princesses, on whom I was impressing the importance of luxury in all its forms. But other times I’d gone by myself at night, to admire it in peace. I’d kicked off my shoes and ascended the stairs in my bare feet, feeling the pearls set into the steps. I’d trailed my fingers along the sleek coral railings, imagining all the divers who’d drowned to harvest them. Finally, when I reached the top, I’d undone my hair and let the breeze whip through it as I gazed out upon the world I was destroying….

A fat orange cloud plowed into me, jolting me back to the present.

My clerk had left me behind. He was approaching a desk facing the stairwell. An imperious, white-haired clerk sat behind it, scrutinizing him as if she were a stone lion guarding a temple. Her robes, like his, were black, but they shone like silk and had embroidered silver bands along the hem and around the wide sleeves.

My clerk bowed deeply and held the pose.

She inclined her head the slightest bit, more of a chin bob than anything else. “Name?”

“My name is Flicker, honored one.”

Another clerk (in plain silk robes) proffered a list of names to her in both hands. She flicked a glance at it, and he hastened to remove it. “Ah yes,” she pronounced. “Flicker. Clerk, third class. Here regarding a complaint against the Star of Heavenly Joy for unsanctioned interference in the reincarnation process.”

Unsanctioned interference? Did that mean there was sanctioned interference?

A different subordinate presented her with a strip of paper that had “Goddess of Life” written on it in elegant calligraphy. She picked up a seal and banged it on the bottom, leaving a red stamp that said “Approved.” I edged forward to peer over my clerk’s shoulder and look for a second stamp that said “Rejected,” but she only had the one stamp. Interesting.

The subordinate waited a moment for the seal paste to dry, then passed the paper to my clerk. “Please wait until you are called,” he instructed, and gestured towards a horde of clerks, each of whom clutched an identical strip of paper.

Which meant that if you didn’t pass inspection here, you weren’t allowed into the audience chamber at all, which in turn meant that possession of that strip of paper was redundant. Ah, marvelous busywork.

Feeling cheerful, I followed my clerk across the room. Your name is Flicker? Really? Why?

He was skirting along the edge of the crowd, hunting for the perfect waiting spot. “Yes. Really. Because it is my name.”

But…is it because you flicker? Do you actually flicker?

He gritted his teeth, planted himself next to a column, and scowled into the middle distance.

With a mental shrug, I settled down on his shoulder, making him stiffen and clench his jaw, and studied the room. Between the clerks’ heads, I glimpsed a gold dais and a gold throne with a red, yellow, black, green, and white cushion. Atop that garish monstrosity reclined a goddess with luminous porcelain skin, jet-black locks arranged in an elaborate bun, and a headdress of lotuses and willow leaves. She wore the same style of dress that we had in Cassius’ court, a wrap blouse over a long, flowing skirt, with a shorter skirt tied around her waist. But where we’d favored contrasting colors and patterns, everything on her was a pure, shimmering white, making her stand out from the throne like a pearl in a brooch. I’d bet she’d done that on purpose. Clerks buzzed around her, presenting her with an endless stream of documents to read or stamp or simply nod or frown at.

As I continued to observe, I realized that only her own people were allowed near the dais. Supplicants waited until one of the silk-clad clerks at the foot of the steps called their name. Then they’d bow deeply and offer the slip of paper. A clerk would take it, glance at it too fast to verify whether it were real or forged, and wave the supplicants forward. They’d then prostrate themselves, wait for the Goddess of Life to grant them permission to raise their heads, and explain their business. If they needed to show her anything, a clerk at the foot of the dais would pass it to a clerk on the steps, who’d pass it to the clerk on the dais itself, who’d finally present it to the goddess. The sheer, ritualistic inefficiency of it all took my breath away.

Most of the proceedings must have been routine, because the Goddess of Life’s serene, distant expression never wavered. But then a man in blue silk robes stepped out of the crowd and knelt, and her eyes snapped into focus. Her clerks tensed. The room went silent.

Who’s that? Who’s that? I bounced on Flicker’s shoulder.

“The Star of Scholarly Song. You don’t recognize him?” he muttered without turning his head.

No. Should I?

I floated forward a couple inches for a closer look. Let’s see…if I removed the glowing aura, added thick eyebrows and a sententious frown –

Oh, it’s Marcius! He’s a Star too?

Back on Earth, Marcius had been particularly annoying: courageous and incorruptible and Cassius’ most trusted adviser. He’d been one of the few officials who’d dared to keep challenging me as I consolidated my hold over the emperor, alienated the nobles, and drained the treasury. Such was the general respect for the man that it had taken years to get rid of him. What was he doing at the Goddess of Life’s office hours? Petitioning for a job in her new department? Like everyone else in the room, I strained to hear.

“ – humbly beseech you to reconsider this decision,” Marcius was saying, in that firm tone I remembered so well, that had nothing to do with humility or pleading.