In the Year of the Rat, the girl-child Chyou became high priestess of
rodents. They made her a cloak from the fur of white mice and wove beaded
rat tails into her long black hair. In her hand, she carried a small scepter—
a stick, really—adorned with a pair of shrews that danced and mated and
danced some more on a small jade platform at the top.
Instead of gold, they brought her great morsels of yak cheese and
smaller pieces of ham. Chyou sat long nights and heard her subjects' tales
of woe and injustice. With her shrew wand, she cast spells for the rats and
the mice. She helped them find food and warm places to sleep when it
rained. She gave them cat wards and monkeybane, and taught them the fine
art of rodent self-defense. (In which she was already a black belt six times
over.)
Her reign was a good one. The rodents celebrated her wisdom and
lauded her generosity. They painted pictures for her with their small paws
and performed comedies on a small stage built from bamboo and scraps of
raw silk.
Only the jealous gerbil was unhappy. He plotted in sewers and under
porches and sometimes in the tops of trees. He sowed lies and reaped
resentment. The rats joined him—ever ready to display their feelings toward
authority—and in their clever heads a plan was formed.
War, dark and bloody, spilled forth from the rodent realms. The dead
and dying grew in number until their bodies clogged the roads and
hampered the horses in the human streets.
