Battle Magic

15

THE TEMPLE OF THE TIGERS,

THE DRIMBAKANG LHO, AND

THE TEMPLE OF THE SEALED EYE

Once he had gotten used to the fact that Rosethorn and her horse had simply disappeared, Briar listened to Jimut’s pleadings and turned to help move the refugees into the Temple of the Tigers. He busily sent runaway toddlers, goats, and the odd group of boys across the Tom Sho Bridge and up the rugged hill. It was when he reached the temple fortress at the top of the hill that he saw why the place had the name that it did.

Two giant tiger figures stood on either side of the front gate. One, painted orange with black stripes, snarled realistically at anyone who rode toward it. The other, carved of pure white stone with black stripes, looked as if the sculptor had caught it in midleap, forelegs and claws extended. Briar could even see every hair in the animals’ carved fur. Captain Lango’s Gyongxin people did not care for them. Parahan and Souda’s people only bowed as they passed: Jimut explained that tigers were common, respected animals in the Realms of the Sun. The local villagers, unlike Lango’s fighters, were clearly used to these tigers and even rubbed them on the side or paw. Briar only relaxed once he was well inside the curtain wall. He had half expected the tigers, like the naga queen of the Temple of the Sun Queen’s Husbands, to act unpleasantly alive.

He went with Parahan for a look around when they were settled: The plan seemed to be for the soldiers to patrol a circle around the place while they waited for Rosethorn’s return. They also expected the arrival of more warriors from the west, the southern part of the Drimbakang Zugu mountains and beyond. Knowing that, Briar agreed they ought to familiarize themselves with their newest temporary home.

The place was big, with the stepped outer wall that was common to Gyongxin fortresses. A small village already fit in the lower courtyard as part of the temple, together with barns, stables, mews, chicken coops, fenced gardens, and roaming herds of goats and fowl. In the upper courtyard loomed the main house of worship with its dormitories, side temples, and kitchens.

Briar wandered into the temple. It was lit with hundreds of small lamps. Parahan explained this was the sole Temple of the Tigers in Gyongxe: All of the others were in the Realms of the Sun, where tigers made their home. It was hard to keep tigers here, a priest told them. They missed the warmth and the ability to roam that was theirs elsewhere. Also, the snow leopards resented interlopers.

Briar was fascinated by the artwork that covered the temple’s interior walls. The borders set around each large painting were made of dozens of smaller ones: pictures of prophets, gods, demons, teachers, and tigers shown in every aspect, from infancy to godhood. Like the main scenes, the border images were done in vivid colors, showing their subjects in various poses. What bothered Briar was that the small figures seemed to move in the corner of his eye. They turned to chat with their neighbors. Worse, some leaned forward to get a better look at him, Parahan, or Souda. When he whipped around to stare at the paintings dead-on, they were still — except that the little border folk had changed position. Some of them were rude enough to cover giggles with one or several hands. One tiger had rolled onto his back. Another urinated in Briar’s direction.

He just had to ask. Fortunately a priest-artist was nearby, touching up the colors on a large painting. “Excuse me,” Briar murmured when the man set his brush down, “but weren’t the figures in the border over there placed differently before?”

The priest smiled tolerantly and came to look. “Sir, it is dark here. With the torchlight and the many shadows our paintings appear to change….” He stared at the section of paintings that had moved for Briar. One crimson-fanged warrior-demon now showed his bare behind to anyone who cared to see it.

Briar looked at the priest. The man blinked, then backed up a step. He leaned in closer and inspected a broad section of the paintings with borders that had moved. Finally he scowled at Briar and hurried off, telling his novice to put his paints away.

Briar turned his back on the paintings and tried not to look at any more of them. He said nothing to his companions, just as he had not mentioned the boulder paintings and the naga queen before. If they thought his twitches and flinches were strange, they were too polite to comment. Mages were expected to be odd. He would ask Rosethorn what was going on when she came back. He had an idea that it had something to do with his touching her cursed burden.

Briar also refused to sleep inside, despite the arguments of Parahan, Souda, and Jimut. There were just too many paintings to avoid. In the end, his friends gave him an assortment of furs to use as well as his bedroll, to keep off the early summer cold. Briar didn’t care. There were no paintings inside the curtain walls, and the stars above moved only as they were supposed to move. He fell asleep looking at them and asking Rosethorn’s gods to watch over her.

When the morning sun touched his eyes, Briar opened them to find a shaven-headed priestess in heavy robes squatting beside him. She grinned, showing off a scant mouthful of teeth. “Don’t worry, emchi youth,” she said, and offered him a bowl of butter tea. “Once you return to the thicker air down below, you will no longer see things. Whatever touched you was powerful. I can see its blaze all around you. Its power calls to the little gods whose doors are on our walls.”

Briar sat up and accepted the bowl. “Thank you. You’re very kind. I would prefer not to have been touched at all.”

She cackled. “But then they would not have their fun with you, the little gods, and it is so rare that they may play! The power in you makes it possible for them to enter our world for a time. They have been stirring for years, knowing that the evil was coming. At least now the waiting is over, and we will all see.”

Briar sipped the tea for a moment, thinking. She was a nice old woman. Perhaps she wouldn’t mind a question or two from a silly foreigner. “May I ask — why do even the temples here in Gyongxe have walls, like castles and big cities do? From what I’ve heard, you aren’t attacked very often.”

The priestess chuckled. “We aren’t worried about enemies outside our borders — it’s our neighbors who are trouble too much of the time,” she explained. “Our walls and fighters are to keep the tribes and warriors from the other temples out. If god-warriors take your temple, your priests must become priests of their god, and your temple becomes the temple of the enemy’s god. And the tribes are always fighting.”

“But you weren’t fighting when I was in Garmashing before, and no one’s fighting each other now. We’ve got at least five different tribes and warriors from four different temples riding with us. I heard Parahan say so.”

The priestess straightened. “When were you here before?”

“This winter.”

She snorted. “Nobody fights in winter. Everyone would die. And no one fights now because we all have the same enemy. Gyongxe belongs to us, not to that lowland emperor.” She nodded and said, “I would rather fight Weishu.”

Briar had finished the bowl of tea. “Thank you for telling me about all of that,” he said, returning the bowl to her with a bow.

“Don’t let the little gods worry you,” the priestess told him. “They are on our side. Mostly.”

She left Briar. He dressed under the covers in the chilly air. It unnerved him that she spoke so blithely of the things that moved on her walls. The priest-artist hadn’t seemed used to them. What else was she accustomed to seeing?

And what of these little gods? he asked himself as he struggled into his boots. If they could leave their walls and boulders, might they be convinced to fight Weishu? Could they even damage him and his armies? Might as well ask Lakik or Mila of the Grain to pick up weapons and fight!

He did up his furs and bedroll, and went to breakfast with Jimut. They were about to see if Parahan or Souda had orders for them when a horn sounded a long, low call throughout the temple compound. Everyone stopped what they were doing and waited, their eyes on the central temple. The highest tower there was capped by priests wielding horns so large and long that the curved ends rested on the ground.

The biggest of the horns sounded again, a long call, then three short calls. A long call, and three short calls. This second repetition was picked up by every temple horn. Briar didn’t have to ask what the calls meant. Every temple warrior was scrambling for the walls, crossbows in their hands. Briar’s warrior companions did the same.

Priests ran to bar the gates. Others backed wagons full of stones up against the gates once they were closed. Priestesses covered the large courtyard wells to keep arrows or stones from landing in the precious water. Novices guided the herds back into the barns just as they had begun to lead them out for the day. More temple workers gently urged the refugees that had come outside back into the buildings, where they might be safer.

Briar and Jimut gathered up their own weapons. Then they, too, ran up to the walls. They found their commanders on the southern wall, just over the main gates. There, together with the warrior-priest in command of the temple troops, they watched as three hundred Yanjingyi soldiers galloped up the road and fanned out before them, just out of shooting distance. A novice ran along the walkways to speak quickly in the warrior-priest’s ear.

“Two hundred more at the north gate,” the commander said to Souda, Lango, and Parahan. “We are nearly evenly matched unless they have others hidden on the far side of the ridge. I doubt this. None of our watchers has reported movement, and our guard changes have occurred without incident. The last change came just with the morning bell.”

“They could have used magic to get closer,” Parahan said uneasily.

The commander had a rich, deep chuckle. “It would have to be very unusual magic to get past our watchers, their dogs, and the guarding spells in the tunnels the watchers use to return here,” he assured Parahan. “A spy did get into the tunnels last year. He did not get out. They never learned where he vanished to. Captain Lango, will you reinforce my people on the eastern wall?” The Gyongxin captain nodded and ran down the walkway, beckoning for his soldiers on the ground to follow him.

A Yanjingyi soldier was riding up to the gate. He bore a white flag.

“They’re coming to talk,” Souda remarked. She slung an arm around Briar’s shoulders. “But he doesn’t need five companies just to talk. Maybe we’ll see action against these curs, eh, Briar?”

What a bloodthirsty girl! he thought in admiration.

The Yanjingyi messenger halted his mount and waved his white peace flag on its long pole. “Honored priests of the great Temple of the Tigers, I bring you salutations from General Jin Quan of the Imperial Army of South Gyongxe!”

“The blessings of our tigers be upon his head,” the commanding priest replied.

“I wonder if that’s a good thing,” Souda whispered to Briar.

“Our glorious general is merciful, and our mighty emperor, sixth of his dynasty, beloved of all the gods, Weishu Maorin Guangong Zhian of the Long Dynasty, holds this realm of Gyongxe close to his august bosom,” the messenger went on.

“So it was strangers that killed all those people in the river and the gorge?” Briar murmured to Souda.

“The blessings of our tiger gods be also upon the head of your emperor,” the commander replied. “In the Heavenly Time to Come, they will surely reward him in the most fitting manner.”

If the messenger thought this, or any of the commander’s replies, to be strange or double-edged, he did not show it. “My master the general bids me to say, we hope to make our visit to your glorious temple a brief, peaceful affair. Give to us the smallest of tokens of your esteem for our lordly and puissant emperor. If you do so, we shall proclaim our desire for peace between our great empire and your gods, and leave here.”

“Interesting,” murmured the commander. “What exactly are these small tokens?” he called.

“Four people,” the messenger replied. “The runaway slave Parahan. His sister Soudamini. The woman Rosethorn. The boy Briar Moss. Your peace, and the peace of all those within your walls and on your vast lands, in exchange for these four, who have offended against the imperial majesty.”

“I may not answer this,” the commander said. “Only the head of our temple may do so. You will have to wait.” He went to the steps. Instead of taking them to the ground or sending a messenger for the head of the temple, he sat there. A novice who waited with a large pot of tea and a basket full of cups poured one for him and handed it over. The commander seemed in no hurry to pass the message to anyone.

The rest of their group on the wall turned away from the messenger and sat on the walkway, where they could not be seen.

“Just like a Yanjingyi.” To Briar’s surprise, the old priestess who had roused him had somehow made the climb up to them. Now she sat cross-legged in front of him, Souda, and Parahan and let Jimut pass a cup of tea to her. At her side was a tall, gangly young tiger cub on a leash. “Because they trade people to and fro like trinkets, they believe others will do so.” She patted Briar on the knee. “What did you do, boy? Twist the imperial nose?”

“I did no such thing!” he protested. “I was perfectly nice! Rosethorn and me even made him his very own rose, unique just for him!”

The old priestess chuckled. “Doubtless he wants you back to make another. This Rosethorn is separated from you?”

“Just for now,” Briar replied. “She had an errand.”

The woman looked at him as if she knew Rosethorn’s errand was a secret, very magical one. Then she said to Parahan and Soudamini, “And you two troublemakers?”

“We are not slaves,” Parahan said quietly, his hands white-knuckled in his lap. “My uncle sold me to the emperor, but I escaped.”

“It does not matter,” the old priestess said. “Emperor Weishu believes threats will make us crumble like dried mud. Last year, he sent me a beautiful box, carved all over with snakes. It was a very splendid gift.” She shook her head. “It is thanks to my friend that I lived after I opened it.” The old woman stroked the cub’s back. He butted her shoulder with his big head. She balanced with the ease of long practice. “He ate the small viper the emperor had tucked into my lovely box. We were up all night with his belly ache, but now he knows not to eat vipers.”

“But why?” Souda asked. She looked at the cub with longing. “Why did the emperor send you a viper?”

“I believe he thought that my successor would be likely to forget the debt of gratitude we owe to the God-Kings for allowing our temple to be here. He thought that if he killed the cranky old woman, he would have a friend in Gyongxe. Instead he still has a cranky old woman who now holds a grudge against him. We sent my would-be successor to him in a box of our own.” She stood and went to the wall. The cub stood beside her, his forepaws planted on the ledge. “Messenger! Your imperial master knows who I am — he tried to kill me last year. He failed.” Though she spoke in normal tones, her voice rang in the air. It startled not just the messenger’s horse but those of the mounted soldiers behind him. “Tell him this for me: His palace will crawl with angry cats before I surrender anyone. Gyongxe has many surprises for you people. Get out while you can!” She stepped back from the wall and beckoned to the commander. “Are you ready?” she asked quietly. Her voice only reached those near them. Briar got to his feet. Souda and Parahan were already up.

“If you are,” the Gyongxin soldier replied.

Briar looked out. The messenger was galloping back to his own people. The archers must have set their bolts and drawn their crossbow strings earlier, because their weapons were raised and ready to shoot.

One Yanjingyi soldier, a burly fellow in gold-painted armor, raised a crimson banner. Several men shouted orders as the archers aimed over the temple wall. The soldiers trotted their horses forward.

Then the priestess — the head of the temple, Briar knew now — and the commander began to chant.

The immense orange tiger statue that sat by the gate shook itself and roared at the charging horsemen. The white tiger that was already leaping into the air finished its jump, landing in the middle of the attackers.

The horses went mad with terror. They reared and plunged, screaming as they threw their masters to the ground. The tigers whirled and swung their huge paws, sending horses and men alike flying through the air.

Parahan’s and Souda’s warriors froze at the sight before them, but not the temple archers. They aimed and shot. As their bolts flew, Briar looked at Jimut. He was already aiming his crossbow. Briar turned back to the tigers and saw their weakness. They were anchored near the gate somehow. Once at their limit, which seemed to be about three hundred yards, they could keep the enemy at bay, but they could not pursue them. The Yanjingyi soldiers also figured it out. They formed up out of the tigers’ range and waited for their own mages to have a turn. These worthies had kept far back all along. Though Briar couldn’t see them closely or hear them, he guessed they had taken their beads in hand and were chanting the words that would wake the spells in them.

The Gyongxin and Kombanpur archers launched their arrows high in the air. For some reason they fell short of the mages and even the soldiers. The archers on the wall tried a second time. The bolts still fell short. The temple’s priest-mages came forward with small pots and boxes. Novices followed with mortars, pestles, cloth bags, and fists full of incense. They set their belongings on the wall and began to mix substances for the priests to burn and chant over. Briar felt their power press against his skin. The next time the archers on the wall shot, their arrows hit the enemy.

Briar ignored what his allies were doing and sat cross-legged on the wall.

“Don’t let anyone trip over me, Jimut,” he said. He sank into his magic, flowing through the roots under the temple and out below the battlefield. Here was a weight of rock that had to be one of the stone tigers. On he went until he sensed the small magics that went into the good-luck charms carried by soldiers.

Overhead now he felt bead-shaped willow with magic dug into its grain: exactly what he wanted to find. Weishu had not warned his mages to remove their wooden beads. There were other wooden beads, but for now the willow ones would serve his purpose.

Briar surrounded those beads with his own magic. They welcomed him. He brought them the memory of their life as trees, before someone had cut them into pieces and forced strange magic onto them. Willow magic healed and united. It was power that bent before it broke. Instead of flowing streams and falling rain someone had jammed killing and destruction into the wood, the kind of spells that burned and thrust.

Willows didn’t understand that magic. They wore it uneasily. Feeling themselves in Briar, remembering what they were, the bits of willow shook off the foreign power. They took up the green magic that had been theirs when they were trees. They grew. Briar guided their power to veins of water underground. Here they found the fierce strength of the Snow Serpent and Tom Sho Rivers. Briar bound their magic to his, sank both deep into the water, and let go.

Saplings shot from the willow beads worn by the Yanjingyi mages. Rapidly the new trees grew. The mages tore off their strings of beads, but not fast enough to keep from being enveloped by fast-growing willows. The new trees followed their power to heal by uniting the mages’ arms with their bodies and forcing the humans’ two legs to become one. They wrapped the humans in their trunks.

Feeling that he had exacted a little vengeance for the dead who had lain in the gorge and the river, Briar ran down the steps down into the courtyard. He wanted to see what he could do if there were mages at the north gate.

By the time the stone tigers had returned to their poses as statues, Briar had calmed the new willow groves he’d made north and south of the temple. He had lost his chance to ride with the warriors to capture what remained of the enemy after the last soldiers had fled. No one wanted the escapees to reach General Jin Quan.

Since he couldn’t chase soldiers, Briar searched the grass around his new willows and collected the rest of the mages’ beads. The thought of someone with a little power stumbling across them gave him the chills. He also preferred the voices of the new willows to the noise of the villagers after the battle. They were boasting about the valor of Gyongxin warriors and their allies from the south. Briar didn’t want to listen. This war party had been tiny compared to what the emperor had to send, and it was magic that had won the day. Next time there might not be enough magic to turn the tide. The image of the imperial soldiers in their thousands was never far from his mind. Next time they might not have such an easy victory. Or any victory at all.

Rosethorn rode quickly as she left Briar. The sooner I go, she told herself, the sooner I return to them. Who knows what mischief they’ll get into without me to keep an eye on things?

She looked back after ten yards for a last glimpse of her boy, but a heavy fog had come from nowhere to hide the north bank of the Snow Serpent River. She faced south again and let her patient horse follow the trail. As they moved into the canyons of the Drimbakang Lho, she prayed to Mila of the Fields and Grain, the Green Man, god of growth that was orderly and chaotic, and even Briar’s own Lakik the Trickster to look after him and Evvy.

One thing she had found while carrying the Four Treasures was that her path was always clear. Since leaving the fort she had seen it as a shining pale ribbon along the main road, across the bridge, and now on the simple one-mule track. She only had to stay on it.

Her burden was company of a sort. It carried myriad voices to her. Most of them spoke languages she had never heard, even after all her years of life on the Pebbled Sea. Some bits of conversation came in tongues she knew quite well, speaking of trade, the governing of nations, the weather, the condition of crops, or the behavior of children. The voices held her attention so well that the horse would nudge her when he required rest, water, or the chance to crop grass.

She brought out one of Evvy’s glow stones for light once the sun had set, not for herself, but for her mount. Finally he dug in his hooves to let her know he had walked enough for the day. She made their camp in a stand of trees and rubbed the easygoing animal down, then covered him with a blanket against the mountain cold. She ate yak jerky and cheese for supper, though she wasn’t particularly hungry. Her own common sense, at least, was still working.

Best of all, she breathed easily. She might resent the detour to Gyongxe and the separation from both of her young people, but it was good to fill her lungs again.

The package wasn’t even that much of a burden in a physical sense. She felt its light pressure on her chest, but it wasn’t heavy. She slept on her side with the box still around her neck, one arm draped lightly over the Four Treasures.

She woke at dawn, fed her horse and herself, and continued her upward trek. The gleaming path turned away from the one-mule road onto a game trail some time after noon. Wild mountain goats and yaks politely moved aside to let them pass.

The trail led to a slender ledge over a deep gorge. On her side the cliff rose over a hundred feet into the air above her. “I hope you’re nimble,” Rosethorn told the horse. She gulped when she looked down. The gorge plunged far deeper than she had expected. A ribbon of blue-and-white water tumbled over rocks.

The horse calmly followed the trail around the curve on the ledge and onto wider ground again, deep into shadowed lands. The mountains rose higher, and the path rose with them. Rosethorn relaxed and returned to her dreaming state. That night it was cold enough that she built a fire.

The next day the trail took them down a thin canyon. It was so narrow that Rosethorn could touch both walls when she stretched out her arms. She could tell her mount did not like the close quarters.

“What can we do?” she asked him softly. Even so her voice echoed. “See the path? This is the way we have to go.”

“Few have the gods’ blessings to come here.” The deep male voice boomed between the stone walls. Rosethorn reined in, unsure of what was going on. “You are expected, bearer of the Living Circle’s Treasures. You have come to the Temple of the Sealed Eye. Ride on.”

After she caught her breath, she decided there was nothing else to do. She nudged her mount, clicking her tongue between her teeth. He snorted and tossed his head, but he did advance. The path descended as the canyon widened. Rosethorn could hear a waterfall.

A clearing opened before them. Soft grass grew around a wide pool. It was supplied from a waterfall that dropped thirty feet from a cliff. Three caves opened into the cliff face beside the waterfall.

“Leave your horse,” the voice ordered. “He will be cared for. Enter the temple — if you choose the correct entry.”

“And if I do not?” Rosethorn asked. Really, this is absurd, she thought impatiently. I have the Treasures; I found this hole in the wall — these holes in the wall. What more do they want of me?

“The temple protects itself,” the voice replied.

“Did you hear that?” Rosethorn muttered to the horse as she dismounted. “The temple protects itself. The rest of us can enjoy our nice little mountain vacation that we took when others need us.” She went about removing the horse’s saddle.

“Grumbling will not assist you,” the voice told her. “The animal will be looked after.”

“Grumbling makes me feel better,” she retorted. “If you don’t like it, you should have given the First Dedicate instructions, or made it possible for him to bring this burden to you. And I was taught that it’s proper to look after your own mount.” She did so, rubbing him down, feeding him grain, and settling him on the grass. Once that was done, she moved her pack to her chest, having placed it on her back to care for the horse, and looked at the three openings. The glowing path went straight through the smallest opening, the one that was covered with cobwebs.

Lark, Rosethorn thought, bringing her lover’s face before her mind’s eye in case this did not go well. She took a deep breath, picked up a stick that lay on the ground, and advanced on the cave. Using the stick, she cleared away most of the cobwebs before she walked inside. The glowing path led her down a narrow tunnel, so narrow that in some places the stone brushed her shoulders. Rosethorn bit her lip and went on.

As the daylight faded behind her, she saw light from another source. A fungus she did not know grew high on the walls and the roof of the tunnel. The farther she came from natural light, the brighter glowed the fungus. It gave off a whitish-green illumination, one that was not favorable to her skin. She grimaced at the sight of her corpse-green hands, but consoled herself with the thought that no one would possibly care about her looks down here. As a religious dedicate she knew it was a weakness to be vain of her creamy skin. It was doubly so because she spent nearly all of her time in the sun.

“Concern for appearance is a folly of the world,” the voice said, as if he’d read her mind.

Rosethorn spun. Behind her stood a black-skinned man so large he had to bend to keep from bumping his head on the roof. He wore a plain Gyongxin jacket, breeches, and boots. A white mark in the shape of an eye was painted on the middle of his forehead.

Rosethorn clutched the Treasures tightly. She didn’t want him to see that she was shaking. No man had seen her frightened since she had run away from the chains in her father’s farmhouse. “I don’t know how you read my mind, but it’s rude,” she snapped. “And my weaknesses as a dedicate are between me and my own First Dedicates.”

“In the Temple of the Sealed Eye all is known,” the man said. “Continue to go forward. Keep to the left of the tunnel.”

She didn’t like to turn her back to him, but it was a question either of staying here or going ahead. She certainly couldn’t go back, through him. As she moved on, the Treasures gripped her mind. They showed her strange images: a great city under attack; a young black man trying to get two girls who resembled him out of a beautiful house; soldiers in Yanjingyi armor surrounding them. They were separated and sold, the girls and the young man, in a Yanjingyi city. The young man was made to work on a rice farm. Then he found his way through forests and up into mountain passes, starved and half naked, until he collapsed. The last thing Rosethorn saw was a Gyongxin woman with the white eye painted on her forehead: She was bending over the fallen young man.

The vision faded.

“Is that you?” she asked, forgetting the big man most likely couldn’t see what she did. “You were an escaped slave?” She looked back at him.

He sighed. “Your Treasures could leave me my secrets.” He reached out. “Careful!”

She bumped a tall rock on her right. Something there hissed and scraped, darting at her. She stumbled back. The thing retreated, hissing still. Rosethorn turned to face it and carefully backed up until she struck the opposite wall. On the flat top of the rock was a serpent-like thing with a human skull. Its body seemed to be all vertebrae. It had no skin, no flesh, no muscle; its material was shaped like bone, but it looked to be a combination of metals.

“The cave snakes are the substance of the Drimbakangs,” the man told her. “In the beginning they made themselves of tin, copper, and gold.”

“They made themselves?” Rosethorn asked.

“At first,” the man replied.

She didn’t know if she was unsure or astonished. The cave snake rose up on its coils and hissed again, leaning out until its face was immediately in front of Rosethorn’s. The thing’s breath was cold, wet, and scented like the depths far underground. To her horror, Rosethorn saw movement beyond the beast’s small skull as several more of the snakeish things rose up inside her coils, hissing softly.

“They are very irritable when brooding a nest,” Rosethorn’s companion said belatedly.

Rosethorn took a deep breath. “I am sorry that I disturbed you and your nest,” she told the cave snake mother, fixing her eyes on the eye hollows in her skull. The thing must not know she was frightened. “It was not my intention. I would not like to see this become an argument between us.”

“It would be a shame on both sides,” a newcomer said as the cave snake drew in tight around her nest.

Rosethorn silently cursed the cave that gave her no warning of someone’s approach and looked to her left. Here the tunnel opened up into a good-sized chamber. A Gyongxin man an inch or so shorter than Rosethorn stood there, dressed like her companion in tunic and breeches. Also like the black man, he wore the white eye on his forehead, though it did not look like it had been painted on. As Rosethorn watched, the white eye blinked at her.

I want to go home, she thought dizzily.

The small priest said, “Welcome to the Temple of the Sealed Eye, Nivalin Greenhow, whose name in religion is Rosethorn of Winding Circle temple. I see why Jangbu Dokyi trusted you with your faith’s Four Treasures. In the wrong hands they would be powerful forces for ill, but you would never allow them to pass into those hands, would you?”

Rosethorn frowned at the man before returning her gaze to the cave snakes. She didn’t trust them. “I’m not sure how I could stop the wrong hands, past a certain point, though I would give it my best.”

“Your best is most formidable, my dear. Come. I am Yesh Namka, High Priest of the Temple of the Sealed Eye. Our warden of the gate behind you is Tegene Kess.” Rosethorn looked at the big man, who nodded to her. “We must go deeper into the mountains’ heart together before you can put down your burden,” Namka said. “What you see and hear beyond this point you may tell no one, not the children of your heart, not your lover, not Jangbu Dokyi.”

She heard ringing sounds in the dark behind the high priest. Out of the shadows walked three more creatures, eagle-headed, cat-bodied, spindle-legged, horse-hooved. Dark in color, they were speckled with spots that shone with a pale gold light, as did their wicked, hooked beaks. They halted beside Namka and cocked their heads to eye Rosethorn. The cave snakes chattered at them.

“Where did they come from?” Rosethorn asked Namka when she felt she could speak without her own teeth chattering.

“The mountains grow bored, sometimes,” Tegene Kess explained. “They have eons of time to build themselves and their children. At first they follow the nature of the world, but there are times when they wish to try something different. Or the lesser gods who enter this realm feel it needs something unusual, and they make it. Do you understand?”

“Not at all,” Rosethorn said.

“You will,” Namka said, beckoning to her. “Come.” He turned and shooed the strange hooved creatures out of the way.

There was nothing for Briar to do. Those few warriors who had been wounded on the wall by enemy archers were being well cared for by the temple healers. He had collected all of the fallen mage beads he could find. He scrounged a midday meal and hunkered down near the north gate with his finds. Once he had eaten, he worked on spells that would turn the oak and gingko beads against their holders. One such spell depended on the sex of the gingko tree that made up the bead. To test the spell Briar threw two beads several yards downhill and worked the magic he had placed on them. Within seconds they popped, turning into rapidly growing female seeds that reached the size of a small goat, ripened, and burst. Briar cackled wickedly even as he covered his nose with one elbow and backed away from the vomit-like smell.

He bumped into something behind him. Turning to apologize, he choked. He hadn’t really expected the sitting orange stone tiger to be awake, but it had walked up for a closer look at what he was doing.

“I take it you can’t smell,” he said.

The tiger shook its head.

“Lucky you,” Briar said weakly. Of course they know what I say, he thought. Since he could do nothing about it, he resumed his seat to consider what to do with the male gingko wood beads.

While the great creature was there, he thought to ask it a question that had hovered in his mind all morning. “Did you two come from the canyon behind Garmashing? In the Drimbakang Zugu?” In case the tiger did not recognize the names, he brought his memory of the morning when shamans had danced a pair of giant skeletons to life to the front of his mind, in case the tiger could see it in him, somehow. He concentrated, trying to capture the sounds and scents of that chilly moment in time when stone shaped itself and walked out of the cliff.

A scraping noise made him open his eyes. With a single large claw the tiger had drawn two smooth lines with a waving line between them. It was a map of the canyon behind Garmashing.

“When did they dance you out of the cliffs?”

The tiger shrugged, making its well-marked fur ripple.

“But it was a long time ago.”

The tiger nodded and lay down beside Briar.

“Thank you,” Briar said politely, awed. “That’s what I thought.” He returned to his experiments with the male gingko beads, though his heart wasn’t really in his work. If he didn’t watch it, he thought, he would start to think the gods really were closer to Gyongxe than they were to any other part of the world, if they could gift native stone so that it defended the temples of lands far away.

He may have been deep in thought, but he still noticed the orange-and-black tiger as it got to its feet again and walked by him. Several moments passed before his curiosity overcame him and he looked up. Both tiger statues had gone downhill to eat the remains of the oversized, vile-smelling gingko berries.

“Well,” Briar said. “I suppose they don’t care if it’s meat or not. I wonder if they just like the magic?” He continued to work with the other wooden beads.

The tigers had eaten all of the berries and returned to their guardian positions to wash themselves when the grasses told Briar that horses were coming. A glance at the sky showed him that the day was drawing to a close. He gathered his beads and the remnants of his midday and walked to the gate. The tigers had taken still positions, but not the ones they had held before. The white tiger sat on its hindquarters, washing a forepaw. The orange tiger stretched out on one side.

Briar waited until the soldiers who had ridden after the enemy passed through the gate, then followed them inside. He stopped briefly to give each stone tiger a pat. Evvy would expect it of him, he knew. They had gone solid.

The twins and Captain Lango greeted him as they dismounted from their horses, but they seemed preoccupied. They withdrew to Souda’s tent and sent for a handful of their own people while the temple captain trotted up to the temple. Not long afterward he returned with the temple’s warrior-commander, the chief priestess, and her young tiger. They all entered Souda’s tent; guards were placed to keep anyone from coming close enough to eavesdrop.

The returning hunting parties had brought wounded. Briar swapped his mage kit for his healer’s kit and offered his assistance to the temple workers. With the addition of those who had been hurt on the patrol, the temple healers were glad to have Briar’s assistance as well as his medicines.

“We got all but two of the ones we were chasing,” Atori, one of Souda’s archers, told Briar as he cleaned her arrow wound. “Those Yanjingyi seps can ride!”

Briar grinned at her use of a Banpuri curse word he’d heard Parahan use many times. She ground her teeth as the cleansing potion he had applied bubbled deep into the wound. He murmured, “Not long, now. I’ve yet to lose someone to infection with this.”

“Well, there’s the goddess’s blessing,” she gasped. “Aiiiii!”

“Done,” Briar said, and began to bandage the wound. “When you take this off tomorrow, around noon, say, your arm will look like you never got shot. Give it a week, and it won’t even be sore.”

“I’ll be able to shoot with it?” Atori wanted to know. Her face was anxious. “That was a big camp we found. Bigger than ours. Signs of an army in the area.”

“You’ll be able to shoot,” Briar assured her. “Get some of the healing tea, and keep drinking that.”

She had been sitting on a stool so he could work on her arm. Abruptly she stood, grabbed him by the ears, and kissed him well. “Oh, if only I weren’t betrothed,” she said mournfully. “Thank you, Briar!”

He stood there, grinning for a moment. She was twenty or so, definitely too old for him, but it was nice to have a pretty girl kiss him among so much insanity. Better than nice!

“Say, emchi,” growled the next patient in line, an older Gyongxin warrior, “if you don’t want me kissing you, would you have a look at this?”

Startled out of his happy state, Briar apologized and beckoned the soldier forward.

It was almost midnight when he emerged from the barn that had been made over into an infirmary. He’d given his slumbering patients a last check, and then cared for those who were awake and asking for help of some kind. He had just seen his bedroll and furs, set up beside a shed where they wouldn’t be in anyone’s way — thank you, Jimut! he thought gratefully — when he heard noise outside the gate. It was a horn: not the great horns on the temple’s walls and roof, but a normal-sized one, blowing several notes. It halted, then sounded the same notes again.

Briar watched as guards hurried to open one half of the gates, which had been cleared after the battle. A rider in Gyongxin armor stumbled through, leading a weary horse. Attached to his saddle was a long bamboo wand with a blue silk banner attached. He was a messenger from one of Gyongxe’s generals.

A temple novice ran forward to take the messenger’s horse. Another came to lead him to those he needed to see. For a moment Briar wished the man brought word of Rosethorn or Evvy, but he knew better. He would not hear from Rosethorn until he saw her again, so secret was her task, and no one would send a wartime messenger for a student mage and her cats. For anything else, Briar was exhausted more than he was curious. He washed his face and hands at the courtyard well, then stripped off his boots and crawled into his bedroll.

As so often happened, he found himself too tired to sleep. After staring at the stars for a time, he sat up and pulled his boots back on. Perhaps the healers could spare some ordinary tea and maybe some food. He had not eaten supper. No doubt the temple kitchens were closed. He went back to the well for a drink of water and to clean his teeth.

It was there that Parahan and Soudamini found him. The twins looked as weary as he felt. He noticed they had taken time to comb the dust from their glossy black hair and change into comfortable Realms-style tunics and baggy breeches. Parahan carried something bulky in his hands.

“Why aren’t you abed?” Briar asked, his voice froggy from weariness.

“We could ask you the same,” Souda replied. She sat beside him on the edge of the well.

“Oh, no,” Briar said, giddy from a lack of sleep and food. “I’ve been kissed by one pretty girl today. I couldn’t take it if I got kissed by another.”

Souda laughed quietly and put her arm around him. “It would be like kissing my brother,” she said. “Briar, listen. We have news.”

He looked at her, then up at Parahan.

“We chased some of the soldiers to a camp. They got the warning in time and ran, but their general left some letters and other things.” With shock, Briar realized that Parahan was weeping. “Briar, Fort Sambachu was attacked two days after we left. The Yanjingyi enemy had enough mages to blow down their gates. They wrote to their general that they killed the refugees and the animals.”

Briar clenched his fists. “Evvy?”

Souda took up the story. Parahan was wiping his eyes on his sleeve. “They had orders to send Evvy to the emperor’s camp once she told them where we were, and where you and Rosethorn were. But — she died, as they questioned her. They had one of the emperor’s best mages with them, just for that.”

Briar heard a voice. It turned out to be his own. “You mean tortured.”

Souda bowed her head. “Tortured.”

Parahan held the bundle in his hand out to Briar. “She showed me this, one of the days when you and Rosethorn were making the flower. It was in the general’s tent with his letter. He was going to send it to Weishu.”

Numbly Briar took it and undid the ties. It was Evvy’s stone alphabet. Not the one she had begun recently, made of stones that she had found herself. It was the one he had made for her, back when he realized he would have to teach a stone mage somehow. The stones lay still and dead in the dim torch- and starlight.

“A for amethyst,” he whispered, running his fingers over the stone. It wasn’t high in quality; it wouldn’t have fetched much in the market, but Evvy had loved it. It was her first step into her new life as a mage. She had kept the alphabet where the cats couldn’t play with it….

“The cats?”

“The letter said they killed the animals. We can hope they escaped,” Parahan said, his voice cracking.

He had spent time with Evvy and her cats, Briar remembered. “Might I be alone now?” he asked politely. “I’ll be all right.”

“Are you certain?” Souda wanted to know. “We can only imagine how bad this is for you.”

“Really, I’ll be fine,” Briar said. “I do this best alone.” Or with Rosethorn, and Lark, and my sisters, he thought, and none of them are here! None of them are with me! They’ve all gone off to do their whatevers and left me to face this!

It wasn’t fair. He knew it wasn’t fair. He didn’t feel like being fair just then. He climbed up the wall and walked along until he could look north. Right now he hated everyone, the First Dedicate and the God-King, Lark for not making Rosethorn stay home, Rosethorn for not refusing the emperor and the First Dedicate, Evvy for being unwilling to come along with him. Himself for not insisting that she come, or for not staying with her.

Especially himself. He hated himself. He was her first teacher, and he had dragged her into the path of the huge imperial armies and the legions of imperial mages. He stood by and watched as Weishu smiled and played games with their lives. Briar had left his Evvy to be tortured and to die alone. She was good with her power, but these people were masters of theirs. She was only twelve.

He clutched the stone alphabet and stared at the grasslands beyond the north gate. They were gray in the starlight. Somewhere across those were the imperial armies. That way lay the torturers, the murderers, and those who would steal other people’s countries. They would pay. He would make sure of that.

In the dark the grasses strained upward, their blades trembling with the power that filled them. Their roots swelled and stretched. For a long moment the land shook, then sank back.