Battle Magic

3

THE HALL OF IMPERIAL GREETINGS

THE WINTER PALACE

DOHAN IN YANJING

They were not presented immediately. Parahan escorted them to their guest pavilion, where a Yanjingyi meal waited for them. Before they could eat, however, the maids who waited on them removed what Briar had mockingly called their “army-viewing clothes.” These were replaced with loose robes so they could eat without fear of spoiling any silks or linens.

Rosethorn wasn’t sure what made her happier, the cooler garments or the food. She had been afraid she would have to face the official presentation with no more in her belly than coconut water. Now, as she settled on crossed legs before the low table, she realized that Parahan meant to stand back with the dining room servants. “Join us, please,” she said. “I won’t be able to touch a bite if you loom over us.”

The servants twittered, shocked that their guests would ask a captive to eat with them but once Rosethorn caught their eyes, they fell silent. Parahan didn’t need to be invited twice. Immediately he sat on his heels next to Briar and helped himself to pulse-bean soup, roast goose, cherries preserved in honey, and baked lamb. Rosethorn had only taken a few mouthfuls before she noticed that the servants were all too willing to give Evvy rolled fried cakes, sugared jujube berries, and numerous other sweets while they ignored Parahan.

If the emperor’s people were going to insist on serving his guests, as they had done since the newcomers’ arrival from Gyongxe, Rosethorn decided she might as well take advantage of it. She looked at the servants and raised a single eyebrow. They were so well trained that they froze instantly. Once she had their attention, she looked at Parahan — since he had not been supplied with eating sticks, he was using his fingers — then looked at the servants again. Immediately one of them brought a finger bowl so the big man could wash his hands. Another placed a fresh pair of eating sticks in a proper stone holder before him. A third maid waited for him to indicate his choices for a second helping. Parahan blinked up at her, then began to point. Satisfied, Rosethorn whisked three small dishes of sweets away from Evvy and showed her own server that Evvy could have twice-cooked fish, water-reed shoots, and sliced turnips in sauce. If she let the child eat according to her own taste, Evvy’s teeth would rot out, mage or no. Evvy glared at her new meal, her lower lip thrust out. Rosethorn ignored her. The girl would eat, or not.

Briar at least was minding his manners and pointing out his choices to the maids. They had almost started an incident on their arrival when Rosethorn had tried to insist that they would serve themselves. It had taken the august Mistress of the Guest Pavilions herself to explain that things were done in a certain way when one was a guest of the emperor, and to do them any other way was to get one’s servants’ heads cut off. After that Rosethorn had ground her teeth and borne it. As a dedicate, she was far more accustomed to being the servant, or at the very least, to doing her part of the chores. Being waited on itched in all of the places where her vows had become part of her.

With Parahan and Evvy properly attended to, she picked at her own roast goose. Her appetite had shrunk since their arrival at the Winter Palace. So many things here had a deadly result for the servants, not the guests. She couldn’t even go for a walk in the gardens. Seeing the gardens would have soothed her, but the servants were supposed to keep her from doing so until she, Briar, and Evvy had been officially presented to Emperor Weishu. How many ceremonies would they have to endure before she could see the emperor’s famed gardens? His lily ponds alone were renowned as far west as Emelan.

Parahan had gotten Evvy to talk about her magic. Not only was she chattering away but she was eating her vegetables. Briar caught Rosethorn’s eye and winked, making her smile. Bless him, too, she thought. She hadn’t thought how much she would come to depend on Briar’s support when they had set out on this very long journey. He had taken complete charge of Evvy in Gyongxe, when it was such a struggle for her to breathe. Rosethorn had tried to thank him for it once. He had only kissed her on the forehead and told her not to be silly. It made her feel both grateful and weak, and she hated to feel weak. Only the knowledge that he was her boy, and they had passed beyond what was owed to whom years ago, kept her from hating herself and him. She needed to find her strength again, but this place, with its crushing weight of imperial authority, was starting to seem an unlikely place for her to heal.

Briar reached over with his eating sticks and plucked a slice of roast goose from her plate. The maids gasped and giggled behind their hands. Rosethorn frowned at him. “It’s bad manners to leave this wonderfully cooked food on the plate, and you’re toying with it,” Briar retorted, his mouth full. He reached with his sticks again.

This time Rosethorn snatched her plate away and began to eat. “And don’t you give yourself airs,” she warned when she had finished.

“I wouldn’t think of it,” Briar assured her. “I want to live to get home.”

The waiting-women came forward, bowing and looking anxious. Parahan rose to his feet in a single athletic movement. Rosethorn almost sighed aloud and stopped herself in time. She was no schoolgirl to moon over a handsome man, she told herself. She was just envious because the days when she did not have to first get to her knees, then straighten first one leg, then the other, in order to stand, were long over. Yes, that was it.

“These pretty ladies are telling us that they will get into trouble if they do not have you dressed and to the palanquins soon. As will I,” Parahan said. Of course he was totally unaware of Rosethorn’s interesting thoughts.

“Then let us get clothed,” Rosethorn said, rising to her feet as gracefully as she could. Once she was on them, she could not resist. She stopped, and smiled at Briar and Evvy. “Of course, I still only have to wear a shift and a single robe.”

Ignoring Evvy’s wails, she walked into the airy, luxurious room that was hers for their stay.

Parahan had not been joking. The Hall of Imperial Greetings was a work of art in itself. The chained man led them down a long hallway where the walls and ceiling were lacquered bright yellow. Ornately carved ebony benches were placed along one side of the corridor so nobles could sit, chatter, and be waited on and fanned by serving women and eunuchs. All of them watched their small group go by, their faces emotionless.

They reached the middle third of the hall. On one side large paintings in the Yanjingyi style attracted admirers. They showed lush, beautiful scenes of palace life, gardens, and mountains. These had attracted groups of viewers who discussed them with soft voices. On the other side of the broad corridor, placed under windows cut high in the wall, hung large gold cages. Their purpose was made clear by their size and the ceramic chamber pot on the bottom. There was no screen for privacy, no blanket for warmth. If the absent prisoners were given food and water, the evidence was cleared away. The empty cages swung a little in the thin breezes from the windows and hallway.

“That one is mine,” Parahan said, pointing to the last one in the line. “Usually the guides tell guests I am a chieftain from a savage kingdom among the Realms of the Sun. The emperor keeps me here when he has nothing for me to do, or if he wishes to point me out as an example to one of his nobles or generals.”

Evvy looked at the cage, then at Parahan, with horror. “That’s all the room you have?”

Parahan twined and untwined the chains around his wrists. “It’s better than some of the other places he stows his captives. He put me in a couple of those at first.”

They had reached a huge round opening framed in teak. Beyond it stood a partial wall that was covered in rough gold silk and embroidered with two-horned, winged lions. A eunuch, his face painted white, his long black hair left to stream down his back, waited there for them. His eyes had been lined all around with black paint. He was gloriously robed in bright turquoise blue, red, and palest yellow.

Parahan bowed to the eunuch. “Master of Presentations, I bring you these most honored guests of the imperial lord of us all.” Carefully he introduced each of them in order of their age and expertise in magic, beginning with Rosethorn. He then introduced the eunuch as the Master of Presentations to the emperor, first among the imperial eunuchs. When he was done, Parahan told them, “And that’s my part. You’ll see me again. Don’t worry. The Master of Presentations will look after you well.” He grinned cheerfully at all of them, and then walked off, his chains jingling.

Evvy wanted to whimper. Losing Parahan felt like losing a particularly warm and comforting blanket. She didn’t whimper, though, not here, not in front of this proud-looking old man who wore more eye makeup than she and Rosethorn put together.

The Master of Presentations looked each of them over as if he expected their clothes to have stains or rips in them. Then he sniffed. “I trust the ladies of your pavilion explained what you are to do when you are presented?” He had a high, fluting voice.

“Of course they did,” Rosethorn told him. Her bearing was suddenly as haughty as that of any noblewoman. “As did the prince. Do you mean to delay us further?”

I will be her when I grow up, Evvy thought joyfully as the eunuch flinched and minced his way past them, through the round opening. I know I will have to work hard at it, but I want to be just like her.

They followed the Master of Presentations around the end of the golden wall. Before them spread a broad, rectangular room, far more splendid than anything they had seen until now. Huge porcelain jars filled with live flowers perfumed the chamber with their scent. The roof was held up by thick pillars in precious woods, all painted with bright red enamel. Their ornate, fish-carved bases and capitals were covered in gold leaf. Overhead, paintings of gods and goddesses at play or doing war-like things among dragons, lions, and other creatures decorated a deep blue ceiling that was otherwise starred in gold leaf. Ornate gold lanterns hung from the tops of the columns to give light. On a dais at one side of the room musicians played the instruments of the empire, including drums, flutes, a lute-like thing called a pipa, and the very long-necked lute called the erhu. Briar was learning to like Yanjingyi music — the erhu’s sweet, mournful sound in particular was growing on him. Evvy loved it, even the singing, as the sound of her childhood, while Rosethorn only sat silent and ground her teeth. Now, seeing the Master of Presentations trot by, the musicians put their instruments aside.

The courtiers who swarmed through the room parted in front of the Master of Presentations, bowing slightly as he went past. He was bound for a gilded raised platform at the heart of the chamber. Briar fixed his eyes on their host. Like them, he had changed clothes from the yellow robes of the afternoon.

Emperor Weishu Maorin Guangong Zhian of the Long Dynasty was fifty years old. It showed only in the bits of gray at his temples and the startling splash of gray in the beard trimmed close to his chin. His mustache was as black as the rest of his hair. His eyes were the dark brown of Yanjing, his skin the bronze of a Yanjing warrior who spent plenty of time in the sun. He had broad cheekbones and a long nose. Horse nomad blood in the family, thought Briar, but his mother was a concubine and a captive, wasn’t she? So maybe she was a horse nomad.

Weishu’s robe sported gold embroideries thickly clustered over bright yellow silk. It fastened at the neck and shoulder with more gold silk frogs. He rested his feet, modestly covered with plain black slippers, on a stool. He held a folded blue fan in his lap, though two servants stood on either side of him, wielding much larger, feathered fans to keep him cool. His head was covered with an intricately folded stiffened black silk cap.

“Behold the mighty emperor, sixth of his dynasty, beloved of all the gods,” the Master of Presentations began as he came to a halt before the dais. Their small group stopped behind him. This was part of their introduction. The eunuch would list all of the emperor’s titles, which would take a little while.

Briar looked briefly to the right of the throne. There Parahan knelt at the foot of the dais. He had been given an addition to his wardrobe, and not one that Briar liked. One more chain was fastened to the big man’s gold collar. It led to the throne and looped around the emperor’s left wrist. Briar looked down before anyone saw the fury in his eyes. He was surprised to find that he had developed a liking for Parahan. He thought it was cruel to treat him like an untamed beast. In the two years that he, Rosethorn, and Evvy had traveled east, Briar had met a large number of people. He had learned something of warriors. Parahan had not gained his old scars by wrestling with his favorite hound; he’d gotten them by fighting. Perhaps this emperor was too accustomed to his bowing warriors and slaves. Maybe one day he would learn the hard way that putting a man in shackles didn’t mean he was tame.

The Master of Presentations reached an end to his gabble at last. Rosethorn bowed only as deeply as she had bowed to the God-King. Dedicates of the Living Circle recognized no masters on the earth. Briar bowed deeper. He liked to let powerful folk think he was a nice, respectful boy. Evvy, who was still a proper daughter of the empire, even if she’d left with her family when she was four, went to her knees and touched her forehead to the ground nine times.

“Dedicate Rosethorn.” The emperor’s voice was deep and pleasant, the essence of kindness. His tiyon was perfect. Briar wondered cynically if he’d had his voice magicked to sound good, then told himself he was being petty.

“We are greatly pleased to welcome you to our court,” the emperor continued. “Your reputation came here long ago, borne by Traders who brought us medicines and plant clippings obtained from you at very great cost and trouble.”

Rosethorn bowed again. “I trust the medicines and plants gave satisfaction, Your Imperial Majesty,” she said.

“They taught us much of your great power,” Weishu replied with a smile. “We hope to honor you by introducing you to our gardens, and hearing your opinion. Any advice you might give us will be a gift we could not hope to repay.”

“I am greatly moved,” Rosethorn said evenly. “I did not believe I would receive such an honor once we had left Gyongxe to come here. The whole world has heard of the imperial gardens.”

“We had not realized you intended to visit the lesser gardens of our realms this summer,” the emperor said. “Have you family or business here?” He glanced at Evvy.

“Business only as any gardeners would conduct when they venture far from home to new lands,” Rosethorn explained. “I had long promised myself a journey east, to see what grows in different climates from my own. I had been forced to put off such travels often. Once Nanshur Moss received his certification in magic, it seemed like a good time to journey together.”

“Certainly we are glad to take advantage of so great a gardener’s visit,” the emperor reassured her. “Let us start our tour tomorrow, then. We must warn you, we begin our day with the rising of the sun.”

And she stays in bed until noon, Briar thought ironically.

“We are accustomed to early risings, temple dwellers and travelers as we have been,” Rosethorn replied as graciously as any courtier.

For someone who hates this stuff, Briar thought with pride, she does it really well.

“We shall send our servants to guide you to us, then,” the emperor told her. “We look forward to speaking with you in a less formal setting.” The emperor had turned his attention to Briar, who bowed and then gazed at the man with his most innocent expression fixed on his face. From Parahan he heard something very much like a smothered snort. “What did you think of the review of our troops this afternoon? Are you now eager to set aside your trowel and watering can for a sword and shield?”

Briar smiled. “If it pleases Your Imperial Majesty, I already get into plenty of trouble with plants. I shake to think of the kind of mischief I would find with conventional weapons.”

“Interesting, to find a youth who does not hanker for battle.” The emperor raised a finger. A servant with a tray appeared from the shadows behind the throne. He knelt, offering the tray to Emperor Weishu. Another servant who had been standing just behind the emperor’s elbow stepped forward and offered him one of the small porcelain cups on the tray. The emperor drained it. As he returned it to the standing servant, he asked Briar, “Are the stories true? You are a full nanshur at such a youthful age?”

Briar swallowed a sigh. He’d been asked this question from Emelan to Yanjing and he was heartily bored with it. Slowly he reached into the front of his robes.

There was movement behind the emperor. Four mages stepped up to stand beside the throne on Weishu’s left. Two were men in black scholar’s robes and caps, one a woman in scholar’s robes, and the fourth a mimander of the deserts west of Gyongxe, clad in the head-to-toe gray veil of those mages who worshipped the god Mohun. A knitted screen covered his — or her — eyes. These were all imperial mage guards and warriors, among Weishu’s closest advisers. To his right were warrior and slave servants, the former being the only ones allowed to carry weapons in the room, the latter to wait upon their master.

“We must be careful,” the emperor explained. “A nanshur is the only kind of assassin who could get so close to us.”

“Understandable, Your Imperial Majesty, but we have not journeyed so far from home and lived by being stupid,” Rosethorn said.

For a moment, Briar knew, their standing hung on the emperor’s sense of humor. Then the man laughed, and everyone in the great chamber relaxed. Except Parahan, Briar noticed. He had never tensed up in the first place.

Briar lifted his medallion free of his robes. On the front of the silvery metal, along the rim, his name and Rosethorn’s were inscribed. At the middle, his magic was symbolized by the image of a tree. On the back was the spiral that meant he had studied at Winding Circle temple.

It was the Mohunite who came down the steps, walking between the throne and Parahan. The captive man tugged his leash hard enough to make it jingle, hinting that he considered tripping the mage. The Mohunite ignored him and stopped before Briar to extend a gloved hand palm up.

Good of him to ask, under the circumstances, Briar thought. He held the medallion out to the length of the silk cord and placed it in the mage’s hold. The Mohunite turned it over in his fingers, saying nothing.

Sometimes Briar wished he’d never gotten the thing. Their teachers had given the medallions to Briar and his three foster-sisters two years ago, before he, Tris, and Daja had set forth on their wanderings. It was rare for mages so young to have them — medallions were the proof that they were accredited mages, able to practice magic without supervision and to teach. The four were forbidden to wear them publicly before they were eighteen, to prevent trouble. At this point, Briar was sure he wasn’t going to wear his openly even at eighteen. Older mages were often furious to see it on him, though Dedicate Initiate Dokyi hadn’t seemed to care. Most mages didn’t receive theirs until they were in their twenties. Briar hated the aggravation.

The Mohunite gently placed the medallion on Briar’s chest, gave him a small bow, and then climbed the dais. He raised his robes slightly to climb the steps. When he reached Parahan’s leash, he placed one foot on it firmly, looking down at the captive.

The big man replied with a wide grin. He placed his palms together and bowed. The Mohunite shook his head slightly and returned to his place beside the other mages.

“Truly impressive,” the emperor said. “I should have expected as much from a student of the great mage Rosethorn.”

Briar bowed, wondering if his spine would start to curve after much more of this. “I will never be what she is, Your Imperial Majesty.”

There was humor in the emperor’s eye as he said, “And modest! Are you certain you are a youth of sixteen years?”

There was a ripple of laughter among the listening courtiers, though no change of expression on the faces of the mages that Briar could see. Briar himself chose to smile — and bow — again. “She has trained me very well, Your Imperial Majesty,” he explained. “I learned manners under many bloodcurdling threats.”

The emperor chuckled. His court responded with more soft laughter. “She does not seem so terrifying to me, Nanshur Briar.”

Briar smiled cheerfully. “She fools a lot of people that way.”

Once more the emperor chuckled and his court followed suit. He did seem truly amused. Briar liked him better for that.

“The messenger who guided you here tells me that one of my former subjects travels with you,” Weishu said. “Evumeimei Dingzai, you may rise and come forward.”

Evvy did as she was told. Briar could see her hair ornaments trembling. He knew it was probably against protocol, but he stepped closer and put an arm around her anyway for reassurance.

The emperor leaned forward, resting his weight on his elbows. He was the very picture of an indulgent uncle, except for all that gold, Briar thought. Kindly Weishu said, “We are told that you, too, have magic in your veins, unlike these poor servants of mine, who must pull it from spells and potions.”

Evvy bowed low and almost lost her balance. Only Briar’s arm kept her from collapsing. Gently he drew her upright again. “You’re all right,” he whispered.

“I get my magic from stones, not my veins, Your Imperial Majesty,” Evvy said as she stared at the floor.

The emperor smiled. “And how did you learn to get magic from dull stones?” he asked. “Or do you use those that have been spelled already?”

Evvy glanced up at him, startled, then down again. “All stones have magic in them, Your Imperial Majesty,” she said, a little more confidence in her voice. “I can feel it — or I could even before I studied. Now I can see it, too. Just like Briar and Rosethorn see the magic in plants.”

“We are taught of qi, the power that binds all things.” The speaker was the older of the two male mages, a tall, slender old man with silver hair and long silver mustaches. His face was a maze of wrinkles. Like the other two Yanjingyi mages he wore beads of many kinds strung in loops around his neck and worn in multiple bracelets under his full sleeves. Briar closed his eyes briefly, adjusting part of himself. When he opened them again, he saw the light of magic everywhere, enough so that he didn’t want to use the spell for long. He did hold it until he saw the blaze of power from each of the beads that were wooden. Even the other mages in the room didn’t blaze with power as much as the two men and the woman in black robes. The oldest of the mages who stood with the emperor went on, “It would seem this young student has learned more of qi than many of us have forgotten.”

Evvy bowed to the old man, to Briar’s surprise. “I am certain that cannot be true, Master,” she said politely. “I am deeply honored, but I can also recognize the depth of wisdom in a face, a depth I will be lucky to ever attain.”

“Such respect, when we are told those of the west are rude barbarians,” said the emperor, applauding softly.

The emperor held a hand out to Evvy. It was laden with rings that gleamed with jade, rubies, sapphires, and pearls. “Tell me what my ring stones say,” he urged. When his armed guards and mage guards alike stirred, he held up his other hand. “I think I am quite safe. Go on, Evumeimei.”

Gently Briar urged Evvy forward. Slowly she climbed the dais and knelt beside the emperor, knowing that her head must never be higher than Weishu’s. Then, nervously, she took the emperor’s hand in both of hers. Suddenly she smiled at him. “They love you,” Evvy explained. “Not the pearls. Well, maybe they do, I don’t know. I don’t understand pearls because they aren’t really stones, just dirt that got in an oyster. Did you know that?” Weishu nodded, his eyes dancing. “I think it’s a cheat to call them precious stones when they aren’t really,” Evvy went on, happy as always to talk about rocks. “But the others, they love you. They just glow from the inside. They’ve been with you for a long time, and some of them are very old.”

The emperor laughed outright. Evvy quickly released his hand. “I’m sorry!” she cried. “I wasn’t trying to insult you — I didn’t mean —” She looked frantically at Rosethorn, then Briar. “That’s not what I meant!”

“Calm down,” Briar murmured to his student. “See? He’s laughing.” He bowed to the emperor. “She’s all wound up. She’s heard stories of the imperial court most of her life, and she’s been scared to death about coming here.”

“She has nothing to fear,” Weishu assured Evvy, smiling at her. “The stones I believe you meant have come to me from my imperial ancestors. You are right — they are very old. And much may be forgiven so talented a young girl in so overpowering a place. So tell me, Nanshur Briar Moss, how can you teach Evumeimei if her power is drawn through stones and yours through plants?”

Briar didn’t shrug. That would have been impolite. “I could teach her the basics, Your Imperial Majesty — meditation, reading, writing, mathematics. The names and everyday properties of stones, and what they’re traditionally used for. Evvy does the rest herself.”

“First Dedicate Dokyi helped me a lot this winter,” Evvy said. “He’s head of First Circle Temple in Garmashing, and an Earth mage. And so far it isn’t too hard once I read the spells and have the sticky parts explained to me. A lot of stone wants to be shaped, even jade, if you know how to explain it right.” Her face was brighter and livelier. Briar thought he might swell up completely with pride in her. “Stone gets pretty bored, holding the same form all the time,” Evvy explained. “Even mining it doesn’t help, because nobody likes being smacked with a hammer. But if you wheedle just right, and tell it how it will like being smooth and bouncing light, and feeling its magic ripple along its inner surfaces, it’s all you can do to keep it in the shape you want. Sometimes I just let the stone shape itself, for fun.”

“And this Dokyi helped you to do this?” The emperor had retreated behind his blank, official mask suddenly. “He showed you how to shatter rocks?”

Evvy screwed up her face and shrugged. Briar nudged her to remind her where she was. “Oh, no, Your Imperial Majesty,” she said, bowing swiftly. “No, he said he never tried it my way. He uses spells, and puts the spell on stones. I don’t see why. He could probably do it like I do, but he thinks stone is dead.”

The emperor laughed, so those who could hear them did so as well. Evvy had that effect on people.

“Did you enjoy your time in Garmashing?” Weishu asked Evvy. “It is a very old and mystical place, I am given to understand, with much that is unusual in the way of temple art.”

Evvy bowed. “It’s very cold, Your Imperial Majesty,” she said as she straightened. “And it’s harder to breathe than it is here. The mountains were splendid.” Her face lit up. “Granite and other stones, scratching at the sky. Have you seen them, Your Imperial Majesty?”

“Sadly I have not,” the emperor told her gravely.

“When my family went west, we took the north caravan route, so I didn’t see them then,” Evvy explained. “We came to Garmashing the same way. It was snowing so bad that nobody would let me get any closer to the mountains than the cliffs along the Tom Sho River, but I caught glimpses on clear days. Now I believe the books that said they’re the tallest mountains anywhere.” Evvy shook her head. “I wish we’d seen the Drimbakang Sharlog on the way here, but your messenger was in such a hurry, and there were storms that your weather mages were holding off us. I couldn’t see anything but the storms overhead. I thought I could hear the mountains, though!”

The emperor clapped his hands with delight. “Dedicate Initiate Rosethorn, it is wonderful that you have brought Evumeimei and Briar to visit us. I must ensure that Evumeimei has a suitable companion while we absorb ourselves in the wonders of the palace gardens.”

The rippling bang of a small gong interrupted every conversation in the room. The emperor looked toward the entry with a frown. Everyone else turned that way with interest except for Rosethorn. Briar saw that she was looking the room over, paying special interest to the plants.

An emerald-robed eunuch, his face painted white like that of the Master of Presentations, stood by the entry with a small gong in his hands. “His Most Glorious Excellency, the War Lion of the Empire, the Sword of the Emperor, Defender of the Long Throne, Terror of the Foreigners, Commander of the Imperial Armies, Great Mage General Fenqi Hengkai!”

A short, stocky man in iron-scale-and-leather armor under a scarlet robe strode across the room without so much as a glance for any of the courtiers. His square, blunt-nosed face was marked with scars and cruelty. He carried a pointed metal helm and wore no weapons. Once he reached the foot of the dais, standing near Evvy, he set his helm aside, went to his hands and knees, and touched his forehead to the floor.

The emperor stood. All of the Yanjingyi courtiers went to their hands and knees, as did Parahan and those who shared the top of the dais with Weishu. Foreigners bowed deep, including Rosethorn, Briar, and Evvy.

“You have met my captive Parahan, have you not, Dedicate Initiate Rosethorn, Nanshur Briar, Student Evumeimei? He will entertain you now,” the emperor said, motioning to Parahan. The big man sat up on his knees with a jingling of chains. “He might have been the king of Kombanpur, in the Realms of the Sun, one day — if his uncle had not sold him to me.” He looked at his mages. “The leash may come off.” To Rosethorn, Briar, and Evvy, he said cheerfully, “Once his uncle captures Parahan’s twin sister, I will have a matched set. Now, Mage General?”

The emperor snapped his fingers and led his mages down the far side of the dais. His general walked around to meet him there while every courtier nearby backed off in a hurry. That left only Parahan, Rosethorn, Evvy, and Briar near the throne. No one else was within earshot. Briar would have liked to meet some of the other courtiers and listen to the local gossip, but he was not going to get the chance. Everyone had drawn away from Parahan and his foreign companions. If Briar tried to amble away, anyone who looked in their direction would notice, and no doubt report it to the imperial snoops. Briar hated being without information in a strange place, but for now he would simply have to smile and play the part of an overwhelmed imperial guest.

Parahan’s leash drew away from him to curl itself at the foot of the throne, snake-like. Evvy glared at it, then asked the man, “Does he keep you chained up all of the time?”

“Evvy!” Rosethorn snapped.

Parahan rested a hand on Evvy’s shoulder. “It’s all right,” he said. “Evumeimei —”

“Evvy,” she interrupted.

“Evvy,” Parahan corrected himself with a grin, “reminds me very much of my sister Soudamini. She is full of questions, too. No, at night I am returned to my cage,” he told Evvy.

Evvy’s face fell. “It isn’t a joke? They really put you in one of those things?”

“I do not joke about the many torments Yanjing has developed over its centuries,” Parahan replied, a shadow passing over his face. He smiled abruptly. “My lot has improved since my first days as the imperial captive. Now, if the emperor is receiving guests or out and about, he takes me along. I believe you will see a great deal of me during your visit, particularly if someone grows tired of gardens.” He winked at Evvy.

The gong was rattling again. The eunuch who had announced the general came forward to proclaim that an imperial courier had come. This person trotted over to the area on the far side of the dais where the emperor conferred with his general.

Parahan was telling the three of them about the different treasure chambers of the palace when the Master of Presentations found them.

“The Son of the Gods, Light of the Heavens, Glory of His Dynasty, His Imperial Majesty has asked me to say that he must end your audience. The business of the empire calls him away. You should be honored that he deigns to share his reasons with you. He does not explain himself to many. Now come with me.” The Master walked away, leaving them no time for polite farewells to Parahan.

Briar knew that Rosethorn would be as aware as he was that they were being steered away from the rest of the imperial court and any other foreigners who were present. Briar had hoped to glean some information on the emperor’s plans for Gyongxe, if any, for the God-King, but that would be impossible if the emperor’s people kept them buttoned up this way throughout their visit. He also would have liked to examine the many flowering plants set throughout the room. Instead the Master of Presentations shooed them through a side entrance Briar had not noticed before. They were outside; their palanquins waited there on a small side road. No slow walk through a corridor meant to overwhelm visitors! Briar thought cynically. Now they just want to rush us back to our pavilion before we can talk to anyone. But why?

The Master of Presentations didn’t even wait to see them off.