Battle Magic

“The what?”

“The river that flows below my mountain, before the stone place where they tried to kill you, Evumeimei Dingzai.”

“We call it the Snow Serpent River,” Evvy told him. “And you can call me Evvy.”

“I could not begin to say such a name before I would have finished it. Will you accept Evumeimei?”

She sighed. “I suppose I have to. What do you call yourself?”

He tipped back his head knob and gave voice to a series of sounds she could not even begin to remember. Her mind caught on to two syllables she knew she could say.

“I’m going to call you Luvo. I’m sorry, I know that’s not your whole name, but I can’t say it all, or even remember it.” She hung her head. “I’m not trying to be rude or disrespectful. I suppose being a mountain is a big thing, like being a god. I can’t do big things.”

“I am only the heart of this mountain,” Luvo said kindly. “And part of you is of my kind, the mountain kind. Though it saddens me to say that you are impaired. Too much of you is a meat creature. I cannot understand how you came to be.”

Evvy wiped her nose on her arm. “Rosethorn and Briar say I’m an ambient mage. We draw our power from different parts of the world. They get their magic from plants and growing things. Briar has one foster-sister who gets hers from the weather, and another one who takes it from metal and fire, and one who draws it from making and working with cloth. I get mine from stones.”

“I did not know that this could ever be true,” Luvo said, fascinated. “This magic is of a different kind from that used by the chanting people, or the people of the white eye.”

“I think those are academic mages and shamans,” Evvy said. “I know Briar’s somewhere west of the fort with Parahan and Soudamini. They have mages with them, but I think Briar’s the only ambient one. If he isn’t dead.” She twisted her hands in her ragged shirt. “What am I going to do? How will I find him or Rosethorn? They don’t know where I am. I can’t go back to the fort — they’ll torture me again!”

“You could not return to the fort,” Luvo told her. “It no longer stands.”

Evvy blinked at him. “Did General Sayrugo come? Or the God-King’s army? What happened?”

“The hill that it was built on shook,” Luvo said. “The fort fell down.”

Evvy looked at the stone creature for a long moment, not exactly sure what he meant. Then she asked, “How did that happen?”

“Our mountains are young and still growing.” Luvo’s deep voice was bland. “Growing mountains may shake the land around them.”

“Why?” Evvy demanded. She had a feeling this was not an accident.

“The land and its guardians do not care for intruders who damage and kill those who belong here, or those who would bring good things here.” Evvy could have sworn she felt the ground quiver beneath her. In fact, she was sure of it. Nervously she eyed the stalactites that hung from the cave’s ceiling.

Then she screamed. A giant spider was leaping from one stalactite to the next, coming lower and closer, until it dropped to the ground only a few yards away from her. Evvy looked at its hairy body and its large black eyes and screamed again. It held one great foreleg in the air as if it were hurt. Evvy realized it held a bag even as she scrabbled backward off her bed of moss and scraps.

“Evumeimei, stop it!” boomed Luvo. “You frighten Diban Kangmo!”

“I frighten — whatever that is?” Evvy shrieked.

“Her name is Diban Kangmo. She is bringing food for you,” Luvo said firmly. “Stop that dreadful noise. You must thank her. She did not want to feed you. She did not like the idea of bringing a meat creature so far into our mountain.”

Evvy clapped her hands over her mouth and stared at the spider. She was six feet tall if she was an inch. Her mouthparts would easily crush Evvy’s arm. Once the girl caught her breath and was certain of what she would say, she moved her hands to ask, “Dee-what?”

“Dee-bahn kang-moh,” Luvo said even more slowly than he normally spoke. “One of her daughters healed your feet.”

Evvy gulped at the thought of something so huge working on her body. She was so very grateful she had not woken up then. “What is she? What are they?”

“Peak spiders,” Luvo replied. “The gods and goddesses of the utmost heights of the Drimbakangs.”

Evvy shuddered. She did not want to think about gods shaped like spiders. Slowly she knelt and touched her forehead to the cave floor. “I am very, very sorry, Diban Kangmo,” she told the giant spider. “I guess I am still upset by what has happened to me. Please thank your daughter for healing my feet.” This she meant with all of her heart. “I would have died, probably. And thank you for feeding me. I swear you won’t regret it.”

She peeked at the spider. Diban Kangmo took two steps forward — her feet made clicking sounds on the stone. Slowly she uncurled the leg with which she held what Evvy saw were several cooking pots. She carefully set them on the ground. Then she stepped back a couple of yards.

Evvy looked at the pots. She wasn’t quite sure what to say, or do. “Where did she find them?” she whispered to Luvo.

For a moment Luvo said nothing. Then he told Evvy, “There is a place on the Ice Naga — what you call the Snow Serpent River — to the west, like the … fort … that fell down, only with more — You do not like it when I call your people meat creatures. What do you call them?”

“Humans,” Evvy said. “Or people.”

“People can be anyone,” Luvo argued. “Diban Kangmo and her kin are people, as are the ice lions, the cave snakes, the nagas, the deep runners, we mountains. Humans are those meat creatures on two legs?”

Evvy nodded.

“The place like a fort where many humans are gathered just now. It is a place that reaches for the sky in spirit, and the humans who live there all of the time make pretty noises with long tubes and metal plates.”

“It’s a temple, maybe,” Evvy said. “I heard Parahan say that the first stop on the Snow Serpent Road was the Temple of the Thunder Horses.”

“That is where she found your food.”

“Did the humans there see her?” Evvy asked, wondering if she was the only one to scream at the sight of the giant peak spider.

Luvo sounded amused. “No one sees the spirit people of this realm if those people do not desire it. They prefer quiet lives. Stop asking questions, Evumeimei!”

Gingerly, keeping an eye on Diban Kangmo, Evvy crawled over to the pots. All of them were cold. She did not care. She started with tea, gulping it down. It soothed her dry and raw throat. She then turned her attention to the food, scooping up the barley-flour balls called tsampa and stuffing them into her mouth. These had butter and milk curds. Normally she would have spat such things out. Today they tasted better than anything she had eaten in her life, even her beloved fried eggplant. Another pot contained spicy rice curry with lamb. She alternated handfuls of that with the tsampa until she could eat no more. Only when she couldn’t even look in the other pots to see what was there because she was so full did she lurch to her feet and go to the great stretch of water near her resting place.

“I’m dirty,” she told Luvo. “I’m going to wash.” Since she was fairly sure he wouldn’t know what dirty was, she explained, “I’m all over blood and piss and dung and sweat. I don’t normally smell like this.” She fumbled with her clothes, peeling them off layer by layer. It didn’t occur to her to be shy. A talking rock and a giant spider were hardly the sorts to make her nervous about baring her skin. “I wish I had clean things.” It was hard to tell in the green light from the glowing spots everywhere, but she was nearly certain there was blood on some of her clothes. That made sense, given that she had taken the garments from the dead.

The water was very cold. After all of the cold-water baths we took as we traveled, I should be used to this, she thought gloomily, but I’m not.

The memory of her cats, seated to watch on countless stream banks as she and Rosethorn yelped in cold waters, struck her like a knife stab. She sat on the bottom of the cave lake and silently let her tears flow.

At last she began to drag her fingers through her knotted hair. Once it was straight again and fairly clean, she lurched up onto dry land.

Her dirty clothes were gone. Beside her mossy bed lay a pile of fabric in various green-tinted colors.