Battle Magic

He looked at the wall paintings, which had come to stare at Evvy and pat her head and back. “Evvy, you’re worrying them.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her face on her sleeve. Rosethorn could not seem to break her of the habit. “I’m just tired.” She frowned at the God-King. “And it doesn’t seem very god-like, or king-like, to tease paintings with pine nuts,” she told him sternly. The images halted their previous occupations to make faces at the God- King.

“They tease me right back,” he told Evvy, nodding at the grimacing creatures. “They come into my throne room when I’m hearing complaints and make rude gestures while people speak to me. They know I don’t dare laugh, or people will think I don’t take their problems seriously.” He looked like the farm boy he had once been, except for his braid rings and earrings.

“These paintings come into your throne room?”

“Not exactly. There are paintings like them in the room,” he replied. “Paintings from all over the city, for that matter. I think they trade turns tweaking me.” He offered her some of his pine nuts. “It must be your exposure to Luvo that allows you to see them in motion now. You never said you could see them when you were here before.”

“You talked with Luvo?” The nuts were nice and sweet. She had forgotten the world had good things like pine nuts.

“You three were asleep for a while,” the God-King said. “It was Luvo who told me what happened to you.” He looked away, his face shadowed. “I am so sorry, Evvy. You did nothing more than travel here to learn and to share your wonderful magic.”

Evvy suddenly had another horrible image in her head: The God-King, chained as Parahan had been chained, at the foot of Weishu’s throne. He said all she had ever done was visit Gyongxe, but all he had ever done was spend long days on his uncomfortable-looking throne, listening to people complain, or at meetings with adults who talked at him, not to him, or reading messages. Did he ever get to run and play as boys did? She felt a hand squeeze her heart.

“Has the emperor gone home?”

The God-King shook his head. “He has only retreated, and not far. He is resting and summoning his northern troops. We can only be grateful that he is also giving us time to rest and wait for more of our allies to come.”

“Will they be enough?” The war was almost a more comfortable subject than anything that had happened to her in Gyongxe.

“It is our land. Things happen in Gyongxe that can happen nowhere else,” he replied. “We must pray that is enough.”

A man had come to speak with him. Evvy watched, thinking, I can’t take Rosethorn and Briar from him. If I go, I bet Luvo will return to his mountain, so I can’t take Luvo, either — if he’ll stay for me, anyway. But I can’t leave and turn a whole country over to Weishu. Not without trying to help.

I just can’t let them get me again, that’s all.

Rosethorn went in search of First Dedicate Dokyi when they returned from their bath. Briar envied her energy, but he was still tired and his leg pained him. He apologized to Luvo for being poor company and went back to sleep.

The Snow Serpent River glittered in the sunlight. He sat on the bank, fishing. In the dream he knew that he rarely fished, but he was doing it here, and the crystal waters had produced a bite. He wrestled his fish up onto the riverbank. He had landed a body, that of an old woman. He looked at the river. It ran with the bodies of the dead: men, women, children, animals. They bristled with arrows or showed gaping wounds as the river turned them over and over in the rapids.

For some dream reason he put his hook and line into the water again. The next body he pulled onto the bank was Evvy. Her feet streamed blood.

He sat up in bed, gasping.

No more of that, he told himself. No more of that at all. He found a cloth and dumped some water on it from a pitcher beside his bed, then used it to wipe the sweat from his face and neck. Rather than try to sleep again, he would make himself useful, tired as he was. He collected a pack with his medicines and found his way to one of the infirmaries where the wounded were kept.

Much to his surprise, his work as a healer was not wanted, though the medicines were. It was true: Gyongxe had plenty of healer mages. He did find that his friends among the wounded soldiers wanted to see him. They were eager to introduce him to their friends. Briar did the rounds, sitting with each of them and joking, fighting to keep a cheerful face no matter how upset he might be at the extent of a soldier’s wounds. Many of them had mage fire burns, a sight that deepened Briar’s hate for Weishu. Why couldn’t the man be happy with what he had?

He was almost finished in the main infirmary when he saw Rosethorn, Evvy, and Luvo were also visiting the wounded. When he was done, Briar joined Evvy. Everyone wanted to meet the girl and the heart of the mountain. He helped those who could to sit up so they might talk with the odd pair. Evvy, so shaky in the bath and in their room, was endlessly patient as she lifted the crystal bear for those who could not sit. Briar realized that Luvo was giving out a soft hum, one so deep that he felt it in the soles of his feet as much as he heard it. It seemed to leave the wounded stronger.

They might have been there all night, except the healer in charge shooed them away so her staff could feed everyone and change bandages. A messenger found them with an invitation to join First Dedicate Dokyi for supper.

Rosethorn and Evvy were glad to see Dokyi. The old man was leaner than he had been when they saw him last, but his gaze was no less sharp as he looked each of them over. He clasped hands with Briar and bowed to Luvo, but he embraced first Evvy, who had been his winter student, and then Rosethorn. “You did well,” he told the woman quietly. “Very well.”

“Thank my horse,” she said wryly, her voice just as soft. “He took me there and back. And if we did so well, why do I still see moving paintings? My errand is over, yes?”

Dokyi smiled. “That effect may remain while you are in Gyongxe, where we sit between the divine and the earthly.”

“Paintings didn’t dance and cavort this last winter,” Rosethorn told him.

“Carrying the burden changed your ability to see the portals. That is what the paintings are.” Dokyi looked at Briar, who was chatting with the temple’s other supper guests, the God-King, Parahan, Sayrugo, and Soudamini. “Though I have yet to explain what happened to Briar.”

“He touched the pack that I carried my burden in,” Rosethorn explained. “We had to tie him to his horse for half a day. He wouldn’t sleep in the temple fortresses after that, though he didn’t tell me why.”

Dokyi grinned. “Ah. That explains why he jumps so. Like you, he now sees the little gods as they really are on the walls, alive in their doors to our world.”

“Are you two going to eat?” called the God-King. “Or do we have to finish all this ourselves?”

Rosethorn had needed a meal like this with friends and very little talk of the war. It was understood by the adults, she was certain, that they would be working on strategies soon enough. Evvy was quiet, not sulky. Something she told the God-King struck him as quite funny; he nearly choked, he laughed so hard. They broke up in a good mood and went to bed early.