woman does not have my favor.” He looked at Rosethorn, Briar, and Evvy. His face darkened with anger. “I show you my hospitality; I welcome you to my palace; I shower you with gifts, and this is how you repay me,” he said, his voice expanding to thunder in the chamber. “You side with my enemies. You slaughter my soldiers. You will spend your lives working for me, each of you hostage for the good behavior of the others.
“And
The God-King stumbled and fell on the throne’s steps. There was a rustle and a soft growl from the Gyongxin captives. The Yanjingyi archers and mages went very still, their eyes on the shamans. The archers fingered their crossbows.
“Of course I did. I still defy,” the God-King replied, his youthful voice breaking the tension. Everyone watched him. “You are greedy and foolish.”
“Stop!” Evvy cried. “Don’t make him angry!”
The God-King looked at her. “Don’t worry, Evvy. We’re having a talk.” To Weishu he said, “Shame on you for allowing what was done to her. Shame on you for what you have done to this land. You understand
“
The God-King chuckled. “
Briar was so overwhelmed by the boy’s courage or folly — he was still trying to decide what it was — that he didn’t notice the vibration under his feet until his teeth started to knock together. He glanced at the wall paintings. The people and the creatures in them leaned forward, their eyes fixed on Weishu. The paint actually bowed out from the walls. Most important of all, the large figures — the nagas, the winged lions, the giant spiders, and the huge vultures — were wriggling, as if they meant to peel themselves free.
“Stop it,” he mouthed at the walls. Too many guards were ready to kill the prisoners beside them. The paintings stared at him, but they settled down. “I don’t understand,” Briar said, to distract Weishu and because he really wanted to know. “How did you get here without us knowing?”
The emperor smirked. “For all your intelligence, you thought you couldn’t be beaten, is that it? Kings plant traitors in foreign cities like you sow plants abroad. Such traitors may live in a city for decades before their masters call on them. It is then that they drink a certain keep-awake tea so they can open the gates. I would have called on them earlier, but I wanted you five foreigners in Garmashing before I sprang my trap.” He smiled. “My mages put the rest of the city to sleep and my traitors let me in.”
The ground still trembled. Some of the archers were beginning to notice. Worse, Briar saw movement in the darkness at the top of the hall, on the very high ceiling in the rear. It was strange, disjointed movement.
“Since you are going to kill me,” the God-King said, taking a more normal seat on one of the throne’s steps, “would you answer a question for me? There are no tricks or mockery in it,” he assured Weishu, as if he were the conqueror’s elder and Weishu the captive. “It is a straightforward question. I hope you will be able to answer.” More than at any time before, Briar thought he did not sound like a boy at all.
“Ask it,” Weishu replied, all good humor.
“When you studied this realm before you began your conquest,” the God-King asked seriously, “did you wonder why so many religions begin in Gyongxe, and why so many religions have at least one temple here?”
If Briar had not turned his head to look at Rosethorn just then, he might have missed the glint of light on thin, silk-like strands behind the mages and the emperor.
Weishu chuckled. So did a number of his mages.
“Even some Yanjingyi gods have temples here,” the God-King went on. “But you don’t understand at all, do you?”
“What I understand is that all of these temples will surrender their treasures to me, and I will carry them to my palaces,” Weishu replied, still amused. “What do I care if people choose to haul themselves here to knock their heads in your dirt? Temples are places for priests to milk money from worshippers. I am the only god they need to worry about now.”
All around him Briar felt Rosethorn working on crossbows, drawing the strength from the wood until it was as dry and brittle as kindling. He quickly helped her, feeling scared. There was something in the air, a feeling like that before a thunder- or sandstorm. Power was building all around them that had nothing to do with the kind of magic he knew. He didn’t know what would happen if it got loose.
“I will explain,” the God-King was telling the emperor, “though you have said enough that I am fairly certain you will not believe me.”
Weishu yanked on the God-King’s leash. The metal cracked to pieces and fell on the floor. “People come here to be close to the gods,” the boy told the emperor. “Things happen here that happen nowhere else.” As the emperor straightened, ready to shout an order, something that looked like a metal snake with a skull for a head slid down the filament over him and dropped to his shoulders. Swiftly it wrapped itself around the emperor’s neck.
Rosethorn sighed. “Who let the cave snakes out?” She didn’t seem to expect an answer. She also didn’t seem surprised.
Guards behind the captives threw the doors open. More Yanjingyi soldiers poured into the throne room, filling the space behind the captives and joining the other soldiers along the walls.
Behind the throne a familiar deep voice boomed, “Try to kill anyone here and your emperor dies.”
Hengkai raised his hands. Immediately the filament above him captured them and bound his arms. It whipped like a spinning rope, fashioning a cocoon for him from shoulders to hips. He cursed, furious, then shrieked in terror as giant spiders lowered themselves to the dais on ropes of web, giving every mage who stood there the same treatment. Hengkai croaked something, seemingly the start of a spell, only to have a strand of web fall over his mouth. At last the spiders dropped to the floor behind the imperial mages.
Briar and Rosethorn pulled what life remained from the crossbows and the crossbow bolts of the imperial archers. Already dry and splitting, the weapons broke apart and fell from their holders’ grips.
Evvy had not been idle. In the hands of the mages beads made of jade, cinnabar, and quartz split, cutting the strings on which they were hung. The rest of the beads fell to the floor as the spiders bound the mages together in bundles.
Briar looked at the paintings on the walls. “You may as well help,” he told them. “You know you’ve been itching to.”
The paintings walked off the walls. The large ones, the gods and goddesses, grabbed those soldiers who ignored Luvo’s warning and went for their swords. The painted gods seized the weapons and threw them aside. Unnerved and undone by the sight of a painted, many-armed god or a very tall, red goddess standing over them, the soldiers fell to their knees and pressed their faces against the floor. The little creatures from the borders of the paintings swarmed the soldiers and mages who continued to fight, taking up positions on their ears or faces. Suddenly the humans went quiet, not daring to touch the alien beings perched so close to their eyes or ears. Many of the painted gods bore weapons.
Luvo came forward from the back of the throne room, mounted on the back of a giant peak spider. They climbed the dais until Luvo could step off onto the top. The spider retreated to the foot of the steps and crouched, waiting.
The God-King still sat on the steps by the throne as if this were a normal day in the palace, watching as crossbows and mage beads went to pieces and paintings came to life and battled. Now he stood and bowed to Luvo, the spiders, and the paintings. “I am honored beyond all words by this visit, Great Ones,” he said. “I am only sorry that you could not see the capital at its best.”
“Do you think you have the upper hand?” Weishu shouted. He had pried the cave snake a couple of inches from his neck so he could speak. “Have you forgotten my army? It will avenge me! Every one of Yanjing’s armies will cross your mountains. There will be no Gyongxe when they are done! Those of you who are not Gyongxin, my assassins will hunt you until the end of time! They will kill you, your children, and all you hold —”
