When Rosethorn approached the gates, her burden set up such a high, tooth-hurting screech that Briar covered his ears, almost falling off his horse. The ever-alert Jimut caught his reins just in time. The noise only stopped when Rosethorn turned her horse away from the gate.
She conferred with Souda and Captain Lango briefly, explaining that the magic in the temple’s walls and gates was uncomfortable with the magic she bore. In the end, only Captain Lango and his warriors accompanied the refugees inside for the night.
“Uncomfortable,” Briar muttered to Jimut, rubbing his aching jaws. “Uncomfortable, she says. I’ve heard two ships scraping against each other that didn’t make such a noise.”
“It’s not that the magics are fighting, or the temple is evil,” Rosethorn explained to Briar and their friends over roast goat, flatbread, and cheese. “Magic isn’t evil of itself, only the ends to which it’s put, like a dagger. But the shape their magic holds doesn’t match mine.” She didn’t really mean her own green magic. Briar knew he could have walked through that gate if he had wanted to. It was Rosethorn’s burden that had put up the fuss.
“No,” said a voice just outside the light of their fire. A man of Rosethorn’s age in the long scarlet tunic worn by this temple’s priests walked closer to their group. “Our magics enclose us to protect us, with only the opening at the gate to allow other magics to enter, if they are small ones.” He looked at Rosethorn, then around the circle until he found Briar. “We would have been forced to ask both of you to remain outside. I have brought our chief priest’s apologies to you. Normally this is not such a problem, though your burden” — he nodded to Rosethorn — “is more than our spell walls can handle at any time. But there are so many small magics now. We already have two villages and their shamans, and there are always the midwives and healers.”
Rosethorn got to her feet and bowed. Briar did the same, though his sore body complained.
“We understand,” Rosethorn told the priest. “These are things that happen in times of upheaval.”
He bowed; she bowed, which meant Briar had to bow. Then she wandered off with the priest to talk magic. The others began to talk about fighting they had done before. Briar listened until he got so bored that he decided to go for a walk. It would stretch his legs and give his ears some blessed quiet.
He ambled down toward the river, waving to the sentries as he passed them. Once he reached it, he found the bank was lined with large boulders. He didn’t remember them from the ride in, but that was no surprise, as tired as he’d been. He slipped between the boulders and sat on the rocky verge, listening to the fast-moving water and thinking of nothing else for a while. It was a relief to have some time to himself.
When he turned to climb uphill to camp, he saw images in softly glowing paint on the sides of the boulders that faced the water and the plain. Each stone showed a different figure: dragon, yak, many-armed god or goddess, snow cat.
Then he saw motion. First the painted eyes followed him, and then the painted faces.
He stopped in front of the largest stone. The picture on it was a nine-headed cobra. It was a very big nine-headed cobra, taller than Briar by twelve inches at least. The paint glowed a moon-pale white. Briar wouldn’t have liked the thing even if it had held still. Then the middle head of the nine, the one that bore an ornate crown, left the safe grounding of the rock and stretched forward until her flickering serpent tongue touched Briar’s nose. He thought he might howl like a herd dog. He was far too scared to move.
“Please go away,” he said. His voice cracked.
“Briar?” That was Jimut. “Who are you talking to?”
“Are there any nine-headed snakes that crawl around after dark here?” Briar called. “One head is a woman’s?”
“Naga,” Jimut whispered. He had to be close for Briar to hear him. In fact, Briar was certain Jimut stood on the other, unpainted, side of the boulders. “But they’re stories. And the ones up here are different from the ones at home.”
Briar winced as all nine faces grinned down at him. “What do you mean?”
“In the Realms of the Sun they’re evil.” To Briar’s horror Jimut climbed on top of the boulder beside the naga. The three-headed goddess that was painted on Jimut’s rock stared upward as if she could see him. She slid a hand up along the curve of the stone, reaching for Jimut’s foot. “Here a naga can be a human head surrounded by snake heads, or crowned by snakes. They’re the gods of whole mountain ranges,” Jimut explained, “or several rivers that flow into one, or —”
Briar’s knees gave way and he knelt, unable to stay up anymore. The naga sank back into its boulder and went flat again. The three-headed goddess held her arms out to either side, as she had posed originally, and stared into the distance.
“You’re tired,” Jimut said, jumping off his stone. “You must go to bed.”
Briar did go to bed. His dreams of imperial armies that marched on Winding Circle were mixed with dreams of naga women dancing among fields of dead soldiers. He woke when dawn was just a pink gleam in the sky and walked back down to the stones by the river.
In the pearl-like early light, the naga queen was blue with partly scaled skin and very red lips. Her companion heads were yellow snakes, their tongues the same red as her mouth. Her crown was orange flames.
“Excuse me, please,” Briar said politely, “but I have to ask, were you joking around with me last night? It’s addled my head a bit. Well, more than a bit, since here I am when I could be sleeping, talking to a painting of a snake lady. A very beautiful snake lady,” he added hurriedly. “The most beautiful I’ve ever seen.” He waited, but there was no response from the painting.