Battle Magic

Briar wandered into the temple. It was lit with hundreds of small lamps. Parahan explained this was the sole Temple of the Tigers in Gyongxe: All of the others were in the Realms of the Sun, where tigers made their home. It was hard to keep tigers here, a priest told them. They missed the warmth and the ability to roam that was theirs elsewhere. Also, the snow leopards resented interlopers.

Briar was fascinated by the artwork that covered the temple’s interior walls. The borders set around each large painting were made of dozens of smaller ones: pictures of prophets, gods, demons, teachers, and tigers shown in every aspect, from infancy to godhood. Like the main scenes, the border images were done in vivid colors, showing their subjects in various poses. What bothered Briar was that the small figures seemed to move in the corner of his eye. They turned to chat with their neighbors. Worse, some leaned forward to get a better look at him, Parahan, or Souda. When he whipped around to stare at the paintings dead-on, they were still — except that the little border folk had changed position. Some of them were rude enough to cover giggles with one or several hands. One tiger had rolled onto his back. Another urinated in Briar’s direction.

He just had to ask. Fortunately a priest-artist was nearby, touching up the colors on a large painting. “Excuse me,” Briar murmured when the man set his brush down, “but weren’t the figures in the border over there placed differently before?”

The priest smiled tolerantly and came to look. “Sir, it is dark here. With the torchlight and the many shadows our paintings appear to change….” He stared at the section of paintings that had moved for Briar. One crimson-fanged warrior-demon now showed his bare behind to anyone who cared to see it.

Briar looked at the priest. The man blinked, then backed up a step. He leaned in closer and inspected a broad section of the paintings with borders that had moved. Finally he scowled at Briar and hurried off, telling his novice to put his paints away.

Briar turned his back on the paintings and tried not to look at any more of them. He said nothing to his companions, just as he had not mentioned the boulder paintings and the naga queen before. If they thought his twitches and flinches were strange, they were too polite to comment. Mages were expected to be odd. He would ask Rosethorn what was going on when she came back. He had an idea that it had something to do with his touching her cursed burden.

Briar also refused to sleep inside, despite the arguments of Parahan, Souda, and Jimut. There were just too many paintings to avoid. In the end, his friends gave him an assortment of furs to use as well as his bedroll, to keep off the early summer cold. Briar didn’t care. There were no paintings inside the curtain walls, and the stars above moved only as they were supposed to move. He fell asleep looking at them and asking Rosethorn’s gods to watch over her.

When the morning sun touched his eyes, Briar opened them to find a shaven-headed priestess in heavy robes squatting beside him. She grinned, showing off a scant mouthful of teeth. “Don’t worry, emchi youth,” she said, and offered him a bowl of butter tea. “Once you return to the thicker air down below, you will no longer see things. Whatever touched you was powerful. I can see its blaze all around you. Its power calls to the little gods whose doors are on our walls.”

Briar sat up and accepted the bowl. “Thank you. You’re very kind. I would prefer not to have been touched at all.”

She cackled. “But then they would not have their fun with you, the little gods, and it is so rare that they may play! The power in you makes it possible for them to enter our world for a time. They have been stirring for years, knowing that the evil was coming. At least now the waiting is over, and we will all see.”

Briar sipped the tea for a moment, thinking. She was a nice old woman. Perhaps she wouldn’t mind a question or two from a silly foreigner. “May I ask — why do even the temples here in Gyongxe have walls, like castles and big cities do? From what I’ve heard, you aren’t attacked very often.”

The priestess chuckled. “We aren’t worried about enemies outside our borders — it’s our neighbors who are trouble too much of the time,” she explained. “Our walls and fighters are to keep the tribes and warriors from the other temples out. If god-warriors take your temple, your priests must become priests of their god, and your temple becomes the temple of the enemy’s god. And the tribes are always fighting.”

“But you weren’t fighting when I was in Garmashing before, and no one’s fighting each other now. We’ve got at least five different tribes and warriors from four different temples riding with us. I heard Parahan say so.”

The priestess straightened. “When were you here before?”

“This winter.”

She snorted. “Nobody fights in winter. Everyone would die. And no one fights now because we all have the same enemy. Gyongxe belongs to us, not to that lowland emperor.” She nodded and said, “I would rather fight Weishu.”

Briar had finished the bowl of tea. “Thank you for telling me about all of that,” he said, returning the bowl to her with a bow.

“Don’t let the little gods worry you,” the priestess told him. “They are on our side. Mostly.”

She left Briar. He dressed under the covers in the chilly air. It unnerved him that she spoke so blithely of the things that moved on her walls. The priest-artist hadn’t seemed used to them. What else was she accustomed to seeing?

And what of these little gods? he asked himself as he struggled into his boots. If they could leave their walls and boulders, might they be convinced to fight Weishu? Could they even damage him and his armies? Might as well ask Lakik or Mila of the Grain to pick up weapons and fight!