Battle Magic

5

THE GROVE OF VENERABLE OAKS

THE WINTER PALACE

DOHAN IN YANJING

At the breakfast feast that the emperor had set up in Rosethorn’s honor, Briar was finally able to eat his fill. Once that was done he went in search of his vanished student. He found Evvy among the feasting groups of courtiers. She was tucked under an awning, seated on a bench. Parahan sat cross-legged on the ground beside her. Briar had glimpsed him earlier, but hadn’t had a chance to do more than nod before the emperor had claimed his attention and Rosethorn’s. The young female mage, who had stood with the others next to the throne the night before, was now on the bench with Evvy.

Parahan grinned up at him. Briar took that as an invitation and sat beside him.

“How many cats do you have?” Evvy was asking the young mage. “I have seven —”

“Evvy, I don’t think the nanshur wants to know about your cats,” Briar said. Experience had taught him that not everyone welcomed Evvy’s way of chattering on about the subjects she liked.

“But I have cats of my own,” the mage explained. “I would have seven if I could, but the servants would frown at me.” She smiled prettily at Briar. “I am Jia Jui, one of the imperial mages. It is an honor to meet you, Nanshur Briar Moss.”

Briar gave her a bow in return. She was very pretty, but he was still jumpy after the goings-on in the rose garden. She was also much too old for him, though she was young for an academic mage — in her mid- to late twenties, perhaps. She wore only a single long string of beads around her neck, and some of them were blank. Could that mean they had no spells? Or were they really nasty, and hidden?

“Nanshur Moss, you are staring at my beads,” Jia Jui said, her voice teasing. She had produced a fan from her sash and was using it to hide the bare skin above the neckline of her robes.

Briar was rarely caught without something to say. “Actually I was admiring the embroidery on the borders of your outer robe. Please forgive me if I seemed to be rude. Are these bits done with knots? My foster-sister works her magic through thread, and I have to tell her about the beautiful work I see. Are those phoenixes?”

“They are,” Jia Jui said with a smile, smoothing the threadwork with pride. “I stitched for years to make this robe. It is such a pleasure to meet a man who takes an interest in these things.”

“I’m going to meet his sisters when we go to his home,” Evvy said. “One of them braids weather into her hair.”

Jia Jui laughed musically. “It is a shame you did not bring your sisters with you,” she told Briar. “They would have learned much from my teachers, I know, and we could have learned from you.” She looked up at Briar, her eyes twinkling. “I would love a demonstration of your magic. I have never known someone who got his certification from the schools in the west.”

She doesn’t believe Evvy, Briar realized. She doesn’t believe that my medallion could mean I’m as good as a Yanjingyi mage.

Coldly he thought, And maybe that’s for the best. Despite the friendly reception, he had that old bad feeling. It was one he got when he was burgling a house, and his instincts told him he had been noticed by guards, or dogs, or magic.

“No demonstrations here, of course,” Jia Jui was saying. “It is permitted in the imperial presence only under special circumstances.”

“Of course not,” Briar replied agreeably. “There’s no telling what might go awry, with so many mages present and so many spells for the emperor’s protection woven around him.”

“Exactly,” Jia Jui said. “You grasp what many visitors to court have not, Nanshur Briar. Now I will not stop you from dining, and Evvy, you may tell me about your cats.”

Briar waved off a servant with more food, but he did accept a pitcher of coconut water and a cup to drink it with. Parahan took water and a bowl of steamed dumplings. They listened for a moment as Evvy began to count cats on her fingers. “There’s Mystery, Asa, Apricot, Raisin, Ball, Monster, and Ria. They lived with me in Chammur, but they’re travelers now. What about your cats?”

“Will you get in trouble for going off with Evvy like that?” Briar asked Parahan.

“Not at all,” the big man replied between mouthfuls. “The guards were with us all along. And I was instructed to help keep you three amused. I imagine I will spend a good amount of time with Evvy. There are more flower gardens than the emperor could show you in one morning.”

Briar made a face. “Believe me, I’d rather look at plants and trees than armies like we did yesterday.”

A eunuch came up to them and bowed to Jia Jui. “Forgive me, great Jia Jui, but His Imperial Majesty, the Glory of the East and the Bane of All Evil, wishes to see the student Evumeimei Dingzai.”

Even though Rosethorn was with the emperor, Briar followed Evvy for protection. As she trotted along behind the painted and perfumed eunuch, she grinned up at him. “This is better than all those pavilions and that throne room, isn’t it, Briar? You must be happy with these trees.”

He smiled. “Yes. And I’m glad you’re having fun.”

“It’s easy to talk to Parahan and Jia Jui. Would you believe Parahan wanted to know what I could do with stone magic?” She chuckled wickedly as Briar groaned. He knew all too well what his inventive student could do with her power.

“Just remember to behave,” he cautioned her. “I’ll bet there are mages keeping watch all over this place for magic they don’t like.” But would they recognize our magic? he wondered. Would they even know it was there?

The eunuch led them around other tables placed under the great oaks. Each table was under an awning, and each setting was more ornate than the last, commanding its own group of servants. At last they stood on an elaborate strip of carpet that led to the longest table. There the eunuch dropped to his knees. Briar bowed to the emperor, who sat with Rosethorn on his right and last night’s general, Hengkai, on his left. Like all of the Yanjingyi people, Evvy went to her knees and touched her forehead to the carpet.

“Evumeimei, rise,” the emperor ordered. She obeyed, checking to make sure that she hadn’t wrinkled her skirt. “How do you find our gardens?” Weishu asked.

“There are no rocks in them, Your Imperial Majesty,” she informed him. “Well, there are rocks here, but not in the flower gardens. Rocks don’t hurt flowers,” she said as the courtiers hid their smiles behind their sleeves.

“Parahan shall escort you to our rock gardens tomorrow. Would you like that?”

“Yes, please, Your Imperial Majesty!” Evvy said respectfully. “We saw a few rock gardens on our way to Gyongxe, but I was told that you have beautiful ones at your palaces. It would be a very great honor to see them.”

“Then see them you shall,” Weishu replied with a smile. “May I ask a small favor in return?”

Careful, Briar thought at Evvy, wishing she could hear him in her head as his sisters did.

Whether or not she heard him, she said, “If I can, Your Imperial Majesty. I’m only a twelve-year-old student.”

“We have seen the power of Dedicate Initiate Rosethorn, and in future I hope to see Nanshur Briar display his skill,” the emperor explained. “But first I have a little test for you. Mage General Hengkai, will you let Evumeimei hold your neck beads?”

The mage general stared at Weishu, startled. “But — Shining One —” he began to protest.

Weishu raised his brows. “Mage General? Neither your power nor your necklaces helped you to win your last battle in Qayan. Given this is the case, you should have no objection to letting a girl hold your beads. Hand them to her.”

Hengkai took in a breath, then slowly let it out. Carefully he unwound three loops of beads from around his bull neck. Clutching them in one knotted hand, he held them out over the table.

Rosethorn leaned forward. Briar, too, was ready in case anything went wrong. The beads had to be protected for people to wear them on a daily basis, or for this general to wear them in battle. Still, Briar felt better when he saw Jia Jui walk into the space behind Weishu and Hengkai. She should prevent anything from going amiss.

Evvy stepped up and took the necklace. “Thank you, Mage General,” she said, and gave him a deep bow.

Smart, Briar thought. Just because the emperor can speak to this Hengkai with disrespect doesn’t mean that we can.

Evvy backed away until she stood next to Briar, running the long strands of beads through her fingers. They clicked musically, like the conversation beads used by merchants back home on the Pebbled Sea.

“Evumeimei, tell me what they are made of,” the emperor said quietly.

The general jumped to his feet. “Imperial Majesty, Crown of Yanjing, only I may use my power on them!” he cried. Instantly two guards who had been standing behind the emperor’s table lunged forward. They swung their halberds down, crossing them before Hengkai so they formed a barrier in front of the angry mage general. Then they pulled back on the crossed blades, pressing the man down into his seat. Once he was there, they moved in closer until he was pinned by the weapons. Hengkai could not even raise his arms.

Jia Jui shifted into the space behind Weishu and Rosethorn.

“So long as you remain where you are without moving, Mage General, you will stay unharmed,” Weishu said, his voice as smooth as butter. “Evumeimei, proceed.”

Evvy gulped. “It’s all right,” Briar whispered in Chammuri, his lips barely moving. “I don’t think this lesson’s for you.”

She ran the complete string of beads though her fingers twice. The third time, she singled out a section of the most common ones. “These are bone,” she told the emperor, forgetting titles in her absorption with her task. “Old bone, really old, that’s half gone to stone, but it’s bone all the same. I know it by the way it feels, but it isn’t in my magic.” She squinted at the lettering on some of the beads. “This is some kind of scribe work, but I don’t recognize it.”

“Those are the ideographs our nanshurs learn,” Weishu replied. “Another bead, if you will.”

Evvy chose a cylindrical bead, blue on white. “Porcelain,” she said scornfully. Of another, more intricately detailed blue-on-white bead, she also said, “Porcelain.” Two more: “Brown glass with white rubbed over the raised marks. General, did you make these?” The general spat on the plate in front of him. “Oh,” Evvy said. Briar could tell she was thinking aloud. “You don’t make things. You have mages that make your beads for you. But you can use the spells that are put into all this writing?”

“Yes,” Jia Jui said. “That is how our magic is taught. Is this not the essence of your magic?”

“Our academic mages write spells on paper, or in books. It’s the speaking of them, sometimes with scents, herbs, inks, and other aids, that helps them to complete the working,” Rosethorn explained quietly.

Evvy wasn’t listening. She was passing the string of beads through her fingers. “Wood. Briar, what wood is this?”

Briar reached over her shoulder and sent out a tendril of his own power. “Willow.”

Evvy wrinkled her nose. “Wood’s no fun for me, either,” she explained to the emperor and the mage general. She seemed to have forgotten that Hengkai was angry. Briar knew that she was sunk into her power, letting her own stone magic spread around her hands. Her fingers sped over more beads. She had missed a big one, but Briar did not call her attention to it. Either it was the detested porcelain, or Evvy would return to it.

“Maybe you asked the wrong student for this test — oh!” Evvy stopped. “Wait a moment….”

She worked her fingers back past flat rectangles of willow etched with circles centered on holes, past bone cylinders dense with ancient Yanjingyi letters, and past three brown glass cylinders. When her hand found a round grayish-white bead studded with small red spots, she stopped.

“Interesting,” she said, turning the bead over. “There’s spells in each of the red beads stuck in this marble globe. Even though they’re glass I can tell because the magic soaks into the stone.” She looked up at the emperor. “The main bead is marble. It changes magic. That’s how I can tell what’s in the glass beads.”

“Nonsense.” One of the other mages from the previous night walked up to stand before the table near Hengkai. It was the older one, the man with silver hair and mustaches. “All know that marble houses magic and protects it.”

Evvy ignored him. “Whatever’s in these beads is nasty, and each one is different. There’s illness — smallpox in one and cholera in another. Fire in three, one very hot, two more normal. Choking smoke in two, and icy wind in one. The gold rings around each red bead keep the magic from leaking onto the top of the marble, so only the general knows he carries these. He’s got …” Evvy hauled up the loops of the necklace, her black eyes scanning it for the pale orbs. She looked at the emperor. “Twenty of them.” She scowled at the general. “And you wear another necklace and bracelets like this wrapped around your arms, all loaded with bad magic.”

“You dare lecture me on the magic of war, peasant wench!” shouted the mage general, pushing forward against the halberds. He glared up at the guards who fenced him in.

“Perhaps Evumeimei only means that the spells in the stone beads are corrupted,” Jia Jui suggested. “As a student she would understand that far better than war magic or the craft of being a general.” She bowed to the emperor as Weishu turned to look at her. “In my first years I spent much of my time going over mage strings to find which beads had gone stale. It is one of the earliest senses a young mage develops. General Hengkai has fought many battles recently. Is it not possible that his most personal tools are worn-out?”

Evvy, really interested in her test now, had returned to her scrutiny of the beads. “I never said I was anything but a student stone mage. Oh, more bone, more wood. More glass. Carnelian! Briar, it’s carnelian!” She held a large reddish-brown stone up to him.

“I can see it’s carnelian,” he replied, amused. The emperor, Jia Jui, and Parahan were also smiling at his student’s enthusiasm. Briar knew carnelian was one of Evvy’s favorite stones because it had been so hard for her to get her hands on any when she lived in Chammur. Even here in the east, where it was more common, she had yet to tire of it. Now she turned the bead around, eyeing it closely. Slowly, so slowly at first that Briar thought he imagined it, her eyebrows drew together. By the time she turned the bead on one end to look at it in a different way, everyone could see that she was frowning.

“Evumeimei, what is wrong?” the emperor asked.

“Who put strength and fear spells in this?” she demanded hotly. “This is carnelian. It’s for protection and thinking!”

“Perhaps it is so in your benighted teachings, student.” The old mage was also frowning as he looked at the emperor. “Your Imperial Majesty, Light of Knowledge, will you humor this peasant infant at the expense of true Yanjingyi mages? She knows nothing of our ancient symbols, of our learning that has been passed down over centuries —”

He fell silent when the emperor raised his hand. “Honored Guanshi Dianliang, I remind you that this western student knew exactly the nature of the spells on the snake-hole bead,” Weishu said calmly. “She also recognizes the spells on this carnelian bead, do you not, child?”

“Fear spells, and not just jump-when-a-mouse-squeaks-in-the-dark fear, either,” Evvy cried. “This is really bad puke-on-your-robe fear, and the spell’s eating away at the stone. If you don’t take it off, the stone will go to dust in a year. How many of these do you go through, anyway?”

Silence was her only answer from the general and from the tattooed mage.

“Thought so,” she mumbled. She wiped an eye and went threading through the necklace for other stone beads.

It was not long before the older mage the emperor had called Guanshi Dianliang had to speak again. “She could tell us the stone is useful for the growth of fruit trees, Son of the Gods, and we would not know because she studies the learning of the barbaric west. It is true the mage stones last only so long, but it is the strength of the spells. The most ignorant village fortune-teller knows carnelian is a stone of power and strength, lucky for its color, the blood of dragons.”

“But —” Evvy began, and stopped. Briar watched as Rosethorn, using her arm on the opposite side of the emperor, leaned her head on the table. Her fist was by her ear, their sign to Evvy to stop. With her little finger she sketched a line from her nose to the edge of her mouth, like a wrinkle. It was their sign for “elder.” They’d had to work out a series of signs for Evvy on the road, when her youthful lack of caution started to get her, and them, into hot water.

Evvy saw it. She bowed her head and mumbled, “I’m sorry if I offended anyone, Your Imperial Majesty.” From the way she looked only at the emperor, not at his general or at the angry mage, Briar could tell that she had deliberately not included them in her apology. She placed the beads in a heap on the table. “I was only telling what I know from the stone.”

“I thank you, Evumeimei,” the emperor assured her. “I am delighted and impressed. You have every right — and it is your duty to your teachers and your tradition — to speak what you have been taught. In fact, it would be very wrong of you to speak against your tradition here in Yanjing. We are nothing without respect to our elders and ancestors. You may approach us.”

Evvy glanced at Briar, nervous.

“He wants you to walk up closer to the table,” Briar whispered.

As she did so, the emperor raised a finger. A eunuch came to kneel beside him. After that, all Briar saw of the man was two hands offering something wrapped in bright yellow silk. The emperor took it, and the eunuch walked away from his master.

“Here is a small token of our friendship,” Weishu said, offering the silk-wrapped bundle to Evvy. She took it and dropped to her knees for the usual Yanjingyi bow. Briar glanced at Hengkai and Guanshi, but neither revealed their emotions. Maybe they know they’ve gotten themselves in enough trouble with the emperor today, Briar decided.

“Rise, Evumeimei,” the emperor said. “Open it.” He was smiling.

Briar stepped forward. He bowed, then motioned to Hengkai’s necklace, which the man had not retrieved. “May I, Your Imperial Majesty?”

The emperor nodded. The general only scowled and looked away. As Evvy carefully unwrapped her gift, Briar scooped the beads from the table. He glanced at Rosethorn, who raised a graceful eyebrow at him. Briar lifted a shoulder to say, “I don’t know” to her silent question of “Why?” He ran the necklace through his fingers, watching Evvy.

She draped the silk over her shoulder. Her gift was something carved in bright red stone. “It’s a cat!” Evvy cried. “A cat, made of cinnabar!”

“Do not handle cinnabar too much with your bare hands,” Jia Jui cautioned.

“I know,” Evvy said, using the silk to turn the beautifully carved cat in her hands. “There’s quicksilver in it.”

“The gift itself is a great honor,” Jia Jui went on, smiling. “Cinnabar symbolizes long life in our magical teachings.”

Down onto her knees Evvy went again. “Thank you so very much, Your Imperial Majesty,” she said. “I’ll treasure it always, and I’ll remember the lesson that long life and cats are dangerous things.”

The emperor chuckled, as did most of those who could hear, but Briar did not. That bow was starting to annoy him. No student of his should have to grovel to anyone.

“How did you know a cat was perfect for me?” Evvy asked when Weishu told her to rise.

“I heard you traveled from distant Chammur with seven,” the emperor replied. “Will you tell me about them?”

Evvy hardly needed an invitation to talk about her beloved cats. As she described them and their virtues to her imperial audience, Briar inspected the flat, carved wooden beads with his fingers and his power. He wanted to be sure that, should he ever encounter a warrior who wore such a necklace again, he would know exactly what beads to reach for. He did the same with the oak beads on the string, and the gingko beads, memorizing their feel with the Yanjingyi spells sunk into their grain. Then he looked at Mage General Hengkai. The older man had leaned back, away from the halberds, so he could finger the beads wound around one wrist. What deadly secrets were there? Briar wondered. How many deaths did the general carry in all those strings wrapped around his arms? And for whom were they destined?

Couriers arrived for the emperor just when they reached the lily gardens after breakfast. His guests weren’t permitted to know what was in the messages that were so urgent as to take him away from them. He made his excuses and asked Jia Jui to escort them through the beautiful water gardens instead. When they had seen and admired their full share of water lilies, earthbound lilies, trees, flowering vines, beautiful fish, water birds, and carefully landscaped views, the guests returned to their pavilion for a much-needed rest.

Before they retired to their beds, Rosethorn and Briar looked over their new rosebush, which had arrived during the morning. It had been moved into a dark green glazed jar that matched the color of the leaves precisely, a touch even Evvy appreciated. Moreover, the inked Yanjingyi lettering on the inside of the jar’s lip appeared to be instructions to the cats. Even Monster, who had learned only with difficulty that he was not to anoint Briar’s shakkans — miniature trees — sniffed the jar once, sneezed, and stayed away from it. Briar and Rosethorn both sent their power through the bush, finding the traces of Rosethorn’s earlier healing of the mold. Neither of them said it aloud, but they both wanted to ensure the gardeners had not been forced to destroy the original plant.

They were joined for supper by Jia Jui, Parahan, and those of the afternoon’s party who had actually seemed to enjoy themselves. The group introduced the foreigners to some Yanjingyi games and music, then took them to a terrace that looked out over a long body of water. There they fed the giant carp that swam in its waters until an exquisite display of fireworks — colored flowers and trees made of zayao — was set off in their honor. By the time it was over, Rosethorn, Briar, and Evvy were happy to return to their pavilion and their beds.

Rosethorn spent an hour going over the rosebush again. Once she was done she had hoped to write to her beloved Lark, back at Winding Circle, but she could barely keep her eyes open.

A day spent with hidden tensions between Evvy and the general, Evvy and that older mage, and whatever else was going on between the courtiers and Rosethorn’s people would do that. The emperor was also the kind of ruler who enjoyed toying with his lords. She would be happy when they left the imperial court and its pitfalls. Rosethorn was asleep as soon as she closed her eyes.

Someone splashed her with heavy, stinking oil. She struggled to shake it off her leaves and blossoms, but the oil clung. Her sisters cried out from its weight on their stems and greenery as the men who cared for them walked between them, throwing this dreadful liquid all over them. The men didn’t even care that they broke twigs and knocked petals off their blooms! The men were usually so careful!

Now they came to fling dry reeds down between their plants, reeds that dripped more of the stinking oil. She didn’t understand. None of them understood.

The rose plants didn’t understand, but the sleeping Rosethorn did. With a cry she thrust her blankets aside and jumped out of bed. She didn’t even remember to put on shoes. Still half asleep, not thinking of Briar or Evvy, she raced out of the pavilion through a back door. The first touch of flame to reeds brought her to her knees on a trail that skirted a willow pond. She lurched to her feet again and ran on as light grew slowly in the sky ahead.

When she reached the rose garden, all of it was in flames. The gardeners had been bound and left at its center: They were done screaming. The emperor and his soldiers watched on horseback from the main path.

The emperor saw her as he turned his horse to ride away. “The plants harbored mold and the gardeners allowed them to do so,” he said, his face calm. “Surely you understand that no imperfection is permitted at one of my palaces. I did tell you.” He looked past Rosethorn. “Slaves will come to escort you back.”

Rosethorn felt Briar put his arm around her shoulders. He had felt her magic, wakened, and followed her to discover what Weishu had ordered done. Once the emperor and his soldiers were out of sight, Briar spat on the path.

They waited together on the edge of the burning garden until the slaves came with a palanquin. By then the roses had burned to the gravel and new gardeners had come to dig up the roots.