Rosethorn silently cursed the cave that gave her no warning of someone’s approach and looked to her left. Here the tunnel opened up into a good-sized chamber. A Gyongxin man an inch or so shorter than Rosethorn stood there, dressed like her companion in tunic and breeches. Also like the black man, he wore the white eye on his forehead, though it did not look like it had been painted on. As Rosethorn watched, the white eye blinked at her.
I want to go home, she thought dizzily.
The small priest said, “Welcome to the Temple of the Sealed Eye, Nivalin Greenhow, whose name in religion is Rosethorn of Winding Circle temple. I see why Jangbu Dokyi trusted you with your faith’s Four Treasures. In the wrong hands they would be powerful forces for ill, but you would never allow them to pass into those hands, would you?”
Rosethorn frowned at the man before returning her gaze to the cave snakes. She didn’t trust them. “I’m not sure how I could stop the wrong hands, past a certain point, though I would give it my best.”
“Your best is most formidable, my dear. Come. I am Yesh Namka, High Priest of the Temple of the Sealed Eye. Our warden of the gate behind you is Tegene Kess.” Rosethorn looked at the big man, who nodded to her. “We must go deeper into the mountains’ heart together before you can put down your burden,” Namka said. “What you see and hear beyond this point you may tell no one, not the children of your heart, not your lover, not Jangbu Dokyi.”
She heard ringing sounds in the dark behind the high priest. Out of the shadows walked three more creatures, eagle-headed, cat-bodied, spindle-legged, horse-hooved. Dark in color, they were speckled with spots that shone with a pale gold light, as did their wicked, hooked beaks. They halted beside Namka and cocked their heads to eye Rosethorn. The cave snakes chattered at them.
“Where did they come from?” Rosethorn asked Namka when she felt she could speak without her own teeth chattering.
“The mountains grow bored, sometimes,” Tegene Kess explained. “They have eons of time to build themselves and their children. At first they follow the nature of the world, but there are times when they wish to try something different. Or the lesser gods who enter this realm feel it needs something unusual, and they make it. Do you understand?”
“Not at all,” Rosethorn said.
“You will,” Namka said, beckoning to her. “Come.” He turned and shooed the strange hooved creatures out of the way.
There was nothing for Briar to do. Those few warriors who had been wounded on the wall by enemy archers were being well cared for by the temple healers. He had collected all of the fallen mage beads he could find. He scrounged a midday meal and hunkered down near the north gate with his finds. Once he had eaten, he worked on spells that would turn the oak and gingko beads against their holders. One such spell depended on the sex of the gingko tree that made up the bead. To test the spell Briar threw two beads several yards downhill and worked the magic he had placed on them. Within seconds they popped, turning into rapidly growing female seeds that reached the size of a small goat, ripened, and burst. Briar cackled wickedly even as he covered his nose with one elbow and backed away from the vomit-like smell.
He bumped into something behind him. Turning to apologize, he choked. He hadn’t really expected the sitting orange stone tiger to be awake, but it had walked up for a closer look at what he was doing.
“I take it you can’t smell,” he said.
The tiger shook its head.
“Lucky you,” Briar said weakly. Of course they know what I say, he thought. Since he could do nothing about it, he resumed his seat to consider what to do with the male gingko wood beads.
While the great creature was there, he thought to ask it a question that had hovered in his mind all morning. “Did you two come from the canyon behind Garmashing? In the Drimbakang Zugu?” In case the tiger did not recognize the names, he brought his memory of the morning when shamans had danced a pair of giant skeletons to life to the front of his mind, in case the tiger could see it in him, somehow. He concentrated, trying to capture the sounds and scents of that chilly moment in time when stone shaped itself and walked out of the cliff.
A scraping noise made him open his eyes. With a single large claw the tiger had drawn two smooth lines with a waving line between them. It was a map of the canyon behind Garmashing.
“When did they dance you out of the cliffs?”
The tiger shrugged, making its well-marked fur ripple.
“But it was a long time ago.”
The tiger nodded and lay down beside Briar.
“Thank you,” Briar said politely, awed. “That’s what I thought.” He returned to his experiments with the male gingko beads, though his heart wasn’t really in his work. If he didn’t watch it, he thought, he would start to think the gods really were closer to Gyongxe than they were to any other part of the world, if they could gift native stone so that it defended the temples of lands far away.
He may have been deep in thought, but he still noticed the orange-and-black tiger as it got to its feet again and walked by him. Several moments passed before his curiosity overcame him and he looked up. Both tiger statues had gone downhill to eat the remains of the oversized, vile-smelling gingko berries.
“Well,” Briar said. “I suppose they don’t care if it’s meat or not. I wonder if they just like the magic?” He continued to work with the other wooden beads.
The tigers had eaten all of the berries and returned to their guardian positions to wash themselves when the grasses told Briar that horses were coming. A glance at the sky showed him that the day was drawing to a close. He gathered his beads and the remnants of his midday and walked to the gate. The tigers had taken still positions, but not the ones they had held before. The white tiger sat on its hindquarters, washing a forepaw. The orange tiger stretched out on one side.