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The next day, folks from the area farms started arriving when they noticed the billowing smoke from the funeral pyres. A dozen dead renegades and nine dead guardsmen would have attracted attention in other ways if we hadn’t burned the bodies. The caravanserai director explained the situation an equal number of times before he finally posted a sign at the gates.
Which only triggered more questions from the locals. Apparently, a good many of them were illiterate.
Which prompted me to ask Shi Hua, Po, and their family about the education situation over our morning meal of porridge and boiled eggs.
“The Temple of Knowledge has been trying to continue educating the children, but many of the peasants protest against it,” Shi Hua said.
“Why?” I laid my spoon in my empty bowl and started cracking the shell of my first boiled egg now that it was cool enough to touch.
“They don’t see the purpose of it.” Po shrugged. “There wasn’t a known demon attack during my mother’s entire reign. Reading, writing, and sums were only important against demons.”
Shang snorted. “It didn’t help that the School of Sorcery wanted an ignorant peasantry to help them gain power.”
“An ignorant peasantry?” I asked as I peeled off the last of the shell of my egg.
“It’s part of the various philosophical schools attempts to discredit the Temples,” Yin Li explained. “The farmers complain there’s too much work to be done. The wise men of the philosophical school commiserate and ask why are your children not helping in the fields or with the herds? Because they are at the Temple of Knowledge half the day, the farmers complain. The wise men clasp their bosoms and say reading isn’t necessary to pull weeds and learning the continents and seas means nothing when one never leaves their province. Or even their village.”
Yin Li’s exaggerated manner of portraying both the farmers and the sorcerers of the various philosophy schools was hilarious. But the actual contents of her speech concerned me. It sounded like one of the renegades’ whisper campaigns. Refusing to listen to clergy placed a major wedge in the civilians’ trust. And with Jing losing clergy at a similar rate as we were in Issura, this tactic would sorely affect the next generations of humans.
The tactic might even help the demons to win the war.
While most people considered Knowledge to be the weakest Temple, they were the bedrock of our civilization. They complied and disseminated all information. The brothers and sisters analyzed every report from the other Temples and bureaucrats. They saw trends in harvest and weather long before anyone else did. And their predictions were often correct.
It wasn’t a matter of precognitive talent or pretending the heavens could foretell the future. Knowledge paid attention to the cycles around us. The rhythm of the earth. The song of the universe.
And it made me wonder if Yin Li and Shi Hua had been held back from being tested for their talents by their own village elders. Granted, Luc’s father Itzel hadn’t presented him to a Temple until he was eight winters, but as merchants, the family was often on the road between nations. However, Itzal did so as soon as he saw Luc entertaining his sisters with animals he fashioned from light. Shi Hua had told me she hadn’t left her village until she was seven, but only because her aunt Yin Li had pushed her sister over Shi Hua’s distance speaking talents.
“But surely the recent demon attack on Chengzhou would convince them—” Luc started.
“One would think.” Shang’s emotions felt…haunted was the best word out of all the languages I knew. “But not even the wardens and soldiers with us could conceive we were under a demon attack until it was too late.”
Yin Li laid her hand on his shoulder, lending her strength to him. “You need to tell the emperor what you told me, my love. He needs to know what he faces.”
The porridge and eggs curdled in my stomach as the Conflict priest related how Reverend Chen and his army encountered our foes in a desert valley. Realizing his people was outnumbered, Chen signaled a retreat, only to be caught in a pincer attack from the rear. However, the Reverend Father didn’t panic. He ordered a charge in a desperate attempt to break through the demon lines. Shang estimated that twenty percent of the expedition fought free of the enemy, but most of them had been wounded, and they lost all but one healer.
For the next two weeks, the demons chased the remnant of the Jing forces. People and horses died because there was no rest, no food, and no water. They couldn’t even stop long enough to burn the dead. Then, they had the demon-animated corpses chasing them as well as the demons themselves.
When they encountered a defensible stand of rocks, Reverend Father Chen ordered Shang to take the few able-bodied priests and wardens east to seek assistance. An animated corpse had stabbed the Reverend Father in the gut. He knew it was a matter of time before he and the other injured survivors would die. Shang left the last canister of flash powder with Chen. The survivors heard something two days later, but they couldn’t be sure if it was an explosion or thunder.
Eventually, Shang and the last dozen survivors encountered Darys’s army. The Skoloti had been warned of the demon army by their Reverend Mother of Balance, who was one of their seers. The talent to see the future was incredibly rare, even amongst those of my order.
“The Skoloti fed us before transporting us to their closest Temple of Child.” Shang scrubbed his face with his hands. “Their army encountered scattered groups of demons and eliminated them. They never found any more Jing survivors.”
Grief filled all of Po’s party. I never knew the Reverend Father, but Shi Hua had told me of her encounters with him. However, he must have been very imposing to a fourteen-year-old Light novice. To me, it sounded as if a devoted priest had chosen the only path he could after losing thousands of people.
Fat yellow tears rolled down Shi Hua and Yin Li’s faces. Po rolled the beads of his moustache so fiercely, I fear he’d twist the blue hairs out by their roots.
“Your Majesty?” I murmured.
Po’s head jerked up. We had so rarely addressed each other by titles for the two months we were at sea. “Yes?”
“You need to speak with every village elder and Temple clergy on the way Chengzhou.” I stared at him. “You need to tell them what happened to you in Tandor. The renegades. The skinwalkers. The demons. All of it.”
“You truly believe tales of my torture and our starvation will entertain my people?” he mocked, but I recognized the flicker of fear in visage. I was sure my own countenance held it from time to time.
“He can’t,” Shang protested. “Doing so will make him look weak.”
“He survived the demon siege of Tandor,” Luc said. “He helped us save our citizens. Without him, Issura would have fallen last year.”
“Twelve help us, was that only a year ago?” Po released the beads on his moustache. “It would be an excellent task for Reverend Father Biming.” He smiled. “And an excellent use of his particular talents.”
“He might deem such a task as an insult, my husband,” Shi Hua said softly.
“Which is why I’ll address him personally about the matter.” Po raised her right hand to his lips. “If you’ll excuse me, my empress and my guests.” He rose and strode from the room the caravanserai director had assigned Po for meeting the local leaders.
Shang eyed me from across the table. “You hold a great deal of our emperor’s esteem.”
“I also noticed you didn’t mention reporting to Reverend Father Chen’s replacement in Chengzhou,” I replied.
“Ah, the vaunted logic of Balance.” He nodded. “We did, along with an emissary of the Skoloti. However, no one in Jing besides Reverend Father Fu, his head of household, and his chief warden are aware of our survival.” He shrugged. “Until now.”
“If it needs to remain a secret, speak with the empress’s head of security Mataqai,” Luc suggested.
“Do not worry, High Brother.” She Hua grinned. “I already have. As far as anyone else is concerned, High Brother Shang, Sister Darys, and their party are part of the Empress’s Guard.”
