“They weren’t happy to see you, that’s certain. Do you think they might attack us as we travel on? The path grows more isolated from here on out. Maybe you are truly a creature of legend who can wield enchantments, but the human body you wear is fragile enough to kill.”

He swung the mouse back and forth by its tail, as if it were a toy and he a beast who played with his prey, which he afterward ate. “They are too wise to attempt it.”

35 THE SOBER SEARCH FOR TRUTH

AS THE SAGES proclaim, every temple is a heart, and every heart is a temple.

Indeed, where would the Tranquil Empire be without the Heart Temples? The palace and the temples are woven together by the network of imperial roads, into one body.

All Heart Temples follow the same hallowed plan. Any child of the empire recognizes the familiar entry gate, the courtyard and its fountain, an annex where people come to seek healing or help, the hostel where indigent travelers may sleep for three nights, and the holy altar where the temple’s custodian places daily offerings. Healers and theurgists serve by the grace of the emperor, their precious skills bound to the temple and thus to the betterment of the empire for the whole of their lives. Those who serve as many years as the beloved Peony Emperor reigned are thereafter addressed as “venerable.”

Some poets sing that the Lotus General founded the first Heart Temple where his most beloved consort fell in battle while fighting off an enemy who was about to stab the general in the eye. Playwrights favor a tale of clan treachery and redemption with a blustering cast of rebellious youth and fractious priests brought back into the fold by the general’s magnanimity and wisdom.

However, no official records in the palace archives provide evidence for the emperor or his officials commanding the construction of temples in the earliest days of the empire. During the imperial era, all archival documents for temple construction refer only to small local temples built by the order of an intendant or archon, perhaps to burnish the reputation of an overweening minor official. While these edifices are built to the same layout as every temple, they are identifiable by some manner of unique and ostentatious decoration meant to impress, rather than to inspire spiritual reflection through simplicity and familiarity.