The protective enchantment could only self-activate once more before she replenished its power in dream. Fear jolted through Hiresha, scorching her to alertness.
Inannis walked around the slumping figures of the men. He locked the door in the faces of rushing guards, and it began thumping from the outside.
The thief's voice was quiet but fierce. “I'm going to escape, and you're helping, Enchantress.”
“I should think not.” She forced her hands from her throat to her sides. No reason to be intimidated, she told herself. His poisons would only annoy her, and she could retreat to her dream laboratory before most stab wounds killed her.
The priest flapped his arms to try to ward away Inannis. The thief stuck the priest’s hand with a second dart, and his legs trembled then gave out, landing him next to the fallen guards. Not much blood trickled from them, but they could do no more than crawl and moan.
Inannis doubled over, coughed, and spit a red glob on the priest's blue robes. The thief licked blood from his lips, not looking at Hiresha as he spoke to her. “Your help, my information. A trade.”
She reached to a guard's neck. His pulse thumped, but his breathing was fading. “What poison did you use?”
“I'll give you the antidote.” He walked to the pedestal with the unmoving fennec. “And you'll want to know you were betrayed.”
Hiresha could enchant her own antidotes, and she had scant reason to trust him. “Betrayed?”
“After your flight from the inn, I was sent to tell the vizier. He already knew.” He dabbed the ear of the fox with an unguent. “And he knew where to find you.”
The news pricked Hiresha in a tender spot. She wondered if a Soultrapper had warned the vizier of her escape. Or Lord Tethiel. Stooping, she blew into the guard's mouth, forcing air in and out of his paralyzed chest.
Inannis said, “You want to free yourself from the Golden Scoundrel.”
Hiresha moved to the next guard and pressed her lips against his, helping him breathe. She tasted onions.
“You'll need to arm yourself.” The thief pierced the fennec's ear with the emerald stub. One paw twitched, and the fox's black eyes flickered open and closed. “The deadliest weapon you can wield is expectations.”
Hiresha considered that no advice at all. She looked at the thief as he slipped the emerald collar onto the fennec. “I do not believe that is the stolen fox. Their god.”
“I'm proud to say I forged the emeralds myself.” He tucked the comatose animal into his sash belt. Its tail and one ear hung out.
“Those jewels are paste?” Hiresha stiffened, rising from helping the big priest. His robes stank of urine.
“Glass and glaze.” The thief grinned.
Hiresha loathed forged jewels. The worst of crimes. Hot bursts of anger surprised Hiresha, and she glanced at a sickle sword, close to the slack fingers of a guard. I should attack the thief.
The door shuddered. A priest's muffled voice shouted to stand aside, that he had the key.
She blinked and looked away from the sword. I never planned to swing a weapon, and I don't intend to start now. Matching her untrained bluster against the thief's stilettos—or a weapon of any kind—struck her as a losing proposition.
“I gave you information,” the thief said. “Now help me.”
Hiresha said, “I think not.”
“Then I'll take a garnet from your gown. To remember you by.”
“You know they're garnets?”
It was a silly thing to say, but Hiresha was dumbstruck. She had waited months for someone to notice purple garnets decorated this dress, not amethysts. To have a thief with god-cursed blood recognize them left her stricken. She wished Inannis could have been considerate enough to poison her instead.
The door slammed open.
A vial glinted between the thief's fingers, filled with a chalky powder. He threw it against the stone ceiling.
A white star burst in the room. The air curdled in misty bulges, and a cloud of garlic stench choked Hiresha.
Her diamond flared red again as it protected her from something metal. She heard a second door bang open.
Coughing, waving white smoke from her face, Hiresha saw a knife embedded in the sand at her feet. The outline of a doorway shone through the fog. She pointed, shouted. “He's running.”
One guard stumbled over a fallen comrade. Four more made their way past the wicker cages and urns, racing out the far door.
Hiresha had to believe they would catch Inannis. His Blood Judgment would exhaust him, and other guards patrolled the temple.
A priest peeked into the room at the four slumped bodies, “Are they dead?”
The enchantress knelt by a poisoned guard. His heart still beat, but his lips had purpled. “Help them breathe,” she said. “I'll determine the poison.”
Removing a glove, she wiped some of the blood from a neck wound onto her fingers then closed her eyes. Slipping into a doze after such an ordeal required immense skill. Fortunately, Hiresha's rare condition doomed her with a unique susceptibility to sleep.
In her dream laboratory, she learned the poison was from the jungles of the Dominion of the Sun. The curare toxin. A plant appeared in a mirror, its leaves the waxy green of toad skin, each blade pointing from the branch like a spear head. Hiresha knew the magic to disassemble the poison. She was confident she could stabilize the men with a few enchanted garnets.
“Oh, no!” The reflection lifted her yellow gloves to her cheeks. “Look at the room. The urns.”
Hiresha glanced at a mirror that showed the kennels as she had first entered them. A second looking glass displayed the scene later, after the smoke had cleared. Not only had the far door opened, but also the lid of an urn had shifted. Its glazed pattern of yellow lines now aligned with those on the rest of the urn, the clay vessel large enough to hold a man.
The reflection squealed. “He's still in the room with us?”
A tightness spread over Hiresha's back, and her skin prickled. “Given the pattern of disrupted sand around the urn, it seems likely.”
“Don't leave.” The reflection pleaded. “He could kill us if we wake.”
“If I allow him to escape, the vizier will execute Chandur.” Hiresha outstretched her arms. Glowing jewels swirled around her, and the red diamond in her chest pulsed with replenished power.
She blinked awake.
The urn's lid had tipped onto the sand. The second priest lay gaping at her, his slobbering mouth half filled with sand. Now five men sprawled in the room.
“Confound it!” Hiresha noticed the thief's knife was gone from where it had fallen in the sand.
A peep into the urn revealed the blue of discarded priest robes. The thief was nowhere in sight.
“Some assistance.”
Her voice sounded muffled and weak. Strands of black hair thrashed about as she whirled. She saw only a mass of pilgrims outside in front of the temple. She saw no one. Hiresha felt as if she had swallowed two fistfuls of obsidian shards, her stomach a quivering knot of pain and her insides lacerated.
“Help!”
Chandur's boots sank into the sand as he leaped into darkness.
His hands slapped stone, feeling the edge of a block where the well of rock emptied into the room of his oubliette. His fingers slid, and he dropped into a soft gloom.
Chandur had sawed through the ropes with is teeth, strand by greasy strand. His lips were raw and bleeding. He bet eating would pain him, but the guards had been considerate enough not to feed him. The cup they had lowered through the grate had spilled most of its water on the way down. They had jiggled the rope and laughed.
To calm himself, he recited the first line of his prophecy. “Fosapam Chandur's fate is bright…”
His heart beat hot as he shoved more sand to the center of the oubliette. His fingers touched something hard, another bone. Man or beast? Either way, he was grateful. He felt out the corner stacked with bones, thinking he might need them to bolster the platform.
Enchantress Hiresha had ordered him to escape, and escape he would.
Another heave into the sand. He shaped it into a mound. Stepping upon it, he spoke the second line. “His parents will be proud...” He sprang upward.
Cunning architects had built the oubliette wide and the roof high, but Chandur was a tall man, with a fate that burned inside him. I cannot fail.
His palms slapped stone. He swung his legs upward.
“...That he'll finish his fights...”
If he could plant his feet on one side of the prison shaft he thought—he hoped he might—push off and catch the far side with his hands and make a human bridge. Then he could creep upward, toward the flickering grate above.
His hands slid, and he tumbled backward into darkness. The sand forced a grunt out of him.
Chandur did not see it as a failure. Just a delay.
“...Gain or loss, he will be unbowed.”
He imagined the thread of his fate, curving side to side amid thousands of souls in the Weaver's grand tapestry of life. Soon he would rise to the front of the pattern. His thread could not end before then. They can't execute me, he thought. I will escape.
After picking grit from his sore lips, he set to building a higher platform of sand.
Janny Barrows felt an uncommon pang of guilt for enjoying herself on the city streets. The midday sun shone on the linen hanging from roofs like white banners. The scarabs pattered in alarming numbers, but few flies or children bothered her. Every merchant stall was packed with treasures. One man flaunted his skill at an upright loom, a rug flowing from his fingers while his wife sat at a smaller loom beside him. They called out “Gods are eternal!” to the passersby.
An overhead stream had shaded the street, but the floating water-worm twisted away to expose Janny to the beat of sunrays. To better endure the heat she felt inclined to treat herself by staring at the toned backside of a young man walking in front of her. He wore a loincloth under his gauzy linen skirt, and Janny's chin nodded in time to the swishing stride of his thighs, corded muscles sliding under his skin above the calves of a god.
Her guard escort walked ahead of her and blocked her view. Janny tsked. “Rather selfish of you to wear pants, don't you think?”
The guard looked back at her. “What?”
He had wide shoulders, so Janny winked at him over the chest of clothes she carried. It held the enchantress' amethyst gown and other valuables. Janny had collected it from the inn and was to bring it to the temple compound. The thought of Hiresha under guard tonight then thrown into a stone coffin the day after tomorrow upset Janny's digestion and left her insides gurgling. The stress of the last few days had made her positively windy.
The guard's neck had flushed. When he glanced back again, Janny felt too out of sorts to even given him the second-wink treatment.
Poor Hiresha, she thought. And poor Fosapam.
Men shouted. A crash and a holler. Janny began to turn toward the commotion when a fox dashed past her in a flash of black-tipped tail and a sparkle of green jewels.
The guard froze. Janny blinked.
She asked, “That wasn't…was it?”
A flood of elbows and pushing shoulders spun Janny about. People yelled as they rushed after the fox.
“The Golden Scoundrel!”
“Catch him, Snedja! Catch fortune!”
“He's worth a ship.”
“The priests will pay.”
Janny was forced against a wall painted in stylized palm trees. Her first thought was to duck into a doorway to escape the press of people. Then she noticed an attractive alley. A good hideaway. The shadow of a pharaoh's statue also looked safe.
Wasn't Hiresha searching for the fox? The thought of touching the bundle of teeth and claws terrified Janny, but the vizier had said something to Hiresha about getting the fox back. A god's worth her freedom, isn't it? Maybe Chandur's, too. More than anything, Janny wanted to save the enchantress. Can't let her die 'til she's had some butter-butter between the sheets.
Dropping the chest, she shoved into the crowd. Janny bounced her way between pilgrims. Grabbing arms and shoulders, she pulled herself forward more than she used her legs.
She spotted the fennec spring from a jug onto the canvass above a feather-merchant's wares. It carried an ostrich plume in its mouth as big as itself.
One man laughed. “He'll blow away.”
People boosted their fellows onto their shoulders, grabbing. The fox leaped on top of a building. Men crammed into the front door, but Janny saw a pair of ears and a tail moving across the rooftops, then a scramble down a fig tree and onto a street, one feather poorer but squeaking and yipping in glee.
The fennec zipped in front of Janny, and she dove after it. The creature hopped over her, prancing around legs, weaving between camel guards, and whisked around a young man.
Never'll catch it, Janny thought. Wait, what's this?
A black nose and whiskers peeked from an alley then dodged out of sight. Janny crept between the buildings to see a puffy tail waving, dirt flying as the fennec dug. The emerald stud in its ear twinkled at her.
Janny had seen the fennec running the other direction moments before, and she did not know how it could have gotten its furry paws in this alley so fast. Maybe there's something to this god business.
In Janny's profession, listening to keyholes was considered an act of attentiveness, and she prided herself on her light step. With dismay, she watched the fox's ears perk up and rotate backward to face her. The fennec spied her with its black-bead eyes. It chirped. It launched down the alley.
“Come back here, you furry grasshopper! You toothsome bunny. You preening hard-to-get!”
Janny was not the running type. Or jogging type. At best, she was the quick-walking-with-feet-pointed-inward-in-search-of-the-nearest-chamber-pot type. She could only puff and huff in a jiggling gait. Soon she lost the fennec, but listening, she heard a high-pitched bark. The sound led her to a courtyard with what looked like blocks of ice on display in a fountain, though she supposed they had to be chunks of glass.
Two men leaned over a box painted with the sign of the Golden Scoundrel. One said, “Must be a fennec in there.”
“Think we should bring it back to the temple?”
“Weren't paid to go back. The priest didn't look the type you’d ask for seconds.”
“What did he say? This was some fortune charm for the city?”
“Something like.”
“Wait. Where's that clicking sound coming from?”
The men twitched back in surprise as the box snapped open. A fennec blinked in the sunlight then squealed in joy, leaping into a bed of flowers. Clusters of pink-white petals swayed, and two foxes bounded past Janny and onto the street. Both wore emerald earrings and collars.
“Two gods! My poor heart.” Janny pressed a hand against her chest, panting as she scuttled after them. If she had known she was to be seeing double foxes anyway, she thought she really ought to have drunk more lotus wine that morning.
The twin fennecs sparked uproar in the street. They flitted between scribes and pilgrims and passed someone wearing a vulture mask. The balmy Royal Embalmer, Janny thought. She was not about to forget a man of his height.
The embalmer leaned back, clutching the oiled skin of his belly. He laughed in whooping chortles.
The fennecs scrambled up the hieroglyphs on the side of an obelisk. Tails brushed the slanted pillar of rock. Men jumped against the obelisk but could not reach them. The foxes hopped down over their heads and raced by a man walking on crutches. A woman wearing a blue headband touched the cripple's shoulder, motioning him forward. He astonished Janny by hurling himself into the chase, his crutches scraping the streets. With a hopping gait he passed men who had both their legs.
The foxes left a path of destruction as people rushed to grab them. Wagons of orange and green melons tipped and rolled. Glass sculptures shattered. Jugs fell, broke, leaking wine, and Janny thought she could cry.<
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The maid fell behind. Her insides sloshed in a manner she could only think was unhealthy. Breathing hard, she leaned against a whitewashed wall to see another mob running on an adjacent street, a third fennec in the lead.
She gasped and gulped. “How—how many of the winkers are there?”
This fennec spun around a fountain three times. A chain and stream stretched skyward from the stonework. A scribe caught the fox, and Janny yelled at him.
“I'll pleasure you for that animal!”
The distracted scribe received a tail slap in the face, and the animal in question wriggled free.
Guards on camels shouted for order even as their mounts barreled people aside to close in on the fox. A merchant screamed when the hunt crossed over his perfume stall. Glass bottles tinkled, and aromas drenched Janny of flowers and spice. She coughed and spluttered.
A man jogged beside her. “What a time! They do this every year?”
“Out'a my way.” Janny bumped him aside with her hips.
The fennecs were quick, but she was determined to catch this one. It wore not only an emerald collar but a bracelet, too, secured around its neck. Janny recognized that bracelet. This's the one, Janny! Get it and they'll have to let Hiresha go.
She did not care for the idea of losing her employer, not a whit. With Mister Barrows thankfully dead these last seven years, Janny's children relied on her income. Her daughter, Minna, hoped to attend the Mindvault Academy next year as a novice, but Janny knew that would never happen without Hiresha's patronage.
Janny kept her daughter’s education in mind as she trundled into a bazaar. She might have had a walker's body, but she pushed herself to run. The fennec vaulted into an urn full of salt and started digging. The crippled man in the chase astounded all with his athletics by springing past three others for a grab. In a white spray, the fox jumped sideways.
He pivoted on one crutch to face the fox. The determination in the man’s eyes frightened Janny.
Racks full of ivory spilled in a rolling clatter. Furry feet pranced over a cart full of dates. The merchant lowered himself, murmuring thanks for the blessing of the god, only for his wares to be jostled into an avalanche of brown sweets.
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