Fox's Bride

by Marling, A. E.

  The scribe shuffled beside her, pointing into the bleakness. He seemed unwilling to speak.

  She took the lead again and the light of her earrings revealed piles of trade goods. Jars were stacked into clay walls. Staves leaned against the stone blocks of pillars. Gilt thread in ornate carpets glittered. The grunt of a camel startled her, and the owner of the pack animal would not meet her gaze as he unloaded chests.

  The richness of treasure increased the farther she wandered. Stacks of cedar wood. Open chests bursting with ostrich feathers. A pile of elephant tusks, each carved. A clutter of ebony furniture inlaid by master crafters. Hiresha navigated past them and between hills of chests holding secrets. The space in front of her shimmered, and she assumed she neared the edge of the lake.

  Gold covered the floor in drifts of coins. Light rippled over the treasure. Gilded statues lay face down, their poses suggesting a desperate swimmer. Jewels threw sparks of light within the silver bowls that held them, and Hiresha lingered beside these, hoping the diamonds and sapphires had not scratched the more delicate gems. She ached knowing she lacked the time to examine them, feeling overwhelmed by the trove. She had thought she had known wealth in the Academy.

  A path wound through the gold, and the men who followed her took care to walk at is center. Their gazes clung to the floor of hardened soil, and whenever their attention slipped to the hoard, they blinked, shuddered, and forced their eyes down again. One guard stepped on a coin left on the path, and he gasped and jerked his foot up as if bitten.

  Jumbles of jewelry choked off the way, and Hiresha had to lift one foot at a time and use stepping stones positioned between stacks of golden bracers, anklets, and necklaces. A row of monstrously long fangs glinted at her, and she twitched to face them and saw they were only swords in racks. Jewels studded their blades, and precious metals coated their hilts.

  The blue light from her earrings spread to reveal a woman lazing on a black-velvet couch. Hiresha wondered at the sight of her. Was she waiting in the dark? A podium beside her held a basket of apricots. Her hand floated up to her painted lips and plucked out a seed pit, and she dropped the stone into a gold jar riddled with diamonds.

  Hiresha's voice sounded too loud but also too small, her words lost in the cavern. “I am Elder Enchantress Hiresha....”

  The woman's eyes glinted silver. No irises, no pupils, no eyes. Lashes curled back from bulbs of metal, and Hiresha lost her words as pins of revulsion punctured her palms and feet.

  “This one hears,” the metal-eyed woman said, “and this one speaks for the Silver Crocodile.”

  The enchantress forced herself to approach the couch. The woman did not look at her, and Hiresha doubted those silver orbs helped her see. Behind the couch, reflected light pulsed and wormed through the darkness. The limit of the enchantress' light grazed something, a shadow, a polished wall glistening in shades of frost. Hiresha could not make it out. A presence bore her down all the same, a crushing judgment, a stifling sensation that at any moment a colossus could lunge out of the darkness and devour her.

  Hiresha bowed, pressing one arm into the cavern floor. In the other, the fennec cried in a series of squeaks, and Hiresha realized she was constricting him. She eased her grip.

  She considered asking forgiveness for sitting on the silver throne, but she decided to be direct. Her dry lips peeled from each other, her mouth opening to speak.

  “I will give the Silver Crocodile a tribute of—”

  “The Silver Crocodile does not accept gifts, homage, or devotion.” The woman rested an arm on an upraised hip. The light of Hiresha's diamonds pierced the gauze of her clothing to show the henna that covered the woman's skin in stylized designs of reptiles.

  Hiresha stood. In her arms, the fennec had flattened his ears. “Then,” she said, “I'll pay twenty thousand gold over ten years. For the Silver Crocodile to break into Bleak Wells and free one Fosapam Chandur. And his jasper sword.”

  “Pharaohs have offered hundreds of thousands of gold for the Silver Crocodile to fight their wars. All were refused. The Silver Crocodile is not a mercenary.”

  “I have heard accounts of....” Tales ran through her mind of the Silver Crocodile leaving the underside of the city to eat men who had displeased it, to pillage kingdoms that had not paid their debts.

  A silence thickened around Hiresha, and breaking it with words seemed more and more rash. She wanted to retreat from this pillared cavern and dash back to the day. Panic brushed against her face like webs covered in poisonous spiders.

  Chandur is depending on me, she thought. I owe it to him to be brave.

  She forced herself to stay and speak. “I—I offer my services as an elder enchantress. My expertise—”

  “Are not required.” The woman's metal eyes stared above Hiresha's right shoulder. The speaker dismissed the enchantress with a roll of a hand stained by patterns of crocodile tails. “Be gone.”

  Hiresha had turned around before she realized it. The sight of the white-faced, bulge-eyed expression of the royal guards made her remember herself. I cannot afford to fear.

  She forced herself to return to speak. “The priesthood will force me to marry this fennec tomorrow and die, and the vizier will execute my spellsword who did nothing but follow orders. If the Silver Crocodile but carries us out of the city, I will indebt myself to it for the rest of my life.”

  The woman closed her reflective eyes. Amid the lapping sounds of water nearby, a flow of air groaned and whistled like wind traveling through a passageway of rock. The noise unnerved Hiresha more and more as she paid attention to it. Is that its breath?

  Her silver eyes opened, and the woman spoke. “You will have ten thousand gold, at a rate of twenty parts per annum. Coin is the only aid the Silver Crocodile gives.”

  “Gold will not help me.”

  The woman said nothing more. She balanced an apricot between long fingernails, spread her lips, and enfolded the orange fruit in one bite.

  Hiresha's breathing was ragged. She thought she should leave, but moving seemed so pointless. Tomorrow, I might escape from the sarcophagus with enchantment, yet the priests would never permit my leaving the pyramid alive. She felt drained, empty of purpose.

  A scraping sound, a metallic slithering forced Hiresha to glance to the side. She saw nothing, but she heard what could have been a score of sledges dragged through coins. Piles of gold shifted amid a clatter of rolling tinkles.

  From the direction of the lake crashed a waterfall sound. It ended in the slurp of waves flowing backward, lapping, then sighing. In one of the circles of light from a descending sky stream, the waters trembled and swelled. Silver flashed beneath the surface. Rows of spikes shimmered past, and then the stretch of lake returned to darkness.

  The glimpse of the creature left Hiresha shivering. The fennec mewed in fright.

  Hiresha stumbled out of the oasis cavern in a daze. Her mind flailed with the proportions of the creature she had seen. In the Academy, the texts had classified it as a dragon. The word was foreign. Dragon. Crocodile God. What one calls such a power matters little, she supposed.

  She wished she could convince herself it had been a hoax, that a mechanism had moved the coins to create the sounds. A Feaster's magic may have tricked her mind into hearing the clangor. They have power in dark places. The silver shape under the water was less easy to explain away because the daylight would have dispelled their illusions.

  Hiresha blinked, realizing the scribe had said something to her. She was surrounded by light. They had returned to the colonnade, and the priest had taken back the fennec.

  The scribe blew on a papyrus to dry the ink. “Standard stipulations. If payments are delinquent by a year, the Silver Crocodile will eat your immediate antecedents.”

  “My parents are deceased.”

  “That is irrelevant.”

  Hiresha cringed, thinking of a scaled monstrosity stomping through her city of Morimound, shattering homes in sprays of bricks to devour the corp
ses of her parents. True, her family had never treated Hiresha with anything better than scorn for her “laziness.” Neither did she share the local belief that souls would shrivel into oblivion if the remains of the dead were eaten. Still, she would not want a ruckus as a legacy.

  The scribe said, “Two years delinquent and, well, I suppose that is not likely in this case. The generosity of a loan in this situation is unprecedented. You must have impressed the Silver Crocodile.”

  She gazed over the document. “I see no seal or mark of authenticity.”

  “The Silver Crocodile requires none. It forgets nothing, and no one would dare forge a contract in its name.”

  Hiresha traced her eyes over the hieroglyphs written in shorthand, dots and lines and sideways figures. “Why is it that a being of such power refuses tribute? In the west, the Dominion of the Sun worships a dragon, do they not?”

  “They feed their slaves to something, no telling what.” The scribe pushed the papyrus toward her.

  A drop of ink fell from the end of her ebony stick as she hesitated. She tried to think of what use she could put the glut of coin, with one day left to live.

  Chandur wanted to write to his sister.

  He could write, after a fashion. Not with the elegance of a scribe and not in the hieroglyphs of the empire's capitol, but he had learned the box-shaped lettering of his home city.

  Alyla, the letter would begin. Am in prison, but do not worry. No rats.

  If he only had a paper, he would have written it. That and a quill and ink, and light to see by.

  Chandur scrubbed his face with a sandy hand, raking his fingers over his stubble. He had freed his arms after hours of tugging. He had even tried to pull himself up the rope, but the guards had not secured it, and the length snaked down on top of him.

  No point in a note, anyway, he thought. Chandur intended to be back in the Academy with Hiresha before any letter arrived. He could speak to his novice sister then in person. His fingers dug into his scalp. He had been wrong to think of sending a letter because it showed a lack of respect for his fate.

  He hurt everywhere, bruises swelling in patches of pain over his body. Climbing out of the oubliette seemed impossible to him now. He doubted he could do it even with the help of a rope.

  “Hey, down there,” a guard shouted, and he shadowed the grating. “Some water for you.”

  Chandur groped upward, touching a jug lowered on a rope. He gulped the water down, only afterward noticing its biting taste. He hoped they had not put anything too unhealthy in it. And what matter if they did? The thought stung him.

  Above, guards snickered. “Drink up. The crowd always cheers to see 'em piss themselves.”

  “Right, but no food,” another said. “No one likes a shitter.”

  They pulled up the rope. “Any trouble sleeping tonight, try counting scorpions. Heh! Heh!”

  Chandur slammed a hand into the blackness of sand.

  Dear Sister, I am sorry. He tried to stop thinking about the letter, but the words kept creeping through his head. Sorry for failing you and the family name. If you're reading this, then Elder Enchantress Hiresha is probably gone, too. I wish I had something of my own to leave you. The priest must've been wrong about my fate. Perhaps yours is the bright one.

  He clapped fingers over his mouth to choke out a sob and wrapped an arm behind his neck to cradle his head. How long he stayed that way, he did not know. He was not even sure if it was still day. Anger spun in thick waves of bitterness, mostly at himself for disbelieving the will of the gods.

  The sound of a familiar, lofty voice made him sit straight, and his sore muscles squeezed a wince out of him. He held still, listening to Hiresha speaking above.

  “...a basket of pistachios for the prisoner. If you would deliver it to him, I'd be most grateful.”

  “With all due respect to yourself and your betrothed,” a guard said, “not happening. But we thank you for the gift. Ah, nice and salty.”

  “How dare you! Give those back.”

  “No, no. Awful kind of you. Djok, Clipper, take a few.”

  Chandur heard the snapping of pistachio shells.

  “Return my property. At once.”

  “Ahhh. Look here. Never seen a nut shine like this, have you, Maset?”

  “Here's another one. They amber?”

  A distinctive sniff filtered down from above. “If you must know, they are yellow diamonds.”

  “He'd have broke a tooth in the dark. Hey, here's a fourth.”

  Chandur realized Hiresha had been trying to slip him some enchanted jewels. A rush of happiness pained him. She's trying to free me. Like Inannis freed the woman. Chandur supposed those two would have holed up somewhere in the city, or disappeared into the desert.

  “I'll permit you to keep the diamonds,” Hiresha said. “If you release Fosapam Chandur.”

  A guard guffawed. “Not going to take his place on the scorpion altar for a few glitters.”

  “What about the diamonds and nine thousand gold? Quite a sum, even divided among you. For Chandur and his sword.”

  Chandur's throat tightened, and his bruises throbbed as his heart quickened. Did I hear her right? Thinking of that much coin bewildered him. He could never imagine repaying it. Does she think I'm worth so much?

  A guard said, “Going to pretend I didn't hear that.”

  “Not right for a god's bride,” another said.

  “If you must be inconsiderate enough to refuse a bribe offered in good faith,” Hiresha said, “then permit me this last opportunity to speak with my spellsword.”

  The guards grumbled that they would be watching her. Chandur had allowed himself to hope Hiresha could free him, and now he felt as if he were sinking into the sand. A jagged coldness swirled within him, dampening the warmth of knowing that the enchantress valued him.

  The shaft above the oubliette darkened with a shadow. Probably Hiresha's. Chandur's mouth had swollen, and it hurt when he pressed his lips together in anticipation of what the enchantress would say. He had no idea what he should tell her.

  She did not speak. Chandur squinted up at the few flickers of light he could see on the grate. He realized the enchantress might have drifted off to sleep.

  “Hiresha?” His voice was scratchy. “Enchantress Hiresha?”

  “Spellsword Fosapam Chandur.” Her words were formal as always, but emotion barbed them. “I have decided...I'll make a deal tonight, to find the thief. He'll take your place.”

  “And you? Did you find a woman who wanted to marry the Golden Scoundrel?”

  “The vizier may not release you until after the Newborn Year.” She did not seem to answer his question. “You may not have another chance to converse with me. As we do now.”

  The words hit him like a spear through his chest. He had feared just this, Hiresha dieing while he, her bodyguard, lived. Chandur imagined the bright line of his fate twisting around hers, using it for support then stealing its place in the weave of life.

  “I—I don't want this.” He did wish to see the sunlight again, to speak with his sister, to escape this lice-infested pit, to live. To have all that at the cost of Hiresha's life would feel like murder.

  “I tried to secure your release by other methods. I—”

  He said, “You should save yourself. Run from the city.”

  “There are four guards breathing on me at the moment. More wait outside with the priest, all with particular ideas about my prospects.”

  In the darkness, Chandur pulled his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around his legs. He trembled, sure now that Hiresha would die and he would live. Shouldn't be upset about it, he told himself. It's fate.

  “Chandur....” Her shadow shifted, revealing a few fingers of a purple glove wrapped around the bars. Seeing the flash of color felt like a gift more precious than a cup of clean water. “I would ask one thing of you. To live a full life.”

  “Don't worry about me.” His throat felt knotted. “Fate will carry me to g
reatness.”

  Her tongue clicked in distaste. “Fate isn't something that happens to you. Those with bright fates don't wait and follow but lead and strive. You must command your life.”

  Chandur stared into the blackness. At the moment, he could direct the sand piled around him and not much more. He did not see what difference it made if fate acted through him or through others to bring him to his bright future.

  Her voice sifted down from above. “Will you promise me? That you'll seize your fate?”

  “I will.” He would have agreed to any last request of hers.

  “This must be enough for me. Spellsword Chandur, I...I've always thought....” Tension and uncertainty strained her voice. “You're a fine specimen.”

  Wet scratching sounds of the guards snickering reached his ears. Are they laughing at her? Anger blazed within him, and he shifted to one knee. He wanted to spring out of the oubliette and wrestle the oafs to the ground.

  “Goodbye, Fosapam.” The sides of the grate lit as Hiresha's shadow moved away.

  He could have let her go at that. He could have shouted goodbye, thanked her. All felt right, the strand of his fate straightening, his path cleared by her to greatness.

  Instead he stood, reaching up to the distant bars. Muscles along his back and legs twinged. “Wait.”

  Only half the grating was lit orange. He could tell she had not left yet.

  He said, “The sword you enchanted for me—”

  “Yes, another enchantress will be able to maintain it.”

  “No, I mean, it's amazing. Light as wood one moment then heavy the next. It's what makes me strong.”

  “That isn't true. You—”

  “If you can make a sword like that, you can make your own way.” Worry pressed on his chest from all sides. Am I upsetting fate by saying this? But he had already decided that he did not want Hiresha dieing for his sake. “You don't need me to get away from the guards.”

  “I enchant. I do not wield force.”

  “You're the one with power. Leave the city. “