by Troy Denning
Finally, Ruha came to a locked cabinet, and Chalk Ears' long tail began to flick madly. The little beast rose on its haunches and sniffed at the doors, dripping a long stream of drool from its muzzle. The witch examined the latch and discovered that she could pop it easily enough, but Wei Dao and the guards were still shuffling about in Lady Feng's bedchamber. Fearful of making any sharp noises that might draw their attention to the secret room, Ruha decided to move to the last cabinet.
A long, deep growl rumbled from the familiar's throat.
The fur rose along its spine, and it slunk toward Ruha with bared fangs. The witch pulled herjambiya and brandished it menacingly in front of Chalk Ears' face.
The creature's tail rose straight into the air. It slowly backed away, then took refuge beneath another cabinet and began to whine.
Cursing the black-masked beast for a scoundrel and a blackmailer, Ruha returned to the locked cabinet and slipped her dagger blade into the door seam. Chalk Ears stopped crying and slunk from its hiding place, being careful to remain well out of reach. The witch worked her jambiya down to the latch, then twisted the blade against the jamb.
The door popped open with a loud bang and a puff of yellow smoke. Ruha cried out in shock and found herself sitting halfway across the room, hurled there more by her own surprise than the force of the blast. A scolding harangue erupted from inside the cabinet, and the image of a tall, willowy woman appeared in the air before the doors. She looked almost ancient, with coarse gray hair pulled into a tight bun and a deeply wrinkled face. Something seemed wrong with her eyes; one of them was almost closed, while the other bulged from its socket as though it might fall out. The woman wagged her finger at the floor and continued her diatribe, send- ing Chalk Ears yelping and skittering across the floor to take refuge behind Ruha. The illusion looked so real the stunned witch did not fully grasp that the trap had not been intended to frighten her until Lady Feng's familiar peered out from behind her and voiced a pitiful plea for food.
The voices of several astonished Shou guards cried out from the other side of the wall, at once puzzled and frightened. Wei Dao called something out, sounding more shocked and bewildered than the soldiers.
The illusion-no doubt an image of Lady Feng her- self-continued to harangue the floor. Ruha gathered herself up, forcing herself to remain calm and consider her options. Hiding was out of the question, for the Shou would certainly investigate until they discovered the cause of all the strange noises. That left only escape, and, as far as the witch could see, there was only one possible route.
Finally, the illusion faded. Chalk Ears cautiously slunk toward the doors Ruha had pried open, where two large ceramic urns contained supplies of food and water that, apparently, the familiar had been unable to reach for several days. The guards, and then Wei Dao herself, called out. When they received no answer, the princess spoke again, this time in a more commanding tone.
Ruha went to the glass windows and looked out. She was on the second story of the palace, no more than thirty feet off the ground. The sentries lurking in the shrubbery around the opal path were all looking away from the mansion, toward the strange enclosure. When they heard the glass break, they would certainly turn toward the sound, so the witch would have to take care not to reveal herself by moving too fast.
Wei Dao spoke again, this time in Common. "I know it is you, Witch! Come out now, or you go to Chamber of One Thousand Painful Deaths!"
Ruha had seen the room to which the princess referred.
It was a dank, fetid place in the deepest of the palace's sub-basements, filled with all manor of chains, hooks, and grim instruments of agony.
Chalk Ears leapt up and grabbed the rim of a ceramic um. The whole thing toppled out of the cabinet and shat- tered, spilling a pool of stale water over the floor. Wei Dao hissed a command, and sword pommels began to hammer at the wall.
Summoning a wind spell to mind, Ruha grabbed the brazier off the worktable and hurled it through a window.
She followed it an instant later, uttering the syllables of her incantation as she fell. A terrific gust of wind tore across the courtyard and rose up beneath her, catching her body in an airy bed as soft as a cloud. The witch som- ersaulted once to bring her feet beneath her, then settled to the ground as though stepping off a stairway.
The sentries in the shrubbery began to yell at each other in Shou. Several rose from their posts and started to run toward the mansion, drawing an angry shout from a young, moon-faced officer. The guards stopped where they were, but continued to stare toward the mansion, squinting and furrowing their brows as they tried to find the strange blur that had just come crashing out the win- dow.
Ruha's stomach had tied itself into knots. The coward in her wanted to flee as quickly as possible, but that would be exactly what her hunters expected. Certainly, a messenger was already rushing to the barracks to call out the guard. Besides, the witch had not yet found Yanseldara's staff, and if the sentries would not leave their posts to investigate a breaking window, whatever they were protecting had to be important. Ruha turned toward the enclosure and, ever so slowly, began to creep down the opal path.
Over the garden wall came the tintinnabulation of breaking glass. Prince Tang rose and scowled toward the palace, but the crest of the rampart rose just high enough to block the second-story windows-he himself had made certain of that-and he could not see what had happened. No matter. Windowpanes cost as much as dia- monds, but this morning he was working on the problem of the ants, and he had only a short time to solve it before his officious wife fetched him to meet with some new merchant.
Tang glanced at the gate, hanging slightly ajar, and wondered if he dared close it. He had repaired only a quarter of the damage to his garden, and every day he failed to restore the delicate balance meant more dead lizards. Still, he could not hazard shutting himself off from his guards. Minister Hsieh was well overdue, which meant the fresh ylang blossoms had not yet been pressed, which meant Cypress was likely to appear at any moment, spitting acid and demanding his oil.
It puzzled Tang that the dragon had not come already. It had been seven days since the last visit, far longei than Cypress had granted him to provide the oil, and still there had been no demands or threats. The prince was not anxious for the call, of course, but he was prepared. His guards-half new, half veterans of the dragon's first appearance-had been eating lasal leaves, a mind-numbing herb that defended against the effects of the Invisible Art. Unfortunately, it also caused tremors and disorientation, and as often as not left long- term users little better than zombies.
Trying to force all thoughts of Cypress from his mind, Tang kneeled in the sand, turning back to the problem of the ants. On a slab of stone before him, four Thornback lizards were basking in the morning sun, warming their cold blood in preparation for the day's activities. They should have been plump and round of body, with blotchy, tan-colored hides indistinguishable from the sand of the desert quarter. Instead, they were no fatter than snakes and as white as alabaster, almost translucent at the tips of their stumpy tails. After Cypress's attack, all of the ants upon which the lizards preyed had mysteriously vanished from the garden, perhaps destroyed or driven away by the Invisible Art.
The prince opened one of the many small lacquered boxes he had brought into the park. A pair of red ants that had survived their capture tried to escape. He killed the fugitives and returned them to the container with their ten dead fellows, then sprinkled all twelve bodies onto the stone. The tongue of a single Thornback lashed out and caught one insect in midair, but it showed no interest in the others. The remaining lizards paid the offering no attention at all.
Tang sighed and reached for the fifteenth box. After several failed attempts to feed the lizards common house- hold ants, he had ordered his servants to capture twelve of every kind of ant that lived within a mile of the Ginger Palace. He had not realized there were so many varieties, or that even Thornbacks could be so particular about the ones they ate.
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nbsp; Tang opened the box and found several large carpenter ants trying to chew their way to freedom. Deciding it would be necessary to punish his servants for their care- lessness, he smashed the survivors and dumped the whole box onto the stone. These plumper insects seemed to interest the lizards more than the previous offerings, as they each snapped up one or two before they stopped eating.
The prince threw the lacquered box down in the sand.
"You are foolish old men! Food need not taste good to save life!"
As one, the Thornbacks lifted their bodies off the rock.
They puffed out their throats and bobbed their heads up and down in the universal challenge of lacertilians. At first. Tang thought his exhortation had angered them, but then he realized they were looking past him toward the Arch of Many-Hued Scales.
The gates were closed and barred.
Ruha breathed a sigh of relief, then braced her hands against the timber crosspiece and tried to stop trembling. The trip down the path of opals had been as nerve-wracking as it had been long. When Wei Dao appeared in the mansion's broken window, the moon- faced officer had sent half his men down the path to see what was wrong. The witch had barely managed to creep off the trail before the sentries rushed past, and despite her caution, one of the men's eyes had briefly drifted in her direction.
After receiving instructions from the princess, the detail had spread out in all directions to begin searching for her. In the meantime, the young officer had as- sembled the rest of his men at the rainbow-colored bridge, and Ruha had been forced to creep past them less than a hand's breadth behind their backs. By the time she had passed beneath the enclosure's scaly gate, the first guards from the barracks were arriving to join the search for her. Though they had not seemed to realize she was invisible, the witch felt certain that Wei Dao would surmise as much as soon as she emerged from the man- sion to direct the search.
From behind Ruha came the metallic swish of a sword leaving its scabbard. She turned to see that the foolish Shou who was trying to feed dead ants to spiny sand iguanas had risen. The witch could not help gasping, and not because she feared the square-tipped sword he now held in his hands.
It was the man from her vision on the raft. He had the same upturned nose, smooth complexion, and silky black hair, but it was his eyes that convinced her. They were deep and dark, at once confident and self-absorbed. His jaw was set but not tense, and the stance he had adopted suggested that he was no stranger to holding a sword.
Ruha realized at once that her first evaluation, made from a hasty glance at the fellow's back, had been mis- taken; this was no simple gardener.
The man studied the gates for a moment, then glanced at his lizards and opened his mouth to call his guards.
"Please, there is no need to call for help." Ruha spoke softly and started across the courtyard, moving quickly enough so that he would see her as a shimmering column of air. "I mean you no harm."
An expression of relief crossed the Shou's face. He started to lower his sword, then glanced at the barred gate and raised it again.
"Do not think of crying out," Ruha warned. She had reached the edge of the courtyard, where the stones gave way to sand. "I have no wish to harm you. Perhaps I can even be of service, if you wish to know why the spiny iguanas will not eat your ants."
"Come no closer." The Shou pointed his sword more or less in Ruha's direction, holding it with both hands so there would be no question of disarming him with a quick strike. "Deliver your message and go."
Ruha stopped at the base of a miniature sand dune.
"What of the iguanas?"
"I take care of Thornbacks myself." The man's eyes turned cold and angry, as though he blamed his unseen visitor for the condition of his lizards. "Your message?"
"Why do you think I have come to deliver a message?"
The Shou's jaw dropped, and the anger in his eyes changed to puzzlement. "Perhaps you show yourself, wu- jen." The man took the precaution of retreating a step, then lowered his sword. "And I do not call guards."
Ruha hesitated to do as he asked. Having seen him in a mirage from the future, she was determined not to leave the park without learning more about him, but her curiosity did not translate into trust. Once she showed herself, she would be at the mercy of his sword-a weapon that, from all appearances, he was quite capable of handling.
As if sensing her thoughts, the Shou retrieved a scab- bard from the ground and sheathed his weapon. "Show yourself, wu-jen, or I draw sword and call guards."
"As you wish."
Ruha raised her hand as though to strike, and her spell evaporated in a curtain of shimmering air. The Shou's gaze ran up her the entire length of the witch's aba, over her orange silk veil, then lingered on her dark eyes. Slowly, his expression changed from wary to pleased to covetous, leaving Ruha uncertain as to whether she was meeting an unexpected friend or an incorrigible lecher.
"Who-who are you?" The Shou paused a moment, then continued to gaze into her eyes as he asked the sec- ond part of his question, "And who sends you to spy on Ginger Palace-Vaerana Hawklyn?"
Though Ruha was startled by the man's deduction, she tried not to let it show. She walked toward the Thornbacks' basking stone, being careful to hold her hands in plain sight. Then, recalling how he had originally mis- taken her for a messenger and remembering how his face had changed to that of a dragon in her vision, she decided to answer his question with a deduction of her own.
"I was not sent by Cypress, if that is what you fear."
The Shou allowed a gracious smile to cross his lips, then prudently stepped away from the basking stone.
"We play at same game." The Thornbacks followed his lead, clambering over the side to bury themselves beneath the sand. "But who is Cypress?"
Ruha locked gazes with the Shou. "He is the dragon, of course-the one I saw you with."
"You are… mistaken." The Shou looked away, and, for the first time, seemed in danger of losing his composure.
"What you claim is impossible."
Ruha glanced at the throng of dead ants lying upon the basking stone, then shook her head. "You have watched, but you have not considered."
She grabbed several lacquered boxes and leaned over the basking stone, then began emptying the contents onto the sand. A cascade of ants of all sizes and three dif- ferent colors-red, black, and brown-poured onto the sand. Close to a dozen of the insects bounced up on their six legs and began to scurry away. The lizards came instantly alive, scrambling from their hiding places to devour the fugitives in a flurry of whipping heads and darting tongues.
"Ants must be alive!" the Shou gasped, looking back to Ruha. "But why?"
"You have never lived in the desert, or you would know. Small creatures like lizards often pass their entire lives without seeing water," Ruha explained. "They must take their fluids from their prey-but only from living prey. Dead bodies dry out swiftly in hot temperatures, and water is too precious to waste digesting parched car- casses."
The Shou watched his lizards catch the last of the moving ants, then he opened another box and dumped the contents onto the sand. Again, the lizards gobbled up the live insects and left the dead ones undisturbed.
Across the little courtyard came the clatter of someone trying to open the barred gates. When the portals did not swing apart, Wei Dao's muted voice rolled over the wall, speaking excitedly in Shou.
Ruha's hand dropped toward herjambiya, but the Shou raised his hand to reassure her.
"Yes, the wu-jen is here with me." He spoke in Com- mon, so Ruha could understand him. "Not to worry. I am safe."
There was a confused murmur outside the gates, then all fell silent beneath the Arch ofMany-Hued Scales. The Shou, whom the witch now felt certain to be Prince Tang, turned back to Ruha.
"They do not disturb us. Please to accept my gratitude for saving of Thornbacks." Though the prince's tone was warm, he did not meet Ruha's eyes as he spoke. "But I do not understand how feeding habits of lizards concern this dra
gon Cypress."
"Is it not true that Lady Feng's kidnappers need her alive, just as the Thornbacks need the ants alive?" asked Ruha, implying that she knew for a fact what she was only guessing at. "What will they do once she has fin ished enslaving Yanseldara's spirit for them?"
Tang looked up, his eyes both betraying his astonish- ment and veiling something more. "You are accomplished wu-jen." The prince spread his palms and smiled warmly.
"Household of Ginger Palace has need for someone like you."
Ruha scowled, taken aback by the directness of the prince's approach. "We both know I am here on behalf of someone else."
Tang shook his head emphatically. "Oh, no! I do not speak of hiring. I mean to make you Virtuous Concubine."
"Concubine!" Ruha cried, both stunned and affronted by the offer.
Tang stumbled an uncertain step backward. A con- cerned murmur began to build outside the gate; then the prince squared his shoulders and stepped back to the basking stone.
"You do not understand, wu-jen." Now he was speaking between clenched teeth. "Virtuous Concubine is honored position in house of Shou prince. Lady Feng is Third Virtuous Concubine, and you become Worthy Daughter to Third Virtuous Concubine to Emperor of Shou Lung. It is position more worthy than queen of any realm in Heart- lands!"
Ruha began to feel a little embarrassed by her out- burst, though she still found it strange that any man would propose such a thing without first making inquiries about her family. "Prince Tang, what you offer is clear enough. Still, I must decline."
Tang looked as though she had punched him in the stomach. "You-you refuse me? A prince of Shou Lung?"
A muted thump reverberated across the courtyard; then the top rungs of a ladder appeared above the gates.