With Chalk Ears watching intently, Ruha carefully opened each cabinet and looked over the contents. To a nomad’s eye at least, they contained an overabundance of magical supplies: scrolls and tomes in many different languages, a glut of ingredients for every spell imaginable and some that were not, arcane instruments so obscure the witch could not guess their purpose. Still, she found no sign of Yanseldara’s staff, nor any clue of Lady Feng’s whereabouts, nor any hint as to why the Shou sorceress had abandoned her familiar.
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 her jambiya 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, sending 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 herself—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 urn. The whole thing toppled out of the cabinet and shattered, 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 somersaulted 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 window.
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 diamonds, 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 longer 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.