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 household 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.
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 carelessness, 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 assembled 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 mansion 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 mistaken; 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 scabbard 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 second 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 mistaken 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 different 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 carcasses.”