The Veiled Dragon h-12 Read online

  "Perhaps there are other uses, but I have described all I can demonstrate."

  The two men returned with a small brazier already filled with hot coals. Ruha crushed one of the tears between her palms, then sprinkled the crumbs onto the embers. An aromatic smoke rose from the pan, filling the entire chamber with such a sweet, fresh smell that the Shou finally allowed their stoic masks to slip. They began to smile openly and crowd closer to the source, taking such deep breaths that some of them actually snorted.

  Even the stem-faced guards could not keep their nostrils from flaring.

  Wei Dao studied her entourage's reaction in bemused meditation. "This is not magic?"

  "I am no spellcaster," Ruha lied. She pressed the other tear into the princess's hand and motioned toward the brazier. "It will smell just as sweet if you sprinkle the crumbs. Tomorrow, I will demonstrate its use in the mak- ing of perfumes and poultices."

  Wei Dao did not step toward the brazier. "Not necessary. We buy all you have."

  "What about the price?" Fowler gasped. "Aren't you even going to ask?"

  Wei Dao glanced at the brazier, where her entourage stood sniffing the sweet-smelling smoke. "You already tell me it is more valuable than gold. I believe you."

  Fowler shook his head in amazement, then looked back to Ruha. "Well, Lady Ruha, how much do we have?"

  It took Ruha a moment to realize what he was asking, for she had not expected her plan to succeed quite so well. "I'm afraid we have very little at the moment." The witch had only three more tears in her pocket. "You see, our ship was sunk by a dragon-"

  "By dragon?"

  Wei Dao's exclamation caught Ruha as much by sur- prise as had the offer to buy all her frankincense. "It was a very large dragon," the witch explained, keeping a watchful eye on the princess's expression. "A black one. Do you know it?"

  Wei Dao's face became as unreadable as ever. "I do not know this dragon. But it is difficult for Shou to hear of dragons doing evil things."

  "Yes, I have heard your emperor is a green dragon."

  "Jade." Wei Dao bowed, suggesting that the audience was at an end. "Please return to Ginger Palace with more frankincense and myrrh."

  Ruha did not return the bow. "You may be certain we will-but first, we are interested in purchasing some wares to take with us."

  The witch fingered the silk veil that Hsieh had given to her. "As you can see, the love of Shou silk reaches even into the depths ofAnauroch."

  "Of course. You discuss with Prince Tang." Wei Dao bowed again. "Come back tomorrow, and new chamber- lain sees you are among first to see my husband."

  "I am sorry, but that is not possible." Ruha had to fight to keep the panic out of her voice. "We must leave for Ilipur tomorrow to buy a new ship."

  "Then come very early in morning. Chamberlain give you first appointment." Wei Dao turned to leave, this time without bowing.

  Ruha threw open the coffer in Fowler's hands. "Before you go, Princess, Abazm said you would want to see the color of our gold."

  Wei Dao spun around, affronted. "Show me money? What for?"

  Fowler tipped the box so she could look inside, and the princess's expression changed instantly-first to one of puzzlement, then interest.

  "Yes, of course. Abazm always tells us we must inspect coins." She glided over to the box and started to reach inside, then remembered herself and asked, "May I touch?"

  Ruha nodded, and Wei Dao picked up several gold pieces and raised them to her face. When Ruha saw the coin from Calimshan slide down the long sleeve of the princess's dress, she thought it best not to say anything.

  "You stay tonight in Ginger Palace," Wei Dao said, as though she had thought of the idea herself. "We see Prince Tang soon after breakfast."

  Seven

  Ruha raised her veil, blew into the tree-shaped keyhole, and whispered the incantation to her wind spell. A short blast of air whistled softly through the slot, raising a gentle clat- ter as it rattled the lock. The sound was not loud, but the witch cringed.

  After a long night of skulking through the Ginger Palace, she had worked her way deep into the labyrinthine corridors of the residential section, and the guards here were thick as ants in their hill.

  The bolt slid back with a muffled clack. Ruha stood, then looked back down the long hall. Already, two sen- tries were stalking toward her, their bare feet sliding across the silk runner in utter silence. It was their incredible stealth that made the witch's search so nervewracking. She never knew when she would meet one coming around a corner, or suddenly feel someone gliding past her as she kneeled before a keyhole.

  Ruha pressed herself into a corner beside the door, moving very slowly and deliberately. Although she had rendered herself invisible with a sun spell, the mirage was not perfect. Any quick motion would cause a shim- mering blur that might alert the guards to her presence.

  The men stopped before the door, gesturing at the knob and whispering to each other in the lilting language of the Shou. After arguing a few moments, they tried the latch. When the door swung open, they gasped and backed away, both reaching for their square-tipped swords. One of them spoke, and the other scurried down the hall.

  The remaining guard peered into the room, calling gently, as though saying someone's name. No one answered. He reluctantly entered the chamber, still speaking softly. Though she was puzzled by the man's alarm, Ruha followed him through the door and instantly realized she had found the personal quarters of Lady Feng.

  Opposite the door was a glass window, through which spilled the pale dawn light illuminating an anteroom similar to those Ruha had found in the private apart- ments of both the prince and princess. Like many cham- bers in the Ginger Palace, this one was furnished with nothing more than a single low table and a few straw mats. The walls were covered not by the resplendent frescoes of birds and reptiles that decorated the other royal apartments, but by subtly hued paintings of sym- bolic portent: a snake coiled into an ascending spiral, a feeble old man sailing backward across a rainbow, a spi- der that had spun its web in the mouth of a singing woman, and many more images that would have put the witch into a contemplative mood, had she not been so jit- tery from hours of skulking about the Ginger Palace.

  The guard crossed the chamber and nervously called through the doorway into the next room. When no one answered, he reluctantly inched forward. Ruha went to the window and, while she waited for the sentry to com- plete his search, looked out upon the rear part of the palace complex. She could not see much, for a large, high- walled enclosure sat in the middle of the grounds, block- ing her view of everything beyond save the tiled roofs of the two huge buildings the witch had noticed yesterday.

  Ruha could not decide what the enclosure was. Its walls were capped by a double row of barbed spikes, as though it were some sort of prison, but the gates hung open beneath a strange, scaly archway that vaguely resembled a dragon's tail. A short, opal-paved path con- nected the peculiar courtyard to the mansion, crossing an arcing, multicolored bridge and snaking through a thicket of well-tended shrubbery. The witch noticed sev- eral sentries kneeling among the bushes, not hiding so much as trying to avoid obtrusiveness.

  Ruha was dismayed to note that the sun had already risen high enough to kindle an iridescent glimmer in the pearly surfaces of both the walkway and the enclosure's scaly arch. There was not much time to find Yanseldara's staff. Soon, the breakfast servants would arrive at the guest house in the front courtyard. Fowler could probably keep them at bay, but he would be hard-pressed to explain the witch's absence when someone called to escort them to Prince Tang's audience hall.

  Ruha cast an impatient look toward the room the guard had gone to inspect. She was tempted to start her own search before he left the apartment, but that would be very dangerous. As quietly as Shou sentries moved, he might slip into the chamber while she wasn't looking and see her move something. Besides, if anyone in the other rooms was a light sleeper, it would be better to let the sentry disturb them.

 
A short time later, the guard finally returned, mutter- ing to himself and glancing askance at the mystical sym- bols on the walls. Ruha had heard no conversations or startled cries to suggest he had awakened anyone, so she did not understand his anxiety. When she had inadver- tently drawn the guards' attention before, they had seemed much more confident of themselves. In one case, they had remained quite composed while they explained to a startled bureaucrat why they had awakened him.

  Another time, they had efficiently searched an entire apartment without disturbing the sleeping residents.

  Ruha waited until the fellow left the room, then went to the door and used the same spell she had used to unlock the latch to lock it again. A muffled cry of surprise sounded from the hall. The guard tried the door, again speaking softly. The witch turned away and crept silently into the next room, not caring that she had alarmed him further. When the other sentry returned, he would no doubt bring a superior, who would probably insist on searching the apartment again. If the witch was still here, the sound of the lock turning would alert her to their arrival.

  The next room appeared to be Lady Feng's dressing closet. In one corner stood a wooden screen decorated with the painting of a naked king and queen lying together upon a bed of purple night. In the corner oppo- site the screen were two dressing bureaus, each with a costly silver mirror hanging behind it. One wall of the room was lined by several wardrobes decorated with paintings of astrological constellations.

  Though Ruha considered the room an unlikely place to hide Yanseldara's staff, she paused long enough to peer behind the screen-nothing there-and open each of the wardrobes. Inside were dozens of silk gowns in many dif- ferent styles, all dyed black as kohl and brocaded with the same endless pattern of open and closed eyes. The witch ran her hands over the floor and explored the corners behind the clothes. When she found nothing but sashes and slippers, she closed the wardrobes and crept into the next chamber.

  Against the far wall sat the most elaborate piece of fur- niture in Lady Feng's apartment, a large canopied bed surrounded by a folding partition. Each panel was deco- rated with the fearsome aspects of leering, grotesque monsters, such as sometimes invaded a sleeper's dreams.

  In their claws, the fiends carried strange, exotic weapons like those stored in the secret armory that Ruha had dis- covered beneath the palace. There was a horned goat- man brandishing a two-bladed sword, a bat-winged tiger carrying a spear with barbed points at both ends, a red- eyed centaur whirling a three-chained flail, and a wide assortment of other hideous creatures to protect Lady Feng's spirit while she slept.

  They were not needed now. No clothes lay folded on the dressing couch beside the bed, and four of the parti- tion panels hung open, revealing a black silken quilt embroidered with the same green dragon that hung beneath the prow of Hsieh's ship. The blanket lay neatly spread over the mattress and pillows, lacking even the slightest rumple to suggest anyone had slept beneath it the night before.

  Ruha's stomach sank. She had assumed all along that she would find Yanseldara's staff somewhere near Lady Feng, but it had never occurred to her that Lady Feng would not be at home.

  The absence certainly explained the guards' reaction to the rattling lock, but not much else. Perhaps Lady

  Feng had spent the night in a lover's chamber, or com- muning with the spirits in some occult place Ruha had not yet discovered. There could be any number of expla- nations, most of which meant the staff would not be found here. Nevertheless, the witch decided to continue her search. Even if she failed to recover Yanseldara's staff-she could hear Vaerana maligning her already-at least there was a chance she would find something to lead her to Lady Feng.

  Ruha crawled onto the mattress and ran her hands over the black quilt, then felt under the pillows. When she found nothing, she crawled off and straightened the quilt, then looked under the bed and stood on the dress- ing couch to peer above the canopy. She went to the cor- ner and inspected a low writing desk. On the surface sat a bottle of ink, a small calligraphy brush, and several blank leaves of rice paper. A well-worn text in ancient Dwarven sat on one corner; the witch knew just enough of the arcane language to recognize the words "alchemy" and "first materials."

  Though she could not see how it might be connected to Yanseldara's staff, the witch picked up the dwarven text.

  Aside from what she had already examined, there was little else in the room. She turned to leave, and that was when she heard the scratching.

  It was as gentle as the whisper of her feet across the floor, but it was steady, and there was something more: a weak, plaintive whimpering. Ruha returned the dwarven text to its place, then kneeled in the corner of the room.

  The scratching and the squealing grew more discernible, and she caught a faint whiff of a gamy and slightly rank odor. An animal.

  Ruha ran her fingers up the corner and felt the seam of a door. She pulled the writing desk away from the cor- ner, and a small click sounded inside the wall. The scratching and squealing stopped, but the gamy odor grew stronger. Resisting the urge to pull laerjambiya-if she attacked anything, the sun spell would fail and ren- der her instantly visible-the witch laid her palms on a fresco of what looked like a slumbering mountain and pushed.

  A hidden panel swung open, revealing the interior of a cluttered chamber. A small, white-furred face peered around the edge of the door. At first, Ruha thought the thing was a monkey, until she saw that its black-tipped muzzle was long and foxlike. Then she noted the black mask around its eyes and thought it looked like a rac- coon, save that its head was as small and narrow as that of a weasel.

  The creature, whatever it was, regarded the empty doorway for an instant, and then its nose twitched and its ears pricked forward. It raised its dark eyes, which remained as expressionless as they were large, toward Ruha's face and chittered despondently. For a moment, the witch thought the little animal could not see her and was disappointed at finding no one in the door. Then it slipped forward, revealing an emaciated body and a white-ringed tail, and gently pawed at her with two tiny black hands.

  Hoping the creature was not trying to defend its terri- tory, Ruha stepped past it into the secret chamber.

  Beneath a brass chandelier in the center of the room stood a worktable, the surface barely visible beneath a jumble of braziers, balances, cauldrons, and other alchem- ical instruments. Three of the laboratory walls were com- pletely concealed behind rows of tall wooden cabinets, some so full of books and flasks they could not close. The fourth wall had two glass windows, beneath which were a red silk cushion, a box of fetid-smelling sand, and two sil- ver bowls licked so clean they gleamed like mirrors.

  When Ruha paused at the worktable to examine Lady Feng's apparatus, Chalk Ears, as she was beginning to think of the black-masked creature, leapt onto the only clear corner. It fixed its expressionless eyes on her face, watching her so intently she raised a hand to make cer- tain she had not suddenly become visible. When the witch could not see her own flesh, she regarded Chalk Ears with a wary eye, then reached toward a flask of what looked like powdered blood.

  A surprisingly sinister growl rolled from the creature's small throat. The hair rose along its spine and it lifted itself on its haunches, baring a mouthful of needlelike fangs. Ruha retracted her arm, and the little beast set- tled back onto its corner. The witch clasped her hands behind her back, then slowly walked around the table, studying the rest of the apparatus. Other than a fine coating of dust, she saw nothing to tell her what had become of Lady Feng. Chalk Ears watched her intently, but made no further objections as long as she did not attempt to touch anything.

  Ruha went to the first cabinet. Chalk Ears jumped off the table and took a post at her heels. Keeping a careful eye on her little escort, she pulled the door open. As before, the creature watched her carefully, and any doubts about its ability to see her vanished from the witch's mind. Whatever it was, the animal clearly had some defenses against magic, and that could only mean

  Chalk Ears was Lady F
eng's familiar, linked to her by a special bond of magic and love.

  Ruha had never had a familiar, since the spell that summoned them had more to do with the spirit than the elements. But she had heard other witches describe the strength of the union. Sometimes, the two were so closely bound that, over relatively short distances, they could see through each other's eyes and hear through each other's ears.

  Ruha kneeled in front of the familiar. "Lady Feng?" she whispered, looking into the creature's big eyes. "Are you there?"

  Chalk Ears blinked, but the tiny beast made no move to suggest that it understood.

  "Why have you left your familiar alone, Lady Feng? It is starving. Shall I feed it for you and give it water?"

  Again, Chalk Ears did nothing. The witch breathed a sigh of relief, confident there would have been some response if Lady Feng were listening. Even if the starv- ing creature's mistress was as cruel as Afar the Merciless, she would share its pain and be anxious to have it cared for. In fact, it seemed unthinkable that Lady Feng would allow the little beast to fall into such a wretched state unless she had been forced to depart under the direst circumstances.

  A muffled crash rumbled through Lady Feng's apartment, and guards began to call from the anteroom. Ruha stepped into the bedchamber and pulled the writing desk back into its comer, then slipped into the laboratory and closed the secret door. She pressed her ear to the panel and heard several men rush into the room, still calling out as though they expected Lady Feng to return at any moment. Wei Dao arrived and began issuing commands.

  The witch listened for several moments more. When she heard no one dragging the desk from its place, she decided they did not know about the secret room and qui- etly resumed her search.

  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 imagin- able and some that were not, arcane instruments so obscure the witch could not guess their purpose. Still, she found no sign ofYanseldara's staff, nor any clue of Lady Feng's whereabouts, nor any hint as to why the Shou sorceress had abandoned her familiar.