Fox's Bride (18 page)

Hiresha carried the fennec from the waking world into the dream laboratory.

“I may have to share my last hours with you in a sarcophagus,” she said, “yet I refuse to entertain your fleas.”

The fennec appeared on a basalt table. His eyes matched the blackness of the stone. He tilted his nose up to follow her hand as she Attracted all the fleas from his coat. The parasitic specks hovered in the air between her hands, their jumps availing them not.

Fleas could not be easily crushed with Burdening forces. Hiresha had to rip them in two by Attracting them to either hand at the same time.

Her mind strayed to her recent conversation with Chandur, and she saw herself in a mirror, stooped over the oubliette grate. She heard herself call him a “fine specimen,” and she grimaced, wishing she had found better words.
At least I refrained from crying.

“Hooray! We brought the fox.” In another mirror, Hiresha's reflection clapped her yellow-gloved hands together. “You can't blame him, the innocent creature.”

“Innocent? He has shed seven fleas on me.”

A shoal of green garnets floated above the fennec. He settled himself down on his haunches, his fur tinted to a shade of bronze by the glowing jewels. The fennec leaped into the cluster of gems, snatching one in his mouth.

Hiresha Attracted the jewel out from between his teeth. Not wishing the fennec to cause further mischief, the enchantress Lightened him to the weight of a single hair. He began drifting through the room like the jewels, his furry paws running but carrying him nowhere. The reflection in the yellow gown giggled.

Ignoring her, Hiresha listened to the memory of Chandur in the other mirror. He had been kind-hearted to say he would escape by his own means. After examining Bleak Wells Prison, she found that unlikely. Neither did she have any belief in her own ability to free herself from the city guards, who had taken to standing watch over her sleeping form at night. She would have to beseech the Lord of the Feast for help. She saw no other choice.

“If you can make a sword like that,” Chandur had said, “you can make your own way.”

The jasper sword revolved in an adjacent mirror.
A pity he was wrong,
she thought. Even if she had the enchanted weapon, she lacked a spellsword's training to activate its magic when awake. True, she had power, but only when dreaming.

“I can't sleep my way past every guard.”

A spellsword and enchantress together made an effective pairing, each a complement to the other's skills. Hiresha had always planned for Spellsword Chandur to remove physical difficulties. His imprisonment crippled her like an amputation of her arms, and, if she would admit it, pained her almost as much.

She destroyed the last flea. Her hand rotated, and the dead dots vanished from her dream.

Laughter pealed and tinkled from a mirror. “He's swimming.”

Hiresha followed her reflection's tearing gaze to the fennec. The furry ears bobbed up and down as the fox wriggled through the air using his golden tail as a paddle. He reached a black wall and sprang off it to snatch a sphene jewel between his paws.

“Quite adaptive,” Hiresha said.

“And he picked a lovely one.”

The gem glowed a mossy yellow, and it also bloomed with a fire of blue and red points of light that danced over the fennec's white belly and chin. He rolled the sphene between his fangs. Hiresha reassured herself that teeth would not scratch the enchanted jewel. She watched to see if the animal would swallow it. He contented himself with spitting it out and swatting the sphene across the laboratory. The fox squeaked with delight.

The ache within Hiresha eased at the sight the creature shimmying through the air and appreciating her prized jewels. She detected her lips edging toward a smile, but she straightened them, lifting her chin to her accustomed posture of a regal scholar.

“He's as much a victim as us,” the reflection said. “They'll kill him, too, and all the fox wants to do is be free and leap over the dunes.”

“I'm not inclined to forgive he who bit me,” Hiresha said.

“Disgusting.” The third speaker had the same voice as Hiresha and her reflection, but the Feaster spoke with a chilling poise. She floated into view in a mirror, her folds of sapphire skirt rippling and twisting around her sculpted legs. “Chattering about vermin, hours before your entombment?”

 
Hiresha gathered jewels toward her fingertips in preparation for a strike.

“We may disagree over methods,” the Feaster said, “yet the spellsword is right. You do have the power to escape.”

The jewels collided with the mirror, dove through its glass, and blacked it out. The fennec made a mousy sound and swam away. The reflection beckoned him to her, but he slid off the glass trying to reach her yellow arms.

The Feaster had flown out of sight and reappeared in an adjacent mirror. “Forget the thief. Use your own magic. Battle past the guards then free the spellsword yourself.”

“Enchantment is not fit for battle.” Hiresha Attracted the storm of jewels back to her fist.

“You sound so certain.”

Hiresha's gaze slid from the impertinent lady to the gems orbiting her clenched glove. She began to wonder. Historically, enchantress had never lowered themselves to fighting. Perhaps that represented not a deficiency in the magic so much as a lack of innovation.

The Feaster clicked her sapphire claws together, grinning without restraint. “Now you're seeing it.”

“I can't cast spells while awake,” Hiresha said. “Neither can I activate enchantments like spellswords.”

“But....” The reflection added the single word. She danced in front of the fennec, and he rubbed his paws over the mirror.

Hiresha laid a finger at the center of her chest, where below the silk the red diamond glowed. It had protected her from the thief's attacks. “Yet, I can instill magical scripts in jewels that activate themselves in response to environmental contingencies.”

“Conditional enchantments,” the reflection said to the fennec.

The Feaster waved a glittering hand to the side. “Forget Burdening and Repulsion enchantments. Too taxing.”

“I was about to say that.” Hiresha lifted her chin. “The question remains, can Lightening and Attraction enchantments be used offensively.”

The Feaster's eyes flared violet. “I can think of ways.”

“No, I can think of them,” Hiresha said. “You are at best a mental parasite.”

“A mental evolution, you mean. A perfection of—”

“Silence. This will not be the most efficient or economical use of my magic.” Hiresha Attracted a silver diamond to float above her finger. She often wished she could carry her laboratory jewels into the waking world, but they were formed of dreamstuff. “However, I understand the merits of this plan. Why rely on a bloodthirsty vizier to release Chandur? Why beg the Lord of the Feast? When
I
can immobilize the guards.”

“Don't forget yourself,” the sapphire lady said. “This way, you live.”

“If all goes fortuitously,” Hiresha said.

“No one expects an enchantress to fight.” The Feaster splayed out ten black claws. “You'll use that expectation against them.”

The phrasing reminded Hiresha of something the thief Inannis had said. She thought of his forged jewels, of his rudeness in knowing she wore garnets.
Vile man.

She leaned over the golden balance. A figurine of the man with daggers and a priest's robe lifted into her grasp.
“The plan has changed, and Inannis is no longer my concern. I will free Chandur myself.” Hiresha flicked away the glass figure, and it shattered into nothingness. “Then we'll find a better way to leave the city, together.”

“We'll need gems.” The reflection flourished the topazes on her skirt, and the fennec followed them with his whiskered gaze. “Lots of gems.”

Hiresha awoke holding the fennec in the sedan chair. She leaned toward the two guards hefting the poles in front of her. “Young men, carry me to the nearest bazaar. I wish to make another purchase.”

The priest rode on an adjacent sedan chair, and the four guards who lifted him sweated and huffed under his weight. She avoided looking at the priest, instead focusing on how her bare hand rested on the sleeping fennec. He would no longer dream of black-rock laboratories and spinning jewels. She still found something endearing in an animal so willing to sleep during the day. The fennec was a warmth on her legs, and his fur soothed her fingertips, softer than velvet.

Shaking her head, she held her arms out to her maid. Janny scuttled beside the chair and pushed on the enchantress' gloves.

“Maid Janny,” Hiresha said in a low voice as not to wake the fox, “in the bazaar, buy enough silk for two sashes.”

“What color? No, never mind.”

“Purple,” Hiresha said.

“Why change? It's only your last day alive on Loam.”

“I might surprise you yet, Maid Janny.” The enchantress' lips lifted in a smug expression.

The maid's face exploded with a smile. “I knew it. You have a plan.”

“Less than ideal, perhaps, yet serviceable. Now, not another word.”

Woven palm leaves and fabrics of bright colors shaded the merchant stalls of the bazaar. Wares had splattered across the street from some past havoc, and a few merchants glared at the fennec with blame in their eyes.

The guards lowered the chair, and Hiresha stepped out. The fennec woke and scuffled against her dress. She recognized the motion as a digging reflex, and she tucked the animal's head between her sleeve and her chest. Shading his eyes seemed to comfort him. He sighed a squeak, with a hint of a purr.

The priest lumbered beside her. “The bride holds her god with the greatest of care.”

Without regarding the priest, Hiresha walked into a crossway of jewel merchants. Their wares glittered in rows on dark rugs. One man wore the open vest and sheet pants common to her homeland. He pushed a sword from his lap and bowed to Hiresha, reaching to touch her slippers.

“Paragon Hiresha,” he said, “for you, my diamonds are free.”

“I have coin enough to pay and more.” Her glove drifted above faceted jewels that sparkled prismatic light over their settings of silver rings and necklaces. The merchant had yellow diamonds, too, as well as the rarer blue, green, and silver.
Not the rarest,
she thought and touched between her breasts.

“Enchantress,” a merchant said, a fox sigil around his eyes to match her own. “My topazes are the finest in the Lands of Loam.” His rug held faceted gems the colors of sky, fire, honey, and pink sunrise.