Fox's Bride (23 page)

Her earrings only lit the stone ahead of her. Darkness and threat closed in on either side. Wheeling around the tomb, she found the living fennec scrabbling at the base of the sarcophagus. He seemed to be trying to dig through stone. Not wanting him to be stabbed, clawed, or bitten, she scooped him up. A shuffling sound neared them.

She tried to pick out a single diamond in her sweaty grasp. It turned out to be a green one, not the variety she needed. She hesitated to use it, fumbling with the jewel, and it dropped onto the sarcophagus, Lightening the stone.

The sword arced from the darkness. Hiresha flung herself to the side, her enchanted quickness saving her. The sickle blade lifted again, light tracing down its bronze edge.

Back against the floor, Hiresha had a vague idea of kicking the sarcophagus then removing its Lightening enchantment. The first part of her plan worked well, and the stone coffin flew toward the abomination. However, a spell stuck the diamond to its side, and she could not separate them. The Lightened sarcophagus hit with no more force than a pillow.

The abomination heaved the obstacle against the wall where it smashed alabaster jars bearing animal heads. They leaked dark jelly.

The fennec squeaked as he rushed to where the sarcophagus had lain. His tail disappeared into the floor. Hiresha scrambled after him and fell down a revealed passage.
At last,
she thought while tumbling head over heels and bumping herself on stone,
a bit of fortune.

She slid to a stop. Standing, she counted only three diamonds in her hand. To her horror, she saw that one had slipped from her grasp and now shone yellow against the wall of the passage.

Five fox heads wormed out of the darkness above her, and she could hear something scraping through the stone aperture. The abomination reached the yellow diamond then crunched against the wall, trapped by the power of Attraction.

I should like to think I planned that.

Turning, Hiresha had to squint into the glare of treasure. Coins and jewelry were piled along the edges of the room. Even a bed frame glinted, lions with coats of gold foil. Shadows covered the far side of the room, but Hiresha's hopes glittered brightest at the sight of the corners of another sarcophagus.

There lies the pharaoh.

She sprang forward. When her feet landed on floor, the stone slid sideways, yawning open into blackness. Hiresha might have screamed, but she was concentrating on not plummeting to her death into the trap.

Arms flailing for balance, she connected one foot against the side of the pit. She pushed her Lightened body forward, far enough to throw arms over the lip of stone. Careful to keep one fist closed on her diamonds, she lifted herself to safety. The fennec welcomed her with a yip.

She stumbled past the fennec to the sarcophagus. Using one diamond, she shoved off the stone lid. Within its inner surfaces, murals depicted a crowned giant traveling beyond the sunset and into caverns. Strewn about the inside were books leaking disintegrated pages, platters of browned salt, jeweled staves, a balance, and a harness that turned to dust at a touch. Her hand brushed the clutter off an inner coffin of silver with a fox head, eyes closed in sleep. It glistened blue, metal arms crossed holding a quill and a snake.

This one must be the pharaoh.
She dropped her last Lightening diamond onto the lid.

A crashing and a tinkling forced her to look back. She could not see anything, but it had sounded as if the abomination was trying to avoid the pit trap by forcing its way through the treasures.

He'll be too late.
She pried the silver sarcophagus open, one-handed.

A third, golden sarcophagus stared up at her with the calm of ages.

She slapped her fist against the hieroglyphs etched into the metal. “Unnecessary!”

A coin rolled into her pool of light, and she whirled, afraid of what she would see.

The abomination dragged itself forward on three paws, its chest torn open and sword arm missing—the limb no doubt still attached to the wall by enchantment. Strands of yellowish muscle dangled from its rib cage, and bits of black stuffing leaked from the torso. Ten fox eyes spied Hiresha, and the toothed arm lurched toward her.

Hiresha gripped at the gold sarcophagus, trying to find the edge of its lid with her fingernails. It fit too well and weighed too much for her to lift, though she strained and panted. She recoiled against the side of the sarcophagus and curled out her thumb to stare at the lone diamond on her palm. By its color she knew it held an Attraction enchantment.
I need Lightening
. She could sleep and obtain the right spell, but the abomination would reach her first.

She searched her other hand, then turned them over in the mad hope of finding another jewel stuck between her fingers. There was nothing.

After the vizier's command to kill, a guard opened a glass flask and rubbed a needle over the back of a captive frog with a skin of blue and dark speckles. He replaced the stopper then fitted the dart into a blowgun. Other guards angled their pole axes.

Chandur hustled to the side, hiding the target of his hands from the aim of the poisoned dart. He feared a well-blown dart might also puncture the cotton pants and ring leggings.

A guard swung toward his knee, axe a bronze streak. Chandur hopped over it and wove back and forth over the emptying street, to confuse the man with the blowgun. He heard a puffing sound from behind.

The ruby on his circlet flashed, and the dart plinked as it was Burdened to the tiles. Chandur thanked the Fate Weaver that the man had aimed for his head. He thought he might have a chance to turn the street corner and hide in the first garden he found.

A clacking noise raced closer. Chandur leaned into a sprint, but something black and feathery knocked him down. Pinkish grey legs trampled over him, and the ostrich hissed.

A screaming vizier struggled to turn the bird around. It kept clomping down the street. “Kill him! Kill him!”

Chandur pushed himself up, and three guards slammed him back again. He bucked and shoved. They held him down with the weight of their gold, and a fourth guard lifted his axe. Chandur watched the crescent of its shadow slide over the street's petal-shaped tiles.

To Chandur, it looked like the end of fate.

The fennec clamped his teeth onto one of the abomination's lion legs. There he dangled while the stitched monster shambled closer to Hiresha. She scampered out of reach of its five, fox-toothed fingers.

Pressing her knuckles to her temples, she tried to think. Waves of blackness rolled over her vision, and she believed only hyperventilating kept her fatigue from slumping her onto the stone. When she tried to focus on opening the last sarcophagus, she instead imagined the abomination ravaging her with its last arm and lion claws.

She lifted the jewel of Attraction, trying to sight it on the embalmed horror. The room and the monster twisted and warped, and she felt like vomiting. She feared she would miss and lose her last resource.

Stepping back, she tripped over the lid of the silver sarcophagus. She tried to pry loose the diamond that Lightened it. It held fast. Tears of frustration ran down her cheeks.

She lobbed the hunk of metal at the abomination. It hit with the weight of a plank, knocking the monster to the side. Hiresha lifted the stone lid of the outer sarcophagus, thinking she might bludgeon the impertinent creature into the pit. The size of her improvised weapon—if not its weight—overcame her, and she bowed backward.

An idea crawled to the front of her muddled thoughts. Propping one end of the lid over the sarcophagus, she dropped her last jewel over the pharaoh's golden likeness. She jumped back before the sinkhole of Attraction could yank her in.

Sparks of glee zipped through her at the sight of the stone slab being sucked into the sarcophagus. Its near end tipped upward to throat level. She grasped it, began to push the fulcrum down. It did not budge, and she was lifted into the air.

Oh no! I weigh nothing.

Lion claws scratched limestone as the abomination righted itself. It hopped closer with its one remaining forefoot.

Hiresha scrounged in the piles of treasure. She lugged a chest onto the fulcrum then hefted herself on as well. It lowered halfway, the gold lid rising out of the sarcophagus. Then the balance started tipping against Hiresha, and she rose back into the air.

“No!”

A squealing bark of the fennec warned her to roll off moments before the abomination lumbered into the slab. The fulcrum bashed to the ground, and the sarcophagus lid glittered into view.

“Idiot.” Hiresha pounced to her prize.

The mummy lay exposed in his yellowed wrappings. His gold burial mask depicted a narrow but well-proportioned face with tiger-gemstone eyes. Hiresha flung aside a score of amulets that covered his chest and shoved off yet another mummified fennec. She tore at the bandages, and shreds of ancient linen filtered through the air like grain thrown at a festival. The pharaoh's skin was blackened, except for the design of a disc fenced in by claws. The glyph glowered as red as the henna on Hiresha.

She reached for the glyph. The abomination reared up to grab her.

The enchantress expected a battle of wills as she touched the Soultrapper's glyph. The red pigment stung her fingers, but she pressed and scraped. The ancient skin folded and crumpled. The prison of claws broke, and a sensation of a breeze and a sigh passed over Hiresha's face, though her hair did not stir.

The abomination collapsed in a pile of dried-out flesh.

The voice of the vizier rang across the street.

“Hold!”

The guard torqued his weight to stop the downswing of the axe. He stumbled over Chandur and grunted. Chandur gulped air in relief.

The black talons at the end of the ostrich's toes clicked closer on the tiles. The vizier angled the bird's long neck with one arm. His voice softened, and he no longer looked anyone in the eye. “Spellsword, did I just match gazes with you?”

Chandur blinked up at the vizier, not sure if he had understood the question. His life's story had been rushing through his head in a clangor.

The vizier gestured to a scribe who was peeking out from behind a bush. “Apdu, did you see me looking this young man in the eye?”

“You may have, Vizier Ankhset.”

“And I recall raising my voice in anger, as well as ordering an execution in a less-than-ideal venue.” The vizier straightened his wig. “Most unlike me.”

Chandur braced himself. He had his wind back and was ready to struggle free from the men on top of him.

The scribe cleared his throat. “You were most concerned with Pharaoh's antics.”

The vizier waved away the suggestion. “I distinctly remember feeling emotions that could not have been mine.”

He lifted three fingers past his false beard and set them in a tripod against his brow. His voice was thoughtful.

“It must be as Lord Tethiel claimed. Oasis City is infested with a Soultrapper.” The vizier pointed his staff at Chandur. “Allow him to rise.”

Chandur pushed off the guards and stood. He was not sure what was going on, but he hoped he would not have to run for his life too many more times that day.

“Spellsword, is it true your mistress has experience in exterminating Soultrappers?”

Chandur had no idea what a Soultrapper was. He said, “She knows most everything.”

“Every past decision must be questioned.” The vizier dug his hand into his temple. “The city will not abide anyone meddling with my mind.”

Anger swelled and burst within Chandur. The vizier seemed at once hideous in his eyes.
The coward locked me away, he kills with a stroke of a pen.
Before Chandur knew what he was doing, he swiped a polearm from a guard and hefted it. He had a second before anyone would stop him, and he could chop the vizier from his feathered mount.

Kill him.
The desire simmered within Chandur, pushing away almost all other thought.

Didn't the vizier just save me?
Chandur wondered at his sudden hatred. The vizier had asked after Hiresha, had questioned his past choices.
If I hurt the vizier, the guards will kill me for sure.
Then he could never help Hiresha.

He pulled back on the axe, set it down. Or he tried to.

His muscles rebelled against him, pushing the bronze blade toward the startling ostrich. It felt like someone pulled his limbs forward.

“I make my own fate,” Chandur said under his breath. Grappling within himself, he gasped, trembled, leaned back, and stopped the axe blade from mauling the vizier. The spellsword staggered back into the arms of the guards.

The vizier blinked down at him. “I'll take this as confirmation of a Soultrapper. Have you thoroughly regained yourself?”

Chandur nodded, though he was not quite sure what had gotten hold of him.

The guard with the blowgun fitted another dart into its wooden end. His face bent with fury as he aimed at Chandur.

“You, hold,” the vizier said. “Stop him!”

Another guard knocked the blowgun aside. Two others grabbed the disobedient man.

One guard swung his axe upward and screamed at Chandur. “Tomb robber!”

Chandur did not know what he meant by that. He sidestepped the chopping blade and shoved the maddened guard to the ground.

“All of you, control,” the vizier said. “Check every impulse. Do nothing but serve the city.”

A few more of the men reddened and spluttered curses, but the others brought them down. “By Pharaoh's soul,” one guard said while holding his enraged fellow about the neck, “what is this?”

“Old magic, it would seem.” The vizier signed a paper against his ostrich's back then returned it to his scribe. “Spellsword Fosapam Chandur, the city exonerates you of all charges. The Soultrapper must fear you for a reason.”

The release of tension in Chandur crashed against his worry for Hiresha. His breath caught again when he saw the guards surge upward, faces masked by rage. A scorpion-tail design pinched around a man’s scowling eyes. A few charged the vizier, but they sobered before they could bring themselves to hurt him. The rest showed no qualms as they attacked Chandur.

The spellsword ran, darts pinging off the street nearby. He wondered what madness had overtaken Oasis City.

The vizier's bird clomped to his side. “Can you ride birdback? We must attend to your mistress, must hope she hasn't yet expired.”

Chandur knew he was too big for an ostrich. Between gulped breaths, he said, “I was in camelry.”

“Why then do you waste time?” The vizier slapped the rump of his mount with his staff, and the ostrich stretched its feathers and whooped. “Find a camel.”

Chandur sprinted down a street, outpacing the royal guards in their gold and with their heavy polearms. The vizier pointed the way to a merchant preening on a camel. Chandur launched himself up the side of the humped creature, displacing the merchant from his seat.

The shouts of the upset man brought into question the gender of Chandur's father and the species of his mother. Chandur coaxed the camel to follow the vizier just ahead of the whooshing sounds of swinging pole axes.

The camel's side-to-side gait could not match the ostrich's speed, but the bird did not always turn down the street the vizier wished. The angry shouts of guards came from every corner as the two traveled toward the Pyramid of the Golden Scoundrel.

Hiresha awoke in the tomb, with a hand cupping enchanted emeralds. She hated to use such a flawed variety of gemstone but had found nothing better at first search in the pharaoh's trove. Henna dripped down her chest, and she rubbed it off with a few mummy wrappings. She had Attracted the glyph from her skin in her dream laboratory.

The fennec trotted out of the darkness with a yellow diamond in his mouth. He set the jewel in front of Hiresha.

“Most considerate of you.” She picked up the diamond and petted the fennec. “This was one of mine.”

Hiresha peered at the fox. The corners of his eyes flexed in a half-blink. He seemed the same animal, but Hiresha theorized that since she had freed the soul of the Golden Scoundrel, the god may have incarnated in the fennec.
If one believes in such things.

Enchantress and fox ascended stone corridors that wove forward and back up through the pyramid. Her earrings illuminated a set of marble doors. She tossed an emerald of Lightening against each of them. As she set an arm against the stone, she worried what magic she could use if the priests had locked this portal. True, they would have little reason to seal it when they needed to enter later to collect her corpse and the fennec's from the sarcophagus.

At her touch, the doors swung open. Daylight washed over the corridor, and Hiresha tasted fresh air and relief.

Someone was reciting. “...and as the Golden Scoundrel lies with his new wife, so too will each man have the stamina of the fennec fox when doing his duty as a—Ahhh!”

She heard another man swear. “What in the boiling sands!”

Hiresha squinted to see priests kneeling on the steps leading down the side of the pyramid. From her higher position, she had the best view of their tongues in their gaping mouths.

The Lightened doors swayed in the wind despite being made of stone. The fennec squeaked at them, and Hiresha too spared no time in stepping away down the steps.

A priest flapped his hands in outrage. “My lord god! This could mean a year of no fortune for the—You must go back, both of you. Oh, Enchantress, what have you done?”

“I was freeing your god from eternal torment,” she said. “You are welcome.”

She considered mentioning that they should tidy up the mess she had left under the pyramid.
The mummy can wait,
she decided.

“The afterlife is not a torment,” the priest began.

“I will correct this.” The Royal Embalmer lumbered from the temple compound to the base of the pyramid. The sun flashed off the razor tools he held in each hand.

Hiresha glared down at him, five emeralds clutched in her palm.

Before he could begin climbing the steps, a servant who had been fanning the priests stepped forward. It was Maid Janny, and she threw down a rug in front of the steps. Its pattern of gilt foliage struck Hiresha as familiar. The Royal Embalmer did not hesitate but ran straight over the rug.

And flew into the air.

Hiresha then remembered the rug she had enchanted with Lightening, to escape the First Trader's Inn. She highly approved of Janny's selection as it positioned her attacker at the perfect height to receive a bombardment of gems. She opened her hand in a spray of glittering green.

The Royal Embalmer pumped his arms and legs in the air. His teeth remained gritted as he began to fall back to the stone steps. Then two emeralds stuck to his chest and black kilt.

A gust of wind swept the embalmer into the sky. He screamed at her. The fennec yipped after him, the priests gawked, and Hiresha watched with a certain satisfaction as he disappeared around the corner of the pyramid, scrabbling for a handhold. She expected she might see the possessed man again, but he would have to live with weighing as little as a gnat for half an hour.

“Hiresha!” A grey turban and dress bounded between the priests and up the steps to collide with the enchantress.

She understood that Maid Janny had only meant to hug her, but with the Lightening enchantment reducing Hiresha's ties to the ground, she bounced off the maid and skidded onto her side. The enchantress made certain she did not land on the fennec.

“Have a care, Maid Janny. I've lost weight since this morning.”

Below, priests pulled away the enchanted rug and ushered guards to the pyramid. “The bride will be smothered. And the fennec,” one man in a blue robe said. “Their immortal bodies must return intact to the tomb.”

Men charged up the stairs, fists pumping in their run, leather lashes of flails thumping against their sides. Yellow cloth of their over robes flowed behind them with their speed. Paintings of figures to either side of the steps seemed to cheer on the guards as the men rushed to the enchantress intending no doubt to clamp hands over her mouth and nose.