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.
