'Don't I?' Ruha waved her hand around the kitchen
'Where are the ylang blossoms?'
Vaerana's gaze roamed across the chamber, her com- plexion turning as white as alabaster when she did not find the eight bulky sacks. Finally, the Lady Constable whirled on Ruha.
'You knew he would steal the blossoms-and you let him?' Vaerana looked almost relieved to have someone upon whom to vent her anger. 'You let him kill Fowler?'
'I did not let him kill anyone!' the witch snapped
Vaerana's words hurt more than they should have, perhaps because Ruha feared there was more truth to them than she would have liked. 'I had hoped we could follow him to Yanseldara's staff-which we might have done, had you bothered to awaken me and hear my plan!'
Jarvis interposed his armored bulk between the two women. 'Tombor was gone by then. I doubt he stayed much longer than it took him to kill the half-ore and Silavia.'
Ruha turned to the empty table and, seeing no mess upon the surface, nodded. 'He was in a hurry to get out of here. He took the oil press with him.'
'The press maybe, but not even Tombor could sneak eight sacks of ylang blossoms out the gate,' said Vaerana,
'The sentries would ask too many questions. They saw what you went through to bring those sacks to us.'
'Perhaps he took them out some other way,' Ruha sug- gested.
'Yes, and I think I see how,' said Jarvis. The burly guard took Ruha's candle and went to the back wall, where a mass of roofing straw lay scattered around a butchering bench. He climbed onto the table and stuck his head up between the rafters, then raised the candle hieh enough to illuminate his shoulders sticking up through a hole in the roof. 'He climbed onto the roof and threw the sacks over the wall.'
'Fowler's tnck!' Ruha gasped.
A long, heartsick groan slipped from Vaerana's lips.
She hung her head and braced her hands on the table edge. 'I failed her.'
'Not yet.' Ruha went to the Lady Constable's side and, rather uncertainly, laid a hand on her shoulder. 'Tombor took the wrong blossoms.'
Vaerana raised her brow. 'The wrong blossoms?'
Ruha nodded. 'The ones Tombor took were only bait.
They were picked in the evening, and they are not potent enough to serve the dragon's wishes. Cypress needs blossoms picked in the morning, and those remain at the Ginger Palace.'
Vaerana stood up straight. 'Then what are we waiting for?' She turned to Jarvis. 'Find Pierstar and tell him to call out the Maces! We've got a palace to storm!'
Ruha caught Jarvis's arm. 'That won't be necessary. Minister Hsieh has promised to give us the blossoms, in exchange for returning Lady Feng to him unharmed.'
'How are we going to do that?' Vaerana demanded.
'Isn't she with Yanseldara's staff in Cypress's lair?'
Ruha nodded. 'When we recover one, we rescue the other. It costs us no extra effort.'
Vaerana considered this for a moment, then scowled.
'That'd be fine-if we knew where to find the lair. And since you were trying to trick Tombor into leading us there…'
Ruha raised a hand to silence Vaerana. 'There may be another way. In my room, I have a potion. If we can get
Yanseldara to drink it, we can contact Lady Feng and perhaps discover the location of Cypress's lair.'
Vaerana studied Ruha out of one swollen eye. 'Where did you get this potion?'
'From Minister Hsieh,' Ruha answered. 'Now that he is helping us-'
'Helping us!' Vaerana thundered. 'It's Shou mag that's done this to Yanseldara!'
'Yes, but-'
The Lady Constable shook her head. 'How do you know this won't hurt her?'
'I do not,' Ruha admitted. 'Minister Hsieh said that if the connection between Yanseldara's body and spirit is too weak, we could sever it entirely-but that is unlikely as long as she remains strong enough-'
'No!' Vaerana shook her head vehemently, then stepped away from the table and started toward the dooi
'When will you learn? You can't trust a Shou-ever.'
'What other choice do we have?' Ruha started after Vaerana, who did not even acknowledge the question 'Wait! Where are you going?'
The Lady Constable did not even slow down as shf stepped through the door. 'Where do you think? To have Pierstar wake his trackers!'
Thirteen
Tang saw the serpent dart beneath a ti plant and hopped across the stream after it. He stirred the spear- shaped leaves until the viper struck at his snake stick, then flipped the Y- shaped head around and pinned the creature's neck to the ground. He kneeled beside his captive and grabbed it behind the head. This snake was the largest yet, so great in diameter that he could not close his hand around its slime-scaled throat. There would be plenty of venom.
The prince twined the serpent's writhing body around the shaft of his stick and, picking his footing very care- fully, carried the heavy thing across the stream to his workbench. Atop the flat rock lay two sacks of supple leather cut from the collars of a pair of boots. With sharp- ened sticks protruding from them at all angles, the bags looked like melon-sized cockleburs. They were stuffed with wads of silk ripped from the battle tunics of dead soldiers, whose voices Tang still heard screeching above the drone of the mosquitos.
'Be patient, my troops. Soon I intercede for you.' If
Tang could find the strength to see his plan through, his ancestors would be so overjoyed that he would no longer need to hide his failure from them. 'Soon I pray to Yen Wang-Yeh; I testify to your bravery, and he renders honorable verdict.'
The spirits took no comfort in the prince's promise.
They continued to screech.
Tang sighed and set his snake stick aside. He took the sack by the long, unsharpened stake that served as a handle-it was not wise to touch the bladder with bare hands-and held it close to his captive's face. The fright- ened viper struck instantly, sinking its fangs through the supple leather and into the wad of cloth inside. The prince shook the serpent to encourage the release of more venom, then repeated the process several more times.
When he had milked the last of the creature's toxins, he flung it down the hill and stooped over to inspect his handiwork. Both sacks were so full of poison that cloudy beads of venom were seeping back through the fang holes.
Tang carried the poison-filled bladders down to the swamp, where the cadavers of his dead soldiers lay scat- tered across the pond as thick as lily pads. Most of the corpses had been savagely mangled by alligators or bitten cleanly in two by the wyverns, but a few were blackened and bloated from dozens of snake bites, often to such an extent that runnels of thick black fluid spilled from splits in the skin. These had been molested by nei- ther alligator nor wyvern, and it was the observation of this fact that had kindled again the prince's hopes of redeeming himself.
After retrieving his dugout and making a careful search along the edge of the swamp, Tang had located two relatively whole bodies that were not bloated with snake poison. One man had managed to swim to dry land after being eviscerated, while the other had either drowned or died of fright-the prince had found him caught beneath a cypress root with no obvious wounds.
Tang stuffed one of his poison bladders into the abdomen of the eviscerated soldier, then used his dagger to create a place for the second ball in the other man's stomach. He closed the wounds with small wooden pins and
