Fox's Bride (31 page)

The comment struck Hiresha as a little out of place, but she let it pass as she had the other peculiarities. Chandur beamed down at her, and when they kissed, she tasted only a little foulness from the tomb.

Her eyes caught on the jewels on her sleeve, and then she did frown. She had always planned to wear violet sapphires on her wedding day, but she caught flickers of orange and green within the purple jewels, an internal fire she would not have expected from a gem of the sapphire family.
I'm wearing my garnet dress.
She could think of no reason why she would have neglected to make herself a new wedding dress, and the feelings of being out of place began to corkscrew through her skin.

Then she realized it.
I must have wished to differentiate myself from the rude, sapphire Feaster. That is why I wore garnets at my wedding.

Satisfied, she kissed Chandur and rubbed the jewels of her fingers against his chin.

Chandur would have been baffled trying to express the joy cascading over him. He felt he was drowning in it. Settling farther back in the comfort of his mind, he saw himself press his lips against Hiresha's. He wondered how he could have ever doubted they would wed. The ceremony had felt the most natural thing he had ever done.
The gods meant me to stand here beside her
.

The spellsword released his embrace to leap over a few bones to the far side of a sarcophagus.

“Dejal, Djom,” he said, “help me with this.”

He and the guards set their hands around the stone lid. Chandur did not know what he intended, and he was excited to find out. Muscles in his back and legs strained as he lifted.

The lid tilted. Scarab shells with messages written on them tumbled off and crunched underfoot. The guards grunted, setting the slab against the wall. Chandur took Hiresha's hand and led her to the foot of the sarcophagus.

“Look on her. Is she not beautiful?” He traced two fingers up Hiresha's side, and she shivered under his touch. His hand cupped one of her earrings, filling his palm with blue light. “Isn't she the most amazing woman you've ever seen?”

Chandur was confused whom he was speaking to.

His arm wrapped around the enchantress' hip, pulling her against him. “Our happiness will light the night, and with the blessing of the Founder, our marriage will be long and full of bounty.”

He supposed he had to be gloating to whomever was inside the sarcophagus. Speaking as if the dead person could hear. His eyes dragged on their way to look within as if he feared what he would see. When he saw the mummy he tried not to gasp.

She's still so beautiful,
the thought thrummed within him,
even after all these years.

The lady's burial mask had been set aside to reveal the splendor of her true face. Her skin had darkened over the centuries to the exquisite blackness of a scarab. The tightness of her leather face hid none of the graceful lines of her skull, the ledges of her cheek bones, the arches above eyes with lids sewn together with such craft that no trace of thread could be seen. He still prided himself in the care of his stitching, though at the time he had wept. He liked to think the salt in his tears had helped this treasure of womanhood endure.

Memories that Chandur did not recognize whirled within him. He accepted the new with the old.
I have no choice,
he thought.
Only the gods can choose.

A tearing passion roared within Chandur. He wished for nothing more than to lean into the coffin and kiss the mummy, but he knew her lips would crack and crumble. He overlooked the detail that one of her breasts had flattened lower than the other against the skin stretched over her ribs. Of course, he had sculpted out the pulp of her breast and replaced it with the petals of dried flowers. That her sweet mounds had since shrunk to flaps of leather had only made them more perfect in his eyes. It took all Chandur's sweating, tooth-grinding control not to reach down and fondle them. They would only turn to powder between his fingers.

My dearest Ellakht,
he thought without thinking,
I will forever hate you.

He had hoped to love the enchantress.
If only Ellakht could feel a grain of the jealousy that poisoned me.
The realization cut into him that he never could love another. Neither could he ever leave Oasis City, his home of centuries.
The past rules the present.

Forcing his gaze away, he cringed at the sight of the enchantress. He at once found her warmth cloying. She moved too much. Her eyes offended him with their life and hope.
Have to pluck them out.

The thought shocked him, but after viewing the mummy, Hiresha revolted him.
She's disgracing this tomb. She chose the Golden Scoundrel over me.
Anger seared his skin and made him smell burning flesh. He grasped at his side, for his skin knife, but found it gone. His embrace shifted, his hands encircling her neck.

A recollection flitted through his mind of once wanting to protect Hiresha.
Just married her, didn't I?
At the same time, he had gained a new understanding. People housed rot and filth under their skin.
An infestation of organs.
Hiresha could only be clean once he scraped the inside of her ribs and tweezed out the mess of her brain.

His fingers tightened. Her throat bent inward.

As a further insult, she had removed his glyph from her chest. Chandur could sense its absence. He glanced down at the mummy, pleased his pattern stained over the ridges of Ellakht's rib cage.
Her soul is still safe.
Over the ages, her screams had faded into the background of his thoughts like the sound of sand sifting over dunes.

Hiresha made a gagging noise.

She had begun to choke. Her lips darkened to match the color of her gown. He wanted so much to kill her.
She is not worthy to be the scarab rolling Ellakht's shit.

He loosened his hold.
Need her alive. To convince the Lord of the Feast and the vizier. Or they'll find me. Us.
For Ellakht's sake, he pretended to smile.

“A bad jest,” he said.

When he kissed her, the dampness of her mouth made him want to wretch.
For Ellakht's sake,
I'll pretend to love her.

A laughing guard spilled wine on Chandur’s coat. He pressed Chandur and the enchantress together. His skin tried to wriggle away at her touch, but he forced himself not to retch.

“Kiss,” the guard said, “drink, kiss, then kiss some more. You have the fortune of the Golden Scoundrel to—”

Chandur clapped a hand on the guard's arm, flexing the bones to the breaking point. “Never speak his name within these walls.”

He wanted to clout the man to death for staining this sacred place with that name. Chandur settled for reaching deeper within the guard, touching his mind, and making certain he would never speak it again. The new skill pleased Chandur, and he wished he could have so easily convinced his guard captain to stop forcing him to practice archery.

Thinking how Hiresha had freed the spirit of the Golden Scoundrel made him want to rip out her throat.
He deserved his prison, not godhood.
A fear ran through Chandur that even now the fennec god bent his divine powers to destroy him.

“A praise ring.” Guards kicked bones aside to huddle closer. “A praise ring for the bride.”

“Her dress glitters like a trove.”

A guard chewed the edge of his cup, and bits of glaze flaked off. His face brightened. “May her love burn hotter than a stove. And, let me see....”

Chandur felt his gorge swell, and he allowed his discontent for the enchantress to dribble into their minds.

The guard lifted a finger. “Her face only has a few more wrinkles than the beauty in the coffin.”

With skin stretched over bone, the mummy indeed had fewer creases in her lovely face than the enchantress. The next guard said, “Her voice isn't too grating, for one of the livin'.”

Chandur approved of the change in tone in the compliments. At least, most of Chandur did. The sliver of his consciousness that had hated choking her—that disliked the tears dotting her eyes—no longer had a voice.

Hiresha had wracked her mind to believe Chandur had not meant to choke her, that he had squeezed her throat shut out of overeager thoughtlessness or as a misjudged jest. As the ring of guards insulted her, Chandur did nothing to stop them, and she struggled to think of an excuse for his behavior.

A guard said, “Most would not call her fingers as ugly as snakes.”

“She may have the look of biting sour grapes, but at least she has better skin than a leper.”

“I'd only have to be half-drunk to bed her.”

The guards clinked glasses and opened another jug of vinegar. Each verse felt like the hammering of one of her jewels to dust in front of her face. She looked up to Chandur. He only grinned wider and wider.

“Not every mummy speaks with more grace.”

Chandur's turn in the ring had come, and she hoped he would now shame the guards for speaking so of her. His speech would prove his commitment and respect. She realized he must have been grinning thinking of the lovely thing he would say of her. Perhaps he had not paid attention to what the other guards had said, nor heard them.

He gripped her arms below the shoulders. “Marrying you wasn't a complete disgrace.”

His words rent her in two. She would have fallen if not for his hold. The only thing that kept her from weeping was the chance that he would follow that line with a true compliment, then beg her forgiveness for the cruel game they had played on her wedding day.

Chandur waved from to the shriveled woman in the sarcophagus to her. “For a man who can't have Ellakht, you're the next best choice.”

Devastated, Hiresha shriveled within herself. Chandur, her husband, who should appreciate her more than anyone, had taunted her, seemed to hate the sight of her. Shame crushed her on one side, and on the other, weariness smothered her. Her drowsiness returned in a fog of blackness, turning her from a person to a statue with a pulse. She could not even muster the will to cry.

The guards roared their approval of Chandur's phrases. A few more spoke against Hiresha, but her fatigue had the mercy to muffle their words. Several men picked up handfuls of the smaller bones and threw them over Chandur and Hiresha in a festive manner. The round bones plinked off her dress and forehead.

“Dancing! Wash' a wedding without dancing?” The guard sloshed his drink and swayed a few steps. He cringed when his heel landed on the round end of a femur.

“If we must dance,” Chandur said, “I know the place for it.”

Hiresha had to watch him replace the sarcophagus lid, stroke its side, and whisper a few words to the mummy within. Then she was pulled out of the crypt, his grasp pinching her arm. She stumbled after him through the underground passages, clutching her marriage necklace in one hand. Its chain dug into her neck.

Her light leaked through a room's doorway and into its blackness. A guard stood up from where he had been lighting incense. Two heads of pottery frowned upside-down smiles at her from the center of the floor. The decapitated clay heads chilled Hiresha. Their pharaoh crowns balanced on the sandstone while their clay necks pointed upward and spouted crooked trails of blue smoke.

The incense reeked of myrrh, musky with a choking sweetness.

Chandur gripped her by her elbows and yanked her into the air and back to her feet. “You weigh too little,” he said. “Hey, Dejal and Amret, you have good voices. Sing for this bride of mine, so we can dance.”

A guard tapped a cracked fingernail on his chin. “Not sure I can think of any marriage songs.”

“I don't much care what you sing,” Chandur said.

The men droned the low notes of a dirge. They lamented the tale of a prodigal son who had wasted his father's wealth and indebted himself for pleasure. In the end, without friends or means, he begged the Silver Crocodile to collect on his bad debts by eating him.

As the sorrow of their song washed over them, Chandur hoisted Hiresha and dragged her through the air in spirals. His fingers bit into the flesh of her arm and shoulder. A slime of regret filled her. Her marriage had not brought her happiness, and she saw now she had been wrong to expect any measure of joy.
I am not worthy of it.

Around and around the clay heads they spun. Hiresha was hoisted and doused in the haze of incense. Her tongue curled at the stench. When Chandur allowed her slippers to touch the ground, she did not try to move them. Soggy with fatigue, she could not trust herself to dance.
No wonder I disgust them,
she thought.
Chandur has to do everything for me.

The guards bowed their heads as they sang the melody of grief, their eyes shadowed and barbed with painted scorpion tales. Chandur hauled her in a circle, her ankles smacking into a pillar. He did not even apologize. Hiresha thought that perhaps she was the one at fault.

“I am so sorry. I....” A sob cut off her words.

She realized how she had ruined her life. By marrying before curing herself of her sleepiness, she had defied her plan. Now no one could respect her, and her future had fallen to shambles.

Chandur did not look at her. He held her at arm's length as they danced.

Hiresha wished she could escape from the coldness of her husband, from the stink of the tomb. She thought she remembered brighter places.
They are too far.
She knew she had no power to stagger past the guards by herself, and the person she relied on to help her was the same one bruising her arms with his hold.

Enchantresses have no power in this world,
Hiresha thought.
And that will never change.

Her limp body continued to be waved about in the dance. The clay heads bled their smoke over her.

Chandur lifted Hiresha as far up into the shadows as he could, wishing to hide her face. But her earrings and their light thwarted him, denying him of even a moment's freedom. Trails of weakness leaked down from her eyes.

He wished to throw her, dash her against the pillars. Then he could clean out her insides, though he could not delude himself into thinking her mummy would be half as magnificent as Ellakht's. He wondered if he could hide her death from the vizier, prop her dried corpse beside him as they went about the city.
No. Too much of a risk for Ellakht.

The temptation to begin the work on the enchantress anyway drove him to swing her in jerks, to fling her and catch her at the last moment. In her ungratefulness, she did not even thank him for his restraint. She only whimpered.

She already has as little life in her as a mummy
.

The men chanted now in mourning for the guards who had died defending the city from the slavers of the Dominion of the Sun. They spoke of brave men, captured, then dragged up the stone steps of a temple to have their hearts cut out to satisfy the blood thirst of the enemy god, the Winged Fire.

Chandur revolved with Hiresha. Half the room fell into darkness in time to their turning.

His footsteps faltered, and he felt a soul being torn away. Deep within himself, the wailing voice of the Plumed God cried a peal of relief then was gone. Chandur shivered, his palms slippery with cold sweat against the enchantress.

She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “What did I do wrong?”

His glyph had been broken, and for the third time that day, he felt his consciousness shrink. No longer could he sense the souls sleeping in the homes around his tomb. He would no longer be able to savor Oasis City through their eyes, or guide them in their actions.

“Your Feaster friends,” he said, “have invaded another pyramid. The sacrilegious monsters.”

“I know, I shouldn't have taken up with Tethiel.” Her hair shrouded half her face. “I am so helpless alone.”

Listening within, Chandur heard only the chorus of moaning souls from the dozen other pharaohs and queens he had stooped to set his mark upon. Their meager spirits could not even honor him with enough power to mentor all the guards in his tomb. Before the strain grew too great, he fed the men thoughts of sleep. They could have pushed away his advice, but they had already exhausted themselves during the rigors of their duties for Gods Week and were all too eager to lie down, even on stone.

Guards stumbled out of the room to find places to sleep. Only the singers remained awake, their voices haunting the halls.

Chandur bent all his focus on the enchantress. She, at least, had to stay under his guidance, and he had no intention of ever letting her go.

“When we leave this sacred place,” he said, “you probably should let me do the explaining.”

She nodded.

“Then I'll buy us a home with your coin. With your enchantments, I will become the most respected member of the city's royal guard.”

She nodded.

“I will return to your bed every night, where you will honor me.”

Her eyelids had drooped. To make sure she was still listening, he roused her with a touch to her cheek. The slapping sound interrupted the singing.

He said, “I have never seen reason to leave Oasis City. You'll rejoice to hear that we will be staying here to the end of your days.”

To this, she said nothing. Her head sagged against his arm. He set his fingers against her neck but restrained himself yet again.
Ellakht never would’ve fallen asleep while I talked.
He imagined dancing with the mummy, who moved with an ageless grace.
So much better in every way than this baboon-footed tomb-breaker.

While his bride struggled to stay awake, he found his stomach rumbling out of hunger. It was a ball of pain at his core, but all the food in the tomb had turned to dust centuries ago.

When their circling took them behind one pillar, he stepped on something that dug into his heel in an arc of pain. He cursed Hiresha for making him dance. The harmful object was lifted between his fingers, and dark stones glinted on a collar.

The sight of the emeralds wounded him. He flung the collar into the shadows.

The enchantress asked, “Was that the fennec's?”

Chandur grunted. The little fiend must have worried his collar off. Chandur had been attending to other problems and had not considered the full insult of the effigy of his greatest abuser stalking around this tomb. His blood burned at the thought of the fanged pest creeping into the crypt and walking over the bones of his stolen brides.

Spotting a bracelet of emeralds on Hiresha's arm, he scraped it off. He hurled it into a corner.

Once again, he forced himself to lug Hiresha around the incense pots. The pharaoh's heads smoldered as he wished the Golden Scoundrel's head had smoked. Chandur smirked, thinking of what he might do to the mummy of his rival, now that he no longer had to worry about the soul escaping.