Fox's Bride (32 page)

Another turn, and he soothed himself with thoughts of how he would bind the enchantress' soul.
Perhaps after a few years I could say she rolled over in her sleep and smothered herself.
She would not provide him with as much power as he deserved, but over the ages, he would rebuild. More great pharaohs would come, and he would be there as their throats rattled their last breaths, to house their souls.

Vizier Ankhset would no doubt record the pattern of his glyph for posterity.
Little good it'll do them.
Chandur had persisted long enough to know that few gave serious thought to history. He could resume his work soon enough.

People never learn.
Their future is the past.

While pulling Hiresha after him, Chandur thought again of the fennec. The fiend could be walking over his sarcophagus. He might even shit on it. Chandur tried to push his consciousness through the tomb, to search for the fennec, but he found himself blind.

The enchantress had taken so much from him. He mashed his fingers into Hiresha's arm. The sound she made reminded him too much of the fox's squeak.

What if the fox sleeps beside Ellakht?

The idea of such defilement goaded him to a frenzy. Though he wished to run to the crypt and check himself, he feared to let the enchantress out of his sight.
Who knows what ideas might squirm into that sleepy head of hers.

When he pushed Hiresha back, she slumped against a pillar. Shaking his head, he stepped to one of the singing guards.

“Check the crypt,” Chandur whispered. “Look for the fennec.”

“Oh, right. The little master might be romping over all the bones.”

“If you see it. Beat the pest to death.”

“I do what to
what
?”

Chandur matched the guard’s stare and willed him toward understanding. Diminished as Chandur was, the spell felt like leeching his own blood and forcing the guard to drink it swallow by painful swallow.

The guard's round-lipped expression cracked into a scowl. “If I catch the false god, I'll snap his neck.”

Chandur clasped the man's arm then turned back toward the enchantress' blue glow. She had knelt and was handling something close to the ground. When he walked close enough to see, he started.

The enchantress—
my bride
—was petting the fennec. The very same fiend that should have died with her in the sarcophagus.

Chandur stomped toward fennec and bride. He would teach them both a lesson.

Hiresha stared at nothing. The desert of her life blinded her, and it stretched in drifts to the dry horizon of her future. Only the muffled sound of a mew coaxed her from her thoughts.

The fennec shone in her light. His head tilted as he peered into her eyes, one ear pointing upward and the other angled toward a pillar. He pranced around the column then stood to face her again. His paws ghosted over the stone, making not a sound.

She wanted to touch his fur, to prove to herself he was more than a figment.
An apparition from times of hope.
The fennec's playfulness seemed so out of place in the tomb that she had trouble believing in him. She did not think any real creature could look at her without wincing away.

Resting her head against the grit of the pillar, she waited for the delusion of the fennec to pass out of mind.

The fox snuffled toward her ankle and grazed her skin with his whiskers. His black nose was a touch of warmth.

Hiresha slid down the side of the pillar. The fennec had felt real, but she expected him to dash away from her before she could touch him. Her hand floated toward the ripples of fur between his ears. His softness surprised her.

A purr rose from his throat. She could tell he had something in his mouth.
Must be a finger bone.
Not wanting to see the grim reminder, she began to pull herself away from him.

The fennec rose to his hind feet, setting his forepaws on her hand. He cocked his head sideways and opened his mouth. Something tumbled from between his fangs.

A topaz reflected dots of blue light across her palm. Two points of brightness shone in its square facet.

“Did you find this for me?” Her voice was softer than a breath.

The fennec lifted his nose and chirped. His tail puffed up in triumph.

Heat pained her as it trickled through her chest. Her fingertips twitched around the topaz, and she struggled to stop the agony of the thaw inside her.
Better to feel nothing.

The jewel in her hand was enchanted with Lightening, but it would do her no good.
Not even a chest full of gems would help me
. Even if she could escape the tomb, the guards, and Chandur, she had no idea what she would do with herself. Her chin wavered from side to side, and her fingers closed over the jewel, hiding it from her sight.

Boots thumped toward her.

Her eyes shut themselves, and she wished they would never open again.
I might as well live in bed.
She expected to miscarry any child she might try to have. The most she could do was empower Chandur's jasper sword.

A squealing shriek popped her eyes open. The fennec flopped against the pillar. Two of his legs bent in the wrong places. The singing stuttered to a stop, leaving all quiet except for the fennec's whimpering as he tried to drag himself away from Chandur's lifting boot.

“What're you doing?” Hiresha cried out and crumpled in front of Chandur.

He hesitated, boot shadowing the crawling fennec. “You said you wanted the fiend dead.”

“I did not!” She reached toward the fennec with her free hand but stopped short. She did not want her touch to cause him any more agony.

“You did, in the Water Palace.” He seized her chin and yanked her to her feet. “Remember.”

“That—that was days ago.”

“You'll stay true to your word by killing him now.”

Hiresha felt her knee sliding out of her dress slit. Her heel rose over the fennec. He made a mewing growl, ears flattened, broken legs dragging.

I don't want to hurt him. Not anymore.
Her leg trembled, and she felt as if molten gold flowed over her thigh, scorching, forcing her heel downward to crush the fox's fragile bones.

In the flash of pain, she remembered.

Hiresha remembered she had told the Royal Embalmer in the Water Palace she wanted the fennec dead, not Chandur. She remembered the spellsword had always handled the small animal with gentleness.
Chandur would never have kicked the fennec.

Hiresha felt the hardness of the topaz in her hand. She remembered that the garnets in her fingers would have readied its enchantment, a spell she had crafted with her skill and expertise. She remembered that she was far from helpless.

Chandur was not the one who bruised me. He wasn't the one who insulted me in front of the guards.

She remembered what they had come to this tomb to do, and it had certainly not been to kill a fluffy-eared animal. Her slipper retreated from above the crawling fennec, and her foot lowered back to the sandstone.

This is not Chandur standing in front of me.
Her tired lashes lifted, and Hiresha locked eyes with the Soultrapper.

The Soultrapper's lip curled in a snarl of blue-tinted teeth. His hands closed into fists, one knuckle clicking after another.

She braced her legs. “If you can hear me, Chandur, forgive me.”

The Soultrapper started to swing a fist. Her slap came faster. The topaz of Lightening in her palm smacked against the center of his scale vest.

His legs snapped upward as he flew back toward the wall, though the Soultrapper stopped short of hitting it. He floundered in the air, light as a feather. The force of his shouting pushed him backward.

“This is no way to treat your husband.”

“You are quite correct.” Hiresha grasped her twined necklace and yanked. The gold links bit into her skin, then broke. She flung the strands at the man who looked like Chandur.

The Soultrapper bumped into the wall. Setting his feet against the stone, he heaved himself at her.

He slid to a stop midair, the incense smoke pooling around him, and he drifted upward. He wriggled and kicked and pawed at the topaz glinting on his chest. The scales of his vest scraped against each other. The jewel held fast.

Hiresha felt such a bursting airiness of freedom that she might have laughed, if not for the hurt fennec at her feet. She glanced down but knew she could not help him yet. “If you'll excuse me,” she said, “I have one last glyph to remove.”

“May your soul rot!”

Whirling, Hiresha faced one guard who had been singing. He hesitated, tried to grab her. She bolted past him and out of the room. Hieroglyphs blurred by her on the sandstone walls. She tripped over a guard sleeping on the floor, stumbled, then caught herself and kept running.

The guard snorted awake. The echoes of the Soultrapper's screaming reached her ears. “Stop her!”

She peered into rooms cluttered with jugs, embalming equipment, and one ancient couch she recognized. A guard sat up on it, blinking into her light. She breezed down the corridor.

I have to find my jewel sash.
She did not believe she could open the Soultrapper's sarcophagus without it, and she counted on his being the one next to the mummy queen’s.
And what if it isn't?

A lamp flickered in the hand of a guard. He passed through the stone door of the crypt, the painting behind him of the headless man blessing a mummy. The guard’s face lifted in surprise at the enchantress then bent in furrows.

He swept out an arm to catch her. She ducked and sped past. As she skidded around a corner, she heard his bow fire. An arrow chipped into the sandstone behind her.

The ceiling retreated into the shadows of the entrance hall. Guards pulled each other to their feet, yawning and peering about them.

“What temple is this? Ack! Did I drink camel piss?”

“Think I did, too.” A guard startled as Hiresha sprinted past. “Wait, she was in my dream.”

Pillars whisked by her with each footfall. She skipped over the fallen jasper sword. Pushing back the shadows, she searched for her sash.

A guard walked down the steps. “The way out's shut. How'd we—woah!”

Hiresha spun in a flash of blue light. Her sash glistened in a patch of dark fabric in a corner. She leaned down and snapped it up with a hand. It fluttered over her back as she slid it on.

A thumping drew her eyes. A guard was shoved aside, and the Soultrapper pounded his way past pillars. He had stripped off his coat and scale vest to shed the Lightening enchantment. His muscled chest shone with sweat, and he ripped the jasper sword up from the ground. In her light, the dark sword was veined in blue.

Hiresha's pulse boomed in her ears, but her hands did not shake as she pulled out two jewels of Attraction. She glanced from them to the man hefting the spellsword's weapon. Part of Chandur still had to be inside him, and she did not want to hurt him.

The Soultrapper showed no such hesitation toward her and charged. Hiresha learned then that nothing terrified her more than the sight of Chandur rushing her with Hiresha’s own enchanted sword held high.

Jewels were flung from the enchantress' hands.

Chandur swung his sword to the side, and its weight pulled him out of harm's way. Still, he had to grip a pillar when a well of Attraction tugged him backward.

She's robbed me of so much,
he thought as he clung on.
And insulted me in my own tomb.
He decided he would kill the enchantress and tell the vizier that she had sacrificed herself for his sake.

He shouted, “Kill that defiler!”

She shouted over her shoulder as she ran. “By order of the vizier, restrain that man.”

The guards looked with confusion between them. He realized he would have to kill them, too. For now, he only shouldered them aside, thudding after the enchantress.

Only her toes touched the ground as she raced ahead of him. The low back of her dress revealed her shoulder blades sliding forward and back under her glistening skin. He had to focus on his spellsword training to carry the Lightened sword, and he felt a measure of respect for her and her enchantments. Chandur wished he did not have to crush her under his blade.
She could be ever so useful.

He feared he would never catch her before she reached the crypt, but she took a wrong turn ahead of him. When her blue light doubled back, he burst around the corner and chopped.

Their eyes met. The dark intensity in her gaze was so familiar. Uncertainty and self-loathing spiked through Chandur, and he let go of the Lightening enchantment too soon. His arms smashed the jasper sword in front of her. Sandstone sprayed them both.

She sprang over the blade and tossed a jewel.

He rolled away from it, still shocked that he had missed her.
Why didn't I kill her? Because she doesn't have my glyph?
If she died now, her soul would be lost.