Fox's Bride (4 page)

The reflection pressed her fingers against her cheeks, lips quivering as she gazed through her mirror at the balance with all its arms weighed down with statuettes. “Too much clutter.”

“Too much risk.” Hiresha pointed to another arm, its plate pressed down with the sculpture of a sarcophagus. “Yet anything is better than accepting that airless fate.”

After Chandur enjoyed his third course of delicacies, the enchantress' eyes opened. Her gloved finger drifted as she pointed and tried to focus her bleary eyes.

“Mind the oysters,” she said. “And that priest is ill. He should be resting.”

Fosapam Chandur always liked it when the enchantress did this, plucked truth out of her dreams. Again, he found himself sorry to think of her gone in only a few days.

The priest bowed. “I am feeling well enough, Enchantress.”

“Nonsense. You mixed pigment with oil to hide your pallor.”

Chandur's brows rose at this. The other priests chortled and slapped the man. “Son Inannis, that’s why you missed catching the god today?”

The bowing priest spoke with calm. “You are most wise, Enchantress. I will rest until I am well.”

The fennec whirred around the priest's feet as he left. Chandur joined the men in throwing bits of cricket that the god caught with his teeth.

“How hideous.” Hiresha shielded her eyes from the fennec.

“Nothing wrong about that leap,” Chandur said. “Look at him go.”

“My fiancé is snapping cricket heads out of the air. Abominable.”

“Oh.” Chandur rolled a ball of coconut and date between thumb and forefinger. “Did you never want to marry?”

She propped her temples up with her fingers. Pursing her lips, she glanced at him but did not answer.

Janny plopped down to sit on the other side of Hiresha. “It's a fair question,” the maid said. The skin of her freckled face was peeling from too much sun. “Could've had yourself some real full shirts and full pants. Didn't want them. Now don't want this toothed-bunny god?”

“He's a fox.” Chandur ran a hand over the fennec's back as he dashed by.

“I wanted to marry,” Hiresha said, “yet it can't be done anytime one pleases.”

“Yes it can.” Janny had a face that wrinkles had etched into a smile. A turban wrapped her hair with grey fabric. A dress of the same color was filled by a body that Chandur could only respectfully call practical and built to last. “Can even happen when you don't please. 'Specially a hurry-up-please-before-father-finds-out wedding.”

“There is nothing more vulgar than the unplanned,” Hiresha said. “A life isn't great by chance, but by design.”

“I could use some vulgarity tonight.” Janny winked at two of the guards. “Hope they don't drink too much.”

“Janny, don't expose others to your thoughts. It is indecent.”

The maid said, “Just tell me I won't have to pick up your wee husband god. Or comb him. I don't think it's fair for me to be bitten by an animal. Been bit by my fair share of own children.”

“I assure you,” Hiresha said, “you'll have to do no such thing.”

“A toast to the bride.” Men lifted their glasses. “A ring of praise to honor her.”

“A ring of praise. Her face is more beautiful than water in the desert.”

“'Desert?'“ The man to his left grimaced. “Tough one. Oh! She's the most valuable Oasis import.”

He pronounced the last word to make it a close rhyme to “desert.” The two priests slapped their knees in approval.

“And she's the most fortunate woman in the lands.”

Chandur was next in the circle. Even with everyone staring at him for the next verse, he did not worry. Either he would think of a matching phrase or he would not.

“She has a healer's hands,” he said after some thought. “Her work honors the Opal Mind.”

The following man rhymed that with “kind,” and around the circle they went praising her dress, wealth, and wishing her happiness in the afterlife. Hiresha seemed to weather the compliments well. At least she kept her groans quiet.

Chandur liked to see others compete to come up with the most original verse in praise rings. He thought it odd, though, that he had heard poetry describing a woman's beauty, but never a man's. Men had a different sort of fineness to them, which he did not know how to put into words himself but thought someone should. He was sure Hiresha must have noticed that the skin-stitcher she had been speaking to in the palace had been most handsome.

The last man to speak picked up the fennec, rubbing his sides. “Now what do you have to say to your bride?”

The fennec trilled like a bird. The men roared their approval.

Chandur shook his head in amazement. The fennec was the most adorable creature he had ever seen. “You know, I always wanted a fennec. Even more after I lost Bracelets.”

Janny lowered a cup from her mouth. “Bracelets?”

“Had a snake. She had bands, red and black. Or maybe 'he.' No way to know.” He smiled, remembering the smooth feel of her scales. “Slept curled around my arm.”

Hiresha rested her head against the side of her hand. “Why would you keep a snake?”

“Well,” Chandur said, “her tongue could tickle your cheek.”

The maid pretended to gag. “If you like snake kisses so much, you should've bought yourself another fanged missy.”

He had often thought of it. “Wasn't sure the time was right.”

“Snakes are seasonal?” The maid pinched his arm. “Like mangos?”

Chandur worried he might not be meant to buy a snake. Perhaps he was supposed to own a bird, a fennec, or nothing. He wished the Priest of the Fate Weaver could have given him a longer reading, could have told him exactly what the goddess had designed his future to hold. Life expected far too many decisions from him.

He said, “If someone gave me a snake, then I'd know it was fated.”

Janny threw him a strange look.

Hiresha asked, “Did your snake eat rats?”

“Yeah, if I killed them first,” he said.

“Why,” Hiresha asked, “keep something with no purpose?”

Sometimes the enchantress’ mannerisms puzzled Chandur. He looked across to Janny for help, but she was exchanging glances with a man wearing silver-fennec jewelry. “Well,” he said, “haven't you ever had a pet?”

“I had a baby goat, once,” Hiresha said. “She would've produced milk, but I fell asleep and an eagle pecked out her eyes. To punish me, my mother made me kill the goat myself. I was six. I could barely lift the mallet.”

Chandur was disturbed, once by her story and twice by her quiet voice in telling it. She sounded like she was falling asleep again. It both troubled and impressed him that she never seemed farther than a few breaths from sleep. He had to lean closer to hear her murmuring.

“Cannot have goats before you're ready. Have to plan. Everything in its proper place and time. Such a shame, my wedding would've been a masterpiece.”

“Oh?” Janny ate a few berries from Hiresha's plate. “Who’re you thinking of marrying?”

Her chin drooped toward the amethysts on her chest. “Chandur, of course.”

“I knew it.” Janny cackled.

Chandur had been lifting a piece of crocodile to eat it. He froze, with mouth open. A burning itch spread up his throat, attacked his cheeks in pulses of heat, and climbed to his scalp. He felt he had overheard something the enchantress had not meant to say. That she thought of him in that way bewildered him as she had never treated him with more than an aunt's kindness. Sweat wriggled between his scale armor and his skin.

He decided he should pretend he had not heard her.
It could never come to anything,
he told himself. The enchantress' betrothed was running around the feet of the revelers, and besides, the goddess of fate had promised Chandur to another. He forced his mouth to close over the bit of meat that sat oily and too hot on his tongue. Despite his greatest efforts, he could not swallow it. Neither could he look at Hiresha.

By her tone, the enchantress must have woken herself. She spoke in an increasingly rapid and agitated manner. “It was only sensible. He could accompany me on my expeditions as a spellsword and invite no moral dispute. Fosapam Chandur and I both came from Morimound. We could agree on a wedding ceremony. I have the location planned, the phrasing of the invitations memorized, the food to be served, everything except whether he would wear white or yellow. I feel it important that the groom have some input.”

Janny nodded to the fennec. “You got it close. He'll wear white on bottom and gold on top.”

Chandur shifted the food to the side of his mouth. He thought he could feel the blooming heat of Hiresha's embarrassment. Not knowing what else he could do for her, he got up and tried to leave.

The men were weaving in a drunken dance, with the fennec jumping among them with chest-high hops. A priest urged Chandur to join them. A dancer jostled into Chandur as he began to say something, and the bit of meat slipped down his throat and stuck.

Chandur found himself on his knees, clutching his neck. Men slapped his back and yelled. The fennec squealed. The spellsword's world began to swirl with black and red. He told himself not to fear. It was not his fate to die.

The Fate Weaver's Priest promised me.

“Out of the way, you fools.”

The amethysts on Hiresha's dress dug into his back as she gripped him. It felt like she punched him in the stomach. The meat shot out of his mouth. He gasped on his hands and knees.

As he staggered to his feet, the room was silent, except for the fennec. Chandur's eyes stayed on the rug’s sand-dune patterns. He heard Hiresha speak.

“I think I’ll retire for an afternoon bath. I mean afternoon nap. I mean both. Yes, well, goodbye.”

The green window panes of Hiresha's rented chambers shone with midday sun. Droplets of water shaded like emeralds rolled off her skin to splash on the tiles, and she stepped back from the glare to keep her face in shadow. Her nervous fingers circled between her breasts and around a diamond, feeling the transition between warm skin and cool stone. Between soft and hard, between life and craft.

The tinted window glass darkened the red diamond to a dusky jewel, the gem that the Lord of the Feast had given her, that she had enchanted with protective magics, that she had implanted into her sternum so she would never lose it. Skin encased its edges, revealing only the diamond's largest facet. One corner of the triangular surface pointed upward.

As the triangle between his brows points downward.
Few had seen the Lord of the Feast's brand and lived. Hiresha wished she had never had to meet him. She wished she had never had to leave him.
I should've thrown his red diamond into the sea.

Her hand covered the gem as Janny approached with her dress. The maid knew about the jewel, but Hiresha believed the sight of it disturbed her.

“Not the amethyst dress, Maid Janny.” Hiresha would always wear the same design of dress, though she had variants with different jewels of similar color. Wearing her preferred garnet gemstones on this day would bolster herself against her doubts.

“I swear you're threading me a good one. It's the same dress.” Janny held up two backless dresses with the same spiral patterns of gems.

“Those are purple garnets, not amethysts. You could doubtless differentiate them if you did not destroy your eyes trying to see improper things in the dark.”

“Oh no, I go by feel.” Janny held up the garnet dress, steadying Hiresha to help her step into it.

“I suppose,” Hiresha said as the jewels slid up over her chest, “you think me exceedingly foolish. To hope Chandur would ever marry me, when I am significantly older.”

“Foolish, yes.” Janny guided her arms through the sleeves. “For not already bedding him. With your wealth and delectables, I'd have him myself and five young misters besides.”

“Maid Janny, you are a pestilence of indecency.”

“Seriously, can you glow me up a gem for youthful looks? Or is it that you get less sun than an earthworm?”

Choosing to ignore the maid, Hiresha said, “Our ages are not so far apart, if one considers—”

“You are four pregnancies younger than me.”

“I mean Chandur and myself. Over half my life has been spent asleep, and those years should not count against me.”

The enchantress rested a hand on Janny's shoulder to balance herself as she eased her feet into slippers. The maid asked, “Should I call him in then, without pants? Will be your last chance before you marry that ladle-eared critter.”

“I'll not marry the fennec. You'll bring Chandur. He will be decently clothed.”

Janny made a “pfff” noise but returned soon with the spellsword. He stood at attention, eyes locked on Hiresha’s jeweled slippers. Hiresha bid Janny shut the door. A deep part of the enchantress wanted Chandur to notice that she wore her garnet dress, but he did not. These gems were smaller and more faceted than the amethysts.
The differences are so obvious.
Hiresha interpreted his lack of comment as indifference toward her jewels and herself.

The enchantress explained that the marriage ceremony between her and the fennec would contain an unacceptable amount of dieing. She mentioned the warning of the Royal Embalmer. Chandur did not speak, but Maid Janny cried out.

“Aaah! A marriage night in a stone coffin? Now I have goose-pimples all over.”

“Spellsword Chandur,” Hiresha said, “I depend upon you to find a captain sailing from the city tomorrow. We will depart without notice.”

Emotion seemed to hold him silent, either sadness from her decision to flee the sacrificial ritual or from relief. Hiresha liked to think it was the latter. Chandur at last choked out two words.

“I understand.”

Hiresha said, “If anyone impedes us, I count on you to protect me from capture. However, try not to kill soldiers of the empire.”

“Why ever not?” Maid Janny clutched the top of her turban. “Maybe spare the cute ones, but they want to murder you for their god.”

“
You can't go around killing people merely because they are oafish idiots with ridiculous religious beliefs.”
Hiresha glanced at the greatsword’s hilt above his shoulder, capped with a purple sapphire. “Today, use discretion.”

After another nod, Chandur propped the stone sword against the wall. He left, and the enchantress turned to speak to Maid Janny.

“I have a vital errand for you, to purchase a circlet in the bazaar.”

Hiresha gave Janny a few specifications for the jewelry. The maid left with reasonable cheer, but the enchantress could not find in herself the same hope. The priests would no doubt ask the vizier to pursue her tomorrow.
They'll not let their sacrifice escape without a chase.

Her party would need a lead of at least a day in the desert before the city guards realized where they had gone. Any less of an advantage and Hiresha had to believe she would be caught.

Chandur walked through city streets and under sky streams. The overhead waterways had always reminded him of blue snakes slithering above, each flow lighter than air thanks to magic. If he strained his eyes, he could see a glint of a metal strand within the water, a chain of silver.
Enchanted by someone like Hiresha,
he thought with pride. He spotted a few ornate boats rowing on the shaded underside of a stream that curved downward to the palace's roof. Since Chandur was not a noble, he had to travel the city by more conventional means.

Besides, the enchantress had ordered him to find her a land ship without drawing attention. The cut of his coat and its regal purple would mark him. He searched for and found a fabric merchant, striding between colorful racks of cloth.

A thin robe hid his coat, and he wrapped a maroon turban over his head then looped the swaths under his chin and up over his face. Concealed, Fosapam Chandur paid for the clothes and walked on, feeling fleet without having to trudge around with the weight his stone greatsword.

The smell of camel dung stirred memories of turning out the stables, and his eyes locked on the three-storied white barracks of the Royal Camelry. He strode by a familiar wall painting of a camel with a scorpion's tail. He considered visiting but realized that his friends would be patrolling the Gods Week festivities.

He had looked forward to having time while Hiresha had waited to receive commissions from nobles for her healing jewels, before her engagement had turned everything on its back. He could have caught up with Three-Thrust Khelu, Asp Eye, and Dejal—him most of all with his striking blue eyes, quick blade, and quicker laugh. Fate pulled Chandur elsewhere, though, and he turned down another street, toward the northern docks. His first duty was to the enchantress, and he would not fail her.

Scarabs buzzed overhead, and he kept pace with them, grinning up at their flutter of red wings. His face fell with sorrow that Hiresha would have to flee Oasis City with him, a man still struggling to believe it all. Chandur supposed he should not be surprised he was mixed up with gods and elder enchantresses. The priest had read his destiny in the strands of a spider web and had told him his fate was bright.

He marched up the stairs alongside the city wall, rising above the square buildings. The rooftops glittered blue and white with countless salt crystallization pools. The air throbbed with heat and moisture while the sky rivers twisted their way toward the center of the city to channel into one rippling globe. Below that sky lake gleamed a bluish-marble pyramid, a hub from which branched processions of brass towers, posts of glinting luster.

The scope of the grandness forced Chandur to stand and stare. It bewildered him to imagine that Hiresha would try to escape the empire that had built such a city. Thinking of the enchantress sent an aching mix of respect and sadness churning through him. He was sorry her life's thread wound through such difficult tracts.

Her plan to escape by land ship worried him, for her sake. He would have gone about leaving a different way. A trustworthy guide and a few camels would have bought them disappearance in the desert. They might have had to contend with bandit nomads, and he admitted he had never seen an enchantress ride a camel before. Still, he would have preferred the smaller party, fewer to mark their leaving. He had not challenged her decision because Chandur was not one to wince at where fate took him.

Destiny would be generous to Chandur, the priest had told him as much, but it would never let him marry Hiresha. He felt he owed it to the enchantress to tell her.
The cleaner the cut the less chance to fester,
he told himself. True, he felt he had the most important duty in the world protecting her, and happiness had stolen his powers of speech after hearing she planned to stay alive, in this world. But, no, nothing could exist between them.
Fate is fate
.

After a last check that his over robe covered him, Chandur ascended to the top of the steps. On the other side of the wall, ships floated above the sand. The vessels were bound to the docks by heavy ropes, their sails furled. Most bobbed above the sand drifts, telling Chandur that they had not weighed themselves down with cargo.

None of them will be weighing anchor without ballast.
Chandur's fears played out, in that he found few sailors about. Most seemed to have gone on leave in the city. He had trouble finding anyone who would accept payment for passengers, or even a single ship captain to talk to.

One deckhand shrugged and gestured to the docks. “The captain isn't here. That's where he is.”

“Quite the severe shortage of captains,” Chandur said. “Know any ships riding the dunes tomorrow morning?”

“You mean before the Newborn Year? No pilgrims want passage 'til then.”

“I do.” Chandur pressed a coin into the man's hand.

“Then you're sure to be sore waiting.” The man hopped from the dock, over the long drop to the sands, and onto the ship.

Chandur sat on a post and cupped his chin, staring out into the desert. He figured Enchantress Hiresha had the coin to buy a ship and crew. She had not asked him to do that, and he thought it was because it would attract too much notice. If a captain changed plans with the dockmaster at the last moment, the guards would be wise to it. He had caught a few thieving merchants that way himself.

He needed a ship scheduled to leave tomorrow.
Nothing for it,
he thought,
have to try the south docks.

A man stepped between him and the sun. “I always see beauty in its emptiness.”

Chandur stood to match the man's height. The figure wore the black shawl and vulture mask of a skin-stitcher, and his voice was muffled but familiar. The spellsword followed his gaze out onto the desert.