Though Yuan could not see the gesture with his head pressed to the ground, the prince waved his hand at the destruction. "But does no one hear falling of stones, or scratching of trees, or ripping of vines?"
Yuan kept his brow pressed to the ground. "Great
Majesty, your unworthy guards hear nothing, smell noth- ing, feel nothing. Please to punish."
Tang ignored the request. "Go search garden."
The prince could not imagine how his guards had missed the sound of the park being destroyed, but he knew the young noble would never lie to him. No Shou officer would commit such a treason, and not only because he feared for his family's heads. The offense would dishonor his ancestors, causing them to lose their places in the Celestial Bureaucracy-an offense said ancestors would surely repay with all manner of curses and incurable plagues.
While the guards searched the park, Tang retreated through the gate and waited outside, praying to the spir- its of his ancestors to guide his sentries to the vandal who had destroyed his park. Although the imperial weapon- masters had taught him to wield a sword as well as any man, it did not even occur to him to stay in the garden and exact vengeance himself. From his earliest childhood, the prince had been taught to retreat from danger and call his guards to take care of the problem. It was a lesson he had not ignored once in thirty years of life.
At length, the sentries returned with unbloodied weapons and bowed to Tang. "Garden of Flickering
Tongues is safe for Mighty Prince."
"You do not find vandal?"
Yuan shook his head. "Only lizards, and only lizard
tracks."
Tang considered this, puzzled not by who had ravaged his garden or why-he knew the answers to both ques- tions-but by how the intruder had infiltrated the heart of his palace, vandalized the park, and escaped with his life. Truly, such a feat was as worthy of admiration as it was of indignation.
When he could not think of how the culprit had escaped. Tang sighed wearily. "How unfortunate you did not capture the intruder. He has given me much work to do." The prince always tended his garden himself, calling for aid only when he needed help to move something heavy. "Return to your posts and punish each other, ten lashes each."
The faces of the sentries fell. Given the magnitude of their failure, such a light punishment was humiliating.
Its temperance implied that Tang believed them inca- pable of doing better-which happened to be the case, though the prince did not fault the guards for their inad- equacy. Even the most devoted sentries could not capture intruders they could not see or hear, or find trespassers who left no tracks. Such tasks required a wu-jen. Unfor- tunately, the Minister of Magic was currently at odds with Tang's own sponsor, Mandarin Hsieh Han Liu, the
Imperial Minister of Spices. Consequently, the Emperor's wu-jens were considered too valuable to waste on an inconsequential embassy like the Ginger Palace. Such political frustrations were a daily part of the prince's life, and one of the many reasons he preferred the company of lizards to that of men.
Tang waited until the last guard had stepped aside, then took his key from the red-lacquered gates and stepped through the Arch ofMany-Hued Scales. When he turned to close the gates, he glimpsed his guards glumly marching toward the Five Color Bridge and decided it
would not do to have them brooding over their failure.
They were an elite company, and an elite company with- out honor was nothing.
"One thing more, my soldiers," he called. "You must double lashes for any man who fails to draw blood with each whip stroke."
The guards bowed in acknowledgment, and Yuan could barely keep from smiling. "Yes, Mighty Prince."
Tang closed the gate and put the key in his sleeve pocket, leaving the lock unlatched in case the mysterious vandal returned. He fetched a small shovel, a linen sack, and a copper bucket from a tool shanty near the jungle quarter, then took a deep breath and went to the first mound of flies. As he slid the shovel beneath the droning heap, the insects rose into the air, revealing a pile of ran- cid lizard viscera. Fighting his gorge back, he scooped up the entrails and placed them in the sack, then filled his bucket from the swamp and washed the stones.
The work was humiliating for a prince, of course, but
Tang preferred doing it himself to having the serenity of his garden disturbed by servants. He cleaned up the other mounds of viscera, then placed the bulging sack by the gate. The entrails had obviously come from the belly of his dead monitor, for none of the other lizards were large enough to hold so many intestines. What the prince did not understand was how the intruder had known it- was his favorite pet, a rare beast captured in the distant land of Chult. Only his personal staff knew how dearly he had paid for the creature, and they would no sooner betray him than his guards would.
Tang returned his tools to the shanty, then went over to the dead monitor. He waved aside a cloud of flies and grabbed the beast by its rear legs.
The beast jerked its feet from the prince's grasp.
Tang cried out and stepped away, his gaze dropping to the black stains that covered the bench and the stones beneath it. The stuff looked like dried blood, and the ran- cid, coppery smell certainly suggested appearances were
correct. He did not see how the monitor could have lost so much blood and lived. The great lizard raised its head, fixing a dull-eyed gaze on the prince's face.
"Guards!" Tang stumbled backward toward the gate.
"Yuan! Come quickly!"
The monitor glanced at the gate, and Tang heard the sharp double click of the heavy lock-bolt sliding into its catch. He fished the key from his sleeve pocket and con- tinued to retreat, fighting down his growing panic and trying to decide whether he dared turn his back to make a dash for the gate.
Tang, you cannot flee me.
Tang heard the voice not with his ears, but inside his mind. It was raspy and rumbling, and even if it had come from the monitor's mouth, it would have been much too resonant for a lacertilian throat.
That much, you should remember.
"Cy-Cypress?"
The monitor nodded, and Tang's feet suddenly felt as heavy as boulders. At first, the prince thought the lizard had cast a spell on him, but he quickly realized that was impossible. The beast had uttered no mystic syllables, nor made any arcane gestures with its claws. Instead,
Cypress was using what the Shou called the Invisible
Art, an ancient discipline whose practitioners employed nothing but the power of their own minds to perform supernatural acts. Tang had heard that his unwelcome guest was a master of the venerable art, but until now, he had been lucky enough to avoid a demonstration.
Tang's guards arrived at the park entrance and began to hammer on the gates, but they could not break through with anything short of a battering ram. Both portals were reinforced with heavy bands of steel, while the lock itself was the sturdiest Shou smiths could make. The sentries could not even scale the wall, as it was capped with a double crest of barbed spikes.