The sentries in the shrubbery began to yell at each other in Shou. Several rose from their posts and started to run toward the mansion, drawing an angry shout from a young, moon-faced officer. The guards stopped where they were, but continued to stare toward the mansion, squinting and furrowing their brows as they tried to find the strange blur that had just come crashing out the win- dow.

Ruha's stomach had tied itself into knots. The coward in her wanted to flee as quickly as possible, but that would be exactly what her hunters expected. Certainly, a messenger was already rushing to the barracks to call out the guard. Besides, the witch had not yet found

Yanseldara's staff, and if the sentries would not leave their posts to investigate a breaking window, whatever they were protecting had to be important. Ruha turned toward the enclosure and, ever so slowly, began to creep down the opal path.

Over the garden wall came the tintinnabulation of breaking glass. Prince Tang rose and scowled toward the palace, but the crest of the rampart rose just high enough to block the second-story windows-he himself had made certain of that-and he could not see what had hap- pened. No matter. Windowpanes cost as much as dia- monds, but this morning he was working on the problem of the ants, and he had only a short time to solve it before his officious wife fetched him to meet with some new merchant.

Tang glanced at the gate, hanging slightly ajar, and wondered if he dared close it. He had repaired only a quarter of the damage to his garden, and every day he failed to restore the delicate balance meant more dead lizards. Still, he could not hazard shutting himself off from his guards. Minister Hsieh was well overdue, which meant the fresh ylang blossoms had not yet been pressed, which meant Cypress was likely to appear at any moment, spitting acid and demanding his oil.

It puzzled Tang that the dragon had not come already

It had been seven days since the last visit, far longei than Cypress had granted him to provide the oil, and still there had been no demands or threats. The prince was not anxious for the call, of course, but he was pre- pared. His guards-half new, half veterans of the dragon's first appearance-had been eating lasal leaves, a mind-numbing herb that defended against the effects of the Invisible Art. Unfortunately, it also caused tremors and disorientation, and as often as not left long- term users little better than zombies.

Trying to force all thoughts of Cypress from his mind,

Tang kneeled in the sand, turning back to the problem of the ants. On a slab of stone before him, four Thornback lizards were basking in the morning sun, warming their cold blood in preparation for the day's activities. They should have been plump and round of body, with blotchy,

tan-colored hides indistinguishable from the sand of the desert quarter. Instead, they were no fatter than snakes and as white as alabaster, almost translucent at the tips of their stumpy tails. After Cypress's attack, all of the ants upon which the lizards preyed had mysteriously vanished from the garden, perhaps destroyed or driven away by the Invisible Art.

The prince opened one of the many small lacquered boxes he had brought into the park. A pair of red ants that had survived their capture tried to escape. He killed the fugitives and returned them to the container with their ten dead fellows, then sprinkled all twelve bodies onto the stone. The tongue of a single Thornback lashed out and caught one insect in midair, but it showed no interest in the others. The remaining lizards paid the offering no attention at all.

Tang sighed and reached for the fifteenth box. After several failed attempts to feed the lizards common house- hold ants, he had ordered his servants to capture twelve of every kind of ant that lived within a mile of the Ginger

Palace. He had not realized there were so many varieties, or that even Thornbacks could be so particular about the ones they ate.

Tang opened the box and found several large carpenter ants trying to chew their way to freedom. Deciding it would be necessary to punish his servants for their care- lessness, he smashed the survivors and dumped the whole box onto the stone. These plumper insects seemed to interest the lizards more than the previous offerings, as they each snapped up one or two before they stopped eating.

The prince threw the lacquered box down in the sand.

"You are foolish old men! Food need not taste good to save life!"

As one, the Thornbacks lifted their bodies off the rock.

They puffed out their throats and bobbed their heads up and down in the universal challenge of lacertilians. At first. Tang thought his exhortation had angered them,

but then he realized they were looking past him toward the Arch of Many-Hued Scales.

The gates were closed and barred.

Ruha breathed a sigh of relief, then braced her hands against the timber crosspiece and tried to stop trem- bling. The trip down the path of opals had been as nerve-wracking as it had been long. When Wei Dao appeared in the mansion's broken window, the moon- faced officer had sent half his men down the path to see what was wrong. The witch had barely managed to creep off the trail before the sentries rushed past, and despite her caution, one of the men's eyes had briefly drifted in her direction.

After receiving instructions from the princess, the detail had spread out in all directions to begin searching for her. In the meantime, the young officer had as- sembled the rest of his men at the rainbow-colored bridge, and Ruha had been forced to creep past them less than a hand's breadth behind their backs. By the time she had passed beneath the enclosure's scaly gate, the first guards from the barracks were arriving to join the search for her. Though they had not seemed to realize she was invisible, the witch felt certain that Wei Dao would surmise as much as soon as she emerged from the man- sion to direct the search.

From behind Ruha came the metallic swish of a sword leaving its scabbard. She turned to see that the foolish

Shou who was trying to feed dead ants to spiny sand iguanas had risen. The witch could not help gasping, and not because she feared the square-tipped sword he now held in his hands.

It was the man from her vision on the raft. He had the same upturned nose, smooth complexion, and silky black hair, but it was his eyes that convinced her. They were deep and dark, at once confident and self-absorbed. His

jaw was set but not tense, and the stance he had adopted suggested that he was no stranger to holding a sword.

Ruha realized at once that her first evaluation, made from a hasty glance at the fellow's back, had been mis- taken; this was no simple gardener.

The man studied the gates for a moment, then glanced at his lizards and opened his mouth to call his guards.

"Please, there is no need to call for help." Ruha spoke softly and started across the courtyard, moving quickly enough so that he would see her as a shimmering column of air. "I mean you no harm."