I was inspecting her chambers to be certain of her safety,

I find this."

The adjutant opened his hand, revealing the exotic

Calimshan gold that Tombor had put into Ruha's coffer to impress Wei Dao.

Hsieh studied the coin, then scowled at his adjutant.

"Wei Dao is Princess, Yu Po. Do you expect to find no gold in her chamber?"

"Not gold like this."

Yu Po pinched the edges of the coin with both hands and pulled. The coin came apart, revealing a tiny com- partment where a small paper message might be con- cealed.

Hsieh took the two halves from his adjutant. "Most ingenious. Do you find what is inside?"

"No," Yu Po admitted.

"But I know who sent it to her," Ruha said. "And if I

am correct, Esteemed Mandarin, I also know who told

Cypress you were aboard the Ginger Lady."

"Wei Dao?" Hsieh asked.

"That coin was given to me by someone who promised it would win the princess's hospitality," Ruha said. "It did."

"How come Yu Po finds it in her chamber?"

"I saw her sneak it from my gold coffer. The person who gave it to me said the princess had a fondness for foreign coins," Ruha explained. "Now I think it contained a message from a spy in Moonstorm House, warning Wei

Dao of my identity. The princess has been most insistent about wishing to kill me-regardless of Prince Tang's commands to the contrary."

Hsieh pushed the two halves of the coin together and folded it into his palm, then waved the witch toward the door. "It seems our mutual problem is solved, does it not,

Lady Ruha?"

Ruha did not move. "No. How could it be?"

"If dragon kidnaps Lady Feng, then kidnapper is no threat."

The witch was confused by the mandarin's misunder-

standing-until she recalled that Hsieh had seen her destroy Cypress on the Dragonmere. She had said noth- ing about the dragon taking another body, and Ruha cer- tainly saw no reason to broach the subject now.

"Do you not understand, Lady Ruha?" Hsieh asked.

"We have only to locate dragon's lair; then we find both

Lady Feng and Yanseldara's stolen staff."

"Of course!" Ruha did her best to sound astonished.

"And if you will me tell more about these ylang blossoms, perhaps I know someone who can be tricked into leading us to the lair."

Eleven

Tang's punt came to another fork in the slough. His boatpushers jammed their poles into the black water, the butts angled forward to halt the little dugout while he guessed at the way to

Cypress's lair. Behind him arose a gentle sloshing as his men struggled to stop their heavy log rafts. Save for the unremitting hum ofmosquitos, no other sound broke the silence of the swamp. The evening light lay upon the glassy waters as sinuous and wispy as smoke, yielding no hint of the sun's location. Along the banks of the chan- nels rose tangled webs of prop roots, supporting thickets of vine-choked bog cane as impenetrable to the eye as walls of stone. Even the sky itself was hidden from view, concealed behind a murky canopy of moss-draped boughs.

Somewhere nearby loomed the Giant's Run Moun- tains, a chain of high peaks lying half a day's canter southeast of the Ginger Palace, but Tang could not find the way to their steep slopes. Though he had commanded his men to remain confident, he could feel their trust ebbing with every minute he remained lost, and even he was losing faith in his abilities. The swamp was so small that it had no name-indeed, few outside the Cult of the

Dragon knew it existed at all-and twice the prince had come to Lair here with fellow cult members. It seemed impossible that its meager maze of waterways should

disorient him or anyone else, yet Tang had been trying to locate Cypress's hole for more than two hours.

The punt rocked beneath the prince's feet. He glanced back to see the commander of the palace garrison, Gen- eral Fui D'hang, stepping into the dugout from a wagon- sized raft of lashed logs. A squat, flat-cheeked man with an unwavering scowl and granite eyes, he wore a helmet of silver-trimmed brass and an oversized battle tunic over leather armor. Most of the men behind him were dressed in a similar manner, save their helmets were steel with brass trim.

The general bowed. "May it please the Prince to hear

me."

As with all Fui said, the statement was a command,

not a request. Prince Tang nodded, but looked away to emphasize that he would not allow the general to bully

him.

"Night falls soon, and men are uneasy at being lost-"

"Do I say we are lost?" Tang whirled on the general so fast that, had his boatpushers not had their poles planted on the bottom, the punt would have capsized. "We are not lost. Dragon uses Invisible Art to confuse honorable sol- diers. They may eat another lasal leaf."

Fui did not turn to issue the command. "Since you are not lost, perhaps you guide us to dry land. It is better to camp outside swamp."

"No. We must rescue Lady Feng tonight."

The general's eyes remained stony. "If we perish in dark-"

"Tonight."

Fui's Ups tightened. "Surely, Wise Prince knows it is inauspicious to attack eminent dragon at all, but to attack at night…"

"This dragon is different!" snapped Tang. "Cypress does not have favor of Celestial Bureaucracy!"

"Perhaps Wise Prince explains why it takes so long to reach dragon's palace?" Fui insisted. "This swamp is size of peasant village. By now, we should find dragon's home

through tenacity alone."

"It is question of patience, not 'finding!' " Prince Tang turned away from General Fui, silently cursing the absence of a wu-jen. A little magic would go far toward helping him find his goal. "Tell men to be ready. Not far now!"

Selecting a direction at random, the prince pointed down the fork on the right. General Fui barely had time to leap back to his own raft before Tang's boatpushers guided the punt into the channel. As they traveled down the curving slough, the mosquito hum became a madden- ing drone. Though the Shou berry juice the prince had rubbed into his flesh protected him from bites, clouds of the insects dragged across his skin like chiffon.

Tang began to sense an enormous, dark presence ahead. The canopy arched higher above the water, and the swamp grew steadily murkier and more forlorn. The beards of moss vanished from the branches alongside the passage, replaced by the curtainlike webs of brilliantly striped spiders with abdomens as large as a man's fist.

Ahead of the punt, dark chevrons appeared in the water as startled snakes swam for cover. The ends of sub- merged logs sprouted eyes and watched the flotilla pass.