Tang waded into the pool until it became chest-deep, then doused his torch and wedged it into his empty sword scabbard. In the dim swamp light filtering in from the cavern mouth, he could barely see the ceiling of the grotto, sloping down like the roof of some huge mouth.

He swam over to it and dove. The water turned instantly as thick and dark as plum wine. The prince rolled onto his back so he could use his hands and feet to push him- self along the roof of the passage.

Tang's heart began to pound in his ears and his throat grew tight, but he gave no thought to turning back. It was not that he felt no fear; on the contrary, he was filled with a cold, queasy dread that made his hands shake and his bowels churn. The thought occurred to him that the passage might have more than one branch. He could eas- ily be swimming into an underwater labyrinth; in such suffocating darkness, he would never know it.

Dragging himself through the passage was hard work, and Tang's breath did not last long. He turned over, then emptied his lungs into the black water. The prince pulled his buoyant waterskin beneath his body and allowed it to press him against the ceiling, then placed his lips over the mouth. Biting the stopper between his teeth, he care- fully opened the skin and allowed a stream of stale air to seep into his chest. Closing the sack was more difficult.

He had to use his fingers to push the stopper back into place, losing several precious bubbles when he slipped the digits into the corner of his mouth.

Tang continued forward, if not growing less afraid, then at least growing more accustomed to fear. Though he had lost all sense of direction, he no longer worried about becoming lost. No matter how complicated the labyrinth, he could always follow the rope back. He filled his lungs from his air sack two more times, each time allowing a few cherished bubbles to slip along his cheek as he pushed the stopper back into place. Even that loss did not trouble him. If he ran out of air, it would be much easier to pull himself back to the pond than to crawl forward as he was doing. Then he would simply find a couple of extra waterskins and resume his explorations.

A flicker of orange-yellow light caught Tang's eye, and he began to hope it would not be necessary to turn around. He dragged himself forward. When the flicker became a diffuse gold-red gleam pushing its way through the murky water, he realized he had to be nearing

Cypress's lair. The glow was the color of flame, and fires do not burn underwater. More importantly, where there was light, Lady Feng was also bound to be. The prince pulled himself forward with renewed vigor-only to come to an abrupt stop as he reached the end of the rope.

Tang did not even consider going back for another length of rope. Instead, he sucked the last dregs of air from his waterskin, then untied himself and swam toward the light. He began to count heartbeats, not because he feared he would drown before he reached the

end of the passage, but to give him some idea of how far it was back to the rope. The golden glow brightened slowly. His count had reached thirty by the time it was ab large as a head. At fifty, his lungs began to ache for air, and the light was no larger than a harvest moon. When the count reached seventy, his limbs grew so heavy and weak that he could hardly move them. Yellow-orange radiance filled the whole passage ahead, and still the ceiling held Tang beneath the water.

The prince blew out the last of his breath and swam another dozen strokes. His count reached a hundred and ten, and the orange glow was so bright that he could see his hands silhouetted against it. His heart began to beat faster, pounding inside his chest like a forge's trip ham- mer, and a trickle of sweet-tasting water seeped between his lips. At the count of a hundred and thirty, the golden light began to sparkle and shimmer, and the prince real- ized he had made a terrible mistake. Whatever it was, this radiance was too strong, too brilliant to be firelight.

Perhaps his testimony to the Chief Judge had come too late; perhaps the spirits of his dead soldiers, angry at his hesitation, had created the luminescence to trick him.

One hundred and sixty…

The ceiling lifted off of Tang's back, and his head sud- denly popped out of the water. With a great, racking groan, he sucked in the musty cave air, continuing until it seemed his lungs would burst. An orchestra of blissful purling echoed all around the prince, giving him the feel- ing that he had died and, despite his many faults, sur- faced in the Land of Extreme Felicity. He exhaled and drew in even more air, as though he were trying to drain the cavern of its last wisp of dank atmosphere.

The chamber itself only added to Tang's impression that he had surfaced in a place of eternal paradise. The ceiling and walls were draped with jewelry both ancient and new: thumb-sized diamonds set into gold rings, blood-red rubies strung end-to-end in long chains, emer- alds as large as cat eyes dangling from ear clips of pure

platinum. From dozens of ancillary passages poured streams large and small, all passing over beds of pearl and opal before they fell into a sparkling lake that filled the lower half of the cavern.

Unlike the brown soup at the other end of the passage, the waters here were as clear as glass, and the bottom of the entire pool was covered by minted coins of every imaginable size and kingdom. A short swim away, the coins rose up to form the glistening beach of an island made entirely of precious ingots-and more gold than sil- ver. In the center of the isle stood a single oaken staff-no doubt Yanseldara's-with three gnarled branches rising at the top to grasp a huge orange topaz. From the depths of this gem burned the fiery light that illuminated the entire chamber, glimmering so brilliantly that the prince could hardly make out the form of the tall, willowy woman standing beside it.

"Lady Feng!" Tang swam to the island, then stopped on the shore and bowed to his mother. "Will Third Virtuous

Concubine honor her humble son with audience?"

The woman stepped away from the staff and peered down the slope at her son. Unlike most Shou women, she showed every day of her age-and then some. She wore her gray hair pulled into a tight bun that did little to lessen its unruly appearance, and her skin was as ashen and flaky as lizard scales. The crow's-feet at the corners of her eyes fanned out like spiderwebs to veil her entire face, while the curious way that she cocked her head only emphasized the contrast between the pop-eye through which she saw the outer world and the squinty white orb that was usually turned inward to watch the spirit world.

"Tang!" she said at last. "What do you do here?"

"I come to rescue you, Lady Feng." The prince held his bow. It was not unusual to have an entire conversation with the Third Virtuous Concubine without receiving permission to rise. It was a good thing she was not a queen; he would have had to kowtow. "I also come to destroy Cypress's spirit gem."

"No. You mustn't!" She began to pick her way down the ingot slope. "Cypress would know!"

"It does not matter. He already tries to kill me for res- cuing you."