The Feline Wizard

by Christopher Stasheff

  Of course, none of Prester John's subjects had taken that course. No doubt they found the workroom impressive enough.

  The chamber was fragrant with the aroma of sandalwood. Matt looked around for its source and saw a brazier with a feather of smoke rising. He wondered if Prester John had a servant who refueled it periodically to keep the room filled with its scent. Somehow that reminded him of the perpetual fires of Zoroastrian temples, which struck him as a good sign.

  In the center of the room was a rectangle of sand, neatly boxed and recessed so that it was level with the floor. Prester John gestured to it, saying, “Stand in the center, Lord Wizard.”

  When Matt was in place on the sand, Prester John surrounded him with a dozen symbols, inscribed with a polished wooden stick three feet long. It reminded Matt of a magic wand, especially since it had symbols of its own inlaid with ivory and ebony, some of them identical with the ones on the floor.

  Prester John went over to the brazier and fanned its smoke, blowing the smell of the incense across the sand-floor while he chanted a verse. Matt didn't recognize the language, but his translation spell gave him the meanings of the words anyway; the emperor was sending him to confront the sorcerer. Matt dropped a hand to the hilt of his sword for reassurance, then reached behind his shoulder to touch the butt of his own magic wand. He never went traveling without it anymore, though he rarely had occasion to use it—he usually went in for broadcast spells, not narrowly focused ones.

  Mist rose up from the sand, surrounding him. It thickened, obscuring his view of the workroom, then hiding it completely. Suddenly there was nothing about him but fog. Dizziness struck Matt, then fled as quickly as it had come; he felt a moment's panic before recognizing the difference in the quality of the mist. Instead of the damp, clinging fog of the wetlands in the real world, this was dry, a mist of indeterminacy, the smeared electron shells of quantum physics, the blur of probabilities, of states of existence not yet determined, and Matt knew he was in the Void Between the Worlds.

  His alarm abated; he had been here before. He turned about slowly, feeling for the Wind that Blows Between the Worlds to direct him toward Torbat. Prester John had included the sorcerer's name in the spell, and even if it were his public name, there ought to be some sort of direction-finding.

  There! Matt felt the faintest of pushes. He took a step forward and felt the force strengthen, pushing him steadily ahead. He strode into the mist, with the Wind that Blows Between the Worlds at his back.

  There he was, dimly visible through the mist—Torbat! Prester John's spell had been very accurate, placing Matt only a few dozen yards from the man. He stepped up until he was ten feet away, his steps soundless in the fog, then drew his sword, shouting, “Torbat!”

  The shaman spun, eyes wide in shock—and Matt lunged at his right shoulder, trying to disable the man with pain. Torbat was fast, though; he slipped aside and raised a hand, fingers crooked in an odd sign, calling out a verse in his own language, and Mart's sword turned into a snake.” Here, take it!” he shouted, and threw the serpent at Torbat.

  Torbat sidestepped again, chanting a different verse, and the snake stiffened, turning back into a sword. That gave Matt time to draw his wand and chant a verse of his own:

  “As a pebble in a pond

  That's from wind shielded supercooled,

  Sets off a crystallizing chain

  And freezes surface and beyond

  Into the depths where fluid ruled,

  Be thus frozen, naught to gain!”

  But he hadn't made it through a couplet when Torbat reached into his sleeve, produced a wand of his own, and swept it in a horizontal arc, shouting a staccato rhyme. Matt felt a blow strike his own wand aside, as though Torbat's stick had actually knocked against his instead of being five feet away. It was enough to ruin his aim; as he finished the final line, an expanding cone of frigid air shot out from the end of his wand, locking the mist of undetermined atoms into lattices of crystal—snowflakes that drifted off into the grayness.

  Torbat shouted out another verse, stabbing his wand straight at Matt, who barely had time to riposte, crying,

  “Parry spell in terce and quart!

  My foe's verses shall abort!”

  Torbat's wand spat a line of fire. Matt's wand locked atoms into molecules of air, a stiff, narrow breeze that blew Torbat's fire aside. Matt riposted both physically, with the wand, and verbally:

  “Shaman, you who would dethrone

  The emperor of this happy land,

  For your crime be turned to stone,

  And cease your treacherous demand!”

  Again Torbat flourished his wand and ruined Matt's aim. Matt hoped there hadn't been anything human and male lurking out in the mist, because if there had been, it would have become a silicate sentient. He made a quick frantic circle with his wand, hoping to bind Torbat's, but the sorcerer swung his stick high with a laugh.

  He'd left himself wide open. Matt lunged, crying,

  “Give me the avowed, erect and manly foe,

  Firm I can meet, perhaps return the blow.

  Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just,

  But four times he who gets his blow in fust!”

  He hoped George Canning wouldn't mind his verse being mixed with one of Josh Billings' sayings.

  A blow from an unseen hand sent the shaman sprawling on the invisible plane that served as a floor. Matt came after him, glowing with victory—but Torbat jabbed with his wand, calling out his own equivalent of Matt's freezing verse.

  Matt slowed as the chill bit. He struggled to hurry, but could feel his feet turning into blocks of ice, his ankles stiffening, the chill rising up his calves as the spell drained the heat from his body…

  Heat drain! Matt remembered an old friend—well, associate—who would be perfect for this environment. He called out, quickly, before his jaw froze solid,

  “Maxwell's Demon, come in aid!

  Your friend by heat has been betrayed!

  Molecular motion's been transferred,

  And Newton's Laws are being blurred!”

  With an explosive snap like a carbon arc lighting up, a spark so intense that it hurt the eyes appeared near Matt, humming like a transformer. “What besets you, mortal?”

  “A sorcerer who's playing with the Laws of Thermodynamics!” Matt pointed at Torbat. “He's trying to freeze me one minute and burn me the next!”

  “Does he dare?” the demon buzzed. It shot over to Torbat, and a ring of fire roared up about the shaman. Torbat cried out and covered his eyes.

  “Uh, could you thaw me out now?” Matt asked.

  The demon swooped back over to him. “Thaw … ? Why, he has gelled you quite, from toe to waist! A moment, mortal.” The spark of light swept down over Matt's legs, and he felt them loosen up.

  With a sigh of relief, he stumbled, caught himself, and stood straight. “Thanks, Max. I appreciate the break.”

  “You did not break, but thaw,” the demon corrected, “but I cannot criticize your inversion of logic, since that is what I enjoy about your company. Who is this primitive, and why did he plague you?”

  “Aieeeee!” Torbat cried, shielding his eyes from the glare as he huddled into a little ball. “I yield me, I surrender! Only quench your blaze before it crisps me quite!”

  “Crisps you?” Looking up, Matt saw the ring of fire contracting, moving inexorably closer to the shaman on all sides. “Yeah, that is a problem. Could you douse the fire, Max? I think he'll behave now.”

  “I shall give him the chance, at least,” Maxwell's Demon hummed. As the flames died, it added, “Yet advise him that I understand perversity.”

  “What… why does he say that?” Torbat quivered with superstitious fear.

  “Because he knows that people have a way of going back on their word,” Matt explained. “Betrayal is perverse—it may get you what you want in the short term, but it works against you in the long term, as people stop trusting one another and, just when they
need help the most, discover that they can't depend on anyone—not even for mercy.”

  Torbat stilled, watching Matt with narrowed eyes. Reluctantly, he nodded. “I shall abide by my plea. What would you have of me?”

  “Information,” Matt said. “Where did you send the princess you kidnapped?”

  “It was not I who kidnapped her…”

  “No, you just received stolen goods!” Matt found himself getting angry. “I thought you said you'd keep your word.”

  “Betrayal?” Max's hum rose in pitch with keen interest.

  “Yes, I took her from her kidnapper!” Torbat cried. “Yes, I attempted to send her to this Void, beyond it to some other world where she would be happy but never come to trouble us again!”

  “Tried?” Matt fastened on the word. “Your spell didn't work?”

  Torbat ground his teeth, but admitted, “It did not. She retained some glimmer of consciousness and managed to cast a spell of her own that kept her in this world.”

  “Where?”

  “I know not.”

  Max's hum shot up in pitch till he was screaming like a band saw as he drifted closer and closer to the cowering shaman.

  “In truth I know not!” Torbat cried. “Withhold your familiar! I truly do not know!”

  Matt knew the value of panic during an interrogation. “Well, it's not exactly mine to command…”

  “I know nothing more! I swear by Ahriman!”

  “How delightful a paradox,” Max keened. “He swears by the Prince of Lies that his words are true!”

  “Then I swear by the Thunderer and by the Imperial Dragon! I speak truth—I know nothing more! What more do you want of me? Is it not enough that I must fear Kala Nag? Must I fear you, too?”

  Matt stiffened, alert to new information. “Be patient, Max— we have a whole new line of possible paradoxes here. Tell me, Shaman Torbat—who is Kala Nag?”

  Torbat looked up in surprise, then turned his head away, watching Matt out of the corner of his eye. “Did you not say this familiar of yours is a demon?”

  “The first human who thought of him called him that,” Matt snapped. “He got the term wrong—Max is really an elemental, not a demon. But he knows when somebody is lying. Tell the truth—who's this Kala Nag you spoke of?”

  Torbat sighed and gave in. “She is the female demon who appeared to chastise me for sending this woman away from Maracanda. There was nothing to trouble her while the child stayed with Prester John, but now she says the chit may meddle in her plans. She appeared to me in a dream and told me she was sending monsters to tear me limb from limb for my foolishness!”

  “Oh. So it wasn't fear of Prester John that made you flee? Say, where'd you find this Kala Nag?”

  The shaman gazed off into the distance, and Matt had the eerie feeling the man was drawing on the memories of his ancestors, as though they lived in him still. His voice became remote and emotionless. “She was a goddess once, albeit a bloodthirsty one—the hag who rode travelers to weigh them down, who caused the earth to shake and tremble underfoot, who devoured her own offspring. When the gentle Buddha strode into the steppe, she retired hissing, and your Christ obscured her memory. Now, though, she demands attention again! She wakes, she tells all who remember her that she endures, that she will have her sacrifices once more and will bestow power upon those who worship her!”

  Matt stared at the man, shaken—he sounded like one of the converted, not a fugitive. “Why did she think Balkis could be a threat?”

  “Not the girl alone,” the shaman said, his voice still remote, “but another with her. By herself, she is a cipher, meaningless, harmless—and in Maracanda she would be only that, would never find the Other. This I did not know. Fool that I was, I thought only of weakening Prester John by stealing away his wizard-niece. I did not know that Kala Nag was a threat far mightier than any strength the princess could lend Prester John.”

  Matt felt a chill down his spine—he knew that Prester John and his armies were all that held back the barbarian hordes, that with him armed and ready at their backs, the barbarians dared not ride farther west than their own steppes. “I take it Kala Nag is making progress at winning back the hordes.”

  “The gur-khan has turned his back on Ahriman, who failed him,” the shaman reported, “and makes sacrifice to Kala Nag.”

  “Then so do all his followers.”

  Torbat nodded. “All. Certain chieftains among the Polovtsi, among the Kazakhs and the Manchus, the Uzbeks, the Mongols, the Kirghiz, and even some among the Turkomen have begun to worship her again.”

  Matt shuddered at the thought of the juggernaut that was growing out on the steppe, and wondered how a little girl like Balkis could halt its progress. “That means there aren't going to be very many places for you to hide.”

  The shaman gave a bleak nod. “Still shall I flee and seek a bolt-hole. The fight is not done until the life is gone.”

  “Good luck, then,” Matt said. He felt so sorry for the man that there was no question of not forgiving him. After all, he might have saved the civilized world by sending Balkis away, though he hadn't intended it. “May the wind be at your back.”

  The shaman came down out of his trancelike state and stared at him. “You do not seek to punish me?”

  “I think that's well in hand,” Matt said.

  * * *

  The mists dissipated and Matt slipped his wand back into its scabbard. Prester John's workroom materialized around him as the fog vanished.

  The king stared. “You do not have the sorcerer?”

  “Only his information,” Matt said. “He was running for his life, and I didn't want to watch his death come upon him.”

  “What death is that?” Prester John asked, alert for hidden meanings.

  “It goes by the name of Kala Nag,” Matt said. “Give me a drink and I'll tell you about her.”

  Prester John had a stock of fruit juice in his workroom, which Matt found refreshing. The carafe sat between them on a small table as he told the king of his encounter with the shaman. When he was done, Prester John asked, “So this barbarian goddess has became a demon?”

  “Call her what you like.” Matt shrugged. “Goddess or demon, she's devoted to destruction and misery. If people worship her as a goddess, that probably says more about them than it does about her”

  “Certainly her behavior would merit the title demon' from any civilized person,” Prester John agreed. “Still, it is not they whom she gathers, but the barbarians.” He frowned in thought. “How can our little Balkis be a bulwark against so terrible a being?”

  “Well, she may not be a giant physically, but she has a great heart,” Matt reminded him. “Besides, she's only supposed to become a problem if she links up with this ‘Other’ Torbat mentioned.”

  Prester John looked up in surprise. “Would that not be yourself?”

  “It could,” Matt said thoughtfully. “I probably wouldn't have come back to Maracanda if you hadn't called me to help find her—but if that's so, we'd better see about my joining her as soon as I can.”

  “We must recover her quickly in any case,” Prester John said grimly. “You say that Torbat knew where he sent the child, but not where she arrived?”

  Matt nodded. “Right. Balkis managed to come up with a counterspell just as he was launching her.” He couldn't help a smile of pride in his apprentice.

  Neither could John, though his smile of pride was for his niece, not his student. “She did well and has the courage of her family. Still, we cannot know where she is.”

  “There is that drawback,” Matt admitted.

  Prester John nodded thoughtfully. “That is why my earlier spells yielded no hint of Balkis' location—she had traveled through the Void, not been carried for miles drugged on the back of a barbarian pony.”

  “But now that you know she went through it, you can find her?”

  “It may be.” Prester John rose to take a yard-wide bowl from a shelf, then lifted a waterskin do
wn from a hook. He carried both to the sand floor, set the bowl on the central disc where Matt had stood, and filled it half full of water.

  Then he took a small bottle from his sleeve, shook a few drops into the bowl, and finished filling it. A lovely fragrance wafted to Matt's nostrils. With a shock, he recognized Balkis' scent. Prester John must have taken a sample of her perfume.

  He had taken one of her scarves, too—Matt watched him twist it into an arrow and lay it carefully in the bowl, then step back off the sand floor to chant a verse that commanded the silken cylinder to point toward she who had worn it. Matt admired the improvisation—Prester John had used the Law of Contagion, that objects once in contact remained in contact over distance, and the Law of Sympathy, that like will to like, and both strengthened by the same symbols that had oriented him earlier in finding the direction Torbat had gone. Matt stood on tiptoe so he could see down into the bowl. Sure enough, gentle wavelets moved there as the perfume rippled into a pattern pointing toward the distant trace of scent that Balkis wore, and the scarf swung to aim toward the skin that it had touched.

  “Almost due southeast, but a little more southerly than easterly.” Prester John turned back to Matt with a look of apology. “I regret that is the best I can do, Lord Wizard.”

  “It's a huge help, Your Majesty. At least I have some idea which way to go now.”

  But Matt couldn't help wondering how far he would have to travel. Certainly miles, or Balkis would have come back already by herself. Afghanistan? India? Indonesia? Australia? He shuddered at the thought that he might have to go all the way to Antarctica, and hoped Balkis had been wearing a warm nightgown.

  The next morning, they attended Mass in Prester John's chapel, bigger than most churches, where 365 abbots took daily turns saying the prayers and administering the sacraments in the Nestorian rite, quite different from the one Matt knew. Then Matt left the city by the southern gate, walked a mile, stepped off the road into a convenient grove, and recited the verse that would call Stegoman. The dragon arrived within minutes. Matt mounted, and together they took off to search for a lost cat.