Prester John shook his head. “It is wisest to deal with enemies before they feel ready to attack. Let us call up our army and march southeastward into barbarian lands, that we may besiege this quondam goddess in her lair.”
Matt sighed and set himself to planning.
Dinner that night was the usual ceremonious affair, with Prester John listening closely to a religious debate between a Nestorian prelate and a Greek Orthodox patriarch.
Anthony, seated beside Balkis, said little or nothing, watching wide-eyed and eating token mouthfuls, completely overawed. Balkis tried to draw him into conversation, of course, but he answered her questions with short sentences, not looking at her eyes. In desperation, she asked Prince Tashih if he had succeeded in translating any more of the poetry of Tu Fu and Li T'ai Po, and the prince responded by reciting several verses. That caught Anthony; he listened in rapt attention, but when the prince had finished, he said only, “They were masters. May I read more of this poetry, Your Highness?”
“I shall delight in having copies made for you,” Tashih assured him.
“I shall thank you deeply,” Anthony said.
“You already have,” Tashih replied.
Then the conversation lagged again. Finally Balkis was struck with inspiration. “I wish we could discover who polluted the fifth oasis, Anthony.”
“Do you?” he asked, startled. “Surely that is of no moment now!”
“A polluted oasis is of great moment to us,” Prince Tashih said, frowning. “We seek to guard the pilgrims who journey to us as best as we may.”
“We do indeed,” said Prester John. “Where was this oasis, young man?”
“In the midst of the Sea of Sand,” Anthony replied. “Our guide Panyat led us from oasis to oasis—he had traveled with a caravan the year before—but when we came to the fifth, we dared not drink the water.”
“Why not?” Matt asked. “What was wrong with it?”
“It was full of snakes.”
Suddenly he had their full atention.
“Snakes?” Matt asked. “What color?”
“They… they were black,” Anthony stammered.
“What matters their color?” Balkis asked.
“The has-been goddess who ordered our kidnapping calls herself'Kala Nag,' ” Matt explained. “It means 'Black Snake.'”
Balkis gasped and exchanged a horrified glance with Anthony.
“We shall have to ask of the pilgrims who came after you if it was still polluted,” Prester John said, scowling, “and if it is, we shall have to send a force to clear it. How did you endure without its water?”
“We came to an oasis Panyat did not know,” Anthony answered. “It was most strange, for whenever we sipped water, its flavor had changed.” He exchanged a warm glance of reminiscence with Balkis. She returned the smile, her heart leaping— but Anthony suddenly remembered at whom he gazed and looked away, seeming almost frightened. Balkis' heart twisted; she fought back tears.
“I have heard of such a pool.” Prester John tensed. “Though rumor has it that its flavor changes with every hour, not with every sip. Did you bathe in it?”
“Bathe?” Again Anthony glanced at Balkis in surprise, but quickly looked away. “Why—yes. Of course,” he said quickly, “we turned our backs and watched the desert while the other bathed.”
“Of course.” Prester John's eyes burned. “Know, young folk, that you have bathed in the Fountain of Youth.”
Anthony stared at him open-mouthed, then exchanged a brief, shocked glance with Balkis.
Prince Tashih's face lit up. “Majesty, we must go there without delay! You must bathe in it so that you may rule over us forever!”
“It would avail us nothing, my son,” Prester John said with a rueful smile. “We would not find it—no, not though we searched for the rest of our lives. The fountain reveals itself to very few and is rarely seen in the same place twice.” He turned to his niece and her escort. “Did you look back at the fountain after you had left it?”
“We could not,” Anthony said helplessly. “It was gone when we awoke.”
Prester John nodded with sad satisfaction. “And will not appear in that place for a hundred years and more, I suspect— if ever.”
“But—But why should it have revealed itself to us?” Anthony stuttered.
“Maybe somebody doesn't want Kala Nag to win,” Matt suggested, “and therefore wants Balkis to stay alive.”
“I think it just as likely that young Anthony is also destined for great deeds, Lord Wizard,” the emperor said, “perhaps even for the protection of my realm.” His look told Matt exactly from whom Anthony would protect the land.
“How can you think it is the fabled fountain?” Anthony protested.
“Anyone who drinks of its water three times without having eaten will feel as if he had dined on the finest meat and spices,” Prester John said. “After your bath, did you feel hunger or thirst?”
Balkis remembered their first night in the wilderness, and how they had felt no weariness nor thirst. She almost said so, then caught herself in time—her goal was to draw Anthony out, not to speak for him.
“Not for days,” Anthony admitted.
“It strengthened you amazingly.” Prester John nodded. “More importantly, you will discover that you will never be sick again, and any wounds taken in battle will heal very quickly.”
“But—But it did not make us younger!” Balkis protested in confusion.
“That is because you are already young,” Prester John explained. “Those who drink of this fountain grow older as any will—until they attain the age of thirty years. Then they remain thus as long as they live. Moreover, a person who bathes in that fountain, whether he be a hundred years old or a thousand, will regain the age of thirty-two.”
Balkis turned to Anthony and found him staring at her— finally. She kept her gaze locked with his as she asked, “Then we will age for some years yet, but grow no older than thirty-two?”
“Save in experience and, I hope, in wisdom—no,” Prester John said. He grew thoughtful and glanced at Matt. Matt returned the look with a glance loaded with meaning.
A protopapas said, “I have heard that the fountain appeared only to the worthy—”
“That is certainly not me!” Anthony burst out. “I am only a lowly peasant!”
“It would seem you are more,” the protopapas told him severely, “and to deny your destiny will lead to ruin, not only for yourself, but also for those whom you would have saved— for look you!” He raised a palm to forestall Anthony's objections. “When I say ‘worthy,’ I mean that the fountain appears to those who devote their lives to others, and whose destinies are so important to humankind that they must have longer lives and stay in good health for the full term of those lives, in order to benefit their fellows to the fullest. You have been given this miraculous bath not for yourselves alone, young folk, but for the good of us all.”
Balkis and Anthony stared at one another in astonishment. Then Anthony broke off, blushing, to stare at his plate again.
Balkis' heart turned to lead. She turned to her own plate sadly, knowing that his taciturnity could mean only one thing—that he did not wish to spend so vastly lengthened a life with her. No doubt he had gone suddenly from thinking himself beneath her to thinking himself above her, for she saw clearly now that it was Anthony whose life was vital to the land and therefore to all the world.
Matt, though, watched Anthony's face and knew otherwise.
He had a chance to explain it to Balkis after dinner in her apartments, when she was done weeping bitterly on his shoulder. Then Matt dried her eyes and told her, “He's denying the truth about himself. That's why he's gloomy.”
“No, it is because he despises me as a deceitful woman and will never trust me again!” Balkis wailed. “Rightfully, too—I should have trusted him, should have taken the chance and been honest with him about my rank and station!”
“Yes, you should have,” Matt agreed,
“but if you knew he'd react this way when he found out, you shouldn't be surprised at his gloom.”
Balkis stepped back, glaring at him from a tear-streaked face. “You speak as though there is hope!”
“I think he'll be able to understand that you were afraid to lose him,” Matt said, “but only after he's gotten over feeling like the lowest worm who ever crawled.”
“But he is not! He is a brave, loyal man of amazing talent and—” She caught her breath.”—amazing beauty!” Her eyes began to fill again. “I should have taken the chance to learn what I wish from him, and wish to learn from no other man! I should have tempted him into bedding me!”
“Yeah, then he could have hated himself for the rest of his life for seducing you, and that would have made him leave you for good,” Matt said. “Let him get over his self-esteem problem. If he's in love with you now, he'll be in love with you forever.”
“Not when he knows me for a deceiver, who did not tell him my true rank!”
“No, I think he simply doesn't believe he's good enough for you,” Matt protested. “I watched his face while we were talking about the fountain, and Anthony flatly did not believe he was worthy of it. Instead, he convinced himself that it was you who are the important one.”
Balkis stared at him, then demanded in a hushed voice, “How could he?”
Matt shrugged. “It confirms the tragedy that hit him this afternoon.”
“What tragedy is that?” Balkis asked in a quandary.
“Discovering that you're too good for him, of course,” Matt said, “that you're above and beyond him. Why else would he lapse back into gloom so quickly?”
Balkis' eyes glimmered with hope as well as tears. “Then— Then he may forgive me?”
“In an instant, if we can convince him that he's good enough for you.”
“But how can we do that?” Balkis wailed.
“Let me have a chat with him,” Matt said. “I can't guarantee results, mind you—but I can point out a few things that might change his mind.”
“Oh, Lord Wizard, would you?”
“Be glad to—and I have a notion that it's in my best interest anyway.” Matt thought of the Mongol conquests of his own universe, which had not happened here yet, and of the potential for mayhem posed by an animist spirit who was a Central Asian shaman's nightmare. “I think he'll believe me if he thinks it's for somebody else's benefit.”
“Anyone's but mine!” And Balkis was off into another storm oftears.
Matt sighed, pulled her close, and set himself to comforting, while he wished wildly for Alisande to take charge of the poor kid. By the time he had calmed Balkis enough for her to sleep, it was past midnight, and he thought he'd better leave Anthony alone until morning.
The next morning, though, when they'd finished breakfast and he was about to invite Anthony to go for a walk, the Lord Privy Minister brought the bad news—that there was a hooded stranger at the gates who refused to show his face but who claimed to be an emissary from Kala Nag, and who insisted on speaking with the emperor immediately.
“Bring him to the throne room, but hold him at the door until we arrive.” Prester John rose with a frown. “Send gentlemen to attire me in my court robes.” He nodded to Matt. “Let them attire you also, Lord Wizard—I shall have need of you by my left side, with Tashih by my right.” He turned to Balkis and Anthony. “Do you watch from the hidden chamber, that you may add the weight of your magic to the Lord Wizard's if there should be need.”
Anthony looked up, startled, then rose hastily and bowed. “Of course, Your Majesty.”
Balkis went with him to the small chamber high in the wall of the throne room, where they peered through spyholes. Her heart sang; when it was a matter of someone else's good, her Anthony never hesitated. His own good, though, he would ignore in a second. How could she make him understand that he was her good?
Looking down, she saw Prester John arrange himself on his throne, then call to the guards, “Admit him.”
The stranger came in, a tall and ominous figure in a gray hooded robe, the cowl pulled so far forward as to hide his face. He stepped up to the bottom step without a bow—an insult in itself—and said in a rasping voice, “We do not appreciate being kept waiting, foolish prince!”
Tashih uttered an exclamation of anger and started forward, but Prester John restrained him with a hand. “I see that you are as lacking in courtesy as you are ignorant of protocol. Are you also a coward, that you dare not show your face?”
“Nay. It is you who shall prove coward when you see it.” The emissary threw back his hood. Balkis gasped, and Anthony spat a whispered oath, for the stranger's head was that of a snake.
Below them, Tashih's hand went to his sword but froze there. “Be glad that your status as an emissary precludes attack!”
“Yes, you should be glad of it,” the snakeman hissed, “for thereby are you safe from me.” Then he focused his unwinking stare on Matt and said, “You have met two of my broodmates already, wizard. We shall remember that.”
“Good idea,” Matt answered, “and you might want to remember their fates, too.”
The snakeman's eyes flashed with anger. “You shall not always have your tame lizard with you!”
“Takes one to know one,” Matt said, “and you will always have your mistress with you, ready to burn you to a crisp if you fail her.”
The snake head hissed in anger, forked tongue darting out and back. “Do you treat your own failed warriors better?”
“Much,” said Prester John. “We may chastise, but we are more likely to console and heal, for we are too wise to waste warriors.”
“That is because you have no warriors to waste! Because there are too few of you! But a snake-mother can make dozens in a single hatching, and there can be dozens of snake-mothers—no, hundreds, thousands!”
“So you're planning to bury us in vipers?”
“If you have the courage to meet us in open combat, yes,” the ambassador said. “If you do not, we shall lay siege to your city and our young shall come up your drains and tunnel under your walls, then grow in a matter of months into warriors within your city.”
“They will not have the opportunity,” Prester John said evenly. “Name the time and place of your battle. We shall march to meet you.”
“Let it be on the Plain of Redest, then,” the snakeman said, “and the time an hour after sunrise tomorrow.”
“At Redest, then,” Prester John said in a voice that should have frosted the air. “Go now in safety, while we can still rein in our temper.”
“As though you would dare strike at the emissary of Kala Nag!” the snakeman sneered, then deliberately turned his back on the emperor and strolled out the door.
As the guards closed it, Prester John said, “See that he is well and closely guarded until he is beyond the city's walls, but do not let your soldiers march too near. Give every man a forked stick to use should any little vipers fall from his robe.”
The guard bowed and departed.
“Good thought,” Matt said approvingly. “They probably grow fast, and a corps of snakemen inside the city could be very handy for Kala Nag.”
“They may be here already,” Prester John said grimly. “Send dogs out to hunt for snakes.”
“And mongooses,” Matt reminded him. “I know I've seen them for sale in the marketplace. Set people to breeding them. I'll give them a spell that will increase the speed of the process enormously.”
“A good thought,” Prester John agreed. “How else shall we guard against snakes?”
“I have a spell involving pigs and an Irish saint that should make the very earth anathema to them,” Matt said. “Just pass the word that it's a citizen's patriotic duty to keep a mongoose on the premises. That should take care of the fifth column.”
“Well thought again,” Prester John said. “Why do you think they have set the time as an hour after sunrise?”
“Because snakes are cold-blooded, and it takes so
me time in the heat of the sun before they can begin to move at full speed. If we want to fight dirty, we can just start attacking at first light.”
“Lord Wizard!” Prince Tashih gasped in shock.
“We would not fight in so dishonorable a fashion,” Prester John reproved.
“Okay.” Matt shrugged. “Kala Nag will, but don't let that stop you. Where's this Plain of Redest?”
“Ten hours' ride southeast of the city.”
“So your army will be facing east and have the sun in their eyes.”
“A good thought; I shall bid the generals circle and come from the north,” Prester John said. “What do you make of this ultimatum, Lord Wizard? Surely if Kala Nag felt able to conquer Maracanda, she would merely have marched, not issued a challenge!”
“Right—she knows she's not ready,” Matt agreed. “Besides, it's clearly a ploy to get the army away from the city, so make sure you leave a strong home guard to man the walls and a police force to deal with any hidden snakepeople already in the city. Beyond that?” He shrugged. “It's a last-ditch attempt to knock you out before you become too strong; apparently, the configuration of which Balkis is the key hasn't formed yet, but will soon. Kala Nag has to try to knock you out, do or die, before it's too late.”
“But how can she hope to triumph?” Tashih demanded.
“She obviously has some sort of secret weapon that gives her a fighting chance—probably magical.” Matt frowned. “I'd recommend leaving Balkis and Anthony for the home guard, Your Majesty, and taking the rest of your wizards with you.”
Balkis' heart soared, but she kept her tone level. “Do you think we are proof against a siege, Anthony? … Anthony?” She looked up, looked around the little room, but Anthony was gone.
“Gone?” Matt said. “What do you mean, gone? Where could he go?”
“I fear he may have gone after the snakeman to prove his worth—and the viper may slay him!” Balkis clasped her hands, tears running down her cheeks. “Lord Wizard, save him!”
“I'll run an aerial reconnaissance,” Matt promised, “but I don't think he could get near Snake-eyes, not with the kind of guard your uncle put around him. Come on, up to the ramparts—Stegoman can't land indoors.”
The Feline Wizard Page 37
