by Mage Quest
Before I had a chance to tell him that the Ifrit had taken all my magic, including the ability to fly, the young woman burst into laughter.
"Why should I want to escape, especially escape with you?" she said, in a voice I feared would be loud enough to wake the Ifrit, though he slept on contentedly.
"I like life with this Ifrit. He brings me whatever I want, even though he sometimes loses track of time. Why, when I told him last year I'd like some silk for new trousers, he brought me an entire silk caravan." This then explained the disappearing caravan Arnulf had tried to multiply in the telling—though not the sign of the cross left behind. "And where else would I find a 'husband' who let me order him around this way? Yet I can still get whatever I want from my own kind . . ."
She gave us an appraising look again, then nodded abruptly. "Yes, you'll do. Both of you. Come and lie with me."
I had been having too many sudden shocks lately to be able to react at once. But Joachim spoke immediately and politely. "I'm sure this is a very generous offer, but I am a priest and sworn to chastity."
"And the Ifrit—" I stammered.
"That stupid Ifrit imagines I am a maiden still," she said scornfully. "Look at my necklace. I have here the rings of a hundred men who have lain with me while he slept, and he's never thought to ask where the rings come from. As they say, 'Whatso woman willeth, the same she fulfilleth, however man nilleth.' I rather like that eagle ring of yours," to me. "I'll even let you keep the other one, the onyx ring. And what's yours," to Joachim, "a seal ring? Just a cross, not very interesting, but I have plainer rings than that."
"I'll give you my ring if you want it, my daughter," said Joachim. "But as I already told you—"
She tossed her head. "What's the matter, priest? Am I not attractive?" She strutted before us, her breasts thrust out. "I hope you can work up some enthusiasm in the next two minutes, because if you refuse to lie with me I'll wake up the Ifrit and tell him you attacked me, and then he'll kill you."
II
The Ifrit grunted and rolled over. I held my breath, but his eyes never opened, and in a moment he was snoring again.
"Listen, Joachim," I said in an undertone. "I'm sure the bishop would understand in a case like this, if—"
"I am of course sorry to die," said Joachim in a clear voice, "but I have no choice. I made an oath before God which I cannot break."
She turned her full attention on him, ignoring me, though at the moment I was having trouble finding her attractive myself. "Your friend will die too, in that case," she said. "I must have you both, or I will scream and wake up the Ifrit."
"Are you working with him in this?" Joachim asked her. "Is he in fact fully aware of what you do while he feigns sleep?"
This startled her. "May God be merciful, I hope not," she said in an undertone, with a quick look toward the Ifrit's gigantic back.
"I think if he'd been spying on you he'd have said something before you'd worked your way up to a hundred men," said Joachim reassuringly. "I was merely wondering if the Ifrit's test of us was more subtle than it first appeared."
"Does he try this 'test' very often?" I asked.
"No," she said thoughtfully. "This is the first time he's ever dared a man to touch me. In fact—" She gave his monstrous shoulder a kick with a bare foot. The Ifrit's snore change its note for a moment, but he did not waken. "God be praised," she said, looking back at us. "For a minute you had me worried he was actually testing me."
"Then where have the hundred men come from?" I asked. As long as we kept her talking, I thought, we might be able to keep her distracted from her purpose.
"I've been with the Ifrit for five years," she said, "since he snatched me away from my wedding. In that time we've traveled all around the East, though for this last year for some reason he's stayed close to this boring valley. But every few days he needs to eat, and after he's eaten he likes to take his nap, and there are often men who will hide in a garden's trees or sneak up for a closer look at a sleeping Ifrit. I've had my pick of kings and princes and even mages, and I don't know why you two should feel yourselves too fine for an Ifrit's bride!"
"I certainly can't deny your many charms," said Joachim, "but I am afraid I would give the same answer to the Queen of Sheba. It is not you I reject, but all sins of the flesh."
She sat down, and the chaplain sat next to her. "But I've had priests before," she said, thumbing through the rings on her necklace. "Are you trying to tell me that western priests are purer than eastern priests?"
"Not at all. I judge no man—only his conscience and God can do that. I simply know I must maintain what I am sworn to uphold."
"So you think the flesh is sinful?" she asked, twisting to look at him coyly over her shoulder. "You do not think my body the gift of God?"
"Ever since the fall," Joachim replied, "mankind has been sinful, both body and spirit. We cannot make ourselves pure merely by forsaking the flesh, for the spirit can sin far worse in imagination. But as a priest I need to bring God's word to humanity, and therefore I cannot afford to be distracted by worldly concerns. It is not just the pleasures of the body I have given up, but the companionship of a wife and the joys of children."
"But in the East priests do marry. How about married people in the west who need a priest's guidance?" She turned back around and rested her chin on her hand while frowning at him. "Don't they feel you're missing something important?"
"This is an oft-stated concern," the chaplain said gravely. "In the first centuries of Christianity, its priests did frequently marry. Even in more recent years, some of the northern bishoprics have been rumored to allow married priests. But by far the majority of bishops favor a celibate priesthood."
"Here our priests are also our judges and our teachers," she said, looking both thoughtful and interested. "And we don't have women priests."
"I do not know about the priests of the Prophet, but Christianity has always had men as priests. After all, the priesthood established by Aaron was male, and Jesus and his first apostles were all men."
Of all the ways I had desperately tried to imagine to get us out of this, I had to admit that I had not considered discussing church governance and theology with the Ifrit's wife.
"So is it true," she asked, "that all of you in the west really do follow the Nazarene prophet rather than the Prophet?"
It had been night for several hours, though a half moon cast a thin blue light, and the fire had burned down to dull coals when the Ifrit's snores changed abruptly to a series of snorts. The woman jumped up from where she and Joachim were still talking and ran to reclip the silver chain to her necklace.
The Ifrit opened his eyes, squinted in the moonlight, and felt his ear. "Aha," he said, unwinding the end of the chain. "So you are still safe and pure, my dear."
"As pure as I've ever been," she agreed, planting a kiss on his stubbly chin.
"Then, little mage," said the Ifrit to me, "I think you'll be interesting enough for the rest of my tests. Are you sure you don't want to show me a magic trick first? No, that's right, I'm not supposed to let you."
I was afraid I knew who might—or might not—order the Ifrit to "let" someone practice magic. But I didn't dare ask about that. "Will your tests involve the rest of my friends?" I asked instead.
"They might, they might," said the Ifrit in a rumble. "I know you humans can't see in the dark very well, so you like to sleep at night. I think I'll leave you all here now, while I go find some more sheep. I believe we ate the last this evening. Maybe I'll get some melons as well. I'll be back in the very early morning, before it's light enough for your human eyes to see properly. I know my wife will be safe with you now that you've passed my test, especially since I can see all and know all when I'm awake."
Leaving us alone with her, if we had actually lusted for her, seemed quite different to me than the Ifrit falling asleep while she was—supposedly—chained to his ear. I rather doubted the Ifrit saw and knew quite as much as he thought. But I did n
ot say so.
"In the morning, little mage," he continued, "while you try some of my tests, perhaps this other man can stay here and keep my wife company. She's been complaining there are too few people in the valley. Would you like that, my dear?"
"Yes," she said, as though surprised at her own answer. "We'll be able to talk. I would like that very much."
"Then sleep now, humans, and take your rest for tomorrow's adventures."
"Just as I was waking up last evening," said the Ifrit. "I heard you—or was it your friend?—talking about the role of sacrifice in your heretical western religion. I've heard you westerners have tried to alter the religion of Solomon, may God preserve his memory."
I again clung to his hair and ear as we flew across the valley floor, far faster than I could ever have flown myself.
"So perhaps one of the tests I should set you and your friends is to see how willing you are to sacrifice yourselves for each other."
After a night of exhausted and dreamless sleep, I had wakened feeling, quite irrationally, more hopeful about our chances of living beyond the next day. But the Ifrit's comment made my heart sink again.
"I'll test you alone first, however," he continued, "before I try to find the rest of your friends—I think I remember where I left them."
I didn't like the implications of "find" any better. Were they all buried beneath the sand?
"You claim to be a mage," said the Ifrit, "so we'll see how you deal with a magical situation I learned about not long ago!"
He began to fly even faster, and I held on desperately, my eyes shut against the rushing wind. If he was going to give me a magical test, then he had to allow me access to magic again, but when I tried to reach out to the forces I found an impermeable wall confining my mind. The words of the Hidden Language were as thoroughly gone as if I had never known them, and how one moved through magic's four dimensions was but the faintest of memories.
When I dared open my eyes again I saw white spires and an arm of the ocean. Had we come back to the emir's city? Or were those spires some other city on the same estuary? If so, I wondered how I would ever find my way, on foot and without magic or even a map, back to the Wadi Harhammi.
As we dipped lower, I could see that the spires below were certainly not those of Bahdroc. It did indeed look like a city, but a city which had sunk abruptly into the bay. As the Ifrit flew over it, I could look down through clear water to city streets, to courtyards and fountains, to a market place and a princely palace. But all was silent, deep beneath the water. Only the tallest towers emerged, and a walled garden on a hill behind the palace.
The Ifrit set me down at the edge of the bay. "See what you can make of this ensorcelled city, little wizard!" he said with his deep chuckle and drew back, folding his arms and watching me with a grin.
Without magic I couldn't even check to see if the city really was under a spell or had sunk due to an earthquake. But I had no alternative than to try. I took off my shoes, went to the edge of the water, and waded in.
The water was scarcely cooler than blood. Fish swam around my feet, the same brilliant blue, red, and gold I had seen in the fish pond in the emir's palace. I had certainly never seen fish like these in the west. The scales glittered, and their protruding eyes were fixed on me, but I did not think they were automatons.
They seemed almost tame, swimming close to my feet, barely moving out of the way as I waded deeper. The red fish greatly outnumbered the other colors. I plunged in my hands and grabbed one.
I expected it to wiggle wildly as I drew it up for a closer look. Instead the eyes opened even farther, and the fish mouth gaped until it was as wide as a human mouth. "Beware, oh man, beware!"
I was so surprised that I dropped it, and it swam peacefully away. I bent down to the surface of the water for a better look, and it again seemed to have an ordinary fish mouth.
The Ifrit sat a hundred yards back, grinning at me. I tried to ignore him and reached for a gold fish.
Again, as soon as I had it out of water it spoke with a human voice, "Beware, oh man, beware!" This time I managed to put it back in the water carefully, without dropping it. The blue fish was just the same.
"Ensorcelled city," I said to myself, wading back out. It was thoughtful of the fish to try to warn me, but I wished I knew what they were warning me against. Without magic I felt blind. Someone or something—perhaps the Ifrit himself—had turned the inhabitants of this city into fish. Apparently my test was to find out how, or why, and maybe even to turn them back into humans.
In that case, the Ifrit was quite unlikely to answer questions. A question might even be the sign I had failed the test. I turned instead toward the walled garden I had spotted, which stood on what had once been a high hill behind the sunken palace but was now on the shore of the bay. A staircase had descended from the garden to the back of the palace, but its steps now led down only into water.
The garden itself however was flourishing. Enormous bushes with purple blooms bent over half-concealed benches, and paths led between arbors and fruit trees. I came in by a side gate and wandered for several minutes along the paths, among sweet-smelling flowers and highly decorative brick work. I saw no blue roses, or roses of any color, though I looked. I found myself constantly trying to probe with magic to find whatever malignant force might lurk behind the next bush, but all I could draw on was ordinary human senses.
In the center of the garden was a little round-topped pavilion. I was just starting cautiously toward it when a voice spoke by my elbow.
"Beware, oh man, beware!"
I jumped a foot and whirled, expecting to see a fish crawled up on dry land to warn me—against what I could not imagine. But instead I saw a rather pale young man, wrapped in a black cloak, sitting very still on a bench almost completely hidden under a flowering tree.
"Are you real or a fish?" I asked, then realized how idiotic I must sound.
But he took me quite seriously. "I am still a human," he said, "the only inhabitant of my sad city not to be a fish. Do not approach the pavilion if you value your life."
I sat down next to him. The Ifrit's test seemed to have begun. "I appreciate your warning. What is in it?"
"The dying or dead lover of my witch wife."
III
I passed a hand over my forehead. This really would have been much easier with functioning magical abilities. "I'm afraid I don't understand. I'd like to be able to help you and your fish people, but you'll have to tell me first what has happened."
He closed his eyes for a moment, as though gathering his memories or his strength, then looked at me fully. "Know then that I, thanks be to God, was once the prince of this city, and had married a wife, a princess beautiful as the full moon rising, whose eyes were the shadows of evening lamplight and mouth the sweetest of honeys. I married her knowing she was a witch and not caring, for I thought she loved me too."
My blood went cold, and I glanced involuntarily over my shoulder. Even in the west, wizards were suspicious of witches and their half-learned spells, always hovering on the edge of black magic. They tended to deal with the old magic of the earth, knowing little of the Hidden Language, and were rumored to create monsters in their wombs. I didn't like to think what witches were like here in the east.
"But when we had been married a year, she began to come in the evening to this garden, to sit in the pavilion. At first I accompanied her, but then she said that she preferred to be alone, to feel the evening breezes and think her evening thoughts. I trusted her, for I loved her, and I had not yet heard the saying, 'Whatso woman willeth, the same she fulfilleth, however man nilleth.'
"But after another year had passed, when it seemed she came here almost every night and often did not return to our sleeping mat until near the break of day, I became suspicious. When I tried to ask her to sleep by my side instead of in the garden, she first burst into tears and said that I was cruel, then darkened her forehead at me and said that I was a tyrant. She refused to listen t
o my entreaties but shut herself up with her handmaidens.
"And that night, as I watched in secret and followed her in silence, she went again into this garden. And in the pavilion, the worst of my fears and even worse than my fears were realized, for I found her lying in delight in the arms of my vilest slave!"
"So what did you do?" I asked quietly, when the horror of the memory seemed to have silenced him.
"They had left a lamp burning outside the pavilion, and I could see their heads close together, their lips locked in kisses. And I thought that with a single stroke of my sword I could cut off both their heads together. For I had feared something of this and brought my sword with me.
"But as I drew the blade, she must have heard the sound, for she pulled sharply away, and I, distracted by her motion, did not strike true. I missed her completely, and I cut the slave's neck only halfway through."
Just because we in Yurt never hung anyone, I reminded myself, did not mean that the rest of the world did not assess the death penalty. But I still thought that he had been much too precipitate. I had started to feel sympathetic for this pale young prince, but now I felt sympathy only for the slave.
But the prince was not waiting for my sympathy. "When she saw what I had done, she cursed me with the deepest and blackest of witches' curses. Her hand she thrust straight into the lamp's flame, and she hurled fountains of fire and spells at me that would have destroyed me if they had touched my head. But instead—"
He paused and lifted his black cloak with his left elbow. From the waist up he was still human, but everything below the waist, including his left hand and right arm, which was stretched along his leg with the sword still in his grip, had turned to stone.
"And so you see me, traveler," he continued. "But even this was not enough for her. She turned with a cry of despair when she saw her slave lover almost dead and tried to revive him with her wicked spells and the potions she always carried with her, sobbing and calling him tender names she had never once called me. When she could not heal him immediately, she wrapped him most tenderly, both in blankets and in her perverted magic, and left him in the pavilion.
