Mage Quest woy-3

by C. Dale Brittain

  This was completely different from meeting the self-styled prince in the eastern kingdoms. His magic had been recognizable, even if dark and twisted with inturned evil. The magic I felt from this man was almost as novel as meeting magic itself for the first time.

  “A mage who dares step up boldly,” boomed the mage in a voice between a bellow and a laugh. His smile showed a gold tooth as his dark eyes scanned the rest of our party from Yurt, apparently liking what he saw. “And not a local magic-worker, I would guess, but one from the western kingdoms!”

  I met his eyes, a voice in the back of my brain telling me insistently that I ought to be wary and afraid, and feeling not at all afraid. Instead I felt fascinated, as well as both amused and disgusted with Melecherius, whose book had never prepared me for this. The mage’s eyes were pitch black, and the pupils completely filled the sockets, as though he did not have any whites. “Yes,” I heard myself say, “I am Daimbert, Royal Wizard of Yurt.”

  The eyes widened, but still no white showed. The mage lifted his belly off the counter and came around his horse and out to meet me. “And I am Kaz-alrhun, the most powerful mage in Xantium. I have long hoped that someone from Yurt would visit me!”

  I coveted the beautiful dark color of his skin and wondered briefly if he might be from Sheba.

  “You’ve heard of Yurt?” I asked politely. The voice inside my head was now screaming that my absence of fear was a clear sign that he had put a spell on me, that he must be connected with the eastern wizard who had tried to betray Dominic’s father, but somehow the message didn’t get through.

  He didn’t say anything more about Yurt. “Western wizards come here but rarely,” he said instead, apparently as interested in me as I was in him. Magic hung about him, crackling the air until it seemed it must be visible. If any mage could master an Ifrit, I thought, this one could. “The last western wizard I saw was red-haired, but that was a great many months ago.”

  “Evrard,” I said aloud. Maybe, at last, we were on the trail.

  “I hear, in the west, interest in my magic horse is high,” he said.

  I wrenched my attention from him to the ebony animal. “Does it move by magic?”

  “Of course! Even you of the west must know that on Judgment Day all of us who have made lifelike images will be asked to set them in motion, and unless we can make them move by themselves we will be denied heaven.”

  This was news to me, but then I had never made any lifelike images. “How does it work?”

  “Mount, and I shall demonstrate it to you!”

  The stirrup was too high for me, and there was no mounting block, so I flew straight up to land on the horse’s hard wooden back, as I had lifted Prince Paul up on Whirlwind’s back on a wintry day that could have been a lifetime ago. For a second I saw my companions and Arnulf’s agents, clustered together a few yards away and looking highly concerned, but I had no time to spare for them.

  “Do you observe that little pin on the side of the neck?” asked Kaz-alrhun. “Give it a turn to the left, and hold on tightly!”

  I thrust my feet into the stirrups, took a firm grip on the reins with one hand, and twisted the little pin.

  The response was immediate. The horse was instantly alive, still ebony-hard but moving, muscles rippling. It tossed its head, pranced for a second, gave a whinny that resounded throughout the Thieves’ Market, and launched itself into the sky.

  All the fear I should have been feeling the last ten minutes abruptly made itself felt. The stirrups held my feet in immovable bands of steel, and the reins felt welded to my left hand. Wind rushed past my ears, and clouds rapidly approached my startled eyes. I was flying straight up on a magic horse into the sky above Xantium, with no way to stop it and no way to get off.

  III

  “You knew all along he was putting a spell on you,” my brain told me accusingly. “Now the horse will toss you off at some likely spot and fly back to its master. Didn’t you wonder why no else wanted to get near?”

  At least, I answered myself grimly, if I got tossed off I knew how to fly. The thought gave me the strength to try to find some way to control this animal.

  Melecherius was no use here. I had already determined that turning the little pin to the right had no effect, and giving it further turns to the left only made the animal rise faster. But then, on the opposite side of its neck, I spotted a second pin.

  A hard twist here, and the magic horse slowed its ascent and leveled off. In a moment I thought I knew how to master it. The process was a little tricky, because the reins still kept my left hand imprisoned, but by reaching from the pin on one side of its neck to the pin on the other, from the one that made it rise to the one that made it fall, I was able to control our flight.

  Once the fear drained away, it was unexpectedly exhilarating. My hat was long gone, and the wind blew back the hair from my hot forehead. The land below, the city, Xantium harbor, the Central Sea, could have been a highly detailed and contoured map-the magic map of Prince Vlad. I flew far higher than I had ever dared go on my own, with none of the hard work that comes with flying and yet with an ease of motion and a quickness never found in the school’s air cart. It was only because I knew my friends from Yurt would be worried that I made myself turn the horse around and aim it, as well as I could, toward the Thieves’ Market.

  I wondered how hard it would be to maneuver the last bit, but here the ebony horse’s own spells seemed to take over, for it landed lightly and exactly where it had begun, at Kaz-alrhun’s stall. He had been standing at the chess board and looked up with a wide smile, having apparently just solved his puzzle.

  The horse went instantly as still as wood again, and my feet and hands were released. I scrambled down, and the crowd that had slowly moved up around the mage in my absence surged back again.

  I flashed a reassuring smile toward my companions. “Well,” I said to Kaz-alrhun, “I’m enormously impressed. A horse like this could command any price you asked from King Solomon himself. And its motion won’t keep you from heaven on Judgment Day!”

  “Do you think your master will wish to buy it?” he answered with a proud chuckle.

  He’d been testing me, I thought, and so far I hadn’t failed too badly. And I had been thinking fast during the five minutes while the ebony horse brought me back down again. “Your price is a bag of money, I believe?” I said cautiously. “And, oh yes,” as though I’d almost forgotten, “some sort of ring.” I tugged on my eagle ring. “Will this one do?”

  The mage threw his head back and burst into a great laugh. “No, it will not, Daimbert!” A flash of light touched my hand, and I yanked at the ring in good earnest as it instantly became scorching hot.

  I had it off after what seemed an hour, though it was probably only a few seconds. In my other hand, the ring was again its normal cool self. I sucked at the back of my finger while glaring at Kaz-alrhun. “And what was that supposed to prove?”

  “That is not the ring I desire,” he said with another laugh.

  I slid the ring back on, as though nonchalantly, watching for any sign of returning heat. “Does the name Arnulf mean anything to you?” I asked cautiously.

  “That is the name of your master?” replied Kaz-alrhun. “To me it is a mere name. Do you intend to tell me he is a mage whose magic will outmatch mine?”

  This sent him into a new round of laughter, leaving me a few seconds for rapid thought. Arnulf had heard of this magic horse from his agents and coveted it fiercely. But the price Kaz-alrhun had put on it was something he did not have. The price was a ring from Yurt.

  For a second, I almost thought I understood it all. Arnulf had not dared to go to Xantium himself. Therefore he had sent Joachim in his place, knowing that his agents here would mistake the chaplain for him, at least at first, and lead him to Kaz-alrhun’s magic horse. Even though the chaplain had refused to conduct any business deals for his brother’s firm, Arnulf assumed that once here Joachim would bargain honestly, buying the hors
e for his brother-the only person, in fact, whom he could trust not to keep the ebony horse for himself. And Joachim would have the price with him. Claudia had not been successful in wheedling him into agreeing to conduct the transaction, which made it more risky. But he was still supposed to have the “gift” which Claudia had given him on parting, since he would accept something from her with far less suspicion than from Arnulf himself.

  But here my reasoning broke down. Arnulf certainly had no ring from Yurt to send to Xantium-or if so, I couldn’t imagine where he had gotten it. Dominic stood only a short distance from the booth, his father’s ruby ring winking on his finger, the magic ring which I would have thought the mage really wanted, except that he seemed to show no interest in it.

  “Tell me about this ring you claim I was supposed to bring you,” I said casually, as though negotiating myself.

  “You know well this ring and its properties,” the mage said, holding me with his eyes. “You have received a free ride, but do not anticipate any more until you can deliver it.”

  “Perhaps I could obtain this ring for you,” I suggested, “if I knew what powers it was supposed to have.”

  “If you are from Yurt,” said Kaz-alrhun, abruptly not smiling at all, “you already know. And you already know its relation to the Wadi Harhammi.” He watched me closely for my reaction to his mention of the Wadi; I did my best not to show how surprised I was. “You have amused me mightily, Daimbert,” the mage continued, “not least because I see so few western wizards, but I do not like dissimulation.”

  Neither did I, and Arnulf had lied to us thoroughly. “Maybe I’ll be back tomorrow,” I said lightly. “Perhaps by then you’ll have decided you’d be willing to take something other than this ring.”

  “Or perhaps by then you will have decided to produce it,” growled Kaz-alrhun.

  I turned without any sort of farewell. This would be a dangerous mage to have angry with me, and at the moment I had no way to placate him. My companions were still waiting a short distance away, but Arnulf’s agents were gone.

  Joachim gripped me by the arm before I could speak. “Are you all right? Does that horse move with the supernatural power of evil?”

  “Come on,” I said to all of them with a jerk of my head. “It moves by magic alone, but let’s get back to the inn while we’re still alive.”

  It took us ten minutes to find our way to the edge of the Market, and another ten to find the street on which we had come in, but then Ascelin was able to locate our position on the map and we retraced our steps hastily.

  But we had only gone a quarter mile when I saw a boy’s ragged form waiting for us ahead. Maffi stood with a fist on one cocked hip, looking pleased with himself. “So did you do your business in the Thieves’ Market, my masters?”

  The king objected as Ascelin started to yank him off the ground by the front of his shirt. The prince set him down but shifted his grip at once to the boy’s arm. “Were you hired to bring us there?”

  “Of course!” he said saucily. “In the sight of all-knowing God, you hired me yourself! Now, you promised to pay me what my guidance was worth. Did I not bring you there safely, just as I promised?”

  “Those men in turbans didn’t hire you?” Ascelin persisted.

  “Of course not,” said Maffi agreeably. “And I was very pleased to see that they had not harmed you.”

  Ascelin let him go, disgusted. “I’m not going to get any clear story out of him, that’s certain.”

  But King Haimeric took a coin from his belt. “You did bring us safely to the Thieves’ Market, just as you promised, and you deserve your fee.” Maffi took the coin and examined it with interest.

  Ascelin started to speak and instead turned away. But I stepped forward quickly.

  “Maffi, maybe you can help us some more.”

  He smiled broadly up at me. His face was streaked with dirt, but his eyes were bright. For a second, I wondered if he had any home or any family to take care of him, or if he had to live on Xantium’s streets by his wits. If so, I would pay him even if he was lying to us. But he might also be very useful.

  “As you guessed, we are indeed looking for something, something stolen from us earlier. It’s a ring.”

  Dominic started to say something and thought better of it.

  “Westerners like us would become hopelessly lost and cheated in the Thieves’ Market. That’s why I need you to look for it for us. Meet me-” I hesitated, not wanting to tell him the address of our inn if he didn’t already know it. “Meet me tomorrow at noon on the steps of the Church of Holy Wisdom. Then you can tell me if you’ve located it, and if so we’ll go together to buy it.”

  “Will any ring do?”

  This was a problem, because I wasn’t sure what I was looking for myself. “No, this is a special one.” I wasn’t about to tell him I’d never seen it. “It’s had a magic spell put on it, and it’s clearly identifiable as being from Yurt. Don’t ask for a magic ring specifically, because then they may try to cheat you with a plain one, but-”

  Maffi interrupted with a laugh. “You need not teach me how to bargain. I was born in the Thieves’ Market! Same payment schedule as today?”

  “Same as today,” I said, and he raced away back toward the Market.

  Ascelin frowned deeply. “Would you like to tell us, Wizard, what you’re doing?”

  “Of course. But let’s get back to the inn and have dinner. The magic flying horse made me hungry.”

  The inn served us fried eggplant for dinner. King Haimeric had never had eggplant before; even in the City, it was uncommon outside a few eastern restaurants. He ate his slowly, telling us one minute that he liked it tremendously and the next that he didn’t, trying to decide if the queen would like it or if the royal cook could find a better way to prepare it.

  “What’s this ring you’re trying to find?” asked Ascelin as the waiter brought us pastries sticky with honey and cups of spiced tea.

  “I think it’s what the chaplain’s sister-in-law gave him, what the bandits stole from us,” I said slowly. I went on to explain my theory that Joachim’s brother had intended using him as his representative in buying the ebony horse from the mage, while concealing from him that that was what he was doing.

  The chaplain shook his head. “I cannot believe in such a deception. Claudia gave me a present, I presume in memory of our old friendship, but it wasn’t anything important or valuable. She told me so herself when I apologized for losing it.”

  But no one paid attention to this. “Why do you think the ring will have traveled from the mountains across the eastern kingdoms to Xantium?” asked Hugo.

  “It shouldn’t have,” I agreed. “But I think it’s worth looking for. After all, if Arnulf had heard there was a flying horse for sale here, with the price a magic ring, Warin may have heard it too. Kaz-alrhun seems fairly determined to have it. The real flaw in my theory,” I added, “is that Kaz-alrhun was expecting something from Yurt. He’d heard of the kingdom and thought it important, even if he’d only heard of it from Evrard-by the way, did you hear him saying he’d met Evrard?”

  “We already knew Sir Hugo’s party passed through Xantium,” said the king. “Since everyone here wants to guide us to the Thieves’ Market, the same thing must have happened to them.”

  “He said he wanted a ring from Yurt only in order to mislead you,” said Dominic. “It’s my ruby ring he’s after, and he must have seen it on my hand today. That wizard in the eastern kingdoms certainly wanted it. Somehow the story got out that the spell to reveal the, the-whatever my father had found in the Wadi-was hidden in his snake ring. That’s why someone had opened his tomb.”

  “But neither the mage nor Arnulf himself made any attempt to get your ring away from you,” I said. “Maybe Arnulf had gotten hold of a different magic ring, with different properties, to swap to Kaz-alrhun for the ebony horse, yet for some reason it’s important for it to be from Yurt.”

  “I still don’t understand,” said
Joachim, “even if my brother did send a magic ring with us, why he could possibly want a flying horse. I would not believe it even now if his agents had not been so sure. He does not even employ a wizard. My father and grandfather never had wizards either-I wouldn’t have thought anyone in our family was interested in magic.”

  “It’s not the horse itself,” I said suddenly. “He wants the horse for transportation. Since he thinks King Solomon’s Pearl has been located, he wants some way to get very quickly to where it’s hidden, and then to get away safely just as fast.”

  Hugo and Ascelin both shot me unexpected smiles, and Hugo said, “That’s it! Especially if it’s guarded by an Ifrit, he can’t possibly get to it by normal transportation.”

  “I hope for Arnulf’s sake,” said Ascelin, “that this ring he supposedly sent with us isn’t also supposed to reveal the Black Pearl. Otherwise he and the mage could have a very unpleasant meeting at the Pearl’s hiding-place, he with the horse and the mage with the ring.”

  “If by some chance, Joachim,” I said, “your brother ever does buy that magic horse, tell him not to worry about staying on. Instead, tell him to be sure to look for the second pin to help guide it.”

  IV

  I found my way through the narrow streets to the Church of the Holy Wisdom at noon, as a wailing from the minarets again called the faithful People of the Prophet to prayer. I did not expect to see Maffi, or, if so, assumed I would find him ready with some woeful story why he couldn’t find the ring I wanted. It was because I doubted he would even be there that I had refused Ascelin’s offer to accompany me. But the way Maffi leaned against the door frame of the great church, waiting, exuded confidence.

  “You found it?” I asked in amazement.

  But he just gave me a mysterious smile. “Maybe. Come and look for yourself.”