Mage Quest woy-3

by C. Dale Brittain

She was so startled she dropped the lamp, and it smashed on the pavement by her feet.

  Good. The spells of fire were no longer available to her. “It hurts my eyes, dearest daughter of the stars, and it has been so long since I’ve had my eyes open!”

  She came toward me again with an indrawn breath of delight. “Is it then true, my darling, my pomegranate, my own? Are you alive again at last? You seem somehow-different!”

  “Stay back, my precious one!” I said in a weak voice. If she crawled in here with me, even without the lamp, I wouldn’t deceive her for long. And I was quite sure that after she had whipped me near or even to death, she would not put her magic salves on me. “I only seem different because it has been two years since we last lay together. But don’t approach me yet. Even your delicate touch might set back my healing.”

  “But it’s been so long since I heard your dear voice!”

  And you won’t hear it again until you meet your lover in hell, I thought. This was even harder than I’d expected. “My healing was slowed, my sweet,” I gasped, “by all the noises I must endure.”

  “Noises?”

  “The singing of the fish,” I said. “The sounds of an ordinary city I could bear quite easily, but the sad wail of men and women made fish makes my heart break anew each evening.”

  She was silent for a moment, while I hoped she was thinking over my comment and feared she was beginning to suspect me. Her witch-magic, I thought, did not give her the ability to touch another mind, or she would have long since realized the slave was dead, but if I al ready seemed ‘different’ I would not be able to stall her much more.

  “All right, then, my sweet,” she said in abrupt decision. “Anything to make you more comfortable. I’ll turn the fish back to themselves.”

  The moon was brightening, and I could see the witch return to the materials she had brought with her to the garden. I wondered briefly if the dark powers she commanded through fire and potions might be playing with her, allowing her as a subtle and demonical form of torture to think her lover was still alive.

  She poured some liquid into a dish, murmured low words over it until silver sparks cascaded upwards, then cried aloud and clapped her hands. The ground shifted below us, from the bottom of the hill came a massive roaring of water, and abruptly the city rose again from the bay.

  I lay flat until the earth stopped moving. I didn’t think anybody in the west had command of forces like this. When I lifted my head again it was to hear voices, human voices, babbling together in surprise and joy. Out the far side of the pavilion, I saw lights flicking on in the city below the garden. The emir would have quite a shock the next time he visited his fish pond. The prince’s people were people once again.

  The witch did not give me time to appreciate my success. “Are you satisfied now, dearest one?” she asked from just outside the pavilion.

  “Thank you, my own, that is much better. But there is still another noise which has long hindered my healing.”

  “And what is that?”

  I was tempted for a moment to leave the prince turned half to stone. But if Joachim didn’t feel he could judge eastern priests, I shouldn’t judge someone for murdering his wife’s lover-especially since in the last two years he had been punished cruelly. “It is the prince, your husband,” I said. “His moans and cries at night keep me from healing sleep, and even in the day I feel so much for his pain that I am almost mad.”

  “Then he shall be restored as well,” she said comfortingly. Again she poured liquid in a dish and spoke words over it. This time, when the silver sparks rose and she clapped her hands, the stone of the prince’s lower half split with a crack, and he slowly rose to his feet.

  “But now I can bear it no longer, dearest slave!” she cried and rushed into the pavilion before I could stop her. She seized me wildly and pulled me toward her.

  We both froze as the white moonlight fell on my face. The witch slowly pushed herself backwards. “You- You are not-” But before she could blast me with magic, she turned and saw the prince behind her.

  I had forgotten he still, after two years, held the sword with which he had killed the slave. But he had not forgotten. He roared almost as loudly as the waters pouring from the streets of his city and rushed at his wife. She shrieked and fled, kicking over her magic bowls and potions as she went. As I crept, trembling, out of the pavilion, I could hear their cries retreating in the distance.

  A shadow was between me and the moon. I looked up and saw the Ifrit descending into the garden. He broke several flower bushes with his gigantic feet as he landed.

  “Not bad, little mage,” he said with a chuckle. “You have freed the ensorcelled city. I think I have tested you enough to provide plenty of amusement and can start now on the rest of your friends.”

  “What about the prince of this city? Is he going to kill his wife?”

  “As God wills, so it happens,” said the Ifrit without interest. “We could follow them, or would you rather have me find those other humans you were with when I first saw you?”

  “My friends, of course.” At this point, I no longer cared whether the prince killed his witch wife or she turned him to stone again-or even whether they made peace with each other. “But first, could you help me bury this body?”

  The Ifrit scraped a deep hole under the bushes with a finger, and I lowered the slave into it. “He is dead, isn’t he?” I asked in sudden doubt.

  “Of course,” said the Ifrit in surprise. “He’s been dead since the first day after the prince attacked him. I thought all you humans knew how easily you die. It must be strange,” he added thought fully, pushing the dirt over the body.

  IV

  We flew back that night to the circular valley. Joachim and the Ifrit’s wife seemed to be getting along very well. “The Ifrit’s still testing me,” I told him. “Today I managed to trick a witch into turning some fish she had ensorcelled back into people,” but I said no more. The Ifrit still refused to tell us anything about the others.

  But at dawn he snatched Joachim and me up and out of sleep, setting each of us on a shoulder, and flew straight upwards while we were still halfway between dream and a waking that seemed more desperately unreal than any dream.

  “I think I remember now where I put your friends,” he said in a low rumble and reached out his arm. I had just gotten my eyes properly open when the dawn sky around us snapped, flared, and turned over.

  I clung wildly to the Ifrit’s hair, my eyes clamped shut. Every angle felt upside down. But in a moment the world straightened out again. As we had flown straight up, we now descended, until we hovered a short distance above the valley floor. Directly below us and immediately on the defensive was the rest of our party from Yurt.

  “Put down your swords,” Joachim called. “This Ifrit will not harm us.”

  I doubted this myself, but knew that the most Hugo could have accomplished by sticking his sword into the Ifrit’s foot would have been all of our immediate deaths.

  They were camped at a small date-palm oasis which I could have sworn was not in the valley a few minutes ago. Even the horses were there, except for Whirlwind.

  “Where have you been?” I gasped to Ascelin, and he to us, as the Ifrit set the chaplain and me down. They all looked weary but unharmed.

  “Here in the valley,” we all answered together. I glanced up at the Ifrit, who stood watching and smiling, his arms crossed. I knew perfectly well the others had not been here. But then there was now no sign of the Ifrit’s wife, though we could not have flown a quarter mile of horizontal distance since we left her. It was as though the Ifrit’s magic allowed more than one reality to exist simultaneously within this valley.

  There was no time to explore the implications of this, to wonder if the Wadi Harhammi was here too somewhere, hidden by the Ifrit’s magic. “The Ifrit’s taken my magical abilities from me,” I said. “I can’t even tell what’s real anymore.”

  “No magic?” said Dominic. “This is going to
make it harder.” He turned his ruby ring thoughtfully on his finger. It still pulsed slowly with light. “There’s been no sign of the boy and my stallion. We hadn’t even seen the Ifrit again since he first appeared and we were whirled through the air to this oasis. But we hoped that if we stayed here in the valley you’d be able to locate us again if you were still alive.”

  “Do you think your friends are ready for their tests, little wizard?” called the Ifrit to me.

  “I’m ready to ask you if you know what happened to my father!” Hugo shouted back.

  “He’s probably dead, whoever he was,” said the Ifrit with a shrug. “Most humans are dead, sooner or later.”

  Hugo whipped out his sword again. I could have stopped him if I still had my magic, but ordinary human reflexes were too slow. Before I could reach him he lunged forward and drove his sword into the spot where the Ifrit’s leg had been a second before.

  “None of that!” cried the Ifrit angrily, putting his foot back down and picking Hugo up by the back of the neck. “I may be immortal, but I bleed the same as any of God’s creation!”

  Hugo kicked and struggled and tried to swing around to stab at the hand that held him. The Ifrit frowned. “You seem to want to fight. Maybe that should be your test. But who should I have you fight? Not me, because I’d crush you at once, and that would only be amusing for a few seconds.”

  This stopped Hugo’s struggles for the moment.

  “I know!” said the Ifrit happily. “You can fight another human. How about- Hmmm. How about this one?” He seized Ascelin with the other hand.

  The prince hung, dignified, from the Ifrit’s grip on the back of his shirt. “We could give a demonstration of sword work for your amusement if you like.”

  “No,” said the Ifrit, peering at him with a frown. “That would not be amusing enough. I know! I’ll have you fight to the death.”

  He set Hugo and Ascelin down, and they stood uncertainly, their hands on their hilts. “Go ahead!” said the Ifrit impatiently. “This will be your chance to entertain me. I want to see what humans do when they are fighting for their lives.”

  They glanced questioningly at King Haimeric and at me. “Go ahead and fence,” I said slowly, hoping desperately that a good sword fight would satisfy the Ifrit, that he was not serious about making them fight to the death.

  They took off their goat’s-hair robes and slid their shields onto their arms. Hugo removed his earring, and they both tied back their hair before strapping on their helmets. Only their eyes showed as they exchanged the ritual taps of the sword that begin a tournament duel. They took a few moments to get the feel of the sandy surface, circling each other slowly, then Hugo suddenly lashed out and landed a blow on Ascelin’s shield.

  I had often seen Hugo practicing his sword work, but could never remember having seen Ascelin in the tournament ring. He was extremely good. He had all the moves, the sudden thrusts, the ability to catch a sword either on his own sword or his shield, the quick turn to avoid a blow. When they had fought for ten minutes he was still not even breathing hard. Hugo didn’t have anything like Ascelin’s height or experience, but he was twenty years younger and even quicker.

  I’d never been trained in sword work myself, yet I could still appreciate how they managed to rain an impressive number of blows on each other, and with sharp swords at that, without ever hurting the other. Their shields rang again and again, and their armor flashed in the sun. Even tournament sword fighting was intended to make the other fighter drop his blade and yield, but these two could have been engaged in a dance, ready to keep on indefinitely.

  “Stop!” shouted the Ifrit and thrust a fist into the sand between them. They stopped.

  “You aren’t really fighting,” he said.

  Hugo pulled off his helmet and mopped his brow. “I’ll fight harder if you’ll help me find my father, and if he’s still alive.”

  The Ifrit dismissed this. “I’m not interested in whatever relatives of yours might or might not be alive at the moment. I already said I want you to fight to the death.”

  “And what do you offer in return?” I called up to him, though I was afraid I already knew the answer.

  “I don’t ‘offer’ anything,” said the Ifrit angrily. “I don’t know why you humans always seem to feel that Ifriti exist to grant your foolish wishes. Maybe I want you to grant me wishes for a change! I want to see an exciting fight where you know you’re going to die.”

  Joachim tried to say something, but it was no use. The Ifrit snatched up the four of us who were not fighting, two in each hand. “Say you’ll fight properly, or I’ll crush these friends of yours now.”

  Ascelin’s eyes grew dark. “Of course I’ll face death for them.”

  The Ifrit smiled and set us down, on the far side of his foot from Hugo and Ascelin. The king coughed and clung to Dominic for support.

  “So you are ready to sacrifice yourself,” said the Ifrit to Ascelin, sounding pleased. “But it won’t be amusing if you just stand there and let this hot-headed little man kill you. You,” to the king. “Order one to kill the other, and the other to defend himself.”

  King Haimeric bent his head. “I cannot order either one to do that. You can do what you like to me.”

  I had a nightmare feeling of paralysis, facing events moving far too fast, but if this was a nightmare I should have waked up long ago.

  “I’m not going to kill you before you’ve had your turn to amuse me,” said the Ifrit irritably to the king. “You two warriors! I want one of you to kill the other one, now! I don’t care which one. But I do know how to make it more interesting. I’ll give the winner the chance to live a little longer.”

  “And then?” said Hugo cautiously.

  “And then I will kill him as punishment,” said the Ifrit with satisfaction. “Slowly, maybe over a week or two. I think I will kill him both slowly and painfully.”

  They both looked at me. Just because I had once known western magic, they seemed to think I had some sort of insight into Ifriti. All I could do was shake my head. “He means it.”

  Hugo seemed to be working his way from misery over his father to indignation and anger. “So he’s not going to let either of us go, no matter what we do? He wants to watch one of us die by the sword, and the other one by torture?”

  “That’s certainly what he says.”

  Ascelin turned sharply and pulled his helmet back on. “Defend yourself just enough to keep the Ifrit happy,” he said to Hugo in a low voice. “We’re both dead anyway. I’ll kill you as quickly and painlessly as I can.”

  “But-” Hugo pulled his helmet back on as well and raised his sword. His voice was hollow from inside the helmet. “That means you’ll let the Ifrit torture you!”

  “Shut up and obey me,” said Ascelin roughly. His first blow caught Hugo unprepared and sent him staggering.

  But the young lord recovered quickly and swung up his shield. “You’re not my prince!” he yelled. “I don’t have to obey you!”

  “Yes, you do,” said Ascelin grimly, landing another blow. “That’s right, appear to defend yourself. I’ll try to make this quick.”

  “That’s better,” said the Ifrit with satisfaction, watching with his hands on his hips. “I don’t know why you humans always raise so many objections to everything.”

  They were both really fighting now. All I had ever seen, closeup, was tournament fighting, but even I could tell the difference. Their swords flashed faster than I could follow, and their feet churned up the sandy soil. It would have been thrilling if it was not so terrible. Ascelin slowly backed Hugo toward a boulder, using his superior height and reach to full advantage. But the younger man ducked under what looked like a fatal thrust and landed a glancing blow on Ascelin’s arm as he darted away.

  Ascelin stopped and looked at him. Blood seeped slowly onto his sleeve. “You aren’t listening, Hugo.”

  “No, you aren’t listening! If this Ifrit’s already killed my father, I don’t care wha
t he does to me! I’ll try to make this quick, Ascelin.”

  Without answering, Ascelin sprang forward. Their swords rebounded with great clangs from each other’s helmets. Blood and sweat were dripping from them both now. I thought sickly that at least neither one of them would still be alive for the Ifrit to kill slowly. Joachim was murmuring under his breath again.

  “Hugo!” said Ascelin, stepping back for a second. “Stop defending yourself! I know you don’t like this, but it’s for your own good.”

  Hugo didn’t give him a chance to finish before he was on him, swinging his sword wildly. “I told you I’m not going to obey you! This is my quest, for my father, and you’ve been bossing me the entire trip, but you can’t do it anymore!”

  Ascelin caught Hugo’s sword tip in his shield and gave a sharp jerk, wrenching it from the younger man’s hand. But as he drove his own sword forward, Hugo dropped, rolled, grabbed his sword again, and bounced back to his feet behind Ascelin. The prince whirled just in time. I turned my head away, unable to watch.

  “Ifrit!” came a bellow from beside me. “Ifrit! You must make them stop!”

  It was a voice, loud and ringing, I could never recall hearing before. But when I turned I saw it was the king.

  Hugo and Ascelin were both so surprised that they stopped, twenty feet apart, eyeing each other warily.

  “Sire?” said Dominic cautiously.

  King Haimeric, as slight and white-haired as ever, glared up at the Ifrit, trembling like a leaf in the wind but completely determined. “All I can offer you is myself, but I’m not going to let you make them kill each other!”

  “And who do you think you are, little man?” said the amused Ifrit, lifting him on his palm to face level.

  “I am King Haimeric of Yurt.”

  “Yurt,” said the Ifrit softly, and the color drained from his dark cheeks. “I’ve heard of Yurt.”

  V

  “If you’ve heard of Yurt,” said the king determinedly, “then you know it is a kingdom where no one, not even criminals, is put to death.”