Mage Quest woy-3

by C. Dale Brittain

  We were all silent for a moment, then Joachim said quietly, “In this fallen world, no man, even the wisest, could consistently do good if he could wield this much power. To lock it away may have been the wisest decision Solomon ever made.”

  Dominic shrugged, as though trying to reestablish normalcy. “If there isn’t enough room on your carpet for all of us when we leave here, Mage, maybe we could put the overflow on your flying horse. Or is it your horse anymore?” he added with a forced chuckle. “Someone certainly has bought it from you by now, maybe the chaplain’s sister-in-law.”

  We waited for Kaz-alrhun to answer, then I realized he was slowly shaking its head. “It is much too late to renounce the Black Pearl that easily. It was taken from its hiding place by a prince of Yurt, and after Warin stole it a duke of Yurt killed him to recover it. Its curse will affect Yurt whether it is with you or back in the Wadi.”

  For a moment we sat in silence, trying to imagine a curse on Yurt: the green hills becoming parched, fires ravaging the fields, blizzards killing the livestock, the bandits who almost never bothered us appearing on the highways, fatal disease spreading and infecting the children, both the children of villagers and the children of kings and princes.

  “There has to be a way,” said Dominic abruptly. “This is a flawless pearl, beyond all price. It was a gift to King Solomon from the Queen of Sheba, a gift to be treasured. If, as the mage says, blood and evil desires can pervert its magic, then there has to be a way to purify it again.”

  I stared at the Pearl until its winking in the firelight set up a pattern within my brain, a pattern that suddenly made sense of that voice I had not quite been able to hear.

  “There is a way,” I heard myself saying. “One of us will have to die.”

  Kaz-alrhun’s eyes met mine. “You surprise me, Daimbert. I did not think a western wizard would understand that.”

  “The Pearl itself told me.”

  This startled him again.

  “The Pearl must again be hidden,” I said as though someone else were speaking. “Inside its golden box, inside the locked cabinet, sunk in a derelict ship in the deepest rift of the Outer Sea. The Ifrit can take it there, and with it shall go someone of Yurt. Then the curse will be lifted. Yurt will not prosper so thoroughly as it would have, by the Pearl’s grace, if no one had been killed, but the free giving of a life will break the curse brought about by violent death. And if the Pearl is found again, in five years or five thousand, the finder may, if he keeps free of evil, find his heart’s desire.”

  My voice rose, and I spoke now for myself, not the Pearl. “The Ifrit says that all humans die senselessly, and even you, Kaz-alrhun, sometimes speak as though you feel we have no ultimate control over our fate, that life has no more meaning than a game. But living and dying can have a purpose. King Warin, his soul given to evil, sought the Pearl even before we knew that was what we sought. He and his bandits almost killed several of us to bring the Pearl’s powers into his own hands. He’s dead himself now, gone to the supernatural realm where his soul will be surely judged. But even in the natural world good can be brought out of evil, and our heart’s desire need not turn to a curse. A life that Warin couldn’t take by force will be freely given, and thus repair the evil he left behind.”

  I added, before I could realize what I was saying, “I myself shall accompany the Pearl to the deepest rift of the sea.”

  There were immediate protests and questions in eleven other voices. I put my hand over my eyes and wondered if I meant it and was afraid that I did.

  Ascelin stood up, somewhat stiffly, and faced everyone else down. “I killed Warin and brought the curse on all of you.” He met the chaplain’s eyes and gave a humorless smile. “The wizard is right that that evil must be repaired, and I shall give myself to do so. Let’s get that Ifrit over here and do it now. When you’re home again, tell Diana I always loved her.”

  This brought immediately renewed protests. The Ifrit heard our raised voices and came over. Dominic was trying to outshout Ascelin, telling him, “You only killed him because I told you to!” I kept silent, still thinking it ought to be me and unable to say so a second time.

  “So you’re competing for which one of you will die?” the Ifrit asked me. “This is even more amusing than having those two little warriors fight each other.”

  The Ifrit’s wife came over too, graceful and barebreasted. The Ifrit perched her on his knee while continuing to follow the discussion as though watching a play.

  “Ifrit,” I said suddenly, “this is really a private conversation. I don’t think you should be listening. I know you find it amusing,” I went on quickly before he could object, “so I’ll offer you a deal. Very shortly, one of us is going to accompany the Black Pearl to the deepest rift in the Outer Sea.” I took a deep breath, thinking it was still most likely to be me, and pushed ahead. “If you’ll agree to take him there, then you can listen while we decide which one of us it will be.”

  The Ifrit nodded but then frowned. “The last deal you made with me, you never upheld your end. I know my wife didn’t want your spells, but …” His grumbling trailed off in his interest in the scene before him.

  King Haimeric had risen to his feet, the only person who could have made everyone else fall silent. “I know you’re not my liege man, Ascelin,” he said, “so I cannot order you against your will. But do not offer yourself to save Yurt. I thank you deeply, I know what you’re offering, and I cannot let you do it. The penance for killing Warin to save another’s life cannot be the loss of your own life.”

  Ascelin, who towered over him, tried fairly convincingly to shake his head, but the king was not finished. “Of all of us, you’re the only one who has not found his heart’s desire on this trip, because for you the goal was the quest itself, to travel, find adventure, and come safely home again. And besides,” with a smile, “I wouldn’t want to have to explain to the duchess that I’d let you die. No, Ascelin, if Yurt is to be freed from a curse, it must be freed by the king of Yurt.”

  Dominic jumped up again. “Or the royal prince!”

  King Haimeric reached up to put his hand on his nephew’s shoulder. “I’m an old man anyway. Even if we manage to find a way to escape from this valley and make our way thousands of miles home again, I will not live very much longer.” Yurt seemed to be changing every moment before my eyes, even if we did somehow reach it again. “Why do I need to live any more? I’ve gotten everything I ever wanted. I didn’t tell the queen when we left, but I never expected to see Yurt again.”

  Dominic tried to interrupt, but the king waved him to silence. “Would not sacrificing myself for my kingdom make a fitting end for a delightful life?” finished King Haimeric, smiling at his stunned audience.

  “Sire,” said Dominic again, “listen to me.” We all listened. Ascelin took a step back, looking both miserable and relieved. “I agree, sire,” said Dominic, very seriously, “that Yurt must be saved by a member of the royal family. And I know you’re growing old. But you have a wife who loves you, and a little son who should be guided by you. I have nothing.

  “No, let me speak!” as the king started to interrupt. “I’ve spent my entire life preparing and waiting for a future that never came. You may now have everything you’ve ever wanted, but I’ve never had anything of my own. I have no wife, no child, and no crown. I had to find what my father wanted us to find, but I’ve done that now. And I’ve done it wrong: in finding the Pearl I put a curse on the kingdom I love. This is my last chance to do something truly significant. If you won’t let me die to take the curse from Yurt, to give it whatever prosperity the Pearl may still grant, then my life will finally end with no meaning at all.”

  There was a few seconds’ silence, broken by the sound of the chaplain clearing his throat.

  “And don’t try to tell me how sinful suicide is, Father!” Dominic cried. “This isn’t suicide, because I’m not throwing away God’s gift of life from despair. Doesn’t it say in the Bible, ‘Gr
eater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends’? I would have cheerfully died for Yurt in battle, and this is no different. Now is my only chance to get the rest of you home alive, to a kingdom that will always prosper.”

  He looked from side to side in the twilight, appearing absolutely determined, and I knew we could not resist him in this.

  But it didn’t keep us from trying. All of us, from the king to Maffi, immediately began talking and shouting at once. Dominic ignored everyone except for Joachim, but he didn’t seem to agree with him either.

  The Ifrit spoke beside me. “This is getting boring again,” he said, absently stroking his wife’s hair. “But I have an idea how to liven it up.” He stretched out a hand. “I can get those soldiers back again.”

  The air shimmered all the way to the sky. A quarter mile away, uneasy but grim-faced, were the emir’s soldiers, their curved swords in their hands. In the dim and dusky landscape, the steel of their weapons and their white turbans seemed almost to glow.

  “Evrard!” I said to him urgently and directly, mind-to-mind. “We need a magic shield!” But Evrard didn’t seem to know the spells I needed, and the shield I desperately tried to create just wasn’t working.

  Dominic did not give me any further chance to put one together. “Ifrit!” he shouted, slamming the Pearl into its gold box and throwing it inside the cabinet. “Lift me up! The Black Pearl can make do without an amphora this time. It and I are headed for the Outer Sea!” The cabinet’s lock clicked shut.

  But when he hoisted it to his shoulder and sprinted toward the Ifrit, Ascelin tackled him around the legs. They rolled together for a moment, grunting and trying to pin the other, while the Ifrit watched in interest.

  Normally Ascelin, a foot taller than Dominic and muscled from a long journey on foot, would have been able to outwrestle him easily. But he had in close succession fought Hugo, carried King Haimeric down the vertical side of the valley, and killed King Warin.

  Dominic jerked away just before Ascelin pinned him to the ground and got an arm around the tall prince’s neck long enough to squeeze the breath out of him. Then he jumped up and scrambled onto the hand the Ifrit held out for him.

  “I am ready to obey, Master,” said the Ifrit in his deep bellow.

  That stopped all of us. “Am I your master?” asked Dominic, held at the Ifrit’s face level, trying to maintain his balance with one arm and clutching the cabinet with the other.

  “You control the Black Pearl, and the Pearl controls all Ifriti. If you command me, I must obey you.”

  “Then stop those soldiers!”

  The Ifrit bared his yellow teeth in a grin. He reached out his other hand, the one not holding Dominic, and fire shot from his fingers. The emir’s soldiers, a hundred yards away, were suddenly blocked by a wall of flames that stretched the entire width of the valley.

  “Is that what you wanted, Master?” asked the Ifrit.

  “Exactly what I wanted,” said Dominic. This was, I thought appreciatively, much better than Prince Vlad’s wall of fire. The soldiers scattered backwards in panic.

  “And get all my friends’ horses and supplies again!” commanded Dominic.

  The Ifrit sprang upwards into the air and disappeared, Dominic still in his fist. The soldiers, seeing them go, shouted and tried to shoot at them, but the arrows fell harmlessly.

  “Is he gone?” said King Haimeric into the abrupt silence.

  “He is not gone yet,” said Kaz-alrhun gravely.

  First to appear again was a tumbling whirlwind of sand, which settled down to reveal our confused horses, their packs still on their backs. And five minutes later the Ifrit was back, with Dominic and, this time, Whirlwind.

  The chestnut stallion landed unceremoniously on his side. But he scrambled to his feet at once and reared and kicked wildly until Dominic, still sitting in the Ifrit’s hand, reached down to grab a handful of mane and slap his neck. “Easy, boy, easy,” he said as though the horse could understand. “They’ll take you home.” The stallion stopped kicking and seemed to be listening. “Let someone else ride you besides me, all right?”

  “Don’t forget that horse and I saved your life!” piped up Maffi.

  Dominic frowned. “If I asked, Ifrit, could you turn this boy into a worm?”

  “Or anything you liked, Master!”

  Maffi sprang behind Kaz-alrhun’s legs, but Dominic showed no sign of requesting an immediate transformation. His face was sober, and he seemed all at once to have lost the momentum that carried him out of Ascelin’s grip.

  “I realize something, little warrior,” the Ifrit said to him. “You and this western mage say you want to go to the Outer Sea, but while we’re gone all these people from Yurt are going to try to escape. I promised the first mage who freed me that I wouldn’t let them.”

  “Then don’t go!” cried the king.

  “Wizard?” said Dominic to me.

  I glanced toward the wall of fire, wondering how long it would hold the emir’s soldiers before someone volunteered to charge through it. I didn’t want to answer Dominic because I felt that in doing so I was sending him to his death. But it was, I reminded myself grimly, his decision.

  “Listen, Ifrit!” I said. “The power of King Solomon’s Pearl surpasses all other authority over an Ifrit-including wishes the Ifrit himself may have granted. Additionally, the mage to whom you promised to guard the Wadi betrayed you, by arranging for you to be imprisoned in your bottle again. His wishes have lost all validity.” I left out the emir, not wanting to confuse the issue further-besides, his wishes still had validity. “And remember you promised to keep the people from Yurt safe-their safety may in fact lie in escape!”

  The Ifrit’s dark green brow furrowed as he tried to work it out, but he nodded slowly, seeming to agree.

  I expected Dominic to give the order for final departure at once, but he too frowned again, looking down at us from twenty feet in the air. “You seem to know all about this Pearl, Mage,” he called to Kaz-alrhun. “What’s the limit on what I can make the Ifrit do?”

  “There is very little limit,” said Kaz-alrhun, “on the powers of a man who commands the Black Pearl and has an Ifrit to obey him. Even without a working knowledge of magic, you could do much. But-” He paused for a long moment. “But you could do nothing to counter the Pearl’s curse when it began to work.”

  Dominic bit his lip. “And the first workings of the curse would be that I would be tempted to make myself King Dominic of Yurt, of all the western kingdoms, of the world, and would still think I was acting for good.” He wrapped an arm firmly around the Ifrit’s thumb. “Good-bye, sire! To the Outer Sea, Ifrit! We’re going now!

  “Don’t worry!” Dominic added in a joyous shout as the Ifrit sprang up into the air. “You’ll be safe from the soldiers, because the curse is being ended before it has a chance to work!” He waved, and the red of his ruby ring flashed in the evening light. “And I have found the purpose of my life at the end of it!”

  When the Ifrit rose from the valley floor, the wall of flames disappeared, and the emir’s soldiers almost immediately regrouped.

  “Do not concern yourself with that!” said Kaz-alrhun as I desperately started over again creating some sort of magical shield. “Everyone, onto the carpet!” He had increased its size again.

  King Haimeric didn’t want to go. “He was still so young,” he said, the tears streaming unchecked down his cheeks as he stared into the empty sky. “My own life is nearly at an end, but there was so much Dominic could still have done! Now we won’t even be able to visit his grave.”

  “He fulfilled both his life and his quest,” I said, helping the king onto the carpet. I had to pick up and give him his carefully wrapped rootstock or he would have left it behind.

  “I never had a chance!” cried Hugo in genuine distress, sounding more like a boy than a blooded warrior. “I never asked him to forgive me for putting ribbons in his stallion’s mane!”

  “
Come!” called Kaz-alrhun impatiently. “In pouring forth tears there is little profit.”

  The Ifrit’s wife wouldn’t go. “I’ll be fine,” she said. “The soldiers won’t find my oasis.” She thumbed the rings on her necklace and smiled at Sir Hugo’s party and then, somewhat less jauntily, at Joachim, as she stepped back under the palms.

  We lifted into the evening sky on the carpet, piled as closely together in the center as we could, only twenty yards ahead of the turbaned soldiers. A few arrows hit the bottom of the carpet but bounced away harmlessly. I leaned cautiously over the edge and watched the Ifrit’s oasis wink away into safety, to another level of reality or to non-existence.

  EPILOGUE

  Fountains sparkled in the glow of the magic lamps in the courtyard of Kaz-alrhun’s house in Xantium. The evening air was still warm, and even here, in the middle of the city, little stray breezes found us, scented with the tang of the sea and with desert sage. Automata, simple self-propelled serving carts on wheels, rattled over the flagstones to bring us a variety of hot and cold dishes.

  “So you do not grow eggplants in Yurt?” the mage asked King Haimeric. “Take some from Xantium for your queen. The market will also have every kind of cotton fabric you might desire. And certainly buy coffee beans as well, but remember you will first have to grind them to a sandy consistency to brew the beverage.” When the king did not seem as pleased at this suggestion as Kaz-alrhun apparently expected him to be, he added, “You can buy all the presents for your queen in the government-regulated market if you prefer, rather than the Thieves’ Market.”

  The king tried to smile. “She’ll be happy with anything I bring her, but none of it will make up for coming home without Dominic.”

  The mage laughed, startling one of his automata, though it was able to recover without dumping its load of spiced lamb. “Is that it?” he asked, looking around the table at the rest of us. “Is this the reason you have all had long faces since we left the Wadi?” None of us answered. “I would expect at least you, Daimbert, to know better.”