The Crusading Wizard

CHAPTER 13

The guards at the door scarcely had time to snap to attention before Jimena burst past them and into the nursery. She stopped dead in her tracks, and Ramon almost slammed into her. Even as he skidded to a halt he saw her hand go to her lips and heard her long, keening, mournful cry. Staring at the room over her head, he saw the princess’ cradle, the prince’s little bed, the bright toys scattered over the floor, and the jolly pictures painted on the wall—but no grandchildren. The nursery was bare.

The captain of the Caliph’s guard bowed to Matt. “Forgive this unworthy one, O Esteemed One!”

“Forgive you for what?” Now it was Matt who stared. “For doing your job well? For protecting your ruler to the best of your ability? That calls for praise, not forgiveness!”

The guard straightened up, incredulous and wary. “I had heard the Franks were without mercy.”

“Propaganda.” Matt waved the idea away. “Atrocity stories. The gur-khan’s high priest worships the Prince of Lies, worthy soldier. We must all be wary of rumors from now on. Do you suppose you could tell the Caliph I’m here?”

“At once, effendi!” The captain turned to bark an order to a subordinate, and the guard ran back into the palace. Then the captain half bowed, extending an arm toward the doorway. “Will you come in out of the sun?”

“That would be nice, thanks.” Matt stopped to roll up the rug and tuck it under one arm. A ten-pound weight hit his shoulder, shifting as he straightened; a furry tail brushed one ear, whiskers the other. He went where the nice man pointed, managing not to show his wariness.

They came into a tall antechamber of pale stone. After the glare of the morning sun outside, it seemed dim and very cool.

“May we offer you refreshment, honored guest?” the captain asked.

Before Matt could answer, the messenger-guard came back. “The Caliph will see the noble emissary on the instant!”

A majordomo came huffing behind him. “This way, my lord, if you please!” He turned and went back the way he had come, through a lancet doorway. Matt followed, wishing he could have changed into something more suitable for meeting a caliph, but he hadn‘t had a chance to replace his luggage, and Cardmember Services was a long way away.

The majordomo led him not to the throne room, but to a smaller audience chamber, where he bowed Matt to a seat. “The Caliph will join you in a matter of minutes, my lord.” He reached out. “If I may take the animal—”

Balkis arched her back and hissed.

“Sorry, but she’s part of my wizardry,” Matt explained.

The majordomo withdrew his hands but looked uncertain. “I have heard that Frankish witches have spirits with the forms of animals, but I did not think a wizard would.”

“You thought rightly,” Matt told him. “Balkis isn’t an ordinary cat, but she’s definitely mortal. Nine lives, maybe, but mortal at the end of them.”

The majordomo still looked doubtful, but he let the issue, if not the cat, drop. “As you will, my lord.” He stepped back against the wall and lapsed into silence, like the rest of the room decorations—including the two swordsmen who stood against either wall, arms folded, with their right hands near the hilts of the scimitars in their belts.

Matt didn‘t mind—no matter how urgent his message or lofty his station, protocol demanded that the Caliph keep him waiting at least five minutes. A similar protocol demanded the presence of guards, even though they weren’t apt to be of much use against a wizard. At least, to judge by the uneasy glances they gave him, they thought they couldn’t do much. Matt, of course, knew that either of them could chop off his head before he could finish a quatrain, but they obviously didn’t, and that was all right with him.

In the same way, it didn’t trouble him that the majordomo hadn’t ordered refreshment; it would undercut the Caliph’s dignity to come in and find his guest sipping a sherbet.

Other than the human furniture, the room held a large, ornate chair with a low table between it and the less imposing, but still luxurious, chair opposite. The walls were screens, intricately carved in geometric patterns, and the one wide window was swathed in silk. The chamber was simply decorated, but gave the unmistakable impression of wealth, and the power that went with it.

The inner door opened and the Caliph came in.

Matt rose and touched fingers to forehead, lips, and breast as he bowed—not too low, of course. “Long life to the Caliph, and consternation to his enemies!”

“Long life to you, Lord Wizard.” The Caliph too saluted with fingers to forehead, lips, and breast, though without much of a bow.

Matt straightened, and for a few seconds they studied one another, estimating strengths and weaknesses. Matt saw a tall Arab with an arched nose, probing eyes, and an elegantly trimmed beard and moustache. His robes were of satin and silk, and the pin that held the plume in his turban glowed with the light of a ruby.

The Caliph smiled and sat. “You are welcome, Lord Wizard. May I hope that Her Majesty follows with her army?”

“She is certainly on the way.” Matt remained standing, again as protocol demanded. “Though with so many men, she must travel much more slowly than I.”

“Of course. Then she has sent you as her ambassador?”

“Actually, no,” Matt said, “though I’m sure she would be glad to know I am here.” Very glad, since it would mean he was alive. “I came ahead to learn as much as I could about our mutual enemy.”

The Caliph frowned. “There is little we can tell you, other than that they are vast in numbers and ruthless, slaying and destroying all who resist them—with the assistance of sorcery.”

“And that they are not one people, but many? Yes, we were grateful for that much information in your message. Actually, I was surprised to learn that you hadn’t bad trouble with Turks before this.”

“There have been some who have come into my domain to settle and farm over the last few hundred years, but not many,” the Caliph said, “and several troupes have become Muslims and enlisted in our armies, but nothing more, till now.” He frowned. “Why should they have troubled us Arabs before this, gur-khan absorbed them into his horde?”

“Oh, population pressure, maybe.” Matt remembered that the Turks of his world had conquered the Arabian empire at the end of the Dark Ages, had indeed been the cause of the First Crusade. Here, though, something seemed to have stopped them. There had been no Crusades, and the Arabs still ruled the Islamic world. He wondered what could have stopped such a juggernaut as Seljuk and his Turks.

Of course, he couldn’t explain that to the Caliph. “I have already been to the east, and have learned something more.”

The Caliph stiffened, eyes wide. “Speak, then!”

“Their leader is a Mongol, and his title is ‘gur-khan’—‘Great King,’ in our terms. The source of his power is a renegade Zoroastrian priest named Arjasp.”

“Oh, is it indeed,” the Caliph said between his teeth. “In what way a renegade?”

Matt hesitated, then asked, “You number Zoroastrians—Guebres—among your own subjects, do you not, O Light of Wisdom?”

“Yes, I do,” the Caliph said impatiently, “and be done with such fulsome phrases; call me only ‘lord,’ even as I shall call you.”

“I shall, O Lord,” Matt agreed. “Then you know that your Guebres worship Ahura Mazda, the God of Light?”

“Yes, and they honor Him in the sun, and in fire, since both are luminous. What of it?”

“This Arjasp has betrayed them. He has forsworn Ahura Mazda and worships Angra Mainyu, their god of darkness and deceit.”

“Shaitan!” the majordomo cried, then clapped a hand over his mouth.

The Caliph’s breath hissed in. “Even as you say, faithful servant. This Angra Mainyu, or Ahriman, as they also call him, is surely Shaitan by another name.”

Matt chose his words with care. “Then is it not also possible, O Lord, that Angra Mainyu is only their name for Allah?”

The Caliph frowned, but said, “I will admit the possibility, though if it is true, they are in error about many aspects of His nature.”

“That may be,” Matt agreed, “but surely He is too vast for any human mind to conceive of entirely, and devotion to the One God is of far more importance than the incompleteness of their understanding—or ours.”

The majordomo started to argue, affronted, but remembered himself and caught his tongue in time.

The Caliph frowned in thought. Matt guessed he was trying to decide whether to interpret “ours” as referring to the Christians’ lack of understanding of the nature of Allah, or to both Christians and Muslims failing to fully understand the one God. He apparently decided to take Matt’s words as referring to the fallibility of Christians, because he said, “Surely devotion to God is more important than human blindness.”

“Faith can move mountains,” Matt agreed, “and the Parsi high priest with whom I spoke was as angry at Arjasp as either of us—but feared him, too.”

“There is sense in that, if not bravery.”

“Oh, he was brave enough to rescue me from one of Arjasp’s lesser priests when they captured me,” Matt said dryly.

All the Arabs stared, and Balkis moved restlessly, claws digging into Matt’s shoulder. He tried to ignore her indignation at not getting the credit she deserved. Sometimes it was better to keep a card up his sleeve, and Balkis was proving to be an ace.

The Caliph asked, “How could they capture a wizard?”

“Same way you can capture a king’s champion,” Matt told him, “hit him from five directions at once without any warning. It’s cowardly, but it works.”

“I can see that it would.” The Caliph had a thoughtful look, and the majordomo was looking cagey.

Matt decided to give himself the magical equivalent of a bubble dome, and to keep it there at all times. “Of course,” he said, “catching a wizard and keeping him are two different things—and you really don’t want to be around when he decides to get even.”

The majordomo looked apprehensive and guilty, but the Caliph merely looked interested. “And what happened to this minor priest of Ahriman when the high priest of Ahura Mazda came upon him?”

“The dastoor buried him in shadow,” Matt said, “then washed the whole chamber in bright light. We heard his screams, but they faded with the shadows.”

The guards almost managed to suppress their shudders, but the majordomo didn’t. The Caliph only looked grave. “A fitting end. Have you learned, then, how to deal with these barbarians?”

“Oh, yes,” Matt assured him. “The dastoor taught me a few verses.”

“Then perhaps you can aid where my own wizards have proved lacking,” the Caliph said. “They have experience only in dealing with sorcerers who gain their power from Shaitan.”

“I wouldn’t expect your holy men to be terribly bothered by Satanic verses,” Matt agreed, “but it would be more difficult for them to counter spells oriented toward Ahriman. Drawing on a different aspect of the Prince of Lies changes the proportions of intentions and effects.”

The Caliph frowned. “This is wizard’s talk.”

Matt tried to find a clearer way of saying it. “It’s a matter of finding the right aspect ratio—Never mind. I haven’t actually seen the barbarians fight, but if I do, maybe I can get an angle on them—a way to defeat them, that is.”

“Come, then.” The Caliph rose in one fluid motion. “Sunset approaches, and the barbarians will attack in the dusk.”

“They attack at night?” Matt stared, then gave himself a shake. “No, of course they attack at night, if they so much as pay lip service to Ahriman. Certainly, lord. Let us see their battle order.”

Jimena, who could stand before an army without a tremble or a tear, clapped a hand over her mouth to smother her own wailing. With eyes wide and tragic, she stared at the devastated nursery.

Ramon gathered her into his arms and, over her head, gave the first useless orders. “Search the palace and the grounds, Sir Orin. Only a fool of a kidnapper would keep close to home, but he or she may not yet have been able to escape.”

Sir Orin’s face was pale with shock, but he gave a small bow and turned away.

“The nursemaids.” Jimena swallowed her tears, recovering some shreds of composure. “They may have seen something, heard something. Ask them all.”

Sir Gilbert snapped to attention, struck his breastplate in salute, and turned away.

“Saul.” Jimena raised a trembling hand to beckon to the Witch Doctor. “Search magically. There may be some trace. How else but by sorcery could the children have been stolen from a castle under siege?”

“Yeah, sure.” But Saul came into the room, not away, and offered his arm. “You’d better come to the solar and sit down, though, Lady Mantrell. We need all your wits, and you’re not going to recover your strength standing up.”

Jimena accepted his arm and, between the two men, stumbled out of the nursery, down the hall, and into her daughter-in-law’s solar. The sheer normality of the room, the comfort of tapestries and polished wood, and the warmth of the sunlight that bathed the chamber, restored her even as she sat.

“Tea,” Saul said to the guard at the door.

The man hurried away to find a servant. The tea would be herbal—trade with the Far East had come to a sudden standstill—but it would be reviving nonetheless. Saul poured a brandy to hold Jimena until it came. Then he poured two more for Ramon and himself.

Jimena sipped, swallowed, and her complexion turned a shade less pale. “What do we do now?” she asked. “Wait for a ransom demand?”

“This is not New Jersey,” Ramon said with gentle reproof.

“Still, she may have a point,” Saul said. “Why would they kidnap the prince and princess, except to hold them as hostages?”

Ramon nodded, mouth tightening. “So the ransom will be in deeds, not in gold.”

Sir Gilbert came back, ushering three noblewomen before him. They came into the solar, wide-eyed and trembling, and lined up before Jimena.

She understood immediately. “Don’t be afraid; I don’t blame any of you.” Then she frowned, looking about. “Where is Lady Violette? This is her time to sit with the children.”

“We cannot find her, milady,” said Lady Eldori. She was the eldest nursemaid, a woman in her late thirties.

“Cannot find her?” Jimena stared. “Has she been stolen away, too?”

“Or was it she who did the stealing?” Ramon asked, his face darkening.

A huge explosion sounded, muffled by distance and masonry, and the floor trembled, the walls vibrated. One tapestry slipped from its hooks and came tumbling down.

Jimena stared. “What now?”

“If that is a demand for a ransom, it is rather more forceful than it needs to be.” Ramon started for the door.

Voices called, coming nearer. The door guard blanched and stepped in. “Lord and lady! The wall! We are beset!”

They ran.

Up the twisting stairs, out onto the battlements, as the castle shuddered at another blow. There, though, they jolted to a halt, staring.

She towered above the ramparts, very high above the ramparts, with a killer figure and blood in her eye, beautiful in her rage, raising a boulder in her fist to aim at the wall. “Summon him, I say!” Her voice was thunder, making the stones shake. “Where is this craven, this churl, this limb of Shaitan? Hale him forth to answer me, or I shall demolish your castle!”

“Spare us, O Fairest of the Djinn!” the captain of the guard pleaded.

“Yes, spare us, Princess Lakshmi, I beg of you!” Ramon cried. “Of which limb of Satan do you speak?”

“Your son, wizard, and do not think to cozen me with your handsome face and fair words! I speak of Matthew Mantrell! Bring him forth to me on the instant, or all your lives are forfeit!”

Infantry marched before them, clearing a way through the people who thronged the boulevard, salaaming and acclaiming the Caliph. He rode on a white mare, Matt following him on a brown, side by side with a suspicious-looking man with the indefinable aura of a wizard.

Matt tried for professional rapport. “What spells have you tried against these unbelievers?” “Everything we can think of,” the wizard snapped, and turned away, glowering.

Matt sighed and reined in his horse as the Caliph did, then dismounted and followed him up the steps to the parapet on the city wall. Somewhere along the way he had lost Balkis. He told himself not to worry, that she was as adept at survival as he was, if not more so—but he couldn’t help a trace of anxiety all the same.

Outside the city, drums began to throb—not the rattle of snare drums, but the deep grumbling of tympani. They climbed the wall to see a dark mass surging toward them in the deepening dusk. The parapet too was dark, with only an occasional torch to relieve the gloom.

“You learned that light on the wall only blinded you to what your enemy was doing, eh?” Matt asked.

The Caliph looked up in surprise. “Even so, Lord Wizard. Have you fought at night before?”

“Not against an army,” Matt said, “but hand-to-hand was bad enough.”

Several people glanced at him, startled, the Muslim wizard among them, and Matt realized they had heard about his battle with the evil giant. The wizard quickly looked away, mouth thinning, but the others eyed Matt warily—the fact that he hadn’t boasted about it outright made him even more formidable.

Matt didn’t tell them that he knew about eyes adapting to darkness from junior high school science, or that the giant would have crushed him if a stronger titan, Colmain, hadn’t come to his rescue.

On the other hand, it had been his magic that waked Colmain … both giants, in fact …

The mass of barbarians rolled closer and closer. Along the wall captains cried, “Nock arrows! Draw!”

Suddenly, the darkness at the base of the wall seemed to become deeper, totally lightless for a space of fifty feet out, embracing the front ranks of the barbarians. They disappeared into it.

“First spell, wizard!” the Muslim magus snapped. “How shall you counter it?”

Scaling ladders slammed against the parapet, and with bloodcurdling shrieks the barbarians came swarming out of the darkness at the foot of the wall.

“Light!” a captain cried, and soldiers lit fire-arrows. “Loose!”

The flaming arrows lanced down into the dark cloud. For a minute or so they gave enough light to show stocky silhouettes moving toward the bases of the ladders; then the darkness seemed to fold in on them and they were gone.

But the light had lasted long enough for the archers to take aim. “Loose!” the captain cried again, and hundreds of arrows lanced half the Tartars. They fell backward cursing, and knocked other dozens off as they plunged.

The other half came howling over the wall.