The Crusading Wizard

CHAPTER 22

Matt kept on walking. Boots clattered on the cobbles behind him. A heavy hand landed on his shoulder and spun him about. “You, Arab! What are you doing here?”

It was one of the aides, and two more were coming up behind him, leaving the rest of the party to stare anxiously at the archway. Matt gave the man his best idiot’s smile. “I came to worship, effendi.”

“Did you now!” The Tartar stared at him narrow-eyed, searching his face for a sign of malice. Apparently he was a better horseman than an intriguer, for he pushed Matt away with a grunt. “Well, there will be no more praying this day! Away with you now!”

“Don’t let him go so easily,” his mate objected. “We could do with a little fun.”

Matt went cold inside.

“Aye, an Arab like the ones who beat us today!” The third aide spun Matt about and slammed a fist into his belly. Matt doubled over, pain making him limp, as the man stepped aside for another, who straightened Matt with an uppercut. Matt saw stars, heard a roaring in his ears, felt the blow to his chest, then heard the howl of pain. When the stars cleared, he realized he was leaning against the wall of the mosque, and the man who had hit him was still howling, shaking a hand that was beginning to blister with an ugly burn. His comrades stepped in, faces stormy, to finish the job, but one thought surfaced through Matt’s sea of pain. He reached into the robes over his breast and drew forth the wand, crying,

The wand spat sparks, a fountain of sparks that set the Tartars’ clothes on fire. Matt stood staring, mind beginning to work again as he watched the men hopping about howling, swatting at burning patches of cloth in a sort of dance.

“Quickly! Follow!” said a mewing voice.

. Mind triumphed over matter, or at least pain, and Matt remembered who spoke with meows. He turned and stumbled after Balkis.

At the back of the mosque the cat stopped by a small door, barely large enough for Matt, and said, “I have found it—but can you open it?”

“I think so.” Matt jabbed the wand into the keyhole. They heard a muffled explosion, then silence broken only by the howls of burning Tartars. Matt pulled the wand out—and the door swung open.

“Quickly!” Balkis urged. “Those Tartars will come for you soon, and their bums will bring them with rage!”

“They’ll be in hot pursuit,” Matt agreed, and stepped through the doorway. He pulled the panel shut behind him and groped down the darkness of a passageway. Behind him, he heard angry shouts and boots clattering on pavement; then the noises faded.

“Quickly!” Balkis’ voice hissed ahead of him. “Why are you so slow?”

“Some of us can’t see in the dark,” Matt grunted. He felt doorways to either side of him as he moved on down the passage and wondered what behind-the-scenes facilities he was passing—wondered also if they were original, or a conqueror’s additions.

Then he could see light in the archway at the end, and stepped out into the vast open space of the mosque.

He was behind the old Arab’s throne, in an excellent position to see the junior sorcerer’s face where the man knelt over his master, sprinkling powders and chanting verses. Matt’s hair tried to stand on end, for he understood the words the man was saying. He was trying to bring the dead back to life, to summon the soul that was already gone.

And it came. Air thickened above the corpse, and the old Arab’s face appeared. The junior sorcerer took one look and flinched away, screaming, hands raised to block the vision from his sight.

Matt wondered what could be so horrible. Then the vision became completely clear, and he saw the flames that wreathed the head.

“Look upon me, Gasim, as you wished to do,” the hollow voice bade the junior sorcerer. “See the torment with which Ahriman rewards his followers!” Suddenly the head tilted back and an unearthly scream ripped from its mouth. “I … I shall not, my master!” the ghost gasped. “I shall speak no truth, I shall … shall …”

“Who … who has brought you to this pass?” Gasim cried. Matt knew what was coming. He pulled out the wand and ran toward the man.

The ghost materialized an arm and hand, spearing out at an impossibly backward angle at Matt. “They did!”

Gasim looked up, face working in fear and anger. He raised his hands and began to chant.

“I shall take the younger!” Balkis stood beside him in human form. She pulled the wand from Matt’s hand and pointed it toward the living man, chanting a quick verse in Allustrian. Matt heard the man shout, but he didn’t stop to look, only turned to the ghostly face, trying to ignore the hollow eyes and the grimace of pain as he shouted,

The face screamed again, leaning back—and back, and back, till it was only a line of darkness, then gone.

Matt whirled around to see Gasim flat on his back, arms wrapped about his chest, legs crossed, lips working but making no sound. Balkis stood over him, brandishing the wand like a club. “What shall we do with him?”

“Get him out of here before those Tartars get curious about the screaming!”

Even as he said it, five stocky shapes darkened the doorway. They saw only a man, a girl, and their own sorcerer lying supine. Scimitars hissed out, and they came on at the run.

Matt grabbed Balkis’ wrist with his free hand. “Quick! Get a hand on that sorcerer!” He swirled the wand to draw an imaginary circle around the three of them, chanting,

The mosque started to grow dim around them. The shouts of the Tartars came closer and louder, but so did the roaring in Matt’s ears. A hand seemed to touch his arm, then instantly let go, and he thought he heard a scream fading into the distance but couldn’t be sure. The whole world appeared to heave and tilt, and so did his stomach, but he managed to choke it down.

Then things steadied, sunlight enveloped him, he heard something chirping nearby, and he staggered, then caught himself.

Balkis didn’t. She overbalanced and fell into the mud beside the brook.

Matt dropped to a knee and helped her up. “Sorry. That’s the roughest ride I’ve had yet. Must have been the aura of sorcery in the place.” Then he broke off, staring, and bit his lip to keep from laughing, for though her veil was clean, Balkis had fallen with her face in the mud.

She wiped it off with both hands. “Faugh! What manner of place is this?”

“Oh, a really pretty place, once we’re here.” Matt’s knees suddenly went weak; he sat down. “The brook makes very pretty music, too. It’s just that it has muddy patches here and there.”

Balkis looked around her and saw the beauty of the mountain wall rising a hundred yards away across a meadow filled with wildflowers. Matt thought of mentioning that she still had mud on her nose and around her mouth to her chin, but just then she breathed out a sigh that turned into a shudder. “Yes. It is pretty, very. And so clean, after the sink of depravity into which the barbarians have made of that city!”

“We have not!”

They turned to look. The barbarian sorcerer was struggling to sit up. “We shall purge, cleanse the earth of unbelievers! We shall conquer all, and thus put an end to these silly wars! We shall put an end to the fairy-tale notions of any god but Ahriman, and extirpate their foolish notions of right and wrong!”

Matt stared at him. “You don’t really believe any of that!”

“Wh-What?” Gasim’s voice faltered as he tried to make the question a demand. “How can you argue with Ahriman?”

“How can you believe him?” Matt retorted. “Don’t you know he’s the Prince of Lies?”

“That is a vile rumor put about by his enemies!”

“You just saw somebody who knows firsthand how badly Ahriman lied to him,” Matt said grimly. “Arjasp told him Ahriman would give him eternal luxury for his service, didn’t he?”

“So he will!”

“Sure, the luxury of central heating,” Matt said with full sarcasm, “only the old priest gets to be in the center of the heat.”

“A vile lie!”

“It was a vile lie indeed, to promise him pleasure and give him pain—and when he tried to tell you the truth about it, he found out that no matter how bad the pain was, it could get worse. It could always get worse.”

“An illusion you conjured up,” Gasim accused, but he wouldn’t meet Matt’s eyes.

“No, you did the conjuring,” Matt reminded him. “Is it my fault that you got what you asked for?”

“It must be your fault!” Gasim cried. “You must have sent a glamour instead of a true summoning! How you did it, I know not—but you must have!”

“I didn’t,” Matt said sternly, “and you know it. Think, Gasim—it’s not too late. Your boss put himself into Ahriman’s power. He declared himself to be the Liar’s man, to do the Destroyer’s work. You don’t have to let that happen. You can turn away from the Prince of Lies, turn to Ahura Mazda. Ahriman has no power over you unless you give it to him.”

Uncertainty shadowed Gasim’s eyes; for a moment his face was gaunt with fear. Then he summoned bluster to drown his doubts. “It is you who speak untruths! Your power that you wish me to accept! Ahriman will blast you, will fry you, will turn you to ashes!” He lifted his hands to start spellcasting. “And I shall begin it! I shall seal you into a prison that shall endure a thousand years!”

Balkis snatched the wand from Matt and leveled it at Gasim. She started to chant in Allustrian.

But Matt didn’t want a charred corpse, he wanted information. “Prison? Don’t make me laugh! Either of us has more than enough magic to break out of any prison you could think up! Don’t we, lass?”

Balkis broke off her chant to stare up at him as though he were mad—but she saw the calculating look in his eye and said, “Aye. Why, we can summon a djinna, and any of the djinn could break from a prison wrought by Ahriman’s magic.”

It was a great thought, and Matt picked up on it instantly. “Yeah! Any of the djinn, even a baby! After all, any prison of Ahriman’s must be just another one of his lies, a mere illusion!”

“It is you who lie, ignorant warlock!” Gasim dropped back out of hysterics into vindictiveness. “Why, even now we hold two djinn children in a prison wrought by Arjasp’s magic!”

“A prison for djinn?” Matt scoffed. “Maybe in a city, maybe in Persia where there are cities thousands of years old—but in Tartary, far out in the midst of the central plains, where their idea of a city is a collection of tents?”

Gasim blanched. “How did you know where the babies are?”

“We didn’t.” Matt grinned. “It was just a guess. But we do know now. How about the two mortal babies with them?”

“What about them?” Gasim frowned.

Matt’s spirits soared—Pay dirt! But he kept his poker face on. “Oh, sure! Sure you’ve got four full-sized babies in there together! And what’s keeping the kids alive? They have a prison spacious enough for a wet nurse, too?”

“Fool!” the sorcerer spat. “Do you think we would risk the death of such valuable hostages?”

Matt almost went limp with relief, but he forced himself to stay upright and sarcastic. “Why not? You’re going to kill them anyway. Their parents will never let Evil conquer the world just to save their babies.”

Doubt flickered in the sorcerer’s eyes, but he said, “If their parents do not go back to their homeland as they promised, we will slay one of the infants. We will not have to slay the boy.”

The thought of his baby daughter dead turned Matt’s stomach so much he almost collapsed then and there—almost. “So you’re keeping them alive by magic.”

“Of course,” Gasim said, his sneer comfortably back in place. “Do you really need to have this explained, foolish one? The prison itself provides for them.” Then Gasim frowned, suddenly realizing they had stayed on the topic for an unusual amount of time. “Why are you so concerned with these babes?”

“It could be simple professional curiosity,” Matt hedged.

“Or it could be because he is the father of two of them,” Balkis snapped, “and the djinna we can summon is the mother of the other two.”

Gasim’s face convulsed with terror, but as quickly turned back into a sneer. “Oh, verily! A princess of the Marid will come at your beck and call!”

“So he knows which djinn babies they are, too,” Matt said softly.

“You are too patient,” Balkis snapped. “Let us find a quicker way to learn all he knows.” She lifted the wand.

Gasim cringed away, but started gesturing and rattling out an Arabic verse.

Matt laid a hand on Balkis’ arm. “No, I think it’ll be more speedy to let him meet the worried mother.”

Gasim broke off his verse as a whirlwind sprang up to tower over him. He cringed, covering his head with his arms. The whirlwind shrank down to the size of a dust-devil, its winds slowing until its dust dropped away, revealing Lakshmi, human-sized, slowing in her final pirouette. The sorcerer cried out in terror, trying to scramble away.

Lakshmi jumped to conclusions and advanced on him, blood in her eye.

“No!” Matt cried. “He can’t tell you much if he’s in pieces!”

“True,” Lakshmi said, “but if he knows aught of my children, be sure he shall speak.” She darted forward, zagging when Gasim zigged, and held him up by the back of his collar. Gasim writhed, his neckline digging into his windpipe, his face turning an interesting shade of mauve.

“All he knows is hearsay,” Matt said quickly. “Right, Balkis? … Balkis?” He looked about, in a sudden panic because the girl had disappeared. Then he thought to look down, and sure enough, there sat a small black-and-white cat with a brown nose and chin. Matt remembered the mud and was sure who she was. “Great! So you’ll have to take it all on my word!”

“I trust you,” Lakshmi said, “now.” She regarded the wriggling sorcerer. “What does he know?”

“Uh, you’ll never hear it if he chokes to death.”

Lakshmi turned to him, frowning. “But he cannot utter spells if his throat is pinched!”

“True, but he can’t breathe, either,” Matt pointed out. “Let him down and ask him, okay? You can always kill him later, if you don’t like his answers.”

“I will like the truth!” Lakshmi dropped the man into a pitiful heap. “Or, more to the point, I will accept the truth whether I like it or not, and let him live!”

Gasim rolled to his knees, groveling. “Spare me, O Fairest of the Fair! I abjure Ahriman and all his lies! From this moment forth I shall speak only truth, and devote myself to Ahura Mazda all my days!”

Rumbling sounded all about them, and the ground trembled. Matt fell, but Lakshmi dropped to her knees, digging her hands down through the grass into the soil, and chanted a verse in Arabic—a long verse, but the longer it went on, the less the ground shook. When the earthquake stopped, the djinna came to her feet again, dusting her hands. “That was partly magic and partly prayer—to Allah, the Source and Creator of all. Your conception of Ahura Mazda is but an imperfect understanding of the One God. Still, through the mirror of your Lord of Light, you do look upon the True God. If you seek safety from Shaitan—no matter that you call him Ahriman—if you seek safety, I say, surrender yourself to Allah, and testify that there is no god but God, and that Mohammed is His prophet!”

“I … I will surrender, as you say,” Gasim gasped, staring

up at her in awe.

Lakshmi’s severity seemed to lessen a bit. “Then you shall be safe from the Prince of Lies and his works. Tell me now, unworthy one, what you know of my children.”

“I … only know what I have heard from the high priest of Ahriman, here in Baghdad, O Marid,” Gasim babbled. “The babes are hidden away together, in a place known only to Arjasp the high priest. That is all my master told me!”

Lakshmi was silent for minutes, and Gasim began to tremble again. At last the djinna reached out and prodded him with a toe, none too gently. “Would we learn more if we gave him a bit of pain?”

“No!” yelped the former sorcerer. “I have foresworn Ahriman and his lying ways!”

“I don’t think he did know anything more,” Matt agreed. “He was too quick to boast. If he’d had anything else to bargain with, he would have used it then.”

Lakshmi glowered down at the miserable ball of a man. He glanced up, saw her expression, gasped, and buried his face again.

“I think I shall let him live,” the djinna said, “but I cannot speak for my husband. Go, man, and go quickly, as far from this place as you can!”

“I—I go, Princess!” Gasim scrambled to his feet and backed away, bowing. “Ever shall I acclaim your mercy! Ever shall I pray that you prosper! Ever shall I—”

“Ever shall you go, and speak of the mercy of Allah wherever you find yourself!” Lakshmi snapped. “Begone!”

Gasim gulped down his last thank-you and fled.

Lakshmi watched him go. “How long do you think his conversion will last?”

“Ordinarily, I would have said until he made it back into the city, and among the barbarians again,” Matt said judiciously, “but considering the fright you gave him, I have a notion he’ll bypass Baghdad and keep on going until he comes to a mosque that hasn’t been desecrated. I think this is one conversion that will last, Princess.”

“Will he be able to stop wandering?” asked a mewing voice.

Lakshmi looked down. “Are you there, little friend?” She considered. “Perhaps not. I may have cursed him with lifelong fleeing. If so, he may count himself lightly punished.” She looked more closely at the little cat and frowned. “What has happened to your face?”

The cat stared back at her. “I do not know. What has?”

“Just a little accident,” Matt explained to Balkis. “You didn’t get all the mud off. It’s a problem that has a very simple solution, the next time you change back to a human.”

“What solution is that?” Balkis demanded.

“Soap and water.” Matt turned to Lakshmi. “Maybe we should tell your husband about this?”

“Aye, at once!” Lakshmi said. “Then off we shall go, to Kharakhorum. Come!” She caught Matt with her right arm and Balkis with her left as she swelled, growing huge, tucking them both against her bosom and springing into the sky.

“Oh-h-h-h-h … here we go again!” Matt wailed.

Balkis simply curled up in the crook of Lakshmi’s arm and stared down, watching the landscape rush by, fascinated all over again.

Half an hour later the bosom against which Matt was cuddled was significantly harder, and it was Marudin’s bulging arm that held him. Balkis had elected to stay with Lakshmi, and Matt was rather grateful not to have to endure her claws.

“I shall be forever in your debt for discovering the whereabouts of my children, mortal man,” Marudin’s voice rumbled.

“My pleasure,” Matt called back. “Just remember, we haven’t found them yet. We’re only a little closer, that’s all.”

“I shall remember,” Prince Marudin promised.

A huge bellow sounded all about them. Marudin rocked, then spun; the world went whirling past them, and Matt found himself falling, the djinni’s arm gone. He looked up and saw the jagged peaks of the Hindu Kush Mountains, thousands of feet below but racing up at him. He howled for help, but the wind tore his words away as he fell and kept falling.