The Crusading Wizard

CHAPTER 3

Idris stared, then took a deep breath and said, “Yes. No wonder there was an aura of magic about you. I can see why you’d want a potion to keep you from going into heat.”

“Can you help me?” Balkis asked, forgetting her cat-shape for the moment.

Idris frowned. “What was that? I almost understood it.”

Balkis stared up at her, amazed. It had never occurred to her to try to speak as a cat-she’d never been near anyone who wouldn’t have called her a monster. She tried again, slowly and carefully, to shape her mewing into words. “Xhan … eeeeyooo … help … mew?”

Idris nodded. “Yes, you can talk even in that form. Your ‘kuh’ and ‘hih’ sounds come out more like coughs than anything else, but if I strain, I can understand you. You’ll have to practice that, my lass.”

Balkis felt a thrill of accomplishment and pranced with delight.

“And as to my helping you,” Idris said, “there’s still no potion-but for a cat’s heat, there is a spell. Hold still, now, and let me sing.” She knelt by the little cat, hands almost touching, and began a tune in a language Balkis had never heard. Somehow she understood it, though, and wondered if it were akin to the songs of the wind in the leaves. Idris was calling upon the spirits of wood, water, wind, and earth to shelter Balkis and keep her body from its sexual urges for all but one week out of the year. Perspiration sprang out on her brow as she chanted, but at last she sat back on her heels, done. “There, now. You’ll have to keep from changing into a cat during the week before and after the shortest day of the year, but even if you should forget and do so, there aren’t all that many male cats about then. Just pick yourself a house where you’re the only one.”

“I shall,” Balkis mewed. “Oh, thankyouthankyouthankyou!”

Idris nodded. “It is my pleasure. But you can return the favor by telling me how you came to be able to change forms. Somehow I doubt you were born a shape-shifter. Come, change back to a lass and tell me.”

Balkis willed it, and felt her body grow and swell until she stood before Idris again as a girl. “Thank you, good woman!”

“Show your thanks,” Idris suggested. “Tell me how you learned this trick.”

Balkis turned regretful. “I can’t say—I don’t remember. I’ve always been able to, that’s all I know.”

“But you say you have a dim memory of coming from a far place?”

“Yes, before I found Greta and Ludwig.” Tears filled Balkis’ eyes. “God rest their souls.”

“Lost them this last year, did you?” Idris gave her a smile of sympathy. “A difficult time, I know. Tell me what you can remember, then—all that you can.”

Balkis started to speak, but Idris turned away. “No, not standing here! For myself, I’m rather weary. Let’s sit, and sip some brew.”

The “brew” was powdered herbs in hot water. As they sat and sipped, Balkis told Idris the tale of her life. The older woman touched her hand with gentle sympathy when she spoke of losing her foster parents, then again when she explained why she had left her home.

“It comes to all of us sooner or later,” Idris told her, “unless we’re lucky enough to fall in love with a man who truly falls in love with us—but I’ve seen many a woman waste her life because she settled for a man she didn’t truly love, in order to have a house and home and children.” She shook her head sadly. “I don’t know who to pity more, her or her brood.”

“I’ve seen some, as you say.” Balkis’ tears dried in the contemplation of those less fortunate than herself. “Most of them seem able to convince themselves they’re happy enough.”

“And so do their men,” Idris said grimly, “which only proves how well people can lie to themselves. No, you’ve made the right choice, lass, hard though it may be. Now see if you can remember in the other direction.”

“Other direction?” Balkis frowned. “You mean back into infancy?”

“I mean that indeed.” Idris took the chain from about her neck and held up the pendant—a polished crystal almost an inch across. She held it by the chain and let it swing, watching it thoughtfully, and Balkis followed her gaze, staring at the bauble. It glittered in the sunlight that came through the window, flashing reflections here and there. She felt the urge to bat at it with her paw, then remembered with a shock that she was in human form and told herself sternly to behave.

“Let your mind rest,” Idris intoned. “Sit at your ease, let your limbs go loose. Let your thoughts roam, let them go back and back. Remember, but do not let the memories disturb your tranquility. Be at peace, but bring to mind the time that you first slipped your shape into that of a cat.”

Perhaps it was the brew, or perhaps the slow, soft sound of Idris’ voice, perhaps even the feeling of being safe and secure again—but no matter what it was, a delicious languor spread over Balkis’ limbs and penetrated her whole body. Her eyelids grew heavy, but she couldn’t bear to let them close and lose sight of that lovely whirling crystal and the flashes of light that coruscated off its surface. It seemed to swell, the room darkening about it, until it filled her sight completely. Then, in the maze of its flashing, she saw a face, a green face with hair like river weeds, and a green hand reaching down to touch her.

She stiffened. “I remember!”

But the face was gone, and the glittering crystal was only a bauble, tiny in a shadowed room suddenly huge.

Idris’ voice stayed slow and calm. “What do you remember?”

“A—A green face, and a green hand.” Balkis sank back in the chair again. “Huge, they were, filling the whole world.”

“River spirits,” Idris said thoughtfully, “and yourself a baby. Come, let yourself slip back into languor, let your thoughts roam free again, and drift back … drifting free … drifting back … drifting … drifting …”

The room darkened, the bauble shone, and heaviness stole over her limbs again. This time, though, Balkis couldn’t keep her eyes open; they drooped shut, darkness came, the chair seemed to rise and fall beneath her, rise and fall with the flow ofa current, and there were stars in the darkness, stars behind the green head and the green hand, a wooden rectangle about them, and she began to tellidris what she saw, but somewhere in the telling, she fell asleep.

She woke to see the room quite dark, lit only by two tallow candles and the fire on the hearth. She blinked, looking up, and saw Idris busy with a wooden spoon, stirring a pot that hung over the fire. A delicious aroma came from it, a stew of some sort. Balkis stirred in her chair, and Idris looked up. “Awake, are you?”

“You used magic on me,” Balkis accused.

“Call it that if you will,” Idris told her. “I won’t. What do you remember?”

The question caught her by surprise, but the host of images it evoked brought her to sit bolt-upright, staring into the flames. “I … I remember … I remember it all!”

“Very good, for so small a baby.” Idris nodded. “I was quite impressed.”

“But … but what were they?” Balkis pleaded. “The wood around me-I suppose that was a box of some sort, and I was in it, and I must have been floating in water, for I felt the rise and fall beneath me—but why would my mother have set me adrift?”

“You remembered voices shouting and screaming in the distance,” Idris told her. “I would guess it was war, and your mother trying to save you. Amazing you heard, considering she had drugged you into sleep—but the sounds made you dream, and the drug made those dreams vivid.”

“You mean the green faces were part of the dream?”

“They might have been, but they looked like the water-spirits we call ‘nixies’ here. I don’t think an infant would have dreamt of such by herself. No, I think the drug had worn off by the time you saw them, and they were real enough—sprites who were struck by the novelty of a baby in a box, and took it into their heads to save you.”

“You make it sound like a moment’s whim!”

“It would have been,” Idris said, musing. “They are flighty things, nixies are, without the slightest notion of responsibility, and scarcely a germ of compassion. Life is only pleasure and gaming to them, and they’ve no patience with anything that does not please them. Indeed, I am surprised they paid attention long enough to take you to shore and call the dryads to help you.”

“The women who came out of the trees! They were dryads?”

“They were indeed,” Idris said. “Most trees have them, and the forest abounds with them—for those who can see. They are gentle, compassionate creatures, with a motherly instinct to them—as they’d have to be, to see their acorns grown to saplings.”

“So they took pity on an orphan, even if she were not of their own kind?”

“They did indeed. There are children abandoned in the wood every year because their parents can no longer feed them, and those who survive do so because they let the dryads care for them. In your own case, though, what matters most is that they changed you into a cat, which saved your life, then touched you, as the nixies had—indeed, they petted you quite a bit, and each stroke left a trace of magical power in its wake. The dryads here in Allustria did the same, so it’s no wonder you’ve such an aura of magic about you—they filled you with enough as to last your whole life, and then some!”

“But I don’t know any magic,” Balkis objected, then thought better. “At least, none but changing my form.”

“Then you’ll have to learn, won’t you?” Idris said. “And I’ll have to teach you.”

Balkis’ heart leaped with delight at the woman’s kindness, but she protested, “I only came for a potion to keep me from going into heat!”

“And found it, so you’ll be free to change shape whenever you wish,” Idris said, “and I always did like having a cat about. No, my lass, you had better stay and learn, for you’ve a destiny upon you, and you’ll need all the magic you can master to fulfill it.”

“A destiny?” Balkis stared. “How can you tell that?”

“I have the Second Sight.”

Balkis’ heart leaped with hope. “Have I?”

“Too early to say,” Idris replied, then with some asperity, “You might say thank you, you know.”

“Thank you indeed,” Balkis answered. “Thank you very much, and from the bottom of my heart.”

Learning magic came easily, and Balkis couldn’t understand why Idris kept warning her that it would take a great deal of hard work, that she must not let herself be down-hearted if she didn’t succeed at first, but must persevere in order to learn it. Balkis proved her wrong—she learned every spell by heart at one repetition, memorized every gesture at first sight, and somehow was able to turn her emotions and her will to the spell as easily as breathing.

“It’s all that magic you were steeped in,” Idris said, exasperated, “and the instinct for its use you’ve developed, changing your form all these years. You learn magic as easily as stalking a mouse! It’s not fair, it’s just not fair, when I had to work so long and hard to learn it!”

“But I’ve nowhere nearly so sharp a mind as you,” Balkis protested.

“Nowhere? Everywhere, say rather! You’ve at least as much intelligence as I, and you put a project into motion as soon as you think of it!”

“Well, of course,” Balkis said, surprised. “Why wait?”

“Why? Because you might not succeed, and there might be a deal of trouble if you don’t!”

“Oh, I couldn’t let that stop me,” Balkis explained. “I mean, I had to discover why Mama couldn’t see me, even though I was calling to her, didn’t I? And when I realized I’d slipped into kitten form, of course I had to change myself back to a baby.”

“Did you indeed!” Idris stared at her, arms akimbo. “Well, of course you had to, didn’t you? How young were you then?”

“Oh …” Balkis gazed off into space. “A year, perhaps two.”

“Few folk can remember so far.”

“Well, yes, but a two-year-old cat can.” Balkis flashed her a smile. “I remembered it as a cat when I was ten, so of course I remember it now as a human.”

“Yes, of course again,” Idris echoed, wondering. “But you had to learn not to change into a cat where people could see, didn’t you?”

“I did realize that, yes,” Balkis admitted, “especially when Mama used to tell me tales of witches in the wood, and the frightful monsters who dwelt there, too.”

“And after they died?” Idris asked, narrow-eyed. “How long did it take you to decide how to proceed with no guardians?”

Balkis’ smile turned cynical. “As soon as I realized the neighbor boys and, aye, even old men, were eyeing my parents’ cottage with as much greed as they were eyeing me. The answer was easy—turn to a cat, and go.”

“Yes, easy,” Idris said, looking rather numb. “Leave your possessions and your legacy, yes, nothing to it. But you might have changed into a cat in heat.”

“I had to wait until I was sure the season had passed, then hope I could reach you before it started again,” Balkis explained. “I’d heard tales of a witch who lived in the depths of the forest, and hoped you could help me—and would.” Her smile turned dazzling. “And bless you, my friend and teacher, you did!”

“And right glad I am to have done so.” But Idris frowned, considering. “So all your life you’ve had to solve problems and put the solutions into practice right away. No wonder you’re so quick to solve the magical puzzles I give you, and quicker to put them into practice.”

“I’d never thought of that,” Balkis said slowly. “I suppose it is a gift.”

“One well earned, if it is,” Idris said. “Here’s a new puzzle for you, then, child—in only six months you’ve learned all I can teach, but you clearly could learn a great deal more.”

“I don’t have to, though, do I?” Balkis cried. “Can’t I stay here with you?”

Idris’ manner softened, and she reached out to caress her pupil’s hair. “As long as you like, child, and glad I am of your company—but you would do yourself an injustice if you do not become all that you can be. How, then, shall you learn more?”

Balkis balked, knowing the answer but trying to turn away from it. “By attempting new spells that I make up myself?”

“Possible, but dangerous,” Idris said, “and a very long way of learning.”

Balkis’ heart sank “You’re telling me I must go find another teacher.”

Idris nodded heavily. “I am. To do less would deny that destiny that I can see hovering about you, lass. Mind you, I’ll not make you go, and when you do, I’ll long for your visits—but go you must, or regret it all your days.”

“Where could I go, then?” Balkis cried. “Where could I be safe?”

“For you, now?” Idris smiled without mirth. “Anyplace you like—you know enough magic to guard yourself well, and cope with anything but a magician who’s even stronger than yourself. You can be sure you’ll meet one sooner or later, lass, even if you stay here—and you would be better off by far to seek out a kindly one who draws his power from goodness, than to wait till an evil sorcerer finds you.”

Balkis shuddered at the thought. “Where shall I find a good wizard, then?”

“In Merovence,” Idris said, with decision, “for women are treated better there than anywhere else.”

Balkis frowned. “Why in Merovence?”

Idris shrugged. “Belike because a woman rules there—Queen Alisande. Perhaps it is also because of her that the minstrels there have begun to sing of the glories of courtly love, of admiration so strong that it can kindle desire for a woman all by itself, a desire that need not be consummated but is ecstasy when it is. Such a notion exalts women far beyond the rest of the world, which regards us as little more than beasts of burden, and chattels that men trade like coins.”

Balkis shuddered. “Merovence let it be, then! But to which wizard shall I go?”

“Why not begin with the best?” Idris gave her a sunny smile. “Ask the Lord Wizard himself—the queen’s husband and consort, and by all tellings, the mightiest in the realm! If he turns you down, go to a lesser—but I’ve a notion that he’ll take you as a pupil for his wife’s sake, if not for his own.”

Balkis turned thoughtful, and voiced what Idris hadn’t. “And because his wife is the queen, he would be unlikely to importune me for sexual favors?”

“For his wife,” Idris agreed, “but more because, if he draws his power from Goodness, adultery would weaken him tremendously. No, child, seek you the Lord Wizard of Merovence and you’ll be as safe as you may, and become tremendously learned in the bargain!”

“Let us hope I can bargain well indeed,” Balkis said darkly.

Cat-memory served Balkis well, and she had no trouble joining a mule train bound for Merovence-as a mouser, of course. The merchants hired a full company of armed guards, ones who specialized in protecting commerce, for they had to pass through deep forests and cross broad rivers. Twice the soldiers had to beat back forest bandits, once they had to fight off river pirates, and they reached Merovence with only a dozen wounded. Some of those wounds would have killed the soldiers, though, had not Balkis crept among the groaning and fevered in the makeshift hospital wagon, and recited healing charms in her meowing voice. One or two soldiers later told of bizarre dreams in which the caravan’s cat spoke to them, and all their mates enjoyed a good laugh over such an outlandish tale.

At last the morning sun burned away the mist, to show a small city lapping up the slopes of a long hill, on top of which stood a castle with high walls and graceful towers.

“Bordestang!” the merchants cried, and their eyes glinted in anticipation of sharp trading and good profits. “The Queen’s Town!”

Balkis’ pulse quickened, too, but whether it was in anticipation or dread she did not know. She had some hard dealing of her own to do.

Far to the east, Suleiman the Caliph had some hard decisions to make—in the thick of battle. But his wits worked at their quickest and most certain when they were encased by a steel helmet that rang with the echoes of battle-cries, screams of pain and rage, and the clash of steel, of sword against sword and lance against shield.

“Back!” he commanded his adjutant. “Our soldiers are more skilled, but for every barbarian they slay, five more gallop in—and every single one of them is mounted!”

Cavalry was only half of his army. The adjutant nodded, grim-faced, never doubting his sovereign for a moment, and turned to signal to the trumpeter. The man set his instrument to his lips, and the signal for retreat blared out over the army. Other horns took it up, momentarily drowning the sounds of steel. The Arabic army pulled together and began their retreat, foot by foot, defending against overeager barbarians every inch of the way. Fired with triumph, many of the horde rode to the flanks to slay as many of the Muslims as possible, some even attempting to ride behind the army—but its back was to a river, and the rearguard defended the bridgehead well. Nomad after nomad rode against their grounded spears, and died.

On their own flanks, their comrades met similar fates, for the Arab crossbows thrummed and sent a message of death that the barbarians received before they could come near the army—received in their chests, fell from their horses, and died. Their companions turned, but loosed arrows from tough, short, compound bows before they fled. Many of their arrows fell short; those that did reach the Arabs clattered against light armor or shields and fell, to be trodden underfoot. Only a few found flesh; only a few of the retreating army fell on the flanks.

Their comrades in the van, though, fared far worse, for they were indeed outnumbered five to one. They had become the rearguard as the army retreated. They fought furiously. Crossbows and archers could do nothing, for the enemy followed within yards of them, charging again and again against their own blooded mares. Horses screamed and reared, lashing out at one another with sharpened hooves, and the barbarian horsemen rode against trained and disciplined Arab cavalry. Behind them waited infantrymen, hungering for a few feet of space to rush in, stab upward with their spears, and retreat. Those strokes were short, for the barbarians rode ponies, and if the Arab lances did not transfix the riders, they brought low the horses. The Caliph’s cavalry struck downward at their opponents, and though it seemed to take ten strokes to slay even one of the tough little men, die they did.

Then hooves rang hollow on the pontoon bridge, and the army yielded their platform board by board. But as the rearguard passed the first of the boats that supported the bridge, they slashed the ropes that held them in place, then struck as deeply as they could with lances. The barbarians followed them onto the bridge—and sank, their horses screaming. They could not stop quickly, for hundreds of their fellows pressed them from behind, and a thousand barbarians plunged into the river as boat after boat drifted from the bridge, then sank.

A few barbarians had managed to thrust themselves so deeply into the Arabic army that they were carried away with the retreat, calling out in despair in a dozen different barbarous tongues—but as the soldiers swung scimitars high to slay, those same “barbarians” called out in good Arabic, “Not me, you fool! I’m a spy for the Caliph!”

The soldiers didn’t believe them, of course, but they couldn’t take the chance. They bound the barbarians and took them along.

When the army had finished the crossing and the remnants of the pontoon bridge were drifting away, the trumpets blew the halt, and the Arabs turned to digging a ditch to guard their perimeter, and to pitching their tents. As dusk closed in, campfires flared, cooking pots steamed, and the army paused to lick its wounds, sentries vigilant for the slightest sign of barbarians moving in the night—there was always the chance that they might find a way to cross in the darkness. It seemed unlikely, though, for they rode their horses like men who came from plains that stretched so wide they scarcely knew what a true river was.

By the Caliph’s tent, braziers flared high as the captives were brought before him to be greeted by a coded question, to which they answered the password-answer—if they knew it.

“Who brought the Qaa’ba?”

“Ibrahim and Ishmael.”

“What would you have of Toledo?”

“Steel.”

“What is damascened?”

“Swords.”

The Caliph’s own wizards listened to the exchanges, and told those who truly knew from those who merely guessed—for there were a few barbarians who spoke Arabic with accents so thick it was clear they had learned it as a foreign tongue, and poorly at that. Some were indeed the Caliph’s spies, though, recruited by other spies. Each, for his own reason, had come to hate the cause he served.

Those who did not answer the questions, or who tried and failed, were sent to a squadron of men who had lost brothers or fathers in that day’s battle. When the true spies had been winnowed from the accidental captives, the Caliph asked them, grim-faced, “Whom do we fight?”

Now one or two spies interpreted for the barbarians who had taken the Caliph’s coin, and who told more than the disguised Arabs, for they had known the answers for years.

“We all are members of hordes,” one barbarian explained, “what you would call tribes. But we are of many nations—Turks, Pechenegs, Mongols, Kirkhiz, Kazakhs, Polovtsi, Manchus, and more—any whom Olgor Khan can sway to his service.”

“Who is Olgor Khan?” Caliph Suleiman asked, his brow dark.

“You would call him a king,” another barbarian answered. “He was born the son of the Khan of the Azov Horde, but when he came to power, a priest with burning eyes journeyed to him from the distant South, one who called himself Arjasp, and told him that if he worshiped the god of darkness and strove to bring all people into the god’s power, that god would exalt him and make him emperor of the world.”

“And he let himself be seduced by the lure of power?” Suleiman asked.

“Of power and riches,” a third barbarian said, “for the priest promised him the wealth of all the world, masses of gold and gems by the bushel, if he would bow down and worship Arjasp ‘s god.”

“What name has this god?” Suleiman demanded.

The barbarians answered, “Angra Mainyu, or Ahriman.”

The Caliph stiffened, staring at them in horror.