The Crusading Wizard

CHAPTER 30

“When shall we become small enough to fit into this gem?” Balkis asked.

“I hate to say it,” Matt said, “but I think we already are.”

“What!” Balkis’ hand yanked tight on his.

Turning toward her, he could barely see her through the mist. “I think this fog all around us is the outer shell of the gem. We‘re not just tiny, we’re almost microscopic.”

Balkis only stared at him with wide, dark eyes. Matt turned and started walking again. He felt a slight tug on his hand, then she came with him.

Only a few steps later the mist began to lighten. A few steps after that it thinned, then was gone—and Matt and Balkis stopped, staring at an astounding landscape.

They stood at the top of a rise. Before them, a meadow filled with red, white, and pink flowers fell away to a rose-colored stream. Beyond the water stood a forest of rosebushes grown into trees, with reddish bark and russet leaves filled with dusky pink blossoms. Above them, the sky stretched, pink and translucent.

“It is enchanted,” Balkis breathed.

“Literally, I’m afraid,” Matt agreed.

But Balkis wasn’t listening; she had raised her gaze to the sky. “Surely that cannot be the surface of the gem!”

“I think it is,” Matt said. “At least we’ll walk in the midst of loveliness. Let’s go.”

But they were only a few steps down the hill before he stopped again.

“What troubles you?” Balkis asked.

“Those flowers,” Matt said, “the red ones.”

“What of them?” Balkis looked more closely. “They are only poppies.” She frowned. “Why do I know of such?”

“A memory left over from infancy,” Matt suggested, “and they’re triggering one of mine, from childhood. They remind me of a story I once read.” He fished in his pouch and came up with the two lumps of incense the priest had given them in Samarkand. “Hold this under your nose, lass, just in case.”

“In case of what?”

“Sleepiness.”

“I can scarce credit that,” Balkis said.

“I know the feeling,” Matt said. “My credit used to be pretty scarce, too. But it can’t hurt to try.”

Within twenty paces Balkis said in surprise, “I do begin to feel somewhat drowsy!”

“Keep that incense close to the nose,” Matt told her.

“But it is so unpleasant a scent, when it is all in a lump like this!”

“That’s what we need,” Matt told her. Then inspiration struck. “It shouldn’t bother you—I’ve known cats to make much more unpleasant scents.”

Balkis bridled instantly. “There is no need, when we are properly cared for!”

“What ‘we’?” Matt taunted. “You’re a human at the moment.”

“Once a cat, always a cat,” Balkis insisted. “There will ever be much of the feline in me, and when I am in cat-guise, there will always be much of the woman!”

“Then how come toms don’t stay half man?”

“Toms are disgusting! If you wish to blame cats for bad smells, there are your culprits!”

“Yeah, well, at least they do their jobs and catch mice and chase squirrels.”

“Do you mean to imply that I do not do my share of work?” Balkis spat. “Must I recite for you all I have done to save you and help find your kittens?”

“No, you don’t,” Matt said, “and I’m sorry if I’ve given offense.”

Balkis stared, caught flat-footed by the apology. Then she asked, “Why did you make such insults, then?”

“To get us through that field of poppies,” Matt said.

Balkis kept staring at him, then whirled to look back and see the broad sweep of flowers behind them.

“It’s harder to fall asleep when you’re angry,” Matt explained.

Balkis turned to him, a touch more respect in her gaze now. “You are devious.”

“Shh!” Matt pressed a finger to his lips. “I don’t think we should say that word here.”

“What? De … Why not?” It was the student hungry for knowledge who asked now.

“Because of where the word came from. I’ll explain later.” Matt had just realized that devious might come from daeva, the old Persian word for a demon. “Into the woods, okay?”

They went in among the trees and managed a whole four paces before tentacles came snaking out from the roots of the trees to grab their ankles.

“Hold on!” Matt threw an arm around Balkis to keep his feet from being pulled out from under him. She leaned on him, too, managing to stay on her feet. Matt kicked his right foot against the left ankle. Something screeched off in the trees and the tentacles loosened. He kicked his left foot free and snapped the heel against the tentacles on his right foot. A muffled howl sounded off to his right, and the tentacles let go. Matt turned and started tromping on the tentacles holding Balkis. He kicked them off, turned and started them back on the path—and jerked to a stop. He didn’t even need to look down; he knew that new tentacles had grabbed their ankles, and he could see many, many more writhing over the forest path ahead.

“We must work magic,” Balkis said, her voice trembling.

“Right you are,” Matt said. “I don’t think a cat would have any better luck with this than a human.”

Balkis shivered within his arm.

Matt recited,

The tentacles unwrapped from their ankles in a snap and shot back into the trees like window shades pulled and let go. Cries of dismay echoed all around.

“Come on.” Matt hurried Balkis forward. “Let’s get out of this wood before they learn how to unroll themselves!”

But a dozen steps later Balkis cried out and pointed downward. Looking at the trail, Matt saw the prints of two pairs of tiny slippers.

“The djinn twins!” he exclaimed with relief.

“But how did they pass that gamut of grasping tentacles?” Balkis wondered.

“I don’t think they did.” Matt frowned ahead along the trail, seeing the little footprints leading away. “I think the grabbers were positioned here after the children had gone through. The point was to keep them in, not to catch them.”

“But they will do quite well to prevent rescue?”

“Not all that well,” Matt said, starting forward again. “Useless against any adult with magic—and no other kind could have come in here. You watch the trail, lass—I’ll watch the trees.”

Balkis shivered again. “I had not thought … but of course, where there was one sort of monster …”

“There could be others. Yes.” Matt scanned the greenery to either side. “No sign of any yet, but—”

“There are more!”

“Where?” Matt looked about frantically.

“More footprints, I mean! See! Another trail joins this!”

Looking down, Matt saw that the track forked; another pair of small footprints had come down the side trail to mingle with those of the twins’. Both wore round-toed shoes such as Western babies wore. One pair was the same size as the twins, but the other was considerably larger.

“A three-year-old and a six-year-old!” Matt went weak with relief. “My kids! Alive and well!”

“Pray Heaven,” Balkis murmured.

They hurried on down the path, but after a few minutes Balkis began to slow.

Matt slackened his pace impatiently. “What’s the matter?”

“My … loins.” Balkis blushed. “There is some … irritation …”

“Just sweat,” Matt said. “Pardon me, perspiration. I hate to be heartless, but please keep going.”

“I shall … try …” But Balkis went slower and slower, turning redder and redder. “It grows quite painful.”

“I know it’s asking a lot, but …” Then Matt began to feel it, a burning in his loins. “What the hey? Excuse me a sec.” He stepped into the trees, unlaced, looked, and stared. Then he pulled himself together and went back to the path. “I see what you mean.”

“What could it be?”

“If we weren’t both adults, I’d say it was—” Matt broke off. As a father, the adventures of watching a child work his way through diapers and training pants into miniature adult wear were very fresh. Facts clicked together, and he exclaimed, “Diaper rash!”

“Nappies?” Balkis asked, wide-eyed. “But I certainly do not wear them!”

“Neither do I, but the hazards of this route aren’t geared to adults! They’re the kinds of obstacles that children want to avoid, very young children—having to go to sleep when you don’t want to, the Monster Under the Bed, and now diaper rash!”

“We must recite another spell,” Balkis said.

Matt thought of infections, but also thought of the kinds of childhood monsters that could come out of a woods like this, and found he had nothing with which to meet them. “Don’t have much choice, do we? This is one place where we don’t want to be slowed down.” He tried to remember the commercials he hadn’t paid much attention to, back in his own universe when marriage was only an unapproachable goal due to a dearth of the main requirement—i.e., a woman in love with him. One particularly annoying jingle surfaced:

“Okay,” he said, “let’s go.”

Balkis didn’t ask, she only forced herself to walk with him, lips pressed thin—but after a few steps a look of surprise washed over her face.

Matt could sympathize. The fluid feeling replacing the earlier friction did kind of take you aback, if you weren’t expecting it. “Still a little bit of a rash, but I’m sure it will fade fast.”

“It is … a most singular sensation,” Balkis said, blushing again.

“One I don’t remember ever having felt,” Matt agreed, “at least not consciously.”

They didn’t have any more trouble walking, though.

They followed the four steps of small footprints, Balkis watching the ground, Matt watching the forest until, quite suddenly, the trees opened out to reveal a little grotto. A tiny waterfall purled down the center of a series of rocky shelves to chuckle away as a brook. To either side of the tumbling fluid, wildflowers sprang from the rocky shelves. The spring ran through a dusky pink lawn, soft enough to cushion baby feet. Cushions of moss sprouted here and there about the clearing, and a tiny house, perhaps four feet high and ten wide, stood against the rocky wall. The whole was shaded by giant rosebushes, with just enough light from the pink sky overhead to make the whole grotto look comforting and cheerful.

“I could not have crafted a better nursery myself,” Balkis said, awed.

But Matt started toward the little house. “Suppose anybody’s home?”

He wasn’t even halfway there before a naked baby came toddling out, giggling. A six-year-old boy came charging after, waving a diaper and looking very harried. “Nay, nay, little Alley, you’ll catch your death of cold!” He managed to catch the toddler and twist the diaper about it, but before he could tie the comers, a little girl came somersaulting out of the house, giggling, and a little boy came running after, crying, “Gimme back! Gimme back!”

The six-year-old dropped the diaper and turned to run, managing to catch the little boy’s wrist before he could strike. “Now, now, little Hammy, you know ‘tis wrong to hit when you can talk! Sister, give back Hammy’s slipper!”

The little girl hid her hands behind her back, turning truculent. “Shan’t!”

“But Alice, you must!” the six-year-old cried in despair. ” ‘Tis not yours!”

Just then little Alley came charging past, waving his diaper and crowing with delight.

The older boy turned away from the incipient fight to chase, crying, “You will drive me out of my mind! Oh, Mama, why can you not come?”

“Will Papa do?” Matt asked.

All the children froze, staring at the intruder. Then with a glad cry, the boy and Alice came running to their father.

Matt knelt and caught them up, holding them close, very close. “There now, we’re together again, and we’ll go home and find Mama very soon.” He loosened the arm around the boy to tousle his hair. “Well done, Kaprin. You’ve been taking care of your little sister and the twins, huh?”

“Yes, and am almost out of my wits with trying to keep track of all three!” Kaprin said fervently. “Praise Heaven you have come, Papa!” He suddenly jumped away from Matt and turned to run back to his charges, crying, “The twins! What mischief—” Then he broke off, plowing to a halt and staring.

“They’ve found the world’s best toy,” Matt assured him.

The twins were laughing and grabbing at a little calico cat who was playing catch-me-if-you-can.

“Can that be Balkis?” Kaprin asked.

“Sure is,” Matt said. “She just decided to change clothes, that’s all.”

“I wish I could,” Kaprin sighed. “Two days in the same robes grows wearisome.”

“Only two days?” Matt asked in surprise, then turned quickly sympathetic. “Only two days, but it probably seemed like a month to you! How did you feed them, son? And where did you find the clean nappies?”

“There are three bottles in the house with leather teats on top,” Kaprin explained. “As soon as a babe sucks one empty, it begins to fill again. Apples grow on the trees, and there is an oven that always has warm bread. There is a pile of clean nappies that never seems to grow smaller. All three have been quite good about using the little chair, but accidents happen.”

Matt wondered who would have taken care of the children if one of them hadn’t been old enough to manage. Actually, at six, Kaprin wasn‘t old enough, but he had managed anyway. Matt said, his voice low, “I’m very proud of you, son. You’ve taken care of your sister and the twins excellently.”

He could almost see Kaprin expand with the praise—but the boy only said, “The twins must be magical, Papa, for when I chase them and almost catch them, they will disappear from my hands and reappear on the branch of a tree, and if they slip off the branch, they do not fall, but drift to the ground.”

“You guessed right,” Matt confirmed. “They’re baby djinn.”

“Djinn?” Kaprin’s eyes grew round. “Truly? But who are their parents, Papa?”

“Some friends of mine,” Matt said. “They came with us to find the four of you, but they had to fight some monsters who were trying to keep us away from this grove. They won the fight, but it, uh, tired them out horribly, so they’re sleeping now.”

“Will they come to us?”

Inspiration again. “I’ve got a better idea. How about we go to them, then we all go back to Mama!”

“Mama! Mama!” Baby Alice cried.

“Yes, darling, yes, we’ll go find Mama right away.” Matt cuddled his daughter, and she chirruped happily.

“Alley! Hammy!” Kaprin cried. “We go Mama!”

“Mama! Mama!” The twins left off playing with the cat and came running, arms wide.

Matt gathered them in. Out of the comer of his eye he noticed the cat going in through the little door. “Kaprin—would you go into the playhouse and see if my friend is in there?”

“Your friend?” Kaprin looked up in surprise. “Who, Papa?”

”Her name is Balkis, like the cat,” Matt said, “and she came along to help me find you … Oh, there she comes!”

Kaprin looked up and saw the veil-clad girl coming toward them. “What a pretty lady!”

Matt decided his son was growing up faster than he had realized. “Yes, isn’t she? Hold her hand, now, and hold Alley’s, too, and I’ll hold Hammy’s hand while I hug Alice … Got Hammy’s other hand, Balkis?”

“I have.” Balkis smiled, melting at the child’s touch.

Matt noticed she had taken the chance to discard the ragged remains of the yellow jacket. “Okay, then, back to Hammy and Alley’s mommy …”

He was about to improvise something about returning to djinn, but Balkis beat him to it, reciting a verse in Allustrian. Pink mist boiled up from the ground, hiding them from one another. Alice cried out in fright, but the twin djinn only laughed with delight. Kaprin called out, his voice trembling, “Papa, what is happening?”

“It’s how the magic works that takes us to Princess Lakshmi,” Matt explained.

Then the pink mist lightened, thinned, and pulled away in wisps to make a large sphere around them. At its bottom, Marudin was kneeling, looking very groggy but also very concerned as he held his wife’s shoulders in his arm, bracing her half sitting; she was holding one hand to her head.

“Mama! Mama!” cried the djinn twins, and lit into her full speed.

Lakshmi’s arms went around them automatically; then her face lit up as she realized what she was holding. She pressed her babies to her and spent a few minutes kissing and murmuring, then looked up at Matt and Balkis, eyes filled with tears. “Thank you, wizards! Thank you with all my heart! I shall never forget you for this!”

“Nor shall I,” said Marudin, but he didn’t look at them, he had eyes only for his family, and those eyes were glowing. “I thank you from the core of my being, and shall never forget what you have done.”

Matt had heard similar words from other and less friendly people. All in all, he liked the parent djinns’ version better.

Lakshmi seemed to have sustained the worst of the firefight, so Marudin chanted the spell that took them all to a cave in the mountains that divided the fertile land from the desert. There, he and Matt left Lakshmi to take care of the children—there was no way she would have left them for any reason—and left Balkis to take care of Lakshmi. Riding in the crook of the prince’s arm, Matt watched the countryside reel by below until they saw Maracanda with Prester John’s army surrounding it. If the barbarians had tried to stop him outside the gates, they had given it up quickly, for they were all inside and manning the walls—perhaps a quarter as many as John had soldiers. Still, the walls were stout, and the Mongols and Turks were fighting bravely—but as Matt and Marudin watched, a hundred of John’s men galloped up to the wall, slowly raising their shields until they held them as umbrellas, deflecting the rain of arrows and stones until they stood directly in front of the gates. Some of them fell in the advance, but most lived, protecting their king with their shields.

The barbarians began to roll huge steaming kettles into place.

“They must break through that gate, and quickly, or they will be boiled!” Marudin said.

“John said he had a key …” Matt stared. “He did!”

The gates flew inward, and John led his vanguard through. A third of them fell to Mongol arrows. The other two-thirds rode bravely against two hundred Turks—but the rest of John’s army came on at the gallop.

They boiled into the city and overwhelmed the Turks quickly. Then they rode on, leaving a circle of captives bound and kneeling, surrounded by a guard of John’s men.

They rode on toward the palace—but as they neared it, a circle of fire roared up around it almost as high as its roofs.

“They shall have more difficulty in winning the palace than in gaining the city!” Marudin predicted.

“Yeah, Arjasp is pulling out all the magical stops.” Matt frowned.

“We must aid Prester John!”

“Nice thought.” Matt was developing an idea. “Say, Prince Marudin—you don’t suppose Arjasp took the time to transport his brooch back to him, do you?”

Marudin looked down at him in surprise, then grinned. “Why should we doubt it?”

“It’s worth a try,” Matt said.

Marudin recited an Arabic verse. As the pink mist closed about them he said in disgust, “I never thought I would seek to send myself back inside a prison!”

“Yes,” Matt said, “but this time we have the key.” He recited,

He took a step through the mist—and found himself falling.