Conversing thus, the travelers rode toward the upthrusting bluish stone hills, the barren foothills of Darkest Mountains.
****
Early in the first day Douglas had been overtaken by the Dragon and Nameless.
As the Pyromancer followed the caravan of the Desert Sheik Harroun, the Dragon had whooshed down from the bright sky, nodding pleasantly and puffing a friendly wisp of greenish vapor.
Startled by the sudden appearance of a twenty-foot winged saurian, Douglas fell back two steps, but quickly recovered his presence of mind.
“Ah, a relative of my old friend Great Golden Dragon, aren’t you? Yes, I see a family resemblance!”
“Let me introduce myself,” said the Dragon. “Great Golden is my great-great-great-granduncle, of course. You already know my little flying friend here, do you not?’
“Yes, of course. Hello, Nameless! I’d almost forgotten you were with Myrn on her Journeying. Welcome to High Desert! Come around behind the hillock, won’t you? I’m trailing that caravan ahead and wish to remain hidden, if I can.”
They skirted the top of a low dune and, once they were hidden from view, Douglas asked the Dragon to scoop out a hollow in the sand that would protect them from the chill night wind and hide their fire from Harroun’s outriders.
“I wish I could tell you I’ve heard all about you, but I haven’t spoken nor written to Uncle Great Golden in some decades... and my little friend with the beautiful wings seems to be completely unable to speak.”
“Of course,” said Douglas. “Do you like steak? I thought I’d indulge myself with tender sirloin and some crisp fried potatoes. A large lettuce salad will give Nameless something to enjoy more than the usual desert gleanings, I’m sure—as well as you and me.”
Shortly they were settled down around his tiny fire, Dragon and Pyromancer eating juicy steaks and nibbling a huge tossed salad with pungent horseradish dressing on the side, which the little horse refused after a quick sniff, preferring her greenery without condiment.
Douglas had recounted his many adventures since the appearance of the winged horse at Wizards’ High.
Lesser Dragon listened without comment, except for an occasional “ah!” or “ooh!’’ Nameless merely nodded her head from time to time.
“So, you see, I’m seeking this enchanted King Priad who was wickedly whisked away long ago by Frigeon....”
At the name of the missing king, Nameless perked up her ears and looked startled.
“The name Priad means something to you?” Douglas asked. “Do you know anything of this enchanted king?”
The horse nodded eagerly, pawing the ground in frustration at not being able to speak.
“She really can’t speak—a most wicked and pitiable enchantment!” cried the Dragon.
“It’s time to do something about it,” decided the Pyromancer. “It’ll take a while, of course, but we’ve two days at least before Myrn and Harroun reach the Sheik’s home. I should have done it before, I’m ashamed to admit. It would have been easier and more sure, done at Wizards’ High. But then, we didn’t know anything about Samarca, nor much about poor King Priad.”
He considered the flying horse for a moment, then asked her, “With your permission, my girl?”
Nameless nodded even more vigorously than before. Clearing away the supper dishes with the wave of one hand, Douglas began examining her enchantment by the light of the little fire under the brow of the last, lofty dune.
Lesser Dragon, fascinated by the demonstration of despelling, curled himself about the fire, the Fire Wizard, and the flying filly, and prepared to guard and watch.
Douglas first drew a soft leather pouch from his right sleeve and emptied it on the sand before the fire. Leaning over his shoulder, the Dragon saw several flat sticks of glossy black wood, each about four inches long by an inch wide and thick, smoothly rounded at each end. There were also a number of bright metal stars of the sort that children play with, usually called “jacks.”
Completing the Wizard’s equipment was a small red rubber ball.
“These may look harmless,” Douglas confided to the watching animals, “but, I assure you, in trained hands they can be very powerful!”
He picked up the black sticks and arranged them in the form of a six-pointed star—a hexagram, he called it—and carefully placed the seven silvery jacks in its center, just touching each other.
“Now!” exclaimed Douglas. “Sit quietly for a while. These jacks will tell us what I need to know about Nameless’s enchantment—if she is enchanted, as we suspect.”
For the better part of an hour he tossed the red ball in the air, again and again, snatched up the jacks, one or two or all at a time, and caught the ball again before it could touch the hard-packed sand.
At last he dropped ball and jacks outside the star and grinned happily.
“Well, that confirms two enchantments! You’re doubly enchanted, Nameless, and very likely it was by Frigeon, for I recognize his signature in the forms of the spelling.”
“But what good does this do us?” sniffed Lesser.
“It tells us what to do next,” replied Douglas.
He returned the jacks, sticks, and ball to their leather bag and slid the pouch back into his wide right sleeve, drawing out in its place a crystal vial of clear liquid.
“Silence ... and don’t move for a while yet, please,” he said to the two watchers. “This is the hardest part, especially where there’s water but never was any ice.”
“Ice?” wondered the Dragon. “Ah, I see ... a part of the Ice King’s magicking!”
“Exactly. Now, then...,” Douglas murmured, concentrating fiercely. He poured the liquid from the vial into a flat ebony dish and placed the dish on a flat rock in front of the horse. They waited in silence until the water became perfectly still, reflecting the brightest stars on its surface.
At last the Pyromancer made a series of slow passes over the dish. Watching very closely, the Dragon saw no change, but when the Wizard carefully picked up the dish and shook it upside down over his left palm, the water, now a clear lens of ice, popped out.
A breath of frosty cold air rushed over them. Although the fire had nearly died, the lens glowed of its own light in Douglas’s hand.
He grasped it carefully by its very edges and peered through it at the winged horse.
“Ah! So that’s it! Clever of wicked, crafty old Frigeon, I must say,” he murmured. “I wish Myrn were here to assist. Silently, now, friends! I know where to go from here but it’ll take some time. Please don’t speak aloud nor move quickly!”
For what seemed a very long time he sat perfectly still, studying the lens, unmoving and unspeaking. The Dragon resisted the urge to scratch an itch under his folded left wing. Nameless stood as still as a statue, hardly breathing, watching the young Wizard anxiously.
The slender new moon rose, swiftly at first, then more slowly as it reached its zenith, painting the desert pale silver and the shadows even blacker than before.
In the distance the young Dragon’s sharp ears heard the sleepy snuffling and shuffling of the Sheik’s horses on picket line under the shadow of a monolith. Everything else was quite still. Even the night breeze had died completely away with the rising of the new moon.
At last Douglas took a deep breath and blew on the lens, which quickly began to melt and dwindle into a puddle in his hand. He snatched up the vial and allowed the silvery liquid to flow into it, with not a drop lost.
“That was the hard part,” he said quietly, but startlingly loud in the stillness of the night. “You can relax now.”
He changed his own position and took a long drink from his canteen, offering some to the little horse as well.
“I can tell you this—you were enchanted by old Frigeon. Part of it was to take away your power of speech ... for what reason I can’t imagine. Do you recall?”
“Yes, I do,” said the horse, sounding a bit hoarse, as if she had caught a slight cold somewhere. “The Ic
e King—Frigeon—got very angry when I called him nasty and dastardly and some other very unladylike things!”
“Well, Frigeon always had a rather sudden temper, I know.” Douglas laughed. “He took away your ability to speak?”
“Yes! As an example to my poor father and mother and our poor people, you see. They were not silenced, but refrained from speaking of the Ice King thereafter.”
“Who are you, then?” asked Lesser, breathing a faint puff of startled steam into the air. “May I ask?”
“Of course, dear friend,” the flying filly said with a throaty laugh and a bit of a sob. “I am called Indra. I’m the only child of King Priad of Tereniget.”
“Tereniget? I’ve heard of it! South of here, was it not?” gasped the Dragon.
“South and east, I believe,” answered the horse, nodding her pretty head. “But tell me, Master Brightglade—”
“Douglas,” the Wizard insisted. “We’re old friends, you and I, by now.”
“Yes, old friends ... you and your goodwife Myrn, too! But I wonder, if you will, why you stopped now short of disenchanting me fully? I truly appreciate your giving me back my voice, believe me. But I am, after all, a young woman....”
“Of course! Well,” Douglas explained, leaning forward to rest his back from the long spelling, “the Silence Spell was really quite simple to break, once I saw its shape. Your own shape, however, will take considerably longer disenchanting, and it seems it has to be carried out for all those under the same spell, at one time, or some will be lost forever! And who knows where your people are these days?”
“Well!” gasped Princess Indra.
“We’ll have to locate Priad, then gather all his flying horse-people, get them safely in one place, and work their de-spelling all at once. Do you see?”
“I see ... and agree!” cried the filly. “Of course!”
“Simply amazing,” breathed the Dragon. “But what do we do in the meantime, pray?”
“There is the matter of watching out for Myrn,” said the winged horseling. “She may need all of us if she runs afoul of whoever captured the terrible Frigeon.”
“You must get used to calling him Serenit now,” said Douglas, yawning despite himself. “A really quite nice old chap he turned out, once his powers were stripped away.”
“I-I-I will have to work at that,” admitted the horse. “Perhaps if I were to meet and talk to this Serenit I would feel more kindly toward him.”
“That’ll come, in time,” the Pyromancer promised her. “Meanwhile, we need to get some sleep, good people. It’s well after midnight. See, the new moon is ready to plunge into Sea!”
He scooped out a hollow place in the soft, still-warm sand next to the embers of his fire, lined it with blankets he conjured from somewhere, and settled down to sleep.
Lesser Dragon was already sound asleep, gently snoring soft puffs of greenish steam into the chill air.
Indra walked about on the dune slopes for a long time before she folded her legs and wings and closed her eyes for sleep, pressed against the Dragon’s warm back.
****
“Do you see that flat-topped hill just ahead?” Harroun asked Myrn late the next day.
“Yes. It’s somewhat strange—all the other hills are sharp-peaked.”
“That’s because my hill is hollowed out,” the Sheik told her. “A natural fortress, you see. My great-grandfather hired a young Trollish prince to have his people excavate and shape it. Inside I stable my horses, fold my flocks, and pen my camels. I was raised there myself and have raised my own children there, too, in years past. We feel safe there. The sides are very tall, thick, and steep—impassable unless you know the secret way to enter.”
The caravan wound up the lower slopes of the flat-topped hill the Sheik called Indigo Deep. It was much larger and loftier than Myrn had thought at first sight. The sun was almost setting when Harroun drew his horse to a halt on a flat shelf of rock at the base of the final, vertical cliff.
Above here the dark stone was perpendicular and polished smooth ... unclimbable, Myrn decided.
Harroun sat on his horse facing the rock wall before him and clapped his hands loudly, three times.
The sheer wall before them split from top to bottom with a loud snap and the two valves drew apart with a soft, low rumble. Beyond in the twilight Myrn caught a glimpse of trees and rolling lawns, and the roof of a white building.
“Welcome to my beloved Deep!” cried Harroun, bowing in the saddle and gesturing Myrn to ride ahead of him through the gate. “Welcome to my home!”
“How beautiful! And here in the midst of High Desert,” exclaimed the monkey Marbleheart. “Fountains and flowers and soft greensward! It even feels cooler than the desert behind us!”
Myrn sat on her horse admiring the hidden oasis in the deep center of the hill for a long moment before she urged her mount down a paved roadway that led to the white palace—there was no other word to describe it, although it was neither huge nor grand.
Herds of sheep grazed in the evening cool on the upper slopes within, while a large herd of beautiful horses gathered along the fence to greet the returned Sheik with prances, nods, and nickers of pleasure.
A dozen haughty camels left their own corral and plodded over to see what the commotion was, looking at the caravan warily and unsmiling at first, until they recognized the old Sheik, his servants, and their mounts.
Harroun led his guests—there was no thought, by now, of Myrn as anything other than an honored guest—toward the small palace.
“Those are my servants’ and shepherds’ homes,” he explained, pointing off to the left. “And on the right are the dairy, the barns, stables, folds for the sheep, the blacksmith’s, and the harness shops, and storage bins for hay and grain.”
As they reached the portico at the front of the palace, the tall double doors swung wide, spilling out bright lantern light and a young man who dashed forth, waving gleefully to the arrivals.
“Father! Welcome home! Who is our guest? Wait until you hear my new-written song, ‘Maiden of the Sands’! Tis my very best yet!”
“My son Saladim,” Harroun introduced the lad, after dismounting to embrace him and be embraced in return. “My boy, this is the Wizard Myrn Brightglade—”
“Most pleased to meet you, Mistress Wizard,” interrupted the boy. “Wizard, did you say! Ho! I don’t remember you ever speaking of knowing a Lady Wizard, Father!”
“A new and already much-admired acquaintance,” his father explained.
He introduced Marbleheart the Monkey and the little sparrow Cribblon without explaining who or what they were.
“Come inside!” cried the lad. “Our lookouts reported your coming and I took the liberty of ordering supper, Father. The return of the Sheik is always pleasant excuse for a party,” he bubbled. “And when he brings guests ... all the more reason for a feast!”
He led his father and their guests inside the sprawling, comfortable, white stone manor.
****
Lesser Dragon studied the distant, flat-topped hill carefully. Of the three of them, he had the sharpest eyes over distance.
“They opened a great gate in the cliffs, quarter-way to the top. Very clever! A nice way to protect your home from wild beasts and desert marauders, I’d say.”
Douglas nodded. He studied the sharply rising range of bare, dark mountains beyond the Sheik’s hill. The sun had dipped under the horizon and the mountainous land had taken on a mysterious, almost sinister appearance, backlighted by early stars.
“We’ll leave them at that, I think,” he said to his companions. “Let’s find a cozy place to camp out of the night’s wind, overlooking Harroun’s hill if possible.”
Indra sniffed the air and stood looking about.
“There are lookout posts on the peaks, there and there. We’ll have to give them wide berth if you don’t wish them to know you’re here,” she told Douglas. “Why not just go up to the door and knock. We could sleep tonight in a
real bed again.”
“It probably’d be just fine, and a welcome bed and wife, too,” Douglas responded. “But, no... even without his knowing it, Harroun may have spies in his household. We’ll camp somewhere on a nearby mountainside and consider what’s to do next.”
He led his friends in a wide circle, taking advantage of other hillocks and deep ravines to hide themselves from the Sheik’s lookouts. It was long after full dark before the Dragon’s keen night-sharp eyes found a shallow cave on the upper slope of one of the higher foothills.
“Reminds me of a cave we found, Marbleheart and I, near the Black Witch’s Coven,” Douglas murmured. “It’ll be rather cold, and the mouth doesn’t face the Sheik’s place as I’d like, but we’ve Dragon’s body-heat for warmth. We’ll be snug ... and no one will notice us, perhaps.”
“I’ll gather some fragrant grasses for beds,” offered the Dragon. “Take a quiet look about, too.”
“What would you like for supper?” Douglas called after him.
“I’ll find something in the hills,” Lesser answered, heading out into the moonless dark. “You take care of our little Princess.”
“Give me a task to do,” begged Indra. “I want to help, Douglas.”
“I could teach you some cooking... or rather, ordering. The grasses will serve as comfortable beds, when Lesser returns. However, you might like to pop over into Harroun’s hill and tell Myrn where we are.”
“Delighted!” cried the little horse.
“She’ll be delighted to hear you talking, I’d think,” Douglas said. “In fact, stay with my wife tonight. Harroun’s camp is probably a much safer place for you both than a bare mountain cave. This is no place for a Princess, even when she’s a pretty filly!”
Although she denied it, it was clear the idea of sleeping that night in a castle—or a comfortable stable, at least—appealed more to the flying horse than sleeping on grass on a cold stone floor. She spread her wings, darting high into the air and disappearing in the direction of Harroun’s foothill fortress.
Aeromancer Page 18