They all wore turbans and loincloths of midnight-blue.
“He truly is a wizard!” one man bleated.
“You were well warned,” said a more severe, more authoritative voice, and an older man in midnight-blue robes stepped out of the shadows, raised his arms, and chanted a quick verse. Matt instantly started reciting his own spell, but halfway through the second line, his words turned to nonsense syllables, and the magician’s words registered, something about scattering Matt’s thoughts and confusing his speech. Matt strained to force his tongue and lips to shape intelligible words, but suddenly couldn’t even form a coherent thought.
The attackers saw and started swinging with savage delight. A club cracked on the back of Matt’s head. The darkness closed in around the magician’s vindictive smile, then eclipsed even that, and the darkness settled in to stay awhile.
Visiting hours were over, so the darkness had to go away. Light seeped in, and with it, a jackhammer headache. He groaned, and a voice answered.
“Awake, are you? Haul him up, then!”
Hands seized Matt’s ankles and wrists; strong arms heaved him up and forward. Matt opened his eyes wide in alarm—definitely a mistake, for the room reeled about him. Even as he was jammed onto his knees, his stomach took up heaving where the arms had left off. He managed to turn to the side and spew most of it onto the floor, not onto himself.
“A weakling indeed! He could not even keep from fouling his chamber!” The gloating voice turned mocking. “Why are you so queasy, wizard? Come, recite a spell that will settle your stomach and banish the headache!”
Well, since he was being given the chance, why not take it? Matt had a nasty feeling about the taunting note to the man’s voice, but he went ahead and recited anyway …
… or tried to. Before he could utter more than a few words, however, a band of greasy cloth had been tied about his month. He tried to push himself up to his feet, to swing a fist at the gloating grin. Something tugged at both wrists and ankles at the same instant, and his hands yanked against each other. His stomach sank even farther as he realized he’d been tied hand and foot, with a rope connecting the two pairs of extremities.
“Can you not enchant us, then?” the voice jeered. “Then your doom has come, fool, and you shall pay with your head!”
A huge man stepped up with a huger scimitar, and Matt’s stomach clenched with fear as he realized the man spoke with the utmost seriousness.
A soft hand cupped his chin and yanked his head away from the sight of the sword. The room reeled, his stomach roiled, and he found himself staring into the black-bearded face of the man in the midnight robes. Dimly, he remembered it was the uniform of the priests of Angra Mainyu.
“Thus be it ever to the enemies of our lord Arjasp,” the man spat, his eyes glinting with malevolence. “Did you think you would find him here? Are you truly such a fool as to believe him to be a Parsi? He is a Persian of the old, pure blood, come from the hills of Iran! He saw that only through Ahriman could the Persians once again gain empire, and that only empire will bring the final battle between Angra Mainyu and Ahura Mazda!”
Matt gargled something incoherent.
“What does he say, the man so proud of his speech?” the magus mocked. “Could it be that the empire will be Mongolian and Turkish, not Persian? Ah, but who will control the Mongol? Who will seize the government of the Turks? Do you truly believe Tartars can stand against the intrigues of a Persian? Nay, be sure that when Arjasp has beguiled them into conquering the world for us and for Angra Mainyu, he will himself conquer the gur-khan, and Persians shall rule again, but this time in the name of the Prince of Lies, not the Lord of Light!”
Matt glared up at the magus with contempt, thinking that Arjasp was in for a very unpleasant surprise if he thought he would be cozening a bunch of country yokels. If they were anything like the medieval Mongols of his own world, they would be quite capable of meeting the wiliest intrigues with their direct and straightforward spears.
The magus saw and scowled. “Die, fool!” He gestured to the turbaned man next to him, and the executioner swung high his sword.
Matt stared up at the edge glinting in torchlight, his stomach hollow with dread. The magus saw and laughed, gloating at Matt’s horror. He hadn’t been so terrified since he had first come to Merovence …
… and before he was knighted. The memory of that ceremony suddenly flashed before him, of the questions firing at him as he sponged himself in a cold bath, the advice intoned as he walked the aisle between rows of knights long dead, of Sir Guy’s sword touching his shoulder …
And the fear was gone. He glared up at the magus, refusing to stretch his neck for the fatal blow.
The man’s face filled with fury. He grabbed a fistful of Matt’s hair and yanked his head down to expose his neck to the blade-so Matt was staring at the floor when the meowing voice intoned from the ceiling,
“Wake up the brain besotted
And weave the web of Peace!
Unbind the mouth beknotted,
And bid brain’s turmoil cease!”
Suddenly Matt could talk again—but before he had time to chant a couplet, a furious yowl sounded, then a howl of pain and a curse from the magus. Matt pictured Balkis descending on the man with all claws out, then a sickening vision of the man hurling her from him, and wished with all his heart that he could see something besides the man’s ankles. His wish came true—he saw a flash of white twist between those ankles just as the man started to turn. He shouted a Farsi curse as he tripped and fell.
The executioner rumbled anger and swung his scimitar high, then bleated with pain and dropped the weapon, hopping on one foot. The white blur streaked toward a corner with drops of red on its claws.
Then light flared, and a stern voice called out commands in Farsi verse. The magus and his minions cringed away from the brightness, their mouths moving—but no words came out.
Finally Matt was able to get a good look at the chamber. It was dark, windowless, all of stone—someplace underground, at a guess. Torches flickered from brackets on the walls. He saw a rack, a brazier, and various torture instruments, and swiveled to see where the light and the voice had come from.
There stood his teacher, the dastoor, seeming ten feet tall and swollen with power, the mobed and four acolytes around him. Then the meaning of the words struck home:
“You may not touch this man,
For he is of Ahura Mazda.
Whoever seeks to hurt him
Will have no power of speech.”
It sounded a lot better in Farsi, of course, with rhyme and meter, but it boiled down to Matt being a Mazdaist, and he wasn’t about to correct the notion as long as Ormuzd’s mantle covered him.
The priest of Ahriman turned purple in the face, shouting—but no words emerged from his lips. Matt wondered how long the spell could last and struggled with his own bonds, trying to free a hand, his gag…
A white streak flashed again, dashing by Matt just as a roar sounded behind him. One of the blue-turbaned, blue-loinclothed bullies charged after the cat-and fell headlong with a bellow of pain. Matt had a brief glimpse of Balkis pulling her teeth out of the man’s calf and her claws out of his ankle before she dodged back behind him again.
Out of the comer of his eye he noticed the priest of Ahriman stepping back into the shadows, as any good coward would—but somehow, the movement worried Matt.
The bullies descended on the dastoor en masse, clubs whirling. He spoke a quick verse, hands darting, fingers pointing to the sticks, and they twisted out of their owners’ hands to start swinging at their heads and shoulders. Shouting in anger, the bullies tried to catch their own weapons. One did, and wrestled with it frantically; the others suffered blow after blow before one of them finally thought to pluck a torch from the wall and thrust it at the club.
“Flame is Ahura Mazda’s!” the dastoor intoned. “Let it sear his enemies!”
The torch’s flames roared up, suddenly four
feet high, and bent toward the man who held it as though a strong wind blew. He yelped and dropped it. The flames swelled hugely into a bonfire.
It obliterated the comer shadows, exposing the priest of Ahriman—but it threw an even starker shadow of the rack onto the floor. The priest of Ahriman stepped into that pool of darkness, grinning, and chanted a verse in a language Matt understood but didn’t recognize. The bonfire and torches suddenly went out.
With a sinking heart Matt realized what the man had done—retreated into darkness, the realm of his lord, and regained his power of speech.
But the old man’s light still filled the chamber, and the bullies still wrestled with their clubs. The dastoor pointed at the priest of Ahriman, chanting. Quickly, the blue-clad wizard snapped a return verse, and nothing happened—except tension in the room increased immensely, as good magic strained against bad.
Matt recognized the feeling, and thought with agony that if he could only speak, he could tum the tide. Even as he thought it, fingers moved at the back of his head and his gag fell away. Matt didn’t stop to wonder who or why—he shouted,
“It is sweet to dance to violins
When Love and Life are fair:
To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes
Is delicate and rare:
But it is not sweet with nimble feet
To dance upon the air!”
The blue-clad toughs squalled as their feet slipped out from under them, as though a carpet had been yanked away. Unfortunately, they let go of their clubs as they fell, and the sticks immediately set about beating them again. Two of them struck home on the first try; their owners went limp, and the clubs froze, then fell, only wood again.
The priest of Ahriman turned, dark with fury, and chanted,
“Squash this Frankish insect—”
Before he could hit the second line, the dastoor snapped,
“From the shadows came your power,
Therefore return to dark, and fade!”
The shadows seemed to stretch out to envelop the man. He gave a startled cry as the darkness swallowed him.
The dastoor raised his voice over his opponents’ wails.
“Torches, flame, and fire reach high
To wash all shadows with your brightness!”
The torches on the walls roared to life again, flames stretching two feet and more. The whole chamber filled with light, washing out the shadows. The cries of the priest of Ahriman faded with them.
Matt shuddered, wondering to what realm the man had gone.
The two toughs still awake saw, and cried out in fear. Panic leant new strength; they shot to their feet and bolted for the door. Unfortunately, Matt was between them and it. He sprang aside in the nick of time, realizing they might be able to call up reinforcements, and called out,
“There was a Door to which I found no Key;
There was a Veil past which I could not see;
Some little Talk awhile of ME and THEE
There seem’d—and then
No consciousness in THEE.”
The toughs wrenched at the door, then froze, then slumped to the floor, out cold.
Matt breathed a sigh of relief and turned to the dastoor. “Thank you, Honored One, for timely rescue.”
“I was pleased to be able to afford it.” The dastoor smiled, but his smile faltered and the light about him faded.
The younger priest stepped forward in alarm and caught him as he sagged.
“Thank you,” the dastoor said with a gentle smile. He was obviously exhausted, but turned to Matt and said, “Thank also your pet, for she carne running to us mewing in fear. We cast a scrying over her recent past and found this temple—she had followed your kidnappers. Then we projected ourselves here, and brought her with us. She has served you well.”
“She certainly has.” Matt stretched out a hand to Balkis, wondering which projection spell she had used to transport herself back to the Mazdean temple. “She tripped up my enemies, too.”
Balkis sniffed his fingers, eyeing him suspiciously at the pun.
Matt stood up, turning his back on one of the acolytes. “If you could untie the ropes, there, it would help a lot.” As the young man complied, Matt asked the dastoor, “Who untied my gag?”
“A spirit,” the mobed said, wide-eyed.
The dastoor nodded. “It was most strange. A girl in a white robe rose up behind you. A moment later your gag fell away, and she sank down again and disappeared from sight.”
“Amazing,” Matt agreed, his gaze on Balkis. “I am fortunate indeed to have so bright a spirit on my side.”
Balkis sat up straight, preening visibly.
On the other side of the door was a tunnel, lined with stone blocks and floored with flags, slanting up toward the surface. Matt and Balkis decided to walk, leaving the transportation spells to the dastoor and his helpers.
Outside of the daivayasnis’ temple was an ordinary village, much like that of the Parsis—only this one was inhabited by Hindus, as Matt could tell from the caste marks and the statues in front of the temple. It was night, so there was no one to see them emerge.
Matt knelt, turned to Balkis, and said, “Thanks. Thank you very much—for saving my life.”
“It was nothing.” The cat lifted her head arrogantly and flitted her tail. “Any cat would have done the same.”
“Any other cat would have hightailed it for the deep brush and paid attention to her own survival,” Matt contradicted.
“Well, I have some interest in your survival.” For a moment, the mask dropped, and the cat’s eyes widened, staring up at him with an adoring and very uncatlike gaze. Then the mask dropped again, and Balkis turned broadside, breaking eye contact. “After all, I have much to learn from you yet—and a long way to travel, I know not where. You, at least, seem to have some notion of our destination.”
“I know we need to go north, anyway.” Matt stood up. “Want a ride?”
“No, I can walk. North is this way.” Balkis padded off into the night.
Matt followed, letting the shock show, now that her back was to him. That one-second-long glance had been enough and had left him thoroughly shaken—but the look was unmistakable, even on a feline face.
Balkis had a crush on him.
Not that unusual in a teenage girl but very disconcerting in a cat. Matt had dealt with it before, as a teaching fellow. It was always difficult to deal with, though, having to make it clear that he wasn’t interested without hurting the girl’s feelings. He couldn’t even plead interspecies incompatibility, since the cat shape was only a disguise. Fortunately, Balkis was going to make it easier for him by putting up a good front and not admitting her interest—he hoped. But what was he going to do if she decided to bare all?
In the morning, they came to a much larger village, a regular town, and Matt came through the gates as just one more peasant among many. They found the bazaar, where he pulled out another synthetic-copper coin and swapped it for a throw rug. He bought a few samples of fruit and some Hindu fast food with another copper and shared them with Balkis, who was at least interested in the ghi. Then he found a plot of trees and grass near the temple of Vishnu the Preserver, hoping it would deter any would-be kidnappers, and took turns sleeping and standing watch with Balkis-cat.
“You could have slept on the bare grass,” the cat sniffed. “Why spend good money on a rug?”
“In the first place, who said it was good money?”
“You should know—you made it yourself. And the second place?”
“In the second place, you’ll see what else I can do with a rug after I’ve had some sleep. Good night.” Matt stuffed a pile of dead leaves under the carpet for a pillow, then lay down and fell asleep far more quickly than he’d thought he would.
“Should we not speed out of the gates before they close for the night?” Balkis demanded.
“No need.” Matt was hunting among the debris under the trees and came up with a couple of bird feathers.
; Balkis watched him weaving them into the fringe of the rug and said, “If you had wanted feathers, I could have fetched you many.”
“Thanks, but I wanted them without the bird attached.” Matt made flying motions with his hands and recited,
“Up in the air, sky-high, sky-high!
Even though it’s often scary,
Swift through the sky, Ever so high,
We’ll commence our journey airy!”
The rug trembled, then began to rise from the ground.
Matt thrust it down with a hand, holding it against its own inclination to rise. “Down, boy! Lie low!”
The carpet still struggled to rise.
“That’s right, I have to do it with verse, don’t I?” Matt said sourly.
“Now the throw rug’s task is o’er;
‘Til I call, its flight is past;
Not yet to fly, not yet to soar,
Lands the voyager at last.”
The rug subsided, settling back onto the ground.
“Okay, climb aboard,” Matt told Balkis. “We need to make up for lost time.”
The cat shrank away. “You do not mean that we shall fly!”
The Crusading Wizard Page 16