The Crusading Wizard

by Christopher Stasheff

  The Caliph smiled. “It seems odd, when you Franks make such goddesses of your women.”

  “It seems odd to me, too,” Matt told him, “but I’m getting used to it … There they go!”

  The gates swung wide, and the barbarians shouted with joy and surged toward them. Alisande let them cover half the ground before she kicked her charger into motion and thundered toward the invaders, lowering her lance.

  The Asians were excellent horsemen who could literally ride rings around the knights—but they were hemmed in by their own men, all crowding toward the open gate. There was scant room to maneuver, and their ponies were much smaller than the Europeans’ Clydesdales and Percherons. The knights plowed into them, and the lances did the least damage—they could only skewer one barbarian each—for the great warhorses literally trampled the barbarians underfoot. Those who veered to the side and swung their spears high fell at the hammer-blow of heavy shields; those who came at the knights from the right met blows of heavy swords. Some spears did reach past both shield and sword, but the points only glanced off the European armor.

  The “Franks” plowed deep into the mass of barbarians before they ground to a halt, their momentum blunted by the sheer numbers of their opponents. Thousands more barbarians started to close in on them from behind.

  Then came the Arab cavalry, as light and maneuverable as the barbarians, their horses taller, their spears as sharp. Their own battle-cry ululated above the barbarians’ as their scimitars met the Asians’ steel. Here and there a barbarian fell, and Alisande’s infantry were upon him even as he scrambled to his feet. Other infantrymen were experimenting with tactics for separating riders from horses. Two-man teams worked together, one planting his spear-butt to absorb the shock as the horse ran onto the point, the other raising a long shield to protect them both from Tartar blows.

  As they did, the knights turned their horses and, hacking with broadsword and battle-axe, carved their way out of the horde in a broad arc. Clear of the press, Alisande turned her juggernaut as squires came running with fresh lances. Couching the huge spears, the knights followed their queen in another smashing charge into the barbarian line.

  There was this to be said against the horde’s encircling the city—they couldn’t get out of the way of the knights.

  Atop the wall, Matt was sweating profusely, chanting himself hoarse as he countered first a spell to soften the ground under the knights’ feet, another to make their armor rust, a third to weaken their horses, a fourth to make their lances overly heavy, and a fifth and a sixth and a seventh. The Arab wizard gestured and chanted beside him, equally frazzled.

  There was a lull of a few minutes as the knights regrouped for another charge and no more Asian spells were in evidence. Matt lowered his arms and panted, “Any of these spells terribly strong?”

  “Not a one,” the Arab wheezed. “Elementary, every one of them, even clumsy. But there are so many of them!”

  Incredibly, the barbarians began to retreat from the city so the horde could break into smaller, more maneuverable groups.

  “Now!” Matt called. “Multiplication spell! Make it look as though there’re a hundred knights for every real one!”

  He and the Arab chanted in tandem, and suddenly the city was surrounded by a ring of European knights charging down at the separate clumps of barbarian cavalry. If anyone had read the coats of arms on those knights’ shields, of course, they would have realized that there were a hundred of each—but the Asians weren’t skilled in Western heraldry. Deep-toned trumpets blew, and the barbarian host, exhausted, retreated from the walls of Jerusalem.

  Alisande drew up and turned her equally exhausted knights back toward the walls of the city and the gate that opened before them—but their illusion clones rode on, chasing the barbarians over the hills and far away.

  Jimena watched her husband out of the corner of her eye, feeling the first seed of suspicion sprout within her, a seed that could grow into a choking vine named “jealousy.” Of course, she had heard Matt’s story about the luscious djinna Lakshmi, who had saved him in his travels between this world and New Jersey—but seeing her was quite another matter, and Ramon’s courtly flattery didn’t help at all.

  “I am amazed that even Matthew could conjure a djinn child from its cradle,” Ramon said. “I am sure he would not, but those who oppose him might. Tell me the manner of it.”

  “The manner? There was no manner! I washed them and let them play in a sea of cushions while I left the chamber to hang the washcloths on their rack. I could not have been gone a minute, surely only seconds, but when I returned, they were gone!” Tears filled the huge eyes, and Lakshmi pulled from her bodice a slipper the size of a small boat. “Only this remained, this tiny slipper that I had myself embroidered with such care! All else was gone, trousers, vests, and slippers all—and the children with them!”

  “Oh, you poor dear!” Jimena cried, her heart aching with sympathy for a soul who shared her own plight but felt it even more sharply, being not grandmother, but mother.

  “And you thought of Matthew,” Ramon said gravely.

  “Of course I thought of your son! Is he not the mightiest wizard of the West?”

  Jimena stared, amazed. Was Matthew really so skilled?

  “Who else would have magic strong enough to steal away djinn, even such small ones?”

  “Not even Matthew, I should think,” Ramon said. “He is not Solomon, after all.”

  “Who else!” Lakshmi’s face distorted with anger, turning dark. “Who else in all the West?”

  Jimena knew the anger for the other side of fear and cried, “You poor child! I know how frantic you must be, for my own grandchildren have only now been stolen away! Oh, let us share our grief, not rant at one another!”

  “Your grandchildren?” The blood drained from Lakshmi’s face as she turned to stare at the little figure on the battlements. “Matthew’s babes? His offspring stolen?”

  “His, and Queen Alisande’s,” Jimena confirmed. “A little boy five years of age, and a princess who has only learned to walk within this last month.”

  “Can he think that I stole his children away?” Lakshmi gasped. “Can he have done this to me to retaliate?”

  “He does not know of his children’s abduction, for he is halfway around the world fighting barbarians and evil magic! Surely he is too deeply enmeshed in protecting the West from a barbarian horde to have reason to kidnap children! Besides, the little ones are precious to Matthew, all of them, not his alone! He would never do such a thing!” Jimena took a breath and held out her hands, beseeching, tears in her eyes. “Princess of djinn, will you not help us to recover our lost babes? Then perhaps we can aid you in regaining your own! We must strive together, not against one another!”

  Lakshmi wavered, the uncertainty in her eyes metamorphosing into longing for another woman to share her pain—but she could not give in so easily. “How can I trust you? Or you!” She turned back to Ramon. Then comprehension dawned in her eyes. “If she is Matthew’s mother, she is your wife!”

  “That is my great good fortune,” Ramon acknowledged, “and she my greatest blessing.” He caught Jimena’s hand. “Lakshmi, Marid and princess of djinn, may I introduce my wife, the Lady Jimena Mantrell? Jimena, this is the Princess Lakshmi, who aided Matthew and myself so greatly in Ibile, and without whom we might not have come home to you.”

  Jimena curtsied. “I am honored, Your Highness.”

  But Lakshmi only darted a guilty glance at her, then back at Ramon. “Your wife? But she is not old, is not …” She ran out of words.

  Just as well, for her guilt fanned the coals of Jimena’s suspicions into white-hot flames. Did the djinna feel guilty about what she had done with Ramon, or what she had only wished to do?

  CHAPTER 15

  Ramon threw in a discreet reminder. “But your husband, the Prince Marudin—why has he not come to interrogate Matthew with you? How is it we have been spared his wrath, which, when coupled with
yours, would certainly have leveled this castle in minutes?”

  Lakshmi stared at him, stricken, for a long minute. Then she bowed her face into her hands, blasting a wail like a tornado siren that shot up the scale and diminished in volume as she herself shrank, stepping down onto the battlements and diminishing to mortal size to bury her head against Ramon’s chest. Her shoulders shook and her whole body shuddered as she wept out her rage and grief.

  Ramon folded his arms around her more or less automatically and stared over her head at his wife in shock and alarm.

  All Jimena’s jealousy vanished on the instant, for if Lakshmi had been Ramon’s lover, he would certainly have known how to give the comfort she needed. Jimena gave him a small smile and a nod of encouragement, pantomiming holding a baby and patting its back.

  Ramon nodded his comprehension and tightened his arms about the weeping woman. Djinna or not, centuries old or not, she was a beginning mother who needed comfort and reassurance, and he gave what he could. It also occurred to him to wonder where her parents were.

  The storm of tears passed, and Lakshmi pushed against Ramon’s chest, moving away a little. Ramon pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at her cheeks, then let her take it. Jimena stepped forward, and Ramon, knowing his cue after a quarter century of marriage, stepped back.

  Jimena embraced the taller woman with scarcely a second’s lapse in hugs. “Poor child, what tragedy is this that has befallen you? Has your husband played the rogue and vanished in the night?”

  “No, never!” Lakshmi cried in indignation. “Marudin loves me! I have bound him to me by love—” She blushed a moment. “—of many sorts. He would never leave me of his own will!”

  “Then of whose will has he left you?” Jimena looked straight into her eyes.

  Lakshmi bowed her head, and the tears gushed again.

  Jimena held on, patting her back, crooning, and wondering if djinn babies needed to be burped.

  When the worst of the storm had passed, Jimena pressed gently, “Come now, we must know! What vile creature has stolen your husband away, and by what power?”

  “By the power of the lamp that once held him!” Lakshmi said, with a hiccup.

  “But Matthew dissolved that spell!” Ramon exclaimed.

  “He did, but another sorcerer has found a way to weave a new spell around the same lamp.” Lakshmi began a fresh torrent of tears.

  Jimena held on and gave what comfort she could. “You poor child, to have your husband abducted, then your children, too! I can see why you thought of Matthew, for who could know better how to reweave a spell than he who had unraveled it? But since we know he did not, tell me—what monster has made you the target of such malice?”

  At last the tears slackened, and Lakshmi drew back. “Some vile Eastern sorcerer. More than that I know not, save that his skin is that of any Arab or Persian, and he wears a long robe of midnight-blue and a tapering hat with a rounded tip. Oh, and white whiskers and hair.”

  “There is not much there for us to work with.” Ramon frowned. “Where has this sorcerer taken him?”

  “To these very barbarians whom you say your son has gone to fight! I have followed, I have espied from on high, I have seen Marudin boil forth from his lamp to smite his old masters the Arabs!”

  “Would he not enjoy such revenge?” Ramon asked.

  “He would not! Through centuries of serving Muslims, he became convinced of the truth of Islam, and had himself come to the worship of Allah! No, I am sure that every muscle within him rebels at the notion of attacking the sultan’s troops, of fighting against the Faith—but the compulsion of the lamp-spell leaves him no choice.”

  “Then his new master is not a Muslim,” Jimena inferred.

  “He is a vile sorcerer who serves some corrupted pagan god!”

  “Then Prince Marudin most surely acts against the dictates of his conscience.” Jimena’s eyes lost focus. “That would require a powerful spell indeed—but its hold would be tenuous.”

  “How did this sorcerer discover Marudin’s lamp?” Ramon asked.

  “How?” Lakshmi threw up her hands in exasperation. “How did he ensorcel my husband? How did he steal my—” Her voice choked off, her eyes widening. “How did he steal my babes?” she whispered.

  Then the tears poured forth again, and she embraced Jimena. “Oh, forgive me, forgive my rash indictment of your son! Of course the sorcerer who stole my Marudin would also have stolen my babes! For what purpose I cannot guess—but surely the same villain stole all three, and I was very wrong to blame Matthew!”

  “He would be the first to pardon you,” Jimena assured her, “and the first to attempt to find and rescue your children.” She looked up at her husband.

  Ramon nodded.

  “And if he would do it, so shall we!” Jimena said stoutly.

  The tears stopped. Lakshmi stepped back, staring in amazement. “Could you truly? After I have raged at you and battered your castle, could you truly help me find my babes?”

  “We can try,” Ramon told her.

  Jimena nodded. “I must stay here as castell an, but Ramon shall search—and, I think, so will Saul. Be of good heart, my dear. If wit and wisdom can find them, we shall have them back.”

  “And your prince with them,” Ramon affirmed.

  Jimena looked up at him with an expression that said, Are you sure?

  Ramon shrugged. “Why not attempt the impossible twice? Besides, if Matthew and Alisande fight the horde, we must weaken the barbarians in any way we can, and surely freeing Prince Marudin to fight as his heart dictates will weaken them most amazingly.”

  “But how can you manage this?” Lakshmi protested.

  “We must learn more before we can try,” Ramon told her. “Try to remember, Princess Lakshmi—try as hard as you can. When you came into the nursery and found your children gone, was there—”

  Wind hissed and kicked up a dust-devil right there on the battlements, where there was no sand and little enough dust.

  ” ‘Ware!” Lakshmi pushed Ramon and Jimena back and stepped between them and the shoulder-high whirlwind. “It is no eddy of air, but a sprite come from the desert! Spirit, it is a princess of the Marid who commands! Show yourself, say why you have come—but if you seek to do harm, I shall dissolve you into the air from which you were born!”

  The dust-devil coalesced instantly into a humanlike form, but one covered with rough hair and a hump like a camel’s. Its eyes were small and unwinking, glistening with the cover of a nictating membrane; its lower face pushed out into a muzzle with nostrils that opened and closed and long, thin lips that moved and wriggled like a camel’s preparing to spit.

  Princess Lakshmi held up a palm and recited an Arabic verse in a tone that threatened doom. The mobile lips stilled, and the sprite swallowed.

  Jimena wondered what the princess had threatened.

  “Speak!” Lakshmi commanded. “How come you to know of this place, let alone appear on these battlements?”

  “I am commanded hither.” The voice was like the hiss of windblown sand over rock, rasping, eroding.

  “Who is he that has commanded you?”

  “A magus with silver hair and beard, cloaked all in midnight-blue,” the dust-devil answered, and volunteered no more.

  Lakshmi’s eyes narrowed, offended by his obstinacy. “Why has he bid you come?”

  “To bear his word to that man and woman behind you.” The dust-devil pointed, and Jimena fought the urge to flinch. She glared at the slight creature with a face of stone.

  But its words rasped against her granite. “That the queen and her wizard must withdraw from the defense of the city, or their children shall never again on earth be seen.”

  Lakshmi’s face contorted with rage. She stepped forward, lifting a hand, and the dust-devil flinched away, eyes wide in shock. It spun about, pivoting faster and faster until its form blurred into a whirlwind again.

  “Stay!” Lakshmi snapped.

  The whirlwind hop
ped up into the air.

  Lakshmi snapped her arm out straight, forefinger pointing at the dust-devil. It halted in midair, spinning and hissing but going nowhere.

  “They are not here,” the princess told the spirit. “They are in the East, fighting the horde.”

  “They must be in the city of which the spirit spoke,” Ramon said, “or its master would not have demanded they withdraw.”

  “Even so!” Lakshmi said. “Go to that city, spirit, and give your message to the queen and her Lord Wizard. But beware the wizard’s magic, for he knows nothing of his children’s kidnapping and may be enraged.”

  “Enraged forsooth!” the rasping voice said from the whirling form. “Can his magic harm a spirit?”

  “It can and has! Speak, O Tool of the Wicked! Where are my own babes?”

  “Yours?” The spirit sounded shocked.

  “Even so! He who has taken the queen’s children has taken mine also! Where are they?”

  “I know nothing of the babes of a Marid.” The dust-devil sounded thoroughly shaken. “I know not where the queen’s babes are hid! Spare me, Highness—I know naught!”

  “Save what you were commanded to say,” Lakshmi said sourly. “Enough, then! Begone!”

  She waved a hand, and the dust-devil leaped high, as though she had batted it away. Its hum rose in pitch to a shriek, and it winked out.

  The battlements were silent for a minute or so. Then Ramon said, “Now we know what ransom is demanded.”