Is This Apocalypse Necessary?

by C. Dale Brittain_Wizard of Yurt 06

  The striped awning was drawn across against the sun, with only a slit that showed shadows within, but on the counter in front of the booth several jeweled birds hopped about, and to one side stood a chessboard with ivory and ebony pieces, set up for a complicated puzzle.

  I lifted the edge of the awning cautiously.

  “Kazalrhun?” There was a stirring inside and a flash of eyes, and a man emerged.

  But not the one I expected. Xantium’s greatest mage was enormously fat, almost as dark as his ebony chess pieces, and virtually bristling with the aura of magic. This man was far younger and slimmer, and though there could be no doubt from the instant I saw him that he too was a mage, there was none of the sense of an overflow of spells that seemed constantly to accompany Kazalrhun.

  The young mage looked at me with inquiring black eyes from under a heavy shock of hair. Abruptly his face lit up, and before I knew what he was doing he had put an enormous pink and purple illusory spot on my chest: school magic.

  “Daimbert!” he cried with a flash of white teeth. “In the name of the most merciful God! You should have warned us you were coming! And we received no word from the harbormaster that you had arrived.”

  And then I recognized him. “Maffi?” The last time I had seen Maffi he had been a boy, just starting an apprenticeship in magic with Kazalrhun. He had traveled with us for part of the trip into the distant East, and during the trip I had taught him the rudiments of illusion. I was trying to work out how he had possibly managed to grow up since I last saw him when I recalled that he was the same age as King Paul, who too had been a boy when we left him behind in Yurt to travel east. That is the problem with revisiting a place that one has not seen in years. It rarely has the common courtesy to stay unchanged just because it has not altered in one’s memories.

  “Well, it was a spur of the moment decision to come,” I said as Maffi hustled me back into the shade of his awning. I noted that Kazalrhun apparently still maintained his network of contacts that told him when anyone interesting arrived in Xantium. “Since you don’t have telephones here, there was no way

  I could have sent a message that would have arrived before I did. And since we didn’t arrive by ship, we didn’t sign in with the harbormaster.”

  I looked around the dim interior of the booth and saw other automatons, piled together, inactive, but no one else was there. “Are you still working with Kazalrhun?” I asked as if casually. If Maffi could have grown up, I didn’t trust Kazalrhun, already very old, not to have died on me. And I wasn’t at all sure I had confidence in young Maffi’s abilities to help me find and master an Ifrit.

  “He does not leave his house often these days,” said Maffi. “But he will of a certainty be delighted to see you! There is little business here this day—I shall take you to him at once.” He whistled in the automatons from the front counter, put a quick binding spell on the awning that would prevent anyone else from entering, and took my arm to lead me away through the market. Magic came easily to him now; he must have finished his apprenticeship years ago.

  “Just a moment,” I said. “I need to get my companions.”

  Naurag was easy to spot, hovering nearby. Maffi and I worked our way through the crowd to find Gwennie and Hadwidis, already carrying several parcels, haggling over the price of a cobalt-blue silk shawl.

  Maffi’s eyebrows lifted appreciatively when he realized my “companions” were both young women, and he shouldered his way up next to them. “It is not worth nearly the amount this greedy caterpillar demands,” he told Gwennie, giving her a smile and an exaggerated bow. Gwennie looked startled but smiled back; Hadwidis, who had had limited experience with handsome young men in recent years, barely avoided gaping at him.

  “You should have a garment that brings out the color in your eyes,” Maffi continued, “not something as muddy as this shawl truly is. He has improved the appearance with illusion.” A few quick words, and the shawl was revealed to be not the brilliant blue that had caught her attention but instead a rather depressing gray. “Try the merchandise in this next booth His prices are higher, but his colors will stay true when you carry them home.”

  The merchant frowned heavily at Maffi, who paid him no more attention but instead turned to helping Gwennie bargain at the adjacent booth. “Give no heed to his talk of ‘final price,’” he told her confidently. “If that were indeed his final price he would never sell a single item.” In a few minutes Gwennie had a silk shawl that was exactly the color she wanted, and for less than she had been prepared to spend.

  “Thank you,” she told Maffi somewhat breathlessly. “My name is Gwendolyn, constable of Yurt. Are you the mage of which our wizard has been telling us?”

  “I hope so, of a certainty,” with a grin for me. “But come, and we can make our acquaintance in greater comfort at the house of my master in magic, Kazalrhun.”

  He guided us out of the market place and through the narrow streets, where we of the west with our fair skin received the occasional odd look, but most of the stares were reserved for the purple flying beast, winging his way above us. Even tall, turbaned men with curved swords hanging from their belts stepped aside with marked politeness when they saw a mage and a flying beast coming toward them.

  Automatons were cleaning the fountains in Kazalrhun’s courtyard, self-propelled creatures with half a dozen legs, each leg equipped for scrubbing. They finished and scuttled away as we crossed the flagstones, and the water, quiet during the cleaning, began again to shoot high. Maffi reached up and touhed one finger to a bell, which began to swing mightily back and forth, pealing the sweetest note I had ever heard from a bell. “Visitors!” he called cheerfully. “And unexpected ones!”

  A door opened at the far end of the courtyard, and I saw Kazalrhun at last: older and slower than I remembered, but still accompanied so closely by magic it seemed his spells must burst into visibility. The courtyard abruptly seemed much smaller with him in it. His enormous body was covered with odd bits of colored silk, and his black eyes, which seemed to have no whites at all, stared in amazement.

  At first I thought he was staring at Naurag, who had come over the wall, but it was not the flying beast who had surprised him. It was me. Two jeweled birds, which had just begun singing in the branches above us, stopped short, teetered for a second, then crashed to the pavement. “Daimbert,” said Kazalrhun slowly. “I had heard that you were dead.”

  IV

  When Kazalrhun at first seemed to have nothing more to say—either overcome with joy to see me alive after all or, more likely, shocked at the inefficiency of his information network which had given him such faulty information, Gwennie and Hadwidis gave each other quick glances. A princess and a castle constable always have resources, even in awkward social situations.

  After only the briefest hesitation they stepped forward to give formal curtseys. I realized that everyone who knew I was alive was here in this courtyard— that is, everyone except my daughter.

  “Greetings, Mage,” said Gwennie politely. “I know it’s a shock that our wizard won’t stay dead,” she added confidentially. “He startled me too, appearing like an apparition at dawn last week.”

  Kazalrhun shook himself and slowly started to smile then, showing a gold tooth. “Daimbert plays a subtle game,” he said with what I trusted was approval. “If even his friends believe him dead, then his enemies must be quite baffled.”

  “I certainly hope so,” I said, remembering his love for intrigue. The mage smiled again and sent his automatons whizzing off in search of refreshments. Soon we were all seated around a shaded table, eating iced lemon sherbert and candied almonds. Naurag happily settled in a corner with a pile of melons.

  The air was heavy with the scent of the flowering vines over our heads, and the tinkling fountains made a steady, gentle background of sound that distanced us from the noises of the street. Maffi maneuvered himself into the seat between Gwennie and Hadwidis; the latter turned away shyly and carefully adjusted the sca
rf over her stubbly head. It struck me as impolite to start immediately asking questions about an Ifrit, so I asked instead after the Lady Justinia, the governor’s granddaughter here in Xantium, who had spent some time in Yurt half a dozen years earlier.

  “Did you not observe the turmoil here in the city?” inquired Kazalrhun. “Half of Xantium is busy preparing for her upcoming wedding.” The city hadn’t seemed any more tumultuous to me than usual as we flew in, but then I didn’t know it very well.

  “Who is she marrying?” asked Gwennie brightly. When in Yurt Justinia had caught King Paul’s eye—though I personally had always doubted whether he had caught hers.

  “The heir to one of the largest merchant families,” Maffi answered her. “The fair Lady Justinia will need all her new husband’s wealth and influence in years to come, for she may soon become the governor of Xantium in her own right.”

  “That is, if the other great families and the bishop will accept a woman as governor,” commented Kazalrhun.

  I had enough intrigues of my own to worry about without getting involved in Xantium’s. “Then if she’s so busy I’m afraid she won’t have time to visit with old friends from Yurt,” said Gwennie in ill-disguised relief.

  “But you, Daimbert,” said Kazalrhun suddenly, leaning his elbows on the table until it creaked in protest, “have not come to my house to inquire after the governor’s granddaughter. It has been twenty years and more since you were here. And you would not have put out such a plausible rumor of your own death if your mission here now were one you wished to share with the world. Will you yet share it with me?”

  With Kazalrhun I always had the feeling that he was maneuvering me, using my own activities to further some long-range goals of his own. My instinctive reaction therefore was to say nothing. But if I said nothing then he would not be able to help me. I shook my head mentally and gave him a straight answer. “I’m looking for an Ifrit.” Kazalrhun’s eyebrows went up sharply.

  “It’s the only thing I can think of that will give me the power to overcome the West’s best wizard.”

  “You have decided at last, then, to pit your resources against those of the wizard Elerius,” said the mage, leaning forward with interest, so that the table creaked even more alarmingly, and Gwennie had to rescue a sliding bowl of almonds. He was nothing, I thought, if not well-informed about my friends and my enemies.

  But he had not heard of the death of the old Master of the school. I filled him in quickly on how Elerius had made himself regent of the West’s wealthiest kingdom, put himself first in line to head the school, and had when last seen been running for mayor of the West’s largest city, after having just influenced the election of its new bishop. “All went well,” I concluded, “until one tiny miscalculation. He tried to tell Zahlfast, the man who has for years been second in command at the school, that he would soon be Master himself, and instead he ended up in an open breach with Zahlfast—and, I presume, the other faculty members at the school. This had just happened as I started east.”

  Gwennie and Hadwidis followed my account with great interest, because I had so far given them very few details.

  Hadwidis took in a sharp breath when I first mentioned her kingdom as being run by Elerius but made no comment. Kazalrhun, however, seemed to notice her reaction and be adding it to his store of interesting tidbits. I left young Prince Walther completely out of my account as irrelevant; the Cranky Saint might have decided to make queen the unsatisfactory nun who had been given his name, but first I had to deal with Elerius.

  Gwennie, however, picked up on a different aspect.

  “You seem strangely well-informed about what happened at your funeral,” she told me, eyes narrow. “I know I told you a little about it, but you speak as though you saw it. Don’t tell me you let us all sit there being sad and saying nice things about you, watching and chuckling at us the whole time!”

  “Well, not chuckling—” I mumbled lamely.

  “You let your wife be devastated. You let the bishop speak sorrowfully of all your admirable qualities. And you just stood there invisible, reveling in it all!”

  “No, I didn’t revel in it, you need to understand—” Gwennie snorted and turned away with a sharp scrape of her chair, to present me an indignant back. “If you die again,” she said without turning around, “I’m not going to any funeral unless I see the body—and drive a pin into it too!”

  Kazalrhun, however, was impressed. “Perhaps I should let a rumor of my own death spread through Xantium. Then were a service held for me, I might discover the true nature of others’ feelings.”

  Maffi had been trying to distract Gwennie with illusory golden eggs, which hatched forth extremely tiny purple dragons, though Naurag seemed more interested in them than she was.

  Now Maffi leaned past her shoulder to comment to the older mage, “If you would discover others’ true feelings for you, sir, I can start by obliging you with mine any time you like!”

  Kazalrhun laughed and waved him away with an enormous hand. “But why do you seek an Ifrit, Daimbert? You will need no assistance against Elerius but your own magic. What you term a tiny miscalculation on his part suggests rather that his plans had not yet matured when he suddenly needed to put them into effect. If your school has turned against Elerius, than the city merchants and the priests will not listen to him either, and I expect the kingdom he rules will shortly cast him out as well.”

  “They won’t cast him out,” said Hadwidis gloomily but with certainty, speaking for the first time in a while. She blushed and went silent when we all looked at her.

  “She’s right,” I said hastily, to distract the others from her confusion. “The rest of the school faculty may take a second look at Elerius—though I fear many will still support him— but that doesn’t mean he will have no resources. And even worse, I’m afraid war is brewing in the west.

  Some of the kings are already deciding to attack the wizards, and they won’t make distinctions between those wizards who do and don’t support Elerius.” “Then perhaps you do need an Ifrit after all,” said Kazalrhun thoughtfully. “Your western armies would be no trouble for one. And I presume, Daimbert, that you have come to Xantium in the expectation that I would help you master one?”

  The tone of his voice gave me sudden hope. “Could you? Do you know where one is? I remember you managed to paralyze one once, so I thought—” He chuckled, which set his mighty belly quivering.

  “Not one of my most successful spells, as it proved—poor taste to remind your host of that event, Daimbert!” He was right; the Ifrit had soon cast off the spell, taken away the mage’s magical abilities for a period, and come close to killing him. I looked at Kazalrhun imploringly—hadn’t he figured out in the last twenty years where his spell had gone wrong?

  “But I may be able to assist you in some modest way,” he continued, giving a small smile. Which meant that he was going to expect something in return from me. “Indeed, there are rumors among all the mages of Xantium that it may soon be possible to capture an Ifrit as we never have before … But enough of this. Tomorrow shall be time to discuss these matters. For the rest of today, accept the hospitality of my house and take refreshment from your journey.”

  I didn’t dare push him for immediate details though I was wild with curiosity, for he spoke with a note of complacency. Instead I stood beside Naurag, stroking his neck reassuringly, while Kazalrhun and Maffi examined him, both with their eyes and with their spells. “I have often heard of these flying beasts,” said Maffi, who I recalled would never admit not having heard of something. “But never have I seen one before.”

  I wondered with a cold touch at the back of my neck if the mage would want to keep Naurag in return for his help.

  Presumably the Ifrit—if we mastered one—would take us wherever we wanted to go, but how could I leave the flying beast behind?

  Kazalrhun, however, seemed less interested in acquiring Naurag for himself than in learning how I had tamed him.


  “Melons,” I said. “I fed him melons all one afternoon, and he became my friend.”

  “And said spells, I might assume?” the mage inquired. “For no wild creature, much less a wild creature from the land of magic, will tame with a few melons.”

  I rubbed the bony ridge over Naurag’s eyes. He was awfully tame now that I thought about it, especially for a creature that looked like a small dragon. But I didn’t see how a few air cart spells could have had anything to do with it.

  Late in the afternoon, after we had all taken turns in the hot, lemon-scented bath where automatons scrubbed our backs, and as the smell of roasting lamb was just beginning to emerge from Kazalrhun’s kitchens, I took Hadwidis and Gwennie out again. We walked to the huge church dedicated to the Holy Wisdom of Solomon, to give thanks to God for our safe arrival in Xantium. Joachim would have wanted us to go.

  Maffi led the way, through a maze of twisting streets where I quickly lost track of all direction. The day was still hot. Stone walls edged the streets, pierced by doorways opening onto flowering courtyards.

  Hadwidis looked around eagerly, at the heavily-veiled women surrounded by body guards as big as Kazalrhun but a lot more muscular; at the shadowed shops from which voices emerged, promising love-potions; at the black-robed clerks arguing intently with each other as they walked; at the dark-eyed children playing half-naked in the gutters. I wondered uneasily if she was still planning to become a thief here and was seeing all this as her future habitat. I didn’t want to have to explain to the Cranky Saint, if I ever made it back to Yurt, that I’d left her in Xantium.