“I heard you’re looking for young Evrard,” he said, “and I realized I have some information that may help. I was in the East last year on private business, and I spotted him across a crowd although I don’t think he saw me-a red-headed wizard is hard to miss!”
“Where was this?”
“In the Holy City. There were rumors flying throughout the city that Noah’s Ark had been found after all these centuries, somewhere far to the south, near the emirate of Bahdroc. They must have heard the rumors. Maybe the emirate was where Evrard and his employer have gone.” An expression I could not define flitted across Elerius’s face as he spoke; I decided it must be embarrassment to admit that he himself had been in the Holy Land.
“We know they reached the Holy City,” I said in excitement, “and their last message was that they were going south. That must be why. What do you think? Could there be any truth in the rumor? And have you heard the stories that King Solomon’s Pearl has been found?”
“Delightful stories, but I’m afraid highly unlikely,” said Elerius lightly. “Give my regards to King Warin.” And he rang off.
East of King Warin’s castle, the road along which his chancellor directed us became narrow and much rougher. We found ourselves climbing slowly but steadily, in great arcs across a slope where a few scattered sheep grazed but there was no sign of human habitation. At one point two rangy dogs came racing after us, but they slunk off when Whirlwind leveled a kick at them.
I decided to try again to persuade Joachim to open his present from Claudia-that is, if his saddle-bag still contained that present, and Warin had not stolen it and substituted something else. I had had enough time to imagine several more things it might be, such as the money to pay Arnulf’s agents, which he did not dare send any other way now that bandits were becoming more frequent, or a special magic bottle designed to capture an Ifrit.
But I had voiced none of my fears to the chaplain. In fact, I realized I had spoken to him very little since we left his brother’s house. I wanted to know why Claudia had been singing love-songs to him, and if he really thought it all as innocuous as he appeared to. Since I didn’t know how to ask this, I had said nothing else either.
“When we’re a week away,” Joachim told me when I finally broached the question again, “then I’ll open it. Why are you so interested anyway?”
I hesitated a minute, then decided he had the right to know. “Ascelin thinks she gave you King Solomon’s Pearl.”
We were riding two abreast on the narrow road, our saddles creaking and my harness bells jingling. Joachim looked at me incredulously, then came very close to laughing. “No wonder you’re so curious,” he said. “But I already told you: if Arnulf had something that would grant his heart’s desire, he wouldn’t be losing his caravans. And he would certainly not allow his wife to give it to someone else.”
“Well, I myself don’t think it’s the Pearl, either,” I said. “But what could it be? Maybe Arnulf has some complicated and dangerous transaction he needs to have taken care of in the East, and he’s sent the materials to do it along with us. Since you refused categorically to transact any business for him, maybe he’s hoping that this way you’ll be tricked into doing so. Or maybe,” I paused for a second then pushed on, “Claudia has given you a love-potion.”
Joachim smiled. “That would make no sense. She’s known since I left for seminary that I didn’t love her. And she’s a married woman, my own sister-in-law.”
It was a good thing, I thought, and not for the first time, that he was a priest. “But it has to be
“All right, Daimbert,” said the chaplain indulgently. “Four days’ ride may be far enough away. I’ll open it this evening, and you can help me in case it’s something dangerous and magical.”
I was now immediately convinced that it was something completely prosaic, but I didn’t say so. I would find out for certain soon enough.
What had looked like the top of the slope as we climbed upwards turned out to be, when we finally paused to rest the horses, only a short level area before stony crags began to rise again. The road before us disappeared into a defile overhung with forested cliffs.
But Dominic was looking back in the direction we had come, not forward. “What a view!” he said.
It was indeed quite a view of the western kingdoms, out across green hills and patches of woodland to wide pastures far beyond. The air was clear, and we could see for countless miles. The land was scattered with compact villages in the blue distance. Far below us, and finally looking small, was Warin’s royal castle.
“This is it,” said Dominic cheerfully. “The next castles we see will be in the eastern kingdoms.”
I realized with a start that, somehow without my noticing it, Dominic had changed. I had always thought of him as a rather hard and surly person, but I could remember no signs of surliness for the last few weeks. Maybe being in motion, rather than sitting around a royal castle where he wasn’t even royal heir anymore, was what he had needed, in which case we should all have sent him off on a quest years ago. Or maybe being clubbed on the back of the head by a bandit had knocked some good humor into him.
This thought, however, gave me another. I looked ahead with concern. The narrow road looked like an excellent place for bandits.
We continued onward, on a road so rough and pocked with holes that clearly no one had worked on it this spring. “King Warin has been neglecting his responsibilities,” commented Ascelin darkly. “His kingdom goes all the way up to the pass.”
In some places we had to go single-file as the road swung sharply around a corner or climbed so steeply that a lather broke out all along our mounts’ withers. But it was beautiful in a wild way, the rocks around us shaped by water and wind into grotesque formations, dark evergreens clinging to the slope with roots like giant, deformed fingers. Repeatedly it seemed that we must have reached a dead end at last, and repeatedly the road slipped around a rock and continued on and up.
For two hours I kept alert for bandits, probing constantly with magic but finding no other human minds. I checked behind us as well as ahead, not trusting King Warin not to send his own knights after us.
But after two hours, worn out from constant spells, I stopped. One couldn’t live like this, on the jagged edge of suspicion. We had come out above the first, steepest area, and Ascelin told us we were making good progress toward the pass. A desolate meadow stretched relatively level for a half mile in front of us. With the road temporarily wide enough again to ride abreast, I pulled my mare even with Whirlwind.
I was tired of thinking about the Black Pearl and the Lady Claudia. “Have you ever been in the eastern kingdoms before?” I asked Dominic. “I never have; the school’s sphere of influence really stops at these mountains.”
“I’ve meant to come here for years, but somehow I never have either,” said Dominic. “Ever since you wizards stopped all the wars in the western kingdoms, young aristocrats have had to cross the mountains if we want to see any fighting. You know, of course, that’s how my father was killed. I grew up with my mother warning me about the horrible dangers of looking for honor that way, and by the time I was old enough to make my own decisions, I started feeling too responsible as royal heir of Yurt to follow his footsteps.”
“Well, I certainly hope we don’t run into any wars,” I said. “We’re on pilgrimage.”
“And that’s part of the reason I’m glad we’re coming this way,” continued Dominic. “You heard King Warin talking about how everyone always admired my father. Well, I’ve been hearing some variation of that story all my life. Maybe it was partly fear that I wouldn’t measure up to him that kept me at home, but now that I’m traveling east at last I don’t feel jealous of him so much as I want to learn more about him. My father is buried in a pilgrimage church east of the mountains. Neither Mother nor I ever visited his grave.”
We
“I don’t think, even if we run into a war, they’ll bother some harmless pilgrims,” he said. “But I must admit it gives our trip a little excitement, a little spice even, which I’m afraid Yurt misses most of the time.”
“I’m interested in meeting the wizards east of the mountains,” I said. “I assume they practice essentially the same magic as in the western kingdoms, rather than what the mages of the real East use. The book I brought along on eastern magic doesn’t include anything west of Xantium. But the magic of the eastern kingdoms may be closer to the old magic of earth and herbs than to modern school magic.”
At this point the road narrowed again, and again evergreens and rocky cliffs hung above us. I dropped in behind Dominic, keeping my mare’s nose well back from Whirlwind’s heels.
