fear was a clear sign that he had put a spell on me, that he must be connected with the eastern wizard who had tried to betray Dominic’s father, but somehow the message didn’t get through.
He didn’t say anything more about Yurt. “Western wizards come here but rarely,” he said instead, apparently as interested in me as I was in him. Magic hung about him, crackling the air until it seemed it must be visible. If any mage could master an Ifrit, I thought, this one could. “The last western wizard I saw was red-haired, but that was a great many months ago.”
“Evrard,” I said aloud. Maybe, at last, we were on the trail.
“I hear, in the west, interest in my magic horse is high,” he said.
I wrenched my attention from him to the ebony animal. “Does it move by magic?”
“Of course! Even you of the west must know that on Judgment Day all of us who have made lifelike images will be asked to set them in motion, and unless we can make them move by themselves we will be denied heaven.”
This was news to me, but then I had never made any lifelike images. “How does it work?”
“Mount, and I shall demonstrate it to you!”
The stirrup was too high for me, and there was no mounting block, so I flew straight up to land on the horse’s hard wooden back, as I had lifted Prince Paul up on Whirlwind’s back on a wintry day that could have been a lifetime ago. For a second I saw my companions and Arnulf’s agents, clustered together a few yards away and looking highly concerned, but I had no time to spare for them.
“Do you observe that little pin on the side of the neck?” asked Kaz-alrhun. “Give it a turn to the left, and hold on tightly!”
I thrust my feet into the stirrups, took a firm grip on the reins with one hand, and twisted the little pin.
The response was immediate. The horse was instantly alive, still ebony-hard but moving, muscles rippling. It tossed its head, pranced for a second, gave a whinny that resounded throughout the Thieves’ Market, and launched itself into the sky.
All the fear I should have been feeling the last ten minutes abruptly made itself felt. The stirrups held my feet in immovable bands of steel, and the reins felt welded to my left hand. Wind rushed past my ears, and clouds rapidly approached my startled eyes. I was flying straight up on a magic horse into the sky above Xantium, with no way to stop it and no way to get off.
III
“You knew all along he was putting a spell on you,” my brain told me accusingly. “Now the horse will toss you off at some likely spot and fly back to its master. Didn’t you wonder why no else wanted to get near?”
At least, I answered myself grimly, if I got tossed off I knew how to fly. The thought gave me the strength to try to find some way to control this animal.
Melecherius was no use here. I had already determined that turning the little pin to the right had no effect, and giving it further turns to the left only made the animal rise faster. But then, on the opposite side of its neck, I spotted a second pin.
A hard twist here, and the magic horse slowed its ascent and leveled off. In a moment I thought I knew how to master it. The process was a little tricky, because the reins still kept my left hand imprisoned, but by reaching from the pin on one side of its neck to the pin on the other, from the one that made it rise to the one that made it fall, I was able to control our flight.
Once the fear drained away, it was unexpectedly exhilarating. My hat was long gone, and the wind blew back the hair from my hot forehead. The land below, the city, Xantium harbor, the Central Sea, could have been a highly detailed and contoured map-the magic map of Prince Vlad. I flew far higher than I had ever dared go on my own, with none of the hard work that comes with flying and yet with an ease of motion and a quickness never found in the school’s air cart. It was only because I knew my friends from Yurt would be worried that I made myself turn the horse around and aim it, as well as I could, toward the Thieves’ Market.
I wondered how hard it would be to maneuver the last bit, but here the ebony horse’s own spells seemed to take over, for it landed lightly and exactly where it had begun, at Kaz-alrhun’s stall. He had been standing at the chess board and looked up with a wide smile, having apparently just solved his puzzle.
The horse went instantly as still as wood again, and my feet and hands were released. I scrambled down, and the crowd that had slowly moved up around the mage in my absence surged back again.
I flashed a reassuring smile toward my companions. “Well,” I said to Kaz-alrhun, “I’m enormously impressed. A horse like this could command any price you asked from King Solomon himself. And its motion won’t keep you from heaven on Judgment Day!”
“Do you think your master will wish to buy it?” he answered with a proud chuckle.
He’d been testing me, I thought, and so far I hadn’t failed too badly. And I had been thinking fast during the five minutes while the ebony horse brought me back down again. “Your price is a bag of money, I believe?” I said cautiously. “And, oh yes,” as though I’d almost forgotten, “some sort of ring.” I tugged on my eagle ring. “Will this one do?”
The mage threw his head back and burst into a great laugh. “No, it will not, Daimbert!” A flash of light touched my hand, and I yanked at the ring in good earnest as it instantly became scorching hot.
I had it off after what seemed an hour, though it was probably only a few seconds. In my other hand, the ring was again its normal cool self. I sucked at the back of my finger while glaring at Kaz-alrhun. “And what was that supposed to prove?”
“That is not the ring I desire,” he said with another laugh.
I slid the ring back on, as though nonchalantly, watching for any sign of returning heat. “Does the name Arnulf mean anything to you?” I asked cautiously.
“That is the name of your master?” replied Kaz-alrhun. “To me it is a mere name. Do you intend to tell me he is a mage whose magic will outmatch mine?”
This sent him into a new round of laughter, leaving me a few seconds for rapid thought. Arnulf had heard of this magic horse from his agents and coveted it fiercely. But the price Kaz-alrhun had put on it was something he did not have. The price was a ring from Yurt.
For a second, I almost thought I understood it all. Arnulf had not dared to go to Xantium himself. Therefore he had sent Joachim in his place, knowing that his agents here would mistake the chaplain for him, at least at first, and lead him to Kaz-alrhun’s magic horse. Even though the chaplain had refused to conduct any business deals for his brother’s firm, Arnulf assumed that once here Joachim would bargain honestly, buying the horse for his brother- the only person, in fact, whom he could trust not to keep the ebony horse for himself. And Joachim would have the price with him. Claudia had not been successful in wheedling him into agreeing to conduct the transaction, which made it more risky. But he was still supposed to have the “gift” which Claudia had given him on parting, since he would accept something from her with far less suspicion than from Arnulf himself.
But here my reasoning broke down. Arnulf certainly had no ring from Yurt to send to Xantium-or if so, I couldn’t imagine where he had gotten it. Dominic stood only a short distance from the booth, his father’s ruby ring winking on his finger, the magic ring which I would have thought the mage really wanted, except that he seemed to show no interest in it.
“Tell me about this ring you claim I was supposed to bring you,” I said casually, as though negotiating myself.
“You know well this ring and its properties,” the mage said, holding me with his eyes. “You have received a free ride, but do not anticipate any more until you can deliver it.”
“Perhaps I could obtain this ring for you,” I suggested, “if I knew what powers it was supposed to have.”
“If you are from Yurt,” said Kaz-alrhun, abruptly not smiling at all, “you already know. And you already know its relation to the Wadi Harhammi.” He watched me closely for my reaction to his mention of the Wadi; I did my best not to show how surprised I was. “You have amused me mightily, Daimbert,” the mage continued, “not least because I see so few western wizards, but I do not like dissimulation.”
Neither did I, and Arnulf had lied to us thoroughly. “Maybe I’ll be back tomorrow,” I said lightly. “Perhaps by
