Mage Quest

then you’ll have decided you’d be willing to take something other than this ring.”

“Or perhaps by then you will have decided to produce it,” growled Kaz-alrhun.

I turned without any sort of farewell. This would be a dangerous mage to have angry with me, and at the moment I had no way to placate him. My companions were still waiting a short distance away, but Arnulf’s agents were gone.

Joachim gripped me by the arm before I could speak. “Are you all right? Does that horse move with the supernatural power of evil?”

“Come on,” I said to all of them with a jerk of my head. “It moves by magic alone, but let’s get back to the inn while we’re still alive.”

It took us ten minutes to find our way to the edge of the Market, and another ten to find the street on which we had come in, but then Ascelin was able to locate our position on the map and we retraced our steps hastily.

But we had only gone a quarter mile when I saw a boy’s ragged form waiting for us ahead. Maffi stood with a fist on one cocked hip, looking pleased with himself. “So did you do your business in the Thieves’ Market, my masters?”

The king objected as Ascelin started to yank him off the ground by the front of his shirt. The prince set him down but shifted his grip at once to the boy’s arm. “Were you hired to bring us there?”

“Of course!” he said saucily. “In the sight of all-knowing God, you hired me yourself! Now, you promised to pay me what my guidance was worth. Did I not bring you there safely, just as I promised?”

“Those men in turbans didn’t hire you?” Ascelin persisted.

“Of course not,” said Maffi agreeably. “And I was very pleased to see that they had not harmed you.”

Ascelin let him go, disgusted. “I’m not going to get any clear story out of him, that’s certain.”

But King Haimeric took a coin from his belt. “You did bring us safely to the Thieves’ Market, just as you promised, and you deserve your fee.” Maffi took the coin and examined it with interest.

Ascelin started to speak and instead turned away. But I stepped forward quickly.

“Maffi, maybe you can help us some more.”

He smiled broadly up at me. His face was streaked with dirt, but his eyes were bright. For a second, I wondered if he had any home or any family to take care of him, or if he had to live on Xantium’s streets by his wits. If so, I would pay him even if he was lying to us. But he might also be very useful.

“As you guessed, we are indeed looking for something, something stolen from us earlier. It’s a ring.”

Dominic started to say something and thought better of it.

“Westerners like us would become hopelessly lost and cheated in the Thieves’ Market. That’s why I need you to look for it for us. Meet me-” I hesitated, not wanting to tell him the address of our inn if he didn’t already know it. “Meet me tomorrow at noon on the steps of the Church of Holy Wisdom. Then you can tell me if you’ve located it, and if so we’ll go together to buy it.”

“Will any ring do?”

This was a problem, because I wasn’t sure what I was looking for myself. “No, this is a special one.” I wasn’t about to tell him I’d never seen it. “It’s had a magic spell put on it, and it’s clearly identifiable as being from Yurt. Don’t ask for a magic ring specifically, because then they may try to cheat you with a plain one, but-”

Maffi interrupted with a laugh. “You need not teach me how to bargain. I was born in the Thieves’ Market! Same payment schedule as today?”

“Same as today,” I said, and he raced away back toward the Market.

Ascelin frowned deeply. “Would you like to tell us, Wizard, what you’re doing?”

“Of course. But let’s get back to the inn and have dinner. The magic flying horse made me hungry.”

The inn served us fried eggplant for dinner. King Haimeric had never had eggplant before; even in the City, it was uncommon outside a few eastern restaurants. He ate his slowly, telling us one minute that he liked it tremendously and the next that he didn’t, trying to decide if the queen would like it or if the royal cook could find a better way to prepare it.

“What’s this ring you’re trying to find?” asked Ascelin as the waiter brought us pastries sticky with honey and cups of spiced tea.

“I think it’s what the chaplain’s sister-in-law gave him, what the bandits stole from us,” I said slowly. I went on to explain my theory that Joachim’s brother had intended using him as his representative in buying the ebony horse from the mage, while concealing from him that that was what he was doing.

The chaplain shook his head. “I cannot believe in such a deception. Claudia gave me a present, I presume in memory of our old friendship, but it wasn’t anything important or valuable. She told me so herself when I apologized for losing it.”

But no one paid attention to this. “Why do you think the ring will have traveled from the mountains across the eastern kingdoms to Xantium?” asked Hugo.

“It shouldn’t have,” I agreed. “But I think it’s worth looking for. After all, if Arnulf had heard there was a flying horse for sale here, with the price a magic ring, Warin may have heard it too. Kaz-alrhun seems fairly determined to have it. The real flaw in my theory,” I added, “is that Kaz-alrhun was expecting something from Yurt. He’d heard of the kingdom and thought it important, even if he’d only heard of it from Evrard-by the way, did you hear him saying he’d met Evrard?”

“We already knew Sir Hugo’s party passed through Xantium,” said the king. “Since everyone here wants to guide us to the Thieves’ Market, the same thing must have happened to them.”

“He said he wanted a ring from Yurt only in order to mislead you,” said Dominic. “It’s my ruby ring he’s after, and he must have seen it on my hand today. That wizard in the eastern kingdoms certainly wanted it. Somehow the story got out that the spell to reveal the, the-whatever my father had found in the Wadi-was hidden in his snake ring. That’s why someone had opened his tomb.”

“But neither the mage nor Arnulf himself made any attempt to get your ring away from you,” I said. “Maybe Arnulf had gotten hold of a different magic ring, with different properties, to swap to Kaz-alrhun for the ebony horse, yet for some reason it’s important for it to be from Yurt.”

“I still don’t understand,” said Joachim, “even if my brother did send a magic ring with us, why he could possibly want a flying horse. I would not believe it even now if his agents had not been so sure. He does not even employ a wizard. My father and grandfather never had wizards either-I wouldn’t have thought anyone in our family was interested in magic.”

“It’s not the horse itself,” I said suddenly. “He wants the horse for transportation. Since he thinks King Solomon’s Pearl has been located, he wants some way to get very quickly to where it’s hidden, and then to get away safely just as fast.”

Hugo and Ascelin both shot me unexpected smiles, and Hugo said, “That’s it! Especially if it’s guarded by an Ifrit, he can’t possibly get to it by normal transportation.”

“I hope for Arnulf’s sake,” said Ascelin, “that this ring he supposedly sent with us isn’t also supposed to reveal the Black Pearl. Otherwise he and the mage could have a very unpleasant meeting at the Pearl’s hiding-place, he with the horse and the mage with the ring.”

“If by some chance, Joachim,” I said, “your brother ever does buy that magic horse, tell him not to worry about staying on. Instead, tell him to be sure to look for the second pin to help guide it.”

IV

I found my way through the narrow streets to the Church of the Holy Wisdom at noon, as a wailing from the minarets again called the faithful People of the Prophet to prayer. I did not expect to see Maffi, or, if so, assumed I would find him ready with some woeful story why he couldn’t find the ring I wanted. It was because I doubted he would even be there that I had refused Ascelin’s offer to accompany me. But the way Maffi leaned against the door frame of the great church, waiting, exuded confidence.

“You found it?” I asked in amazement.

But he just gave me a mysterious smile. “Maybe. Come and look for yourself.”