Mage Quest

thing. I didn’t like to think what long-term effects this kind of magic would have on the local physical structure of the earth; it was with good reason that Ifriti were considered highly dangerous. At least, I thought, when we left the reality where our friends were, where the flying carpet worked, we had also left the Ifrit behind.

He stopped us before we had crossed half the distance to the Wadi.

Kaz-alrhun opened his mouth, then froze. For the first time since I had met him he looked disconcerted, and sweat made rivulets in the dust on his dark skin.

“By what form of slaughter shall I slay you?” asked the Ifrit, glaring down with his arms folded. “I do not like little mages who try to tie me up. Solomon may have bound me, but you are not Solomon. And I do not even think you are from Yurt.”

Kaz-alrhun’s magic was gone, I realized, snatched from him as mine had been when I first reached the valley. Though I still had my magical abilities for the moment, I didn’t dare use them against the Ifrit for fear of drawing attraction to them. I wondered wildly if this was the mage’s unimaginable danger: probably not, because I could imagine quite vividly what the Ifrit was about to do to us.

“Listen, Ifrit,” I said recklessly. “I have a proposition to make.”

The Ifrit shifted his eyes from Kaz-alrhun and leaned down toward me. “What kind of proposition?”

“If you let us go, I can help you with your wife.”

Kaz-alrhun recovered his equilibrium as soon as the Ifrit turned his attention from him, and he looked intrigued by this new development.

The Ifrit growled low in his throat. “And what are you trying to imply, little mage, about my beautiful, my pure young wife?”

“Just this,” I plunged on. “In another ten years, her litheness and slenderness will begin to go. Twenty years after that, her white skin will be wrinkling and her black hair turning gray.” I paused to let the Ifrit consider this. “But I can keep that from happening.”

“But if I keep her with me, she will not have to die the way all you humans do,” the Ifrit protested.

“No, it doesn’t work like that. Even with my magic, she won’t live longer than King Solomon did. And without my spells, she won’t live longer than any ordinary human. But I can promise to keep her young a long, long time.”

“Then you’d better do your spells right away,” said the Ifrit, deeply concerned.

“No, because I don’t trust you. First let us continue our explorations, and then I’ll cast my spells. We aren’t trying to escape, because we’ll always be right here in the valley. This may take a day or two, but we’ll never be far away. When we’ve found what we’re looking for, then I shall cast the spells to give your wife long life.”

“Maybe I do not trust you. If you play me false, then God shall play you false. If you don’t come back and make my wife stay young and pure, then I’ll crush all your friends.”

If we didn’t find a way to get away from the Ifrit soon, before whoever had ordered him to watch for us appeared, we’d all be dead anyway. Rapid crushing would have to be better than undergoing any more of the Ifrit’s fatal “tests.”

“Of course,” I said as firmly as I could.

I turned on my heel and started walking without giving him a chance to change his mind. Kaz-alrhun and Dominic were right behind me. As we hurried on, the mage commented with a small smile, “It has been two centuries since I was last without access to magic. This should be a novel experience.” Then he added, as though in disapproval, “That was a noble display of generosity, Daimbert. I thought even wizards of the west knew better than to prolong life wantonly.”

“We do. I would never artificially lengthen the lives of anyone at the royal court of Yurt.” This was for Dominic’s benefit. “But I think the Ifrit’s own magical abilities could have prolonged her life anyway, even though he doesn’t know it.”

And then I realized the mage was smiling. He had not disapproved of my proposition after all. “I did not know that woman was the Ifrit’s wife,” was all he said.

We seemed to move at a snail’s pace across the valley floor. The noon heat surrounded us so thoroughly that it felt it must be visible. The sun’s glare made it hard to see. The mage was soon wheezing, and I slowed my pace to his; he was twice my bulk as well as at least two hundred years older. Dominic would have been wheezing even worse at the beginning of our trip, though he now moved almost as easily as Ascelin.

When we finally reached the boulders that marked the head of the dry watercourse, my first thought was to sit down in their shadow. But I stood up again after a moment, while the mage was still panting, to look down into the Wadi Harhammi.

It had been our goal since the eastern kingdoms, but now that we were here it seemed almost an anticlimax. For a place of unimaginable danger, it seemed very quiet. The watercourse appeared empty, although a curve hid most of its length. I still had no idea what Dominic’s father had thought was in the Wadi fifty years ago or what might be here now-or even what Kaz-alrhun thought was here.

It was time to find out. I lifted the onyx ring and said the words to reveal what was hidden.

We scrambled backwards as the ground beneath our feet started to drop away, rocks rolling and sand sliding. In a few seconds, the narrow watercourse had grown to cover most of the center of the valley.

“Greetings,” said King Warin. “I knew you’d be here sooner or later.”

II

Dominic and I stopped dead, but Kaz-alrhun did not seem perturbed. “I wish to inquire of you about that onyx ring you gave me for my flying horse,” he said. “It was not the ring I required.”

King Warin fixed us with his dead cold eyes, making me shiver in spite of the desert sun. “And your flying horse is not the help you led me to believe it would be.” The enormous black horse stood, completely still, beside him.

“You should always beware when bargaining in the Thieves’ Market,” said the mage. “Did I make any guarantee of my automaton’s power against Ifriti?”

Dominic interrupted them. “King Warin,” he said formally, “I accuse you before these witnesses of treating us falsely. When we return to the western kingdoms, I intend to assemble a court of our royal brothers to judge you for the crimes of theft and attempted murder.”

“He obtained the onyx ring by stealing it from you?” said Kaz-alrhun with a smile of comprehension. “God’s ways are secret ways, and all of us and the ring are now here together.”

“So is this,” I asked the mage with a nod toward Warin, “the danger against which you didn’t feel you could warn me?”

“Not at all,” said the mage. “I did not expect him here, although I always knew his entry into the game at this point was possible.”

“You’ve moved into a separate level of reality,” I said to Warin with what I hoped was a wizardly scowl. All I had to oppose the king was my magic, and I wanted to make sure he respected it. “The ebony horse won’t fly here.”

“Do you not intend to answer my charge?” said Dominic, crossing his arms. From his manner, instead of being in a desert valley surrounded by rocks, sand, and treacherous magic, we could have been home in the west.

Warin hesitated, flicking his eyes back and forth between us. He might have no respect for the mage and me, but Dominic disturbed him. “I do not understand what you’re talking about,” he said brusquely. “I had nothing to do with that band of bandits.”

“So you do know that we were set upon by bandits,” said Dominic, as though making a point before a judge. “When the strange stories coming out of the east reached you, you learned there was a flying horse for sale in Xantium, and its price a certain ring …”

“The ring you tried unsuccessfully to find in Prince Dominic’s tomb,” I suggested.

Dominic scowled darkly. “No wonder the townspeople have become leery of the church of the Holy Twins, if its sanctuary was violated by someone who would not hesitate to practice the black arts. I shall add desecration of