Dominic broke the silence at last. “This is what my father meant us to find,” he said, then frowned, finding his remark somewhat inadequate. “It is indeed something wonderful and marvelous, something that makes those terms almost trite … This Pearl,” he continued, quoting Arnulf, “gives power to the people who hold it, so that they will always prosper, that their setbacks will be only temporary, and they will in the end find their hearts’ desire. But I still don’t know how my father learned it was here.”
“I do,” said Kaz-alrhun unexpectedly. “I told him about it.”
We all turned to stare at him. “If you know the history of the Black Pearl,” said the mage, “then you know that it was last seen a thousand years ago when the last of the caliphs, may God reward him, gave up both its powers and its perils by having an Ifrit hide it.”
“In the Outer Sea,” said King Haimeric again.
“No, although he let that story be generally known. Instead he hid it here in the Wadi Harhammi, protected by Ifrit magic. As an additional precaution, although he kept this very secret, he put the opening spell that would allow one to reach the Pearl onto a ruby ring … Because the Ifriti have been controlled since the time of Solomon by the magic of his Black Pearl, not even all the Ifriti in the East together, and certainly no lesser power, could break through the combined magic of pearl and ruby to reveal its hiding place. A few true accounts were written and can still be found in the great library in Xantium, and doubtless also in the Holy City and in Bahdroc, and other accounts over the centuries hinted vaguely that there was something special in the Wadi.
“The caliph hoped to keep the Black Pearl hidden forever, even if he did hide it in a place from which he knew he could recover it again if he ever changed his mind. But he had ruled for over two hundred years, and his whole region had come to depend on him personally. When he died there was no one with the power and authority to take his place. In the civil war that followed, the ruby ring was lost, its importance forgotten. When I first learned in Xantium’s library that the Pearl was here, I knew I had to find that ring.”
From the corner of my eye, I thought I saw Ascelin’s blond head looking over the edge of the rift, but I was too absorbed in Kaz-alrhun’s story to do more than glance toward him.
The mage turned to Dominic. “Tracing the ruby’s movements over the past millennium took me-a certain interval. But by God’s decree I came upon it at last. Fifty years ago, I met your father. You look like him; I would have recognized you when you approached my stall in the Thieves’ Market even without the ruby snake ring on your finger.
“This was in the time of the emir’s warlike youth. As he now controls this whole part of the east, he must have learned the secret of the Wadi, but he was in no position to uncover the Pearl himself. I was traveling in what you in the west call the eastern kingdoms-the governor of Xantium and I had had a disagreement of sorts, and the climate of the city had become oppressive enough that it seemed better to leave town for a while. I thought that the combination of my magic and the force of a strong sword arm would carry us past both the emir’s soldiers and the magery the emir would be able to command.”
“And you gave him the ruby ring?” asked Dominic.
Kaz-alrhun’s gold tooth flashed as he smiled. “That he had already found for himself, captured with a cache of other precious jewels whose origins were long forgotten. But he did not know its value until he met me. I told him the true story; I could not of course take the ring from him by force.” I was surprised at this sudden fastidiousness in the mage, but he did not give me a chance to ask about it. “He agreed to accompany me to Bahdroc as soon as he had finished the campaign to which he was pledged. But what man wishes and God ordains often differ. The next thing I heard was that Prince Dominic was dead.”
And the prince had died without daring to send open information to his family about the Black Pearl. Even his wizard, Vlad, had waited until recently to begin again his search for it, through his friend, King Warin’s chancellor. This reminded me that we had not seen that king for a while …
“But why,” asked Dominic, “did you wait for nearly fifty years to try again for the Pearl? And why did you take the onyx ring in return for your flying horse, when you knew it was not the right ring?” He still held the golden box open in his hands.
“When it became clear that I had lost that phase of the game,” said the mage, “I returned to Xantium, to wait and see if Prince Dominic’s mage-I never did trust him-or someone of the prince’s family would make an attempt to find the Pearl. It seemed at first that time was on my side. But I am an old man now, even if I still am my city’s greatest mage-fifty years was long enough to wait.”
“But you still took the onyx ring from King Warin for your flying horse,” Dominic persisted.
Kaz-alrhun smiled again. “When I saw the ruby on your hand in Xantium, and realized that you and it were heading this way, it was, shall we say, easier to let you continue than to try to take it from you, especially once I found your father’s letter on your wizard and knew for a certainty that you were making for the Wadi. The flying horse was no longer needed to draw you out of Yurt. Since I sensed that the second player had made the onyx magical, I thought I would give him a little room, see how he would play his game if he thought he had fooled me.”
That was the second time he had mentioned another “player” in what he persisted in calling a game. I had to ask him about it once I had some guesses of my own. “I hope,” I now said, “that we are not going to start a quarrel over who should control the Pearl’s powers.”
The mage rolled his pitch-black eyes at me. “Do not fear, Daimbert, that I shall do ill by one who has done well by me.”
“If Solomon’s Pearl will make the holder always prosper,” said Dominic quietly, “I think it has enough power for all of us to share. By finding out for certain what happened to my father, by fulfilling his last wish, I have already found my heart’s desire.”
“In fact,” I said, “I think we’ll
We had all been so intent on the Pearl, both with our normal senses and, for we three magic-workers, with our magic, that we did not hear a step or sense a presence we should have heard and sensed.
There was suddenly a knife at Dominic’s neck and a hand on the golden box. “Thank you for getting this out of the cave for me,” said King Warin. “This is mine.”
V
“Have you been taking tips from your bandits, Warin?” asked Dominic as the golden box was slowly taken from him. He did not stir a muscle, but his face turned dark red. “I shall add this to my bill of complaints against you once we’re home again.”
If we ever got home. I did not dare try a spell. If Warin took Dominic with him as a hostage, he would be able to get back to the ebony flying horse, threaten the Ifrit with the Pearl’s power until the horse could fly again, and escape, leaving us to face the Ifrit and the emir’s soldiers.
King Warin’s hand closed around the Black Pearl as he backed slowly up the Wadi, Dominic necessarily backing with him as the edge of the king’s knife pressed against his neck. “Stay where you are,” he said warningly, but none of us had dared move.
“I tried to warn you to beware of him,” Evrard muttered out of the corner of his mouth.
A hundred feet from us Warin lifted his left fist, the Pearl in it, and held his arm straight toward us. His face lit up with triumphant joy. From his lips came words of the Hidden Language.
It was a paralysis spell, short and awkward, with half the words mispronounced. But with the Pearl in his fist and the correct form of the words in our minds, Evrard, Kaz-alrhun, and I were frozen where we stood.
I would have gone stiff even if the spell had not worked. It was in the Hidden Language, that controlled eastern as well as western magic, but its form was indubitably that of a school spell.
“You can’t stop me without your wizard, Haimeric!” Warin shouted mockingly. “And your nephew’s not going to be a lot of help against the Ifrit!” He gave Dominic an abrupt blow with the golden box on the back of the head,
