He swung through a lavish room and strode brusquely onto a balcony that projected out toward the Court of the Magic Fountain. Even here, the heat of those dancing flames hurled upward a gust and, through its quivering veil, he stared down upon the marble-paved court. It was paved now in a new way, with solid ranks of soldiers. Seven spokes of color stemmed from the center of the flaming moat, and those were the colors of the seven wizards, no longer divided but each an army to itself.
“Thy scarlet guards, small apeling, are with the others,” Wan Tengri muttered to the thief. “Canst control them?”
Bourtai washed his clawlike hands in air. “How can that be, master?” he asked worriedly. “They do not know me, save as a tall, masked figure in red.” He caught the sardonic gleam in Wan Tengri’s eye, scanning his height, added hurriedly: “My magics achieve that for me. But it is rarely we wizards go among our men. There are captains.”
Far beyond the white reaches of the city, with its graceful spires, the red moon was rising. It laid its scarlet tracery over the black waters of Baikul. Faintly, Wan Tengri could see the swaying mast of a ship, and his nostrils fluttered wide as if, even above the odor of the burning, he could catch the clean scent of the sea. A mighty yearning filled him—and from below, a massed shout of ten thousand voices burst upon his ears. He peered down. Upon a raised litter in the midst of the throng, stood six tall, masked figures, and about them swirled white vapors that faded into rose, into blue, and back to rose again. The gaunt arms of those specters were raised and gesturing.
Across the heads of the grouped armies, a wave of flame swept, to swoop toward the tower. Wan Tengri narrowed his eyes, while leaping flames seemed to fight other flames there on the dark liquid of the circling moat. A triumphant shout went up from the assembled multitude, and for a moment Wan Tengri swore fiercely. Then he laughed.
“If thy wizard brothers’ men seek to swim that moat, they will be sadly scorched. They think that our flames are dark, small wizard.” The grin lingered in his mouth corners. “We will see what my own small magics can achieve.”
From around his neck, he unslung the mighty bow of horn. Men were spilling over the edge of the moat, and their screams lifted horribly into the night while the flames danced, unappeased.
“You wizards believe in your own medicine, don’t you,
shaman?”
said Wan Tengri. “Well, that’s right. That’s as it should be.” He drew the gut to his ear and an arrow twanged downward through the flickering light. Before it could strike, Wan Tengri had loosed another and another. A masked figure in gold threw up its arms and pitched backward into the massed soldier ranks, and an instant later, a man in purple clutched at his chest where an arrow had taken strong, fatal root. As one man, the others leaped from their dais, and Wan Tengri’s third arrow buried half its length in the wooden floor and quivered there, a black warning of doom.
Black fog eddied up above the platform, and from its heart a great thing of leathern wings and flaming jaws winged upward into the ceiling of the night. Four great vibrations of those wings and it was sweeping toward the balcony where Wan Tengri stood! He laughed and, quietly, unstrung his bow while Bourtai darted, screaming, inside the door. When Wan Tengri looked up again, the winged thing had vanished through the black fog still clustered and made his sure aim unavailing. Truly, he had learned things in the arena, and it was no wonder that the priests sought to slay those who survived their gods! Wan Tengri’s eyes bored out toward the sea again. For a long moment, he stood there and then he turned his eyes elsewhere. There were armies between him and the sea, and if a man were to build an empire he must carry off his own riches with him. The armies might object—
Presently, Wan Tengri went back through the chamber and to the broad steps, and a woman bowed before him. “My lord, the princess commands your presence.”
Wan Tengri grimaced, but made grave acknowledgment and followed her down the stairs and, on the lowest level, into a room he had not seen before. On one seat of a double throne sat the princess in her robes of state, and Bourtai cowered in Wan Tengri’s shadow.
“Are my enemies yet dead?” the princess asked carelessly.
“A few are dead,” Wan Tengri said gravely, “yet it requires a mighty magic to remove them all. It wants time.”
“They can wait,” the princess said impatiently. “I would give thee thy reward.”
Wan Tengri’s fiery red head was carried stiffly, and he braced his thick legs apart to clap his fists to his hips. He frowned on this lovely, golden princess while Bourtai sniggered in his shadow. Yet Wan Tengri’s rumbling voice was patient as he spoke:
“Princess, I am eager for thy rewards, but—well, come to think of it, there is a vow I made which I must fulfill before I can claim it.”
“I absolve you of this vow, my lord.”
Wan Tengri smiled grimly. “That lies beyond your power, small princess,” he said. “For it was made to a god of whom you never heard, but before whom, presently, you shall bend the knee. By Ahriman, it behooves me, also, to bend a knee in gratitude—presently. Now, princess, I have work to do.”
He whirled from the audience chamber and with the sweep of his eyes caught the gaze of the two servitors. “I will need your help,” he said brusquely. “Every spear and every carpet must be carried to the topmost room of the tower. There, also, must be lengths of mighty rope. I go, princess, to build my magic and remove from thy doorstep the vermin that infest it.”
The princess’ face was pale and her head was regally lifted. “And how long, man, will these magics take?”
Wan Tengri bowed stiffly, for his proud back was not used to the practice. “Until the flame wind dies and blows again, princess,” he said shortly, and swung from the chamber. He turned toward the door, and a score of men armored in white sprang into his path. Wan Tengri looked at them wearily, and plodded straight into the midst of the cluster at the door—and they faded into thin air. And behind him he heard the princess sob.
“Thou canst rule her, master.” Bourtai scuttled up the steps at his side. “Truly, thou canst rule her.”
“For a day,” rumbled Wan Tengri. “Truly, these prophecies of thine are sound. How much longer can any man rule a woman? For in ruling, he becomes—
Phagh!
My sense of humor is deserting me. Come, my fleet-fingered minion of Ahriman, I have work for those same light fingers of thine before we can begin our tampering with the flame wind—and we can get our hands on a slightly different reward than the princess intends. For look you, Bourtai, I want only gold.”
IX
IN THE topmost room of the tower of the princess, where the howl of the flame wind was never still, and its small, hot fingers dragged shrieking sounds from the walls, Wan Tengri labored throughout the night and drove Bourtai and the two servitors of the princess relentlessly.
“Aye,” groaned Bourtai, “never have I seen such laborious magic. My own enchantments are simple things and easily achieved.”
Wan Tengri laughed. “And as easily broken, Monkey-face! This is a magic that not all the power of the wizards of Kasimer shall disrupt, not all their ten thousand men.”
Bourtai sighed and hauled another carpet across the floor to be lashed to the last. “Yet, so much magic seemeth to my feeble brain as necessary. Not all my strongest enchantments prevailed against thee, nor did those of my six pleasant brothers.”
Wan Tengri straightened and strode toward the door. “It is the magic of ten thousand swords that I fear, my small wizard. What man has done, other men can undo—and I know not how long the flaming moat will hold them in check. I doubt, Bourtai, that they would allow me another three battles in the arena, and thou art doomed, whether by the rope of the princess or the magic of thy brothers!”
“Ah, don’t say that, master,” pleaded Bourtai. “Surely, thy shadow will protect me!”
Wan Tengri grinned in his beard as he moved swiftly down the stairs to come presently to the throne room where the princess toyed with her jeweled scepter. She looked up quickly as he entered, then turned her face away. Wan Tengri bowed gravely.
“I shall need thy magic, too, princess,” he said somberly. “Where is the fount of thy flaming moat?”
The princess shifted impatiently on her throne. “I care nothing for such matters.”
“And yet without it, my princess”—Wan Tengri moved toward the throne—“my magic cannot avail. Think you, if I fall in battle, will those four wizards who still hold sway beyond the moat deal kindly with thee? Or will they—master thee?”
The princess’ gray eyes fled to his for protection. “You say these things to frighten me, my lord.”
For an instant she was like a terrified child, and Wan Tengri’s smile softened. “Nay, if I frighten thee, it is because the fear is in myself as well. Ten thousand men, princess, wield a magic that no wizard can overpower. It is curved like a flower’s stem, but its edge is keen as the northern wind! It is called a sword.”
The princess rose stiffly to her feet and put her small, trembling hand in that of Wan Tengri. “Come, I will show you. There is a cistern that is never empty, if we use it carefully. It was built by my father long years ago, and there are springs, but it cannot be drunk. It is a magic water whose taste is foul and whose smell is rank, and, more wondrous, it burns.”
When Wan Tengri had seen the great dark cistern and sniffed the pungency of its liquid—a good crude oil, had he known it—and had learned the operation of its outlet, he led the princess back to her throne.
“In a few hours, at the Hour of the Serpent, my princess,” he said gently, “the flame wind will die and certain things can be done. Then I will cause your herald to sound a blast and announce to these besieging armies that when once more the flame wind blows, when the evening Hour of the Dragon comes, thou wilt—treat with them. I think it may gain us those hours of grace, princess.”
On his way up the winding stairway again, Wan Tengri walked with a frowning weariness. It might be he was wronging the princess; it might be that the prophecies were false and this was the land he was meant to rule. Certainly, he could dip his fingers into the treasure. Abruptly, he was grinning. By Ahriman, he was a fool to worry about tomorrow. Who knew whether, for him, tomorrow would come? There were ten thousand swords. Wan Tengri was humming through his nose strenuously when he punched open again the door of the topmost room.
When the flame wind died with the dawn, Wan Tengri stepped out upon the balcony that girdled the tower’s crest. A dozen feet above him was the great flame of gold, and he eyed it with narrowed concentration. Presently, he circled a weighted end of rope about his head and flung it, swirling, about the base of the flame. On the third try, it returned to his hand and he rigged a noose about the flame for present use. He peered about the room inside where spears had been lashed end to end, and there were two great scrolls of carpet. Then, with a satisfied nod, he went swiftly down the stairs again.
From the balcony where first he had peered down upon the hosts of the wizards he gazed forth again, and summoned the herald to trump at his side. Over the sleeping horde, with their gay banners and their rainbow coats, the blast from the trumpet hurled its brazen note and men sprang to their feet, shouting. Over the edge of the balcony, Wan Tengri unfurled a scarf of pure white silk.
“Hearken, men,” he sent his great voice eddying toward them. “Hearken to the words of the Princess of Turgohl! She greets her loyal subjects in the name of Christos, in whose name she conquers. At the evening Hour of the Dragon, the princess will treat with your masters, the wizards of Kasimer. She bids them come then, at the Hour of the Dragon.”
For as long as he spoke, there was silence over the multitude, but as he ceased there was a mingled shout and the black streaks of arrows winged toward him. One glanced from the white silken flag under his hand and another caught the trumpeter beneath the breastbone. He pitched forward, spewing blood, but Wan Tengri stood stiffly at the rail. More arrows winged upward and he could hear now the
twang-twang
of a thousand bows. His eyes were bitter and once more they sought the blue of the open roadstead and the far glistening waters of Baikul. An arrow whimpered past his ear to rip painfully through his tangled, shoulder-length hair, and another skimmed the parapet to burn his hand. Wan Tengri turned heavily back to the tower.
They would wait, he thought, until the Hour of the Dragon, and they would plan to assault then. If his “magic” worked, there would be many dead before the Hour of the Serpent came again—and Wan Tengri might well be among them. For a day, it was said, he would rule. When the dark Hour of the Ox came, that day would be ended. He fought for his saving humor, and it would not come. Heavily, he flung himself down upon a couch and slept.
It was late when he awoke to find Bourtai crouched at his side, and there was a shivering that jerked at the wizard’s small bones and that would not cease.
“Master,” he whispered, “the Hour of the Dragon draws near.”
Wan Tengri dragged himself to his feet and stood with his broad hands knotted at his sides. Within the hour—He laughed briefly. “Come to the tower room, Bourtai. Thy magic must fight with mine this day, or—”
“Or the rope!” whispered Bourtai. “All day, the princess hath watched me with cat’s eyes, and there is a mouse’s soul trembling in my breast.”
Wan Tengri laughed sharply. “They tell the tale that once a mouse helped a lion, small monkey-thing. Pray to your various gods that the analogy holds and I fight like a lion this day.”
“But thy magic, master?”
“My magic will need the strength of my good right arm,” Wan Tengri said shortly. “Ten thousand men, Bourtai, and ten thousand swords. Ten thousand bows to hurl their arrows at this tower. Do thy fingers still itch for gold, Bourtai?”
Rapidly, Wan Tengri led the way up the tall tower and, at first, Bourtai scampered beside him with a thousand questions, but presently he fell back to trail, panting behind the steady climb of his master’s muscle-knotted legs. Once in the tower room, Wan Tengri went swiftly to work. He tested the strength of the double rank of spears he had lashed together, then to each end he fastened a scroll of carpets. This, presently—straining his powerful back—he lifted to the balcony, and when he had settled it into place, a scroll of carpets projected on each side of the tower. Rapidly he worked at the lashings while white faces stared up from the Court of the Fountain. When he had finished with his rope braces, the spears lay like a yard across the mast of the tower, and he turned, panting to face Bourtai.