Mage Quest - Wizard of Yurt 3 (21 page)

“Do you think we dare stay here, Haimeric?” asked Ascelin in a low voice. “If anyone folowed us through the eastern kingdoms, it would have been easy enough for them to find out which ship we’d taken and they’d quickly discover the inn the ship’s captain recommended. And thanks to an officious governor, we’ve told anyone in Xantium with enough money to bribe his clerks that a party from Yurt has arrived.” Ascelin had already been worried about our safety back when we visited Joachim’s brother. Arnulfs manor house, surrounded by rich green, seemed as alien from Xantium as though it had been on the moon. In retrospect, I thought, it must seem safe and secure to him.

“We’l only be here a few days,” said King Haimeric. “I doubt this enemy you imagine is anywhere near as good at tracking as you are.”

“I just hope they aren’t stil planning to kil the chaplain,” said Ascelin darkly as we turned through an elaborate doorway into the inn’s flowering courtyard.

But we stayed at the inn for only half an hour. Once we had booked our rooms and stabled our horses, we started out again toward the Church of the Wisdom of Solomon.

“It’s Xantiums most famous sight,” said Joachim, “even if we didn’t need to give thanks to God for our safe sea voyage.”

“Solomon’s the only man, I think,” said Ascelin thoughtfuly, “ever to combine the functions of priest, of king, and of magic-worker.”

“According to Arnulf s books,” put in Hugo, “the last of the caliphs, the one who renounced Solomon’s Pearl, was both a mage and a secular leader, though I guess he wasn’t a priest.” This church,” said Joachim, “is dedicated to Solomon’s Holy Wisdom.”

The innkeeper had given us a map over which the chaplain and Ascelin bent their heads to find the best route. Without a map we would have been hopelessly lost in under ten minutes. The maze of streets was jammed with people who al, unlike us, seemed to know exactly where they were going. We spotted a few who also appeared to be pilgrims, but most were very different from anyone ever seen in the west.

Dark-skinned men in striped robes and headdresses; women so heavily veiled that only their eyes were visible; men at whom Dominic frowned, whose cheeks were rouged and eyes outlined in black; long-legged warriors, some nearly as tal as Ascelin, wearing turbans and wide, curved swords; half-naked children; black-robed clerks talking seriously to each other; sumptuously dressed dandies who moved in the center of a group of bodyguards; and grumpy-looking women, dressed drably and carrying net bags ful of vegetables, al jostled together in the streets.

Once or twice I thought I saw someone folowing us, but it was impossible to keep track of anyone behind us in such a crowd, even with magic.

“I’d looked forward to seeing the East,” I said to the chaplain, “but it’s even more, wel, different from Yurt than I’d expected.”

“That’s why one travels,” he commented. “At home, you’re always looking in a mirror. Everything you see becomes so familiar it is almost an extension of the self. Elsewhere, you see everything except yourself.” He paused, then added thoughtfuly, “I think we need them both: the contemplation of our inner souls and the jostling out of ourselves, the reminder that we are not the entire world and shal meet even God face to face.”

Most of the housefronts along the streets were blank, but whenever we passed one whose gate was open we caught a glimpse of a passage leading to a cool-looking courtyard, bright with flowers and often with a fountain.

It was hot and steamy even if the mid-afternoon sun was blocked before it reached our level. For the two weeks we had coasted along the north edge of the Central Sea, the sea breezes had kept us cool, but it was now indubitably high summer and a much hotter summer than anything known in Yurt.

We moved with Joachim and the king in the center of a square formed by the rest of us, even if it meant that we sometimes jostled the people we met against the housefronts. Ascelin was as alert as I, and Hugo seemed wound up almost to the breaking point. When the chaplain stopped abruptly, we al stopped.

We had come around a corner. One side of this street was lined not with buildings but with a fence, and a shadowy courtyard lay beyond. A bel, with the same tone as the chapel’s bel in the royal castle of home, began to sound. Its note was sweet and restful, as though the noises of the street were a thousand miles, rather than just a few feet, away.

Looking through the fence, we saw a group of men in dark vestments walk through the courtyard in procession, carrying candles and singing. Their expressions were rapt; anything on our side of the fence might as wel have not existed. For a moment I thought they were priests, but the shaved crowns of their heads made them unlike any priests I knew. They disappeared through an archway on the far side of the courtyard and the bel’s ringing came to an end.

Joachim turned and started walking again. “Monks,” he said to me. “We don’t have them in the west and I’d never seen them before. They’re somewhat like hermits, except that they live together, under the fatherly direction of a leader.”

“More like nuns?” I asked.

Before the chaplain could answer, we heard another sound, a piercing, modulated wail coming from a minaret under which we were passing.

“It’s the priests of the Prophet,” said Ascelin, “caling the faithful to afternoon prayer.”

Considering that I was supposed to be a wel-educated wizard, I didn’t seem to have had any idea al trip what we would see. Maybe when we met some eastern mages I’d have a chance to show off my own knowledge out oiMelecherius on Eastern Magic.

But we reached the Church of Holy Wisdom without meeting any mages. There was a tiny square in front of the great doors where a peddlar was seling little bottles of purportedly holy water. We pushed by him without listening to his pitch and went up the steps and inside.

From the outside, it was impossible to tel the size of the church, but from the inside it was enormous. We al stopped in amazement to look around.

Candles gleamed from golden candelabra, lighting up a forest of porphyry columns and green marble arches. The floor beneath our feet was onyx veined with gold. Windows through which the sunlight poured pierced the dome high above us. The air was thick with incense. Mosaics made of a hundred thousand glittering tiles ilustrated Bible stories.

As we walked slowly into the church we saw the biggest mosaic of al. The saved and the damned rose in alarm from their coffins to see the sky split open above them. I approved of the artist’s rendering of the scene. Christ in majesty, thirty feet high, dressed in briliant blue and rimmed in gold, greeted us and them with a raised hand.

There were a large number of other people in the church, pilgrims, men who appeared to be priests even though their vestments were purple instead of black, women who seemed to have stopped in for a quick prayer on their way home from the market, and even some of the tal, turbaned men we had noticed earlier. But the size of the church swalowed us al up without even seeming to notice.

As we reached the main altar and Joachim went to his knees, I thought I saw a flicker of motion behind us, as though one of the other people in the church did not want us to see him.

I probed quickly with magic. Someone was there, al right. I rose two inches above the floor to be able to move silently and darted around the base of a column. A black-haired boy squatted there, looking around the far side. He turned and saw me just too late.

I had him by the back of the shirt as he jumped up to run. Tm a mage,” I said. “I don’t want to hurt you, but if you try to get away you’re going to become a frog.” He was apparently wiling to believe me for he went limp. I puled him from behind the column and to the others without letting down my guard.

“Good work, Wizard,” said Ascelin. “Is this the person who’s been folowing us?”

“I think so. He doesn’t seem armed.”

“It’s a boy,” said the king. “Surely he can’t mean us any harm.”

“What did you mean, boy?” asked Ascelin.

He ducked his head, but he did not strike me as at al afraid of us, which I certainly would have been under the circumstances. His black eyes flashed and he gave me a grin before answering Ascelin.

“In the name of God, the Al Merciful,” he said, “I wish you peace. I only want to help you. Perhaps you need a guide through the city streets? Perhaps you need to hire someone to take you where you’re going? Perhaps you’d be wiling to pay someone to take you safely to the Thieves’ Market?”

Ascelin and King Haimeric looked at each other. “It’s certainly not shown on the city map,” said the king.

“I trust this boy explicitly,” said Ascelin pointedly. “How does he know what we might be looking for?”

“Many pilgrims who come to Xantium are looking for more than the route to the Holy Land,” said the boy.

“What’s your name?” asked the king.

“Maffi, revered lord,” said the boy, giving me another grin. At this rate, I realy would have to turn him into a frog just to prove that I was a wizard.

“If we hired you as our guide,” said the king, bending down to the boy’s level and ignoring Ascelin’s warning glare, “we’d have to wait until you’d taken us where we were going before we paid you. With the streets so crowded, you do realize that we’d worry you’d just dart away with our money and leave us stranded.”

“Of course, revered lord,” said Maffi. “And I’m so sure you’l be pleased with me as a guide that I’l be happy to take whatever you want to pay me, once we get there.”

“That’s settled, then,” said the king. “Shal we go?”

“As soon as we finish giving thanks for our safe voyage,” said Joachim.

Maffi, in spite of starting his conversation with us by praising God, remained standing while the rest of us obediently knelt in front of the altar. I looked at him sideways and wondered if he folowed the Prophet rather than being a Christian. I had never known any of the People of the Prophet before.

II

Back out in the streets Maffi took the lead, slipping easily through the crowds while we tried to keep up with him.

“Do you think that wizard in the eastern kingdoms, the one who wanted to betray my father, has telephoned here?” Dominic asked me in a low voice. He seemed to have picked up Ascelin’s suspicions.

“He didn’t have a telephone,” I said. “And even if he had access to one, I don’t think there are any telephones in Xantium. It’s school magic; school-trained wizards tend to stay in the western kingdoms.”

“But a renegade wizard might have instaled one,” said Dominic darkly.

Ascelin kept track on the map as wel as he could of where we were. Mam led us first to an enormous plaza where an open-air market was being held, voices and odors rising from booths jammed close together. But this did not seem to be the market to which we were going for he only cut through one corner and again hurried down narrow streets. He next led us through what seemed to be the city’s main governmental center. We had to step back abruptly as a curtained palanquin came straight toward us. Burly slaves carried the poles on their shoulders and peacock feathers fluttered from the corners. The edge of the curtain lifted as the palanquin came even with us, but it dropped back into place before we could see the face within.

Here the streets temporarily grew broad and there were even open, sunny squares with fountains playing in the center. For a moment we caught a glimpse of a white, domed palace. But then we plunged back into narrow streets and started downhil. As near as I could tel, we were on the far side of the main city hil from the harbor.

As we approached the outer wals, lower and looking less wel maintained than those where we had first entered the city, the crowds became less dense. Some of the people we passed in doorways looked at us curiously, as though surprised to see pilgrims here.

Maffi, who had stayed almost but not quite far enough ahead that we would lose him, darted around a corner and was lost to sight. When we turned the corner a few seconds later, we found two tal, turbaned men blocking our path.

Hugo had his sword out in a second and elbowed the rest of us back behind him in the narrow street. “Come on!” he shouted. “Whichever one of you wants to attack first! But the other one had better run for a priest because there won’t be any use going for a doctor!”

But the men smiled and presented empty hands. “In the name of al-seeing God,” said one, “we do not intend to attack you. We have been waiting for you. We knew that sooner or later we’d see you at the Thieves’ Market, Arnulf.”

Ascelin puled Hugo back and frowned. “Arnulf?”

The men looked past him to Joachim. “Even after al these years, and even disguised as a priest, you’re entirely recognizable, sir.”

“I’m afraid you’re mistaken,” said the chaplain. “You’ve taken me for my brother. Are you his agents?”

One of the men glanced around and lowered his voice. “You’re quite right, sir. It’s better to maintain the disguise. We’l accompany you to the Market.” Joachim hesitated for a second, sliding a finger inside his colar and along the scar, but then stepped confidently forward, forcing the rest of us to folow. I looked again for Maffi and didn’t see him.

The shortcoming of even the best magic is that it cannot tel you what someone else is planning. These men, whom Joachim seemed ready to trust, could be leading us to our deaths. But beyond freezing their curved swords into their sheaths, which I did at once, I could think of nothing else to do but stay very close to the chaplain.

It had never been clear from Joachim’s account of his telephone conversation with Claudia—and it might not even have been clear to him—whether she had ever gotten the pigeon message he sent her from the mountains. If she had not heard until that phone cal that whatever she had given him had been stolen, then Arnulf probably had not had time to get word to his agents here before we arrived. They should know, then, what King Warm s bandits had stolen from us and expect us to have it.

“We’l have to hope it is stil for sale,” said one of the men. “I assume you’ve brought what he wanted, Arnulf.”

“I already told you,” said Joachim, too honest to maintain a deception that could have been very informative, “you’ve mistaken me for my brother.”