Mage Quest - Wizard of Yurt 3 (23 page)

Tel me about this ringyou claim I was supposed to bring you,” I said casualy, as though negotiating myself.

“You know wel this ring and its properties,” the mage said, holding me with his eyes. “You have received a free ride, but do not anticipate any more until you can deliver it.”

“Perhaps I could obtain this ring for you,” I suggested, “if I knew what powers it was supposed to have.”

“If you are from Yurt,” said Kaz-alrhun, abruptly not smiling at al, “you already know. And you already know its relation to the Wadi Harhammi.” He watched me closely for my reaction to his mention of the Wadi; I did my best not to show how surprised I was. “You have amused me mightily, Daimbert,” the mage continued, “not least because I see so few western wizards, but I do not like dissimulation.” Neither did I, and Arnulf had lied to us thoroughly. “Maybe I’l be back tomorrow,” I said lightly. “Perhaps by then you’l have decided you’d be wiling to take something other than this ring.”

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

I turned without any sort of farewel. 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 stil waiting a short distance away, but Amulfs agents were gone.

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

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

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 al-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 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 tel 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 tel me if you’ve located it and, if so, we’l go togedier to buy it.”

“Wil 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 tel him I’d never seen it. “It’s had a magic spel put on it and it’s clearly identifiable as being from Yurt. Don’t ask for a magic ring specificaly, 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 back toward the Market.

Ascelin frowned deeply. “Would you like to tel 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, teling 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 wil 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 al, if Arnulf had heard there was a flying horse for sale here, with the price a magic ring, Warm 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 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 spel 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 made any attempt to get your ring away from you,” I said. “Maybe Amulf 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 stil 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 safely away just as fast.”

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

“I hope for Arnulfs 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, tel him not to worry about staying on. Instead, tel 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 caled the faithful People of the Prophet to prayer. I did not expect to see Mafia 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.”

As I hurried after him, I wondered how many powerful magic rings were circulating through the east, in search of how many significant magic objects. There was Dominic’s ruby ring for starters, then the ring Arnulf had sent with us, the ebony flying horse, then the Black Pearl, whatever Dominic’s father had found in the Wadi Harhammi, and now whatever Kaz-alrhun hoped to discover with the ring from Arnulf.

I looked at the boy darting down the street in front of me, sandals slapping on the paving, and felt foolish to have pitied him. Whether he had a family or not he did not need anyone to look after him. He seemed without any difficulty to have found a ring I had not been completely sure even existed.

I was beginning to recognize the narrow streets that led down the far side of Xantium’s hil toward the Thieves’ Market, but the sounds and smels of the Market struck me afresh as we came out among the striped awnings. “Over this way,” said MafH confidently. He slipped easily around booths, under tables, through knots of men who looked at me impassively from under folded headdresses that hid most of then-faces. I caught up with the boy in the far corner of the Market.

It was slightly quieter here. I felt a prickle of unease. An ebony chess piece, a rook, was lying on the ground and it looked strangely familiar. “Wait,” I said, “before we go any further. Who is this person who has the ring? Did he tel you how he obtained it or how much he wants for it?”

“It’s the right ring, al right,” said Maffi with a grin. “He’l tel you how much he wants himself.” He gestured toward a booth whose striped awning was drawn shut, though a sandaled foot showed beneath it.

“Go ahead!”

I stil hesitated, but he turned at once and disappeared into the crowd. Oh wel, I thought. If he didn’t even wait to be paid, it wasn’t my fault. I could always find my own way back by flying high enough to see the harbor and then locating the inn from there. I stepped resolutely up to the booth.

I expected the awning to be puled back, but instead the foot disappeared. I pushed the fabric aside myself and looked into shadows so dark that it was impossible to make out any detail, although I thought I saw a pair of shining dark eyes.

“Helo? I heard you have a ring for sale?”

“Come in, come further in,” said a muffled voice. “I have it here at the back.”

I entered slowly, letting the awning drop behind me.

“I can’t see anything,” I protested “If you’ve realy got a ring I’d be interested in, let’s look at it in daylight.” The air crackled, giving me half a second’s warning: not nearly enough to resist the binding spel that abruptly held me tight I toppled over with a painful thump.

“Push back the awning,” said the muffled voice. “Let us see what he has brought.”

I lay, paralyzed from the colar bone down, on the filthy paving stones of the Market with several men bent over me. Someone let in a little daylight, and in a moment my eyes grew accustomed enough to the dim light so that I could make them out. As I should have expected, one of them was the enormous black shape of Kaz-alrhun.

“Let him keep that eagle ring,” he said, “but see what else he has.”

Hands reached into my pockets. They puled the knife from my belt and the piece of parchment from inside my jacket.

“A piece of paper with an eggplant recipe, a smooth stone, and what looks like a buckle off a harness,” said one of the other men, examining what had come from my pockets.

But Kaz-alrhun was looking at the piece of parchment, reading Prince Dominic’s letter to his family, and his black eyes grew round. “Wel, Daimbert, I knew you had brought more with you to Xantium than you cared to say. Your party is dressed as pilgrims, but I see that your goal lies far beyond the Holy Land. If you had told me you had this at once, al this trouble might have been unnecessary! Tel me, where did you obtain the parchment?”

“It was magicaly concealed inside a ring,” I said in resignation.

“Wel, since you cooperated at the last, Daimbert,” Kaz-alrhun said with a chuckle, “even if not entirely voluntarily!” he paused for another laugh, “I have a mind to let you live. What do you think?”

“I think it’s a fine idea,” I said cautiously. Even though I could not move, I could feel al sorts of damp things soaking through my clothes, and my shoulders were sore and stiff. I tried a spel to lift myself off the ground and found that this binding spel not only held me physicaly, but also blocked my access to al but a few words of the Hidden Language. The only bright spot was imagining turning Maffi into a frog the next time I saw him, preferably a frog about to be eaten by a water snake.

“But you attempted to mock me, Daimbert,” the mage said, “coming to the Thieves’ Market with the ruby ring and then trying to buy my horse with a different ring entirely.” His laughter was gone now. “I do not like to be mocked.”

It sounded as though he thought I knew far more than I in fact did. I wondered resignedly what it was.

“And I do not wish you to cause me any more problems at once,” Kaz-alrhun added thoughtfuly. “I think you wil just leave town, immediately. Perhaps in a few days you shal have determined, even with your western magic, how to break my binding spel!”

“What do you mean, leave town?” I said, trying to keep panic out of my voice.