Mage Quest - Wizard of Yurt 3 (30 page)

“And what is he planning to do with us?” said Hugo. “The wizard says that if my father’s party was ever here, they aren’t here now.” He paused for a long moment. When he continued his voice was low and rough-edged. “Does that mean they’re al dead?”

The slave girls woke us in the morning with flat, chewy bread and more coffee. After they had checked to make sure we had enough clean towels and the king had told them politely that we could dress ourselves, they opened the door to slip away.

But one girl stayed behind. Her black eyes darted back and forth between us. “Be careful, westerners,” she murmured, more to Hugo than to anyone else. I realized I had not heard any of the slave girls actualy speak before. “This is not a good place for men of pale skin. The desert has been known to eat those who displease the emir.”

“But how can we get out of here?” asked Ascelin. “The emir has said—you must have heard him—that we wil be staying a week, which means whether we want to or not.” She glanced quickly toward the closed door through which the other girls had gone. “Just past noon, everyone wil be asleep. The palace gate is guarded at al times, but I think I can distract the guard today.

Once you reach the city streets, if you move quickly you should have no problems.”

I saw Ascelin struggle successfuly not to ask, “But why should we trust you?” Instead he said, “We are deeply grateful for your warning, but what can we, men you’ve barely seen, offer you in return for this aid?”

“It is not you,” she said, stil in that very low voice that made me wonder who might be listening at our window. “It’s the mage in that other group of westerners, the friends you mentioned. The mage with the strange orange-colored hair.”

Hugo bit ofFa shout. Then my father’s here after afl**

She shook her head at the delight and excitement in his face. “They were here for a week, close to a year ago. The mage—he was good to me. But they are not here now.” She looked at both the palms and the backs of her hands. “I never told them what I have just told you, to try to make their way out during the noon period of slumber. And now—now the desert has eaten them.” Hugo froze, his eyes wide open. The girl darted away without saving more. The door closed almost soundlessly behind her.

“Then they are dead,” said Hugo in a very strained voice.

King Haimeric looked at him worriedly. “She didn’t say that,” he said, “and we don’t know anyway whether to believe her.”

“I believe her enough to want to escape today,” said Ascelin. “I never knew your friend that wel, Wizard, but if a slave girl stil remembers him fondly a year later, I must have missed a lot.”

“It may al be a trap,” said Dominic.

“If she was sent to us as a trap,” replied Ascelin, “so that the emir could set al his guards on us as we tried to leave his palace, then we’l see what western steel can do against them.” Hugo, sitting with his head in his hands, looked up and almost smiled. “If they did kil my father, then I’d be happy to help send the whole lot of them to hel.” The palace was quiet al morning. No one sent for us or came to our room. Several times Ascelin and Dominic went out stroling, as though casualy; Hugo, at Ascelin’s orders, stayed behind. Slaves—men this time—turned the princes back from the emir’s courtyard and from the main palace gate where armed guards also stood. But for the most part they were alowed to wander freely.

The third time they went out, shortly before noon, they came back grinning. “I think we found where the emir keeps his wife—or rather his wives,” said Ascelin. “There’s a separate wing of the palace with only one corridor leading to it. The air—somehow it smeled different. And I heard voices, including a number of women’s voices and the voices of children, such as I have not heard anywhere else here.”

“But they certainly didn’t let us in for a better look,” said Dominic. “I just hope the front gate isn’t guarded by men like that when we try to escape! That’s why we think it must be the emir’s wives in there.

The first row of guards, al of them with those curved swords, never even let us get close to the second row. And they were even bigger, almost Ascelin’s size,” with a punch for the tal prince’s shoulder. “But they looked somehow—I don’t know, not soft, because they had plenty of muscle, but effeminate. I wonder how many women the emir actualy has!” The chaplain looked shocked, Hugo intrigued in spite of his misery. “We don’t have time to worry about why the emir would want more than one wife,” said King Haimeric. “If we trust that slave girl, it is time for us to go.”

Dressed again in our desert robes, we slipped out into the halway. The whole palace was stil except for the sound of our own breathing. As quietly as we could, we folowed the network of passages which Ascelin and Dominic had determined led to the main gate. I went first, probing with magic. Twice I waved those behind me to a stop, but the person I had sensed turned another way. Most of the minds in the palace around us were dozing or asleep.

“There’s the main palace gate up ahead,” whispered Ascelin. We al peered carefuly around the corner. The last passage led straight for a hundred yards to an open gateway. No one blocked our way.

“Now’s the time to find out,” the prince added grimly, “how much that slave girl realy liked Sir Hugo’s wizard.” s We went on soundless feet down a passage which seemed suddenly to have grown to five times its original length. I would have lifted myself from the floor for even quieter flight except that I needed my attention to watch for the approach of hostile minds. The doorways on either hand were al shut, except for the last one.

It was, I guessed, a guard room. In it were two minds, not asleep, a man and a woman. I cautiously peeked around the door frame. The room was dark, its window shuttered, but I could hear on the far side soft voices and a sudden giggling.

We went past the doorway one at a time on tiptoe. The king was the lightest on his feet of al. The open gate was just beyond and then briliant midday sunshine beat on our suddenly freed heads. We descended the steep stairs from the pinnacle on which the palace was built, first slowly and quietly, then more and more quickly, as final escape seemed less and less likely as it came closer and closer.

The stables at the bottom of the stairs stood open. The stable boys were stretched out asleep on bales of hay. We saddled our horses with fingers made clumsy by haste and stiled inquisitive whinnies with hands across the horses’ nostrils. The sound of hooves on the flagstone floor as we led them out sounded as though it should wake the dead.

It did wake the stable boys. They half sat up, but Maffi smiled and nodded and said something I did not catch, and they stretched out again. We led our horses a short distance through the narrow, deserted streets, then mounted. Trying not to look as though we were running away, we moved through the streets, back in the direction from which we had first entered the city.

“They’l be expecting us to leave through the south city gates,” said Ascelin, who was leading. “That’s where they’l send guards when they find we’re gone.

We can go out into the fields and groves on the north side of town and cut around.”

The north city gates stood wide open, unguarded, unwatched. We rushed through, then paused to catch an easy breath for the first time since we had slipped out of our room.

“There are narrow tracks between the fields,” said Ascelin. “I think if we start this way—”

“Look,” said the king. “There’s my friend the rose grower.”

The enormous grower stood in our path, arms akimbo. King Haimeric rode directly up to him, ignoring Ascelin s warnings. “Thank you for taking us to the emir,” he said. “We learned a number of useful things from him. And I’m glad to have a chance to see a felow rose enthusiast again before we leave Bahdroc.”

“And what sorts of things did you discover?” the grower asked. His manner toward the king seemed friendly, but he was stil employed by the emir. I heard the quiet hiss of a sword being drawn by Ascelin behind me.

The king gave the grower a shrewd look. “Let me answer that question with another. Could you direct us to where the emir realy grows his blue roses?” The king seemed to have lost al sense, but there was nothing I could do about it.

To my surprise, the huge swarthy man put back his head and laughed. “You were very polite about it,” he said after a moment, “but I could tel you were not fooled by my roses. Did you expect the emir to have the real blues in his palace?”

“It had been a thought,” said King Haimeric. “Where are they in fact?”

The rose grower said nothing for a moment, instead making ruminative hums and grunts. “Go around to the south side of the city,” he said at last, as though in sudden decision. This track should take you much of the way. Ride south on the main highway for three days—the road that would eventualy lead you to the pilgrimage sites. But on the fourth day, stop and look off to your right for two rocky peaks in the distance forming a gate, with a saddle of land between them. You wil find a little path leading toward the peaks. The path wil lead you up al the way up to the pass, and beyond the pass—wel, if you do not find your blue rose, you wil be closer than you are here.”

“Thank you!” cried the king, puled his mare around, and started along the track the grower had indicated. The huge man lifted a hand in solemn farewel.

Ascelin caught up with the king a quarter mile along and took hold of his saddle leather. “Don’t you think we’ve folowed this track far enough to put him off the scent?”

“Why put him off the scent?” asked the king in surprise. “It wil be easiest to folow this way around the city.”

“Because he’s going to set the emir’s guards on us!”

“And you think me a sily old fool?” said King Haimeric good-naturedly. “In fact, he has neither betrayed the emir’s trust nor betrayed us. He told us the direction to take to the Wadi Harhammi but without ever mentioning its name. And did you notice he carefuly didn’t warn us against what we would find there?”

“But why do you think you can trust him, Haimeric?” Ascelin demanded.

“He loves roses,” said the king. “Come on.”

We found the path away from the main south road on the morning of the fourth day. It was wel marked at the beginning, but it quickly became so feint we might never have been able to folow it for long without the sight of the gate in the line of mountains ahead of us. We needed the path, however, because it seemed the only way through a rough, dry land of crevices, bare eroded slopes that led down to exitless ravines, and tumbled boulders. Ascelin, bentlow to the ground, led us as the path woundaroundand up, a way marked by little more than the occasional darker stone which an earlier foot had turned over, a different shade than the tawny color of stones exposed for centuries to the desert sun.

“No Ifriti have folowed us, anyway,” I commented, looking back north toward the emir’s city.

“What are Ifriti?” Hugo asked me as we paused to rest our horses on a level part of the path. “You’ve been talking about them al trip and Amulfs books mentioned them, but I’m stil not sure.” They’re magical creatures,” I answered, “created when the world was first formed. In fact, it is said that they were used for some of the more difficult parts, such as digging the rivers or pushing up the mountains. They’re supposedly immortal, and over the milennia they’ve taken on something of a human shape, though they’re far, far bigger.”

“You think then, sire,” said Dominic to the king, “that the Wadi my father wanted us to find lies beyond that line of mountains?”

“It certainly looks that way on the map,” said the king.

“And there we’l find something wonderful and marvelous,” said Dominic eagerly.

But there imagination failed us. “My father?” said Hugo without much hope.

The Black Pearl?” said Ascelin. “But no. Even if it was once there, too many other people wil have been there before us, from King Warm to the mage Kaz-alrhun.”

“It might be Noah’s Ark,” put in the chaplain, “if the rumors Sir Hugo’s party supposedly heard in the Holy Land last year were true. We know the Ark came to rest on a mountain, but Noah and his sons left it behind when they came back down to repopulate the land.”

The blue rose,” said the king confidently.

Maffi and I had no suggestions.

Ascelin with his hunter’s eyes and I with my far-seeing spels kept looking behind us, but the long day passed as had the three days before, with no sign of pursuit. Ascelin looked relieved, but I began to wonder if, on the contrary, the emir had not bothered to pursue us because he knew we would be captured by whatever lay ahead.

The path came in late afternoon to a last steep ascent up to the saddle between the peaks. “Shal we pass the night here,” asked Ascelin, “or try to get through the ‘gateway before dark?”

“We can’t stop now,” said Dominic, his face alight. “We’re so close! And look at my ring!”

The ruby was doing something I had never seen a precious stone do before. It was pulsing with an inner red light.

I puled off my riding glove to look at the onyx ring Mam had stolen from Kaz-alrhun. I never had been able to find the secret of the spel attached to it It sat on my finger lifeless and dead.

“Folow me!” cried Dominic. He kicked his stalion who attacked the slope, rushing up the final half mile, hooves sure in spite of the loose stones underfoot. Maffi, riding behind him, held on desperately. This is it!” caled Dominic from the top as we hurried to catch him.

At the pass, we dismounted to rest our horses and look ahead. From here we looked down into a circular valey, five miles across. We stood on the rim, I realized, of an ancient volcano whose huge throat had partialy filed through the milennia with rubble and earth. The floor was far below us and the wals so steep I could not tel how one was supposed to get down. The valey, which must catch any moisture from the sharp mountains ringing it, was just on the green side of brown. It appeared perfectly empty.

“I don’t see any place for a rose garden,” commented the king.

“Is this whole valey caled the Wadi Harhammi,” asked Ascelin, “or is that only one corner of it? How wil we find the place where—” He stopped and we al froze, folowing his pointing hand. A whirlwind rose from the valey floor, coming rapidly toward us. It grew bigger and bigger and, as I realized how far away it stil was, bigger yet.