A Man Of His Word - Perilous Seas Part 17

"Then how did you find us, Greatness?" Kade inquired, licking her fingers with panache, although she had probably never done so in her life before she came to Zark.

"I had some a.s.sistance." The old man stretched out a hand, letting firelight flicker on his jewels.

"The ring?" Azak said. "That was not all pigswill you threw at us?"

"No." The old man's voice dropped half an octave. "But I lied when I said it was a family heirloom. Her Majesty created it specially for me." He peered thoughtfully at his fingers. "It isn't showing anything very much at the moment . . . Normally it lets me detect sorcery as a full sorcerer can, but Thume does not seem to influence it. There is nothing indicated from along the valley there, where the people are. And yet they are approaching very swiftly."

"Could Thume magic be different?" Inos was definitely uneasy now.

The mage shrugged. "Possibly. Earlier today, though, it was flickering green all the time; jumpy as fleas on a dead dog."

"And how did that help?" Azak asked sharply.

"I followed you with it."

For a moment the other three stared blankly at one another. The mage sipped his wine in silent amus.e.m.e.nt. Then he peered obliquely at Inos, his gaze guarded below his brows. "You inherited a word of power, child. Her Majesty was quite puzzled that it had not yet manifested itself in some special talent. She told me to watch out for it, and she gave me this device to detect it. Today, for the first time, I saw the gadget react."

"I . . . I was using magic?" Inos hoped that this was some complicated Zarkian joke. She had never told Azak about Inisso's word of power, and she dared not look to see how he was reacting to the news. Azak detested magic in any form.

"One of you was," the mage said. "Green light means one word, a genius. The areas I thought might be occult enclaves did not register. If I was right, then they are very well s.h.i.+elded. No, the power came from you. One of you, and if not you, who else?"

"I couldn't have been! Aunta"did you see me doing anything unusual? Azak?"

Kade shot a worried glance at Azak, then told Inos, "No, dear."

The old man stroked his beard. "I am puzzled, I admit. It was merely an occult talent at work; no moving of mountains. You weren't . . . well, taking tracking lessons from First Lionslayer, perhaps? Pathfinding? Singing? Sensing magic, maybe?"

Inos shook her head. "I don't think I've done anything today that I haven't done a thousand times before. Except nearly being raped, of course. "

"Noa"earlier than that. On your way here."

Kade would always seek to break an awkward silence. She coughed softly to gain attention. "In the Impire, Greatness, they have a saying about frying pans and fires. You know it?"

"In Zark we talk about 'dodging the lion and rousing the lioness.' The same idea?"

"Exactly. I am beginning to think that my niece has an occult talent along those very lines."

He chuckled. "I do believe you have solved the mystery!" Kade smiled thinly. "But even if this magic finder pointed in our direction, sir," she said, "is it not conceivable that it was seeing someone else? Might there have been someone following us closely, and that person was the source of the magic?"

"I suppose . . ." The mage nodded thoughtfully. "Invisibility, for example? If you had an invisible companion . . . but no. That would require a higher grade of power than I detected. Magic, at least."

Azak made an angry growling sound. "I had not been informed of this word of power. It explains many things." He glared at Inos with a red intensity that shocked her.

"You have another explanation?" inquired the sheik. "The four who ambushed me?"

Elkarath shook his head. "They came from the north. They found your trail and tracked you. Quite separate from what I had been seeing."

Azak grunted. "But have you considered why they might have trailed us?"

Elkarath just shook his head. "Only that possibly all visitors to Thume are hunted down as fair game."

"I thought their purpose was quite evident," Inos snapped. Azak snapped back: "Exactly!"

She began to feel her own anger rising to deflect whatever accusation he was about to make. "They called me an outsider. I think that was what they said. As if it were a dirty word, like . . . like vermin."

Hastily Kade interjected, "This would explain the mystery, the disappearancesa""

But Inos was glaring back at the smolder in Azak's eye. "You have another idea?"

"I mean that the four might have been reacting to magic, also."

"I don't think I quite grasp your Majesty's meaning," Kade said sharply.

"It is clear enough. Your niece is very attractive, like a lodestone! That might explain why the four curs were drawn here."

"Azak!" Inos cried. "What are you saying?"

"I am saying that mayhap you bewitched me, woman, and mayhap you bewitched those others today."

"No! No! Ia""

"Oh, maybe you don't know you're doing it," Azak roared. "But why should four young men out on a hunt suddenly turn into ravening rapist monsters?"

And why should a djinn sultan fall in love?a"but he did not go so far as to say that.

Had he slapped her, he could not have shocked her more. She cowered back. The idea was unthinkablea"that she might have used occult mastery on Azak, as Andor had once used it on her? Yes, of course she had tried to impress him, but not that way. Horrible! Odious! That she might be a sort of occult mermaid, luring innocent youths and inciting them to attack her, and thus provoke their deaths at the sheik's hands . . . No! Inconceivable!

Horrorstruck, she turned to appeal to Elkarath.

He was frowning and stroking his beard. "You are a very beautiful woman, Queen Inosolan, and I am not surprised that Sultan Azak is smitten by your charms, occult or not. But that you could summon four strangers, sight unseen, and enrage them into a mating frenzy . . . I suppose anything is possible to the occult. But you do not provoke riots wherever you go! Why should it only have happened today?"

Azak curled his bushy red mustache in a sneer. "Perhaps pixies are especially susceptible."

Again Inos recoiled from the thought. Four young men bewitched unknowingly by her and then executed by the sheik because of it? And now there was an even larger band of men hastening up the valley to find her? No, no! Madness! Filthy madness! "You mean I'm a sort of b.i.t.c.h in heat, summoning all the dogs in town?"

The two men avoided her eye. Kade bit her lip and colored. The sheik sighed. "Well, I shall report the event to my mistress and let her draw conclusions. Meanwhilea"" He peered up at the stars. "a"it would be about the second hour of the night, I think?"

"About," Azak agreed.

"Then we can be on our way. Lionslayer, I have summoned the mounts. Go and strip off their harnesses; we shall give them their freedom. And bring me the saddlebags from my pony."

Azak's jaw snapped closed. "To hear my lord is to obey!" He accompanied the words with a glare of hatred. Scrambling to his feet, evidently now cured of his paralysis, he marched off into the dark. As he went, he adjusted the hang of his scimitar, perhaps dreaming of what he would like to do to a merchant who treated him as a flunky.

"Your Highness," Elkarath said, "is there anything in your baggage that you wish to retain? We can take little with us, but any special things?"

"Oh!" Kade glanced in the direction of the little windbreak that Azak had built. "Well, my breviary . . ."

"Then perhaps you would fetch that now, ma'am? Here!"

Elkarath gestured, and then held out to Kade a large ball of bluish light.

Kade said, "Oh!" again. "Take it. It is not hot."

Kade rose stiffly. She took the globe uncertainly in both hands. Holding it well away from her, she plodded off through the long gra.s.s.

Inos poured a small amount of wine into her goblet, and sipped it while she waited to see whether she was to be given secrets or a scolding.

For several minutes, though, the old man merely toyed with his bejeweled fingers, seeming to study the sparkles as he moved them in the firelight.

At length he said, "I do not speak as a mage now. Nor as a votary of the sultana, although I could not speak at all if I thought my words would hurt her interests. I speak only as a very old man to a very young woman. I seek no good but yours, Queen Inosolan. Can you accept, just for a few minutes, that sometimes the elderly do indeed possess wisdom?"

"I shall try, sir," Inos said with Kinvale sweetness. It was to be a scolding, obviously.

"That is all I ask. Listen carefully, then. I am very old. Much older than you perhaps suspect. If I tallied up my years . . . well, just say that I have spent as many of them, in total, in desert lands as you have been upon this earth. At least. And there is something in the desert that breaks away the husks from people. Desert light is very strong, very revealing."

Inos said nothing and he did not look up to appreciate her carefully crafted smile of interest.

"And I have spent many more yearsa"in totala"in Ullacarn, and Angot, and other outposts of the Impire. I probably understand the imps and their ways better than any other man in Arakkaran; or any woman either. I realize that you are not one of his Imperial Majesty's subjects, but your background and the ways in which you were raised are closer to those of an imp than they are to anyone else's. Is this not so, my dear?"

"Of course, Greatness."

He sighed. "And I say that he is not for you. Oh, he is besotted with you, and you may think you are in love with him. No, hear me out, child! He is a fine man, in his way. He is a perfect sultan for Arakkaran, unless he survives long enough to become bored with accomplishment. Then he will wade the red path of war. They always do, his kind. Fortunately for us humbler folk, sultans rarely live that long. Physically, of course, he is unmatched . . ."

"And what he is to my mistress I do not even begin to understand. The purposes of sorcerers are cryptic and obscure. She has come by strange ways to her power. She seeks to punish men long dead, I fear." He sighed again and reached for his goblet.

Inos waited politely. There was more lecture to come.

"If he would only compromise. . ." Elkarath droned. "Bow the knee just once! Say the words she wants to hear! I think she then would gladly be to him whatever he wanted: lover, mother helper. . ."

"She would see through his lies at once," Inos muttered, disgusted.

"Perhaps," the old man said softly. "But he would have said them! And I think she might then be content. I expect a sorceress can deliberately deceive herself, just as any of us can. We all believe what we want to believe, not questioning, lest we lift scabs from unhealed wounds. We all seek happiness. Who knows what she seeksa"now, after such a lifetime? Might not one kind word won be counted a triumph?"

He drank and the goblet faded from his hand. Then he raised his face to peer at the stars, or perhaps the restless treetops, and she had a clear view of his blood-red eyes and the haggard folds of his neck.

"But even without the dangers from Sultana Rasha, child, I tell you that you are making a grievous error. Even if the two of you flee to your kingdom at the far end of the world, you shall not find happiness with Azak ak'Azakar. Yes, he has promised. I am sure he has promised. He l.u.s.ts after you and cannot have you, so he will persuade himself of anything. Yet many a good marriage has sprung from that seed! No, it is his background that is wrong. He loves you? Meaning he wishes to possess you and breed sons with you, and, yes, I suppose he wishes to make you happy. But he is not capable of making you happy, no matter how sincere he is."

"I entirely agree."

"I am serious, child."

"So am I, Greatness. Perhaps my Imperial ways have deceived you, and I do fear they may have misled His Majesty. It is not unknown within the Impire for men and women to be merely friends."

"When I told you that he had not been killed by the pixiesa""

"I was delighted, yes. Naturally! Azak and I have much in common, from our royal birth to our problems with sorcery. It is natural that we should find grounds for friends.h.i.+p. I admire him, enjoy his company, appreciate his invaluable help. On my side, at least, there is nothing more." So there!

The mage studied her sadly, in the longest straight gaze he had ever given her, firelight chasing odd shadows over the desert landscape of his face. Then he sighed deeply and looked away.

"There may be more than you think already," he said. "And how long can you resist his wooing? To be sought after by a man of his power and presencea"it is very flattering."

"Very!" Inos said through clenched teeth. First Kade, now him! Could the old never learn to trust the young? "But Sultan Azak is my friend and political ally. Nothing more."

The mage sighed again, and looked away. An elderly djinn . . .

Silly old man.

Azak emerged from the darkness holding a bulky leather bag. "Ah!" The old man sprang to his feet with youthful agility. "The newcomers are advancing very rapidly. We must depart before they draw any closer. Now, let me see . . ."

He fumbled with the bag's fastenings and then pulled out a bundle that glittered like cloth of gold. He turned to study the ground nearby and wandered off with his head bent as if in search of something. Azak tossed away the bag and folded his arms. He scowled after the sheik, ignoring Inos.

Kade came stumping wearily back across the meadow, still holding the blue light. Inos walked over to meet her, and they exchanged worried smiles. Kade put the light down on the gra.s.s as carefully as if it were fine crystal. She straightened and took her niece's hand. Her fingers trembled slightly. Or maybe that was Inos herself.

"This seems flat enough here," Elkarath announced from the far limits of the firelight. "And that way is north."

He shook out a cloth, which flashed and gleamed, and spread surprisingly large. It floated to the ground, then seemed to wriggle and squirm of its own accord, until it was lying flata"completely flat, although it was obviously extremely thin.

Almost dragging her aunt, Inos hurried over.

"I've seen this before! Rasha called it a welcome mat." Inos also recalled that the mat had been dangerously hypnotic in the palace. Here in the starlit dark of the forest it lay like black water, displaying faint s.h.i.+mmers of light that seemed to come from deep within it, as from goldfish moving in a shadowed pond. She tried not to look at it.

"Indeed?" The old man beamed briefly. He seemed to be reveling in some secret antic.i.p.ation, like a child expecting a treat. "It is a magic carpet. Her Majesty gave it to me for just such an emergency as this. It may be the very one you saw."

Avoiding Inos, Azak paced over to the edge of the mat and glared down at it.

Elkarath studied the sky again for a moment. "Yes, that is north . . . To make return journeys, of course, one needs three of them. We have only two; but then we do not plan to return to Thume, do we?" He chuckled and rubbed his hands.

Then he glanced thoughtfully downriver.

"Where is the other, then?" Inos asked, feeling p.r.i.c.kles of apprehension. She tried to catch Azak's eye, but he was watching the sheik.

"If Skarash did as he was told, it is now laid out in my house in Ullacarn. If he didn't . . . then we may shortly be in some difficulty. Ready?"

"What do we have to do?" she asked, feeling Kade's grip tighten.

"Just stand together on the carpet. I shall come on last, as it is prespelled to my person."

"And then?" Azak growled, fingering the hilt of his scimitar. "Then it will position itself upon the one in Ullacarn. That is how they work."

Azak was suspicious. "You told me you dared not use much power near Ullacarn, yet now you work a major sorcery like this?"

"Be silent!" the mage said sharply. "Silence beseems the ignorant. The whole point of magical devices is that they are much harder to detect than brute power. Nowa"must I coerce you?"

Azak shrugged and took two long strides, which put him in the center of the mat, but it did not flex or dimple under his weight. Inos glanced at her aunt, and they advanced gingerly together, holding hands. The surface felt rigid, and rather slippery.

"There!" Elkarath said. "I suggest you stoop a little, Lionslayera"the ceiling may be a trifle low. Right! Now me."

He took two fast steps onto the mat, causing it to twist, and lurch. Kade cried out, and Inos steadied her. Then they found their balance again, blinking in the sudden brightness of lamps hung on crumbling plaster walls.