One of the men with Kaz-alrhun scooped me up and tossed me over his shoulder. I didn’t feel like laughing, even to chase dire dread away.
“You’ll never get away with this,” I said. “My friends knew I was coming here today.” This was not strictly true, but Ascelin would certainly come to the Thieves’ Market if I didn’t return to the inn. “They’ll be very cautious when I don’t return, and you’ll never be able to steal the ruby ring.”
“But you and I both know that none of them is a mage,” said Kaz-alrhun in a good-natured bellow. “You do not have the pieces to win this phase of the game, Daimbert. When your tall swordsman friend seeks you here, there will be nothing to see.” He nodded to the man who held me. “There should be a caravan leaving from the north gate within the half hour.”
The man darted out of the dimness of the booth into the brilliant sun, with me slung over his shoulder. He turned quickly from side to side for a moment, then set off at a trot.
I opened my mouth to say something, to try to negotiate with him, and found my vocal chords frozen. I was hanging upside down on his back, and a glance at my upper body showed that I had been covered with illusion to look like some sort of paper-wrapped parcel.
And what would the mage do to Dominic? While we hurried along the less crowded streets through the back of Xantium, I tried probing the spell that held me. I had new sympathy for the castellan and knights I had made stand in binding spells all night. Parts of my body felt numb and others itched almost unbearably, but there was nothing I could do about it.
I lost track of where we were long before I had any idea how this spell worked. We came suddenly under the arch of a stone gate, and by stretching my neck around, the only part of my body not held motionless, I could see a small collection of mule-drawn carts.
Turbaned men were tying down the loads and shouting to each other. The man carrying me stepped up to the last cart and said something I didn’t catch, though I heard a clink of coins. The next moment, I had been dumped amidst bales of what felt like cloth and had a tarpaulin pulled across me. I was still struggling unsuccessfully to find a way to unravel Kaz-alrhun’s spell when I heard a shout, the cart beneath me creaked, and the caravan began to move.
There wasn’t much air beneath the tarpaulin, and in the sun it almost immediately grew extremely hot. I breathed shallowly, sweat running down my face, trying to imagine what my companions would do when I didn’t return-and when the mage appeared among them with a flash of light and demanded Dominic’s ring.
Kaz-alrhun’s spell twisted and turned beneath my probing almost as if it were alive. I recognized the shape of the spell from Melecherius’s book, but I still could not unravel it. Several times I thought I had it, and each time it eluded me. I reminded myself grimly that I had wanted to see eastern magic.
I soon felt as though I was caught not just by a spell but by a nightmare. As breathing took more and more effort, I gave up even trying to undo the spell that held me. I hovered on the edge of consciousness, between dreaming and hallucinating. It seemed like an eternity, though it was probably closer to three hours, when the cart beneath me stopped moving.
“Well,” said a voice, “shall we look at what Kaz-alrhun sent with us?”
The tarpaulin was jerked off, letting in sun-baked air that tasted deliciously refreshing as I sucked it desperately into my lungs.
I blinked my eyes then and looked up at the two men bending over me. They were Arnulf’s agents.
I tried to speak and discovered my voice had returned. A glance downward showed that the illusion that made me into a parcel had also worn off. “I’ve been put in a binding spell,” I croaked. “Help me up and give me something to drink.”
“It’s- It’s a man!” said one of them. Maybe the sun was slowing his reasoning powers as badly as it affected me.
They pulled me into a sitting position and offered me water out of a leather bag. It was lukewarm and absolutely delicious, even if it did dribble down my chin. I was too grateful to accuse them of taking part in a plot to kill innocent wizards. By now, I thought, the mage must have seized Dominic’s ring-and maybe even Dominic himself. I would have to formulate a plan of action as soon as I could act-or, for that matter, think clearly again.
“It is- Are you not the mage who was with Arnulf?” asked one of the turbaned men.
“Yes,” I said, giving up the effort of persuading them that Joachim was not his brother. I glanced at the long, curved swords at their sides, but they showed no sign of drawing them. “And your friend Kaz-alrhun wanted to get rid of me.”
“But why?” they said in what appeared to be real distress. “Has he broken his agreement?”
I shook my head and made a new effort to understand the magic that held me. “We didn’t give him the ring he demanded in return for his ebony horse.”
“But Arnulf told us before he came that he would have it!”
For a moment I had thought I understood at last, that Kaz-alrhun wanted the ruby ring to get into the Wadi himself, but this ring Arnulf had sent with us to buy the flying horse seemed to be something entirely different.
“I was carrying a magical parchment,” I said, “which seemed to please Kaz-alrhun, though I certainly hadn’t meant to give it to him. This binding spell appears to be his punishment for riding his horse without any intention of giving him what he wanted.”
“But if he has the parchment, now,” said one of the agents, “and if he thinks it will do just as well as the ring, then Arnulf should be able to take the horse! Kaz-alrhun may work out of the Thieves’ Market, but we have found that he honors his bargains.”
I couldn’t even begin to agree, but it was too complicated for an argument. I glanced up while struggling anew with the spell and saw a dark shape, not quite a cloud, scuttling low through the sky. “An Ifrit!” I cried involuntarily, panicked because of my helplessness. Back in Yurt, I had said I wanted to see an Ifrit-all my wishes were coming true with a vengeance.
V
The two men whirled, but then they relaxed and laughed. “That is not an Ifrit. It’s just a bit of a sandstorm. The wind will pick up sand and dust and carry it some distance. Sand demons, they are sometimes called.”
I didn’t like this talk of demons, but if we were, at least momentarily, safe from Ifriti, I wanted to get free of the binding spell before the next danger appeared. Suddenly I saw how it went together, with an ingenious twist I had never seen before, though Melecherius hinted at it. In a few more seconds I was able to dissolve the spell and finally stretch my cramped arms.
Arnulf’s agents stepped back abruptly as I moved, and I realized they might be as frightened of my anger as I was irritated with them. If Arnulf’s negotiations had all gone amiss, then both he and “his” wizard would have good reason to be furious with the agents who had sent him word that everything was ready.
I took another pull of water and massaged my temples. I looked around, at the mule-drawn carts whose drivers were now sitting off the road in the shade, at the dusty and empty road itself, and at the sage-covered hillside leading down to the sun-flecked Central Sea. Xantium was a dark mass in the distance.
“So do you normally transport Kaz-alrhun’s victims out of Xantium, when you’re not plotting to betray your employer?” I asked conversationally. If the mage had attacked Dominic to get his ruby ring, the prince might be on the next caravan. But if Kaz-alrhun had wanted a different ring, Arnulf’s ring, badly enough to give his flying horse for it, then Dominic’s ring might not have any real interest for him after all.
“No, no!” the agents said together. “We have never done anything against Arnulf’s interests!” When I frowned, one added, “We did not realize the mage’s parcel was a man.”