The witch did not give me time to appreciate my success. “Are you satisfied now, dearest one?” she asked from just outside the pavilion.
“Thank you, my own, that is much better. But there is still another noise which has long hindered my healing.”
“And what is that?”
I was tempted for a moment to leave the prince turned half to stone. But if Joachim didn’t feel he could judge eastern priests, I shouldn’t judge someone for murdering his wife’s lover-especially since in the last two years he had been punished cruelly. “It is the prince, your husband,” I said. “His moans and cries at night keep me from healing sleep, and even in the day I feel so much for his pain that I am almost mad.”
“Then he shall be restored as well,” she said comfortingly. Again she poured liquid in a dish and spoke words over it. This time, when the silver sparks rose and she clapped her hands, the stone of the prince’s lower half split with a crack, and he slowly rose to his feet.
“But now I can bear it no longer, dearest slave!” she cried and rushed into the pavilion before I could stop her. She seized me wildly and pulled me toward her.
We both froze as the white moonlight fell on my face. The witch slowly pushed herself backwards. “You- You are not-” But before she could blast me with magic, she turned and saw the prince behind her.
I had forgotten he still, after two years, held the sword with which he had killed the slave. But he had not forgotten. He roared almost as loudly as the waters pouring from the streets of his city and rushed at his wife. She shrieked and fled, kicking over her magic bowls and potions as she went. As I crept, trembling, out of the pavilion, I could hear their cries retreating in the distance.
A shadow was between me and the moon. I looked up and saw the Ifrit descending into the garden. He broke several flower bushes with his gigantic feet as he landed.
“Not bad, little mage,” he said with a chuckle. “You have freed the ensorcelled city. I think I have tested you enough to provide plenty of amusement and can start now on the rest of your friends.”
“What about the prince of this city? Is he going to kill his wife?”
“As God wills, so it happens,” said the Ifrit without interest. “We could follow them, or would you rather have me find those other humans you were with when I first saw you?”
“My friends, of course.” At this point, I no longer cared whether the prince killed his witch wife or she turned him to stone again-or even whether they made peace with each other. “But first, could you help me bury this body?”
The Ifrit scraped a deep hole under the bushes with a finger, and I lowered the slave into it. “He is dead, isn’t he?” I asked in sudden doubt.
“Of course,” said the Ifrit in surprise. “He’s been dead since the first day after the prince attacked him. I thought all you humans knew how easily you die. It must be strange,” he added thought fully, pushing the dirt over the body.
IV
We flew back that night to the circular valley. Joachim and the Ifrit’s wife seemed to be getting along very well. “The Ifrit’s still testing me,” I told him. “Today I managed to trick a witch into turning some fish she had ensorcelled back into people,” but I said no more. The Ifrit still refused to tell us anything about the others.
But at dawn he snatched Joachim and me up and out of sleep, setting each of us on a shoulder, and flew straight upwards while we were still halfway between dream and a waking that seemed more desperately unreal than any dream.
“I think I remember now where I put your friends,” he said in a low rumble and reached out his arm. I had just gotten my eyes properly open when the dawn sky around us snapped, flared, and turned over.
I clung wildly to the Ifrit’s hair, my eyes clamped shut. Every angle felt upside down. But in a moment the world straightened out again. As we had flown straight up, we now descended, until we hovered a short distance above the valley floor. Directly below us and immediately on the defensive was the rest of our party from Yurt.
“Put down your swords,” Joachim called. “This Ifrit will not harm us.”
I doubted this myself, but knew that the most Hugo could have accomplished by sticking his sword into the Ifrit’s foot would have been all of our immediate deaths.
They were camped at a small date-palm oasis which I could have sworn was not in the valley a few minutes ago. Even the horses were there, except for Whirlwind.
“Where have you been?” I gasped to Ascelin, and he to us, as the Ifrit set the chaplain and me down. They all looked weary but unharmed.
“Here in the valley,” we all answered together. I glanced up at the Ifrit, who stood watching and smiling, his arms crossed. I knew perfectly well the others had not been here. But then there was now no sign of the Ifrit’s wife, though we could not have flown a quarter mile of horizontal distance since we left her. It was as though the Ifrit’s magic allowed more than one reality to exist simultaneously within this valley.
There was no time to explore the implications of this, to wonder if the Wadi Harhammi was here too somewhere, hidden by the Ifrit’s magic. “The Ifrit’s taken my magical abilities from me,” I said. “I can’t even tell what’s real anymore.”
“No magic?” said Dominic. “This is going to make it harder.” He turned his ruby ring thoughtfully on his finger. It still pulsed slowly with light. “There’s been no sign of the boy and my stallion. We hadn’t even seen the Ifrit again since he first appeared and we were whirled through the air to this oasis. But we hoped that if we stayed here in the valley you’d be able to locate us again if you were still alive.”
“Do you think your friends are ready for their tests, little wizard?” called the Ifrit to me.
“I’m ready to ask you if you know what happened to my father!” Hugo shouted back.
“He’s probably dead, whoever he was,” said the Ifrit with a shrug. “Most humans are dead, sooner or later.”
Hugo whipped out his sword again. I could have stopped him if I still had my magic, but ordinary human reflexes were too slow. Before I could reach him he lunged forward and drove his sword into the spot where the Ifrit’s leg had been a second before.
“None of that!” cried the Ifrit angrily, putting his foot back down and picking Hugo up by the back of the neck. “I may be immortal, but I bleed the same as any of God’s creation!”
Hugo kicked and struggled and tried to swing around to stab at the hand that held him. The Ifrit frowned. “You seem to want to fight. Maybe that should be your test. But who should I have you fight? Not me, because I’d crush you at once, and that would only be amusing for a few seconds.”
This stopped Hugo’s struggles for the moment.
“I know!” said the Ifrit happily. “You can fight another human. How about- Hmmm. How about this one?” He seized Ascelin with the other hand.
The prince hung, dignified, from the Ifrit’s grip on the back of his shirt. “We could give a demonstration of sword work for your amusement if you like.”
“No,” said the Ifrit, peering at him with a frown. “That would not be amusing enough. I know! I’ll have you fight to the death.”
He set Hugo and Ascelin down, and they stood uncertainly, their hands on their hilts. “Go ahead!” said the Ifrit impatiently. “This will be your chance to entertain me. I want to see what humans do when they are fighting for their lives.”
They glanced questioningly at King Haimeric and at me. “Go ahead and fence,” I said slowly, hoping desperately that a good sword fight would satisfy the Ifrit, that he was not serious about making them fight to the death.
They took off their goat’s-hair robes and slid their shields onto their arms. Hugo removed his earring, and they both tied back their hair before strapping on their helmets. Only their eyes showed as they exchanged the ritual taps of the sword that begin a tournament duel. They took a few moments to get the feel of the sandy surface, circling each other slowly, then Hugo suddenly lashed out and landed a blow on Ascelin’s shield.