“Maybe I do not trust you. If you play me false, then God shall play you false. If you don’t come back and make my wife stay young and pure, then I’ll crush all your friends.”
If we didn’t find a way to get away from the Ifrit soon, before whoever had ordered him to watch for us appeared, we’d all be dead anyway. Rapid crushing would have to be better than undergoing any more of the Ifrit’s fatal “tests.”
“Of course,” I said as firmly as I could.
I turned on my heel and started walking without giving him a chance to change his mind. Kaz-alrhun and Dominic were right behind me. As we hurried on, the mage commented with a small smile, “It has been two centuries since I was last without access to magic. This should be a novel experience.” Then he added, as though in disapproval, “That was a noble display of generosity, Daimbert. I thought even wizards of the west knew better than to prolong life wantonly.”
“We do. I would never artificially lengthen the lives of anyone at the royal court of Yurt.” This was for Dominic’s benefit. “But I think the Ifrit’s own magical abilities could have prolonged her life anyway, even though he doesn’t know it.”
And then I realized the mage was smiling. He had not disapproved of my proposition after all. “I did not know that woman was the Ifrit’s wife,” was all he said.
We seemed to move at a snail’s pace across the valley floor. The noon heat surrounded us so thoroughly that it felt it must be visible. The sun’s glare made it hard to see. The mage was soon wheezing, and I slowed my pace to his; he was twice my bulk as well as at least two hundred years older. Dominic would have been wheezing even worse at the beginning of our trip, though he now moved almost as easily as Ascelin.
When we finally reached the boulders that marked the head of the dry watercourse, my first thought was to sit down in their shadow. But I stood up again after a moment, while the mage was still panting, to look down into the Wadi Harhammi.
It had been our goal since the eastern kingdoms, but now that we were here it seemed almost an anticlimax. For a place of unimaginable danger, it seemed very quiet. The watercourse appeared empty, although a curve hid most of its length. I still had no idea what Dominic’s father had thought was in the Wadi fifty years ago or what might be here now-or even what Kaz-alrhun thought was here.
It was time to find out. I lifted the onyx ring and said the words to reveal what was hidden.
We scrambled backwards as the ground beneath our feet started to drop away, rocks rolling and sand sliding. In a few seconds, the narrow watercourse had grown to cover most of the center of the valley.
“Greetings,” said King Warin. “I knew you’d be here sooner or later.”
II
Dominic and I stopped dead, but Kaz-alrhun did not seem perturbed. “I wish to inquire of you about that onyx ring you gave me for my flying horse,” he said. “It was not the ring I required.”
King Warin fixed us with his dead cold eyes, making me shiver in spite of the desert sun. “And your flying horse is not the help you led me to believe it would be.” The enormous black horse stood, completely still, beside him.
“You should always beware when bargaining in the Thieves’ Market,” said the mage. “Did I make any guarantee of my automaton’s power against Ifriti?”
Dominic interrupted them. “King Warin,” he said formally, “I accuse you before these witnesses of treating us falsely. When we return to the western kingdoms, I intend to assemble a court of our royal brothers to judge you for the crimes of theft and attempted murder.”
“He obtained the onyx ring by stealing it from you?” said Kaz-alrhun with a smile of comprehension. “God’s ways are secret ways, and all of us and the ring are now here together.”
“So is this,” I asked the mage with a nod toward Warin, “the danger against which you didn’t feel you could warn me?”
“Not at all,” said the mage. “I did not expect him here, although I always knew his entry into the game at this point was possible.”
“You’ve moved into a separate level of reality,” I said to Warin with what I hoped was a wizardly scowl. All I had to oppose the king was my magic, and I wanted to make sure he respected it. “The ebony horse won’t fly here.”
“Do you not intend to answer my charge?” said Dominic, crossing his arms. From his manner, instead of being in a desert valley surrounded by rocks, sand, and treacherous magic, we could have been home in the west.
Warin hesitated, flicking his eyes back and forth between us. He might have no respect for the mage and me, but Dominic disturbed him. “I do not understand what you’re talking about,” he said brusquely. “I had nothing to do with that band of bandits.”
“So you do know that we were set upon by bandits,” said Dominic, as though making a point before a judge. “When the strange stories coming out of the east reached you, you learned there was a flying horse for sale in Xantium, and its price a certain ring …”
“The ring you tried unsuccessfully to find in Prince Dominic’s tomb,” I suggested.
Dominic scowled darkly. “No wonder the townspeople have become leery of the church of the Holy Twins, if its sanctuary was violated by someone who would not hesitate to practice the black arts. I shall add desecration of a grave to my charges against you.”
King Warin seemed momentarily caught off balance. “I know nothing of a desecration of a grave,” he said with what appeared to be sincerity. But neither Dominic nor I were ready to believe him.
“So you stole the ring you had good reason to suspect Arnulf had sent with us,” I continued. “How long did it take you to realize that the ring you gave for the horse, which you hoped would carry you safely to the Wadi and away again, was the same ring that the mage wanted in order to uncover the Wadi’s secrets?”
Except that it wasn’t. Now I was confusing myself. I caught an amused look from the mage.
King Warin pulled his lips back from his teeth in what might have been meant for a smile. “I told you I expected you sooner or later.”
“We’re here now,” I said, not daring to lose whatever momentum I had. “We’ll let you watch while we uncover the old secrets you hoped to obtain by deviousness and evil.”
I rubbed the onyx with my thumb and wondered how many layers of magical reality there might still be before us. I again spoke the words of the Hidden Language, heedless of whatever permanent damage I might be doing. If this valley was indeed an ancient volcano, leading down into the heart of the earth, maybe it had an inherent, well-grounded stability, which was why the Ifrit could apparently manipulate reality here so easily. Either that, or he and I both were disturbing the magma miles below, and molten rock was even now moving up toward us.
As the air’s shimmering resolved itself again, I thought I saw a group of people in the distance, from the corner of my eyes. But fifty yards ahead of us, and much more intriguing, something glittered in the sand of the rift.
I reached it first by flying, snatching it up before King Warin’s hands could seize it. It was a bronze bottle made in the shape of a cucumber.
I hefted it cautiously. It felt empty. The mouth was closed with a lead stopper, but the stopper was loose. When I opened the bottle and shook, nothing came out.
Kaz-alrhun held out a hand, and I gave it to him. If this was the secret of the Wadi Harhammi, I was not impressed.
But the mage lifted his eyebrows steeply. “This is a bottle wherein an Ifrit was imprisoned, Daimbert,” he said. “Look at the seal on the stopper.”
A seal had indeed been impressed in the lead, but I shook my head, not able to identify it.
“Do you not recognize the graven signet of Solomon, son of David?”
Dominic gave a low whistle.
“This is what Prince Vlad threatened me with,” I said. “He warned me I’d find something dangerous in the Wadi, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was unless I promised to return to his principality. It was an imprisoned Ifrit.”