“It goes by the name of Kala Nag,” Matt said. “Give me a drink and I'll tell you about her.”
Prester John had a stock of fruit juice in his workroom, which Matt found refreshing. The carafe sat between them on a small table as he told the king of his encounter with the shaman. When he was done, Prester John asked, “So this barbarian goddess has became a demon?”
“Call her what you like.” Matt shrugged. “Goddess or demon, she's devoted to destruction and misery. If people worship her as a goddess, that probably says more about them than it does about her”
“Certainly her behavior would merit the title demon' from any civilized person,” Prester John agreed. “Still, it is not they whom she gathers, but the barbarians.” He frowned in thought. “How can our little Balkis be a bulwark against so terrible a being?”
“Well, she may not be a giant physically, but she has a great heart,” Matt reminded him. “Besides, she's only supposed to become a problem if she links up with this ‘Other’ Torbat mentioned.”
Prester John looked up in surprise. “Would that not be yourself?”
“It could,” Matt said thoughtfully. “I probably wouldn't have come back to Maracanda if you hadn't called me to help find her—but if that's so, we'd better see about my joining her as soon as I can.”
“We must recover her quickly in any case,” Prester John said grimly. “You say that Torbat knew where he sent the child, but not where she arrived?”
Matt nodded. “Right. Balkis managed to come up with a counterspell just as he was launching her.” He couldn't help a smile of pride in his apprentice.
Neither could John, though his smile of pride was for his niece, not his student. “She did well and has the courage of her family. Still, we cannot know where she is.”
“There is that drawback,” Matt admitted.
Prester John nodded thoughtfully. “That is why my earlier spells yielded no hint of Balkis' location—she had traveled through the Void, not been carried for miles drugged on the back of a barbarian pony.”
“But now that you know she went through it, you can find her?”
“It may be.” Prester John rose to take a yard-wide bowl from a shelf, then lifted a waterskin down from a hook. He carried both to the sand floor, set the bowl on the central disc where Matt had stood, and filled it half full of water.
Then he took a small bottle from his sleeve, shook a few drops into the bowl, and finished filling it. A lovely fragrance wafted to Matt's nostrils. With a shock, he recognized Balkis' scent. Prester John must have taken a sample of her perfume.
He had taken one of her scarves, too—Matt watched him twist it into an arrow and lay it carefully in the bowl, then step back off the sand floor to chant a verse that commanded the silken cylinder to point toward she who had worn it. Matt admired the improvisation—Prester John had used the Law of Contagion, that objects once in contact remained in contact over distance, and the Law of Sympathy, that like will to like, and both strengthened by the same symbols that had oriented him earlier in finding the direction Torbat had gone. Matt stood on tiptoe so he could see down into the bowl. Sure enough, gentle wavelets moved there as the perfume rippled into a pattern pointing toward the distant trace of scent that Balkis wore, and the scarf swung to aim toward the skin that it had touched.
“Almost due southeast, but a little more southerly than easterly.” Prester John turned back to Matt with a look of apology. “I regret that is the best I can do, Lord Wizard.”
“It's a huge help, Your Majesty. At least I have some idea which way to go now.”
But Matt couldn't help wondering how far he would have to travel. Certainly miles, or Balkis would have come back already by herself. Afghanistan? India? Indonesia? Australia? He shuddered at the thought that he might have to go all the way to Antarctica, and hoped Balkis had been wearing a warm nightgown.
The next morning, they attended Mass in Prester John's chapel, bigger than most churches, where 365 abbots took daily turns saying the prayers and administering the sacraments in the Nestorian rite, quite different from the one Matt knew. Then Matt left the city by the southern gate, walked a mile, stepped off the road into a convenient grove, and recited the verse that would call Stegoman. The dragon arrived within minutes. Matt mounted, and together they took off to search for a lost cat.
Balkis awoke as the moon rose, feeling far better than she had before, though still lethargic. Seeing the brownie-woman, weaving pine needles and singing a charm, Balkis came fully alert.
Looking up, the brownie-woman saw Balkis' open eyes and smiled. “Are you healed now, maiden?”
Balkis was startled by the question. How had this wee one known her for human when she was in cat's guise?
“The spirit of this grove saw you transform,” the brownie explained, as if Balkis had spoken aloud. “I am Lichi. Have you appetite?”
The question raised a sudden gnawing hunger in Balkis, who nodded. Then, realizing there was no point in hiding her abilities when the brownie already knew she was human, Balkis said, “Most hungry.”
The brownie frowned. “What speech is this?”
Balkis had spoken in the tongue of Allustria, where she grew up, and she recognized the language the brownie spoke as very much like one she had learned while traveling with the Lord Wizard. (The thought of him still made her heart leap.) They had stayed a few weeks in a Parsi village, and Balkis had absorbed the language.
She tried it now. “I am most hungry, kind spirit.”
“Ah! Those words, I understand.” Lichi put aside her weaving and rose. “Come, then.”
She led Balkis to a small hole under the roots of one of the stunted pines. Balkis sniffed and caught the scent of mouse as the brownie knelt and cupped her hands around her mouth to call down into the burrow's back door, making a dreadful ghostly noise. Seconds later a mouse shot out, straight into Balkis' claws. When she had finished the morsel, the brownie led her to another burrow, then another.
As Balkis was licking her chops, the sprite asked, “Are you well enough to travel now?”
“I think I am.” Balkis took a wobbly step but said gamely, “I shall walk as long as I may.”
“Come, then.” Lichi turned away.
It was a long walk for a cat whose strength had been depleted by injury. Lichi led the way, other Wee Folk appearing around Balkis as she followed. Several times, Balkis had to stop to rest, and the brownies stroked her, lending magical energy, and their strength revived her. She thanked them and rose to stumble on. During one of these rests she asked Lichi, “Am I in Hind or Persia?”
“Neither,” Lichi said with a frown. “You have come into Bactria. Why would you think this was Persia?”
“Because your language is akin to one I learned from some Parsi folk,” Balkis explained, “at least, close enough so that I can understand if you speak slowly, though there seem to be many words I do not know.”
“Ah.” Lichi nodded. “Well, there were Persians who came riding here in conquest, long ago—then Greeks after them, though our mountaineers swallowed them up in time. Then the Persians came again to conquer, but the mountain folk swallowed them, too, over the years. They have left something of their language behind, though. Come, you must see some of our mountain folk.”
Lichi led her to a farmstead, though Balkis found it amazing that a house, barn, and storage sheds had been built on such sharply sloping land. Even more surprising, the buildings stood straight, though they were of a style Balkis found most strange—circular and covered with earth, with grass growing on the roofs, yellow now, in winter. There were fenced enclosures near the outbuildings, but all were empty. “The cows, goats, and swine are closed in for the night,” Lichi explained, “but there are holes enough for a brownie, or a little cat. Come.”