“Pieces, fall! Begone from sight!” Anthony cried. “You have made the line again, genius of music!”
“I would rather be your genius of love.” Balkis sat down beside him and smiled into his eyes. He gazed back, blissful and speechless, and his hand stole out to cover hers.
Matt coughed delicately. Both of them gave a start and turned to him, abashed.
“I see how it works,” Matt said. “If Anthony can memorize a verse, he can work a spell—but if he has to make one up, he just can't get started.”
“Like to me,” Balkis said, “save that I can begin a verse, but make weak endings, slowly and with difficulty.”
“So he can't make magic on his own,” Matt said, “but he can make yours ten times more effective.” He nodded. “Good basis for a partnership. Better teach him all the magic you know. If he's really going to Maracanda, Prester John will be delighted to meet him.”
“Meet the emperor himself!” Anthony cried, sitting bolt upright.
“Sure,” Matt said. “He needs all the wizards he can find.”
“As to that …” Balkis looked suddenly nervous. She turned to Anthony. “I have given you time alone with my mentor, Anthony. Will you grant me the same privilege?”
“Why … of course, my sweet.” Anthony hid his jealousy with an effort, smiled, then rose and went over toward Stego-man and Dimetrolas, moving warily and timidly.
Dimetrolas noticed and said something to Stegoman, who boomed out, “Welcome, son of the mountains! Have you never seen dragon folk before?”
“Never.” Anthony came forward, though shyly. “Might I speak with you awhile? I am bursting with a thousand questions!”
“I will answer only a hundred,” Stegoman said with a twinkle in his eye. “Ask, mountaineer.”
They settled down to conversation. Balkis glanced at them, then leaned closer to Matt and asked in a low voice, “How is it you searched for me?”
“PresterJohn—”
“Shh! Do not say his name!” Balkis gave a frantic glance over her shoulder at Anthony. “Say rather, ‘my uncle,’ as you did before—and a thousand thanks for that tact.”
“Just good luck,” Matt said. “Okay, ‘my uncle’ sent word that his niece was missing…”
“Oh, be not so silly!”
“Okay, your uncle sent word—and asked me to come find out what had happened to you. We tracked down the sorcerer who had kidnapped you, but he wasn't much help—seems you foiled his transportation spell at the last minute, so he didn't know where you'd gone.”
Balkis smiled with grim satisfaction. “Not where he intended, at least.”
“Yes, and I'm very glad of that.” Matt beamed at her. “Very proud of my pupil. But your uncle did a bit of divination, found out which direction you'd gone, and I started searching. Stegoman insisted on coming along for the ride—or so that I could ride, rather—and we headed south, stopping to ask about you whenever we could.” He spread his hands. “When we found chaos happening, we thought it was worth a look.”
“Praise Heaven that you did! But Pres—my uncle is still seeking me?”
“Not officially,” Matt hedged. “If I can't find you, he'll send his son with a small army to search.”
“Oh, such noise and furor will certainly not affright a kidnapper!”
“Careful, my dear—with your coloring, sarcasm doesn't become you, and I sure hope the converse isn't true. I also hope you're reassured to know your uncle's willing to shake heaven and earth to find you, though.”
“It is a warming thought.” Balkis smiled. “The problem, though, Lord Wizard, is that I would prefer not to be found for a while.”
“Need to cement a new relationship before you jeopardize it by revealing you're a princess?” Matt eyed Anthony, who was in earnest conversation with the two dragons. “You could tell him you're a woodcutter's daughter, you know.”
“I could,” Balkis said, “but would he believe that I could be that and a princess, too?”
“Should be enough old legends around to give him a basis for accepting it,” Matt said, “and as I understand it, he's steeped in them so thoroughly that they've dyed his soul— but why take chances, right?”
“Exactly,” Balkis said. “I wish to journey with him through Prester John's tributaries and his own domain, all the way to Maracanda itself. We should be so firmly bound by then that he will not be affrighted—not if he truly loves me.”
“Assuming he doesn't feel you deceived him, of course.”
“Ridiculous!” Balkis said. “I am myself! Why should it matter whether I am a princess or a beggar?”
“Good point,” Matt said, “but it does matter. Still, it's your play, and I won't try to rewrite it for you.”
“Please do not.” Balkis' face was taut with anxiety. “I am not ready to be a princess again! We have survived dangers and privations on this journey, it is true, but we have also seen wonders, and come to know amazing people. I wish to see the country all the way into the capital itself as ordinary people do, so that I may come to know them better.”
Matt looked into her eyes and drew his own conclusions about which ordinary person she wanted to know better. He smiled, remembering his first few days of rapture, and reached out to pat her hand. “Don't worry, I'll keep quiet about it. Just don't wear out the honeymoon before the wedding, okay?”
Matt took dictation, refereed the disagreements on wording, and kept them from breaking up the newborn alliance, then carved it all into a cliff at the side of the village—magically, of course. The villagers were suitably impressed by the stunt and swore to uphold the treaty, possibly more out of fear of the power that had engraved it than of the threat of civil war that could have resulted from breaking it.
Matt, the two huge dragons, and the young couple stayed on through the celebrations that evening, then slept the sleep of the sober amid a thousand drunks—with one always awake as sentry, of course. The next morning, Anthony got the exhilarating and terrifying experience of a dragon ride, because Matt insisted on seeing his young charges well beyond reach of the dragoneers before he let them go north on their own.
Thirty miles north, Stegoman and Dimetrolas came in for a landing, and Balkis and Anthony slid down, Balkis running to hold Anthony upright while he got his land legs again. He gave her a foolish grin and a sloppy kiss and said, “I wish another such ride someday.”
“I shall give you one,” Stegoman promised, “though you shall have to come to Maracanda to have it.”
“One more reason for traveling north! Many thanks, noble beast! I shall see you in Maracanda!”
“In Maracanda, then,” Stegoman acknowledged, and took off with Matt on his back and Dimetrolas flying convoy.
“You have most amazing friends,” Aiithony informed Balkis.
“I know.” She pressed herself against him and wrapped her arms around his chest. “Though I had hoped you were more than a friend.”
“Far more.” Anthony grinned and kissed her.
They traveled northward for three more days, though they did not exactly hurry. Balkis chafed at Anthony's gallantry in asking nothing of her but kisses, especially since those inflamed her so that her entire body burned to give and demand more—but she remembered what the Lord Wizard had said about not wearing out the honeymoon before the wedding and fancied there might be some truth in it, so she wandered northward arm in arm with her swain and waited for them to happen upon a priest.
Her hopes soared when they came to a crossroads and saw a little chapel glittering in the light of later afternoon. “We can at least give thanks for a safe journey, Anthony.”