The Crusading Wizard

CHAPTER 25

Prester John! That explained a lot. He had heard the name, the Oriental Christian king who had been the hope of Europe during the Crusades. Someone had supposedly carried a letter from Prester John to the Emperor of Byzantium, but since he hadn’t been able to find Byzantium, he had thoughtfully copied the missive several times and sent on the copies—and other hands had copied the copy, then copied copies of the copy, all of which passed from hand to hand and pen to pen until the emperor finally got the message, along with most of the rest of Europe.

Of course, whether the word the emperor read was the message Prester John had sent was a very open question, since with each copying, the letter had grown, and so had the glory of Prester John and the wonders of his kingdom, claiming that he ruled a land filled with marvels and led an invincible army that, being Christian, would surely attack the Turkish conquerors of the Holy Land from the East, catching them between Prester John’s forces and the Crusaders in the West, assuring a Christian victory. Never mind what kind of Christian—any kind was better than the Muslim Turks.

“Prester” was another form of the word “presbyter,” the stewards of the early Church. Over the centuries, in the East, it had apparently come to mean “priest,” and John, in the finest Oriental tradition, was a priest-king.

All of that was fable, of course, drawn from the deeds of a Mongol prince who had battled a Persian sultan and won. Word of his victory had spread to the West, but become somewhat distorted in the process, so that from having Nestorian Christians in his army—along with Buddhists, animists, and Muslims—he had become himself a Christian, a priest, and a king. When Europeans first heard of the conquests of Genghis Khan, they had been delighted, thinking that at last Prester John had come to rescue the Holy Land from the Muslims. They had been sadly disappointed.

That, however, had been in Matt’s home universe, where Prester John was only a fable. Now Matt lived in a universe of fantasy in which trolls and manticores were real, and Prester John was apparently fact, not rumor.

“What … what is Prester John’s kingdom like?” Matt asked.

“A land of peace and plenty,” the priest told him, “where the rivers teem with fish and the crops never fail. The people are industrious and cheerful, living as the early Christians did, with love toward one another and living so closely by Christ’s precepts that there is little friction between them.”

“But that’s not the case with their barbarian neighbors.”

“Not at all,” the old priest said sadly, “and therefore does Prester John maintain an army that cannot be beaten—or could not, until this accursed Arjasp and his gur-khan began their apocalyptic ride.”

“They conquered Prester John?” Matt asked in surprise.

“We know not,” the old priest sighed. “No word has come from the North since first the gur-khan began his conquests, for the caravans had to find routes that kept them away from the fighting.”

“Which means that even if Prester John is alive and well, his kingdom is suffering a major recession,” Matt said thoughtfully.

“Perhaps, but they would scarcely be starving.” The old priest smiled. “His granaries are reputed to be as high as mountains, and his supplies enough to last for seven years.”

“Are they really?” Matt recognized a literary convention when he heard one. “What about Prester John himself? Is he as splendid as his kingdom?”

“He is said to be heir to the sanctity and wisdom of Saint John the Evangelist, he who wrote the fourth gospel and the Book of Revelations.”

“Which is why he’s called John?”

The old man smiled. “Perhaps. He is also heir to the crozier of St. Thomas, the evangelist to the Indies and, therefore, the first bishop of the East. Prester John is also said to be descended from the magi, those same wise men who came to kneel before Baby Jesus in His manger.”

“Magi!” Matt’s eyes opened wide. “A Christian descendant of Zoroastrian priests?”

“Why not?” the old priest asked. “Surely gazing upon the infant Christ would have been enough to inspire them with Christian faith.”

“But the gur-khan’s wizard Arjasp is preaching a very twisted form of Zoroastrianism—instead of worshiping Ahura Mazda, the Lord of Light, he’s worshiping Angra Mainyu—Ahriman—the Prince of Lies!”

The old priest’s smile faded. “So I have heard.”

“That would make him the natural first target for Arjasp!” Matt dropped his gaze, frowning, thinking. “Either the first or the last—if they thought John’s army was invincible, they might have decided to wait until they had conquered everything else before coming after him.”

“That is possible.” The old priest began to tremble. “Woe for the Elder, if he is beset by enemies on all sides!”

“Yes, he might need a little help.” Matt looked back up at the priest. “Thank you for your information, reverend. It will be a very helpful guide on the rest of my journey.”

“Yes,” the priest said somberly, “to avoid the battleground to the north.”

“Yes,” Matt said, “or to seek it.”

He turned away, but the old man cried, “Stop!”

Matt turned back, reining in his impatience. “There isn’t really time to spare.”

“Better here than in a Tartar cage.” The old priest came closer, peering into his face. “Do you truly mean to go among the Mongols?”

“If I have to,” Matt said, “yes.”

“Then take these talismans.” The priest took two lumps of incense from the candle rack beside him and pressed them into Matt’s hand. “They came from Prester John’s kingdom—perhaps they will bring the land itself to favor you.”

Matt looked down at the incense, mind racing, realizing that the priest could be right. He sniffed the incense and recoiled—the smoke might be sweet, but the resin itself was sharp and pungent. Nonetheless, he said, “Thank you, reverend.”

“I do it gladly. Resume your journey, then, and take the blessing of a priest with you.” The priest recited a short verse in a Latin dialect, then said, “Go with God!”

Matt bowed his head and turned away again.

He strode out of the temple and back to his companions. “Sudden change in plans,” he told them. “We still head due north, but we’re not trying to find Kharakhorum anymore.”

“Then where do we fly?” asked Marudin as he and Lakshmi both came to their feet.

“Prester John’s capital city,” Matt said. “He’s supposed to have an unbeatable army. He could be a big help against Arjasp.”

“Directly north, where Arjasp‘s headquarters lie?” Lakshmi stared. “How can he have escaped war with the horde?”

“And if he has fought, what if he has been conquered?” Marudin asked.

“Then Arjasp will have taken over John’s city,” Matt said, “and it will be the natural place for him to have hidden the kids! Let’s go!”

It wasn’t hard to tell when they came to Prester John’s kingdom. They flew over a mountain range that Matt was sure had never existed in his own world, especially since it was right-angled, the two arms running almost exactly north and east. The eastward arm dropped very quickly into foothills, then sank to a plateau bordered by a glittering river that descended from the mountains. Flying low, they were shocked to see that the river was made of stones, millions of boulders of all sizes, rolling onward as a current. On the southern side of that river was desert; but the northern side was lush with plant life, cut into a patchwork of green and golden crops interspersed with groves of trees. Through them all ran many streams, both marking the boundaries of fields and watering them. In the distance gleamed spires of ivory and gold—but as they crossed the peaks of the mountain range, Balkis’ ring blazed.

“Look!” she cried. “It glows!”

“Glows? It’s nearly blinding!” Matt shielded his eyes and called out, “We’re a little conspicuous, Princess! Maybe we ought to land and pretend to be ordinary travelers again.”

“The caution is wise, but I crave speed!” Nonetheless, Lakshmi began her descent. “Does that ring speak of djinn who guard our enemy, or of my children?”

“Either way,” Matt said, “I think we’ll be better able to deal with them on the ground.” He remembered the last nosedive brought on by the attack of the border-guarding afrit, and shuddered.

By the time they landed, Lakshmi and Marudin were back to normal human size. Lakshmi set them down, and Balkis, in human form, drew her gauzy veil about her and shivered. “I had not thought ‘twould be so cold!”

“We have come to the North, child. Even of a summer’s evening, it will be chill.” Lakshmi slipped off her yellow robe and wrapped it about Balkis’ shoulders. “Take this, and be warm.”

“I thank you.” Balkis looked up in surprise. “But what of you?”

“Djinn do not feel the cold.” Lakshmi smiled. “We are creatures of the warm South, and bear its heat with us. How else do you think I could race through the chill winds of the upper air with only this skimpy vest for a garment?”

“I had not thought,” Balkis admitted, and hugged the coat more closely around her. “I thank you for your kindness.”

With a pang of guilt, Matt realized he hadn’t considered the problem, either. The warmth of Lakshmi’s bosom had protected him from the chill of high altitude so well that he’d forgotten the air was supposed to be cold up there.

“Well, let us find a road.” Lakshmi and Marudin stepped off with the certainty of those who remembered the terrain from an aerial view. They had landed in a grove by a stream, and she followed the water as the easiest way of moving under the trees.

Matt followed, then looked back to see Balkis moving very slowly, looking about her, dazed. He went back for her, concerned. “What’s the matter?”

“It all seems so … familiar,” Balkis said, her voice dreamy, “as though I had been here before, moved by this very stream under these very trees.”

“Déjà vu,” Matt explained. “It’s a trick your brain plays, bouncing back your sensory impressions a split second after they’ve come in. Sure, you’ve been here before—about half a second ago.”

“Is it truly that?” Balkis wondered, but she let him lead her at a faster pace.

They caught up with Lakshmi and Marudin. Together they walked through the woods, exclaiming over the beauty of the flowers on the bushes set against emerald leaves. They inhaled exotic perfumes and listened, charmed, to the music of the brook—but Balkis moved like an automaton, directed by Matt’s grasp, looking about her with a gaze vacant and entranced. The azure sky seemed to burst upon them as they came out of the grove and stepped onto the road with a golden field to their left and trees heavy with fruit to their right. As Matt turned to ask Lakshmi how far she thought the city would be, barbarians burst from the trees.

They were ugly little men with long, pointed moustaches, bald heads ridged with scar tissue, and shaggy ponies under their bowed legs—but they also held sharp swords and screamed like demons as they charged down upon the party.

A sword cleaved into Marudin’s left arm, but he caught its owner’s wrist with his right hand and yanked the man out of his saddle, then tossed him under the hooves of the next rider’s mount. Another slashed at Lakshmi, slicing deep into her turban; she rid herself of it with a toss of her head and grew amazingly, catching the little man around the neck as his horse charged by.

Matt shouted in alarm and leaped in front of Balkis, who blinked, waking from her trance, but another barbarian dashed behind her, slashing at her, the yellow coat tangling about his sword. Balkis came fully awake with a shout like a spitting cat and turned to meet the man with fingernails hooked like claws as he turned his horse to ride back—but Lakshmi picked up one of his companions and hurled both horse and rider. The two men fell in a shouting tangle, too mixed up with their horses to see who had landed on top and who on bottom.

A warrior charged at Matt, howling, curved sword slashing down. Matt sidestepped, reaching for his sword. His hand closed on the wand instead, and the barbarian swerved to track him. In despair, Matt swung up the only weapon he had.

The sword struck it and sparks fountained. The rider shouted in pain and slumped forward onto his horse’s neck, unconscious and smoking—but the hilt of the sword struck Matt, sending him spinning. So secure was the rider‘s seat that the horse galloped a dozen yards before the rider fell.

Matt scrambled to his feet, hand pressed to his aching side, looking about the field frantically—but all he saw was a dirt road running between a field and some trees, with half a dozen Mongols lying on it, unconscious or dead. Several of the horses were, too; the others were still running.

Marudin pressed a hand to his left shoulder, chanting a charm, and when he took his hand away, the flesh was so smooth Matt would never have known he’d been wounded. Lakshmi stood over the fallen men, fuming and cursing in Arabic. Matt hurried to Balkis. “Are you all right?”

“I—I seem to be.” She looked up at him, eyes shining with gratitude.

For what? He hadn’t protected her. But she was trembling, and he gathered her in, pressing her head into his shoulder and letting the storm of tears break.

As it slackened, he looked up and saw Lakshmi watching him closely, frowning. Well, she could watch all she wanted—he was only comforting a child. Still, he winked at her and nodded. The djinna returned the nod and stepped up to take Balkis from him with an arm around the shoulders, saying, “There now, it has passed, and no worse than toms fighting over a puss! Poor lass, your new yellow coat cut short and ragged. There, there, it is over, and nothing more to fear.”

“Thanks,” Matt said to Marudin, his voice shaky.

“My pleasure.” The djinni prodded the nearest Mongol with his toe. “What offal are these, to fall upon innocent travelers so!”

“Bandits, I expect. Odd, when this land is supposed to be peaceful and prosperous.” Matt looked down at the horsemen, then noticed they were all dressed in the same colors. “Your Highness—I think these were soldiers.”

Marudin stared, then gave a judicious nod. “They have that look. But why soldiers without a battle?”

“A patrol,” Matt said, “to bring in anybody who looks like a threat. They must have seen us coming in for a landing.”

Marudin frowned, looking about him. “I see no one who might have witnessed this struggle.” He turned back, waving a hand over the Mongols. Coruscating lights seemed to run over their bodies; their forms glimmered and faded away.

Matt stared. “What did you do with them?”

“Sent them to the nearest battle-line, where a few more dead will not be noticed,” Marudin said. “These barbarians seem always to have some strife going on somewhere—in this case, far to the east.”

“The east? What, are they attacking China, too?”

“It would seem so,” Marudin said grimly. “Is there no end to their greed?”

“I think not,” Matt said slowly, “and if they’re foolish enough to fight a war on two fronts, they deserve what they get.” He pursed his lips, thinking. “As you said, probably nobody saw us—but it won’t pay us to hang around, either. I still want to take a look at that city.”

“I, too,” Marudin said.

“Indeed,” Lakshmi agreed. “Perhaps we will learn why there were Mongol soldiers riding through Prester John’s kingdom!”

They found out even before they entered the city gates, for the soldiers who guarded them were Mongols, watching every traveler with vigilance and suspicion. Matt felt his skin prickle as he went between them, feeling as though they could see the wand beneath his cloak—he’d had the forethought to hide his sword a hundred yards back down the road, as soon as he’d seen the Mongol guards. Lakshmi wore another yellow robe and carried a calico cat—no longer just black and white, but with yellow splotches here and there, especially in a ragged band across her shoulders and back.

As they came through the gate, Matt breathed a sigh of relief. “I think that tells us why there was a Mongol patrol on the road.”

“On the road, and in this city.” Lakshmi nodded her head at a troop of stocky, bandy-legged men riding by on shaggy ponies. “The folk of the town have a different look entirely.”

“Yes, they do.” Matt looked about him thoughtfully, studying the civilians. Their skin tone was tan, almost golden, and there was only a hint of a tilt to their eyes. They had heart-shaped faces where the Mongols’ were round, and their lips were thicker. Both had high cheekbones, but Mongols had black eyes where some of the citizens had brown, sometimes flecked with gold, and larger than those of the soldiers. Some of the local men wore beards, though most were clean shaven. Dark brown hair was the rule, but here and there he saw light brown and even dark red. He knew that if the Mongols had let their hair grow, it would have been black.

There was something about the look of the locals that tickled Matt’s memory. He tried to place the odd feeling of familiarity but had to give it up. He could only note that their physical blending of East, West, and South made them a very attractive people.

So were the buildings they had made. Matt lifted his gaze to the architecture. It was even more wonderful than that of Samarkand. The buildings were taller, with many windows, shutters open now, roofs tiled to channel rain and pitched to shed snow. They were every color of the rainbow, mostly pastels but some in full, rich hues. Most of the color seemed to be worked into the plaster that covered them, but many were tiled in geometric patterns. Some were even decorated with mosaics of tall, peaceful-looking people with halos, magnificent bulls and slender deer, white tigers and black panthers, graceful cranes and fish whose scales fairly glowed in the sunlight. The streets were broad and paved with cobblestones, baked with an ochre glaze that made them appear golden.

If there had been a battle, it left no sign.

He could make out one minaret and the dome of a mosque, and five steeples.

“Why do we linger?” Lakshmi said impatiently. “Either the Mongols have conquered, and your Prester John is dead or fled—or the barbarians are his hirelings, and he awaits us in the palace.”

Matt felt a chill. “How can he be waiting for us? He doesn’t even know we’re coming.”

“I had not meant it in that fashion,” she snapped.

“No, but it’s a point well-taken anyway,” Matt said. “We’re not the only ones who know magic. Let’s go cautiously, friends.”

“Well enough, but let us go indeed!”

“That big building must be the palace.” Matt nodded toward a distant edifice that towered over the tile roofs of lesser buildings. It glowed royal-blue in the afternoon sun with the gloss of tiles, thousands of tiles. At a rough guess, taking distance into account, it was two hundred feet wide and fifty high. Scores of windows reflected light, which meant they were filled with actual glass, not just parchment or horn.

“Wants plenty of room for guests, I suppose,” Matt said. “Let us hope that we shall not be among them,” Lakshmi said darkly.

The street they were on curved, and after thirty yards or so Matt realized that it was—an arc, probably a piece of a circle. He kept going until he found a broad avenue that intersected it at an angle close enough to ninety degrees so that he could look down it and see all the way to the palace itself. Other streets intersected it, and as they walked down the avenue, they could see that the side streets also curved. “I think the city is laid out as a series of rings,” Matt said, “and each avenue is a radius from the center to the rim.”

“But the rim is the wall,” Marudin asked, “and the palace is the center?”

“That’s my guess.”

“We could have known,” Lakshmi huffed, “if we had flown over it.”

“Yeah, but we’re supposed to be incognito,” Matt said. “Can’t surprise them much if we make that kind of an appearance, can we?”

“Why not?” she said archly. “I doubt not that they already know we are here.”

“Hope not.” Matt looked around the pavement. “Anyone seen Balkis?”

“Aye, at the last comer,” Marudin said, “but she was gone at the comer before that. She comes and goes.”

“She explores, as any good cat would,” Lakshmi said, “and there cannot be too much danger here, or she would stay close by us.”

“Yeah, but what’s dangerous for us and what’s dangerous for a cat are two different things.” However, Matt remembered how Balkis had rid herself of the last importunate tom and didn’t worry too much.

Finally they came to the palace—or rather to the immense circular plaza that surrounded it. They stood at the southwest comer, so Matt could see that the building was half as deep as it was long, and set on a small hill, with a broad staircase leading up to it. He hoped he wouldn’t have to climb up there very often—there were a hundred steps at least. As he watched, though, he saw horsemen riding down a ramp from the back, and decided to try the servants’ entrance if he needed to get in.

The front steps seemed to be largely taken up by shamans and sorcerers.

At least, Matt assumed they were sorcerers, by the zodiacal signs and alchemical symbols embroidered onto their robes. There were also a fair number of Ahriman’s priests, to judge by the dark blue robes and bulge-cone hats. It bothered him that some of the men were both priests and sorcerers. The shamans were easier to identify—they were still dressed as plainsmen in furs and leather, faces painted or masked with ornate, terrifying leather creations, adorned with feathers and beads. If shamans they were, they were dressed for business.

“I don’t think Prester John lives here anymore,” Matt said slowly.

“Stand aside!” Lakshmi laid a hand on his arm, pulling him out of the way as a squadron of Polovtsi warriors came stamping their way behind a gaudily caparisoned officer.

Matt stepped lightly and quickly to his right.

So did the officer. Matt sidestepped again, and the officer swerved again. Matt decided not to try for the charm and faced the music, or at least the officer.

The barbarian marched up within five feet of him and stamped to a halt; his squadron did, too. “You are not the mere merchants you seem,” he accused. Translation spell or not, his Persian had an atrocious accent.

“Uh, just tourists,” Matt ad-libbed, hoping the spell wouldn’t give him such a horrible lilt. “Wanna see the sights, you know—and that castle sure is a big building.”

“Do not play the fool!” the officer snapped. “You will come with us!”

“You hoped not to be a guest—but I think we have been invited,” Marudin said.