The Crusading Wizard

CHAPTER 9

Matt looked around frantically, but the narrow street was completely empty. Apparently Helga had been afraid of him after all. But she couldn’t have gone far—he’d only turned his back for a few minutes. “Helga!” he called, then winced at the loudness of his own voice in the alleyway. He lowered his tone, hissing, “Helga! Where are you? I won’t hurt you, but nightwalkers might!”

His answer was a plaintive mew from his feet.

Matt looked down and saw a small white cat looking up at him pathetically.

“Later, kitty,” he said. “I have a girl to find.” He set off toward the narrow space between two hovels, thinking he might find a hiding place behind. The cat followed him, mews changing from plaintive to demanding—and growing louder and louder. As they neared the hovel, Matt realized the windows were only square holes and the door nothing but a piece of rough cloth. At that pitch and volume, Small-and-Furry would wake the neighbors! He turned around to the cat and knelt, exasperated. “Look, I have to try to find someone, and you’re not helping! You’ll wake half the neighborhood, and they’ll chase me away, and I’ll never find her, and I have to keep her safe!”

The little cat sat down and gave a determined but softer meow.

Something about the tone seemed familiar. Matt looked more closely and recognized the outsized ears, the small and slender form. “Balkis!” he hissed.

The cat looked at him as though he were crazy.

“No, you can’t be,” Matt sighed. “Wrong color. Well, I’ll tell you what—you go your way and I’ll go mine, and if you find a young girl wearing a white robe, you meow loudly, okay?”

For answer, the cat leaped onto his thigh and scooted up to his shoulders.

“Ouch!” Matt said aloud, then cut back to an agonized whisper. “Velvet paws! Velvet paws!” He went still, remembering the last time he had said that—and reminded by his own words that Helga had been wearing a white robe.

Purring in his left ear. He turned his head and found he was looking directly into the cat’s eyes. “You are Balkis, aren’t you? But you’re also Helga. How else did your coat change color?”

The cat gave an indignant meow.

“No use denying it,” Matt told her. “I’ve found you out.” Softly, he sang,

The cat meowed in outrage.

The cat leaped down from his shoulder, then squalled protest as her form fluxed, stretched, then steadied into Helga’s. She spat a verse in Allustrian, though, and instantly flowed back into the form of a small white cat.

“Gotcha!” Matt whispered triumphantly. “So that’s why you’re white—you’re wearing a white robe now! What were you wearing before, a brown dress?”

Balkis turned about and, with great aplomb, sat with her back to him.

“So now I’m being punished, am I? To think that all this time I’ve been traveling with a teenager! Wise of you to disguise yourself as a cat, though,” Matt said thoughtfully, “especially on a ship full of pirates. You wouldn’t want to have appeared as a pretty, voluptuous girl there.”

The cat peered over her shoulder at him with a feline frown.

“Oh yes, I know you’re pretty.” Matt remembered that cats were very susceptible to flattery. “A uniquely attractive cat, in fact. The touch of the exotic is fascinating, and the huge eyes and shiny coat would make any mouser yowl with envy.”

Languidly, Balkis stood up and stretched, arching her back, then sat down again, just happening to be in profile.

Matt saw he was making progress, but he wasn’t getting her back into human form. Transformation spells wouldn’t work—she’d proved that was one bit of magic she had down pat, probably didn’t even need to think about.

He decided on shock tactics. “Is that why you stay in cat disguise? Because you don’t think your human form is pretty?”

Balkis leaped up and glared at him.

“Probably right,” Matt said judiciously. “After all, if you didn’t have any boys buzzing around you, you’d prefer the toms.”

Balkis arched her back, spitting, even as she seemed to flow and swell and writhe into an amorphous white-and-tan giant egg that pulled in on itself to take human form, Helga’s form. “A lass might also seek refuge if she suspects the boys want only her pretty body, her father’s fields, and her mother’s house!”

Matt caught his breath; fired by anger, she was beautiful indeed. “Quite right, too,” he said, “and I can see why they wouldn’t let you alone. You really are a beauty.”

Balkis stared, confused by his change in direction—and suddenly wary.

Time for a touch of fatherly reassurance, Matt decided. “I hope my little daughter will be as pretty as you when she grows up.”

Balkis eyed him uncertainly. “You do not wish her to look like her mother?”

“Oh, definitely I do,” Matt said. “After all, I married the most beautiful woman in the world.”

Balkis’ eyes sparked with jealousy—but also with reassurance. “How will you manage to return to her, then?”

“By finding out who’s threatening her, along with the rest of Europe,” Matt said, “then taking passage on a ship. Of course, I might call up a friendly dragon and hitch a ride, or even see if my transportation spells will take me halfway around the world.”

“You have not even thought of it, then.”

“Not really,” Matt admitted. “Not time to think of going home, you see—I haven’t found out what Alisande needs to know.”

Balkis stared at him in frank disbelief. “You have never doubted for a moment that you can return whenever you wish!”

Matt nodded. “I’ve had experience along those lines. How about you?”

“What of me?” Instantly, Balkis was on the defensive. “I have had very little experience of any kind, except in dealing with bumptious males!”

Matt took the warning even if it wasn’t needed. “Did you really come to Merovence to learn magic from me?”

“Even as Idris advised, aye.”

“Really must meet this Idris someday,” Matt muttered, then aloud, “Where did you come from?”

“From Allustria, as I’ve told you.”

Matt shook his head. “You’re too exotic. They don’t grow eyes like yours, or skin that tone, in southern Allustria. Where did you come from before that?”

“I—I do not know.” Balkis’ voice faltered. “Idris enchanted me and drew out memories of women with skin like bark and green hair who helped me—she called them dryads—and of others whose tresses were like seaweed and whose skin was greenly tinted. She called them nixies.”

“Water-spirits.” Matt nodded. “They have different names in different countries. They helped you?”

“Aye, nixies and dryads both. The nixies took me to the dryads, who cared for me, gave me the power to tum into a cat, and directed me to join a caravan that took me to a place called Novgorod.”

“Novgorod?” Matt stared. “That’s in Russia!”

“What is Russia?”

“A country far to the east of Merovence.” Matt frowned. “How old were you when you made this journey?”

Balkis gazed off into space, remembering. “My mother said I was two when I came to them.”

“Two years old?” Matt stared. “How did you survive?”

“As a cat,” Balkis said with irritation. “With four legs, claws, and sharp teeth, I was well enough grown to make my own way when I was only a year old.”

“Clever, clever,” Matt said, marveling. “Your dryads may have had wooden heads, but they were filled with brains.” Then another thought struck. “It was they who gave you your magical talent!”

“Aye—or so said Idris. She guessed that I had spent most of my first year in the forest, and that the dryads had stroked my fur many times …”

“And left a charge of static magic every time. Yes.” Matt nodded. “No wonder you can learn wizardry.”

“Idris said I was an apt pupil, that I learned all she knew in a year.”

Matt shuddered. “Major talent indeed. I’ll have to be careful what spells I work while you’re around.”

“Why?” Balkis’ gaze sharpened. “Do you not want me to learn?”

“No, I do want you to learn.” Matt sighed, remembering this same conversation with student after student when he’d been a teaching fellow. “But you have to learn to walk before you can learn to run.”

“What does that mean?” Balkis challenged.

“That you have to understand the intermediate spells before you try the advanced ones, because if you try to use the tougher spells right away, you’re liable to kill yourself and everyone near you.”

Balkis shrank. “Is magic so dangerous as that?”

“Oh, yes,” Matt said softly. “Very dangerous indeed.” He remembered the ocean roaring in over the land bridge between Merovence and Bretanglia when he’d made it sink by a spell the druids had given him, and shuddered. “You bet it can be dangerous. Ask me before you try anything you’ve heard me chant, okay?”

“If you wish.” Balkis’ eyes were wide and frightened.

“Hey, don’t be that put off!” Matt reached out a reassuring hand, brushed her fingers. “You shouldn’t be afraid of magic—just have a very healthy respect for it.”

Balkis stared at him a moment longer, then relaxed enough to smile.

“See? Caution doesn’t mean -fear.” Matt grinned, then turned serious again. “A caravan to Novgorod, you said? What kinds of animals?”

“Tall ones, each with two humps on its back.”

“Bactrian camels.” Matt pursed his lips. “Do you remember whether the sun was behind you when you started out in the mornings, or in front of you?”

Balkis’ eyes lost focus as she gazed back into the very early pictures Idris had called up within her. “Behind.”

“And the sunset was in front?”

Again the look back into memory, again the nod. “Aye.”

“Then you were traveling from the east toward the west.” Matt nodded. “That accounts for your skin tone and eyes—but how far east, I wonder?”

Balkis stared. “What could the east have to do with my appearance?”

“Because the people far to the east, in Mongolia, Manchuria, Korea, China, and Japan, have golden skin, and folds at the outer comers of their eyes that make them look slanted.”

Balkis touched her eyes. “Like mine!”

“Yes, but your skin has only a touch of gold to it, your eyes only a hint of a tilt, and your hair is dark brown, not black like theirs,” Matt pointed out. “At a guess, your people are hybrids between the European type of people, like me, and the Mongolian type farther east.”

He could see the excitement in Balkis’ eyes. “Can you say where I was born, then?”

Matt shook his head with a smile of regret. “Only that it was somewhere in Central Asia, I’m afraid, and that’s a very big place.”

“Oh.” Balkis lowered her gaze, crestfallen for a moment, then looked up with a brave smile. “Still, you know that I am neither from Europe nor this China you spoke of. That is a great matter, is it not?”

“Definite progress, yes.” Matt smiled, warmed by her courage. He decided not to tell her that she’d been born where the horde came from—but that reminded him of the older priest’s words. “Did you understand what they said, the priests who tried to strangle us?”

“Priests?” Balkis asked, wide-eyed. “What manner of priests seek to slay?”

“Ones who worship Kali, the destructive aspect of a great goddess,” Matt explained. “Could you understand their words?”

“Not a one! Could you?”

Matt nodded. “Back there on the galley, I recited a spell that let me understand any language spoken near me. I’ll give you the same treatment just in case we become separated.”

But Balkis wasn’t to be deterred from the point. “What did they say, these priests?”

Matt took a deep breath, then gave it to her straight. “That you’re a threat to the horde’s plans for world conquest.”

“I?” Balkis stared at him, shocked and, finally; frightened.

She saw the implications quickly, Matt realized, and he was impressed by her intelligence. “Do you have any idea why you might be the key to stopping the horde?”

“None at all!” But cynicism rose behind the fright in her eyes. “If you can discover that, you will use me as a weapon, will you not?”

“Not a weapon, no,” Matt said slowly, “but as an ally. Can you honestly say the Caliph is using Queen Alisande as a weapon?”

“There would be some truth to it,” Balkis said slowly, “but you might as easily say she uses him. I take your point.”

Amazingly quickly, Matt thought, and with no explanation. “What I had in mind goes beyond that, though. It’s a matter of common interests. If stopping the horde helped you regain your homeland and your heritage, wouldn’t you want to foil their plans?”

“Yes!” Balkis’ eyes burned with sudden fervor.

Matt nodded. “Not a weapon, then, but someone who shares a common goal with me.”

“I see why you seek to learn more about this enemy,” Balkis said slowly, “but was that he, the man in midnight-blue robes who appeared in front of you?”

“And held my attention long enough for the Thuggee to sneak up behind me and knock me out, yes,” Matt said sardonically, looking away. “I really should have been more aware of my surroundings.”

“With a surprise like his appearance, it would be a wonder if you had been,” Balkis said dryly.

Matt looked back at her with surprised gratitude—but Balkis seemed unaware that she had made an excuse for him, only that she was dealing in facts. “Why did he not smite you with magic himself?”

“Good question,” Matt said, “and the obvious answer is that he couldn’t.”

“He is no magician, then?”

“Oh, he definitely is, if he could appear out of nowhere that way,” Matt said, “but I suspect he’s cautious, too. He seems to have some idea who I am, so he would have been wary of my magic.”

“That was why he bade the Thuggee strike you unconscious!”

“Good point,” Matt said. “How did they catch you?”

“As one struck your head, another pounced on me where I lay behind a basket and held some foul-smelling rag over my nose.”

“A drug,” Matt frowned. “So Arjasp knows how to make ether or chloroform or some such, and knew where you were. Difficult to do, if he wasn’t there.”

“But he was!”

“No, his image was,” Matt explained. “If he’d been there himself, he could have hit us with major magic, and would have. But if he were a thousand miles away, just projecting a sort of picture-in-the-round of himself, he couldn’t do much here—not too many spells work over long distances, and the ones that do take a lot of energy and concentration. He was probably using up half his resources just sending his image.”

“Why not come himself, if such a sending were so tiring?” Balkis asked, frowning.

“Because he would have arrived already tired, and being considerably older than me, he’d tire more easily,” Matt explained, “whereas I would have been full of energy.”

“And you might have struck him low with your magic!”

“Yes.” Matt nodded. “Definitely safer to stay home and send instructions to the Thuggee. Of course, there’s the little question of why they obeyed him, but what I said about common goals might have something to do with that.”

“At the very least,” Balkis said, ”they would have had assistance in finding two victims for sacrifice.”

“Good point.” Matt wondered how long it would take her to learn everything he knew. “And it should have worked. I shouldn’t have woken up quickly enough to get us out of that temple, and he probably didn’t suspect that I knew who Kali was, or could understand Hindi and Sanskrit.”

“How did you know that goddess?” Balkis eyed him askance.

“It’s called a good liberal arts education,” Matt told her. “That’s also how I’d know Arjasp was a magician even if he hadn’t appeared out of nowhere.”

“By these ‘liberal arts’ of yours?” Balkis frowned.

“By history, anyway,” Matt said. “He was talking about Ahura Mazda, the Zoroastrian god of light, and Angra Mainyu, the Zoroastrian god of darkness—from which I would guess he’s a Zoroastrian.”

“There is sense in that.” Balkis nodded. “What is a Zoroastrian?”

“A person who believes the religion preached by a prophet named Zoroaster,” Matt said, “though it had been around a long time before him; he just gave it its final form. The priests were called ‘magi,’ and they had so great a reputation for spells and supernatural power that people based the word ‘magic’ on them.”

Balkis shivered. “Powerful wizards indeed! But who was this Ahriman that Arjasp spoke of?”

“Just a more modem name for Angra Mainyu,” Matt said, “just as the more recent name for Ahura Mazda is Ormuzd. Before Zoroaster, the Mazdaeans believed that the world is a battleground between Ahura Mazda, the god of goodness, and Ahrirnan, the god of evil. They were equal in power, so humanity had to decide the issue by rallying to support Ahura Mazda and giving him more power by living good lives and doing good to one another.”

“Then Ahriman must tempt people to hurt one another and live evil lives,” Balkis said slowly.

“You understand quickly,” Matt told her.

“But if Arjasp is a … what is one of the magi?”

“A magus,” Matt said, “at least, in Latin.”

“What is Latin?”

“The language of an empire that has seen its day and fallen apart,” Matt sighed. “But the magi in the pictures I’ve seen wore white robes and hats. I think Arjasp is a magus who has decided to turn his coat and become a priest of Ahriman.”

“For heaven’s sake, why?” Balkis cried.

“You heard him,” Matt said. “He’s dreamed up the idea that Ahriman has to win the fight and conquer the whole world before Ahura Mazda can begin to win it back. Then, presumably, the god of light will win more and more battles until he conquers the world and Right and Goodness prevail. Of course, the Zoroastrians never believed any such thing.”

Balkis frowned, beginning to understand. “So if this Arjasp is devoted to Ahura Mazda, he must do all he can to see that Ahriman wins the whole world as quickly as possible?”

Matt nodded. “That’s how I figure him.”

“Then his mind is crazed!” Balkis cried. “It is split into fragments as surely as the glaze of a pot that has baked too long in the kiln!”

“Crazy he is,” Matt confirmed.

“What could have thrown him so far from good sense?”

“Who knows?” Matt shrugged. “I’m not a psychiatrist—a doctor of the mind. Maybe he came into contact with a Chinese merchant and learned about the Taoists—they believe that the world goes through cycles from bad to better to good, then to worse and to bad again. Or he could have heard about it from the Germans, with their belief in an endless winter followed by a war of gods that engulfs the whole world and destroys it so that a whole new world can . be born. Or maybe something just went wrong with hisbiochemistry or something broke inside his brain, and he brooded about his own sufferings and the unfairness of life, and decided the only way to cure it was to hurry up and get the battle between Angra Mainyu and Ahura Mazda over with, so that Ahura Mazda could start winning again and punish Angra Mainyu for him.” He spread his hands, at a loss. “No way we can really know, Balkis. All we can be sure of is that he was one of the magi, but went wrong somehow and turned against his own kind and Ahura Mazda.”

Balkis shuddered. “It is horrible to think that a man could be so twisted as that!”

“Yes, using the magic of goodness for evil purposes,” Matt agreed. “One way or another, he certainly seems to have recruited a military genius and made a gur-khan of him.”

“Yes, and convinced whole peoples of their right to conquer!”

“We’ll have to set them straight about that, won’t we?” Matt flashed her a grin.

Balkis stared, startled by his optimism. Then, slowly, she returned the smile.

“But before we can convince them, we have to find them.” Matt turned toward the end of the street and offered her his arm.

Tentatively, she slipped her hand through the crook of his elbow, but her smile faded. “You do not truly mean to beard the horde by ourselves!”

“No, but the closer we get to them, the more we’ll learn,” Matt said. “When we know enough, we’ll turn west and travel till we meet my wife’s army. Then we’ll tell her what we’ve learned and let her deal with the horde—her, her allies, and about fifty thousand soldiers.”

Balkis’ smile came back, and they walked together between the rows of hovels. “What lies north?”

“More of this land of Hind—India, some people call it—a lot more. Beyond that, though, there’s a range of huge mountains, and on the far side of that range, Central Asia begins.”

“Central Asia!” Balkis’ eyes widened. “Is that not where you said I was born?”

“That’s my guess, yes.”

“Might we not also learn some more of my homeland?”

“That’s possible,” Matt conceded. He didn’t tell her he’d been planning on it.

“Only possible.” She seemed crestfallen.

Matt shrugged. “The horde is off in the west fighting the Arabs. We’ll be going through conquered territory, so it should be peaceful, as long as we don’t attract the attention of the garrisons the barbarians have left to oversee the local government. When we find a land where all the people look like you, we’ll know.”

Balkis walked silently beside him for a while, digesting the idea. When she spoke, it was about a much more immediate issue. “How shall we pass the gates? For surely so vast a city as this must be walled.”

“I expect it is,” Matt agreed, “but I didn’t notice any walls along the waterfront. Of course, I couldn’t see much, running away from my erstwhile owner. We’ll just follow the water until we’re out of town.”

“Will the city’s wall not come down to the shore?” Balkis asked doubtfully.

Matt nodded. “But you can change into a cat, and I’ll boost you up to the top. Then I’ll swim around and catch you as you jump.”

“I trust you are skilled at such catching,” Balkis said with asperity.

Matt dismissed the problem with an airy wave. “Just keep your claws in when you leap. Besides, don’t cats have nine lives?”

“I am not eager to test the notion,” Balkis said dryly.

Actually, Matt wouldn’t have minded a few extra lives now and then; he’d heard about the crocodiles in Indian waters. He consoled himself with the idea that he wouldn’t be in very long, but just in case, he started working up an anti-croc verse.

Either the spell worked or the giant lizards were taking the night off. Luck or good planning, he collected Balkis from the wall, catching her as promised—though he suspected it was due more to her skill than his. Once in cat form, she decided to stay that way, riding his shoulders with indolent ease.

The heat rose with the sun, but it was bearable, and Matt was enchanted by the land itself. The air was fragrant with exotic blossoms, and the peasants at work in the fields seemed picturesque and happy. The soft air caressed him, the breeze in the tamarinds and deodars sang to him, and every Kipling story he’d ever read came alive again in his mind.

By mid-morning, though, the sun was beating down with a fiercer heat than he had ever known, and it was heavy going. Matt found a stream and followed its banks, shielded by the low trees that grew there, and managed to keep on until noon with a sleeping cat on his shoulders. When the sun was directly overhead, though, even the leaves couldn’t stop the heat, and Matt found a stand of underbrush to crawl into. Balkis woke as he sat, and he whinnied as her claws came out to hold on. “Velvet paws, velvet paws!” he pleaded, and she withdrew her miniature scimitars, meowing, “You might have warned me.”

“Didn’t want to wake you,” Matt told her. “A nap is the best shield from this heat. Go back to sleep.”

Balkis looked around her, then back at him. “You will sleep, too?”

“You bet,” Matt said, and closed his eyes. He felt her curl up on his stomach, and did manage to recite a brief warding spell before he fell asleep.

He woke to find the sun much lower in the sky and an evening breeze already stirring the jacarandas. Groggily, he lifted his head—and saw Balkis lying on his stomach like a little sphinx, head up and eyes open. He stared. “Have you been awake this whole time?”

“Someone had to stand guard.” Her mew sounded leaden.

“You poor thing!” Matt lifted her as he sat up, then set her on the ground. “You must have broiled!”

“There was shade,” Balkis said. “Still, let us find somewhere cooler to sleep tomorrow, shall we?”

“Good idea.” Matt shoved himself to his feet, then lifted her to his shoulders. “Your turn to sleep, then.”

The cat hung herself around his neck and promptly dozed off.

Matt walked slowly, waiting for his body to work its metabolism up to cruising speed. All in all, he decided, it was definitely better for Balkis to travel as a cat—she might prove all too interesting to any passing nobleman, and they had no patron to protect them from being seized.

She also might prove all too interesting to himself, he had to admit. She was, after all, a very beautiful sample of teenage womanhood.

Oddly, though, he found that his appreciation of her good looks was entirely aesthetic. He wondered about that. Weren’t men supposed to respond to feminine beauty, whether they were married or not? Of course, he hadn’t felt any great lust for Lakshmi the djinn princess, except on the rare occasions when she had assumed human size and deliberately tried to be sultry—but it was hard to feel desire toward a woman as tall as a house, no matter how voluptuous she was.

As tall as a house, or as small as a child?

Matt considered that possibility. Maybe there was something about being thirty-four and having been a teaching fellow, plus being married to a very beautiful woman in her thirties. He’d had a few students rather obviously fall in love with him, but hadn’t felt any answering surge of emotion, though he knew some faculty members who had. He had put it down to his hopelessly romantic nature, with his vision of the ideal woman before him in his loneliest hours—and, against all odds and the logic of his home universe, he had found her. More amazingly yet, she had fallen in love with him, and thanks to some spells cast on him in his first few months in Merovence, he had even become handsome enough and courageous enough to believe himself worthy of her and to be able to love her. Sayeesa the lust-witch, and the ceremony of knighting, conferred by a legendary emperor and his descendant, had raised his self-esteem to the point at which he could dare to love a queen, and a very beautiful one at that.

Little Balkis couldn’t hold a candle to Alisande, though of course he didn’t tell her that. But she was a pleasant child.

At sunset they came into a village. The smells of cardamom and curry made Matt’s mouth water, and he knew he would have to take a chance on conjuring up some money. Accordingly, he went back to the edge of town, gathered a few pebbles, then chanted,

Balkis watched every gesture, wide-eyed, soaking up the words of the verse. When the pebbles flattened and grew shiny, turning into coins, she sucked in her breath and asked, “Dare I work that spell?”

“You? Yeah, you know the basics, and it’s pretty simple, no built-in booby traps.” Matt gathered a few more pebbles. “Go ahead and try.”

Balkis recited the verse word-perfect in her meowing voice. The pebbles glimmered and turned into coins.

Matt caught his breath. She had heard the words once, only once, and already knew them by heart. She might forget them as quickly as she’d learned them, but somehow he doubted that.

They went back into the village and bought some chappatis and curry with a single coin. The couple who sold it gave them a look that said plainly they must be insane to pay so much for so little. Warmed by the thought that they might have made life a little easier for the baby in the woman’s arms, Matt and Balkis ate their dinner in the village square.

“Shall we travel at night?” Balkis asked, dilating her slit pupils.

“Maybe early night,” Matt said doubtfully, “but I’d rather not find out the bard way what kinds of supernatural long-legged beasties inhabit the Indian countryside.”

“Do you fear them, then?” Balkis asked in surprise.

“Let’s just say that I’m rather cautious,” Matt told her. “After all, we’ve just worked some magic, no matter bow minor, and if Arjasp is on the lookout for us, even that little bit could be enough to tell him where we are.”

Balkis shivered, a ripple that began at her shoulders and went in a wave down to her tail-tip. “Would not the land be filled with such minor spells sung by village witches?”

“That’s our only hope,” Matt said, “and yes, I expect that’s true, which is why I took the chance of making money.”

Balkis cocked her head on one side, frowning at him. “You have not looked at me once while you have talked,” she pointed out. “You have only gazed at that mud-brick building on the western side of the square.”

“Yes,” Matt said. “Odd, don’t you think? So much bigger than the others, and with so many people coming in and going out.”

Balkis shrugged—cat-style; a toss of the head. “A temple to their local god, like as not.”

“Yes, but what god is that?” Matt asked, and stood up. “I see a few villagers going in. Let’s join them.”

“But we are not of their faith!” Balkis said, surprised.

“True,” Matt agreed, “but some faiths welcome visitors. Let’s see if this is one of those, shall we?”

“No matter how tolerant,” Balkis told him, “I doubt they will admit a cat—and I have no wish to assume my human shape and be stretched upon an altar again.”

“If they were Thuggee, we’d already be inside and tied up,” Matt told her, “being strangers. Still, your caution is prudent. Think you can find a way to sneak in?”

Balkis sniffed with indignation and reminded him, “I am a cat!” She stalked away, tail high and waving.

Matt waited for her to step out of sight around the curve of the temple, then joined the stream of visitors filing in, chatting with one another. As they passed the portal, though, they fell silent, and moved away from one another, each standing apart in silence. Matt glanced at rapt, intent faces and assumed they were praying.

Matt blinked, startled. At the far side of the dome where he’d expected to see an idol, there stood no brazen-bellied Baal or multiarmed deity, but a fire, tended by two white-robed priests with small white cylindrical hats and white veils over their noses and mouths. One’s beard and hair was white, the other’s was black.

A man nearby was muttering softly, apparently not able to pray in complete silence like the others. Feeling ashamed of himself, Matt strained to hear, and with enough concentration the words became clear. What he had thought were untranslatable syllables resolved themselves into a name he knew well. The man was praying to Ormuzd—to Ahura Mazda.

That meant the priests were magi.