C. Brittain: Mage Quest

Ascelin stood up, somewhat stiffly, and faced everyone else down. “I killed Warin and brought the curse on all of you.” He met the chaplain’s eyes and gave a humorless smile. “The wizard is right that that evil must be repaired, and I shall give myself to do so. Let’s get that Ifrit over here and do it now. When you’re home again, tell Diana I always loved her.”

This brought immediately renewed protests. The Ifrit heard our raised voices and came over. Dominic was trying to outshout Ascelin, telling him, “You only killed him because I told you to!” I kept silent, still thinking it ought to be me and unable to say so a second time.

“So you’re competing for which one of you will die?” the Ifrit asked me. “This is even more amusing than having those two little warriors fight each other.”

The Ifrit’s wife came over too, graceful and barebreasted. The Ifrit perched her on his knee while continuing to follow the discussion as though watching a play.

“Ifrit,” I said suddenly, “this is really a private conversation. I don’t think you should be listening. I know you find it amusing,” I went on quickly before he could object, “so I’ll offer you a deal. Very shortly, one of us is going to accompany the Black Pearl to the deepest rift in the Outer Sea.” I took a deep breath, thinking it was still most likely to be me, and pushed ahead. “If you’ll agree to take him there, then you can listen while we decide which one of us it will be.”

The Ifrit nodded but then frowned. “The last deal you made with me, you never upheld your end. I know my wife didn’t want your spells, but …” His grumbling trailed off in his interest in the scene before him.

King Haimeric had risen to his feet, the only person who could have made everyone else fall silent. “I know you’re not my liege man, Ascelin,” he said, “so I cannot order you against your will. But do not offer yourself to save Yurt. I thank you deeply, I know what you’re offering, and I cannot let you do it. The penance for killing Warin to save another’s life cannot be the loss of your own life.”

Ascelin, who towered over him, tried fairly convincingly to shake his head, but the king was not finished. “Of all of us, you’re the only one who has not found his heart’s desire on this trip, because for you the goal was the quest itself, to travel, find adventure, and come safely home again. And besides,” with a smile, “I wouldn’t want to have to explain to the duchess that I’d let you die. No, Ascelin, if Yurt is to be freed from a curse, it must be freed by the king of Yurt.”

Dominic jumped up again. “Or the royal prince!”

King Haimeric reached up to put his hand on his nephew’s shoulder. “I’m an old man anyway. Even if we manage to find a way to escape from this valley and make our way thousands of miles home again, I will not live very much longer.” Yurt seemed to be changing every moment before my eyes, even if we did somehow reach it again. “Why do I need to live any more? I’ve gotten everything I ever wanted. I didn’t tell the queen when we left, but I never expected to see Yurt again.”

Dominic tried to interrupt, but the king waved him to silence. “Would not sacrificing myself for my kingdom make a fitting end for a delightful life?” finished King Haimeric, smiling at his stunned audience.

“Sire,” said Dominic again, “listen to me.” We all listened. Ascelin took a step back, looking both miserable and relieved. “I agree, sire,” said Dominic, very seriously, “that Yurt must be saved by a member of the royal family. And I know you’re growing old. But you have a wife who loves you, and a little son who should be guided by you. I have nothing.

“No, let me speak!” as the king started to interrupt. “I’ve spent my entire life preparing and waiting for a future that never came. You may now have everything you’ve ever wanted, but I’ve never had anything of my own. I have no wife, no child, and no crown. I had to find what my father wanted us to find, but I’ve done that now. And I’ve done it wrong: in finding the Pearl I put a curse on the kingdom I love. This is my last chance to do something truly significant. If you won’t let me die to take the curse from Yurt, to give it whatever prosperity the Pearl may still grant, then my life will finally end with no meaning at all.”

There was a few seconds’ silence, broken by the sound of the chaplain clearing his throat.

“And don’t try to tell me how sinful suicide is, Father!” Dominic cried. “This isn’t suicide, because I’m not throwing away God’s gift of life from despair. Doesn’t it say in the Bible, ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends’? I would have cheerfully died for Yurt in battle, and this is no different. Now is my only chance to get the rest of you home alive, to a kingdom that will always prosper.”

He looked from side to side in the twilight, appearing absolutely determined, and I knew we could not resist him in this.

But it didn’t keep us from trying. All of us, from the king to Maffi, immediately began talking and shouting at once. Dominic ignored everyone except for Joachim, but he didn’t seem to agree with him either.

The Ifrit spoke beside me. “This is getting boring again,” he said, absently stroking his wife’s hair. “But I have an idea how to liven it up.” He stretched out a hand. “I can get those soldiers back again.”

The air shimmered all the way to the sky. A quarter mile away, uneasy but grim-faced, were the emir’s soldiers, their curved swords in their hands. In the dim and dusky landscape, the steel of their weapons and their white turbans seemed almost to glow.

“Evrard!” I said to him urgently and directly, mind-to-mind. “We need a magic shield!” But Evrard didn’t seem to know the spells I needed, and the shield I desperately tried to create just wasn’t working.

Dominic did not give me any further chance to put one together. “Ifrit!” he shouted, slamming the Pearl into its gold box and throwing it inside the cabinet. “Lift me up! The Black Pearl can make do without an amphora this time. It and I are headed for the Outer Sea!” The cabinet’s lock clicked shut.

But when he hoisted it to his shoulder and sprinted toward the Ifrit, Ascelin tackled him around the legs. They rolled together for a moment, grunting and trying to pin the other, while the Ifrit watched in interest.

Normally Ascelin, a foot taller than Dominic and muscled from a long journey on foot, would have been able to outwrestle him easily. But he had in close succession fought Hugo, carried King Haimeric down the vertical side of the valley, and killed King Warin.

Dominic jerked away just before Ascelin pinned him to the ground and got an arm around the tall prince’s neck long enough to squeeze the breath out of him. Then he jumped up and scrambled onto the hand the Ifrit held out for him.

“I am ready to obey, Master,” said the Ifrit in his deep bellow.

That stopped all of us. “Am I your master?” asked Dominic, held at the Ifrit’s face level, trying to maintain his balance with one arm and clutching the cabinet with the other.

“You control the Black Pearl, and the Pearl controls all Ifriti. If you command me, I must obey you.”

“Then stop those soldiers!”

The Ifrit bared his yellow teeth in a grin. He reached out his other hand, the one not holding Dominic, and fire shot from his fingers. The emir’s soldiers, a hundred yards away, were suddenly blocked by a wall of flames that stretched the entire width of the valley.

“Is that what you wanted, Master?” asked the Ifrit.

“Exactly what I wanted,” said Dominic. This was, I thought appreciatively, much better than Prince Vlad’s wall of fire. The soldiers scattered backwards in panic.