The Feline Wizard (14 page)

“So small a stone as this?” A shadow crossed Anthony's face. “I wish we could find many of these, for then my father and brothers could cease this lifelong toil that makes them grow knobbed and bowed.” Then he brightened. “Still, with this one, perhaps we can buy food—and water, too.”

Balkis almost said that there was no sense in paying for water, but she looked at the desert stretching before them and said instead, “Could anyone spare water here, even for gold?”

“Some bring huge skins of it to trade, for it is dear in this waste,” Anthony said, “Nonetheless, there is water for those who know where to look.”

Balkis looked up at him in surprise, then remembered. “Yes, you have been here before, you said.”

Anthony nodded. “During the hot months, we bring down livestock and grain to sell to the caravans. It is only a few miles, but it has taught us some knowledge of desert ways.”

Balkis had dim memories of having traveled with a caravan
as a cat during her human infancy, but not enough to do much good. “How shall we travel, then?”

“By night.” Anthony flashed her a grin. “Come, let me show you a cave where my family shelters when we travel.”

He turned to go, but Balkis stayed him with a hand on his sleeve. “Will they not think to look for you there?”

“Do you truly think they will look for me?” Anthony asked, with a sad and weary smile that seemed to accept every dagger Fate threw at him.

He seemed so forlorn that Balkis spoke without thinking. “Of course they will! You are theirs, after all.”

“A possession, you mean?” But Anthony's eye gained a gleam, even if it was only a sardonic one. “Perhaps they will at that—when several days have passed and they are convinced I will not come crawling back for food and shelter and they will have to do their own milking and mucking out. If they do follow, we will be gone long before they arrive. Let us find shelter.”

The shelter turned out to be a hollow in the bank of a ravine which was plainly a dry watercourse.

“If it should rain, we will move to higher ground,” Anthony explained, “and that quickly, for this gully will hold a raging torrent. There is a hidden pool; I know where to dig to find it.”

“Has it rained so recently, then?” Balkis looked at the arid land around her.

“No,” Anthony said, “but we came through melting snow, and some of it sinks down into a stream that pools out below-ground here. Even when there is no rain, this watercourse stays damp.”

Balkis had a vision of all that runoff filling the gully and shuddered.

The cave was a rough semicircle twelve feet deep. Anthony led the way to six pallets of straw at the back of the cave. “It is scarcely fresh, but is so dry that it will still do for beds—and will surely be more comfortable than the bare earth.”

“It will that,” Balkis said fervently, and spread her cloak over the pallet farthest to the side. Anthony spread his over the pallet at the back, with two between them, so they lay down as they always did, ten feet apart. Balkis wondered how
she would feel if he tried sleeping closer, and was shocked to realize that she wished he would.

They rose in the sunset and sat awhile talking as the day cooled into night—talked of the Mazdans, who prayed to the sun as a symbol of Ahura Mazda, the god of light, then of the religions in which each had been raised. Anthony's ancestors had worshiped the old Greek gods, brought eastward by Alexander's armies, until Christianity had penetrated even the forgotten villages of their mountains. He learned quickly that she was a different kind of Christian than he, and listened to the Roman rubrics with knitted brow, clearly not understanding—but Balkis realized that he was trying for her sake, and the thought warmed her against the night's chill.

And it was chill; she was amazed to realize it as she shook out her cloak and wrapped herself in it. “Perhaps those cotton robes will not be needed, after all.”

“Well, at least to sleep in,” Anthony said. “Besides, will we not need them in your homeland? It should be cool enough to travel by daylight there.”

The memory of Allustria in winter flashed through Balkis' mind; then she remembered that Maracanda was her home now. Even so, Prester John's city had certainly been cool enough when she had seen it last. “We will,” she assured him. “Where shall we travel tonight?”

“To the oasis where we trade with the caravan drivers,” Anthony answered. “There we can find water without having to dig-That struck Balkis as a good beginning. She looked up at the wall of the ravine. “I think I can manage that in human form.”

“But your beautiful garments will be ruined!” Anthony protested.

Balkis shrugged. “We were going to buy new robes anyway, and my sleeping chemise is scarcely priceless.”

Anthony stared. “You wear so lovely a gown only for sleeping?”

Balkis found the comment oddly pleasing. She smiled and said, “I do not think my cloak will bear much damage from
the climb—not if I wear it in this wise, at least.” She belted the flat folds back into place over her shoulder again, then turned to climb the slope. Anthony followed her quickly.

The angle wasn't so steep that they needed to use their hands more than once or twice, but they were breathing hard by the time they came out onto the desert floor. Balkis stood a moment to catch her breath, then asked, “Now! Where is this oasis of yours?”

“We need only follow the ravine,” Anthony said.

Balkis nodded and set off, preferring to travel beside him in her human form, though cat-guise would have been more convenient.

The sun was halfway up the sky before she saw palm trees appear, seemingly out of the sands. “I did not see these from the mountains,” she said. “Have we come so far as that?”

“Oh, we could have seen them, surely,” Anthony said, “but they would have seemed too small to notice.”

It sounded right, but Balkis glanced back at the mountains to see if they looked much smaller—and gasped. “Anthony! What is that moving fire?”

“Moving fire?” Anthony turned back in alarm, and saw a flaming shape moving toward them. “I know not—but it follows us! Run!”

Balkis ran.

Balkis outdistanced Anthony easily and had to slow down so he could catch up. When she did, she looked back and saw that they had left the fire behind. She halted and said, “It moves slowly.”

Anthony stopped beside her and looked back, too, though his face was pale. He nodded. “We can outpace it easily.”

“But why does it chase us?” Balkis asked. “And what is it?”

“I have heard of them, from the caravan drivers,” Anthony said, his voice shaky. “They are called salamanders and can only live in fire, and are the caterpillars of some giant moth.”

“Caterpillars?” Balkis shuddered at the thought of the butterfly such a creature would become—but the wizard in her was fascinated. She peered more closely. As the worm turned to follow a curve in the ravine, she saw it from the side; the flame was indeed much longer than it was wide, and its core was a long, crawling shape so bright that it was almost white.

“It is quite dangerous from the time it hatches out of its egg until it spins its cocoon ” Anthony said, “since it is ravenous and its fire will fry anything it comes near.”

Balkis wondered what kind of cloth the silk of that cocoon might make. “Could it be moving toward the oasis because it seeks water?”

Anthony shook his head. “It is made of fire. Water would kill it. No, it seeks food—at the moment, us. We are the ones who need water.”

Balkis pursed her lips, musing. “If we can conjure up something for it to eat, we can fill our water bags before it chases us again.”

Anthony considered the idea a moment, then nodded slowly. “A good thought.”

“What does it most like to eat?” Balkis asked.

“Anything that lives or used to,” Anthony said, “but the caravan men say it likes poppies most.”

“Because they are the color of fire?” Balkis smiled. “There is sense to that, at least in magic.” She stilled herself inside, let her eyes lose focus, and summoned a verse Matthew had taught her, written by one Edmund Spenser:

She hesitated, unsure how the last line ran. Anthony, thinking it was his turn, cried,

“Urn … thank you, Anthony,” Balkis said somewhat uncertainly, for she was sure that was not how the original verse had been.

It worked nonetheless, and very well, too. Sparks flew up from the fireworm, hung dancing in the air, then grew into flame-red blooms and cascaded to the ground before the worm in a huge heap. It tore into the pile without a moment's hesitation—but it did stop to eat.

Balkis decided she might keep Anthony around for a while.

“Quickly, now!” Anthony caught her hand. “To the oasis!”

They ran hand in hand, holding each other up when one stumbled. The water bags weren't much of a hindrance—they were almost flat. Then they were running on soft grass beneath palm trees, and Anthony fell to his knees, gasping, by the pond. He pulled the straps of the waterskins over his head and pulled their stoppers. “Watch and tell me if it comes!” he said, and pushed the skins under the water.

Balkis looked back, “It has almost finished that whole mound of poppies!”

“Only a minute more.” Anthony pulled one waterskin from the pond, stoppered it, and handed it up to her. “If worse comes to worse, flay it with a stream of that!”

Balkis took the skin and slung its weight over her shoulder. It seemed reassuring; she had no doubt a jet of water would indeed slow the salamander awhile. Then she saw the last of the poppies burst into flame as they disappeared into that searing maw, and the blind, questing head rose, weaving from side to side, then steadying on them. “It comes!” she cried.

“Then we go!” Anthony rose, the other waterskin over his shoulder, and caught her hand. “Come, around the pond and away! Perhaps it will fall into the water as it chases us!”

They ran, fragments of rhyme chasing one another through Balkis' head as she tried to forge a spell to stop a silkworm made of fire.

When they were sure they had gained enough distance to be safe, Balkis stopped and looked back; Anthony had to stop with her. They both stared, then Balkis said, “Well, we need no longer fear its chasing us.”

“Indeed we do not,” Anthony agreed. “That will be a blessing when we need to sleep.”

The salamander was settling down for a snooze of its own. It had stopped to throw strands of silk between two trees that stood only a few feet apart. As they watched, it crawled out onto the net it had spun between the two and began to spin itself a nightshirt.

“It would seem your mountain of poppies finally filled it,” Anthony said.

How like him to overlook his own part in conjuring up the flowers! “Perhaps it did not chase us, after all,” Balkis said. “Perhaps it only sought a place to spin.”

“Or perhaps the poppies sent it to sleep,” Anthony said. “I have heard they have that virtue.”

They watched as the creature swathed itself in silk. Balkis was surprised to see how small it was—on the desert floor there had been nothing to show its size, but she knew how tall the palms were, and realized that the salamander couldn't have been more than a foot and a half in length. Had she really been afraid of something no longer than her forearm?

Of course—if that something burned white-hot.

“We have only to wait until the creature is done spinning,” Anthony said. “Then we can go back to the oasis for a proper rest. After all, if it is asleep in its cocoon, it will not be hungry or hunting.”

Balkis nodded agreement, watching, fascinated. The net that held the salamander didn't burn, nor did the cocoon it crafted, but its own fire still enveloped it. Even after it had closed the hole at the top and settled down to sleep, the pupa was wrapped in flame—but the silk that held it suspended between the palms insulated the trunks from the blaze.

“I always wondered how the caravans harvested the cocoons they carried to market,” Anthony said. “Now I know— they found them at oases all along their road!”

Balkis still gazed at the fiery cocoon. “Does each caravan bring a wizard to make the worms harmless?”

Anthony shook his head. “The drivers tell me that once the salamander has wrapped its cocoon around itself, it becomes harmless, and to kill it one need only drown the blaze. Then the merchants can take the silk to sell.”

Balkis stared. “Now I know that form! I have seen palace servants buying giant silken eggs like this in the marketplace of Maracanda when the first caravan from the south comes!”

“The marketplace of Maracanda!” Anthony gazed off into space, his head filled with shining visions. He shook off the mood and asked, “What use have your people for cocoons?”

“They weave the silk,” Balkis explained. “Spinsters carefully wind the thread onto spools and give it to weavers, who make it into cloth.”

“Cloth? From salamander cocoons?” Anthony asked, wondering. “Why would anyone want them more than robes of true silk? The traders have shown me silken cloth, and it is beautiful!”