“How canst thou expect me to carry myself home from this benighted little kingdom without my flying carpet?” Justinia shrieked at me, but I was gone, shooting upward into the sky after a rapidly-dwindling speck of color.
Theodora was going to kill me. That is, unless the duchess got to me first. Both Paul and the cook would cheerfully join in stripping the flesh from my bones when they learned Gwennie was gone. The Lady Justinia probably planned to work over whatever of me was left. And I hadn’t even allowed yet for the royal court of Caelrhon.
The carpet was heading in the general direction of the city of Caelrhon, far faster than I could fly, but that didn’t keep me from trying. Eyes streaming from the wind, I tore across the sky with every ounce of magic I had. But I realized in a few minutes that desperate, exhausting flight was not going to catch a flying carpet fueled by spells far more powerful than anything of mine.
I hovered in midair, desperately putting together a tracer spell, then hurled it after the disappearing carpet so I that might have some hope of finding it-or its remains.
How could Antonia have stolen a flying carpet? She had heard me say the words of the Hidden Language to fly it a short distance, but could a five-year-old have remembered the strange, heavy syllables? And what must the others be thinking, hurtling through the air with a little girl supposedly in control, a girl who was surely at this moment sobbing with terror herself? Suppose they fell off, or the carpet tipped them off? Would it keep flying without further direction, over land and sea, circling the globe until it struck a mountain?
I tore my eyes from the speck that might be my last sight of Antonia to race back toward Yurt. I would do what I should have done at once and telephone ahead for another wizard to stop them. The flight to the castle seemed endless. Below me several villages whizzed past, none with telephones. How could I have been Royal Wizard here for twenty-five years and never installed magical telephones in them, imagining that pigeon messages would continue to serve, never thinking that I might want a telephone to save my daughter?
Wheezing and dripping sweat, I staggered into the castle telephone room, ignoring the shouting and the questions. The story had gotten around fast that Justinia’s carpet had taken off with a crown princess, the acting castle constable, the heiresses to a duchy and a principality, and a little girl. I slammed and leaned against the door as I gasped out the magical coordinates for the royal castle of Caelrhon.
It was not in the city itself but ten miles past it, on the far side from Yurt. But Caelrhon’s Royal Wizard would be able to get there much faster than I could if Antonia had intended to take her friends to meet Theodora. My mouth was so dry I had trouble making myself understood to the liveried servant who answered the telephone.
After what seemed a wait of several hours but could only have been a few moments, Evrard appeared. He gave me a cheerful smile over a bushy beard that failed in looking properly wizardly because it was so thoroughly red. “Nice to hear from you, Daimbert,” he began.
But I had no time for pleasantries. “Quick! Do you remember how to stop a flying carpet?”
“A what?”
He had flown on a carpet years ago when we had been in the East together. I tried to refresh his memory of the spells to command one, taking deep gasping breaths between words. I had no idea how much time had passed or just how fast the carpet was going. By this time it might be well past Caelrhon anyway.
“Stay by the phone,” Evrard said briskly. “I’ll call you right back.” The glass telephone went blank.
I kept my back against the door, in no condition to answer anyone’s questions. The wait seemed interminable. I thought I could hear the king’s voice among the rest, but if I didn’t hear his orders clearly I wouldn’t have to obey.
Should I call the school in case Evrard couldn’t intercept them? But the masters of the school were unlikely to know anything about flying carpets. And they certainly would not understand why every wizard in the Western Kingdoms had to be mobilized to stop a runaway carpet. They wouldn’t understand even if I told them my daughter was on it-after all, none of them were fathers.
How about Elerius? Or-and my heart, if possible, beat even harder-had he somehow put Antonia up to this? Or if not Elerius, had someone else insinuated his magic into the castle, putting a spell on Justinia’s carpet so that it would fly off by itself as soon as someone sat on it?
This seemed improbable-after all, I had sat on it myself just last night, though I had been too distracted to spot renegade spells. But if someone was watching the castle and waiting for another chance to attack, the person who had sent the undead warriors, this would be a golden opportunity. If Evrard couldn’t catch the carpet and bring them home, I would have to go after them myself, all the way around the globe if necessary, even if it meant leaving Yurt unprotected.
I put my sweat-covered forehead against the stone wall and closed my eyes. My best bet might be to go straight to the cathedral, grab Cyrus, and tell him I was ready to sell my soul to the devil. Saving Antonia would be cheap at the price.
The phone rang, making me jump convulsively and scrape my forehead. I snatched the receiver up.
“I couldn’t catch them, Daimbert,” said Evrard, looking haggard. I closed my eyes and wiped blood from my eyebrows. “I saw the carpet shoot over the city and was able to fly within fifty yards of it, but I just couldn’t catch it. I’m sorry! I don’t know what else to say. There were four women and a little girl on it-is that how many were on it when they left Yurt?”
“Yes,” I said dully because he seemed to be waiting for an answer. At least none of them had fallen off yet.
“The girl waved at me.”
“Waved? Desperately?”
“No,” said Evrard slowly. “As if she were enjoying herself.”
“Dear God,” I groaned. Antonia, unable to slow the carpet, did not yet realize the danger she and all the others in. She might not have even recognized her city from the air. If they continued in this direction, within an hour they would be over the coast-
And very near Elerius’s kingdom. “Get off the phone,” I barked. “I’m going to call Elerius.”
Evrard made a contrite mouth and hung up at once. Elerius too had been in the East, I remembered as I desperately placed the call. He must have some knowledge of flying carpets. Even if he had put Antonia up to this-especially if he had-he had to help me.
He came to the phone immediately. Had he been lurking nearby, I wondered suspiciously, waiting for a call he knew would come? But like Evrard, he seemed to want to begin with pleasantries, though his hazel eyes looked at me calculatingly from under peaked eyebrows.
I didn’t have time to worry about it. I told him in a few words what had happened. Let him derive any pleasure he liked from knowing Antonia had taken his suggestion. But he said blandly that he still recalled perfectly the commands for a flying carpet. I gave him the magical coordinates of my tracer spell so he might have a chance to spot the carpet coming if it wasn’t there yet.
“I’ll be there as fast as I can,” I said. “But it’s all up to you.” He nodded as he rang off.
But did I dare leave the people here in Yurt unprotected, especially Justinia? And what was I going to say to them all?
I burst out of the telephone room, scattering those who had clustered close, hoping to overhear. “Sire!” I shouted at Paul, spotting him toward the back of the crowd. “Another magical attack may come while I’m saving the kidnapped women! Be ready!” I lifted myself to fly over everyone’s head, through the courtyard, to the stables where we kept the air cart tethered.
Justinia’s elephant trumpeted in loud terror as I brought the purple flying-beast skin out past its stall. The lady was at the front of the crowd outside, black eyes snapping. “Wouldst thou care to tell me-” she began with barely-controlled passion.
I didn’t wait to hear the rest. I lifted her with magic, dumped her unceremoniously into the air cart, and leaped in myself. As I shouted the command to take off, her metallic automaton sprang in after us and grabbed me by the throat.
The air cart, responding to my final gurgling words, rose majestically as I was thrown onto my back. The shouting of the knights, ladies, and servants was replaced by a stunned silence as we sailed off to the strong beats of purple wings. I could feel blood oozing from under the points of the automaton’s fingers as I struggled vainly, trying to find enough words of the Hidden Language to free myself before the world went black.
“No, kill him not,” said Justinia quickly to her automaton. The pressure on my throat eased at once. I collapsed on the bottom of the cart, sucking in air. “At least,” she added, “until I have questioned him.”
The automaton moved to the far side of the cart. I rolled over and sat up slowly. “I am trying to save you, my lady,” I gasped. “Someone kidnapped those women knowing that I would have to go after them, knowing that with no wizard in the castle you would be helpless. I’m only taking you along to protect you, in case anything else like that army of undead warriors attacks the castle again.”
“Nonsense,” she said crisply, maintaining her balance easily with a hand on the edge of the cart. “No one kidnapped them. I heard thy daughter give the commands to start the carpet flying. And I would ne’er be helpless with my automaton near.”
She might have a point there, I thought, using my handkerchief to wipe the blood from my neck. The flow seemed to be easing; at least it hadn’t hit an artery.
“Then think of it this way,” I said with as much dignity as I could. “I am taking you to reclaim your carpet, after the unfortunate incident in which a little girl’s game got out of hand-and you’d better hope to the saints that no one is killed.”
I turned away, looking gloomily at the landscape passing-so slowly-beneath. It would have been faster to fly myself, but I was still badly winded from the desperate attempt to catch the carpet and might not have made it. Justinia had probably told everyone in the castle that Antonia was my daughter. I wondered why I had ever thought it mattered.
After a minute I felt a gentle hand on my arm. “Did my automaton wound thee very grievously?” she asked.
I turned and lifted my chin to let her finish wiping away the blood. It didn’t seem worth answering.
“Realize this, O Wizard,” she said after a minute, “that thou hast distressed me exceedingly. Verily the mage Kaz-alrhun thought that I would be safe in thy little kingdom, yet I have ne’er felt completely at ease here, and then to be carried away so forcibly when I had just lost my only method for e’er returning home!”
“Well,” I said grudgingly, “then we’re even. Your automaton distressed me exceedingly when it tried to kill me.”
At this rate, I thought, maybe I should just plan to stay away from the castle for a few days. Even if I got everyone off the carpet safely, Theodora would never forgive me for allowing Antonia to take it from right under my nose. And when the story got around that I had carried off the eastern princess, kicking and screaming, doubtless with plans to rape her, the king would not leave enough skin on my body for the duchess to have a decent turn. There wouldn’t be enough of me left for a proper burial-but then the bishop would tell them I didn’t deserve a Christian burial anyway.
Elerius had better have caught them, I thought gloomily. Otherwise it was right back to Cyrus and his demon.
We flew on in silence. Justinia stood close beside me, her shoulder against mine. I kept staring ahead, trying to turn clouds, birds, and wisps of smoke into flying carpets.
And then at last I saw a rapidly moving speck, one that did not disappear when I blinked. It was deep red and heading toward us.