Chapter 1

“In the name of Zhakrin, God of Darkness and All That Is Evil, I command you, wake!”

Mathew heard the voice as if it were coming from far away. It was early morning in his homeland. The sun shone brightly, joyous bird song greeted the new day. A spring breeze, laden with the scent of pine and raindamp earth blew crisp and chill in his window. His mother stood at the foot of the long, stone stairs, calling her son to come break his nightlong fast. . .

“Wake!”

He was in a classroom, after luncheon. The wooden desk, carved with countless names and faces long since gone out into the world, felt cool and smooth beneath lethargic hands. The old Archmagus had been droning on and on for an eternity. His voice was like the buzzing of flies. Mathew closed his eyes, only for a moment while the instructor turned his back. . .

“Wake!”

A painful tingling sensation was spreading through Mathew’s body. The feeling was distinctly unpleasant, and he tried to move his limbs to make it cease. That only made it worse, however, sending small needles of agony darting through his body. He moaned.

“Do not struggle, Blossom. Lie still for an hour or so and the sensation will pass.”

Something cold brushed across his forehead. The cold touch and the colder voice brought back terrifying memories. Forcing his eyes open—the lids feeling as if they’d been covered with some sort of sticky resin—Mathew gazed upward to see a slender hand, a face masked in black, two cruel and empty eyes.

“Lie still, Blossom. Lie very still and allow your body to resume its functioning once more. The heart beats rapidly, the sluggish blood now runs free and burns through the body, the lungs draw in air. Painful? Yes. But you have been asleep a long time, Blossom. A long, long time.”

Slender fingers brushed his cheek.

“Do you still have my fish, Blossom? Yes, of course you do. The city guards do not search the bodies of the dead, do they, my Blossom?”

Mathew felt, cool against his skin, the crystal globe that was hidden in the folds of the woman’s gown he wore; the globe filled with water in which swam two fish—one golden, one black.

The sound of boots crunching on sand came to Mathew’s ears. A voice spoke respectfully, “You sent for me, Effendi?” and the hand and eyes withdrew from Mathew’s sight.

The young wizard’s vision was blurred. The sun was shining, but he could see it only as if through a white gauze. It was hot and stuffy where he lay, the air was stale. He was smothering and he tried to suck in a deep lungful of breath. His flaccid muscles refused to obey his mind’s command. The attempt was more of a wheeze or a gulp.

The tingling sensation in his hands and legs increased, nearly driving him wild. Added to this was a panicking feeling that he was suffocating, the inability to draw breath. His sufferings were acute, yet Mathew dared not make so much as a whimper. Death itself was preferable to those cruel eyes.

“Blossom is coming around. What about the other two?” queried the cold voice.

“The other woman is conscious, Effendi. The bearded devil, however, will not awaken.”

“Mmmm. Some other enchantment, do you think, Kiber?”

“I believe so, Effendi. You yourself mentioned the possibility that he was ensorcelled when we first captured him, if I recall correctly?”

“You do so. Let us take a look at him.”

The booted feet—now two pairs of them—moved somewhere to Mathew’s right.

Bearded devil. The other woman. Khardan! Zohra! Mathew’s body twitched and writhed in agony. Memory returned. . .

Escaping the Battle at the Tel; Khardan, unconscious, bound by some enchantment. Zohra and I dressed him in Meryem’s rosecolored, silken chador. The veil covered his face. The soldiers stopped us!

“Let the old hags go!”

We escaped and crouched down in the mud near the oasis, hidden in the tall grass. Khardan, wounded, spell bound; Zohra, exhausted, sleeping on my shoulder.

“I will keep watch.”

But tired eyes closed. Sleep came—to be followed by a waking nightmare.

“A black-haired beauty, young and strong,” the cold voice had spoken. “And what is this? The bearded devil who stole the Blossom and put me to all this trouble! Truly, the God looks down upon us with favor this night, Kiber!”

“Yes, Effendi!”

“And here is my Blossom with the flame-colored hair. See, Kiber, she wakes at the sound of my voice. Don’t be frightened, Blossom. Don’t scream. Gag her, Kiber. Cover her mouth. Tbat’s right.”

I looked up, bound and helpless, to see a black jewel sparkling in the light of the burning camp,

“In the name of Zhakrin, God of Darkness and All That Is Evil, I command you all—Sleep. . .”

And so they had slept. And now they woke. Woke. . . to what? Mathew heard the voices again, coming from a short distance away.

“You see, Kiber? This silver shield that hangs round his neck. See how it glows, even in daylight?”

“Yes, Effendi.”

“I wonder at its purpose, Kiber.”

“To protect him from harm in the battle, surely, Effendi. I have seen such before, given to soldiers by their wives.”

“Yes, but why render him unconscious as well? I begin to see what must have happened, Kiber. These women feared their man would come to harm. They gave him this shield that not only would protect him from any blow, but would also cause him to fall senseless during the battle. Then they dragged him away, dressed him in women’s clothes—as we found him—and escaped the field.”

“One of them must be a powerful sorceress, then, Effendi.”

“One or both, although our Blossom did not exhibit any magical talents when in our company. These nomads are fierce and proud warriors. I’ll wager this one did not know he was being saved from death by his womenfolk, nor do I think he will be at all pleased to discover such a fact when he awakes.”

“Then why bring him out of the enchantment, Effendi?” It seemed to Mathew that Kiber sounded nervous. “Let him stay in stasis, at least until we reach Galos.”

“No, we have too much work to do to load the ships without hauling him on as well. Besides, Kiber”—the cold voice was smooth and sinuous as a snake twisting across the sand—”I want him to see, to hear, to taste, to feel all that is yet to come to him. I want the poison to seep, little by little, into the well of his mind. When his soul goes to drink, it will blacken and die.”

Kiber did not appear so confident. “He will be trouble, Ef- fendi.”

“Will he? Good. I would hate to think I had misjudged his character. Remove the sword from his hands. Now, to break this enchantment—”

“Let one of the women, Effendi. It is never wise to interfere with wizardry.”

“Excellent advice, Kiber. I will act upon it. When Blossom is able to speak and move about, we will question her concerning this. Now, remove the baggage from the djemel and line it up along the shore. We must be ready to load the ships when they land, for they will not be able to stay long. We do not want to be caught here in the heat of the afternoon.”

“Yes, Effendi.”

Mathew heard Kiber move away, his voice shouting orders to his men. Closing his eyes, the wizard could once again see the colorful uniforms of the goums, the horses they rode. He could see the slaves, chained by the feet, shuffling across the plains. He could see the whitecurtained palanquin. . .

White curtains! Mathew’s eyes opened, he looked about him. His vision had cleared. Gritting his teeth against the pain, concentrating every fiber of his being on the effort, he managed to move his left hand enough to draw aside the fold in the fabric and peer out at his surroundings.

The sight appalled him. He stared, aghast. He had thought the desert around the Tel, with its undulating dunes of sand stretching to the far distant mountains, empty and forbidding. There was life around the oasis, certainly. Or at least the nomads considered it life. The tall palm trees, their browntipped fronds—looking as if they had been singed—clicking in the everlasting wind. The lacy tamarisk, the sparse green foliage, every blade and leaf precious. The waving stands of brown, tasseled grass that grew near the water’s edge. The various species of cacti that ranged from the wigglyarmed burn plant—so called because of its healing properties—to the ugly, sharpneedled plant known by the incongruous, romantic appellation of the Rose of the Prophet. Coming from a world of ancient, spreading oaks, stands of pine forests, wild mountain flowers, Mathew had not considered this desert life life at all—nothing more than a pathetic mockery. But at least, he realized now, it had been life.

He looked out now on death.

The land was dead and the death it had died had been a tortured one. Flat and barren, the earth was white as bone. Huge cracks spread across its surface, mouths gaping open in thirst for the rain that would never fall. Not far from where he lay, Mathew could see a heap of black, broken rock, and near that a pool of water. This was no oasis, however. Nothing grew near that pool. Steam rose from its surface, the water bubbled and churned and boiled.

The sun had just lifted into the eastern sky. Mathew could see, from where he lay, the tip of a red, fiery ball appearing over the horizon. Yet already the heat was building, radiating up from the parched ground. There was a gritty taste in his mouth and he suffered from a terrible thirst. Mathew ran his tongue across his lips. Salt. Now he knew why the land was this strange, glaring white. It was covered with salt.

His strength gave out. Mathew’s hand fell limp at his side, the curtain hid the vision. No wonder they had to be gone before afternoon. Nothing could live in this desert in the noonday sun. Yet the man had spoken of ships. Mathew feebly shook his head, hoping to clear it. He must be hallucinating, imagining things. Or perhaps he meant camels, the young wizard thought weakly. Weren’t they sometimes called the ships of the desert?

But where would they go? Mathew had seen nothing in that pickedclean corpse of a world. And his thirst was growing unbearable. Cruel eyes or not, he was desperate for water. Just as his parched lips shaped the word and he tried to force sound from his dry throat, Kiber thrust aside the curtains of the litter. He held a waterskin in his hand.

“Drink!” he commanded, glowering sternly at Mathew, perhaps remembering the days in the slave caravan when he’d caught the young wizard refusing to eat.

Mathew had no intention of refusing water. By a supreme effort he raised his arms, grasped the neck of the girba, aimed a stream of the warm, stale liquid into his mouth and drank thirstily. Some splashed on his neck and face, cooling him. All too soon, Kiber snatched the waterskin away and disappeared. Mathew heard the goum’s boots crunching on the saltcovered ground and, in a few moments, a throaty murmur, probably Zohra.

Mathew lay back on the litter. The water gave him strength; he seemed to feel it spreading energy through his body. He longed to sit up and his hand itched to draw the curtains aside. But to do so was to risk attracting the attention of the man with the cruel eyes to himself.

Thrusting his hand into the folds of the woman’s clothing, Mathew touched the crystal globe containing the fish. It was cold and smooth against his hot skin. He was suddenly possessed by a desperate desire to examine the fish, to see if they were all right. Fear stopped him. The slaver might chance to look inside and Mathew did not want to seem to be paying too much attention to the magical globe. He wondered what the man had meant by the curious statement, “The city guards do not search the bodies of the dead.”

The smothering sensation increased, that and an almost overwhelming urge to move his body. Finally Mathew sat up and was almost immediately seized with a sudden dizziness. Starbursts exploded before his eyes. Weakly, he propped himself up on his arm and, hanging his head, waited until his vision cleared and the terrible lightheaded feeling passed. Cautiously pushing aside the curtain a crack, he peered out, further examining his surroundings. The litter, he discovered, was sitting on stilts about four feet off the floor of the salt flats. Keeping a wary eye out for the slave trader, Mathew looked to the front of the litter and blinked in astonishment.

Before him stretched a vast body of water—wide as an ocean—its deep blue color like nothing he had ever seen before. A cool breeze, blowing off the sea, drifted in a whisper past his face, and he thankfully gulped in the fresh air.

The slave trader stood at the water’s edge, facing out into it. Lifting his arms above his head, he cried in a loud voice, “It is I, Auda ibn Jad! In the name of Zhakrin, I command you. Send my ship!”

So he had meant ships! But what sea could this be? It didn’t look like the Hurn. No waves crashed against the shore. It wasn’t the greenish color of the ocean he had crossed. The water lapped gently about the feet of the slave trader, Auda ibn Jad (it was the first time Mathew recalled ever hearing the man’s name). Staring intently out into the sea in the same direction as ibn Jad, Mathew thought he could detect a shadow on the horizon—a dark cloud in an otherwise cloudless sky.

Turning abruptly, the slave trader caught Mathew staring out of the curtains.

“Ah, Blossom! You are enjoying the fresh air.”

Mathew did not answer. He could not speak a word. The cold eyes had snatched out all the wits in his head, leaving behind nothing but empty fear.

“Come, Blossom. Stand up. That will help get the blood circulating again. I need you.”

Walking over to Mathew, ibn Jad reached out his slender hand and grasped hold of the young wizard’s right arm. The man’s touch was as cold and unfeeling as his eyes and Mathew shivered in the hot sun.

Rising to his feet, he thought at first he was going to faint. His knees gave way, the sunbursts flared again in his vision. Falling back, he caught hold of one of the supports of the litter’s roof with his hand and hung onto it grimly; Auda propping him up. The slave trader gave Mathew a few moments to recover, then dragged the groggy wizard across the sand to another litter. Mathew knew who lay inside, just as he knew the question he was going to be asked. Shoving aside the curtains of the palanquin, ibn Jad pushed Mathew forward.

“The charm the bearded devil wears around his neck? Did you make it? Are you the sorceress who laid the enchantment upon him?”

We plan and work for years to chart our life’s course, and then sometimes one instant, one word will irrevocably alter our destiny.

“Yes,” said Mathew in a barely audible whisper.

He could not have told the conscious reasoning behind his lie. He had the distinct feeling it was motivated by fear; he did not want to appear completely defenseless and helpless in the eyes of this man. He knew, too, that if he answered no, ibn Jad would simply question Zohra, and he would not believe either of them if both denied it.

“I made. . . the charm,” Mathew said hoarsely.

“A fine piece of work, Blossom. How do you break the spell?”

“By taking it from around his neck. He will immediately begin to come out of the enchantment.” That was a guess, but Mathew felt fairly certain it was a good one. Generally, that was how charms such as this one worked. There wouldn’t have been any reason for Meryem to have created a delayed effect.

“Break it,” commanded ibn Jad.

“Yes, Effendi,” Mathew mumbled.

Leaning over Khardan, the young wizard stretched forth a trembling hand and took hold of the silken ribbon from which hung the softly glowing silver shield. Mathew noticed, as he did so, the unusual armor in which Khardan had been dressed. It was made of metal—black and shining. A strange design was inset into the breastplate—a snake whose writhing body had been cut into several pieces. It was a gruesome device, and Mathew found himself staring at it, unmoving, his hand poised in midair above Khardan’s neck.

“Go on!” grated ibn Jad, standing over him. “Why do you delay?”

Starting, Mathew wrenched his gaze from the grotesque armor and fixed it on the silver shield. Cupping his hand beneath the talisman, he closed his fingers over it gingerly, as though fearing it would be hot to the touch. The silver metal felt warm, but only from the heat of Khardan’s body. Clasping the shield, Mathew gave the ribbon a sharp tug. It snapped. The charm came off in Mathew’s hand. Almost instantly the metallic glow began to fade. Khardan moved his head, groaning.

“Give that to me.”

Wordlessly, Mathew handed ibn Jad the charm.

The man studied it carefully. “A delicate bit of craftsmanship.” He glanced from the charm to Mathew to Khardan. “You must care about him very much.”

“I do,” Mathew said softly, keeping his eyes lowered.

“A pity,” said Auda ibn Jad coolly.

Mathew looked up in alarm, but at that moment, movement seen out of the corner of his eye distracted him.

Zohra, stumbling with faltering footsteps but managing to walk nonetheless, was approaching their group. Mathew saw the set of her jaw, the fire in the black eyes, and tried to call out, to speak, to warn her, but the words caught in his dry throat. Seeing his fixed gaze, the slave trader turned.

The wind from the sea was rising. Small waves were washing up on the shore now. Behind Zohra, Mathew saw the cloud on the horizon growing larger and darker.

The wind whipped Zohra’s veil from her face. She caught hold of it and covered her nose and mouth. Coming to stand before Auda ibn Jad, she drew herself weakly to her full height, regarding him with flashing black eyes.

“I am Zohra, Princess of the Hrana. I do not know where I am or why you have brought me here, dog of a kafir! But I insist that you take me back!”