Chapter 7

“From my heart to yours, from your heart to mine. . . closer than brothers born.”

Khardan heard the whispered words, felt ibn Jad’s grip on him relax. Pulling Khardan to his feet, Auda tossed the Calif his sword and then put his back to the nomad’s. The Black Paladins, who were waiting for ibn Jad to finish his opponent, stared at their comrade in wordless astonishment.

“What are you doing?” Khardan demanded, his voice thick, his breathing ragged.

“Keeping my oath,” said ibn Jad grimly. “Have you strength to fight?”

“You’re going against your own?” Khardan shook his head in confusion.

“You and I are bonded by blood. I swore before my God!”

“But it was a trick! I tricked you—”

“Don’t join your arguments with those of my own heart, nomad!” Auda ibn Jad snarled over his shoulder. “I am already more than half inclined to sink my blade in your back! Do you have the strength to fight?”

“No!” gasped Khardan. Every breath was burning agony. The sword had grown unaccountably heavy. “But I have the strength to die trying.”

Auda ibn Jad smiled grimly, keeping his eyes on the Paladins. At last beginning to understand that they had been betrayed, they were drawing their weapons.

“Nomad—you have stolen from me, cheated me, tricked me, and now it seems likely you are going to get me killed by my own people.” Ibn Jad shook his head. “By Zhakrin, I grow to like you!”

Swords slid from scabbards, blades gleamed red in the torchlight. Their faces grim, confused no longer, the Black Paladins closed the circle of steel.

Broken! Mathew stared bleakly at the water dribbling down Usti’s belly, the shards of crystal on the stone floor, the fishing lying—gasping and twitching—in a puddle. But the globe couldn’t break! Not by mortal hands! But, perhaps, an immortal belly?

“You could have had much, but you wanted it all!” whispered the Black Sorceress in Mathew’s ear. Hands gripped his arm, and he flinched at the touch, knowing in sick despair that there was worse—far worse—to come. “What would Astafas have given you for them that I couldn’t give you?”

Her hands crawled over his chest, up his neck.

Mathew couldn’t move. Perhaps the sorceress had laid a spell on him, perhaps it was her awful presence alone that stung him, paralyzing him. He stared at her, seeing her emerge from her unnatural youthful shell like some dreadful insect crawling out of its husk. The flesh receded from the fingers; they were pincers with bloodstained talons scraping his chin, tearing his lips.

“First the eyes!” Her breath was hot and foul against his skin, her gaze mesmerizing, and Mathew felt his blood congeal, his senses go numb. The pincers clawed over his cheeks, piercing the flesh. “Then I will turn you over to the torturer and watch while he removes other parts of you. But not the tongue.” A thumb caressed his mouth. “I will save that for last. I want to hear you beg for death—”

Mathew shut his eyes, a scream welling up inside him. The pincers were on his eyeballs, they began to dig in…

Suddenly there was a soggy thud, a muffied groan. The pincers twitched and relaxed. The hands slide horribly down his face, his body, but they were limp and harmless. Opening his eyes, Mathew saw the Black Sorceress lying unconscious at his feet, a bruised and bloody mark upon her forehead.

“Mathew,” said a groggy voice at his side, “you must learn. . . to defend yourself. I cannot always. . . be rescuing you. . .”

The voice faded. Mathew turned, but Usti was there to catch his mistress as she slumped over sideways, the bloodrimmed ivory lid of one of the tall jars slipping from her fingers. Lifting Zohra in his flabby arms, his face reddening with the exertion, Usti turned to Mathew.

“What now, Madman?”

“You’re asking me?” Shaking in reaction to his horrifying experience, the young wizard stared at the djinn. “Take us out of here!”

Usti drew himself up with dignity.

“I can take myself out of here. Poof, I’m gone! But humans are entirely another matter. You do not easily ‘poof.’ Only my vast courage and undying loyalty to my mistress keeps me here—”

“And the fact that they’ve taken the ring and you have nowhere to hide!” Mathew muttered viciously beneath his breath, noting that all the jewels had been removed from Zohra’s fingers. Frustrated, frightened, he ceased to listen to the djinn’s selfaggrandizements. The Black Sorceress was dead—at least Mathew hoped to Promenthas she was dead—but their danger had not lessened. If anything, it was now greater. He could picture to himself the fury of these people when they discovered their witchqueen murdered.

Where was Khardan? Was he still alive? Sounds of fighting coming from the opposite end of the Vestry, near the door, seemed to indicate that he was. How to reach him? How to win their way out of this dread Castle against so many opponents?

“I can take you out of here, Dark Master!” came a whining hiss at his elbow. “Speak the name of Astafas—”

“Be gone!” said Mathew shortly. “Return emptyhanded to your Demon Prince—”

“Not emptyhanded!” flashed the imp. With a gurgling cry, he snatched the golden fish up in his shriveled fingers, then vanished with a bang.

Mathew stared at the black fish, resting near the hand of the sorceress. The fish’s spasmodic twitchings were growing more feeble, its heaving gills showed bloodred against its black scales. Mathew scooped up the fish in his hands. Cupping his fingers, cradling the slimy amphibian in his palms, the young wizard turned slowly around to face the followers of Zhakrin.

“Listen to me—” His voice cracked. Angrily, he cleared his throat and began again. “Listen to me! I have defeated your Black Sorceress, and now I hold in my hands your God!”

His call thundered through the Vestry, echoing off the ceiling, rising above the clash and clamor of the combatants.

All faces, one by one, turned toward his, all sound died in the vast chamber.

Mathew could not see Khardan, there were too many people standing between them. But Mathew knew from the sound of battle where the Calif must be. The young wizard began to hedge slowly in that direction.

“Follow me!” he shot out of the side of his mouth. Regarding Mathew with a look of amazed respect, the djinn hurriedly fell into step behind him, bearing the unconscious Zohra in his arms.

Coming up upon a line of Black Paladins that had formed in front of him, Mathew felt his heart pounding so that it came near to suffocating him.

Mathew tilted his hands slightly so that they could all see the black fish.

“Let me pass,” he said, drawing a shivering breath, “or I swear I will destroy your God!”