Matt knew he shouldn’t take his eyes off the monsters for a second, but he risked a quick glance back over his shoulder. The white plaster of the city’s walls shimmered in the pounding glare of noon, glimmered, clouded, then cleared—to reflect the sunlight back in searing brightness. But it wasn’t the light that mattered, it was the reflection of the horde of monsters that faced those walls, walls that had become one gigantic mirror.
A second of unearthly silence held the desert.
Then it broke. The air filled with shrieks and howls of unearthly pitches and tones as the demons saw an army of horrible and twisted forms facing them. They couldn’t bear the ugliness, either, and the sheer horror of the sight struck terror into their very cores. As one, they turned and charged away, bellowing in panic, stamping down into the ground and disappearing beneath the sand. Those with wings took to the air and soared away until they were only dots in the sky, then disappeared. In minutes the plain was clear.
Matt stared, dumbfounded, but Lakshmi kept her wits about her. She whirled, beckoning with her whole arm and crying in a voice like a trumpet, “Come now as you promised! They are gone, they are banished, but they may come back before sunset, and they will not be so easily daunted a second time!”
Matt shook himself awake. “That’s right—it was the surprise that got them, wasn’t it? The shock. They’d seen each other before, but never all together!”
“And did not realize the wall had become a mirror,” Marudin confirmed. “They saw an army of monsters marching toward them and were as terrified by the sight as we were. But when they return to whatever power sent them, it will chastise them most severely and send them to confront this city again.”
“Come on!” Matt bawled to the city. “This is your one chance, and it may not last long!”
The gates burst open and Prester John came riding out with Balkis beside him on a mount of her own, looking decidedly insecure in her saddle. They rode at the head of a column four horses wide, all that the gates would allow. The priest-king rode up to them and turned his horse aside. An honor guard of several score soldiers drew rein behind and around them while the generals led the procession on past.
“I cannot thank you enough, djinn and wizard!” John said. “Forever shall my people sing your praises!”
“Had you not better lead them, then?” Lakshmi demanded.
John shook his head. “My generals shall suffice for that. It is my place to stay and watch, to be sure the last of my people has left the city. Then may I ride in their wake.”
“Commendable,” Lakshmi sniffed, “but only if your generals know where to go and how to ride there. Can they lead your army to Maracanda?”
“They can,” John assured her, “and are more than enough to counter any barbarian patrols we shall meet on the way.”
“Even if you slay such patrols to the last man, you shall have no surprise,” Lakshmi warned. “I doubt not Arjasp has spies who will warn him of your coming long hours before you near the city.”
“Let them be warned,” John said, with a feral grin. “They are only a garrison, after all, not the conquering army that battles in Persia. Even with my forces being only half what they were, they shall still prove more than a match for so few.”
“What if they close your own gates upon you?”
“They are indeed my own gates.” Prester John touched a long black case hanging from his belt. “I hold the key.”
Matt wondered what kind of a key could move a locking bar hundreds of pounds in weight, but decided to wait and see. Not that it mattered—he knew half a dozen spells that could do the job, so long as Arjasp hadn’t already detected them and set the counterspell on them—and if Prester John’s spell was as old and complex as Matt suspected, it would be like trying to protect a Yale lock by putting it inside a tin can.
“Then hew your way into the city,” Lakshmi said, “but if you hack your way to Arjasp, first make him tell where my children are locked. Then remember his crimes!”
“That I swear,” Prester John told her. “If we catch the man, we shall see justice done.”
“The justice we seek,” Marudin said, “is that you give him over to us.”
Matt glanced at the djinni’s eyes and shuddered.
They rode through the mountain pass and down into John’s own kingdom, an army ten thousand strong with two djinn, a wizard, and his apprentice to strengthen it. They could see peasants in the fields freezing at their work to stare, then running to spread the alarm to the villages. Presumably the Mongols picked up on the rumor, for now and again Matt saw a stocky rider on a shaggy pony sitting atop a rise. Whenever John sent a party after such a one, though, he wheeled his pony and disappeared.
Late in the afternoon, as they climbed toward a ridge, a score of horsemen appeared against the darkening sky, filling the road between two outcrops of trees.
Prester John, once more back at the head of his troops, said only, “They have chosen their ground well, and their time.”
“Yes,” said Lakshmi, “for your folk are wearied with a long day’s travel.”
“So are they, though,” Prester John pointed out. “I doubt not they have scoured the countryside for all who could come quickly. Many of them have ridden a hundred miles this day.”
“You have to admire their courage,” Matt said. “There can’t be more than two dozen of them, but they’re still going to try to stop us.”
“They are fools,” John said simply. “Surely they must know that I will guess they have hundreds more hidden within those woods!” He snapped orders to his men, and companies of horsemen whirled to the left and right, plunging off the roadway to ride through the fields around the woods.
John sighed. “The peasants shall lose their year’s labor this day, but fight we must, though it destroys the standing crops.” To his general, he said, “Be as merciful as you may. These are brave men who choose to die from loyalty to a falsehood. Let us spare them if we can.”
The general nodded heavily, his own face heavy with regret.
“We might be able to make it a little less bloody,” Matt said thoughtfully, then slipped the wand out, pointed it at the northern grove, and chanted,
“What have you done?” John cried. “You have set an afrit upon my soldiers!”
“Not yours, no,” Matt said. “I told him to come to his master’s men, remember.”
Shrieks and howls split the air. Horsemen boiled out of the northern grove, riding away in terror any way they could. Some, seeing John’s soldiers before them, drew their curved swords, ready to strike down any who stood in their way, but officers barked orders, and the soldiers opened avenues for the fugitives.
A howl of disappointment sounded from the grove, and a horrifying sight came charging out into the roadway. Twice as tall as horse and rider, tusked and bug-eyed, it leaped into the midst of the barbarians. With howls of terror they galloped away. The afrit stood, looking about in consternation and bewilderment. Then it shrugged and dove into the southern grove.
Seconds later Tartars came boiling out of those trees, too, riding hell-bent for leather in any direction except back.
Even Prester John’s soldiers needed stern commands to keep them from fleeing, especially as the monster emerged again, looking about, frustrated and angry. Seeing John’s party, he strode down toward them with a roar.