The Feline Wizard Read Online Free PDF Page B

question, hoping someone else would ask it—and several did. “What of Sikander?”
    “He confessed,” said the second courtier, “but the king knows he had a confederate. Sikander will not tell the name, though.”
    Corundel almost went limp with relief.
    “The king has clapped him in irons and bid the jailers starve him until he tells,” said the first, “but I think that if he does not speak by dawn, the king will hand him over to the torturers.”
    Corundel pressed the back of her hand against her mouth, but not tightly enough—a moan of dread escaped. Another lady turned to her with a look of sympathy. “Aye, you had become close to him, had you not, dear?”
    But another lady smiled with malicious delight and crowed, “Close to him indeed, and the fear is for herself, not for him! I think we have found Sikander's confederate!”
    Several others of Corundel's rivals cried out with glee and pounced on her, pinioning her arms.
    One of the princess' ladies came forward, eyes narrowing. “You served in the princess' bedchamber last night, did you not?”
    “That was a favor to Chrynsis!” Corundel protested.
    “It was indeed,” Chrynsis cried, pushing her way through the throng. “I… did not feel well.”
    “You felt more than well, when I saw you creeping back to your chamber in the dead of night,” an older woman said spitefully, “though I doubt not you may be sick of mornings in a month or so.”
    Chrynsis stared at her, paling. Then her hand flashed out in a slap, but the older lady caught it with a vindictive laugh.“Take her also, gentlemen! If there were one accomplice, why not two?”
    Chrynsis cried out in alarm, but heavy hands fell on her arms and courtiers bundled her away with Corundel.
    Prester John, however, knew an innocent and hot-blooded dupe when he saw one. He sent Chrynsis back to her friends, but sent Corundel to a cell, to meditate on the errors of her ways, with no food and little water. Trembling with fear, she told him the name of the shaman, and for that he granted her a bowl of rice a day. Injustice, he accorded the same ration to Sikander, now that his secret was known. Then he dispatched Prince Tashih with a guard of twenty soldiers to arrest the apothecary.
    “They found the shop closed and locked, and the man fled, of course,” he told Matt, shoulders slumping with defeat. “Tashih went there as quickly as he could, but he was too late.”
    “I suspect it was too late by dawn,” Matt said in as reassuring a tone as he could manage. “The sorcerer had struck a blow for his people that more than justified his stay in Mara-canda. Why should he stick around?”
    “Why, to be caught.” Prester John gave him a wry smile. “I thank you, Lord Wizard. Indeed, my niece was gone before any of us wakened, and the sorcerer gone an hour later, belike.”
    “Likely indeed,” Matt agreed, “not that you were about to stop looking, of course.”
    “Indeed not! I sent for you straightaway, for I knew that you were at least as well acquainted with Balkis as I, having traveled through hazardous realms and faced many perils with her. I know something of battle, Lord Wizard, and of the kinship engendered by undergoing hardships together and standing shoulder-to-shoulder in the face of danger. Then, too, you were her teacher, and I presume that her learning your methods and techniques has engendered in you a magical affinity for her.”
    “I'd say there's something of a bond there, yes.” Matt didn't mention that watching Balkis in spellcasting action had probably given him a greater understanding of the workings of hermind than an endless succession of banquet conversations. “You didn't wait for me before you started hunting, did you?”
    “Indeed not! My wizards have searched the ether night and day for a trace of her. I have joined them whenever I could spare the time, but there is no sign of her upon this earth.”
    Matt nodded, knowing that John was a more powerful