The Feline Wizard by Christopher Stasheff Read Free Book Online Page B

charcoal, and sulfur. The most exotic item he saw was a silvery liquid that had to be mercury. Oh, the workbench held a rack of vials, different sizes of flasks, an alembic, a crucible, and a mortar and pestle, but Matt knew them all from freshman chemistry.
    Of course, none of Prester John's subjects had taken that course. No doubt they found the workroom impressive enough.
    The chamber was fragrant with the aroma of sandalwood. Matt looked around for its source and saw a brazier with a feather of smoke rising. He wondered if Prester John had a servant who refueled it periodically to keep the room filled with its scent. Somehow that reminded him of the perpetual fires of Zoroastrian temples, which struck him as a good sign.
    In the center of the room was a rectangle of sand, neatly boxed and recessed so that it was level with the floor. Prester John gestured to it, saying, “Stand in the center, Lord Wizard.”
    When Matt was in place on the sand, Prester John surrounded him with a dozen symbols, inscribed with a polished wooden stick three feet long. It reminded Matt of a magic wand, especially since it had symbols of its own inlaid with ivory and ebony, some of them identical with the ones on the floor.
    Prester John went over to the brazier and fanned its smoke, blowing the smell of the incense across the sand-floor while he chanted a verse. Matt didn't recognize the language, but his translation spell gave him the meanings of the wordsanyway; the emperor was sending him to confront the sorcerer. Matt dropped a hand to the hilt of his sword for reassurance, then reached behind his shoulder to touch the butt of his own magic wand. He never went traveling without it anymore, though he rarely had occasion to use it—he usually went in for broadcast spells, not narrowly focused ones.
    Mist rose up from the sand, surrounding him. It thickened, obscuring his view of the workroom, then hiding it completely. Suddenly there was nothing about him but fog. Dizziness struck Matt, then fled as quickly as it had come; he felt a moment's panic before recognizing the difference in the quality of the mist. Instead of the damp, clinging fog of the wetlands in the real world, this was dry, a mist of indeterminacy, the smeared electron shells of quantum physics, the blur of probabilities, of states of existence not yet determined, and Matt knew he was in the Void Between the Worlds.
    His alarm abated; he had been here before. He turned about slowly, feeling for the Wind that Blows Between the Worlds to direct him toward Torbat. Prester John had included the sorcerer's name in the spell, and even if it were his public name, there ought to be some sort of direction-finding.
    There! Matt felt the faintest of pushes. He took a step forward and felt the force strengthen, pushing him steadily ahead. He strode into the mist, with the Wind that Blows Between the Worlds at his back.
    There he was, dimly visible through the mist—Torbat! Prester John's spell had been very accurate, placing Matt only a few dozen yards from the man. He stepped up until he was ten feet away, his steps soundless in the fog, then drew his sword, shouting, “Torbat!”
    The shaman spun, eyes wide in shock—and Matt lunged at his right shoulder, trying to disable the man with pain. Torbat was fast, though; he slipped aside and raised a hand, fingers crooked in an odd sign, calling out a verse in his own language, and Mart's sword turned into a snake.” Here, take it!” he shouted, and threw the serpent at Torbat.
    Torbat sidestepped again, chanting a different verse, and the snake stiffened, turning back into a sword. That gave Matt time to draw his wand and chant a verse of his own:
    “As a pebble in a pond
That's from wind shielded supercooled,
Sets off a crystallizing chain
And freezes surface and beyond
Into the depths where fluid ruled,
Be thus frozen, naught to gain!”
    But he hadn't made it through a couplet when Torbat reached into his sleeve, produced a wand