Chapter 7: Carpet Trouble, And An Ambush

Over a forest somewhere in Karralandria, at the same time that Haroun left the palace, Jaffar Qarida and Cerisa Cerendra were having carpet trouble.

“I told you we shouldn’t have taken your trashy roommate’s worn out welcome mat, Cerendra!”

“It’s not the carpet’s fault! Someone shot arrows at us a few miles back, and I’m sure the fact that you wanted to sleep on this thing didn’t help either.” They’d been flying all night, alternating between who was sleeping and who was driving. Jaffar had just woken up.

“Arrows? Preposterous.”

“You’re lucky they only got a corner of the carpet. I snapped it off, but they narrowly missed you.”

“Think they were aiming at us, or some bird?”

“The only birds I’ve seen are a Mikhla and a nighthawk, and neither of them were around when the arrow hit us.”

“Oh, I’ve heard of that. Bandits shoot magic carpets so that they crash, and then they take any valuables off the riders. The impact usually kills them so that the bandits don’t have to do any extra work.”

“And what if that happens to us, Qarida?”

“Relax, Cerendra. That’s the Kalispa province line right there, we can land and travel the rest of the way on foot.”

“How do you know the province line? It’s not as if it’s marked off on the ground.”

“There’s a sign. It says Welcome to Kalispa.”

“All right, Qarida, I can see the sign, but I sure can’t read it. How are you doing that?”

“See this spyglass?” She showed Cerisa the spyglass she’d been using.

“This lets me see anything. Anywhere in the Twelve Kingdoms. No matter how far away or what’s in the way. I simply ask, and I can see it. Reading that sign is child’s play to this device.”

“Where did you get that?”

“You’d be amazed what heroes carry around with them. Of course when they were exiled I was given first pick of their possessions, and I found this. A witch in Sorcerers’ Lane was glad to tell me what it did, and I’ve been using it ever since.”

“You kicked those heroes out of town so that you could get their stuff?”

“No, that was a side thing, I never knew it would happen.”

“Is there really any use for that thing?”

“People think I use it to make sure nobody’s slaying dragons. But really, I watch the Viziers’ Academy headmaster disrobing.”

“Qarida, you are insufferable.”

“He has a private bathroom on the seventh floor. And every night at eight o’clock exactly, he takes his robes off and takes a bath. And I watch him.”

“Zabandrasi. Our headmaster. Has been at the school longer than we’ve been alive. Has a son only a year behind us. And you do this. And you admit it.”

“Cerendra, honey, if you’d seen him, you’d get it.”

“I have seen him. Why you’re attracted to him, I’ll never know. Couldn’t you just, I don’t know, go out with his son or something?”

“That little twerp couldn’t hold a candle to his father. Or to Haroun of Kalispa, now that I think about it. Actually…I’ve never thought to use the spyglass on him.” She tapped it, told it “Show me Haroun of Kalispa” in a low, husky voice so dripping with lustfulness they almost needed to dry off the carpet afterwards, and held it to her eye.

“Oh, well. He’s just wandering through the city.”

“Serves you right for…wait. Qarida, say that again.”

“I said he’s just wandering through the city.”

“But he never wanders through the city unless Cornelius did something silly, so Cornelius must have done something silly again. I guess we’ll have to land now. Maybe we can find Cornelius before Father does. From the province line to the capital is only about an hour’s walk.”

“Provided nothing happens.”

“Yes. And nothing will.”

“How can you be so sure of that?”

“Because we’ll take the main road.”

“And what, the main road vaporizes thieves?”

“Well, no, but it’s patrolled.”

“I’m still going to hold this,” Jaffar Qarida said, taking a small dagger out of her belt.

“Another thing you got from the heroes?”

“Oh no. A dagger’s a nasty assassin type weapon, nothing a decent hero would ever use, even the ones whose definition of decent includes killing ladies’ lizardcats.”

“Killing women’s lizardcats, anyway, because the day Jaffar Qarida becomes a lady is the day the word ‘lady’ becomes meaningless.”

“Oh, shut up Cerendra. Anyway, if you really want to know where this dagger came from, they sell them everywhere in Zyrim.”

“They sell ‘nasty assassin type weapons’ everywhere in Zyrim. I’m not quite reassured.”

Regardless, Cerisa landed the carpet and dismounted, rolling it up and carrying it under her arm.

“You do realize that’ll make you useless in combat?”

“I’m not planning on getting into combat, Qarida! It’s an hour’s walk to the palace!”

“I’m not having a target walking next to me.” Jaffar grabbed the carpet, pointed a finger at it until it shrank to the size of a handkerchief, and put it in her bag.

“There. Now if anything happens your hands are free.”

“Nothing is going to happen.” They walked silently until the next signpost, then stopped to read it.

Just as they were ready to walk on, someone jumped out from behind a tree.

“Oh, what now?” Jaffar said.

“Give me all your money.”

“No, I don’t think I will.”

“Then I’ll attack!”

“You wouldn’t attack poor, innocent girls lost in the woods, would you?” Cerisa asked.

“Of course we would,” the bandit said.

“Of bloody course they would, Cerendra,” snarled Jaffar simultaneously. To the highwayman she said, “What my friend means is, we haven’t got any money, so it’d be sort of useless to try to rob us of what we don’t have.”

“No money? You’re dressed pretty fancy for girls with no money.”

“Don’t look now, Cerendra,” whispered Jaffar, “but we’re surrounded.” Sure enough, five other bandits had come out of the woods and formed a circle around the two students.

“We’re Academy students. These are our uniforms.”

“Which academy, then? Viziers’?”

The girls looked at each other, and Jaffar shook her head at Cerisa. Cerisa turned back to the bandit and sweetly said, “Lady Kilasha’s Finishing School for Girls. I am Miss Isadora Sakali and this is my dear maidservant, Elaine.” In normal circumstances, anyone who called Jaffar Qarida a maidservant would have paid for it, probably by losing blood or bits. These were not normal circumstances.

“Finishing school? What are the two of you doing walking this road without a chaperone if you’re from finishing school?”

“No chaperone was available,” Cerisa said quickly, “and it was just a quick journey to my father’s estate in Kalispa.” At Viziers’ Academy, they teach the art of telling the truth in such a useless fashion you may as well be lying, and this was what Cerisa was doing. While it was true that she was going to see her father, she was obviously not going to see Lord Sakali.

“Well, I’m afraid it just got a bit longer. If we can’t take your money, we’ll take you captive. There’s always someone who’ll pay good money for slaves. Although I’m not so sure about that Elaine girl, she can’t be good for anything…aaaaaagh!”
Why is the bandit aaaaaghing, you ask? Quite simply, it is because while he was busy threatening Cerisa, Jaffar Qarida had sneaked up behind him and put her knife to his throat.

“You can’t cut my throat, you’re a maidservant!”

“Honestly, dog, I’m not sure I can cut your throat in any sort of clean and efficient manner. But I can try, and I’m sure the results will be quite unpleasant just the same.”

“But you’re just the nice lady’s servant!”

“You’re not only a very ineffective robber, you’re a hick. Any person of the city, whether that city was Zyrim or the Kalispa provincial capital, would have recognized Viziers’ Academy robes. Some of them might even have recognized me. Seeing as I’m Jaffar Qarida and all.” The leader shrugged. One of the men started humming a few bars of a song, but the leader didn’t acknowledge him. Jaffar continued. “Once I knew you were enough of an idiot not to, I signaled this girl to pretend that we were little finishing school twerps. Just so you wouldn’t be watching me to do this.”

“What about my men. My men will still get you!”

“Your men? Tell me, have you ever seen an immobilizing spell?”

“Once. A long time ago.”

“Then you’ll know they’re one of the quickest spells a wizard can cast.”

“I didn’t remember that.”

“More’s the pity. Now the five morons over there can’t move for…I made it three days.”

“But they could be attacked by wild beasts! They could be robbed!”

“Wild beasts have to eat too, and as for the latter…what goes around comes around. Now, you’ll let us go, or you’ll see whether or not the nice lady’s servant can cut your throat or not. Am I clear?”

“Well, if you put it that way…yes. But are you sure you can’t spare any money? We’re very poor, you know.”

“Here’s a five-pence piece.” Jaffar gave him a coin out of her bag, which Cerisa was now beginning to suspect was bottomless.

“A fivepence? That’s worthless!”

“No. It isn’t. It’ll get you into the baths, and once you’re cleaned up, you can look for a job.”

“I never thought of that before.”

“Most people don’t.” She shoved the leader out of the way and proceeded on. Cerisa was looking at her in shock.

“Jaffar, what the hell just happened back there?” she asked.

“I see I’m ‘Jaffar’ to people I’ve saved the lives of. Charming. Just so long as you call me Qarida once we’re back at the academy, otherwise you’ll be talking to half the population of the school.”

“You’d think they would have been watching you! To see whether you cast spells, or, you know, walked up behind someone!”

“I told you I can make myself invisible.”

“I saw you the whole time.”

“I wasn’t going to have you think I’d teleported myself to Kalispa and left you here to die! Of course I was going to let you see me!”

“You could have teleported yourself to Kalispa? Could you have teleported both of us?”

“Princess, if I could have, don’t you think I would have and not threatened them like that?”

“Well, um, yes.”

“Hopefully, you’re the first and last Cerendra I’ll have to save. I don’t know if that hero met up with the…well, the idiot who thinks he’s a Zemetian spy, let’s go with that…but if he did, we’ll be stopping your father’s assassination as well.”

“What does the would-be spy have against my father?”

“Haroun of Kalispa was a mercenary. There’s no telling how he could have pissed an old-family Zemetian off.”

“Okay. Jaffar, I just have one more question. What was one of the bandits humming before you put the spell on him?”

“Oh, that. ‘And Jaffar Qarida looked up at the heroes, and said to them with her eyes ablaze, You’ve had your fun but I’m just getting started, stay in this town and you’ll rue the day. When you’re in Zyrim don’t tangle with Qarida, she’s a pretty little snippet but she’ll beat you down, the day two heroes messed with the wrong girl was the day two heroes got kicked out of town.’ It’s a bit of a song about me that some dunderhead in the city felt the need to write.”

“There’s a song about you?”

“Well, about the incident. It’s called ‘The Day Two Heroes Got Kicked Out of Town.’
And it’s sort of sympathetic to the little twats. That’s why I don’t like it.”

“That and…did the songwriter ever see you?”

“Of course not. The idea of writing what you know apparently never crossed his mind.”

About an hour later, the girls arrived in the city.

“I say we head for the palace. Cornelius and Father can’t be gone for very long,” said Cerisa.

“Why don’t we look for them?”

“That idea will get us killed! We’re two girls alone in the city! You saw what happened back there!”

“Oh, you mean us escaping unharmed because I happen to have a knife in my sash. If I didn’t know better, Cerendra, I’d think you enjoyed me rescuing you. Besides, it’s your city. You’d know if it was lawless, wouldn’t you? Seems quite peaceful to me.”

“Well, I didn’t really…well, Father took me around a few times, but I never left the palace by myself. I have word from Father that the city is peaceful, but I just don’t feel safe here.”

“Relax, Cerendra, nothing is going to happen.” She took Cerisa’s hand and solemnly said, “I promise.”

“Just one thing, Jaffar. Well, two things actually. The first, call me Cerisa. And the second, clip your fingernails more than once a year.”

“Oh, all right. Now, where does this prince usually go?”

“I don’t know. He’s not normally out of the palace.”

“But you said your father had to wander around the city when Cornelius did something silly.”

“Well, yes, but he doesn’t always have to find Cornelius. Sometimes Cornelius is still in the palace and Father just has to find the solution to Cornelius’ problem. There was that time Cornelius dabbled in magic and turned his throne into a piano. And there was that time he thought a Mikhla would make a good pet, except that it ate the court wizard’s magic, that was back when we had a court wizard, we don’t anymore, but we had one, and a Mikhla ate his magic and Father had to go everywhere looking for a power restoring potion and then the court wizard quit anyway.”

“So what you’re telling me is, the prince is a prat, you don’t know what he’s bungled this time, and you don’t even have any idea where your father is?”

“Well, since you put it that way…er, yes.”

“Why don’t we just ask that pushcart man over there? He’s been standing on a pretty major thoroughfare all day, he’d have seen the vizier go by if he did.” They walked over to the pushcart.

“Care for a pastry?” he asked, pointing to the selection of baked goods on his cart.

“Information, actually,” said Jaffar. “You look like an alert businessman to me. Like you know what’s going on.”

“I suppose I am.”

“Let’s say that the provincial vizier, a handsome older man by the name of Haroun, happened to walk down this street one day. Would you notice?”

“Of course I’d recognize the Vizier, miss.”

“Splendid! Now. Did he walk past here today?”

“As a matter of fact he did. He turned down that road over there, going to the port area.”

“I don’t suppose you saw the prince?”

“Someone who looked awfully like the prince went the same way, but he had a beard and the prince doesn’t. Maybe the prince has a relative in town?”

“Maybe the prince has a fake beard.”

“I never thought of that. I guess I’m not as alert as I thought I was.”

“You’ve still been a great help, and my friend and I would love to buy some of your pastries.”

“Thanks. You know, I haven’t had a customer all day?”

“Sorry. We’ll take that whole tray of cream puffs.”

“What? Jaffar, are you sure you have the money for that?”

“You know what these are for?”

“What?”

“Sharing with our hapless royalty when we finally find them. Did you know Haroun of Kalispa loves cream puffs?”

“Of course I do, seeing as I’m his daughter and you just got that information out of the Times! Did you know Cornelius can’t stand them?” To the pastry seller she said, “Put some baklava on the tray as well.” The vendor did so and handed the tray, lying flat and covered in a paper bag, to the girls.

“Thank you so much,” said Cerisa after paying for the pastry. “There’s a tavern by the docks. I’m sure that’s where they were going.”