The Divining

     Deities, Ulrika realized, were as diverse and various as the people who worshipped them.

     Positioning herself at the head of the table, she said to the farmer, "Please look up at the ceiling." She spoke Greek, a language of these people—another legacy of Alexander's conquering ways.

     "It spins," the man moaned.

     "Just a moment more, please. Say a prayer, it will help."

     He did so, muttering his god's name three times in clusters of three, while he traced signs in the air three times each with one hand and clutched what appeared to be a rabbit's foot in the other. Ulrika had learned that although people's religions might vary around the world, and even be at odds, one human trait remained universal: superstition. Whether they were warriors in Germania, citizens in Rome, sailors in Antioch, tent dwellers in Judea, onion sellers in Babylon, or mountain folk in Persia, all believed in good luck and bad luck, and the many ways to invite the first and fend off the latter.

     Everyone in the tavern watched in silence as Ulrika placed her hands on either side of the man's head and then, gently, rolled his head from side to side, bringing his face to look upward again. "Quickly now," she said. "Sit up!"

     He sat bolt upright on the table with eyes wide, jaw slack. The onlookers held their breath in anticipation. And when he cried, "Breasts of Ishtar! The dizziness is gone!" they threw up their arms and cheered.

     Ulrika was secretly relieved, as some forms of dizziness could not be cured by this treatment. But this was a simple therapy for an affliction that sometimes drove men to suicide, and she was glad she could help.

     "Dear lady!" the Persian farmer cried, falling to his knees on the earthen floor. "I am forever in your debt! I had become so desperate I was going to search for the Magus and beg him to put me out of my misery."

     Ulrika helped the man to his feet. "The Magus?"

     The Persian blinked owlishly. "You do not know of the Magus? But everyone in this territory knows of him! He lives in the City of Ghosts, in a high tower, a man of royal blood who is the last of his kind. He is said to work healing miracles, if he can be found. Dear lady, how can I pay you for saving me from certain suicide?"

     Before Ulrika could reply—a man of royal blood, the last of his kind—the Persian shouted, "Wait wait!" Reaching around his neck, he pulled a cord over his head and held the offering to Ulrika. "This is a claw from a sacred gryphon, an ancient beast whose spirit will protect you from harm."

     Ulrika accepted the talisman—a leather thong at the end of which was suspended what looked like a raven's talon. She would place it in her medicinekit with other amulets and charms she had received from grateful patients. "You are very kind," she said. "But I need a place to stay tonight so if you could direct me—"

     "Say no more! My house is the humblest in the village, as anyone will tell you, but it is yours, dear woman! I will run ahead now and tell my wife, may the gods bless her womb, that a most esteemed guest will be honoring us tonight! Anyone here will tell you where to find the house of Koozog. Just follow the path and when you come to the pen of spotted pigs, there you will find a welcome fit for a queen!"

     Three more patrons approached Ulrika, requesting cures for: a boil, an abscessed tooth, hemorrhoids. The first two she lanced, and for the third she prescribed a concoction made from the hamamelis plant, found in abundance in this region. They paid her with: a copper coin, a hair from the head of the Prophet Zoroaster, and an earnest handshake.

     Before others could run home and bring family members with various ailments, Ulrika declared that she was weary and must rest, but that she would return in the morning.

     She was thinking about what the pig farmer had just said: a man whom they called Magus, and who lived in the City of Ghosts, which lay along the very route she and her mother had taken years ago! Ulrika pla

     Encouraged by the new information, and feeling more hopeful than she had in weeks, Ulrika pulled her hood over her head and left.

     Outside, she felt cold, biting night air. Flickering torches illuminated the small enclosure of tavern, stables, animal yard, and collection of tents where travelers snored through the night.

     The Magus, Ulrika thought in rising excitement. Of royal blood and the last of his kind ...

     Was this what they called fate? Was this was why she had been diverted along her path earlier that day, when she had set out for a small town named Tirgiz and instead had had to take a steep mountain track due to a fallen tree across the road?

     Over a year ago, Ulrika had left Babylon on a cargo ship laden withwool and grain. At the vast gulf where the Euphrates emptied, Ulrika had said good-bye to the kindly captain and had found passage with a caravan heading southeast, carrying dates and figs to be traded for mined metals and gems. The caravan had followed an ancient royal road built hundreds of years before by Cyrus, the first king of the Persians, with the flatland rising gradually from the coast into gently rolling hills, which in turn had lifted the travelers up into the steep slopes of the Zagros Mountains. At a crossroads near a place called Al Haza, Ulrika had left the caravan to wait for another group of travelers to pass by—in this case, monks headed for a monastery high in the snowy mountain peaks. They had taken her with them on the condition that she not speak to them or sit with them at meals. Ulrika had been glad to isolate herself from them, riding a donkey and sleeping under the stars. Village after village, farm after farm went by until she said goodbye to the monks and next joined a large boisterous family on its way to a wedding.

     Ulrika had said farewell to them at their destination and had set off on the next leg of her journey, which would take her within miles of where she and her mother had lived eighteen years ago and where Ulrika had been born, only to find the road blocked by a fallen tree. There had been but one way around it, a steep mountain track, with the detour bringing her to this forest settlement, which she had not pla

     This was no accident, she decided. The Magus had to be the prince of her long-ago memory.

     Ulrika took it as a good sign—confirmation that she was on the right road and going where she was meant to go.

     Because it was imperative she find the Crystal Pools of Shalamandar.

     Although Miriam's suggestion that she fast before meditating had helped Ulrika to command visions at will, she still could not hold a vision long enough to interpret its meaning—the beautiful young woman who had haunted an unaware ship's captain, the shining light that accompanied the monks who did not see it, the woman with a baby, following the wedding party.

     What was she supposed to do with such visions?

     She looked up at the late-summer moon, full and effulgent, sailing against the black night. Was Sebastianus at that moment looking at the same moon? Had he reached China even? He had estimated it would take him three years to arrive at the capital city of the East. If so, would he, in a year's time, be starting back on his return trip to Rome?

     I will be in Babylon to meet you, she thought in excitement.

     Ulrika shivered as she peered into the darkness in the direction of Koozog's pig farm. Drawing her cloak more snugly about herself, she did not hear the sudden footfall approach from behind, did not see the large hand come up before her face to clamp down over her nose and mouth. A strong arm went around her waist, pi