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.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 medicine kit 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 planned to be there in a few days.Was it possible the prince of her memory—the man seated on a magnificent throne—was this Magus?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 with wool 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 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]