Below him the automaton completed its last few steps into the pyramid, paused for dramatic effect then began to explode.
The key when you were carrying limited explosives, as Gryngo had once explained to him, was to attach them to other things that were explosive. The explosions rippled across the automaton’s surface like a string of firecrackers, blossoms of fire that bloomed into balls of flame as volatile bits of the giant began to join in the festivities. There was a final skull-splitting crack of noise as the entire thing burst apart into a miniature sun. The Mazerynth around it was twisted away in the blast, the sides of the pyramid blowing out in clouds of wooden debris. The skeletal remnants tumbled inward with a chorus of snapping, cracking wood and thundering stone, sinking down into itself, clouds of dust billowing out as the supports gave away and the entire structure fell through into the dungeons below, adding them to the destruction as the quarry pit swallowed it all.
Mungo sat high in the sky in a comfortable chair, parachute drifting him slowly along in a pleasant breeze as he watched the Mazerynth disintegrate. The satisfaction he felt at having blown Frothnozzle up was nearly overwhelming. They would have to dig through the remains of the Mazerynth to find the djinn lamp but that was the sort of thing one got to pass off to the acquisitions team. He sank back in his chair with a happy sigh, just in time to narrowly miss being incinerated by a blast of searing light from beneath him. He squeaked and looked down. Adventurers and ifreet-adventurers were still locked in a raging battle through the streets and amidst it all stood the mummy lord, glaring up at him. It sent another blast toward him and Mungo looked up sadly at the smoldering hole now located in the middle of his parachute. On the plus side, he thought as he plummeted, falling targets were harder to hit.
***
Ruby was astonished that her plan was working. But, as Thud had once told her, you never really knew what was going to work until you gave it a try.
The seafood dinner she’d requested from the djinn after her visit to his master had been a ruse to acquire an octopus. Fortunately the djinn had delivered in style, having returned with a seafood feast fit for a King’s hall, spread across a great round table. And at the center of it all had been an octopus the size of a donkey.
She still hadn’t been sure that her plan would work but asking the djinn for a rope and a grappling hook had seemed too obvious. Now she was partway up the spout of the lamp, one hand firmly gripping the end of the octopus tentacle that she’d slapped against it to suction it to the side. She swung the tentacle in her other hand and it gripped on with a wet slap, allowing her to pull herself another foot up.
There had been quite a lot of noise from outside. Thunder and wind, mostly. The weather outside was terrible, wherever it was they were. The shattering glass later on had been a mystery and the explosions and flashes of light in the last few minutes had made her feel that the journey they were on was not going quite as planned. She tugged the first tentacle free, which required a lot of little tugs rather than one big one, separating each row of sucker cups one by one rather than than straining against them all at once. As soon as it was free she swung it to pull herself up another foot. Her arms were aching but the end of the spout was now mere feet above her.
More explosions, a series of them this time like firecrackers, each growing louder until reaching a finale of thumping roars. There was a whoosh sound in her ear and her hair whipped around her face as something moved past her down the lamp spout at high speed. The djinn reappeared in the center of the room. He looked slightly singed. He spent a moment studying Ruby, frozen halfway up the lamp-spout with her octopus tentacle climbing gear.
“Are you alright?” she asked, choosing not to mention that he’d caught her ped-handed.
“Quite,” the djinn said, all four hands brushing at smears of soot. “A minor setback. The pyramid is currently exploding around us. You’ll be safe in here. Now, forgive me, but I am compelled to return to the battle.” It cocked its head as it studied her. “Do be careful,” it said. “I would not wish for you to fall and injure yourself.” A dozen pillows came squirming across the floor to pile up beneath her. The djinn’s face brightened. “There,” it said. There was another whoosh as it disappeared back up the spout.
Well, that had gone well. Ruby puffed to blow her hair out of her face, then swung the tentacle. It suckered on, the tip just below the mouth of the spout. She wasn’t sure what exactly was going to happen next. She pulled herself up. She reached an arm out the mouth, half expecting it to be blasted away by either the City of Brass or the exploding pyramid. When that didn’t happen she crooked her elbow around, letting her hand slap against the outside of the lamp spout.
She gave it a rub.
***
The djinn rose from the smoking rubble of the pyramid, twice as tall as the brass giant had been, its four arms stretching wide to encompass the sky as it roared at the heavens. Knearaoh Khomen hopped with glee. Betrayal had been turned into resounding victory. The time for subterfuge was past. Two djinn at his command was enough to continue. Nothing would stop him from seizing control of the kingdom and grinding the other Knearaohs into dust beneath his paws…
He paused his daydream. The massive djinn was hanging over the pyramid like a big, stupid cloud, watching the fight. If Frothnozzle had been killed in the blast then the djinn should have either returned to its lamp or continued helplessly carrying out Frothnozzle’s final instructions. Had the gnome survived the blast? Or had his last command been something as useless as telling the djinn to watch the battle? No matter. There was still one active djinn on the field and its lamp was in his hands. The ifreet were tireless. If their form was destroyed they would simply reform. Victory over the ragtag adventurers fighting against them was inevitable.
The djinn of the Mazerynth held out its hand, voices booming from its mouths, roaring commands in a language that sounded like stomach trouble. Khomen watched aghast as the ifreet began to collapse in the streets, armor and weapons dropping, bodies dissolving away into sand. What was this? He squinted his beady red eyes at the djinn. There. The tiny shape of a woman dressed in red, scribe cassock flapping as she rode high atop the djinn’s head, clutching his topknot with one hand and a glittering lamp in the other.
He snapped out new orders and watched the mummy lord disintegrate into fragments of cloth as the djinn that had been impersonating it grew in size to match its opponent. A djinn versus djinn fight was not going to be healthy for whatever remained of his city but, assuming he won, he’d still have one djinn and an army of ifreet available to rebuild it. And why wouldn’t he win? Now it was a djinn and an old lady versus a djinn and a god. The fight would be short. He raised his hand, opened his mouth and screamed out a strangled squeak as the business end of a dwarven warhammer landed firmly between his ears. Stars swirled in his vision as he watched the lamp drop from his numb fingers and into the hands of a dwarf that had appeared from between his knees. The dwarf grinned up at him and tipped his top-hat.
Khomen began gathering his scattered thoughts. He was a god. Maybe a rather small one with the head of a rabbit but still a god. If these fools thought that the blow of a hammer was…
Gong’s massive body hit him from the side at full speed and the Knearaoh found himself airborne followed very quickly by finding himself waterborne.
***
Thud rubbed the lamp as soon as it landed in his hands.
“Stop!” he yelled, hoping that was how things worked. He rolled over and looked out across the smoking ruins of Khomen-Te. The djinn-no-longer-mummy was frozen in mid-air, one hand raised in front of it like a shield, the other cocked over its shoulder in a blow that would never finish. The djinn-no-longer-automaton was backing away from it, watching warily. And…was that Ruby standing on its head?
Dazed adventurers wandered the streets, some still fighting with each other having mixed up which side was which, others fighting the fires or tending to wounded. There were flashes and flickers of green
light as healing spells came into play, working more effectively than they ever had before.
“Return to your lamp,” Thud said, giving it another rub. He didn’t know if he had to rub it each time he wanted it to do something but he figured it couldn’t hurt and best to be on the safe side. The towering djinn in front of them gave a simple nod then shrunk and flowed through the city streets, across the river and into the lamp in his hand as fast as if it had been slurped. The Mazerynth djinn flew toward them, also diminishing as it came. It plucked Ruby from its head and set her gently on the deck in front of it even as it finished shrinking down to a size more in line with their own. Though, Thud noted, it chose to stop while still three meters tall. It also had more eyes. mouths and arms than he approved of.
“How do we stand?” Ruby asked. She had the other djinn lamp in her hands.
“Dungeon destroyed, opposition vanquished and we got a pair o’ djinn lamps,” Thud said. “I saw Mungo splash down in the river somewhere up ahead so I’m pretty sure he’s in one piece. Sent Givup that way with one o’ them little fishing boats. Think it’s about time for me celebratory cigar.”
Ruby gave him a stern look. “We do NOT have two djinn lamps,” she said. “They’re slaves and we’re holding the shackles. These lamps are artifacts to be destroyed rather than captured.”
“You know how much those things sell for?” Thud asked.
“Oh,” Ruby said, “you mean like how slaves are sold? Thaddeus Waterstone, you do not want a lecture from me on this.”
“No, no,” Thud said, “You’re right. Can’t blame a fella for having a djinn dream or two.” He gave a sad look at the lamp in his hands. “Is it permissible for me to give it a command or two before we release it?”
“Not unless those commands are absolute necessities. If you’re going to wish for a sack of gold then I’m going to punch you right off the side of this boat.”
“Just the necessaries. We have the not insignificant issue of there being a god in the river back there and I can’t imagine he’s happy with us. We may have deprived him of a pair of djinn but he’s still a god and I want to be well out of his deific jurisdiction before he whips up another one of them storms.”
Ruby’s lips were locked in a stern frown.
“Fine,” Thud said. He gave his lamp a rub. Smoke poured from it, whirling up and spreading into a mini-tornado of sand as the djinn formed before him. “I release ye,” Thud said. The lamp in his hands made a delicate little cracking noise then fell apart into more pieces than Thud felt could be reasonably reassembled. The djinn bowed its head to him silently even as it dissolved away in the breeze, no more than a stray puff of smoke.
Ruby turned to the djinn looming over her and gave the lamp she was holding a rub. “I command you to be free. You and the ifreet may do as you wish, but, as a personal favor, if you could find it in you to help us get far away from here before we get blown up we’d be most appreciative.”
“We got a team still in the city as well,” Thud said.
“And the wagons.” Gong said. “Don’t forget the wagons.”
Zabawa-ji nodded silently, the corners of his mouths twisting into a smile.
“It shall be my pleasure.”
***
It was the fastest the palace barge had ever moved or ever would move again. It skimmed along, just above the surface of the water, born on the shoulders of a thousand ifreet. Thud sat on the Knearaoh’s throne and puffed his cigar contentedly as he watched their wagons borne aloft by still more ifreet, bringing them in an airborne caravan to be deposited on the deck of the palace-ship. The shore alongside them moved past at a pace as fast as a galloping horse on top of another galloping horse, as the saying went. Adages were often unencumbered by physics, he’d noticed.
Support team was at the bow, wielding gaff hooks. There was a shout as they fished the tips in the water below, catching onto something. Ropes from the winch were dropped and after a minute of cranking a small boat was raised to the deck. Mungo and Givup Notachance were sitting in it, looking only slightly the worse for wear. They looked to have been playing gin-rummy.
“Those djinn lamps would have fetched a dear price,” Nibbly said from next to him. “But I’m assuaging my woes by calculating what this ship is going to sell for.”
“Not a big market for palace barges,” Thud said.
“We’ll part it out most likely. Can break this down into two barges and a palace estate sale. I’m sure I can find a few nobles that will latch onto the idea of having a giant Khomenian rabbit-headed statue in their garden.” A look of sadness came across his face. “Wish we’d gotten a chance to sift through the remains of that pyramid. Woulda liked to have found out if that gold cap was solid or not, not to mention scrapping out the giant and digging up the dueling mirrors.”
“There’s an angry rabbit-god back there,” Thud said. “And that’s still his city, leastways until his neighbors figure out that he’s fresh out a’ djinnis.” He nodded towards the wharves as the palace cleared the mouth of the river. “We’re out to sea now and clear o’ his domain and I’m intendin’ us to stay that way until he’s mythology.”
Nibbly patted him on the shoulder. “Well, I’m off to start making some preliminary estimates. There’s a pair of gnomes skulking back here behind you. One looks annoyed, the other wet and nervous.”
“Send them over,” Thud said. “Ruby too if ya see her, though make that one a very polite request. Looking forward to hearin’ her excuse for meddling in history again.”
“She’s standing right behind you.”
“Of course she is.” He braced himself just in time for the poke in his arm from Ruby’s quill.
“I was stuck in a lamp and couldn’t see what was happening,” she said. “Obviously I needed to escape so that I could actually see the history I was supposed to be writing about. And I’ll always free someone if I can. Being neutral doesn’t mean I’m lacking in ethics nor interest in self-preservation.”
“Well put,” Thud said. “Don’t think for a moment I was challenging your decisions. You eliminated the djinn-ex-machina.”
Mungo and Givup arrived at the base of the dais, standing before the throne like petitioners. Mungo had the dark lenses down on his goggles.
“Och, this won’t do,” Thud said, standing. “Got no love for sittin’ in a big chair when I’m doin’ leader stuff. Guaranteed way to start acquiring pretentions.” He took a couple steps down and sat on one of the stairs. “Look, I ain’t happy with what you did. However, I’m cognizant that there was no malice intended nor damage done. Leastways not as far as anyone is concerned ‘cept the shaved cats. You’ve been the linchpin that kept the team alive on more than one occasion and I ain’t one to toss a good hammer away on account of it having a scuff or two. I’ll even go so far as to say that some of your espionagin’ might come in handy down the shaft. You’ve got my permission to keep running your…” he paused and licked his lips. “…Gnome Intelligence Agency….” He paused again to let the wince pass. “But I expect a full accountin’ of whatever you get up to in that regard as long as yer on the team.”
Mungo’s goggles couldn’t hide how wide his eyes had gone.
“You still get to pay Nibbly the team fee for this job, though. Contract’s a contract.”
Mungo didn’t hear the rest.
The music was playing in his head.
Afterword
One of the great strengths of writing fantasy is the ability to mash together pieces of our own world history and mythology to create something both familiar and new. While the elements of Egyptian and Arabic mythology that were combined to create Karsin are easy to spot, I did want to take the time to mention that the giant palace barge was inspired by a real ship. Its name was Thalamegos. It was a palace built on a twin-hulled catamaran and was two stories tall and the length of a football field. Thalamegos was commissioned by Ptolemy IV around 200 B.C.E. and I’m sure was quite the sight.
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