The Five Fakirs of Faizabad

by P. B. Kerr

  “Can’t beat a bit of David Copperfield at settling you down for the night,” he said to himself and was reaching for the light when once more he heard a muffled growl. Thinking that the bigfoot had come back, Groanin cursed its nerve and crawled outside, intent on scaring the creature off again. As soon as he was outside he waved the lamp in the air and yelled loudly, expecting to see the apelike creature legging it into the trees. Instead, he found himself face-to-face with an enormous grizzly bear. Bears do not care to be yelled at, especially when they are licking a frying pan clean of sausage fat. Moreover, it’s rare that a grizzly bear gives way to anything except perhaps an Abrams tank, or another grizzly. It’s certain there’s no record of one ever having given way to an English butler in a fur coat.

  The bear reared up on its hind legs to a height of nine or ten feet and roared a terrible roar that lasted ten or fifteen seconds. Even before it ended, Groanin was already running for his life, which, as most bear experts will tell you, is as bad an idea as yelling at one, since bears are capable of running faster than most humans and certainly faster than a portly English butler.

  The grizzly finished licking the frying pan and then gave enthusiastic chase.

  CHAPTER 22

  WHAT HAPPENED TO JOHN AND ZAGREUS

  You could be forgiven for thinking that finding just one timber wolf among all the wolves that live in Yellowstone National Park would be impossible. In fact, there are just one hundred and twenty-four wolves living in Yellowstone, as John was to discover when he wished that he might have several books on the subject to read aboard the flying carpet en route from Morocco. Having also wished to have the power of speed-reading — something Philippa had told him about but that he had never before seen the point of, since he really didn’t like to read at all — John quickly read all there was to know about wolves and their habits. And by the time John and Zagreus arrived in Yellowstone, the boy was already something of an expert on all things lupine, which is to say he knew a lot about wolves and their behavior. He had also applied a great deal of djinn power to put some of this new knowledge into practice.

  First of all, John had wished with all his power to see and hear again the image of the howling wolf he had glimpsed in Mr. Burton’s ink spot, only this time he wished that he might see a larger and more detailed version of the ink spot image that was lodged only very opaquely in his memory, so that he might study it minutely.

  As a result, John was able to pinpoint some distinctive geographical features of that part of the park where Mr. Rakshasas and his wolf pack were living. He already knew where the twelve wolf packs in Yellowstone were located. After that, it was simply a matter of matching these twelve locations against the geographical features in the clearer image he now carried in his memory. In this way, he was able to steer his carpet to a spot within only a few hundred yards from where the pack to which Mr. Rakshasas belonged was now living.

  As soon as John landed, he quickly set up camp with the stores he had made in the minutes before djinn power finally deserted him in the cold. For this same reason, John’s camp included an Indian sweat lodge.

  “We’re on our own now,” he announced as he made supper for himself and the Jinx.

  “How do you mean?” asked Zagreus.

  “I mean that djinn power doesn’t work in the cold. Well, not for me, anyway. I’m a young djinn, see? And it takes a while for the power that’s inside of me to mature and get really warmed up. Djinn are made of fire, so the colder I get the less power I have. That’s why I built the sweat lodge. In case I need to get hot in a hurry.”

  “What about the flying carpet?”

  “That’s just a carpet, not something living,” said John. “As far as I know, the carpet works no matter how cold things get.”

  Zagreus shrugged. “It’s not that cold.”

  “Well, I think it is.”

  “But either way, we can leave whenever we want?” said Zagreus.

  “Yes.” John sneered at the Jinx. “Don’t worry. We’re only going to stay as long as it takes for me to find Mr. Rakshasas. It’s getting dark now. So I guess we’ll look for him first thing in the morning. He’ll tell me the best way to deal with what Mr. Burton showed me in his ink spot. As soon as I’ve spoken to him we’ll be out of here, I promise.” John grinned humorlessly. “Man, you must hate this place.”

  “On the contrary,” said Zagreus. “You know, it’s weird, but I feel kind of at home here. This place is really, really beautiful.”

  “You surprise me.”

  “You’re surprised. Think how I feel.” Zagreus looked at himself. “And another thing. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this. But my hair seems to be getting longer and darker.”

  “Hey, you’re right,” said John. “It is. Not only that. But you’re getting bigger.”

  “Maybe,” said Zagreus.

  “There’s no maybe about it. Look at the size of your feet.” Zagreus looked at his own feet and nodded. There was no getting away from the fact that John was right. His feet seemed huge. “Oh, wow, you’re right,” he said. “I didn’t notice.”

  “Well, you don’t, do you?” said John. “I dunno, but it seems to me that every time my mom takes me to buy a pair of shoes my feet are a size bigger. And I realize I’ve never noticed it before. Your feet seem to have doubled in size.”

  “You don’t suppose that I’m no longer a Jinx,” said Zagreus. “That I’ve started to make the complete transition from being a Greek man to being an ape?”

  “That’s not such a big transition,” observed John. “I’ve been on a beach in Greece. Some guys there were so hairy they already looked like apes.”

  “Very funny.”

  “I don’t know about a transition,” sad John. “After all, you can still talk and I don’t know how many apes can speak English. Or Greek.”

  “True,” said Zagreus. “Nevertheless, it all seems to have happened since we arrived here in Yellowstone.”

  “True,” said John. “Here, have some coffee.”

  When supper was over they went to bed.

  Zagreus slept hardly at all. For one thing he felt stifled inside the tent, and for another he dreamed a very vivid dream. But when early the next morning they emptied out of the tent, it was plain that Zagreus had kept on growing throughout the night.

  “Holy smoke, look at you,” said John.

  “What do you mean?” asked Zagreus.

  “Well, look at you, dude.”

  “I’m darker, yes. And my feet are bigger. So what?”

  “Not just your feet, dummy. Stand up.”

  Zagreus stood up and it was plain to see that he was now six or seven feet tall, with a shaggy brown coat of hair, like Highland cattle, and long, immensely strong arms.

  “Also, the top of your head has gone all pointy and crested,” said John. “Like the crest of a male gorilla.”

  “Wow, you’re right. I’m huge. I was dreaming I was getting bigger all night and now I am.” He frowned. “Hey, do you think I’m a gorilla?”

  “Not a gorilla,” John said. “You’re too big.” Then he smacked his fist into the palm of his hand. “Of course,” he said. “It’s the only possible explanation.”

  “What?” asked Zagreus.

  “You’re not an ape at all,” said John. “At least, not an ape that zoology would recognize. Which is to say you’re not an ape like a gorilla, or a chimpanzee, or an orangutan, or for that matter a man. You’re an unknown species, most probably an ape-man.”

  “You mean like Tarzan.”

  “No. He lived in Africa. My best guess? You’re new incarnation is to be a bigfoot. A Sasquatch. Like a yeti. Only a yeti is something different. I’ve met a yeti and that turned out to be a German pretending to be a yeti to scare off tourists in the Himalayas. So there’s no such thing. Quite a few people were of the opinion that the Sasquatch was also a hoax. However, that would appear not to be the case, since, without question, you, my friend, are very definitely a Sasquatch.
Probably, it was coming here that triggered your full transition.”

  “You mean you think I’m home?”

  “Yup. I’d say so. Congratulations, buddy.”

  “So, let me get this straight,” said Zagreus. “I’m this legendary creature, a Sasquatch, that everyone thinks is just a hoax.”

  John nodded. “Does that bother you?” he asked.

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, I dunno, someone like that might easily feel rejected,” said John. “A person could get a complex about that.”

  Zagreus shook his head. “On the contrary,” he said. “I kind of like the fact that people think I don’t exist. Really I do. When I was human I always enjoyed my own company. Athens is a very busy city. Full of people. Especially in summer. And much, much too hot. I used to wish I lived somewhere cold where I could just be on my own.”

  John shrugged. “Looks like your wish came true.” He looked around the snowy landscape. “Out here you couldn’t be more on your own if you lived up on the moon.”

  After breakfast, John put on his snowshoes and picked up his backpack and told Zagreus that he was going to look for Mr. Rakshasas.

  “Tell me, how are you going to recognize your friend Mr. Rakshasas?” asked Zagreus. “I’m no expert like you are, but it seems to me that all wolves are pretty much alike.”

  “I already thought of that,” explained John. “When I still had my djinn power I wished that I might be able to recognize Mr. Rakshasas’s wolf howl so that I might more easily distinguish him from the rest of his pack. Apparently, no two wolves howl in the same way.”

  “Want me to come with you?”

  John shook his head. “No, I don’t think that would be a good idea. No offense, but those wolves would take one look at you and skedaddle. I would skedaddle myself if I didn’t already know you, Zagreus. You look pretty frightening. A grizzly bear with a machine gun would probably be frightened by you now.”

  “Suppose you meet a bear,” said Zagreus. “What then?”

  “I’ll be fine,” said John. “I know what to do to keep safe in bear country.”

  “Hmm. What shall I do while you’re away?”

  “I dunno. I guess you should do what the Sasquatch normally does in this part of the world at this time of year. Forage. Lurk around a bit. Skulk in some trees. Frighten a camper if you see one.”

  “Good idea,” said Zagreus. “What will you do when you find your friend?”

  “Depends on whether or not he recognizes me,” said John. “If he doesn’t, I’ll probably come back here and sweat my spirit out in the lodge. Then go and find him again and climb inside his skin.”

  “You can do that, too?”

  “Sure.”

  “Isn’t it a bit crowded with two people inside the one skin?”

  “It can be, yes. But it’s only for a short while. Just long enough for me and Mr. Rakshasas to have a chat.”

  “But he’s a wolf now. Won’t that make communication a little difficult? Even at a spiritual level?”

  “You might think so, yes. But once I’m inside the wolf’s skin, I’ll become a little bit of a wolf myself and that way we’ll be able to talk about a great many things.”

  “Such as seeing your uncle dead in your vision of the future?”

  “And me with his blood on my hands,” said John. “That’s the part that worries me. I’m sure Mr. Rakshasas will know what to do. He usually does.”

  “Impressive.”

  “I’m a djinn. That’s what I do.”

  CHAPTER 23

  BIGFOOT PUTS HIS FOOT IN IT

  As soon as John had gone, Zagreus went off on his own to forage, and lurk, and skulk about in the trees a bit, which was all rather enjoyable. The foraging part was the most consuming of all these activities because it meant digging up snow and eating the stuff that he found underneath, such as roots, grass, and insects; but best of all he found he liked the cones and the sweet pine needles and the tree bark of the park’s plentiful supply of lodgepole pines — he even liked the honey fungus that grew parasitically on these tall conifer trees. When he was thirsty he picked up a handful of snow and sucked the water out of it — harmful to humans in the wilderness, but not to a Sasquatch. And it was quickly clear to Zagreus that with all the berries and nuts and seeds he would probably find in the summer, he would certainly never starve while living on his own in the enormous national park.

  It was toward the end of the day when Zagreus became aware of the camper. He noticed his smell — or rather the smell of whatever it was he was cooking — at least an hour before he saw his tent. Not that Zagreus liked sausages very much anymore, but he found himself curious about the camper, which is a common trait in a Sasquatch. Also, he was keen to live up to his own reputation and frighten the man just a little bit, as John had suggested. He didn’t mean him any harm. He just wanted to have some fun.

  So, after dark, when the man had gone inside his tent to sleep, Zagreus wandered around his camp for a while leaving his impressively large footprints in the snow so that the man would find them in the morning and feel alarmed.

  Hardly satisfied with this, however, Zagreus decided to push things just a little further, grunting loudly and then slipping his arm underneath the tent so that he might give the poor man a real fright. Only, Zagreus himself got a fright when the man came stumbling out of the tent with a rifle, and, thinking he might easily be shot on his first full day as a Sasquatch, Zagreus ran away.

  As he ran away, he heard a familiar voice shouting after him:

  “Now I know why it’s called Yellowstone Park,” he cried. “Because them as are daft enough to live in it are yellow themselves. I say, them as are daft enough to live in it are yellow themselves.”

  Zagreus stopped in his enormous tracks and looked back at the man in the fur coat. It was Groanin, Nimrod’s English butler. What on earth was he doing here? And Zagreus was just about to go back to Groanin’s camp and say hello and apologize for his earlier behavior when he remembered what John had said: that he now looked pretty frightening and that John himself would have skedaddled at the sight of a Sasquatch if he hadn’t already known that it was really Zagreus. Plus, there was also the danger that Groanin might shoot him with that rifle.

  What on earth was he doing here?

  And then it dawned on him.

  “Of course,” he said. “Groanin followed the boy djinn here to fetch him back home. The boy’s uncle Nimrod must be worried about him, the way he just took off like that. I guess if he were my nephew, I’d be worried myself.”

  As he trudged back to John’s camp to bring him this important news, Zagreus tried to remember if he had ever had a nephew himself, but almost all memories of who he was and what he’d been in his previous life were now gone; he couldn’t even remember the fact that once he had been Greek. Which, it is sometimes said, is something a great many Turks can’t remember, either.

  It was almost dawn when Zagreus reached the camp again. He found the boy djinn sitting beside a blazing fire. As he approached the camp, something growled at him from the shadows.

  “It’s all right, Rakshasas,” said John. “He’s a friend of mine.”

  Zagreus sat down heavily in the snow. “You found him then,” he said, smiling a big toothy smile as a young, blue-eyed wolf came slowly toward him out of the shadows and licked his outstretched hand.

  “Yes,” said John. “I found him.” He reached out and stroked the wolf’s thick gray coat. “Didn’t I, old friend?”

  Rakshasas the wolf made a whining noise that ended in a howl.

  “Which reminds me,” said Zagreus. “There’s another old friend of yours in this park. Mr. Groanin.”

  “Groanin?” John sighed. “Here. In Yellowstone? On his own?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re quite certain of that? Because I daren’t go near their camp if Nimrod is there. For obvious reasons. I mean, I can hardly kill him if I keep away from him, can I?”

&nbs
p; “Yes, I’m quite certain he’s on his own,” said Zagreus.

  “I wonder how — no, wait, I can guess. Since they’re all made from the one original carpet of King Solomon, I bet one flying carpet can follow another. Provided you know how to direct it. Nimrod must have sent Groanin here to look for me.”

  Rakshasas barked as if agreeing with this theory.

  “That’s what I thought, too,” said Zagreus.

  “Did you speak to him?” asked John.

  “Er, no. I would have spoken to him but I was afraid I might scare him. Me being the size I am now. The last time he saw me I was about three feet tall and white-haired. Now I’m seven or eight feet tall and covered in brown hair. He’d run a mile for sure.”

  “Thoughtful of you.” John smiled. “Actually, I think you’ve grown some more since I last saw you.”

  “You think so?” Zagreus sounded pleased.

  John nodded. “Look, is Groanin all right, do you think? Does he have food? Groanin’s very particular about his food.”

  “Yes, he seems to be fairly well equipped. He had a big skillet on his campfire. I think he’d been cooking pork sausages. Really, I’m surprised you didn’t know that. You can smell the meat for miles.”

  Rakshasas sniffed the air and barked as if to confirm what Zagreus had said.

  “That’s bad,” said John. “That’s very bad.”

  “What is?”

  “This is bear country,” explained John. “If you could smell those sausages, then so could a grizzly.”

  “I never thought of that.” Zagreus stood up. “Then he’s in danger. We should go and see that he’s all right.”

  “Do you think you could find him again?”

  “Easy. Like I said, you could smell those sausages for miles. I’m sure I could find my way back there with my eyes shut.” Zagreus smiled. “And with the size of tracks I leave, I dare say you could find your way there, too.”

  John stood up and reached for his backpack. Rakshasas was already whining and looking back down the trail of giant Sasquatch footprints as if eager to follow them. And guessing that the wolf could probably cover the distance back to Groanin’s camp in no time at all, John clapped his hands and pointed.