by P. B. Kerr
“They’re dead already, aren’t they? So who cares? What’s a few billion ghosts beside my dad’s plan for the universe?”
“The universe.” Nimrod smiled. “Iblis is getting more ambitious.”
“You’d better believe it, Nimrod.”
“I imagine that pyramid is central to whatever your ultimate plan might be.”
“You’re not nearly as dumb as you look, Nimrod. Dad always said you were the cleverest djinn around.”
“I’m flattered,” said Nimrod.
“So what does that make me?” said Rudyard Teer. “The djinn who caught you.”
“Lucky?” said Nimrod.
Rudyard Teer lifted his arm and seemed about to inflict some further humiliation on his djinn captive when a loud bray of a huge invisible trumpet distracted him. This was, perhaps, fortunate for Nimrod. “You know what, clever guy? That trumpet means you’re just in time to see what this is all about. You two have got front seats at perhaps the greatest crime ever committed.”
“Is that all?” said Nimrod. “A crime. What is so interesting about crime to you people? I can’t understand it. Your thinking is so very grubby. So utterly small.”
“I don’t mean a crime that’s committed against any stupid human laws,” said Rudyard Teer. “I mean a crime against some universal ones. My dad is going to change the character of the universe forever. You’re going to see that pyramid fill with power. And then we’re going to turn it upside down.”
Nimrod frowned. “An Enantodromia. You can’t be serious.”
“Never more so.”
“But to do that you would need the most powerful source of energy in the universe,” said Nimrod. “More powerful than the force of the atom. The force of life itself, and on a massive, unprecedented scale. Impossible.”
“You got it, big nose.” Rudyard Teer grinned horribly and then pointed at the pyramid. “Watch this space.”
It were horrible, Groanin explained to John, when the boy djinn’s spirit had finished searching his short-term memory. You think it’s noisy now? You should have heard it back then. It were total pandemonium, it were. Like a storm of childish panic had hit this place. All you could hear were the screams and cries of frightened children as the apex of that pyramid opened up and started to fill up with their little spirits. Like a fuel tank, so it was. Gurgle, gurgle as they all went in, one on top of the other. Hours it lasted. From where they came, I don’t know. From the sheer number of them, it must have been all over the world. That’s all I know. I don’t know very much, I’m afraid. My mind is not as clear as it was. Sorry, John. I feel confused, really. There’s quite a lot I can’t remember now I come to think about it. And a lot more I’ve forgotten, besides. I feel like an idiot.
That must be the effect of the mercury fumes, thought John. No wonder your mind looks like a mess. You can’t help feeling like an idiot, Mr. Groanin. We’ve got to get you out of here. And soon.
Forget about me. You’ve got to stop them. They’re planning to turn one of the fundamental laws of the universe upside down, thought Groanin. To take the natural tendency among humankind to wish for good things and then bring about its exact opposite. None of us will know where we are. None of us will know which side to wish on.
Where’s Nimrod now?
They took him somewhere.
John followed Groanin’s eyes to a doorway in the jade pyramid.
In there? asked John.
I think so. Groanin tried to clear his thoughts of the mercury fumes and remember more, but it was no use. His mind remained thoroughly befuddled. Iblis said something about having his revenge on him.
Iblis is here? You’ve seen him?
Yes. No. I’m not sure. It didn’t look like Iblis. Frankly, it looked like that magician bloke off the telly. Adam Apollonius. But Rudyard Teer kept on calling him “Dad.”
That would explain a lot, thought John. Iblis must have taken over the guy’s body to gain some influence over poor Dybbuk. He always did like that stupid cabaret magician.
Anyway, whoever it was arrived about halfway through the filling up of the pyramid. Look here, you don’t really think Iblis will kill him, do you, Johnnie? I don’t know what I’d do without Nimrod to look after.
No one’s going to kill anyone, Groanin. John placed this thought at the front of his mind so that it might be the last thing Groanin remembered him thinking about. But at the back of his mind he was thinking how it was a matter of life and death that Philippa reach the emperor’s mausoleum with the golden tablet of command as soon as possible. And thinking about it again, John thought it was probably even more important than that. I’d better go. Find Philippa. Bring her back here.
“Let’s hope that golden tablet of command really works.”
The butler was not used to having conversations with a stranger inside his own skull. Few sane people are. It was especially difficult for Groanin because of the mercury fumes which, while being entirely odorless, are, as Nimrod had said, quite powerful and confusing to the human mind. So it was that these last words of Groanin were spoken out loud.
Suddenly, the warrior devils seemed to come to life again. Each of them took one step forward. One of the warriors took Groanin by the arm and this might have been painful if it hadn’t been his extra-strong arm that was held. A second turned on his heel and made a guttural sort of noise, like a largish and brutal ape, as if trying to summon assistance from the jade pyramid.
“Oh — oh — oh!” it shouted. “Oh — oh — oh!”
For a moment, John thought they might be onto him. Then it dawned on him that it had been Groanin’s mention of the golden tablet that seemed to have worked a galvanic effect on the warrior holding him. He decided to sit tight in the hope of gathering yet more intelligence.
Rudyard Teer came out of the pyramid. He was followed by Adam Apollonius, also wearing a jade suit of armor. The warriors stood back as Iblis and his son came near to Groanin.
“You mentioned the magic words, I believe,” said Iblis.
“What magic words?” asked Groanin. “I say, what magic words are you on about?”
“These Dong Xi warrior devils of mine,” said Iblis. “They only understand Chinese, you know. But I’ve programmed them to wake up at the mention of certain English keywords and phrases I’ve given them. Even in a foreign language. One of these key phrases is the ‘golden tablet of command.’ The question is what do you know about the golden tablet? And why you should have mentioned it just now.”
“That’s two questions,” said Groanin.
“Don’t get funny with me, Jeeves, or whatever your name is,” said Iblis. “This mundane body I’m using belongs to a big, big star in Las Vegas. Do you know what that means? It means it doesn’t have a sense of humor. Do you know what a quaesitor is?”
Groanin sighed wearily. “I have no idea what it is,” he said. “But I feel sure you’re going to tell me.”
“That’s a smart mouth you’ve got there, fat man.” Iblis smiled and shook his head. “Some of the things that come out of it. I bet they even surprise you sometimes, eh?”
John knew what a quaesitor was. Once, he’d been subjected to a quaesitor himself. But even as he silently explained to Mr. Groanin that it was a djinn binding designed to find out all of the things he found unpleasant and then make them appear in his mouth, he felt something wriggle and crawl up the butler’s throat.
Groanin spat and pushed something out from under his tongue. The thing clung to his chin for a moment and then dropped onto the floor. Groanin glanced down just in time to see a fat cockroach scurrying away even as something else crawled into his mouth. Groanin coughed and retched, and then spat a small rat onto the floor. This was soon followed by a rather wet-looking, bird-eating spider that scrambled up Groanin’s face and sat on top of his head. Groanin screamed.
“I think you’d better tell me everything, don’t you?” said Iblis, and flicked the spider into the middle distance. “Before the creatures start g
etting bigger.”
John knew there was no way that Groanin could withstand a torture like this. And thinking that his own capture might stop Groanin from telling Iblis anything about Philippa and the golden tablet of command, he prepared to reveal himself. Even as the thought occurred to him, the next object that came up Groanin’s throat was a piece of broccoli. For vegetables were what John really detested.
“All right, all right, you’ve got me,” said John. “The fact is there are two of us in this body. There’s Groanin, Nimrod’s butler. And there’s me. John Gaunt. Nimrod’s nephew.”
“A twofer,” crowed Rudyard, and punched the air.
“A what?” said Groanin.
“He means two for one,” said Iblis, waving his hand and muttering what John presumed must be his focus word, and the air around Groanin’s body suddenly became very cold. A frost appeared on the bodies of the warriors, and Groanin’s breath billowed in front of his face.
John guessed Iblis had reduced the temperature so that he might easily be seen if he tried exiting the butler’s body.
“Ever since our last meeting,” said Iblis, “I’ve looked forward to our next. Very much. And now here you are. I ought to have known the quaesitor had found two of you in there when I saw that piece of broccoli coming out the butler’s mouth. It’s rare people hate such very different things like a rat and a piece of broccoli.”
“I dunno,” said John. “You’re very different from a piece of broccoli, aren’t you?”
Iblis smiled a snakelike smile and then nodded at the warrior devils. “Bring him,” he said. “Bring him into the pyramid. We shall soon learn exactly what he knows about the golden tablet of command.”
CHAPTER 29
SHE WHO MUST BE OBEYED
As Marco Polo had predicted, the golden tablet of command made Philippa’s journey to China easy. Or at least it ought to have been. The trouble was, ordering people around did not come naturally to Philippa. If not exactly meek, she was naturally democratic and respectful, and it took a while for her to grasp the true power of the ancient Chinese artifact now at her disposal, and to put it to good use. It was simply a question of telling people what to do. The biggest problem with telling people what to do, however, was that they did it, immediately — the tablet never failed in that respect — and she soon discovered that there were as many pitfalls in issuing commands as there were in making wishes. It was quickly apparent to her just why it was that Marco Polo had been nervous of the enormous power that was contained in the golden tablet. Using it required the bearer to think very carefully about the full consequences of giving an order. And an insight into the loneliness and responsibility of government and leadership — of being president or prime minister — was soon apparent to Philippa.
For example, in a rare moment of extreme irritation, she told a creepy man, who was following her at Heathrow Airport in London, to get lost and was astonished when he walked into a broom closet and closed the door behind him. She was equally surprised when upon her telling the attendant at check-in to “have a nice day” the woman took off her shoes, put her feet up on the desk, and started to read a magazine.
There were benefits to be had from her possession of the golden tablet, of course: Despite her not even having had a ticket, Philippa was allocated the best seat in first class on a plane to Beijing (there was, it seemed, no direct flight from London to Xian). Then she was allowed into the first class departure lounge, and, a few minutes before takeoff, Philippa went into the cockpit and proceeded to tell the captain, the first officer, and the navigator that there would be a change in their final destination. She didn’t like doing this, knowing that it would greatly inconvenience her fellow passengers, but she thought it was a price worth paying if the world really was at risk from the warrior devils.
A minute or two later the plane took off, carrying them high over London and, soon after that, the English Channel. It was a perfect, clear blue sky and far below she watched a flock of seabirds wheeling over the White Cliffs of Dover. Suddenly, she was aware of the strangest feeling in her bones: that her mother had arrived back in the United States and was on her way home. And, for a moment, she tried to picture Mrs. Gaunt, landing on the ground in New York, looking glamorous as always.
Half of this was true, at any rate. Philippa’s feeling, although uncanny, was more or less accurate. Following her long haul flight from halfway around the globe, Mrs. Gaunt had, indeed, at just that moment arrived in New York’s Central Park. But Philippa could hardly have guessed that her mother was looking a lot less glamorous than she had ever looked in her entire life. Indeed, Philippa would never have recognized her. Not in a million years.
Mrs. Gaunt made an ungainly landing, typical of the albatross, which is a bird suited to flight, not dry land. But, in spite of her undignified arrival back in New York, Mrs. Gaunt had navigated well to just south of Transverse Road, and she was almost exactly parallel to the spot where 77th Street joins Fifth Avenue, which marks the eastern border of Central Park.
Albatrosses are a rare sight in New York. And a couple of ornithological-minded people pointed out the “gooney bird” to their uncaring children. Not that Mrs. Gaunt paid them much heed; as soon as she was recovered from her landing, she lifted her spirit out of the albatross, returning the body of the bird to its own control, and floated straight home. Along the street she knew so well. Crossing Madison Avenue. Past the famous Carlyle Hotel. Of course, if she’d been an Ifrit, she might have stolen a suitable mundane body somewhere along the way. But the Marid is a tribe of djinn that has always obeyed the Baghdad Rules on human body snatching. As a result it was pure spirit that came through the big black door of number 7 East 77th Street.
Much of what had happened in New York during her time in Iravotum had been made clear to her by Faustina Sachertorte. As a result she already knew the disastrous effect her Methusaleh binding had had upon her husband, how he was being nursed by Marion Morrison, and how her children were in Italy or, quite possibly, China, with Nimrod and Groanin.
She found Mr. Gaunt looking older than she remembered, of course, but not nearly as old and decrepit as the children had found him upon their own return from India. Apart from some gray hairs and liver spots on his hands, she guessed it would not be long before he was entirely back to normal.
A great deal more of what had already happened became apparent when she slipped into her husband’s sleeping body and, without waking him — for she had no wish to damage his recovery by revealing that much of the wife he had loved was gone forever — searched his short-term memory to fill in some of the blanks of what she knew.
She was delighted to discover that her son’s body was at home awaiting the return of his spirit, but she was horrified to learn the fate that had befallen Mr. Rakshasas. And sleepwalking Mr. Gaunt upstairs and into John’s room, she found the two of them still there, John lying on his bed, and Mr. Rakshasas seated in John’s favorite armchair.
John was warm to the touch and gave the appearance of one who was merely asleep, but it was a different story with Mr. Rakshasas. The old djinn’s skin was cold and rigid like stone, and it was clear to Mrs. Gaunt that something grave had happened to his spirit and that he was most probably dead.
Mrs. Gaunt let out a sigh and sat her husband down, feeling very sad that she would never again see Mr. Rakshasas and knowing how upset John and Philippa would be when they found out. Supposing that they didn’t know about it already. Perhaps they were in some danger themselves. Mrs. Gaunt decided she would try to find her children as soon as she had addressed the problem of what to do about her lack of a mundane body — she hardly fancied becoming a dog or a cat, or any other animal so soon after being an albatross. That experience had left her feeling sick, with a bad taste in her husband’s mouth. It was a strong taste of salt (gooney birds drink salt water) and rotten fish heads discarded from an ocean-going oil tanker — she’d been obliged to eat these and regurgitate them several times, in order to keep hers
elf going on the long flight over the continental United States. Mrs. Gaunt got a glass of water from the faucet in the bedroom and drank it quickly.
“What are you doing out of bed?”
Mrs. Gaunt turned her husband’s head toward the door. It was Marion Morrison, his djinn nurse.
“We haven’t met,” said Mrs. Gaunt, using her own voice and holding out her hand. “I’m Layla Gaunt. I’m just using my husband’s body for a while until I can figure out what to do about my own. Or rather my lack of one. You see, I had a bit of an accident on my way back from Iraq. My old body has been destroyed. Which is a great shame, as I was rather fond of it.”
“Too bad,” said Marion, shaking Mr. Gaunt by the hand. “Couldn’t you borrow your son’s while he’s not using it?”
“No, I don’t think that would be appropriate,” said Mrs. Gaunt. “A boy should be allowed to keep some secrets from his mother, don’t you think?”
“I guess you’re right.” She nodded at Mr. Rakshasas. “I’d suggest maybe taking the old fellow’s. But it seems to me that he’s dead.”
“That was also my impression,” said Mrs. Gaunt.
“Death can be hard to pin down when it involves a djinn who’s undergoing an out-of-body experience,” said Marion. “But Mr. Rakshasas has been getting colder for days. I’ve had the heating turned up all the way to no effect. I think rigor has set in. He’s as stiff as a board, which ain’t normal.”