Adijan and Her Genie

by L-J Baker

  Zobeide smiled. “Perfect. You are Adijan the trusted, and somewhat creative, messenger from the enchanter Harun of Qahtan. You have come with greetings and special business to transact with Baktar il-Hassan Deryabar, the exalted apprentice of the Master Enchanter, the peerless Ardashir. Give the guard the cloth as your credentials. Explain that Baktar will summon you when he sees the cloth. Then wait until they escort you to Baktar’s presence.”

  “You’re sure I won’t end up being taken to that scab Ardashir?”

  “Ardashir will not trouble himself with such trifles.” Zobeide cast a long look across the valley before nodding at Adijan. “May the Eye look benevolently on this last stage of our journey together.”

  “Eye willing.”

  Zobeide vanished. Adijan lifted a hand to her pendant, as if she expected it to weigh heavier for Zobeide’s presence. It wouldn’t be there for much longer: the All-Seeing Eye willing.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Adijan bowed politely to the gate guard.

  “May the All-Seeing Eye look favorably on you this day,” Adijan said.

  “Blessings.” He looked her up and down. “What do you want?”

  “You see before you, sir, the special messenger of the Enchanter Harun of Qahtan. I have traveled many days over land and sea at the bidding of my master to gain the presence of Baktar il-Hassan Deryabar, whose reputation is so great it has spread as far as my home city.”

  “I see. And how do I know you are this enchanter’s apprentice?”

  “You serve your master well with your caution, for my passage has left me looking like a beggar from the streets.”

  Adijan presented the cloth, which she’d taken the precaution of knotting. That way it looked more mysterious and the casual eye wouldn’t discern that the drawing had been made with a lump of soil rather than fine painting ink or enchanted dye.

  “This contains a magical message the great Baktar Deryabar can read,” she said. “Perhaps I should wait in the shade of that lemon tree while this is delivered?”

  The guard looked uncertainly behind him to the tree. “You’d better come in, sir.”

  Adijan settled on lush, springy grass in the shade of the lemon tree. Large yellow fruit hung in an abundance that spoke greatly for the care of the gardeners. One ripe lemon lay on the grass. Adijan plucked it up and sniffed. What a shame lemons didn’t taste nearly as good as they looked and smelled. Whenever she could afford them, Shalimar bought several to decorate their room. She said they were like having little lumps of sunshine indoors.

  She let the lemon drop into her lap. What was Shali doing right now? Was she, as Hadim claimed, fussing over fabrics for her wedding dress? That didn’t seem likely, given what Mrs. il-Padur had said of Shali’s mood and the stupefied state her brother kept her in.

  She fiddled with the lemon and watched the guards wander back and forth. Then she wriggled around to look down the long pathway to the house. The vast collection of archways, windows, balconies, columns, graceful stairs, towers, and minarets sprawled across and around extensive gardens and orchards. She could think of no better reassurance for the size of her reward. This was the residence of a phenomenally rich man.

  The guards drifted around the gates and people occasionally climbed a set of stairs or appeared at one of the balconies, but no one came to fetch Adijan. Perhaps Baktar didn’t recognize the symbol. Perhaps he saw a scrap of dirty cloth and threw it aside without examining it. Perhaps Ardashir intercepted it, recognized Zobeide’s hand behind it, and was even now ordering his servants to race out and capture Adijan.

  She rose and frowned between the guards and the house. She set off down the path.

  “Hey!” a guard called. “Wait.”

  “I have been waiting,” she said. “I haven’t crossed half the known world to die of old age on the lawn. I must speak with the enchanter’s apprentice, Baktar Deryabar.”

  “Apprentice? Excuse me, sir, but our master is the enchanter. He –”

  “Baktar? But what about Ardashir?”

  The guard shook his head. “I’ve only ever known one master. As a boy we played at the feet of the great enchanter’s statue. Perhaps that is who you mean. He was my master’s master. But, with all due respect, sir, has your journey taken so long that you didn’t know this?”

  “Um. Yeah.” Adijan chewed her lip. “News travels slowly. But this makes my mission more important, not less so. To consult with the enchanter himself will prove even more valuable to my master. It is most urgent. I’m sure your master would not want to insult my master by keeping me waiting so long.”

  “Oh. Right. Um. If you would like to accompany me, sir. I’m sure – I’ll take you to the master’s secretary.”

  Adijan fell in beside him. How would Zobeide take the news of Ardashir’s death? It allowed Adijan to breathe easier, knowing the spiteful old worm wasn’t lurking behind one of those countless windows.

  From what she understood, this meant Baktar had access to Ardashir’s magical legacy. Surely that meant he had a free hand to break the enchantment enslaving Zobeide. Which, in turn, should mean that Adijan would have gold bulging in her pockets as she scurried down to the docks in time to catch the afternoon tide. The only disappointment of Ardashir’s demise was it robbed Zobeide of the opportunity to make him suffer – a lot.

  The guard stopped near the end of a cavernous hall and saluted smartly to a middle-aged eunuch wearing silk clothes. He held the scrap of cloth in a manicured hand. Adijan offered him a courteously low bow but didn’t kneel to him. She was an enchanter’s special envoy, not an unemployed floor sweeper.

  “You are the person who presented this?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” she said. “Many days have I traveled – over land and dangerous sea – at the bidding of my master. My mission is urgent. My master wishes me to return to Qahtan very soon.”

  “My master is unavailable for an audience this day,” he said. “But I might be able to show him this… intriguing cipher tomorrow.”

  “I’m sure he would not appreciate delay, if he were aware of the nature of my mission.”

  “Which is?”

  “The – the symbol explains it.”

  The secretary frowned down at the cloth. Clearly he couldn’t divine any meaning from it any more than Adijan could.

  “I shall present it to him tomorrow,” he said. “If you let me know where you’re lodging, I can send servants for you as soon as my master has a message for you.”

  “I’m not staying anywhere. I didn’t expect to wait. Look –”

  “I can recommend the Blue Oasis,” he said. “They have excellent bathing facilities. I’ll have a servant show you, since you’re unfamiliar with the city.”

  He clapped his hands.

  “I need to see Baktar today,” Adijan said. “It’s really –”

  “My master is not on the premises. Now, Genem here will escort you. That will ensure you the best service and rates.” He bowed. “May the All-Seeing Eye look benignly on you and your endeavors.”

  Adijan reluctantly bowed. “Eye bless you.”

  Camel crap.

  Adijan’s mood didn’t improve when she saw the large and well-maintained building bearing the proud banner announcing it to be the Blue Oasis Inn. It wasn’t going to be cheap. Still, a few coins either way wasn’t going to make much difference at this point. Zobeide would reimburse her. Time was the commodity in short supply.

  This was the first inn or tavern Adijan had ever visited where she wasn’t required to pay in advance or leave half her worldly goods as security. A middle-aged woman in a spotless long tunic guided Adijan to a spacious and glistening room about ten times larger than the room she’d shared with Shalimar. The bed looked like it could sleep six in comfort. A bowl of fruit sat on the table near two plush divans. Adijan helped herself to a fig. The attendant pointed to the screen across the far corner of the room as where she could relieve herself.

  “Whenever you wish anything
, madam, you have merely to ring the bell.” The attendant indicated a rope hanging near the bed.

  “Great. Thanks.” Adijan took the hint and dug out a couple of coins from her pocket to hand to the woman. “What about some food? And a bath.”

  The attendant bowed and glided out.

  Adijan dropped her dirty blanket and pack on one of the divans. Munching a date, she wandered across the chamber to peer behind the screen at the pot. It was actually a basin mounted in a chair and the seat was polished wood. “The bill is definitely going to Baktar.”

  The door near the windows opened into a small private garden. This place was so luxurious it was scary. But, Adijan decided as she circled the main room again, she could get used to this standard of living. What a shame Shali couldn’t share the night here with her.

  “Zobeide?”

  Zobeide appeared and swiftly looked around. “Where is Baktar?”

  “Out of town, according to his secretary. He’s supposed to be back tomorrow. He’d better be.”

  “I don’t recognize this place.”

  “It’s a room at a fancy inn. You and Baktar are paying for it. I’m going to have a bath and a meal. I assume you won’t join me. Oh, by the way, that scabby turd Ardashir is dead. Baktar is the enchanter. This should make life easier for us, yes?”

  “Ardashir dead?” Zobeide nodded. “With Baktar in control of the legacy, there is nothing to stop my emancipation.”

  Adijan kept to herself her misgivings about time. She had to leave tomorrow whether or not Baktar showed up. As it was, she might be cutting her return too fine. But she wouldn’t think about that tonight. She’d enjoy this luxury and remember it all to delight Shali with one lazy morning when they lingered in bed together.

  She also refrained from voicing her other opinion that, if Baktar had had this marvelous magical legacy for a good ten years or more, why hadn’t he used it to rescue Zobeide long ago? Zobeide could sort that out with him herself.

  Adijan retrieved her purse from her secret shirt pocket and snapped the stitches in the back of her waistband to liberate the three half-obiks she’d hidden there. She weighed them in her palm. Enough to get home. She hadn’t gambled, risked, or drunk these, so now she had the reassurance that, even if Baktar ran off beyond the Devouring Sands, she could get back to Qahtan. There was something to be said for taking the safe route sometimes. And forward planning.

  When the attendant entered, she bowed to Zobeide without showing any surprise at her presence. Adijan trotted behind her to a steamy room. When she was scraped clean and up to her neck in warm water, she decided that if she had to waste an afternoon anywhere, it might as well be here. The attendants provided a robe in place of her soiled clothes, which were spirited away to be laundered.

  She padded back into her room to see a feast set out for her. She dropped onto one of the divans and began eating.

  “This chicken is great.” She bit off a hunk of meat and reached for one of the bowls of vegetables. “Shame you don’t eat.”

  Zobeide ceased her prowling. “I had hoped to be able to by this time. I pray that the All-Seeing Eye guides Baktar back to his residence by tomorrow morning. This delay is most vexatious.”

  Adijan grunted and dug out a spoonful of saffron-scented rice.

  The attendant returned with a tray. “Forgive my tardiness, madam.”

  She set a wine jar on the table and carefully placed four tiny clay pots beside it. Adijan stopped chewing and stared. If the wine were half as good as everything else about this place, it would be the best she’d ever tasted. Rich and full bodied, not thin and raw. Warm and mellow rather than harsh and rough. Oh, Eye…

  “Adijan?”

  “Uh?”

  “Did you hear me?”

  “Um.” Adijan swallowed her half-chewed rice. “No. Sorry.”

  “I said I’m sure some way can be found to facilitate your return.”

  “Uh huh.” Her mouth watered. She could taste the teasing ghost of the wine. Her whole being craved it. Didn’t she deserve a taste? Just to know what really good wine tasted like. Just enough to wet her tongue.

  “Adijan?”

  “What?”

  “What are you –? Oh. I see.” Zobeide plucked the jug from the table and carried it behind the screen to the pot.

  Adijan bit her lip as she heard the splash.

  Zobeide returned with the empty jug and resumed her place on the divan.

  “There was no need to do that,” Adijan said. “I wouldn’t have had any.”

  “And I don’t drink, so there is no reason why I shouldn’t have disposed of it, is there?”

  Adijan stabbed a roasted pepper with her eating knife.

  “There is no shame in admitting weakness,” Zobeide said, “where there would have been in succumbing to it.”

  “What would you know about human weakness?”

  “I was and will be human.”

  “I know that. It was the weakness I find hard to imagine you suffering.”

  Zobeide’s expression softened to an imperfectly suppressed smile.

  Adijan reached for one of the small clay pots. It contained half a dozen wizened mushrooms. They gave off an odor unpleasantly reminiscent of vomit. The pot with the blue glaze lid breathed out a strong, sweet aroma like an over-ripe fruit, yet the contents were actually shredded leaves.

  Zobeide sniffed. “Aksish. As strong a vice, and just as impairing to the mind, as wine. It would entirely defeat the object of your abstinence to substitute hallucinogens and stupefying drugs for drinking.”

  “Drugs? Is that what these are?” Adijan reached for the next pot. “What’s this black stuff?”

  Zobeide peered at the powder. “Mokka. And that is kadin.”

  “It looks like mistweed.”

  “I would hazard the guess the clients of this establishment are not those you would customarily find fogging themselves into an illusory oblivion on that coarse substance in a backstreet wine shop.”

  “This one smells all right. What do I do with it? Chew or smoke?”

  Zobeide plucked the pot from Adijan’s hand. “Neither. They also belong in the waste.”

  “You know, for someone who is supposed to give pleasure, you can be a bit of a misery sometimes. So, rich people get smacked out of their skulls, too.”

  “Money does not confer immunity from vice.”

  “I’d have said that money allowed you to do a lot more of it. And bribe your way out of trouble afterwards.” Adijan chewed a mouthful of spiced vegetables. “You know a hell of a lot about these drugs.”

  “A knowledge of such substances is common to enchanters and their apprentices.”

  Adijan sucked sauce off her fingers. “What sort of stuff do you think that dung-beetle Hadim has been feeding Shali?”

  Zobeide frowned. “There are many substances that produce stupefying effects ranging from slowness of action up to dream-like trances. Can you be more specific in describing the symptoms?”

  With Shalimar’s unnatural passivity during the divorce hearing seared into her memory, Adijan recounted her recollections for Zobeide. “You know, I wonder if it was the same stuff that Hadim’s flunkies slipped to me. When they staged that whore in the bed thing for Shali to see. That would make sense. The same bearded little dung lump who drugged me could supply Hadim with whatever he needs to keep Shali dozy and quiet.”

  “It’s interesting to observe your mental faculties are beginning to work admirably well now. What a shame I did not see fit to attempt to amend your vocabulary.”

  Adijan grinned. “One thing at a time. Now, I was too dozy to really remember much. I couldn’t move very well, or I’d have been off the bed and dragging Shali away from there as fast as we could run. And I must not have been able to speak much. That help?”

  “I suppose it would be safe to assume that your brother-in-law would not expend large sums in the purchase of such substances?”

  “He’d be cheap. He only paid the whore
an obik.”

  Zobeide shuddered and looked away. “Were I forced to make a choice, I’d pick shaz. It is the juice squeezed from the fleshy stems of the musahaqa plant. Normally it’s used to induce drowsiness and give relief from pain. In larger doses, it would produce the lethargy, slowness, and dullness of wit you describe. And is relatively inexpensive in those areas where the plant grows.”

  “Shaz? I’ve never heard of it.” Adijan rinsed her fingers in the water bowl and dried them on her robe. “I don’t suppose there’s any way of getting rid of the effects? You see, I’ve been thinking. On the chance that my other plans fail, I might have to kidnap Shali. It’d be nice if I could un-drug her.”

  “An antidote? Ahrar el jins. That should liberate her from the ill effects of shaz. And, incidentally, several other related noxious, stupefying agents.”

  “Ahrar el jins,” Adijan repeated. “Where could I get some? At the street corner?”

  “A reputable apothecary. Or an enchanter.”

  “I’m betting the apothecary will be a lot cheaper.”

  “The fifty gold wheels with which Baktar and I shall reward you will allow you to purchase sufficient ahrar el jins to bathe in for a year.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Adijan glanced at Zobeide when they rounded the corner that afforded the first view of the gates to the Enchanter’s House. She hoped Zobeide understood she simply couldn’t waste another day.

  Zobeide stopped. “Remember how you flatteringly remarked that I suffered no weaknesses? I can give that the lie by confessing I spent half the night worrying if I should ask you to alter my appearance so I look younger for this meeting with Baktar.”

  “Is he really so superficial?”

  “Of course not. I shouldn’t doubt him. I don’t. The doubts are about myself.”

  The gate guards bowed to Adijan. She and Zobeide were promptly escorted to a cool chamber with a mosaic floor and some nice wall hangings.

  Adijan fingered one of the tapestries. “I could get a few obiks for this. This magic business is definitely lucrative. This house alone puts my dreams of a grand courier and trading empire in the shade.”