by J. R. Rain
“You are to act naturally,” I commanded Morabec. “You are to act as if you really did capture us.”
He nodded. “As you wish.”
“Now, lead us as you would normally to your master, and do not give him any indication that things are not as they seem.”
He nodded again. “As you wish. And you’re sinking.”
So I was. The stone floor provided some support for my heavier mass, but not enough. It appeared that only true bedrock could support our bodies fully. Jewel and I adjusted our density levels to comfortably stand on the stone floor. Once done, the ifrit led us down the hall and to the guards.
“I have two prisoners for Lord Zeyn,” Morabec announced. I saw no indication of the ifrit doing anything other than his duty, but then again, I was wholly out of my element here. What did I know of magic and the ways of djinns? Not much, although certainly more than the average man, as I presently owned two. For all I knew, a silent message had been successfully passed from him to the guards. If so, I would surely find out soon enough.
But one of the guards simply nodded and stepped aside. The heavy door swung silently open on its own volition. More magic, surely. What chance did we have? Non-magical beings in a land of magic, about to face perhaps the most magical being of them all?
I didn’t know, but I wasn’t going down without a fight.
Famous last words, I thought.
Morabec entered first, leading me by the non-magical rope Jewel had fastened. I, of course, discreetly held the real magical lariat behind him. Whether the lariat did any good would be revealed soon enough, too. Jewel followed behind, gently holding on to the hem of my shirt. Even that slight touch was heavenly.
I am no better than a young boy with a silly crush.
We entered a grand throne room as befitted the wealthiest of kings. Apparently Zeyn was not only a great magician but a ruler, as well. Perhaps, then, this was nothing more than a heavily fortified palace. Indeed, ifrit guards lined the walls, all watching us, all heavily armed. We traversed the long room, crossing over a thick and ornate carpet.
We approached a raised platform and a beautiful throne. The thing sitting on the throne, however, was anything but beautiful. The powerful ifrit, Zeyn I assumed, was a monster of a man, spilling out of the great chair that would have sat two comfortably. A massive crystal chandelier lit the entire room in a reddish glow. Flying above us were small creatures with long, scaly necks and tales. Small dragons, perhaps. These creatures were largely ignored by everyone in the room. I noticed the creatures were coming into and out of the room through a window high above.
Zeyn was watching us closely. He was also sweating profusely. His red-eyed gaze settled on Jewel and he licked his thick lips. She stepped closer to me.
Zeyn turned his gaze onto me and for the first time in a long time I felt real fear. The man—or djinn—was a monster.
“You are afraid of me,” said Zeyn, licking his lips again. “I can sense fear.”
I sensed he fed on fear. I sensed that fear, perhaps, served him quite well. Fear gave him added strength, fear enhanced his magical gifts. How I knew this, I didn’t know, but I always trusted such feelings. Trusting these feelings have served me well.
I took in a lot of air and fought through my fear. I was King Aladdin, after all. I had ruled a mighty kingdom, and had done so quite well. I feared no man, or ifrit.
Zeyn cocked his head slightly. “The fear is gone. Just like that. Curious, curious.” He looked at Jewel. “You have no fear, either. Just loathing for me. You would do well to fear me, my dear, because I am going to be your worst nightmare.”
“You are a pig.”
One corner of his wide mouth lifted and I assumed this was a grin. A half-hearted attempt if I had ever seen one. Zeyn turned his attention back to me. “It is a pleasure to finally meet you, King Aladdin. It’s a shame it had to be under such regretful conditions.” He motioned toward the rope that allegedly bound me magically.
Next to me, Jewel gasped. “King Aladdin? What is he talking about, Niddala?”
Now the great magician threw back his mighty head and roared with laughter. Startled, the little dragons perched atop the chandelier took flight. They headed for the dark window above.
“Niddala, is it? How simple, yet clever.” He looked at Jewel, who still stood behind me. “Ah, my dear, did you not know that you’ve been in the presence of the great King Aladdin, protector of the innocent and defenseless, a once mighty ruler who gave up his throne because fortune did not smile down upon him?”
Jewel stepped back and took in a lot of air. I felt her eyes on me. But I did not take my own off the creature in front of me. If anything, I had learned to keep my eyes on my enemies. Never off. Perhaps at another time and place I would have been amused by her shock, but now was not the time.
Zeyn continued, “But your loss is my gain, my lord. Your absence has left a void in the kingdom, and as such there are many who desire to rule your rich lands. Your puppet king substitute, what’s his name, Huran, has little power to suppress them. You can count me as one of those.”
With Jewel’s eyes still on me, I spoke to the disgusting being in front of me. “What does an ifrit want with the lands of man?”
He grinned at me, and this time both corners of his mouth lifted so high that his ears wiggled. He then looked at Jewel and his grin turned into pure, unabashed lust. He licked his lips again. “The answer, my lord, is obvious, isn’t it?”
“To appease your lust?”
“Men have fought for far less, as you well know.”
Jewel found her voice. “You are not a man. You are something filthy and wretched.”
“Something filthy and wretched that you will come to know quite well, my dear. How your husband gave you up, I do not know. Perhaps he was tired of your mouth.”
He snapped his fat fingers and an ifrit appeared before us, materializing instantly. Zeyn was about to say something when Jewel spoke again, in shocked surprise.
“You!” she hissed.
The thin man, with hands folded before him and wearing a long colorful robe, smiled and bowed. “We meet again, Emira Jewel.”
“Who is he?” I asked, stunned that she would know anyone in this kingdom.
“It is because of him that I found you,” said Jewel.
“I do not understand,” I said.
“I was searching for help, asking around for someone who could be trusted, and this man appears as if from nowhere and gives me your name and how to find you.” She turned back to the ifrit who was smiling pleasantly at us. “But why?”
“I will answer that, my soon to be play thing,” said Zeyn. “He did so on my command. You see, I needed to lure your king into my realm, as I have big plans for him. One way to do that was capture his djinn and let fate do the rest. And fate is such a good friend of mine these days.”
“Why not just kidnap me?” I said. “Obviously you knew who I was and where to find me.”
“Indeed, for you have the djinn’s lamp, and the djinn is deeply connected to it. With just a little prodding and perhaps a lot of torture, the djinn gave up his secrets and led us to you. Unfortunately, my strength is not nearly as powerful in your world as it is in mine, and so I could not overpower you.”
“You are working with my ex-husband,” said Jewel.
“He thinks he is working with me,” said Zeyn. “He is proving very valuable and nearly as wicked as I am.”
“Then why did he send his men to stop us?” she demanded.
“Ah, because your simple ex-husband is not privy to all of my plans, Emira Jewel. He thought you posed an actual threat, which couldn’t have been further from the truth. But I trusted our wily king here to get you here safely, and he did just that.”
“So what now?” I asked. So far, the ifrit Morabec gave no indication that we had turned the tables on him. Perhaps the lasso did work on djinns after all.
“Now the real fun begins,” said Zeyn.
&nbs
p; And as he motioned for his guards, I sprang forward, removing the dagger hidden inside my belt. Still holding the rope, I grabbed Morabec around the neck and held him fast.
“Go, Jewel. Now!” I pointed to the dark window high above. “There, up there!” She needed little prodding. Within moments she had removed the magic carpet.
“What is this?” bellowed Zeyn, rising to his trunk-like legs.
“This,” I said, “is when the fun begins.”
Chapter Twelve
I stood there holding my knife to Morabec’s throat, though that was mostly for show; it was the lariat loop that really pacified him. We watched as Jewel spread out the magic carpet, sat on it, and took off.
“Catch her!” Prince Zeyn shouted.
Guards converged on her, but Jewel, already airborne, sailed up out of their reach, barely eluding them. Barely was truly the word, because her skirt was flying up about her waist as the air caught it, exposing her lifted knees and thighs. Her shirt had somehow fallen open again, too, providing flashes of her breasts. That was when I realized that none of that exposure was accidental. She wanted all eyes to be locked on her instead of on me. She was giving me my best chance to solidify and escape.
The guards virtually froze in place, staring up at the parts of her that showed beyond the edges of the carpet. Even Zeyn was silent a moment, taking in that glorious scene. Jewel’s thighs flexed as her feet braced against the carpet, and her breasts shook with every dip and swoop as she spiraled ever higher. Her hair was loose and whipping about her head like a living thing. She certainly knew how to hold male attention.
Meanwhile I worked the loop off Morabec, one-handed. It was complicated, because we had concealed it under his clothing.
Zeyn finally shook off his stasis. “Shoot her down, idiots!” he bawled.
Several archers lifted their bows, nocked arrows, and reluctantly aimed. It was evident they did not want to kill such a gorgeous creature.
“She won’t be any good to you as a hostage or sex slave if you kill her!” I cried.
“That’s right,” Zeyn said. “Put the trackers on her while we fetch carpets.”
Trackers? What were they?
Meanwhile Jewel passed the chandelier, reached the ceiling and flew toward the high window the little dragons used. They oriented on her, but she waved a knife and that seemed to cow them.
Then a picture formed in the center of the chamber, below Jewel. It showed her on the carpet, her evocative parts flashing, but not as seen from below. It was as if the beholder was right up there beside her.
The dragons! This was what they were seeing. Somehow they could broadcast it as a three dimensional picture the rest of us could see. They were the trackers, the spy eyes. Many eyes, gazing from all around, so that every detail could be covered. One was evidently flying in front of her, looking back, seeing right up between her lifted legs.
I couldn’t blame the others for being mesmerized. At any other time I would have been too. But my life was at stake, so I allowed myself only the briefest glimpses as I continued to work on the lariat.
Jewel shot through the window and out of the castle. She could no longer be seen directly, but the spy picture continued as the dragons outside focused. We saw her emerge from the dome and make a broad circle around the fortress, still climbing. The dragons were following closely, but not attacking. This was their true purpose: to spy anything Zeyn needed to know about, whether it be an enemy formation or a lady washing in her boudoir. It was surely a significant asset in any undertaking.
Now that the direct view of the luscious creature was no longer available, men began to recover some individual purpose. Several were wrestling a large carpet out of a storage closet. That would be the pursuit craft, surely much faster than our little carpet. I had to stop that.
I wrenched the rope the rest of the way off Morabec. I leaped toward Zeyn. That was likely the last thing he thought I would do, instead of trying to flee. As his mouth opened to give an order, I used both hands to put the loop over his head and draw it snug about his shoulders. “Shut your mouth!” I whispered.
Captured and obedient, he shut it.
Now I had him. What was I to do with him? I cudgeled my lagging brain, but it seemed not to have completely caught up with events. I had no better plan than to stall, to give Jewel freedom and time to accomplish her purpose.
The men laid out the large carpet, and three got on it. They paused, awaiting further orders.
“Tell them to hold off,” I murmured in Zeyn’s ear. “To wait to see what the wench does.”
“Follow her, but don’t arrest her,” Zeyn said. “Wait and see what she’s up to.”
The men nodded. The carpet rose smoothly, flying up toward the window. Had I succeeded in giving Jewel enough time to reach the turret and fetch the ifrit?
“Now make it seem that you are interviewing me,” I said. “Allow no interruption while we talk.”
“Leave us while I question this cur,” Zeyn snapped.
The guards obeyed. Soon we were alone in the chamber.
Now what? “Why do you want to conquer the mortal realm?” I asked Zeyn. I just wanted to get him talking to see what I could learn, while Jewel got Lamprey and made her escape.
“Because it’s there, idiot,” he snapped. “Why should I settle for local power, when I can have more?”
This was not quite as submissive as I had hoped. “And you went to all that trouble to capture the Ifrit of the Lamp, just to get at me? Isn’t that like using a catapult to blast a gnat?”
“Ask not about what concerns you not, lest you learn what pleases you not.”
That was surely good advice, but there was something about his attitude that annoyed me. So I persisted. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“That would take years to clarify, you ignorant has-been. What do you want first?”
For some reason I remained dissatisfied. Either the lariat was not working on him, and he was stringing me along, or he was telling the truth. I considered the first prospect. Why would he pretend to be subject to my will, instead of simply summoning his men and making me truly prisoner on the spot?
Maybe because he was stalling for time, just as I was. But why? What possible advantage could he gain by faking captivity, whether for a minute or a year? When he already had me where he wanted me? What else could he want?
Jewel. She had shown herself to be a lovely and feisty woman, the kind any prince would love to capture and subdue. To bind and rape repeatedly while she screamed, until at last she lost her will to fight and accepted him. At which point he might throw her away, because it was her fighting spirit he desired as much as her body. But if he tried too soon, she might throw herself off the carpet and plunge to her death, rather than submit. He needed to give her time to get to a safe place. A place where he could fetch her without risking her death.
If on the other hand the lariat was working, he might be trying to fend me off with complexities, until his men caught on and rescued him. I needed to get at the relevant truth before that happened. So maybe it did not make much difference whether the lariat was working or he was faking it; he would give me similar answers.
“Jewel,” I said. “The woman. What does she need to know, that she doesn’t?”
Zeyn eyed me with what might just possibly be a faint smattering of dawning respect. “She’s flying into a trap.”
I didn’t like this at all. “What trap?” I could see in the animated picture, that was still running, that Jewel had not yet entered the tower. She was trying to pry a bar off the small window so she could squeeze in.
“She’s going for Ifrit Iften, right? In the topmost turret? Morabec may have omitted a detail about that.”
“What is it?”
“Iften is there; Morabec was unable to lie to you. But neither did he have to tell you the whole truth, unless you asked for it. Iften is guarded by the Queen.”
He was delivering it in bits and pieces. I had to k
eep zeroing in on the essence. “Your wife?”
Zeyn laughed thunderously. “Some wife! No, she’s Queen of the Hive. Quite fetching when she chooses to be; she has surely been giving Iften the romancing of his life. But she is not human. She merely assumes that form when it is convenient for her. When she gets serious, she reverts to her real form, complete with what you might think of as a stinger.”
I quailed inside. I had heard of this type of giant insect. “What has this to do with Jewel?”
“Well, the Queen can fornicate with a male only so long before she has to plant her eggs. For that she needs another female, species largely irrelevant. You have seen fit to deliver such a female to her.”
“Jewel!” I said in anguish.
“The same. I would really have liked to have taken her for myself, but this is better. Or worse, from your perspective. Our local women all know about the Queen, and will kill themselves rather than get near her. That’s another reason we keep her isolated, though if she managed to break out of the tower cell she would readily fly away and leave us alone. She doesn’t really like being captive, oddly.”
“What’s going to happen to Jewel?” Aladdin asked grimly.
“I thought you’d never ask! She will squeeze through the bars of the window and come to Iften. Whereupon the sultry woman with him will take hold of her, transform to her natural state, and apply her stinger in the ravishment of all time, depositing scores of fertile eggs. Jewel will swell up like a melon, and in due course will birth all those insects, if you could call it birthing.”
He was enjoying this entirely too much. “Why not call it that?”
“Because there may not be enough left of her to expel them through that channel, after they have gorged on her flesh from the inside. I understand it’s as disgusting, not to mention painful, a process as a briefly-living person can suffer. Fortunately she will not annoy us with her screams; they eat out the tongue and voice box first, as delicacies.”