Far above him, Lakshmi’s face darkened. “Let us hope you are wrong.”
“I’ll try to keep a freedom spell ready.” Matt looked away from the brewing anger in her face, and saw far below him a long curve of dots facing a sort of M-shape of other dots. “Princess! Can we go down for a closer look?”
Lakshmi lowered her gaze. “I can see quite well from here. It is the Caliph’s picket line retreating from a vanguard of the horde.”
“The Muslim army’s retreating? I thought that with Tafas’ army to back them up, they might actually be able to drive the barbarians back.”
“I had hoped as much myself.” Lakshmi studied the battle.
“Could this be some mere stratagem?”
“Of course!” Matt clapped with delight. “Arjasp’s generals expect to be able to start winning again, now that Alisande and her army are retreating. The Caliph doesn’t want to disappoint them.”
Lakshmi frowned. “You mean that he bade his men retreat to raise false hopes in the barbarians?”
“Exactly! Let them think they’re winning, then hit them with the reserves from both flanks.” Uneasily, Matt remembered that Genghis Khan had pioneered the tactic—but Genghis wasn’t here, maybe never would be born in this universe. “Even so, it makes you want to go down there and help out.”
“No!” Lakshmi thundered. “We go to Baghdad and must not be baited into delay! After all, if we can free Marudin from barbarian bondage, we will weaken Arjasp and strengthen the Caliph in a single stroke!”
From the air Baghdad was a veritable anthill, with double lines of dots streaming through all its gates—merchants, other travelers, and farmers trooping in to sell produce and filing back out with empty carts and full pockets.
“Shouldn’t be any trouble getting in,” Matt said. “All we have to do is join one of those lines and walk past the guards.”
“Easy enough for you,” Lakshmi said, frowning, “for you are dressed in traveling clothes—but mine are far too fine for the road.”
“All you need is a veil.” Matt pointed downward. “See? All the women are wrapped from head to toe in one big piece of dark fabric, with only the eyes showing.”
Lakshmi looked down, frowning. “It is so. And in the bazaar … let me see … We shall land.”
Matt couldn’t help a shout of alarm as his body shot downward and his stomach tried to stay up. Balkis woke up, sensed the motion, and dug in her claws with a yowl. “Ease off!” Matt shouted, to both djinna and cat. “We don’t need to get down there that fast!”
The acceleration did ease off. Lakshmi snapped, “Your pardon. I am impatient.”
“We’re going to have to walk the last quarter mile anyway,” Matt protested.
They landed in a grove. Lakshmi set Matt down and started shrinking. In minutes she was human-sized again. “Give me a coin!” she demanded.
Matt handed her a piece of silver. “Not a bad rate, considering that air fare is going up.”
Lakshmi took the coin and made several passes over it with her other hand, fingers writhing in symbolic gestures as she chanted, frowning down at it with great concentration. Matt started to ask what she was doing, then caught himself—if she needed concentration for this spell, the last thing he should do was interrupt.
The coin winked in her palm, reflecting sunlight—then was gone. A second later a length of dark fabric fell out of thin air across Lakshmi’s hand. A small flask followed it, then a swathe of brown fabric, a smaller square of white cloth, and, finally, a sort of rope headband.
Matt stared, then gave himself a shake. “Y’know, if that catches on, it’s going to revolutionize shopping!”
“It is even as you say,” Lakshmi confirmed. “These garments have disappeared from a booth in the bazaar, and your coin has appeared in their place.” She inspected her purchases, then added, “The merchant had far the best of the bargain.”
“I’m not arguing.” Matt held up the brown garment and found a lighter ivory-colored tunic of cotton within it. He started dressing. “What’s in the bottle?”
“Walnut juice,” Lakshmi said, “to stain your face and hands.”
Matt sighed and remembered his days in college theatricals.
Fifteen minutes later a man in Arab dress stepped onto the roadway between another traveler and a farm-cart. A woman stepped out beside him, decently veiled, presumably his wife. Long-lashed eyes looked out from the veil, taking in her surroundings in quick glances. Lakshmi muttered through the cloth, “I marvel that your mortal women allow this!”
“Not my women,” Matt protested. “We Europeans like to see each other’s faces—but I don’t think the women here have much choice about it. After all, they don’t have your magic spells, and it’s a violent world.”
The eyes above the veil narrowed. “Perhaps I should do something about that.”
“Perhaps you should,” Matt agreed, “after we get your children and your husband back. For now, let’s just get inside that city and see if we can find any trace of them.”
The guards were collecting an entry fee at the gate. Fortunately, Matt had made a little money in India, so they didn’t have Alisande’s likeness to upset them. They strolled on through, and Matt promptly forgot about his mission, looking about him, enthralled by the graceful minarets, the ivory palace in the distance, and the squalor by the roadside. “Baghdad! The city of the Arabian Nights! Haroun-al-Raschid, Omar Khayyam, Haji the poet!”
“It is a place of stenches and sin.” Lakshmi wrinkled her nose. “I shall never cease to be amazed that your kind choose to coop themselves up in places such as this when they could have the freedom of open skies and the cleanliness of the desert.”
“It has something to do with making a living,” Matt said, “and with having something to do in your free time.”
Lakshmi looked about her, fairly radiating nervousness. “How shall we begin to discover Marudin’s whereabouts?”
“Well, there’s a good place.” Matt stopped and nodded toward an alley they were passing. At its far end was a little courtyard with women gathered about the low wall of a well, chatting and laughing. “Mingle with those women, get into the conversation, and try and tum it toward things magical, especially ones that come out of lamps and bottles.”
“I?” Lakshmi turned to glare at him. “Why not yourself?”
“Not a member of the club,” Matt explained. “Wrong gender. Sure, I could go in there, but I’d be even more of an outsider than you, and the women would clam up in a second. Besides, in this part of the world, women don’t talk to strange men.”
“A good rule anywhere, I should think.” Lakshmi’s tone was tart, and her glance directed the comment unquestionably toward Matt himself.
Matt smiled and took it philosophically—after all, by the standards of this world, he was indeed strange. Maybe his own universe’s, too.
Lakshmi gave a sound of disgust, then held out her hand. “Another coin!”
Matt handed it over without asking, reminding himself that the trip was still amazingly cheap.
Lakshmi stared at the coin, muttering and gesturing over it. It flashed and disappeared; an instant later she held a water jug. “I shall learn what I can.” She turned away toward the well.
Matt watched her go, admiring the sway of her walk that no veil could hide, and envying the ease with which she could use magic for casual ends. If he tried that, magical alarms would clamor all over the city wherever there was a sorcerer or a priest of Ahriman. Lakshmi, though, was a magical creature, and spells were as natural to her as walking was to him. The sorcerers might note the presence of one of the djinn, but no more. In fact, they would probably assume it was one of their own.
Matt turned back to the stalls and rugs of the peddlers that lined the street, reminding him of New York even though none of them featured young men making three cards dance like the thimbles in a shell game. He fingered fabrics, hefted rugs, and squeezed fruit, not replying to the vendors’ hard-s
ell spiels but getting a feel for the local dialect. He found the booth from which Lakshmi had conjured her veil—he could tell by the silver coin lying between two other lengths of fabric—and bought one of them just to call the merchant’s attention to the transformation. At first the merchant scowled at discovering one of his wares missing, then positively beamed when he saw the price it had fetched.
The veil slung over his shoulder like a serape, Matt strolled along the line of booths, enjoying a brief moment of relaxation. The shopkeepers might be enmeshed in the toils of commerce, but he felt a holiday air about the bazaar, as though he were a tourist on vacation. He glanced over at a display of carvings—and felt a jolt that froze his head in place.
CHAPTER 20
Matt found himself staring at a slender stick of ebony about fifteen inches long inlaid with gilded astrological symbols. The gold was chipped here and there, the wood looked dusty and brittle, but the stick itself fairly screamed at him to pay attention.
“Ah, I see the sir is interested in this ancient artifact.” The merchant lifted the stick and held it out on his palms. “Rare it is, a relic found in the ruins of Ninevah. So excellent a ware should be worth its weight in gold—but I shall sell it to the sir for a mere ounce of silver.”
With a thump, Balkis landed on the ledge, purring and staring in fascination at the stick.
“Wondered where you’d gotten to,” Matt muttered. “So it called to you, too, huh?”
“Begone, foolish feline!” The merchant waved a hand at the little white cat. “Be off with you to find a fish head!”
Balkis, ordinarily the most circumspect of cats, laid her ears back and hissed. The merchant’s face darkened, and the waving hand balled into a fist.
“Oh, she’s not all that much trouble.” Matt picked up the little cat, who stayed frozen in her crouch, and set her on his shoulder. “Easy enough to get her out of the way. An ounce of silver, you say? It doesn’t look all that fine to me. How about half an ounce?”
Claws dug into his shoulder. Matt winced and tried to ignore them. Didn’t the silly kitten understand that if he didn’t haggle, he’d look suspicious?
Yes. Of course she understood that. But something about this trinket made her abandon her usual caution.
The shopkeeper’s eyes lit with greed, but he said, “Only half? Sir, that could not be a fraction of its worth! Only think, the Emperor of Assyria might once have held this very scepter! Nine-tenths of an ounce, perhaps.”
Matt upped his offer to six-tenths. The vendor launched into loud lamentation of how such a price would impoverish him, taking bread from the mouths of his children and leaving his wife only her single threadbare veil for the marketing. Matt listened with interest—after all, his area of study was comparative literature, and the man’s fiction techniques fascinated him. Finally, though, he saw Lakshmi returning from the well, so he boosted his offer to three-quarters of an ounce.
The merchant pounced on it and shoved the stick into Matt’s hand before he could change his mind.
Matt froze, eyes widening as he felt the power of the ebony stick tingling through his hand and up his arm. The merchant studied his face, beginning to think that perhaps he had settled for too little, so Matt fumbled another Indian coin out of his purse and pressed it into the man’s hand. “Here you go. Keep the change.” He suspected there wouldn’t be any, but didn’t want to have to wait around to discuss the issue. He hurried back to Lakshmi with the stick in his hand.
“What is that?” she asked.
“An excuse to loiter without seeming suspicious,” Matt told her. “Learn anything?”
“Well, the women have at least paid close attention to their conquerors,” Lakshmi told him, “and to the sorcerers and priests of Ahriman most of all, since they seem to be able to hold the soldiers in check if they wish.”
“All Mongol tribesmen?” Matt asked.
“Nay. From what the women say, they seem to be a hodgepodge of tribal magicians of every nation between Persia and China. There are even some taller men who wear clothes like those carved on the walls of the ruins of the ancient cities in Persia, but who speak a language like the merchants who come from India.”
“Antique Persians?” Matt felt excitement kindle. “They would be Aryans from the hills, still speaking the ancient Aveston language! If what I’ve heard about Arjasp is true, he was one of them!”
“Interesting.” Lakshmi’s tone held a promise of slow death. “There was even an Arab among these field sorcerers—an old man with a huge ring.”
“A ring?” Matt pounced on it. “Who lives in it?”
“My thought exactly,” Lakshmi said, “and I asked for all they knew about the man, but there was not much—only that he stays inside the city, leaving the other sorcerers to go out with the army.”
“Sounds like the local high priest,” Matt said. “Where’s he live?”
“He dwells in the mosque, which the invaders have defiled and turned to their own purposes. It is in my mind that we confront the man and learn what he knows.”
“Yes, that could be very profitable,” Matt agreed. “Unfortunately, it could also be very dangerous.”
“Are you afraid?” Lakshmi demanded.
“Frankly, yes,” Matt said, “but that’s not going to stop me. In fact, I’d say there’s no time like the present. Which way to the mosque?”
Lakshmi caught his sleeve in alarm. “Now? In the middle of the day?”
“When better?” Matt countered. “By their religion, midday should be the time when Ahura Mazda is strongest, since the sun is pouring down light.”
“And Ahriman should be at his weakest.” Lakshmi frowned beneath her veil, nodding. “Then, too, most of the army are miles from the city, marching to strike again at Damascus.”
“Which means the guard on this old Arab will be weaker now than when the city is crammed with soldiers.” Matt nodded. “Feel like a little sightseeing, Princess? I should think the central mosque would be a wonder to behold.”
“Let us see it,” Lakshmi agreed. She set down her water jug and walked off toward the minaret. Matt hurried to follow.
The mosque really was a wonder, faced with alabaster, its arches graceful, the geometric patterns of its tiles breathtaking in their beauty, the guards muscular, scowling, and stationed every thirty feet. Matt made loud noises like a hick from the sticks, totally overawed.
“The wonders of the East are breathtaking for a Frank, are they not?” Lakshmi’s tone was condescending.
“Sure are,” Matt said, “and the more I ooh and ahh, the less of a threat they’ll think I am. Sound impressed, Princess.”
Lakshmi stared at him in surprise, then turned back to stare at the mosque. “How tall it is! How pale its stones! Why, never could there have been such a wonder back home in Besuki!”
The nearest guard heard her and struggled to hide a complacent smile. He seemed to relax just the slightest bit.
They walked on around the mosque, exclaiming with wonder and delight, lulling the sentries’ suspicions past amusement and into boredom. Suddenly, though, Lakshmi froze, eyes wide in surprise, then shadowed by fear.
Instantly, Matt lowered his tone. “What is it? What’s happened?”
“He knows I am here,” Lakshmi answered, her own voice hushed and strained. “He knows what I am—and he has set his ring to enslave me! I can feel its power, pulling at me, burdening me, seeking to compel me to obey!”
Matt thought quickly, then said, “Well, you don’t want to keep him waiting, do you?”
Lakshmi whirled, staring at him, appalled. “Do you wish to see me enslaved? More, do you wish to have to do battle with me when that old impostor has me in thrall?”
“Not at all,” Matt said. “After all, I only told you to answer his summons—I didn’t say what you should do once you get there.”
“And will you shield me from the power of his ring?” Lakshmi challenged, but the mere mention of the talisman was enough to g
ive her eyes a faraway look.
“Of course,” Matt said, “if I need to. But instead of the ring capturing you, why don’t you go capture the ring?”
The faraway gaze turned thoughtful.
“Go get it,” Matt urged, “and don’t let anything stand in your way. If anybody tries to come between you and the ring, eliminate them!”
In a trance, Lakshmi turned and glided toward the entrance to the desecrated mosque.
Balkis gave a meow of protest.
“Don’t worry, she’ll be okay—if we do our jobs right.” Matt pried the cat off his shoulder and set her down behind a stone curb in the foundation, then laid the wand beside her. “If this works like other magic wands I’ve seen, it will use any spell you give it—but it’ll concentrate the effects into a small area, not much larger than two or three people. When I say ‘concentrate,’ I mean it’ll make it stronger, too—much stronger—and I suspect this little wand will add a kick of its own. Keep an eye on us and help if we need it.” He laid the veil beside the wand and added, as an afterthought, “You might need this, too. Call it a disguise.”
Balkis gave a plaintive mew.
“Hey, you wanted the wand, didn’t you?” Matt stood up. “Don’t take any chances. Wait until you have a clear shot, snap your spell out, and run! Got that?”
Balkis gave a confirming trill, but she looked doubtful.
“Hopefully you won’t have to,” Matt said, “but if it frightens you, just find a nice safe place and stay hidden.”
“And what shall I do if you do not come back?” Balkis demanded.
It gave Matt a start—she’d been speaking cat so long, he’d forgotten she was bilingual. “Same as you’ve been doing—make friends with the local spirits and keep going. I’m pretty sure we’ll be back, though.” He turned and hurried to catch up with Lakshmi.
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