Balkis snatched the wand from Matt and leveled it at Gasim. She started to chant in Allustrian.
But Matt didn’t want a charred corpse, he wanted information. “Prison? Don’t make me laugh! Either of us has more than enough magic to break out of any prison you could think up! Don’t we, lass?”
Balkis broke off her chant to stare up at him as though he were mad—but she saw the calculating look in his eye and said, “Aye. Why, we can summon a djinna, and any of the djinn could break from a prison wrought by Ahriman’s magic.”
It was a great thought, and Matt picked up on it instantly. “Yeah! Any of the djinn, even a baby! After all, any prison of Ahriman’s must be just another one of his lies, a mere illusion!”
“It is you who lie, ignorant warlock!” Gasim dropped back out of hysterics into vindictiveness. “Why, even now we hold two djinn children in a prison wrought by Arjasp’s magic!”
“A prison for djinn?” Matt scoffed. “Maybe in a city, maybe in Persia where there are cities thousands of years old—but in Tartary, far out in the midst of the central plains, where their idea of a city is a collection of tents?”
Gasim blanched. “How did you know where the babies are?”
“We didn’t.” Matt grinned. “It was just a guess. But we do know now. How about the two mortal babies with them?”
“What about them?” Gasim frowned.
Matt’s spirits soared—Pay dirt! But he kept his poker face on. “Oh, sure! Sure you’ve got four full-sized babies in there together! And what’s keeping the kids alive? They have a prison spacious enough for a wet nurse, too?”
“Fool!” the sorcerer spat. “Do you think we would risk the death of such valuable hostages?”
Matt almost went limp with relief, but he forced himself to stay upright and sarcastic. “Why not? You’re going to kill them anyway. Their parents will never let Evil conquer the world just to save their babies.”
Doubt flickered in the sorcerer’s eyes, but he said, “If their parents do not go back to their homeland as they promised, we will slay one of the infants. We will not have to slay the boy.”
The thought of his baby daughter dead turned Matt’s stomach so much he almost collapsed then and there—almost. “So you’re keeping them alive by magic.”
“Of course,” Gasim said, his sneer comfortably back in place. “Do you really need to have this explained, foolish one? The prison itself provides for them.” Then Gasim frowned, suddenly realizing they had stayed on the topic for an unusual amount of time. “Why are you so concerned with these babes?”
“It could be simple professional curiosity,” Matt hedged.
“Or it could be because he is the father of two of them,” Balkis snapped, “and the djinna we can summon is the mother of the other two.”
Gasim’s face convulsed with terror, but as quickly turned back into a sneer. “Oh, verily! A princess of the Marid will come at your beck and call!”
“So he knows which djinn babies they are, too,” Matt said softly.
“You are too patient,” Balkis snapped. “Let us find a quicker way to learn all he knows.” She lifted the wand.
Gasim cringed away, but started gesturing and rattling out an Arabic verse.
Matt laid a hand on Balkis’ arm. “No, I think it’ll be more speedy to let him meet the worried mother.”
“Marid princess, attend and hear us,
For we do hold a foe who may be
One who knows of your sweet babies.
But who won’t tell—he doesn’t fear us!”
Gasim broke off his verse as a whirlwind sprang up to tower over him. He cringed, covering his head with his arms. The whirlwind shrank down to the size of a dust-devil, its winds slowing until its dust dropped away, revealing Lakshmi, human-sized, slowing in her final pirouette. The sorcerer cried out in terror, trying to scramble away.
Lakshmi jumped to conclusions and advanced on him, blood in her eye.
“No!” Matt cried. “He can’t tell you much if he’s in pieces!”
“True,” Lakshmi said, “but if he knows aught of my children, be sure he shall speak.” She darted forward, zagging when Gasim zigged, and held him up by the back of his collar. Gasim writhed, his neckline digging into his windpipe, his face turning an interesting shade of mauve.
“All he knows is hearsay,” Matt said quickly. “Right, Balkis? … Balkis?” He looked about, in a sudden panic because the girl had disappeared. Then he thought to look down, and sure enough, there sat a small black-and-white cat with a brown nose and chin. Matt remembered the mud and was sure who she was. “Great! So you’ll have to take it all on my word!”
“I trust you,” Lakshmi said, “now.” She regarded the wriggling sorcerer. “What does he know?”
“Uh, you’ll never hear it if he chokes to death.”
Lakshmi turned to him, frowning. “But he cannot utter spells if his throat is pinched!”
“True, but he can’t breathe, either,” Matt pointed out. “Let him down and ask him, okay? You can always kill him later, if you don’t like his answers.”
“I will like the truth!” Lakshmi dropped the man into a pitiful heap. “Or, more to the point, I will accept the truth whether I like it or not, and let him live!”
Gasim rolled to his knees, groveling. “Spare me, O Fairest of the Fair! I abjure Ahriman and all his lies! From this moment forth I shall speak only truth, and devote myself to Ahura Mazda all my days!”
Rumbling sounded all about them, and the ground trembled. Matt fell, but Lakshmi dropped to her knees, digging her hands down through the grass into the soil, and chanted a verse in Arabic—a long verse, but the longer it went on, the less the ground shook. When the earthquake stopped, the djinna came to her feet again, dusting her hands. “That was partly magic and partly prayer—to Allah, the Source and Creator of all. Your conception of Ahura Mazda is but an imperfect understanding of the One God. Still, through the mirror of your Lord of Light, you do look upon the True God. If you seek safety from Shaitan—no matter that you call him Ahriman—if you seek safety, I say, surrender yourself to Allah, and testify that there is no god but God, and that Mohammed is His prophet!”
“I … I will surrender, as you say,” Gasim gasped, staring
up at her in awe.
Lakshmi’s severity seemed to lessen a bit. “Then you shall be safe from the Prince of Lies and his works. Tell me now, unworthy one, what you know of my children.”
“I … only know what I have heard from the high priest of Ahriman, here in Baghdad, O Marid,” Gasim babbled. “The babes are hidden away together, in a place known only to Arjasp the high priest. That is all my master told me!”
Lakshmi was silent for minutes, and Gasim began to tremble again. At last the djinna reached out and prodded him with a toe, none too gently. “Would we learn more if we gave him a bit of pain?”
“No!” yelped the former sorcerer. “I have foresworn Ahriman and his lying ways!”
“I don’t think he did know anything more,” Matt agreed. “He was too quick to boast. If he’d had anything else to bargain with, he would have used it then.”
Lakshmi glowered down at the miserable ball of a man. He glanced up, saw her expression, gasped, and buried his face again.
“I think I shall let him live,” the djinna said, “but I cannot speak for my husband. Go, man, and go quickly, as far from this place as you can!”
“I—I go, Princess!” Gasim scrambled to his feet and backed away, bowing. “Ever shall I acclaim your mercy! Ever shall I pray that you prosper! Ever shall I—”
“Ever shall you go, and speak of the mercy of Allah wherever you find yourself!” Lakshmi snapped. “Begone!”
Gasim gulped down his last thank-you and fled.
Lakshmi watched him go. “How long do you think his conversion will last?”
“Ordinarily, I would have said until he made it back into the city, and among the barbarians again,” Matt said judiciously, “but co
nsidering the fright you gave him, I have a notion he’ll bypass Baghdad and keep on going until he comes to a mosque that hasn’t been desecrated. I think this is one conversion that will last, Princess.”
“Will he be able to stop wandering?” asked a mewing voice.
Lakshmi looked down. “Are you there, little friend?” She considered. “Perhaps not. I may have cursed him with lifelong fleeing. If so, he may count himself lightly punished.” She looked more closely at the little cat and frowned. “What has happened to your face?”
The cat stared back at her. “I do not know. What has?”
“Just a little accident,” Matt explained to Balkis. “You didn’t get all the mud off. It’s a problem that has a very simple solution, the next time you change back to a human.”
“What solution is that?” Balkis demanded.
“Soap and water.” Matt turned to Lakshmi. “Maybe we should tell your husband about this?”
“Aye, at once!” Lakshmi said. “Then off we shall go, to Kharakhorum. Come!” She caught Matt with her right arm and Balkis with her left as she swelled, growing huge, tucking them both against her bosom and springing into the sky.
“Oh-h-h-h-h … here we go again!” Matt wailed.
Balkis simply curled up in the crook of Lakshmi’s arm and stared down, watching the landscape rush by, fascinated all over again.
Half an hour later the bosom against which Matt was cuddled was significantly harder, and it was Marudin’s bulging arm that held him. Balkis had elected to stay with Lakshmi, and Matt was rather grateful not to have to endure her claws.
“I shall be forever in your debt for discovering the whereabouts of my children, mortal man,” Marudin’s voice rumbled.
“My pleasure,” Matt called back. “Just remember, we haven’t found them yet. We’re only a little closer, that’s all.”
“I shall remember,” Prince Marudin promised.
A huge bellow sounded all about them. Marudin rocked, then spun; the world went whirling past them, and Matt found himself falling, the djinni’s arm gone. He looked up and saw the jagged peaks of the Hindu Kush Mountains, thousands of feet below but racing up at him. He howled for help, but the wind tore his words away as he fell and kept falling.
CHAPTER 23
A huge hand slid into his field of view, horny palm up and wide enough to park a truck. Matt squirmed, trying to writhe away from it, but the huge palm followed him. He smacked into it and saw stars again. He just had time for the crazy thought that he should qualify as an astronomer when his body sent his brain the message that it was one big ache—but his brain forgot that message in panic as huge fingers closed over him and the whole world rang with a very nasty laugh.
His stomach could tell he was going up; then the fingers opened to show him the ugliest face he’d ever seen. Huge eyes bulged beneath a grimy turban with scarcely any forehead separating them. The nose would have looked nice making furrows in a field, and the grinning mouth was mostly notable because of the two huge tusks where lower eyeteeth should have been, tusks that stabbed upward and a jaw that sank downward, opening a maw like the back of a garbage truck, both in size and smell. The hand holding Matt swung him toward that mouth …
“Unhand him!” cried Lakshmi’s voice, and slender fingers slipped between mouth and man to catch Matt as he slid. The djinna’s fist closed about him, swinging him aside, but he could see between her knuckles as she backhanded the ugly djinn with her right. He flipped backward and kept flipping as Lakshmi tucked Matt against her bosom, as usual, and dove earthward with Balkis sinking her claws into Matt and yowling every inch of the way.
Lakshmi swung down for a landing somewhat rougher than customary, telling them, “It is a monster of an afrit, and an unbeliever, one who still worships only himself and has not come to believe in Allah. But he knows not what he has set upon. We shall put him to rights soon enough.” Then she shot back up into the sky.
Watching, Matt saw that Prince Marudin and the afrit had squared off against each other and were trading blows—boulders, fireballs, thunderbolts, all conjured from nowhere. But the afrit was clearly getting the worst of it—each of Marudin’s blows sent him reeling backward in the sky, sometimes flipping toes over turban, whereas Marudin advanced upright and steadily.
Then Lakshmi hit the afrit, and hit him hard.
He was just finishing a flip caused by a giant toadstool. Lakshmi caught him by the heels and began to swing him around. The creature bawled with terror as she swung him faster and faster, a virtual blur, and it must have been his own imagination, Matt thought, but he could have sworn the afrit was beginning to come apart in the middle.
Marudin floated nearby, watching judiciously. Just as it seemed the afrit was about to be subdivided, he pronounced, “Enough.”
Lakshmi let go, and the afrit went flying, to slam spread-eagled against a mountainside. Marudin and Lakshmi were instantly upon him, materializing bronze spikes and hurling them to strike deep into the rock at either side of wrist and ankle, pinning the afrit in place.
Prince Marudin wiped a hand across a bleeding mouth, and the wound healed. “How shall we punish this fool of an unbeliever, my love?”
“For the audacity of attacking two Marids?” Lakshmi answered. “Shred his essence and scatter it to the winds! Let him be a century putting himself back together, if he can.”
“A good thought.” Marudin drifted closer to the rock, hands out to shred.
“Punish me not at all!” the afrit bleated. “I had no choice in what I did! I am set here by a magic greater than my own, to stop all who may seek to pass the Hindu Kush! “
“No, wait.” Lakshmi reached out to stay her husband’s hand. “I have suffered such a fate myself. If ‘tis true, ‘tis not his fault.”
Marudin frowned, drifting in to inspect the afrit closely. His nose wrinkled. “It is true; I smell the stench of foul magicks even here!”
“Who stationed you so?” Lakshmi demanded.
“A mortal clad all in dark blue,” the afrit told them. “He bound me by the power of a ring!”
Lakshmi frowned. “Was he old or young?”
“Old, very old! White hair and beard!”
“Was he Hindu, Arab, Persian, or Afghan?”
“An Arab, most clearly!”
“I think he is dead,” Lakshmi informed the afrit. “At least, one such sorcerer is gone to his doom.” She turned to Marudin. “Let us leave him here; he will work his way loose soon enough. We shall bid the wizard free him from his binding to these mountains.”
“But what shall protect me from more of these mortals’ spells?” the afrit protested.
“Islam,” Lakshmi replied, “surrender to Allah. Become a believer, and the minions of the Prince of Lies shall lose all magical power over you.” She turned away and dove down toward the earth.
Marudin lingered long enough to say, “Never again be such a fool as to attack a Marid.” Then he followed his wife.
They shrank to human size as they landed, to find Matt bemused and awed.
Balkis, on the other hand, had found a pool of water in the rocks, fed by the last rain, and was washing her face—in human form.
“What make you of this, Lord Wizard?” Lakshmi demanded.
“A narrow escape,” Matt said fervently. “I’m just glad I was traveling with you two.”
“That, of course,” Lakshmi said impatiently, “though you should have known we would never let you come to harm.”
“Oh, I do! It’s just a little hard to remember when you’re in free fall.”
“Be mindful of my debt to you, when next you fear,” Marudin advised. “What say you of this afrit, though? Why was he set here to stop all who sought to cross these mountains?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Matt asked, surprised. “Arjasp is afraid of magic workers coming anywhere near his barbarians.”
“So I thought, too,” Lakshmi said with grim satisfaction. “We go not only toward our children, but also tow
ard the center of these invaders—the throne, and the power behind it.”
“It also tells us that Arjasp isn’t all that sure he can win against us,” Matt said. “At the very least, this gives him warning we’re coming.”
“How can he know that it is we who come?”
Matt shrugged, and Balkis said, “He knows it is folk whose magic can match his own. Who else could it be?”
“Very true.” Matt looked down at the teenager. “Though to be honest, I don’t think he knows about you.”
Balkis stared at him in alarm. “Do not think that I can do more than I can!”
“We shall not,” Lakshmi promised her, “but I take his point: that sometimes even a small magic may win a battle, if it is sent at the right time and place, and the enemy knows nothing of it.”
But Balkis still looked scared. At least, being in human form, her fur wasn’t standing on end.
Back in the air, with the Hindu Kush unreeling below them again, Lakshmi confided, “I expected fretting and anxiety mixed in with the joys of parenthood, but never such as this!”
“I know what you mean,” Matt sighed. ” ‘He who hath a wife and babes, gives hostages to Fortune.‘ “
Balkis looked up sharply. “ Is that where the babies are? With Fortune?”
“Uh … well, not literally,” Matt tried to explain. “The first part is a metaphor, you see—ascribing the characteristics of one thing to another. The second part is a personification, pretending ‘Fortune’ is a person, not a thing, and—”
“Nonsense!” Lakshmi declared. “If you can ascribe it, then Fortune can indeed be a person, not a pretense! Does she not govern all our lives? Or at least weight them heavily. Nay, let us go and find her!” She raised her voice. “Marudin! A new trail! Follow!”
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