“Ah, Sond! She adores me!” Pukah heaved another sigh, this time a rapturous one. “You should have seen us together in my basket before squidlips returned. She pulled me down on the bed and began to fan me with her wings. She kissed me again and again and . . . well . . . we are both men of the world aren’t we, poor Sond? I dare say you know what she wanted of me.
“ ‘Ah, my dear,’ I said sadly, ‘I would more than gladly oblige you, here and now, but this is hardly a romantic setting. That crustacean who calls himself an ‘efreet may return at any moment. And then there is my poor friend, Sond, who is in a most dire predicament,’ I continued, trying manfully to break free of her embrace. But she continued to have her way with me and what could I do? The basket is only so big, you know, and I didn’t want to make too much noise. I believe I’ll tell Kaug I am indisposed tonight. He can find someone else to cook his flounder. As soon as I discover where my whitewinged dove is hiding, we will have leisure to finish what we began.”
Pausing for breath, Pukah peered through the swirling mists of the immaterial plane.
“Dratted stuff. It’s as thick in here as Jaafar’s wits. I can’t see a thing! Ah, wait. It’s clearing. Yes, this is it. I do believe, my poor Sond, that we have arrived.”
Setting the chirak down at his feet, Pukah looked around with wonder.
“This is Serinda? This is where the immortals are being held . . . prisoner?”
Long ago, so many centuries past that it was not worth remembering, when the great and glorious city of Khandar was nothing but a camelwatering hole, a beautiful city named Serinda flourished.
Few people living now remembered Serinda. Those who did so were generally scholars. The city was marked on the Emperor’s maps, and many were the evenings in the Court of Khandar when learned minds debated long and ardently over the mystery of Serinda—a city that existed, supposedly thrived—in the middle of a desert.
Kuo Shouching, a man of vast wisdom who had traveled to the Emperor’s court from the far eastern lands of Simdari, maintained that the Pagrah desert was not always a desert. It was a known fact in Simdari that the volcano, Galos, erupted about this time, spewing out deadly ash, belching tons of rock into the air, and sending lava—the hot blood of the world’s heart—pouring forth.
The eruption was so powerful, claimed Kuo Shouching, that a black cloud of ash hung in the sky for a year, obliterating the sun, turning day to night. It was during this time that the city of Serinda died a horrible death, its people perishing from the volcano’s foul breath, their bodies and their city buried in ash. Galos continued to belch forth fire and smoke sporadically for years, forever changing the face of the land of Sardish Jardan.
One who disputed the theory of Kuo Shouching was Hypatia, a wise woman from the land of Lamish Jardan. She maintained that the city of Serinda was founded after the eruption of Galos, that the natives—who were extremely advanced in the ways of science and technology—brought the water of the Kurdin Sea into the desert through a remarkable system of aqueducts and that they literally made the desert bloom. She stated further that they built ships to sail the inland sea, formed by the volcano’s eruption, and that they traded with the peoples of the Great Steppes and the populace of Lamish Jardan.
According to Hypatia, the fall of Serinda was brought about by the desert nomads, who feared the city was growing too powerful and would attempt either to absorb them into it or to drive them from their lands. Consequently, the fierce tribes fell upon peaceful Serinda, putting every man, woman, and child to the sword.
Needless to say, this was the theory that found favor with the Emperor, who had become increasingly irritated by reports he had been receiving of the nomads in the Pagrah Desert, and who began to think that it might be an excellent thing for the world if the nomads were obliterated from the face of it.
There was likewise the theory of Thor Hornfist, from the Great Steppes, who stated that the city of Serinda and its inhabitants had been eaten by a giant bear. Almost no one paid attention to Thor Hornfist.
The immortals, of course, knew the truth, but being highly diverted by the theories of the mortals, they kept it to themselves.
The history of the dead city of Serinda was not in Pukah’s mind as he stared about the place, however. What was in the young djinn’s mind was the fact that—for a dead city—Serinda was certainly lively!
“Market day in Khandar is nothing to this!” Pukah gaped.
The streets were so crowded it was difficult to walk through them. They reverberated with noise—merchants extolling, customers bargaining, animals bleating. Arwats and coffee houses were doing a thriving business, so packed that their patrons were literally tumbling out the doors and windows. No one seemed to be making any attempt to keep order. Everyone was intent on doing whatever he or she pleased, and pleasure seemed to be Serinda’s other name.
Pukah stood in a dark alley between the weapons dealers’ and the silk merchants’ bazaars. In the length of time it took him to orient himself, the djinn saw two fistfights, a drunk get his face slapped, and a couple kissing passionately in a garbageinfested corner.
Raucous laughter echoed through the streets. Women hanging out of silk curtained windows called out sweet enticements to those below. Gold and silver flowed like water, but not so freely as the wine. Every mark and feature of every race in the world of Sularin was visible—straight black hair, curly golden hair, slanted dark eyes, round blue eyes, skin that was white as milk, skin tanned brown by wind and sun, skin black and glistening as ebony. All jostled together; greeted each other as friend, fell upon each other as enemy; exchanged wine, laughter, goods, gold, or insults.
And everyone of them was an immortal.
“Poor Sond!” snarled Pukah, giving the lamp a vicious kick. “Poor Sond! Sentenced to a life of constant merrymaking, lovemaking, drinking, and dicing! While I’m chained, day and night, to a beast of an ‘efreet who will no doubt beat me regularly—”
“If he does, it will be no more than you deserve,” cried an indignant, feminine voice.
Smoke poured forth from the lamp’s spout, coalescing into the handsome, muscular Sond. Bowing gallantly, the djinn extended his hand and assisted another figure to step from the lamp—this one slender and lovely with flowing silver hair and feathery white wings, who glared at Pukah with flashing blue eyes.
“What do you mean—I fanned you with my wings?” Asrial demanded angrily.
“What were you two doing in there?” Pukah demanded back.
“Precisely what we did in your basket!” retorted Asrial.
“Aha!” Pukah cried, raising clenched fists to Sond.
“Nothing!” Asrial shrieked, stamping her bare foot.
“A fight! A fight!” cried several onlookers. Immortals swarmed into the alley, pressing eagerly around Sond and Pukah.
“My money on the big handsome one!”
“Mine on the skinny one with the shifty eyes. He probably has a dagger in his turban.”
“You’re fools, both of you. My money for the enchanting creature with the wings. My dwelling place is near here, my sweet. A little wine to cool you after your journey—”
Steel flashed in Pukah’s hands. “I do have a dagger, and you’ll feel it if you don’t let go of her!” He caught hold of Asrial, dragging her out of the arms of a bearded, redhaired barbarian dressed in furs and animal skins.
“There’s not going to be any fight,” Sond added, his strong hand closing over the arm of the barbarian, who was hefting a wickedlooking, twohanded sword. A handful of gold coins materialized in the djinn’s palm. “Here, go have a drink on us. Pukah, put that knife away!” Sond ordered out of the corner of his mouth.
Swearing fealty forever, the barbarian threw his arms around Sond and gave him a hug that nearly squeezed the djinn in two. Then, weaving drunkenly, he and his companions staggered back down the alley and out into the street. Seeing that there was, after all, not going to be a fight, the other onlookers dwindled away i
n disappointment.
“Well, what were you doing in there?” Pukah asked sullenly.
Asrial removed herself from the djinn’s grasp. “It was obvious that the ‘efreet must have guessed where I was hiding. When I heard him coming, I had no choice but to flee into Sond’s lamp. Your friend”—she smiled sweetly and demurely at Sond—”was a perfect gentleman.” The blue eyes turned to Pukah, their gaze cool. “More than I can say for you.”
“I’m sorry,” Pukah said miserably. Suddenly contrite, he cast himself bodily at the angel’s feet. “I’m a wretch! I know! So do you, I’ve mentioned it before!” He groveled in the alley. “Trod on me! Grind me into the dust! I deserve no less! I’m dog meat! The hind end of a camel! The tail of the donkey—”
“I’d enjoy taking you up on that offer,” said Sond, kicking at Pukah with his foot. “But there isn’t time. We have to find Nedjma and get out of here. After all,” added the djinn smoothly, “soon Kaug will command you to return!” Grinning, the djinn reached down to pick up his lamp, only to see it vanish beneath his hand. Kaug’s laughter could be heard echoing above the noise.
For an instant, Sond paled. Then he shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll escape him somehow.”
“And how do you think you’re going to get free?” Pukah cast a bitter glance at the djinn.
“Do you see any guards?” Sond countered, sauntering down the alley.
“No, but we’ve only been here a quarter of an hour.”
Emerging out of the shadows of the alley, the three blinked in the bright sunlight pouring down upon Serinda.
“I don’t think we’ll find any guards,” said Sond quietly, after a moment’s study of their surroundings.
The only ruler in the city of Serinda appeared to be Chaos, with Disorder as his Captain. A victorious army invading a conquered city could have created no greater turmoil in the streets. Every conceivable vice known to mortal flesh was being plied in the streets and houses, the alleys and byways of Serinda.
“You’re right,” Pukah admitted glumly. “Why don’t they all leave, then?”
“Would you?” Sond asked, pausing to watch a dice game.
“Certainly,” said Pukah in lofty tones. “I hope I know my duty—”
Sond made an obscene noise.
“Pukah!” gasped Asrial, grabbing the djinn, digging her nails into his arm. “Pukah, look!” She pointed. “An . . . an Archangel!” Her hand covered her mouth.
“Arch who?”
“Archangel! One. . . one of my superiors!”
Turning, the djinn saw a man, dressed in white robes similar to Asrial’s, standing in a doorway. His wings quivering, he was enjoying the favors of a giggling, minor deity of the goddess Mimrim.
Forgetting himself, Pukah sniggered. Asrial flashed him a furious glance.
“He. . . he shouldn’t be doing. . . such things!” the angel stammered, a crimson flush staining her cheeks. “Promenthas would be highly displeased. I’ll . . . I’ll go and tell that angel so, right now!”
Asrial started to push her way through the milling, jostling crowd.
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea!” Pukah snatched her out from under the nose of a horse whose rider—another barbarian—was urging the animal into the very heart of the mob, heedless of those he knocked down and trampled.
“You told me you angels didn’t indulge in that sort of thing,” Pukah teased, sweeping Asrial into the shelter of an ironmonger’s stand.
“We don’t!” Asrial blinked her eyes rapidly, and Pukah saw tears glimmering on her long lashes.
“Don’t cry!” Pukah’s heart melted. Wiping her tears with one hand, he took advantage of the situation to slide the other around the angers slim waist, congratulating himself on dealing adroitly with the wings. “You’re too innocent, my sweet child. Knowing their God disapproves, I imagine your higherranking angels have learned to keep their love affairs private—”
“Affairs? There are no love affairs! None of us would ever even think of doing . . . such. . . such. . .” Glancing back at the couple in the doorway, her eyes widened. She flushed a deep red, and hastily turned away. “Something’s wrong here, Pukah!” she said earnestly. “Terribly wrong. I must leave and tell Promenthas—”
Pukah’s heart—that had melted and run through his body like warm butter—suddenly chilled into a lump. “No, don’t leave me!” he pleaded. “I mean, don’t leave. . . us. What will you tell your God, after all? I agree with you. Something is wrong, but what? There are no guards. It doesn’t look like anyone’s being held here against his will. Help us find Nedjma,” continued Pukah,inspired. “She’ll tell us everything, and then you can take that information to Promenthas, just as I’ll take it to Akhran.”
The thought of being the bearer of such news to his own God considerably lightened the jump that was Pukah’s heart. He envisioned Akhran listening in profound admiration as his djinn described the numerous harrowing dangers he—Pukah—faced in the daring rescue of Nedjma and the discovery of the Lost Immortals. He could picture Akhran’s reward. . .
“How can you go to Akhran if you belong to Kaug?” Asrial asked thoughtfully.
“Fishface?” Pukah was amused. “His brain can deal with only so much at one time. When I’m not in his direct line of sight, he probably doesn’t remember that I exist. I’ll be able to come and go as I please!”
Asrial appeared dubious. “I’ll come with you to find Sond’s friend and hear what she has to say. Then I must return to Promenthas. Although I don’t quite understand,” she added with a tremor in her voice, “how this is going to help Mathew.”
“Your protégé is with my master,” Pukah said, hugging her comfortingly. “Khardan will protect him. When you have reported to your God and I to mine, then you and I will go find both of them!”
“Oh, Pukah!” Asrial’s eyes gleamed through her tears, the light within making them glitter more beautifully than the stars in the heavens, at least to the djinn’s enraptured mind. “That would be wonderful! But. . .” The light dimmed. “What about Kaug?”
“Oh damn and blast Kaug!” Pukah snapped impatiently.
He was not, in fact, quite as confident as he sounded about the ‘efreet’s thickness of skull and dullness of wit and did not want to be reminded of him at every turning. “Come on, Sond! Are you going to stand here for the next millennium?”
“I was just considering the best way to search for her.” Sond looked bleakly at the hundreds of people milling about in the street. “Perhaps we should split up?”
“Since neither Asrial nor I know what she looks like, that is hardly a good idea,” remarked Pukah acidly. “From what you’ve told me about her, I suggest we just listen for the sound of tam- bour and quaita and look for the dancing girls.”
Sond’s face darkened with anger, and he began to swell alarmingly.
“I’m only trying to be helpful,” said Pukah in soothing tones.
Muttering something that fortunately never reached the angel’s ears or Asrial might have left them then and there, Sond began to shove his way through the crowd.
Pukah, with a wink at the angel, followed along behind.
Chapter 2
As it turned out, Pukah’s suggestion led them straight to Nedjma. Unfortunately, the djinn never had a chance to gloat over it.
It was with some difficulty that they made their way through the dead city of Serinda—now possibly the liveliest city in this world or the next. The two djinn and the angel were continually accosted by merrymakers seeking to draw them into their revels.
“Thank you,” said Pukah, disentangling himself from a throng of Uevin’s Gods and Goddesses who were weaving through the streets. Clothed in nothing but grape leaves, they carried jars of wine that they lifted to purplestained mouths. “But we’re a girl short, you see. We’re looking for one for my friend!” he explained to the countless pairs of glazed eyes focused—more or less—on him. “Yes, that’s right. Now if you’d just let
us past. . . No, no! Not you, I’m afraid, my dear. We’re hunting a specific girl. But if we don’t find her, I’ll bring him right back.”
“I’m not your girl,” said Asrial coldly, attempting to pry her hand loose from Pukah’s.
“Fine!” returned the djinn, exasperated. “When I’ve rescued my master and your madman from whatever difficulty they’ve managed to land in without me, then I’m coming straight back here!”
“Mathew isn’t mad!” Asrial cried indignantly. “And I don’t care where you go—”
“Shhh!” Pukah held up his hand for silence, something practically impossible to achieve amidst the hubbub around them.
“What?”
“Listen!”
Rising above the laughter and the giggles and the shouts and the singing, they could hear—very faintly—the shrill, offkey, sinuous notes of the quaita, accompanied by the clashing jingle of the tambour.
Sond glared at Pukah.
“Very well!” The young djinn shrugged. “Ignore it.” Without saying a word, Sond turned and crossed the street, heading for a building whose shadowy arched doorways offered cool respite from the sun. Roses twined up ornate lattice work, decorating the front. Two djinn in silken caftans lounged around outside the doorways, smoking long, thin pipes. Sond looked neither to the right nor the left, up nor down, but pushed his way past the djinn, who stared after him in some astonishment.
“Eager, isn’t he?” said one.
“Must be a newcomer,” said the other, and both laughed. Raising his gaze to the upper levels of the building, Pukah saw several lovely djinniyeh leaning seductively over the balconies, dropping flowers or calling out teasingly to the men passing by in the street below.
Pukah shook his head and glanced at a grave and solemn Asrial. “Are you sure you want to come in here?” he whispered.
“No. But I don’t want to stay out here either.”
“I guess you’re right,” Pukah admitted, scowling at the redbearded barbarian who appeared to be following them. “Well”— he grasped her hand again, smiling as her fingers closed firmly over his—”just keep close to me.”
The Paladin of the Night Page 18