The garden had changed, however. The wall that Sond had been accustomed to climb over with such agility was topped with wickedlooking iron spikes. Horses trampled the delicate orchids and gardenias, camels were hobbled on the tiled paths or noisily drank water from the marble fountains. Powerful djinn of all sizes and description surged about in frantic activity—tearing down the delicate latticework and using it to bolster defenses at the garden gate, shouting out to each other in graphic detail what they would do to Kaug and his various anatomical parts when they had him in their grasp.
Huddled in a window at the top of one of the towers, guarded by gigantic eunuchs, the djinniyeh peeped over the balcony, giggling and whispering whenever one of the djinnwho knew well the women were there—was bold enough to brave the baleful glare of the eunuchs and bestow a wink upon a veiled head that had caught his fancy.
Sond’s gaze went instantly and eagerly to the balcony. Usti took one look at the strenuous activity going on all around him, groaned, and vanished precipitously behind an ornamental hedge. No one heard the fat djinn, however, or saw him disappear. The other djinn had spotted Sond and, crying out gladly, surged forward.
“Thank Akhran! Sond, where’ve you been? We can use that sword arm of yours!”
Flushed with pleasure by the welcome, Sond embraced his fellows—many of whom he had not seen in centuries.
“Where is that goatthieving master of yours living now, Pejm?” Sond questioned one. “Down by Merkerish? Ah, I had not heard. I am sorry for his death. But we will be avenged. Deju! You were freed? You must tell me—”
“Pejm! Bilhana!” A loud voice interrupted Sond. “It’s me! Pukah! I rescued you from Serinda! Uh, Pukah. The name is . . . well, doesn’t matter. See you later.” Pukah spoke to the back of another djinn. “Deju, it’s me, Pukah! Here’s my sword arm! Firmly attached to my shoulder. The one that rescued you from the city of Serinda. I— Uh . . . Serinda . . .”
“Serinda? Did you say Serinda?” A djinn rushed up to Pukah. The foxish face beamed in pleasure and cast a sidelong glance at Asrial to see if she was watching.
“Why, yes.” Pukah performed the salaam with charming grace. “I am Pukah the hero of Serinda.”
“Salaam aleikum, Serinda,” said the djinn hurriedly.
“Did I hear Sond had arrived? Oh, there he is! If you could just step aside, Serinda—”
“My name’s not Serinda!” Pukah said irritably to the djinn’s back. “I’m Pukah! The hero of Serin— Oh, nevermind.”
Elbowed firnly out of the way by one djinn then another as they crowded around Sond, Pukah was shoved off the path and found himself in a small grove of orange and lemon trees. Near him, huddled among the climbing roses, stood a forlornlooking Asrial, staring with wide blue eyes at her surroundings.
The noise and confusion, the halfnaked bodies—skin gleaming in the bright sunshine—the shouts and oaths, the obvious preparations for a battle, unnerved the angel. She had known, for she had heard her God, Promenthas, speak of a war in heaven. But it had never occurred to her that it would be like this—so much like a war on earth. She shrank back against a wall, hiding herself among the clinging tendrils of a morning glory.
What were the angels of Promenthas doing now? Had war come to them, too? Undoubtedly. An image came to her of the seraphim ripping the heavy wooden pews from the floor of the cathedral and stacking them against the doors; of archangels breaking out the lovely stainedglass windows, standing armed with bow and arrow; of cherubim clasping fiery swords, ready to defend the altar, to defend Promenthas. .
It was too horrible to imagine. Asrial turned her face against the wall to blot out the dreadful sights and sounds. She had seen wars upon earth, but those happened among humans. She had never imagined that the peace and tranquillity of her eternal home could be so violated.
“Bilhana. Bilshifa. My name is Pukah.” Standing alone at the edge of a path, the djinn bowed and shouted and was completely and soundly ignored. “Fedj! Raja! Over here!” Pukah waved his arms, jumping up and down to make himself seen above the heads and shoulders of the larger djinn.
Fedj and Raja, however, were staring warily at Sond, who was returning the favor arms folded across his massive chest. Old enemies, were they to meet as friend or foe? Then Raja’s face split into a smile. With one hand he greeted Sond with a blow on the back that sent the djinn headlong into a hibiscus bush, while with the other he proffered a jewelencrusted dagger.
“Accept this gift, my dear friend!” said Raja.
“My dear friend, with pleasure!” cried Sond, making his way out of the foliage.
“Dear friend,” mimicked Pukah in disgust. “Not two weeks ago they would have ripped out each other’s eyes.”
“Brother!” Fedj threw his huge arms around Sond and clasped him close. “Words cannot tell how I have missed you!” It was undoubtedly fond regard that caused Fedj to nearly squeeze the breath out of his “brother.”
Sliding his muscular arms around Fedj’s waist, Sond locked a hand over his wrist.
“Words fail me as well, brother!” Sond grunted, returning the embrace with such affection that the sound of cracking bones was distinctly audible.
“I think I’m going to vomit!” Pukah muttered. “And never paying any attention to me—the hero of Serinda! Well, let them! Say”—he paused and hastily looked around—”I’ve got something that will make their bulging biceps twitch. Asrial, my enchanter! Where are you, my angel?” He peered through a tangle of hanging orchids. “Asrial?” A note of panic tinged his voice. “Asrial! I— Oh, there you are!” He sighed in relief. “I couldn’t find you! My shy one!” Pukah gazed at her adoringly. “Hiding yourself away! Come.” He took hold of her hand. “I want you to meet my friends—”
“No! Pukah, please!” Asrial hung back, her eyes wide with fright. “Let me go! I must return to my people!”
“Nonsense,” said Pukah crisply, tugging at her. “Your people are my people. We’re all immortal, and we’re all in this together. Come on, there’s a sweet child. Come on.”
Reluctantly, hoping to avoid attention and still resolute on leaving, Asrial crept forward out of her hiding place.
“Look!” shouted Pukah proudly. “Look here! This is my angel!”
Asrial’s pale cheeks flushed a delicate pink. “Pukah, don’t say such things!” she begged. “I’m not your an—” Her words died away, sucked up and swallowed by a dreadful silence that fell over the djinn assembled in the garden, the eunuchs standing guard on the balcony, the djinniyeh gazing down at her over their veils.
Breathing heavily, one hand feeling his ribs to see if all were intact, Fedj used his other hand to point to Asrial.
“What’s this?” he demanded.
“An angel,” explained Pukah loftily, his foxish nose in the air.
“I can see it’s an angel,” Fedj snapped. “What’s it doing here!”
“It’s not an it, it’s a she, as any but a blind beggar could plainly see! And she’s with me! She’s come to help—”
“Come to spy you mean!” roared Raja.
“A spy of Promenthas’s!” shouted the djinn angrily, waving their swords and advancing on the two.
Asrial shrank back against Pukah, who shoved the angel behind him and faced the mob, his chin jutting out so far that any sword slice must have taken that portion of his face off first.
“Spy? If you musclebound apes had brains in your heads instead of your pectorals, you’d know that Promenthas is an ally of Hazrat Akhran—”
“Wrong! We heard Promenthas fights with Quar!” returned many furious voices.
“That is not true!” Stung to courage, Asrial sprang forward before Pukah could stop her. “I have just come from a meeting with the two of them. Your God and mine pledged to help each other!”
There were unconvinced looks and mutterings.
“A trick! The angel lies. All angels are liars, you know that!”
“Now wait, my friends. I can vouch for the
angel—”
Sond began.
“Ah, ha! So you’re in this, too. I might have known, you thieving eater of horseflesh!” Fedj blocked Sond’s path.
“This from one who beds with sheep!” Sond retorted scornfully. “Get out of my way, coward.”
“Coward! All know it was the son of your master who fled a battle dressed as a woman!”
Steel flashed in the hands of the djinn.
“Take my advice, Pukah, and get her out of here!” came a yawning voice from somewhere down at their feet. Usti lay flat on his back, hands folded over his fat belly, peering up at them.
“Perhaps you’re right,” said Pukah, somewhat daunted and dismayed at the glittering eyes and glinting blades closing in on him.
“I’m not going!” Asrial retorted. Her white wings fanned back and forth in her agitation, her golden hair—stirred by the wind she created—floated in a cloud about her face. “Stop it!” Running forward, she hurled herself between Fedj and Sond, blocking their swords with her small white hands. “Don’t you see? This is Kaug’s doing! He wants to divide us, split us up. Then he can devour us piece by piece!”
Roughly shoving the angel aside, Fedj lunged at Sond. Asrial fell to the ground, in imminent danger of being trampled by the combatants, and Pukah, with a frantic cry, leaped to drag her out of the way. Before he could reach her, another figure sprang up from the flowers that were being torn to shreds by brawling, stamping feet.
The lithe, supple figure of a djinniyeh clothed in flowing silken pantalons and diaphanous veils stood in front of the fallen Asrial, guarding the angel’s body with her own.
“Nedjma!” Sond gasped, falling backward, trembling from head to foot.
Dropping his sword, the enraptured djinn held out his arms and took a step forward, only to find himself suddenly blocked by the massive girth of a gigantic, scimitarwielding eunuch who reared up from the earth like a mountain and stood rocklike and immovable between Sond and the djinniyeh.
Nedjma did not quite come up to Sond’s shoulder. She barely came up to Raja’s waist. But the enraged glance she flashed the djinn lopped off heads, cut brawny torsos in two, and reduced towering mounds of muscle and brawn to quivering lumps of immortal flesh. Gently and tenderly, without speaking a word, Nedjma bent down and helped Asrial to her feet. Putting her arm protectively around the angel’s shoulder, she drew the whiterobed body close to her own. With a last, flaring glance at Sond, Nedjma disappeared, taking the eunuch and Asrial with her.
His face burning with shame, his body shaking with thwarted passion, Sond bent over and retrieved his sword. Straightening, he avoided Fedj’s eyes. Fedj, for his part, sheathed his sword and slouched out of the circle, muttering something about women minding their own affairs and staying out of those of men, but not saying it loudly enough that it could be overheard by those veiled and perfumed figures whispering indignantly together on the balcony.
Pukah watched anxiously until he saw white wings and golden hair being soothed and comforted above.
“Well, now that that’s settled,” began the young djinn brightly, stepping into the center of the garden, “let me introduce myself. I am Pukah, the hero of Serinda. You don’t remember me, but I saved your lives, at great risk to my own. It was like this—”
At that moment, Kaug struck.
Chapter 6
A blast of wind from the ‘efreet’s cavernous mouth swept through the pleasure garden. Tall palms bent double, torn leaves and petals filled the air like rain, water sloshed over the tiled rims of the ornamental pools. Usti, rudely awakened, dove for cover beneath a flower bed. On the balcony above, the djinniyeh screamed and caught hold of their fluttering veils, striving to see what was going on while the eunuchs pushed them toward the safety of the palace. Below, the djinn grimly drew their swords and braced themselves against the buffeting wind.
Fed by his God, the ‘efreet’s power had grown immense, and so had his size. Many times taller than the tallest minaret that graced the palace, many times wider than the walls surrounding it, Kaug lumbered across the immortal plane. The ground that existed only in the minds of those who stood upon it shook with the footfalls of the giant ‘efreet. His breath was a gale, his hands could have picked up the huge Raja and tossed him lightly from the heavens. All the djinn in the garden, standing each upon the others’ shoulders, could’ not have achieved Kaug’s height.
Yet they faced him. They would not give up meekly, as they had heard rumors of other immortals doing. Akhran himself— his flesh wounded and bleeding, absorbing the hurts inflicted on his people as he suffered at the same time from their dwindling faith—continued to fight. So would his immortals, until their power was drained, the strength of the mind that created their bodies depleted, and the bodies themselves vanquished, lying broken and bloody on the field of battle.
Kaug stopped just outside the walls of the garden and stared down with mocking triumph at the djinn within.
Sond took a step forward and raised his sword defiantly. Nedjma’s perfume was in the djinn’s nostrils; the memory of that scathing look she had cast him burned his mind. “Be gone, Kaug, while you still have a chance to save your worthless hide. If you leave now, we will not harm you.”
Kaug’s ugly face twisted into a grotesque smile. Taking a step forward, he calmly flattened one entire section of wall with a stamp of his foot.
“Sond!” said Kaug pleasantly, moving his other foot and crushing another section of wall. “So you are here? I am pleased, astonished but pleased. I thought you would have returned to the Tel, for I heard that former master of yours—poor old Majiid—has given up and is courting Death. Now there’s a woman who will bring peace to his harem!”
Sond’s face paled visibly. He cast a swift glance at Fedj, who averted his face from his brother djinn’s alarmed, questioning eyes.
“And little Pukah,” continued the ‘efreet, his rumbling voice cracking the foundation stones of the palace, “here you are while your master sizzles like a lump of hot lead upon the Sun’s Anvil. He, too, courts Death, and I fancy he will like her better than the wife he has!” Kaug chuckled and swung his hand, and a tower was swept from the castle walls. The djinn scrambled to avoid the debris that crashed into the garden around them, but remained standing in the ruins, grim and determined.
“You must be sorry you left my service, little Pukah!”
The ‘efreet continued taunting them, but Pukah was only half listening, most of his attention being concentrated on a conversation taking place within his brain between himself and himself.
“We cannot win this, you know, Pukah,” he stated.
“You, Pukah, are wise as always,” his alter ego agreed with a sigh.
“And I am smarter than this heap of fish flesh,” argued Pukah.
“Of course!” answered Pukah stoutly, knowing what was expected.
“Here’s my plan.” Pukah presented it, not without some pride. “What do you think of it?” he demanded when his alter ego remained silent for a rather prolonged period of time.
“There are . . . a certain number of flaws,” suggested Pukah timidly.
“Of course, I haven’t had time to work out all the details.” Pukah glowered at himself, who considered that it might be time to keep quiet but couldn’t forbear bringing up one more problem.
“What about Asrial?”
“Ah!” Pukah sighed. “You’re right. I had forgotten.” Then he said in a softer, sadder voice, “I don’t think it will matter, friend. I don’t believe there is any hope.”
“But you should talk to her!” Pukah urged.
“I will,” Pukah conceded hastily, “but I must start this to working immediately, so please shut up.”
The inner Pukah was instantly silent, and the outer Pukah— all this having taken only flashing moments in his quicksilver brain—bowed gracefully to the ‘efreet.
“Truly, Kaug the Magnificent, seeing you now in your glory and majesty, I do deeply regret that I gave in
to the vile threats of the brutish Sond and allowed him to force me to leave your side.”
Astounded and enraged, the djinn turned and glared at Pukah. Sond made a furious lunge at him, only to be stopped by the ‘efreet’s commanding voice.
“Halt! No one touch him. I find him . . . amusing.” Squatting down, his hulking form casting a shadow black as night over the garden, his breath flattening trees, Kaug confronted Pukah. “So you want to be back in my service, do you, Little Pukah? Better that than the Realm of the Dead, eh?”
The ‘efreet cast a significant glance around at all the djinn and the djinniyeh, peering through the windows above, and had the pleasure of seeing them all blench and cringe. Kaug grinned. “Yes, the Realm of the Dead. You remember that, don’t you? No more human bodies, no more human pleasures and feelings, no more romps on earth, no more battles and wars, no more human food and drink”—a muffled moan could be heard, coming from beneath one of the flower beds—”no more djinn and djinniyeh. Nameless, shapeless servants of Death, that’s what you’ll become once I’m finished with you. When you no longer answer their prayers, the humans you serve will think they have been abandoned by their God. They will turn to Quar, to a God who listens to them, and to me—a servant who knows how to provide for their every need and desire as—”
“—as a good master provides for his slaves,” supplemented Pukah.
Kaug glowered, this not being the most flattering of metaphors. But Pukah’s face was bland and innocent, his tone admiring as he continued. “It appears to me that this will mean a tremendous amount of work for you, O Kaug, and though I have no doubt that your shoulders are big enough to bear the burden, it cannot help but reduce your time for. . . uh . . . whatever pleasures you like to pursue.” Momentarily flustered, Pukah had no idea what pleasures these might be, and he certainly didn’t care to think on it a great deal.
The Prophet of Akhran Page 8