Chapter 2
“Usti?” The rotund djinn gave a violent start that began at his broad back and rippled over his flab in undulating waves. Dropping whatever it was he was holding, sending it crashing to the tiled floor, Usti pivoted as swiftly as possible for one so large to face the door.
“The reason I am down here in the storage room is that I am reckoning up the amount of food we have on hand in case we are placed under siege,” the djinn stated glibly, hastily wiping vestiges of rice from his chins. Endeavoring to who it was who had accosted him, he squinted and peered into the thick shadows wavering outside the circle of light cast by a lamp hanging—along with a quantity of smoked meats, dried herbs, and several large cheeses—from the ceiling. “There are . . . uh . . . twentyseven jars of wine,” he pronounced, still trying to see, “six large bags of rice, two of flour, thirty—”
“Oh, Usti! I don’t care about any of that! Have you seen Pukah? Is he down here?”
“Pukah?” Usti’s eyes opened wide, then narrowed in disgust as the figure stepped into the light of his lamp. “Oh, it’s you,” he muttered. “The madman’s angel.”
Any other time Asrial would have bristled angrily over the aspersion cast upon her protégé. Now she was too worried. Flinging herself at the djinn, she caught hold of his arm, this being markedly similar to thrusting one’s hand into a bowl of bread dough. “Tell me he’s here, Usti! Pukah, I know you are here!” She let loose of the djinn, who was glaring at her in high dudgeon, and looked intently into the dancing shadows. “Pukah, please come out and we’ll talk—”
“Madam,” said Usti, in glacial tones, “Pukah is not here. And you have interrupted my repast.” He glanced disconsolately at the mess at his feet. “Ruined my repast is nearer the mark.” He heaved a gloomy sigh and, squatting down with many grunts and groans, began a vain attempt to salvage something from the wreckage.
“A fine dinner of fatta, the vegetables crisp, the rice somewhat gummy, but then this is war, after all. One must make sacrifices. But now! Now!” Shaking his head and all six of his chins, he covered his eyes with his hands in an effort to blot out the terrible sight. “I know I will see it forever,” he murmured in hollow tones. “The rice covered with dirt. The vegetables mixed up with bits of crockery. And soon, rats coming to devour—”
“Usti, he’s gone!” Asrial slumped down on a cask of olive oil, her white wings drooping. “He’s been gone all day and all night, too. Now it is nearly time for Kaug to return—”
“Ahhh!” Blowing like a whale rising to the surface, Usti heaved himself to his feet. “Kaug, did you say, angel of the madman?”
“Mathew isn’t mad.” Asrial answered automatically, her thoughts on something—someone—else. “He was acting so strangely when he left me. . .”
“Often a symptom of madness,” said Usti knowingly.
“Not Mathew! Pukah!”
“Has he gone mad, too?” Usti readjusted the turban that had slipped over one eye in his feasting. “I am not surprised. Pardon me if I offend you, madam, but it would have been much better for all concerned if you and your madman had not inflicted yourselves upon us—”
“Inflicted ourselves on you? We didn’t want to come to this dreadful place!” Asrial cried. “We never meant to fall in love—” She stopped, with a gulp. “What is that?” she whispered fearfully, staring up above them.
The earth was shaking and quivering more than Usti’s chins. The cheeses swayed alarmingly, the carcass of a smoked goat tumbled to the floor. The lamp swung back and forth on its chain, the shadows in the underground storage chamber leapt and darted about the room like imps of Astafas, themselves gone mad.
“Kaug!” gasped Usti, his face the color of the blue cheese hanging over his head. “Back to the Realm of the Dead for us!” Catching hold of the dangling end of the cloth from his turban, he mopped his sweatbeaded forehead. “No more couscous!” He began to whimper. “No more sugared almonds. No more crispy bits of gazelle meat, nicely done, just slightly pink in the center—”
The rumbling increased, the shaking of the ground made it impossible to stand. Clinging to the wall, the cheeses tumbling down to roll around his feet, Usti had his eyes squinched tightly shut and was reciting feverishly, “No more qumiz. No more shish- lick. No more—”
A jar of wine tipped over and broke, flooding the storage chamber and staining the hem of Asrial’s white robes crimson. She paid no attention. She was listening.
There it was, rising faintly over the rumbling and cracking and the sound of Usti’s lamenting.
“Djinn of Akhran! Attend to me! Quickly! We haven’t much time!”
“Pukah!” cried Asrial, and disappeared.
Clutching a cheese to his breast, Usti bowed his head and wept.
Though the immortal plane shook with the terror of the ‘efreet’s approach, Kaug himself was just barely visible, his bulk darkening the horizon like a bank of storm clouds, lightning flickering from his eyes, thunder pounding the ground at his feet.
The djinn stood beneath their fortifications, weapons of every type and variety in their hands. On the balconies of the castle above the garden, the djinniyeh waited quietly, arms around each other for comfort. Hidden by silken robes, more than one sash wrapped around a slender waist concealed a sharp and shining blade. When their djinn had fallen, the djinniyeh were prepared to take up the fight.
The ancient djinn himself appeared. A tiny, driedup husk of an immortal dressed in voluminous brocade robes that nearly swallowed him up and banished him from sight, he was carried in a sedan chair by two giant eunuchs onto his own private balcony. Shining scimitars hung at the sides of the eunuchs. The djinn had in his possession, resting across his brocadecovered knees, a saber that might have been the first weapon ever forged. So ancient was its design and so rusted was its blade, it is doubtful if the sword could have sliced through one of Usti’s cheeses. Not that it mattered. Kaug’s head could be seen rearing up over the edge of the plane, and he was massive—more gigantic than anything the immortals could possibly imagine. A stomp of his foot would crush their castle, his little finger could smash them into oblivion.
Sond stood at the head of the djinn’s army. Sword in hand, he tried to keep his balance on the undulating ground. Fedj was at his right hand, Raja at his left. Behind them the other djinn waited, intending to make the price of their banishment as high as possible. Stone cracked, trees toppled. The sky darkened. Kaug’s hulking form obliterated the setting sun. Its last rays illuminated something white that drifted through the air and fell at Sond’s feet.
Leaning down, the djinn picked it up. It was a rose, and he knew where grew the bush from which the blossom had been plucked. Lifting it to his lips, he turned toward the rosecovered balcony. Though Nedjma’s face was veiled, Sond knew she smiled at him, and he smiled bravely back, though he was forced to avert his head hurriedly, the smile twisting into a grimace of despair. Blinking his eyes, he reverently tucked the rose into the sash at his waist and was clearing his throat, preparatory to issuing a command that would have launched the battle, when suddenly Pukah sprang up out of an ornamental fountain right in front of him.
“Where have you been?” Sond snapped initably. “That angel of yours is driving everyone crazy! Go find her, shut her up, and then see if you can make yourself useful. Where’s your sword? Raja, give him your dagger. Pukah, I swear by Akhran—”
But Pukah completely ignored Sond. Climbing up the side of the fountain’s central figure—a marble fish spouting water from huge marble lips—Pukah clung to the statue’s gills and shouted, “Djinn of Akhran! Attend to me!”
The djinn began to mutter and grumble; a rustle swept through the djinniyeh like wind through silken curtains.
“Pukah! This is no time for your tricks!” Sond cried angrily. Reaching up, he grabbed hold of one of Pukah’s feet and endeavored to pull the djinn from his perch. Pukah, kicking himself free, shouted loudly, “Hear me! I have a plan to defeat Kaug!”
/> The muttering ceased abruptly. Silence—as silent as it could possibly get with the ‘efreet drawing ever closer—spread like a pall over the immortals in the garden. Asrial appeared, bursting like a silver star at Sond’s side.
“Pukah! I’ve been so worried! Where—”
The young djinn cast the angel a fond and loving glance. Shaking his head, he did not answer her but continued to speak to the crowd of immortals now gazing at him with full, if dubious, attention.
“I have a plan to defeat Kaug,” Pukah repeated, speaking so rapidly and with such excitement that they could barely understand him. “I don’t have time to explain it. Just follow my lead and agree with whatever I say.”
The muttering began again.
Sond scowled, his anger mounting, “I told you, Pukah—”
“The Realm of the Dead!” said Pukah. His tense voice sliced through the grumblings like a length of taut thread. “The Realm of the Dead awaits! You haven’t got a chance, not a prayer! Where is Akhran? Where is our God?”
The immortals glanced at each other uneasily. It was the one question everyone had in his heart but no one dared speak.
“I’ll tell you where he is,” continued Pukah in hushed and solemn tones. “Akhran lies in his tent, weak and injured, bleeding from many wounds. Some of these wounds Quar has inflicted. But others”—he paused a moment to clear his throat—”Others have been inflicted on him by his own people.”
The garden grew darker. A foulsmelling wind began to blow, shrieking and howling, stripping leaves from those trees left standing and whipping dust into the air.
“Their faith dwindles!” yelled Pukah above the rising storm, the coming of the ‘efreet. “They have lost their immortals! They do not think their God hears their prayers, and so they have quit praying. . . or worse—they pray to Quar! If we are defeated, it will be the end, not only for us, but for Akhran!”
The wind ripped through the garden, breaking and tearing whatever it could. It clawed at the shining silver hair of the angel, but Asrial paid it no heed. Her eyes were on the young djinn.
“We are with you, Pukah!” she cried.
Sond looked at Fedj, who nodded slowly, and at Raja, who nodded in turn. Glancing behind him, barely able to see through the dust and torn branches and leaves and flower petals and a sudden pelting rain, Sond caught glimpses of the other djinn nodding, and he even heard what he thought was the driedup rasp of the ancient djinn adding his sanction.
“Very well, Pukah,” said Sond reluctantly. “We will go along with your plan.”
Heaving a vast sigh, tingling with pride and importance from turbaned head to slippered toe, Pukah turned and prepared to face Kaug.
Chapter 3
The ‘efreet stomped up to the outer wall of the garden, and at his approach the storm winds ceased to rage, the thunder to crack, the lightning to flash. When Kaug stood still, the ground no longer shook. A dread and ominous quiet fell over the immortal plane.
“Your time is up,” rumbled the ‘efreet, and the vibrations of his voice started the plane to quivering again. “Seeing these warlike fortifications and noting that all of you carry weapons, I take it that you choose to fight.”
“No, no, Kaug the Merciful,” said Pukah from atop the marble fish. “We bring our weapons only to lay humbly at your feet.”
Kaug’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Is that true, Sond?” the ‘efreet asked. “Have you brought your sword to lay at my feet?”
“Cut off your feet is more like it,” muttered Sond, glaring at Pukah.
“Go on! Go on!” Pukah mouthed, making a swift, emphatic gesture with his hand.
His mouth twisting, as though his swallowed rage was poisoning him, Sond stalked up to the ‘efreet and, with grim defiance, hurled the weapon point foremost at Kaug’s toes. One by one the other djinn followed Sond’s example, and soon the astonished ‘efreet was standing ankledeep in a veritable armory.
“And as for fortifications”—Pukah glanced around him, somewhat at a loss to explain the new battlements and turrets and walls that had sprung up—”these . . . uh . . . were just erected to give”—inspiration struck him with such force he nearly fell from his fish—”to give you a hint of the surprise to come!”
“I don’t like surprises, Little Pukah,” the ‘efreet growled, grinding the swords and scimitars and spears to metallic powder beneath his huge foot.
“Ah, but you will like this one, O Kaug the Mighty and Powerful!” said Pukah with an earnest solemnity that made the other djinn gaze at him in wonder. “The world has treated you badly, Kaug. You have grown suspicious and untrusting. We knew, therefore, that we must do something to convince you that we were truly sincere in our desire to serve you. And so”—Pukah paused, savoring the suspenseful hush, the breathless anticipation that awaited his words—”we have built you a house.”
Silence. Dead silence. The garden might have been filled with corpses instead of living beings.
“What trick is this, Little Pukah?” Kaug finally spoke, his words grating with suspicion, trembling with anger. “You know that, centuries ago, the wrath of the foul God Zhakrin banished me to the Kurdin Sea. There my house is, and there I must remain until Quar succeeds to his rightful place as the One, True God—”
“Not so, O MuchPutUpon Kaug.” Pukah shook his head. “The God Zhakrin owed me a favor—what for, we will not discuss—but he owed me a favor, and I have asked him, as my gift to you, O Master, that he set you free.
“This is no trick,” Pukah added hastily, seeing Kaug’s eyes narrow to slits of red flame. “Search within yourself. Do you feel constrained, chained any longer?”
Kaug’s ugly face wrinkled, his gaze grew abstracted. Hesitantly he lifted his gigantic arms and flexed his muscles as though testing to see if he was manacled. His arms moved freely and, slowly, gradually, a pleased and gratified expression spread over his face.
“You are right, Little Pukah,” Kaug said with a look of wonder. “I am free! Free! Ha! Ha! Ha!” Raising his arms in the air, he shook his fists at heaven. His glee sent seismic waves through the immortal plane. The balcony on which the djinniyeh stood sagged alarmingly, and the women fled in a whirl of silk. Seeing them run, Kaug leered and turned his gaze back to the djinn. “Thank you for this gift, Little Pukah. Indeed, I now truly believe that you mean to serve me, you and these sniveling cowards around you, and you may start doing so right now. You, Sond, fetch me the djinniyeh known as Nedjma. I have a desire to—”
“Don’t you want to see your house?” interrupted Pukah. “What?” Kaug stared at him irritably.
“Don’t you want to see your house, Your Magnificence? It has a wondrous bedchamber,” the djinn insinuated from his post atop the fish. Seeing that Kaug’s attention was on the balcony, Pukah lashed out with a slippered foot at the infuriated Sond, kicking him painfully in the kidneys to remind him to keep quiet. “And while we are viewing your new dwelling, Nedjma can take time to prepare herself so that she may come to you in all her beauty and do you honor, O Kaug, Handsome Charmer.”
Kaug was baffled. The ‘efreet continued to stare lustfully at the balcony, scraping his hand over his stubbled chin and running his tongue across his lips, but he did this primarily because he knew it was torturing Sond. The ‘efreet had a mild interest in Nedjma. When this war was won and the immortals banished, he would undoubtedly keep several of the more comely djinniyeh around for his pleasure, and Nedjma would undoubtedly be one of them.
What was Pukah up to? That was the question tormenting Kaug. His brain was searching for answers, but instead of finding any, his mental process was going round and round like a donkey yoked to a waterwheel. Kaug didn’t trust Pukah. The ‘efreet didn’t trust anyone (his God Quar was no exception), and he knew Pukah was plotting some elaborate scheme.
But he freed me from Zhakrin’s curse!
That was the fact that kept the donkey moving in its slow, plodding circle. Kaug simply couldn’t believe it. Long, long ago, when Zh
akrin had been a powerful force in the Jewel of Sul and Quar was but a bootlicking toad—(a toad with ambition—but a toad nonetheless)—Quar had secretly ordered Kaug to wreak havoc upon a fortress of Zhakrin’s Black Paladins located in the Great Steppes. Generally Kaug took little delight in obeying Quar’s commands, which—up until the war—had consisted of raining hail on the heads of recalcitrant followers or inflicting plagues upon their goat herds. When it came to battling the Black Paladins, however, Kaug enjoyed himself thoroughly. The ‘efreet was having such a marvelous time hurling down fiery rocks on those trapped inside the castle, plucking their puny spears from his flesh and hurling them back with such force that they impaled men to the stone walls—that Kaug stayed longer than he should have. Zhakrin was able to come to the aid of his beleaguered Paladins.
Descending upon Kaug in his wrath, the God lifted the ‘efreet in his mighty arms and slammed Kaug into the Kurdin Sea. And though it is impossible for one God to completely control another God’s immortal, Zhakrin was able to effect a curse upon the ‘efreet—pronouncing that Kaug must henceforth dwell in the Kurdin Sea so that Zhakrin could always keep track of the ‘efreet’s comings and goings.
Quar had meekly swallowed this insult—what else could he do then? And Kaug had been forced to live in a watery cave under the baleful eye of the evil God. But Quar and his ‘efreet were now joined in mutual hatred of Zhakrin, and it was shortly after Kaug’s banishment that Quar began his subtle war against the evil God that would end, finally, in the reduction of Zhakrin himself to a fish.
“And now Pukah has freed me,” Kaug reflected. “He has persuaded Zhakrin to free me. Not that this must have been so difficult.” The ‘efreet sneered. “What is Zhakrin now? A ghost without form or shape. I could have freed myself had I wanted to, but I’ve grown accustomed to that cave of mine. Zhakrin owed Pukah a favor for releasing his immortals from Serinda, and all know that the Evil God’s one major flaw is his honor. But why would Pukah use this favor in my behalf unless. . . unless”—the mental donkey came to a halt—”unless Pukah is like me!
The Prophet of Akhran Page 15