Amollia roused up with a languid smile and said graciously, "We hoped you wouldn't mind. But we were passing and noticed you'd left your candles burning. And it being monsoon season and the rains having started—"
"Gracious lady!" the man of her race said in Kharristani so fluent I wondered if he too had been tutored by the djinn, "Please do not apologize. Your eyes light this poor dwelling far more than all of these puny candles. You must stay with us. Share our meal."
"Yes," the silken-clad fellow added with a warm glance at Amollia. "Though our home is but a sty of a place, hardly fit for such rough dogs as we, we would be sorely aggrieved if you did not grant us the honor of your company."
I was dubious about this invitation, even then, for they looked as dangerous as they did handsome. But, we had entered their home without permission, and they were blocking the door.
We spent the best part of the afternoon eating, drinking, and engaging in pleasant, if rather limited, conversation. The black man joined Amollia among her stacks of cushions, the Oriental prince sat beside Aster, and the red-haired fellow fairly swept me from the stony threshold, paying no attention to my protests about my wet clothing, and deposited me upon silken cushions similar to those enjoyed by my friends. Asters friend clapped his hands once. Half of the candles extinguished themselves. He clapped again. A brimming tray of mutton and rice seasoned with saffron appeared before us, along with bottles of strong drink, the first I had sampled in these lands.
Nor did these princely beings expect us to wait until they were done, as had Marid Khan and his men, but like Aman Akbar fed us morsels with their own fingers. I noted with amazement and approval that, in spite of my new friend's rough manner, his hands and fingernails were clean.
Even better, though he had the looks and manners of those accursed relatives of mine, he smelled much better. In fact, he smelled not at all of the wet wool, horse sweat and smoke of dung fires that cling to my people even after repeated baths. I confess I wondered briefly what his mother was like and how many women he already had.
At once I felt guilty, remembering poor Aman Akbar, and stole a peek away from the rugged face above me to see if Aster and Amollia noticed what had to be my obvious disloyalty in thought, if not yet in deed. Neither appeared to notice anything but the countenance of her companion. I would have to look elsewhere for moral guidance.
I cleared my throat and said to my warrior's beard, "Good of you to offer to put us up. I am Rasa Ulliovna of the Yahtzeni. We three are the wives of an important and wealthy man named Aman Akbar—"
"I know," he said shortly, though by no means in an unfriendly fashion, for his arm tightened around my shoulders as he spoke. He gave the impression that he was simply a man of few words.
I tried again. "What is your name and how came you and your companions to dwell together?"
"Some call me Dag, but you can call me 'beloved, "' he answered with another squeeze. After that, he was long on the squeezing and short on the conversation. His idea of wooing seemed to be a variation on Yahtzeni fighter practice—he would thrust and I would parry, all the while laughing as if he were privy to some joke I was not, which did not particularly move me but did provide me with ample opportunity to hear the conversations on either side of us.
Aster was giggling as her new friend snapped his fingers and changed her hairdo, twining the black locks into a tall crown interlaced with pearls and pink rosebuds. With another snap he provided her a golden-backed mirror with which to admire herself.
"You shouldn't!" she protested in a teasing and half-hearted fashion. "I hardly know you."
"What is there to know, my little peony blossom?" he replied, stroking his mustache between thumb and forefinger. "I am handsome, witty, talented, educated, and have a fine house—"
"Oh, then the three of you don't own this place together?" she asked with a coy look from under her lashes.
"Well, yes, but only as a gesture of brotherhood—because we're such fond friends and everything. But this is only one of our hunting lodges. Each of us lives by himself in a great palace with many pavilions and enough servants to populate a small city. There I could give you anything you want." He snapped his fingers and a skewer full of mutton chunks and vegetables jumped into his hand. "Here we are forced to rough it."
I applauded not because I hadn't already seen much better but because I was sure I was expected to applaud, the magician having caught my eye as he amazed and astounded Aster.
"That's not so much," Dag grumbled, his pride apparently injured by the fickleness of my attention. "We can all do that stuff. Wish for something. Go on. Anything. Wish for something."
What I really wished was to be home again with Aman Akbar in his original form, minus Um Aman and the others, with Hyaganoosh nothing more than another silly name, but I had the feeling that that particular wish would not be well-received by my host. So I scaled my aspirations down somewhat and said, imitating Aster's teasing tone, "If you can truly do as you say, fetch me that old rag Amollia has in her sash."
He snapped his fingers and nothing happened, whereupon he first flushed, then scowled mightily. Changing tactics, he pointed his thumb at Amollia, who, without looking away from her escort or indicating in any way she knew what she was doing, took the headcloth from her sash and tossed it over her shoulder to me.
"There is something strange about that rag," Dag said, still scowling. He withdrew his arm from my shoulders when I tucked it into my own sash.
I found I did not care to explain to him the properties of the rag—not until I knew him better at any rate. I therefore changed the subject to the one always certain to fascinate any Yahtzeni warrior—himself. "You're remarkable!" I exclaimed. "How came you by such skills?"
"My brothers and I are all great friends of a—er—very powerful magician."
Amollia's friend had noticed our little byplay and decided to get into the act too. He flashed us a dazzling smile and I saw that his teeth had been filed to points.
"Some of us are greater friends than others, however. What you lack, beloved brother, is flair. Watch this!" And from nowhere great ropes of gems and ornate bands of gold and silver dropped over Amollia's head onto her neck while bracelets far shinier and more massive and ornate than the one she had used to purchase—excuse me, rent—the elephant clasped themselves around her wrists and ankles. Long open-work pendants studded with rubies and sapphires and emeralds swung from her earlobes while a matching trinket adorned her nose. Her eyes crossed as she tried to admire it all.
"Don't be too impressed by this, my little panther," her friend said. "This is nothing compared to what my brothers and I have to offer the maidens we love if only they agree to brighten our lives by marrying us. Isn't that so, brothers?"
"I was about to say something of the sort myself," Aster's friend said, bowing slightly.
"How about it?" Dag asked with a wink, and ventured a cautious squeeze of my knee.
Amollia rose with jingling dignity to her feet and said firmly, "My sisters and I need to confer. Will you please excuse us?"
Before Aster and I could rise, our suitors politely withdrew into an adjoining room.
"What do you mean we 'have to confer'?" Aster asked. "What's to confer about? Chu Mi was just getting ready to produce a new gown for me."
"That is exactly what we need to talk about," Amollia said, studying her with a solemnity at odds with her own festive appearance. "I think there is something strange going on here. A prince for each of us? Did you take their proposals seriously?"
Aster considered, her finger tapping her pointed kitten's chin. "I take a new gown seriously. There's nothing so strange about that. And if we each went our separate ways with these men, it would solve the problem of who was in favor with Aman Akbar. I'd say it was a good opportunity for a smart girl to be the pet of a rich husband of her own people."
"You can't mean to abandon Aman now," I protested. I felt very sorry for Aman, even if he had brought most of his trouble on himself. I was glad he wasn't around to hear his last favorite speak of him, that disastrously romantic man, in such discouragingly practical terms. I didn't agree with her about the advantages of having a husband of my own people either. I was not really ready, for one thing, to be initiated into the joys of sheep-style lovemaking.
"I didn't say I was going to abandon him," she said defensively. "I just said I could see where it would be a smart thing to do."
"If you're thinking, little sister, to use this situation to rid yourself of competition, consider how much harder it would be for you alone to free Aman Akbar from his curse," Amollia said.
Aster looked glum. "I just thought of that."
"You might also consider that the three of us at least seem to be able to get along. A new husband might marry other wives less compatible. So, for that matter, might Aman, should you succeed in ridding him of the curse after having rid yourself of us."
Aster shrugged. "All right. All right. I was only pointing out that on the surface it seemed a very good opportunity. I didn't really expect either of you to take advantage of it any more than I intended to. Personally, I'm in favor of letting them down easy and leaving as soon as possible. I find I have developed a certain dislike for magicians—too much like djinns for my taste."
In that she was closer to the truth than she knew.
They seemed to have expected our demurrals and, in fact, I caught what looked like a flicker of glee passing between Dag and Chu Mi. It was gone at once. Chu Mi took Aster's arm and said, "If you must go, you must. But I have for you a parting gift. Come with me to the next room and I will give it to you. '
She shot him a brief, hard look but then greed overcame her sense and she followed him. As soon as the door closed behind them I heard a sound I had heard only a few times before in my life and all of them recently, that of a bolt sinking into its slot. But I had no time to contemplate the meaning of the noise, for all of a sudden it seemed that the heavy timber of the bolt had descended not into its slot after all, but into my skull, which without warning burst apart with pain.
As soon as I awoke I wished I had not, for the pain that had caused me to lose my senses was no better. In fact, with my senses returned—or most of them—it was, not unnaturally, much worse. Now I could feel in great detail the agony of my scalp as each hair in my head tried to rip out its own native soil as it strained upward. The horrible tension in my neck as my body was pulled in one direction by my hair and in the other by its own weight. My eyes would not open fully, half shut with the tugging of the skin around them. I knew at once, however, as does every little girl whose mother or sisters have ever braided her hair what was happening to me. My hair was being pulled. Hard. The red-hot glaze before my eyes vanished briefly when I blinked and I saw Amollia dangling just across from me, a little higher than I was but in similar straits, though her short curls would not allow her to drop as far from the iron ring to which they were tied as did my captive braids.
"They take rejection badly, don't they?" she whispered huskily. Her whole face threatened to pull inside out and her eyes slanted at an angle far more acute than Aster's.
My own voice emerged only with difficulty. "I think we made the right decision. I'd never want to marry a man who considers this… sort of thing… persuasive."
But persuasive was exactly what this treatment was meant to be—though we were not the ones being persuaded. No sooner had I spoken than between Amollia and me something banged and I saw the edge of a latticed shutter fly from a point near my waist to one near Amollia's hip and heard a scrape as it struck stone on the other side. Suddenly a stick was thrust forward and struck Amollia in the ribs, setting her swinging and shrieking simultaneously. Her cries would have been heartrending to me except that before I could have my heart rent, my head was instead once more all but rent, for I too received a clout that tore loose part of a braid so that blood and tears simultaneously poured across my face as I rocked to and fro.
Chu Mi's voice sliced through my pain. "Isn't that a shame? Such nice little women. Such good friends of yours. See how much they hurt? Don't you want to give us what is ours so we can pull them in before they are quite bald and drop into the river for the crocodiles to eat? Or perhaps the great Simurg will pick them up in her talons and rip them off the wall and carry them home to feed her young? You wouldn't want that to happen to your friends, would you? So give us what is rightfully ours and spare your friends their pain and yourself the sight of it. You have no use for the object after all."
"I'll have less use for it when you're done with me, I'm sure of that," Aster said angrily. "Who are you really? What do you want?"
"Oh, no, clever one. Oh, indeed no," Chu Mi laughed. "You won't get me to name the unnamable. You may sit here and think about it and watch those two swing and surely it will come to you. It is only my tenderness toward you and your beautiful long black locks that keeps you from sharing their fate."
Silence. Then Aster, leaning far out, her head and torso barely glimpsed from the corner of one of my poor tortured eyes. "Oh, Amollia! Rasa! Dear sisters! Are you all right?"
"Very well, thanks be to God," Amollia said in a dry, pained imitation of Um Aman and her friends. "And you?"
"Aster," I gasped. "What do they want? ' I was not thinking very clearly at that time, as my brains were being sucked out the holes vacated by my hair.
"Oh, that. The cork, of course, Rasa, didn't you guess? Rut don't worry. I don't care what they do to me, I won't give it up. I'll be brave as you would be in my place and never let them have it. For then what would they do to us?"
I was wishing she would consult me about what I would do in her place instead of just assuming she knew, when the wall under my right shoulder slithered.
Chapter 9
I have mentioned the voluptuous figures carved into the stone walls of the buildings. Since beyond us stretched the trunks and greenery of the jungle and below us, according to Chu Mi (for I could not look down), flowed a river, it was safe to assume that we hung from one of the outer rather than inner walls. I shifted my limited gaze to the right, only my training at confronting that which frightened me keeping me from shrinking from what I knew, from the touch I had already endured, was there.
I was slightly mistaken. No fully live snake had crawled out of the wall to add to our pain and the certainty of death. Rather, the most distant aspect of the carving touching my shoulder, that of a dancer bearing across her shoulders a hooded cobra, was changing. Or at least the snake was. Had it not been for the touch I would have assumed I was enduring a waking fever dream born of my anguish, for the stone warmed in color and writhed in sections, until gradually it did indeed bear the semblance of a living snake, flicking its tongue in and out as it slithered across the dancer's more-than-supportive bosom and onto my shoulder, where its darting tongue all but touched my cheek.
My breath stopped.
"Yesss," it hissed and I found I was making little whimpering sounds.
I felt rather than saw Aster strain forward in an attempt to look around me. "Rasa? What is it? Is it the bird? Is a crocodile trying to bite your toe? Chu Mi says they can jump this high—"
"Must you repeat everything you hear?" Amollia gasped. I barely heard any of it. I was busy being petrified. Then Amollia must have managed to lever herself into position to see me for she emitted a faint yelp which she strangled at once for fear, considerate creature that she is, of startling the snake into striking. Slowly and carefully she said, "A stone snake is licking Rasas face."
"Poor thing," Aster said resignedly. "Maybe it's an indication of what her next life will be like—"
The snake had borne all it could bear. "If you stupid females do not stop your screeching and babbling I will quite forget the good impression I was forming of you for showing such fidelity to your husband and abandon you to your doom after all."
Had the pain not kept me alert I would have swooned again from relief. "Djinn?" I asked.
"Shush! What good does it do me to disguise myself if thou bellowest my nature to all within hearing?"
"But how came you here?" Aster asked, leaning so far forward that she struggled for a moment for balance and had to withdraw a fraction back inside.
"I prefer not to say," the snake replied, folding its hood primly round its head.
"You're probably responsible, aren't you?" Aster hissed back.
"Silence, I say. Thou needst not carry on so. A djinn must do what he must and I am the servant of the bottle even if thy taking ways have allowed me unaccustomed freedom. Can I help it if your conduct was far more commendable than anyone would have thought of three infidels? I tried to give yon Divs shapes which would tempt you into doing my master's will rather than horrify you but you were not so easily led astray. Oh, bravo, dear ladies! Bravo!"
"Your praise is as touching as your confidence in us, O djinn," I replied. "But get us down." This I hissed back at it so vehemently that now it was the snake who drew back its head.
"Oh. I couldn't possibly interfere directly," the snake replied. "That would be contrary to my present master's wish. However, I can give you the benefit of my advice, and am inclined to do so, now knowing what laudable characters you have—for women. And I certainly cannot allow you to perish without telling you how proud I am of you for being strong and defending your honor and turning down the temptation of luxury and delight, choosing instead to endure great woe and pain by denying the Divs that which they seek."
"You see?" Aster hissed emphatically. "I knew he was responsible."
The snake ignored her.
"On the other hand, resistance in this matter is absolutely useless. My master would have from you the cork to my bottle and even you ignorant females must see that he will have it sooner or later."
"Whose side are you on anyway?" Aster demanded. "First you warn us away from the palace, then you make a half-hearted attempt to force us to return with you to the Emir—"
"I did not!" the djinn replied huffily. "Obviously, if I had in any fashion attempted to force you, you would have gone. Though I was not certain that my cork was in your hands at the beginning of that interview, I knew I had been at liberty an uncommonly long time. Therefore, my main task at that time was to comply with the letter of my master's wish, which, as you pointed out, was not possible, even for one of my power. I felt the power of the seal Lady Rasa bore on her person toward the end of that meeting however. Later, when my master had discovered the loss of it but did not yet know where to look, I took advantage of his disorganization to make a foray of my own to your tent to try to persuade you to give it back voluntarily."
"And when that failed, you turned upon us with your minions?" The resentment in Aster's tone was not nearly sufficient to cover mine. She sounded merely pouty. I was wishing the djinn back into his old form, whereupon I would somehow find the strength to hoist him by certain particularly tender parts of his person from the ring upon which I hung.
"Not mine, lady! Oh, no. I merely advised a stratagem whereby the Emir's ally, the King of Divs, might use his subjects to assist the Emir in obtaining the cork from thee. And a gentle, honeyed stratagem it was. What point was there, I asked, in using unnecessary brutality? Only she who held the seal could give it, and she had to give it freely, for it cannot be taken by force. Hadst thou acquiesced to the wooings of the Div, Lady Aster, thou wouldst have been deprived of the seal of Suleiman the moment thou removed—whilst thou—well, the Div would have obtained it when thou hadst laid it aside."
"And what would have happened to us then?" Aster asked.
The djinn-snake swelled a little. "Well—er—I suppose the others would have been abandoned in the jungle and thou delivered unto my master, who covets thee yet. Or perhaps all of you would have been given to the King of Divs for his service. How should I know? I cannot think of everything. Be assured it would have been a gentler fate than that which inevitably awaits thee now. For myself, I spent a great deal of time detouring overland to reach this place. It was very bad of you to seek to avoid me by crossing the ocean that way."
None of us apologized.
"But now, Lady Aster, thou must for the sake of Lady Rasa and Lady Amollia give up the cork. It is of no use to you whatsoever. It serves only to bring upon you the wrath of my master and his powerful allies. You do not know the ways of Divs. They can turn themselves into anything. Anything. At the present moment the Emir is high in the favor of the King of Divs, to whom he secretly pays tribute, for he sent him the beauteous Hyaganoosh. And my master will not rest until the cork is returned, for so long as it is out of the bottle, he cannot fully control me. Unless he wishes to expend one of his wishes and formally command me, I may come and go at will. And he has already used two of those wishes!" The djinn chortled a little at that.
"I wish you had told us all of this before," Aster complained.
"While I could not act forcibly against you, neither could I willfully disobey he who holds the bottle. And at the time, I thought you no better than he. Now that I know what faithful and devoted wives you are—"
"If you approve of us so much, release us from here!" I said, and as hard as I tried to make it sound like a command, to my roaring ears it sounded more like a whine.
"Apologies, Lady Rasa. I cannot. As I explained, I cannot act against the Emir directly any more than I can act against you. It is a very delicate matter." The snake's tongue flicked in and out in a finicky manner, as if illustrating the delicacy. "One can't expect infidels to understand. But I would give the Divs the seal, Lady Aster. They cannot force it from you but they can do very bad things to Lady Amollia and Lady Rasa. Very bad things indeed—oh, my goodness!" The snake's color began to dim to stony pitted gray again, and only the eyes remained lit and the tongue lively for a moment as the hiss dried to powder. "I am fading. The Emir must be calling and therefore I must go. Even if he has no wish, I must be present in case he does have. May God protect you, even if you are infidels. You'll need it."
"Wait! Can you do nothing?" I cried as the last life in the stone snake fled and the heavy thing weighed now upon my arm, increasing the burden upon my poor scalp. And, making matters worse than ever, the smoke accompanying the djinn's exit from the creature's mouth and nostrils tickled my nose and caused me to sneeze. I almost swooned again from the pain.
Aster's torso twisted out the window again and she looked up at me sympathetically. "Heavens, you poor thing. You look like your skin is going to pull off your neck any moment now and drop the rest of you into the river." One needs such sympathy in times of peril. "I'm certainly glad we didn't agree to marry them. Not only are they wicked but they lied about who they are. Probably aren't princes either. Oh well, at least it's comforting to know they can't do anything really awful."
"To you, Aster," Amollia's scratchy voice reminded her. "They're killing us."
"Ummm. You may be right. So they are," she replied, and she did sound sorry.
"Go tell them you'll give them the cork," Amollia croaked.
"What? And lose all my bargaining power? Then we'll all be in the same pretty fix."
"Don't give it to them. Just tell them you will. Keep them occupied for a while."
"I don't see how. If I say I will give it to them and I do, that will take very little time, and if I don't, that will be obvious too and they'll just come back up here and hurt you some more."
That happy thought provided me with inspiration. "Say you… hid it magically. Make up some long ritual by which you must retrieve it. It can last all night if necessary." I doubted that I would have been capable of manufacturing such an act, but Aster was a professional actress—and charlatan as well, no doubt. She ought to be good for something.
"Well, I'm not sure—" she began.
"Go," Amollia said. "Or our deaths will be on your head and there's no telling what you'll be in your next life."
Aster left and below we heard her voice, loud and fast, selling our captors her story. Meanwhile Amollia's hands raised out of my line of vision.
"Be still," she said. "I'll have myself loose now—"
I heard the clank of her bracelets on the iron ring above the patter of the rain into the river below. The storm no longer came in gusts, as it had previously, but drizzled gently.
"Ahhh," she said at last, and her body shifted upward. After a moment she said, "Rasa, I've untied my hair from the ring. I'm holding it with my hands now. Try to hold still, for I am going to climb into the window long enough to unwind my sash and bind it around you to tie you by the waist to my ring. That way, when I unfasten your braids, you won't fall into the river before I can catch you."
Disinclined to nod, I groaned instead. I still did not understand how, even if she freed me this time, the two of us would be safe from the magic that had put us there initially. Our enemies had only to snap their fingers again, or whatever it was they had done before. Still, with a respite from the blinding pain, perhaps I would think of something. Or perhaps Amollia had more of a plan.
She began swinging back and forth from the ring, kicking to try to reach the window ledge. I was glad she had warned me ahead of time, for it saved me painful flinching. She succeeded on the third try. From within the room came the sound of rustling cloth and jingling jewelry. "Courage, barbarian. When we are free of this place I shall teach you the tricks of hairdressing known only to my people." She was silent for a moment before I felt her reaching toward me, her fingers brushing my waist. Even that slight movement stirred the stone snake on my shoulder and I spun slightly, dangling, half-swooning from the fire radiating from my head down to my deepest self. I thought then the roaring rush was in my head, and the heavy, deep, drumlike beat also. So pervasive was the noise I barely heard Amollia's scream, though her mouth was close to my ear.
I heard enough of it to open my eyes, which suddenly were filled with feathers, each the size of a spear and colored with a brilliant green brighter than new grass and a yellow sunnier than the sun itself. Unfortunately the gale wind generated by the beating wings made up of these feathers rocked me back and forth so painfully that I could not really appreciate their beauty. I was almost relieved when the giant foot—like a chicken's if a chicken had talons as long as a man's legs—wrapped itself around my waist, for it served to anchor me for a moment and ease the anguish of being buffeted about.
Somewhere inside my tortured scalp I understood the low chucklings emitting from the great bird belonging to both foot and feathers. They meant, roughly translated, "Aha! I was right to hunt here again. Yet another morsel ripe for my plucking. My young will be well-fed."
A curved orange beak rushed toward my face and I felt only one more flash of fire as it snapped shut before the awful pressure on my head released and I felt myself carried upward. The wind and rain cooling my poor head relieved me so that I passed once more from waking, heedless of my new danger.
I awoke with the divine ancestor of all headaches. The scenery did nothing to improve it. Feeling my poor tender scalp with small pats of my finger tips, I learned that my braids had loosened. The ends had been chopped a good foot shorter and the bound end hacked away. Even so, the weight of it hanging hurt my scalp and I coiled up each length and laid it most gingerly atop my crown.
I lay slumped in a hut-sized structure composed of twigs and grass, containing several eggs that would come to my waist when I stood—which I had no intention of doing. For beyond the low, ragged edge of the nest a cliffside plummeted in jagged jumps into purple haze and dark-green jungle glistening with rain. Above me was a leaden sky with a range of icy crags biting into it. For the first time since I left my home country, bothered by the heat, I was not.
From the extreme dinginess of the sky and the soaked condition of my clothing, I guessed I had been in the nest for some time. My skin was warm however, probably because the mother bird, while sitting on her nest, had had to sit on me as well. I was fortunate that she preferred to save me to be fresh, live food for her young instead of snacking upon me herself.
How much time had passed since she left the nest I knew not, but she had done her work well while she brooded, for now, in her absence, the eggs began to hatch.
The noise was almost more than my poor tortured head could bear. When at last the first shell split down the middle and pieces broke away with a crack louder than thunder, I would have screamed except, of course, to do so would only have made matters worse.
As it was they deteriorated rapidly. A hideous creature with the puckered pink skin of a stewed chicken dotted with a sparse sprinkling of down poked its bald, pop-eyed head out of the crack in the shell and opened its yellow beak, showing a pointed rosy tongue. "GARAK!" it said. I wept, cringing from it, covering my ears and my vibrating scalp with my hands as best I could.
I thought it meant to eat me as it shoved its face toward me, but when I uncovered my head enough to look into its watery pop eyes, it cocked its head rather forlornly and seemed piteous right up until the time it rent my brain again by repeating its squawk. "GARAK!"
Still, the noise had a questioning, helpless quality to it. Not that I cared. It was, under the circumstances, no more helpless than I. But if I could only make it stop that horrible squawking before my head came off, I thought I might make my own last moments somewhat happier. Under the headcloth tucked in my sash the remnants of Fatima's food dangled in their net bag. The creature watched me avidly as I untied the bag, and when I extracted a bit of dried bread it went wild.
"GARAK! GARAK! GARAK!" it cried, its cries increasingly loud until I was ready to jump from the nest to a mercifully quick death. Instead, I flung caution aside and risked my hand by using it to stuff the bread into the fledgling's craw.
I was rewarded with a moment of blissful silence, nothing but a shadow of the former pain pounding my pate. When the creature once more opened its mouth, I popped in a rice ball. In this fashion I continued to deliver myself from its noise—first the bread, then the rice balls, and finally the dates, the pomegranates, the bananas, the oranges and the nuts until all were gone. Blessedly, by then so was the young creature's appetite until at last it kicked aside the remainder of its shell, hopped out upon the shards, and relaxed, its head resting fastidiously against the headcloth on my lap, as if using it for a pillow. The bird made small, bearable, chirping sounds. These lulled me into another short nap myself, from which I was awakened by the beating of wings.
I thought then that perhaps the time had finally come to jump. The food was gone and when the small bird's hunger returned, it would add its din to the present cacophony and my head would crack open like its egg.
The chick twitched to alertness as its mother's shadow folded over us.
My hand on the headcloth of Selima, I once more understood the mind of this bird as I had done, though too distracted to wonder at the matter, while dangling from the temple wall.
"HAAATCHED, precocious one?" she asked. "You were supposed to eat that morsel, not sleep upon it." By this she meant me. "I see I must chew it for you if you are to have some before your siblings hatch."
Once more her monstrous beak swung down, casting the shadow of doom upon my countenance. But before she could do her worst, her child all but finished me off with its protests. "GARAK! GARAK!" it cried, pecking and beating at its mother with its well-formed though yet small and featherless wings. This time I understood, to my astonishment, that the garaks addressed to the giant bird meant, "Away, monster! Leave my mother alone!"
The mother bird emitted a confused squawk and flew off, landing a few soaring circles later with some odoriferous carrion with which she tried to pacify her offspring. The baby bird, full of my provisions, would have none of hers and defended me staunchly.
The mother bird glared at me, a glare I returned, and for the first time she seemed to notice that I was alive in the sense that she was. "Why, you yellow-crested, puff-chested, featherless wall-clinger!" she shrieked. Her name for me was so complex I admit its meaning might have eluded me even given the understanding imparted by the headcloth, except that she repeated it with each shriek and hence I became well aware of my image in her great green eyes. "You have stolen from me the love of my first-hatched! I would tear you into worm strips except that I would have to kill my child to do so!"
When she had squawked herself hoarse and me into a throbbing recurrence of my headache, I said reasonably and very very quietly, using the politest language I had heard among these people—for I had great respect for that beak and those talons, "It grieves me to have caused my esteemed hostess so much pain, mighty—er, jade-crested, golden-feathered, emerald-winged gem-among-birds." I had not become the wife of a consummate flatterer without learning something.
"Do you really think so?" she asked. "That is a very pretty name, but I am, of course, the Simurg."
"I am—er—the Rasa," I replied. "And as I was saying, O Simurg, most beauteous and beneficent of birds, when your charming offspring awoke from its shell and cried out to me for food, my pity was aroused and as you were away, I fed it in your stead, for am I not a mother too?"
"You are?"
"Oh, yes. I have sixteen children at home and the eldest yet a toddler." Consorting with Aster had also left its impression upon me.
"The poor things! Why were you not with them instead of hanging around on walls?"
"Oh. That. You see, it is—er—this way," I stammered. I could not imagine the bird would believe or be interested in the truth—she seemed a simple, home-bound creature, if you discounted her more murderous attributes—so I told her something within her understanding. "My kind gathers food thus. We wait hanging there upon that building, looking like part of the wall, until—um—until snakes writhe past on the statues or a fish swims by, whereupon we pounce."
"Is that why I've so often found tidbits hanging there?" she asked, obviously pleased at the new information. "My dear, your instincts are leading you astray, I must warn you. Your kind has such terrible camouflage I think you will soon die out if you don't find new modes of food gathering soon."
"Ah, you are wise as well as beautiful, " I said. "And do you know, we don't seem to catch much that way either."
Another "garak!" interrupted our conversation as a new chick emerged from the shell. The Simurg's expression of interest in me changed to one of covetousness but "my" hatchling glared at her and flapped its small wings menacingly.
"I believe you are a well-intentioned creature," the Simurg said reluctantly. "But I simply cannot have this. I need to be gathering food for my young and I cannot be bothered about you staying here and having them all think I'm nothing but some sort of delivery pigeon. Come, back to the ground with you. And remember what I've said about hanging around walls."
"Hearing and obeying, mighty Simurg," I said, adding the djinn to my list of impersonations. I surrendered my person to her talons whereupon she scooped me up, and flew almost straight down, barely braking with her wings in her haste to be rid of me, depositing me at the foot of the cliff. From high above I heard a last mournful squawk which now sounded less like "garak!" and more like, "Maaa!" But it died away as the Simurg set me free, my feet again touched solid ground, and the bird's beating wings overcame all other sounds.
Ah, safety. Now all I had to do was traverse the miles of tangled jungle between me and Aster and Amollia—if they still lived. At least I had the headcloth, and had only to ask the animals to find my way back to the temple.
Evening was rapidly approaching, however, so I sat down against a tree at the foot of the cliff. I wished I had not given the baby Simurg all of my food. I wished my scalp did not ache so much and wished the rain would stop or that I had the means of building a fire. What I did not wish for was to meet another snake, but that was what I got, nevertheless. I was not distressed for I had had good luck getting information from snakes previously, if one counted the djinn. Therefore, as the serpent descended the tree, its head weaving before my eyes as it investigated what manner of creature I was, I matter-of-factly raised the cloth to its snout and asked it in the name of God and Saint Selima how I might return to the "hunting lodge" in the jungle.
The snake gave me to understand that it was not at all religious and that if I did not desist shoving the rag in its face I would receive a richly deserved venomous reward. But at least the snake didn't bite me immediately. Heartened by this concession, I ventured to ask further where I might find food.
"I haven't the faintest idea," the snake replied. "I'm not even entirely sure what something like you would eat. I don't see why you must molest me when there are others of your sort in yonder cave. Why not ask them?"
To hear of the presence of other humans from the lips of a snake (if indeed snakes may be said to have lips) struck me as faintly ominous. Any human of which it spoke did not seem to me to be one whose acquaintance I particularly wished to make, but who was I to be picky under the circumstances? True, I had rather liked the idea of using the magic device in my possession. Conversation with another person seemed commonplace when I might converse with lions or elephants instead. However, as the snake had very properly pointed out, other humans would be better qualified to help me meet my own requirements for survival.
But it was not so much the snake's excellent advice as his warning that convinced me to immediately withdraw and investigate the cave.
Besides, other people, even if only poor peasants or fellow travelers, might provide me with food and fire for the night. Of course, I expected when the snake said they were in the cave that they would be immediately within the cave, so when I entered the little room just beyond the cave mouth and found it dark and empty, I almost decided I had the wrong cave. But as I moved toward the front again, I stumbled and looked back, and saw faintly from a corner I had not bothered to investigate a glimmer of light.
No doubt I was only in the entryway and the lodgers dwelt in a more commodious room deeper within the cavern. The leather curtain that parted beneath my hand, bathing me in the faintly greenish light, seemed to confirm that notion and I almost called out to my hosts. But my father had taught me the wisdom of learning the lay of the land before announcing oneself, and this caution saved my life.
At first the room appeared deserted, but it is true that I could not see very well in the sickly lime-colored light shining off the very walls of the cavern. Massive shapes huddled around the walls, and in particular one huge lump crouched in the middle of the room, toward the back, but though they seemed solid and menacing, I simply could not form any other impression of their nature except that they were inanimate.
Even that impression was rapidly dispelled, however, as from the central mass came a scratching, and a click. I saw something jerk against the green-lit stone behind it. I fell back two steps and heard the thump of eight bounding steps apiece taken by a plethora of feet—a pack of camp dogs belonging to travelers?
What faced me heart-stilled moments later was nothing anywhere near so ordinary. Far from being many dogs, it appeared to be, at first glance, one tiger.
Chapter 10
For only one pair of lamping russet eyes, each larger than my fist, stared up at me. And only one voice grumbled in a deep growl that threatened at any moment to erupt into a roar. I barely took in its other tigerish attributes—the stripes, broad cat face and rounded ears. I was busy noticing the other important detail—the gleaming ivory teeth, a full set. So hard did I stare at those teeth that I was almost unaware of the disorientation I experienced concerning the remaining portion of the tiger. Without realizing it, I kept expecting to see another head.
For though I was not acquainted with tigers specifically, Amollia had described them to me and I knew they were large cats similar to those who preyed upon Yahtzeni sheep and to the leopard Kalimba. Fatima had also spoken frequently of tigers. From her I had also formed the picture of another species of ordinary ferocious feral cat differing from its fellows essentially in matters of coloring. Neither Fatima nor Amollia had ever mentioned anything to indicate that the beast's head would be as large as one of the silver platters upon which meals were served to whole companies of people, or that it would have two clubbed and angrily jerking tails and no fewer than eight legs, eight paws and forty wickedly gleaming claws. I did not pause to count each of them, for I was engaged in counting teeth instead, but the general impression was indelibly inscribed upon my mind. And though I had no desire to observe the rest of the beast at closer quarters, I had no choice, for the monster pounced forward again, all eight feet in perfect coordination, as if it were a team of exquisitely matched horses.
While my eyes were wholly occupied with the fearsome aspect of the beast, my hands were serving me better, for they had freed the headcloth and one of them, of its own will, tremblingly shook the rag before the tiger's very nose. My other hand flew up to cover my face so I wouldn't see when the monster took off the first arm, headcloth and all, and also so that when it attacked me it wouldn't mutilate my face first. I dislike seeming vain, but I wanted what was left of my corpse to be recognizable. Perhaps word would someday reach my mother and she would light a fire in my honor. I waited for an eternity and when nothing happened, peeked out. The beast had stretched forth its neck, which would have done a bullock credit, and was sniffing. The noise I had been interpreting as a growl had changed to an equally loud and ferocious purring. Then without warning it sprang again—onto its back, where it rolled and writhed with all eight paws in the air.
"Greetings, beast," I said. My voice refused to rise above a whisper.
The cat jumped to its feet and bumped against me, sending me sprawling. "Greetings, bearer of the sweet smell. Greetings and welcome."
"Welcome?" That was not the sort of attitude I expected from a guardian beast.
"Welcome. What a treat to have you here. The King didn't tell me you were coming, but I'm sure he wanted to surprise me. So seldom does anyone really interesting come while I'm left alone to guard the palace. I thought at first you had come to steal the treasure, or perhaps one of the lemons from the orchard of experience, and I was going to eat you. Can you imagine that?"
I hoped he took my generalized trembling for a negative shake of my head.
"But having smelled that lovely smell, I can tell you are a splendid sort of person—though I don't suppose you came to visit just with me?"
"Actually, I—"
"No, naturally, you did not, a person with an important smell like that. You have no doubt come visiting at the harem. Perhaps you are even to become one of the Div's wives. Oh, are you?" The idea sent the beast into spasms of eight-pawed leaps and rolls.
I tried to look noncommittal as I said, "We'll see. Can you show me the way?"
"Certainly I can. Do you think I would guard something without knowing where it is?"
I followed it, walking behind and between the bodies. It turned its head to gaze at me, its big eyes slitted with pleasure, and in its purr another question was forming.
Quickly I asked one of my own. "Why two bodies? Did you start out as twins, perhaps?"
The purring halted for a moment and the tiger turned to face me. "All bitigers have two bodies."
"Truly? Forgive my ignorance. I didn't know." I was most sincerely contrite for the bitiger's purr had stilled and the teeth gleamed under the eyes. "I had only heard of the other kind."
I held out the rag to sniff again and the beast's purr resumed, as did its forward eight-pawed prance. "That is understandable. Bitigers are rare. And superior. We are a new magical improvement on the other sort, you see, and since we are a new species, there are but few of us."
"In that case, I am honored," I said. "But tell me, how is having two bodies an advantage?"
"That should be easy for one with such a wise smell to understand," the bitiger replied. "Why, we are far more efficient than ordinary tigers, for we have twice the capacity for disposing of enemies, since we have two stomachs, twice the speed, since we have eight paws. But, unlike two-headed beasts, we have only one leader for both sections and therefore no dissent or question, when there's a decision to be made, who is in authority."
"And who are the enemies of bitigers?" I asked.
"Prey mostly. Water buffalo and gazelles and deer. And ordinary tigers—who are jealous of us. Then there are the enemies of the King of Divs—" But at that point the bitiger turned a corner and stopped, so that I all but ran between the bodies and into its neck. I stepped back and the beast roared "to let them know we are without." In a moment the stone slab before which we stood creaked and thumped aside, opening upon light and music and the smell of incense.
I entered slowly, still bemused by the strange beast growling encouragingly behind me. Selima's headcloth had worked extraordinarily well on the animal, who had behaved as if intoxicated by the saint's odor of understanding and benevolence. Could it be that bitigers, enemies of ordinary tigers and of most animals or folk that they met, were so rare, with so few of their own kind, that they were glad of companionship? One might think the two bodies would provide it for each other, but then, there was no second head to confer with or to comfort.
When I was beyond the stone slab that served as a door, it slid shut and I ceased musing about the tiger, and turned to wondering, now that I had managed to enter this place, how I would leave it. Furthermore, my headache, all but forgotten, began to throb again as my eyes adjusted to the brighter light in this room. It was a large room, a sort of gathering hall, with the usual deep richly colored rugs and opulent gold-tassled cushions and bolsters lying about. The walls of the cave were fretted and carved into beautiful patterns and soft rosy light rippled upon silken banners draped across the cavern ceiling. These banners did not quite conceal that which caused my pate to throb: the iron rings suspended from the ceiling, one for each of the ten or fifteen women in the room save one. These women were all gorgeously dressed, very beautiful of face and form, varied widely as to complexion and hair color. But their tresses were all similarly styled; amazingly long and worn loose except for the ends, which were bound to the rings.
Only one, a young girl, was without fetters. She sat in the middle of the room upon a beautiful cushion of apricot hue embroidered with gold and silver atop an ankle-deep silken carpet of lapis lazuli, aqua and palest topaz. Her slender fingers wore tiny silver cymbals. Her body was frozen in mid-undulation, her mouth still partially open. The music I heard at the door had come from her.
The other women sat or lounged upon cushions while doing needlework, brushing the portion of their hair they could reach (which must have resulted in frightful snarls), applying cosmetics, or chatting. They paid no attention to me at all but went ahead with their activities, seemingly oblivious.
"Do make sure the door is really closed," the girl said, a slight tremor in her voice. "The bitiger is supposed to be a man-eater but one never knows." I turned and shoved against where I judged the opening had been, but now the wall was as if it had never been anything but solid. The girl sighed an exaggerated, childish sigh, a not inappropriate gesture since she looked to be little more than just past the shedding of her first woman's blood. She flipped her raven curls and beetled her heavy black brows so that they met across the bridge of her nose. I thought the expression made her look rather like one of Saint Selima's sacred monkeys, but I have been told that to have a browline such as hers is to possess a feature of great beauty second only to a deep navel in erotic appeal. "Very well, then," she said briskly. "You can change yourself now into what you really are. Never mind them," she flipped a wrist negligently in the direction of the other women. "The rings deprive them, after a while, of all interest in anything outside of themselves. The King says it makes life more peaceful that way, though I find it rather tiresome at times to have no one but his former first wife, who isn't yet affected by her ring, to show the jewels and gowns and other presents he gives me. She's not very appreciative." She paused for breath and blinked her wide dark eyes several times before continuing. "I must say that is the most hideously horrid guise I have ever seen any of King Sani's folk assume but I suppose I'll have to get used to it. Only give me a hint. Are you truly female or are you some cute boy come to ravish me?" She giggled a little and hugged herself as she asked.
"I'm sorry to disappoint you, your—uh—Your Radiance," I began, keeping to the formula of following Aster's example with dangerous and potentially dangerous beings. If it worked with birds, why should it not work with females with the brains of birds? "But I am afraid this is my true guise."
"That?" she asked, her hand going to her mouth.
"This," I agreed.
"But it can't be. Look!" And she held up a hand mirror of silver and mother-of-pearl for me to behold my visage. I immediately saw her point. With a patch of hair missing above my right temple, the rest of it strewed about in a matted, spiky structure similar to the Simurg's nest, my face streaked with blood and scratched and dirtied and streaked again by the rains, my clothing torn and my face and arms scratched, reddened and swollen, I looked very much as if I had been flayed, buried for several days, and disinterred.
"I'm afraid it is," I said, wincing and handing back the mirror, reflective side toward her. "I have met with disaster today, you see, and stopped here to ask for directions and perhaps shelter for the night, for I have become separated from my companions. But before I continue, would you be so kind as to tell me why these women are tied by their hair?"
"I suppose it does look a little unusual," she replied. "But it's a sort of beauty treatment. Makes their hair grow longer. I may try it later but right now I'm readying myself for my wedding. I was just practicing the song and dance I intend to perform for the King on our wedding night. I shall wear this very outfit too. Do you like it?" There was very little of it and quite a lot of her to be seen but I nodded. She hardly noticed the nod, but once more inspected herself critically, including the ends of her silky curls, which she tossed back over her shoulder as if rejecting them before staring at me, her lower lip protruding. "Why is your hair that color? Are you very old? The only one of the King's wives with hair that pale is quite ancient. You are a frightful mess but you don't look that old."
"I am not old," I said in roughly the same tone of voice the bitiger had asserted that it was not an aborted set of twins, "I am Yahtzeni."
"Oh. What's that? Is it good or bad?"
"Goo… we're shepherds, warriors, traveling people from across many seas and mountains. Very far away but we don't live so differently from some of your folk except," I nodded to the women bound by their hair, going about their business as if they were one of the shadow plays Aster produced with her clever hands on the walls at night before Fatima's lamp was blown out, "that Yahtzeni men haven't so many wives." I started to add that we didn't have as many men either but her curiosity was quite sated and her vanity aroused.
"Our men don't have all that many either, usually—only four, if they can afford it. And they always love one the best—usually the youngest and prettiest." She smiled, dimpling, just in case I missed guessing who that person was in this household. "Only very important officials and kings, like my fiancé, the King of Divs (He's said to call him Sani but I do think that's improper before we're married, don't you?) can have so many. But these others, why, he doesn't care a fig for them." She waved her delicate little hand with its long hennaed nails and fingers full of rings dismissingly at the women behind her.
"Obviously," I said. "Still, I suppose at one time he must have."
"Oh, I don't think so. They're all political alliances. You know, that one over there is the one I was telling you about, was the last one he had that was anything like a favorite. She's a princess of the Peris—they're these most awfully odd magical folk from the other side of the mountains. Have you ever seen hair striped in colors like that? And her eyes are strange too. Sani says Peris live for hundreds of years and he just got tired of hearing how much older and wiser she was. But then, her father helped him overthrow his father so he could win the throne. I suppose he let her get away with it for sentimental reasons."
"A moment, please," I said. "I thought the king of this land was a young boy. Are we not still within the realm of the same Shah who rules both Bukesh and Kharristan?"
"Certainly. We're not far from Bukesh at all—but Adar Shah is King of Tamurians only. He has no control over the Divs." She sounded quite superior about it, as if she were already queen.
"But please," I said, "what are Divs?"
"You are foreign, aren't you?"
I kept my mouth shut and my eyes trained upon her face, the soft shadows licking across it with the ebb and flow of the rosy light. I refrained from remarking that if she were to be carried off to our grasslands by one of our demons she'd be just as foreign there as I was here.
"Divs," she said, "are simply the most wonderful things there are—at least most of them, and I don't need to worry about the others because I'll be their queen and they wont dare trouble me. They can change themselves into any form at all. You should see the handsome one Sani—His Majesty—has chosen to marry me in."
"But that's not unusual around here, is it?" I asked. "I know a djinn who does the same thing."
"You must be mistaken," she said firmly. "Djinns cannot turn into something that is not already in existence, the way Divs can. They are only able to occupy existing forms. Djinns never create forms."
"How knowledgeable you are for one so young!" I replied. I wanted to wring her conceited little neck but I had begun to realize who she was and that I would need her help, not only now but later.
"I think every bride should share her husband's interests. I mean, once I'm queen, I'm sure to be expected to help out with the ruling, because Sani can scarcely bear to be parted from me and well, just between the two of us… I have lately felt the urgings of my royal blood—my real heritage, telling me how a few matters around here should be conducted. I used to think I was a peasant, you know, and raised by peasants, and my friend the Emir of Kharristan did say often when he came to me for advice and comfort that I certainly had the common touch—but now, Sani calls me his princess and I feel sure that he, with his magical powers, knows something."
She admired herself in the mirror she had held up to me and was obviously pleased by the contrast. The little round mirrors attached to the strip of rose silk barely covering her ample bosom sparked light around the room as she turned to catch herself at different angles in the mirror. She smiled fondly at her reflection. "He also calls me Akasma, the climbing rose." She giggled. "I think he means something naughty by that, but I don't mind. It's pretty, anyway. You can't imagine what a trial it is to have a mother who insists on naming you something awful like Hyaganoosh. Can't you just hear people snickering if they call me 'Queen Hyaganoosh'?" Then she sighed. "All the same, I wish my mother were here to see me now. Not that the Emir hasn't been wonderful to me since I was orphaned—I suppose he did feel responsible since it was his soldiers who accidentally ran my parents down while changing the guard. It made my Aunt Samira very bitter against poor Onan and she didn't like it when I went to live with him, I know, but she could scarcely feed herself and that lazy, daydreaming cousin of mine. She thought I should marry him, but between you and me, mama always told me I could do better. Not that Aman's not well-favored, you understand, but he never brought me nice presents like Onan and Sani."
Maybe the presents were to keep her quiet so they could contemplate her charms in peace. Her tendency to chatter was every bit as pronounced as Aster's. Despite the disastrous consequences of his failure, I was glad Aman had not succeeded in winning her. Two such tongues in one household would be enough to drive everyone else into the desert. At least she talked to me, which perhaps meant she liked my company. And why not? I had given her no cause not to. The way I looked at the moment I was certainly no competition for her, and the obliviousness of the other women would be a great trial to this self-proclaimed paragon. Ears into which she could pour her chatter were more than welcome and since I needed to gain her goodwill without revealing too much, listening seemed the safest course.
"Would you have married your cousin if he had been rich enough to give you presents too?"
"He couldn't be as rich and powerful as Sani, could he? And he can't change forms—" She broke off to titter behind her hand. "At least, not by himself. Oh, Aman is such a buffoon! Do you know he crept into my private chambers when I lived with the Emir and gave me a lamp he claimed was magic? I didn't believe him, but I was so annoyed at him for endangering my position with the Emir that I called him an ass and—and something funny happened. Onan was coming and while I was looking for a place to hide Aman, he disappeared, but there was an ass right there in my garden!"
"Do you suppose that was your cousin?"
"Oh, no, how could it have been? Why, if I'd turned her precious son into an ass, I would have heard my Aunt Samira screaming all the way from her house on the other side of Kharristan! No, no. I've been told of such things, but that's not possible, is it?" Her pretty brow wrinkled with the strain of thought. "I mean, Sani is someone different. He is a genuine magic person. So, of course, what he does is real, but Aman with a genie and a magic lamp? No. I do not think so. Nevertheless, I gave the lamp to Onan for safekeeping. What if that genie crawled out of his bottle when I was asleep and tried to molest me?"
"Oh, you handled it properly," I said. "Very cunning. By giving the bottle to the Emir, you earned his gratitude as well, no doubt."
The smooth brow puckered further and the little mirrors shimmered with agitation as her wide brown eyes clouded with a hint of the anxiety a lamb with any measure of intelligence should feel upon entering a wolf's den. "Ye-es, except he wondered where I got it. That was when he decided I'd be happier here with Sani, and should come here to await the wedding instead of remaining with him—" She broke off, blinking ingenuously at me. "But you poor thing! Look at you! Starved and dirty and tired, and here I am going on about all the wonderful things happening to me."
I was so predisposed against her by this time that I decided she was not really being thoughtful but was merely disinclined to continue talking about a subject which made her uncomfortable, and grasped at any straw to change it. Whatever the reason, if indeed she had any, she reached behind her, picked up a small padded stick and struck a round bronze gong.
"We'll all have something to eat. It can be a party! But—don't you think you should wash first? There's a pool over in the corner, behind the striped-haired Peri. And perhaps you should remain inconspicuous while the servants are here. Sani doesn't really like visitors."
"I gathered," I said, thinking of the bitiger, and rose to wend my way through the ring-bound women to the pool, where I made myself at once presentable and less noticeable to the servants, who turned out to be large black spiders who scuttled into the room with trays on their backs.
"What are those?" I asked. I did not expect an answer for the talking among the women had neither ceased nor slackened. The Peri princess, however, had not been talking. She had been watching me in her own mirror while I washed my face and all other modestly available flesh before ducking my head to rinse the blood and sweat from my hair and scalp. The calculating gaze with which she now favored me caused me to wonder at Hyaganoosh's bland assumption that only the servants would report my presence. Why worry about spiders when there were jealous, deposed wives with which to concern herself?
"That," the Peri replied, pointing to one of the spiders scuttling toward us, "is my sister, Pinga. She wasn't beautiful enough to marry King Sani after he disposed of his old ally, our father, so he froze her into that shape and condemned her to serve as a slave. He does likewise with all of the less well-favored female relatives of his defeated rivals. He claims the spider's shape is a more useful one for women of unpleasing aspect, and as spiders they are less prone to servant's gossip. Unless, of course, he turns them back into their human shape long enough to question them." And with this she gave me a significant glance out of eyes that were clear and faceted as diamonds and reflected all of the colors in the room. Then, quietly, she stepped in front of me and stooped to receive a plate of fruit and cakes from one of the trays before the spider crawled along to the next woman.
When all of the women had been served, the spiders arranged themselves and their trays in a sort of honor guard around Hyaganoosh, who busily popped mutton chunks into her mouth and licked her fingers.
The Peri sighed and shook her head slightly. "How long it has been since I was as wise as that!"
I said, "Urn," through a mouthful of apple, which gave me an excuse not to say more.
The Peri, however, was not in need of information from me, as she soon demonstrated. "So. Your husband is still an ass," she said, watching with a sidelong glance as I choked on my apple.
"How did you know about that?"
"Who do you think was Highest Highness before our little climbing rose came along? Any magic requiring shape-shifting to an unprefabricated body requires our help, you know. That trick your friend the djinn did may have looked so fast to mortals that dark-eyes over there missed it altogether, but actually, he had to send a message through the ethers requesting permission and filling out the proper forms before he could so much as add a hair to your husband's tail. I myself was accustomed to taking care of such matters, to spare Sani's energies for more important affairs. You see how grateful he was!" She reached up and tugged the combined blue and green stripes of her hair so that the iron ring to which it was bound creaked against the stone ceiling. "But then, Sani always resented my administrative talent. In a few months' time I will have no thought for the statecraft I learned at my father's knee, along with flying and vanishing. I'll be as oblivious as these other poor drudges. The ring does that to one after a while. With all magic gone, all interest in anything beyond the self goes too."
"You cannot help us then?" I asked.
"No. Even if I were free of this accursed iron and enjoyed Sani's trust once more, I could not change the wish. She who invoked it must—"
"I know, I know. Everybody seems agreed about that. I was just leading up to asking for her help when she called for the spi—excuse me, your sister and her fellow captives. But actually, I only stopped long enough to get directions back to the hunting lodge where Aster and Amollia and I met some—" I looked into the faceted eyes, which were politely waiting for me to finish another story their owner already knew well. "—Divs," I finished lamely. "You know about that too?"
She smiled smugly. "I have my spies."
"Then you will understand that I must see to that situation first," I said.
"You may have another problem, if you linger too long. If Sani returns and finds you here, here you will remain," she eyed me critically, "possibly as a spider. I do not know how you got past the bitiger, but dealing with Sani and the honor guard accompanying him to meet Emir Onan will be no piece of halva, believe me. You will not be so lucky as to find them out next time."
"Perhaps I can sneak past them."
"Impossible. A thousand gongs would gong and a thousand nightingales would cry out in the barracks even if you manage to work your wiles on the bitiger again. I developed the security system myself."
"Can you not help me?"
"I could," she said. "If I thought it would be worthwhile. And if I thought my help would be enough to keep you from bungling it anyway. You have no idea how vicious Sani can be when betrayed. I'm an immortal. Spending the rest of my life being tortured is therefore even less appealing to me than most, and while I am bound to this ring I cannot properly defend myself."
"I could cut your hair loose of the ring," I said.
"Umm—yes, I suppose you could. However, it would not serve," she replied, squatting beside a low table, upon which were pots, jars, sticks and bottles full of cosmetics. She began drawing lines around her eyes and offered me the pot when she had finished to her satisfaction. "Here, you could use a little color."
I thought that such severe shadow would only give one of my pallid appearance a corpselike aspect and declined. "Why would it not serve?"
"Because in my hair is half my power, and if you cut it you would be debilitating me even as the ring now debilitates me. You might as well cut off my arms."
I started to remind her that while her hair would grow and she could regain her power, she would steadily lose it while she was tied to the ring. But what did I know of Peri hair? No alternative solution to her problem or my own suggested itself. I watched in silence as she rouged her cheeks and lips and then paused, the rouge pot halfway to her cheek, her index and little finger extended stiffly as she froze. Throughout the caverns, the distant sound of gongs and bird songs echoed and the bitiger roared in greeting. The life which had drained from the Peri's face quickly returned and she dropped her rouge pot and snatched up another, thrusting it at me. "Follow my directions exactly or we are all doomed."
It was almost worth the danger to see the smugness melt from Hyaganoosh's face to be replaced by a frantic searching stare as her much-praised eyes first sought me among the other women and then darted back to the place in the stone wall where the slab would slide away at her fiancé's bidding.
Both the Peri and I had meanwhile been busy coating my face with the ointment. This, as it turned out, was a special Peri-formulated vanishing cream that caused those not bound to iron rings to vanish. It was convenient and economical, because though the jar was small, one needed only to coat the face to have everything vanish. When the cream had done its work, the Peri called to a spider and, with some fumbling, refilled my invisible foodbag from the tray. The spider, still facing Hyaganoosh, must have thought the Peri's appetite had suddenly become ravenous from the rapid fashion in which the tray lightened.
No sooner had the spider scuttled back into place when the wall opened again, and the light of three additional torches illuminated Hyaganoosh in all of her guilty confusion. The other women were thrown, as I would have been had I been visible, into deep shadow.
The King of Divs was likewise streaked with shadow, but as I very discreetly slipped past him I could see that he was not in one of his more attractive aspects that evening. His head bore a ruff of orange fur around it, his nose resembled a boar's snout, complete with tusks, and his hands those of a large monkey.
Hyaganoosh cringed as he advanced on her, the gap widening between his guards and himself providing me with the opportunity to gain the corridor, where I paused to listen through the open doorway.
"So," the King said in a voice held with iron strength to low, soft tones, "has my little poppet been lonely while I've been away? Making friends with outsiders? Are not all of the women of my harem company enough for you?"
"But—but—your own guardian brought her here, Your Majesty. I assumed she came with your permission."
"Where is she?"
"I slew her, Sani," the Peri answered from her corner, her voice sounding efficient and housewifely. "I am glad to know you concur, but you mustn't disturb yourself so. Naturally, as always, I see to it that your household is well-run in your absence. You can't expect a mere mortal girl to perform the tasks of one of us."
"And how, my sweet, did you manage to slay her with none of your powers?"
"I poisoned her food—even mortals may do so though it requires the wit to think of it." She looked pointedly at Hyaganoosh.
"And the body?"
"Pinga disposed of it."
Hyaganoosh gulped and nodded. I stood without, my wet hair causing me to shiver slightly in the drafty cavern corridor, and wondered which way to run. Hyaganoosh seemed to be wondering the same thing the last time I glimpsed her. The King stroked her cheek and hair and asked his treasure to forgive his harshness. His treasure looked up at him with an emotion more sensible than admiration—fear.
And at that moment the bitiger's single head rounded the corner, its growl plainly saying, "Ah, that lovely smell again. But where?"
I possess, as does any warrior of a wandering people, an unfailing sense of direction. I did not take the wrong path accidentally. But the headcloth-intoxicated tiger blocked the entry hall and the King and his guard blocked the harem, the only other room with which I was familiar. Short of abandoning Selima's useful headcloth to confound the bitiger, there was little I could do but seek to evade both situations and find another exit. This almost cost me not only my freedom but my life, for the cavern was a veritable maze of passages, and had I gotten lost within them, I might have perished before finding my way out. But like the entry hall, the passages were illuminated with a pervasive green glow, and though I was most puzzled to find myself in locations where I had never previously been, I was not lost.
Quite the contrary, for the gods were obviously with me—or if not the gods, Fatima's advice. Bewildered by the forks and side passages, possessing no knowledge that made one way any more reasonable or safe course to follow than any other way, I recalled the holy woman's admonition to turn right, and did so each time I had a choice. Therefore I suppose you could not truly say that it was by luck alone I came upon the tunnel opening into the starlit grove.
I stood for a moment in the passageway, catching my breath and surveying the scene before me. The grove was cupped in a small meadow in the palm of surrounding peaks, roofing the hindermost portions of the Div's palace. That this was the orchard of which Fatima had spoken was obvious at once from the faint lemon scent perfuming the chilly indigo night. The trees were ancient, huge, twisted with pale oblongs dotting the heavily leafed branches. Several of the branches drooped low enough that with a good jump I should be able to dislodge a lemon without much problem.
But suddenly in the passage behind me I heard an eight-pawed thump and a prowling growl. The bitiger had found my trail. Abandoning thoughts of pilfering lemons for the time being, I sprinted to the right, scrambling up a short steep incline beyond which threaded a downhill path. This I followed, running along it, sure that at every moment I would be devoured by one head and my carcass distributed evenly between two massive striped bodies.
But when I halted what seemed miles later, stomach churning, heart thumping, arms and legs too limp to sustain so much activity from the mid-section, no sounds of pursuit followed me. I hid behind a tree, wondering how to surprise the beast: leap upon its back and strangle it when it came near me again? Bribe it with a piece of the cloth? With such clear-cut and brilliantly thought out tactics, I was doubly fortunate that the beast never reappeared. The path led me down through low hills, angling, but never again forking, eastward of the Simurg's nest and the cave below it, into the jungle.
I plunged into the greenery, my feet squishing through the mud from the afternoon rain, leaving, as I had left all along, very visible tracks. I winced inwardly but wasn't about to go back and cover them. The Divs had been told I was dead and would not be looking for me and even the bitiger had apparently given up. Valiantly, I squished onward.
I did not cease putting distance between myself and the palace of the Divs all that night. At times the trees blocked the starlight, concealing the path. But the forks were for the most part clearly marked, and I always turned right. Toward morning the rain began in earnest again, soaking me. I tucked the headcloth carefully away, for fear that if it were washed by the rain, it would lose some of its precious stench. Its protective presence was the one source of comfort that sustained me—well, that and the food.
I was not to remain alone for long. Despite my precautions, the headcloth grew sufficiently moist to transmit fumes which soon won for me quite a following.
Though I intended to keep walking all night, the sky was still dark above the leaf cover when I dragged my right foot after my left foot a final time and collapsed, unable to move any longer. My eyes were so blurred from lack of sleep that I could no longer make out the path and began to fear I might lose it, and with it my life and the lives of Amollia and Aster, if indeed they still lived, and the humanity of Aman Akbar.
On the other hand, the thought occurred to me that while I was armed with the headcloth, the ointment and the knowledge of Hyaganoosh's whereabouts, I could leave the others to whatever fate had doubtlessly already claimed them and free Aman Akbar myself. To do so I would need only to persuade the animals to help me find him, whereupon I would smear him with the ointment and deliver him to Hyaganoosh, who could change him from an invisible donkey to an invisible man with the help of… Wait! Hyaganoosh was not a witch. I'd need the lamp—still in the Emir's possession—and the stopper—still in Aster's—and while I might be able to use the ointment to obtain those items, the longer I thought, the more I wished I had Aster and Amollia to talk things over with.
Not that Aster would let anybody else talk. Still, her chatter made a nice background noise while a person thought. And she was clever. So was Amollia. I, on the other hand, was feeling distinctly unclever. And if I rescued Aman Akbar single-handed, while he would be grateful and loving enough for a while, in time he would probably elect to marry other women and I would be back where I started. Better, as we had decided with the Divs, to keep our household together. Loyalty prompted such a choice. And honor. And the sealed cork in Aster's sleeve. With all of this in mind, I finally fell asleep.
The monkeys woke me, pulling at my food bag. I was apparently no longer invisible. I seemed to have rubbed the ointment from my face during the night. But other than the hairy-handed thieves busy robbing me of the food I had stolen, I was alone. I snatched the bag back and the boldest monkey chattered angrily at me, flinging its skinny arms in the air and stomping its feet. When this behavior failed to cow me, it slung itself down on its haunches and looked up appealingly at me with round, betrayed eyes while the fingers of one paw picked timidly at the bottom of the bag. A great many other monkeys crouched or hung in trees nearby, watching me carefully.
"I can't feed all of you," I told the one picking at the food bag. "If I do then I'll have nothing to eat. There are too many of you."
Immediately the monkey turned its back on me and began chattering angrily at its companions, who fled into the trees—at least for the time being. I offered it a nut, which it held to its mouth and nibbled in a dainty fashion. It was not truly hungry, I understood, but had merely wanted to try cajoling me to see what it could obtain. This was made clearer when the little beggar next began fingering the gold bracelet that was Aman Akbar's wedding gift. There I drew the line.
One by one, its companions flitted back to me, demanded a treat and fled again when it wasn't forthcoming. Thus accompanied, I traveled for two more days. While the monkeys were more pesky than protective, they were company. When the road forked right, we followed that path and where it forked left, we continued straight ahead. At one point, the trees were crushed away from the path and broken, as if under some great weight, and we had to climb over them. All the while it seemed to me that we were traveling in quite the opposite direction from the "hunting lodge" and yet, somehow, twilight of the second day brought us to the river bank opposite it.
The lodge had undergone some alterations. The doorway had been smashed open. Several of the carved hoydens had also suffered dismemberment.
The sight of it, broken and to all appearances empty, left me feeling much as it looked—empty, remote, detached. I sat down on the river bank and just a short distance along the shore saw the mud move and fall slithering into the water. Once in, the mud slab twisted itself and opened to reveal a line of jagged but deadly teeth. A monkey high above me on an overhanging tree limb chittered its reproach.
On the opposite shore, another monkey flashed through the thin overhang and a line dropped from the top of one of the larger trees, a small brown body clinging to it. The monkeys accompanying me had often chosen this mode of travel. The vine swung across and the monkey dropped to my feet, its paw still clutching the vine. I understood that I was to take it, and did so, tugging hard to test my weight upon it. The eyes of the great lizard stared at me with lazy watchfulness. If the vine broke or I lost my grip, I'd get more than a quick bath.
Walking backwards for several steps, I jumped up, grabbing the vine as close to its top as I could, which wasn't far, and swung out across the river—well, almost across the river. Before I reached the far bank, the vine slowed, fell back, and hung over the center of the stream. The big lizard blinked. The damned vine wouldn't budge one way or the other, no matter whose curses I called down upon it. I was debating about whether or not to try climbing it to reach the overhanging branch from which it hung when the rescue party arrived. Several monkeys on another vine slammed into me from behind, nearly loosening my hold but ultimately knocking me onto the opposite shore. My legs refused to support me for a moment afterward and I watched numbly as the lizard's porcine eyes stared wistfully at where I had hung. The water running off the creature's head made it look as if it were weeping. I was not heartbroken by its disappointment.
Despite the building's deserted appearance, I approached cautiously, assessing the size of the holes and the position of the rubble—which seemed to have exploded into rather than out of the doorway. The monkeys grew quiet too, and peered anxiously into the hole. But none of them offered to accompany me.
So I did what the women of my people do best and simply walked forward, as if I were leading the sheep to pasture or striking out for the next camp.
Plenty of rain and dusky light poured in through the newly enlarged doorway. The rugs, candles, pillows, tapestries, trays of food, all were gone. Remaining was nothing but cold stone floor, weeds sprouting in the cracks. The shadows in the corners moved and once, just beyond the corner of my eye, a long fat tail whipped away and into a wall. A bit of wind and dust agitated itself into a dust devil and spun across the floor. A ghost of candle smoke lingered near the walls, despite the brisk wash of rainy smell.
One of the connecting doors hung half open and I kicked it aside.
Narrow stone steps clung to an inside wall. At the top of them, a small circular room was pierced by light from a window. Outside the window, a latticed screen flapped back and forth, banging against the wall, its fitful noise uncoordinated with the ring of iron on stone. I stooped and glanced through the opening at the rusting rings, groaning on their chains. The ends of my braids were still attached to one of them. I stretched to my full length and grabbed at my sodden hair, pulling the ring toward me. Struggling with the wet strands, I unknotted and detached every one of my hairs from that ring. Not that I thought I could use my hair again, but with all of the witchery abounding in this land and the quantity of it that had been loosed against my new family, it would have been extremely unwise to let items such as my hair, nails or less delicate personal sheddings lay around where my enemies could find them. Most of the enemies in question were so powerful they had no need of such items to damage me as sorely as they pleased, but there was no sense making it any easier for them than I had to. Stiff and soaked, I withdrew from the window. Below, the gray-brown river rushed past.
The rest of the room was as barren as the one below and I couldn't help wondering what its function was, other than as a platform for tormenting hair-hung women.
Returning to the main floor, I tried the door in the center of the back wall. A many-limbed idol clad only in a girdle of skulls dominated the room. A brown-stained stone altar with a convenient surrounding trough lay in front of the idol. The rain evaporated from my skin leaving a cold, goose-flesh chill. I touched the altar and examined my fingertips. No blood came away on them. The stains were old then. With blood on my mind, I returned to the main room and noticed for the first time the gore flecking the walls, causing the voluptuous stone maidens to look as if they'd been brawling.
The monkeys waited in the rain. I would find no tracks after all this time, I felt sure, and though this place—a temple certainly—made my spine crawl, it was the first shelter I'd encountered in days. I slept inside the doorway, but out of sight, behind one of the rubble piles. Using the headcloth, I asked the monkeys to warn me of anyone approaching. They wanted to know when I would return their various favors with more rice balls and fruit.
Chapter 11
Marid Khan and Aman Akbar must have come while I slept, sometime during the night. Only two of the monkeys had seen fit to remain alert, and even with them shrieking at the top of their little lungs, it took some time to alert me. I had needed that sleep. Though I had some company in the shelter of the rubble, even the vermin were animals, and as such honored the scent of Saint Selima.
I heard the monkeys scream at almost the same moment I opened my eyes and saw shadows fall across the stone floor, each crack now distinct in the muted light of early morning. When the intruders stepped into the room, I was initially relieved to see that they were not the false princes nor anyone else I knew, but several men of Sindupore, dressed similarly to the villagers near Selima's shrine in dingy white loin cloths. On closer scrutiny, they were no less strange and far more alarming, for their brows beetled fiercely and they muttered to each other, sharp phrases and words exploding through the general hubbub now and then. Though I gathered that they were pilgrims to the skull-girded idol, their expressions bore no gentle reverence or even a reasonable degree of the practical self-absorption of the supplicant to such Yahtzeni deities as Fanya the Fertile Fodder Finder.
"Desecrated," one of them spat, and though I had the sense that his words were not spoken in any of the tongues I knew, I understood them as clearly as I did the Simurg, monkey or snake languages, no doubt through the benefit of Selima's headcloth. Perhaps because the newcomers were fellow human beings, no preliminary sniffing of the cloth on their part was required for me to understand what was in their hearts—if they possessed any.
"Indeed, indeed," said the largest among them, a hulking man whose torso and face hung with flab but whose arms and legs were corded. He smiled unamiably through a mouth devoid of teeth, and whistled most of his words. "But who would dare to desecrate the shrine of The Terrible One?"
"A fool!" another blurted, scowling at the rubble and emptiness as if it was a personal insult. "Only a fool would desecrate the shrine of the goddess of death and torture! Only a new sacrifice will redeem us."
With those words my suspicions were confirmed that despite the nubile maidens covering the temple walls, the resident goddess had nothing to do with fertility. I briefly considered a fresh application of the vanishing cream and a fast retreat, but hesitated.
"Are you volunteering, Gobind?" the husky man asked, smiling even more unpleasantly.
"To perform the sacrifice? Assuredly," the angry man replied. "Come, let us see if the goddess's image has been outraged."
The men crowded the door to the idol's chamber, taking turns entering and kneeling to the hideous figure. Those awaiting their turns shifted angrily and continued muttering. After a considerable time with one group wailing, cajoling, and apologizing at the idol, the groups traded places.
Those renewed by commune with their goddess milled restlessly outside the door, and I rose cautiously to the balls of my feet, poised to flee into the jungle the moment every back was turned and all eyes were intent upon the new group of worshippers. Such a moment did not come.
A monkey's scream cut through the human voices, joined at once by the cries of other monkeys. Two of the waiting pilgrims detached themselves from the group and wandered over to the doorway, gazing first toward the river and then to the right before disappearing, the noise of their bare feet slapping mud and splashing through puddles following soon afterward. Just as the slappings and splashings grew faintest, they began to grow louder again and both men padded back inside, gesticulating frantically to their fellows and whispering excitedly. The expressions of the others changed from hostile boredom to active hostility, and the lot of them, including those closeted with the idol, followed the first two outside and down the path. By the time they were well away enough that I felt it safe to pop out into the jungle and follow at a discreet distance, it was too late.
They had been gone for but a heartbeat or two when from the distance came the surging voices of the angry worshippers, a muffled curse, general scuffling noises, and a heartrendingly familiar bray.
That bray caused me to leap to my feet, my hand flying to my dagger, but I caught myself and jumped back behind the rubble just as the worshippers led the donkey and its limply flopping rider through the door. Against all probability, the donkey was indeed Aman Akbar. And his rider, when pulled down and thrown onto his back, where his bleeding head lolled upon the stones, was none other than Marid Khan.
"What shall we do with him?"
"What do you suppose? The goddess is great. She not only demands a sacrifice, but practically delivers one to us personally"
"Such a sacrifice must be performed in a special way," the husky man, who seemed to be something of a leader, said consideringly. "A very special way indeed."
The face of the one called Gobind softened into a smile of childish delight. It did not make him especially appealing. "Ahh, I think I know," he said, rubbing his hands together briskly. "You will recall the tale of the proud beauty who tried to escape her marriage to the Rajah of Kinjab on muleback?"
"No," the big man said flatly, plainly prepared to reject any idea not of his own devising.
"You'll like it," Gobind assured him. "What we do, you see, is kill the ass, slit it open, stuff the desecrator inside and force his head out the ass's bung hole. Then we let the flies and mosquitoes at his face, from which we will not have bothered to wipe the dung and ass's blood."
"I think I may be sick," said one sensitive soul. "It's wonderful! The goddess will be very pleased. We'll kill the ass upon her altar, won't we?"
"Yes, that will teach these foreigners to mess with our goddess."
Aman brayed breathlessly, his eyes rolling and his knees trembling, his hind legs dug into stone as the worshippers tried to drag him to the altar.
I could not let them do it, whatever the cost. They should know the truth. "Wait!" I cried. "These two are not the ones who defiled your temple. Rather it was three Divs seeking to—" I got no further, of course, before I too was seized and disarmed. I expected no better, really. I was hardly such an innocent that I truly thought an appeal to justice would interest these particular pilgrims. A Yahtzeni is taught from birth that there are two kinds of people. There are our people and then there are those people. One cannot even trust all of our people, much less any of the others. Still, I had married one of those untrustworthy outsiders, and now traveled among many others. Having gone so far, there seemed no choice but to go a step further and attempt to win over these new ones if it was possible thereby that I might preserve my lord from harm.
I did not change the minds of his would-be slayers, but I did delay them.
"Excellent idea, Gobind," the large fellow said, scanning me contemptuously. "But now what?"
Gobind's enthusiasm was not so easily quenched. "Why, we kill the woman too—the goddess is hungry for blood."
"I'm not a virgin," I said hopefully. "I'm a married woman."
"The Terrible One is not particular about that, being a female god," Gobind reassured me. "Your pain will be a sufficiently pleasing contribution."
Oh.
"That is all very well, Gobind," a man with a rather squeaky voice and a nervous manner said. "But we have only one donkey. Do we put him inside as we originally planned or shall we substitute her? I say watching the insects destroy a woman's face will be more entertaining than turning them loose on him."
"This is for the goddess's appeasement, not our entertainment," his friend reminded him sternly.
"If we are more entertained by one mode of sacrifice than the other, it stands to reason that the goddess will be similarly entertained," the squeaky one argued.
"What we really need is another donkey," someone else said reasonably.
"Ahh," the large one said, with leering wigglings of his black and wormlike eyebrows. "But if it is entertainment that is needed, there are far more entertaining ways of killing women than stuffing the best parts inside of beasts."
Having blundered on the side of honor enough for one day, I declined to make matters easier for them by explaining that Aman Akbar was my husband, in case they were sentimental sorts who would decide that we ought to be reunited.
They shoved me into the altar room, loading Marid Khan upon the back of Aman Akbar and pushing and pulling the pair in behind me.
"The goddess shall decide," Gobind declared, and, clashing the knife he had captured from me against his own, laid both before the idol.
"You know how she hates to be disturbed," the squeaky fellow said fearfully.
"For trivial matters only. This is her sacrifice. She shall determine the mode of death."
"Yes, only by the right and proper sacrifice can this desecration be avenged. These conquerors must learn they simply can't go about treating other people's goddesses in such a fashion."
I was out of sympathy with them completely. In fact, I didn't think they were religious fanatics at all—not sincere ones, anyway. They just liked to hurt people, but being mere villagers instead of soldiers or bandits were too respectable or cowardly to indulge their vice without some sort of religious sanction. This goddess probably was invented just to give them the license to do what we Yahtzeni have always had the courage to take upon our own heads, instead of blaming our actions upon the gods, who, as everybody who is at all honest with themselves will admit, have better things to do.
Thus I maintained a brave sneer upon my face as Gobind lit the brazier and dropped powders upon the fire and implored the idol to speak.
Thus my teeth all but fell from my gums when the goddess said, her voice echoing in properly doom-laden tones, "Grovel when you speak to your mistress, oh vile vomit of a deformed offspring of a monkey's slave and her master."
The worshippers at once and in unison groveled. If they had not been true believers before, they were instant converts. They slammed me down with them—an unnecessary gesture, for I was almost too frightened to stand. But something in that voice, for all of its stony, otherworldly overtones, was familiar.
"Is that any way to be, Terrible One, when we've brought you such nice sacrifices?" Gobind whined. "We realize you are naturally upset about the desecration of your temple but—"
"Silence! What sacrifices?"
"Why, this woman—you can see what a rare offering she is with light hair, for all that she seems uncommonly stupid. And this excellent donkey and his rider."
"How can I see them with you standing right in front of me? Have the woman stand."
My captor released my shoulders and I stood. I hoped the goddess was unacquainted with vanishing cream and its properties, for while lying on the ground, I had worked the little pot loose from my sash and had it ready.
"Turn around," the goddess commanded. I did so, thinking that this was a very fussy goddess. I was also stabbing my finger in the open ointment pot. Bringing forth a small gob, I reached out to Aman Akbar and, before those lying beside him noticed, swabbed around each of his eyes and down his muzzle. Abruptly, Marid Khan hung suspended, collapsed across thin air. None of the worshippers stopped trembling or looked up long enough to realize that they now had only two sacrifices instead of three.
"Won't do," the goddess said as I turned back toward her. "Temple desecration is most serious business. If you think I'll be pacified by a big dumb blond and a dead man, you're wrong. Nothing less than the personal sacrifice of each of your lives will please me."
"But great goddess, who will serve you if we all die—who will—"
"Enough. I have spoken."
"You have spoken," the hulking man agreed, rising suddenly. "But not with the voice of the goddess."
He was correct. The goddess spoke with the voice of Aster and, as usual, she had overdone it. I quickly dabbed around my own eyes, cheeks, and chin with another gob of ointment and with my free foot mashed the fingers holding my left ankle. I lunged and reached the crossed daggers a blink before the big man and Gobind, who crashed into the altar and each other as I sidestepped.
"For the sake of your skin, don't argue with her," the squeaky-voiced man cried, taking my disappearance and the fall of his companions as evidence of the goddess's wrath.
The big man angrily shoved at the altar's trough and the entire seemingly solid stone table slid easily aside. Very tricky, these folk who dwell in towns.
"Cease!" a voice cried, whether that of the Goddess Aster or one of her followers, it was hard to say, for the worshippers were clutching at the big man's knees and imploring him tearfully not to anger the goddess further. Aster's voice babbled boomily and imperiously but was lost in the melee. While everyone's attention was on the idol and altar, I groped until I found Aman and turned his head, pushing him toward the door.
As we neared the outer door, the sounds of the angry idolators dimmed just enough that the screams of the monkeys could be clearly heard. Also clearly audible was the tramp and jingle of the army approaching single file down the path to the temple. I saw a soggy silken litter just beyond the first two soldiers, who wore the uniforms of high-ranking officers in the guard of the Emir Onan. For a moment I forgot I was invisible and my heart plunged.
By the power of the headcloth, Aman Akbar understood what was in my heart and cried out to me, "Fear not for me, Rasa, my wife, but save my lovely Aster. These rabble will feel my hooves and teeth if they attempt to thwart you, for even as I have rescued you before, I will not stint to do so again, though it cost me my life."
"Fine," I said. "You may well save me from the first two, O Lord, but that is an army and you are but an ass and upon your back you bear one who cannot defend himself. On the other hand, you and I are both invisible and can easily flee. Therefore, fly into the jungle while I seek to deliver Aster from the idolators within and perhaps we can bypass this situation altogether."
"Very well," he said. "I suppose no harm will come to you while your beauty is so concealed. But if you need anything—" I lost the rest in the pound of his hoofbeats, as nearby fronds parted to admit the jouncing body of Marid Khan. The head of the first soldier's horse was less than a stone's throw from the temple. I dashed back inside, bedazzled for a moment by the change in light.
Fighting my way through worshippers who fell before my knives in superstitious awe, I reached the altar. The big man was prevailing, and with all his strength pulled Aster's arms, dragging her as far as her hips from the open hole. Barely visible at her trouser legs, two black hands clung to her ankles.
"Unhand me, faithless one!" Aster screeched. "Don't you people believe in human incarnations of your gods?"
They apparently did not, for none made any reply save a distinctly irreverent low snarling sound.
I dispatched the big man with a knife in his ribs and the others—or anyway, those who had survived my entrance—scrambled from the inner sanctum.
Aster slapped at Amollia's hands and Amollia released her, crawling from the hole after her. The irises of her eyes were surrounded entirely by white and she trembled. "What—who—"
Aster shrugged and adjusted her jacket. "This goddess is obviously misunderstood by her worshippers. She may be goddess of death and suffering for such swine as they, but she appears protective of her fellow females. Perhaps we should burn an offering—"
"I'll be only too happy to let you cook the next time it's safe to do so, and accept your homage in that fashion," I told her. "But for now, we must escape the Emir's army, awaiting without, and join our husband. This way!"
"Which way?" Aster demanded. "Where are you?"
"Never mind!" I snapped. From outside came the sounds of men dismounting. "We cannot leave now by the front entrance. Quickly! The upstairs window!"
Amollia beat the rest of us and had a leg out the window before Aster and I had reached the second floor. From around the corner, near the front entrance, curt commands were spoken and vehement denials and accusations spilled forth from the goddess's rejected suitors.
Amollia hung indecisively out the window. The river was a long way down and muddy. To dive in might be to lose her life stuck in the mud. She had not seen the soldiers and so far she was not frightened enough to attempt it. She pulled her leg back and sent a sick look down at Aster, who stood on a lower step and peered out over the bottom ledge.
"Don't jump," I whispered. "I'll find something we can swing across on. Keep quiet. Stay hidden, but stay near this window."
I had once more remembered the advantage of being invisible. I didn't have to hide. I was already hidden. I could move freely among the soldiers without detection. I could spy upon them and learn their plans and leave whenever I chose. I thought I would skip the spying and stick to leaving—and quickly. But first I needed to find the monkeys.
Beyond the ruined doorway the jungle clearing was choked with milling horses and camels decked in silk and tassles, robed Kharristanis with curved blades drawn, a bright palanquin and several bearers of the same type as the men I had just vanquished.
Also those same men, or those who had retained their facilities, trembled before none other than the Emir, whose brocaded figure, spotless bejeweled turban, and well-oiled mustache and beard and whose perfume outstunk every flower in the jungle. Among the soldiers, the riffraff, and the animals, he looked awesome as a king.
I was sure this illustrious person would have something enlightening and educational to say, but much as I wanted to eavesdrop, I declined for the moment in favor of finding a vine suitable for my co-wives to use to transport themselves across the river. So I left the soldiers and the Emir abusing the natives and wended my way deeper into the jungle, strangely quiet now. I had scanned the trees in vain for monkeys and was about to decide to try to steal something from one of the soldiers when a pointed finger tapped me on the pate and I looked up to see the wide troubled eyes and wrinkled mug of one of my erstwhile companions. Pulling forth the headcloth, which retained its smell despite its invisibility, I made my need known to that creature and together we skirted the building, selecting a vine from the wall farthest from the soldiers. The monkey then scampered up the erotic carvings and gave the vine to Amollia, who held one end for Aster while I held the other and she swung herself down and across to the wall where I stood, just above the shore of the river. Afterward, Amollia anchored the vine to one of the iron rings and slithered down to meet us.
The monkeys, more than any other creature I had occasion to deal with, had a relay of messengers, and what one monkey knew soon every monkey in that part of the jungle knew also. No sooner had Amollia arrived than a monkey delivered a vine from the far shore, as courteously and solicitously as a bride presenting her husband with his first meal.
Amollia put the vine in Aster's hands. "You're the lightest," she hissed.
Aster did not argue the point, but grabbed the vine and swung across. Amollia regarded the jungle behind her and to the left with great suspicion. "What are you up to, barbarian? You should go next."
"I can't," I hissed. "I have to help Aman Akbar and Marid Khan cross."
"I'll stay and help."
"You're not invisible," I said. "And I can't spare any more ointment."
"Very well. But if you aren't across in a very short time, I'm coming back after you."
"If you do, try to bring a few of Marid Khan's brigands," I suggested. "I'm not sure how much help you'll be alone."
"Your faith in me is touching."
"Go!"
The monkey messenger delivered the vine once more and she clung to it, rocking back twice before swinging smoothly across.
For the time being, Aman Akbar was safe, though how long Marid Khan would survive his injuries I knew not. Neither did I dare to make the Khan invisible, for I had very little of the ointment left and if I was to have enough to execute the plan I had for freeing us all from the Emir's schemes and those of his ally, the King of Divs, each dab would be needed. I could only hope that once the stuff was applied it would continue lending its magic properties to its wearer until rubbed away. I would need to be very careful indeed.
The Emir strode into the temple, despite the implorings of the goddess's devotees, who whimpered that the Terrible One was not in good humor today and perhaps the illustrious one would care to inspect the temple at another time. Their solicitousness was less for the Emir than for themselves, for if anything happened to him, they feared—no doubt correctly—the guard would avenge him upon their persons. The Emir also addressed—and abused—another party, who answered with familiar oily tones.
"And what of our allies and their task, o djinn? I thought you would have my heart's delight wrapped and waiting for me here, together with the object she bears which will cause you to submit yourself to me finally so that I may have the obedience you owe me as owner of the bottle."
"Master, I know only that the two women were hanging by the hair when you summoned me and the one you desire was imprisoned and contemplating the fate of her rebellious sisters. Had I had longer to inspect the manner in which thy wishes were being attended to by those Divs, the results would have perhaps been more to thy liking. How often must I implore thee not to drag me through the cosmos so often?"
The worshippers gabbled at each other fearfully and the Emir turned to regard them sharply and said to the djinn, "It would be to our mutual advantage if this pestiferous refuse was questioned regarding what has passed here."
"Am I to take such a remark for a wish, master?" the djinn asked slyly.
"You are to understand that it would be to our mutual advantage to learn what questioning would teach us." The Emir patted a bulge in his sash. "It would be a pity if harm should befall me through lack of knowledge and I should accidentally break certain objects."
The djinn sighed and looked affronted. "Hearing and obeying." Rapidly, he questioned the men.
Gobind answered with a question. "Ah, mighty one, is it by your design and the design of your exalted master that imps destroyed our sacred carvings and loosed upon us the demon woman who posed as our goddess and her phantom servant?"
"It was not," the djinn replied, "but both myself and my exalted master would be most edified to hear what you have to say regarding these manifestations."
Gobind supplied him with a false and unflattering version of what had happened.
The djinn relayed the information to the Emir, who considered for a moment, then said, "Tell them that the apparitions they have seen are wily demonesses loosed upon them by an unscrupulous fisherman. Tell them that these demonesses have stolen from me an object of much value."
"What object might it be that has been taken from the Prince Among Princes?" Gobind asked, his voice fairly warbling with greed.
The Emir understood well the greed, if not the untranslated sense of the words, for his answer, while seemingly casual, showed consideration of his listener's dubious sensibilities. "Say that it is a magical thing which can impart great harm to he who would use it badly. Explain further that one would not think it so to look at this object, for in appearance it is but a simple bottle cap, decorated with an ornate seal. Tell them that my true reason for seeking it isn't so much the intrinsic value of the thing as that the poor stupid women might harm themselves or someone else while using it."
"The Light of the World need not concern himself for those women," Gobind answered ruefully.
"The Light of the World," the djinn said, sounding very much as if he would choke on the words, "says that he is concerned for not only the women, but that they will use the power of that object to destroy other places holy to your people, whom he reveres and respects. He wishes me to tell you how this situation grieves him, and bids me tell you that he was even this day on his way to seek the young King and persuade him that your gods should be honored with our own. Therefore, this matter of the demonesses is twice as troubling to someone of such—" The djinn tried to swallow, and could not, and coughed out the last words, "—generous conscience. He needs to find the women."
Gobind, moved by the content of the speech and oblivious to the tone in which it was delivered, crawled over to the Emir and kissed the ground in front of him. "You will prevail, o great one. As for the women, surely they cannot be far from here. Though my brothers and I finally drove their defiling presence from our altar, they may still lurk nearby, waiting to desecrate it again. It is more likely that even now they cower in the jungle, fearful of our wrath."
I felt like showing him how fearful I was of his wrath, but had better things to do. Locating an invisible donkey carrying an unconscious man in the middle of a jungle while surrounded by enemies one does not wish to alert is no easy task, even for a woman who cannot be seen. When the Emir's second-in-command bellowed to his subordinates to fan out and search the jungle, I grew frantic—so frantic that in stumbling back through the trees where I had left Aman, I nearly tripped over him and his cargo before realizing I was in his presence.
I had hoped to learn more of the purpose of the Emir's visit and perhaps to purloin the djinn's bottle while I enjoyed the advantage conferred upon me by the vanishing cream. However, the search and Marid Khan's tortured breathing and drained, bloodied face, once smooth as milk and now blotched and bumpy with insect bites, convinced me no time was to be lost.
I whispered to Aman Akbar, "In the river, beloved. And quickly. I will hold your passenger upon your back and your strength shall pull us across."
The water was sluggish and shallow, only chest high at its deepest on me, but there was a strong undertow I doubt I could have resisted alone. I kept a nervous eye out for the big lizard, but it and its cousins did not molest us. I cautioned Aman Akbar to keep his head above water so that the ointment in his eyes would not be washed away. The headcloth I tied around my neck so that its sacred scent would not be diluted.
We were but the length of two tall men from shore when the soldiers saw us and shouted. "Behold! Someone is in the river over there."
I dared not look back but presently the sound of a blow carried across the water.
"Lout! Don't you know live women from one drowned man?"
"Still, we should tell His Excellency."
I guided Aman into tall reeds near the banks, within which Marid Khan's limp body could be concealed, as if it had drifted there of its own accord. I slid the nomad chieftain from my husband's back so that a body would not be seen to float in midair from the opposite shore, although I would have liked to have heard the conversation that would follow such a discovery. He was heavy and slippery to pull through the tangle of undergrowth, but as soon as we were well-concealed, Amollia and Aster found us and aided me in remounting him upon Aman's back. Thereafter we fled, with all possible haste, cutting through the jungle with the sacrificial knife of the idolators, bearing right until our path intersected with a trail.
When night fell with no evidence of pursuit, we thought ourselves safe. The monkeys scouted before and behind for us and reported no other human in either direction. The supernatural aspects of our behavior had no doubt alarmed the enemy host and convinced them that we had (as two of us had indeed) vanished into the ethers.
Nor were our enemies the only ones unnerved by such aspects. Twice Aster stepped on my invisible heels, and I kept getting brushed in the face as Aman Akbar flipped flies from his invisible body with his invisible tail.
"Can't you show yourself now, Rasa?" Aster asked, nursing the toes of her right foot, with which she had just gouged a large piece of flesh from my ankle. "After all, you're among friends. It's unfair that Aman Akbar has to see the rest of us with our hair mussed, our faces dirty and bloodied, and our clothes torn while you hide so conveniently."
"Aster," Amollia said quietly but firmly.
"Well, it's true. I don't know who she thinks she is to just disappear like that and then run things when she won't even face a person."
"I will not waste more of the vanishing cream just to appease your wounded vanity, little sister," I said. "I am trying to make the spell last until we gain the Div's cave once more."
"Cave? What cave?" We had been so busy being quiet and tense while trying to elude the Emir's forces that we hadn't done much talking. I told what had befallen me since the bird made off with me, and of meeting Hyaganoosh and the deposed Queen of Divs.
Aman Akbar snorted that he could see no reason for us to endanger ourselves by reentering the cave. For his part his faithless cousin Hyaganoosh could hang by her toes and he would not mind.
"If you command it, Lord and Master," I said like a good obedient wife. "We will, of course, choose another path. But the fact of the matter is that without your cousin's help we cannot free you from the spell. Also, we owe a debt to the man you bear upon your back, and it is in my mind that the Queen of Divs is the closest person who might have the skill to aid him."
Aman Akbar said something rude—an ass's expression he had no doubt picked up among the pack animals, and that concerned me, for I hated to think that he might be becoming more and more like a donkey the longer he looked like one. Nevertheless, he conveyed the impression that however reluctantly, he agreed with my reasoning.
The chattering of the monkeys took us by surprise, but they too had been surprised, for they had been alert for signs of humans, and the rapid pattering behind us was four-footed. Amollia, guarding our rear, turned with knife in hand to face this new threat. Before she had attained her defensive stance, however, the animal sprang from the bushes and leapt upon her, its tail lashing with excitement, loud rumblings rolling from its throat.
Amollia deflected her knife at the last moment and embraced her old companion, both of them behaving in a sloppy and sentimental manner that seemed to disagree with the cat as much as it did me, for the animal emitted a great belch and burped forth a cloud of smoke which caused Amollia to swat the beast to the ground as she coughed.
The genie gathered himself together and bowed with his usual superciliousness. "Gracious ladies, former master, how it cools my eyes to see you reunited and to know that I have played no small part in your happiness."
"And the prevention thereof!" Aster cried indignantly. "How dare you appear in your serpentine guise only to disappear without lifting a finger to help us! Why, had the bird not carried Rasa away and had our poor elephant not intervened to drive away the fiends you set upon us we would all of us be dead."
"I have always said the worst part of dealing with women, old master, is that they exaggerate so and bend everything completely out of proportion. They are far too imaginative and oversensitive to understand complex situations."
"Do you mean to stand there and look pompous all day, rotund one," I asked, "or are you going to explain yourself?"
"Tsk, tsk, tsk. Impatience. Another problem you women have. But I'll say this for the three of you. You are faithful wives—" This praise being received less enthusiastically than he deemed it merited, he added in an aside to the air between Marid Khan and the ground, "though perhaps in truth they did take a bit long to reject the advances of the conjured creatures I set upon them, former master. Still, they did better than most of their sex, and for that reason I shall render unto your party the benefit of what assistance I am able to provide without compromising my professional integrity."
"When you approve of us, fat one, I begin to wonder where I went wrong," I said. "I didn't notice any of this assistance of yours handy when the bird was carrying me off after having nearly yanked my hair from my head. All you did was hiss in my face."
"A face much improved by thy new cosmetic, if I may say so, dear lady," he replied nastily. "As a crude barbarian, thou naturally wouldst fail to comprehend the intricate machinations of fate. But ponder upon this: had the bird not delivered thee from the hands of thy tormentors, wouldst thou have found the cave of the Divs? Wouldst thou have gained the aid of the vanishing cream and thereby delivered thy companions and thy husband from their oppressors? What a selfish creature thou art, to seek to escape a moment's fear and discomfort at the expense of making thyself useful to those who need thee."
"Suppose you explain this fate of yours to the rest of us foolish females, if we are so lacking in understanding," Amollia suggested with a soft amiability belied by the sparks in her coal-black eyes.
"Yes, and also where was all of this help you were supposed to be giving us."
The genie's face was as clouded as his entrances usually were. "I see that I am not believed and yet, I speak the truth. No one could be sadder at the inconvenience your family has experienced in the hands of this wily prince, and I prevented what it was possible to prevent. You must bear in mind that even a djinn has not the ability to be in more than one place at once, and you naughty women delayed me to no end when you made your way across salt water, over which we of the djinn cannot traverse, and came unto this land. I had to travel overland, around the sea, to reach you, and that was no short or easy task. At the same time, I could not abandon your husband, ensorcelled as he was by my own spells and in the hands of those who knew him not. Also, I was continually at the beck and call of your enemy, the Emir, who holds the bottle containing my soul. As I have already explained, were it not that the seal to this bottle is in your hands, I would not have been able to assist you as I have done."
"In that case, I'll throw it into the bushes immediately," Aster said tartly, reaching into her sleeve. I knew she was only threatening, but the djinn did not and held up his hands as if he thought she were going to throw it at him.
"Do so, lady, and never wilt thou behold thy husband again in his true form. Let me but continue and I shall show that no one was ill-used by me. For your sake I have stretched myself very thin, and this is all the thanks I get." His tone was so lugubrious that I almost clucked my tongue with mock sympathy, but restrained myself. "For know that after I departed thy presence in the tents of the nomads, I was called to the Emir, who waxed exceedingly wrothy when I explained to him that I could not force the three of you to return with me on account of the very seal he craved. Ordinarily, that person would be my master, for it is the seal that binds my soul to the bottle. As I tried to explain to thee and thy companions previously, Holder of The Seal, in this case thy possession of the seal while the bottle is yet in the hands of the Emir presents me with a conflict of interests. I can serve neither of you directly, nor use my full powers to help either of you prevail against the other.
"When the Emir learned that he did not control me fully, he flew into a rage and would have broken my bottle and destroyed my soul, but I convinced him it was better to attempt the stratagem involving the Divs. Further, it was arranged that while the Divs delayed you with dalliance (or whatever proved necessary), the Emir and his men would travel forth, meeting both yourselves and the allied Div henchmen at the temple. In this way, by the time His Eminence arrived, your persons, if not the seal itself, would be at his disposal. Had the Divs failed to obtain the seal from you, the Emir could have taken it personally, for he is under no magical restraint. Since my plan coincided with his own for traveling here to attend the wedding of the Div King to the Lady Hyaganoosh, after which he planned to use the magical influence of his ally to subvert the young King, I was able to cajole him into adopting it. For my part, I must not let him know I oppose him in any way. That is why I entered the snake to converse with you, when the minions of your enemies were close at hand.
"Likewise, when I saw that the nomads had cast you out for having traffic with me in my true and terrible guise, and that my former master was helpless among them and without your protection, I entered from time to time the body of thy cat, dark one, to prevent thy husband from coming to harm among the wanderers. Not that he stayed among wanderers long. As soon as the noble Marid Khan discovered that you women were missing and the ar was thereby broken, he mounted upon the ass, and, with the help of myself within the cat, came straightaway here to offer you his continued protection. That is why it took me so long to come overland. I kept having to backtrack to allow them to catch up with me."
"How good you are to us," Aster spat.
"Next he will be saying it was not our elephant who saved us from his henchmen, but himself within the elephant," Amollia sniffed.
"What elephant?" the djinn asked. "Just like a woman to throw in irrelevancies and confuse my tale."
"The elephant we obtained in the wise woman's village," Amollia said. "Those persuaders you arranged to trick us into relinquishing the seal were about to kill me when they saw that Rasa was gone and Aster would not give them the seal. They picked at me with their magic, dissolving my jewelry from my body and warning Aster that my skin would go next. Fortunately, our younger sister is of a delicate disposition. She screamed when it seemed they would actually do such a thing."
Aster shrugged. "It only makes sense to scream sometimes. Otherwise, how is anyone to know a person is in trouble?"
Amollia sighed deeply, and nodded. "That is true. Our elephant heard her and charged in with a mighty trumpeting, his great feet causing the ground to tremble, his mighty body breaking through the very walls. He lifted the Div and smashed him against the wall. He trod upon the one who resembled you, Rasa. But he who wooed Aster was quicker than the others and hurled a spear into the poor beast. It ran away in terrible pain—straight over the man who wounded it. We two fled into the jungle and concealed ourselves, and later that night, a flock of giant vultures descended in front of the temple and turned into men. When they left, they carried the other three with them on their backs."