“It is true that all Palmyra believes me a Muslim,” said Sir Geoffrey earnestly to Geronde, “but the hareem-you don’t understand. There is so much here that I can’t explain to you. But I am your father, Geronde. I’ve always been your father. I have always loved you-“

“I was hoping to do something for you,” said Sir Geoffrey. “I had hoped all my life to do something for you and your mother-only she died too soon. But you were still young and strong and I had hopes; and I kept trying. We needed money-“

“You needed money!” said Geronde. “You needed money to try a hundred things that would cost. Money to get you to where you wanted to go, money to engage you in some endeavor that would bring back a fortune. Well, you have won that fortune-long since, evidently. But did you come home to me with any of it? No! So how can you stand there and say that any of it was for me?”

“You do not understand!” said Sir Geoffrey desperately. He looked at Jim and Brian. Jim felt a stir of sympathy in him for the man, although he found it hard to believe the good intention he professed. At the same time he noticed that Brian’s face was as cold as Geronde’s; and Angle’s face was almost as condemning. “I’m not really a Muslim. I still am a Christian.”

“Then prove it!” snapped Geronde. “Find a priest in this God-forsaken city! Confess to him; and tell him truthfully you are my father and give permission for our marriage; and stand there while he marries us. Then we will happily leave you forever to your sins.”

“There is no priest in Palmyra,” said Sir Geoffrey.

“Then we will wait until one comes through with a caravan, on his way to some mission or other Holy duty, somewhere else!” said Geronde. “Then you will confess, give us permission to marry, and we will be rid of you! You can go back to being whatever you are here.”

“Even if a priest came through,” said Sir Geoffrey, “I could not do that, either. I cannot tell you why. Just believe me. I could not do it any more than I could go home with you-and Geronde, believe me, I yearn to see Malvern again.”

Geronde laughed jaggedly.

“Oh, aye. But you can not do anything that will see to the purpose for which we came!” she said. “I am sorry, my father, but I do not accept that you are unable to do what we need!”

She pointed to her right cheek.

“You see this scar?” she demanded. “I got that scar because you were not there to protect me. Because you were not there to lead the defense of the castle. Malvern was as good as taken, and I was in the hands of a man who said he would disfigure me slowly, day by day, until I agreed to marry him. After which, with the help of those he had bribed at the King’s court, he would have had you declared dead in the Holy Land, myself awarded him as wife, and he would own Malvern. I did not give in to him. I saved Malvern-against your homecoming-sometime, maybe. I did that for you, Father. But you will do nothing I need!”

Sir Geoffrey closed his eyes. The lines of his face had gone deep, so that all at once he looked twenty years older.

“I can not,” he said. “And I can not tell you why I can not. Think of me what you will. But what I do is far better for you than giving in to what you want. You must believe that.”

“I will never believe it,” said Geronde; and she turned her back on him.

Angie went to her and was about to put her arm around Geronde’s shoulders when Geronde spoke to her.

“Do not touch me now, Angela,” said Geronde, without turning her head. “I would do you a hurt. But stay with me.”

They stood side by side in silence, their backs to the others.

Sir Geoffrey took a deep breath, backed up, and started to step back inside the framework of whatever held up his Murad disguise in position on the floor by his bed.

“Malencontri?” he said.

“Yes,” said Jim. “I took it from that same ill-knight who marked your daughter’s face. I’m a close friend of Sir Brian and Geronde, both; as is Lady Angela, my wife, who is standing with Geronde now. I suggest you wait a moment before considering there is no possibility of your escaping whatever you feel has you entrapped here. I am known in England as the Dragon Knight, because I can also take on the form of a dragon. In fact, I’m a magician, an apprentice of S. Carolinus, who you ought to know as well as I do.”

“A magician?” Sir Geoffrey stared at him.

“Right,” said Jim. “I don’t use magic lightly; but I’m in a position, by knowing it, to sometimes see more than those who aren’t magicians. Perhaps, if you told us more about what holds you here I might see something I could do-something you’d never imagine was possible yourself-to free you, after all.”

“No,” said Jim, “but an open human mind possibly can.”

For the first time he was beginning to get a little warm-tempered himself.

“An open mind, for example,” he went on, “could show you a way to build a shelter to survive overnight in those woods. It might also show you a place to hide from, or ride out the tempest-if you were on the sea when it blew. You’ve only got one mind, Sir Geoffrey, and it sees no way out. But that does not mean that another mind, like mine, or Sir Brian’s, or Geronde’s, or my wife’s-or all of them put together-might not find a way you have never thought of. Think. What will it cost you to tell us what holds you?”

“Too much,” said Sir Geoffrey. “The one price I can not pay.”

He looked once more appealingly in Geronde’s direction; and Jim, following his gaze, saw that both Geronde and Angie were moving toward the entrance into the other room. A moment later they had passed through it and were gone.

Sir Geoffrey turned back to face those left, and took a couple of steps toward them. There was a sudden new light in his eyes. He lowered his voice and spoke.

“Renel, go you into the other room also. This is for the ears of Sir Brian and Sir James alone.”

“I am a man again, not a slave,” said Sir Renel. “I am at no one’s orders, not even yours. I no longer hope for freedom, but only to die as a man should. I will stay.”

“Then you will run the same risk these two will run,” said Sir Geoffrey. “I would rather speak for their ears alone. If I ask you to go-not as what you know me to be, but as a fellow knight, an old companion-would you do me the favor of going?”

“It is true,” said Sir Renel, turning to Brian and Jim. “Once he and I were companions in a foolish adventure to raise a last crusade and wade knee-deep in infidel gold and gems. In those days we looked much alike, so that people took us for twin brothers, although we had fallen together merely by chance and were no real kin. But we went different ways; and the next time he saw me, I was in the slave market here in Palmyra. He had become Murad of the white beard and Heavy Purse. How he did that I do not know; but he rescued me from a worse slavery by buying me himself and bringing me back here.”

“For that I still thank you,” he said. “Though I think you had other reasons for it, even then.”

Sir Renel turned back to Jim and Brian.

Sir Geoffrey raised his hands in a helpless gesture.

“Perhaps it will make no difference,” he said. “Stay, then, Renel.”

“And I pledge you equal succor,” said Sir Geoffrey. “Renel, you are a friend I do not deserve.”

“Neither of us deserves much,” said Renel with a tight smile. “Enough of that. Let us listen to what you have to say.”

“Very well, then,” said Sir Geoffrey, lowering his voice even more, so that Jim and Brian and Renel all had to move close to him to hear. Out of the corner of his eye Jim saw the two hobgoblins on their smoke also edging closer. He looked at them.

“Beg pardon, m’lord,” said Hob as both wafts of smoke backed up hastily. “Should we leave the room?”

“No,” said Jim. “Just stay far enough away so that you don’t hear and we have privacy.”

“I am under a curse,” said Sir Geoffrey, quietly and simply. “The curse will fall upon me if I cease to do the bidding of him who is my master-and that is Hasan ad-Dimri, Grandmaster of the Assassins. It happens-I do not know how, it is undoubtedly magic-that as I move around through the passages in the walls of this house of mine, I can find myself coming out, not here in Palmyra, but in the White Palace up in the mountains where Hasan rules. I will know then that he has called me for some reason. I know my way around there, also, as I know my way around my own house here. I will go where I know I would find him; and when I find him he will tell me what he wants, and I will obey.”

“Why?” asked Brian bluntly. “If he has no weapon but the curse, he can only use it once and-“

“Not so. It was a curse on him,” said Sir Geoffrey, “that I agreed to take from him, in exchange for all this-“

“How did you come to be under such evil influence?” asked Brian.

“That which makes me look like Murad,” answered Geoffrey, “was something I had once learned to construct from a man in Italy who made masks, devil costumes and other such things for religious festivals. He was very clever. But I learned quickly; and when I left him, I knew enough to be able to make myself appear as various different people. It happened that I fell upon evil times-it was after we had parted, following the battle in the mountains, Renel-“

He had turned to his friend for a moment; but then he turned back to concentrate on Jim and Brian.

“After that, I went back to England for a while, then was other places- no need to tell all that-then came this last trip here; when it happened I found that in spite of my armor and weapons I was in danger. I had to sleep sometime; and it was only a matter of days before I would wake to find my throat being cut and all I had taken-and that would be the end of me.”

He paused, glanced around him and lowered his voice even a little more.

“It was necessary for me to pass as a Muslim. Not only that, but as one whom other Muslims would not only accept but see benefit in dealing with, rather than killing. I still had some silver and gems with me from a recent battle and our sacking of-a place. I went into the first place that could sell me what I needed, and took this off into the desert. There, where I was alone and safe, I made up a Kurd disguise I had perfected. It turned me into one with the appearance of the Murad you have seen; and I used what wealth I had left in the manner of one who is a rich but parsimonious Kurd merchant. I was traveling down toward Tripoli, where I hoped to find at least one friend left; so that I could lay aside my disguise and borrow the extra money I needed to start me homeward to England. But before I got there, the group with which I was traveling was waylaid by Hasan’s Assassins; and I was taken with the others to his White Palace.”

“And what is this curse?” demanded Brian. “What happens when it strikes you?”

“That,” said Sir Geoffrey, “is the one thing I will not tell you. I will only tell you this. It is a curse that no sensible man would wish to dare- let alone pass it on; for it was that if I managed to escape him after accepting it, the curse would follow me to the ends of the earth to still fall on me, and then it would also fall on my descendants unto the seventh generation.”

“Hmm,” said Jim. “Where would a human get the power to lay on a curse like that-and come to think of it, what about Kelb?” asked Jim.

“Kelb?”

“A Djinni,” said Jim. “Don’t try to tell me you don’t know about him. He came out and sat by you when we were all gathered talking in that large room a little while ago.”

“The brown dog is a Djinni?” Sir Geoffrey stared at him. “I knew only it was a dog; and that it had been set to watch over me at certain times. I suspected it was Hasan’s messenger, or spy, or what you will. But I did not think of it as being a Djinni.”

Geoffrey hesitated.

“In fact, I do,” he said at last. “It is one of two places, first one, then the other, taking turns to put me in the stronghold of Hasan. Do you mean you would wish to go to the White Palace?”

His words dropped into a pool of silence. All the rest of them were staring at him.

“James,” said Brian. “Is this wise? We are not even armed. If somehow we could get swords-“

“What, put your head into the lion’s den without me at your side, James?” Brian said emphatically. “Never!”

“Well,” said Jim doubtfully, “then, if you come, Brian-and it’s a foolishly risky thing for you to do-you’ll have to simply trust what I do in this instance. I won’t be able to explain things to you as I go along, and give you reasons.”

“We can pick up a sword for each of you on the way I will show you,” said Sir Geoffrey.

“Fine,” said Jim. “Give me just a minute.”

He left them, walked over to the entrance and stepped through it into the other room.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” said Angie. “If you’re going someplace, I’m going with you.”

“So am I,” said Geronde.

“That’s going to make us too much of a crowd,” Jim said. His original idea of going with Sir Geoffrey alone had suddenly developed into something more like an expedition. “Besides, if you come, we’ll have to make it our main duty to take care of you; and I don’t want to take you where we’re going, anyway.”

“The two hobs can carry us away from any danger,” said Angie. “It’s settled, Jim!”

She pointed a little to the side and past Jim. He turned and saw the inquisitive faces of a couple of hobgoblins on their smoke right behind him, having evidently followed him into the present room. Jim gave up.

“You understand?” Angie asked them.

“No,” said Hob of Malvern. It was the first actual word Jim had heard from him.

“I’ll tell you as we go,” said Hob-Jim and Angie’s Hob. “You’ll like it. It’s exciting.”

The Malvern Hob gulped and nodded.

“No. Of course not,” scowled Brian. “Damned caravan...” he muttered again under his breath, but in such a low voice that Jim, who was closest to him, was probably the only one to hear it.

Some fifteen minutes later, besworded-including the women-they were going down one more of a number of almost lightless, narrow passageways, between the walls they had traversed; and the voice of Geoffrey, in the lead, came back to say they were not far from their goal.

“I wish I had my boar-spear,” Geronde said wistfully in the gloom. Geronde’s boar-spear was her favorite weapon, light enough for easy use and very effective.

“No boar-spears here,” said her father.

There was silence after that until they came to one of the things Jim was beginning to get used to encountering in these between-the-wall passages, simply a blank wall that ended a corridor.

“You can open it, of course?” he said to Geoffrey.

Geoffrey nodded, pressed at various points on the wall, and it slid downward out of sight. Ahead of them was complete darkness.

“Follow me,” said Geoffrey, plunging into it and disappearing almost immediately. Jim and Brian did so, followed by the rest of their group.

It was a little like stepping into a pool of ink-even to the point where the air that touched them in this darkness felt almost liquid, heavy and clammy against them.

“Don’t worry,” came Sir Geoffrey’s voice, “just walk forward.”

They did so, blindly; and suddenly they were in a room that was less than half the size of Murad’s bedroom, but completely unfurnished-bare stone floor, ceiling and walls, with the only illumination being die late afternoon light coming from a single arrow slit in one of the walls.

Jim turned to see if everybody else had got through all right. They were there. Angie, Geronde and the two hobs on their smoke. Brian was with him and just behind them were Sir Renel and up in front was Sir Geoffrey.

The place had no door. No place of entrance or exit. It was solid wall all the way around except for the arrow slit.

“How do we get out of here?” asked Brian.

Jim had been turning to Sir Geoffrey to ask him the same question; but now he saw the knight beckoning him from one of the walls. He walked over and saw that there was a chink between two of the squared rocks that made the wall, hidden from casual view by the fact that one rock protruded enough to hide the slit except from a certain angle.

When abu al-Qusayr, the Tripoli magician, had come to speak with Hasan on behalf of Jim and Brian, he had told Jim after failing to help that there was someone or something aiding Hasan-that a power was at work here; though Jim, as a low-ranking magician, possibly could not sense it. Jim had not been sure about such a power then; but he could feel it now, in the room below.

It was like a cold pressure, emanating outward from a point in the room that was like the depression in the center of a whirlpool of water. He could feel it pushing like a large, open hand against him; but also, oddly, it seemed to him, he could almost smell it-a strange, bitter smell. Also, as these things impressed themselves on him, he became aware that the ordinarily fully lighted room below now seemed to have acquired, to his sight at least, all sorts of strange, hard-to-see shadows; lurking not only in corners but in mid-air, moving to and fro, some darker than others- but all becoming invisible when he tried to look directly at any one of them.

Whatever all this meant, there was certainly no question about where the center of the whirlpool of the power he felt was. It was centered not upon Hasan, but upon ibn-Tariq.

Down below, the brown dog turned its head to look up in the direction from which Jim was looking down on him. Jim felt a distinct shock, as if he and the canine were face to face.

“We are observed.” The dog’s voice floated upward clearly to Jim’s ear.