The Dragon and the Djinn Read online

  "Not at all," said Jim. "I enjoy watching. It is the next best thing to being able to play myself. The two of you go ahead. I'll just sit here and enjoy myself."

  "Well then," said Sir Mortimor, looking at Brian. "What do you say to a short bout, sir? As it falls out, I still have my dice in my purse here, along with my winnings of the last time we played. I had meant to set both away, but failed to get around to it."

  "All the better," said Brian. "On my part, I happen to have a fair amount of my money with me; so that there need be no interrupting to fetch it from the room Sir James and I share."

  He reached into the broad purse attached to his belt and brought out a heavy handful of moutons d'or, broad French pieces in gold, that brought a gleam to Sir Mortimor's face, although it was gone almost as quickly as it appeared. In his turn he brought up a handful of coins almost as large, but they were all in silver, with some lesser silver and brass change mixed with them.

  "Shall we say ten silver to one gold?" he said to Sir Brian.

  "Willingly," answered Brian.

  The dicing began; and to Jim's surprise, Brian began to win immediately. In fact, he won the first four bouts before he had his first loss, and then he won three more. Both he and Sir Mortimor were becoming caught up in the game. Their eyes followed the dice with an avid eagerness, concentrating on the dancing cubes alone to the point where Jim began to feel he was next to invisible.

  He also found that he was blaming himself for not having made plans for watching a dice game that might show him if Sir Mortimor cheated. He had made a mental note to find a way to use magic to test the matter; but he had not gone beyond that point.

  Also, it was awkward that Brian was continuing to win, an average of something like three bouts out of five; and Sir Mortimor's silver was swiftly moving to Brian's side of the table. Letting Brian win could simply be a clever move on Sir Mortimor's part to allay suspicion, particularly since he had come to realize that Jim had considerable magical powers which might make any cheating dangerous.

  Sir Mortimor could simply be cheating against himself, to let Brian win; or he could be playing honestly at the moment; and Brian was having a legitimate run of luck.

  It could even be that Jim's suspicions were unfounded.

  The whole business of Brian winning in Episcopi and losing here might have been the result of honest play after all, with Brian having a run of luck in Episcopi and Sir Mortimor having his here. If it had all been honest, then Brian's only hope was to get lucky again.

  The dicing went on. For a little time, luck seemed to flow against Brian after all; but this did not last. After a short run in which he lost, he began to win again and continued. They were approaching a point of decisions, since the money Sir Mortimor had on the table was now down to a few pieces. He would soon either have to call an end to dice-play for the evening or go to wherever in the castle his wealth was stored, and bring back a fresh supply of coins.

  "Well, well," said Sir Mortimor, pushing his last few coins together. "The dice have not been my friend this evening. Heigh-ho, but so it goes. At any rate, we have gotten away from our present problems and mayhap we will all sleep well. We should probably call it quits for the moment, Sir Brian."

  "I feel distressed, sir," said Brian. "It seems less than gentlemanly of me to stop without giving you a chance to win back what you have lost just now. If you are weary, yourself, I would not keep you from your rest. But I assure you—"

  "Oh," said Sir Mortimor, "I spoke only out of courtesy. Myself, I am not sleepy at all; and, in fact, I would be up and around in the castle for the rest of the night from time to time, anyway. If you wish, I will be glad to dice on. I own, I would not be loath to win back what you just took from me. Give me but a few moments to fetch more coin, so that we can play like gentlemen with the worth of our wagers openly upon the table—"

  "By all means!" cried Brian, determinedly ignoring Jim's attempts to signal him that quitting now would be a good idea. "I will be happy to wait. So, I'm sure, will be Sir James."

  "Then I shall be right back," said Sir Mortimor.

  "Brian," said Jim, in a low voice, after the tall knight had gone, "you really should have stopped. Even this much ahead must have recouped you for at least part of your losses."

  "It does, of course," said Brian. "But, James, it is unthinkable that I should not give the man the chance to have his revenge. It is as unthinkable as if I was in a tourney, and the saddle girth of he who is to ride against me broke before we had even a chance to cross lances. I were no gentleman at all, then, if I did not lift my lance point in the air, rein in my horse, and ride back to my end of the list, to wait until he could be resaddled and ready to come again with full force."

  "Well, now," said Sir Mortimor, sitting down at the table with them once more. "Since you offered to wager tonight with gold, Sir Brian, I thought it only fair to match your coins with those of the same metal."

  He poured from his wallet a double handful of English rose nobles, such as Brian had won at the Christmas tournament a few months before. Almost undoubtedly, thought Jim, they had been Brian's. But now the value of the money at play on both sides was considerable.

  The dicing began again. At first, Brian continued to win. Then the tide turned against him for a short time before he began to win again. But his second session of winning with the rose nobles on the table was shorter than the one before, and very soon the play settled down to an exchange that seesawed back and forth, first in one man's favor, then the other, but gradually—and, Jim noticed, steadily—Brian's pile of coins began to diminish, and Sir Mortimor's to grow.

  Both men were deep in the game, oblivious to anything outside it; and Jim found himself being drawn into each pass of the dice with the same sort of tension. He was growing more and more certain that somehow Sir Mortimor was controlling the fall of the dice, one way or another. But, though he stared carefully at the way Sir Mortimor threw the cubes, he could see nothing strange about either the throws, or the dice themselves, when Sir Mortimor won; nothing different in them from the times Brian won.

  Still, his feeling that Sir Mortimor was controlling the game somehow continued to grow from a suspicion to a near-certainty. There was something artificial about the rhythm of the way the winning went back and forth, with Brian regaining the lead for a moment, only to lose it again, and then to lose more deeply than Sir Mortimor had lost the time before.

  Jim wished he knew more about cheating and gambling in general. All he could remember were little tags of information floating around in his memory.

  Two things only floated to the surface of his mind from among these tags. One was something he was almost sure he had read in a story, rather than in knowledgeable nonfiction: a reference to some gambler putting the "happy hop" on dice when he threw them. The other was something else that he was more sure he had read; something about the edges of dice being shaved, so that when set rolling they always ended with certain sides upward.

  But if his memory was not playing tricks on him, and Sir Mortimor's dice were shaved, Brian would also be winning with them every time he used them.

  That is, unless there actually was something like a "happy hop"—but it could only be put on shaved dice by an experienced player with them… some special way of throwing…

  However, the idea of the skill involved to make such dice work for Sir Mortimor and not for Brian rang a little far-fetched to Jim's mind. His mind, hunting for an answer, stumbled over a very obvious one, Sir Mortimor could have more than one set of dice. He could be throwing one set himself and making sure that Brian threw the other.

  But this sounded almost as unbelievable as the idea of the "happy hop." Jim frowned internally. If Sir Mortimor was switching the sets of dice, he had to do it before their very eyes, without the exchange being noticeable—and that was impossible.

  Or was it?

  Something was tickling that memory of his again, someone, perhaps some fictional detective had said it—w
hen all reasonable answers fail, and only one unreasonable possibility is left, then the unreasonable possibility is possible—or words to that effect. The thing to do here was to simply start from the assumption that Sir Mortimor was somehow switching two pairs of dice back and forth, and try to figure out how he was doing it.

  Jim had never diced in his life, even back in the twentieth century. He was one of those unusual people who get bored by gambling, with anything less than his own life as a stake. Whatever pattern of play Sir Mortimor and Brian were using with their two cubes at a time, it was a game that involved the one who was winning holding on to the dice and calling for a certain number, and then throwing the dice a certain number of times to achieve what he had called for.

  If he did so within the number of throws allowed him, he won; if he did not, he lost. If he lost, then the dice changed hands and the other player had his chance to throw, name a number and try to achieve it within the same certain number of throws.

  Jim concentrated on Sir Mortimor's hands. They were very long hands, longer even than they were large; and he had not been exaggerating when he said that they were unusually quick. He would shake the dice in his fist and then release them just above the table top with his hand palm down and his fingers flicking out to start them rolling. The minute the dice had flown, his fingers curled back toward his palm almost reflexively—not into a tight fist but one almost so.

  He was able to throw these dice with either hand. In fact, Jim decided, the man must be ambidextrous, because he handled the dice equally well with both hands; and both hands released dice with the same palm-down, finger-flicking motion.

  Brian, by contrast, shook his dice with his fist in the same position in which he would have pounded a table, little finger bottommost; and then turned his hand palm down only slightly, to let the dice out.

  By contrast, there was something unusually skillful about the way Sir Mortimor released the little white cubes from his hand. It had the flowing sort of perfection about it that Brian showed in his use of weapons—a movement that seemed to have been stripped down to its absolute essentials, and become almost a single, graceful, unthinking action. Brian's handling of the dice was nowhere nearly as graceful. He threw the dice, in fact, about the way Jim assumed that he himself would have thrown them.

  The one thing in particular that riveted Jim's attention was the fact that Sir Mortimor's release and recapture of the dice, out of his hand and back again, was so swift as to make the movement of his fingers almost a blur before Jim's eyes. A suspicion crept into Jim's mind. It could be that speed was intentional, to hide something. If so, here was something where even a small amount of magic could help him investigate.

  He visualized his eyes as lenses of a camera capable of high-speed recording, so that it could play back Sir Mortimor's throw in slow motion.

  He concentrated on Sir Mortimor's release of the dice, then mentally reran it inside his own head. In his visualization, he saw the hand move out over the table, only the back of the hand and the knuckles visible; then they opened, with the thumb dropping away from the other fingers and the other fingers beginning to uncurl outward.

  Now, for the first time in this slow-motion version, he saw that they did not open up all the way, and no dice came out from them. Instead, the two dice were held by the top joints only of the four fingers that had enclosed them; and now that he saw the whole image instead of concentrating on Sir Mortimor's one active hand, he caught sight of another pair of dice that dropped from the under part of Sir Mortimor's other sleeve, hidden beneath his outstretched wrist and hand; and it was these dice that rattled and rolled on the table top a moment later, for Brian to pick up and use.

  In the same instant the fingers that held the unreleased dice closed back toward his wrist; and as Jim watched, the original dice they held, thrown by the quick action of the fingertips, flicked back up into the sleeve behind them.

  Brian's hand went forward to the dice. This had been Sir Mortimor's last attempt to throw the winning point. Brian picked up, shook and threw the second pair of dice.

  Jim put the visualization out of his mind, and concentrated once more on what was going on at the table.

  Brian rolled the dice he had picked up, got a five showing on one and a two on the other, tried to match this point of seven and failed, Sir Mortimor swiftly scooped up the dice; and Jim, watching—even without the need for magic slow motion now—noticed that Sir Mortimor gathered them in with his other hand and flicked them back into the empty sleeve they had left only seconds before. At the same time, Jim saw the original dice, hidden from Brian by the palm-down position, drop secretly into Sir Mortimor's other hand.

  Sir Mortimor shook the dice with both hands like a boxer congratulating himself. Then with his right hand again, he threw and made a point of eight; which, three throws later, he matched to win his point and another of Brian's rose nobles. The second set of dice would be the ones shaved to win—the first set shaved to lose, Sir Mortimor was controlling Brian's winning or losing by choosing which dice Brian used.

  Well, Jim told himself with satisfaction, that explained how Sir Mortimor was able to win at will with the dice. Finding that out had been the hard part. Now it was simply a matter of using his magic to cure the situation so that Brian had his money back—and that should be the easy part.

  No it won't, said Carolinus's voice in his head.

  Chapter Twelve

  Jim suddenly found himself standing, completely transparent, and looking down at his own body still sitting at the table with the equally solid bodies of Brian and Sir Mortimor. Carolinus, also wraithlike and transparent, was standing facing him; while the two very solid players were continuing to dice on, oblivious to the pair of wraiths standing beside their table.

  Haven't you forgotten a couple of things, Jim? said Carolinus. To begin with, are you sure it'd be a proper use of magickal energy to change or perhaps reverse the outcome of this dicing going on between Brian and Sir Mortimor? Remember, our great Science and Art is a defensive one; and its powers are never to be used aggressively. How sure are you that in getting Brian his money back, you wouldn't be taking it improperly from Sir Mortimor—in effect, robbing him?

  Why, he got it by cheating, Jim thought back.

  The right or wrong of what humans do isn't the concern of the Accounting Office and the magickal energy that has been helping the human race this far upward on its way to Civilization, replied Carolinus. If magick is to be put solely to that purpose, then all magickians would have their hands full just righting the wrongs in their immediate vicinity; instead of working at those things that move humanity toward a better understanding of the world and themselves. Of necessity, the Art of Magick must be apart from individual matters of right or wrong—except as those concern either the magickian himself, or those under his protection.

  And Brian isn't under your protection, is that it? said Jim.

  He is not, said Carolinus.

  And he's not under mine, either? demanded Jim.

  Is he? said Carolinus. That's a question you have to answer for yourself, Jim. If he's under your protection, then to what extent is he under your protection—in all things? Or just in the present instance?

  You mean I have to choose now the extent to which he's under my protection? said Jim. And I'll be forever stuck with what I said at this moment?

  Not at all, said Carolinus. You can amend your position in that regard at any point and as many times as you want to. But you're going to have to be careful at every decision point how far you may be stepping outside the essentially defensive nature of magick.

  Jim glared at him.

  And you talked about there being a couple of things, he said. What's the other?

  It's a simple point, but a telling one, said Carolinus. Have you considered Sir Brian's personal code of honor?

  Jim felt as if he had just been punched in the stomach. This second question was worse than the first. If he were to magically alter the sit
uation so that Sir Mortimor lost back to Brian everything that he had taken from him, how would Brian react if he knew Jim had arranged it?

  The answer was all too obvious. Brian would be deeply—maybe critically—offended. Offended and angry. In Brian's personal code, a knight did not take an unfair advantage; not even to get his money back from one who had gotten it unfairly. Brian would insist on giving back to Sir Mortimor all that Jim had magically won back for him. Then, and only then, if he had been thoroughly convinced that Sir Mortimor had been cheating, he would undoubtedly accuse the other knight in plain terms and fight him to the death.

  But the money would still have been with Sir Mortimor, if and when it was Sir Mortimor who died. Brian would not have taken it back even from the dead body. But his friendship with Jim almost undoubtedly would be severed—possibly for life.

  The answer—the only answer—was one Jim would have given anything not to face. It was that he could only straighten things out here at the expense of leaving Brian, as well as Sir Mortimor, in complete ignorance of how the money had come back. Unless, that was, he could think up some excuse to explain matters to Brian afterwards; hopefully, at some distance in time, after it was too late for Brian to do anything about Sir Mortimor. Perhaps by that time he could come up with some way of explaining it to Brian that would make it all right.

  Damn it, Carolinus! said Jim. This is a gray area! A situation where the directives you talk about point in two exactly opposite ways. If I help Brian, then I'll be harming him.

  Yes, said Carolinus, unfortunately, this is the sort of problem you bump into and have to make a decision on when you get into Advanced Magick. Here's a place where I can't help you, of course. This is something of a bittersweet moment for me, Jim. It's not unlike that of a parent watching a child growing up, to the point where the child has to use his or her own judgment; and the parent must stand aside. You've reached the stage of Discretion, Jim. It's been approaching you for some time, though you may not have read the shadow it cast before it.