The Dragon and the Djinn Page 20

  It was a polite opening for Jim to hint that magic, though unlike that of a demon, was also his game.

  "I'm not all that sure we have individual demons where I come from, any more," said Jim. "They actually belong more to pagan superstition than anything else. There's the Dark Powers, of course; and they make and use such creatures as ogres, harpies and Worms. But none of those could properly be called demons. They're merely creatures created to physically attack humankind. They cannot be turned away, as ordinarily can all the Powers of Darkness, by such things as crossing yourself or saying the Lord's Prayer."

  "Ah, yes," said ibn Tariq. "The prayer of Jesus of Nazareth. He is one of our saints, too, you know. A Muslim can invoke the name of Allah and hope for his protection; but whether he receives it or not will depend upon Allah's will. Few men are so sure of that, that they would chance going unscathed among the creatures of darkness. On the other hand, as I say, it is often those who have transgressed in the eyes of Allah, whom these creatures deliberately seek out."

  "And the Assassins or the Mongols?" asked Jim. "Any human enemies?"

  "We are a large caravan," answered ibn-Tariq. "The Assassins like to outnumber those they attack. Like whatever tribes that would prey upon us and live in these mountains, they are probably not numerous enough to make an attempt against us. Against a force of Mongols, of course, we would be helpless. They would outnumber us and they are very fierce fighters. On the other hand, a force of Mongols would not be interested in anything as small as a caravan. They would probably be happening across us in the process of going toward something more important that they intended to attack, like a city."

  He paused and looked at Jim, clearly inviting him to speak. Jim hesitated. It was very clear that ibn-Tariq wanted to ask if he had some magical powers that would allow him to defend himself, and possibly all of the caravan, against Mongols, if they should appear; but politeness would not allow him to ask the question in any direct or leading manner.

  Unfortunately, a comparable wariness made Jim hesitate to bring it up himself. By this time he was almost certain that ibn-Tariq knew he was a magician; but that was not the same thing as the fact being openly acknowledged between them.

  Jim's mind struggled for some subtle way of dealing with the situation. He was not capable of the intricate, polite ways of approaching the topic that ibn-Tariq possessed. On the other hand, ibn-Tariq was pointedly leaving it to him to be the one to establish the fact; and Jim, while not wanting to hide his magical status, on the other hand wanted to preserve as much as possible of his primary character as a bluff English knight. An English knight who might have many other failings, but had certainly had some schooling in courtesy—at least enough not to boast of his accomplishments.

  It made for a definite awkwardness. Ibn-Tariq, as a traveling scholar, was eager to trade information for information. He would have liked to have learned from Jim as much about magic as Jim would tell him, the names of any particular magicians he had studied under, and so forth. He had been trying to prod Jim delicately into talking about this for four days now.

  "I was fascinated," went on ibn-Tariq, when the pause had reached unnatural proportions, "to learn about the great nasraney magician of Córdoba, and how he saved the city from an attack once more than half a century ago."

  It was another delicate feeler; clearly designed to give Jim the opportunity to talk of comparable powers and situations with regard to an appearance of the Mongols. Unfortunately, Jim had never heard of the great nasraney magician of Córdoba, a city in Spain which, during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, had been almost the center of the western world, as far as North Africa was concerned.

  "Ah well," Jim said. "I suppose if the Mongols show up, we'll just have to be polite to them and hope everything goes well."

  "Inshallah" ("It is the will of God"), said ibn-Tariq, defeated. "In any case, the sun is close to the mountain tops, now. Shortly we will be stopping for the night. I will ride forward and find out what our chosen stopping place will be like."

  Ibn-Tariq rode on ahead, and Jim was left alone. He was not particularly disappointed in this because he wanted to think. He would have liked to have asked ibn-Tariq more about Palmyra, and the chance of finding Geronde's father there. But he hesitated to talk about that until this business of his being a magician had been abandoned between them. What he really wanted—and, in fact, he had been trying to get into words—was to ask ibn-Tariq to keep any information on both Jim and Brian to himself.

  It could probably not be kept entirely quiet, but the problem was that the name "magician" in ordinary gossip and conversation easily slipped into being "great magician"; and great magicians attracted great interest. Great interest would stand in the way of his and Brian's investigation of Palmyra and the whereabouts of the Lord of Malvern, by as many discreet routes as possible.

  Jim's main difficulty lay in the fact that, even with the help of his invisible and undoubtedly magic translator, he simply did not have the clever control of his tongue that ibn-Tariq had. He had yet to think of a good way of meeting ibn-Tariq halfway about the subject; so that it could be acknowledged between them without ever being put into words.

  He was in the midst of this particular study when he became aware that he was no longer riding alone. Another camel had moved in beside him, and it was the one with Baiju, the Mongol, on its back.

  Baiju had been riding along with him for several minutes; but in his usual fashion, he seemed in no hurry to open conversation with Jim.

  It was strange, thought Jim. According to all visible characteristics, Baiju should appear unimportant, if not ridiculous. He was not only a little man, but he seemed to ride hunched in the saddle, although Jim had finally decided that his posture was indeed not so much hunched, as completely relaxed.

  In fact, he seemed more at home in his saddle than anyone else in the caravan. His face was dish-shaped, with slightly slanted eyes and high cheek bones and yellow skin. His very dark eyes were essentially expressionless. It was impossible to read anything from them as to how he was feeling, let alone what his intentions might be.

  Still, he had been friendly enough, in his laconic way. He was the very opposite of ibn-Tariq, in that he did not so much reply to what was said to him, as simply utter flat statements. Jim knew he would not speak until Jim initiated the conversation.

  "We will be stopping for the night, soon," said Jim. "It seems to me it's already starting to get cool; but then, we're steadily moving higher into the mountains."

  He looked at Baiju, who, under a coat of mail, appeared to be wearing nothing but a thin shirt of dark blue color, made of what looked like some surprisingly modern, close-woven, thin material.

  "You do not notice the cold of the mountain heights with only that shirt under your mail?" he asked.

  "The shirt is silk," said Baiju.

  Jim felt a little foolish. Of course the Mongols, with their connections to the Far East, would tend to have garments made of silk. In fact, now that he stopped to think about the robe he had seen Abu al-Qusayr wear…

  "Still," he said, "in the west, we're used to wearing a garment of padding under our chain mail. Don't you usually prefer wearing something like that? Or are ways of dressing simply different here?"

  "It is silk because of the arrows," said Baiju. "When an arrow goes into the body, the silk is pushed in with it. It is then easy to remove the arrow by pulling gently on the silk."

  Jim winced internally. He had never heard of such a way of dealing with arrows; but perhaps it made sense. Silk was an interesting cloth in many ways, and it might well have the characteristic of entangling the barbed ends of an arrow and the strength not to tear loose, but bring the arrowhead out when pulled, instead of just tearing loose when it was pulled upon. At the same time, having an arrow removed that way would not be the most comfortable of experiences—though, come to think of it, having the arrow cut out might be even worse.

  "Are Mongol arrows always barbed?"
he asked.

  "Always," said Baiju.

  "And do the arrows and suchlike vary from tribe to tribe?" Jim asked. "Maybe I should say from kingdom to kingdom—"

  "They do not vary," said Baiju.

  "In the west, our weapons vary," said Jim. "Generally, of course there's the short sword and the long; and various styles of them. But usually you can tell by the weapon and the way a man's dressed where he's from. How do you tell where another Mongol's from?"

  "You look," said Baiju. Jim thought he would go on from those first two words, but evidently they were his complete answer.

  "I suppose what I meant to ask," said Jim, "is what differences do you look for? What about him, his clothes or his weapons, or whatever, tell you who he is?"

  "You look," said Baiju. "That is all. You look—and you know."

  "I see," said Jim. "If we run into a force of Mongols, have you any idea which kingdom of Mongols they'll be?"

  "They would be of the Golden Horde." Baiju leaned from his saddle and spat on the ground.

  "Your people?" asked Jim.

  "No," said Baiju. "I am of the Il-khanate," said Baiju. "We hold this land against the House of Juchi in the Golden Horde, to the north."

  They rode in silence together for a little ways.

  "Are the Golden Horde friends of the Assassins?" asked Jim, finally. "Are there any Mongols among the Assassins?"

  "No," said Baiju. "The Assassins are not warriors. Mongols are warriors."

  "Ibn-Tariq," said Jim, "said the chances were we wouldn't be disturbed by Assassins, anyway; because the caravan is too strong."

  Baiju turned his head and looked directly into Jim's eyes. Then he looked away again. Jim was growing used to the little man's ways, and he recognized this as another gesture of contempt. Clearly Baiju did not think much of the caravan's fighting ability.

  They had been climbing a rocky defile between two large stony cliffs that ended in what looked like razor-edged rocks. But now they came to the head of the defile and the walls dwindled on each side, letting them out into an open space, filled with boulders of all sizes, from that of a pebble to that of a small house.

  It looked like an ancient water course; and indeed it had a stream running through it. The stream was from a spring jetting out of the near vertical wall of a cliff right before them. Jim could hear the cries of camel riders ahead of him, reining in their camels and beginning to make them kneel. The stopping place for the night had been reached.

  As the sun disappeared behind the mountains, and the light dwindled, most of the camels were at least partially unloaded and tents or tentlike shelters were set up. Thanks to Abu al-Qusayr, Jim and Brian had two baggage camels as well as the two beasts they were riding, and one of these carried a tent, which they had learned to set up for themselves.

  They got it up, got a cooking fire started just outside its front flap, using dried camel dung for fuel—it having formed part of their load for this section of the trip over the mountains. Baiju had gone off by himself. As far as Jim could see, the little man had no tent and merely curled up next to his camel, or in any convenient shelter from the wind he could find.

  Ibn-Tariq had evidently joined another group, barely visible between the boulders at some little distance off, but it looked like a gathering of half a dozen of the merchants of the caravan in a sort of communal meal.

  "These infidel messes do not really feed a man," grumbled Brian, as they sat down to eat the stew, made up of foodstuffs that were also part of their camel loads, and courtesy of Abu al-Qusayr.

  "Meat is scarce in these parts, evidently," said Jim. "For one thing they seemed to have nothing but goats—or perhaps sheep; although we haven't see many sheep so far."

  "There were at least adequate sheep on Cyprus," said Brian. "A roast of mutton can fill a man's stomach. But a few strings of this goat meat can hardly make anything of a handful of vegetables."

  In spite of what he was saying, Brian was managing to eat more heartily than Jim at this, their late meal of the day. They only had two, one on getting started in the morning and one after stopping at night.

  "Perhaps we will see some wild goats, or other game that live in these mountains," said Jim. He started to take off the thick leather ankle-boots he had bought in Tripoli for this mountain crossing; then changed his mind. His feet would be warmer overnight if he left them on. "And be able to kill an animal or two to provide ourselves with meat."

  "May St. Francis mercifully send it so," said Brian.

  Hob had come out of his knapsack on Jim's back and was perched on Jim's shoulder. They were far enough away from other members of the caravan so that he would be invisible in the last of the twilight, and the faint illumination of the fire. In fact, anyone there seeing him would probably have taken him for a monkey—a hairless, rather strange-looking monkey, but a monkey, nonetheless. He was about the right size and shape.

  In any case, he was good at being as near to invisible as possible. He reveled in these evening caravan stops; and went riding from one waft of smoke to another, over all the cooking fires of the caravan, to come back bursting with useless information; plus stories of demons and monsters he had overheard—in the talk of men who never thought of looking up into where the thinning smoke was lost against the darkening skies. Talk that he could hardly wait to tell Jim all about.

  However, he was a considerate hobgoblin; and when he came back to their tent this night, to find both Jim and Brian asleep, he let them slumber peacefully. He went back out to lie on a waft of smoke from what was left above their own cooking fire; thoughtfully, when it burned low, stoking it up with more of the fuel that had been planned to last them until the end of their journey.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Jim woke to the feeling he was being suffocated. His mind was stunned and baffled, but his survival reflexes were working at full capacity. He burst through the front flap of the tent and came to full awakeness rolling down a rocky slope just outside it, rolling over and over, tightly locked with a slighter, hooded figure, who had been trying to wind a cloth around his head and tightly over his mouth and nose.

  With his mind working again, at least slightly, he shifted his grip to the shoulders of his attacker, thrust out a knee to incapacitate him at a moment when Jim was on top, and banged the other's head upon the stony ground. The figure went limp and he got to his feet, only to be knocked off them again by three other hooded figures, who held him down and wrapped another cloth tightly around him in the same way. He fought mightily; and something hit him on the side of the head so lightly he scarcely felt it.

  But, curiously, that was the last he remembered for some little time.

  He came fully to his senses finally, with a feeling that quite some time had passed. He was walking along a narrow ridge of rock somewhere in the mountains, with Brian ahead of him, his hands tied behind his back. Also walking ahead of both him and Brian were a number of robed, brown-skinned men, none of whom he recognized. But then, he had really known only two or three people in the caravan. Whoever they were, they were not hooded; but that was little help. They could, for all he knew, have been merchants from the caravan itself.

  He was aware of others like them behind him; and he had a confused memory of being half-conscious at some time earlier. He also had the feeling he had been walking for a long time, as much as a day or two. The left side of his head ached. He instinctively tried to put his hands up to touch it and see if it was sore, and abruptly realized that, like Brian's, they were tied behind him at the wrists—uncomfortably tied, as a matter of fact.

  He had a memory some time back of stopping while walking in order to be deathly sick for some little time. The men about him had been very annoyed by this; but someone who was evidently their leader had come back, riding on a horse, and ordered them sharply to leave him alone until he was fit to walk again.

  He remembered the blow on the side of his head then, and the word "concussion" jumped into his mind. Those were some of the
signals—the impact that was enough to make him lose consciousness, the present headache and the soreness of his head, which he was now feeling on the right side of his head, the opposite of the side with the headache. There was a medical term for that pair of symptoms he could not remember right now. But all these three things pointed to a possible concussion. If he had been concussed, he shouldn't be walking like this. He should be resting as much as possible.

  A concussion could cause brain damage, he remembered, because the blow on one side of the head made the brain dash itself against the bony cage of the skull on the opposite side; and it was on that opposite side that the damage to the brain occurred. He was not quite sure about the rest of it; the brain was either bleeding on the side that had been hurt, or swelling against the immovable bone of the skull, causing the pressure there that made concussion dangerous. Someone with a bad concussion could suddenly drop dead a day or so after being hit, without even knowing he or she had been badly hurt.

  Now that he had concentrated on how he was feeling, he was also aware of exhaustion, an unsureness of balance and a heaviness of his whole body; as if it had been worn out by trudging along through the mountains this way, with hands bound behind it.

  It made no sense. These men had apparently sneaked into the caravan when everyone was asleep; but they had taken only Brian and him as prisoners and were now leading them off someplace. He could release both Brian and himself with magic. For that matter, he could also transport Brian and himself away from here with magic, probably. But that could be done later, if necessary. Right now, he wanted to find out why this had happened. It might just be moving them closer to Geronde's father, if they stuck it out until they knew more about it.

  But he wished his head would stop aching so he could think more clearly. He also wished he could put his hands up and feel the sore side of his head and find exactly what kind of a bump or cut was there.