The Dragon and the Djinn Read online

  "I do," whined Kelb. "It's just beyond Paradise—"

  "Good enough," said Jim. "Lean against the bars."

  Kelb still hesitated.

  "What does my master intend to do?" he asked, cautiously.

  "Nothing important," said Jim. "I'll simply turn myself, Brian and Hob into fleas on you, hidden in your hair. You'll sneak through the corridors to the way out, and when you go invisible we'll be that way too."

  "I know not if you will indeed become unseen when I do, master," said Kelb.

  "If the dog can go invisible, why can't he make us invisible?" said Brian. "That way we wouldn't have to be fleas."

  "I can't, master," said Kelb.

  "Why not?"

  "He's a Natural, not a magician," Jim reminded Brian. "Let's not have any more talk, now. Kelb—against the bars!"

  "Ought to be able to," muttered Brian.

  "Whatever," said Jim impatiently. "As fleas we'll be too small to be noticed anyway. Now, Kelb!"

  Kelb turned sideways and pressed himself against the bars.

  Jim had never turned himself into an insect before. He had heard Carolinus threaten to turn humans, animals or Naturals into insects; and he had actually seen Carolinus turn a thirty-foot sea devil into a very large beetle. But Jim had never done it, or even turned himself into an animal before. Still, visualization had lately been making everything seem possible, and he could think of no drawbacks to the idea. They would simply ride Kelb all the way out of this Kasr al-Abiyadh, or White Palace. He half closed his eyes and concentrated on visualizing Brian, himself and Hob as fleas on Kelb's hide, and locked the picture firmly in his mind and concentrated on it.

  "Here we go," he said.

  And so they went.

  Chapter Twenty

  As it turned out, luck was with them. Kelb encountered no one on his way up the stairs from the cell block, or after that for some distance.

  It was just as well that things had fallen out that way, Jim thought later. Because his first reaction after transforming himself into a flea was to discover at least one of the unfortunate side effects of the transformation. He had forgotten entirely what the viewpoint of a flea would be, out of sight in the hair on a dog's back.

  Basically, the view was of hair. Hairs like tree trunks, all around them and leaning over them. There was, of course, the skin of Kelb underneath him. He felt a momentary instinctive urge to try to get at some of the blood beneath that skin, but overruled it. However, meanwhile, as in a dense growth of something like bamboo, he was still completely fenced in by hair—hair not only enclosing him but reaching up to shut out any sight of what might be above its tips.

  This would not do. What he needed was a viewpoint outside his flea body. He visualized the prospect as seen through Kelb's eyes.

  However, what he found himself seeing, though recognizable, was—as in the vision of all dogs—in black and white; and so different that it took a moment for him to make out even the stone walls and stone roof overhead. This would not do.

  What he wanted was human vision; but human vision that would be completely disembodied.

  Well, there was no reason why that should not be achievable by a very small amount of magic. What came immediately to mind was a pair of invisible human eyes floating in the air just above Kelb's head. A concept that fitted into words easily enough, but was a little hard to picture in the mind. To begin with, how did you picture eyes if they were invisible?

  He had wrestled with that for a moment until the obvious answer came to him.

  Of course, the invisible eyes didn't have to be like a pair of human eyeballs, only invisible. It could be as if his flea-eyes were magic glasses connected to an invisible television camera hookup, which could be swiveled around, up or down, to let him hear and see things in perfectly normal human fashion, in any direction from Kelb's head.

  He had visualized such a camera arrangement, then made it invisible, then turned it on; and suddenly he had achieved a good view of the corridor down which Kelb was trotting. It was a corridor perfectly bare of any kind of decoration, no carpet on the stone floor—that accounted for the sound he now heard of Kelb's claws clicking as he moved. The only thing that broke the corridor walls on either side were occasional entrances, either to rooms or other corridors; but Kelb was proceeding with apparent confidence, giving every indication of knowing where he was going.

  "Where are we?" Jim started to ask the Djinni-dog. But even before the words were formed, he realized he had nothing to form them with. Not only was he so tiny that his voice would probably not be heard by Kelb; but he had no vocal apparatus as a flea.

  It was true, he remembered, that the watch-beetle that Carolinus had summoned up on Jim's first acquaintance with the magician had spoken in a high tinny voice, but that might simply have been made possible by Carolinus's magic. Jim also remembered that Rrrnlf the giant sea devil, reduced to beetle size, had apparently had no voice at all. Though Carolinus had appeared to hear him saying things then, and talked with him in a conversation of which only Carolinus's side was audible.

  What he wanted now, Jim decided, was to be able to speak inside Kelb's mind.

  He tried to visualize what a Djinni's mind might look like. A sort of place of shadows? He had discovered sometime since that his visualizations did not have to be correct to work. It was the concept behind the visualization that made the structure on which his creative ability could act.

  He concentrated on his place of shadows; and in his own mind he spoke to the dog.

  Where are we?

  Kelb came to an abrupt stop.

  "Master?" he said, in a voice that quivered with what—if it was not fear—was a very good imitation of it.

  That's all right. It's me, thought Jim. Where are we?

  "I am concerned, master," said Kelb. "We're now in the quarters of the ordinary Assassins; and I would have thought we'd run into some of them before now. I do not understand this, unless a number of them are now out on some raid or other."

  Jim realized that Kelb was speaking his words out loud.

  You don't have to actually say what you tell me, Jim said. Just think it. I'll hear it. Think the words.

  Indeed, you are a great magician, said Kelb, thinking the words. Do you hear me now?

  I hear you loud and clear, said Jim. You were just saying a number of the Assassins might have been sent off on a raid—against the caravan again?

  Oh, no, said Kelb. But there has been talk for some time of the fact that the Golden Horde Mongols were planning a foray down here into what is actually Il-Khanate Mongol territory; and during the last two hundred years Mongols have taken many Assassin castles. Hasan ad-Dimri could have sent out many of his men in a strong group to see if any such Mongol force is coming this way; so he can take measures for defense. That's the only thing I can think of—

  He broke off suddenly, as two men barely in their twenties stepped out of one of the entrances ahead and turned to stare directly at him.

  Kelb went invisible, and began to try to sneak up along the wall at his left, which was farthest from where they were standing. He moved with surprising softness, his nails no longer clicking on the floor. Jim suddenly thought of Brian and Hob. He turned his mental camera view back on himself and his fellow fleas, and discovered they were being carried along in mid-air, quite visible themselves—but only as specks.

  It suddenly occurred to him that the amount of magical energy required to make three fleas invisible would be hardly any amount at all. Accordingly, he did so. He spoke mentally to Brian and Hob—meanwhile making sure that when they tried to speak back it would be a mind-to-mind contact—though where a mind could hide in the body of a flea, he had no idea. He did not know much about a flea's anatomy; but he was fairly sure that like most insects it did not have a brain.

  Brian? he asked. Hob?

  M'lord—Hob began on a note of alarm; but Brian interrupted him.

  James? he said. Where are you? I don't know whether I
was seeing you or just feeling you close here; but I can't do that now.

  I'm right here, said Jim. I made us all invisible and inaudible, so that those two Assassins up ahead won't hear or see us. Kelb's already made himself invisible.

  I noticed, thought Brian, a little sourly. James, this is not my favorite way of traveling.

  It's the best I can do at the moment, Brian, said Jim.

  Oh, I'm not blaming you, James, said Brian. It's just that fleas are foul creatures. I don't like being one—craving your pardon, James, he added hurriedly, since you yourself are also a flea at the moment.

  No offense taken whatsoever, Brian, said Jim. I quite understand how being a flea could bother a knight. I'm not too bothered myself, possibly because of being a magician, and being more used to this than you.

  Of course, said Brian, naturally. Pray forgive my bad manners.

  They aren't bad manners, Brian—Jim broke off. They were now almost level with the two men, who were talking to each other in low voices. To Jim's surprise their faces were a pasty white.

  "I saw a dog," one was saying. "I'm sure of it."

  "I saw no dog," said the other Assassin. He was a little bit taller and possibly a year or so older than his companion—at least somewhat more mature-looking. He closed his eyes. "I saw nothing, I heard nothing."

  "But I was sure—" began the Assassin who had been first to speak, uncertainly.

  "Allah curse thee for the donkey wits thou wast born with!" snapped the other. "O, fool! Were there ever any dogs in the White Palace?"

  "No…" said the other.

  "Could a dog get in here without passing the guards at the gate?"

  "No, of course not—"

  "If a dog was to be allowed in, would we not have heard about it—unless such as you or I was not supposed to know it was here?"

  The jaw of the smaller Assassin dropped.

  "So," went on the taller Assassin, "I say it again. There is no dog, no voice! Do you see a dog now? Do you hear a voice now?"

  "No."

  "Then there was none; and I, at least, was never here."

  The smaller Assassin's face had now whitened further, possibly to the shade of a well-laundered ghost.

  "Neither was I," he said, and ducked back into the entrance out of which they had come, colliding with the taller Assassin, who was already on his way out of sight.

  What now? asked Brian, as they passed the entrance into which the two men had vanished, and got a glimpse of a short hallway with a green door at the end, tightly closed.

  I'm not sure, thought Jim. Kelb?

  Yes, my master? said Kelb, becoming suddenly visible again.

  How close are we to this secret way out now? Jim asked.

  We have only to pass through Paradise, said Kelb. It is the place to which they bring the new recruits. There will be some there, undoubtedly, but it will not matter if they see us, or hear us, because we will simply be something else in what they believe is Paradise; and they may not even see us as we are.

  Paradise? said Jim thoughtfully. Why do you call an indoctrination center for recruits 'Paradise'?

  Forgive me, master, said Kelb, my understanding does not extend to knowing what 'indoctrination' means. But it is the place where they take those newly committed to being Hashasheens, after filling them with hashish first, and then telling them they are going to paradise; and to them, under the drug, it is as if they went.

  We'll go through it invisible anyway, said Jim.

  Master, it is not necessary—

  You will stay invisible, said Jim.

  Yes, master.

  Shortly after that they turned down one of the other entrances into a corridor that led for some little distance, but ended in a wide high door painted a yellow-gold color that filled the full height and width of the corridor. Kelb's voice came out of nothingness.

  "Forgive me, master," he said timidly, "but I can pass through this door without opening it. Is it so with you, master?"

  "Thanks for telling me," said Jim. He hastily visualized himself and the two other fleas passing through the door as if it was no more than a projected illusion; quickly adding the magic stipulation that he, Brian and Hob should do this while still in connection with the skin of Kelb.

  They passed through.

  Within was a very large room indeed.

  Its domed ceiling and much of its upper walls were painted a bright sunlit blue. Beneath this was what seemed to be a rather crude mock-up imitation of an oasis—the kind of imitation that inexperienced amateur theater stage carpenters might have produced. The trees that surrounded them were all fake palm trees, reaching up to an umbrella of false leaves at the top. From somewhere relatively cool air was blowing through the place, there was a pool of water in the center of the room, and in the middle of the pool a fountain spurted some three feet in the air and splashed back into the water.

  Around the edges of this pool, sitting with their backs propped up against imitation palm tree trunks, were a number of young men, most of them seemingly lost in thought, or with their eyes shut—whether asleep or not he did not know. There were also a number of women around, most of them middle-aged and rather businesslike in expression, who seemed mostly concerned with gathering in groups, talking and eating. Nearly all the male figures lying around had trays of food near them, but very few were paying any attention to them. They looked dazed.

  The women, however, were busy with their conversation and food. Occasionally one of them would break off to go over to one of the recumbent figures and stroke some fingers under his chin, possibly murmur to him or pay various sorts of little attentions, then carefully evade the slow grasp which might respond to these attentions—but by no means always did—and then return to the group; or go on to give the same sort of momentary touching and talking to another of the recumbent figures. The women were dressed in what seemed to be layers of filmy, semitransparent silk garments that covered them from neck to wrists and ankles, and were of various hues.

  The clothes, in fact, were lovely. The women, Jim decided, on the whole were not; nor did they seem to be making any effort to be so.

  What are those round things they are eating? Brian demanded, staring at the gathered group of women.

  Sheep's eyes, answered Kelb.

  Jim gagged, mentally, but nonetheless uncomfortably.

  Say you so? said Brian, in an interested voice. I wonder what they taste like. What about those long rope like things that they chew on?

  Sheep's entrails, said Kelb, stuffed of course with rice and sugar and cinnamon and other good things.

  Hah! Like a Scot's haggis, eh? said Brian. There were certainly Scotsmen with the first crusade. They must have gotten in among these infidels— He broke off.

  They are not particularly dainty about how they reach into the communal pot of food, however, he went on. It is true they wipe their hands, but only so often; and I have seen more than one hand go in to the wrist. Also they feed each other, and those beneath the trees.

  This last was true, Jim noticed. One of the things done by these women, who must be playing the part of the Houris, the women with which the Blessed were solaced in Paradise, would be to occasionally make a small ball of food from some of the foods on the tray beside a recumbent figure and put it into his mouth. But not always. Very often she just gave the dazed man a pat, or a stroke—and went on to the next one.

  They skirted the pool and went on through the fake palm trees, with the figures against them becoming fewer and fewer until they saw a wall ahead of them. Low down, the wall was unpainted; and as far as Jim could see, there was no door in it. But Kelb carried them right to the wall, regardless.

  Arriving at the point where the sand of the floor met the wall, he sniffed doglike along the line where wall met sand until he reached a spot where he began to dig industriously with his front paws. Sand spurted backward until he finally exposed what appeared to be part of a tiled floor, blue and white squares of glazed tiles alter
nating in a checkerboard pattern.

  He pressed one of the blue tiles with a paw, and in front of him the apparently seamless wall slipped downward, revealing a rectangular opening.

  "We now enter, my master," said Kelb, aloud.

  He went in. In the dimness of the narrow, walled passage, he hesitated.

  "Are you still with me, master?" he asked.

  Jim remembered the fact that the Djinni could probably no more feel them than see them.

  "We're here, Kelb," he said, also allowing his words this time to come out as spoken sound.

  "I am much relieved, my master," said Kelb. He went back to the opening in the wall, and using his paws pulled sand back over the tile that he had exposed earlier. Then he returned to approximately where he had stood before, and slowly but silently, the stone of the entrance slid up to fill the aperture through which they had entered.

  As it did, an utter blackness descended on them. Kelb's voice came out of it.

  "Master, there is no more need for you and those with you to ride as fleas upon me. If you will return to your ordinary bodies, you will find to your right, on the wall, a rack of torches, and at the end of the rack, a flint and steel wherewith to light them. There is a powder on the thick end of the torch that will make them light easily if you get a spark to them."

  Jim made the necessary magic adjustment. Still in darkness, but now feeling the slight weight of Hob at the back of his neck, and also feeling rather than seeing Brian's presence beside him, he reached out. He rammed his fingers rather painfully against a hard wall surface. Then he ran his hand over it, up and down, moving along as if he was using a brush to paint it. Finally he touched what felt like a curved wooden stand.

  In the stand, he felt a row of upright bundles of something that felt more like tightly rolled paper than anything else.

  He lifted one from its hole, groped again, and found, dangling on a cord, the flint and steel that Kelb had mentioned. Holding the torch in his left armpit, he struck the flint and steel together with both hands until a spark jumped in the right direction to touch the upper, thicker end of the torch. A flame burst into view, spreading and brightening until it illuminated the end of a long tunnel in the rock.