The Dragon and the Djinn Read online

  "What is it?" he asked the dog sharply.

  "I am in desperate need and I cast myself on your mercy, O mighty one!" said the dog, fawning upon him.

  "Yes, yes," said Jim, "but what do you want?"

  The dog pressed close against his right leg and lowered his voice to a murmur. Thoughts of fleas, lice and possible skin diseases flitted momentarily through Jim's mind, but his natural instinct not to be unfriendly to dogs—even ratty-looking specimens like this—which in general he liked and usually got on well with, kept him from pulling his leg away.

  "I am in desperate need of your protection, O great and invincible master," the dog went on, barely above a whisper. "I am in flight from a powerful and wicked one, who most cruelly ill-used me; and when I saw you here, casting spells upon the ocean, I knew you at once. You are as much greater and stronger than him as he is than me; and so I have ventured to ask you for protection, knowing that by your Art you already knew that I was a Djinni—as is the one who so mistreated and would now pursue me—so that I need not first show you myself in my own real form."

  For the first time in some hours, Jim dropped his concern with Rrrnlf and the undersea spaces. There had been one glaringly false note in what the dog had said so far, in speaking to him.

  It was not surprising the dog/Djinni might recognize him as a magician. Unlikely sorts of non-humans had done that before. Others had not, of course, but there was always the chance that some of them could feel, smell or somehow tell the difference that his magic gave him. But the other had clearly been guessing when he threw in that bit just now about casting spells on the sea—since Jim had been doing nothing of the kind.

  Jim was instantly wary. Experience in this particular world had taught him it was usually wisest not to disAbuse a stranger's favorable misapprehension about him too quickly. By letting the mistake slide by, he might be able to find out more of what was actually going on around him—and usually he badly needed to know what was going on around him—for his own safety's sake, to say nothing of that of little Hob.

  He had been aware that he was now in the territory of those middle-eastern Naturals called collectively Djinn or Jann; and, individually, Djinni or Jinni. If this dog actually was a Djinni, then probably the most prudent thing to do was to first find out what kind of magiclike powers he had, while keeping him as much in the dark as possible about the scope of Jim's own abilities.

  "You say you're a Djinni," Jim said. "But before I give you any kind of protection, I'd have to know if I could trust you. I need to know more about you. To begin with, are you really the sort of Djinni you say you are?"

  "O my master, I am. I am!" cried the dog in a high, thin voice, then quickly looked around behind him, as if he expected somebody to be there, listening.

  "We'll see," said Jim. "You're right, of course, in taking for granted I knew you were a Djinni without having to see you in your true shape. But what if you're really a Djinni who's been stripped of his powers by some holy person because of evil things you did, and condemned to live permanently as the dog you pretend to be? Prove to me first you can change back to your true shape."

  "Does he have to?" whispered Hob fearfully in Jim's ear.

  "Hush!" said Jim, over his shoulder. He looked at the dog. "Well?"

  The dog changed his appearance.

  "Tell me when to open my eyes," said Hob in Jim's ear.

  "That's fine. You can change back. That's just fine," said Jim hastily. "It's all right now, Hob. You can look."

  What he had seen, and Hob had almost caught a glimpse of, was a huge male figure with gray skin and large belly, scantily dressed in a sort of vest plus loose billowy, purple trousers. It had possessed a hideous face, with a third eye above and between two other eyes not in line, a face with a mouth that was off to one side and tilted up at the right corner. This kind of tilt should have given the face a cheerful look. Instead it gave it a look of the deepest evil imaginable.

  Then the dog had become a dog again.

  "All right," said Jim. "That much you can do. Do you have your other powers? For example, if I was just an ordinary person instead of the magician I am, would you have tried to bribe me to help you by promising me great treasure?"

  "Forgive me, O my master," said the dog, fawning on him again, "but I would have. Of course, I know better than to bribe such as your incorruptible self."

  "Prove to me you could have done such a thing," said Jim. "For example, produce a chest full of rubies, sapphires, diamonds, and other precious gems to show me you can do it"

  The chest appeared, but its top was down, its contents hidden.

  "Forgive me, forgive me…" whined the dog hurriedly; and the lid of the chest flew up, revealing its contents which were indeed colored stones of all kinds; none of them cut and faceted, of course, since the cutting of gems had not yet been developed on this world.

  "Very well," said Jim loftily, waving his hand. "Take it away. Such toys do not interest me."

  The chest disappeared. Jim felt a small pang of regret—but appearances were everything at this stage.

  "Now," said Jim, "I'll listen to your story and then make my decision."

  "Hearken, then," said the dog. "My name is Kelb. For thousands of years, I never did a false or cruel deed, or anything evil, until one day when I was taken as a slave by another very powerful and very evil Djinni named Sakhr al-Jinni. For some centuries he forced me to do terrible and cruel things, at his orders. Finally, sick of it, I tried at last to escape."

  "Good," said Jim.

  "I don't believe him," whispered Hob.

  "But I was caught by the giant called Sharahiya, one of the keepers of Sakhr al-Jinni's orchard, and brought back," Kelb went on. "Sakhr al-Jinni had me thrown into a lake of fire as punishment. There I suffered for six hundred and fifty-two years, three months, two weeks, three days and nine hours, forty-seven minutes, ten seconds. But at the end of that time, I was released."

  Jim had been thinking furiously, trying to remember. The names "Sakhr al-Jinni" and "Sharahiya" rang a faint bell in his head, connected possibly with Richard Burton's Thousand Nights and a Night. No—Sakhr al-Jinni was only referred to there. Somewhere he had read more about him. There was a connection with King Solomon of the Hebrews. But Kelb was clearly waiting for some response from him before going on.

  "And then what?" Jim said in the best tone of impatience he could manage or muster. "Why did Sakhr al-Jinni let you out of the lake of fire?"

  "I was released not by him, but because the great King Solomon, David's son, imprisoned him, with other evil Djinn and Marids, each in a copper bottle; stopping these up with lead which Solomon sealed with his ring, and casting Sakhr al-Jinni into Lake Tiberius to lie where he would forevermore be beyond harming anyone. Once he was embottled, his powers that kept me in the lake of fire no longer held, and I was free to go."

  "Well, then," said Jim, "your troubles are over. I don't see why you're bothering me."

  "Alas!" said Kelb. "A clumsy undersea giant, picking up the bottle that held Sakhr al-Jinni to look at it curiously, loosened the seal only five days ago; and that evil one is now free in the world again—full of rage and searching for all those who were his servants before, and particularly me, who had now escaped the punishment he had given me. He is far stronger than I. I cannot withstand him. Help me, O my master!"

  It was all pretty far-fetched, Jim felt. But on the other hand, this was a world of magic and unusual creatures. Anything could be true. It might be simply that Kelb was, at most, only embroidering the story of his life.

  "Who was the clumsy undersea giant that let Sakhr al-Jinni loose?" he asked.

  "I know not," said Kelb. "I was only told it had happened by others like me, who were escaping at last from Sakhr al-Jinni's wrath."

  The chances of it being Rrrnlf who allowed Sakhr al-Jinni to escape from his bottle were not very large, Jim told himself. The ocean back in Jim's twentieth-century world covered something like a hundred and fort
y-two million square miles of the earth's surface. It was unlikely that the amount of ocean here on this world was much different. That provided enough room for a high number of sea giants, even if they weren't to be considered common.

  Also, even if Rrrnlf had been the cause of Sakhr al-Jinni's release, jumping from that possibility to the further possibility that Sakhr al-Jinni had somehow managed to destroy or disable him was a second long guess. But Jim had spent enough time now trying to summon Rrrnlf, and this Kelb might turn out to be able to do a great many of the things that he was hoping that Rrrnlf could help him with.

  "Have you some place where you can hide safely, until I summon you?" Jim said to Kelb.

  "I have, my master," said Kelb.

  "Well, go and hide there," said Jim. "I'll call you back as soon as I've made up my mind about a few things. Mind you, I'm not saying I'll extend my protection to you. I don't extend it to just everybody, you know."

  "I am sure of that, master," said Kelb humbly.

  "Off with you, then," said Jim. "I'll call you back when I'm ready."

  Jim stood up from the rock on which he'd been sitting.

  "We've spent enough time here," he said. "Hob, we'll head back to Paphos and Sir William Brutnor's place."

  He started back along the beach, around the headlands that separated where he'd been sitting from the town of Paphos itself—a place half village, half town, mainly filled by local Greeks; but with a fair sprinkling of the descendants of crusaders, from one crusade or another, who had never gotten any farther than Cyprus. These latter had prospered and built themselves almost European residences—not exactly castles, but very comfortable establishments; and it was Sir William Brutnor who was providing Jim with food and shelter right now in the customary fashion of British and European upper classes, when the visitor was someone they recognized as belonging to their part of society.

  "Do you want me also to call you 'master,' m'lord?" asked Hob, in a small voice, as he rode Jim's shoulder.

  "No, no, of course not," said Jim. "Not you, Hob."

  "But you would protect me?" asked Hob. "I'm not just one of the 'everybodies'?"

  "Of course not," said Jim. "You're my Hob of Malencontri."

  "Of course," echoed Hob smugly. He loosened his grip around Jim's neck and sat up on Jim's shoulder, very straight

  Chapter Seven

  "So there you are, Sir James!" said Sir William Brutnor, striding into Jim's room, with the hems of his mid-eastern, silk robes flipping around his ankles. "Been looking for you!"

  "Yes," said Jim. "I went for a stroll on the beach and ended up going around the headland and some of the way up the coast. Beautiful day."

  "Yes. Getting hot. Bit of a stroll, I'd say," said Sir William. "You missed dinner, you know? Did you have them send up food and drink for you?"

  "No," said Jim. "It hadn't occurred to me, yet—"

  "Well, never mind, never mind," said Sir William. He was a short, broad man, possibly a little overweight but he carried it well. He had a square middle-aged face, tanned and wrinkled by the sun, with graying eyebrows, a small gray mustache and a hasty manner. "I'm taking you off to a coffee house—actually, a coffee house in a bath house. We can get some decent wine and food there, being Christians. You needn't dress up. It's all very informal—travelers in off the road and people like that. Oh, by the way, we've located this friend of yours you're looking for, Sir Bruno."

  "Sir Brian, you mean?" said Jim.

  "That's the gentleman," said Sir William, "the Neville-Smythe. I remember that much of it because of the Neville part. Related to the Nevilles of Rabe, I think you said?"

  "That's right," said Jim. "Where is he?"

  "Where? Oh, up near Episcopi, round the coast a bit," answered Sir William. "Not at Episcopi itself. A little further on, at a small fishing village. There's a shore-castle there, Sir Mortimor Breugel has it. He has a couple of galleys and does some off-shore pirating, from time to time. Not great, but it's a living; and Sir Mortimor doesn't want a lot, you know. He'd rather sit in his own hall, dice and drink than anything else, anyway. But, come along now—"

  He broke off suddenly. The brown dog that was Kelb had just appeared beside Jim.

  "Master," he said to Jim, ignoring Sir William, "if I may speak to you—"

  "Go away!" said Jim. "Later."

  The dog disappeared.

  "A Djinni!" barked Sir William. "Look here, Sir James, I'm all for hospitality to a gentleman from home, and all that. But—a Djinni! How did you come to bring home a Djinni from this walk of yours; and into my house? Have you any idea the trouble there is getting rid of them? A good priest won't do, you know, you have to get a Holy Musselman—and then half the time it doesn't work because the Holy man wasn't Holy enough; and you have to go looking again. Give me a good old-fashioned ghost or goblin to get rid of, any day!"

  "Don't worry," said Jim, "I'll take him with me when I go; and since you've found Sir Brian, if you'll forgive me, I'll go to him right away, without wasting any more time. It's important I catch up with him as soon as possible."

  "You can't be in that much of a hurry," said Sir William. "There's this coffee house—"

  "I'm afraid I am," said Jim. His mind scrambled for an excuse to get on the road at once. He had no particular interest at the moment in coffee houses, wine or even European style food, notwithstanding—even less in bath houses. Inspiration came to him. "You've heard of Sir John Chandos, of course?"

  "Chandos?" said Sir William. "Oh, yes."

  "Well, need I say more?" said Jim, giving the other as mysterious and diplomatic-level a look as he could manage.

  "Ah, well," said Sir William, "I suppose so. True. True. Pity, though. You'd have liked this coffee house."

  "I'm sure I would," said Jim. "I can't tell you how sad I am to miss out on it. It's very good of you to think of taking me there."

  "Oh, well," said Sir William. "Just a place where some gentlemen get together about this hour. They'll be sad to miss you too. I'll send someone up with directions on where Episcopi is, the way there, and where beyond it Sir Mortimor's shore-castle can be found."

  He went out of the room as abruptly as he had come in.

  "Kelb," said Jim to the empty air.

  The dog appeared in front of him.

  "All right, Kelb," said Jim, "what is it?"

  "We Djinn have our ways," said Kelb smugly.

  "I'm sure you do," said Jim impatiently. "Now, what did you come to tell me?"

  "By means of which only we Djinn know," said Kelb, "I was aware you were searching for another such as yourself. I have found him for you. He is just above Episcopi in a tower by a small sea-village. Do you not now see how valuable I can be as a servant to you, O great one?"

  "I'm not so sure about that," said Jim. "You wouldn't have happened to have been in your dog shape by the kitchen door of this establishment, begging for scraps and just happened to overhear the servants talking about the fact that I was looking for a fellow knight and that he had just been located up beyond Episcopi?"

  "Are the servants indeed talking about it?" said Kelb. "Such a strange happening at the same time is almost beyond belief; but—"

  "Never mind making up excuses," said Jim. "I told you I'd tell you when I had made up my mind about you, and I will. Until then, go!"

  "I go, master," said Kelb, and went.

  Southeast Jim went, around the coast of Cyprus to Episcopi in a relatively small, and very smelly, boat with a huge lateen sail that seemed once to have been red in color. Their small craft hugged the shore all the way up, for fear of corsairs; and the ship owner—a cheerful, black-haired, black-eyed Greek whose three sons were his crew, explained that they stayed in shallow water so that large enemy vessels that might prey on them could not come in after them. They could go right up to the beach, which the larger vessels could not do safely without damaging themselves.

  "But what if you have to sail in deep water right next to the shore?" asked Jim. As he
said the words he felt a slight stirring by his right shoulder blade, where Hob was comfortably curled up out of sight in a sort of padded nest in a bag that resembled a knapsack. For a moment he was afraid that Hob would stick his head out and want to join in the conversation; but the hobgoblin said nothing after all, staying quiet and hidden.

  "If there is no way we can get away and save the boat, then we save ourselves," said the ship owner with a fatalistic shrug. "It is better than being impaled or crucified if they catch us."

  Jim considered this; or rather, tried to consider it. He had thought he was immune to seasickness, after all the sea travel he had had on the way down from Britain. He had, in fact, traveled by a number of means. By sea; overland on horseback, by the process of buying horses in one place and selling them at his destination; and also—more secretly—flying in his dragon form, usually at night, or riding the smoke, for the little hobgoblin could ride a waft of smoke anywhere and take him along.

  He had, indeed, been tempted to ride the smoke with Hob all the way to Cyprus. But he had to follow Brian's route and make sure Brian had not been captured, imprisoned, hurt or even killed by mischance—all too likely in medieval times—along the way. As it was, he could check at the towns he passed and with the people Brian had planned to guest with, to make sure Brian had made it all the way to Cyprus before Jim reached that island, himself.

  Meanwhile, Hob had been a pleasant little companion; and Jim had not regretted Angie's insistence that the hobgoblin should be with him, to carry the word home to her, if anything happened to Jim.

  One of the side benefits of traveling by ordinary methods, Jim had believed until now, was that he had developed an immunity to seasickness. However, this small boat rocking and bouncing in the near-shore waves had produced an effect on him after all. He could not honestly say he was sick, but he was feeling cold and uncomfortable in his stomach area; and the discomfort made it hard for him to concentrate.