He bowed profoundly.
“Lord,” he said, “there is a message from the king. Es-Souk, who was to have been executed today for your amusement, has escaped from his prison. He undoubtedly seeks you, lord, to attempt your murder before his own death, since he cannot live under the king’s displeasure.”
Tony felt himself growing just a little pale. He remembered fingers closing on his throat, and an elephant-sized monster in his bedroom in the palace at Barkut, beating its breast before falling upon him to demolish him utterly.
That—irrelevantly—suggested the only possible source of action. Tony gulped and said:
“Thank you, Abdul. Tell the king I am very much obliged for the warning. But tell him not to worry about it. I won’t need any extra guards. I’ll handle Es-Souk. In fact, I’ll help hunt for him as soon as I’ve—as soon as I’ve refilled my cigarette lighter.”
Chapter 13
He went back into the house. His knees felt queer. He fumbled in his pockets. He brought out the lighter, and then brought out one of the small glass phials Ghail had given him in the camel cabin on the way across the desert—one of those containing lasf.
Ghail looked pale, too.
“What are you going to do?” she demanded. Her voice trembled.
“Attend to Es-Souk, I hope,” said Tony, with quite unnatural calm. To the Queen he said: “Your Majesty, if you have any pet djinns around at the moment, you’d better chase them out. I’m opening up a phial of lasf.”
“But—”
“I’ve got an idea.” said Tony. “It doesn’t make sense, but nothing makes much sense any more. I’m going to take advantage of what I think is a generally occurring allergic reaction among djinns.” The words “allergic reaction” had no Arabic equivalent, so he had to use the English ones, and to Ghail and the Queen of Barkut they sounded remarkably learned and mysterious. “And just to make sure, I’d appreciate it enormously if you’d draw me a picture of the leaf of the lasf plant.”
He unscrewed the seal of the cigarette-lighter tank. It was bone-dry of fluid, of course. It hadn’t been filled since Suakim. And while confined in his later cell it had been extremely annoying to have to get a light for an occasional cigarette, rolled from local tobacco, from a brazier kept burning by the guards outside his gate. Now the lighter was a godsend. If he was right about lasf, a cigarette lighter was the ideal weapon in which to use it.
He extracted the stopper of the small glass phial. With not especially steady fingers he poured the liquid into the tank. It soaked up and soaked up. Its odor was noticeable. Presently the wick was moist. He re-sealed the tank and snapped down the lighter’s cover. He re-stoppered the phial and put it away.
“Now I’d like to wash my hands,” he said unhappily, “and—is that the picture of the lasf leaf?”
The Queen had stooped and traced an outline on the clay floor of her dwelling. She said:
“I’m quite sure. Yes.”
Tony stared at it and sighed in enormous relief. Ghail brought a bowl of water. He washed his hands with meticulous care. He dried them on a cloth she handed him.
“If you keep pet djinns around,” he observed, “better burn that cloth. Right away. And I’d empty the water on soft earth and throw more earth on top of it. No use revealing that you’ve got lasf around, until you need it. The faintest whiff would give it away to them.”
Ghail said again:
“But wh-what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to hunt Es-Souk,” said Tony. “I think the djinn king is putting something over on me. I had a fight with Es-Souk in my bedroom in Barkut. He ran away. There’s been talk of atomic bombs and the king thinks I can make them. But he wants to make sure. I’m under safe-conduct, of course, but if a condemned criminal—Es-Souk—breaks loose and kills me, the king can’t be blamed. He’ll apologize all over the place, of course. He’ll probably offer to pay reparations and indemnity, and salute the Barkutian flag, and all that. But I’ll be dead. And the war will go on merrily. You see?”
“But that’s—dishonorable!” protested Ghail.
“Nothing’s dishonorable,” said Tony, gloomily, “unless you can prove it. And you’d never prove that! Just helping hunt for Es-Souk is no good. I’ve got to meet him in single combat, somehow, and whip him again so the king will know I do it without mirrors or outside help. If I do that, maybe we’ll get somewhere.”
He turned to go out the door. Ghail caught at his sleeve.
“P-please!” she said shakily. Her eyes were brimming. Tony saw the Queen regarding them critically. He was embarrassed.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Last—last night—”
Tony sighed deeply.
“Listen,” he said. “If you want to sign a pledge that the lips that touch djinnees, shall never touch yours, you go right ahead! It won’t interfere with my plans in the least. Is that satisfactory?”
“I—don’t understand,” said Ghail faintly.
Tony regarded her in weary gloom.
“Oh, all right!” He spread out his hands, holding the cigarette lighter in one of them. “Maybe you don’t. But I’ll bet Esir and Esim would!”
He went out the door to find Abdul waiting for him expectantly. Behind the door he heard Ghail sob. He marched heavily off toward the palace door, a quarter of a mile away. Abdul followed interestedly. Tony’s conscience spoke to him acidly, mentioning his discourtesy to Ghail and the fact that he hadn’t even said good-by to the Queen of Barkut. He snarled at it, out loud. In consequence he did not hear Ghail say, between weeping and fury:
“The—b-beast! Oh-h-h-h, the beast!”
Nor did he hear the Queen say approvingly:
“I’m sure you’re going to be very happy with him, my dear! You’ll never quite know what he’s going to do next!”
This was, however, one of the few times when Tony himself did know what he was going to do. He was angry. He grew angrier. The whole affair was simply too pat. It was too perfectly coincidental. It was exactly the sort of thing that the heads of nations in his own world—the heads of some nations, at any rate—had pulled off too many times. Tony had not yet met the djinn king, but he felt that he was being manipulated with the sort of smug clumsiness characteristic of power politicians. The djinn king in all his official acts was ineffably virtuous and chivalrous. He’d invited Tony to visit him under safe-conduct, he’d provided him with a guard, with entertainment, he’d paid him extravagant honors—and he was arranging for him to be assassinated by someone whom he could afterward execute with every expression of horror for his crime.
“He’s a damned—he’s a damned totalitarian,” Tony growled.