“Then,” said Tony, “let’s get started.”
“This way, lord!” panted Abdul. “I beg you, lord, protect me until we are free of the palace—and after. Indeed I spoke too soon. Here—the window, lord…”
He raised the window. With an imploring gesture for Tony to follow, he jumped out. Tony walked to the window and looked out. There was no sign whatever of Abdul—but a wide stairway led to the ground from the windowsill. Tony swung up and tested it with his foot. It held. He went down. Instantly he touched the earth, the stairway collapsed into a cloud of dust which coalesced and was Abdul again. He wrung his hands.
“I should have waited,” he said miserably. “Indeed, the king will call me a traitor. But if you are truly the most powerful—I am your steed, lord!”
He was. There was a rippling, a shifting, a bewildering alteration of plane surfaces and colors, and he was a highly suitable horse, fully saddled and caparisoned. The horse came trotting to Tony’s side and waited for him to mount. He put his foot on the stirrup and heaved his leg over.
“Okay so far,” he said grimly. “Full speed ahead.”
The horse—Abdul—broke into a headlong run which was convincingly like real panic. It headed away from the palace at a pace even the djinn camels of the trip across the desert could not have bettered.
And, as a matter of fact, the appearance of things was enough to justify some apprehension. Word of the approaching duel to the death had evidently spread. Out of the gateway of the palace the djinns poured. They wore every one of the eccentric shapes Tony had noted in the line of courtiers welcoming him the night before. There were still some wearing the shapes of human women—those who had danced for him the night before. And as they poured out of the palace, the djinns whose shapes were adapted for speed retained them, while others dissolved into forms capable of more miles per hour. The whole assemblage looked like a glorified zoo in flight toward one distant spot. Even the palace began to come apart and join the rush. Item after item of its structure vanished from its place, swelled into a tall and somehow ghostlike whirlwind, and swept away in eager competition for good seats at the spectacle.
When the horse stopped, Tony swung out of the saddle, and the short, fat djinn of the turban reappeared. He was utterly doleful.
“Lord,” he said bitterly, “my life is in your hands! If you do not win this battle, the king will surely execute me in Es-Souk’s stead! I beg you to conquer in this battle!”
Tony wetted his finger to gauge the direction of the wind. He made sure of his handkerchief. He stooped and picked up a pair of medium-sized stones and slipped them in his pocket. Then he waited.
He was in a huge, natural amphitheatre some four miles long by two wide. Its floor was practically desert sand. All about, on the mountainsides, were perched the djinn. The foremost rows were dots, but successive rearward rows were larger to get better views, until at the very back tall whirlwinds spun eagerly, reaching ever higher for full vision of what was to come.
The last arrivals settled into place. The entire djinn nation watched. Abdul despairingly shivered, and turned himself into a small stone, indistinguishable from any other. Tony waited in the center of the vast open space. And waited.
And waited.
Chapter 14
Tony’s conscience said bitterly that since he was going to be killed anyhow, he might as well make a fight for it; but if he’d only listened at any single instant since Mr. Emurian offered him two thousand dollars for that ten-dirhim piece—
He swore softly. He felt singularly absurd, standing in the middle of a dusty, sandy plain with a cigarette lighter clutched in his hand, two small stones in his pocket, and with a multitude of lunatic shapes watching intently from the mountainsides about, and misty, ghost-like whirlwinds spinning expectantly beyond them.
For a long time, nothing happened.
“War of nerves,” he muttered indignantly.
The small stone which was Abdul quivered, and seemed to inflate like a balloon. Abdul appeared in his customary shape, very much agitated.
“Lord! Do you see him?”
“Not yet,” growled Tony. “I suppose he’ll fly to contact as a mosquito and then materialize as a boa-constrictor at close quarters. Stand clear if he does.”
“He cannot do it, lord,” said Abdul, nervously. “He can take the shape of an insect, but as an insect he will be too heavy to fly. Our weight is the same regardless of our size, lord.”
“Good!” said Tony, gratified. “Then in sand like this he can’t crawl up as a centipede, either. He’d bog down.” Abdul wrung his hands.
“I spoke too soon when I offered you my allegiance,” he said bitterly. “It is my opinion, lord, that he will fly to a great height as a giant bird—he will need great wing-spread to fly—and then turn to a stone and drop upon you. That is an accepted form of combat.”
“Hm… thanks,” said Tony. “If anything else occurs to you, by all means mention it.”
Abdul began to shrink. He wailed again:
“I spoke too soo—”
He was a stone once more. Tony could not possibly identify him among the other small stones scattered about. He began to search the sky, and remembered to wet his finger again and recheck the wind direction. There was very little movement of air, but he walked downwind from Abdul and snapped open his cigarette lighter. Lasf, as prepared in Barkut, had a distinct, slightly aromatic odor. Tony surrounded himself with a faint fragrance of the stuff. He could smash one of the phials of lasf yet remaining and make himself effectually unapproachable by Es-Souk. But he would certainly have to walk home if he did. And besides, Es-Souk could pick up stones and drop them, bomber-fashion, as easily as he could drop himself. Apparently, though, that was not an accepted form of combat. It appeared that djinns were so endowed that they could make anything they chose out of themselves, and therefore did not need to think of using inanimate things. It would not be good strategy to make Es-Souk so desperate that he might begin to have ideas.
And still nothing happened. There was what seemed to be a single dark bird in the sky, far away over the mountain tops. Tony wondered how far away. The larger a pair of wings might be, the more slowly they would tend to flap. Tony watched. The great bird’s wings went downward only once in five seconds—it took five seconds for them to make their downward sweep, and recover, and begin another stroke. It looked as if it were flying in slow motion. Therefore the bird was very large, and very far away.
Tony nodded his head. At a guess, Es-Souk had adopted the outward form of a roc, and would gain an altitude of some ten or twelve thousand feet in that shape.
Then he might transform himself into a heavy small stone and try to brain Tony. But it wasn’t likely that, as a stone, he could see where he was going or correct his line of fall once he was started. Even U.S. Army bombers, equipped with bombsights, suffered a certain amount of dispersion in their shots.
Inspiration struck Tony. He took off the camel’s-hair, belted-in-the-back topcoat. When in human form, djinns wore clothes—when they remembered. Nasim was apt to be forgetful. But the clothes they created were a part of them, like their jewels and their weapons. They might know the theory of clothing, but in practice for Tony to take off his topcoat might confuse Es-Souk. He mightn’t know whether to aim at the coat or at Tony himself. And besides, if that slowly flapping bird was a roc, and if the roc was Es-Souk, he probably couldn’t see too clearly at the height he’d obtained. Tony draped his coat over a small, sparsely leaved bush that startlingly grew in the middle of this waste. He stood back. He was giving Es-Souk two targets to choose from, and the need for choice might be upsetting.