The boulder exploded in midair. The biggest piece shot back at the genie who had thrown it. He squalled and disappeared. The shard struck the slope where he’d been and started rolling down toward the plain… but as it rolled, it faded as its master had.
“Keep reciting that verse!” Saul called. “If we can spout it fast enough, over and over again, none of their boulders will ever hit home!”
“Will do!” Matt had never thought he’d actually like “Casey at the Bat,” but he loved it right now. He started chanting the words, one line behind Saul, and each boulder exploded, its largest fragment heading back toward its genie almost as soon as he threw it. Saul chanted, Matt chanted, Alisande chanted, and Casey piled up more strikes than any batter in living memory.
Finally Matt realized that there were three other people reciting: his assistant sorcerer, Ortho the Frank; the Captain of the Guard; and a knight whose surcoat identified him as a member of the Order of St. Moncaire. Fleetingly, Matt thought it was odd for him to be there, then recognized Sir Gilbert, but turned the thought aside… what really mattered was that he himself could stop chanting and work on making all the djinn disappear.
A huge gust of wind blew up out of nowhere and tossed the genies turning and whirling with appalled shouts, out over the town, off to the horizon, and out of sight.
Saul stared. Then he said, “Yes.” Then, “Well, I guess.” Then, finally, he turned to Matt and said, “How the blazes did you do that, man?”
“Just comes from knowing a few poems,” Matt said, abashed… especially in view of what he’d done to Stephen Foster. It occurred to him to hope that none of the poets whose works he mangled ever showed up in this universe.
“Husband, you are amazing!” Alisande clung to him, her voice shaking.
“So are you,” Matt said, turning to stare into her eyes.
She stared in surprise, then lowered her gaze, blushing faintly, but smiling.
Matt was amazed… he’d just managed to remind the queen that she was a woman, and at the end of a battle, at that! Of course, for her, it had been months since she’d seen him…
But he had been at least as frantic, worried that he’d never see her again. Suddenly desire crashed through him, so violently that he had to brace himself against it.
Alisande felt his trembling, and her smile widened as her eyes seemed to swallow him. “Master Saul.” she called, “can you stay the watch here? I wish to acquaint my husband with events that have happened in his absence.”
Saul looked up in surprise, then saw the looks on their faces and managed to suppress a grin of his own.
“Yeah, sure, Your Majesty. Just remember, he ought to be in bed.”
“Indeed,” Alisande agreed, and led Matt back indoors.
It occurred to Matt that this ought to weaken his magic. Then he remembered that, within the bonds of marriage, it wasn’t a sin, but a virtue.
Two hours later, she laughed, softly and deeply, at one last compliment, then grew serious. “I must tell you what has happened indeed, my love.”
“Well, if we must, we must,” Matt sighed. He slipped out of bed and pulled on his robe. He turned to find his wife similarly robed, and turning to sit in an hourglass-shaped chair.
“It is wrong of us to delight in one another while our people are under attack.” But the rosiness of her face, the glow of her smile, denied her words.
“I wouldn’t go feeling guilty about it.” Matt sat on the edge of the bed and took her hand, again struck by the impossibility that a loser like himself should have won the love of so beautiful a woman. “After all, the harmony of the land depends on the harmony within the monarch, and I certainly hope I’m contributing to that.”
Alisande frowned. “What wizard’s talk is this?”
“I suppose it is,” Matt said thoughtfully. “Wizard’s talk, I mean. Look at it this way… a happy queen will make a happy country, and I hope I’m doing my part to keep you happy.”
“More than any other living being,” Alisande said fervently, and kissed his fingers.
The touch of her lips sent desire thrilling through him, astonishing him that it could recur so soon.
“You’re distracting me again.”
Alisande looked up in surprise, then gave him a wicked grin. “Should I not delight in being a success as a woman, sir, in addition to being a success as a queen?”
“Oh, you certainly are,” Matt breathed, and lowered his face for a kiss.
Alisande interposed her hand, then turned to straighten her robe, looking prim. “Still, there is some question as to whether or not the people may continue to be happy if we cannot banish these spirits for once and for all.”
“I think I recognize them,” Matt said slowly. “They’re called ‘djinn.’ That’s the plural… one male is called a ‘djinni,’ and a female is called a ‘djinna.’ “
Alisande looked up, startled. “They have females?”
“Of course,” Matt answered. “How do you suppose they make more djinn? Some of them are relatively good, but some are very, very bad.”
“I did not know you knew so much about them,” Alisande said, frowning. “How is it Saul did not?”
“Well, he was a philosophy major… wouldn’t recognize a genie unless it came out of a bottle, preferably wearing a bolero jacket and harem pants.”
“Oh, he did recognize them as genies… but he said nothing of there being males and females.”
“Odd, for somebody who grew up watching TV,” Matt mused. “Well, it’s not his field of study… though I suspect he read the highlights of the Arabian Nights.”
“They are Arabs, then?” Alisande asked, wide-eyed. “Mohammedans?”
So the Prophet had been born in this universe, too. Matt nodded. “Some of them, yes, though I understand many djinn haven’t converted. But I’m not sure this batch are all that Arabic. They look different somehow, and they don’t quite sound like the few Arabs I’ve known.”
“Have you met a genie before?”
“Well, no,” Matt admitted. “How long have they been coming?”
“Since the night you left.” Alisande turned grim. “In their first attack, they managed to breach the wall; the masons are still rebuilding it. Then the Witch Doctor found the spell you heard him use and chased them away. But they came back near dawn, and for every one Saul chased, another took its place. The people of the town showed great courage; they climbed the walls and hurled stones at them, but the genies only laughed and began to appear inside the city to collapse houses and pluck horses and people kicking and shouting into the air. Saul and Ortho the Frank had to work frantically to drive them off.
They disappeared an hour after sunrise, as though to say that they did not fear daylight, and were going of their own free choice.”
“Did they kill anybody?”
“Not that we can tell, though there have been several aged folk who died during this siege.”
“There always are, though.” Matt frowned. “So they’re just trying to scare you, not really hurt you… but Saul was tougher than they thought. Pretty good, for a philosopher… but something tells me they could get a lot worse if they wanted to. How frequently have they showed up?”