“Drive a cork in that bottle and cover it with melted wax!” Matt told the Arab wizard. “Then trace the Seal of Solomon onto that wax and chant a spell to make it hold till the end of time!”
“The end of time?” The Arab stared. “What nonsense!”
“Not really,” Matt said. “Would you rather have that afrit come shooting out looking for revenge?”
The wizard shuddered and hurried away.
Matt looked up and saw the other afrits, howling for vengeance, winding up their windmill swings again. Quickly, he repeated the bottling verse, but he only spat the first two lines before the afrits all howled with rage and sprang into the air, dropping their half-formed missiles. They shot up into the sky, going faster and faster, dwindling into tiny dots, then disappearing. Matt wondered about escape velocity and what this universe’s people would find if they ever developed space travel.
“They are fled!” The wizard was beside him again, staring at the stars above.
Matt nodded. “They recognized the reference and didn’t want to get themselves into a jam by being jarred.”
“Don’t you mean bottled?” the Arab asked, puzzled.
“Bottle, jar, lamp, ring—I’ll stuff them into whatever’s close to hand.” Matt wiped his brow, then stared at his hand, amazed to see it was shaking. “You know, I think those afrits scared me more than I knew.”
“Only because when you saw them, you did not stop to think,” the Arab wizard said with a knowing smile.
Gongs began beating on the plain below, and the barbarians took up an angry and determined chant that gathered strength and volume as they marched toward the walls again.
Matt stiffened. “What now?”
“Surely it will be only soldiers’ boasts!” the wizard protested. Then fog billowed in over the parapets.
Men shouted in alarm and anger—but all men, not the Arabs alone. High-pitched voices cried out in Arabic to kneel, and all the Muslim soldiers did just that. The barbarians’ flailing blades hissed over the Arab soldiers’ heads and bit into other nomads. They shouted with pain and dismay.
The barbarian sorcerer had outsmarted himself, and Matt was tempted to leave bad enough alone. But he knew the Central Asians were shrewd, and would realize soon enough where their foes were. Matt called out,
The fog thinned and dissolved, leaving a sheen of moisture on every blade; the Arab burnooses hung thick and heavy. But the Muslims could see their targets now; they shouted their war-cries as they sprang to their feet, felling another third of the attackers with their Damascus blades.
The archers, no longer beset by invaders, went back to shooting unhorsed barbarians at the base of the wall. Realizing that their concealment was gone, the barbarians scattered, leaving their scaling ladders behind—and as quickly as it had begun, the assault was over. Here and there, Arab soldiers finished off a last barbarian or two and threw their corpses down for their fellows to gather.
“Well done, my soldiers!” the Caliph cried. “Well have you struck blows for Islam this day!”
The soldiers cheered, but the Caliph turned to a sharif and said, “They may come back—they may always come back. Bid all our men to stay vigilant.”
The captain nodded and turned away to carry the word. Soon lieutenants were going among the soldiers, relaying the command.
The Caliph turned to another sharif. “See that the fallen are taken away for burial and the wounded tended. Call for more arrows and have all archers restock their quivers.”
The man nodded and hurried away.
“Are these uncouth sorcerers so easy for you to defeat, then?” said a voice at Matt’s side. Turning, he saw the Arab wizard, face hard with hostility.
“They are truly unlettered barbarians,” Matt said in as agreeable a tone as he could muster, “and to defeat them, one need only memorize spells from written books.”
The Arab stared, startled by the thought. Then his eyes narrowed again. “But these verses you have recited, they all pit light against darkness.”
“Ahriman’s servants work by the concealment of night and the confusion of fog,” Matt told him. “There will be others, when they seek to work by lies and clouding of the facts, by illusion and partial honesty, and we only need appeal to truth to make itself shown—but their spells are pretty basic, yes, and not hard to defeat at all, once you know how they’re founded.”
The wizard frowned. “Then what force is there in these barbarians, that we should fear them?”
“Not much,” Matt answered. “Most of their impact comes from having so very many warriors, all of whom can ride swiftly, and from sheer, brutal violence and total lack of mercy to any city that dares resist them.”
“Well, our caliph has spared the cities that, at least,” the wizard said, “since he has defended them with his army, and given them no choice to fight or not to fight themselves.”
“A wise policy.” Matt nodded. “But their sorcerers aren’t really doing much at all.”
“Then the power of their Satan-inspired verses is one of their illusions?”
“Just gossip,” Matt confirmed, “just rumor—and a rather nasty sort, too, not really lies, just gross exaggeration. Partial truth can be more effective than an outright falsehood.”
“So the tale of their strength has grown as it passed from one careless mouth to another,” the wizard inferred.
Matt nodded. “Their spells are very weak, really—nothing to trouble any of the faithful for more than a minute. They only have power if you believe they do.”
“But the afrits?” the wizard asked, face lined with concern. “What magic has it taken to bind them to the service of these monstrous invaders?”
“Only the charms of a silver tongue, I’m afraid,” Matt said, “plus the afrits’ natural cruelty. They enjoy making people suffer, so of course they’d be inclined to believe anything Arjasp told them about the worship of Ahriman—probably that the Prince of Lies would give them even more power to torment their victims.”
“Can he do so?” the wizard asked, staring.
“I said he was the Prince of Lies, didn’t I? Hey, these afrits are powerful enough as it is!” Matt shook his head. “Don’t worry about the barbarians’ verses, O Wise One—the monsters out of your own legends are a lot more dangerous than the spells of their shamans.”
A trumpet blew. The Arab wizard turned toward the western gate, staring. “What comes?”
Voices cried out in jubilation, drowned by the clash of arms, the howls of battle-cries, and the screams of the dying. Soldiers ran to pull the twelve-foot bar from the gates; other soldiers hauled them wide open.
“The fools!” the wizard cried. “Will they welcome an army into their midst?”
Through the gate pounded a huge white horse bearing on its back a figure in gilded armor. It bore a bloodied sword in its right hand, and on the left arm wore a shield quartered with the lilies of Merovence and the double crown of Hardishane. Behind crowded an army of archers with steel helmets and leather cuirasses, and behind them rode a hundred knights.
“This army they will welcome!” Matt told the Arab wizard, “and so will I! If you’ll excuse me, I’d like to go say hello to my wife!”
Jimena stared. “My Matthew? What could he have done to offend you?”