Lakshmi lowered her gaze. “I can see quite well from here. It is the Caliph’s picket line retreating from a vanguard of the horde.”
“The Muslim army’s retreating? I thought that with Tafas’ army to back them up, they might actually be able to drive the barbarians back.”
“I had hoped as much myself.” Lakshmi studied the battle.
“Could this be some mere stratagem?”
“Of course!” Matt clapped with delight. “Arjasp’s generals expect to be able to start winning again, now that Alisande and her army are retreating. The Caliph doesn’t want to disappoint them.”
Lakshmi frowned. “You mean that he bade his men retreat to raise false hopes in the barbarians?”
“Exactly! Let them think they’re winning, then hit them with the reserves from both flanks.” Uneasily, Matt remembered that Genghis Khan had pioneered the tactic—but Genghis wasn’t here, maybe never would be born in this universe. “Even so, it makes you want to go down there and help out.”
“No!” Lakshmi thundered. “We go to Baghdad and must not be baited into delay! After all, if we can free Marudin from barbarian bondage, we will weaken Arjasp and strengthen the Caliph in a single stroke!”
From the air Baghdad was a veritable anthill, with double lines of dots streaming through all its gates—merchants, other travelers, and farmers trooping in to sell produce and filing back out with empty carts and full pockets.
“Shouldn’t be any trouble getting in,” Matt said. “All we have to do is join one of those lines and walk past the guards.”
“Easy enough for you,” Lakshmi said, frowning, “for you are dressed in traveling clothes—but mine are far too fine for the road.”
“All you need is a veil.” Matt pointed downward. “See? All the women are wrapped from head to toe in one big piece of dark fabric, with only the eyes showing.”
Lakshmi looked down, frowning. “It is so. And in the bazaar … let me see … We shall land.”
Matt couldn’t help a shout of alarm as his body shot downward and his stomach tried to stay up. Balkis woke up, sensed the motion, and dug in her claws with a yowl. “Ease off!” Matt shouted, to both djinna and cat. “We don’t need to get down there that fast!”
The acceleration did ease off. Lakshmi snapped, “Your pardon. I am impatient.”
“We’re going to have to walk the last quarter mile anyway,” Matt protested.
They landed in a grove. Lakshmi set Matt down and started shrinking. In minutes she was human-sized again. “Give me a coin!” she demanded.
Matt handed her a piece of silver. “Not a bad rate, considering that air fare is going up.”
Lakshmi took the coin and made several passes over it with her other hand, fingers writhing in symbolic gestures as she chanted, frowning down at it with great concentration. Matt started to ask what she was doing, then caught himself—if she needed concentration for this spell, the last thing he should do was interrupt.
The coin winked in her palm, reflecting sunlight—then was gone. A second later a length of dark fabric fell out of thin air across Lakshmi’s hand. A small flask followed it, then a swathe of brown fabric, a smaller square of white cloth, and, finally, a sort of rope headband.
Matt stared, then gave himself a shake. “Y’know, if that catches on, it’s going to revolutionize shopping!”
“It is even as you say,” Lakshmi confirmed. “These garments have disappeared from a booth in the bazaar, and your coin has appeared in their place.” She inspected her purchases, then added, “The merchant had far the best of the bargain.”
“I’m not arguing.” Matt held up the brown garment and found a lighter ivory-colored tunic of cotton within it. He started dressing. “What’s in the bottle?”
“Walnut juice,” Lakshmi said, “to stain your face and hands.”
Matt sighed and remembered his days in college theatricals.
Fifteen minutes later a man in Arab dress stepped onto the roadway between another traveler and a farm-cart. A woman stepped out beside him, decently veiled, presumably his wife. Long-lashed eyes looked out from the veil, taking in her surroundings in quick glances. Lakshmi muttered through the cloth, “I marvel that your mortal women allow this!”
“Not my women,” Matt protested. “We Europeans like to see each other’s faces—but I don’t think the women here have much choice about it. After all, they don’t have your magic spells, and it’s a violent world.”
The eyes above the veil narrowed. “Perhaps I should do something about that.”
“Perhaps you should,” Matt agreed, “after we get your children and your husband back. For now, let’s just get inside that city and see if we can find any trace of them.”
The guards were collecting an entry fee at the gate. Fortunately, Matt had made a little money in India, so they didn’t have Alisande’s likeness to upset them. They strolled on through, and Matt promptly forgot about his mission, looking about him, enthralled by the graceful minarets, the ivory palace in the distance, and the squalor by the roadside. “Baghdad! The city of the Arabian Nights! Haroun-al-Raschid, Omar Khayyam, Haji the poet!”
“It is a place of stenches and sin.” Lakshmi wrinkled her nose. “I shall never cease to be amazed that your kind choose to coop themselves up in places such as this when they could have the freedom of open skies and the cleanliness of the desert.”
“It has something to do with making a living,” Matt said, “and with having something to do in your free time.”
Lakshmi looked about her, fairly radiating nervousness. “How shall we begin to discover Marudin’s whereabouts?”
“Well, there’s a good place.” Matt stopped and nodded toward an alley they were passing. At its far end was a little courtyard with women gathered about the low wall of a well, chatting and laughing. “Mingle with those women, get into the conversation, and try and tum it toward things magical, especially ones that come out of lamps and bottles.”
“I?” Lakshmi turned to glare at him. “Why not yourself?”
“Not a member of the club,” Matt explained. “Wrong gender. Sure, I could go in there, but I’d be even more of an outsider than you, and the women would clam up in a second. Besides, in this part of the world, women don’t talk to strange men.”
“A good rule anywhere, I should think.” Lakshmi’s tone was tart, and her glance directed the comment unquestionably toward Matt himself.
Matt smiled and took it philosophically—after all, by the standards of this world, he was indeed strange. Maybe his own universe’s, too.
Lakshmi gave a sound of disgust, then held out her hand. “Another coin!”
Matt handed it over without asking, reminding himself that the trip was still amazingly cheap.
Lakshmi stared at the coin, muttering and gesturing over it. It flashed and disappeared; an instant later she held a water jug. “I shall learn what I can.” She turned away toward the well.
Matt watched her go, admiring the sway of her walk that no veil could hide, and envying the ease with which she could use magic for casual ends. If he tried that, magical alarms would clamor all over the city wherever there was a sorcerer or a priest of Ahriman. Lakshmi, though, was a magical creature, and spells were as natural to her as walking was to him. The sorcerers might note the presence of one of the djinn, but no more. In fact, they would probably assume it was one of their own.
Matt turned back to the stalls and rugs of the peddlers that lined the street, reminding him of New York even though none of them featured young men making three cards dance like the thimbles in a shell game. He fingered fabrics, hefted rugs, and squeezed fruit, not replying to the vendors’ hard-sell spiels but getting a feel for the local dialect. He found the booth from which Lakshmi had conjured her veil—he could tell by the silver coin lying between two other lengths of fabric—and bought one of them just to call the merchant’s attention to the transformation. At first the merchant scowled at discovering one of his wares missing, then positively beamed when he saw the price it had fetched.