“Not at all,” Matt said. “After all, I only told you to answer his summons—I didn’t say what you should do once you get there.”
“And will you shield me from the power of his ring?” Lakshmi challenged, but the mere mention of the talisman was enough to give her eyes a faraway look.
“Of course,” Matt said, “if I need to. But instead of the ring capturing you, why don’t you go capture the ring?”
The faraway gaze turned thoughtful.
“Go get it,” Matt urged, “and don’t let anything stand in your way. If anybody tries to come between you and the ring, eliminate them!”
In a trance, Lakshmi turned and glided toward the entrance to the desecrated mosque.
Balkis gave a meow of protest.
“Don’t worry, she’ll be okay—if we do our jobs right.” Matt pried the cat off his shoulder and set her down behind a stone curb in the foundation, then laid the wand beside her. “If this works like other magic wands I’ve seen, it will use any spell you give it—but it’ll concentrate the effects into a small area, not much larger than two or three people. When I say ‘concentrate,’ I mean it’ll make it stronger, too—much stronger—and I suspect this little wand will add a kick of its own. Keep an eye on us and help if we need it.” He laid the veil beside the wand and added, as an afterthought, “You might need this, too. Call it a disguise.”
Balkis gave a plaintive mew.
“Hey, you wanted the wand, didn’t you?” Matt stood up. “Don’t take any chances. Wait until you have a clear shot, snap your spell out, and run! Got that?”
Balkis gave a confirming trill, but she looked doubtful.
“Hopefully you won’t have to,” Matt said, “but if it frightens you, just find a nice safe place and stay hidden.”
“And what shall I do if you do not come back?” Balkis demanded.
It gave Matt a start—she’d been speaking cat so long, he’d forgotten she was bilingual. “Same as you’ve been doing—make friends with the local spirits and keep going. I’m pretty sure we’ll be back, though.” He turned and hurried to catch up with Lakshmi.
He didn’t quite make it. As the djinna came through the portal, a huge hulking guard with a long beard and a hooked nose turned to glower at her. He wore a tall turban, a short open vest over a bare chest with bulging muscles, and loose billowing trousers pegged down to pointed slippers. The guard decided she didn’t have the look of an abject worshiper and stepped forward to bar her way.
It was a bad mistake. Lakshmi had already been under the influence of the ring when Matt told her to eliminate anyone who came between her and it, so she took his words literally. She gave the man a glare and he slumped, unconscious. Lakshmi stepped over his body and glided onward into the mosque.
Matt followed, stomach sinking at the ease with which the djinna had disposed of a merely human adversary.
Several of them. Other guards saw what had happened to their fellow and came running to avenge him, shouting with anger. Lakshmi glared at them, turning her head slowly, eyes burning with anger at the audacity of the mere mortals who dared to bar her from the ring that was calling, calling …
The guards jolted as rigid as though they had run into a wall, then slumped to the floor, limp. Matt snatched a scimitar from one and tried to keep up with Lakshmi. He took one quick glance behind and saw a woman coming through the door, veil wrapped about her from head to foot. She had drawn a fold of her white gown over her head so that it shaded her eyes, and the dark brown veil made an inverted V over the center of her face, disguising the youthful appearance of her eyes. Matt couldn’t see the wand, but he was sure it was under the veil in her hand.
A quick glance only; then Matt turned back to Lakshmi and discovered the djinna had gone farther than he’d thought. She glided zombielike toward the ring, and the old man who wore it.
Four guards stood by him, two before and two behind. He wore the tall bulging-then-tapering hat and robe of his priesthood, midnight-blue. His hair and beard were long and white, his eyebrows bushy and gray, his eyes a faded brown. He sat at the focal point of the mosque’s dome in a throne whose gilding glistened with newness, his elbow propped on one arm to hold up the huge emerald ring that decorated his palsied fist.
“Princess!” Matt shouted. “Close your eyes!”
“Begone, dog!” one guard snarled as he advanced toward Matt, scimitar swinging high. Another guard was only a step behind him.
Matt met the scimitar with his own. Steel rang against steel, and the other two guards came running, just as Matt had hoped. He backed and sidestepped, parrying madly, keeping the first guard between himself and the other three. That wouldn’t last long, but it wouldn’t need to—if his words had penetrated Lakshmi’s daze, and she had heard him and closed her eyes.
If she hadn’t, she’d be the old man’s next weapon, and the guards’ scimitars wouldn’t matter.
One thing at least was working: the guards were so intent on Matt that they didn’t see the small black-and-white cat trotting past them with the stick in her mouth.
Black and white?
The old man was grinning now, beckoning and crooning, “Look at my pretty jewel, Princess. Look upon it, look into it, deeply into it.”
Lakshmi drifted closer and closer, eyes growing wider and wider, pupils shrinking, fixed on the gem.
The guard swung; Matt leaped back, but another guard stepped in from the side, slashing. Matt ducked under the blade, but the knuckle guard struck his head, and he reeled backward, the room swimming about him. He fought to hold his scimitar up, hoping desperately.
Then the old man screamed. Matt’s vision cleared enough to show the guard pivoting away from him in alarm.
A young woman stood beside the priest, wearing a black veil and white under-robe, chanting in Allustrian. She held a wand near the old man’s elbow, and he howled in pain, arm limp, grasping the injured funny bone with his other hand.
The other three guards had whirled to see what was the matter, too. The fourth remembered the strange man barely in time; he snarled and turned back, cutting wildly at Matt, who parried, then swung high. The guard’s scimitar leaped up to parry, and Matt pivoted in to slam a fist into his belly. The man folded, eyes bulging, but still managing to keep his sword up. Matt beat it down, kicked his feet out from under him, and gave him a punch with his hilt for good luck.
Balkis yanked the ring off the priest’s finger and cried, “Look, O Princess! See what I have found!”
Lakshmi looked, and was instantly spellbound.
The old man shouted a curse and reached for the ring, but his arm merely flopped, the nerves stunned. He pushed himself up from the throne to reach with his left hand, but Balkis stepped away, ring still held high, and as the priest tried to push himself out of his seat with both hands, his right hand gave way. He fell back into his throne, cursing.
The guards ran to help him.
Balkis chanted a spell, shouting the last line as a command. Lakshmi’s head snapped back, her eyes clearing. Then Balkis called out,
Matt stepped forward, crying out in protest, but Lakshmi had no such scruples. She raised a hand, the three guards leaped between her and their master, and flame leaped from Lakshmi’s fingers. The guards turned to cinders so quickly that they didn’t even have time to cry out. Then the djinna advanced on the priest of Ahriman, eyes narrowed to slits, hands gesturing.
The old man shrank back in his throne and pointed at her, howling a verse in Arabic. It might have made for interesting study, but Matt didn’t really pay attention—he leaped forward, scooped Balkis up in his arms and ran for the door.