“You think he will see us coming, and prepare to defend against our magic.” Lakshmi turned thoughtful. “Still, we must go where he is. How do you suggest we mislead him?”
“Let him think we’re looking for another destination. Land at some city that’s on the way, if you can find one.”
“Of course—there is Samarkand.” Lakshmi nodded, no longer uncertain. “We shall stop there and visit. Certainly some there will know where this Arjasp’s city can be found, and perhaps we can contrive some sort of disguise.”
“Maybe we can.” But Matt wasn’t thinking about the disguise—he was fired with the wonder of it all. Samarkand! One of the fabled cities of the East, rich with the trade of the Silk Road, the caravan route across Central Asia, and he was actually going to see it!
They landed on a hill overlooking the city. It glistened in the morning sun as though it were made all of ivory—cubes of ivory, boxes of ivory, domes of ivory decorated with gold.
Some of those were the bulging and pointed domes of mosques, but others were the half-globe shapes of Christian churches. There were several minarets, but also several steeples, too, and Matt was sure he saw the tiers of a pagoda and the beehive shape of a Buddhist stupa.
“Samarkand!” Matt breathed. “The crossroads of Asia, and it sure looks like it!” He turned to his companions. “Come on, let’s get down there and visit!”
“There is a small matter of disguise,” Lakshmi pointed out.
“What disguise?” Matt asked. “I’m still dressed as a Persian.”
“Indeed!” Lakshmi said archly. “And are Marudin and I to go into that city dressed as we are?”
“Why not?” Matt countered. “You can’t be the first Arabs they’ve seen. If you’re worried about the proprieties, don’t be—this is Samarkand, not Tehran. Even Muslim women don’t have to wear the complete veil here.”
“Indeed,” Lakshmi said dryly. “What of these spies you spoke of?”
That gave Matt pause.
“She speaks truth,” Marudin said. “Surely Arjasp knows that djinn can shrink or grow to any size we wish. His spies will have been told to look for an Arab man and woman clad as a Mameluke and a dancing girl.”
“As well as a Frank,” said Lakshmi, “but you are right in that you are well enough disguised, and Balkis has always her own guise with her.”
Balkis meowed confirmation. Looking down, Matt saw she was pussyfooting around again. Absently, he reached down, holding his palm horizontal, and she flowed under it back and forth for automatic petting. “She’s got the best disguise of any of us,” he agreed. “Arjasp probably can’t keep up with her shifts in color and markings. But as to you two … Let’s see, I suppose I could pass for a merchant; we could claim I’m carrying semiprecious stones in my robe …” He patted the wand in his sash. “You could, too, Princess, and Marudin could be our bodyguard. Persian robes all around—okay?”
“That ‘okay’ is certainly one of the strangest words in your language,” Lakshmi complained, “but I take its meaning in this case: ‘Is it acceptable?’ “
“Close enough,” Matt said. “Is it?”
For answer, Lakshmi made a gesture as though drawing a curtain over herself, and as her hand passed downward, her bolero jacket became a yellow robe, her harem pants turned into the ankle-length skirt of a light blue under-robe, her slippers became stout boots, and a turban sprouted from her long silky tresses. Marudin gave himself a similar gesture and stood forth in a costume matching hers, except that he wore a yellow shirt and trousers with a crimson sash instead of a dress and a sky-blue robe over them.
Matt stood back and eyed them critically. “Okay, I guess we’ll pass. Let’s … uh, join the traffic into the city.” He had almost said “Let’s hit the road,” but then remembered that Lakshmi might take him literally.
They passed through the gate, and Matt inhaled the rich aromas of cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, and others he couldn’t identify. “Certainly are spice traders here. Well, let’s have a look around, folks.”
The “look around” lasted two hours. Even the djinn seemed amazed at the richness and variety of their surroundings. Far Eastern architecture stood side by side with Persian and Indian. The bazaar held booth after booth filled with silken cloth and Chinese carvings; Indian puppeteers acted out stories from the Mahabharata, and the turbans and caftans of Western Asia mingled freely with the trousers and tunics of the steppe barbarians, the pyjamas and saris of India, and the silken robes of China. Booths of lath and canvas stood in the shadows of buildings of alabaster trimmed with gilt and archways decorated with tiles in geometric designs.
The djinn wandered through the town, amazed by its opulence and its poverty both. Matt had to explain who those yellow-skinned, slant-eyed people were, then guess at the differences between Mongols and Chinese. He was able to tell a Turk from a Russian and did, but had difficulty explaining the people of mixed strains, of whom there seemed to be many—people who’d had both Chinese and Turkish parents, like the great Chinese poet Li Po, or Turkish and Mongol forbearers, like Tamurlane, or any of the other rich varieties of people he saw. He was able to identify Hindu traders and distinguish them from Sikh guards, and his recent experiences in India made him able to tell the difference between a Parsi trader and his Guebre cousin, but there were others that put him completely at a loss.
Finally Lakshmi said, “I am wearied, wizard, and dazed with so much looking. We must rest.”
“Museum fatigue,” Matt identified. “Okay, let’s try to find some nice, quiet little residential square where somebody has a booth selling sherbets.”
They took to the twisting alleyways, Balkis padding silently along, now in front, now behind, nose twitching at the wealth of scents and, no doubt, trying to find the track of a mouse that hadn’t been overlaid with curry. In a few minutes they came out into just such a small, quiet court as Matt had hoped for, one whose quiet was broken only by the merry calls of children at play and the more subdued cry of a sherbet vendor. It was surrounded by dwellings with large patches of stucco missing—and on the side across from the alleyway, a building whose cross over a double door proclaimed it to be a church.
But what a church! Its architecture was definitely Asian, not European. Matt stared. “What kind of Christians worship in there?”
“Go in and find out, Frank,” Marudin sighed as he sat down cross-legged in the shade. “But before you do, buy us sherbets, will you not?”
“Me?” Matt fought righteous indignation. “What makes me the waiter here?”
“Because you have coins,” Marudin explained, “whereas we should have to conjure some up, and by your leave, we are rather wearied.”
“Wearied from having carried you across half a continent,” Lakshmi said pointedly.
“Okay, you win.” Matt strolled over to the booth and bought three sherbets with his smallest silver coin, and by the grin on the vendor’s face, he had obviously overpaid again. He brought them back to the djinn couple, ate a few spoonfuls of his own, then set it down next to Balkis’ nose and turned away to go to church.
The interior was dim and cool, the decorations unfamiliar and Asiatic, but there was a cross over a stone table that was recognizably an altar, and racks of votive candles that might as easily have come from a Chinese temple as from a Catholic church. There were no pews, but Matt knelt anyway and said a few silent prayers of thanks for their safety, and for success in rescuing the children. As he was climbing to his feet again, he saw a man with a gray beard come out by the altar. The man glanced at him, then turned and stared.
So did Matt. The tall hat and dark robe looked suspiciously like those of a priest of Ahriman!