Lakshmi bellowed back as she grew to half again his height and strode to meet him. Marudin was only a step behind her and half a head slower in growing. The afrit took one look at them and disappeared with a howl.
“I told him to come to his master’s men,” Matt explained. “He assumed he was supposed to protect them, but they didn’t know that.”
Prester John stared as his officers barked orders and calmed their men, though they themselves looked distinctly spooked. Finally, the king asked, “Are your friends so terrible, then, that one mere look at them is enough to send even an afrit packing?”
“Not their looks, no. But they’ve met before, you see,” Matt explained, “and the afrit found out the hard way that he was no match for two Marids.”
John decided that the ridge made a good campsite, and his soldiers filled the groves and the hillside with their tents. The next morning, though, three Mongols came riding up to them carrying a white flag. John frowned, donned his robes of state over his armor, and stepped forth to meet them with twenty men at his back. After the formalities that even the barbarians required, he demanded, “What is your leader’s message? If it is anything but surrender, save your speech.”
“It is a message not for you, O King, but for your companions, the Frankish wizard and the djinn.” The Mongol turned to them, and if there was any fear in him, it was hidden behind a face of stone. “Arjasp, high priest of Ahriman and lord of us all in the gur-khan’s absence, commands that you leave this overweening prince on the instant, or he shall destroy your children.”
Lakshmi cried out in distress, and Marudin advanced on the Mongol with a snarl. The horseman set a hand on his sword and braced himself, but Prester John held up a hand between the Marid and the Mongol. “Remember the flag of truce.”
“I am a Marid!” Marudin snapped. “What care I for the customs of you puny mortals?”
“Have a care for your children, then.”
That brought Marudin up short. He stood, hulking and seething, glaring at the messenger with unconcealed loathing.
If the Mongol felt any shame at hiding behind children or at the prospect of slaying them, he showed not a trace of it. His visage was still of stone.
Lakshmi advanced, her face drained of color, her hands crooked to claw.
Matt hurried to catch up, muttering, “The kids. Don’t jeopardize the kids.”
Lakshmi drew to a halt beside Marudin, seething and flexing her hands. Then she spat, “Begone!”
The Mongol bowed his head, whether in mockery or respect, Matt couldn’t tell, then turned his horse and rode away, his companions with him. The farther they went, the faster they rode.
When they were out of sight, Lakshmi bowed her head. Suddenly she seemed to sag, all the fight going out of her, and turned to Marudin. He gathered her in, her head upon his chest, and sobs racked her body.
Prester John stood watching in grave silence, and when the worst of the spasm had passed, he said gravely, “We shall fare mightily without you. I have the key to the city, after all, and we must be a thousand to their one.”
“But they have the power of Arjasp’s magic, and all his priests!” Lakshmi raised a tear-stained face.
“That will not aid them until we come near the city,” Prester John told her, “and I have some magic of my own and spirits to counter his, now that I know the manner of his spells. Still, it would greatly aid my cause if you could find and free your children, so that you are there at the end, within the city, to help me defeat the Priest of Lies.”
“Lies!” Lakshmi stared at him, then up to Marudin, fierce with hope again. “The children may not be so much within his power as he makes us to believe!”
“And we may indeed be able to find and free them,” Marudin exclaimed, catching her fire.
Prester John nodded. “Then go and seek them.”
Doubt made Lakshmi sag again. “But how?” she wailed.
“With this.” John lifted Balkis’ hand; she looked up at him, startled, but the huge emerald winked in the morning sunlight. “When first I saw this lass, I noticed that her gem always glowed,” he said, “but when the afrit appeared, it fairly blazed. Will it glow if you are not near?”
“No,” Lakshmi whispered, eyes round.
“Then if you come nigh your children, it shall again light within,” John told them. “Ask it, and it shall lead you.”
Balkis gave Lakshmi a long, steady look. The djinna came forward and threw her arms around the teenager.
They asked the ring. With a little help from Matt on the final couplet, Balkis remembered her verse commanding the ring to show them where the children were. Then she held the ring out at arm’s length and turned from one point of the compass to another—but she had barely started before the gem glowed as she faced due east.
“Toward the city of Maracanda,” Prester John breathed. “They are in my capita!!”
“Of course!” Matt said. “With such valuable hostages, Arjasp would want them where he could keep tabs on them. They’re in his city, under his thumb!”
“I shall slay him,” Prince Marudin said, and gathered himself to leap into the air.
“Oh, no!” Matt reached out a restraining hand. “He has probably given standing orders to their guards that if he dies or is captured, they’re to slay the children!”
Prince Marudin turned a frown on him. “How can a mortal slay a djinn?”
“I don’t know,” Matt said, exasperated, “but he can certainly recite a spell that will pull them into a bottle, pop the cork in, wax it with the seal of Solomon or some such, and bury it where it will never be …” His voice trailed off and his eyes lost focus.
“Of course!” Lakshmi cried. “Why did I never wonder how he held them?”
“We just assumed that anybody who had enough magic to kidnap a couple of djinn would have enough magic to hold them,” Matt said. “Well, he does, all right—the old tried-and-true magic.” Matt’s pulse quickened with the thrill of victory. “What kind of prison could hold djinn?”
“A bottle or a lamp, of course,” Lakshmi said, and Marudin almost managed to suppress a shudder.
“Just an ordinary old bottle?”
“Yes,” Marudin said, “quite common—but one with the Seal of Solomon impressed on the wax that holds the cork.”
“The Seal of Solomon?” Matt stared. “Stamped on by a devil worshiper? That doesn’t quite seem to fit.”
All five magic-workers looked at one another for a minute. Finally Prester John said, somewhat tentatively, “Perhaps Arjasp does not limit himself to the magic of Ahriman.”
“Good point.” Matt pursed his lips in thought. “Sure—he’s not particular. He’ll use any magic as long as it works. After all, he’s not really committed to Ahriman, is he? He’s committed to himself!”
Prester John shrugged. “I would guess that any magic can be turned to Ahriman’s use. After all, it is only a matter of the symbols one uses, and the intent that shapes them.”
“So the seal is a parody of Solomon’s,” Balkis deduced, “and since the djinn are but babes, it suffices to hold them in their bottle.”
“That makes sense.” Matt turned to Marudin. “How big a bottle would he need—four feet high?”
“Four inches, rather!” the djinn said with a sardonic smile. “Any size would do. The spell that entraps them shrinks them so that there is room to spare. I doubt not that he has made all four children so small that their prison seems a virtual palace to them!”
“Well, they won’t be the first bottle babies the world has seen,” Matt mused. “How else do you hold a djinn, except in a lamp or bottle or some other vessel?”
“In a ring,” Prince Marudin suggested.
Lakshmi’s gaze went to the ring on Balkis’ finger.