It was the jar containing the Tatars' Genie.
"You are a fool, Sedenko," I said grimly. "That was a treacherous action to perform upon those who treated us so kindly. You must return it."
"Return it!" He was amazed. "It is a question of honour, captain. No Kazak could leave a Tatar village without something they value!"
"Our friend Philander Groot gave that to them, and they gave us their hospitality in the name of Groot. You must take it back!" I drew rein and reached out for the jar.
Sedenko cursed me and pulled on his horse's head to move out of range. "It is mine!"
I sprang from my horse and ran towards him. "Take it back or let me!"
"No!"
I jumped for the jar. His horse reared. He tried to control it and the jar slipped from his hand. I flew forward in an effort to save the thing, but it had already fallen to the hard earth. Sedenko was yelling something at me in his own barbaric tongue. I stopped to pick the jar up, noticing that the stopper had come loose, and then Sedenko had struck me from behind with the flat of his sword and I momentarily lost my senses, waking to see him clasping the jar to his chest as he ran back for his horse.
"Sedenko! You have gone mad!"
He turned, glaring at me. "They were Tatars!" he cried, as if reasoning with a fool. "They were Tatars, captain!"
"Take the jar back to them!" I clambered to my feet.
He stood his ground defiantly. Then he shouted wildly, as I came up: "They can have their damned jar, but they shall not have their Genie!" He dragged forth the stopper of the jar.
I stopped in horror, expecting the creature to emerge.
Sedenko began to laugh. He tossed the jar at me. "It's empty! It was all a deception. Groot tricked them!"
This seemed to please him. "Let them have it, if you wish, captain." He laughed harder. "What a splendid joke. I knew Philander Groot was a fellow after my own heart."
Now, as I held the jar, I saw tiny, pale hands clutching at the rim. I looked down into it. There was a small, helpless, fading thing. As the air reached it, it was evidently dying. It was manlike in form, but naked and thin. A tiny, mewling noise escaped its wizened lips and I thought I detected a word or two. Then the miniature hands slipped from the rim and the creature fell to the bottom of the jar where it began to shiver.
There was nothing for it but to replace the stopper. I looked at Sedenko in disgust.
"Empty!" He guffawed. "Empty, captain. Oh, let me take it back to them. I threatened to ruin Groot's joke."
I forced the stopper down into the jar and held the thing out to Sedenko. "Empty," said I. "Take it back then, Kazak."
He dropped the jar into his saddlebag, mounted his horse and rode away at that breakneck pace he and his kind preferred.
I waited for some forty minutes, then I continued on westward, towards Bakinax, not much caring at that moment if Sedenko survived or not. I had consulted my maps. Bakinax lay not much more than a week's ride from the Forest at the Edge of Heaven.
My foreboding grew, however, as I came closer to the city.
Sedenko, grinning all over his face, soon caught me up.
"They had not noticed its disappearance," he said. "Is not Philander Groot a wily fellow, captain?"
"Oh, indeed," said I. It seemed to me that Groot had had his own reasons for deceiving the Tatars. By means of that Genie, alive or dead, they survived and the people of Bakinax dared not attack them. Groot had given the Tatars life and a reason, of sorts, for living. My admiration for the dandy, as well as my curiosity about him, continued to increase.
The vast plain was behind us at long last when we came to a land of dry grass and hillocks and thousands of tiny streams. It had begun to rain again.
I reflected that the Mittelmarch appeared to have become bleaker in the year of our journey. It was as if less could grow here, as if the soul of the Realm were being sucked from it. I told myself that all I witnessed was a difference of geography, but I was not in my bones content with that at all.
In the evening we saw a city ahead of us and knew that it must be Bakinax.
We rode through the streets in the moonlight. The place seemed very still. We stopped a man who, with a burning torch in each hand, went drunkenly homeward. He spoke a language we could not understand, but by means of signs we got directions from him and found for ourselves a lodging for the night: a small, ill-smelling inn.
In the morning, as we breakfasted from strange cheeses and mysterious meats, we were interrupted by the entrance of five or six men in identical surcoats, bearing halberds, with morion helmets decorated by feathers, their hands and feet both mailed. They made it plain that we were to go with them.
Sedenko was for fighting, but I saw no point. Our horses had been stabled while we slept and we had no knowledge of their exact whereabouts. Moreover, this whole country was alien to us. I had, as had become my habit, all Lucifer's gifts about my person and my sword was at my side, so that I did not feel entirely vulnerable as I rose, wiped my lips and bowed to the soldiers as an indication that we were ready to accompany them.
The streets of Bakinax, seen in daylight, were narrow and none too clean. Ragged children with thin, hungry faces stopped to look at us as we passed and old people, in rags for the most part, gaped. It was not an unusually despondent place, this city, compared to many I had seen in Europe, but neither did it seem a cheerful one. There was an atmosphere of gloom hanging over it and I thought it well-named the City of the Plague.
We were escorted through the main square where, upon a great wooden dais, stood a huge globe of dull, unpleasant metal, guarded by soldiers in the same uniform as those who now surrounded us. The square was otherwise empty of citizens.
"That must be the house of the devil the Tatar mentioned," whispered Sedenko to me. "Do you really think it lives on the souls of the people hereabouts, captain?"
"I do not know," said I, "but I would cheerfully feed it yours, Sedenko." I was not yet prepared to forgive him for his foolishness concerning the stolen jar. He, for his part, was absolutely unrepentant. He took my remark, as he had taken others, as a joke, craning his head to look again at the sphere as we were marched up stone steps and through the portal of what was evidently some important public building.
We were taken into a room lined on both sides with pews. Not one of the pews, however, was occupied. At the far end of the room was a lectern and behind the lectern, where a priest might stand, was a tall, thin man with a bright red wig, dressed in a gown of black and gold.
Said he in the Latin language: "Speak you Latin, men?"
"I speak a little," I told him. "Why have we been brought here so roughly, Your Honour? We are honest travellers."
"Not so honest. You seek to avoid the tolls. You have ridden through our sacred Burning Grounds and desecrated them. You have entered Bakinax by the East Gate and placed no gold in the plate. And those are only your main crimes. Do not offer me your hypocrisy, sir, as well as your offences! I am the Great Magistrate of Bakinax and it was I who ordered you arrested. Will you speak?"
"We cannot know your laws," I said, "for we are strangers here. If we had been aware that your Burning Grounds were sacred we should have ridden clear of them, I assure you. As for the gold which must be placed in the plate, we will willingly pay it now. None challenged us as we entered."
"Too late to pay in gold," said the Great Magistrate. He cleared his nose and glared at us. "You cannot claim that nobody told you of Bakinax as you journeyed here, for it is a famous place, this City of the Plague. Did no one mention our demon?"