Dragon - The Dragon And The Djinn Part 6

"Forgive me, forgive me..." whined the dog hurriedly; and the lid of the chest flew up, revealing its contents which were indeed colored stones of all kinds; none of them cut and faceted, of course, since the cutting of gems had not yet been developed on this world.

"Very well," said Jim loftily, waving his hand. "Take it away. Such toys do not interest me."

The chest disappeared. Jim felt a small pang of regret-but appearances were everything at this stage.

"Now," said Jim, "I'll listen to your story and then make my decision."

"Hearken, then," said the dog. "My name is Kelb. For thousands of years, I never did a false or cruel deed, or anything evil, until one day when I was taken as a slave by another very powerful and very evil Djinni named Sakhr al-Jinni. For some centuries he forced me to do terrible and cruel things, at his orders. Finally, sick of it, I tried at last to escape."

"Good," said Jim.

"I don't believe him," whispered Hob.

"But I was caught by the giant called Sharahiya, one of the keepers of Sakhr al-Jinni's orchard, and brought back," Kelb went on. "Sakhr al-Jinni had me thrown into a lake of fire as punishment. There I suffered for six hundred and fifty-two years, three months, two weeks, three days and nine hours, forty-seven minutes, ten seconds. But at the end of that time, I was released."

Jim had been thinking furiously, trying to remember. The names ' 'Sakhr al-Jinni" and "Sharahiya" rang a faint bell in his head, connected possibly with Richard Burton's Thousand Nights and a Night. No-Sakhr al-Jinni was only referred to there. Somewhere he had read more about him. There was a connection with King Solomon of the Hebrews. But Kelb was clearly waiting for some response from him before going on.

"And then what?" Jim said in the best tone of impatience he could manage or muster. "Why did Sakhr al-Jinni let you out of the lake of fire?"

"I was released not by him, but because the great King Solomon, David's son, imprisoned him, with other evil Djinn and Marids, each in a copper bottle; stopping these up with lead which Solomon sealed with his ring, and casting Sakhr al-Jinni into Lake Tiberius to lie where he would forevermore be beyond harming anyone. Once he was embottled, his powers that kept me in the lake of fire no longer held, and I was free to go."

"Well, then," said Jim, "your troubles are over. I don't see why you're bothering me."

"Alas!" said Kelb. "A clumsy undersea giant, picking up the bottle that held Sakhr al-Jinni to look at it curiously, loosened the seal only five days ago; and that evil one is now free in the world again-full of rage and searching for all those who were his servants before, and particularly me, who had now escaped the punishment he had given me. He is far stronger than I. I cannot withstand him. Help me, O my master!"

It was all pretty far-fetched, Jim felt. But on the other hand, this was a world of magic and unusual creatures. Anything could be true. It might be simply that Kelb was, at most, only embroidering the story of his life.

"Who was the clumsy undersea giant that let Sakhr al-Jinni loose?" he asked.

"I know not," said Kelb. "I was only told it had happened by others like me, who were escaping at last from Sakhr al-Jinni's wrath."

The chances of it being Rrmlf who allowed Sakhr al-Jinni to escape from his bottle were not very large, Jim told himself. The ocean back in Jim's twentieth-century world covered something like a hundred and forty-two million square miles of the earth's surface. It was unlikely that the amount of ocean here on this world was much different. That provided enough room for a high number of sea giants, even if they weren't to be considered common.

Also, even if Rrrnlf had been the cause of Sakhr al-Jinni's release, jumping from that possibility to the further possibility that Sakhr al-Jinni had somehow managed to destroy or disable him was a second long guess. But Jim had spent enough time now trying to summon Rrrnlf, and this Kelb might turn out to be able to do a great many of the things that he was hoping that Rrrnlf could help him with.

"Have you some place where you can hide safely, until I summon you?" Jim said to Kelb.

"I have, my master," said Kelb.

"Well, go and hide there," said Jim. "I'll call you back as soon as I've made up my mind about a few things. Mind you, I'm not saying I'll extend my protection to you. I don't extend it to just everybody, you know."

"I am sure of that, master," said Kelb humbly.

"Off with you, then," said Jim. "I'll call you back when I'm ready."

Jim stood up from the rock on which he'd been sitting.

"We've spent enough time here," he said. "Hob, we'll head back to Paphos and Sir William Brutnor's place."

He started back along the beach, around the headlands that separated where he'd been sitting from the town of Paphos itself-a place half village, half town, mainly filled by local Greeks; but with a fair sprinkling of the descendants of crusaders, from one crusade or another, who had never gotten any farther than Cyprus. These latter had prospered and built themselves almost European residences-not exactly castles, but very comfortable establishments; and it was Sir William Brutnor who was providing Jim with food and shelter right now in the customary fashion of British and European upper cla.s.ses, when the visitor was someone they recognized as belonging to their part of society.

"Do you want me also to call you 'master,' m'lord?" asked Hob, in a small voice, as he rode Jim's shoulder.

"No, no, of course not," said Jim. "Not you, Hob."

"But you would protect me?" asked Hob. "I'm not just one of the 'everybodies'?"

"Of course not," said Jim. "You're my Hob of Malencontri."

"Of course," echoed Hob smugly. He loosened his grip around Jim's neck and sat up on Jim's shoulder, very straight

CHAPTER SEVEN.

"So there you are. Sir James!" said Sir William Brutnor, striding into Jim's room, with the hems of his mid-eastern, silk robes flipping around his ankles. "Been looking for you!"

"Yes," said Jim. "I went for a stroll on the beach and ended up going around the headland and some of the way up the coast. Beautiful day."

"Yes. Getting hot. Bit of a stroll, I'd say," said Sir William. "You missed dinner, you know? Did you have them send up food and drink for you?"

"No," said Jim. "It hadn't occurred to me, yet-"

"Well, never mind, never mind," said Sir William. He was a short, broad man, possibly a little overweight but he carried it well. He had a square middle-aged face, tanned and wrinkled by the sun, with graying eyebrows, a small gray mustache and a hasty manner. "I'm taking you off to a coffee house-actually, a coffee house in a bath house. We can get some decent wine and food there, being Christians. You needn't dress up. It's all very informal-travelers in off the road and people like that. Oh, by the way, we've located this friend of yours you're looking for. Sir Bruno."

"Sir Brian, you mean?" said Jim.

"That's the gentleman," said Sir William, "the Neville-Smythe. I remember that much of it because of the Neville part. Related to the Nevilles of Rabe, I think you said?"

"That's right," said Jim. "Where is he?"

"Where? Oh, up near Episcopi, round the coast a bit," answered Sir William. "Not at Episcopi itself. A little further on, at a small fishing village. There's a sh.o.r.e-castle there. Sir Mortimor Breugel has it. He has a couple of galleys and does some off-sh.o.r.e pirating, from time to time. Not great, but it's a living; and Sir Mortimor doesn't want a lot, you know. He'd rather sit in his own hall, dice and drink than anything else, anyway. But, come along now-"

He broke off suddenly. The brown dog that was Kelb had just appeared beside Jim.

"Master," he said to Jim, ignoring Sir William, "if I may speak to you-"

"Go away!" said Jim. "Later."

The dog disappeared.

"A Djinni!" barked Sir William. "Look here, Sir James, I'm all for hospitality to a gentleman from home, and all that. But-a Djinni! How did you come to bring home a Djinni from this walk of yours; and into my house? Have you any idea the trouble there is getting rid of them? A good priest won't do, you know, you have to get a Holy Musselman- and then half the time it doesn't work because the Holy man wasn't Holy enough; and you have to go looking again. Give me a good old-fashioned ghost or goblin to get rid of, any day!"

"Don't worry," said Jim, "I'll take him with me when I go; and since you've found Sir Brian, if you'll forgive me, I'll go to him right away, without wasting any more time. It's important I catch up with him as soon as possible."

"You can't be in that much of a hurry," said Sir William. "There's this coffee house-"

"I'm afraid I am," said Jim. His mind scrambled for an excuse to get on the road at once. He had no particular interest at the moment in coffee houses, wine or even European style food, notwithstanding-even less in bath houses. Inspiration came to him. "You've heard of Sir John Chandos, of course?"

"Chandos?" said Sir William. "Oh, yes."

"Well, need I say more?" said Jim, giving the other as mysterious and diplomatic-level a look as he could manage.

"Ah, well," said Sir William, "I suppose so. True. True. Pity, though. You'd have liked this coffee house."

"I'm sure I would," said Jim. "I can't tell you how sad I am to miss out on it. It's very good of you to think of taking me there."

"Oh, well," said Sir William. "Just a place where some gentlemen get together about this hour. They'll be sad to miss you too. I'll send someone up with directions on where Episcopi is, the way there, and where beyond it Sir Mortimor's sh.o.r.e-castle can be found."

He went out of the room as abruptly as he had come in.

"Kelb," said Jim to the empty air.

The dog appeared in front of him.

"All right, Kelb," said Jim, "what is it?"

"We Djinn have our ways," said Kelb smugly.

"I'm sure you do," said Jim impatiently. "Now, what did you come to tell me?"

"By means of which only we Djinn know," said Kelb, "I was aware you were searching for another such as yourself. I have found him for you. He is just above Episcopi in a tower by a small sea-village. Do you not now see how valuable I can be as a servant to you, O great one?"

"I'm not so sure about that," said Jim. "You wouldn't have happened to have been in your dog shape by the kitchen door of this establishment, begging for sc.r.a.ps and just happened to overhear the servants talking about the fact that I was looking for a fellow knight and that he had just been located up beyond Episcopi?"

"Are the servants indeed talking about it?" said Kelb. "Such a strange happening at the same time is almost beyond belief; but-"

"Never mind making up excuses," said Jim. "I told you I'd tell you when I had made up my mind about you, and I will. Until then, go!"

"I go, master," said Kelb, and went.

Southeast Jim went, around the coast of Cyprus to Episcopi in a relatively small, and very smelly, boat with a huge lateen sail that seemed once to have been red in color. Their small craft hugged the sh.o.r.e all the way up, for fear of corsairs; and the ship owner-a cheerful, black-haired, black-eyed Greek whose three sons were his crew, explained that they stayed in shallow water so that large enemy vessels that might prey on them could not come in after them. They could go right up to the beach, which the larger vessels could not do safely without damaging themselves.

"But what if you have to sail in deep water right next to the sh.o.r.e?" asked Jim. As he said the words he felt a slight stirring by his right shoulder blade, where Hob was comfortably curled up out of sight in a sort of padded nest in a bag that resembled a knapsack. For a moment he was afraid that Hob would stick his head out and want to join in the conversation; but the hobgoblin said nothing after all, staying quiet and hidden.

"If there is no way we can get away and save the boat, then we save ourselves," said the ship owner with a fatalistic shrug. "It is better than being impaled or crucified if they catch us."

Jim considered this; or rather, tried to consider it. He had thought he was immune to seasickness, after all the sea travel he had had on the way down from Britain. He had, in fact, traveled by a number of means. By sea; overland on horseback, by the process of buying horses in one place and selling them at his destination; and also-more secretly-flying in his dragon form, usually at night, or riding the smoke, for the little hobgoblin could ride a waft of smoke anywhere and take him along.

He had, indeed, been tempted to ride the smoke with Hob all the way to Cyprus. But he had to follow Brian's route and make sure Brian had not been captured, imprisoned, hurt or even killed by mischance-all too likely in medieval times-along the way. As it was, he could check at the towns he pa.s.sed and with the people Brian had planned to guest with, to make sure Brian had made it all the way to Cyprus before Jim reached that island, himself.

Meanwhile, Hob had been a pleasant little companion; and Jim had not regretted Angie's insistence that the hobgoblin should be with him, to carry the word home to her, if anything happened to Jim.

One of the side benefits of traveling by ordinary methods, Jim had believed until now, was that he had developed an immunity to seasickness. However, this small boat rocking and bouncing in the near-sh.o.r.e waves had produced an effect on him after all. He could not honestly say he was sick, but he was feeling cold and uncomfortable in his stomach area; and the discomfort made it hard for him to concentrate.

"Just suppose we had to do that-put the boat in to sh.o.r.e and run," said Jim. "What if they came in after us or sent another small boat in after us and caught me, for example?"

In Europe, he knew that normally a person dressed as expensively as he was would be held to ransom.

The ship owner shrugged.

"Take all you had that was worth anything, and then do the same with you as they'd do with us," he answered.

"If we stayed together," said Jim, "maybe if there was just a small boatload coming to sh.o.r.e after us, we could fight them off."

The ship owner nodded his head vigorously. Jim's heart lifted, before he remembered what the motion meant. He was still getting used to the fact that in some of these near-eastern areas, a nod meant "no"

and a shake of the head meant "yes."

Once the proper message got through, however, he felt a touch of relief. If the others would not stand and fight with him, then he could feel a little easier about taking care of himself and Hob first; and all that was necessary for the two of them was to duck out of sight someplace. Then he could turn into a dragon and fly himself and Hob out of the reach of any corsairs in a hurry.

In the event, however, they met no corsairs, and Jim did not go all the way into actual seasickness. But he was very glad to step out on the stony beach in front of the castle of Sir Mortimor; in spite of the fact that waiting for them were a half-dozen very fierce-looking, armed men with steel or leather upper body-armor and cap, over-robes. As far as their faces went, they might have been distant cousins of the boat owner, only lacking the boatman's cheerfulness. Jim had hardly set foot ash.o.r.e before the sword-point of one of them was at his throat.

"Take that away or I'll have you whipped for it!" snapped Jim, falling back on the proper knightly response. "Send to the castle immediately! I am Sir James Eckert de Malencontri, the Dragon Knight, here to see Sir Brian who is guesting in this place. Carry that message to Sir Mortimor or Sir Brian immediately. I command it!"

He had been in this world long enough to pick up some understanding of how a situation like this should be handled. The two key points were to be as richly dressed as he was, and to act as if he was the infinite superior of any of those around him.

It worked. The man who had presented the swordpoint at his throat did not lower his weapon, but he backed away a couple of steps and snapped an order at one of the others to run ahead to tell them in the castle what Jim had said.

"Come, Sir Dragon, then," said the man with the naked sword. "Come with us!"

They escorted him up the steeply sloping beach, through the jumble of small buildings that were evidently half homes, half warehouses; with nets draped on posts to dry, and fish also drying on racks. Just beyond the village the going abruptly became very steep indeed; and a sort of switchback path or road led up to the castle itself, giving way at last to a flight of steps cut through the groundcover into the rock underneath it; so that the last bit of distance was like climbing a staircase.

The castle was really nothing but the tower, with a few precariously attached wooden outbuildings; a simple-looking fortress. At the same time, Jim noticed that it was not as vulnerable as it might appear at first glance. It was built of bluish-gray stone blocks, with a stout entrance door that was closed until the leader of Jim's escort pounded on it and shouted to those within-after which it was opened and they were let into a short and narrow pa.s.sage with stone walls all around them leading to another door, equally stout.

Jim looked up as they moved toward this second door and saw a ceiling above with holes in it through which uncomfortable things like boiling oil could be poured down on anyone who broke through the first door and was battering at the second; then, hopefully, it would be set aught by burning brands pushed through those same holes-so that the s.p.a.ce between the two doors would become a death trap.

In Jim's case, however, he was led on peacefully through the second door into a very gloomy interior.

There seemed to be only a single, further light source-and indeed this turned out to be a fact.

They went forward until he came to what was essentially an open well, ascending through the middle of the castle right up to an opening in the top floor of the tower. A patch of blue sky and a glimpse of battlements could be seen. Undoubtedly this roof opening would be closed in bad weather with one or more covers. For now, however, it was open; and the sunlight struck strongly down through it, its gleams bouncing off the stony walls to give what little light this could to the rest of the castle. In the lower areas of even the central part of this well, itself, torches burned on the walls to reinforce the lighting.

He was led to stone stairs attached to the stone wall, the steps spiraling up against the outer wall of the tower. On the third floor he found Brian, with a tall, somewhat elderly-looking, thin man with a long, mournful face and a mustache that drooped down at the ends of his thin lips. A man who looked less like a warlord than a retired scholar.

"James!" cried Brian, starting up from the table at which he and the elderly man were sitting. The elderly man rose too, but more slowly.

But as he got up, Jim rapidly changed his first impression that the slow rise was due to age. Instead, plainly, it was the result of a casualness, a sort of studied laziness. When the man at last stood at his full height, he towered not only over Brian, but Jim; and if his mustache and hair signaled age, the rest of his body signaled some twenty or more years younger. He was at least six and a half feet tall and of that peculiar rangy, hard-muscled build that would probably mean he would be both strong and fast in action.

However, Jim did not have a chance to see more than this, because Brian had darted forward from the table to embrace him and kiss first his left cheek, then his right-a common fourteenth-century greeting among friends that Jim had learned to accept with some show of grace.

"You are here, James!" cried Brian, letting him go. "More welcome than I can tell you! And just in time as well! Allow me to make you acquainted with Sir Mortimor Breugel."

Jim knew the proper manners for this type of situation. He inclined his head in a near bow to the tall man standing behind the table, who returned it.