“I am here,” she said finally, “with a good reason. Now am I more welcome?”
“Welcome!” said Tiger abruptly. “If you’ve ever studied your lovely self in the most indifferent mirror, I wonder that you can still see. And you talk about being welcome.” He clinked his glass against hers and drank it down.
With great difficulty Jan fought for the upper hand and again the seal burned horribly against his side.
“I am here,” she said, “to counsel you, for I am sure that in all the time you’ve found yourself in such a strange predicament not one of these thoughtless, witless jinn have thought to ease your mind about it. ifrits,” she added, “are really very stupid people.”
“I have not found them so,” said Jan.
“No? But you have not talked to them so very much, then. For they truly are stupid. You have no idea!”
“And what, may I ask, is your counsel?”
“Anxious to be rid of me? How can that be? But I had heard on great authority that Tiger was a gallant fellow, not to be denied. But, then, I forget, you may be mixed now with some strange personality from outside our crude world and perhaps you have an icicle or two on your ears.” She looked and only found the ring holes in the lobes.
“Ah, a sailor indeed,” she cried joyfully. “And what have you done with your gold hoops?”
“I pawned them,” said Tiger suddenly. “Pawned them to buy a dancing girl a veil. I didn’t want it but she did. And how was I to know that she belonged by rights to a captain of infantry and that he would enter the hall just as I was presenting it? You have no idea,” he laughed, mimicking her.
“Gold hoops for a dancing girl!” she said, prettily shocked. “How horribly wicked. And now you have neither dancing girl nor rings.”
At the mention of rings, Jan fought to the surface. But the lady had jumped up and was detaching two hoops of gold from her girdle which she instantly spread and fixed in his ears.
“Now!” she cried. “Now you look like a true sailor.”
“I feel like a very stupid one,” said Jan, discovering cunning in his being. “How is it that I am here, shut up in an observatory tower when reason dictates that I should be in the deepest dungeon or else hanging on the highest gibbet in Tarbutón?”
“Must we have to do with reason?”
“Yes.”
“Ah, you sound like the Tiger I have heard about. Never satisfied with anything. Here you are shut up in the queen’s very own room, waited on by the finest of her servants, feasting upon the most palatable of food and with nothing to do but enjoy yourself. And you wonder about it!”
“Rather!”
“After all,” she said, “I hear you once saved the life of Admiral Tyronin, among other things. And though your numerous escapades may make it impossible for you to be kept always on silk, the state owes you something.”
“The state saw fit to put me on a stinking merchant tub.”
“So?”
“With a stupid, flogging fool for a captain.”
“Ah, that is sad. Perhaps the state feels you have been punished enough and wishes now to make amends.”
“I am here,” said Jan, “because of some strange information I might communicate to others. Information of which I confess myself wholly ignorant. If I am dangerous, why doesn’t the royal might do away with me and have done with it? I know very little about anything. I am a raw mass of questions. I know not even where this land is, though more and more I know my own deeds and misdeeds in it—as even now I recall certain other things I have done which might or might not have endeared me to the state. But I who was one am now two and I heartily dislike it.”
“Two, indeed. Brawling, laughing, drunken Tiger could never have taken a sight with an astrolabe.”
“You know about that?”
“I am a very dear friend of old Zeno. Ah, yes, you are a strange blend now. I detect a scholar and philosopher in you, Tiger, things which go strangely with your clear brow and handsome strength.”
“A scholar, perhaps. And little good it’s ever done me,” quoth Jan. “To do cube root in the head avails a man little against prison bars.”
“Scholars are scholars because they must fall back upon books to supply their lack in the strife of living. Scholaring, I am told, is a very dread disease. The more one knows, the more one knows he knows nothing. And the more he knows that he knows nothing, the more ardently he desires to really know something and so, more study. And more study, the more he knows he knows nothing, the more—”
“M’Lady, I beg of you, desist!”
“I was growing dizzy, too. But tell me, which of you has the upper hand? Scholar or warrior?”
Jan suddenly wanted to answer both at once and was strangely aware of some alchemy within him, by which he was losing none of the knowledge and memory of Jan but was gaining the heart and courage as well as the knowledge and memory of Tiger. The nearness of this heart-quickening woman was completing the weld. He felt drunk.
“The question’s a hard one,” he said. “And perhaps I’d be able to answer it better if I knew what I was talking about. To begin, where am I?”
“Why, in the kingdom of Tarbutón, of course.”
“Oh, I know that well enough and I seem to know every alley and wall crack in the land as well. But I speak of geography. Am I fifty south and forty west? Is that sea the Mediterranean? And where is the United States of America in regard to this place?”
“Such weird names, my sailor. But certainly one who has sailed the world would know more about it than I. Not one of those places or numbers do I know.” She brightened. “Why, can’t you tell with old Zeno’s instruments up there?”
“The astrolabe tells only of time and latitude. Zeno’s time gives me no longitude and though I suppose my reading of fifteen south might be correct, I doubted it very much because, you see, that places us in the Amazon jungle or the Belgian Congo or among the headhunters of New Guinea or—”
“How many places there are that I have never heard the least bit about. Tell me of those places—especially about the headhunters. Are they like ghouls, pray tell?”
“You’ve avoided my question.”
“What an inexorable fellow! But how can I answer if I do not know?”
“You mean . . . you mean you’ve never heard of the United States or . . . or Africa or . . . or Arabia . . . ?”
“Ah, yes, I know that one from ancient history. Arabia! But that is far away and the route to it is wholly forgotten. Why, I dare say even one of our elders would find it difficult to discover Mount Kaf in that world, much less the names you spiel so glibly.”
“You’re mocking me. Tell me the truth. Where am I?”
“Sweet sailor, in terms of your land I can speak nothing. I know them not. But lest I displease you I shall leave off this teasing and give you truth—truth as I have heard Zeno tell it. Here we call your world—your other world—the Land of Sleep. And perhaps your world calls this world the same. . . .”
“Calls it nothing. They do not even know about it. The Land of Sleep, you say?”
“Why, yes, that should be fairly plain. At least that is how Zeno tells it. There are two worlds of sleep or two worlds of wakefulness, whichever you will have. That is, so far as human beings are concerned. Human beings are weird people. Long ago we found that they had souls.”
Every hair on Jan’s neck was standing up straight. What was she doing, speaking of humans as other than herself? But, outside of knowing the pitfall which gaped to trap him, he made no further recognition, so badly did he wish to know more of his condition.
“I think I know something of this,” said Jan. “The American Indian had some such insight. In sleep his soul walked from his body and visited another land.”
“Yes, that is true. Long, long ago we found the Indian had to be very closely watched because of just that consciousness. Here and there others, or so says Zeno, have been vaguely aware of leaving their bodies when they slept, but it ha
s become apparent—or was until you came here—that, so far as actual realization was concerned, these humans here know nothing of their other world—that other world of yours which contains all the strange names. And in their other world they know nothing of this world, so that when they rest and sleep in either, they resume their second life in the other. Zeno says this leads to all sorts of silly dissemblances among the brighter humans here. They go about talking of ‘double personalities’ and ‘split egos’ and such.”
“But . . . but how is it that the same man is so different in the two worlds?”
“That is pulling me in rather deep, my sailor, and you really should talk it over with Zeno. He could tell you all sorts of odd things about it and, truly, he is somewhat obsessed with his theories of it—perhaps because he never dares talk about them. Yes, you should talk to Zeno.” She poured more wine and sipped at hers and then artfully changed glasses and drank of his.
“Don’t you really know?”
“I hate to appear so stupid and you are a scholar and might pick a flaw in what I say. I do not know that I speak aright. I can give you Zeno’s theories but even those I know imperfectly. You see, your question is wrong. There really isn’t just one man or one soul or one human. People, even the jinn—who are considerably less nebulously built and far less destructible, I assure you—consist mainly of a certain kind of energy. Some philosophers say that all energy is the same energy, but that argument is pricked by asking the question ‘Even if all energy is convertible into other kinds of energy, does it follow therefore that life is convertible into other kinds of life?’ And of course it isn’t in the same way that a tree stores heat and then, when burned, gives off the heat again. We had a fakir here—quite a mad fellow by the way—who had somehow reached an ecstatic state whereby he merged both his souls into one . . .”
“Yoga! The Veda! The goal of the greatest cult in India! The attainment of complete Unity! And they say their souls go elsewhere and—”
“Well! Dear me, if you’re going to become so excited and so disgustingly philosophic about it, I shan’t allow another word to be pried out of me, I assure you!”
“I didn’t mean to offend,” said Jan contritely. “But you see, all this explains the great Mysteries of psychology and philosophy. And after all—”
“Oh, I suppose a man would be quite excited rightly enough. It is, after all, rather personal to him.”
“You see, there is such a thing as dual personality, you know,” said Jan more calmly. “A man may be a perfect saint and a perfect beast all in one body at different times.”
“That’s not so strange from what I’ve seen of men!” She drank and made him drink with her, and then, setting down her glass, did not seem to find any further interest in the subject of dualism. Rather, the sailor himself had her eye.
“But don’t leave me there,” begged Jan. “You say a man’s soul wanders between these two worlds. . . .”
She sighed. “You have answered my question. The scholar has the upper hand. Oh, well,” and she shrugged. “If I quiet the scholar perhaps the sailor will come back. A man doesn’t have just one soul—or so Zeno says. He has two souls and these work interconnectedly somehow. His life force, as different from plain energy, is capable of only one focusing. He is either here or there and the world in which he lives forms the body which he has, and so, when one is awake the other is asleep. Brothers, you might say, across the Universe. It’s a thing very difficult to achieve, this uniting of both in one body at the same time. And I dare say old Zeno might be interested in knowing whether you carry Tiger back with you to your other world.”
“Tell me,” said Jan. “How is it that you are so frightened here that humans might learn of this double world?”
“Sailor—please be a sailor, will you, and not a graybeard?—there was once this fakir and there have been others. They were quite enough. Here all humans are slaves. This world is ruled by the jinn; it belongs to the jinn and always did and always will. Once human souls did not effect this change from world to world but merely wandered. There may be other worlds, too. How am I to know that? But, I say, human sleep souls wandered . . . Where was I?”
The sailor was telling in him now. He pressed another drink upon her, himself not in the least blurry.
“Human souls wandered,” prompted Jan.
“Oh, yes. And we were torn apart by the cursed wars of Sulayman against us. The jinn may live forever if they are not accidentally killed—though very few have ever escaped that and Zeno is the only one I can call to mind who can remember things of a hundred thousand years ago—before humans were more than apes, it seems, or so he says. The jinn, I say, were torn by wars. There were not many and this land was large and bountiful and the jinn were unable to even maintain themselves upon it. Besides, neither jinni nor marid enjoys manual work. And so, to ease the burden, several wise ones decided to carefully nurture a plan. It was easy, quite easy, to make bodies. But souls were quite another thing . . . Where was I?”
He poured her still another drink and drank one with her. “The jinn made bodies . . .”
“Well . . . not exactly made them. To be frank, they stole them out of cemeteries in that world of yours. By enchantment they strove to bring them to life but it could not be done. And then some very bright fellows among us—I assure you they were very, very great magicians—snared these wandering sleep souls and made them come here. And as the days are of disproportionate length, though all is on the same ratio, the sleep soul was sixteen hours here and sixteen hours in its own world. It was no great trick to breed the trait into the race or to breed those revived bodies, made whole again by clever jinn surgeons. And so, there you have it. The jinn needed slaves and they got slaves and we’ve had some trouble because some fellows here get very important and try to incite others with their discoveries. Usually we kill them, for when the sleep soul is trapped here, both bodies die and so we are spared. And so we have slaves. Lots of slaves. And we do them a great favor, too. Eh, sailor? Is this not a fine land? Is it not beauteous? And is it not a great, great pity that we cannot allow humans in their own world to know about it and, perchance, do something to stop it? What is so bad about slavery? We are generous. Right generous, I think. The soul here is the true soul. Just as yours is the soul of a sailor. How unhappy you must have been as a scholar in your other world. I . . . uh . . . where was I?”
He poured her yet another drink and drank another himself.
Languorously she stretched. “Ah, but you’re a handsome devil, Tiger.” She smiled and moved closer to him.
Tiger smiled and reached out to put his arm about her. But, suddenly, there was a terrible clamor outside and footsteps raced up the stairs and all the palace reverberated with terrified shouts.
The woman came up straight and the door burst inward. Old Zeno, his towering hat askew and his robe all tangled in his rickety legs, stumbled to a halt.
“Your Royal Highness!” he cried. “Zongri—”
“You fool!” shouted Ramus, leaping to her feet. “You thick-witted jackal! What do you mean by this?”
Jan recoiled from her, for out of that comely shape rose the terrifying body of the queen, glittering fangs, matted black hair, split hoofs and ugly, scowling visage.
“Your Royal Highness!” quavered Zeno, not to be stopped. “This morning it was found that the pigeons of the royal Barbossi post had been missing for a day! And we have just found the dungeon guards all dead even to Captain Lorco! It’s Zongri! He is gone and a swift lugger is missing in the harbor! Your Royal Highness! Forgive me, but the pigeons have long arrived in the Barbossi Isles and those cutthroat pirates will even now have crossed half of the channel. When Zongri meets them they will come back and we have but four ships of war ready for battle while they must have forty! Your Royal Highness, we’re doomed!”
Ramus shivered. She hurried down the steps, hoofs clicking, to step to the seaward window and look to the horizon.
“Since morning???
?
“Or since night!” cried Zeno. “It is the end of everything! My charts told you! I read them to—”
“Quiet, wreck of a jinni!” She rushed out of the room and as she charged down the steps, Jan could hear her bellowing, “Get me Admiral Tyronin! Withdraw the cavalry from their outposts! Officers! Guards . . . ”
Jan dabbed at a very moist brow and Zeno looked fixedly at him.
“Well?” said Tiger. “You ought to be happy to have been so very right. It will put you up a mile or two around here.”
“Laugh,” said Zeno sadly. “Laugh, lightheaded sailor. You have caused this. And Zongri is not returning to level this kingdom half so much as he is to find you and put you to the stake. God help you, blundering mortal, for that is all the help you’ll ever get. I know.”
And, so saying, he walked away and the marids barred and bolted the door behind him.
“Zongri,” said Jan, going to the place the queen had stood. “Coming here . . . for me!” And a cold chill of horror went up and down his spine. But suddenly he straightened and marched back to the bed where he tossed off two drinks neat.
He threw the empty bottle aside and ripped off the white silk robe. Placing the ring upon his wrist—so large it was—he addressed himself to the task of getting on boots and pants and shirt.
“Zongri will take care of me in time. But before that, by Allah and Baal and Confucius, I’ve still a dancing girl to see!” And who knew, he thought, hauling on a boot, but what this same dancing girl, who might be Alice Hall, would prove his salvation, at least in the other world?
Chapter Ten
The Temple Dancers
He stood squarely before the door and Jan took a deep breath as though for a plunge into cold water, and Tiger fingered the great seal upon his wrist and chuckled. The ring had struck Zongri’s fetters from him and now, now he would investigate its efficacy on other types of locks.