“By the Seal of Sulayman! Open wide!”
Jan almost leaped out of his wits at the resulting crash, so certain was he that it would be heard by every jinni in the palace. On the instant of command every bar, inside and out, leaped upward from its bracket and fell down with a clang. The great lock was rent as though a bolt of lightning had struck it. The portal smashed back against the wall and Jan stood facing three astounded marids.
But he was braced to go and they were too startled to properly receive him until he was almost upon them. And then their swords sang from the scabbards and the first lunged with his pike.
Tiger took a step of the hornpipe and the pike passed him by. He ducked and a saber clanged into steel just over his head. He skipped back away from the slash of the third and instantly drove into him like a battering ram.
They left the top step like an explosion, the marid’s scarlet cloak wrapping them all about and billowing as they fell down the flight.
Tiger, like his name, came up standing at the bottom—standing on the chest of a very battered marid. Scooping up the guard’s saber and pistols and hurtling back to jeer at the howling pair who charged down from the top, he raced to the next flight and took it in three jumps. He was in a corridor and for a moment he had to think out the palace’s plan. Then, knowing that it was inevitable to avoid going through most of it, and with the yells of the marids banging his eardrums, he again raced forward and down another flight.
Around the next landing he heard voices but so great was his speed that he could not check himself. Like a catapulted stone he shot toward five officers who instantly faced about, recognized him and snatched at their swords.
Jan knocked them sprawling in five directions and, though a little stunned himself, did not consider it necessary to pause and help any of them up. He soared like an eagle down the next flight, hope burning in him that he could find a way around the great audience chamber. But so great was his speed, with proportionately little time for scouting, that before he could check himself he was thirty feet into the enormous hall and charging straight at the throne.
Ramus had been giving irate instructions for the city’s defense and when she thought she beheld a rambunctious page she started to roar out at him.
The floor was so slippery that it was almost like skating. Jan curved away and though still two hundred feet from the throne, he was stamped by his blues as well as his human form and, instead of an angry shout, the queen cried, “TIGER!”
He was already diving toward the immense black doors, already estimating the guard across them. So far the marids were faced the other way and if they would only stay so, he had a chance of getting through them.
“TIGER!” roared Ramus, and when again he disregarded her she shouted, “Take him! Captain of the Guard, STOP THAT MAN!”
As one, the cordon before the doors whirled around, pikes up. It was like a picket fence leaning over and every point glittered hungrily to receive him. He could not stop because of his speed and the floor. And though (who knows?) Ramus might have had it otherwise, the order stood and the instinct of the pike soldier is to spear whatever he sees.
“TIGER, YOU FOOL! YOU’LL BE KILLED!”
But he was even then on the pikes—or rather, almost on them, there being quite a difference. For Tiger, with all a sailor’s agility, slashed sideways with his saber, engaging two pikes at once and feinting them aside, to plunge instantly through the gap. The marids saw steel flash before their faces and, astounded by the maneuver, ducked back. And by the time they had recovered to again level their weighty weapons for the kill, Tiger was fifty feet away from them and multiplying the distance with alacrity.
Ahead was yet another cordon, that which guarded the outside doors. And these, hearing the clash of steel on steel, were alert and waiting, soon astonished to find that a human being was racing out of the palace toward them. These men had ample warning and Tiger saw in the instant that they could not miss stopping him.
To his right and left were other great doors, leading into the depths of the palace again. He did not think twice. He roared, “By the Seal of Sulayman! Open wide!”
The right-hand door crashed open, its lock so much iron junk. Beyond, a large room yawned. But already the guards were advancing from the front entrance and Tiger waited not at all but plunged in.
He was over the threshold before he saw that he had come to the last place in Tarbutón that he wanted to be—the office of Ramus’ chief of staff!
The soldiers in the place stiffened in their chairs and along the wall to see a sailor dash in without any more ceremony than a bloodthirsty flourish of a saber. Instantly they perceived that an assassination was in order.
The general fired point-blank with the pistol he always kept on his desk. But the ball buried itself a good foot above Tiger’s damp head. Steel flashed as men made for him.
Tiger had no time to think about it. Battle was battle to him. But Jan cried out, “By the Seal of Sulayman! Down with the wall!”
With a thunder of cracking stone, the front of the room fell outward, obscuring everything in a white cloud of mortar. The flash and roar which had followed the order and the sunlight which abruptly poured in upon them held the soldiers for a terrified instant.
Jan leaped through the fog in the opening and clutched at a vine which grew down the building’s face. He let it through his hands so fast that it smoked. Earth smote the soles of his boots and he raced off on the rebound, diving into the protection of shrubbery and running bent over while branches sought to flog him.
The uproar he left behind him was spreading like the waves of a rock dropped into a pool. He saw an outpost dashing in toward the palace and ducked low, halting for a moment. The scarlet cloaks streamed by and an instant later he leaped into their dust and sped toward their unprotected section. The sentry boxes fled by on his right and he dashed through the deep dust of a road to gain the less pretentious and more welcome rank of stores which faced the square.
Citizenry gawped at him. A marid in green instantly suspected the worst and scudded in pursuit, his long green cape pouring after him and the whistle in his mouth trilling hysterically.
Jan sprang into an alleyway and pressed himself against the wall. The policeman rounded the turn an instant later. Tiger stuck out a foot and the officer went down with two hundred pounds of sailor to pin him to earth and still the whistle. Tiger trussed the marid with the green cape and then, not waiting to see if the alarm had been answered, surveyed the scene about him and decided upon a drainpipe which led to a two-story building above.
Like the sailor he was, he dug in his toes and hand over hand rocketed up the sheer face. He flung himself over the parapet at the top and looked down. Two policemen had answered the call promptly but they were just now arriving beside their squirming, swearing brother-at–law, and their immediate attention was for him and not a possible quarry.
Jan drew back his head. Before him, side by side, stretched a long avenue of roofs, inviting him to try his broad-jumping proclivities. He took the dare but he traveled at a slightly slower pace, for he was feeling his exertions a little.
An hour later, having startled three separate sunbathing parties out of their respective wits but without having met with any further misadventure, he came to the base of the hill toward which he had stubbornly worked. He let himself to earth and sought a clump of trees and there, sprawled at length, he got his breath and gazed admiringly at the architecture of his goal. Before very long, however, his admiration turned to something very near dismay. The priests who had caused this place to be constructed had kept a watchful eye upon their own security.
The great varicolored cube which, like the head of some monster, swallowed and disgorged thousands of jinn, was high and aloof upon its hill. And though grass grew upon those precipitous slopes it definitely ended the landscaping. This place was a fort! And the canny high lords of it gave no intruder a single tree for cover. It was the crowning insult to see priest s
entries on a parapet which ran the circuit of the roof. Tiger fumed. One had to ascend those steps or wait for night and he was not fatuous enough to suppose that he could pass his brawny humanity for an ifrit.
Night, he decided disconsolately, it would have to be.
Though he well apprehended the danger of entering the town again, he was aware of thirst and hunger and suddenly bethought himself of a certain deep dive where the proprietor was indebted to him through said proprietor’s undue faith in dice. Jan smiled as he very vividly remembered a night when Tiger had won the place, tables, hostesses and kegs and had magnanimously loaned it all back forever. It was weird to recollect such a thing because Jan had never experienced it himself, just as Tiger couldn’t have told one end of an astrolabe from another. But now Tiger could work an astrolabe and, no doubt, Jan could shoot dice with maddening precision.
By alleyways in which his feet were trained, he flitted through the dusky shadows and came, at last, to the rear entrance of the dive. Cautiously he edged in and peered at the occupants of the taproom.
Several human beings, persons who were very much in keeping with the dingy furtiveness of the place, sat at the scarred tables along the wall, drinking questionable beverages. As long as they were human Tiger knew he had nothing to fear from them and so boldly entered, marching up to the bar and casually greeting the keeper.
He was a man of rotund build, placid and usually cheerful, and because of those attributes and his obvious docility, he was allowed to operate his tavern, though it was a favor rarely accorded humans.
His mild little eyes turned to Tiger, started to move away and then came back with a crack and pop. “Good God! YOU!”
“And what’s the matter with that?” said Tiger.
“Listen,” said the proprietor in an excited whisper, “you’ve got to get out of here. They know you come here! The alarm is out for you and not ten seconds ago there was a squad of marids here looking for you!”
“Then they won’t be back very soon. Lazy fellows, marids. Would you mind digging into the larder and setting forth fare fit for a gentleman? I’m famished!”
The tavernkeeper eyed him wonderingly. “You ain’t scared. I know you wouldn’t be scared. But you ought to have pity on me. Just think what’ll they do if they find you here! Geez, Tiger, I don’t know what you done, but the patrol was the Queen’s Desert Troopers and they looked upset as hell.”
“The queen objects to my leaving her tea party. If they come back I’ll swear you didn’t recognize me. How is that?”
The man was very doubtful but he was not able to withstand Tiger. He stuck his head through a square hole and spoke to his wife in the kitchen. Then he looked at Tiger again and dabbed at his forehead with his apron.
“Hot, ain’t it?” he said weakly.
“Can’t say as I’ve noticed,” said Tiger with a grin.
The proprietor puttered with glasses and his hands shook so that he almost dropped three in a batch. He gave it up. “Look, Tiger. Like a good guy, would you go over to that table agin the wall and make yourself as small as possible?”
Tiger shrugged. “It’s all the same as long as the food is good and there’s lots of it.” He wandered to the designated spot and began to seat himself. Suddenly he started.
At the table next to his were two men he was certain he knew and yet for the life of him he could not place them. One was hooknosed and spidery-handed and possessed two liabilities in the form of evil, bloodshot eyes. The other was obese and as slick as though he had been freshly lubricated—though with somewhat rancid oil. They were quite obviously of a certain class of slaves whose masters specialized in the lower orders of crime, and had a kicked-cur look about them which filled a beholder with disgust.
Tiger lowered himself slowly into his chair. He was very puzzled. He usually remembered faces very easily and the names as well, and though he told himself that he would not ordinarily notice such vermin and that he had seen them here on other occasions, he was not at all convinced. Who, he demanded of himself, were they?
Presently the proprietor came with a ham and a chicken and three bottles of different wines. His cargo sounded like castanets and he almost missed the table with it, so intent was he upon the door. Hurriedly he made a second trip for bread and then withdrew to morosely seat himself at the end of his bar and keep an eye upon the place from which he was certain doom would soon enter in the form of the Queen’s Desert Troopers.
Tiger ate slowly, pondering his problem and somewhat annoyed that he would bother to dwell upon two such scurvy beings. There was a certain familiarity about them which was incongruous, and then Jan’s fund of knowledge took a hand.
I’m changed, Jan told himself. Why couldn’t it be possible for these two to be known to me in the other world?
And with that as a starting point he carefully surveyed their features until he was as exasperated as though he had a word on the end of his tongue and couldn’t say it.
At last the two gentlemen in question, being two to Jan’s one, took exception to his scrutiny. They muttered about it in low tones and evidently decided that it wasn’t to be tolerated. The one with the bloodshot eyes came ominously to his feet and stalked over to Jan’s table.
“If you got something to spill, out with it, pal.”
The obese member of the duet waddled over to back his partner up. Jan looked from one to the other of them and they mistook his attitude for apology.
“All right,” said the fat one. “But don’t git so nosy, see?”
And they would have walked back had not a bolt of lightning struck in the center of Jan’s brain. “Wait a minute. I know you fellows.”
“Yeah, well, we don’t know you and don’t want to neither. So if—”
“You,” said Jan, seeing the almost indefinable line of features at last and pointing to the fat one, “are Shannon!”
“Huh?” said the indicated one.
“And you,” said Jan in sudden excitement, “are Nathaniel Green! That’s it! That’s it! I could feel it! Look, sit down. I’ve got a matter to talk over with you.”
“He’s cockroachy,” said the indicated Green.
“Look, buddy,” said the greasy caricature of Shannon, “we’re minding our own business and if you want to pick daisies from the underside, you’ll forget to mind your own.”
But Jan was laughing, looking from one to the other of them. “Green! Poor old Nathaniel Green. Where’s your watch? And you! Shannon! A tub of lard with a coating of dirt and as surly as a kicked pariah!” His laugh grew louder.
The pair were uneasy on more than one count. They were quite aware of the pistols in Tiger’s belt and of the size of Tiger’s shoulders and were somewhat intimidated by the correct language springing from a sailor’s mouth. It looked like a magic spy trap to them and they weren’t having any. They shuffled, growling, back to their table, got their hats, haggled over the reckoning and left.
“Who are those men?” asked Jan when the keeper came over to find out the cause of the argument.
“Them? Gutter pickin’s. Dauda’s jackals. They eat his leavin’s. What’s the idea gettin’ me in trouble with a guy like Dauda? Ain’t you got no sense, Tiger? You come back here with the troopers on your trail, talkin’ like a swell and lookin’ . . . well, lookin’ different. I wouldn’a’ knowed you at first. But listen, Tiger, will you finish up and get out of here. You know you’re welcome to anything I got but they’ll be comin’ back pretty soon and it’s as much as my life is worth. After all, the Queen’s Desert Troopers don’t go pokin’ around unless a man’s assassinated a duke or something.”
“All right. To save your nerves I’ll finish and go,” said Tiger. “Besides, I don’t think much of your trade anyway. They stink.”
Dusk found him again at the foot of the temple hill. The enormous cube stood out against angry clouds and from every entrance there streamed the light of flaming braziers. Torches flanked the avenue of steps and their fitful flare fell weirdly
upon the throng of jinn. Evidently some great rite was to be held, for all the crowd marched upwards and none marched down and it was plain from the fanfare of flashing jewels that the worshipers were dressed for some state occasion. Perhaps, thought Jan, the word had gone about that Zongri comes with a fleet from the Barbossis. But whatever it was, his chances of entering that place undiscovered were very remote indeed.
He was almost on the verge of turning back when there again came to him the vision of the dancing girl upon the steps and, simultaneously, the memory of the girl who had shown him the only kindness he had ever received. She was there, a dancing slave to the jinn, and who knew but what the morrow would find him dead in this world and, consequently, the other as well. Certainly he owed it to her to try, if he could, to free her and give her into the keeping of one who would repay favor with favor—Admiral Tyronin, whose influence was great enough to protect her and who, even in the event of defeat, would very probably be suffered to retire to his island estate on parole. High officers, remembered Tiger, seldom suffered greatly in these wars.
No, he could not leave her there to be ultimately thieved by some persuasive jinni—as was the fate of these dancing girls. And besides, every atom of him demanded to confront her and speak to her.
Tiger strode forward, skirting the mound until he came to the rear. As on a cliff the temple blazed above him, marids in silhouette upon the walls. He loosened his saber in its sheath and looked to the priming of his pistols and then began the ascent.
Of all mortals, only dancing girls had come here in the history of the place except those few who had dared it to end upon a pike at the foot of the steps, grinning at awed beholders. There was treasure in this place to tempt even honest men and in the town it was sometimes said of a thief that he was bold enough to “scale the heights of Rani.”
Tiger, scaling the heights, was not thinking about being bold but only of discovering an entrance and making his way through the place to the quarters of the dancers. The long grass caught at his boots and strove to hold him back, but he made it pay by grasping handfuls of it and so hoisting himself upward. It was no great trick to ascend the slope but Tiger had been giving his attention to the ground and did not see the next barrier until he had almost fallen into it. The dark hole gaped and he held hard to the edge, one foot already in. Hastily he drew back, eyeing the trap in the flare of the torches above. Here, dug so as to be unseen from the plain below, was a moat about thirty feet wide and as deep. But no water was here, only a hiss and rattle as things moved on the floor.