Harem Of Aman Akbar Part 13

"What object might it be that has been taken from the Prince Among Princes?" Gobind asked, his voice fairly warbling with greed.

The Emir understood well the greed, if not the untranslated sense of the words, for his answer, while seemingly casual, showed consideration of his listener's dubious sensibilities. "Say that it is a magical thing which can impart great harm to he who would use it badly. Explain further that one would not think it so to look at this object, for in appearance it is but a simple bottle cap, decorated with an ornate seal. Tell them that my true reason for seeking it isn't so much the intrinsic value of the thing as that the poor stupid women might harm themselves or someone else while using it."

"The Light of the World need not concern himself for those women," Gobind answered ruefully.

"The Light of the World," the djinn said, sounding very much as if he would choke on the words, "says that he is concerned for not only the women, but that they will use the power of that object to destroy other places holy to your people, whom he reveres and respects. He wishes me to tell you how this situation grieves him, and bids me tell you that he was even this day on his way to seek the young King and persuade him that your G.o.ds should be honored with our own. Therefore, this matter of the demonesses is twice as troubling to someone of such-" The djinn tried to swallow, and could not, and coughed out the last words, "-generous conscience. He needs to find the women."

Gobind, moved by the content of the speech and oblivious to the tone in which it was delivered, crawled over to the Emir and kissed the ground in front of him. "You will prevail, o great one. As for the women, surely they cannot be far from here. Though my brothers and I finally drove their defiling presence from our altar, they may still lurk nearby, waiting to desecrate it again. It is more likely that even now they cower in the jungle, fearful of our wrath."

I felt like showing him how fearful I was of his wrath, but had better things to do. Locating an invisible donkey carrying an unconscious man in the middle of a jungle while surrounded by enemies one does not wish to alert is no easy task, even for a woman who cannot be seen. When the Emir's second-in-command bellowed to his subordinates to fan out and search the jungle, I grew frantic-so frantic that in stumbling back through the trees where I had left Aman, I nearly tripped over him and his cargo before realizing I was in his presence.

I had hoped to learn more of the purpose of the Emir's visit and perhaps to purloin the djinn's bottle while I enjoyed the advantage conferred upon me by the vanis.h.i.+ng cream. However, the search and Marid Khan's tortured breathing and drained, bloodied face, once smooth as milk and now blotched and b.u.mpy with insect bites, convinced me no time was to be lost.

I whispered to Aman Akbar, "In the river, beloved. And quickly. I will hold your pa.s.senger upon your back and your strength shall pull us across."

The water was sluggish and shallow, only chest high at its deepest on me, but there was a strong undertow I doubt I could have resisted alone. I kept a nervous eye out for the big lizard, but it and its cousins did not molest us. I cautioned Aman Akbar to keep his head above water so that the ointment in his eyes would not be washed away. The headcloth I tied around my neck so that its sacred scent would not be diluted.

We were but the length of two tall men from sh.o.r.e when the soldiers saw us and shouted. "Behold! Someone is in the river over there."

I dared not look back but presently the sound of a blow carried across the water.

"Lout! Don't you know live women from one drowned man?"

"Still, we should tell His Excellency."

I guided Aman into tall reeds near the banks, within which Marid Khan's limp body could be concealed, as if it had drifted there of its own accord. I slid the nomad chieftain from my husband's back so that a body would not be seen to float in midair from the opposite sh.o.r.e, although I would have liked to have heard the conversation that would follow such a discovery. He was heavy and slippery to pull through the tangle of undergrowth, but as soon as we were well-concealed, Amollia and Aster found us and aided me in remounting him upon Aman's back. Thereafter we fled, with all possible haste, cutting through the jungle with the sacrificial knife of the idolators, bearing right until our path intersected with a trail.

When night fell with no evidence of pursuit, we thought ourselves safe. The monkeys scouted before and behind for us and reported no other human in either direction. The supernatural aspects of our behavior had no doubt alarmed the enemy host and convinced them that we had (as two of us had indeed) vanished into the ethers.

Nor were our enemies the only ones unnerved by such aspects. Twice Aster stepped on my invisible heels, and I kept getting brushed in the face as Aman Akbar flipped flies from his invisible body with his invisible tail.

"Can't you show yourself now, Rasa?" Aster asked, nursing the toes of her right foot, with which she had just gouged a large piece of flesh from my ankle. "After all, you're among friends. It's unfair that Aman Akbar has to see the rest of us with our hair mussed, our faces dirty and bloodied, and our clothes torn while you hide so conveniently."

"Aster," Amollia said quietly but firmly.

"Well, it's true. I don't know who she thinks she is to just disappear like that and then run things when she won't even face a person."

"I will not waste more of the vanis.h.i.+ng cream just to appease your wounded vanity, little sister," I said. "I am trying to make the spell last until we gain the Div's cave once more."

"Cave? What cave?" We had been so busy being quiet and tense while trying to elude the Emir's forces that we hadn't done much talking. I told what had befallen me since the bird made off with me, and of meeting Hyaganoosh and the deposed Queen of Divs.

Aman Akbar snorted that he could see no reason for us to endanger ourselves by reentering the cave. For his part his faithless cousin Hyaganoosh could hang by her toes and he would not mind.

"If you command it, Lord and Master," I said like a good obedient wife. "We will, of course, choose another path. But the fact of the matter is that without your cousin's help we cannot free you from the spell. Also, we owe a debt to the man you bear upon your back, and it is in my mind that the Queen of Divs is the closest person who might have the skill to aid him."

Aman Akbar said something rude-an a.s.s's expression he had no doubt picked up among the pack animals, and that concerned me, for I hated to think that he might be becoming more and more like a donkey the longer he looked like one. Nevertheless, he conveyed the impression that however reluctantly, he agreed with my reasoning.

The chattering of the monkeys took us by surprise, but they too had been surprised, for they had been alert for signs of humans, and the rapid pattering behind us was four-footed. Amollia, guarding our rear, turned with knife in hand to face this new threat. Before she had attained her defensive stance, however, the animal sprang from the bushes and leapt upon her, its tail las.h.i.+ng with excitement, loud rumblings rolling from its throat.

Amollia deflected her knife at the last moment and embraced her old companion, both of them behaving in a sloppy and sentimental manner that seemed to disagree with the cat as much as it did me, for the animal emitted a great belch and burped forth a cloud of smoke which caused Amollia to swat the beast to the ground as she coughed.

The genie gathered himself together and bowed with his usual superciliousness. "Gracious ladies, former master, how it cools my eyes to see you reunited and to know that I have played no small part in your happiness."

"And the prevention thereof!" Aster cried indignantly. "How dare you appear in your serpentine guise only to disappear without lifting a finger to help us! Why, had the bird not carried Rasa away and had our poor elephant not intervened to drive away the fiends you you set upon us we would all of us be dead." set upon us we would all of us be dead."

"I have always said the worst part of dealing with women, old master, is that they exaggerate so and bend everything completely out of proportion. They are far too imaginative and oversensitive to understand complex situations."

"Do you mean to stand there and look pompous all day, rotund one," I asked, "or are you going to explain yourself?"

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. Impatience. Another problem you women have. But I'll say this for the three of you. You are faithful wives-" This praise being received less enthusiastically than he deemed it merited, he added in an aside to the air between Marid Khan and the ground, "though perhaps in truth they did take a bit long to reject the advances of the conjured creatures I set upon them, former master. Still, they did better than most of their s.e.x, and for that reason I shall render unto your party the benefit of what a.s.sistance I am able to provide without compromising my professional integrity."

"When you approve of us, fat one, I begin to wonder where I went wrong," I said. "I didn't notice any of this a.s.sistance of yours handy when the bird was carrying me off after having nearly yanked my hair from my head. All you did was hiss in my face."

"A face much improved by thy new cosmetic, if I may say so, dear lady," he replied nastily. "As a crude barbarian, thou naturally wouldst fail to comprehend the intricate machinations of fate. But ponder upon this: had the bird not delivered thee from the hands of thy tormentors, wouldst thou have found the cave of the Divs? Wouldst thou have gained the aid of the vanis.h.i.+ng cream and thereby delivered thy companions and thy husband from their oppressors? What a selfish creature thou art, to seek to escape a moment's fear and discomfort at the expense of making thyself useful to those who need thee."

"Suppose you explain this fate of yours to the rest of us foolish females, if we are so lacking in understanding," Amollia suggested with a soft amiability belied by the sparks in her coal-black eyes.

"Yes, and also where was all of this help you were supposed to be giving us."

The genie's face was as clouded as his entrances usually were. "I see that I am not believed and yet, I speak the truth. No one could be sadder at the inconvenience your family has experienced in the hands of this wily prince, and I prevented what it was possible to prevent. You must bear in mind that even a djinn has not the ability to be in more than one place at once, and you naughty women delayed me to no end when you made your way across salt water, over which we of the djinn cannot traverse, and came unto this land. I had to travel overland, around the sea, to reach you, and that was no short or easy task. At the same time, I could not abandon your husband, ensorcelled as he was by my own spells and in the hands of those who knew him not. Also, I was continually at the beck and call of your enemy, the Emir, who holds the bottle containing my soul. As I have already explained, were it not that the seal to this bottle is in your hands, I would not have been able to a.s.sist you as I have done."

"In that case, I'll throw it into the bushes immediately," Aster said tartly, reaching into her sleeve. I knew she was only threatening, but the djinn did not and held up his hands as if he thought she were going to throw it at him.

"Do so, lady, and never wilt thou behold thy husband again in his true form. Let me but continue and I shall show that no one was ill-used by me. For your sake I have stretched myself very thin, and this is all the thanks I get." His tone was so lugubrious that I almost clucked my tongue with mock sympathy, but restrained myself. "For know that after I departed thy presence in the tents of the nomads, I was called to the Emir, who waxed exceedingly wrothy when I explained to him that I could not force the three of you to return with me on account of the very seal he craved. Ordinarily, that person would be my master, for it is the seal that binds my soul to the bottle. As I tried to explain to thee and thy companions previously, Holder of The Seal, in this case thy possession of the seal while the bottle is yet in the hands of the Emir presents me with a conflict of interests. I can serve neither of you directly, nor use my full powers to help either of you prevail against the other.

"When the Emir learned that he did not control me fully, he flew into a rage and would have broken my bottle and destroyed my soul, but I convinced him it was better to attempt the stratagem involving the Divs. Further, it was arranged that while the Divs delayed you with dalliance (or whatever proved necessary), the Emir and his men would travel forth, meeting both yourselves and the allied Div henchmen at the temple. In this way, by the time His Eminence arrived, your persons, if not the seal itself, would be at his disposal. Had the Divs failed to obtain the seal from you, the Emir could have taken it personally, for he is under no magical restraint. Since my plan coincided with his own for traveling here to attend the wedding of the Div King to the Lady Hyaganoosh, after which he planned to use the magical influence of his ally to subvert the young King, I was able to cajole him into adopting it. For my part, I must not let him know I oppose him in any way. That is why I entered the snake to converse with you, when the minions of your enemies were close at hand.

"Likewise, when I saw that the nomads had cast you out for having traffic with me in my true and terrible guise, and that my former master was helpless among them and without your protection, I entered from time to time the body of thy cat, dark one, to prevent thy husband from coming to harm among the wanderers. Not that he stayed among wanderers long. As soon as the n.o.ble Marid Khan discovered that you women were missing and the ar ar was thereby broken, he mounted upon the a.s.s, and, with the help of myself within the cat, came straightaway here to offer you his continued protection. That is why it took me so long to come overland. I kept having to backtrack to allow them to catch up with me." was thereby broken, he mounted upon the a.s.s, and, with the help of myself within the cat, came straightaway here to offer you his continued protection. That is why it took me so long to come overland. I kept having to backtrack to allow them to catch up with me."

"How good you are to us," Aster spat.

"Next he will be saying it was not our elephant who saved us from his henchmen, but himself within the elephant," Amollia sniffed.

"What elephant?" the djinn asked. "Just like a woman to throw in irrelevancies and confuse my tale."

"The elephant we obtained in the wise woman's village," Amollia said. "Those persuaders you arranged to trick us into relinquis.h.i.+ng the seal were about to kill me when they saw that Rasa was gone and Aster would not give them the seal. They picked at me with their magic, dissolving my jewelry from my body and warning Aster that my skin would go next. Fortunately, our younger sister is of a delicate disposition. She screamed when it seemed they would actually do such a thing."

Aster shrugged. "It only makes sense to scream sometimes. Otherwise, how is anyone to know a person is in trouble?"

Amollia sighed deeply, and nodded. "That is true. Our elephant heard her and charged in with a mighty trumpeting, his great feet causing the ground to tremble, his mighty body breaking through the very walls. He lifted the Div and smashed him against the wall. He trod upon the one who resembled you, Rasa. But he who wooed Aster was quicker than the others and hurled a spear into the poor beast. It ran away in terrible pain-straight over the man who wounded it. We two fled into the jungle and concealed ourselves, and later that night, a flock of giant vultures descended in front of the temple and turned into men. When they left, they carried the other three with them on their backs."

"That explains the ill humor of King Sani," I said, remembering the Div King's grimness.

"When they left and the rain began to pour harder, we returned to the temple to try to find food. In our search we discovered the idol."

"We knew not what she might be G.o.ddess of," Aster said. "But I deduced she might be the one favorable to weary travelers and so the food upon her altar had been left for the same, namely us, just as offerings at Fatima's shrine go to the monkeys, snakes and tigers. Therefore, at my urging, we ate that food. I've been wrong before. While I was chasing a garbanzo bean, I happened upon the pit under the altar. You can stand up full length inside the idol and speak through the little tube. I think the fat man knew all about it."

"Speaking of food," I said to the djinn, "we have all been without today. I don't suppose you could-"

"That would be unethical," the djinn replied. "Too helpful. If the Emir discovered I had aided you in so direct a fas.h.i.+on, he would hasten to put gla.s.s splinters in my soul."

"Is that so?" I asked, suddenly glad I was invisible. I didn't like to tremble with rage in front of so many people. "What do you suppose he'll do to ours if you don't help us? He has not only his army and all the Divs and all their power but you as well. Your so-called kindly feelings toward us are as nothing. Very well then," I ended ominously, not considering what the effect of my disembodied furious voice would be on my companions.

"What are you going to do?" Aster and Amollia asked in unison. Aman Akbar nipped me smartly.

"Regain the accursed bottle without delay," I answered. "I would have done so before except that I was more concerned with preserving our lives."

"Pray continue being concerned for them somewhat longer then, O sister," Amollia said. "For the magic we possess is as nothing compared to that of the Divs. And we dare not wait to find aid for Marid Khan," she cast her eyes down at the twitching shoulders and fly-bedeviled body of the formerly das.h.i.+ng brigand prince. "Even now he is near death."

"Excuses," I fumed, my anger at the djinns contrariness overcoming the good sense in Amollia's argument. "A Yahtzeni warrior does not listen to excuses-" Before I made myself a greater a.s.s than Aman Akbar, my speech was prevented by a yodel bursting upon us from the tree-tops. Looking up, I saw black veils sailing overhead like the wings of some great crow. This vision was accompanied by the screechings of many monkeys and at first it looked as if the veiled figure was swinging toward us on the vines. Nor was I the only one to fall prey to this misconception, for the notion of persons swinging through the trees with monkeys and bellowing loud cries has persisted in the region, and spread even unto Amollia's land. Who would dream that such a story could be born from the rather comical sight of an ordinary elderly mother flying to her son on a prayer rug activated by her religious fervor, or that the apelike cries she was reported to emit were nothing more than the desert woman's traditional half-joyous, half-mournful trilling, the zaghareet?

The carpet settled among us, and she looked about her in a perplexed and impatient fas.h.i.+on. "Where is he?" she asked, looking from the djinn to Amollia and Aster. "Where is my Aman? What have you done with him? Fatima said the monkeys had found him and would guide me to him if I sent my prayers to G.o.d from this rug. He must be nearby."

Aman brushed past me and all but knocked Marid Khan from his back in his haste to rea.s.sure his mother.

The djinn meanwhile grew frenzied and smoky, crying, "Oh, foolish woman! Oh, betrayer of my soul! Now you have done it. Why cannot members of your feeble and weak-minded s.e.x leave matters alone?"

"What are you babbling about?" Aster demanded. She looked no happier to see Um Aman than I was. are you babbling about?" Aster demanded. She looked no happier to see Um Aman than I was.

"In flying straight here, she has as much as led the Emir to us. Such a carpet as that may be observed from miles around and most particularly would have been visible from the temple. You must hasten or your enemies will be upon us like jackals on a corpse before the moon has risen."

Chapter 12.

Midmorning the following day, shortly after we had taken the fifth right-hand fork in the road, the thudding hooves of the Emir's horses pounded behind us. We had been traveling all night on foot, for we dared not risk using the prayer rug and attracting more attention. The last faint jingle of harness faded down the left-hand road before we had traveled more than an arrow's flight from the place we had been when the first horse approached.

I swore, the djinn looked pained, and Aster cried, softly, "We are lost!"

"No so," I said. "I'll enter as I left, through the lemon grove. The rest of you can wait until I return with Hyaganoosh."

But as we stood on the rocky plain overlooking the lemon grove, Amollia turned to me. "Rasa," she said, "it is in your mind to do something foolhardy, is it not?"

"I mean to recapture the bottle," I said. The djinn, who had wafted along beside us as we ran, studied me carefully. I gave him a hard look and he discreetly dissolved into smoke and blew away.

"I shall go with you," Amollia said. "You will need a.s.sistance." Her face was set and determined, her black eyes level and sober, though they stared slightly to the left of me.

Extracting the ointment pot, I dabbed my finger in very lightly. She recoiled for a moment when she felt my invisible finger swab around her eyes and down her cheeks, and then faded, but not all the way. I could spare no more ointment, for I needed enough to disguise Hyaganoosh. Amollia wavered before me, her translucent darkness giving her the appearance of a colorful spectre. In the dimness of the cave she would be very difficult to see.

"Stay right beside me," I cautioned her as we slipped through the grove and faced the long, green-shadowed pa.s.sageway.

"Here," she said, and handed me the end of her sash. Where the garment stretched between us, it was invisible, though the parts attached to us were not. "I cannot keep beside you unless I know where you are."

From the ledge above, Aman Akbar brayed. Aster and Um Aman leaped to support the body of Marid Khan as it slid from our husband's back, joining the carpet on the ground, and Aman began trotting down into the grove. We ran quickly back to meet him.

"Husband, what are you doing?" Amollia asked, stroking his ears.

I gave him the headcloth and he shook his head. "No wives of mine shall risk themselves for my sake without my help."

"But, husband," Amollia said softly, "the life of Marid Khan is upon our heads. He and the rest of our family will need you sorely if we fail. Are you not honor bound to protect them? And is it possible for you to be in two places at once?"

Aman snorted and laid back his ears. "Argue if you will, beloved, but this matter must be as I say, for a wife must be obedient to her husband, for G.o.d has made the husband superior to her. So it is written."

Amollia's hand fell to her side and she regarded him with a faint quizzical frown. "Truly?" she said, her tone more amused than cowed. "My people see it that man is of the rhino but woman of the crocodile and neither has anything to do with the other and indeed neither speaks the language of the other. Therefore, not only can there be no true commerce between them, but there can be no superiority or inferiority-only misunderstanding."

Aster, looking extremely anxious, had scrabbled down the hill behind us. "Sounds reasonable to me," she said. "Not that the Master of our philosophy would agree, but he never has a good word for women anyhow."

"Until we have that bottle, the Emir is superior to us all," I pointed out. "Do you want me to try the plan my way, husband, or shall we simply submit ourselves to his mercy now?"

"Never," Aman shook his mane, rolled his eyes, and showed his teeth. When none of us trembled with terror, he gave himself another shake and sighed deeply, saying, "Very well. I suppose there is no need for a dung merchant to marry a battle maiden if he behaves like an a.s.s when she practices her craft. Do as you will, my fearless love. I will protect the others." And he turned and trotted sadly back up the hill, Aster in tow. Their steps dislodged a shower of droplets from the leaves of the lemon trees.

The floor of the pa.s.sage s.h.i.+mmered with a coating of mud and water almost ankle deep. We had already turned right twice down two more pa.s.sages without encountering anyone, when the noise began. I had only a moment in which to wonder why a bird was loose in the caves, when that bird was joined by nine hundred and ninety-nine others and the promised thousand gongs, warbling and bonging rebounding off the walls of the pa.s.sages, turning corners and attacking us with the force of clubs. The slip of shadow that was Amollia slunk against the wall, hands to ears. I did likewise and hoped that continuing right turns would quickly lead us back to the women's quarters.

The heavy tread of running feet splashed through the corridor ahead of us, straight for us, and pa.s.sed. The feet were unshod and similar to those of the elephant, attached to monsters wearing the silvery livery of the Div King. They bore no arms, but were equipped instead with horns in the midst of their long blunt snouts, long tusks protruding from gray leather lips, and large yellow teeth. Their lolling tongues were broader than a man's shoulders, and their own torsos were only slightly larger, being basically in the shape of men. They waved taloned paws before them and their forked tails whipped at our legs as they pa.s.sed. Never had I beheld such a various collection of malformations.

These creatures raced past us at every turn until the corridors seemed as filled with them as they did with water. And all the while the gonging and warbling never ceased. Down one last corridor, the water covering the floor grew shallower until it dried up completely, the lengthy distance of a broad stretch of unbroken wall. Certainly this had to be the same wall that had opened into the harem but how had it opened? Amollia crashed into me while I stood there wondering. From the tunnel to the left came the heavy pounce of eight clawed paws. I rammed my finger against the door but to no avail.

I felt fingers at my belt and Amollia fanned the now translucent headcloth before her.

"Greetings, wraith of the wondrous fragrance," the bitiger growled.

"Greetings, grandest tiger of any jungle," Amollia replied courteously.

Hollow voices echoed from the entrance chamber. "Hear the beast growl and rumble? What do you suppose it's onto?"

"Could have captured something. Let's go see, shall we?" And elephantine feet thumped the cave floor again.

"Oh, great bitiger," Amollia said plaintively. "Do not let those creatures find me."

"Except for your smell, there's not much of you to find," the bitiger said. "Who are you? Are you related to that other who smelled similarly?"

"No, great bitiger. I am but a simple ghost, the spirit of one of the King's former wives. I can find no rest until I have regained a talisman which was not burned with me when I died."

"Happy to oblige," the tiger said, and roared the door open again for us. Amollia slipped immediately into the shadows and I shut the door in the bitiger's striped and bewhiskered face while it gazed with greedy golden eyes at the captive contents of King Sani's harem.

If the ladies had been engaged in primping before, they were in a veritable orgy of it now, with cosmetic pots, sticks, jars and bottles flying from hand to hand and spiders bearing trays of brilliant gems from which light s.h.i.+vered and splintered, and gorgeous gowns deeply trimmed in sumptuous embroideries and swirls of gold and silver thread embellished with jewels, feathers, ribbons, coins, fringe and all manner of ornamentation.

Hyaganoosh still occupied the center of the harem, but she had changed. She was more decorously dressed than before, in many layers of robes and gowns of varied hues and patterns, flowers upon birds upon teardrop swirls of rough and smooth textures, of fine fur and s.h.i.+mmering silk, and gossamer like b.u.t.terfly wings. But her hair was dressed most plainly, save for a thin diamond chain dropping a thumbnail-sized pendant between her eyes. The rest of her tresses were now strung up behind her from one of the iron rings. Moreover, a frightened and bewildered look had invaded her eyes, from which self-satisfaction had fled, to be replaced by a certain vagueness common in the expressions of the others.