Ignoring the guide and the bearers, he turned once more to Jim and Brian.

"Enter, messires," he said. He stood aside to let them come through the doorway in the narrow s.p.a.ce left between himself and their luggage. Then he closed the door behind them upon the sound of lamentations and protests from both the guides and the carriers. "Five drachmas would have been ample.

You have been robbed, messires, but there is little help for it, I know, in a city like this, where you are not known and you do not know its ways. Come, Sir Brian, Sir James. Sir James, my master is indeed expecting you. Follow me."

He led them down the short, dim-lit and narrow corridor toward a farther door, from which several other men, obviously lesser servants, ran in, ducked past them and ran on to the outer door. Jim heard the sound of the bolts being driven home and the heavy bar being lifted back into place. They stepped through the inner door.

Suddenly, it was as if they had stepped back into a palace out of the Arabian Nights.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

They had entered a large room with a lofty, white dome-shaped ceiling and one wall that was not a wall but s.p.a.ced pillars, showing either an open corridor or a balcony beyond them. Entrances, both high and wide, in the other two walls ahead, opened on further rooms beyond, giving glimpses of similar high ceilings and stone walls.

The stone itself was beautifully fitted, and jutted out to make a gallery on the wall to Jim's left, its floor some fifteen feet up. Shielding the gallery was a screen of worked stone, with intricately curved, small apertures piercing every part of it, so that it was in effect a screen of wrought stone to hide anyone who might be standing behind it and looking down. A few pieces of furniture, mainly ha.s.socks, cushions and low tables, were lined up against the walls of the room, leaving the center of it completely open, increasing the appearance of its size-an appearance that was reinforced by the light-colored stone of the walls. Bright daylight seemed to be flooding in, not only through the pillars, but from other, hidden parts of the room, either by clever architecture or magic, so that the whole place seemed to float in mid-air.

"If you will follow me, messires," said the red-robed man; and led them off through one of the farther entrances which were rectangular to about six feet off the ground, and then swelled into an onion-shaped arch with a sharp upward point in the center.

They followed him, through rooms that were almost identical with the first they had seen. Carpets, with indecipherable figuring upon them, were everywhere. Occasionally they caught sight of men, dressed in loose green blouses and trousers, pa.s.sing through the corner of a room-from doorway to doorway-in the same rooms they traversed.

Now that he stopped to think of it, Jim remembered that the servants that had run to rebar the door had also been dressed in green. The red-robed man paid no attention to these, however, so Jim and Brian also ignored them; and they went for some distance, always flooded by the remarkable daylight that seemed to penetrate into every room, even those that had walls on four sides and no visible form of lighting otherwise.

At last, they came to a small closed door, a rectangular door, not unlike the two by which they had entered from the street; but this door was of highly polished, dark, rich wood, with a handgrip in its outer side that seemed to be of shining silver.

Red-robe stopped before it, and Jim and Brian necessarily stopped with him. The silver-haired man spoke to the door.

"Master," he said, "Sir James Eckert, the Dragon Knight, is come. He is with me now, outside your door, with a companion, Sir Brian Neville-Smythe. What is your will, O my master?"

"They may come in," said a deep, quiet voice from beyond the door. "You may go, Majid."

"At once, my master," said Majid. He turned to Jim and Brian. "Abu al-Qusayr bids you enter."

He stood aside from the door, which opened softly and apparently of its own power. Looking through the entrance, Jim saw a smaller room than they had encountered so far, still high-ceilinged, but completely windowless, with all four of the walls windowless, but bright with the same ever-present daylight.

Against a far wall, a square-shouldered man sat cross-legged on a thick, white cushion, with a round table of black wood before him. On the table was a bowl apparently filled with clear water; and beside this stood some pieces of silver apparatus, very intricately fitted together and with jointed parts that were probably movable, but which now stood still.

The man, himself, behind the table, had a wispy white beard on a firm chin. He looked to be of something more than middle age, but his actual age was anyone's guess. He was a strong-looking man, sitting straight-backed, dressed in a long robe that covered his legs and feet completely in his present cross-legged position-a robe of the same color of red as that Carolinus habitually wore, a softer red than Majid's robe. His brow was lofty, his eyes dark and his face square and suntanned beneath a straight nose and a straight mouth.

He gave the impression of being utterly reliable, utterly to be trusted. The sort of person who is like a glimpse of land to someone helplessly adrift in a storm-torn sea.

Jim and Brian advanced into the room, and the door closed almost noiselessly behind them. Curiously, in spite of the warmth that seemed to emanate from the man himself, the air in here was cooler and strangely fresh. The man gestured toward other pillows against the wall, and three of these slipped out in front of his table, apparently on their own power.

"Sit down, Jim, and you too, Brian," he said. He smiled. "I see Majid didn't realize there were three of you."

"Three of us, sir?" said Brian, a little sharply as, more easily than Jim, he dropped into a cross-legged position on one of the pillows before the desk.

"You forget your little friend, whom Jim is carrying, Brian," said abu al-Qusayr. He turned to the already seated Jim. "Come out, little one. Don't be afraid."

Jim felt a stirring in the small hidden knapsack on his back, and Hob climbed out onto his shoulder. He stood erect, holding onto Jim's neck, his feet on Jim's shoulder and looking at the bearded magician.

"Come," said abu al-Qusayr, patting the table top in front of him. "Come and sit here, little friend."

To Jim's surprise, Hob leaped absolutely fearlessly forward onto the table top and sat down cross-legged on the spot indicated, staring interestedly up at abu al-Qusayr, who examined him in return.

"You are a Natural," said abu al-Qusayr. "What I believe is called a hobgoblin, back in the place you come from. Isn't that right?"

"Oh, yes," said Hob confidently. "Actually, I'm also Hob-One de Malencontri-but n.o.body but m'lord Jim and m'lady Angela can call me that. Maybe you can call me that. Do you suppose?"

"I suppose I could," said abu al-Qusayr. "But it's a long, rather formal name. I'd rather just call you Hob too, if you don't mind"

"I don't mind if you do it," said Hob confidentially.

"Good," said abu al-Qusayr. "How did you happen to come along with m'lord Jim and Sir Brian?"

"I came so I could hurry back and tell m'lady Angela if m'lord gets into any trouble at all," said Hob.

"She'd like to know. She worries about him."

"I can understand that," said abu al-Qusayr. He looked at Jim.

"With all due respect," said Jim, "don't you suppose you could be asking me those questions?"

"I could, of course." Abu al-Qusayr stroked his small white beard. "But I was curious. I wanted a little conversation with your Hob. I'd never met his form of Natural before. Are you gentlemen quite comfortable? You may be a little overdressed for this climate."

"Why, damme," said Brian, almost wonderingly, "I was a little more than comfortably warm on the way here, but this house of yours is very airy, cool and pleasant. I'm quite at ease, now."

"And the pillows," said abu al-Qusayr. "Can you manage to sit on them comfortably? I know you people from northern Europe are not used to sitting in this position."

"We do it a fair amount, when out away from home or any other lodging," said Brian. "We'll sit like this around a fire of nights when we're far from any lodging. I find no discomfort in it."

Brian, to Jim's ears, was beginning to sound almost as trusting as Hob had, toward this magician. Abu al-Qusayr seemed out to charm them all. Jim waited, a little grimly, for the force of that persuasion to be tried on him.

"As for you, Jim," said abu al-Qusayr, with no attempt at all to put him at his ease, but speaking as if they had been old friends from the start, "trouble follows you like bees after a man smeared with honey.

Have you been aware of a small brown dog around you, since you left the European sh.o.r.e?"

"You mean Kelb? The Djinni? He's already approached me about getting my protection," Jim said. "It seems his master was another, very powerful Djinni, who's angry with him for having escaped from a lake of fire into which the other Djinni had him thrown."

He heard his own voice coming out warmly and confidentially.

I'm already falling into the same sort of soft trap that this man got Hob and Brian into, he told himself.

He stiffened his back and deliberately spoke coldly. "I told him I'd think about it. He's been hanging around me, but I haven't had any trouble with him."

"Well," said abu al-Qusayr, "he's perfectly right to be afraid. Sakhr al-Jinni is one of the most powerful of the Djinn. You, yourself, should be careful of him, also. I would counsel you to have little to do with this Kelb."

"I wasn't planning to," said Jim.

"Good," said abu al-Qusayr. "You're ranked as a C magickian, now, I believe?"

"Yes," said Jim, feeling a twinge of embarra.s.sment, and becoming angry with himself almost immediately for feeling anything at all. Why, he asked himself, should it matter to him what rank this bunch of magicians chose to consider he should hold?

"I don't think a Djinni like Kelb should give a C-rank magickian any great problems," said abu al-Qusayr. "But you want to avoid anything that might lead you into getting mixed up with Sakhr al-Jinni.

It's true he's only a Natural, but he's one of the very powerful Naturals, and one of the most vindictive."

"I was planning on avoiding him," said Jim.

"I thought you would," said abu al-Qusayr. "Still, no harm in mentioning it. But there's something else I unfortunately have to mention to you. Carolinus just pa.s.sed word to me that he'd gotten notice of another complaint filed against you by a separate kingdom. The Grand Demon accuses you of impersonating a demon. Would you care to tell me your side of that matter?"

Jim told him.

"I see," said abu al-Qusayr, when he was done. "Excuse me a moment, then-"

He bent over the bowl of water or whatever it was on the table in front of him and stared into it. While Jim, Brian and Hob sat silently waiting- Jim with an uneasy feeling in his stomach-there was silence in the room. Finally abu al-Qusayr lifted his gaze from the bowl of water.

"Much more cheap and convenient, you know," he said to Jim, "doing your scrying in a clear bowl of water. You don't have to have a gla.s.s globe, as you northerners do. Everyone to his own taste, of course. Well, I would say that you'd have no trouble answering that accusation. I'll have to disqualify myself as one of your judges, of course-"

"One of my judges?" said Jim.

"Quite naturally," said abu al-Qusayr. "Naturally, I know this region, and I've had a few contacts with demons myself-just in pa.s.sing, you understand. However, they would still have to call me as an expert witness because of my local knowledge; and what I can tell them should clear you completely. Not, actually, that you need my testimony. The facts are plain enough."

"You were looking at what happened a couple of days ago? At the castle of Sir Mortimor Breugel?"

asked Jim.

"Yes," answered abu al-Qusayr. "As I hope you know, scrying is usually limited to events happening at the present or possibly in the near future; but under special circ.u.mstances, of which a capital accusation is one-"

"Capital!" echoed Jim. Capital crimes even in the first part of his twentieth century normally called for a death sentence. "What would happen to me if I was convicted of actually having violated the demon kingdom?"

"We'd have to turn you over to the demons, of course," said abu al-Qusayr. "Just as you would have had to have been turned over to the King and Queen of the Dead, if that earlier charge of willful trespa.s.s upon their kingdom had been proven against you. Of course, it wasn't. The guilt in that case actually lay with Malvinne, the French AAA magickian-and you saw what happened to him, I believe."

"I did," said Jim. He would never forget the sight-Malvinne being drawn up into dark clouds sculpted into the forms of the King and Queen of the Dead on their thrones; pulled up as if he had been a drowned rat at the end of a string.

"Well, as I say, it doesn't matter," said abu al-Qusayr. "As I just told you, even without my expert testimony, the facts are indisputable. You made it very clear, for the record, in speaking to Sir Mortimor, that you would not turn yourself into a demon. You only said you would produce one. You lied to him, of course, which is perfectly justifiable under circ.u.mstances where the magickian needs defense, but wishes to do no harm. You merely let him think you had produced a demon, which is not a violation of demon sovereignty in any way. The fact that Sir Mortimor, Sir Mortimor's men and those who were attacking his castle believed you to be a demon was their mistake, and their responsibility. You fulfilled the magickian's command to defend himself without harming anyone else. You did no harm."

"No harm," echoed Jim, in a low voice. In his mind's eye he saw the bodies of the Moroccans scattered all over the beach, being searched and even cut into by Sir Mortimor's men, to see if they had swallowed anything small but valuable to protect it from being stolen.

"Don't let it disturb you," said abu al-Qusayr, as if he had read Jim's mind. "If it hadn't been the Moroccans who were killed, it would have been Sir Mortimor's men. Sir Mortimor-and possibly you three as well. But come now, let's have something to eat and drink and talk about more interesting things."

Jim felt a sudden breath of air on the back of his neck; and a moment later a green-clad servant set down on the table top a tray of cakes and three tiny cups of what looked like very black coffee, one each in front of himself and Brian; and the third in front of abu al-Qusayr. He also put down a bowl of milk before Hob-who lapped it up like a cat. The bowl of clear water and the other apparatus on the table had vanished a second before the servant appeared.

Abu al-Qusayr immediately sipped from his coffee cup and nibbled at one of the cakes. Jim vaguely remembered from his reading that such was good manners in this part of the world. The host would eat and drink before his guests, to show that neither food nor drink were poisoned.

Jim lifted his own cup to his lips; and, sure enough, it was very strong coffee, very heavily sugared. He saw Brian tasting his; and a look of astonishment coming over his friend's face before he set the cup down. Brian, surrounded by transplanted Europeans, had obviously so far not been offered anything but wine and water until this moment. Still, Brian's manners were enough to keep him from making any comment on this hot, bittersweet brew.

"I am sorry I can't offer you wine," said abu al-Qusayr. "There is none in this house. The Koran, as you know, forbids it to true Muslims, of which I am one. As I understand it, Brian, you are in search of the father of your beloved, so arrangements may be made that she be given you in matrimony; and James, here, has out of friendship come with you on this trip-albeit a little behind you, catching up with you in Cyprus."

"That is so," said Brian. He had only taken a couple more sips of coffee, but he had already eaten five of the little cakes. Jim noticed that they were magically replenishing themselves on the tray, as fast as those that were there were devoured. "My lady's father went off on a crusade, though few would do so, nowadays; but he hoped that good fortune would attend him, if he did. We had lost track of him until just lately. Then a knight returning from this part of the world gave her word that her father had been seen in Palmyra, which we understand is inland from this city of Tripoli."

"It is indeed inland," said abu al-Qusayr, "on the other side of the mountains and then a distance. But it is still on the caravan routes and it is a city of merchants. Perhaps her father has become a merchant and that is the reason for his staying there. If he is doing well he may have chosen not to return home."

"How do we get there?" asked Brian.

"I would say," answered abu al-Qusayr, "the only sensible way for you will be to join a caravan taking goods shipped from Tripoli to that city and others beyond. The route lies through the mountains, which are now dangerous because of a nest of a.s.sa.s.sins that have flourished there in the Kasr al-Abiyadh, or the White Palace, in the last few years."

"a.s.sa.s.sins?" asked Jim, beating Brian to the question by seconds.

"Yes," said abu al-Qusayr, "at least they claim to be Hashasheen; and I would not risk doubting it. They are not, of course, of the original a.s.sa.s.sins, which began with Ha.s.san ibn al-Sabbah, who was the first 'Old Man of the Mountain.' He seized the castle of Alamut, in a valley near Kazvin, nearly three hundred years ago; and Alamut was their headquarters for many years, until the Mongols took them, one by one.

Finally, Alamut itself fell to the Mongols; and the last of the a.s.sa.s.sins' castles in Syria, Kahf, was conquered less than a hundred years ago. But still the brotherhood crops up from time to time. I do not know the name of the one who calls himself Grandmaster of this group in the mountains you will be pa.s.sing through; but he was a Sufi, one of the Orthodox who worship Allah, but in their own strange ways. He felt called upon to become an Isma'ili and joined those Isma'ilis who are Hashasheen, or a.s.sa.s.sins, as you would say. But the caravan itself will be armed and ready; and if you stay with the caravan, your chances should be good of getting to Palmyra."

"That sounds not too difficult," said Brian. "Indeed a small bicker along the way would possibly be welcome, to break the tedium of the trip."

"I'm glad to hear you so confident," said abu al-Qusayr. "I suggest, however, you keep an eye out. Not only for a.s.sa.s.sins, but for other enemies, most of them Naturals. There are actual demons among those rocks, as well as ghouls and spirits of various kinds. You might even encounter a griffin or a c.o.c.katrice; although these are rare nowadays and are not likely to approach something as large as a caravan."

Jim noticed Brian's face had paled. Hob leaped from the top of the table to Jim's shoulder and clutched him around the neck.

"Would they want me?" he cried at abu al-Qusayr. "Would any of them want a hobgoblin like me?"

"Never mind," said Jim, shortly. "I'll make sure that nothing from an a.s.sa.s.sin to a c.o.c.katrice has anything to do with you."

Hob sighed with relief, and sat down on Jim's shoulder. Jim noticed that abu al-Qusayr was looking at him with a curious interest.

"Do you," said Hob, addressing abu al-Qusayr, then hesitating, "do you have a fireplace around here some place?"

"I'm sorry, little friend," said abu al-Qusayr. "There are no fireplaces here. However, there are fires in places like the kitchens. Sir Brian, I must speak privily with Sir James, here. Would you be good enough to allow yourself to be shown your quarters, now? On the way, then, you could be taken past the kitchen, and Hob could be shown what we have by way of fire and smoke in this building."

"I would be glad to do so," said Brian, rising smoothly and athletically from his pillow without even putting a hand to the ground. "We will be staying with you, then?"

"Just overnight, I believe," said abu al-Qusayr. "I have arranged for you to join the caravan to leave tomorrow."

Behind him, Jim felt another puff of air, and the voice of Majid spoke behind them.

"What is your will, master?" said the voice of the silver-haired man.

"Show Sir Brian to the room set aside for him and Sir James," said abu al-Qusayr. "On the way, go past the kitchen; so that our small friend, now on Jim's shoulder, can see the cooking fires there. Perhaps Hob would like to ride on Sir Brian's shoulder?"

Hob immediately leaped over to land on Brian's shoulder. Brian looked a little startled, but did not object as Hob took a firm grip around his neck. Jim turned his head to watch them go out through the door, which closed noiselessly behind them, then looked back at abu al-Qusayr.

"You don't even want Hob listening to what you have to say?" he asked abu al-Qusayr.

"In this case, I think it's just as well," said the older magician. "I'm glad you sounded so confident now about dealing with these other creatures that might threaten you in the caravan. Actually, the threat is small. Most of them like to find their victims alone. On the other hand, if you see the Mongols at all, they may come in such force that the caravan will be helpless before them. In that case, I suggest you not resist them. Just explain why you're going to Palmyra. I've arranged for some wine, and a certain amount also of cooked wine-I believe in the north you call it brandy, as well as other names-to use as a bribe on the Mongols. You might promise them whatever you think it might take to give you safe pa.s.sage. Also, it might be wise if you made the cooked wine appear as if by magick, whether you actually use magick or not-I understand you're limiting your use of it at the present, and I applaud that. But magicking the cooked wine into existence would keep them from thinking there's more of it hidden around the caravan, someplace; in which case they would tear everything apart. The Mongols are known to be fond of alcohol."