Baiju did not nod or speak-but he smiled tightly.

"So," said Jim, "you never were their spy. But your learning the exit point of the secret way out of here was still a threat to ibn-Tariq, who wanted the White Palace to survive."

He turned back to face ibn-Tariq, who spread his hands before him, calm once more.

"I?" he said. "I have something of a friendship for Hasan ad-Dimri, but why should I be concerned with the White Palace or the attack on it by any Mongols? And what could one sorcerer do, in any case, against an army?"

"One sorcerer alone might not be able to do much," said Jim. "But a sorcerer connected with an army of Mamelukes coming to oppose Mongols is something else again."

"I have no connections with Mamelukes," said ibn-Tariq. "Though I have friends among them, of course."

"I think you have," said Jim. "You're what, where I originally come from, is called a 'politician.' I wondered, when I first saw you here just now, why you talked to Murad in front of us about a new leader being needed to make Egypt into an empire. A leader like Saladin, who was a Kurd-as was Murad. Why say this to Murad, when you and he knew he wasn't really Murad, but Sir Geoffrey? Of course, it was all for my benefit. For our benefit. Sir Brian's and mine, to reinforce the image of Murad, so we'd not even suspect he could be Sir Geoffrey. It was your idea, wasn't it? To arrange for us to catch a glimpse of Sir Renel?"

"And when did you come to these wild imaginings?" asked ibn-Tariq.

"As I say-when I first looked down on you here through a crack in the wall of that room above us that connects with the palace of Murad," said Jim. "If you knew Murad was Sir Geoffrey, why talk to him like that when the only ones listening were Brian, myself and Baiju?"

"So," said ibn-Tariq, "then you think I see myself as a second Sala-ad-Din, taking the fire and sword of Egypt over half the world, like Alexander; and then weeping because there are no more worlds to conquer?"

"No, I don't," said Jim bluntly. "I think you're interested in something much more manageable and practical. Reviving the nests of a.s.sa.s.sins and increasing their power, by combining it with sorcery. Your plan must be to recruit younger, less trained sorcerers to work with the other a.s.sa.s.sin nests you'd create; and you would be the master of those apprentices, the shadow Grandmaster of the sorcerers behind the power of all the Grandmasters of the a.s.sa.s.sins."

"You dream," said ibn-Tariq.

"I don't think so," said Jim. "You dreamed-of an empire. But you'd only just started to build it with the White Palace here. You built your power over this particular nest of a.s.sa.s.sins by offering Hasan power and wealth when he was a Sufi. If he would become leader here, you'd help him to gain power. It was something easy for you to do for him, using sorcery to impress the a.s.sa.s.sins already here."

"You guess, only."

"I'm sure enough," said Jim. "Hasan was a good man in his own way and you turned him to evil. The White Palace has survived and grown since then; but the beginning of your private empire isn't ready yet to stand up to a Mongol attack. That's why neither Baiju, Brian nor I could be let survive; and Hasan still had to be held by the curse."

"You weave lies into a cloth of falsity," said ibn-Tariq coldly. "Hasan ad-Dimri is under no curse, as you know. It is your Sir Geoffrey who bears the curse."

"Yes," said Jim. "But there were things about curses that, being a sorcerer, you didn't know; or else you wouldn't have had anything to do with them. Curses are like some vile disease. They eat away at the person they've touched. You saw the signs in Hasan too late to cure what had already been done to him.

You'd undermined his faith by tempting him away to lead a.s.sa.s.sins. That started the decay in him; and it was gradually eating away all his strengths. Strengthless, he'd be no good to you. So, you arranged to have his curse transferred to Sir Geoffrey; and all the wealth and luxury you promised him became only a step from the White Palace, moved sorcerously into the home of Murad of the Heavy Purse in Palmyra."

"Sir Geoffrey is a Christian," said ibn-Tariq. "How could I, a Muslim sorcerer, take a curse from someone else and place it on him?"

"You," said Jim, "couldn't. A sorcerer can't, any more than he can lay curses on persons in the first place-any more than a Muslim sorcerer can work magic against a Christian, a Christian against a Muslim, or either against a Holy person of their own faith. And it couldn't be done by Kelb. Or is Kelb really Kelb?"

"No!" A voice boomed out that echoed off the walls and rang down again from the cup of the domed ceiling-and where Kelb had been there was a puff of smoke and then nothing, only the voice- "I am Sakhr al-Jinni! Kelb was always the least of my slaves and still is. I put on his shape to watch you on Cyprus. Solomon, David's son, locked me in a bottle and threw me into the sea. But now I am free. It is no weak demon or sorcerer you face here, but Sakhr al-Jinni, Djinni of Djinn!"

The smoke thinned; and standing on the platform was the hideously ugly turbaned figure with the mismatched eyes and misplaced mouth that Jim and Hob had seen on Cyprus when Jim had asked to see Kelb in his Djinni form.

"Thou hast always been overproud and boastful!" said ibn-Tariq to him with sudden startling savagery, "and it seems thy time in the bottle taught thee nothing! Of all here, thou art the weakest, not the strongest. Now, a dog thou chose to be-be therefore that dog and not otherwise for ninety-nine lifetimes!"

Suddenly, where the Djinni-figure had been, was a small, ugly brown dog that yelped and vanished.

"Enough talking, James," said Sir Brian. "We have our swords. Let us move on this h.e.l.l-begotten infidel and his-his Djinni! A Muslim or a Natural can feel the edge of a Christian sword, or else the Crusades never were!"

"And likewise turnabout!" said Geronde sharply. "Hush, Brian!"

"What you suggest, too, is a lie," said Jim, still speaking to ibn-Tariq. "No Djinni-not even Sakhr al-Jinni-can lay a curse on anyone, Muslim or Christian. Below the one you Muslims call Shaitain, only the beings of a few kingdoms can. And the only ones of those available to a sorcerer are those who inhabit the Kingdom of Devils and Demons."

"So you think," said ibn-Tariq.

"So I know," answered Jim. "Only the Devils and Demons are creatures of pure hate, set in this world to test the children of humans. But Devils and Demons are penned in their own kingdom. They are released into human affairs only to plague humankind, or upset the balance between History and Chance-which is what reviving the a.s.sa.s.sins and blending them with sorcery would do. But Djinn can't call them up. Sorcerers can!"

He looked over at the puff of smoke, to where it was now shredding into nothingness, then back at ibn-Tariq.

"We magicians, too, could raise Devils and Demons," he went on, "but our rules forbid us. Sorcerers have no rules. You, ibn-Tariq, called up a Demon to lay that curse on Hasan. Now he is free and you cannot lay him again. Now you must tell me, in the name of all the Kingdoms, what Demon was it that you called?"

Ibn-Tariq's face changed. It did not pale, so much as go fixed-like a stilled picture in three dimensions of his features.

Awareness like a jolt of cold electricity all through him made Jim look up. The talking had gone on too long. It had distracted just enough of his attention from the shadows; and they had gained on him. Now understanding failed him. The shadows were not controlled by ibn-Tariq, but by the Demon.

They were close now, hardly an arm's length away from one or other of the humans cl.u.s.tered behind him. In the aftermath of the shock of seeing this, a rage that someone like ibn-Tariq could free a being with these powers rose and burned his mind clear.

He struck out at the shadows, with all the power in the staff, so that its top burned with small lightnings, scorching them back and back-not as far as they had been before; but enough so that he could again take some small part of his attention from them, for just the moment necessary to delve into his memory of all that was written in the Encyclopedic Necromantick, inside him and magically a part of him.

Somewhere was the permission he needed. Still holding the shadows at bay, he found in his memory the section marked Devyls & Deamons and read swiftly from the huge type of the prohibition against any magicians having to do with them, down and down to the smaller and smaller type, until he found what he was searching for.

Yes, there was an exception. One special situation in which it was permitted.

He snapped back to full attention on the shadows. They had crept forward once more; but again he drove them back, until they were a safe distance from him and those with him.

Only then, with breathing s.p.a.ce, he raised his voice.

"Demon who has been summoned and is loose in this period between History and Chance, by the power and right of the Kingdom to which I belong, I call on you to name and show yourself. Now!"

The air around them was partly sucked away for a moment. As if some giant, almost as large as the earth itself, had inhaled. Next, a great whisper, but a whisper only, spoke soundlessly in Jim's head-and he knew it would be speaking also in the heads of everyone else there as well.

"I am here," it said. "I, Ahriman, Demon of Demons."

Around them, the walls, the domed roof overhead, melted toward invisibility; becoming as insubstantial as mist.

Jim, all those with him, ibn-Tariq, Hasan ad-Dimri and the s.p.a.ce where Sakhr al-Jinni had revealed himself, were left standing together on nothingness, far above the earth.

It was as if they were now so high in the atmosphere that they could see beyond all ordinary horizons.

Their gaze went out and out until the sky around them and the landscape below merged in the far distance to a sort of dark mist. Below them was a landscape that was a pattern, a crazy quilt of not only s.p.a.ce, but time.

In one area, far below and beyond ordinary vision, in bright sunlight a battle was being fought. It was 'Ayn Jalut, two centuries past, and the Egyptian Mameluke leader was winning over a force of Mongols-Bay-bars, who was first to deal a defeat to the Mongols and went on to drive out the Christian forces from Lebanon. Closer, and more directly below them, at this moment a sandstorm was destroying crops and burying the homes of villagers. Things now, and things in the past, were all taking place at the same time, somewhere in that vast landscape.

"Answer me," said Jim aloud. "Ahriman, is ibn-Tariq now your master?"

The Whisperer who was Ahriman laughed voicelessly in all their heads.

"Who calls a Demon and is its master?" it whispered. "When a Demon is summoned, the Demon becomes master. I rule all; and ibn-Tariq is my creature. Look at him."

Jim looked across the airy s.p.a.ce that now existed between him and ibn-Tariq, and the man was still unchanged-as if he had become a wax figure of himself-the look on his face still the same.

"Now look down at what else I have done."

Jim looked; and perhaps a week's march away to the north, he saw a force of Mongols coming toward the mountains in which the White Palace was hidden.

"Look now south and east."

Jim looked, and the Mamelukes were there less than three days' march from the mountains holding the White Palace-much closer than the Mongols.

"The Mongols believe they have only to reduce one more nest of a.s.sa.s.sins, as they have reduced so many before," said the Whisperer in their heads, "but this time they will find a fortress armed, prepared and ready to resist them; and with an army of Mamelukes much larger than theirs, already in position, encircling them, but out of sight until they have come in, before the White Palace. The Mongols will die to a man; for Baiju will not have been able to tell them what he knows. And you will have told them nothing.

In the end there will be nothing but a whole world, aflame with war between Mamelukes and Mongols."

There was whispering laughter.

"And Murad of the Heavy Purse will take up his work again. Hasan ad-Dimri will sit as ruler of all, but puppet of ibn-Tariq, who is puppet of mine. You and these with you will be gone."

"No," said Jim. "We will not."

As Ahriman talked, a part of Jim's mind was reviewing what they all would have to do.

He turned to those behind him.

"Now, if you'll help," he said, looking at them, "with luck, we can win. The world can win, and Ahriman can be dealt with."

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE.

He watched their faces as they all looked back at him. There was something like joy in Brian's face, there was trust in Angie's, and in the hobgoblins'; and an echo of Brian's fierce joy of battle in the face of Geronde. Some of that eagerness to be at grips with the enemy was there also in Sir Geoffrey and Sir Renel-and Baiju grinned.

"If he wins, we die," said Jim. "But if we hold together, we can drive him back to his own place, where his power here will be ended. But you're going to have to ask something more of yourselves than you've ever asked before. Each one of you, once you join hands, must hold until it is over. You must never let go, for the sake of something in you that you would die for-something more important than life itself to you."

He waited a second to see if they all understood, then went on.

"If we, holding to what we would die for and together, all have that, we form a human chain Ahriman can never break through. All together, we can drive him back to his own place."

"There are not enough of you," said the Whisperer. Jim ignored him.

"Who can join hands under that condition?" he asked.

Angie smiled and put her hand into Jim's one free hand. With her free hand, she took one of Brian's.

Geronde had already slipped one hand into the other hand of Brian. Hob-Jim and Angie's own Hob of Malencontri-reached out and proudly put his small hand into Geronde's free one. Hob of Malvern reached out and took Hob's other hand.

"I want to be brave, like you," he said to Hob of Malencontri.

"You will," Hob told him.

Sir Geoffrey had earlier reached for Geronde's free hand, but she had pulled it away from him. Now, ignoring him, she looked past him at Sir Renel.

"Sir Renel?" she said in a clear, hard voice. "Have you something to die for?"

"Yes," said Sir Rend. "My honor, which I lost and found again."

He stepped forward and took the free hand of Hob of Malvern, then turned and offered his other to Sir Geoffrey, who took it; and they both smiled, gripping each other like old friends meeting after a long time.

The human chain was complete, from Jim to Sir Geoffrey.

"Good," said Jim. "Now, make a semicircle with me-"

He broke off suddenly. Ibn-Tariq had stepped forward and taken the only free hand remaining-that of Sir Geoffrey.

"I would be free," he said, looking across at Jim.

"We can use your strength," Jim said-and at that, Hasan ad-Dimri came and took ibn-Tariq's other hand.

"I would be as I was in the years before this," he said.

"All hold together then," said Jim. "For if any lets go, the chain loses its strength. Now-make a semicircle and we'll herd him back."

"You will fail," said the Whisperer.

Jim ignored the words.

"Ahriman," he called. "By the staff I hold, and the rules that bind you in your own kingdom, I call on you to make yourself visible to us!"

A hiss answered; a continuing, wordless, malevolent hiss in their heads that was dizzying in its effect. But ahead of them-and it was impossible to tell whether it was at the horizon or close to them-had appeared something like a black sun.

Like the sun, it was impossible to look at directly. It glared, and seemed to shimmer and move, if the eyes tried to hold it in focus; as if it was one black disk swiftly overlaying and melting into another one a little out of place from where the original was. Now, from it, came something like a powerful but pressureless icy wind that numbed their wills, rather than their bodies.

It was not a wind that could push them backward, or even take them off their feet. But it was like a great hand laid against each of them. It tried to drive them back, without any real feeling of touch; but only with the tremendous, reiterated threat not to approach the black and burning sun-shape.

"Hold to each other. Keep going!" said Jim.

He took the first steps forward; and the rest moved with him. They felt the pressure hard against them, not only on their faces, bodies and limbs, but within them-to the very marrow of their bones.

But they went forward; and each step of theirs was like a five-league stride across the s.p.a.ce-and-time surface far below them. Even with their first few steps, the black sun grew larger and closer. The pressure against them increased. It reached into them and tried to suck the life from them. Their steps slowed.

"Keep moving!" said Jim. "Never stop!"

The strain was on their linked hands, numbing their wills to hold together. It became harder and harder to do so. But now the knowledge was clear in each of them, unspoken but in all their minds-there was no way but forward. To stop, to go back now, meant that the blackness ahead would follow and destroy them.

Jim, at his end of the chain, a little in advance of all the rest and with the staff held before him, risked a glance at the faces of the others. So far, they were holding.