Gateway to Elsewhere

“It appears, lord,” he said apologetically, “that you know you can destroy Es-Souk, or whatever other champion appears to do battle with you.”

Tony glared at him. He thought he could, but he was not sure. His line of reasoning was tenuous, but he believed it enough, certainly, to risk his life on it. Yet he could not have managed that belief, at all, without his hot anger at the clumsily smart trick the djinn king had so obviously contrived. It was not fair. It was too smart. And it was complacent. The complacency may have been the most enraging part of the whole thing.

“I am quite willing,” said Tony, strangling with fury, “to take on the whole damned djinn nation, beginning now, and including your fellow-djinns who happen to be the floors and walls of this room!”

Abdul said tentatively:

“Lord, we djinn are the most powerful of created beings. Therefore we can only have as our ruler the most powerful of created beings. Any less—any whom we could destroy—it would be beneath our dignity to obey.”

Tony turned his back. He paced up and down. There was a pause. Then:

“I take a great risk,” said Abdul plaintively. “Lord, will you permit me to obey you?”

“No!” snapped Tony. “Go to the devil! Get out!”

Abdul sighed. Mournfully, but elegantly, he turned into a large mass of black, inky liquid which sank in funeral fashion to the floor and flowed toward the doorway. But it did not open the door—it went out through the crack underneath. Tony was alone.

He looked at the cigarette lighter in his hand. He touched his three separate pockets where phials of lasf—one almost empty, now—reposed. He reflected with savage satisfaction that it was not likely that he could be killed without some mangling, and that at least one of the bottles of lasf was practically sure to be smashed. And Tony’s information on lasf was confined to about three sentences from Ghail, and one experience. And the picture of the leaf the Queen had drawn. That was all he knew. But he could extend his knowledge of a common phenomenon in the United States and guess that the Barkutian use of lasf was woefully inefficient. With a cigarette lighter he could do better.

The door opened again. The commander of the guard of honor was back. He saluted profoundly.

“Lord,” he purred. “The king has made the proclamation you requested. He has appointed a place for the combat. He has given Es-Souk safe-conduct, and Es-Souk has appeared from hiding in the form of a rug on the audience-chamber floor and prepares himself for battle.”

“Very well,” snapped Tony, “I’ll go there at once. If he isn’t afraid, he’ll follow immediately.”

The djinn captain saluted again, with enormous formality, and withdrew for the second time.

Something stirred on the floor. A cockroach waggled its feelers imploringly, turned into an explosively expanding mistiness, and condensed again as Abdul.

“Lord!” said the stout djinn imploringly. “Hear me but a moment! The walls of this palace hear and report to the king! I asked to obey you. The king will know. If you do not accept me and protect me, I am lost!”

Tony shrugged.

“Unless,” he said skeptically, “this is more of your king’s conniving!”

“I swear by the beard of the Prophet!” panted Abdul. “Truly, lord, I can be most useful! Protect me, lord, and you will have the fleetest horse, the swiftest hound… I will carry you to the place of combat! I will bring you the fairest women! I will steal chickens—”

“Hm…” said Tony. “I suspect I did talk too fast. Where is this place of combat, anyhow?”

“I know, lord! I will take you there—”

“Then,” said Tony, “let’s get started.”

“This way, lord!” panted Abdul. “I beg you, lord, protect me until we are free of the palace—and after. Indeed I spoke too soon. Here—the window, lord…”

He raised the window. With an imploring gesture for Tony to follow, he jumped out. Tony walked to the window and looked out. There was no sign whatever of Abdul—but a wide stairway led to the ground from the windowsill. Tony swung up and tested it with his foot. It held. He went down. Instantly he touched the earth, the stairway collapsed into a cloud of dust which coalesced and was Abdul again. He wrung his hands.

“I should have waited,” he said miserably. “Indeed, the king will call me a traitor. But if you are truly the most powerful—I am your steed, lord!”

He was. There was a rippling, a shifting, a bewildering alteration of plane surfaces and colors, and he was a highly suitable horse, fully saddled and caparisoned. The horse came trotting to Tony’s side and waited for him to mount. He put his foot on the stirrup and heaved his leg over.

“Okay so far,” he said grimly. “Full speed ahead.”

The horse—Abdul—broke into a headlong run which was convincingly like real panic. It headed away from the palace at a pace even the djinn camels of the trip across the desert could not have bettered.

And, as a matter of fact, the appearance of things was enough to justify some apprehension. Word of the approaching duel to the death had evidently spread. Out of the gateway of the palace the djinns poured. They wore every one of the eccentric shapes Tony had noted in the line of courtiers welcoming him the night before. There were still some wearing the shapes of human women—those who had danced for him the night before. And as they poured out of the palace, the djinns whose shapes were adapted for speed retained them, while others dissolved into forms capable of more miles per hour. The whole assemblage looked like a glorified zoo in flight toward one distant spot. Even the palace began to come apart and join the rush. Item after item of its structure vanished from its place, swelled into a tall and somehow ghostlike whirlwind, and swept away in eager competition for good seats at the spectacle.

When the horse stopped, Tony swung out of the saddle, and the short, fat djinn of the turban reappeared. He was utterly doleful.

“Lord,” he said bitterly, “my life is in your hands! If you do not win this battle, the king will surely execute me in Es-Souk’s stead! I beg you to conquer in this battle!”

Tony wetted his finger to gauge the direction of the wind. He made sure of his handkerchief. He stooped and picked up a pair of medium-sized stones and slipped them in his pocket. Then he waited.

He was in a huge, natural amphitheatre some four miles long by two wide. Its floor was practically desert sand. All about, on the mountainsides, were perched the djinn. The foremost rows were dots, but successive rearward rows were larger to get better views, until at the very back tall whirlwinds spun eagerly, reaching ever higher for full vision of what was to come.

The last arrivals settled into place. The entire djinn nation watched. Abdul despairingly shivered, and turned himself into a small stone, indistinguishable from any other. Tony waited in the center of the vast open space. And waited.

And waited.

Chapter 14

Tony’s conscience said bitterly that since he was going to be killed anyhow, he might as well make a fight for it; but if he’d only listened at any single instant since Mr. Emurian offered him two thousand dollars for that ten- dirhim piece—

He swore softly. He felt singularly absurd, standing in the middle of a dusty, sandy plain with a cigarette lighter clutched in his hand, two small stones in his pocket, and with a multitude of lunatic shapes watching intently from the mountainsides about, and misty, ghost-like whirlwinds spinning expectantly beyond them.

For a long time, nothing happened.

“War of nerves,” he muttered indignantly.