“I,” said Zongri in a voice like a file through brass, “happen to be wearing your chains, Ramus. But my patience is great. For thousands of years I waited for my release. It taught me how to bide my time. . . .”
“It taught you little else!” roared Ramus.
“But it did teach me that,” said Zongri, looking as though he wanted to fly at her throat. “And I can wait until you visit me in my own realm, the Barbossi Isles, where I would have been even now if your cursed ships were not so glutted with cargoes for the weaklings I find here. How am I to know what has transpired in the ages since I left? How was I to know that the jest of Eternal Wakefulness, once so marvelous, would bring any danger here? How was I to know that soft living and slaves had reduced my race to the point of putty? My magic beyond my power? And if I have done this thing, what of that?”
“What of that?” bellowed Ramus in a fury. “You witless son of chattering monkeys, can you not see the desolation which would spread if all humans in our world would come to know the TRUTH? Quick now, stop blabbing your ignorance and closely look upon the prisoner. We must know!”
Again Zongri fixed his raging eyes upon Jan until Jan could feel them lifting off his scalp and tearing his clothes to ribbons. Suddenly Zongri tensed and took an involuntary step downward. Then, so swiftly that all his chains clanked as one, he faced the queen.
“If I can truthfully identify this man, you free me?”
“Of course.”
“And allow me to depart?”
“With our most heartfelt relief!”
“Then, Ramus the Maggoty, know that the human before you is Jan Palmer, victim of the Eternal Wakefulness, and long may he roast in hell!”
Jan almost fell forward on his face but staggered upright again.
“Ah,” said Ramus, “I see that the prisoner admits it too. Very well, Zongri, we bear you no great malice . . .”
“I would that I could also say it,” growled the giant ifrit.
“. . . and will suitably see you away to your home.”
“And no thanks earned,” snarled Zongri.
“IF you take away the sentence from this man!” snapped Ramus.
“Bah, why bother with that? Kill him and have it over!”
“Aye, that would be your solution, witless one. How like your sons you are, to choose the last resort first. This may be Jan Palmer but it is also one they call Tiger, a man who earned a better fate by feats of daring in a dozen battles and who once saved the life of Admiral Tyronin, one of my finest officers. Certainly if it must be done, ’twill be done, but stay awhile. How, pray tell, were you able to put such a sentence upon him?”
“You said you would release me.”
“I said I would, to be sure, but I had not stated all my conditions.”
“You harpy!” screamed Zongri, leaping straight at the queen. Only the swift action of the officers on the steps kept him from reaching her. She had not so much as blinked and only smiled when Zongri was thrown back to his original position.
“We might forget to wend you home at all, Zongri,” she reminded him. “We have deep graves here for those who do not please us. Now, to business. We ask you to spare us the necessity of murdering this man, for, while your line has never done us anything but wrong, his at least has done us some slight good. To be very truthful, Zongri, we would much rather destroy you than this common sailor here.”
Zongri was so angry he could not even speak. He cast the guards away from him and stood there, his ripped shirt showing a vast expanse of heaving, hairy chest. The other ifrits averted their eyes from him but not inexorable Ramus. She was almost laughing to see such a powerful man so completely entangled at her whim.
“Come, speak up,” said Ramus. “By what magic power did you bring this down upon Tiger? Speak! I would as soon execute you as not—in fact I have no compunction whatever in the matter.”
“I speak not from terror of your threats,” growled Zongri, “but to avoid having to longer stay in such a treacherous place, gazing upon such ugly faces. Very well. You seem in this age to know nothing of the yesterdays. You know nothing or have completely forgotten the day when Sulayman brought us all to account by the magic which was his by virtue of his seal.” He seemed to doubt the wisdom of going on but Ramus motioned for the executioner to step nearer and Zongri swept on like a rolling storm, his temper rising to white heat but telling his tale just the same. “Know that the seal was lost to him some years after—”
“Come to the point. We have heard all that,” said Ramus.
“It was lost to him and so was his power lost. You have heard of that seal?”
“If you speak of the triangles laid so as to form a six-pointed star surrounded by a circle, we know the Seal of Sulayman.” She chuckled to herself to see her guards wince at the mention of the potent thing.
“Aye,” said Zongri, “such was the seal. Such was the Seal of Sulayman and even a replica of it upon a leaden stopper carried sufficient force to entomb me all those bitter years, worn though it had become.” He stopped again and stubbornly decided he would not continue. But once more the executioner stepped forward and once more Zongri blazed with the fury of impotence. “You have no right!”
“And you’ll have no life,” said Ramus. “It’s all one to me whether we cheer you on your way or bury you.”
“To Shaitan with your threats. I speak to save myself further defilement.”
“Then speak.”
“When I was released I touched the stopper as I said those words and, because the seal was made by Sulayman himself and with that ring, there was enough power there to do it.”
“You are not telling us the whole truth,” said Ramus.
“Robbers, thieves!” shrieked Zongri.
“And what is that upon your hand?” said Ramus.
“Very well!” he screamed at her. “You’ll have it all! I have shown great patience. I have tried to leave you as I found you. I have tried not to destroy this city until I myself could occupy it with my own men, for conquest is my lot. But, abortively, my hand is called. Look!” And he thrust it forward.
She leaped back.
He jerked the ring from his finger. “Look! I searched but a day to find it. Sulayman got it back and I knew how to find his tomb. It lay in the miserable dust which remained to him and I took it up and put it on and all the secrets of the two worlds will be mine! All the land will yield to me. Earth will disgorge all her buried treasures, walls will fall at my bidding! Look well and be as stone!”
But nothing happened. Baffled, Zongri whirled around to face his guards. Again he howled the decree and still nothing happened though he held the ring high over his head.
Ramus was the first to laugh aloud. “Oh, vain fool, in its life that ring gave all wisdom to Sulayman the Wise. But because it was worn by human, it lost its power over humans. And now, think not that I know little of magic. You, an ifrit, have worn that ring and so have destroyed its power there. Between you and Sulayman,” she chortled, “you’ll have it as powerful as a doorknob!”
“Beware!” howled Zongri. “Stand back. If it lacks that power, it still has many more. Stand back, I say!” And it seemed that only the lions would fail to obey as they strained toward him hungrily.
The marids were so hypnotized by the strength of the man that they did as he ordered and, for the moment, Jan was standing quite alone, close beside the plate and iron which fastened the leash of the right-hand lion. Jan was sweating and then, suddenly, felt lightheaded. Tiger grinned a wicked grin.
Down dropped Tiger to the floor and out of Zongri’s wrath-blinded sight. It was the work of an instant to jerk out the confining pin. The chain had all the slack out. The lions were maddened by Zongri’s loud roars, completely intent upon his dervishlike movements.
“See! I strike off my own chains!” shouted Zongri. And with a clank the enormous fetters dropped into a rusty coil about his feet. “And now, treacherous clowns . . .”
But the cha
in gave way in that instant and two thousand pounds of lion sprang straight at Zongri’s hairy throat!
Zongri flung up his arms to meet the shock and staggered back. But Tiger was not at all idle. He went up over the beast’s back like it was a ratline and before two roars had gone shatteringly down the hall he was astride the brute’s head and twisting his tender ears until they creaked like cabbage leaves.
It was a mad tumble of ifrit and human and jungle king and so ferocious were the bellows coming out of the mêlée that the other lion, seeing them all hurtle down toward him, did not attack at all but leaped back in terror.
A dozen stouthearted jinn officers flung themselves upon the chain and yanked some slack from it. Two more sent the pin clanging home where it belonged. A stouthearted major dived into the mess and flung Zongri out of it and across the pave. He grabbed again but the sailor had already leaped free, the lion lunging after. The chain pulled the brute back on his haunches and Tiger, seeing instantly that the devil was again chained, gave him a resounding cuff across his tender nose and snapped his fingers so hard that the beast started.
Complacently, Tiger stepped back between the two marids who were still frozen in place.
Other guards picked up Zongri and lugged him forward to again stand him up before the throne, this time well clear of the lions.
“Hoho!” said Ramus. “Were you going to leave us so soon, Zongri? Stay yet awhile. Don’t you enjoy the company? Major, take the ring away from him!”
That officer leaped up to do her bidding and yanked Zongri’s hands toward him to remove the seal. But, in a moment, the major gave a yelp.
“What have you done with it?” he cried.
But Zongri was obviously jarred by the discovery, for he jerked loose from the officers and scurried about the floor on all fours, searching. In an instant all the guards followed suit. Ramus watched them with a worried frown as though half-minded to do some looking herself. But soon every inch of even that huge hall had been thoroughly searched without any result.
Zongri was the first to give up. “Your thieving guards have stolen it!”
“Sir, they are my personal household troops. Not one man of them would stop at laying down his life for me. Besides,” she added, “my officers here have been watching them like hawks and I have been watching the officers. There were not so many.”
“I demand that you search them all!” screamed Zongri.
“It shall be done,” said Ramus. “Major, tell off three officers to do the searching. The seal is too big to hide.”
The searching was quickly done by the process of patting the capes of all marids without result.
“And now the officers!” yelled Zongri.
“Even that insult I shall permit,” said Ramus, “though I beg their forgiveness at such an affront. Major, search them.”
The major, by the same process, did so and when he had finished, still without result, the voracious Zongri bellowed, “And now search the major!”
That officer disdainfully stepped up to Zongri and let himself be mauled, though his face had an expression as though he smelled something very bad.
“Are you satisfied?” said Ramus, troubled into mildness.
Zongri stared all about him, bewildered and growing angry to the point of insanity. Everyone in the room had been searched and the floor had practically been torn up and yet— With a sudden growl, Zongri leaped at Jan.
“You, you sniveling wretch!” cried Zongri. “You, the cause of all this! What have you done with that ring?”
Two officers started to intervene but Tiger swept them back by throwing out his arms. “Search!”
Zongri would have ripped the clothes from him shred by shred but the executioner was thoughtfully swinging his blade back and forth from the hilt and the glint of it slowed Zongri down. He searched Jan by the patting process employed before, but used now with such force that it almost broke Jan’s ribs.
“This,” said Tiger, “in payment for saving the ingrate from being lion beef. Search and be damned!”
Zongri ran out of pockets and patience at the same time and dealt Jan such a blow that he sent him skidding a full thirty feet across the glittering floor.
“Boor!” cried Ramus. “Haven’t you done enough already?”
“It’s a pretty show!” cried Tiger as Jan scrambled up. “I never saw a man work so hard to cover up a thing.”
“What?” said Ramus on high.
“Why, ’tis plain as your horns, Your Royal Highness. The fellow dropped it into that well he calls a mouth and gulped it down like pastry. Wasn’t I within an inch of him when he did it?”
“What’s this?” cried Ramus. “What’s this? What’s this?”
“You lying fiend!” yelled Zongri, making ready to leap at Jan anew. “You filthy-tongued—”
“Stop him!” ordered Ramus. “Ah, so that’s the way it is, putting my most trusted troops to shame to pull a shabby trick. You’ll learn my might yet, you snake-tailed donkey! Guards, put those irons on him, I say, and throw him into the darkest dungeon we have to offer until he sees fit to give us back that ring.”
Zongri was swiftly overpowered despite his struggles and the irons rasped back into place.
“What about me?” said Tiger truculently.
“You!” roared Zongri. “Plenty about you! I’ll hunt you down and rip out your throat if it takes me a thousand years to find you! You, you’re doomed! Break your sentence, bah! It can’t be done. Who including God can destroy knowledge once given or separate personalities once fused? You, root of all my misery, will meet me in the realm of Shaitan if not upon this land. Take me away!” he cried. “Take me away where I won’t have to look at him!”
The guard was most obliging and Tiger laughed gleefully to see him go. And when Zongri had vanished, Tiger faced the throne once more. “But that, Your Royal Highness, still solves nothing. I, begging your pardon, am a man of action. Do I live or do I die? It’s all the same so long as it’s definite!”
Ramus leaned forward and spoke in a troubled voice. “Slave, your problem is not to be solved in a day. For the safety of my people I cannot let you free. For your service unto us I cannot have you killed unless you make it necessary. For the present until your fate can be decided, I must hold you in the tower. Guards, escort the gentleman to his quarters.”
A few minutes later the great metal door swung shut behind him and once more he was alone in the great room. But whereas before, Tiger had always died out instantly after action and Jan had shivered and shrunk from the next event, there was now a difference.
It had grown dark long ago and someone had lighted an array of tapers in the diamond-pendant candelabra. By their flickering lights Jan made a quick but thorough examination of the whole room, scouting all places where observers might be posted. Finally he yawned very elaborately, somewhat amazed at his histrionic powers. He pulled off his merchant sailor shirt and stepped out of his pants and then, clad only in his floppy-topped sea boots, he stepped over to the candles and snuffed them out one by one, yawning the while.
At last the room was dark except for the subdued light which rose up from the starry-lighted port. Jan crawled in between the silken sheets of the great bed, boots and all.
And then, secure, he reached into the floppy top of the right one and pulled forth a thing which weighed at least a pound. Even in the darkness the Seal of Sulayman blazed and crackled.
Chapter Eight
The Gentle Relatives
When the doze of an instant faded him from one scene to another, Jan, not yet used to the thing, failed to realize what had happened to him. Strangely enough he had the sleepy sensation of one who has spent a night of snoring. And so, without opening his eyes, he contentedly fumbled under his pillow for the blazing seal.
It wasn’t there.
In an instant he was on the floor turning his bed covers seven ways at once, making dust and oddments of clothes, books and cockroaches fly as from a bomb explosion. He g
ot down on his knees and frantically fumbled with no more result than losing some skin from his knuckles. Up he leaped and plunged into the bed anew, ripping and rending it until it flapped like a flag on its hinges.
“What the hell’s goin’ on?” complained Diver. “You nuts or something?”
That brought Jan into a realization of his whereabouts. He stopped stock-still and then, like a cloud, the odor of disinfectant and unwashed feet and halitosis settled over him. Like a hum of bees the sounds of restless men came into his ears. Like a judgment he heard a bell tolling somewhere over the city, calling people to church.
It was jail and it was Sunday.
And the mighty Seal of Sulayman was somewhere far away, in another bed, clutched in quite another hand.
Hopelessly Jan sank down upon the bunk.
“Geez, I thought you was goin’ nuts for a minute,” said Diver. “Not that you ain’t already,” he added with a sniff. “Now pick up that junk and make the place look decent or I’ll give you something to think about.”
Jan glowered at his cellmate.
“G’wan, snap into it,” said Diver.
For a moment more Jan stayed where he was and then a queer thing happened. With sudden alacrity he got up and made a great show of putting the cell in order. He had thrown things so far and so fast that they were now carpeting the place, scant though their number was. And Jan went at it with such a will that Diver was forced to stand up against the bars to get out of the way.
It was done in an instant and Jan stood back. “How’s that?”
“Huh,” said Diver, ambling back to his bunk and sitting down upon it.
CRASH!
The astounded pickpocket was jolted through and through as his bunk gave completely away and slammed him down on the floor. He bounced up and gave the iron a resounding kick which instantly brought a yelp of pain out of him. Holding his toe, he went hopping around like a heron and swearing like a pirate. Presently he subsided and, frowning terribly, picked up his few belongings and then, kicking Jan’s things out of the one remaining bunk, dropped his own upon it and took his seat there. He gave a growl as though daring Jan to do something about the theft, but Jan quite cheerfully picked up his own goods from the floor and put them on the wrecked bed and then, to Diver’s suspicious amazement, reconnected the chain hooks, making the “wreck” quite as good as new.