I couldn’t blame the others for being mesmerized. At any other time I would have been too. But my life was at stake, so I allowed myself only the briefest glimpses as I continued to work on the lariat.
Jewel shot through the window and out of the castle. She could no longer be seen directly, but the spy picture continued as the dragons outside focused. We saw her emerge from the dome and make a broad circle around the fortress, still climbing. The dragons were following closely, but not attacking. This was their true purpose: to spy anything Zeyn needed to know about, whether it be an enemy formation or a lady washing in her boudoir. It was surely a significant asset in any undertaking.
Now that the direct view of the luscious creature was no longer available, men began to recover some individual purpose. Several were wrestling a large carpet out of a storage closet. That would be the pursuit craft, surely much faster than our little carpet. I had to stop that.
I wrenched the rope the rest of the way off Morabec. I leaped toward Zeyn. That was likely the last thing he thought I would do, instead of trying to flee. As his mouth opened to give an order, I used both hands to put the loop over his head and draw it snug about his shoulders. “Shut your mouth!” I whispered.
Captured and obedient, he shut it.
Now I had him. What was I to do with him? I cudgeled my lagging brain, but it seemed not to have completely caught up with events. I had no better plan than to stall, to give Jewel freedom and time to accomplish her purpose.
The men laid out the large carpet, and three got on it. They paused, awaiting further orders.
“Tell them to hold off,” I murmured in Zeyn’s ear. “To wait to see what the wench does.”
“Follow her, but don’t arrest her,” Zeyn said. “Wait and see what she’s up to.”
The men nodded. The carpet rose smoothly, flying up toward the window. Had I succeeded in giving Jewel enough time to reach the turret and fetch the ifrit?
“Now make it seem that you are interviewing me,” I said. “Allow no interruption while we talk.”
“Leave us while I question this cur,” Zeyn snapped.
The guards obeyed. Soon we were alone in the chamber.
Now what? “Why do you want to conquer the mortal realm?” I asked Zeyn. I just wanted to get him talking to see what I could learn, while Jewel got Lamprey and made her escape.
“Because it’s there, idiot,” he snapped. “Why should I settle for local power, when I can have more?”
This was not quite as submissive as I had hoped. “And you went to all that trouble to capture the Ifrit of the Lamp, just to get at me? Isn’t that like using a catapult to blast a gnat?”
“Ask not about what concerns you not, lest you learn what pleases you not.”
That was surely good advice, but there was something about his attitude that annoyed me. So I persisted. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“That would take years to clarify, you ignorant has-been. What do you want first?”
For some reason I remained dissatisfied. Either the lariat was not working on him, and he was stringing me along, or he was telling the truth. I considered the first prospect. Why would he pretend to be subject to my will, instead of simply summoning his men and making me truly prisoner on the spot?
Maybe because he was stalling for time, just as I was. But why? What possible advantage could he gain by faking captivity, whether for a minute or a year? When he already had me where he wanted me? What else could he want?
Jewel. She had shown herself to be a lovely and feisty woman, the kind any prince would love to capture and subdue. To bind and rape repeatedly while she screamed, until at last she lost her will to fight and accepted him. At which point he might throw her away, because it was her fighting spirit he desired as much as her body. But if he tried too soon, she might throw herself off the carpet and plunge to her death, rather than submit. He needed to give her time to get to a safe place. A place where he could fetch her without risking her death.
If on the other hand the lariat was working, he might be trying to fend me off with complexities, until his men caught on and rescued him. I needed to get at the relevant truth before that happened. So maybe it did not make much difference whether the lariat was working or he was faking it; he would give me similar answers.
“Jewel,” I said. “The woman. What does she need to know, that she doesn’t?”
Zeyn eyed me with what might just possibly be a faint smattering of dawning respect. “She’s flying into a trap.”
I didn’t like this at all. “What trap?” I could see in the animated picture, that was still running, that Jewel had not yet entered the tower. She was trying to pry a bar off the small window so she could squeeze in.
“She’s going for Ifrit Iften, right? In the topmost turret? Morabec may have omitted a detail about that.”
“What is it?”
“Iften is there; Morabec was unable to lie to you. But neither did he have to tell you the whole truth, unless you asked for it. Iften is guarded by the Queen.”
He was delivering it in bits and pieces. I had to keep zeroing in on the essence. “Your wife?”
Zeyn laughed thunderously. “Some wife! No, she’s Queen of the Hive. Quite fetching when she chooses to be; she has surely been giving Iften the romancing of his life. But she is not human. She merely assumes that form when it is convenient for her. When she gets serious, she reverts to her real form, complete with what you might think of as a stinger.”
I quailed inside. I had heard of this type of giant insect. “What has this to do with Jewel?”
“Well, the Queen can fornicate with a male only so long before she has to plant her eggs. For that she needs another female, species largely irrelevant. You have seen fit to deliver such a female to her.”
“Jewel!” I said in anguish.
“The same. I would really have liked to have taken her for myself, but this is better. Or worse, from your perspective. Our local women all know about the Queen, and will kill themselves rather than get near her. That’s another reason we keep her isolated, though if she managed to break out of the tower cell she would readily fly away and leave us alone. She doesn’t really like being captive, oddly.”
“What’s going to happen to Jewel?” Aladdin asked grimly.
“I thought you’d never ask! She will squeeze through the bars of the window and come to Iften. Whereupon the sultry woman with him will take hold of her, transform to her natural state, and apply her stinger in the ravishment of all time, depositing scores of fertile eggs. Jewel will swell up like a melon, and in due course will birth all those insects, if you could call it birthing.”
He was enjoying this entirely too much. “Why not call it that?”
“Because there may not be enough left of her to expel them through that channel, after they have gorged on her flesh from the inside. I understand it’s as disgusting, not to mention painful, a process as a briefly-living person can suffer. Fortunately she will not annoy us with her screams; they eat out the tongue and voice box first, as delicacies.”
He was probably pulling my chain. But I couldn’t risk it. “We’re going to spare her that.”
“Oh, I doubt it, hero,” he said with heavy irony. I know I wouldn’t have liked him even on a good day.
Jewel had succeeded in prying one bar out, and was working on the second. She would be inside soon.
“You have another flying carpet,” I said.
“What makes you think—”
“Get over to the closet and fetch it out,” I ordered, marching him in that direction.
He obeyed, as he had to, one way or another. Soon we had a second large carpet laid out. I put him on it, and got on behind him. “Guide us there, fast,” I said. “And know that this pressure on your fat back is the point of my dagger. If you even think of any tricks, I’ll stab first and deal with the mess after. Now get us moving.”
The carpet lifted smoothly and ascended to the window and out. We f
lew rapidly toward the topmost turret. Jewel was no longer in sight; she had finally made it into the dread chamber. I repressed a shudder.
“There is one thing you did not think to ask,” Zeyn remarked. There was a satisfied smirk in his voice.
“What, lest I learn what pleases me not?”
“Exactly.”
“So what is it?”
“It is this, you utter naïve fool. Prince Zeyn has been the subject of many assassination attempts, so he takes precautions. I am not Zeyn; I am a simulacrum in his image, employed to preside at boring functions. You never came close to control of him, your lariat notwithstanding.” He chuckled. “Now do with me what you wish; it will not save your wench, who is surely getting royally plumbed about now.”
I knew with sick certainty that he was finally telling the relevant truth.
Chapter Thirteen
Up we raced, scattering the little fire-belching dragons, who were, in fact, the eyes of the wizard.
Wherever he may be, I thought ruefully, wondering just where this vile creature was waiting and watching. But I had little time to concern myself with such matters. I thought idly of shoving the impostor off the carpet, but even I couldn’t watch a man plummet to his death. If a man he be, that is. Perhaps his inherent magical talents would save him, or perhaps not. I didn’t know, but for now I held on to the lariat. Perhaps the ifrit imposter would prove valuable. Or perhaps not. We would see.
For now, I continued holding in the back of my mind thoughts of levity, anything that would keep me from densifying and plummeting to the floor below.
Up we raced, as I commanded the Zeyn simulacrum to direct the magic carpet. Wind whipped my hair. I held on to a frayed edge of the carpet with one hand, riding low. Often, as we turned hard right or left, I was nearly thrown from the damn rug. Each time the ifrit grinned, and I cursed.
We shot up a flight of stone steps, lit with torches, and as we reached the landing and barreled around a right turn, I heard a blood-curdling scream.
“Faster!” I commanded.
Amazingly, the rug, surely built for speed and maneuverability, accelerated faster still. Wind screamed over my ears. Recessed doorways passed in a blur. This time I saw the left turn coming, and sensed the ifrit bracing himself. I braced, too, and we hit the turn at nearly ninety degrees. It was all I could do to hold on to the rug and not be thrown off. Indeed, if not for my sure grip, I would have been slammed into the hallway wall.
“There,” said the simulacrum, pointing.
I saw it, too. An open door at the far end of the hallway. Torchlight flickered within. Shadows crawled over the walls.
“We’re going through,” I said grimly.
“We cannot fit!”
“Then I suggest you command the carpet to angle in.”
He did so, commanding the thing with barely audible words, and almost instantly one side of the rug dropped down. We both hung from the thing as if clinging to the top of a brick wall, and we swooped into the massive chamber.
The carpet and we circled above, and what I saw below was both a relief and a pleasant surprise. What I saw was hardly worthy of such a desperate flight: two women in bed, one of whom was completely without clothing. She had long, strawberry-colored hair, a narrow waist and a full backside. The scene might have been something out of any man’s fantasy if not for the ghastly stinger protruding from the full backside.
The creature had mounted Jewel, who was currently bleeding profusely from cuts to her eyes and lips. Obviously she had done her best to fight off the creature, only to have finally succumbed to its undoubtedly great strength.
“We are too late,” said the ifrit with satisfaction. “She’s about to be implanted. Nothing can pry her loose.”
Jewel looked up and saw me. She was about to scream but held her tongue. Wise girl. As of yet, the Queen was too focused on her prey to notice us in the chamber.
“Not good enough,” I said. “Surely there is some way to unmount this creature.”
The ifrit shook his head, grinning from ear to ear. I hated him even more. “Sorry, hero. But once she has a female mounted, it is all but done. Look, already her stinger is preparing for insertion.”
Indeed, the long, curved apparatus was veritably quivering in anticipation. The creature struggled only with parting Jewel’s legs. The emira fought valiantly; indeed, she lashed out and landed a wonderful hooking punch that rocked the Queen. Enraged, the creature bellowed and began transforming before our very eyes into something that resembled a great hornet.
Jewel screamed and I didn’t blame her.
But I also saw my opportunity.
As the creature metamorphosed, its body elongating and taking on a horrific shape, it sat back slightly, releasing some of its weight.
“Go to her now,” I commanded. “And when we reach her you are to take her place.”
“Please, no!” But even as he begged me, the carpet shot down from the high ceiling, racing toward the great bed.
I held on grimly, bracing myself, saying nothing. I had been a ruler once. I had been forced to hand down harsh sentences. This ifrit who relished Jewel’s misery was no friend of mine. He was an enemy of the highest order.
He continued to beg and plead but I ignored his cries for mercy. There was no mercy here, not in this vile place. And not by me.
The creature was nearly metamorphosed, its smooth, elongated head the last to transform. Most important, some of its weight was off Jewel.
She saw us coming, and just as the giant insect was about to position itself on her again, she held up her hand and I grabbed it. And just as I commanded, the ifrit, very much against his will, leaped from the carpet. What happened next couldn’t have been better rehearsed if we tried. I pulled Jewel up onto the carpet, even while the simulacrum took her place. And as I released the rope, thus releasing my connection to him, he tried desperately to crawl away. Too late. The stinger came down viciously...and deeply. He cried out, cursing my name, but already Jewel and I were gaining some altitude.
“Lamprey!” shouted Jewel in my ear. She pointed to an ornate bureau in the far corner. “He’s already inside. I freed him just prior to that....that thing appearing.”
That thing bellowed in rage, having just now noticed it had been duped. It spun around, drawing out its stinger from deep within the simulacrum, who had reverted back to his original form—that of a balding, middle-aged man. He was quite dead. Apparently the creature’s stinger, which also acted as an egg depositor, killed males, while undoubtedly keeping females alive. Magic at its most deadliest. I felt nothing for the ifrit who, likewise, had felt nothing for Jewel’s own dire predicament.
The queen, easily twice my own size, flapped her wings impossibly fast and rose from the bed. I was still high above it, circling around to the lamp. The creature rose straight up, watching me closely, turning with me. Its thorax flexed and it brought up its great stinger, presently covered in a dark liquid—the ifrit’s blood, I assumed. The beast, I saw, could fly forward and sting at the same time.
Now we were over the lamp and I dove down, commanding the carpet with voice prompts and slight adjustments of the rug itself. Surely, there was a smoother way to fly these things, but I would have to make do.
The bureau approached rapidly. Too rapidly, I was going to crash. Jewel reached a calm hand, adjusted the carpet, stated her own command, and the magical contraption altered course. Unfortunately, so did the giant hornet above, which was now bearing down on us.
“Grab it!” she shouted.
And I did, swooping the polished lamp off the bureau, and ducking as the giant stinger swooshed over my head.
Merciful Allah, but that was close!
“Just hang on!” shouted Jewel. “I have a score to settle with this oversized dung beetle!”
And hang on I did. Jewel had proven herself to be much more adept at maneuvering the flying carpet, which was just as well. It was all I could to hang on to the lamp and the carpet at the sam
e time.
We whipped out of the chamber and down the long hall. The demon hornet gave chase, proving to be just as mobile as the carpet, if not more so. And, apparently, faster.
It was gaining on us, buzzing down the hallway.
Jewel looked back once, and actually grinned. “Hold on tight, your highness,” she said, her words heavy with sarcasm, especially the last one.
Although we sat side by side, Jewel was positioned more in the middle, her arms spread wide, her hands gripping the carpet’s forward corners. Myself, I held only one lonely edge and sat low, cradling the lamp as best as I could, praying to Allah to spare me this one last time.
“You’re dragging us down, imbecile!” she shouted.
Indeed, my simple prayer had occupied that part of my mind previously reserved for thinking light thoughts. I quickly filled my thoughts with images of clouds and feathers and women’s undergarments, and soon we were picking up speed again. Jewel shook her head without comment.
“Get ready,” she said.
And now we plunged down the winding stairs, going round and round blindly, heedless of anyone or anything that might be in our way. I nearly closed my eyes. Nearly. Except heroes didn’t close their eyes. And a good thing, too.
“Look out!” I shouted.
She saw it, too, and not a moment too soon. An archway had appeared in our flightpath. I densified and she angled down and we just narrowly avoided disaster. We swept out the same upper story window and out into the throne room. I looked back. The demon hornet easily avoided the archway and burst out of the window like a cannon shot. It quickly gained on us.
The throne room, remarkably, was much different than when I had last seen it. The guards were nowhere to be found. Surely they would have returned by now after being dismissed earlier by the simulacrum, but no. The hallway so empty and quiet that I knew immediately something was wrong.
But there was no time to worry about that. The hornet was gaining. Jewel shouted a warning to me, and then turned hard, banking to port. We slewed through the air, briefly out of control, and then regained our magical traction again. The hornet made the turn easily and I was beginning to think it was only a matter of time—perhaps seconds—before the monster was upon us.