“Let me see it,” I said, curious myself. I took the bottle and held it up to the light. It seemed almost to glow with an inner urgency.
Beware, Sylvie warned. She was on the hand that held the bottle. There’s a curse on it.
“A curse?” I repeated somewhat stupidly.
“What are you muttering about?” Jewel demanded. “That’s a perfectly good bottle of Lovers’ Desperation perfume, a wonderfully rare vintage. It must have been there for a long time. Who else on this ship would have a use for it?”
“Sylvie says it’s cursed.”
It is, Sylvie thought. We sirens know a good curse when we smell one. Ask Nylon.
I moved the bottle to the other hand. “Queen Nylon,” I said aloud so Jewel could participate. “Sylvie says this is cursed.”
She’s right, Nylon agreed immediately. That hold must have been missed when the ship was decontaminated, so the original curse remains on its artifacts. Do not open it.
“She confirms the curse,” I told Jewel. “You should not use this stuff.”
“I think the concubines are just jealous because they have no use for quality perfume,” Jewel said, taking the bottle from my hand. “I have no superstitious fear of old worn-out curses.”
“These are not mere concubines,” I reminded her. “They are supernatural creatures who know something about magic. I think we had best proceed with caution. Maybe Duban can nullify the curse.”
“Pshaw,” she snorted. Then, before I could protest further, she popped the ancient cork, inverted the bottle, and let a single viscous drop of substance land on her hand. She recorked the bottle and touched the perfume behind either ear. “This will truly bring out the real me,” she said, satisfied. “I’ll make a phenomenal impression on every man in range.” As if she needed to impress anyone except me. But I knew better than to speak that thought aloud.
You’re learning, Nylon thought, amused.
For a moment it was like a frozen tableau as we waited for anything to happen. Nothing did. So maybe it wasn’t much of a curse. But then there came a whiff of the stench of rotten eggs soaked in septic sewage and allowed to ripen beyond their time. Jewel wrinkled her nose.
“Must be the smell of the monster,” I said, looking around.
But no one else seemed to notice it. Until a gust of wind passed us. Then the sailors downwind suddenly gasped and coughed, turning slightly green.
“Uh-oh,” I murmured.
It’s the perfume, Sylvie thought, picking up the stink from my nostrils.
The cursed perfume, Nylon agreed.
“Uh, Jewel—” I started.
But she was already sniffing the air around her. “Ugh!” She ran to a bucket of slops, the closest available liquid, and dipped out gobs to splash behind her ears. But it seemed only to enhance the effect.
Mortals don’t listen well, Nylon noted with a faint aura of I-told-you-so.
That’s their curse, Sylvie agreed with just the hint of a mental smirk.
I went to help Jewel wash, keeping my mouth shut for more than one reason. Soon we were in our cabin and she was in a tub as I doused her with buckets of sea water. In due course she was bedraggled but odor-free, while the tub, to put it politely, stank to the lofty welkin. We got Jewel into new clothing and locked the cabin door, sealing off the festering tubful. What a putrid mess! We took a new cabin, as it might be weeks before the old one was sanitary.
I said nothing further, knowing what was good for me. The stoppered bottle was returned to the hold. That was the end of it. After that, we had begun our journey home.
Until this moment, as the memory ran its course. “So what has this to do with the price of beans in Bohemia?” I subvocally asked Queen Nylon. Because I was still on the spot to deal with the monstrous kraken, and still unable to think of anything. If I didn’t come up with something fast it would be bad for my reputation, not to mention my body, as the tentacles discovered the ship.
Silly, that’s the answer, she responded. The kraken has a very fine sense of smell, or more properly, taste.
“So?” I saw no connection.
She had mercy on me. Give the monster a taste of perfume.
Then it burst upon me. The curse! If that stuff tasted as bad to the kraken as it smelled to us, it would be like a mythical stench bomb.
“I think the kraken is a lady,” I said aloud. “We should honor her with a libation.”
“What are you mumbling nonsensically about now?” Jewel asked with her usual appreciation for my powers of intellect.
“It’s a water predator,” I explained condescendingly. “It tastes the water to zero in on its prey. It must be pretty sensitive to locate quarry thousands of leagues away.”
“So?” She saw no connection.
“We shall give the kraken a taste of cursed perfume. That may prove to be a distraction.”
“Perfume!” Then it came to her. “The vilest stench!”
“The same,” I agreed pleasantly. “Starting with the more dilute version, which we need to dispose of anyway.” I turned to the nearest sailors. “Men, haul the tub out of the cabin.” I signaled Sinbad. “Take the ship right up beside the kraken.”
“Beside the monster?” Sinbad exclaimed. “This is suicide!”
“No, it is honoring a lady,” Jewel said.
Sinbad gave her a look that said “So?” but did not admit that he made no sense of this.
The crewmen grumbled between choking fits, but got the roiling tub out on deck. Sinbad also grumbled, but guided the ship out over the shallow edge of the monster. They all seemed to feel that I had lost my idiotic mind, but I was the one in charge, so my folly had to be indulged.
Tentacles were reaching up the sides of the ship, seeking holds.
Then I had the crewmen dump the tub onto the back of the kraken. We could see the foul liquid bubbling as it spread across the flesh. “Now move off,” I called to Sinbad. “Quickly.”
He was more than glad to oblige. The ship broke free of the grasping tentacles and sluiced away from the monster.
The kraken seemed to have a problem. UGH! it honked, just as if it smelled something bad. Its myriad tentacles churned the surrounding water. But that seemed only to spread the stink further. It seemed that the cursed perfume was marvelously intense, so that diluting it merely amplified the taste.
We watched. Jewel was actually smiling.
The kraken sounded. It descended in the water so rapidly that a whirlpool formed above it. That vortex caught the ship and sought to drag it into the swirling center. That was mischief.
But I knew what to do. “Duban,” I said. “If you happen to have a wind spell handy...”
Duban worked his magic. A stiff breeze came up, blowing away from the whirlpool. Sinbad quickly accommodated the ship, and soon it was riding before the wind, escaping the whirlpool. We were safe.
“Good thinking, dad,” Duban said. “Wind is easy; it was the monster that was beyond me.”
“Of course, son,” I agreed patronizingly. “That’s why I stepped in.”
Jewel shot me a look of mixed disgust and admiration. She knew I had lucked out, this time, and surely suspected that I had done so with the help of the women I had wrapped around my fingers.
We’ll never tell, Nylon thought, amused again.
Women do this sort of thing for men all the time, Sylvie agreed. But I felt her quickly turn somber.
You are concerned for your sister sirens? I subvocalized and thought to her.
Yes, sire. My sisters need my help. We have suffered much loss today.
Go to them. Hurry.
Thank you, sire!
And with that, she rapidly uncurled from my finger and transformed to her proper size and shape. Now naked and jaw-droppingly beautiful, she bowed to me slightly, then leaped over the railing. Once in the water, her feet instantly transformed into a tail. She thrust once, twice, and soon disappeared from sight. Indeed, there was a great wailing from the ocean, but the
se were not the haunting Sirens’ call. These were songs of mourning, and I felt for the magical creatures.
“What of the other ship?” Sinbad said to me when Sylvie was gone.
The merchanter! I had quite forgotten it in my need to deal with the kraken. It had been blown clear of the whirlpool by the same wind that saved us. Now it was within hailing distance, and the person remained on its deck.
As I squinted to make it out, I saw that the figure was female, and quite attractive, especially with the wind blowing against her garment and drawing on her long hair. Who was she, and why had she seemed so unafraid of the doom that had threatened her? Or was my first thought accurate, that she might actually have brought the monster here? In that case she might be dangerous. How could we know?
“Hail the ship,” I told Sinbad. “We need to learn more about it, before we join the sirens.” As if this were a routine interaction.
“She’s beautiful,” Jewel said. “Unfortunately you don’t need another concubine.”
Amen to that, Nylon agreed. A man sees a shapely outline, and whatever common sense he might have dissipates into lust.
She was in a position to know. Sometimes there seemed to be too many women surrounding me. It hampered my style.
Chapter Three
Just as Sinbad turned the great wheel in preparation for contact with the errant ship, a dense fog rolled in. So dense and so sudden, that I sensed sorcery.
The small merchant ship was immediately enshrouded in fog. So much so, that it disappeared from sight.
“Duban,” I murmured.
The boy twitched his fingers, and the fog thinned. Routine minor magic, for him, like practicing his scales. The ship dimly reappeared.
In that instant, Sylvie Siren leaped from the sea, transformed in mid-air, and landed on the deck with human feet. Truly a remarkable magical feat.
“It is gone, Aladdin,” she cried out.
“What is gone?”
“The Key to Hades.”
“But I don’t understand, we stopped the kraken—”
“Which only served as a diversion. The thief had struck even while the great beast attacked my sister sirens. Three are dead.”
“Blast. But who could pull off such an outrageous—”
And it struck me. Of course, I knew of a thief skilled enough; indeed, the one thief who had already penetrated the bowels of the Sirens’ lair.
The Thief of Baghdad.
As Sylvie returned to my finger, I ordered Sinbad and the others to search for the thief, but the wretch, of course, was nowhere to be found. Cursing, I next turned my attention to the nearby merchant vessel, which was clarifying as we approached it, and soon grappling lines were sent out, latching the merchanter to our own. Sinbad and a handful of men boarded the smaller ship. To my surprise, the young woman, who only looked more beautiful the closer we got, threw herself into the stunned sailor’s arms.
Shortly, she was led aboard the Dutchman and over to me, where I stood with my wife, Duban, and Nydea Nymph, who was presently betrothed to Sinbad. Our newest passenger, the girl, explained that she was to be fed to the kraken, as a reward for its services. Indeed, nine others, equally young and fair, had already been consumed by the great beast.
“I was the last, my lord. The final, choice meal. I had watched in horror as the previous nine were rendered in half and shoved into the monster’s hideous maw.”
I shuddered. Now I understood why she had thrown herself into Sinbad’s arms! She must have been frozen in horror, watching the kraken, rather than nonchalant. “And who did this to you?” I asked. “Who submitted you to such brutality?”
“We never saw him,” she said, shuddering. “But he was surely a consummately evil man, with power we could not deny.”
Beware, Nylon thought. It is too easy to blame an anonymous male. Be polite, but do not trust her yet.
Good advice. “Feed this girl,” I said to one of the human crew. “And make sure she has clean clothing and a warm bed.”
“Aye, my lord.”
But instead of going with them, she threw herself at my feet, in the process revealing new aspects of her body, especially her full bosom. “Thank you, my lord! You are wonderful!”
That view is deliberate, Nylon thought. She’s a pro.
As a ruler, I am not unfamiliar with having someone throw themselves at my feet. Generally, though, I know the reason. Here, I was as stunned as anyone. “Get back on your feet,” I said, stalling for a bit of time.
She got slowly and gracefully to her feet, her limber body displaying itself even more impressively as she did.
A pro, Nylon repeated.
My wife’s initial assessment was true: the woman was indeed beautiful. But now that I was close-up, I could appreciate just how beautiful: long, dark hair, almond-shaped eyes, slender neck and full lips. Her lashes, I noted, were impossibly long. Perhaps the longest I’d ever seen.
“What’s your name?” I asked, finding speaking suddenly difficult. Jewel, I noted, was watching my reaction very carefully, curiously. She sensed something was amiss, obviously. Behind me, the other men on board gathered, like seabirds around entrails.
Men, said Nylon. So predictable.
“I am called Dea.” She smiled shyly and held my gaze long enough for me to eventually look away. I suddenly felt like a young ruffian with his first crush.
The men all quickly agreed that this was the most beautiful name they had ever heard. Sinbad, too. Even Duban nodded along. A pro indeed!
“Oh, brother,” said Jewel. Evidently, the maiden’s charms were lost on my wife—and the women on board.
I said to the woman, “From which port do you hail? We shall return you to your home.”
“I do not know, master.”
“You don’t know?”
“I have been a slave all my life. At sea all my life.”
“A slave?” I asked, surprised. She did not have the appearance of a slave. If anything—
“A sex slave, master,” she said, confirming my suspicions. “A prized sex slave.”
That I could believe. I swallowed hard and suddenly found speaking difficult again. Not that I approved of sex slaves; in fact, slavery of any type was something I was working hard to abolish from my kingdom. But Dea actually sounded as if she...enjoyed being used by the crew. The men around me sensed it as well, and now there was a great chattering behind me, sounding much like the monkeys in my royal zoo.
I found my tongue again, which seemed to have gotten stuck to the roof of my mouth. I cleared my throat with difficulty. “I’m sorry to hear that, Dea. You’re safe here.”
“You are my hero.” She turned and looked at the surrounding, stupefied men. “All of you.”
The men beamed and puffed out their chests, and my wife had evidently seen enough. She banished all of them, shaking her head. “Pathetic,” she said, as the men reluctantly moved off. She turned to Dea. “I believe you to be a witch.”
“That is a hurtful thing to say, mistress. I am but a simple slave.”
“Yes, a sex slave. You’ve made that abundantly clear.” My wife next leaned into me and spoke into my ear: “It’s not becoming for a king to drool over himself.”
Then she took the girl’s hand and led her away. Nydea Nymph followed, and I heard my wife tell the girl they would give her a bath and clean her up.
“She is a healthy one,” said Sinbad, as we watched the trio depart.
“Aye.”
“So where to now, Aladdin?”
As I considered our options, Sylvie spoke up. Sire, we sirens could use the cursed perfume, should we cross paths again with the kraken. It proved more than effective. We have, of course the original, uncursed perfume.
Would be a nice gesture for Jewel, said Nylon. Seeing that you ticked her off.
Will I ever do anything right? I asked.
Are you a male? asked Sylvie, and she giggled.
“A barter, then,” I said aloud, in which case Sinbad
looked at me curiously, then went back to the helm. He was getting used to such strange outbursts from me, knowing I was guided by the two nymphs.
Shortly, the exchange was made, with Sylvie acting as the go-between, and soon I was presented with an elegant bottle of what appeared to be the exact perfume. I unstoppered the bottle and gave it a sniff. Heavenly.
Jewel will be pleased, said Nylon. Unless, of course, you fail to keep your hands off the new slave.
The Siren queen has a message for you, Aladdin, said Sylvie.
And what is that?
To find the key at all costs.
I thought you might say that. Does she have a suggestion as to where to begin?
The key is undoubtedly on its way to its final destination.
How is this possible? I said, perplexed. Where could the key have gone? We are the only ship out here.
Look again, my lord.
I did look, and I saw what she was referring to. The small merchanter, once tethered to the Dutchman, was gone.
But how?
A cloaking spell, no doubt.
Fine, I said, grumbling. And where does the queen suggest we look for the key?
The Gates of Hades are located in the Hinterland.
The Hinterland? And where is that?
It is a forbidden mountain range deep in the heart of the Sahara.
So be it. I turned to Sinbad. “Plot us a course due west.”
“Due west?”
I told him about my conversation with Sylvie Siren, and Sinbad, always on the lookout for a good adventure, grinned broadly. “West it is!”
He next gave the order and the ghostly crew responded instantly, many appearing as if from thin air, their bodies nearly invisible in the bright sunshine. Sails were hoisted, lines were drawn, and soon the ship was cutting sharply through the water, faster than any other ship.
Supernaturally fast, I knew.
Soon the rocky coast of the African continent appeared and Sinbad gave another order and the ship majestically rose out of the sea, and into the blue sky.
And over the Dark Continent.
The Series Boxed Set Page 32
