The Dragon and the Djinn

by Gordon R. Dickson

  It occurred to him suddenly that he might try this trick of making himself up to amuse Robert—but Angie would never permit it

  The thought of Robert was unfortunate. He had a sudden vision of Robert, about ten years old, after hearing Brian's story about this, asking him, "What did you do in the battle?"

  Jim found himself suddenly depressed. Brian should be bringing up Robert—but Brian, like just about everyone else he had met so far in the fourteenth century, was too rough. He had seen Brian playfully cuffing his squire around. In spite of the years that he and Angie had been here now, he, at least, really did not fit this time. Those belonging here ignored pain and expected all others to do so.

  He pushed the feeling from him. No time for that now. Getting the horns on straight helped take his mind off it. He added contact lenses, which from the outside made his eyes look as if they had diamondlike pupils surrounded by blackness.

  He attached claws to his fingernails. From inside he could see through the contact lenses quite clearly, with as good a view as he had possessed without them; and to his relief, they were not uncomfortable. He had never worn contact lenses in the twentieth century—which now seemed a long time ago rather than something in the future. The last things to go on were the boots. He sat down and pulled on the left one, gingerly.

  But his foot slipped easily into it and seemed to go the full length of it. Encouraged, he pulled on the right boot and stood up, banging his head on the room's ceiling. He had not banged it hard enough to do damage, but the contact was painful. The pain made him angry; and since there was no one else around to get angry with, he was angry with himself. He adorned himself with the few more items of make-up that remained.

  He took another look in the mirror—and almost jumped. He was the ugliest creature he had ever laid eyes on. He had thought Kelb, in his manlike Djinni body, held this record; but if ugliness was considered as a subdivision of beauty, he was more beautiful than a dozen Djinn, rolled into one.

  However, he reminded himself, this was no time for speculating. He raised his voice. "Brian, would you come in now?"

  "Gladly, James," said Brian, without. The door opened; Brian stepped into the room, and checked, his right hand jumping to his left hip, to the hilt of his sword in its scabbard.

  "James?" he said uncertainly. "Is that you, James?"

  His other hand had now flown to his opposite hip and seized the handle of his poignard, so that he was ready to cross-draw both weapons.

  "It's me, all right," said Jim hastily. "Do I look that much different, Brian?"

  "By all the Saints!" said Brian, staring at him. "If you had not answered me finally with your ordinary voice, James, I would be sure that some demon had seized and eaten you while I was outside. It is you?"

  "Yes, it's me, Brian," said Jim. "Sorry I startled you. But at the same time, I'm pleased. If I can do that to an old friend, I should be sure of scaring our foes."

  "By our Lady!" said Brian. "They will die of fright!"

  "So much the easier," said Jim. "Now, I've got to get hold of Hob, and put him to gathering the smoke to make the pirate ships look like they're on fire. Brian, could I bother you to step outside again; and if Sir Mortimor comes along, would you hold him up and knock on the door first, so I'll have some warning before he comes in?"

  "Better," said Brian, "that I knock on the door, then come in myself and make sure you are ready, before you call him in. I would like to see his face when he sees you!"

  "Fine," said Jim. "Let's do it that way."

  With Brian out of the room he went over to the fireplace, leaned down—way down, it turned out, with the boots on—and called into the top of the fireplace opening.

  "Hob? Hob, would you come here a moment? I want to talk to you."

  "Yes, m'lord!" chirped a cheerful little voice. Hob popped into view, stared at him aghast and immediately popped back out of sight up the chimney.

  "Hob!" called Jim again, awkwardly bending even farther to make sure his voice carried all the way up the chimney. "Come back. Never mind what I look like. It's me, Sir James, your Lord. Pay no attention to my face. This is just a false appearance."

  There was no answer. He kept talking up the chimney, pleading with Hob to come down, with his belt buckle earnestly trying to dig its way through the middle part of his body to his spine. It was hard to find breath to talk with, bent awkwardly double this way. Finally, however, a small voice answered.

  "You're not m'lord James," came Hob's tones tremulously. "You're a Djinni."

  "I am not a Djinni," said Jim earnestly. "I'm a demon—I mean, I'm your Lord James Eckert that you know very well, just pretending to be a demon. I know I've made myself look like a demon, but it's me. Come down here, Hob! I have to talk with you! It's time for us to rush out at the men who've been trying to get into this castle; and that means I'm depending upon you to get things done too. Come on down so we can talk about it."

  The top of Hob's head inched into view upside down. It took a good half-minute for all of his face to appear.

  "If you're m'lord James," he said, "what was the name you gave me, before you had to take it back?"

  "I named you Hob-One de Malencontri," said Jim. "And I'll still call you by that name when I want to. It's just that the rest of the world can't."

  Slowly, fearfully, Hob came out into the room. Jim was very careful not to move at all.

  "If it's really you, m'lord," said Hob quiveringly, "what do you want from me?"

  "I want you to do what we talked about you doing," said Jim. "Sir Mortimor's going to be along in a moment; and I'll be going down with him to let the rest of his men see me, and reassure them all's well. I'm not going to tell them I'm Sir James; but I don't want them to be afraid of me, looking like this. Also, I want them to believe I'm there to help them, fighting on their side."

  "You look terrible!" said Hob, coming slowly but fully into view. "Are you sure you're you?"

  "Of course I'm sure," said Jim. "But all that means is we're just about ready to go; because the sun'll be up soon. I want you to get busy right away gathering smoke so that we can have it coming up from the end of the ships for perhaps a good fifteen or twenty minutes. They may not notice the smoke going up right away."

  "Oh, I've already got the smoke all bundled up," said Hob, more strongly now. "There wasn't anything to that. What do you want me to do next?"

  "There's a fireplace on the ground floor where all Sir Mortimor's men are gathered," said Jim. "Will you take the bundle of smoke, go down that chimney and listen from that fireplace to what we talk about down there? Then, as soon as it looks like we're just about to start the attack, I want you to go ahead to the boats and start the smoke going up. We'll probably all come outside the castle, but wait there until we see the smoke, ourselves; and until the men who have been attacking us start running down to the ships to put out the fire they'll think is on them. How long will it take you after you stop listening to reach the ships and start the smoke rising?"

  "Oh, almost no time at all," said Hob. "By the time you and everyone else are outside, I'll have the smoke going up. I can't do anything about the men down in the village seeing it, though."

  "That's all right," said Jim. "I don't expect you to—"

  There was a scratching at the door.

  "Brian?" called Jim. "By all means come in. I'll be gone when you get here, because I have things magical to do. But the demon will be waiting for you. Have you told Sir Mortimor what he may expect to see?"

  "I have," said Brian. "Do you want me to step in alone, first?"

  "If you please, Brian," said Jim. "If Sir Mortimor will be so kind as to wait just a moment, there are things I must say to you before I leave—things unconnected with matters here."

  The door opened and Brian came through.

  Jim beckoned him to come close and whispered to him.

  "Brian, I'm going to use a different voice for the demon. Don't let it bother you. And you can tell Sir Mortimor tha
t I just simply vanished after speaking a few words to you. I think that takes care of things."

  "Doubtless," said Brian.

  "Then let him in," said Jim.

  Brian turned to the door now, and spoke to Sir Mortimor outside. The tall knight came in, saw Jim in his demon's make-up, stopped, opened his mouth, closed it again and crossed himself in the process of reaching for his sword.

  "I am invincible!" boomed Jim in a voice a full octave below his normal tones and one that he tried to fill with menace. "None can stand against me; and I take commands from no one! But I will assist you in this matter. Now, you may lead me to where others like you await."

  Sir Mortimor stiffened and some of the color came back to his face. Slowly, he let go of his sword.

  "Then, demon," he said coldly, "come with me."

  Chapter Fifteen

  "Where the hell," demanded Sir Mortimor of himself, but aloud, stopping them both just above the floor on which his men waited, "is Sir Brian? He was with us upstairs!"

  "That great magician, Sir James," boomed Jim, for the first time making full use of the magical voice he had invented to go with his demon persona, three times as loud and a full octave deeper than his ordinary human voice, "required that Sir Brian wait outside the room. Consequently he had no chance to make his devotions before battle—as is his custom—before you arrived. He should be with us in minutes."

  Sir Mortimor looked stunned—probably, Jim thought, not so much by the idea of Brian praying before fighting as by finding himself outvoiced. But he recovered quickly.

  "Now, damn it, they'll have heard you down there! Why didn't he—" Chancing to look up at his companion just then, Sir Mortimor's voice underwent a sudden change to a much milder and more pleasant tone. "—didn't Sir Brian tell me he intended that when he met me outside your door? Well, we needn't wait for him. Since they did hear you, best that we go down right now. I'll lead the way."

  He moved off, down the staircase, and Jim followed a few steps behind. They descended under the ceiling that had been the floor beneath their feet a moment before, and into full view of the space packed with men armed to the teeth. In spite of their weapons, at the sight of the demon these were already trying to crowd into the corner of the room farthest from the foot of the stairs.

  "Rejoice, my children!" Sir Mortimor's voice rang out. "Sir James has provided us with what we need to be sure of victory. You see behind me a demon under his command, who will fight along with us; and in whose company we shall send those who attack us flying from our shores."

  It hardly seemed possible; but by this time, the crowd of armed men below them had now managed to compress itself to three-quarters of the size it had been a moment before.

  Sir Mortimor continued to descend the stairs, with Jim behind him. They reached the floor.

  "Fear not!" shouted Sir Mortimor. "This demon, named Invincible, is completely under the control of Sir James, my good and loyal friend, Sir James's magic forbids him from coming with us himself; so he has sent this deputy to make sure we cannot fail. Now, outside with all of you—but quietly so as not to wake them below, Sir Brian will be joining us soon. We must watch for the first sign that their boats are on fire!"

  With grateful and surprising speed, the population of the room emptied itself through the inner door to the passageway, then the now unbarricaded outer door, on to the steep hillside. They poured out around the steps on to the stairs and slopes before the castle. Below them, the whole land and sea was monochrome, most of its color lost in the pale light of the not-yet-risen sun. No one was moving in the village. There was no sound. No more was there any sound or movement aboard the two ships; so that the repeated talking of the waves, coming up and breaking on the pebbly shore, came clearly to the ears of all of them.

  "Ah, Sir Mortimor—demon!" said the voice of Sir Brian behind Jim and the tall knight.

  He joined them, fully weaponed and ready. And stood beside them.

  "Anything happening yet?" he asked cheerfully, Sir Mortimor scowled at him.

  "We are waiting for a sign that the ships have been fired," Sir Mortimor said. "So far there is none."

  "I have little doubt we will see evidence shortly," said Brian. "A fine, clear morning, is it not?"

  This was Brian's usual high spirits before any kind of a fight showing themselves, as Jim well knew, Sir Mortimor was evidently of a different nature; and not necessarily pleased by cheerfulness over the prospect of a dawn encounter after a sleepless night that might cost him everything he owned, to say nothing of his life.

  "It's taking long enough—" he began; but at that moment, a gray wisp of smoke lifted from the seaward end of the ship to their right and a second later another wisp went up from the nearby end of the ship beside it.

  The columns of smoke went straight up in the still air. They thickened and darkened.

  "Wake up, wake up, you blind infidel idiots!" muttered Sir Mortimor between his teeth. "Haven't you at least one hell-bound sentry awake? Isn't there at least one of you who has to step outside for some reason or other?"

  The village slumbered on, deaf to his complaints. The smoke poured up even more thickly from the seaward ends of the two boats; and now voices began to cry out from the boats themselves, yells and screams of alarm. Still, there was no sign that could be seen from the hillside of anyone moving along the visible deck portion of either one.

  "All praise!" breathed Sir Mortimor; and then suddenly his voice rang out in its full force to the men around him, more than loudly enough to wake most of those in the village. "The rowers are taking alarm! They will be slaves chained in place and fearing to be burned to death!"

  Sir Mortimor's men started a cheer—and throttled it immediately as Sir Mortimor glared at them. Below, a first few figures began to stagger, still half asleep, out of the buildings below. They stared about, focused seaward, saw the boats, and began to run toward them, shouting as they ran. Other figures began to boil from the flimsy village structures.

  "Wait, wait," ordered Sir Mortimor in a lower voice, one pitched just enough to reach his own men. "Let them get well away from their weapons. Wait… wait. Now!"

  "A Breugel! A Breugel—"

  Shouting his war cry, he went leaping down the steps, three and four at a time.

  His men streamed after him, waving their weapons. Jim and Brian followed, more cautiously until they were on less steep ground; then Brian began to put on his best speed, charging into the mass of Sir Mortimor's men ahead of him and pushing them aside.

  Jim followed as quickly as he could, but matching Brian's speed of foot was impossible, let alone that of most of Sir Mortimor's fighting men; with the exception of those who were, he suspected, deliberately lagging back a little. In any case, it was only a moment or two before they were upon the stream of corsairs, headed toward the boat, and these, turning to discover an armed group descending on them and themselves unarmed except for knives, were bolting in all directions.

  Sir Mortimor had reached the shore end of the two ships. He turned and shouted to his men.

  "Turn! Turn! Back to the village!"

  Those with him faced about and reversed their charge. The distance between the village buildings and the shore was no distance at all; and almost immediately they ran head-on into men still coming out of the buildings, some of them still half awake and empty-handed, but some, at least, now armed with swords and shields and ready to fight. By the time Jim caught up, the melee was in full activity.

  Jim cursed himself internally for not having thought to have brought at least a sword. It might not have fitted with his demon image; but he would have felt a lot better right now if he had something in his hand to keep enemies at a distance. He tried to make up for the lack of it by bellowing at the top of his voice and flailing his clawed arms in the air.

  It was a few moments before he realized that he was not forcing anyone to stand back from him—for the very good reason that everyone was being very careful not to get close t
o him without being forced in any way. That included Sir Mortimor's men. But Brian was locked in tight combat in the midst of the fight, surrounded by half a dozen Moroccans.

  He was a much better swordsman than any of those around him, and his armor was good enough to turn the edges of most of their blades; but there were entirely too many concentrating on him alone for Jim's peace of mind. Jim charged in his direction, therefore, making as much noise and trying to look as fearsome as possible. It worked. Brian's attackers caught sight of him coming, and ran. Jim came up to Brian, who was now leaning on his sword, its point shoved into the beach before him, and catching his breath.

  "Damn it, James!" gasped Brian. "You frightened them all away!"

  The use of Jim's name was safe enough. The hubbub around them would have covered up the sound of it, even if any of those nearby had time to listen; and none had.

  "Don't be an idiot yourself, Brian," said Jim, likewise gasping for breath. His magic boots, which added a couple of feet to his size, had not made running easy and he also was out of breath. "There were too many of them!"

  "I did not call for rescue—" snapped Brian, then checked himself. "But there, James, I honor your thought to aid a fellow knight possibly in distress."

  "A fellow knight and an old friend!" said Jim.

  "I would rather believe you would have given that response to any knight in my position," said Brian. "But there, let it be. I am sensible of your friendship, James. But look! It is all but over now. Those who were not slain, or too badly hurt to do so, have reached their ships and are putting out to sea, leaving their friends behind."

  Jim turned to look. At first glance, it seemed all too easy, almost ridiculous after the undeniable alarm and concern up in the castle; but then he saw all the bodies lying around on the ground. The streets—if they could be called that—in the village, the pebbly shore down to the water's edge, was strewn with fallen men. Most of Sir Mortimor's warriors seemed busy in robbing the dead bodies of their enemies—also those of the near-dead.