I grabbed for my spells and looked slowly up. My magic was gone, stripped away as though I had never known any. It would not have mattered anyway. I was sitting in the Ifrit’s gigantic hand.
“And what are you?” he said, peering at me with an eyeball the size of my head. His deep voice vibrated, seeming to come from all around. Except for his size and his color-he was a green the shade of the sea during a storm-he looked almost human, but his ears were pointed, and the nails on the hand that held me narrowed into sharp claws. His body blocked most of the view, but I thought he was standing in the bottom of the circular valley.
“I am a wizard,” I said, though I had never felt less like a wizard since my first day at the school. “What have you done with my friends?”
“A mage?” inquired the Ifrit, his tone suggesting he was pleased and delighted something so small knew how to talk.
“A wizard,” I said firmly. I felt I had had enough eastern magic to last me a long time. “What have you done with the others?”
He poked me delicately with the forefinger of the other hand; the thrust nearly knocked me backwards. “They’re around,” he said vaguely. “You seem remarkably bold, little man.” In fact, I was so terrified that even struggling and shrieking seemed superfluous. “If you’re a wizard, do a trick for me.”
“I can’t do a trick. Your magic has defeated mine. Let me have my spells back, and I’ll do some very charming tricks for you.” I wondered desperately what an Ifrit might find charming.
“So you don’t know magic after all,” said the Ifrit in disgust. His hand started slowly to close around me. “I ought just to crush you.”
I closed my eyes and muttered a scrap of the psalms between my teeth.
But then the hand opened again. “On the other hand, humans can be very amusing sometimes. Do you think you could be amusing if I kept you alive for a while?”
A second ago, death with dignity had seemed the best alternative. Abruptly life without dignity seemed much more attractive. “What a good idea,” I said.
The Ifrit turned his hand this way and that to get a look at me from different angles. His stubbly beard was very close. “I think it’s because you humans always know you’re going to die someday,” he said after a minute. “That’s what makes you so amusing-you act as though everything was important and had some sort of meaning.”
“You could be amused a lot more,” I suggested, “if you brought all my friends here.” My voice sounded tiny and squeaky in comparison to his deep rumble. “By the way, here’s an idea. I’ll bet you were imprisoned in a bottle once, but it’s hard to imagine how you managed to fit your entire body inside. Do you think you could show me?”
At least the Ifrit chuckled rather than crushing me at once. “Nice try, little man, but I won’t be fooled that easily again. King Solomon, the son of David-may they both be revered! — bound me by the name of the Most High and imprisoned me in a bottle for over two thousand years. I’d still be in it if that mage hadn’t let me out. But I’m certainly not going back in there again.”
I had known all along it wouldn’t work. But I would now never have a chance to tell Maffi, “I told you so.”
“Did you know King Solomon?” inquired the Ifrit. “But that’s right,” he said before I could answer. “I keep forgetting what a short time you humans live. Even Solomon only lived for a few centuries. Maybe it would be a kindness just to kill you and get it over with.”
“But then you’d be all by yourself again,” I said, “with no one to talk to and no one to amuse you.”
The Ifrit frowned, a creasing of his blue-green forehead like the violent erosion of a hillside. “I know what I can do,” he said after a moment, his forehead clearing. “I can take all these friends of yours that you keep worrying about and set them tests. Humans talk about setting tasks for Ifriti, but it would be much more interesting to test humans.”
“What kind of tests?” I asked cautiously.
“Tests of all the things humans worry about, honor, love, life itself. I already told you I’ve noticed how seriously you take things.”
“And if we pass your tests-”
“Then I’ll have had an amusing few days,” said the Ifrit.
“And then you’ll let us go?”
The Ifrit seemed more amused by this than anything else I’d said. “Of course not. You came here to my valley, and I’m under orders to guard it, so you’ll all have to die.”
Under orders. That meant, I thought, Kaz-alrhun, the only person I’d met in the east who could possibly master an Ifrit. “But none of them are dead yet?”
A few more days of life seemed a glorious reprieve-but then I didn’t know yet what the Ifrit’s tests might entail.
“I’m hungry and soon I’ll be ready for a nap,” he said, not answering my question. He lifted me up and put me on his shoulder. “Hold onto my hair.” I took hold of three strands of greasy hair, the size of cables, and as he rose from the ground I grabbed onto his ear lobe as well. He flew swiftly, pausing once to swoop down and scoop up something from the sand.
I could see a little better now; we were indeed in the circular valley. Ahead of us were a group of palms, doubtless marking a spring, though I could not remember seeing them from the pass in the valley wall. The afternoon sun had dipped low. When we reached the far side of the valley, the Ifrit landed on the ground again and reached up to pluck me from his shoulder. He placed me by his foot, then opened his other clawed hand to set something next to me. It was Joachim.
The chaplain sat up slowly, looking dazed. I staggered toward him.
The Ifrit bent to smile down on us, showing a row of enormous yellow teeth. “Do you want something to eat too, little men?”
“There’s plenty!” came a completely unexpected woman’s voice.
Gripping each other by the arms, Joachim and I turned toward the voice. We saw the last thing I had expected, a slim young human woman, wearing a big white apron and tending a fire. Three sheep carcasses were broiling over it.
She had black hair and eyes but very white skin, full breasts, and wore a gold necklace above the apron. Strung along the necklace were a number of rings.
She gave us a sharp, appraising glance. While we stared at her dumbfounded, she pulled one of the carcasses away from the fire and sliced off a large portion. “I’m having some myself,” she said. “You’d better take some while you have a chance. The Ifrit doesn’t need to eat very often, and he sometimes forgets that humans do.”
“Thank you,” said Joachim gravely. I found I had nothing to say.
“You’re a priest?” she asked, handing him a plate. “That should make it more interesting.” For some reason she started to laugh.
“Have you seen the others?” Joachim asked me in a low voice.
“No one but you,” I answered. “I don’t even know if Maffi was able to get away while the Ifrit was distracted by the rest of us.”
The mutton tasted surprisingly good. The nose and mouth could still appreciate fresh hot food, even if we were about to die.
The Ifrit crossed his legs and sat down, bringing him closer to our level but not by much. He tossed down a handful of melons as though they had been currents, then picked up a whole sheep carcass on its spit and bit into it. Greasy juice ran down his chin, and he licked it off with a wide pink tongue.
“You didn’t say thank you!” the woman shouted up at him, giving him a rap on the knee with a poker.
He bobbed his head. “Thank you my dear.” She smiled, satisfied, and he continued chewing.
“So, how do you like my wife?” he asked when he had finished the first batch of mutton and was reaching for the second. “Isn’t she fine? Best cook I’ve ever had, and the sweetest body.”
I was too horrified to answer.
“She’s so delicate and graceful, and so pure,” the Ifrit continued, pausing to wipe his jaw with an arm. “She keeps me amused. I like to call her my wife because she was going to be some human’s
wife when I captured her. She probably doesn’t perform quite the services for me that she would for a man, but she keeps me happy!” Both the Ifrit and the woman laughed long and loud at this.
“I was a maiden pure, ready for my marriage to a prince,” she said to us. “Not that I wanted to marry him! But this Ifrit came to the wedding like a hurricane. The prince had boasted that everyone who heard his voice must obey his command, that he could have ordered even Ifriti to attend the wedding if he had wanted. But I think he got more than he expected! The Ifrit scattered the decorations and killed half the guests-including the prince.” From her tone, it had not bothered her very much. “Me, however, he treated very carefully, putting me onto his shoulder when he flew away. And I’ve been with him ever since.”
The Ifrit finished the last of the mutton and stretched. “That was a good meal, my dear. Now I think I’ll take my little nap. Come here and scratch my head while I fall asleep.”
She took off the apron; she wore nothing else but her necklace and nearly transparent trousers. Joachim immediately offered her his goat’s-hair robe, but she waved it away with a laugh.
The Ifrit lay down on the sand, and she sat by him. He took a silver chain, heavy-linked though it was tiny in his hand, and clipped one end to her necklace. The other end he wrapped around one pointed ear.
“In case she gets some idea of trying to escape while I’m asleep,” he explained with a wide smile. “When I’m asleep is the only time that I’m not fully aware of what my dear wife does, no matter where I am. Though you never have tried to escape, have you?” giving her what I hoped was an affectionate squeeze with his enormous hand.
She plunged her arms into his hair and started to scratch his scalp. “Here’s the first test,” the Ifrit said sleepily, closing his eyes. “I took her away from her wedding because I wanted to keep her pure and keep her for me. Isn’t she lovely? A lot of men have desired her. While I nap, you may desire her yourself. But if you try to take her, I’ll feel the tug on my ear and wake up and kill you.”
He opened an eye and fixed me with it. “What sort of test is this supposed to be?” I asked, since some comment seemed called for.
“Just a first test, little mage,” he said, closing his eyes again. “If the urgings of your body so overcome you that you don’t worry about death, then I’ll know you wouldn’t be very amusing for my next tests.” In a minute, he began to snore.
The young woman slowly stopped scratching and withdrew her hands. The snoring never ceased. Then she gave us a wink, reached up, and unhooked the silver chain from her necklace. It drooped from the Ifrit’s ear with nothing attached to it.
“There,” she said, standing up and giving a sensuous stretch, as though showing off her body for us. “He’ll be sound asleep for hours now. As long as I reattach the chain before he wakes, he never knows.”
“Then you’ll be able to escape with us,” said Joachim. “Daimbert, do you think you could carry both of us and fly out of here?”
Before I had a chance to tell him that the Ifrit had taken all my magic, including the ability to fly, the young woman burst into laughter.
“Why should I want to escape, especially escape with you?” she said, in a voice I feared would be loud enough to wake the Ifrit, though he slept on contentedly.
“I like life with this Ifrit. He brings me whatever I want, even though he sometimes loses track of time. Why, when I told him last year I’d like some silk for new trousers, he brought me an entire silk caravan.” This then explained the disappearing caravan Arnulf had tried to multiply in the telling-though not the sign of the cross left behind. “And where else would I find a ‘husband’ who let me order him around this way? Yet I can still get whatever I want from my own kind …”
She gave us an appraising look again, then nodded abruptly. “Yes, you’ll do. Both of you. Come and lie with me.”
I had been having too many sudden shocks lately to be able to react at once. But Joachim spoke immediately and politely. “I’m sure this is a very generous offer, but I am a priest and sworn to chastity.”
“And the Ifrit-” I stammered.
“That stupid Ifrit imagines I am a maiden still,” she said scornfully. “Look at my necklace. I have here the rings of a hundred men who have lain with me while he slept, and he’s never thought to ask where the rings come from. As they say, ‘Whatso woman willeth, the same she fulfilleth, however man nilleth.’ I rather like that eagle ring of yours,” to me. “I’ll even let you keep the other one, the onyx ring. And what’s yours,” to Joachim, “a seal ring? Just a cross, not very interesting, but I have plainer rings than that.”
“I’ll give you my ring if you want it, my daughter,” said Joachim. “But as I already told you-”
She tossed her head. “What’s the matter, priest? Am I not attractive?” She strutted before us, her breasts thrust out. “I hope you can work up some enthusiasm in the next two minutes, because if you refuse to lie with me I’ll wake up the Ifrit and tell him you attacked me, and then he’ll kill you.”
II
The Ifrit grunted and rolled over. I held my breath, but his eyes never opened, and in a moment he was snoring again.
“Listen, Joachim,” I said in an undertone. “I’m sure the bishop would understand in a case like this, if-”
“I am of course sorry to die,” said Joachim in a clear voice, “but I have no choice. I made an oath before God which I cannot break.”
She turned her full attention on him, ignoring me, though at the moment I was having trouble finding her attractive myself. “Your friend will die too, in that case,” she said. “I must have you both, or I will scream and wake up the Ifrit.”
“Are you working with him in this?” Joachim asked her. “Is he in fact fully aware of what you do while he feigns sleep?”
This startled her. “May God be merciful, I hope not,” she said in an undertone, with a quick look toward the Ifrit’s gigantic back.
“I think if he’d been spying on you he’d have said something before you’d worked your way up to a hundred men,” said Joachim reassuringly. “I was merely wondering if the Ifrit’s test of us was more subtle than it first appeared.”
“Does he try this ‘test’ very often?” I asked.
“No,” she said thoughtfully. “This is the first time he’s ever dared a man to touch me. In fact-” She gave his monstrous shoulder a kick with a bare foot. The Ifrit’s snore change its note for a moment, but he did not waken. “God be praised,” she said, looking back at us. “For a minute you had me worried he was actually testing me.”
“Then where have the hundred men come from?” I asked. As long as we kept her talking, I thought, we might be able to keep her distracted from her purpose.
“I’ve been with the Ifrit for five years,” she said, “since he snatched me away from my wedding. In that time we’ve traveled all around the East, though for this last year for some reason he’s stayed close to this boring valley. But every few days he needs to eat, and after he’s eaten he likes to take his nap, and there are often men who will hide in a garden’s trees or sneak up for a closer look at a sleeping Ifrit. I’ve had my pick of kings and princes and even mages, and I don’t know why you two should feel yourselves too fine for an Ifrit’s bride!”
“I certainly can’t deny your many charms,” said Joachim, “but I am afraid I would give the same answer to the Queen of Sheba. It is not you I reject, but all sins of the flesh.”
She sat down, and the chaplain sat next to her. “But I’ve had priests before,” she said, thumbing through the rings on her necklace. “Are you trying to tell me that western priests are purer than eastern priests?”
“Not at all. I judge no man-only his conscience and God can do that. I simply know I must maintain what I am sworn to uphold.”
“So you think the flesh is sinful?” she asked, twisting to look at him coyly over her shoulder. “You do not think my body the gift of God?”
“Ever since
the fall,” Joachim replied, “mankind has been sinful, both body and spirit. We cannot make ourselves pure merely by forsaking the flesh, for the spirit can sin far worse in imagination. But as a priest I need to bring God’s word to humanity, and therefore I cannot afford to be distracted by worldly concerns. It is not just the pleasures of the body I have given up, but the companionship of a wife and the joys of children.”
“But in the East priests do marry. How about married people in the west who need a priest’s guidance?” She turned back around and rested her chin on her hand while frowning at him. “Don’t they feel you’re missing something important?”
“This is an oft-stated concern,” the chaplain said gravely. “In the first centuries of Christianity, its priests did frequently marry. Even in more recent years, some of the northern bishoprics have been rumored to allow married priests. But by far the majority of bishops favor a celibate priesthood.”
“Here our priests are also our judges and our teachers,” she said, looking both thoughtful and interested. “And we don’t have women priests.”
“I do not know about the priests of the Prophet, but Christianity has always had men as priests. After all, the priesthood established by Aaron was male, and Jesus and his first apostles were all men.”
Of all the ways I had desperately tried to imagine to get us out of this, I had to admit that I had not considered discussing church governance and theology with the Ifrit’s wife.
“So is it true,” she asked, “that all of you in the west really do follow the Nazarene prophet rather than the Prophet?”
It had been night for several hours, though a half moon cast a thin blue light, and the fire had burned down to dull coals when the Ifrit’s snores changed abruptly to a series of snorts. The woman jumped up from where she and Joachim were still talking and ran to reclip the silver chain to her necklace.
The Ifrit opened his eyes, squinted in the moonlight, and felt his ear. “Aha,” he said, unwinding the end of the chain. “So you are still safe and pure, my dear.”
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