In relation to herself, she could sense only one thought: Guptas was terribly anxious for her to know something.
She relaxed.
A corona of fire blazed before her eyes.
The final barriers vanished, and in a matter of moments, she knew the story of Guptas’s life.
Because she was living it.
Marilyn stood next to the king. His hand was resting lightly on her head; together they looked out at the great hall.
Her tail lashed back and forth in amusement. All this belonged to Suleiman.
And she was Suleiman’s favorite.
Hundreds of people filled the hall, all of them tall, all of them beautiful.
Beneath their feet, hardly noticed, scampered the demons. Once even a single demon would have been cause for alarm here. But it had been a thousand years since the king had tamed them, a thousand years since the war between the demons and the people of Suleiman had ended.
The race of the Suleimans had triumphed, and peace ruled the castle.
Life was good.
Or it should have been.
She paused. Something was nagging at the back of her mind, some thought that stood in the way of her happiness.
She tried to find it, but could not. It was locked away more securely than Suleiman’s books of wisdom.
She looked back out over the throng and tried to regain the sense of pleasure she had felt. It was gone. Her tail continued to lash, but it was in anger now, not contentment. She wanted to drive the spike at its tip through someone’s heart. Maybe then she would feel better.
She recoiled from the thought, and suddenly she understood at least part of what drove Guptas. He was a being at war with himself.
A sudden flourish of trumpets caught her attention. The great doors at the end of the hall swung open and the king’s son entered, standing astride a great carpet that floated through the air. A shout went up. The hero had returned.
Marilyn felt her heart leap. The prince was her best friend.
She loved him.
She hated him.
Why? she wondered.
The answer formed as quickly as she asked for it: She hated him because he had Suleiman’s love, and she wanted that all to herself.
A murmur rose among the demons. The one closest to the throne caught her eye and snickered.
A fist of ice clutched her heart. She was on the verge of doing something terrible.
She didn’t want to do it.
And she knew she would not be able to stop herself.
Again the world seemed to spin around her, and again she was somewhere else—seeing, living a different scene.
This time it was a cave, dark and foul smelling. A dozen demons crouched around her, urging her to lead them. Not one of them was more than half her size. She was the greatest demon in the court. And she was Suleiman’s favorite.
“Help us, Guptas,” wheedled a voice next to her. “You owe it to us.”
Again she had that sensation of being torn between two loyalties. The demons were her people. The king was her master. Her heart belonged to both. And it was breaking.
“You’re waiting for something that will never happen,” hissed a voice to her right.
Still she hesitated.
One more voice, sharp and bitter: “Remember what the Suleimans did to our people.”
The speaker was a very old demon. He sat directly across from her, crouching between two stalactites that thrust down from the roof of the cave like fangs. Somewhere behind him flickered an evil-looking fire that caused his shadow to stretch toward her like a dark hand.
He rose and walked in her direction, the shadow moving before him. Marilyn cringed, aching to cry out in terror, to run not only from these creatures but also from the horrible thing they were asking her to do.
She reminded herself that she was only an observer, lodged temporarily in Guptas’s body to learn the secrets of his past.
The ancient demon was standing directly in front of her now. He took her chin—Guptas’s chin—in his withered claws and held it steady. His eyes seemed to be boring into Guptas’s head.
For a wild, terrifying moment Marilyn wondered if the old demon knew she was in there.
His face was shriveled and evil, and she felt she was in the presence of a force as old as time, as wicked as hate.
In a low, gravelly whisper, he hissed, “Remember what Suleiman did to your mother!”
Guptas erupted in rage, and Marilyn felt as if her brain was on fire.
What? she cried out in Guptas’s mind. What did he do to her?
She felt as if a door had slammed in her face as Guptas’s mind sealed the answer away from her.
Suddenly the world spun again, and they left the cave behind. Marilyn seethed with frustration. Guptas wanted her to know something, but he wouldn’t show her all of it.
Why the sudden shyness? she wondered. Fear? Sorrow? Shame? What is it that he won’t let me see?
They were back in the Hall of the Kings; Suleiman’s son was still riding his flying carpet up the center of the hall in his triumphal parade. The throng that filled the court was shouting joyfully at his entrance.
Suddenly Marilyn was aware of the old demon who had spoken to her in the cave. Though he was standing on the other side of the hall, he was staring into their eyes—her eyes, Guptas’s eyes—and speaking directly into their mind.
Remember, he growled. Remember, and repay!
The crowd was shouting the prince’s name. For a year he had been traveling the land, doing his father’s business. He had extended the rule of the Suleimans. He had brought peace to the borders of the kingdom, burnishing the golden age that had begun with the defeat of the demons.
The magic carpet paused before Suleiman’s throne, hovering a foot or two above the ground.
The king rose to greet his son.
Slowly, silently, unnoticed in the joyous throng, a dozen demons crept to the edges of the crowd. They positioned themselves near the prince, waiting.
Guptas stood beside the king. From across the hall the ancient demon was burning a message into his brain: Now, Guptas. The time is right. But they have to move together.
Guptas didn’t move.
The words rang in her head, and Marilyn wanted to cry out for them to stop.
Now! demanded the demon. All we need is the signal. All we need is your word, Guptas, to begin our revenge for a thousand years of slavery!
Still Guptas hesitated.
Suddenly a picture flashed in and out of his mind like a streak of lightning. Marilyn was left with only an impression of a woman, a woman vastly beautiful yet somehow evil, at once more and less than human.
Remember!
Guptas looked down at the carpet. Everything was in place.
Remember!
A red haze seemed to float through his mind. Marilyn caught his rage, felt herself aching with anger, longing for revenge.
“Now!” screamed the demon.
“Now!” screamed the girl.
It came out as a single word.
At their signal the demons leaped. Grabbing the front edge of the floating carpet, they rolled it under itself, peeling it back so that the prince was suddenly standing on nothing. When he stumbled and fell to the floor, his body was instantly covered with a mass of writhing demons.
A roar of anger erupted from the king.
The crowd began to scream.
The prince was battling the hordes of demons.
And he was calling Guptas’s name, calling to him for help.
Again, Marilyn felt the world whirl sickeningly around her. When she could focus again, she found herself sitting in the shade of an enormous tree. The prince, younger now, almost a child, was sitting next to her and saying, “They don’t understand you, Guptas. They think you’re like all the others.” His voice was sad, burdened by the injustice his friend suffered.
Marilyn felt a sudden warmth. The prince trusted her. Even if no one else did, the
prince trusted her. He would speak to Suleiman for her. He would tell the king she could be trusted.
“I will fight for you, Guptas,” continued the prince. “Because I believe in you.”
The prince was calling her name.
“Guptas! Guptas, fight for me!”
She was back in the castle. The throne room was in chaos; demons were attacking everywhere. The king himself was battling a dozen or more, trying to fight past them so he could help his son.
He could never do it in time. There were too many of them.
The prince’s cries were growing weaker.
“Guptas, help me!”
He had trusted her! Again that red haze seemed to settle over her eyes. The heat she had sensed from the time she had been joined with Guptas began to blaze around her. She was on fire, and she didn’t care. Death filled the air, but she didn’t care.
They had to save the prince!
With a cry of rage she threw herself into the battle. She was Guptas, greatest of the demons. With every slash of her claws some other demon’s scales fell to the floor, scattering like handfuls of dropped coins. With every sweep of her tail its deadly spike ripped into some soft underbelly, spilling dark demon blood that hissed and steamed like the rivers of hell.
The demons threw themselves on her, their weight bearing her to the floor. Untrained in battle, Marilyn shrieked in horror. But Guptas knew what to do. Arching his body, he sent the demons flying in all directions, and once more began ripping the creatures away from the prince, away from his friend.
In the end they managed to save the prince.
But it really made no difference.
A thousand years of peace had ended with the signal given by Guptas.
The Demon Wars had begun anew.
Three days later the prince was ambushed and slain by demons who waited outside his sleeping chamber.
Guptas went into hiding.
He had betrayed the Suleimans, betrayed his only friend, by signaling the attack. Then, unable to live with that betrayal, he had turned back to the Suleimans he still loved, betraying his own people in turn.
The demons would curse him throughout eternity.
Now his friend was dead, but the war raged on.
Guptas wanted the demons to win.
He wanted the Suleimans to win.
He wanted to die.
As it turned out, that would be the one punishment denied to him.
Five days later the war was over, and the disaster he had initiated was complete.
Guptas was stunned. The last war between the Suleimans and the demons had gone on for a thousand years. How could it be over in two weeks this time?
The answer was simple. The demons had never been inside the castle before. Now, after a thousand years of serving here, they knew its ins and outs as well as they had known their own winding caves. They fought a war of ambush and sudden death. There were no great clashes of armies after that morning in the Hall of the Kings. There was only lurking, hiding, and ambush.
And death.
Now the demons and the Suleimans were gone, all destroyed in this final cataclysm, which had been unleashed by a single word that should never have been spoken.
A word that had come from his lips.
Guptas wandered the halls, sighing and moaning to himself. The castle was littered with bodies, both Suleiman and demon.
And it was all his fault.
He sat alone in empty rooms, beating his breast with his claws, pounding the floor in his anger and sorrow and guilt.
Was there no one left alive?
“Yes.”
Guptas looked up and cried out in terror.
The king was standing before him.
Suleiman didn’t say a word, merely motioned for Guptas to follow him. Meekly the demon walked at his master’s heels, back to the Hall of the Kings.
The bodies were all gone, and he wondered vaguely what great magic Suleiman had worked to get rid of them.
The king collapsed onto his throne. Guptas sat with his face averted, ashamed to look at his master. But out of the corner of his eye he could see that the king was pale and exhausted, and that his body had many wounds.
After a while the king began to speak. He told of the war, and how it had been fought. He spoke of the death of his son. And then, in a whisper, he spoke of the final great battle, deep in the bowels of the castle, when he had fought alone, against the remaining demons, finally imprisoning them with a spell so powerful it nearly killed him to cast it.
And at last he spoke of betrayal, and the necessary punishment.
Then, despite Guptas’s tears, despite his cries of terror, his pleading, his apologies, his groveling, Suleiman worked his last magic.
With his powers he imprisoned Guptas in an amulet the prince had worn from the day of his birth—cursing him to stay inside it until the day someone trusted him enough to release him.
Carrying the amulet, Suleiman wandered out of his castle and down the mountainside. Then he worked his last great act of magic, shoving the castle and the mountain on which it stood out of the world we know, into another place altogether.
For a time the great king traveled this world, seeking a balm for the pain in his heart—until one day, wandering weak and weary through the deserts of Egypt, he simply toppled forward, crushing the amulet into the sand beneath him. He lay in the blazing sun, sweat pouring from his brow, sand clinging to his skin.
There he died.
And there Guptas stayed, for a time longer than anyone could imagine—stayed until the day Eldred Cooley found the amulet.
15
GUPTAS’S SECRET
Kyle was shaking her.
“Marilyn! Marilyn, are you all right?”
She opened her eyes and looked around. She was back in the Hall of the Kings. Guptas stood nearby, looking at her anxiously.
“Are you all right?” asked Kyle again.
She nodded. “I think so. How long was I out?”
“Only a few seconds. But you had me scared.”
“A few seconds! But …”
The protest died on her lips. She turned to the demon.
“What do you want from me?”
“Let me go.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Let me go. Free me from the amulet.”
“But you’re free of it right now.”
Guptas shook his head.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “I mean, there you are—”
While she was speaking, Guptas had raised his arm. Before she could finish her sentence, he lashed out at her with his deadly claws.
“Watch out!” cried Kyle. At the same time he threw himself at Guptas, trying to stop the attack. Marilyn screamed and threw up an arm to protect herself.
Kyle slammed into the demon just as the slashing claws made contact with Marilyn’s face.
They passed through her cheek and came out the other side without leaving a scratch. At the same moment Kyle hurtled though the demon’s body and ended up sprawling on the floor several feet past him.
“You’re a ghost!” cried Marilyn.
Guptas actually smiled, though the effect was more that of a hideous leer. “No, I am not a ghost. But I’m not really here. I’m in the amulet, just as I have been for ten thousand years.”
Kyle pushed himself to his knees and shook his head. He had another, smaller lump sprouting next to the first one. “So you’re a hologram,” he said. Gently he fingered the new protuberance. “Did you really have to give such a convincing demonstration?”
“It’s important that you believe me,” said Guptas solemnly.
Marilyn crossed to Kyle and helped him to his feet. “I believe you. I just don’t understand what I’m supposed to do for you. Let’s take it step by step.”
“I want you to let me out of the amulet.”
“You’ve got to be kidding!” cried Kyle. “You think she’s going to let something like you loose when you’re g
ood and safe where you are?”
“She will if either of you ever wants to see your home again,” snarled Guptas.
“Don’t threaten me!” snapped Marilyn. Holding up the amulet, she added, “I don’t want to see you anymore.”
Guptas vanished instantly.
“How’d you do that?” asked Kyle in astonishment.
“It’s the amulet. I’m pretty sure it controls him. Didn’t you notice the other time, when he slashed at you with his claws and I told him to stop? I was holding the amulet then, and he obeyed me instantly.”
“He couldn’t have hurt me anyway,” pointed out Kyle, “since he was only a—what? A mirage? An illusion? What do you call something like that?”
Marilyn shrugged. “I don’t have the foggiest. Anyway, the point right now is not what we call him. It’s how do we deal with him?”
“I’d say the first thing to do is make him take us home.”
She held up the amulet. “Guptas! I want to see you!”
She was expecting his image to materialize in front of them again. Instead, the jewel in the center of the amulet flashed.
She looked at it curiously and found herself looking into it.
Red. And walls. Wall after wall of smooth, hard crimson, all at odd angles to one another, all too close together, cramping, crowding, holding …
She shuddered. This was Guptas’s world. This was the place where he had been imprisoned for ten thousand years.
And now he wanted to get out.
Suddenly one eye appeared in the center of the jewel, as it had in the funeral home. It glared at her sullenly.
“Don’t play games with me,” said Marilyn fiercely. “I said, ‘Let me see you!’”
The jewel flashed again, and instead of an eye, she saw Guptas, impossibly small, crouched and crowded between the facets of the crimson prison.
“Out here!” she snapped.
At once Guptas stood before them. Glaring at her, he said sullenly, “You’ll never rest again.”
She blinked nervously. “What do you mean?”
“I mean you can control me with that amulet, but only when you’re awake. I will be free at night—not free of the amulet. Oh, no, I’m never free of that. But free to haunt you. You’ll see me in your dreams. I’ll shape myself out of air and stalk your room. When you open your eyes, I’ll be there, crouching at the end of your bed, waiting to pounce.
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