Sinbad and The Eye of the Tiger (16 page)

Unseen by anyone and even unfelt by Zenobia her locket chain snapped and it flew into a corner, where it lay hidden. The baboon snarled aloud and started snapping his teeth at the tiny exposed throat of the miniature woman. The baboon’s mouth opened and Zenobia saw the long fangs, yellowish at the base and sleek, white spears at the tip. She saw the red-pink interior, dripping with saliva, and in her fear every hair and bump on the ugly baboon’s face was in sharp focus.

She screamed.

Sinbad’s strong, callused hands reached into the midst of the screaming melee and seized the baboon. The animal fought, squealing and kicking. His grip loosened on the tiny Zenobia and she fell, screaming, toward the deck. She bounced off a kicking leg of the baboon, which broke her fall. Dazed, Zenobia lurched to her feet and ran off toward the corner, gasping for breath.

Sinbad wrestled the snarling baboon into submission and shoved him back into the cage. He firmly locked the door, then took a deep breath. He looked at the distressed Dione. “I’m sorry,” he said. He wanted to say more, wanted to tell her that the animal side of the baboon was taking over the human side, but he kept quiet. She’d learn soon enough, he thought.

Sinbad turned toward the disturbed pile of chests to see Melanthius kneeling and heard his start of surprise.

“I thought I saw something move in here . . . Uh!”

Sinbad strode across the small cabin, kicking aside stray boxes, and looked down to where the old Greek was staring so intently. Sinbad’s eyes widened with wonder as he saw the miniaturized Zenobia crouching on one knee, disheveled and breathing hard, staring wide-eyed back at them.

The old man’s expression of surprise and astonishment changed to a wide smile. “Well, well, well, and what—by Zeus and all the Gods—do we have here?” He peered closer. “And
who?”

The old scholar reached down to pick up the tiny figure, but Zenobia tried to run. She lurched to her feet, staggered, tried to get between a metal case and a wooden chest, but the Greek’s hand was too quick. He snatched her up, gleefully. She struggled, biting and scratching, but the fingers were huge ridged tubes to her, incredibly thick and impervious to her clawing. Melanthius stared in fascination at the squirming form in his grasp, as if he were examining some particularly rare and interesting type of insect.

Then, reaching behind him with his free hand, he picked up a wide-necked distilling bottle, and popped the specimen inside. Zenobia glared furiously through the glass walls of the retort. She had lost her composure and haughty bearing completely and found that the thick curving glass of her prison distorted and magnified her view and made her dizzy.

Melanthius was still enraptured by her size. “She looks exactly like a woman, but in miniature! More like a doll than a real living being!”

“Never mind,” Sinbad growled. “For all her puny size, she’s still a witch!”

“Fascinating,” murmured Melanthius, observing the perfect scaled-down proportions.

“How did she get here?” Farah asked, her eyes wide.

“She’s a sorceress,” grumbled Sinbad, glaring back at the tiny figure. “And dangerous. They have ways of doing things . . .” He glanced at the baboon, who was trying to see what was happening. “We should have left her to Kassim,” he said, reaching down to lift up the baboon’s cage so that he could see the tabletop.

“No,” the old man disagreed. “She cannot harm us . . . not now.”

Sinbad gestured at the captured witch in the retort. “What do you want to do with her then?” He gave Farah a look that said if she were not present he would have offered some interesting and deadly alternatives.

Melanthius was still studying the tiny figure. “A most interesting and remarkable physiological curiosity.”

“A
witch,”
Farah said grimly.

Melanthius glanced at the princess. “Then all the more reason that I should be allowed to examine her, interrogate her . . .” He looked back at the tiny figure, now standing sullenly, staring at them. “In the interests of science . . . I insist!”

Sinbad raised his eyebrows to Farah. “Princess?” he asked. “Dione?”

Farah took a deep breath, her eyes troubled. She glanced at the baboon, then sighed. “All right,” she said to Melanthius. “As long as you take every care.”

Melanthius nodded happily, his eyes on the contents of the retort. “Never fear. I shall be on my guard. I’ll try to extract the information from her.” He turned to look at Sinbad, his daughter, and the princess over his shoulder. “Take them on deck, Captain. A confrontation between good and evil may unleash forces that . . . that can be dangerous.”

Zenobia watched them rise and heard Sinbad’s voice echoing inside the smooth hard walls of her transparent prison. “I’ll leave her in your charge then.”

“Where are you going?” Farah asked.

Sinbad looked down at the tiny figure and their eyes locked. “I’m interested now in knowing how this witch came on board. How did she find us?” Almost to himself, the sailor continued. “Perhaps she managed to find a ship after all. But what ship? And where is it now?” He started out. “I’m going to double the lookouts.”

Melanthius gestured after Sinbad. “Go with him, Princess, Dione.” He glanced back at the glaring figure within the retort. “I will have to ask certain questions of a somewhat . . . er . . . delicate nature.” He looked at the princess with concern. “I would prefer to interrogate our prisoner alone.”

Farah nodded. “As you wish.” She went out the door, pausing only to give her aunt, the tiny Zenobia, a look of fear and loathing.

The old scholar seated himself again at the table, his feet stirring the rolls of scrolls. He pulled the retort closer for study, causing Zenobia to lose her balance and sprawl ungracefully. She arose swiftly to her feet, glaring and angry, with red spots of anger on her cheeks. Silently, she suffered under the old man’s critical examination as he studied her from all sides and angles.

Zenobia masked her very real fear with her sullen and angry attitude. She knew what
she
would do under such circumstances, but she did not know the old Greek well enough to anticipate what he might decide. To Zenobia there would have been only one sensible solution—destroy her. But Zenobia had more than once been successful because the opposition had not done the sensible thing.

Melanthius said, “Raise your arms above your head, please.” Zenobia refused to move, her gaze sullenly set off at some distant point. The old man tapped on the glass with his fingernail, not meaning to harm her, but the noise within the confines of the retort was deafening. “Raise your arms, please.” Knowing that further disobedience would only anger him, and hoping to find some weakness, Zenobia obeyed.

“Thank you,” the old man said. “Now lower them . . . very good. Would you open your mouth, please? Wide. Wider. Excellent. Um. Yes. Perhaps you’d be good enough to remove your clothing?”

Zenobia was cautious. “Why?”

Melanthius shrugged. “I must begin with a thorough medical examination.”

Zenobia tipped her head up and away. “I would prefer not to.”

Melanthius chuckled. “Come now, you are hardly in a position to be modest.” He smiled tautly. “And what is there to be ashamed of? In your proper shape and size, you must be an extremely handsome woman.”

Despite herself Zenobia was pleased, having arrived at that time in her life when compliments of any kind were getting rare. “Thank you,” she said with a kind of strained politeness.

She swung her gaze toward him and in a manner of sweet imperiousness, said, “Now if you would let me out of this glass prison . . .”

“No,” the Greek said, shaking his head. His reasonable tone matched with his previous politeness confused Zenobia. But the old man’s next words cleared it up. “I recognize Evil when I meet it. You will stay in there until I know what it is that you are after.” He peered more closely at her. “What inspired you to take such risks?” A thought struck him and the bearded Greek leaned down to the floor to pick up the dropped scroll and put it on top of the other two. “These perhaps?”

Zenobia tried to keep her face calm and serene, but the excitement grew. Seen through the thick, curving glass the diagrams and curious cuneiform lettering was magnified, but distorted. Her slanted eyes ran across the lines of writing eagerly and the old Greek caught on at once.

“But how could you know that they even existed?” he wondered. Zenobia smiled grimly, but her eyes never left the blurred, distorted words. “And again,” Melanthius mused, “what use could they ever be to you?”

Zenobia straightened and looked at the old man boldly. “Use?” she asked.

Melanthius shrugged. “They are written in a runic script that disappeared many thousands of years ago.”

“I can read and understand every language,” the tiny sorceress said haughtily.

“Including that of the . . . ?” The old man caught himself. He raised a white eyebrow at her. “I very much doubt you would know
this
language.” He frowned as another thought struck him. He raised a scroll so that it was clear of most of the distortion near the bottom of the curving retort. “Here . . .” he said suggesting that she read it. “Translate this . . . if you can!”

Zenobia stared for a moment at the strange text and the weird, almost calligraphic designs. “It is an instruction,” she said archly. “A chart showing two possible routes to a Delta figure . . . or perhaps a pyramid.”

Melanthius looked disgusted. “A child could deduce that from glancing at the diagram . . . but the lettering? What does that tell you?”

“For the moment,” Zenobia said evenly, “. . . nothing.”

Melanthius saw Zenobia’s eyes swinging back and forth across the words, as if memorizing them. Although the lettering was distorted by the glass the sorceress’s eyes scanned the words swiftly.

“Enough,” the alchemist said briskly, suddenly suspicious that she was not telling him the truth. He whisked the scrolls away and rolled them into a bundle. Then he had a thought and unrolled a part of a scroll he had not shown her before, holding it to the glass. Then just as suddenly he snatched it away as he changed his mind.

“If I can’t read it . . .” Zenobia shrugged.

“Then there is no need to waste your time on it,” the old scholar said. He brought his face to the glass container. “Tell me, when will you decide to return to your proper shape and size?”

Her eyes were cold. “When I am ready . . .”

“Now, mistress,” Melanthius said in a new, sterner voice. “I really must insist. What powers have you used to shrink yourself?”

Zenobia drew herself together and glared at the peering Melanthius. “I will never tell you.”

Sighing, the old man shoved himself to his feet and, bracing himself against the roll of the ship, he moved to where they had stored his insect specimens. He unlatched a box as he picked up a pair of surgical forceps. Reaching in, he extracted a hornet from the case.

Smiling, Melanthius turned back toward Zenobia, who bit her lip as he drew closer. The old man sat and held the insect near the glass before Zenobia’s face. The tiny sorceress fought to control her face and stood impassively.

“The sting of this hornet is fatal to the strongest,” he said with a smile, his other hand coming to rest on the retort’s stopper. “To someone of your size . . .” He left the sentence unfinished, but it accomplished its purpose. Zenobia took a step backward, plainly terrified. Her hand went to her mouth and she stared with a terrible fascination at the insect, huge to her, and possibly fatal.

“I despise brutality,” Melanthius said, and shrugged. “But . . . at this moment, I am prepared to reject compassion.” He moved the hornet closer and Zenobia screamed.

"No!”

Melanthius, with a slow casualness, set the sleepy hornet on the nearby wax tablet. Then his eyes swung toward the miniature woman, flinty and searching in their penetration. “Then answer my questions! And quickly!” He thrust his face close to the retort and the small witch shrank back against the opposite curved wall. “What are you searching for here on the ship?” He slapped the scrolls. “These?” He picked up the keys in his fist. “These, perhaps?” He narrowed his eyes and asked himself aloud, “How could she know of their existence?”

Absently, Melanthius picked up a scroll and examined it. Zenobia stepped closer, her eyes staring again at the scroll. The old man flicked her a glance and turned so that the scroll could not be seen. But Zenobia only shifted her burning gaze to the back of his head.

There was a flickering in her mind.

. . . A blinking

. . . then a hazy picture that flicked into her mind,

. . . a fragment of the scroll

. . . that Melanthius was looking at.

The old man shook his head and pressed fingers to his temples as if he had been hit by a sudden headache. He rolled up the scroll and turned back to the tiny woman in the retort. He saw the keys and moved them as well.

“Tell me,” he said, “when will you decide to return to your proper shape and size?” She did not answer, and after a moment the bearded sage asked, “And how?” More silence.

The magician from Casgar spoke thoughtfully to himself. “Something of unique power . . . a power that might be used to return Prince Kassim to his human form and make our journey to the Shrine of the Arimaspi unnecessary!”

“The Arimaspi!” Zenobia’s cry echoed in the glass retort.

Melanthius realized that he had made a mistake. Angrily, he peered in at her. “Where is it? And in what form? A liquid, a powder?”

He saw Zenobia touch her throat and her eyes widen.

Zenobia realized the locket was gone. In the fight with the baboon and since, concentrating on survival, she had not missed the locket.
Where was it?
she thought. Perhaps, in the fight with the animal it had been torn off?

“You may search me,” she said seductively. “If you wish . . .”

Melanthius nodded. “I will if necessary. But I believe you would have used whatever it is before now, if it was still in your possession.” The huge face outside Zenobia’s glass prison turned away, looking around. “Where could it have got to?”

The old Greek got up and started to putter around the cabin, scuffling scrolls about and peering into shadows. “Hm . . . a liquid or a powder . . . and what form of container . . . a ring, a drawstring bag, a locket, disguised as a bead in a necklace perhaps . . . ?” Suddenly he stopped and peered happily into a corner. He moved aside several tumbled chests and reached down. “Ah . . .”