Tales of the Djinn: The Guardian (30 page)

The sun was bright and the day warming. Zayd
and his closest tribesmen took seats beneath the shade of a small
canopy. Arcadius and his “pet” were also welcomed there. The
sheikh’s throne-like chair put him higher than their cushions.
Elyse didn’t care. She was grateful she didn’t have to stand.

At first the matches were interesting. Some
ifrits fought each other in whirlwind form, dashing at each other
like tornadoes and taking crazy shapes until one or the other was
shoved over the penalty line. The battles with exotic weapons kept
her attention too. The ifrits were fast and strong and as balletic
as movie stunt people flipping around on wires. Thus far, no one
had died. The injured either healed themselves by changing form or
by requesting the aid of Zayd’s sorcerers. The magicians were easy
to identify. They wore black robes that covered everything but
their eyes, perhaps to make them seem mysterious. Elyse counted
seven—enough to outmatch Joseph, she concluded reluctantly.

The problem, at least for her, was that there
were simply too many fights. The winner of each battle got to
choose the terms of the next, along with whom he fought. None of
Zayd’s men wanted to be left out. As the day wore on, the matches
grew bloodier. Elyse didn’t enjoy watching people get stabbed and
hacked, no matter what sort of beings they were. As she flinched,
the sly sideways glances the sheikh sent toward her frayed her
nerves even more. Arcadius had warned her drinking in too much pain
could cause an ifrit to lose control.

Was her distress at the violence enough to
send Zayd around the bend?

Arcadius continued to watch with calm
interest, but that was SOP for him. He kept weaknesses—when he had
any—to himself. Elyse decided she should stop paying attention,
since she couldn’t control her reactions. As she wrenched her gaze
away from the current fight, she spotted Samir the smoke demon in
the crowd. Without his horse, he seemed different. He perched atop
a barrel, stretched to see over the taller djinn around him. His
vaporous batwings quivered with excitement, their edges wispy
beneath the sun. As one fighter skewered his opponent with a
disgusting squelching noise, the demon pulsed down to a pinpoint.
The crack of bone followed a moment later, causing the crowd to
roar. Samir’s smoke flashed back to its previous size, darker and
thicker than before.

She couldn’t doubt he liked the blood and
gore.

She didn’t want to know what had happened,
though all seven sorcerers rushing onto the ground at once was a
hint.

Sheikh Zayd rose, addressing the victor even
as a limp, red-soaked body was carried off. Elyse didn’t hear the
congratulations. Her blood roared too loudly in her ears. She was
pretty sure someone had just been killed. Though she tried not to
look, she saw an arm trailing in the dirt between the sorcerers.
That one limb gave off an indefinable no-one’s-home impression
she’d forever recognize. She’d noticed it the moment she found
David in the cellar that awful day. Arcadius’s heavy hand settled
on her shoulder, but she didn’t lift her head.

Arcadius was already being challenged before
the words people spoke started making sense to her again.

Shit
, she thought—and a few other
curses besides. The djinni who’d slain his opponent wanted to fight
Arcadius next. Arcadius couldn’t risk himself like that! What if he
were killed? Stopping her mouth from opening to protest took all
Elyse’s strength. She had to trust he knew what he was doing.

Arcadius came gracefully to his feet, exuding
the modesty he and Joseph excelled at. “The chance to test my
mettle against such a champion honors me. If I am to say ‘yes,’ I
have two requests: that our fight end with first blood drawn, and
that this be my only match. I am a visitor among this tribe. To
even hope for more glory would be inappropriate.”

She probably should have known the sheikh
would agree to this. He wanted Arcadius to fight, no matter
what.

Arcadius lifted his arm. Joseph must have
been nearby. He appeared as swiftly as if he’d been magicked.
Arcadius handed him the slave rope’s end.

“Watch my pet,” he said, not asking for
Zayd’s permission.

Joseph bowed and stepped beside the cushion
on which she sat. Arcadius strode toward the fighting ground
without a backward glance. One small sound broke in Elyse’s throat.
Joseph squeezed her shoulder but then let go. Her heart pounded so
hard she thought she might be sick.

She absolutely refused to check if Zayd was
drinking in her terror. Out on the fighting ground, Arcadius
stripped down to his trousers. Though Joseph seemed unruffled, she
couldn’t help gnawing on her lip. Arcadius’s opponent was as tall
as he was and bulged with muscle. He was one of the ifrits who kept
his hair in smoke form. As he warmed up for his next battle, he
made an impressive show of whipping his scimitar and dagger around.
Arcadius was given the same weapons. He rolled his head on his
neck, stretched his arms until they cracked, and crouched in
readiness.

The bout was over in less than five
minutes.

Arcadius was breathtakingly quick and
powerful. He made no show of anything, getting in and getting out
with the minimum necessary motions to defend or attack. The nick he
dealt his opponent to end the match was so tiny the audience saw
the streak of red before Zayd’s man registered the sting and gaped
at it.

“Wonderful!” cried the sheikh. He leaped from
his throne clapping. “You must fight another match, if only to
allow my men to study your technique.”

Arcadius inclined his head. “Far be it from
me to deny my host anything he wishes. I would suggest, however,
that the day grows late. Even men as formidable as yours require
breaks for sustenance. Might I propose a different form of
entertainment?”

“Different?” Sheikh Zayd had subsided into
his seat. His glance slipped to Elyse and away again, causing her
to tense against shuddering. “What do you have in mind?”

This time, Arcadius looked in her direction.
She lifted her head, but Joseph’s was the face he was checking. The
servant seemed to understand what was being asked. He gave his
master a tiny nod.

“My servant,” Arcadius said, waving casually
toward him, “is considered a fair storyteller. Perhaps your men
would like listening to him, and perhaps you and I might liven the
experience with a small wager.”

Arcadius spoke as if butter wouldn’t melt in
his mouth. Zayd leaned back in his fancy chair and laughed.

“You truly do take me for a fool. Even here
in the desert we know who Joseph the Eunuch is. We also know his
storytelling considerably outdoes ‘fair.’ Yes—” He pointed an
accusing finger at Arcadius, whose jaw had slackened with surprise.
“My old friend Samir informed us which Arcadius and Joseph were
requesting shelter. The sultan’s great commander and his famed
magician are quite the guests for humble tent dwellers like
ourselves.”

Zayd’s smile was saturnine. He savored
revealing what he knew, including that Samir was his ally and not
their own. Since none of them had trusted him to begin with, Elyse
didn’t think this was important. She glanced at the smoke demon.
Samir grinned broadly back at her, white teeth flashing in his
smoke head. The display was as unexpected as it was unsettling.
Elyse dragged her gaze to her knees again, where her hands had
unconsciously curled into fists.

Wait a second
, she thought, her
overloaded brain catching up by increments. If Arcadius was the
sultan’s commander and Joseph was a magician, then the bedtime
stories Arcadius told her related true events. Joseph must be the
apprentice the evil sorcerer had tortured.
Eunuch
wasn’t
simply a word. Joseph had sacrificed his manhood to save his
father’s life.

Her understanding turned upside down. The
tale telling competition in the tavern had really happened. And the
sultan falling in love with the disguised princess. These were
actual people Arcadius and Joseph knew, people they were trying to
get home to and rescue.

She was lucky her head was down. Her face
would have told a story by itself. Poor Joseph! No wonder he seemed
sad.

“Forgive my unfortunate omission,” Arcadius
was saying to the sheikh. “Everyone knows how highly desert people
value their freedom from any sultan’s rule. I feared the Guardian
of the Glorious City might not be welcome here.”

“The rules of hospitality don’t care who a
person serves.”

The sheikh’s response was terse, as if he’d
rather not acknowledge this.

“Of course.” Arcadius bowed in response to
the reprimand. “I shouldn’t have implied you’d act otherwise.”

The sheikh snorted. Elyse snuck a glance at
him. He didn’t appear particularly angry. In truth, he looked like
a man secure in his upper hand.

“No matter,” he said dismissively. “I hear
Sultan Iksander isn’t ruling much of anyone these days.”

For just an instant, Arcadius’s polished
facade roughened. Genuine anger cut across his face. When it
passed, his features remained stiff.

The insult had been deliberate. Sheikh Zayd’s
mouth curved the slightest bit. He pressed his fingertips together
to hide the smile. “We
would
be curious to hear the eunuch’s
story,” he admitted. “And to consider a wager, if you still wish to
propose it.”

Joseph spoke up beside her. “I’d be delighted
to spin a tale. And I know just the means to determine a bet’s
winner.”

Arcadius blinked and then composed his face.
He must not have seen this coming.

“Excellent,” Sheikh Zayd said silkily. “What
shall we wager for?”

That was the crucial question. Arcadius faced
the ifrit squarely. “We want one of your flying carpets, sufficient
in size and power to get us safely home.”

Sheikh Zayd’s smoke gray eyes gleamed with
amusement. “That
is
a prize. I presume you hope to somehow
relieve your ‘glorious’ city’s plight.”

To this, Arcadius said nothing.

“You know what I want of course,” the sheikh
continued. He crossed his long legs with a rustle of fine cotton.
“Your pet. At my mercy. For all the hours between sunset and
sunrise.”

Elyse’s heart threatened to choke her throat.
Had she really almost suggested this herself? Arcadius’s gaze held
Zayd’s so very firmly she knew he must be ordering it not to shift
to her. Surely he’d offer the ifrit another prize . . . except what
other prize did they have?

“Your ‘mercy’ poses problems,” he said
tightly.

“You should have thought of that when you
claimed she was only moderately good in bed—and that she was soft.
You piqued my interest, ‘Cade.’ Now I know the human is a tigress,
worthy of
all
my attentions.”

Despite the day’s sunny heat, Elyse’s face
went icy. How did Zayd know what she’d called Arcadius privately?
And why didn’t Arcadius seem surprised? He’d made such a fuss about
Joseph’s sound-cancelling circle. He must have known the sheikh was
spying on them some other way.

Her breath burst from her in outrage. Even
then, neither man looked at her. Apparently her preferences weren’t
important to either one.

Arcadius worked his jaw and spoke. “I’d loan
her to you on one condition: that you return her unscathed in
either mind or body. If one hair on her head is harmed, you concede
I may claim your life as forfeit.”

“My life!” Zayd exclaimed. “You value this
pet highly.”

“To an ifrit, no other penalty means a
damn—as you’ll admit yourself, I think.”

Elyse sucked in a breath of shock. Joseph
squeezed her shoulder to keep her from speaking. He was going to
allow this happen too? After what Arcadius said about Zayd being
certain to lose control and kill her? Zayd’s life being forfeit
wouldn’t help her then.

Joseph’s fingers dug into her again.
“Silence,” he said sternly.

Her lips were trembling so she pressed them
together.
They have a plan
, she told herself. Please God,
let this be a part of it. It didn’t take a genius, or a genie, to
realize what Zayd meant by all his attentions. Arcadius wouldn’t
let her be whipped and raped by a sadistic maniac.

“Human minds are so delicate,” Zayd observed.
“How can I promise not to harm hers?”

“You’ll have to err on the side of
caution.”

Zayd pursed his mouth in distaste. “That
would diminish my enjoyment. No, I cannot answer until I know how
your man proposes to decide the winner.”

Joseph dug his hand into his loose pants
pocket. “Here. These are toys from the human plane. This is called
a heart-rate monitor. You strap it around your chest and it
wirelessly sends information about your pulse to this device, which
humans call a cell phone.”

The items Joseph pulled out were
miniaturized, but he quickly restored them to their original state.
True to his djinn love for vivid colors, Joseph’s cell phone was
bright orange with deep red dots.

“The monitor came free with the phone,”
Joseph explained to Arcadius.

Bemused, Arcadius shook his head. Zayd seemed
intrigued but suspicious. “Those are
human
devices.”

“They’re easy enough to use,” Joseph said.
“With your magician’s help, I can clone the monitors. I thought you
and Arcadius could wager on whether I raise your men’s pulses with
my tale—say ten percent above their normal resting rate?”

Zayd leaned forward, obviously attracted by
the tech. “Which of my men would wear the straps?”

“Whichever you choose. Your sorcerers and I
will have to see how many of the clones we can get to work. You
could keep them afterwards of course.”

Sheikh Zayd rubbed his lips. “I would prefer
you raise their heart rates fifty percent above normal.”

“Twenty-five,” Joseph countered.

“Thirty-five,” the sheikh fired back.