Tales of the Djinn: The Guardian (33 page)

“Thank you,” Joseph said. “Your munificence
is exceeded only by your wisdom.”

~

“I assume you did that on purpose,” Arcadius
said once they were alone in their tent.

“Well, I hoped Zayd would let me break the
tale in two. I want to see how I’m doing on the bet.”

They’d stepped into his sound-cancelling
ring, where Elyse was struggling to turn on the self-heating
teakettle. Arcadius didn’t know how to advise her. Ifrit implements
wouldn’t work on prayer power like the ones at home.

“You have to threaten it,” Joseph said. “Take
a firm grip on the handle and say, ‘Heat my water or I’ll beat
you.’”

Elyse gawked at him. “You’re pulling my
leg.”

Joseph smiled. “Give it a try and see.”

She did as he instructed, gasping with
surprise when steam quickly began puffing out the nozzle. “I did
it! The magic worked.”

Arcadius grinned at her delight . . . until
he saw the item Joseph had pulled from his pocket for
de-shrinking.

“You have a second phone,” he accused.

This one was red with shiny orange dots. “Of
course,” Joseph said. “I force paired it to the first. I can check
on my progress without Zayd knowing.”

“You have
two
phones,” Arcadius
repeated.

“It was a two-for-one deal, plus the heart
monitor.” Joseph saw he was aggrieved. “I offered to shop for you,
master. You’re the one who wanted to choose your own.”

“Mine is still in my overcoat. Which I had to
abandon in Elyse’s cellar.”

“If you like,” Joseph said, “when I’m done
with this one you can have it.”

He was childish enough to want to accept, but
that wasn’t the point. “You were holding out,” he said. “We could
have used those phones as our guest gift. You made Elyse give up
her wedding ring!”

Joseph gave him a look Arcadius didn’t think
he’d ever seen on his face before. Though it wasn’t precisely
rebellious, it also wasn’t the expression of a respectful
servant.

“First,” he said, “these phones are too human
for Zayd to have found them sufficiently appealing, especially with
no cell network here. Second, I thought we might need them for
something more important—which as it turns out, we do. Finally,
it’s not like
you
mind Elyse’s sacrifice!”

The truth of this last point kept Arcadius
from arguing the first two. His jaw worked with annoyance for a
moment.

“Fine,” he conceded reluctantly. “You
shouldn’t have to give your phone to me. You’re the one who had the
foresight to purchase a back-up.”

A muffled snicker broke out behind him. Elyse
was laughing. When he turned to look, she wiped the amusement from
her expression.

“What are the results so far?” she asked.

Joseph studied the screen and frowned. “Only
three out of five. I pushed two of the fighters and the albino into
their ‘red zone.’ The old man and the champion with the many
earrings are resisting.”

“Less sex, more violence,” Arcadius
recommended. Joseph scratched his jaw unsurely.

“More misery?” Elyse proposed. “The tribesmen
seemed unimpressed by the sultan’s wife getting off so easy. If you
have a happy ending, you might want to deep-six it.”

“I don’t,” Joseph said. His sad gaze met
Arcadius’s.

“One challenge at a time,” Arcadius said
softly.

ZAYD’S tribe gathered for the rest of
Joseph’s story with palpable eagerness. Elyse took special note of
the old man and the fighter with the earrings. Both looked
stone-faced, but so did the other three.

“Get on with it,” Zayd said, waving Joseph on
from his raised seat.

Joseph heard and obeyed.

* * *

The Sultan and the Sorceress: Continued

As you’ll recall, the magician banished the
sultan’s wife by means of a windstorm. He sent her to a nunnery in
the mountains, where she’d be treated kindly but not allowed to
leave. Though the eunuch waited every day to be ordered to bring
her home, the sultan seemed unable to relent. Perhaps he felt
guilty over his hardheartedness. His sentence against the artist
was less extreme. Philip was ejected from the palace and obliged to
find lodgings. Though he missed his friend, the commander didn’t
seek Philip out, only kept track of how he fared. According to his
spies, the artist was very sad—too sad to paint or sculpt. Other
than that, he was enduring.

Back at the palace, Iksander shut himself in
his rooms, fulfilling only those duties that were essential to keep
the place running. His feelings of betrayal ate at him too much to
venture among people. Everyone he saw seemed—to him—to be judging
him a cuckold. This withdrawal lasted seven days. On the eighth, he
told the master of his harem to prepare a concubine to receive him
that evening. He didn’t care who it was, simply that she be warned
not to expect him more than one night. At precisely midnight, he
went to the chosen girl. At precisely three a.m., he left.

The pattern repeated itself for thirty
days.

Iksander was a naturally virile man, endowed
with needs any male might claim. The commander didn’t consider it
his business how Iksander satisfied himself. Celibacy wasn’t
expected of a male in his position. Nonetheless, Arcadius grew
curious.

Stories of the sultan’s habits began to
escape the harem walls.

It was said he made love to the concubines in
his smoke form; that he didn’t allow them to change but only to lie
there and accept him. The women weren’t complaining. Though the
practice was uncommon, the sultan left them well pleasured. Some
even pleaded for more encounters, but Iksander never complied. He
seemed to have sworn off taking any woman a second time.

Over the years, the sultan had received many
concubines as gifts, but eventually even he ran out. The commander
waited to see what his liege would do. Would he start again at the
beginning? Or forgive Najat at last? Neither appeared to be
happening. The sultan continued to leave his rooms every night,
though no one in the harem reported seeing him. When the commander
tried to have Iksander followed, the sultan evaded the
surveillance.

Now Arcadius heard new reports. These came
from the surrounding town. A phantom lover was haunting the female
populace. This smoky being—who took the general form of a tall
young man—would appear at a woman’s window, requesting to be let
in. If admitted, he would say, “Good woman, might I have your
permission to pleasure you?” If the answer were affirmative, the
phantom lover would introduce them to such erotic transports the
women claimed to be ruined for other men.

“He is obsessed,” the women sighed. “His many
orgasms do not exhaust him, and he is
very
interested in
bringing women theirs. It is as if he cannot stop himself!”

On one other fact the women agreed. The
phantom lover remained three hours and then departed, never to be
heard from again by the same female.

Apparently, many women liked the idea of
being taken in this manner. A fashion sprang up among the Glorious
City’s female residents. If a woman was amenable to a visit from
the phantom, she displayed a red silk scarf in her bedroom window,
thus advertising her availability.

When the reason for this craze reached the
ears of the
valide sultana
, she was incensed. She summoned
the commander for a private talk in her apartments. As if to
compensate for her offspring’s indecency, she’d veiled herself more
thickly than usual. Of all her countenance, only her flashing eyes
were visible.

“You must put a stop to this,” she said. “My
son is royal. Most of these women are commoners. What if people
discover this perverted ‘phantom lover’ is their sultan? His
behavior is completely undignified!”

“I’m not certain what I can do,” the
commander said. “Your son is my superior, and also a grown
man.”

“But he listens to you!”

“Only when he wishes. Perhaps we should be
grateful he has returned to overseeing affairs of state.”

The sultana didn’t wish to be grateful. “That
girl,” she muttered, meaning Najat. “This never would have happened
if she’d kept her thighs together.”

The commander thought this unfair but was too
wise to say so. He also thought the sultana had a point about her
son’s conduct. As delicately as he was able, he raised the topic
during his next consultation with the sultan.

“You didn’t use women this way before,” he
pointed out. “Why are you so bent on it now?”

The sultan glowered at him, his hips resting
on the front of his ornate official desk. He was alert and groomed
and perfectly outfitted—all of which seemed promising signs. Only
his dark mood and manner were altered from before.

“How,” the sultan asked haughtily down his
nose, “can this be your business?”

“I’m concerned for you, Iksander. You know
you risk a scandal. Also, this . . . particular act doesn’t seem
like you.”

Iksander crossed his arms. “What would you
know about it? Maybe it
is
me. Maybe I always wanted to, but
Najat seemed so sweet and normal I didn’t dare. Well, now I don’t
have to worry about shocking her. She’s the one who shocked
me!”

“But why a new woman every night? Wouldn’t a
single female you trust not to gossip be better?”

“Whom can I trust?” the sultan demanded, his
voice grating with anger. “The only woman I ever loved betrayed
me!”

The commander fought a sigh. He saw he wasn’t
improving the situation with his questions. “Very well,” he said.
“Please come to me if there’s anything I can do. I promise not to
judge but only to serve you loyally.”

The words calmed Iksander’s ire.
Unfortunately, they didn’t swerve him from the slippery path he’d
chosen.

~

Inevitably, news of the sultan’s exploits
reached the sorceress. She hadn’t given up her plan to seduce him
and rule his city. She’d been waiting for the right moment to make
her move, and it seemed it had arrived.

The identity of the phantom lover was obvious
to her.

Hanging her red scarf out with countless
others didn’t strike her as efficient. One night when the moon was
full, she drew on its influence to work a sly magic. As the lunar
orb rose above the city, its rays bleached every scarf but hers.
Only hers remained red. Only hers would lure the obsessed sultan.
His habit of loving and leaving didn’t cause her the least
distress. She was the Empress Luna, who drove men mad with her
seductive wiles. The only reason Iksander didn’t love her already
was that he’d never tasted them.

~

On the stroke of midnight, a sharp knock
sounded on the empress’s windowpane. She’d bathed and perfumed
herself earlier. Wearing filmy garments that were more alluring
than none at all, she sauntered across her bedroom to meet the
arrival.

Her residence was on the second floor above
her sorceress shop. A figure cut from a storm cloud bobbed in the
air outside. The smoke man was perhaps a foot taller than solid
males. Completely naked, he had broad shoulders, narrow hips, and
long fit legs. Two eyes lit his nobly shaped smoke head, gleaming
the bright green of lime slices. Equally interesting from Luna’s
point of view was that her visitor had an erection. Its impressive
length pulsed with eagerness, the idea of what he’d come here to do
arousing him.

The sorceress fully intended to make the
sultan’s fixation work in her favor. She smiled as she opened both
casements.

“Do come in,” she said, stepping back to make
room for him.

The sultan floated by her, not that she
greeted him as such. Anonymity was crucial to his game. That much
closer to what he wanted, his upward pointing shaft throbbed
impatiently.

“Good woman,” he said as he always did.
“Might I have your permission to pleasure you?”

The sorceress stroked a slender finger down
her neck. “I have needs of my own,” she said, pretending not to
notice how the sultan’s gaze went to her cleavage. “Before I
answer, might I convince you to ravish me somewhere other than my
bed?”

If it were possible for vapor to look
worried, the sultan did.

“You must remain solid,” he insisted.

“I shall,” Luna promised. Sensing the phantom
didn’t mind obviousness, she slid both hands around her breasts and
cupped them.

The smoke phantom licked his lips. “You must
not interfere with my passions. If I wish to—“ He hesitated before
going on more harshly. “If I wish to fuck your ass or come on your
face, you will allow it.”

“Whatever you wish,” the sorceress purred,
“you’ll find me eager to receive you.”

“Then I accept your condition. Where do you
want me to take you?”

“To begin with,” the sorceress said, secretly
exulting, “over the back of that chaise right there.”

The sultan’s smoke form pulsed with
anticipation. “Take off those garments,” he commanded.

This gratified the sorceress too. From the
accounts she’d heard, the sultan never asked his partners to
disrobe. From the beginning, she was setting herself apart.

She peeled off her filmy clothes—not too
fast, not too slow—teasing him by baring her moon pale beauty one
transcendent feature at a time. Finally, all the silk pooled around
her ankles. The moon silvered the slopes of her breasts, the
enticing curves of her waist and hips, the polished sterling curls
that wisped between her thighs. The phantom trembled at these
sights, his smoke cock jerking with his desire.

Satisfied with his reaction, the sorceress
showed off her shapely legs by strolling to the chaise. Aware that
her rear was fetching, she bent over.

“Grip the cushions and hold on,” the phantom
ordered. “My smoke form is very strong.”

The sorceress’s lips curved as she obeyed.
“Shall I brace my legs wide as well?”