12

After we surrendered our swords Firouz’s rogues marched us over to a high spot west of his camp, where we were reunited with Hamil, guarded by Diomedes.

The Greek gnashed his teeth at us. “Do you know how many hours it took to prepare that lion?”

“It is not my fault if you chose a clumsy beast for your spell,” I said. Dabir smiled at that.

Firouz turned his back to us and took in the view. I gave off considering where best to place a knife should I obtain one—for men with swords still guarded us—and studied the view myself, seeing now a few hunks of stone protruding from the sand both to right and left and, indeed, for some several hundred feet in every direction. To our left, in fact, a square stone platform poked from the dune.

Ali rejoined us to report to Firouz. “There were no others with them,” he said.

“They probably had guides,” Firouz said. “They’ve likely fled and are of no consequence.” He trudged up the dune toward the platform and spoke without looking back. “Bring these three.”

The light on the horizon had pulled forth the sun itself, a wedge of brilliant orange.

The guardsmen and Ali urged us before them. Firouz turned to regard us, smiling, and mounted the stone square ten paces off. In the sunlight his once handsome face was even more ghastly, black and red and wrinkled. I wondered if he had any sight from that drooping eye at all. To Firouz’s right, on the lee side of the dune, a sunken series of stone merlons thrust up from the sand. I realized then that he stood atop the remnant of a tower, or perhaps even a city gate.

“Imagine my surprise,” Firouz called down to Dabir. “After all my preparations, I had thought simply to wander into the city and find my portal.” Firouz’s scarlet sleeve billowed as he took in the sand with a sweep of his arm. “There’s nothing to be seen but the capitals of some pillars.”

“I hope you brought shovels,” I murmured. Dabir caught my eye but remained serious.

“I have something better,” Firouz replied in good humor. I hadn’t thought he would hear me. “And that’s where you can help me.”

At my side, Dabir tensed when Firouz produced a small stoppered bottle from a pouch at his waist.

The Magian held it up to the sky in the palm of his hand, and it shone crimson in dawning light, as though it were coated with blood. “I anticipated a surprise or two along the way,” Firouz continued, lowering the bottle, “and took precautions.”

“Firouz, do not,” Dabir urged. “You’re dealing with more than—”

“Do not provoke me further, Dabir!” Firouz snapped. “I have much to thank you for already!”

Dabir said nothing, and Firouz continued in an imperious tone. “Stand clear of the prisoners.”

Our guards, looking confused, moved away. Ali hesitated, glared at me, then stood aside.

Diomedes joined Firouz on the stone.

Firouz popped free the cork. He held it out from his hand and blood-colored smoke boiled forth into a churning cloud.

“What’s he doing?” the poet demanded of Dabir.

As if in answer, a whirlwind rose suddenly along the crest of a dune some distance to our left and skipped over the sand toward us. Its form shifted between a dense cone, roughly man-sized, and a wider shape the height of a ship’s mast, spread thinly enough that the horizon could be observed, as if through the slightest of fabrics.

Hamil whispered a prayer and I made the sign warding off the evil eye.

“He’s summoned a djinn,” Dabir said grimly.

The whirlwind slowed beside Firouz, and the crimson smoke swirled into its form, coloring it in bands and striations that spun until the whole of the thing was red as a battlefield. The smoke then diminished, and the djinn cloud ceased its whirling. A powerfully built man was revealed at its center. He was all of varied shades of red—a light red shirt, pants and hair so dark a shade that it approached black, skin a modicum lighter. He wore no turban or other head covering, and the wind raked his hair. The turbulent air buffeted his clothes unceasingly.

I recalled then that the old dastur believed Firouz sought a djinn. Could this djinn be the one? If so, how had he been called without the doors and their pulls?

“Again you summon me,” the djinn said. His voice was deep and resonant, like a distant storm roaring in the depths of the night.

Firouz gestured to us. “Again I offer a gift.”

The djinn frowned. “You bring an audience that I may amuse?”

“Nay, one of them is your gift.”

The djinn’s gaze turned over us. I saw to my surprise that he had no eyes, only bright orange holes where such organs are normally found.

Firouz pointed stiffly to Dabir. “The one on the right there is wise with lore. You might collect it and derive endless fascination.”

The djinn made a scoffing noise. “Your lore is darker and more interesting. But here, the one on the left is fresh, not weighed down by responsibility and remorse. It sparkles a bit with purple images and dances with the rhythm of words.” He turned back to Firouz. “Very well. What do you want of me?”

“The sands obstruct my view of the ruined city. I wish you to cast the sand away to the north so that I might enter it.”

“You would trade a soul for such a paltry thing? Four thousand years I have dealt with mortals and I am ever amazed. I thought sure you would ask for more sorcerous power.”

“Nay, only the removal of sand.”

“Done.” The djinn’s head turned and his hand outstretched. The fingers beckoned minutely, and then a spinning bubble passed ghostlike from Hamil’s chest, gleaming like gold-flecked marble, and shot into the hand of the djinn. The poor poet collapsed upon the instant and moved no more.

I shall never forget the last stricken look upon Hamil’s face. I had seen the end come for men before, and there is often an anguished display of surprise as though they did not expect death to ever reach them. Normally, though, death seeks those who actively put themselves at risk, or who lie in sickbeds. To have it lunge forward with such unexpected ferocity would have been a shock to any man. In that moment the petty hatreds and little annoyances that we had handed back and forth over the years paled to insignificance against the callous evil that dispatched Hamil. He had gone bravely forward with us, lacking polished martial skills, because he thought to help. If he and I had not quite been friends, we were comrades of the road, striving as brothers toward our goal. Somewhere along the course of our travels I had come to like the little man and raged that he had been slain with no more regard than a bug is squashed by an idle youth.

The djinn slid the poet’s shining soul into a pocket of his robe. Out swept his hands; they struck thrice and then the whirlwind consumed him. The red-hued cyclone soared out and beyond and settled on the ground two bow shots distant. At once there rose a column of sand that tunneled through the djinn and drifted to the north. In the time of ten heartbeats, flagstones, columns, and fallen stone stood naked beneath the rising sun. More followed as the djinn roared on, and the city’s structure shone clean; fallen walls, causeways, wells. Temples. Streets. Here and there an ancient roof slanted green slate across a shorter structure, and in the distance square watchtowers stretched toward the heavens. In the space of a hundred heartbeats ruins stood revealed that had not known the sky for a thousand years.

The djinn did not remain to admire his miracle; he spun faster and wider until all was visible through the substance of his whirlwind. And then he was faded to nothing, though the wind still whistled. Despite all, I could not help muttering my surprise and turned to Dabir to gauge his reaction.

Dabir was kneeling at the side of the poet, watched by the guardsmen and the Greek. Diomedes’s look was grim.

Dabir closed the poet’s eyes. Slowly, methodically, he straightened the man’s limbs.

Firouz was laughing as he rejoined us.

“There will be an accounting with God for you,” Dabir said, his voice, though quiet, shaking with passion.

Firouz laughed the harder. “You can say that? You who serve a tyrant? I am striking the tyrant down, Dabir!”

“If you had a djinn,” Diomedes interrupted, “why didn’t you send him after the cornerstone?”

“You know nothing of the way djinn think. Once he felt its true power he would not give it up. We are fortunate he did not sense it in clearing the city.”

Ali grunted. “Why didn’t you send him to kill the caliph?”

Firouz laughed with disdain. “You think so small! I mean not just to destroy the ruler, but the machineries of his government! The caliph, his ministers, and his generals will be swept away. Nothing shall remain!” The madman started down toward the city, calling to his men without looking back. “Have Dabir and the captain cart the wood!”

“We should bury this man!” Dabir stood stiffly beside the poet’s body.

Firouz halted and looked over his shoulder. “Why? His soul cannot rise, can it?” He turned then half toward us, his drooping eye twitching slightly as a smile flashed across his face. “It might have been you, Dabir. You should give thanks. Now instead this other will decorate the djinn’s mantle, or provide him a snack, or whatever it is that pleases him. Assuredly the soul will not be journeying to paradise.”

Dabir stared hard at him, then bent to the poet and started to remove his satchel. Our guards had already confiscated our weapons and thoroughly searched us, but they leapt quickly to lay hands on it as though it concealed riches.

“Leave off, jackals!” Dabir cried. “I mean to keep his writing!”

“It will end up in the dust with you,” Ali said.

“Let him have it,” Firouz said, managing to sound almost magnanimous.

The thugs released the satchel. Dabir rose with it over his shoulder and turned away as the men looted the body of coins and tore a ring from his finger. Firouz and Diomedes continued into the city.

The men with us were Muslim in name only and did not pray that morning, though I suggested it would be good for them. We were not permitted to pray either. When I moved to unroll my prayer rug, Ali only laughed and charged us with shouldering the timber. “You might as well be of use in your last moments,” he said. “A shame—your eyebrow’s almost normal looking again.”

“Give me a sword, and I shall trim your hair by a head,” I said. But Ali only smiled. Little could be gained by refusal except a swifter death, so we did as we were commanded and lifted the wood.

Aside from Firouz and Diomedes and Ali there were four, two rogues and two lackeys who proved to have knowledge of carpentry. It was they who had been nailing door frames together, and they who led the pack camels.

Ubar had not been so large as Baghdad—I guessed the city walls encompassed no more than a few miles. Probably there had been farmland and estates without the walls, but the djinn had not troubled to unveil them.

Even though I knew death was close at hand I could not restrain my curiosity. How often does one have an opportunity to walk a city destroyed by the hand of God? The street was flagged with great slabs of stones cut with the images of fantastic beasts set in malachite and lapis and other stones, each creature paired with a mate. Every hundred paces was an iron ingot with a scrawled symbol; numbers or a street name, I supposed.

Ubar’s avenues were long and straight. Those who had dwelt here would never have had to wind their way down twisting concourses of different sizes.

Most buildings had collapsed inward upon themselves, leaving only broken walls to suggest their general shape. Here and there a structure stood complete enough to support portions of roofs, slanted always with interlocking green tile made from—as God is my witness—jade. Ubar had been destroyed, after all, in part because its builders thought to rival the splendor of heaven.

The men about us muttered to themselves. One called to Firouz, “Where are all the jewels?”

“Be patient,” Firouz said. “Do you expect to find gems glittering in every opening?”

They did not respond, but grumbled quietly.

Dabir hissed to gain my attention. He swayed his head to the left to point me toward something.

A shining white skull rested in a nearby doorway, vacant eye sockets aimed toward the street. With my right hand I briefly relinquished my hold upon the wood to make the sign against evil.

After Dabir pointed out the first I began to notice the skeletal remains every few steps: curving ribs lying just inside another doorway. Finger bones thrust out from beneath a collapsed pillar wrought with thousands of tiny splendid dancing figures. Here and there dried and withered flesh still clung to the bodies, which lay brown and unmoving upon the pavement stones, their mouths gaping in horror below empty eye sockets.

Great indeed must God’s wrath have been.

The men guarding us were untroubled by the dead; indeed, they found the bones appealing, and if it had not been for Ali sternly warning them to keep watch of us they would have rooted amongst them for valuables. Such is the way of insects and greedy men who are untouched by the plight of their brethren.

Firouz walked the central road for more than half the length of the city, then stopped at the edge of an immense rectangle of pavement framed by larger ruins. The area was littered with columns, stones, and the broken limbs of dozens of bronze statues. A few metal legs still stood noble and proud upon square plinths at the edge of the rectangle, otherwise all had tumbled as though this had been their battlefield.

I thought for a moment Firouz was struck by the tragic grandeur of the place. He paused to look to both right and left. He chose right, cutting across the courtyard at a diagonal and around a fallen column. I marveled as I passed, for this column was fashioned with figures even more amazing than the first. Tiny warriors and heroes marched in relief all across its surface, presenting arms, smiting foes, riding in chariots pulled by marvelous steeds, bowing to long-tressed, high-breasted women who pressed garlands to their heads. The women were shameless in their attire, but, as I am not fashioned from stone myself, I could not help admiring their charming forms.

A jumble of dried brown bodies littered the wide marble stairs of the building Firouz had chosen. On either side of the entrance were long walls, mostly intact, from which two stories of empty windows stared down. Huge figures were carved under the arch of the roof; robed men working at various tasks, for the most part, although their doings were mysterious. One bent to look into a tube pointed at glittering gold stars above; another measured building stones. Others were poised over jars, scrolls, and tools I did not recognize. Dabir studied the figures with great interest.

The stones of this building were fashioned strangely. I had never seen their like. Instead of ordinary bricks stacked in alternating rows they were interlocking hexagons. Those above the doorways were incised with the scribbles that served for writing among the ancients, filled in with gold. One of our keepers cried out and pointed to the high arches framing the doorways, where emeralds gleamed in a long row, and much talk followed of building a ladder to pry them free.

“Let’s look inside,” Ali suggested smoothly.

Firouz led the way up the stairs. Through the gaps that had once held doors we looked into a cavernous room open to the sky, for the roof lay in pieces at our feet.

“Quickly.” Firouz’s voice betrayed excitement, and he waved us all forward before disappearing within.

Once we passed into the interior I wondered if Ali had been counseled on what to expect by Firouz, for gemstones were worked into the colorful wall mosaics. I passed close by one fashioned as a seascape. Its ultimate border was a thick line of what appeared to be gold. Sapphires shown amongst the glorious blue tiles in the deep, and after a long look I saw that they were the eyes of beasts hidden in fronds of seaweed. The early morning light set the jewels glittering brilliantly, shining with such beauty that even the no-accounts with us commented upon their loveliness before setting to work prying with daggers. Ali called them back, cursing them, reminding them that they were contracted to build Firouz’s frames before they did anything else. Ah, there was grumbling then. Dabir shot me a sidelong glance. He supposed, like I, that their distraction would be to our benefit.

I am no student of art, yet I would gladly have spent time staring at the craft there. Time was not my own, however. Dabir and I were ordered to follow, and thus we went with the rest down a long straight corridor. Firouz walked with purposeful stride, here and there stopping to consider writing highlighted in the walls with gold.

“This is a place of study,” Dabir whispered to me. “Like the library of Iskander was said to—”

“Quiet,” Ali ordered.

We passed intersections with other halls, and everywhere were openings into other rooms. Finally, though, the hallway came to a halt below a grand arch. Above was a mosaic of a large white serpent with whom a group of sages seemed to speak. Below was a gap where a tall double door must once have stood. Through it we looked into a sunlit courtyard.

Diomedes commanded us to set down the wood, and carefully. We did as we were bade.

Diomedes looked pointedly at us and then addressed Firouz. “What do you intend with these two now?”

“I might not need them at all.”

“Kill them, then. They are trouble.”

“Should there be difficulty I may need to bargain with the djinn once more,” Firouz said. “Whose souls would you rather I trade?”

Diomedes frowned.

I did not wish to spend eternity on the curio shelf of a djinn beside the poor poet, and I resigned that if nothing else I would see that I was knifed, although I still meant to slay as many as I could reach, and most especially Ali. I pretended indifference.

“Ali.” Firouz pointed at us. “You and your men watch those two. You carpenters—this doorway—these are the ones. Set to work.”

Neither Dabir nor myself said anything at all. Ali’s eyes never left us, but for his men the riches upon the walls were clearly of far greater interest. Their eyes roved longingly from place to place, for the walls that led to the opening were more richly decorated than anything else we had seen.

I think the carpenters would have behaved in similar fashion had they not been so busy. Perhaps thoughts of wealth inspired them, for the frame rose quickly. Firouz walked back and forth almost the whole of the time they worked, trying to interest himself in the murals but more often observing the construction. For his part, Diomedes stood to one side and fingered his cross, watching Firouz. I wondered what lay between them, and the limits of trust they held for one another.

In less than a quarter hour the lintel was up and work moved on to the doors themselves. Their construction was even swifter, for the majority of the craftsmanship had been completed that morning. I do not mean to suggest that these were well-made doors, for they were plain cedar and roughly assembled. They were solid, though, and arranged in panels that were nailed easily together. In half an hour the frame filled an interior archway and the two doors had been fitted into it. As the carpenters hammered the hinges into place Firouz studied the door pulls a final time.

“Firouz,” Dabir called. We sat against the wall near a pile of roof shingles that had slid through a hole above. Behind our heads was a mosaic of galloping horses with ruby eyes and gold hooves that might have ransomed a small kingdom.

“You are no different from those you say you despise,” Dabir continued. “You trade and bargain with lives that are not your own.”

“I am past caring what you say or think, Dabir.” He stepped over to him and looked down. “You have never been willing to pay the price of your convictions. You have achieved nothing, and you will die forgotten.” Firouz leaned over Dabir, a mad glint in his eye. “When I die, men shall speak of my fall for a thousand years!”

With that he turned away and lifted up the first of the plaques bearing a pull and carried it to the door on the left while one of the workmen waited to the side. The central panel of the door had been prepared with a slatted frame to hold the device. Firouz slid it carefully into place and then held it there while the workman nailed a board across the upper portion of the plaque, so it rested snugly.

The process was repeated for the second door. Expectancy grew thick in the air. Diomedes stepped up to the side of Firouz, then withdrew. The workmen set down their tools to watch. The promise of the unknown even captured the imagination of the criminals guarding us, who gave off staring at jewels to watch the Magian.

Firouz bowed his head in thought, then traced his hands almost lovingly over the stones and figures upon the door pulls, his right hand brushing over one, his left across the other. I glanced to Dabir and saw his eyes narrowed in concentration.

The Magian clasped the rings upon the door pulls, and his fingers tightened upon them. Yet he did not move further.

The simpletons guarding us could not hold off asking, “Is it going to work?”

“Silence,” Ali hissed.

A longer interval of quiet followed. Firouz was so still he might have been a statue. I grew conscious of a low, tuneless humming originating from him. I think he was muttering foreign words under his breath as he made the noise. The men stirred uneasily as the sound rose in volume. I realized suddenly that it did not all arise from Firouz—it seemed also to be coming from beyond the sealed doorway.

There is a tension in the air during a lightning storm—a clarity and crispness as if the skies are pregnant with danger. I felt that same tenseness then, within that ancient room of riches with its holes where sunlight streamed down. One of the carpenters stepped back and the scuff of his boot upon the old stonework was like a thunderclap.

Firouz lifted the rings in the door pulls higher, then stepped back. The rings grew taut against the ancient metal, which clunked against the frames holding them in place, and then the doors swung outward.

There was no longer an empty ruin beyond, but another room—its walls shining with dull blue flame. The true chamber could be seen dimly through the stones, as one can look through poor quality glass and observe the distorted suggestions of shapes.

Firouz laughed with pleasure. He pulled the doors the rest of the way open and let them stand there. The two workmen watched with wide eyes; Firouz ignored them and grinned first at Diomedes. He stared at Dabir in triumph, despite his earlier claim of indifference, though he said nothing.

“Watch well, Ali,” Firouz warned. Then, to the others, “Come!”

Diomedes came forward; the workmen seemed less inclined.

“There is nothing to fear,” Firouz said.

“It glows like the gates of hell,” one of the workmen managed.

“This is not hell,” Firouz said. “It is the gateway to more riches than you can comprehend! Come with us, and see them!”

They looked back and forth at one another, then shouldered their tool packs. I think they might have hesitated longer if Diomedes had not put his hand to his sword.

Firouz strode through first. The angle of my view was poor, and I could not be certain, but I felt something changed in his stance as he entered. His very form swayed and shifted. Before I could focus fully upon him he had stepped out of my line of sight.

The workmen followed, and their forms, too, blurred and changed. I heard Diomedes let out an oath even as he stepped after; before the open door blocked him from my line of sight his clothes transformed to dark purple robes, his form blurred, then he passed from view.

“Look at that!” one of our guards said.

“Firouz became a demon!”

Ali’s clever face screwed up in puzzlement, but he did not step away to investigate. “That’s none of your concern,” he said. “Come back here, though.”

“What kind of treasure do you think they’ll find over there?” the skinnier of the two men asked.

“None I want to see,” Ali answered quietly.

His henchmen seemed willing to settle for the treasures nearby. Their attention turned to us.

“We could be seeing to our pockets if we didn’t have to watch these two,” the thin one said. His eyes were deep-set, his beard patchy.

“We can take turns,” the other said. He was more thickly built, his beard ungroomed and tangled.

“Silence,” Ali hissed. “Firouz said to watch. We watch. Unless one of these gives us an excuse.”

They turned as one and I could sense them considering the possibilities. I think that if Dabir or I had moved too swiftly at that moment it would have been the end of us.

“We could assist you,” Dabir said reasonably.

Ali snorted.

“We can help you pry out the treasure,” Dabir continued. “You can watch us while we work.”

“Pry them out?” Ali asked. “With weapons? Do you take me for a fool?”

“Nay,” Dabir said. “I thought you might put in a good word with Firouz for me. I mean the two of us,” he added quickly.

Ali’s mouth turned down skeptically. His men, though, embraced the idea.

“Why not?” the thickset one asked. “Firouz just said to watch them. What harm if they do the work?”

“Aye, Ali. If we hold swords on them, what can they do with a hammer? Gamali left one, see?”

Ali thought for a long moment. “Keep an eye on him and it might be all right. This one, though”—Ali indicated me with a casual wave of the long knife he seemed always to keep ready—“you can have him root through that pile there in the corner. But watch him closely.”

The thickset guard grumbled but assented to watch me sort a pile of rubble while Dabir pried rubies free. “We share everything they find,” he called over his shoulder to his comrade.

I expected no treasures amongst the roof debris. After a moment or two of checking through the cracked stone and shattered tile I discovered a wedge of jade with a jagged point, half again as long as my hand. Normally a cracked roof tile would hold little interest for me. Today, though, it seemed a find of fantastic wealth, and I hesitated with my hand upon it.

“What is it?” The thickset man crowded close. His sword was out, but pointed away from me as he bent forward.

It was almost too easy.

“I think I saw an emerald in here,” I said, pretending to root further.

The fool drew near, making his end absurdly simple. Still crouched, I spun on one leg and drove the jagged point of the tile into his thigh. He tottered and screamed; I dragged him up by the wrist of his sword hand and snatched the hilt from his nerveless fingers. His mouth was still open in agony when I drove the sword edge into his neck.

I heard Ali’s curse and swung the dying man’s body as a shield in time to catch the little man’s knife. Blood fountained all over my shoulders and face, but I was grinning as I dropped the twitching corpse and tore across the floor toward Ali.

“Now comes your reckoning!” I shouted.

Ali grabbed at another weapon. Dabir’s guard watched stupidly, raising his sword but not daring to intervene as I charged in and slashed at Ali.

My reach was longer; he was swifter. He ducked under my blade and lunged. His thrust passed so close it sliced through the cloth of my robe and cut my flesh. I leapt back, smarting, and he pulled a short knife free for his other hand.

I pretended not to notice Dabir’s warden creeping up on my left.

“This looks like an excuse,” Ali said. He flourished his sword and dashed in. His aim was to drive me toward the other man and I played along, even as Dabir cried warning. I jumped back, as they wanted, then spun to my left, which they surely did not expect. The lean one’s sword was raised for an overhead blow. His mouth shaped a ring of surprise as I slashed half through his chest. Blood spurted and his lips worked in a silent scream.

My blade, though, had caught in his rib cage and I knew Ali was closing behind me, so I let go the sword and stepped behind my dying foe to take his instead. I grabbed for it, but he had a literal death grip on his weapon, and I was forced to kick him in the spine toward Ali as I wrestled it free. That won me the sword; Ali jumped clear of his henchman, who collapsed into an expanding pool of his own blood.

Ali’s knife hand went back and I knew there was little hope of dodging. But Dabir hurled a chunk of masonry into Ali’s shoulder a moment before the release, and the knife clattered into a wall behind me.

I rushed in before more knives could be readied.

Ali did not smile now. His teeth were gritted, his eyes narrow. My sword arm was sure, yet I knew better than to be reckless with this man, for I had seen his speed. My strength was the greater, though, and when he caught my blade with his own I forced it down, down. He strained with every fiber of his being, with both hands upon his sword, but he could not withstand my power.

I am not one to talk in a battle, but this man had slain my friends. My nephew. My Mahmoud. “Down to hell with you!”

Ali pressed once more against my own sword, as if with all his strength, then suddenly stepped to the side and let the weapon go. I could not help stumbling. From the corner of my eye I saw his hand dart for another knife. Desperate to reach him before he struck, I pushed off one foot and twisted, swinging wildly. I was off balance and I knew I would hit the ground hard.

I fell heavily onto my shoulder but fortunately my blade had raked him under the lip. Ali reflexively clutched at his face; it was then that Dabir stepped in to slam his hammer into Ali’s temple. The knife man went down. He was struggling to rise by the time I got to him and drove my sword through his throat. I snarled down at him as he died.

“To hell with you!” I said again.

I watched him move his last, then took in the room, and the bodies. Dabir joined me.

“Are you all right?”

“Aye!” I patted my side. “Nothing deep.” I chuckled, still breathing hard.

Dabir looked concerned. “Why do you laugh?”

“Because we live!” I raised my hands to the heavens. “Praise be to God! It defies belief.”

After a moment, a smile spread slowly over Dabir’s lips. “Our survival smacks of absurdity, now that you mention it.”

“Quickly, let us slam shut those doors. We can take down the pulls and then Firouz and the Greek will be trapped within.”

Dabir started forward, then halted. “A fine idea, but what if Firouz calls another djinn?”

“How could he get out if he couldn’t get in?”

“It cannot be left to chance,” Dabir said. “Firouz seeks a mighty weapon—we can’t just lock him in there with it and hope for the best. We have to make sure he’s stopped.”

I sighed. “You’re saying we have to go in there after him.”

“Indeed.”

“Fate and random chance—and more than a little bit of skill,” I said, thinking of my swordplay, “have so far acted in our favor. I’m not sure we should press our luck.”

Dabir hefted his dead guard’s sword in his hand as though testing its weight. “We must, Asim. Besides, aren’t you curious to see what’s on the other side?”

“Somewhat,” I answered after a moment. I scratched my head. “It is always better to fight on the ground of your own choosing,” I said. “But you may be right. Let us at least gather our own weapons. This blade is notched and poorly balanced.”

“They are stowed in the pack on the left side of the second camel,” Dabir said. “Let us wrap your wound, then fetch them.”