The genie whirled away from the drawbridge and leaped back to the invisible Wall, then stepped through it. As one, all the djinn shot into the air, then dove, roaring, to converge upon a low hill that rose at the edge of the castle’s plain.
“Have I passed the final examination?” Papa asked.
“Only the first problem,” Friar Ignatius answered.
Three multicolored dots appeared on the side of the slope, darting and dashing every which way.
“Water!” Matt called. “In a bowl!”
A soldier stepped up, pouring water into a broad goblet. Matt waved his hand over it, muttering a verse, and the fluid darkened. The others gathered around in time to see it clear, and saw the hillside in much closer view.
Mama and Papa stared in surprise, then relaxed into fond smiles. Papa whispered, “It is good to see him practicing his profession, isn’t it?”
Mama nodded. “And with such assurance, and others so confident in him!”
They beamed proudly in unison.
In the goblet-view, the multicolored dots turned out to be robed and turbaned men, shouting furiously up toward the djinn. One was rubbing a lamp, another a ring, the third a bottle.
The djinn swooped back up, howling in frustration, then turned to dive again. The sorcerers chanted, still rubbing, and the djinn seemed to be pushed aside. They swooped up high in the air again, darted together, and hovered.
“War conference,” Saul interpreted.
But in the goblet, one sorcerer suddenly looked up, then pointed straight at Matt, calling to his colleagues in excitement and anger.
Matt dashed the water to the ground and held the goblet upside down. Even so, the miniature bolt of lightning lanced out of it and struck the stones of the battlements, leaving a smoking charred spot.
“I think they’re onto us,” Saul said.
“Then we must fight them on their own ground!” Papa dashed for the stairwell.
“Ramon, no!” Mama cried, but too late… her husband was already out of sight.
Matt shot off after him.
“No!” Alisande cried in frustration. “Dame Mantrell, can you do nothing?”
“With such headstrong mules as these? No,” Mama said, exasperated. “But I can protect them.” She turned back to the battlements and began to gesture, chanting.
A dot of light sprang from the sorcerers’ hill, swelling into a fireball… but Mama finished her verse, snapping her hands out as though she were tightening a cord, and the fireball’s flames dwindled, then vanished, leaving only a charred and smoking lump that bounced off the Wall of Octroi and plummeted to earth.
All three enemy sorcerers bunched together, just as the three djinn dove toward them, welding themselves into a single mass, a giant spear aimed at the sorcerous target. But the sorcerers chanted so loudly and in such perfect unison that their voices came faintly even to the battlements, and the spear burst apart into the three djinn, who fell to the ground around the trio, kneeling and salaaming to them.
Then one of the sorcerers whirled and pointed toward the castle.
Saul shouted with pain, shaking his hands as though he’d touched something hot. “The Wall!” he cried.
“He tore down my Wall of Octroi… don’t ask me how!”
The djinn rose into the air, ballooning into giants again, arms windmilling to gather the missiles that began to materialize in their hands.
Mama intoned a Spanish verse, fingers outspread like antennae to direct her spell toward the djinn. The vague gray forms in their palms stayed dim and misty, then began to fade.
“You have canceled their spell!” Alisande cried, amazed. “They cannot make boulders anymore! Well done, Dame Mantrell!”
“At least I have given some return for your hospitality,” Mama said, pleased. Then she turned her antenna-fingers toward the sorcerers and began to chant again.
Sharp reports sounded, and cracks began to appear in the stone of the battlements.
Mama intensified her chanting.
The cracks healed and disappeared.
Alisande stared at Mama.
But Mama’s voice shifted rhythm and emotion, becoming even more stern, more compelling… and the sorcerers began to run erratically around their hillside. Above, the djinn gave a shout of triumph and dove toward their masters again.
One of the sorcerers stopped. A few seconds later, one genie sheered off with a cry of anger.
“The sorcerers have lost their lamps and rings!” Alisande cried. “One has found his talisman, though, and has regained command over his genie!”
Again Mama chanted, and again the third genie stooped with a cry of vindication.
“Once more you have hidden his lamp!” Alisande cried in delight.
The other two sorcerers stopped their frantic scurrying, and their djinn sheered off with howls of rage.
The third sorcerer dashed madly about the hillside, searching. He stopped, snatching something up; his genie swerved to the side and plowed into the hill. Well, not “plowed,” really… he disappeared into the dirt and grass.
Then the father-and-son team reached the foot of the hill with a squadron of knights right behind them.
They all charged up the hillside, chanting in unison.
“What poem are they reciting?” Saul asked.
Mama shook her head. “They are too distant to say with any certainty, but I think I hear something about San Juan Hill.”
The two remaining djinn stopped dead in the air, a yard short of their masters. The third genie shot out of the hillside straight toward the charging squadron. The other two veered aside and arrowed after him.
The three sorcerers turned and ran. Suddenly there were two charging squadrons, one a mirror image of the other. Then each of them doubled, and four identical bunches of horsemen charged after the sorcerers. The djinn roared confusion, darting from one squadron to another, unsure which to strike. Half a dozen horsemen veered off with Papa at their head, swinging wide around the djinn to follow the sorcerers. The djinn decided on a process of elimination, and started eliminating. They faced the four squadrons, shooting lightning bolts from their fingertips. Mama shouted an infuriated verse. Bolts struck two of the squadrons, they disappeared. The lightning froze in midair over the third, then hovered sparking and flashing. One of the sorcerers fell. His genie swooped toward him with a shout, but Papa was faster and closer, he leaped down beside the fallen man, caught something up from the ground, then swung an uppercut into the sorcerer’s chin. The genie slowed, dropped to earth, and salaamed to Papa.
Mama clapped her hands. “Ramon has found the sorcerer’s lamp! He commands the genie now!”
Matt was gesturing at the two other… damn. They started gesturing too, but didn’t see the huge sheet, like a blown-away ship’s sail, that swung down upon them out of the sky. They didn’t even notice it until it struck. Then they whirled, howling, to jerk free of it… and couldn’t. Every gyration made it cling more tightly to one portion of their anatomies or another. Finally, in frustration, they disappeared. “Flypaper.”
Mama said with satisfaction. “A giant sheet of flypaper. And to think I was worried that my son might forget the practicalities of life.”
“It will not work again,” Alisande told her “They will be watching for it now.” Then she smiled at a happy thought, “But that will keep one of them from attacking while he watches “
“Or handicap all three, by distracting them continually,” Mama nodded. “Well thought, Your Majesty.”
Alisande stared at her, startled, then bit her lip. Mama gave her a warm smile, stepping close enough to speak in an undertone “When we are alone with family, we shall use family names… but in public, I should address you formally, no?”