“Of course, we can’t do anything inside this tent.”
“What choice have we?” Papa asked, but his eyes were gleaming again.
Matt sighed; he’d been putting it off long enough. He pushed himself to his feet and strolled around the tent, next to the walls, reciting, “Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage… “
He reached out to touch the silken wall… and a big fat spark jumped out at his finger, making a crack as loud as a firecracker. He mouthed agony, cradling one hand in the other, bending over as he waited for the pain to pass. Papa was by his side in an instant, frowning and massaging the knuckle, but Matt shook his head… there was nothing to do but wait for it to pass.
“Static electricity,” Papa offered.
Matt shook his head impatiently, but Papa pointed toward the walls, then cupped his ear, and Matt understood… any words would do, so that the guards wouldn’t wonder why they were being so quiet.
“These walls are very heavily guarded by magic, Papa.”
“So.” Papa nodded. “It does manifest as energy, then?”
“It can,” Matt told him. The pain was receding now. “Mind you, I don’t think the sorcerer who set this spell knows about electricity… he probably just made a simile to lightning.”
” ‘Fire from the sky,’ eh?” Papa nodded. “I suppose you can ground it?”
Matt had to admit this dialogue would probably be confusing the guards delightfully… presuming any of them spoke the language of Merovence. He decided that he would indeed presume it… less chance of an unpleasant surprise that way. “Dunno. The potential might be automatically renewed. Even if it’s not, we might get one heck of an explosion.” He held up a hand. “I know that sounds feeble, but the other H word isn’t a good one to say around here.”
“Yes, I can see how that might be,” Papa said thoughtfully. He went back to the table and scrawled a question mark on the pad and sighed, “I still have a great deal to learn about the physics of this universe.”
“Well, the Moors have algebra, so they may be ahead of us.” Matt didn’t really think so, though… the forces of this universe seemed to be best expressed in poetry, not equations. He took the pen and wrote,
I’ll try a transportation verse. Hold tight. He caught his father’s hand and recited,
Papa looked up in alarm, but it was too late now… too late to change the verse, and too late to explain; the world seemed to go crazy, slipping and sliding about them…
Then it jarred to a halt. Matt lurched forward over the table, and Papa fell backward among the cushions.
Dazed, Matt pushed himself to his feet and started toward Papa in frantic worry. Papa levered himself up, though, looking very disoriented, and Matt relaxed with a sigh.
“Let me guess,” Papa grunted. “Our jailers thought of that possibility, too.”
“Either that, or they’re watching us closely this very minute.” Matt flirted with the idea of one of the guards being a sorcerer in disguise, then wondered who was in the tent next door.
Papa nodded and took the pen. Call Lakshmi.
Matt stared. Then he felt a panic rise that had nothing to do with counterspells or listening sorcerers. He shook his head very emphatically.
Papa sighed and started singing.
Matt kept shaking his head more and more frantically, but a tiny whirlwind sprang up in the middle of the room, growing amazingly, beginning to make a small whine as it reached five and a half feet in height, a whine that descended the scale and turned into a contralto that demanded, “Why should I come to men who have spurned me?”
“Why, to return a kindness,” Papa said, all innocence.
The whirlwind began to shrink in on itself, assuming contours that would have set Matt howling at the moon if he hadn’t known how much potential for mayhem they contained. “Kindness?” the contralto challenged. “I have returned your kindness twice over! I have spared your lives, I have chased away lesser djinn, and I have taken you to the Mahdi! Would you have me return your favor tenfold?”
“It was a very big favor,” Papa reminded her. “However, if paying a debt is not reason enough, then I pray you do it for friendship.”
“For friendship?” The whirlwind shrank in on itself even further, died down, and Lakshmi took a step closer to Papa. She glanced at Matt, looking him up and down, and he could almost hear her thoughts: If I cannot have the son, perhaps the father will do.
She turned back to Papa, purring, “What evidence of friendship do you offer?”
“Why, only what I ask,” Papa said with a slow smile, “to help you when you are in danger, in any way that we can.” But he took a step closer, too, and Matt suddenly realized that his father… Papa!… was exuding a testosterone glow.
“In danger?” Lakshmi’s voice was more throaty than ever as she stepped even closer to Papa. “Is that the only case in which you may give me comfort?”
“Alas, I fear so,” Papa said, though his body language screamed regret, “except to offer companionship if you are lonely.”
“Djinn are solitary creatures,” Lakshmi murmured, “but there are times when we long for closeness.”
“I know such longings well.” Papa’s voice was heavier now, too.
“But it would be wrong for me to offer what I have already pledged to another. Still, friendship is no small gift.”
For a moment, Lakshmi blazed with anger… literally; small flames danced upon her brow, her shoulders, her breasts… and Matt, on the verge of panic, summoned up his most powerful anti-spirit spell.
“All men long for the companionship of beauty, great and wondrous beauty,” Papa murmured.
The flames doused on the instant, and Lakshmi’s glare turned into a sardonic smile. “Yes, but you already have such beauty for companionship, do you not? Nonetheless, perhaps friendship is not to be lightly refused, and I am sure your wife will befriend me as strongly as you do. Enough, then, O Promiser of Favors Not Given! What would you have me do?” She glanced at Matt, a long, lingering, speculative glance that set every hormone howling even as it rang every warning bell in his intuition.
Papa said quickly, “Why, we ask nothing but that you take us out of this silken prison to which the Mahdi has consigned us.”
Lakshmi turned back to him, frowning, leaving Matt shaken with relief and racked with thwarted desire.
The djinna said, “Two mighty wizards seeking escape from a mere silken pavilion? There is more to this than mortal eyes see.” She turned to scan the walls, and a strange glow sprang from her eyes to shimmer about her face as she pivoted in place. Then it died, and she nodded. “Strong spells indeed have been worked into the very fabric of this tent!”
“Surely not too strong for a princess of the djinn,” Papa protested.
“Surely not,” Lakshmi said absently, then reached out to catch both their hands in vise grips as the tent began to rotate around them.
Chapter Eighteen