“If I know Mama, she would have raced you for the boxing gloves if she’d known about all this,” Matt told him. “Anyway, it’s working out okay for her.”
“And for me also!” Papa clapped him on the shoulder. “I thank you, Matthew, for another chance to fight!”
“Any time, Papa,” Matt said, grinning.
Papa’s brow furrowed. “But if the whole campaign is so well planned, why has the Mahdi besieged Bordestang when he should have consolidated Ibile first?”
“Nice question.” Matt frowned in thought, then said, “The logical reason is that Alisande is a greater threat to Nirobus’ plans than King Rinaldo is.” He tensed with anger. “If they can bump her off, Rinaldo will be isolated, and be easy meat.”
“Then her best protection is for this King Rinaldo to be anything but an easy victim.” Papa gazed off into the distance. “There must be some way in which he can become more of a threat… able to attack the Mahdi, harry his forces, distract him from Merovence.”
“Some way like teaching him modern guerrilla techniques?” Matt felt a surge of elation. “Maybe we oughta check up on my old pal Rinaldo and see if there’s anything we can do to help.”
“Certainly! Perhaps in helping him, we can help your wife.” Papa began throwing dirt on the campfire.
“I think it is time to march, Matthew.”
A shadow loomed huge in the night. “Surely you will not depart without me,” Stegoman rumbled.
“Only if we couldn’t find you, Scale Runner!” Matt grinned. “Feel like a trip to the North Shore?”
The men hooked their packs over huge triangular plates, then climbed up among them. “Night flyers are harder to spot, right, Stegoman?” Matt asked.
“Assuredly… but I shall stay low in any case.” Stegoman spread his wings, leather booming open in the quiet of the night. But he only flapped them twice before a shooting star plunged down at them and exploded.
Chapter Nineteen
The ball of light exploded outward to reveal a genie who expanded even as his star had, shooting up to become twenty feet tall, brandishing a battle-ax that was three feet across, booming, “Are you the Wizard Mantrell?”
“Uh… no!” Matt stated with all the assurance he could muster. “Can’t stand the man! Never even heard of him!”
Papa got the idea. “We weren’t there,” he protested, “and even if we were, we didn’t do it!”
“You lie!” He was a very perceptive genie. He swung the battle-ax up over his head two-handed.
“Run, Stegoman!… Papa, no! Wait!”
But Papa had already jumped down, calling, “We must not drag your friend into our own dangers, Matthew! Besides, two smaller targets are harder to hit than one big one!”
Matt cursed and jumped down, then started broken-field running.
“Matthew, no!” Stegoman roared. “I can carry us all to safety!” He started chasing after Matt.
Papa caught on. He started running in zigzags, each zag taking him farther and farther away from the ax.
“Stand still, blast you!” the genie roared. “Or at least stay together!” The huge ax roared down out of the night, but Matt swerved at the last second, and it bit into dirt… way into dirt, which was just as well, because Matt collided with Stegoman. The dragon screeched to a halt, but Matt bounced ten feet.
“Prepare to die!” the genie roared, managing to wrestle his ax free.
“I forbid!” cried a contralto.
Matt scrambled up, staring toward the sky. Sure enough, Lakshmi towered over them, just as tall as the genie.
“I must do as the Master of the Lamp has bidden me, Princess!” the genie protested. “You cannot command me in defiance of its power!” He wrenched his eyes away from her and aimed another blow at Matt.
Matt scurried around to hide behind Lakshmi’s kneecap.
“Son! I taught you never to hide behind a woman!” Papa called.
“You didn’t mean it literally, did you?” Matt called back. “At least, not when she’s this big!”
“Stand aside, Princess.” But the genie lowered his ax. “You must not come between a genie and his appointed task.”
Suddenly, Lakshmi seemed to blaze with feminine allure. “Come, Kamar! Are you a slave, or a free djinni?”
“I have been bonded to a lamp, as you know, Princess.” Kamar swallowed hard, and Matt thought that if his eyes bulged any further, they’d hatch. “I must do as I have been commanded.”
“Perhaps.” Lakshmi took two steps toward him, rolling her hips… and other portions of her anatomy.
“Surely, though, you can tarry a little on your way.”
Matt goggled, too… he’d never known a woman could have voluntary muscular control in quite those sites.
Then he remembered himself and his predicament. He waved to Papa, jerking his thumb over his shoulder, and began to inch away from the confrontation.
Kamar was panting now. “I am a slave! I dare not do as a free djinni would!”
“If you are a slave, it is scarcely your fault,” Lakshmi told him, “and the dalliance need not be great.”
She brushed up against him, head tilted, eyes half-closed, lips half-open. “Or is your lust for blood so great as to dull all other appetites?”
“You try me unfairly,” Kamar protested, but he must have realized this was his one and only chance at a princess of his own kind, because he lowered the ax to the ground, slid one arm around Lakshmi, and buried her lips in his beard.
Matt turned and ran as lightly as possible, glancing back at Papa, who was running flat-out… and the poor princess, who was making so great a sacrifice for him, never mind that Kamar really was fairly handsome, as genies went…
Conscience pricked like a loaded hypodermic, and Matt skidded to a halt. Papa hissed “Run!” as he passed, then circled back. “Don’t waste this one opportunity!”
“I can’t leave the poor thing to make such a huge sacrifice,” Matt said, “and I can’t leave an enemy behind me.” He threw his arms up, gesturing the unwinding of a mummy’s bonds, and recited,
He lowered his arms. Then he spun on his heel and ran.
Behind him, he heard a sucking like a huge suction cup pulled off a wall, then Kamar’s voice shouting in jubilation, “I am free! The lamp no longer commands me! Princess, I worship at your feet! What magic there is in your kiss!”
“Not that sort, certainly,” Lakshmi answered in surprise. “Will you befriend whoever freed you, no matter what your former master commanded?” She emphasized the “former” nicely.
“I will! Oh, thrice blessed be she who has freed me from the shame of that bondage!” cried Kamar.
“Not she but he. Come back, Lord Wizard of Merovence.”
Suddenly, there was no ground beneath Matt’s running feet. Pedaling air frantically, he nonetheless found himself turning and plunging back toward the djinna and her new friend.
“Kamar,” said Lakshmi, “meet your liberator. Wizard, did you not free him even as you did me?”
“Well, not quite the same way.” Matt had carefully left out the part about fanatical loyalty to himself. “But basically, yes.”
“A thousand thanks!” Kamar plucked Matt out of the air and held him in his cupped hands. “I am your friend for life! Whatever you wish, only ask, and it is yours!”