Poul Anderson - Operation Chaos

The afreet fleered. “Know that Suleiman the Wise is dead these three thousand years,” he retorted. “Long and long have I brooded in my narrow cell, I who once raged free through earth and sky and will now at last be released to work my vengeance on the puny sons of Adam.” He shoved at the invisible barrier, but one of that type has a rated strength of several million p.s.i. It would hold firm-till some adept dissolved it. O thou shameless unveiled harlot with hair of hell, know that I am Rashid the Mighty, the glorious in power, the smiter of rocs! Come in here and fight like a man!”

I moved close to the girl, my hackles raised. The hand that touched my head was cold. “Paranoid type,” she whispered. “A lot of these harmful Low Wonders are psycho. Stupid, though. Trickery’s our single chance. I don’t have any spells to compel him directly. But-Aloud, to him, she said: “Shut up, Rashid, and listen to me. I also am of your race, and to be respected as such.”

“Thou?” He hooted with fake laughter. “Thou of the Marid race? Why, thou fish-faced antling, if thou’dst come in here I’d show thee thou’rt not even fit to—” The rest was graphic but not for any gentlewere to repeat.

“No, hear me,’ said the girl. “Look and hearken well.” She made signs and uttered a formula. I recognized the self-geas against telling a falsehood in the particular conversation. Our courts still haven’t adopted it—Fifth Amendment—but I’d seen it used in trials abroad.

The demon recognized it, too. I imagine the Saracen adept who pumped a knowledge of English into him, to make him effective in this war, had added other bits of information about the modern world. He grew more quiet and attentive.

Virginia intoned impressively: “I can speak nothing to you except the truth. Do you agree that the name is the thing?”

“Y-y-yes,” the afreet rumbled. “That is common knowledge.”

I scented her relief. First hurdle passed! He had not been educated in scientific goetics. Though the name is, of course, in sympathy with the object, which is the principle of nymic spells and the like—-nevertheless, only in this century has Korzybski demonstrated that the word and its referent are not identical. ,

“Very well,” she said. “My name is Ginny.”

He started in astonishment. “Art thou indeed?”

“Yes. Now will you listen to me? I came to offer you advice, as one jinni to another. I have powers of my own, you ]snow, albeit I employ them in the sere vice of Allah, the Omnipotent, the Omniscient, the Compassionate.”

He glowered, but supposing her to be one of his species, he was ready to put on a crude show of courtesy. She couldn’t be lying about her advice. It did not occur to him that she hadn’t said the counsel would be good.

“Go on, then, if thou wilst,” he growled. “Knowest thou that tomorrow I fare forth to destroy the infidel host?” He got caught up in his dreams of glory. “Aye, well will I rip them, and trample them, and break and gut and flay them. Well will they learn the power of Rashid the bright-winged, the fiery, the merciless, the wise, the . . .”

Virginia waited out his adjectives, then said gently: “But Rashid, why must you wreak harm? You earn nothing thereby except hate.”

A whine crept into his bass. “Aye, thou speakest sooth. The whole world hates me. Everybody conspires against me. Had he not had the aid of traitors, Suleiman had never locked me away. All which I have sought to do has been thwarted by envious ill-wishers. Aye, but tomorrow comes the day of reckoning!”

Virginia lit a cigaret with a steady hand and blew smoke at him. “How can you trust the emir and his cohorts?” she asked. “He too is your enemy. He only wants to make a cat’s-paw of you. Afterward, back in the bottle!”

“Why. . .why. . .” The afreet swelled till the spacewarp barrier creaked. Lightning crackled from his nostrils. It hadn’t occurred to him before; his race isn’t bright; but of course a trained psychologist would understand how to follow out paranoid logic.

“Have you not known enmity throughout your long days?” continued Virginia quickly. “Think back, Rashid. Was not the very first thing you remember the cruel act of a spitefully envious world?”

“Aye-it was.” The maned head nodded, and the voice dropped very low. “On the day I was hatched . . . aye, my mother’s wingtip smote me so I reeled.”

“Perhaps that was accidental,” said Virginia.

“Nay. Ever she favored my older brother—the lout!”

Virginia sat down cross-legged. “Tell me about it,” she oozed. Her tone dripped sympathy.

I felt a lessening, of the great forces that surged within the barrier. The afreet squatted on his hams, eyes half-shut, going back down a memory trail of millennia. Virginia guided him, a hint here and there. I didn’t know what she was driving at, surely you couldn’t psychoanalyze the monster in half a night, but—

“Aye, and I was scarce turned three centuries when I fell into a pit my foes must have dug for me.”

“Surely you could fly out of it,” she murmured.

The afreet’s eyes rolled. His face twisted into still more gruesome furrows. “It was a pit, I say!”

“Not by any chance a lake?” she inquired.

“Nay!” His wings thundered. “No such damnable thing . . . ’twas dark; and wet, but-nay, not wet either, a cold which burned . . .

I saw dimly that the girl had a lead. She dropped long lashes to hide the sudden gleam in her gaze. Even as a wolf, I could realize what a shock it must a have been to an aerial demon, nearly drowning, his fires hissing into steam, and how he must ever after deny to himself that it had happened. But what use could she make of—

Svartalf the cat streaked in and skidded to a halt. Every hair on him stood straight, and his eyes blistered me. He spat something and went out again with me in his van.

Down in the lobby I heard voices. Looking through the door, I saw a few soldiers milling about. They come by, perhaps to investigate the noise, seen the dead guards, and now they must have sent for reinforcements.

Whatever Ginny was trying to do, she needed time for it. I went out that door in one gray leap and tangled with the Saracens. We boiled into a clamorous pile. I was almost pinned flat by their numbers, but kept my jaws free and used them. Then Svartalf rode that broomstick above the fight, stabbing.

We carried a few of their weapons back into the lobby in our jaws, and sat down to wait. I figured I’d do better to remain wolf and be immune to most things than have the convenience of hands. Svartalf regarded a tommy gun thoughtfully, propped it along a wall, and crouched over it.

I was in no hurry. Every minute we were left alone, or held off the coming attack, was a minute gained for Ginny. I laid my head on my forepaws and dozed off. Much too soon I heard hobnails rattle on pavement.

The detachment must have been a good hundred. I saw their dark mass, and the gleam of starlight off their weapons. They hovered for a while around the squad we’d liquidated. Abruptly they whooped and charged up the steps.

Svartalf braced himself and worked the tommy gun. The recoil sent him skating back across the lobby, swearing, but he got a couple. I met the rest in the doorway.

Slash, snap, leap in, leap out, rip them and gash them and howl in their faces! After a brief whirl of teeth they retreated. They left half a dozen dead and wounded.

I peered through the glass in the door and saw my friend the emir. He had a bandage over his eye, but lumbered around exhorting his men with more energy than I’d expected. Groups of them broke from the main bunch and ran to either side. They’d be coming in the windows and the other doors.