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off to one side and tilted up at the right corner. This kind of tilt should
have given the face a cheerful look. Instead it gave it a look of the deepest
evil imaginable.
Then the dog had become a dog again.
All right, said Jim. That much you can do. Do you have your other powers?
For example, if I was just an ordinary person instead of the magician I am,
would you have tried to bribe me to help you by promising me great treasure?
Forgive me, O my master, said the dog, fawning on him again, but I would
have. Of course, I know better than to bribe such as your incorruptible self.
Prove to me you could have done such a thing, said Jim. For example,
produce a chest full of rubies, sapphires, diamonds, and other precious gems
to show me you can do it
The chest appeared, but its top was down, its contents hidden.
Forgive me, forgive me... whined the dog hurriedly; and the lid of the
chest flew up, revealing its contents which were indeed colored stones of all
kinds; none of them cut and faceted, of course, since the cutting of gems had
not yet been developed on this world.
Very well, said Jim loftily, waving his hand. Take it away. Such toys do
not interest me.
The chest disappeared. Jim felt a small pang of regret-but appearances were
everything at this stage.
Now, said Jim, I ll listen to your story and then make my decision.
Hearken, then, said the dog. My name is Kelb. For thousands of years, I
never did a false or cruel deed, or anything evil, until one day when I was
taken as a slave by another very powerful and very evil Djinni named Sakhr
al-Jinni. For some centuries he forced me to do terrible and cruel things, at
his orders. Finally, sick of it, I tried at last to escape.
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Good, said Jim.
I don t believe him, whispered Hob.
But I was caught by the giant called Sharahiya, one of the keepers of Sakhr
al-Jinni s orchard, and brought back, Kelb went on. Sakhr al-Jinni had me
thrown into a lake of fire as punishment. There I suffered for six hundred and
fifty-two years, three months, two weeks, three days and nine hours,
forty-seven minutes, ten seconds. But at the end of that time, I was
released.
Jim had been thinking furiously, trying to remember. The names Sakhr
al-Jinni and Sharahiya rang a faint bell in his head, connected possibly
with Richard Burton s Thousand Nights and a Night. No-Sakhr al-Jinni was only
referred to there. Somewhere he had read more about him. There was a
connection with King Solomon of the Hebrews. But Kelb was clearly waiting for
some response from him before going on.
And then what? Jim said in the best tone of impatience he could manage or
muster. Why did Sakhr al-Jinni let you out of the lake of fire?
I was released not by him, but because the great King Solomon, David s son,
imprisoned him, with other evil Djinn and Marids, each in a copper bottle;
stopping these up with lead which Solomon sealed with his ring, and casting
Sakhr al-Jinni into Lake Tiberius to lie where he would forevermore be beyond
harming anyone. Once he was embottled, his powers that kept me in the lake of
fire no longer held, and I was free to go.
Well, then, said Jim, your troubles are over. I don t see why you re
bothering me.
Alas! said Kelb. A clumsy undersea giant, picking up the bottle that held
Sakhr al-Jinni to look at it curiously, loosened the seal only five days ago;
and that evil one is now free in the world again-full of rage and searching
for all those who were his servants before, and particularly me, who had now
escaped the punishment he had given me. He is far stronger than I. I cannot
withstand him. Help me, O my master!
It was all pretty far-fetched, Jim felt. But on the other hand, this was a
world of magic and unusual creatures. Anything could be true. It might be
simply that Kelb was, at most, only embroidering the story of his life.
Who was the clumsy undersea giant that let Sakhr al-Jinni loose? he asked.
I know not, said Kelb. I was only told it had happened by others like me,
who were escaping at last from Sakhr al-Jinni s wrath.
The chances of it being Rrmlf who allowed Sakhr al-Jinni to escape from his
bottle were not very large, Jim told himself. The ocean back in Jim s
twentieth-century world covered something like a hundred and forty-two million
square miles of the earth s surface. It was unlikely that the amount of ocean
here on this world was much different. That provided enough room for a high
number of sea giants, even if they weren t to be considered common.
Also, even if Rrrnlf had been the cause of Sakhr al-Jinni s release, jumping
from that possibility to the further possibility that Sakhr al-Jinni had
somehow managed to destroy or disable him was a second long guess. But Jim had
spent enough time now trying to summon Rrrnlf, and this Kelb might turn out to
be able to do a great many of the things that he was hoping that Rrrnlf could
help him with.
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Have you some place where you can hide safely, until I summon you? Jim said
to Kelb.
I have, my master, said Kelb.
Well, go and hide there, said Jim. I ll call you back as soon as I ve made
up my mind about a few things. Mind you, I m not saying I ll extend my
protection to you. I don t extend it to just everybody, you know.
I am sure of that, master, said Kelb humbly.
Off with you, then, said Jim. I ll call you back when I m ready.
Jim stood up from the rock on which he d been sitting.
We ve spent enough time here, he said. Hob, we ll head back to Paphos and
Sir William Brutnor s place.
He started back along the beach, around the headlands that separated where
he d been sitting from the town of Paphos itself-a place half village, half
town, mainly filled by local Greeks; but with a fair sprinkling of the
descendants of crusaders, from one crusade or another, who had never gotten
any farther than Cyprus. These latter had prospered and built themselves
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