Chapter 5

“Dark as Quar’s heart,” muttered Pukah to himself, opening his eyes and staring around him confusedly. “And the air is thick! Has there been a sandstorm?” Dust flew into his mouth, and the djinn sneezed. Sitting up to see where he was, he received a smart rap on the head.

“Ooof!” Dizzily, Pukah lay back down and, moving more cautiously, slowly extended his hands and felt around him. Above his head, apparently, was a slab of wood. And he was lying on wood—dirty, dustcovered wood by the feel and the smell.

Just when the djinn had decided that he was lying in a wooden box—for Sul only knew what reason—Pukah groped about farther and felt his hand brush into soft material on either side of him. “A wooden box with curtains,” he commented. “This gets stranger and stranger.” One hand slid completely underneath the material. Figuring that where his hand could go, he could follow, the djinn scooted across the floor, raising a huge cloud of dust, and nearly sneezing himself unconscious.

“By Sul!” said Pukah in astonishment, “I’ve been lying under a bed!”

Sunlight streaming through a dirty window revealed to the djinn the place where he’d apparently spent the night. It was the same bed on top of which he’d been lying in a state of bliss with. . .

“Asrial!” Pukah cried, looking around him frantically.

He was alone and his head felt as though it were stuffed with Majiid’s stockings. Pukah had the vague memory of singing in his ears, then nothing. Slowly he sank down on the bed. Batting himself on the forehead several times, hoping to displace the stockings and allow room for his wits, the djinn tried to figure out what had happened. He remembered Asrial returning to the arwat after his bargain with Death. . .

Bargain with Death!

Pukah’s hand went to his chest. The amulet was gone! “Death’s taken it!” Gulping, he leaped up from the bed and staggered across the room to peer out the window. The sun was low, the shadows in the street were long.

“It’s morning!” Pukah groaned. “Time for the entire city to try to kill me. And I feel as if camels have been chewing on my brain!”

“Asrial?” he called out miserably.

No answer.

She probably couldn’t bear to watch, Pukah thought gloomily. I don’t blame her. I’m not going to watch either.

“I wonder,” the djinn said wistfully after a moment, “if I was good last night.” He heaved a sigh. “My first time. . . probably my last. . . And I don’t remember any of it!”

Flinging himself upon the bed, he pulled the pillow over his aching head and moaned a bit for the hardness of the world. Then he paused, looking up. “It must have been wild,” his alter ego said upon reflection, “if you ended up under the bed!”

“I’ve got to find her!” Pukah said decisively, scrambling to his feet. “Women are such funny creatures. My master the Calif told me that one must reassure them in the morning that one still loves them. And I do love her!” Pukah said softly, clasping the pillow to his chest. “I love her with all my heart and soul. I would gladly die for her—”

The djinn stopped short. “You undoubtedly will die for her,” his other self told him solemnly, “if you go out that door. Listen, I have an idea. Perhaps if you stayed hidden inside this room all day, no one would find you. You could always slip back underneath the bed.”

“What would the Calif say—his djinn hiding beneath a bed!” Pukah snorted at himself in derision. “Besides, my angel is probably roaming the city now, thinking in her virgin heart that I have had my way with her and now will abandon her. Or, worse still”—the thought made him catch his breath—”she might be in danger! She has no amulet, after all! I must go find her!”

Checking to make certain his knife was tucked into his sash, the djinn hurled open the door and ran down the stairs, feeling as though he could take on the entire city of Serinda. He paused outside the beaded curtains.

“Ho! Come out, you droppings of goats, you immortal refuse of swine! Come! It is I—the gallant Pukah—and I challenge one and all to do battle with me this day!”

There was no response. Grimly Pukah charged through the curtains into the main room.

“Come, you horses’ hindquarters!”

The room was empty.

Frustrated, Pukah fought his way through the swinging beads and leapt out the door, into the street.

“It is I, the challenger of Death, the formidable Pukah. . .”

The djinn’s voice died. The street was empty. Not only that, but it seemed to be growing darker instead of lighter.

What with all the confusion, the shouting and yelling and flinging himself about, Pukah felt his head begin to throb. He gazed about in the gathering gloom, wondering fearfully if his vision was beginning to go. A fountain stood nearby. Bending his head at the marble feet of a marble maiden, he allowed her to pour cooling water from her marble pitcher upon his fevered brow. He felt somewhat better, though his vision did not clear up, and he was just sitting down on the fountain’s rim when he heard a great shout rise up some distance away from him.

“So that’s where everybody is!” he said triumphantly. “Some sort of celebration. Probably”—he realized glumly—”working themselves into a blood frenzy.”

He jumped to his feet, the sudden movement making his head spin. Dizzily he fell back into the fountain, clinging to the marble maiden’s cold body for support. “Maybe they’re tormenting Asrial! Maybe Death took her from me in the night!”

Fury burning in his imaginary veins, Pukah shoved the maiden away from him, knocking her off her pedestal and sending the statue crashing to the pavement. He ran through the empty streets of Serinda, using the shouts as his guide, hearing them grow louder and more tumultuous as the darkness deepened around him. No longer trying to figure out what was going on, knowing only that Asrial might be suffering, and determined to save her no matter what cost to himself, Pukah rounded a corner and ran headlong into the Temple plaza.

He was stopped by a crush of immortals blocking his path. Their backs to him, they were staring at something in the center of the plaza and cheering madly. Standing on tiptoe, trying to see over veils and turbans, laurel wreaths and steel helms, golden crowns and tarbooshes and every other form of headcovering known to the civilized world, Pukah could make out a wisp of dark, foulsmelling smoke beginning to curl into the air. He saw Death, standing next to something in the center of the Plaza, a look of triumph upon her cold, pale face.

But what was it she was gazing at with those hollow, empty eyes? Pukah couldn’t see, and finally, exasperated, he increased his height until he towered head and shoulders above everyone in the crowd.

The djinn sucked in his breath, a sound like storm wind whistling through taut tent rigging.

Death was looking triumphantly at him!

But it wasn’t the him standing at the edge of the cheering mob. It was a him lying prone upon a bier of cow dung, flames flickering at its base from torches thrown by the crowd.

“Hazrat Akhran!” Pukah gasped. “There really are two of me! I’ve been leading a double life and I never knew it! Suppose”—a dreadful thought struck the djinn—”suppose he’s the one Asrial fell in love with!” Pukah shook his fist at the body on the bier. “You’ve been so understanding, so sympathetic! And all the time it was you making love to her!”

Jealousy raging in his soul, Pukah began to shove his way through the mob. “Get out of my way! Step aside there. What are you staring at? You’d think you’d seen a ghost. Move over! I have to get through!” So intent was he upon confronting himself with betraying himself, the djinn did not notice that—at the sight of him—the immortals fell back, staring at him in shock.

Striding angrily down the path cleared for him by the shaken immortals, Pukah came to the bier. Death gaped at him, her mouth open, her jaw working in unspeaking rage. Pukah never noticed. His eyes were on himself lying, covered with garbage, upon the smoldering dung heap. .

“You were with her last night!” Pukah cried, pointing an accusing finger at himself. “Admit it! Don’t lie there, looking so innocent. I know you, you—”

“Kill him!” Death shrieked, her hands clenching to fists. “Kill him!”

Howling in fear and fury, the mob surged toward Pukah, their screams and curses bringing him to his senses at last.

“I’m not dead!” he said. “But then who—”

The mob attacked him. The fight was hopeless; he was one against thousands. Falling back across the bier and the body on it—the body whose identity he now knew, the body who had given her life for his—Pukah raised his arm instinctively to ward off the blow. Averting his eyes from Death, his gaze rested on the face he loved, a face he could see beneath the mask it wore.

“Holy Akhran, grant my prayer. Let us be together!” Pukah whispered. Looking at Asrial, he did not see the sun vanish beneath the horizon.

Death saw. The dark eyes stared into descending darkness, and she gnashed her teeth in her wrath.

“No!” she cried, raising her hands to Heaven. “No, Sul! I have been cheated! You can’t take this away from me!”

Night came to Serinda; the sun’s afterglow lit the sky, and by its dim light the immortals watched their city begin to crumble and fall into dust.

Staring at the body on the bier, Pukah saw it change form. Blue eyes looked into his. “You’ve won, Pukah,” the angel said softly, her silver hair shining in the twilight. “The Lost Immortals are freed!”

“Because of you!” Pukah caught Asrial’s hand and pressed it to his lips. “My beloved, my life, my soul. . .” The hand began to fade in his. “What—” He grasped at it frantically, but he might as well have been clutching at smoke. “What is happening? Asrial, don’t leave me!”

“I must, Pukah,” came a faint voice. The angel was disappearing before his eyes. “I am sorry, but it has to be this way. Mathew needs me!”

“Stop, I’ll go with you—” Pukah cried, but at that moment he heard a harsh voice booming in his ears.

“Pukah! Your master calls you! Have you been purposefully avoiding me? If so, you will find your basket being used to roast squid upon your return!”

“Kaug!” Pukah licked his lips, peering into the Heavens.

He felt himself slipping away, as though he were being sucked into a huge vortex. “No, Kaug! Please!” The djinn fought frantically, but he couldn’t help himself.

A last glance at the city of Serinda, the dying city of Death, revealed all the immortals looking around themselves in vast confusion. A seraphim dropped a wine goblet, staring at it in horror, and hastily wiped his lips in disgust. A virginal goddess of Vevin glanced down at her own scantily clad form and blushed in shame. Several immortals of Zhakrin, who had been leading the murderous assault upon Pukah, suddenly lifted their heads, hearing a voice long stilled. They vanished instantly. A deity of Evren dropped a sword she had been waving and lifted her voice in a glad cry. She, too, disappeared.

Sond staggered out of the Temple, looking dazed. “Kaug?” he muttered, shaking his head muzzily. “Don’t yell! I’m coming.”

Pukah tumbled through the ethers, whirling round and round.

Death stood in the midst of the ruins of an ancient city lying silent and forgotten, sand blowing through its empty streets.