huhu

by Amliudo

hihi

The bath-slave Aram had just helped Ali descend into the waist-deep water. Neither he nor the prince detected the stealthy footfalls entering the chamber. The wizard Yusuf swallowed hard as he paused upon the marble coping of the bathing pool, not yet absolutely confident of the Gem of Invisibility's power. In his perspiring fists he clutched his glazed vial, now refilled. He now unstopped it with trembling hands, quailing as Ali suddenly seemed to look up at him. But the young man's eyes shifted away again, at which point the conspirator sucked in a deep sigh of relief.

This sound Ali actually did hear, and he curiously scanned the chamber. Alarmed, the old man froze in place, too frightened even to breathe. To have his scheme exposed would mean a terrible death -- roasting over a small fire, or being torn apart by wild horses.

The prince took a proffered bottle of ointment from Aram and poured a puddle of it into his palm. This he commenced to rub into own muscular arms and chest. With Ali and the servant both distracted, Yusuf slowly regained his courage and, carefully, as to not wet his fingertips with the smallest drop, he unstopped the flask and tipped it. Its clear contents poured into the waters of Ali's bath with only the tiniest tinkling sound.

As the magic substance spread and reached Ali, something like a thousand pin-pricks benumbed the youth's flesh and he let out a gasp of startlement. His knees failing under him, he thrust out his arms to catch the tile coping, lest he go under. He succeeded in this, but the servant above him was crying out in surprise and dismay:

"Master!" cried Aram. "This cannot be!"

Dazed, the son of Haroon looked up at him.

"What?" he murmured, and only belatedly realized that his voice sounded strange.

"You have changed!"

Ali wondered why the man's eyes seemed to be starting from their sockets. Then he looked down at himself.

And screamed.

The Emir Haroon paced back and forth in front of his councilors, feeling much older than he was. The wise men of Damascus themselves appeared perplexed, and, out of politeness, and also a certain squeamishness, refrained from looking at the cloaked figure of Ali. The latter was standing apart from them and next to Hassan, his face hidden by a close-wrapped kaffiyeh.

Lord Aziz breached the tense silence with a platitude: "Sorcery is afoot, great Haroon. The culprit must be found and punished!"

The emir tore at his grey hair. "Oh, woe! Should the sultan of Edessa discover this catastrophe, Ali's marriage to Badiat shall be doomed! Our whole dynasty is destroyed. I no longer have an heir!"

"Majesty!" cried Ali. "It is not so! I am alive!"

Achmed, Haroon, and councilors.

Achmed, Haroon, and councilors.

Achmed smiled unctuously at the shrouded figure of the prince, saying: "Of course you understand what the emir is saying, O Royal One. The people will never accept an emir who comes to the throne under an enchantment such as yours. But hopefully, by the grace of Allah, we shall in time find the means to take this degrading spell from your person. But until then, alas, we have more immediate problems."

Achmed was enjoying his own performance, and a yearn to laugh tugged at his pious expression. He turned toward the emir, saying: "Ali's wedding to Badiat is now, as you say, impossible, Great One. We dare not lose the alliance with Edessa and, therefore, another noble suitor must be found for the princess -- and swiftly."

"Do not despair, Mighty Emir," interjected the councilor Madani, "I fear that I know what has befallen Ali -- and there is yet hope for him."

Ali perked up. "What hope? Explain!"

"In the land of Khwarizm is found a spring call the Fountain of Marshan. He or she who bathes in its waters is --"

"Is what?" demanded Emir Haroon.

"Is changed as Prince Ali has been changed." He went on to explain the legend in detail.

Achmed tensed and queried tentatively: "And you suppose that an enemy has cursed Prince Ali with the water of this fountain?"

"I do. Fortunately, a little fresh water from the same spring will instantly remove the curse."

"Then I must go to the spring!" cried Ali.

"I, too, have heard of this evil fountain," put in another councilor, Aziz by name. "It is a long journey from here -- at the city of Marshan, far away, to the north of the mountains of Persia, at the edge of the land of Khwarizm."

"I do not care how far I must go!" the prince exclaimed. "I will not live as -- as --" His words choked off, their taste too bitter to utter.

"Be warned, Ali," said Madani with immense gravity. "The legends say that for the curse to be removed, the sufferer must do no dishonor to his original shape, and therefore must conduct himself accordingly."

Ali stepped determinably forward: "What does that mean? Do not speak in riddles!"

Madani explained his meaning carefully, and Ali's eyes grew wide in anger. "Why do you even make mention of such a thing?! By Allah's Sword, what do you take me for?!"

Councilor Aziz interposed himself between Madani and Ali. "Peace, Your Grace. Our colleague means only to say that no one knows what subtle changes this sorcery may have wrought in your blameless nature."

"My nature is exactly what it has always been!" exclaimed the emir's son. "Or," he demanded through clenched teeth, "have you noticed some change?"

"None at all," the elder replied with a reverential bow.

The emir slammed his fist against the back of his chair. "We shall seek for the culprit! He may have more of the magic water, and thus the curse may be lifted at once. But if our search does not avail us, we must waste no time." He swung toward Hassan.

The young warrior straightened. "Yes, Mighty One?"

"Hassan, you shall prepare an expedition to Khwarizm at once! Accompany Ali to the spring -- and do not return until my son is restored."

"Why do you not let me prepare the expedition myself, Father?" Ali asked in perplexity. "It will help keep my mind off this terrible condition."

"How can you speak to warriors and camel-sellers as you are, my son?" his father answered. "No one would recognize you, and you must not tell a soul who you are, lest the scandal shame our entire house, our ancestors even!"

The prince blinked with startlement. "Am I a thing of shame to you now, Father? Why? I have done no wrong and am responsible in no way for what has befallen me."

"No, of course you are not! But we must be discrete. Besides, you are too distraught to do such exacting work. Let Hassan see to the difficult matters."

"Why should I?" Ali answered defiantly. "Whatever else I may have become, Majesty, I have not become a child nor a fool!"

Achmed spoke up, eager to cast blame away from himself: "That bath servant of the prince's may be a part of the plot. He should be put to the torture at once."

Ali raised his masked head. "No! He is innocent. -- I feel it. It is an evil thing to torture a good servant on mere suspicion, and I will not have it done on my account!"

"Of course, of course," vacillated the emir, "but he must at least be closely questioned. If, in the process, he behaves in a guilty manner --"

He dropped the subject and looked toward the others. "Gentlemen, come, we must sort this matter out carefully."

The emir withdrew and the councilors stepped briskly after him, leaving Ali and Hassan alone in the room. The prince looked askance at the warrior at his side.

Before Hassan could encourage or commiserate, there came a shout from Achmed in the adjacent chamber. "Hassan, you come also. This concerns your journey!"

The prince's comrade looked bemusedly at Ali. "Excuse me, my friend. I will rejoin you as soon as possible."

Now left alone, Ali spun about and stormed away.

Achmed, once more surrounded by a crowd of his women, received Yusuf for the second time that day. On this occasion, the latter was accompanied by a tall, muscular warrior in the garments of a ghazi, his turban decorated with a stiff red feather. The man's scabbard was empty, however, the guards outside not permitting a weapon to be brought into their master's presence.

Achmed pushed a doe-eyed concubine away. "Begone, all of you!" he commanded. As the women scrambled from the suite, Achmed beckoned Yusuf and his bodyguard closer. The latter watched the departing dancers and concubines with avid interest.

"Visions of loveliness, lord," the ghazi remarked in a strong, rumbling voice. His accent betrayed an Egyptian origin.

"Yes, indeed," Achmed nodded distractedly. "You should see them when they dance."

"Aye," nodded the big swordsman, "that is the sort of woman for me -- a dancing girl, like my mother was."

"I take it that you are Mahmood, Yusuf's bodyguard?" Achmed remarked.

"That is so, lord," affirmed Yusuf. "I would have lost my life many a time during my travels, except that the stalwart Mahmood stood at my side."

"You are welcome here, warrior," Achmed said perfunctorily.

Mahmood gave a dignified bow. "Thank you, Mighty Vizier."

Achmed put his beringed hand upon the old wizard's back. "Yusuf, you should have seen Prince Ali! He was wrapped up like a bedouin! It was all I could do to keep from laughing! "

Yusuf grinned. "You forget that I saw him in the bath -- not wrapped, but naked! The spectacle was even more amazing than you can imagine!"

"And if I have my way, he will wear that shape for the rest of his life!" the vizier vowed determinedly. "Tell me, Sorcerer, have you come up with some plan to prevent Ali from ever again regaining his natural shape?"

"Yes indeed, Lord. Have I ever failed you?"

Achmed listened carefully to his learned cohort and then nodded. "I do like what I hear. How should we bring it about? Do you suggest violence?"

"Alas, lord, for the magic to work, Ali must act willingly, enthusiastically, even."

"He will never do that!"

"I agree. For that reason we must resort to magic once more."

"What do you mean?"

"I have a potion which comes from the city of Marshan also." Yusuf summarized the peculiar nature of the cantrip.

"But how do we know that the potion you purchased was true and pure?" Achmed asked edgily.

"I am confident, Esteemed One, but if you would set your mind at ease, I suggest that we test it upon the knight in the tower while you observe."

"And perhaps I shall do more than merely observe," Achmed suggested, his lips drawing into a tight, thin smile.

Yusuf led his master Achmed and his servant Mahmood to the Crusader's cell, whereupon Achmed sent the guards away and unlocked the door. Upon entering, they espied a blonde woman of about nineteen or twenty years of age. She was standing defiantly on the opposite side of a small table and wearing the rood-decorated tabard and hose of the infidel Crusaders.

"Sorcier! Va-t'en!" the blonde snarled. "Je ne suis pas un caprice pour votre amusement!"

Yusuf tilted his head toward Achmed. "The knight, I think, resents being turned into a woman," he grinned. "And yet he makes such a pretty virgin girl!" The magician next spoke over his shoulder to Mahmood. "We must fetter her."

The sorcerer proffered the cup he held to the vizier, saying, "Please hold this cup, my lord."

Achmed received the vessel as his two underlings went after the Frankish maid. She showed spirit, seizing an earthenware pitcher and throwing it at Yusuf's head. The old man ducked, but Mahmood charged after the caster. She eluded his grasp for a moment, but he soon had her locked in his herculean arms. The Egyptian and his master dragged the girl to a wooden pillar where depended a set of manacles. While Mahmood held her, the magician clicked them shut upon her wrists.

"Cochons! Je vous tourai!" shrieked the fettered blonde, the echoes of her cry ringing through the tower.

Achmed now stepped up to inspect her. The girl's red-faced rage, her flashing blue eyes, the disarray of her hair, came across as a feral sort of beauty. "Very good," he said. "Now leave us alone. I will administer the potion myself and observe its effects personally."

Yusuf half-bowed in assent and drew Mahmood after him. Achmed watched the door close, then held the cup of wine up before his captive's nose. The bouquet was heavy and sweet.

"You are thirsty, are not you, Sir Knight? Let it not be said that I do not see to my captives' needs." He nudged the goblet to her lips. "Here, take this. I know how you French like wine. All the world knows you for a race of drunkards."

After a circumspect taste, the French girl drank thirstily. Finally, sated, she sighed throatily and sagged, her arms taking some of her relaxed weight. Achmed watched avidly, and, after just a moment, the Turkish grandee noticed the girl's subtle shiver. This shiver, whatever its cause, seemed to leave her as swiftly as it had come, and she was suddenly blinking at him with bedazzled eyes.

Had the spell worked? Achmed decided that it was time test it. He touched the girl's tabard, in the place where her breasts bulged.

No sooner had he pinched her than she rebuked him: "A bas les mains, abatardi puant que vous etes!"

"You do not like being touched, my lotus?" he mocked. "Why should that be? I have heard that French girls are all whores, though I do not know whether they were speaking figuratively or literally. We must decide the matter for ourselves."

Achmed prodded the girl with insolent fingers. "Conchon!" the transformed knight yelled at the top of her lungs.

After a few minutes, Achmed began to notice a gentling of his victim's attitude. Was it the effect of the potion? Emboldened, the vizier took his victim by the waist and crushed her against himself, forcing hungry kisses upon her mouth. She shook herself away and aimed a knee at his crouch, but he was too quick for her.

"Allez-vous-en, vase Arabe!" she growled, and Achmed surmised that her words had amounted to an insult of the vilest kind.

"Do you impugn me, by proud beauty?" he inquired whimsically. "You will be punished for that."

He drew his father's bejeweled dagger; the girl froze as Achmed poised the keen blade under her chin. But instead of cutting her, he merely severed the tie at her throat.

"I want to see you naked," explained Achmed as he pulled her tunic down over her shoulders. "If your beauty pleases me, you shall be permitted to live as a concubine for the rest of your life."

The chained knight kicked at Achmed's shins futilely while the vizier cut away those parts of her garments which would not yield to the strength of his bare hands. "Ahh, yes," he murmured, "I am impressed, truly. Some fool told me that Western women were small-breasted, but you are as generously-endowed as any Circassian beauty."

He touched her now-bared breasts. The girl tried to shake him off while Achmed laughed at her mortification. The knight was easy prey for the Syrian in her present form, nothing more than a plaything.

Maliciously, Achmed sank to his knees and hooked his thumbs into the knight's waistband. His attempt to drag down her hose incited the knight, who started to kick again. Annoyed, Achmed left her hose bunched at her knees, where it would seriously impede her ability to kick with efficacy.

The Crusader

Now that she was all but naked, vizier placed his hands upon her buttocks and proceeded to knead them vigorously, while his prey, beside herself, twisted right and left.

Tiring of the sport, the vizier took hold of her knees and bent to kiss her inner thighs. Oblivious to her, the Turk worked his way up along the blemishless flesh to the golden nest above. This he touched with his tongue, giving her clitoris -- the zambur, as his people called it -- a mischievous flick, which caused the girl to leap and utter a squeak.

His continued liberties had soon reduced the the girl to gasping. Finally, Achmed got up and wiped his mouth on his kerchief.

Keenly the grandee observed the effects of his attempt to arouse the Crusader. Strands of amber hair were pasted to the maid's moist face and her limbs quivered with emotion. The slick sheen of perspiration upon her trim body was, he supposed, due not to air temperature, but sexual heat. Could Achmed also detect a trace of feminine musk over the usual prison odors?

He decided that he did, and so pressed his agenda. He picked up the leather collar which he had brought along and enjoyed the look of horror the Frankish maid showed when she saw the collar yawn open. Instead of thrashing about this time, though, the blonde simply hung there with eyes wide, her lips agape. The prisoner's demeanor made it easy for Achmed to fit the dark leather around her swan-like neck.

The Crusader

Was she stunned only? he wondered. Yusuf had said that the potion had three elements to its makeup. The first induced into a woman who drank it an insatiable sexual need. The second inspired a craving for bondage, for wearing the symbols of subjugation and the domination of a master. The third created a passionate fixation upon the first man which her dazed glance fixed upon. Taken together, the three elements of the potion created a wild and lusty sex-slave who was utterly devoted to a single master. This was the fate which the grandee dearly desired to inflict upon Ali.

Achmed had by now notched the belt in place with these taunting words:

"At this moment, you cease to be a free man or even a woman captive. You are chattel. There shall be no purpose to your life hereafter, except the pleasing of those who hold power over you. You are now, and forever, a female slave!"

Achmed stepped back to feast his eyes upon the circlet she now wore. The collar was not the fashion of Syria, but came from the lands east of Baghdad, but he very much liked the look of it upon the neck of a beautiful thrall. The item was, in fact, the girl's only garment above the knees. Though she didn't understand his words, the French prisoner comprehended the symbolism of his act and her expression transformed from one of anger to dismay.

Achmed surprised her by unlocking the manacles. So taken aback was she that, instead of darting away, or springing for his throat, she collapsed into his arms. Atremble with triumph and desire, the vizier lowered her to the floor. As she lay on the old straw, the Saracen stripped off her over-sized boots, then her hose. Now the collar was all that she wore.

"What an addition you shall make to the seraglio which finally claims you!" prophesied the Turk, his lips drawn back in a grotesque rictus of mirth. Without further taunts, he opened his trousers to liberate his blood-gorged manhood.

The French girl looked up in bewilderment at the rampant cock-stand looming over her.

"Like it, Crusader? It shall be yours -- in a sense."

The vizier stooped to grab a mass of her golden hair, and thereby pulled her up to her knees. Then he took his aroused organ in his other hand.

"Taste my zubb, infidel whore!"

Repulsed, the girl averted her glance.

Angry, Achmed stood up, adjusted his breeches, and yelled: "-- Yusuf, you fool!"

When the old man had shuffled back into the cell, the vizier pointed an accusing finger at him. "The potion has no effect!"

"You are too impatient, Lord," Yusuf counseled plaintively. "I have seen how the Marshanese use the potion. It effectively tames females who begin their slavery in the most defiant state of mind. Its power grows stronger minute by minute. The more she yields to it, the greater the dominance it assumes over her emotions. And this is the royal mix of the cantrip, which is the strongest of all."

Achmed made a scoffing noise. "She doesn't seem to love me in the least."

"Be patient," the magician urged once more.

The Turk was only partially reassured as he made a new assessment of the girl. Her fair eyes were bloodshot and watery, her shoulders trembled, and her breasts were heaving.

The sight might have brought pity to another heart, but not to Achmed's. "You Crusaders invade our land, you rape, you pillage," he inveighed. "Well, you are one who shall pay back all he has taken, and in hard coin! Do you know what the words 'Mouth Magic' mean, you stupid little barbarian?"

The French girl reacted and Achmed laughed. She had actually understood the euphemism. "I see you do understand!" grinned the Syrian. "You must have learned all the words that whores use." He pointed to his formidable scepter. "Mouth Magic. Do it!"

The indignant Frank shook her head and effected to crawl away. The Saracen took the sash from his robe and, in a flash, had his fair prisoner bound by the wrists, belly-down, to an iron floor-ring. Then he took his leather belt from his pantaloons.

"Mouth Magic now, little whore? I am waiting."

She shook her head furiously. "No! Jamais!"

Achmed struck. The Crusader yelled in pain and struggled to free herself, but the Syrian's knots were too clever. Achmed delivered one blow after another, until his victim lay collapsed, gasping, her mouth full of straw. His sadistic impulse momentarily satisfied, Achmed set aside the belt and told Yusuf to fetch a pitcher of water.

From this, the official refreshed himself, and then put his cup to the slave's lips. She coughed as she swallowed. Achmed looked up at Yusuf, saying, "Go now. I resume my private audience with our foreign guest."

When the wizard was gone, Achmed spoke sneeringly to the girl: "Mouth Magic, my little heifer, or --" he showed her the strap, "-- more of this?"

"Oui! Mouth magic!" she gasped.

Pleased, Achmed arranged the girl on her hands and knees, then seated himself upon the prison stool. By means of a handful of her hair, he brought his slave's face close to his loins. The vizier continued to hold her with one hand while he again freed his erection and commenced to rub it against the French girl's tight-clenched lips.

"Open your mouth, whore!" he directed, pantomiming exactly what he wanted. Such gesticulation would not be necessary for long with this one, he knew. Every harem girl soon learned all these sexual commands even when given in Turkish.

The Frank moved to comply, if woefully slow. Impatient, Achmed thrust the corona of his penis between her lips and felt the warm, wet envelopment.

"Suck! Suck, bitch, -- suck!" Achmed commanded. He moaned in pleasure at her efforts to obey, though the fellatio he was receiving was a clumsy one. By pulling her hair and groaning encouragement from time to time, he exacted the performance that he wanted from her.

His swollen scepter and throbbing stones were aching, and he craved release. In fact, he longed to see the girl's face of horror as he released his vital essence into her virgin mouth, but that delight would, unfortunately, have to wait for another day.

Without warning, Achmed pushed the girl away. She fell on her back and lay there, not understanding the cause of his sudden roughness. But she comprehended all when the Saracen got to his feet and kicked the pantaloons from his ankles. Unsure whether to resist or not, she permitted him to position himself between her widely-spread legs. The vizier smiled at the look of apprehension in the French girl's lovely face, noting how her nipples stood straight-out, stiff little pink-brown cones.

Confronted by such beauty and such evidence of female heat, Achmed could control himself no longer. What's more, there was no longer any cause to exercise the slightest control over himself.

He imposed his body upon hers and she cried out in surprise. At first his action was to subject her to a rough, angry foreplay -- pawing and groping -- the sort of treatment that a whore could expect from a conquering soldier. Her beautiful face he covered in big, wet kisses, interspaced with painful love-bites. The girl, pinned to the straw, herself intensely aroused, could do nothing but cry out and struggle ineffectively against the hurt -- a hurt which was increasingly registering in her mind and emotions as pleasure.

Achmed felt about to burst, but he did not want to spend himself upon her thighs. It was time to make this knight of France a woman true.

"Ah, my bitch, you have fucked many daughters of the Faithful, I do not doubt. In so doing, you have incurred a great debt to our people. It is time for restitution. How shall it feel to be a sword no longer, but a scabbard put to the service of other men's weapons?"

The man of Asia shuddered, then took his aching cock-stand into his hand and, rasping, said: "You are as hot as a brazier in wintertide, my European beauty. You want to fuck, I know, and fuck you shall! Do you know that word, my darling little whore -- 'fuck?'"

The French girl nodded, wild-eyed. "Oui, Maitre!" she gasped. "'Fuck!' Jai compris! Penetre-me! Fuck! Fuck moi, Maitre!"

Achmed knew the tones of lust when he heard them, and so he placed his stiff length to the center of her vulva, and, with his partner moaning in near-delirium, he thrust.

He pumped himself into her furiously, assailing her with long, slamming strokes. He continued relentlessly, until the woman shuddered under him, transported by orgasm. With a loud moan, he let himself go at last, pouring himself out in a series of spasmodic bursts. A man of vigor, Achmed kept his hips moving as long as he had anything left to give to the Crusader -- and he gave it all.

Achmed at last rolled away. As a man he was now used up, and the girl herself seemed equally spent. Spent, alas, but not sated.

"Mon Deui!" she gasped. "C'est bon! C'est bon! Plus!"

When her lover proved unresponsive, she groped at him, tried to roll him over on top of herself.

Weary, Achmed pushed the French girl away. To his annoyance, she held on to his leg, yammering: "Maitre! Fuck moi! Mas fuck!"

"No, Crusader, I am not here for your pleasure," he taunted. "But I may tell your jailers that they may do as they please with you. Would you like that, my golden harlot?"

He rose, dressed, and then called his fellow conspirators back into the cell.

"She came like a bitch in heat!" the vizier laughed. "A man only this morning, tonight she climaxes like the hottest whore in Tyre!"

"Now you know that the potion works," said Yusuf proudly. "A man or woman who surrenders himself, or herself, to one of his former sex, so long as he was willing when he did so, is forever trapped in the shape which the waters have imposed."

"For once you have not blundered, old fool. That is, if the legend is true. Douse the slut with some more of the magic water tonight, just to make sure that she cannot be restored. If she cannot be, then it shall be clear that Ali cannot be, either."

"I will do so, my lord. But what about afterwards? The girl knows too much. She cannot speak our language as yet, but in time --?

Achmed frowned. Clearly, the French girl must be sent away, killed, or have her tongue cut out.

"Tell me, wizard, will this whore die of love for me if I send her from the city?"

"No, the love spell will simply fade away in a few days if her beloved rejects her. However, this shall not free her from her craving for sex and bondage. These will remain, I understand, until the end of her childbearing years."

"She is able to conceive?"

"I have been to Marshan and so I know that fact to be true."

Achmed nodded, satisfied. "If all this is so, death would be too kind for a Christian dog -- I mean, a Christian bitch. I promised that I would make her a concubine, and so I shall. I know a slave-trader who is buying women for Zanzibar."

Yusuf inclined his head. "You are wise as well as merciful, Exulted One."

"No time for idle banter, Yusuf! You must follow Ali's and Hassan's expedition. As soon as you are able, you must put the royal potion of Maiden's Ruin into his food or drink."

"Must it be the royal potion, Sire? As I say, the love spell is fragile, unless the sufferer's love is returned."

Achmed gave a toss of his hand. "Ali must lose his maidenhead as quickly as possible. A slut may give up her maidenhead quickly, a slave-slut more quickly still, but a slave-slut in the grip of love-madness will not preserve her virginity as much as an hour. We play for dangerous stakes, Yusuf; we must win with devastating swiftness, or all might be lost."

"It is a vile revenge, Lord," spoke up Mahmood for the first time. "Why not simply use the power of the Gem of Invisibility to bring an assassin to the prince?"

The vizier shook his head. "That is too unimaginative, and it would not satisfy my hate. This way Ali may live and suffer, but forever be denied the throne. And if I become emir, my first act shall be to place him under the tyranny of whip-mistresses. Perhaps when he is trained I will make him one of my concubines, or even a lowly barracks belly dancer, to entertain my soldiers."

Achmed noticed Yusuf's doleful expression. "What ails you now, Wizard?"

"You say I must travel yet again. My bones ache for rest, Lord. I have grown too old for these long journeys."

"I can trust no one else! Do what I ask one final time and then retire with ten chests of gold for your own!"

"Yes, Exulted One," Yusuf capitulated, moved as much by fear as by greed.

Achmed turned to face the bodyguard. "And you, Mahmood? Will you go with your master?"

"A man can always use more gold, Lord, but my happiness requires much more."

The grandee regarded the Egyptian through a cocked eye. "Just how great is your ambition, ghazi?"

"I would give up my wandering forever," replied Mahmood, "if I could but open a simple hostel in my native Egypt and make it prosper."

"That is nothing," exclaimed the official. "I can make you the master of ten taverns."

"I do not need ten, Great One. So much responsibility would leave me no time for wife and family, and therefore for all which makes for a life of contentment. There is only one thing which I lack."

"What?"

"It is too much to ask."

"Ask anyway, dolt! We have little time for false modesty."

Mahmood straightened to all his gigantic height and said, "Lord Achmed is famous for the beauty of his harem."

"That is so. What of it?"

"I have already espied one in it whom I cannot but deem the most beautiful woman in all the world."

Achmed shook his head. "It is impudence, warrior, to aspire to a concubine who has previously graced my own bed! Yet I will not haggle with time so short. To destroy the heir of Haroon, I would gladly lay even my own sister at your feet. Serve your master well, come back successful, and the girl is yours. -- More than that, you shall also have a chest of gold to buy that hostel of yours!"

"Then I am your man," replied the bodyguard gratefully, clutching his scabbard in solemn pledge.

Achmed clasped both their hands, sealing their pact of rogues.