Schneider stared at the girl hanging in his arms in some bafflement. Not displeasure. Certainly not displeasure, for she was as pleasingly rounded and soft as any female creature he'd ever felt. And he had felt quite a few. They just didn't appear out of a stream of smoke from the interior of a bottle before they jumped into his arms. She was gazing up at him in absolute love/lust/adoration in those almost black eyes. Her breasts were pressed so closely against him he could feel the impression of her nipples. Not a bad thing at all -- save for the niggling little voice in the back of his mind that shook an admonishing finger at him and reminded him of a honor vow he had made to Yoko. Can't be with another woman and still have her. It had gone something like that. Yoko was not in the least inclined towards sharing. Yoko had always tended towards the unreasonable in some things.
"Nooooo-----" A impassioned voice cried, and the old man was shaking himself out of Kall-Su's grip and staggering towards Schneider and the girl out of the bottle. Girl out of a bottle. Vague recollections of middle eastern myths came to mind. Genies and Djinn and that sort of thing. One hardly believed them. One knew the byways of magic and such things were not part of them. Unless the myths were totally misinformed and genies in bottles were in fact conquered elementals or demons and the bottles in question the magical prisons ancient sorcerers had used to contain them. That was interesting premise. The girl didn't look like an elemental or a demon. Well, perhaps a demoness of unusual charm. She had called him master. So she was a particularly keen one, if that were the case.
The old man went to grab the girl's shoulder. Wrapped his fingers around her smooth skin and she turned a dark eye upon him, then his hand melted right through her and slammed against Schneider's chest.
"Don't touch me, you repulsive old man." She hissed.
"Imprudent Djinni, you belong to me." The Moulay cried. But he jerked his hand back. The Djinni turned her back to Schneider, quite solid again and pressed her lovely backside up against him in a most inviting manner.
"No, you old goat, this one freed me from my prison. And even had he not, do you think I would willingly serve a dried up old prune like you? I am quite, quite pleased with my new master." One of her hands reached back and traveled down Schneider's flank. His mouth twitched in a smile. More at the old Moulay's outraged sputtering than her fondling.
Kall-Su approached them warily, eyeing the djinni with obvious distrust. The Moulay's men, the ones left standing, didn't quite know what to do.
"What is this --- creature?" Kall hissed softly. Schneider could feel the faint tingle of magic as Kall-Su tried to discover the nature of her being. He hadn't thought to try an arcane examination himself, but first impression was that she was -- different -- than anything he had yet encountered.
"Creature?" the djinni demanded, turning her black eyes on Kall-Su. Kall ignored her, glaring over her head at Schneider.
"You always have to have the last word. Now look what you've done. They had agreed to help us."
"Why do we need their help? I've got a genie."
"Oh, darling, do with me as you will." She turned about in his arms, wriggling against him. One had to wrap an arm about her waist. One's hand just had to rest on the curve of her rear.
"You've also got a woman back home who will probably take offense at your new possession." Kall snapped testily. He hadn't been in a decent mood since he'd woken up.
"Ungrateful brat." Schneider hissed and disentangled himself from the djinni.
"Give her to the Moulay." Kall suggested. "We've no use for her."
"He's rather unimaginative, isn't he?" the djinni observed archly, crossing her arms sulkily across her ample bosom.
"He's a colossal boor." Schneider agreed.
"But," the djinni gave Kall a look she might reserve for picking produce at the market. "He's rather nice to look at, so I won't hold it against him. Yet."
Schneider shrugged.
"Besides, you opened the bottle, that's that. Can't be changed, can't just give me away. You're stuck with me."
"Not unless she goes back in the bottle and someone else frees her." Amir put in helpfully. He had a faint look of amusement on his bearded face. He wiped it off, when the Moulay turned to look back at him.
"And how do we make her do such a thing?"
"You don't." The djinni said. "Do you have any concept how long I've been trapped in there? Any earthly idea? You can't. The mortal mind can't imagine. All alone. Nobody to keep me company. No men. I have needs too, you know. Just because I'm a djinni doesn't mean I don't get lonely." She turned her bottomless eyes up to Schneider.
"Oh, master, the things I can do for you. I've been practicing -- all by myself."
"Uuhhh --" He could not come up with anything more eloquent than that at the moment. One had to be thankful for loose robes.
"Amir, I hold you responsible for this. Do something, you miserable brother of the sea." The Moulay was in a fine temper. He was practically frothing at the mouth. Amir shifted a little uncertainly, suddenly at a disadvantage.
"My lord, I fear the Kafir Djinn may have had a point. Without the sea to provide me her energies -- it might be unwise to challenge two land djinns and this infinitely charming creature out of the bottle."
"Oh, he's sweet." The djinni commented, smiling lewdly at Amir.
"And I'm bored with this. Get the bottle, Kall." Schneider ordered and with a whispered word, wrapped an arm around the djinni and took to the air. The Moulay started screaming foreign blasphemies. A handful of turbaned warriors rushed forward, wicked swords held high. Kall hissed a curse of his own, and erected a shield. The lot of them rebounded, sprawled stunned in the street. He snatched up the bottle and the stopper and called the air spirits to lift him up.
"So what's your name?" Schneider leaned across the plank table to reach for the clay picture of wine. They sat in the outside patio of a cantina on the other side of the city from where they had left the enraged Moulay. The djinni had scooted her chair up close to his and leaned one scantily clad shoulder against him. A great many people gawked at her. She was no more indecently dressed than the dancer in the market, but she just filled the swishy outfit so much more --- abundantly.
Kall-Su sat across the table, looking prudishly distasteful and not speaking at all, which meant he was so upset he couldn't trust himself with simple things like words. Schneider didn't pay him much heed. The girl more than demanded the lion's share of attention.
"Malice." She purred, rubbing her cheek against his arm.
"Malice?" He lifted a curious brow. "Not an indication of your nature, I hope?"
She shrugged, which did interesting things with her cleavage. "I didn't chose it. It was given me by my first master."
"And how long ago was that?"
She blinked at him, caught off guard by the question. Her eyes almost clouded with concentration. "The Hyksos -- the Shepherd Kings -- had come into the Nile Valleys bringing all their armies with them. My first lord was a Hyksos king. He was --- harsh. Perhaps it was two -- three thousand human years before the advent of the Jerusalem prophet."
"My god." Kall said softly, drawn out of his temper momentarily by the scope of time the djinni suggested.
It was beyond even Schneider's conception. "And how long have you been --- in the bottle?"
"I think the romans were wrecking havoc in the desert when I last was free to walk the earth."
"And you were aware -- cognizant of the passing of time?" Kall asked.
"Every moment." She said.
He leaned forward. "What are you?"
Malice shrugged. "What do you want me to be?"
"Can you help us find friends of ours?"
"Where are they?"
"If I knew that, I wouldn't be asking you?" Kall snapped. The djinni narrowed her eyes at him.
"What he's asking," Schneider put in, taking on the unfamiliar task of negotiator. "Is if you can find a woman of his that he's lost?"
"Not very responsible, is he? To have lost her in the first place."
A little sound of purest anger escaped Kall-Su. A sensitive man could feel the reflexive gathering of torrential energies in the air about them.
"If I knew this woman," Malice admitted. "I might be able to find her. If I knew the place she was at, I might be able to take you there."
"Bahrein." Kall said immediately.
She looked at him uncomprehendingly. "I've never heard of it."
Which was not surprising, considering how much the world had changed, politically and geographically since she had know it.
"How predictable." Kall said, very, very chill. "We were better off with Captain Amir and the Moulay."
"I rather like her better." Schneider said.
Malice beamed. Her hand slid up the inside of his thigh under the table.
"Really? I'm sure Yoko will be thrilled when you bring her home."
"You are getting on my nerves." Schneider growled. Bringing up Yoko served to dowse the fire Malice had started kindling in his loins.
"Fuck you." Kall hissed, a totally uncharacteristic set of words to pass his lips. He pushed back from the table and stalked away. One hesitated to guess where he thought he might be going.
"Well," Malice purred, when Kall had melted into the anonymity of the passing crowd. "That's an interesting suggestion. Shall I punish him for his impatience towards, you master?"
"Hummm. No, let him stew. He's had a bad month." He wondered if she could. He was curious what powers a several thousand year old djinni possessed, and whether they were equal to those of a high level sorcerer of this day. He wondered why the Moulay wanted her so bad, when he obviously had a wizard like Amir at his beck and call.
"So what exactly can you do, Malice?"
"Ooohh, many delightful things, I assure you."
"Magically." He clarified. He regretfully removed her hand from his lap and deposited it on the table. If she kept this up, his vow to Yoko would be at serious risk.
She pouted, but it only lasted for a moment. "I can shower you in riches. All the wealth a man could want."
"I can get that myself."
"All the luxuries in the world, the finest foods, silks -- anything you desire."
"Again, I can get all that for myself. What can you do that I can't easily procure?"
This time a black brow arched at him a little petulently.
"What do you want?" she asked bluntly.
"Well, since you can't get Kall's little bard and you can't take us to Bahrein, then I guess the possibility of you getting me home is out. I can't think of anything else at the moment that I do want. So do you make the food out of thin air, or do you spirit it from somewhere else?"
"I don't know. I just think of it and it comes." She said a little testily. "No one has bothered to ask me specifics before. No one has been quite so hard to please."
"Well none of them have been me."
"So true." She swayed up against him again. "And you are so much better than all the others. So much handsomer. So much more powerful. I've never had a wizard for a master before."
Truth be known, he'd never had a genie at his beck and call, either. Since his conscience was still putting up a good struggle concerning the obvious uses he might put her to, he honestly didn't know what to do with her, other than keep her out of the hands of Amir and his offensive Moulay who seemed to desperately want her for some unspecified reason. He rather wished Kall had not stormed off in a bout of atypical tantrum, for it left him with no plan of action and nothing to do, save keep the djinni company. And that was taxing to say the least. She truly needed a good tumble to sate the excess sexual energy that had her hands constantly straying to sensitive and entirely too flammable parts of his anatomy.
The dusky waiter came up and babbled something foreign that probably concerned more wine or ordering food. The djinni looked at him expectantly, and he shrugged noncommittally.
"There are better places to feast." Malice assured him, casting the waiter a distasteful look. The man glared right back at her and the two of them exchanged a catty dialogue. Funny thing was, that Schneider could understand Malice's half.
"How come I can understand you and vice versa? And how come he could understand what you said, but not what I said?"
She shrugged, making various charms strung along her haltertop jingle. "I don't know. I can talk to anyone."
Her singularly uninformed answers were getting on his nerves. He took a breath, concentrating on the feel of her words and discovered that he didn't so much hear them as sense what she was saying inside his head.
"Can you do that for me?" he asked. "Make me understand what everyone else is saying?"
She frowned, tapping her full lower lip. Finally she admitted. "I'm not very good with that sort of thing. Languages are boring."
"Ooookay." He managed not to growl.
"But he told me of a pleasure den down the street where it doesn't matter if you're understood and they have the best kabobs in the city. I haven't had a good kabob in forever. Can we go? Can we?"
Kall-Su managed with some effort, not to destroy the greasy, snake eyed merchant who he was certain had made overtures of a perverse nature towards him, as if he were some prostitute offering his wares. As if he were doing anything but searching in frustration for someone along the vast strip of slips and piers, that spoke a word of any language he understood. He found a few folk who spoke a spattering of his language, but it was impossible to get across to them his wants. A ship to Bahrein did not seem such a great request, but all he got back was nonsense about sea storms and any sensible captain staying in port for the rest of the season.
At which point he began furiously attempting to reconstruct the language absorption spell and found himself for the next several hours wondering aimlessly about the portside market in a mental haze. He thought he had it and stood staring blindly at a collection of elaborately colored carpets mouthing the words of the thing. The merchant kept staring at him as if he were possessed, finally babbling something sharply at him and waving his hand to shoo him away. The words didn't make sense yet, of course. It would take a few times hearing them for them to be absorbed. Or the incantation was incorrect in which case, he'd have to try again later if he felt no progress was made.
He drifted away, making a conscious effort to listen to the flow of conversation around him. Meaningless drivel.
Mostly. An oft repeated word here and there began to make sense to him. Bargain. Sale. Deal. How much? Too expensive. The common talk of any market. A warm sense of satisfaction washed away some of the frustration. Something had gone right. Even if it was the simple feat of learning a language.
"Bahrein?" he asked a likely looking merchant, hoping his simple grasp of the tongue would be enough to carry out a conversation. The merchant squinted at him, peering under the hood of his cloak, widening his eyes a little at the pale skin and locks of blonde hair that were hidden in the shadow of the hood.
He said something that Kall did not understand, then at Kall's look of confusion, the man said. "Caravan." And pointed in what might have been a southerly direction.
"Bahrein is in the south? There are caravan's that go there?"
The merchant nodded.
"Where?"
Eventually, through a gradually broadening vocabulary, managed to find his way to the south side of the new city. There was a market of tents set up there, and among them, a great number of horses and the oddest beasts of burden he had ever seen. Camels, he heard enough times for the word to stick in his mind with an image of the ungainly creature.
This market at the edge of town was a mass of confusion and activity. Not only were there merchants coming or preparing to go, but it also seemed that familial groups of desert dwellers camped here, with all their belongings, animals and relative while their representatives performed whatever business they had in the city. These folk rode small, bright eyed horses pell nell about the alleys between corals and tents, scattering people and domestic livestock both. The smell was atrocious. Beyond terrible. He almost turned around and fled. But it would hardly do to be chased away by an odor.
It was almost dusk. He'd lost track of how many hours he had wondered the city. He supposed Schneider had found no further trouble, else he would have felt the echoes of his particular magic being used. He supposed Schneider was quite pleased with the company he found himself in. He would just as well have stuffed her back into her bottle and given her to the Moulay. He did not trust bonded demons that he had not personally subjugated. One never knew what eccentricities they might display.
"Greetings, esteemed traveler" A carefully deferential voice said at his elbow. Kall paused in his observation of several of the camels being outfitted with tall, terribly uncomfortable looking saddles, to glance down. A small, turbaned man stood at his elbow. A dirty turban. Food stains on the lapels of his overrobe. His beard was splotchy in places, as if he could not grow the thick facial covering that most of the men in his land favored.
Kall-Su looked away more interested in the camels. One would have assumed the obvious snub would give the little man a hint of his disinclination to engage in conversation. The little man was apparently rather dense. He tugged lightly at Kall's cloak, venturing to ask.
"Are you the Kafir who is asking about a guide to Bahrein?"
"Am I the what?" He wanted to hear the word again, to discern its meaning. He'd been called it often enough to become curious.
"Unbeliever." The man said a little warily and this time it came through with translation intact. How charming. Religion here must be of paramount importance. He had an aversion to religious fanatics.
"How would you know of such a thing?" he asked.
"I have ears. Sensitive ears."
"And what should it matter to you?"
"Why I am a guide of paramount skill and integrity. They call me Abu the tracker. Or Abu the finder of trails covered in sand. No one knows the ways of the desert like I."
Kall cast the camel, which was giving its handler a difficult time, one last regretful look, then turned his attention to Abu the tracker.
"How many days is it to Bahrein?"
"Many days. The travel is slow and treacherous and this time of year the sand is thirsty to drink the blood of men. Most prefer to go by ship."
"So I've heard, but apparently storms keep the ships at dock this time of year as well."
"Yes. Yes. It is a dangerous season. But for the right amount of gold, a man might be willing to brave the elements and make such a journey."
Kall waved a hand dismissing the thought of gold entirely. He had not had a worry about money for longer than he could easily remember. Not that he had any of it upon his person at the moment, but that was hardly a concern. Schneider would have some. Or his annoying new possession could snap her fingers or do whatever djinn did to conjure things and make him a pile of it.
"It is imperative that I reach Bahrein as quickly as possible." He said.
The little man, Abu shrugged. "There is a caravan leaving tomorrow that will travel in that direction for part of the way. It is best to travel in numbers, so that the sand bandits think twice about raiding."
"Bandits make no difference to me. Speed does."
"Ah -- but we have not even talked about the amount of gold."
"Nor shall we. Name a figure and if you take me to Bahrein, it shall be yours."
"Oh, my." Abu's dark eyes sparkled. "I like the way you do business, unbeliever."
"And don't call me that."