Djinn Rummy (21 page)

WHOOSH!

It seemed as if the ground split open at his feet, as a huge apparition reared up and loomed over him. Generally humanoid in form, it had three heads, five arms and the legs of a wild goat. Out of the corners of its mouths projected weird curling tusks, and in its hands it held a variety of archaic but imagination-curdling weapons. It crouched in a fighting pose and said, ‘Ha!'

‘Oh, for pity's sake,' said Asaf, disgustedly. ‘Not you again.'

And justifiably; because all three of the monster's heads were the same, and the face on each of them was identical to the one Asaf had so far encountered on one camel-riding magician, one magic-carpet-riding Grand Vizier, one man-eating Centaur, one seven-headed magic bird and, improbable as it may seem, one evil but enchanting
houri. It was a face that was starting to get on Asaf 's nerves.

‘Tremble!' the monster commanded, a mite self-consciously. It was the tone of voice a policeman might use when arresting someone who, on closer inspection, turned out to be his elder brother.

‘Bog off,' Asaf replied. He turned on his heel and started to walk back to the van.

‘Wretched mortal, I shall devour . . .' the monster started to say; then it realised that its audience was fifteen yards away and walking briskly. It scampered after him; a manoeuvre that wasn't helped by the goat's feet.

‘Wretched . . . mortal . . . I . . .' it puffed. ‘Here, wait for me!'

Asaf turned and scowled, hands on hips. ‘Look,' he said, ‘I told you the last time. I'm not interested. Go away.' He turned and quickened his pace, and the monster had to sprint to keep up with him.

‘But I shall devour . . . oof!”

Before the monster could halt its teetering run (imagine Godzilla in a pair of two-inch-heel court shoes, each shoe on the wrong foot) Asaf had whirled round and prodded it hard just below the navel. It wobbled for a fraction of a second and then sat down hard on a sharp boulder.

‘Ouch!' it said. ‘That hurt.'

‘Good.' Asaf grabbed a pointed ear and twisted it. ‘Look, chum, so far I've killed you twice, imprisoned your soul in a bottle, thrown you off a cliff and nailed your ears to a tree. What exactly do I have to do to you before you get the message?'

‘I'm only doing my job,' the monster replied.

‘Find another job, then,' Asaf snapped. ‘Carpentry, for instance. Plumbing. Chartered surveying. Anything which
doesn't involve meeting me ever again. Otherwise,' he added, ‘I shall get seriously annoyed. Got it?'

‘Finished?'

‘Yes.'

‘Thank you.' The monster clicked its tongues. ‘Now then, where was I? Oh magnanimous one, spare my life and I shall . . .'

‘Hold on,' Asaf interrupted, turning the ear in his hand a few degrees clockwise. ‘This doesn't involve three wishes, does it, because I've had all that and as far as I'm concerned you can take your three wishes and you can -'

‘No, it doesn't,' replied the monster irritably. ‘And my ear is not a starting handle. Thank you very much.'

‘Get on with it, then.'

‘Spare my life,' growled the monster, ‘and I shall show thee the most wondrous treasure.' It glanced up with its unencumbered heads. ‘Interested?'

‘Not very,' Asaf replied. ‘But it's an improvement. Go on.'

‘Not three leagues from here,' said the monster, ‘there lies an enchanted castle, under whose walls -'

‘Hold it.'

‘Well?'

‘Three leagues,' said Asaf. ‘What's that in kilometres?'

‘Fourteen and a half,' snapped the monster. ‘Not fourteen and a half kilometres from here there lies an enchanted castle, under whose -'

Asaf shook his head. ‘No way,' he said. ‘A fifteen-kilometre detour on these roads, there and back, that's best part of an hour. We wouldn't reach Istanbul till gone nine.'

‘Hoy!' the monster broke in angrily. ‘We're talking about a wondrous treasure here.'

‘Sorry,' Asaf replied. ‘Not even with free wine-glasses.'

He gave the ear a final twist, for luck, and let go. ‘So long,' he said. ‘I have this strange feeling we'll meet again soon. Till then, mind how you go.'

‘Gold!' the monster yelled after him. ‘Silver! Precious stones!'

‘Balls,' Asaf replied.

‘You can't do this,' screamed the monster. ‘I've signed for it now, they'll have my guts for -'

‘I expect you're used to that by now,' Asaf said. ‘Ciao.'

‘Bastard!' The monster shook its many fists, spat into the dust and started to sink into the ground. Asaf walked a few more yards, and then stopped.

‘Hey!' he said.

The monster paused, waist-deep in the earth. ‘Well?'

‘Did you say gold?'

‘Yes.'

‘And silver? And precious stones?'

‘Yes.'

‘Stay there, I'll be right with you.'

Asaf turned and hurried back. The monster was leaning on its elbows, drumming its fingers on a rock.

‘You really like causing problems, don't you?' it said. ‘You do realise I'm stuck here till they can get a maintenance crew out?'

‘Gosh,' said Asaf. ‘Sorry about that.'

‘Either you can materialise,' grumbled the monster, ‘or you can vanish. One or the other. You try mixing the two, you get stuck.'

‘That was thoughtless of me,' Asaf admitted. ‘By the way, I don't think I caught your name - your actual name, that is. Like, when you're off-duty.'

‘Neville.'

‘I'm Asaf.'

‘Hello.'

‘Hello. Now, about this gold.'

‘And silver.'

‘Quite. How exactly do I set about -?'

‘
And
precious stones.'

‘Great.' Asaf broadened his smile a little. ‘Can you give me specific directions, because then I won't have to trouble you to come with me, I can just . . .'

The monster shook his heads. ‘Oh, no, you don't,' it said. ‘This time we do it by the book.'

Asaf sagged a little. ‘Do we really have to?' he asked.

‘Yes.'

‘Sure? I mean, wouldn't it be far simpler if you just drew me a map or something?'

‘Out of the question,' Neville replied. ‘First, you've got to fight the hundred-headed guardian of the pit, and then -'

‘Hang on,' said Asaf. ‘This hundred-headed guardian. That'll be you, right?'

Neville bit his lips, then nodded. ‘That's right,' he mumbled.

‘And I win, right?'

‘Yes.'

‘And you get killed.'

‘Yup.'

‘Again.'

Neville furrowed all his brows simultaneously. ‘Yeah,' he said. ‘A bit pointless, really, isn't it?'

‘Futile, if you ask me.'

‘Anyway,' Neville went on, ‘after you've killed the hundred-headed guardian, then you've got to guess the secret riddle of the Mad Witch of the North -'

‘You again, right?'

Neville nodded. ‘In a frock,' he added. ‘Three sizes too small, too. Stops your circulation.'

‘Must be awful.'

‘It is. After that,' he went on, counting off on his fingers, ‘there's the monstrous cloud-stepping ogre -'

‘Guess who.'

‘Followed by the wicked Grand Vizier who tries to have you thrown in the snake-pit . . .'

‘You again?'

‘No,' Neville replied, ‘that's my cousin Wilf.'

‘Ah. Let me guess, you're the snakes.'

‘You got it.'

‘I escape, naturally?'

‘Naturally.'

‘The snakes, I anticipate, aren't quite so fortunate?'

Neville shuddered. ‘I do so hate death by drowning,' he added. ‘Makes your ears go pop. I always get this headache, stays with me the whole of the rest of the day.'

‘In fact,' Asaf said, ‘the way I see it, I'm going to have to spend the rest of today, and probably most of tomorrow as well, kicking shit out of you, and it's all a foregone conclusion anyway.'

‘Wretched, isn't it?'

‘Childish,' Asaf agreed. ‘Look, couldn't I just beat you to a jelly now and get it all over with in one go?'

There was a long pause. ‘Put like that,' said Neville slowly, ‘it does sort of make sense.'

‘In fact,' Asaf went on, ‘a token clip round the ear would probably do just as well.'

Neville frowned. ‘I'm not sure about that,' he said. ‘Standing orders specifically require -'

‘Yes,' Asaf interrupted, ‘but who'll ever know? I won't tell anybody.'

‘You won't?'

‘Scout's honour.'

The monster thought about it for a while. ‘Can I get you to sign a receipt?' he asked. ‘Just for the books, you understand.'

‘Sure,' said Asaf.

‘Deal!' The monster cried, and it reached down into the bowels of the earth. A moment later its hand reappeared holding a parchment, a quill pen and a bottle of ink. ‘So much more sensible this way,' it said.

‘Quite.'

‘So if you'll just sign here . . .'

‘Where your finger is?' asked Asaf, unscrewing the ink bottle.

‘That's it. Goodbye, idiot!' he added. ‘See you in Hell!'

And, so saying, it grabbed Asaf by the scruff of the neck, squashed him head-first into the ink bottle and screwed down the cap.

And vanished.

 

Meanwhile, the small frog that was Kevin, the insurance broker, had filed his report. It made interesting reading.

Only a genie of Force Seven or above could have deciphered the pattern of nibble-marks on the lily-pad, and known that they read:

Only a genie of Force Eight or above, fluent in frog, could have translated the message and grasped its terrible significance.

Only a genie of Force Nine or above would have the authority to take the necessary remedial action.

Only a genie of Force Eleven or above (or God, at a pinch) would have the necessary technical knowledge and basic common sense required to put that remedial action into effect.

Fortunately, the report found its way on to the right desks, was understood and taken seriously. The necessary action was proposed, approved and set in hand.

As for the frog that was Kevin, it found itself coming to terms with its new lifestyle rather more quickly than it had originally anticipated. Not only were the hours better and the pressures less; the inhabitants of the pond were remarkably receptive to the idea of insurance and he was doing excellent business when a heron, new to the area, swooped down and ate him.

Regrettable; but that's nature for you, and it's a comfort to reflect that his last conscious thought must have been relief that his loved ones would be adequately provided for by a comprehensive insurance package specially tailored to his needs and circumstances.

Or would have done, if he'd had any loved ones, and if the policy hadn't contained a special no-herons clause. But it's the thought that counts.

 

A scrumpled ball of paper looped through the air and added itself to the small pyramid on top of the waste-paper basket.

Philly Nine yawned. It was late, he was tired, and he wanted to go to bed. Giant ants . . .

He got up and prowled round the room. Nobody to blame but himself, of course; he'd chosen giant ants of his own free will. He could have had anything he liked, but no, he had to be clever.

Ants
, for pity's sake.

He sat down on the arm of a chair, closed his eyes and rallied his thoughts. What, he demanded of himself, do ants
do
?

Well. They build nests. They run around aimlessly. They get into picnic baskets and scamper about over the boiled eggs. This, Philly had to admit, wasn't exactly the stuff of Armageddon.

They chew things up. With their snippy little mandibles, they make mincemeat out of old dry timber. They dig. When you pour boiling water on them, they die.

He looked up at the clock on the wall, and shuddered. Would it be possible, he wondered, to claim a typographical error and instead have a plague of giant aunts? More scope there, he felt sure; something you could get your teeth into . . .

Nah. It'd be just his luck to get found out; to annihilate humanity and then have the whole thing set aside on a technicality. Long gone were the old, free-and-easy days of his imphood when near enough made no mind. These days, you had to be precise. No good putting a princess to sleep for ninety-nine years, three hundred and sixty-four days, twenty-three hours and fifty-nine minutes. You could bet your life there'd be some weasel-faced little sod with a clipboard and a stopwatch somewhere, just willing you to foul up.

Ants. Harmless, industrious, ecologically-friendly ants. Bastards.

He snatched another piece of paper out of the packet and started to scribble.

An anthill
, he wrote,
so big that it cuts off the light from a major European city. Giant ants undermining Beijing, so that it falls down to the centre of the earth. The New York subway system infested with giant ants
. . .

Scrumple. Whizz. Flop.

He stood up again, and then sat down.
Giant
ants. Yes. Perhaps.

Giant ants
, he wrote.
What causes giant ants? And whose fault would it be?

Pay dirt. Ideas started to flood into his mind like water through a breached sea-wall, and he scribbled furiously. So furiously in fact, that it was half an hour before he realised he was writing on his best white linen tablecloth.