Sinbad and The Eye of the Tiger, page 5
Within the forbidding walls of her castle, Zenobia was stalking the long corridors. At length, before her was a winding stone staircase. The first few steps were formed from carved black rock, cemented in place. But as she descended, the steps were carved from the native bedrock, a black basalt, webbed with faint lines of gray granite. Each step was worn, the evidence of centuries of footsteps. A few guttering torches were set in rusting iron brackets on the walls. As Zenobia descended the walls became wet and dank, evidence that she had passed below the level of the sea outside. The stairs curved downward, with the black stone arching overhead, further blackened by the soot of unknown centuries of smoking torches.
Zenobia came to the end of the carved steps, then crossed a small space, ducked through a low arch, and came into a cavernous room. She threaded her way between the primitive metal presses and the anvils to the far end of the subterranean workshop. There she found her son Rafi working next to a long, narrow bench. His arm was bandaged, but his other arm rose and fell as he hammered on a piece of metal. Behind him, along the long bench, was a shape, under sheets, that resembled the outline of a giant man. Rafi did not see his mother approach and continued his hammering. He was forming a metal heart of bronze. On the bench sat his model—the real heart of an animal, pulsating inside a glass container filled with a translucent liquid that supported the living heart like a gobbet of raw offal in a protective cocoon of aspic.
Rafi’s noisy hammering stopped as he caught a glimpse of his mother watching him. He looked eagerly at her in an unspoken question, the metal-forming hammer in his fist.
“My son . . . Sinbad has agreed to help them.” Rafi’s face grew dark with anger. “We must act quickly,” Zenobia said.
Rafi’s anger gave way to cynicism. “What can the captain of a merchant ship do?”
“He is taking them to the Isle of Casgar . . . to consult the great sage, Melanthius.” Rafi’s face stiffened. “Is the heart ready?”
Rafi nodded, “Yes, but . . .” His voice was worried as he peered at his mother. “You said no one could help Kassim.”
Zenobia strode to the workbench without speaking and picked up the mechanical heart and studied it.
“Mother . . .”
“Exquisite, my son.” Then, in delayed answer to her son’s question, she said, “If Melanthius truly lives . . . he is the one person who could.”
Rafi’s voice flared in anger, echoing off the walls of stone. “You promised me!” He reached out to grab his mother’s arm. “I am to be Caliph! You swore that Kassim would never inherit Charak!” His voice floundered in anger. “If this . . . this Melanthius . . . can restore Kassim . . . !”
Zenobia raised a beringed hand. “I shall prevent it. But we must begin at once.”
“But . . . who is this . . . this Melanthius? Is he that Greek you mentioned years ago when you spoke of the great sorcerers?” He threw his hammer down scornfully, where it clattered among the tools on the bench. “A hermit.” He waved his bandaged arm, wincing, then waved his other hand. “An exile. A dreamer.” His lip curled. “There is nothing he can do.”
His mother’s voice was cautionary, but her eyes peered closely at the mechanical heart. “He is a scholar, Rafi. A man of great reputation. He is not to be ignored or dismissed, if there is the slightest chance he exists at all.” She paused and the metal heart sank to the bench in her hands. “And neither is Sinbad to be lightly dismissed.”
She crossed to the furnace window and looked in and Rafi followed her. “How are we to prevent Sinbad from . . . ? He has a ship . . . a crew . . . Balsora has Palace Guards . . .”
Zenobia’s face was bathed in the crimson glow from the fires of the furnace. “We shall have other forces at our command. That will be our army.”
Rafi rubbed at a blister on his hand and muttered, “If the ghouls had done their work properly . . .”
Zenobia’s head came up and her eyes flared at her son. “If you had done yours!” she snapped. Her son winced and extended his hands in a gesture of frustration.
“He nearly killed me!” he protested, balling his fist. His hand went ostentatiously to his wounded arm, but Zenobia was ignoring him.
“A wasted chance,” she said with a gesture of dismissal. Her eyes went to the contrivance on the anvil. “Have you finished?”
Rafi was quick to move the subject away from his deficiencies. He picked up the metal form he had been working on and held it next to the living heart in the jar. “Perfect in every detail,” he said. “An exact copy of a true heart . . . the heart of a black bull.”
Zenobia looked at him with a searching stare. “The bull was slaughtered when the moon was full?”
Her son nodded quickly. “And the heart . . . this heart . . . taken from its body while still beating. Everything was done as you commanded.”
Zenobia straightened from her close comparison. Her slanted eyes went to the huge shape under the draped sheeting. “Then all is ready,” she said. She gestured toward the figure of the giant and Rafi quickly put down the metal heart and grasped the sheets. With a flair he uncovered the creation of Zenobia’s genius.
The figure on the bench was that of a giant man, a huge creature made of bolted sheets of iron and gleaming bronze. The head was still shrouded in a sheet and Rafi hurried to uncover it. As he whisked away the covering Zenobia smiled.
“The Minaton,” she whispered.
The head of the great man-thing was that of a monstrous bull, a likeness fashioned from bronze, With fierce bulging eyes, curving horns, and flaring nostrils.
“Fit the heart,” Zenobia commanded.
Rafi swept the metallic device into his hands, looked at it closely, set it back onto the anvil to make a few last-minute taps with his smallest forming hammer. He picked it up, pronounced it completed with a satisfied nod of his head, then turned toward the huge figure of the Minaton.
Standing on tiptoe, Rafi placed the heart in the Minaton’s great chest cavity. His hands were busy for a few moments as Zenobia watched impatiently. There were a few taps, a scrape or two, more rasps of metal on metal, then Rafi withdrew from the chest of the great metal creature. With a grunt he lifted the massive curving metal plate from the floor, and set it in place across the creature’s chest with a clang. In a few moments the chest plate had been bolted into position and Rafi stepped back, wiping his hands, and surveying the completed metal monster with a sly smile of satisfaction.
Zenobia drew back and began to chant. “Brave and proud Bull, whose mighty heart my son Rafi has fashioned of purest gold—Beat! With the power of a hundred mortal men as only I command you—Beat!”
Zenobia sprinkled a drop or two from the liquid in a locket around her neck onto the bulging metal chest of the metal monster. She closed her eyes and began muttering an incantation as the liquid turned into a green drifting smoke.
“O Mighty Abu-Salem . . . you who rule over a thousand devils!” Zenobia’s hands stretched out over the bronze chest before her. “By all the powers of Hell and Darkness . . . give strength and life to this your creature.” Her voice rose to a shrill cry. “Minaton! Minaton!”
She paused, exhausted with effort, as the echoes of her words died. Zenobia bent over the Minaton, her gaze hard and expectant.
There was a soft, slow boom from the cavernous chest of brazen metal. Then another. And another.
Zenobia’s feline features distorted in a fiendish grimace of triumph as her head came up. Her mane of hair fell back, her eyes gleamed, and her mouth breathed out her hot words—“He lives!”
Rafi’s own eyes glittered as he saw the giant metal fingers flexing and a shudder pass through the huge body. On the stool, near the head, Zenobia saw the bronze eyelids click open. She turned toward her son with an expression of delight, sweeping down from the wooden stool to stand by her offspring and admire their creation. Her fingers stroked the creature’s metal cheek, her eyes shining in triumph.
Zenobia whispered triumphantly. “Perfect . . . perfect . . . a colossus of bronze with the energy of the sun . . . and mine to command!” Her eyes caressed the bronzed giant lovingly. “My Minaton . . . my Minaton . . .”
Nubian slaves carried the treasure up the gangplank and across the deck to the hold. Sinbad and Farah watched Aboo-seer supervising the stowing of the precious cargo, while Hassan admired the exotic chests and boxes, many of them works of art in themselves, and wondered what might be stored inside of their artfully decorated lids. Aboo-seer ordered the chests, several at a time, put into a net and lowered into the hold by means of a small deck crane.
Sinbad called out to Aboo-seer. “As swiftly as you can, old friend! We must be away before nightfall!” The muscular sailor nodded at his captain, then burst into a curse at the clumsiness of the slaves. “Careful there, you donkeys! That’s a Caliph’s ransom in your slippery fingers! Take heed or the whip will be blistering your backs!”
Sinbad’s attention was caught by an object covered by a scarlet cloth. It seemed to be a large box, carried by slaves who were trying to maneuver it through the opening in the ship’s railing. Aboo-seer shouted impatiently at them. “You heard the Captain! Move yourselves—or you’ll feel my fist around your ears!”
In fear, the last slave hurried too much and slipped. His unexpected surrender of the weight of the shrouded object was too much for the others. The crimson-covered object started to fall back into the watery space between the ship and the quay. But Aboo-seer got there first and added his muscle to the weight and the box went over the railing jerkily, falling to the deck with a heavy thump.
Farah stifled a scream and cried out. “Carefully! I implore you!”
But the fall was too much. There was the sharp splintering of wood and the accompanying screech of an animal. The scarlet covering slithered off, caught by the foot of a staggering slave. Sinbad was stunned, for under the bright cloth was a cage, now much the worse for wear, and within it a baboon.
Farah reacted with horror and took a faltering step toward the sagging cage and screeching baboon. But Aboo-seer’s surprise turned to amusement and a faint contempt. “A pet baboon!”
The baboon chattered and squealed angrily and shook the iron bars of his cage. The sailors around the deck dropped their work to laugh and gather around the cage.
Maroof bent to look at the baboon, grinning widely. “Oh, he’s a handsome specimen!”
To Sinbad’s surprise Farah broke away from him to run to the cage, and he noticed none of the slaves were laughing like the sailors. He dismissed that, for they were probably in fear of the whip so often employed as a goad and for punishment.
Farah tugged the cloth free from the feet around the cage and quickly recovered the cage. She looked back over her shoulder at Sinbad. “Please . . . make them go away!”
“Does he do tricks, Princess?” Aboo-seer asked in a laughing voice. His face fell when Sinbad snapped out orders.
“Aboo-seer! Maroof! Hassan! All of you! Back to work or I will make baboons of the lot of you!”
The men on the deck walked away, some still laughing, for they had little fear of their captain’s wrath over such a minor matter. But Aboo-seer peered at his captain shrewdly, then looked at the princess, who was still almost at a panic state.
She was kneeling by the scarlet-covered cage and in a gentle voice was speaking softly to the baboon within. “There, there . . . they mean no harm . . . it’s all right now . . .”
There were tears in her eyes when she looked at Sinbad and a shiver of odd fear went through the seaman.
CHAPTER 6
Zenobia’s castle loomed dark against the starry night. The river of stars that men were beginning to call The Milky Way outlined the spires and walls in dark silhouette. No light, no movement could be seen. Only the night breezes and the crash of waves on the rocks could be heard.
Below the castle, hidden in a cluster of barnacled rocks, Captain Zabid squinted his one good eye at the castle. One of the two soldiers with him stirred fitfully behind him, making a disgruntled sound. “Deathly quiet,” he muttered. “Not even a rat stirring.”
Zabid nodded agreement. “As bleak and as black as the ruins of Gomorrah.”
The second soldier shifted his seat on a wet rock. “What do you suppose they do there? I’ve heard things . . . strange things, y’know? My sister’s cousin used to live nigh, over them hills to the east. She said there was things going on here you wouldn’t believe. Women, beautiful women, as silent as a post, but doing their work—”
“Hah!” the first soldier snorted. “Nothing wrong with a silent woman, methinks!” He gurgled a little quiet laugh and started into a story about a woman whose tongue had been cut out by an annoyed husband as Zabid moved on.
Zabid went over the rocks silently, then stopped as he saw two soldiers asleep in a cup of rock. He crept silently into the crevice and kicked the feet of a gently snoring soldier. The man awoke with a cry and reached for his dagger, but Zabid had grabbed him by the throat, shaking him angrily.
“Make a noise and I’ll slit your throat!”
The soldier blinked, looking about in dazed befuddlement. “What? What?” he sputtered.
“Keep awake,” Zabid growled, standing up. He saw that the other soldier had come sheepishly awake and was watching them, fearful of more admonishment, the kind Zabid was known to give lazy and reluctant soldiers.
But the one-eyed captain seemed to concentrate more on the sounds of the surf and the night. “Keep awake,” he growled absently.
The first soldier yawned as he gathered up his sword and spear. “Two nights we’ve watched,” he complained. “My backside has a hundred wounds . . .”
Zabid’s one hawk eye swiveled to him and the soldier cringed involuntarily. “The orders are to keep a watch on Zenobia’s castle—no matter if your backside has a thousand wounds!”
The dark-haired captain turned away and walked to the opposite side of the cup of rock. He looked up at the moon, now waning away almost to nothingness.
The sea swells rose and fell with the relentless clock of moontide. Sinbad’s ship rose and fell on the dark blue bosom of the ocean. The colorful sails billowed out, pushing the wooden ship through the waters, cleaving the sea, foaming the waves, sending spray flying back over the deck to sting the cheeks of Sinbad.
The turbaned captain squinted at the sun, swept the horizon with a practiced eye, and his legs compensated for the tilt and sway of the deck. Sinbad felt the salty tang of the air, heard the snap of canvas, the hiss of water along the ship’s side, and the sound of a song from the crew’s quarters.
Out of the corner of his eye Sinbad spotted the leap of a fish. A seabird dipped and banked, then plummeted toward a spot of ocean. With a sudden flurry of wings it was airborne again, but in its claws was the squirming, flopping shape of a fish.
Sinbad took a primitive instrument from a compartment near the helm and took a reading on the sun. Then he watched the crew on the deck for a few moments, savoring the feeling of salt air and a moving deck beneath his feet.
One sailor was brewing tea over a low, wide-legged brazier. Another was sharpening a dagger on a flat stone and testing the point with his thumb. Abdul was mending a much-mended shirt and Sinbad grinned. “Abdul, if you spent less at the gaming tables you might afford a new shirt!”
Abdul looked up with a grin that showed several absent teeth. “Aye, Cap’n, but a shirt only keeps you warm—it doesn’t stir the blood!”
Sinbad laughed, then saw two more sailors throwing dice against the cabin wall and sighed. He didn’t stop it for he was of the mind that all sailors gambled—on everything: returning home, surviving the next storm, eating food stored for weeks or months in smelly holds, coming back aboard from leave in a cutthroat port. And he was the biggest gambler of all, he thought, gambling ship, crew, his life—and the life of Princess Farah—in a mad adventure to find a myth and have him perform a miracle.
Sinbad turned to Bahadin, at the helm. “Three degrees west.”
“Aye-aye, sir.”
Sinbad took another deep breath of the salt air and grinned as Aboo-seer came up the ladder to the poop deck. “The sea is as calm as a shallow pool and the wind fair.”
The sailor nodded. “Perhaps the Princess Farah can be persuaded to come up on deck today.”
“Perhaps.” Sinbad agreed.
“Four days since we set sail,” he said, shaking his head. “And never once out of the cabin. It is unhealthy.”
Sinbad made apologies for her. “The seas have been rough until now. She is a poor sailor.” Aboo-seer spit over the side, then put his gaze on the same horizon as the bearded helmsman. “I shall try to persuade her,” Sinbad said. He heard a scrape and went to the stern rail to look over the side.
Hassan was painting the worn window framing of Sinbad’s cabin, a task they had meant to do in port at Charak. He was held by a rope around his waist. He saw Sinbad’s shadow and grinned up at him, shading his eyes with a paint-flecked hand. Sinbad smiled at him and moved on.
Hassan continued to hum the tuneless little ditty that Sinbad’s appearance had interrupted. His hand slopped on paint with not too expert a hand, but he cared not. He was more interested in remembering the bawdy words to the tune, taught to him by a tawny-skinned wench in a disreputable tavern in Cyrene, on the African coast west of Alexandria. He stopped when he heard a strange grunting sound, followed by Farah’s voice. He frowned as he heard the strange animal grunting again, a kind of guttural chattering. Then again, the voice of the princess.
