Sinbad and The Eye of the Tiger (8 page)

Farah pointed at him imperiously. “I command you to go away!”

But the chattering of the baboon had died away and Hassan came boldly into the cabin, untying his rope and dropping onto the bunk. “Is he a gift for the wiseman of Casgar? Something for Melanthius to play chess with?”

The cabin door was flung open and Sinbad entered, his face dark with both anger and concern. “Hassan!” He pointed. “Get back to your work!”

Hassan pointed at the scarlet-shrouded cage. “But the beast was playing . . .”

“Chess,” Sinbad finished for him. “I know. He has beaten me twice.”

“What kind of pet is it that . . . ?”

“He is not a pet.” Sinbad looked at Farah. “He . . . he is not really a baboon.”

“Not a . . . ?” Hassan frowned. It was all too much for him.

Sinbad nodded. “I owe you an explanation. I thought to keep it a secret as long as possible. Some of the crew are superstitious to the point . . .” Sinbad stopped himself. “He has been transformed by the black art of Zenobia’s witchcraft.” He pointed at the cage. “He is Prince Kassim.”

Hassan blinked. There was a stunned silence, broken only by the sound of the sea and Aboo-seer’s distant shouted command to someone in the shrouds. “Can . . . can you be certain that it is not the
princess
who has been bewitched . . . to believe that . . .” He pointed at the cage. “That this ugly animal is . . . the prince?”

Farah burst into tears and cried out, “He
is
my brother!”

The baboon was tugging at the cloth covering his cage and Hassan watched with a stunned disbelief as the long arm came through the bars and grasped a piece of charcoal from a nearby basket. He pulled more of the covering away and Hassan saw his simian face and the ugly, protruding muzzle. With incredible slowness and with much difficulty the baboon scrawled words on the wall of the cabin. As the words began to form and as Hassan realized they
were
words, he gasped.

Wearily, the baboon dropped the charcoal and retreated moodily under the scarlet cloth. Hassan stared at the message written by the baboon:
I am Kassim.

Sinbad whispered, “Now do you believe?”

Hassan could only nod.

Z
enobia’s castle was dark and silent under the thin shred of moon that was left. Captain Zabid was on watch, almost as sleepy and bored as his men, but determined to do his duty. One of the soldiers started to tell of a time he was in old Caesarea, in what once had been called Mauretania. “There was this woman—no tender ewe, but an experienced woman, the kind a man can appreciate—and she . . .”

“Sssh. Listen,” one of the other men said, holding up a hand. Zabid came fully awake, his one eye searching the darkness.

“What? I hear nothing.”

“I . . . I thought . . . no, there it is again.”

Their heads came up at a sound. “There,” the soldier said.

From somewhere among the black rocks at the base of the rocky cliff directly below Zenobia’s fortress came an unearthly sound, a weird, metallic beat like the ticking of a great iron chronometer.

Captain Zabid frowned, tipping his head one way, then another, to better locate the sound. “From the ground . . ? From
under
the ground? Somewhere
within
the cliff?”

“A cave!” one of the soldiers suggested.

Zabid gestured, starting along the rocky beach. “Let’s try to find out,” he said. “Come on.”

Zabid and his two soldiers scrambled over the rocks to the beach and along to a makeshift jetty, where they had seen a small boat tied up when they arrived at sunset. All the time they were trotting along the beach or scrambling over rocks, they continued to hear the peculiar metallic pulsing, even over the sound of the surf.

“Quickly,” Zabid ordered, and they climbed into the boat and cast off the lines. The two soldiers took up an oar apiece and Zabid sat in the stern, guiding the small craft with the short steering oar. “Well go out past those rocks,” ordered Zabid, “then around to the base of the cliff below the castle.”

The men were silent. As they pulled at the oars they gave each other looks. None of this appealed to them. They were simple soldiers, unimaginative and stolid. Give them an honest enemy and the promise of loot—or even pay—and they’d wade in, swords shrieking, their shields being dented by the honest soldiers of the other side. They’d face charging cavalry—not liking it, but seeing it as a job to be done, a visible enemy that could be vanquished before they returned to the boasting in the tavern and the cheap wine.

But this was getting to be beyond them. Not only the odd, thunderous metallic pulsing, but all the weeks and months past. The changes in the Caliph, the disappearance of the prince, the strange goings-on almost every night. The deaths of their fellow soldiers, Mulai and Mohammed Filali, found hanging on the main gate, their throats cut, had set them all on edge. The appearance of Sinbad had seemed to increase the strangeness of the events. The two soldiers shook their heads as they drew in concert upon the long wooden oars. Strange doings, and now, in the dead of night, there were even stranger sounds.

One of them cast an eye over his shoulder as the metallic ticking increased. “What’s happening, sir?” he asked apprehensively.

Zabid gasped and pointed. The small craft lost way as the two rowers turned. From around a shoulder of rock, the source of the bizarre sound emerged.

The rising thin crescent moon revealed a long, narrow boat made of beaten and bolted sheets of gleaming golden metal. The ship had a long, bladelike bowsprit and was powered by banks of long metal oars that cut through the water with inhuman speed, force, and precision. Zabid’s one eye widened in surprise, then terror, as he got a better look at the shining brass boat. The metal oars were not powered by human muscle, by the traditional ranks of slaves or freemen pulling at the heavy timbers monotonously. A giant metal man stood, his strong arms pumping relentlessly, moving a primitive pump-and-winch mechanism which drove the double banks of linked metal oars.

Zabid’s mouth moved as he stared at the moonlit bulk of the Minaton driving the metallic ship with great speed. “It . . . it . . .” He could not create the words—the two soldiers were also speechless. They saw two human figures, dwarfed by the giant metal man, standing on the stern deck. The soldiers were able to recognize the forms of Zenobia and her sly, much disliked son Rafi.

“A fishing boat—at night!” exclaimed Rafi, pointing.

Zenobia narrowed her eyes at the dark speck on the silvery sea. “No!” she snapped. “Spies of the Caliph! Change course!” She pointed with an imperious hand and Rafi hastened to throw his weight against the steering oar.

The brass boat swung around and Zenobia and her son peered into the darkness ahead. “There!” she cried. “Straight ahead!”

The black-cloaked woman strode to the railing over the main deck. “Faster!” she shouted to the Minaton. Obediently the metal figure increased the pumping of his magic-propelled arms. The squeal of metal on metal increased dramatically, as did the pumping, pulsating, throbbing metal echo of his heartbeat.

The brass ship clove the dark night waters cleanly, faster than any oar-driven vessel before. The eyes of Zabid and his soldiers were disbelieving as they watched the gleaming ship bear down on them.

“Nothing goes that fast!” Zabid cried.

“It’s coming at—in the name of Ishtar, Captain!—let’s get out of here!”

The men grasped their oars and started to row, but their fear made them clumsy, and they kept throwing frightened looks over their shoulders. Captain Zabid twisted the steering oar, attempting to get them out of the path of the ship now rushing down upon them. But a slight shifting of the glittering ship’s course once again put them directly in the path of the ship’s sharp bow.

“Aiiii!” screamed one of the soldiers as he stood up and dove into the water. The other soldier pumped at the oar, but they only turned in a circle. Zabid rose, reaching for the abandoned oar, but the brass ship was too close. It struck the rowboat in the middle, cutting right through without effort, hurling Zabid into the sea and sweeping the other soldier under the ship to his death.

The deserting soldier was swimming hard, but made the mistake of looking over his shoulder. It was only to see his own death sweeping down upon him with metallic intensity. The sharp bowsprit cut through him almost as cleanly as it had severed the rowboat. His blood stained the night waters for only a few moments, and then it was gone.

By then the brass ship had come to a halt. Zenobia and Rafi leaned over the railing and looked into the wine-dark sea. They saw only Captain Zabid, who Zenobia now recognized by his one staring eye. Bits of the wrecked rowboat were in the water around him. The old soldier was bloody but still fought to survive. His fingers clutched at the smooth bolted plates of the golden craft, scraping across the metal surfaces in vain.

Zenobia saw the Minaton rise from his position and frowned in surprise. He was holding a heavy iron boat hook in his massive metal hand. The silent creature looked over the railing of the metal boat, peering down darkly at the struggling, bloody man in the water. Zabid stared up in frozen fear, seeing the arm of the metal giant rise.

The Minaton, using the boat hook as a harpoon, struck downward in a vicious blow. The hook plunged into Zabid’s chest and he threshed about, screaming. Even Zenobia was horrified at the next happening.

The Minaton pulled Zabid from the sea, dripping blood and water, impaled on the hook. He swung him over his head as a man might a gaffed salmon, then flung him high into the air. Zabid’s dying scream pierced the night as he was flung into the sea on the far side of the ship.

Zenobia turned her face away from the sight, covering her face with her hood, as the Minaton dropped the big hook upon the deck and clumped stiffly back along the deck to his place at the oar mechanism.

The woman in the dark cloak gasped silently for air, then forced command into her voice. “Now,” she said, “north by northeast . . . for Casgar.”

The Minaton began to pump, his metal arms moving tirelessly. The ship picked up speed, cutting through the water cleanly. Rafi looked at the stars and turned the ship north-northeast. He gulped as the ship clove through the last bits of bobbing wood that marked the grave of three men. Then he raised his head, his familiar smile coming back, sly and knowing.

The brass ship cut through the spray and spume, cleaving the waters strongly, heading toward Casgar.

“Casgar . . .” Hassan said.

Sinbad was looking at the rugged coastline through a telescope, with Aboo-seer, Maroof, and others of his crew watching intently. Sinbad lowered the glass and handed it to Aboo-seer, who studied the shoreline carefully.

“Treacherous,” Sinbad said. “The reefs and rocks will be invisible.”

Aboo-seer grunted. “It will not be possible to land.”

Hassan spoke up in an eager voice. “I have an excellent idea! Let us turn back!”

Sinbad smiled slightly. “Among walnuts only the empty one speaks.” He slitted his eyes at the dangerous shore. “There
is
a way.” He took back the telescope and continued to study the rocky cliffs and spray-misted reefs.

The sailors looked at one another and shrugged.

“Starboard a fraction!”

Sinbad’s order came from below the prow, where he hung, suspended in a leather harness, out over the waves ahead of the ship. There was mist shrouding the water but his voice came through strongly to Aboo-seer, who stood in the prow, helping Hassan and Maroof hold steadying lines tied to Sinbad. The burly sailor turned and bellowed back down the ship to the helmsman.

“Starboard a fraction!”

The ship moved slowly, with only enough canvas to gather the wind that moved the vessel. Jagged rocks loomed out of the mists, and melted away as the vagrant breezes stirred the grayness.

Hassan glanced over his shoulder as Princess Farah, wrapped in her sari, joined them. He inclined his head in greeting, but said nothing.

Sinbad shouted another direction, which Aboo-seer relayed. Farah moved to Maroof’s side, lightly touching the bulging shoulder of the big sailor in order to look over the sharp prow at Sinbad. She whispered quietly to the black sailor, “You are fortunate to serve such a fine captain.”

Maroof nodded, his eyes on the lines and his body feeling the slight roll of the ship on the oily waters. “A prince among seamen,” he agreed. He shot her a quick look. “He rescued me from slavery and I would follow him to the end of the world.” The turbaned seafarer jerked his head toward Hassan and Aboo-seer, then back, to indicate the rest of the hard-bitten crew. “So would we all.”

Farah shivered in the chill of the mist, hugged her thin sari to her body, and looked up at the ship’s masts, which disappeared into the low-hanging fog. “Even the ship seems to obey him.”

Maroof granted agreement. “The poet says that a ship is like a beautiful woman . . . and that a good captain is like a skillful lover.” His eyes slide sideways to look at Farah as a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. Farah smiled back, but drew the edge of her sari across her face to hide the faint traces of a blush.

“Two hairs to port!” Sinbad cried.

“Two hairs to port!” Aboo-seer repeated loudly.

Hassan, his gnarled hands gripping the lines that kept his captain suspended over the spar that protruded from the prow of their ship, muttered to himself. “Truly . . . Fate has us by the shortest of hairs.”

The mist seemed to lighten and Sinbad narrowed his eyes, searching right and left, as well as straight ahead. “We are coming into clear water!” he shouted. “Hard to port!”

“Hard to port!”

The morning mist clung on, though it had thinned considerably. The crew stared at the high, sinister cliffs which rose up precipitously from the narrow, rocky beach. The whole island had a ghostly and forbidding look, which narrowed Hassan’s eyes and caused Sinbad to check for his belt dagger.

“Casgar . . .” he whispered.

T
he mist was still evident, though brighter and thinner, giving the island a more than ordinarily mysterious look. Beyond the narrow beach toward which they were rowing in a small landing vessel, Sinbad could see the high cliffs, their tops shrouded in mist and looking more and more forbidding as they got nearer. The beach seemed deserted, but the sea captain kept a watchful eye in every direction, for he was a cautious man. Things were not always what they seemed, and since the beginning of this adventure, that had been more than normally true.