Blue Magic/Chapter 5
CHAPTER V
THE BOOK OF THE KING
FEN knew quite well that he had closed his eyes for only a moment, but when he looked up again he saw Siddereticus cross-legged on the deck in front of him. He was smoking and had every appearance of having been there for hours.
"But you weren't there two seconds ago!" cried Fen. "Oh, how do you just appear out of nowhere?"
Siddereticus smiled mysteriously, but did not speak. Instead, he rose to his feet and began to pace a slow circle, his unwavering eyes fixed upon a certain spot on the deck. Fen gazed at it too, fascinated, and not knowing in the least what might rise up from that particular place. Siddereticus stooped and traced a circle— apparently with his finger, though a bluish mark was left on the deck. ("Because he's a Blue Djinn, I suppose," thought Fen, "an' it shines through.") Siddereticus placed in the very middle of the ring a little green saucer, on which he lighted a tiny mound of grayish powder. It burned with one blue ribbon of smoke and a single orange coal at its heart.
Walking with long, silent strides around the magic circle, Siddereticus muttered curious words and passed his hands through the fragrant wisp of smoke, shattering its single blue line into a writhing tangle of misty threads. Now and then he sprinkled the glowing coal with something which made a green flame leap up from it—a flame that burned blue, and orange, and purple, as it flickered lower and then died away with a shower of starry sparks.
Suddenly Siddereticus crouched down with his back toward Fen, the blue robe hiding for an instant the center of the ring, and when he sprang up, a great book lay beside the smoldering embers. Siddereticus raised it and brushed it off.
"O Fen Effendi," he said, as he seated himself beside the little boy, "the charm is accomplished. It is The Book of the King."
It was a large, thin book, bound in soft leather and fastened with a thong. In it there was no writing—only pictures, oh, so many! colored with flat yellow and red and blue, just such figures as Siddereticus had told Fen were painted on the walls of the tombs and temples. "Pictures of battles and feasts, kings and gods and men." There were rows and rows of these queer, stiff figures, each doing a different thing, each with a story to be told. As Siddereticus slowly turned the wide pages, he told those tales.
Of the king's going into battle, with his leopards walking behind the chariot; and of his victorious return, with the musicians dancing before. Shawms they played, and psalteries, and cymbals; and maidens scattered flowers before him. Priests were there, leading the sacred bull Apis—snow-white and crowned with lotuses; and the soldiers walked behind, with spears. He told of the triumphal feast—how one serving-man washed the king's feet with wine from a great blue jar, another poured oil on his head, another handed him a lotus. And then came tales of journeys and wars, pyramid-building and tomb-digging, ceremonies and adventures all were unfolded as the pages turned. At last Siddereticus closed the book.
"The king died," he said, "and these are the pictures that were painted on the walls of his tomb. Deep in the chamber to which no stair reaches, he lies quietly in his sarcophagus, but his spirit has crossed the waters in the Sun's boat and feasts with Osiris. Whence it came, the Book must now return, and I—follow it."
He bent for an instant over the smoking ashes. A great cloud of sweet-smelling smoke rose suddenly; and when it drifted and cleared away, Siddereticus was gone and the Book of the King with him.
"You look as if you'd just waked up," said Sally, coming round the end of the deck-house. "Were you asleep? What a funny smell!"