“What is it?” he demanded savagely.
“You are very angry,” said Abdul. “And—lord, created beings do not grow angry when they are afraid. You are not afraid.”
“Is that all?” demanded Tony.
Abdul squirmed as if embarrassed. As if embarrassed, too, his whole body rippled in the beginning of a transformation into something else. He repressed it and returned to the appearance of a short, stout, swaggering djinn with a turban. But he was not swaggering now.
“It appears, lord,” he said apologetically, “that you know you can destroy Es-Souk, or whatever other champion appears to do battle with you.”
Tony glared at him. He thought he could, but he was not sure. His line of reasoning was tenuous, but he believed it enough, certainly, to risk his life on it. Yet he could not have managed that belief, at all, without his hot anger at the clumsily smart trick the djinn king had so obviously contrived. It was not fair. It was too smart. And it was complacent. The complacency may have been the most enraging part of the whole thing.
“I am quite willing,” said Tony, strangling with fury, “to take on the whole damned djinn nation, beginning now, and including your fellow- djinns who happen to be the floors and walls of this room!”
Abdul said tentatively:
“Lord, we djinn are the most powerful of created beings. Therefore we can only have as our ruler the most powerful of created beings. Any less—any whom we could destroy—it would be beneath our dignity to obey.”
Tony turned his back. He paced up and down. There was a pause. Then: