This object was distinctly non -djinnian. The ancient djinn who clutched it jealously was plainly bewildered by it. To judge by the crown on his head and various other royal insignia, he could be none but the djinn king in person. And he was the first and only djinn Tony had ever seen who really looked old. A djinn looked always as old as he thought, but the King of the Djinns was no longer even able to think of himself as young. He was very ancient indeed, and he was hideously ugly—Tony heard later that there was a trace of efreet blood in him—and he fumbled querulously with an object which surely no djinn had ever conceived or made.
It was a device of glass and corroded bronze and other metals. The glass part of it was remarkably familiar. It was exactly the shape of one of those fluorescent-ended tubes on whose larger, coated surface an image appears in a television set. The rest of it was completely cryptic to Tony. There were coils, and there was something that could be a condenser, and there were objects which could even be batteries, in age-blackened bronze cases. But the whole was old. Unspeakably old. And, of course, batteries could not be expected to hold a charge after as many centuries as the patina on the bronze implied.
“Greeting!” said Tony sternly. He had his cigarette lighter handy.
The djinn king looked up with an elderly start. Then he scowled portentously.
“Hah! The human Lord Toni,” he rumbled. “You have betrayed my hospitality, human! It is well for you that I am merciful! But you are my guest! Therefore I take no vengeance on you in my own house. But your camel will return you to Barkut within the hour! The truce between me and Barkut ends! I shall destroy the city and the people. I shall blot out the memory of the nation! I shall—”
Tony found his eyes hot and angry.
“Interesting! You invited me here to have me murdered because you learned that my nation isn’t troubled with djinn! You were afraid I might lead Barkut to security! But your planned murder backfired, so now you’ll try the same thing openly!” Then he bluffed. “And how do you propose to destroy Barkut? You have seen what I can do!”
The djinn king glowered at Tony. With somehow the air of one changing costume to a more appropriate garb, he swelled to a greater size. Tusks appeared between his lips. His complexion became a ghastly blue. Horns showed on his head. The armor which appeared at the same time was tastefully decorated with human skulls. But he still looked old. And Tony felt that he was uneasy.
“Human!” he roared. “See you this thing in my hands? It is the great treasure of the djinn crown! With this have my djinns been kept subject! With this will I destroy Barkut and the sniveling traitors who bow to you! Know you what this is?”
Tony had a hunch amounting to conviction that the djinn king had been puzzling over the device when he entered. He had plainly no great knowledge either of machinery or electronics. Tony had not much more. But he simply could not believe that any device of such great age could still be in working order. He bluffed again.