"And you can do it? You can turn a carpet into a bird, as it were?"
"I think I can," said Pepi doubtfully. "No, no," he added hastily as Godwin flexed his biceps, "I'm sure I can."
"Do it, then. El Sareuk, put your blade across his neck. At the first out-of-the-ordinary thing that happens, except for the carpet's enchanting, deprive him of his head."
El Sareuk laid his scimitar to Pepi's throat with a warm smile.
Pepi looked at a rolled-up Persian carpet in a corner of the room, the only corner that did not seem to be jammed full of bodies. He muttered something under his breath. The carpet slowly unrolled.
"By the diamonded pillars of Hell!" gasped El Sareuk. "I believe he can do it!"
Pepi brightened up as his magic drifted the carpet across the floor toward them. "If you will sit on it, O Magnificence, it will carry you to the ship, be it so far as a hundred leagues to sea."
"How do I work it?" asked the gorilla suspiciously.
"Merely sit cross-legged upon it and think. It will speed or slow as you desire. It is attuned to the wishes of the rider."
"That's right," put in Ramizail. "I have ridden many a carpet, dear. Nothing to it."