Lanthil Logs

Chapter 42: The W Word

We take her down to the dining room to meet people, but find them still setting up, so we retreat to a library. All except Daphne, who goes to the kitchen to arrange for some hors d'ouvres. Soon, she is leading a kitchen boy, laden with a tray, up to the library.

We answer the knock at the library door, expecting to be summoned to dinner. No, it's the snack tray. Tom explains to Leila that, although there is a food shortage here, they don't let us see it in the castle. Out in the country, it's different. Tom mentions the program for imprting big game from past eras, and this leads Markel to mention his unhappy encounter with a dire-wolf, or "warg," in the forest. We wonder if the boggart who stopped to help him is out of the infirmary yet. How long has it been, anyway? Gannar checks the Lanthil clock signal and announces, "Three weeks, two days, thirteen hours since we first embarked in the Pudgie Budgie."

There's another knock at the door. Dinner? No, Runyana. She runs her eye over the company, realizes she has miscalculated badly, and apologetically ducks out again. Tom briefly explains to Leila about being out of sequence and all.

Another knock. Dinner? No, Suliamon and Moranna. Robbie performs introductions and explains about our discovery of the City of Brass and how Djinnistan is positively gleeful to know about it. Tom then invites Leila to explain her desire to come and help. She does. There are several reasons:

1. When Tom carelessly used the W word ("wish," i.e. "I wish you every success in your coming endeavors") she granted it, thus upsetting the Ambassador, not quite directly but because the Ambassador knew it would upset her colleagues. Djinn are touchy about wishes.
2. This made it a more-than-usually good time to get out of town, because many djinn object to Leila's very existence. She's not pure djinn, but a djinni-fay hybrid, an efrit, also known as an "abomination" to many djinn.
3. She found our food shortage most unfitting, especially after we were given a bum's rush out of Faerie, not given time to set up Lanthil properly.
4. She wants to do her part to return our favor of leading Djinnistan to the City of Brass. This is also why she granted Tom's wish (see 1).

A fourth knock. This time, it is dinner. On the way down, we acquire as escort a couple of Silver Service guards, one of whom is Fallataal. They are there because Suliamon and Moranna were under the impression our Djinnistani visitor was the Ambassador again. They aren't really needed for this less official guest, but are invited to come down to dinner anyway.

At table, we learn Leila doesn't really have any plans, she just puts herself at our disposal. That should be useful, once we evolve some plans of our own. Perhaps she could help with the game-acquistion project? Very possibly.

Robbie asks if she could teach him to teleport, since they're both of them sort of djinnish and teleporting is one of the things djinn do. He describes to her his efforts to teleport by trying to "let go of the world" when he was being captured in the City of Brass. She tells him that's quite the wrong way to go about it, suitably only for when he was disembodied. Djinn, contrary to what you might think, are embodied mortals. Fine. Robbie is willing to start over.