by Liz Braswell
The noise that he thought was the wind eventually resolved itself into the murmurs of a crowd. And then…music? Someone…a whole chorus…was singing.
He crept quietly up to the side of a building and slunk around the corner. But he needn’t have worried about being seen; no one was looking at him.
Down the very road that seemed to begin at Aladdin’s hideout and end at the palace, the biggest, strangest parade in the history of Agrabah was taking place.
The music was deafeningly loud and everywhere at once. There were drums and horns and people in colorful clothes belting out the usual sort of praises for the sultan, with extraordinary claims and lists of unlikely feats thrown in.
But…it looked like at least some of the people in the crowd were singing along. As if they already knew the words somehow. That was more than passing strange.
When the singers in the parade passed they were followed by a dozen fire-eaters and acrobats. These leapt and capered about with manic grins on their faces and flames in their eyes. The crowd oohed and aahed as they swallowed blazing swords and blew puffs of smoke.
But…Aladdin had often seen fire-eaters in the market, and knew many of their tricks. These looked like they were actually…breathing fire.…
Behind them a hundred men in shining ceremonial black armor marched like beetles in perfect tip-tap synchronized time. Instead of swords they shook silver sistra, ringing like all the angelic warriors of heaven were coming through.
Or maybe not quite heaven. Their eyes seemed fiery as well.
Behind them was a battalion of people juggling silver scimitars that looked sharp enough to slice the sky. Despite their wielders’ unbelievable skill Aladdin found himself flinching.
Behind these were several dozen scantily clad dancing girls. They were beautiful, voluptuous, graceful. They all looked oddly alike. Not like sisters, not like cousins, not like members of an all-too-closely-related harem. It was more their bearing. The grins on their faces were the same and didn’t quite reach their eyes.
Aladdin felt as uneasy about the girls as he had about the scimitars and the fire-eaters.
Close on their heels rolled what looked to Aladdin’s practiced eye like a perfect replica of the palace—in gold. Possibly solid gold, from the strain of the horses pulling it. Tiny clockwork figures—including a miniature Jasmine—waved from its miniature balconies.
Behind this marched an entire zoo of albino animals. Which was more than a little weird, because many of the animals weren’t the kind you could train for marching. Like the crocodiles, for instance. And the peacocks, which kept perfect formation. There were a few handlers, a few whips, and a few leashes, but everything seemed oddly in order.
Following these were elephants. Not normal elephants. These were huge—much bigger than even the ones from the western jungles across the sea. All had tusks that swooped and curved out longer than the length of a man. Some of them had four tusks. And their eyes were much, much smaller than a normal elephant’s. And they had fur.
On top of the largest of these was a jeweled, canopied saddle. And atop that sat Jafar. The sultan’s closest adviser. Some said the scariest man in Agrabah.
The one Rasoul had said was responsible for Aladdin’s arrest and subsequent dismissal to the dungeons.
Jafar was grinning, a look that was as unnatural on him as it was on the dancing girls below. With his left hand he waved to the cheering crowds. Whenever he gave an extra flourish with it, small golden coins and bread rained out of the sky.
The people went wild, adults and children falling over themselves to grab the bounty.
Aladdin frowned. Jafar, though widely rumored to have dealings in the dark arts, had never exhibited any powers like this before.
The explanation might have been with the creature that floated sadly behind him, just above his monstrous elephant. It looked mostly like a man—a blue man—whose bottom half was smoke.
A djinn.
Jafar had found himself a djinn. Aladdin had thought they were the stuff of legend. His mother used to tell him bedtime stories about them and ifrits and marids and all sorts of other unlikely creatures who had all been dead for a thousand years.
This one looked like he wished he was dead. His body drooped and his face was a study in misery. Every time Jafar wiggled his hand, the genie would point his finger sadly, another shower of coins and bread would appear, and the crowds would cheer.
Aladdin craned his head, trying to see why Jafar only raised his left hand.
He mounted the carpet so he could be raised up for a better view. There.
In Jafar’s right hand he clutched an old brass lamp like it was his most treasured possession. Like a baby, or a fistful of gems.
Old brass lamp?
Suddenly, the pieces began to fall together, far too quickly for Aladdin’s still heat-addled brain.
Jafar was the evil old man. In fact, now that Aladdin was actually looking at him in person, the resemblance was unmistakable. All it would take was a fake beard and some robes and some—surprisingly good—acting. Jafar had thrown Aladdin into the dungeons under false pretenses specifically to get him to retrieve the lamp…the lamp in which the genie was imprisoned, just like in the stories. And genies granted wishes.
One of those wishes must have involved making Jafar the sultan and allowing him to take over Agrabah, wield power over the citizens, and organize this very, very weird parade.
Aladdin let the carpet slip him back into the shadows.
Things were confusing. Where was the old sultan? Where was Jasmine? Were they prisoners? Had she run away? Was she—no, he wasn’t going to think about the third possibility. He just wasn’t.
He needed to rest, regroup, and think for a while. He was reluctant to return to his hideout, however. Jafar probably thought he was dead in the desert…but Aladdin didn’t like the way the sorcerer somehow had known where he and Jasmine were before. Almost like he was watching them from afar. Magically. Aladdin needed to blend in with the crowd, go back to being an unseen Street Rat.
Street Rat.
Hmmm…
The magic carpet drifted down the empty street slowly, as if sensing Aladdin’s contemplative mood. Abu chittered questioningly.
“I think it’s time I finally paid a visit to some old friends,” Aladdin decided. “Carpet, we’re going to the lair of the Street Rats!
“If they don’t kill me first,” he added in a mutter.
ACROSS A CITY baking in the white-hot sun, people were staggering home from the largest party Agrabah had ever seen.
In the palace Jasmine lay on her bed alone and tried not to weep.
She wasn’t entirely alone, of course; Rajah was with her. She stroked her tiger’s thick, deep fur and pushed her face into it. The softness comforted her in a way that nothing else could.
She had just…just…started to come to terms with her father being someone who wasn’t only her father. He was also a human with human failings. She was only starting to figure out how she could love him and judge him and accept him all at the same time.
And now he was dead.
She kept hearing his laughter and seeing his face. If she closed her eyes and buried her head in Rajah’s side and pretended really hard, it was like it all never happened and was just a terrible dream. Her dad was out there, playing with his toys, coming in to see her soon.
Once in a while she would look up, hoping.
But of course he wasn’t there. He was gone forever.
Someone knocked at the door.
Rajah let out a growl.
Jasmine didn’t have time to sit up, shout “Go away!” or prepare herself before Jafar came gliding in. The miserable genie trailed behind like a dog on a leash. He gave her a weak smile.
Rajah bared his teeth at Jafar.
The genie snapped his fingers and a stuffed mouse that smelled suspiciously like catnip bounced into existence. Rajah was immediately distracted and began to bat at it with his big paws. J
asmine gave the genie a grateful look. Both of them knew that Jafar would zap her beloved pet to dust if he so much as nibbled the sorcerer.
“Hello, beloved,” Jafar said in his oily “cheerful” voice. “You look a little peaked today. Did you get enough beauty sleep?”
“You killed my father,” Jasmine said dully.
“Oh, is that still bothering you? Forget about it.” He grew thoughtful, looking almost concerned. “I could make you forget about it, if you like.…”
“No!” Jasmine cried.
“Well, then.” Jafar grinned. He came over to her bed and actually sat down on it next to her. How dare he invade her most private of places! She would have to wash all the sheets. And then burn them. “I just came by to tell you again how pleased I am to be marrying you…and cementing my claim to the throne.”
“You already have the throne,” Jasmine said listlessly. “What do you need me for? Let me go. Or kill me. Or something. You don’t need me to marry you. You’ve taken what you wanted by force.”
“And normally, I agree, that would be enough,” Jafar said with a tired sigh, patting her knee. Her skin crawled under his touch. “But even the strongest sorcerer in the world has some limits when it comes to tradition…and history…and religion…and public opinion. This really is the easiest way. You were going to marry some arbitrarily chosen prince who would inherit the throne anyway. It might as well be me.”
“I wasn’t—”
“Oh, yes, you were,” Jafar growled. “Your father coddled you, but in the end he would have caved to tradition. To law. He was a coward. And you would have been handed over like so much chattel to the prince you hated the least. Trust me, girl, I know what it’s like to be considered worthless—somebody else’s property. But unfortunately you are the royal princess and I am the sultan and I need your hand to cement the throne. And once again you have no say in the matter.”
“If I were the ‘strongest sorcerer in the world’ I would,” Jasmine growled.
Jafar laughed. It wasn’t, surprisingly, a particularly evil laugh. “I am not sure you have what it takes to seek that path. I remain unfrightened. Do not worry, Princess Jasmine. In time you will grow to love me.”
“I. Will. Never. Love you,” Jasmine spat through gritted teeth. “Or have your recent experiments in dark magic failed to convince you of my position?”
Her eyes still hurt from the “hypnotic gestures” Jafar had practiced like a silly teenager—albeit a teenager consulting a book bound in human flesh.
Her derision didn’t upset Jafar in the slightest.
“Well,” he said, “the genie may not be able to make you love me—weak fool that he is—and I may have failed so far, but there…are…other ways.” His eyes grew distant. “Soon I will break the pitiful laws of magic that bind him…and me. Then I shall raise the dead from their graves to do my bidding. Then I shall kill those who oppose me with a snap of my fingers. Then I will make not just you but all of the people of Agrabah love me!”
He wasn’t paying attention to anything or anyone in the room, now shrieking and staring off into space like a madman. The hand not holding his cobra staff balled up into a clawed fist.
Jasmine watched this transformation in horror, the genie in resignation.
Even Rajah had looked up from his toy to watch the human who was acting so strangely. A low growl formed in the back of his throat.
Jafar glanced at the tiger out of the corner of one eye. Seeming to recover from whatever fit had possessed him, he rolled his shoulders and relaxed his hands. His expression straightened back into Jafar’s normal snide superiority.
Then he snapped his fingers.
Rajah went flying across the room like a giant had picked him up and thrown him. The tiger smashed against the far wall, head first, and fell down like a lifeless sack of bones.
“Rajah!” Jasmine cried. She rushed over to him.
Rajah lifted his head woozily. He made little mewing noises, hurt and confused. Jasmine threw her arms around his neck.
“If I cannot have love yet, I’ll at least have fear and respect,” Jafar snarled. “The strength of a tiger is nothing compared to the magic I now wield. You would do well to remember that.”
Jasmine whispered in Rajah’s ear and stroked his neck. There was a black and bloody gash over his left eye and a giant lump forming behind an ear. When he went to stand up it took several tries and he swayed uncertainly.
The genie shook his head in sympathy.
“You’re a monster, Jafar,” Jasmine hissed.
“You have no idea, Princess,” Jafar hissed back.
Then he smiled that thin, closed-lip smile that reached to his ears but not to his eyes. He strode over to the genie, gesturing widely with his arms. “But I initially came here for a much happier purpose. Genie, I want you to create the most magnificent wedding dress the world has ever seen for my blushing bride! When we are joined as one I want the entire world to look on in awe and wonder.”
“I thought it was going to be a private ceremony,” the genie pointed out dryly.
Jafar ignored him. “I shall leave you two to it…bad luck to see the bride in her dress before the wedding and all.…” He waggled his fingers and swept out of the room, striking his ebon cobra staff against the floor as he went. Self-importantly. The doors slammed shut—magically—behind him.
Rajah let out a mewling whine.
Jasmine glared at the genie.
Suddenly, he was wearing the garb of a tailor, holding needles in his lips and stretching a ribbon critically against her height.
“I…don’t suppose you know your measurements already?” he asked weakly.
That finally put her over the edge.
“How can you do this?” Jasmine demanded, coming very close to shrieking herself. The hysteria that had been building inside her for the past week threatened to burst forth and take over. She stood from where she had been cuddling Rajah and began to pace back and forth, trying not to explode. She crossed her shaking arms, trying to still them.
The genie shrugged apologetically.
“He has the lamp. He has the power. I have to do his bidding. That’s why I say: ‘What is your bidding, Master?’ Or did you miss that?”
“You have made the worst person the most powerful sorcerer in the world! He is mad! Agrabah is doomed! And I have to marry him! And you don’t care?”
“Of course I care. You think I don’t care? For a snippy little princess you don’t actually seem so bad and, yeah, I’d say your city is two shakes away from being a fascist dystopian nightmare. But—and pay close attention now—I have to do what he says.”
Jasmine opened her mouth to say something, but the genie wasn’t listening. He was staring into space dreamily, lost in memories.
“I had a master once. Nice guy. He wanted…are you ready for this? A bigger flock of sheep and a house. He had a hut. He wanted a house. I gave him a house. And the sheep. And a wife—who, I might add, was totally into marrying a guy with a bigger flock of sheep. No breaking the laws of magic there. All I had to do was find her. Three nice little wishes and he was happy to let me go. They should all be so modest.”
“Stop!” Jasmine screeched. “Stop with your jokes and stupid little stories! This is my life here—Rajah’s life—the life of everyone in Agrabah—and you’re treating it like it’s just another joke! You’re ridiculous!”
“I’m ridiculous?” the genie growled.
Blue smoke roiled. He grew in size until he was towering over her. Jasmine tried not to cower. Dark clouds filled the room and tiny lightning bolts flashed around the edges.
“I do not think you have been listening to the subtext, Your Highness. I. Am. Trapped. I am a living, thinking, sentient being who has been trapped in that lamp for ten thousand years. Only let out to be ordered around by you ridiculous humans with your greedy, deranged desires. Do you think you could stay sane under those conditions for that long?”
Jasmine had never thoug
ht about it that way. Genies were just…magical creatures often caught in lamps you could demand wishes from. She never thought about them as people. They were never people in stories. They just did as they were told.
The genie was far from being done.
“Also? All of my people are gone. The djinn are dead as a race. Disappeared from this world. Completely. Yeah, so that happened sometime in the last ten thousand years. I’m not sure exactly how or when since I was in a lamp when it happened. I’m the only one left. So I’m alone in the world, and even if by some magic I managed to get free, I have no home left to go to and no one to see.
“Oh, yeah, did that little detail escape Your Royal Highness’s notice, too? The ‘get free’ part?” The genie brandished his forearms in her face. She tried not to shrink back from the golden wristbands that came perilously close to breaking her nose. “Enslaved. These are manacles, sweetcheeks.
“But…what would you understand about that?”
Suddenly, he looked exhausted. He physically shrank in size, seeming to somehow draw into himself and away from Jasmine at the same time. “You’re a princess among men. You have no idea what it’s like to feel trapped.”
Jasmine took a deep breath. She walked forward and put a hand on the genie’s arm, right above his manacle.
“Genie.” She looked up into his eyes, set in a face that was larger than a bull’s head and a violent shade of blue. It was difficult trying to see him as a human—no, a person. But she had to try. “I am extremely sorry for not understanding your situation. I had no idea about how genies—or djinn—truly live. Or lived. As you said, I’m a snippy little princess. I’m an idiot. What do I know?”
He started to look contrite but she shook her head to stop him.
“You’ve lived over a hundred lifetimes more than I…it was rude and presumptuous of me to judge you. Grandfather,” she added, a twinkle in her eye.
“Hey, now.…”
“But as long as we’re on the subject of being trapped…before all this with you and Jafar started, my father was going to hand me over, as Jafar so nicely put it, to whichever prince I hated the least. And then my job would be to make babies until there was a male heir. Assuming, you know, I didn’t die in childbirth first. I’d be lucky if I made it to forty, much less ten thousand. And currently I’m locked in my room waiting to be married to a man I hate and will continue hating for the rest of my life unless he finds a spell that will make me love him like a brainless puppet. If that’s not the definition of trapped, what is?”
