by Liz Braswell
“This was always my problem with you!” Aladdin swore at his old friends. “Yes, I steal, too—but only what I need. What I can’t get for myself. You do it as your day job. You have a whole little…organization of apprentices here who are going to grow up thinking this is an acceptable thing!”
“If there continues to be food and gold from the palace, it will no longer be an acceptable thing,” Morgiana said agreeably. “But history has shown time and time again that it is generally unwise to rely on others—especially those in charge—to provide for the poor. I give this new sultan a week or two at most before he realizes he doesn’t want to keep giving people handouts. At least not without getting something in return.”
“Even when things are going great you expect the worst out of people and think they deserve to be stolen from!” Aladdin spat.
“My father didn’t deserve to lose the use of his leg,” Duban said mildly. “My sister didn’t deserve to be beaten by her husband.”
“No one deserves anything they get,” Morgiana said, shrugging. “It is what it is. You just have to make sure that at least sometimes you’re on the good side of getting. For you.”
“And evil keeps going around,” Aladdin swore angrily, storming out. “There’s another way. You don’t have to choose this life. You could be something more.”
NIGHT IN AGRABAH.
Was it quieter than usual? Were people recovering from the huge party, suddenly uneasy with something they couldn’t quite put their fingers on? Did they pull out the tiny, funny little gold coins and stare at them in the lamplight, thinking deeply about the turn of events in their city? Did they leave the gold coins out on their tables and not hide them in shoes, under mattresses, inside pillows? Why bother? All of their neighbors had coins, too.
It wasn’t just the religious and the superstitious who worried about the gold. The most educated scholars and wisest of old folk all knew that something was never created out of nothing. Not without consequences.
And that parade had been more than a little weird.
These philosophical issues were the least of Aladdin’s concerns at the moment, however. And actually, he had to admit that the city’s uneasiness was a great help to him. The streets were much simpler to sneak through with everyone lingering inside, close to doorways, staying away from the open sky.
Abu sat on his shoulder and the magic carpet glided silently behind him—it was too dark to be able to fly well without the risk of hitting something.
People had been trying to sneak into the palace for centuries. Some of their skulls could still be seen on spikes around the castle walls, bleached white into shiny marble balls by years of desert sun.
Aladdin was well aware of this. But he also had something those poor souls hadn’t had—secret knowledge of the palace grounds. And though returning to the hidden tunnels made his heart quicken with fear, Aladdin gritted his teeth and pressed on to the stables on the far side of the palace, on the edge of the desert.
The horses and camels whickered and whinnied at his approach; he calmed them with some soothing noises of his own. Then he spotted a familiar-looking gelding.
“You made it back!” Aladdin whispered with joy, patting him on the neck. The horse snorted—perhaps both pleased at seeing the boy again and also wanting nothing to do with the human who had led him out into a stormy desert in the middle of the night. But for all that, he seemed fine.
“I hope your stable boy is all right, too,” Aladdin sighed.
He found the drain that hid the secret entrance and carefully moved aside the cover just enough to let himself in, sliding it just as quietly back over his head once he was down. This time he was prepared for the pitch darkness with a tiny oil lamp he had filched from Morgiana on his way out. It seemed fitting somehow.
The stone passages were deathly silent but for the distant roar of lava. Aladdin still found himself treading softly. It was, however, a much easier trip made with his two friends. The magic carpet floated alongside almost like a dog while Abu stayed on his shoulder.
Aladdin saw with relief that all the marks he had made with his knife were still there on the walls. He easily followed them back to the dungeons. A gentle tap of the right rock sent it sliding aside and he was back where it had all begun.
Abu chittered with nervousness. There were the manacles that had held Aladdin; there was where Jafar had appeared from the shadows in disguise.
“Kind of brilliant,” Aladdin admitted reluctantly. But he did wonder why Jafar had found it necessary to go to all the trouble to get him for the lamp business. Any Street Rat would have done it for a single golden daric. Or less…
Thoughts for another time. He had a princess to rescue! The door leading out was locked, of course, but Aladdin had his little kit with him. He worked with his picks in the flickering lantern light for many long minutes, sweating and swearing. When the lock finally gave it was with a nearly silent, anticlimactic click.
The passageway outside was short, murky, and dim. He goggled at what looked like an infinite number of stone steps spiraling upward to the hazy ceiling. It was as though he were at the bottom of a tower buried underground. Even the design was similar to the Moon Tower, the tallest building in the palace. Jafar’s tower…
Across from the entrance to the dungeon was another door that was covered in strange carvings. The edges were highlighted with an evil orange glow from whatever was in the room behind.
“Another time,” Aladdin promised himself. He would explore what was very obviously Jafar’s secret study when things weren’t quite so dire.
He snapped his fingers and the carpet obligingly lowered to let him step onto it. They drifted upward through the dark above the steps like a milkweed puff borne aloft by a soft breeze.
At the top was a strange sliding door that was unlocked with the press of a lever. Aladdin opened it the smallest crack and peeked through. The room beyond was dimly lit and mostly empty except for a few pieces of finely wrought furniture. There were no guards.
Aladdin drew back in surprise. What sort of dungeon didn’t have guards?
He slid the door open just wide enough to let his body—and Abu, and the carpet—through. When they were out he turned around and saw that what looked like a door from the dungeon side looked like a completely normal wall panel on the other. In fact, when the door closed itself with a quiet click, it was impossible to tell where it had been.
A secret dungeon! Secret even from the sultan himself, Aladdin wagered. Jafar’s personal little evil sorcerous laboratory and prison. It seemed like all of the whispers about him were true.…
And if they were true, Aladdin realized grimly, then Morgiana was probably right, and Agrabah was in worse trouble than before. There was no way someone this secretive, plotty, murderous, and evil would turn overnight into a generous and doting benefactor. Aladdin knew people. He had to, as a thief. And people didn’t usually change that much.
The marble floor was chilly under his bare feet; suddenly Aladdin understood why rich people owned so many carpets.
The soft click of heels on stone alerted him to the presence of others nearby. Aladdin dove behind a velvet couch. The carpet laid itself on the floor. Abu climbed up a screen on the side of the room and stayed silent and still near the ceiling.
A pair of guards marched through, stiff as rods and carrying deadly looking spears across their chests. They were clad head to toe in black and red—Jafar’s colors. These were not the unruly market guards that Aladdin was used to dealing with; these were inner palace guards, with quick, intelligent eyes, nervous hands, and not an extra ounce of body fat on them. Very, very dangerous men.
As soon as they were gone Abu started to descend. The carpet curled up one corner in anticipation of rising.
“Shhh! Not yet,” Aladdin whispered.
He counted his heartbeats and his breaths.
Almost exactly ten minutes later, the guards came through again. Exact same route, exact same wary glance
s, exact same march.
Aladdin smiled at his own forethought.
“Okay,” he whispered as soon as they were out of sight.
The three of them tiptoed—or glided—on to the next room. What he found made Aladdin pause…and then raise an eyebrow in wonder.
The space they were in could have been a banquet hall that easily held a hundred revelers. Instead, it was furnished with tables covered in…things. Miniature palaces. Models of mazes on tilting platforms you worked tiny silver balls through. Puzzles that made brightly painted jungle scenes when they were done. Balancing games in which the blocks were intricately carved animals and fantastic beasts. And above all this hung the gorgeous silk kites the sultan flew when he deigned to leave the palace on one of his famous picnics.
So these rumors were true, too. The old sultan was nothing but a crazy, decadent old man who played with toys while Agrabah starved.
Or…he was Jasmine’s sad, lonely old father who wanted more kids, or grandkids, or his wife back. It was complicated.
A quiet tick from the corner of the room sent Aladdin flying behind a table and Abu and the carpet into other hiding places.
No one appeared.
The ticking continued.
Aladdin lifted his head and saw that on one of the tables was a model of Agrabah—a different one, an imaginary clean one—that was accurate down to the calendar clock tower that rose above the central square. That was what was making the noise. A tiny working version of the real thing: a miniscule golden half-moon popped out and turned a degree on the dial.
Aladdin shook his head—either at himself or at the dead sultan and his hobbies.
Ten minutes. He heard the scraping of shoes again.
He gestured frantically to the room beyond the one he was in. The carpet and Abu followed close behind as he ducked down and crab-walked quickly to what looked like a room with no discernible purpose. There was a brazier with coals smoldering in the corner and an incense burner sending smoke up to the ceiling next to a low divan, but no one was on it.
More footsteps. From the other direction!
Aladdin dove under the divan, sucking in his breath to fit.
He couldn’t see the faces of these new guards from his position but was pretty sure there were more of them this time—three, maybe, or four, walking in perfect synchronicity. The guards he had avoided twice before met up with them in the middle of the room; Aladdin watched their feet and heard the smart smacking of spears against each other in a military salute.
Then each set of guards kept going in the direction they had been headed.
Aladdin started counting again, frustrated. This was bad: he hadn’t allowed extra time for waiting on guards to complete their circuits. Impatient to move, he got up, deciding to take a risk; he knew he had at least ten minutes from the one set of guards and figured they would all probably be on the same clock.
Wrong!
Aladdin slammed himself against the closest wall as the second set of guards passed by the door, moving in an entirely different direction.
Abu scampered across the cold hall to be close to him, his tiny toenails clicking against the floor.
The guards stopped.
“Abdullah, wait. Did you hear something?”
Aladdin closed his eyes and tried to still his heart. The silence was so complete and profound he was certain they could hear it beating.
“I heard something—in the room with the incense.”
“It was probably just a mouse, or a monkey.”
“I will not lose my head over something which turns out not to be a mouse.”
Aladdin winced as the concerned guard walked to the door, spear raised.
All he had to do was step four inches farther into the room.
The guard made a thorough scan of the place, turning his head slowly back and forth.
Aladdin opened one eye and almost caught his breath when he saw how close to him the shiny, sharp spear tip was.
The silence stretched on.
“It’s nothing,” the guard decided.
As he stepped back to rejoin his companion, Aladdin practically crumpled with relief.
He wasted no time, scurrying out of the room and ducking under a window through which the moon shone like a spotlight. Then he stopped, caught by the view outside.
Spread over what must have been at least a hectare or two was the most beautiful garden he had ever seen.
There was an entire miniature forest of cedar, cypress, and other sweet-smelling pines that couldn’t normally live in the hot and dry Agrabah. There were formal rows of roses and other delicately petaled flowers. There was a garden just of mountain plants. There was a pool filled with flowering white lilies and their pads, and pink lotuses taller than most men. There was a fountain as big as a house and shaped like an egg. There was a delicate white aviary that looked like a giant’s birdcage. Strangely, there were no birds in it.
And everywhere, entwined around every tiny building and every balustrade and every topiary ball, was jasmine. White jasmine, pink jasmine, yellow jasmine, night-flowering jasmine…The smell was heady enough to make Aladdin feel a little drunk.
Jasmine.
This was her garden.
She had to be close. Aladdin hurried on.
There was definitely a feminine change to the décor as he tiptoed through the dusty twilight of the slumbering palace: more soft rugs, more shapely urns, more wall hangings, more flowers and plants. He passed through a sitting room filled with silk cushions and low tables scattered with bowls of nuts, scrolls, and even a few games. Apparently the sultan figured the palace was safe enough from the eyes of outsiders and didn’t consider a screen—with the usual huge female guards—necessary.
Of course, it was said that Jasmine’s best friend was a tiger, so maybe guards weren’t really that necessary.
Past this room was a short hall that ended in a pair of beautifully carved golden doors that flared out like butterfly wings. On either side of them stood a pair of the usual male guards—in black and red, Jafar-style.
This was a problem.
Aladdin clenched his fists in frustration. Of course he could take them out—somehow—and in doing so make noise that would summon every last man in the palace. He found himself thinking of Morgiana, “the Shadow,” and how this was exactly the sort of situation she would have excelled in.
Something must have clicked somewhere; some invisible clock or quiet chime. The two guards raised their spears and saluted each other, then turned and marched out of the room.
Aladdin had no idea when they would return, but the instincts of a thief told him to act immediately. He might never get a better chance.
He rushed forward and pulled out his lock-pick kit again. This lock was beautiful and intricately decorated, but quite basic under all that. It would take him only a minute or—
The door suddenly opened inward.
Surprised, Aladdin looked up into Jasmine’s equally surprised face. She was pulling a pair of sharp hairpins out of the lock on her side.
“Uh, hi,” Aladdin said.
He didn’t understand—but didn’t object to—the sudden embrace she wrapped him in, hugging him more tightly than the Widow Gulbahar did on holidays.
“You’re alive!” she whispered with joy.
“Of course I’m alive,” Aladdin started to object. Then he thought about the past few days of his life. Maybe it wasn’t such an obvious conclusion. “I came back to rescue you. Which…though…now doesn’t seem that necessary.”
Her famous pet tiger took that moment to appear and glared at the intruders with flashing yellow eyes. He seemed violent and mean, with an evil-looking wound on his head. He uttered a deep, disapproving growl. Abu hopped up and down and began to chitter on Aladdin’s shoulder in hysteria. Aladdin quickly put a hand over his friend’s mouth to shut him up.
“Really. You seem to be fine,” Aladdin continued as calmly as he could.
“It’s the th
ought that counts.” Jasmine grinned, putting the hairpins back under her tiara and a hand on Rajah’s neck. “I’m…Jafar told me you were executed, because of me.”
“What?” Aladdin’s mind raced. “Huh. Things are starting to make sense. Sort of. Let’s talk later. We have to get out of here.”
“We have about nine minutes before the relief guards come back,” Jasmine said, nodding.
“Right.” Aladdin grabbed her hand and turned to go. Abu chittered in agreement. The carpet rose up.
“What is that?”
Jasmine tried to confine her shriek to a whisper. Aladdin was about to make some joke about her being a girly girl afraid of monsters, but stopped. A girl who was locked up in her own bedroom by a madman forcing her to marry him probably didn’t need to imagine monsters. She could probably be forgiven for being a little jumpy.
“Oh, this?” Aladdin asked casually. “Say hello to Magic Carpet. Magic Carpet, the royal princess Jasmine.”
“A real…flying…carpet…” Jasmine said in awe, eyes wide. “Amazing. We have a lot to talk about.”
“Yeah, Royal Princess Jasmine, we sure do,” Aladdin agreed with heavy irony. She had the decency to blush a little. He started down the hall. “We can do it back at Morgiana’s.”
“Who—never mind. But first we have to rescue the genie.”
“Uh, no, Jasmine. We can’t right now. We don’t have time.”
“He’s trapped. Just like me,” Jasmine said desperately. “Jafar is making him do all these horrible things, making him into the sultan, a powerful sorcerer. He doesn’t want to. We just need to grab his lamp.…”
“From a powerful sorcerer who is also the sultan, has a secret dungeon, and has already transformed the palace into his own personal…uh…palace. No way, Jasmine. Not now. We can come back better prepared—and with a plan—but just getting you out of here is going to be tough enough. You think he’s going to let his most precious possession lie around for easy taking?”
Jasmine’s face fell. “But…”
