by Liz Braswell
Aladdin put his hand on her arm and looked into her eyes. “I promise: if it’s that important to you, we will come back for him. But right now, there is only so much a thief, a princess, a tiger, a monkey, and a magic carpet can do.”
She nodded sorrowfully and took his hand.
“Now it’s like seven minutes,” Aladdin said. “I have a secret way out. We just need to get back to the room with the red panels.”
Jasmine nodded and scooted alongside him, keeping her quickly moving feet silent.
“But Jafar isn’t done with everything yet,” she whispered breathlessly as they went. “He has a plan.”
“He has all of Agrabah!” Aladdin said in an exasperated whisper. “What more could he want?”
Jasmine’s face darkened. “What do people like him ever want? More. More power. More adulation. More—”
She stopped as Aladdin drew up short. The carpet and the tiger skidded to a halt. Abu grabbed on to Aladdin’s neck at the sudden cessation of movement.
Standing in the room with the brazier, looking as surprised as they did, was Rasoul.
“Run…” Aladdin suggested weakly.
“Guards! To me! In the Room of the Scintillating Brazier!” Rasoul roared.
“Room of the Scintillating Brazier?” Aladdin muttered in disgust as they took off down the hall.
The heavy stomp of feet seemed to come from every direction. If they had been outside in the streets of Agrabah, Aladdin would have known where they were safe, what roads were too crooked to be seen on, where there were easy escapes. Now he was just leading them blindly.
“Can we get outside?” he asked Jasmine in a gasp.
“Up ahead,” she said between breaths. “There is a columned loggia that leads to the Courtyard of the Rose-Scented Footstools.”
Aladdin looked at her.
“Just kidding,” she said with a quick smile. “They don’t really smell.”
The tiger bounded ahead as if he knew the plan. The carpet stayed behind them as if he was guarding the rear.
Aladdin wasn’t sure what a loggia was, but ahead there was a hall dotted with columns that opened up into a large courtyard with no ceiling overhead. There were lemon trees, sweet-scented myrtle, and pots of roses. More columns, ornamental and abstract, decorated the interior of the courtyard along with statues depicting ancient river gods. There were indeed footstools—carved into the shape of roses.
There were also about a dozen guards waiting for Aladdin and Jasmine.
“Halt!”
Aladdin fell back as the pair in front leapt at them. One meaty guard got his arms around Aladdin’s waist and brought him down. Jasmine managed to leap out of the way of the other one.
The tiger roared and raised his paw, ready to tear the guard’s belly out.
“No, Rajah!” Jasmine cried. “It’s not his fault. It’s Jafar’s orders!”
“Now she gets all ‘protect-the-people-y’? Couldn’t she wait like ten more minutes?” Aladdin wondered aloud as he tried to shimmy out of the guard’s grasp. When that failed, he curled himself into a ball. He aimed his toes at the man’s privates. With a muscle-taxing burst, he pushed out his arms and legs as hard as they would go.
The guard screamed and fell to the side. Aladdin climbed over his back.
“Split up!” he ordered, diving to the side.
A blade sliced through the air above Aladdin’s head. He fell into a roll. He kicked his feet out at his attacker and managed to topple the guard into another pair of guards. Scimitars flew like deadly missiles.
A scream from Jasmine brought him to his feet. A guard had managed to grab her sash and was pulling her. She held on to a statue for dear life with one arm…but reached for her silver dagger with the other.
Rajah turned and roared.
“Fool!” Rasoul yelled as he finally caught up to the fight. “The sultan will have your head if you touch the princess in such a manner!”
Rajah leapt.
Aladdin didn’t get to see what happened next because a pair of guards ran straight at him, swords aimed directly for his chest.
Aladdin crouched and spun like a dervish. He managed to sweep the legs out from under one of the guards, causing him to trip into the other. They both came crashing down, landing on the stone floor with a sickening crunch.
“Carpet!” Aladdin ordered the moment he could take a breath. “Get Jasmine!”
The carpet paused where it was dancing in the air. It was just out of reach of some easily distractible guards who were poking at it with the tips of their scimitars. Finished with whatever he had done to the other men, Rajah was silently stalking them from behind, getting ready to pounce.
At Aladdin’s words, the carpet immediately slalomed down in between the marble columns toward Jasmine. The guards turned to chase it and came face-to-face with the tiger.
Before he could turn to do anything else, Aladdin was grabbed violently from behind by a pair of familiar, professional, and very adept hands—Rasoul’s.
“Street Rat. You are in way over your head!”
“At least I still have one,” Aladdin countered. But as much as he kicked and struggled, Rasoul held him tightly. Another guard leveled his blade so the tip was just touching Aladdin’s belly.
Things did not look good.
But he saw that Jasmine was free from her own pursuers. The princess threw herself at the carpet and grabbed its tassels. The carpet dipped once under her weight and then raced for the skylight with Jasmine hanging from it like a rabbit from an eagle’s talons.
Aladdin let go a sigh of relief. He would be fine, of course—or not. It didn’t matter. At least she was safe.
With a scream, Abu dropped down onto the head of the guard with the sword.
That was all the time Aladdin needed to kick off the floor and fling himself up over backward—Rasoul’s hands still gripping his arms—and land on Rasoul’s back.
Aladdin tried not to cry out at the pain of bending his arms in such an unnatural way.
Sputtering, Rasoul’s grip lessened. Aladdin twisted wildly like a weasel until he found a weak spot and was free.
“Hey!” a voice called from above.
Aladdin looked up.
Completely at odds with his awesome rescue plan, Jasmine was leaning over the edge of the roof, not running away. Or flying away. Like she was supposed to. She pointed: the magic carpet swooped back down toward Aladdin.
“Are all princesses so disobedient?” he shouted with a grin and went to leap aboard.
With an angry howl, Rasoul threw himself at Aladdin, sword drawn. The tip of it caught Aladdin in the side and ripped through his flesh.
Aladdin staggered under the pain of the blow. Blood coursed down his body.
Jasmine gasped.
He sucked in his breath and forced himself to stay upright. The carpet was close enough to step on—
But Rasoul’s next blow wasn’t aimed at Aladdin.
Despite trying to scoot out of the way, the magic carpet didn’t quite make it.
Rasoul’s sword sliced off a corner, ripping away one of its tassels. The carpet gave a terrible shudder, then drifted away lopsidedly, trying to recover. Rajah growled.
Aladdin cursed.
“I don’t want to kill you, Street Rat,” Rasoul said, his sword raised.
“Sure looks like it, Rasoul,” Aladdin shot back.
“If the princess disappears it will mean my head—as well as those of my men.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Aladdin saw the carpet slowly drifting back and forth past a very interesting row of statues and columns that looked almost lined up from that angle. An idea began to take shape.
“If the princess doesn’t disappear, she will be forced to marry a man you know is a monster. Even worse than you!” Aladdin cried, ducking around him.
Rasoul spun faster than a man his size should have been able to and sliced his sword at Aladdin’s back.
Aladdin ducked and avoided
it. With a leap like a frog, he put his hands on the head of the first statue and propelled himself up to the second.
Without pausing, he executed a flip onto the third.
Too late, Rasoul realized his plan and ran to stop him.
On the last, highest decorative column, Aladdin leapt with all of his remaining strength. The column rocked under the force of his push.
His hands came down on the roof, grasping at clay tiles that crumbled beneath his fingers. Jasmine grabbed him by the arms and helped haul him up.
Below him in the courtyard, the column rocked too far and began to fall. Aladdin watched in horror as Rasoul spun and looked up, confused about what was happening.
“Carpet! Get Rasoul!” Aladdin screamed. “Knock him out of the way!”
The carpet, slow and confused, moved to the captain of the guards. It didn’t so much knock into Rasoul as get tangled around his ankles.
Abu managed to scurry up the column’s side and leap out just before it crashed to the courtyard floor.
Rasoul was not so lucky.
The large man turned and looked up—and screamed.
And then there was a terrible, terrible crunch.
Aladdin turned his head, but not before he saw Rasoul’s one free arm lift weakly and then fall to the ground.
A TRIO OF SILHOUETTES tiptoed across the top of the palace walls: the night was so dark they could only be seen by where the stars did not shine. Noises were beginning in different towers and offices of the capital. Orders were being given, a chase was mounting, explanations were being offered, heads were literally beginning to roll.
Aladdin, Jasmine, and Abu made it to a section that came close to some high-growing palm trees. Where, somewhat ironically, Jasmine had made her escape not that long ago. It would have been impossible to make the leap with the tiger—and a lot easier with the magic carpet. It wasn’t right leaving them behind; the party felt light and lonesome.
Aladdin lay flat on the top of the wall and lowered Jasmine down as far as he could reach. She had to fall the last ten feet onto the prickly treetops. Her landing, while not perfect, was good enough, and the part of her hair that got caught on the sharp fronds would grow back.
Aladdin leapt down right after, his wound burning as the skin stretched. Blood trickled down his side.
They scuttled down the trees like lizards. When they hit the ground, they ran as fast and as lightly as their feet would take them to the Quarter of the Street Rats.
They hadn’t gotten far when a strange sound grew out of the dark like the ticking of an enormous centipede. One with large, pointy shoes.
Jasmine paused, a finger to her lips, when Aladdin looked at her questioningly.
“We have to hide!” she whispered.
Aladdin looked around and found what seemed to be an abandoned house. Seemed because all of Agrabah—apart from the palace—seemed abandoned that night. Every house was black, either with shutters and screens tightly closed or only a few lamps lit. Even in the wealthy quarters, the teahouses and bars and wine gardens were empty. The silence that Aladdin had first encountered when returning from the cave in the desert was somehow deepened by the eerie, regular tap-tapping.
Stepping through the door that hung brokenly on its hinges, they saw little furniture inside, and what remained was broken and trashed. Dust and the endless desert sand covered everything. The place was obviously empty. Jasmine sank wearily on a rotten old pillow that was probably full of bugs—but it didn’t look like she cared.
Aladdin stayed close by the door so he could watch through a crack.
Passing by only a few feet from the door was a phalanx of six…guards. Aladdin couldn’t figure out what else to call them. Their uniforms were shiny and black like those of the sistrum shakers in the parade. Their movements were perfect and synchronous. They held unusual shiny metal weapons that were long but only had blades at the tip. They wore boots like horse riders did, with metal worked into the leather at the heels.
But it was their faces…and their eyes…that made Aladdin wonder. They all looked the same. Like the pretty girl dancers in the parade. Again, more than just like cousins or brothers…There was a perfect similarity to their expressions, from their strangely blank black eyes to their straight-as-a-line mouths. Like statues, or puppets, or…
Aladdin shuddered without knowing why.
“What are they?” he swore after they passed by.
“Jafar’s new Peacekeeping Patrols,” Jasmine said with a weary sigh. “They are…well, I don’t know what exactly they are. They just kind of keep showing up. More magic, somehow.”
As she spoke, she took her hair out of its clasps and thongs and began to run her fingers through it. Dusty and ragged though it was, Aladdin still would have very much liked to do it for her. To brush it back from behind her ears…
“The patrols are only part of Jafar’s big plans for Agrabah. They march through the city on rounds all night. To keep crime down. So he says. Some people like it, I guess. They feel safer. So he says.”
“They seem a little…weird.”
Jasmine’s face was pale and listless. They had escaped and should have been reveling in triumph, but she didn’t seem that excited. Actually, now that he thought about it, Aladdin didn’t feel that excited, either. He was relieved, of course. But he felt terrible about the magic carpet. And he had seen other things in the past week that were much harder, much heavier than anything he had ever had to deal with before.
“I’m sorry about your father,” he said softly, sitting down next to her.
Jasmine’s face hardened. There was a light in her eyes now, but it was angry and ominous. She stretched her fingers out and back like a tiger unsheathing its claws.
“Jafar killed him. Right in front of me. I had no idea he…hated my father so much. He could have done anything else to him. With all of his power, he could have banished him, or turned him into a mouse. Or—anything. Instead he just pushed him over the railing. Just like that.”
“I think Jafar has been nursing some very high ambitions…and some very angry thoughts for a long time,” Aladdin said gently. “This was all extremely planned. Arresting me for being with you was just part of it. He needed me to get the lamp with the genie in it.”
Jasmine blinked. “You got the lamp for Jafar?”
“Yeah. It’s a long story. Funny, I’ve been saying that a lot recently. Someday maybe I’ll tell you the whole thing. Suffice it to say that I never want to go inside another cave again.”
Jasmine frowned. “So…it wasn’t my fault? He would have found someone else to do his dirty work anyway?”
“I have no idea. It’s something I’ve wondered about. But it is your fault for not thinking of the consequences when you went out and about in Agrabah in disguise,” Aladdin said gently. “I just thought you were a pretty rich girl slumming it. Your Royal Highness.”
“You think I’m pretty?” she asked, eyes wide.
Aladdin paused with his mouth hanging open, unsure what to say.
“Ha! I’m kidding, of course you do,” Jasmine said, cracking a very unprincessy smile. She pushed him on his shoulder and for a moment Aladdin was reminded, not unfavorably, of Morgiana. “You’re as easy to read as a book in Aramaic.
“You need to tell me the truth about one thing, though,” she added, suddenly serious.
“Anything,” he promised.
“What is your name?”
Aladdin laughed.
“I guess we never formally introduced ourselves, did we?” He leapt up and gave a deep bow. “I am Aladdin, son of Hatefeh, who was the daughter of Twankeh, who was the son of Ibrahim, who was the daughter of a whole lot of people you’ve never heard of. No one’s ever heard of.”
“And I am…well, you already know who I am,” Jasmine said, growing gloomy again. “I’m really, really sorry for everything you’ve been through.”
“It’s been worth it. Mostly,” Aladdin said, sitting back down on the ground ne
xt to her. He winced at the pain in his side. Jasmine saw it and sucked in her breath. But when she reached out to touch it, he lightly pushed her hands away. “Besides, I lived through it to fight another day. We’ll get Jafar. And get you back on your throne. Somehow. In memory of your father.”
“In revenge of my father,” Jasmine hissed through her teeth. She clenched her fists again and stared into the distance with burning anger.
Aladdin rubbed his hands over his face. Too much had happened too quickly. Everything was changing too fast. The old sultan was gone—not a great man as sultans went, but at least he was consistent. Jafar, the creepy vizier, was now a creepy and insane dictator. Agrabah was—different. Everything felt uneasy.
And Rasoul was gone.
Aladdin didn’t have especially deep feelings for the man. Especially since he had gifted Aladdin with the wound to his side. But, like the old sultan, he had been a constant in Aladdin’s life. A personal one. Rasoul had been chasing him since he was a boy. Now Aladdin was a young man, and Rasoul was captain of the guard. It was almost like they had grown up together, on different paths.
A strange ache formed in Aladdin’s stomach. He had never wished the man dead. He had never been responsible for anyone’s death before. That was different, too. This guilt was new. And everything new seemed terrible.
Except for Jasmine.
Just looking at her made him feel better about everything. Her hair was now in a braid wrapped around her head like a nomad girl’s, tendrils coming down around her ears in a ridiculously charming way. Her face, streaked with dust, still glowed.
In another time and place, he would have reached over to kiss her.
But she was different, too. She was seething. He realized he was watching the happy and generous—albeit naive—girl turn into something dark and terrible.
He had to stop it.
“We have to stop him,” she said, her voice cracking, strangely echoing his own thoughts.
“All right, we will,” he said softly, putting his arm around her. “But I don’t think we can stop him on our own. Let’s get somewhere safe. Morgiana’s. We can figure stuff out from there.”
He stood up and gave her his hand. She took it, struggling with an exhaustion that threatened to pull her back down.
