by Tom Morris
my instructions."
"Let me finish," the Genie gently replied. "Many years ago I aided Azart's grandfather with a somewhat tricky situation that he found himself embroiled in. In gratitude he interceded with Fandraal and asked that I be set free. Fandraal ordained that I should remain a servant of the lamp but might only be obliged to help those who had the courtesy to ask for my help. In addition should anyone who owned the lamp have the ill-manners to command me three times, than I would be free again to do as I willed. Not only that but they should replace me as servant to Fandraal to do his bidding."
So saying the Genie waved his arms and Maladict and his Empress, to the utter astonishment and universal delight of the court, disappeared with a soft plop of displaced air.
And so they all lived happily ever after.
Well, that's not entirely true of course. The peasants continued pretty much as they always had, enduring toil and deprivation, despising their masters and doing their best to evade the tax collector. The courtiers carried on with the petty intrigues and salacious scandal-mongering which lent such a piquancy to court life, but refrained from wholesale political plotting on the basis that they had come to appreciate the benefits of not living in exciting times. Maladict and the Empress were found suitable employment by Fandraal, such as tending to his pigs, grubbing for roots and herbs for his potions and scrubbing and cleaning in the kitchen under the stern direction of the assistant junior pot-boy. After many, many decades, they learnt humility and to a very little degree a small amount of compassion for their fellows, so Fandraal relented and allowed them to retire to a modest cottage at the edge of the forest where they lived out the remainder of their lives living frugally and daily cursing fate.
Azart became the new emperor. Not because he wanted to, but because Maledict, having been careful to remove any of his court who might have had sufficient ambition in that direction, there remained no other who was qualified. It was not a position which he enjoyed; his only passion in life being to the continuing collection and study of his antiquities, so, quietly, and without fuss, Jasmine took over the reins of administration although at all times being careful to stand discretely behind the throne during any official engagements.
The genie also wished for a quiet life and took up residence in Ahzad's tower, where they both spent many a happy evening discussing the finer points of esoteric philosophy and translating the archaic texts purchased from tomb robbers and purveyors of the occult.
The elephant was left to roam in one of the palace parks where it grew and grew. One fine spring morning it trumpeted loudly and unfurling its newly sprouted wings flew off eastwards into the rising sun and was never seen again.
...ooo000ooo...
Please note – After many adventures the baby elephant was re-united with its mother and they both lived reasonably happy ever after. (But that's another story).
