Open Sesame

by Tom Holt

  ‘What do you mean,’ he demanded, shouting as loud as he could, ‘need any help? How can you help me, you were inside the bloody glass case.’

  ‘No I wasn’t’

  Give me strength, Akram prayed, I shall need all the strength I can get if I’m going to kick this bugger’s arse from here to Khorsabad. ‘Then why,’ he replied, ‘didn’t you say so?’

  ‘You didn’t ask. Would you like me to do something about that horrid noise?’

  ‘Yes please.’

  There was a fizz and a shower of sparks; and then a whole new set of alarms joined in, together with flashing lights, the fire bell and the sprinkler system. ‘Drat,’ said the djinn, ‘wrong lever. Now then, I wonder if this is the one.’

  ‘Leave it alone!’

  While he was still shouting these words, Akram felt his feet move; his instincts had cut in and told him to move a minimum of eighteen inches to one side, or else. Half a second after he’d complied, a steel cage weighing a minimum of twelve tons came crashing down on the spot he’d just been standing on. The bad news was that he’d jumped the wrong way and was now trapped inside it.

  ‘Well now,’ said the djinn, ‘we now know it’s neither of those two levers. That just leaves these three. Right, then —’

  ‘Please,’ Akram begged, ‘don’t touch anything. Please stay absolutely still.’

  ‘Is that a wish?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘You’ve got three wishes,’ the djinn explained. ‘If you ask me, that’s a very silly thing to waste a whole wish on, but it’s entirely up to you.’

  ‘It’s a wish.’

  ‘To hear is to obey, O master,’ the djinn replied huffily. ‘Last thing I want to do is intrude where I’m not wanted.’

  Now then, this cage. Can’t lift it, can’t get under it, can’t get over it, can’t squeeze through the bars, can’t cut the bars, can’t bend the bars, can’t seem to see any counterweight mechanism that’ll put the winch into reverse. How helpful it is to get all the dud alternatives out of the way before settling down to choose between what’s left.

  ‘You’re stuck, aren’t you?’

  ‘No. I like it in here. You go away and leave me in peace.’

  By the intermittent glare of the flashing red alarm lights, Akram studied the machinery above his head. There was a trapdoor in the ceiling, which explained why he hadn’t seen the thing during his recce that afternoon. There was a chain, connected to a pulley and a winch.

  ‘I’d hurry up, if I were you,’ said the djinn. ‘With all this racket going on, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if someone didn’t come and see what’s up.’

  ‘Gosh. I never thought of that.’

  ‘Sarky.’

  Akram forced himself to concentrate. ‘Now then,’ he said aloud, ‘there’s got to be some way of throwing that winch into reverse. Now it could be one of those other three levers - don’t touch anything! — or it could be something else, like a remote control or a voice signal or something.’ A silly joke flitted across his mind, the way they do at moments like this.

  ‘Maybe,’ he said bitterly, ‘all I’ve got to do is say Open sesame…’

  A moment later, he said ‘Oh shit!’

  Because the winch was purring, the cage was lifting. As soon as there was a ten-inch gap, Akram was through. Almost as an afterthought he grabbed for the lamp and stuffed it in his pocket.

  ‘Wait for me!’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Akram panted, taking the stairs three at a time, ‘you’re free. I give you your freedom. And that’s a wish. Now bugger off.’

  ‘Oh no you don’t. You’ve no idea how hurtful that is. I think you’re horrible.’

  The window was still open. He could hear the hum of rotor blades, but he had a shrewd idea that the phoenix could outrun any helicopter yet made, and if it couldn’t, that was going to be bad news for the helicopter. ‘Phoenix,’ he yelled, ‘get ready, I’m coming through.’

  ‘Oh there you are at last, what time do you call this, have you any idea how boring it is just hanging aimlessly about…’

  Akram scrambled onto the windowsill, just as the door flew open and someone shouted ‘Freeze!’ His last thought, as he flung himself over the edge and hoped the phoenix was under him, was a fervent wish that his pursuer would open fire and inadvertently shoot the djinn.

  ‘I heard that, you pig!’

  Falling. Cue past life? Apparently not. Flump!

  ‘Yow!’ shrieked the phoenix. ‘That hurt!’

  ‘Good,’ Akram replied. ‘Now get me out of here.’

  As the huge wings slashed at the air, and the slipstream tried to rip his head off, Akram couldn’t help thinking about his recent experiences, with particular reference to the iron cage and the voice-operated winch. Specifically; either it was a remarkable coincidence that the password should be what it was, or else there was a sick mind at work here. No prizes for guessing which explanation Akram favoured.

  ‘Djinn.’

  ‘Like I told you,’ the djinn replied, ‘my friends call me Curly.’

  ‘Djinn,’ Akram repeated, ‘does the name Ali Baba mean anything to you?’

  ‘No,’ replied the djinn. ‘Should it?’

  ‘How about that cage thing? Presumably you were about the place when it was installed. Can you remember who the contractor was?’

  ‘Ah,’ replied the djinn, ‘now then. I’m positive I can remember. Oooh, it’s on the tip of my tongue, really it is. Something beginning with L, I think, yes, I’m sure it was. Oh dear, it’s nearly … that’s it! Got it. Ltd.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The contractor’s name,’ said the djinn proudly, ‘was Ltd. They had it written on the backs of their jackets and their toolboxes and things. Can’t remember the first name, I’m afraid, but the surname was definitely—’

  ‘Djinn.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Piss off.’

  ‘Well, of all the—’

  ‘Djinn.’

  ‘I’m not talking to you.’

  ‘Ah,’ Akram sighed, putting his arms behind his head and lying back on his feather bed. ‘That’s more like it.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  Nobody knows where King Solomon originally got it from. One influential school of thought believes that it must have been one of those mail order catalogues, the sort that are crammed with apparently indispensable gadgets - combination distress flare/corkscrews and solar-powered trouser presses - which get bought, used rapturously once, and then are quietly forgotten about. Others hold that something so ingenious and inherently futile must have been a Christmas present, except that Solomon lived a thousand years before the Three Wise Men first stopped off en route to Bethlehem to buy brightly coloured paper and string. A similar veil of mystery hangs over how it got from the Royal Treasury at Jerusalem to Akram’s cave. From then on, however, its history is fairly well documented.

  Ali Baba, having retrieved it from Yusuf the monkey, took it with him as far as the frontier where, like so many others, he stopped off at Jim’s Diner and got talking to a garrulous bear. Not long after that, he found himself at a wedding, where he traded the ring in exchange for free passage to Reality and a new identity. When the best man discovered the small hole in his waistcoat pocket just before the climax of the ceremony, the ring was hurriedly pressed into service, with the result that the bride had a brief but disconcerting chat with a woodlouse before she remembered what she was there for and finally said, ‘I do.’ After that, it stayed in the bride’s family for many generations, during which time it somehow crossed the border into Reality and started causing no end of trouble until, in the early seventeenth century its owner for the time being, who lived alone and used the ring to talk to her three cats, came to a warm and uncomfortable end at the hands of an officer of the infallible British legal system called Matthew Hopkins, Witchfinder General. Some time later, a bit out of shape and blackened by fire, it was found by a farm labourer by the name of Ezekiel Partridge, who ha
d just remembered on his way home from work that today was his wife’s birthday.

  When she got home from the dentist’s, Michelle put it in an empty coffee tin in the cupboard under the kitchen sink and tried very hard not to think about it. This excellent resolution lasted two whole days, during which not one household appliance tried to talk to her. This should have been reassuring, but it wasn’t; all Michelle got was a strong feeling of having been sent to Coventry by her own possessions. On the third day, therefore, she pulled out the coffee tin, screwed the ring back on her finger and demanded a full explanation from the tumble-drier.

  ‘Not talking to you,’ it replied.

  ‘Don’t give me that,’ Michelle snapped. ‘I know you know what’s going on. Am I going mad, or aren’t I?’ She sat back on her heels and waited. No reply. ‘Well?’

  ‘Tell your friend,’ said the tumble-drier to the microwave oven, ‘that people who go around hiding magic rings and slamming cupboard doors don’t deserve to get spoken to.’

  ‘Magic rings?’ Michelle repeated blankly.

  ‘Some people,’ the tumble-drier went on, ‘ought to remember there’s others less fortunate than themselves who’d give anything to have a nice magic ring that’d make them able to talk to inanimate objects. Some people should be jolly grateful, instead of flouncing about the place being all melodramatic’

  ‘Just a minute.’ Michelle closed her eyes and took a deep breath. ‘If I say I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘and promise never to do it again, will you please explain what you meant by magic rings and talking to inanimate objects? Please?’

  ‘Oh all right,’ the tumble-drier relented. ‘Just this once.’

  Once, as far as Michelle was concerned, was probably quite enough. The tale took a while in the telling, especially since the toaster kept butting in and contradicting the tumble-drier on small, irrelevant details, whereupon the blender told the toaster not to use that tone of voice when talking to the tumble-drier (interesting, thought Michelle; I always thought there was something going on between those two) and then the deep fat fryer and the slow cooker and the microwave got involved, until the whole thing threatened to degenerate into a free-forall, like a bar-room fight in a Western. It was only by threatening to switch the electricity off at the mains that Michelle was able to restore order.

  ‘Quite right,’ agreed the fridge. ‘Should be ashamed of yourselves, carrying on like a lot of humans.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Michelle said, making a mental note to defrost her new ally some day soon, as a token of gratitude. ‘Now then, where were we?’

  ‘Your Aunt Fatima,’ replied the answering machine.

  ‘That’s so like an answering machine,’ whispered the fan-assisted oven. ‘Always got to have the last word.’

  ‘Shush!’

  ‘Your Aunt Fatima,’ said the answering machine. ‘Actually, she coped marvellously well, considering she had the ring for what, sixty-five years. At first she did her best to be fairly discreet about it all, you know, only talked to things when she was on her own and there was no chance of being overheard. As time went on, though, and she got older and more disillusioned with her fellow humans, I think she really preferred talking to things, on the grounds that they’re more sensible and she was more likely to have an intelligent conversation with them. Which,’ it added smugly, ‘is perfectly reasonable, if you ask me.’

  ‘You’re prejudiced,’ interrupted the kitchen clock. ‘That’s just because whenever they talk to you they get all shy and flustered and can’t think of anything to say. Some humans,’ it added benignly, ‘are all right once you get to know them.’

  ‘Some of my best friends are humans,’ the answering machine replied. ‘The fact remains—’

  ‘Please.’ The needle of Michelle’s patience was deep into the red zone by now. ‘You were saying.’

  ‘That’s about it, really,’ said the answering machine. ‘I mean, the poor old soul knew perfectly well that everybody thought she was dotty, but so what? She knew she wasn’t, and when you get to that age you stop worrying too much about what people think about you. Besides, she’d worked hard all her life, cooking and cleaning and washing and ironing without ever a word of thanks. When she realised that if you’re dotty, they give you a nice room with a telly to talk to and three meals a day you don’t have to cook yourself, she began to wonder if maybe sanity’s everything it’s cracked up to be. No pun intended.’

  ‘Dunno what you mean by that,’ grunted the hoover sourly. ‘When it comes to housework, humans don’t know they’re born. I mean, they’re not the ones who’ve got to crawl around on their hands and knees breathing in bits of dust and fluff all day’

  ‘Take no notice,’ said the pressure cooker. ‘She’s always a bit uptight when her bag needs emptying.’

  Michelle took a deep breath. ‘So,’ she said, ‘I’m not going crazy after all, is that it?’

  ‘You got it,’ said the blender reassuringly. ‘It’s when you start talking to yourself all the time that you should start worrying.’

  ‘I resent that,’ growled the CD player.

  ‘I mean,’ went on the answering machine, ‘if you’re potty for talking to us, then by the same token we’d be potty for talking to you. And a saner collection of consumer durables than us you couldn’t hope to meet.’

  ‘Not like that lot at number six,’ agreed the toaster. ‘Mad as hatters the lot of ‘em.’

  ‘I see,’ said Michelle. ‘And this, er, gift. Does it mean I can talk to, well, anything?’

  ‘Anything mechanical,’ replied the toaster. ‘Or electrical. If it’s got moving parts, or it does things when you switch it on, you’re in business. I mean, you can talk to spades and walls and socks if you really want to, but you’ll be wasting your breath.’

  ‘Standoffish?’ Michelle asked.

  ‘Thick,’ the toaster said. ‘Just plain stupid.’

  ‘Cheap inanimate trash,’ agreed the blender. ‘Like animals and birds. You can talk to them too, incidentally, but why the hell bother?’

  ‘I expect you’re wondering,’ said the dishwasher, ‘whether all this is going to affect what you might call our working relationship.’

  ‘I was coming to that,’ said Michelle. ‘Like the hoover said just now. I mean, when you stop to think of it, some of the things I ask you guys to do for me are just awful. For instance—’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ said the answering machine. ‘The loo’s seen it all before and the washing machine’s very broad-minded. Basically we’re on your side, although a little thought and consideration is always appreciated.’

  ‘One big happy family,’ agreed the toaster.

  There was a sudden, embarrassed silence. At first, Michelle was at a loss; then something began to tickle inside the lining of her subconscious. ‘Family,’ she repeated.

  ‘Me and my big slots,’ groaned the toaster.

  ‘Anyone fancy a nice cup of tea?’ said the kettle, its voice brittle with artificial cheerfulness. ‘Just say the word and I’ll pop myself on.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Michelle went on, ‘you guys can tell me something about that. You seem to be extremely well informed about a lot of things.’

  ‘Bugger.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘All right,’ said the answering machine, ‘she had to find out sooner or later. Look, you know the sort of fairy story where the little baby gets thrown out by its wicked stepmother, and then a pack of wolves or a family of hyenas or something take pity on it and bring it up as their own child?’

  Michelle nodded. ‘Go on,’ she said.

  ‘Well,’ continued the answering machine, a trifle self-consciously. ‘That’s us.’

  ‘You probably know him,’ Aziz said with a sense of growing helplessness. ‘Great big tall feller, swarthy, evil-looking bugger. Wicked glint in his eye. Ghastly leering smile, way of looking at you that makes you think he’s deciding what bit of you to cut off first.’

  Prince Charming hesitated, sucki
ng his teeth, before answering. ‘And you really want to find this bloke, do you?’ he replied. ‘If it was me, I’d just be damn glad he’d gone and change all the locks quick.’

  When a story breaks down, it doesn’t just muck up the lives of its own characters. The chaos spreads, as the characters stray aimlessly into other stories in which they have no part, until the very fabric of Make-Believe as we know it quivers on the brink of catastrophe.

  ‘He’s our boss,’ Aziz replied. ‘I dunno, we’re sort of lost without him.’

  A tiny snicker crossed Prince Charming’s face as he made a connection in his brain. As a rule he didn’t do much thinking - fair enough; blacksmiths don’t do much brain surgery, either but on this occasion he was prepared to extend himself.

  ‘Which makes you?’ he asked.

  ‘Thieves,’ Aziz replied.

  ‘I see,’ the Prince said, smiling rigidly, while the hand behind his back was making frantic gestures to the troop of heavily armed Palace Guards waiting a few yards away. ‘Well, sorry I can’t help, very best of luck and all that…’

  Aziz sighed. ‘If you do happen to come across him,’ he said, and then broke off. ‘Faisal,’ he shouted angrily, ‘put it backl We’re not at home now, you know.’

  ‘Sorry, Az— I mean, Skip. Force of habit.’

  ‘And the Chamberlain’s gold watch.’

  ‘What? Oh, right, silly me, how did that come to be up my sleeve? Sorry.’

  ‘And that sauceboat thing; you know, the glass one in the shape of a slip— You daft bugger, now look what you’ve gone and done.’

  ‘Sorry, Skip.’

  They stood for a moment, looking at the shattered fragments of the glass slipper. Aziz considered offering to stick it back together again with glue, but decided against it. An allthe-king’s-horses job if ever he’d seen one. Pity, that. He hoped it wasn’t valuable.

  ‘Forget it,’ sighed the Prince, nicking broken glass off the toe of his shoe. ‘We were on the point of packing it in as a bad job, anyway. God only knows why we started this ruddy wild goose chase in the first place. All right, lads, that’s it for tonight. Back to the palace.’