A Whole New World

by Liz Braswell

  “With people terrified in their homes, or wearing your brands like goats…no one allowed to go outside at night or speak out against you, and your bands of flying undead patrolling everywhere? That’s not happy. That’s enslaved and imprisoned.”

  “I don’t know if everyone would agree with you, Princess. But in any event, consider Agrabah as a test case…for the rest of the world. I’m still working out some of the finer points of my governance.”

  “We can talk about the rest of the world later. Half the reason you’re doing all this to Agrabah is to get me back. Well, here I am. Please call off your armies.”

  “Hmmm,” Jafar said.

  He paced around her, examining her from all angles, like a cat with a mouse trapped on a chair.

  Aladdin had told Jasmine what he had witnessed in the Square of the Sailor. She tried not to tense up, tried not to imagine the horrible things that could be done to her.

  “Hmmm,” Jafar said again.

  The room was silent; even the scribbles of the secretaries had stopped.

  “But I want you to love me,” Jafar finally said with a terrifying mildness. “So what are we going to do about that, Jasmine?”

  “We can…make everyone else think I love you?”

  “Hmmm,” Jafar said a third time.

  “Your honest discourse is refreshing, even if its content is not appealing. I shall consider your offer. In the meantime, I would like to give you a little demonstration of what happens to those who lie to me. Or otherwise try to plot against me.”

  He threw his arms open dramatically and used his staff to pull himself forward into the throne room.

  Jasmine gasped at the different scenes playing out in the space.

  In one corner was the hourglass. It was the opposite of one of her father’s models: instead of a large thing made tiny for play, it was a tiny thing made huge. In the bottom half were Maruf and the two children. He was tiredly, constantly moving: putting his terrified grandchildren on his shoulders, lifting them up every few moments so they could sit on top of the rapidly growing pile of sand, shifting to make everyone more comfortable. Despite being used to the everyday horrors of poverty and a dangerous life in the streets that killed grown men, Ahmed and Shirin had faces that were now raw from weeping and the haggard look of exhausted terror.

  In the top of the hourglass there was very little sand left.

  The three of them saw Jasmine. Ahmed’s and Shirin’s faces lit up and they shouted with joy—or probably did; no sound transmitted through the glass.

  Jasmine’s first impulse was to cry out and run over to them. To pound on the hourglass. To try to get them out.

  “And over here, in case you missed it…” Jafar pointed to the other side of the throne, throwing his arms open wide and letting his cape flutter behind him.

  There was the genie.

  Still larger than human, but pale and thinner somehow. He was tied down to a bed of nails, each point digging into his blue skin. The giant gold bracelets that covered his wrists were chained to a pair of boards crossed above his head. Everything glowed faintly purple.

  “Hey, Princess,” the genie said weakly.

  “Are you all right?” she asked, and then immediately regretted it.

  “Oh, sure. Never better. How’s by you?”

  “Quiet, fool,” Jafar snapped. He spun and stomped up the dais to where the—his—throne was. He sat down and his cape flared out around him. He laid his staff across his knees. He reached out with one hand as if to stroke a dog or cat lying next to him. Instead, he petted the old, battered-looking oil lamp that sat on a delicate golden table there.

  The lamp.

  And next to it was a book with a blackened cover and what looked like a living human eye set in the leather. Al Azif.

  “I don’t take kindly to those who act against me,” Jafar growled. “As you can plainly see. So let me ask you one last time, Princess. Do you swear you are here simply to declare your everlasting love and betrothal to me?”

  “I cannot promise the love,” she said as bravely as she could. “But I give you my word about the betrothal.”

  The horrible twitch of a real smile began to grow in the corners of Jafar’s mouth.

  The two thieves made it to the audience chamber without further incident. It was as impressive as the baths, in a smaller, understated way. A mosaic of Agrabah and the lands between the greater Western Desert and the Mountains of Atrazak covered the largest wall. A fresco—occasionally updated, it seemed, with fresher paint—on the other wall showed a reasonably up-to-date map of Agrabah itself, down to the small side streets. Aladdin wished he had more time to examine it closely.

  “Ha,” Duban whispered, pointing at the Quarter of the Street Rats. “This part’s all wrong…that fountain hasn’t been there since my mother’s mother’s time.”

  “Just as well,” Aladdin whispered back. “But help me find the wandering dervish in the mosaic…he should be lost in the desert, like in the legend.”

  Duban looked confused but did as he was told, running his fingers over the design with Aladdin.

  “Aha!” Aladdin said, the first one to find the image of the old man with a satchel over his shoulder, all made out of teeny, tiny brown tiles. He placed his fingers on their cracked surface and pushed.

  There was a click, and a panel on one of the short walls slipped away to reveal a dark passage.

  Aladdin grinned. “Jasmine told me her father was often late to meetings…so he had this installed to get from the banquet hall to here directly!”

  Duban gave a low whistle.

  They stepped through, carefully shutting the panel behind them. Tiny oil lamps flickered in the distance, just barely lighting a path.

  “From here it’s—”

  “Who goes there?”

  Duban and Aladdin stared at each other, agape. Jasmine had said this was a secret passage. He had assumed that meant it was only known to the sultan and his closest advisers.

  Coming forward out of the darkness was a pair of particularly burly guards, scimitars drawn.

  “No one is authorized to patrol the secret passages except for me and Ali and our men,” the man on the right growled.

  “We just came back from Ali,” Aladdin said quickly. “He had to bring a prisoner down to the dungeons and—”

  “Liar. Jafar will hear of this! Impostors!”

  Not burly and dumb guards, obviously.

  The passage was too close for swordplay; as thieves, Duban and Aladdin weren’t particularly good with scimitars anyway. They dropped the ones that were part of their stolen uniforms and drew their trusty daggers.

  The guard on the left didn’t hesitate: he immediately lunged with his scimitar, hoping to skewer Aladdin like a kebab. Aladdin bent over backward, watching its deadly point slice right above his face, where his stomach had been a moment ago.

  He snapped back upright before the guard could react and whirled his dagger so it danced over his thumb, then swept his arm out at the last second.

  Besides being smarter, this guard was also quicker than the usual ones: his scimitar flicked down sideways and neatly turned aside Aladdin’s blade.

  It wasn’t a strong enough blow to knock the dagger out of his hand. Aladdin recovered and jumped up, wedging his feet against the passageway’s walls to hoist himself up and over and land five feet back. At least now he had a little breathing room.

  He saw Duban and his own opponent sparring: his friend had two daggers, one in each hand. He used them like a skilled butcher to trap and grab the blade of the other man’s scimitar whenever it came close to him.

  Seeing that Duban was doing all right, Aladdin focused on his own battle and let his dagger fly with a neat flick of his wrist.

  The guard saw this and tried to deflect the missile but moved just a second too slowly. The handle of his blade only caught the edge of the flying dagger, causing it to spin off target. It still got him on the side of the neck, though. It drew a r
agged bloody gash.

  The guard barely reacted, flinching with more embarrassment than pain.

  He spun his scimitar around and suddenly dove, lunging at Aladdin’s legs.

  Not expecting such a fast recovery and immediate offense, Aladdin leapt straight into the air—and then flipped, putting his hands on the guard’s shoulders to vault over him.

  The guard immediately spun around to try to face his opponent in this new direction, blade flashing like the deadly fang of a cobra.

  But Aladdin was faster and kicked him squarely in the backs of his knees.

  The guard went down, hard.

  Aladdin made it harder by delivering a roundhouse kick to the guard’s side. As he fell, Aladdin put his hands together and delivered a final chop to the guard’s neck.

  By the time he hit the floor, the guard had stopped moving, his unconscious head lolled to the side.

  Aladdin spun to help Duban. The other guard was also down.

  But so was Duban.

  He was lying on top of his opponent and clutching his side.

  “Duban?” Aladdin carefully rolled his friend onto his back.

  “I’m all right.” Wincing with pain—but not letting himself groan—Duban pushed himself up. He hobbled forward, holding his side with one arm.

  “Let’s go.”

  Aladdin wanted to argue with him—but couldn’t. They all needed to work together if the plan was to succeed. Besides, it didn’t look like anything would stop Duban from freeing his family.

  They hobbled together to the end of the dark passageway. There they slid a panel aside and stepped out into a giant banquet room.

  The ridiculously long wooden table that took up most of it was devoid of food or place settings; chairs were askew, no lamps were lit. Jafar was obviously not as intrigued by dinners as the previous sultan. The only light in the abandoned room came from an eerie red glow at the far end, where the entrance to the throne room was. After Aladdin’s eyes adjusted for a moment, he realized the light was coming from the dead face of a man blocking the way.

  It was Rasoul.

  “We don’t have much time,” Jasmine urged Jafar. “In just a few minutes, the Street Rat army is going to launch an attack on your front door and take the palace down. Call off your assault on the city. Let’s not lose any more lives over this.”

  Jafar started to laugh. Then he looked over at one of the guards waiting for orders, a captain. The guard didn’t look so amused.

  “There’s hundreds of them, Your Highness. And the…living members of our army don’t want to kill women and children. There’s a lot of chaos in the city. Many of our legions are trying to put out the fires caused by their—and your—explosions.”

  “Let the city burn,” Jafar growled, clenching his hands into fists.

  “Who will be left to love you?” Jasmine asked, unable to keep the irony out of her voice.

  Jafar narrowed his eyes. He turned to the guard.

  “Get as many men as you can muster to the front of the palace. Blockade it while I figure out what to do.” He drummed his fingers on his knees and started to mutter, seemingly to himself. “So close…I am so close.…I’ve already mastered the raising of the dead. It’s only a matter of time before I learn how to break the other laws of magic. I just need more time. GENIE!” he called out suddenly.

  “Yes, Master?” the genie asked tiredly.

  “We need to put on a big show for the masses. The princess and I are to be married this instant.”

  The genie lifted his head weakly to look at Jasmine.

  “Sorry, Princess,” he said. “But if it means anything at all, I really respect what you’re doing. You would have made—you’ll make a great sultana.”

  “Yes, yes, wedding dress now, all that,” Jafar said impatiently. “I’ll summon some priest or mullah or something…it doesn’t matter. On the balcony, where everyone can see.”

  The genie feebly waved his fingertips. Suddenly, Jasmine was wearing the dress he had made before—the one his own wife had worn. Flowers and streamers and banners appeared all over the room and, presumably, the outside of the palace.

  She watched it all, torn between laughing and crying.

  Jafar walked over to the balcony and raised his hands above his head. His magically enhanced voice rang out over the kingdom.

  “PEOPLE OF AGRABAH! LAY DOWN YOUR WEAPONS. THE PRINCESS JASMINE AND I HAVE COME TO AN AGREEMENT. WE ARE TO BE WED THIS VERY MOMENT. CEASE YOUR FIGHTING AND COME TO THE PALACE TO BEAR WITNESS.”

  A guard came rushing into the room, pushing a confused-looking little old man in religious robes in front of him.

  “I’m sorry, my lord, we couldn’t find Khosrow. This one will have to do.…”

  Jasmine took a deep breath and began to walk forward.

  “Stop,” undead Rasoul said. “Proceed no further.”

  “Rasoul,” Aladdin said, swallowing hard. “I’m…I’m sorry about what happened to you. I never intended—I never meant for you to be killed.”

  The ghoul looked at him impassively. Neither forgiveness nor anger showed in his bloody glowing eyes.

  “Rasoul. Please,” Aladdin begged softly. “You swore to protect Agrabah. Against thieves like me…against harm to the people. Your army is now attacking children and forcing families to turn each other over to Jafar. He makes people line up and get branded and turns them into ghouls like you! Is this what you want to protect?”

  Still Rasoul said nothing.

  “Look outside, Rasoul,” Aladdin pleaded, pointing at the window. “Look. Agrabah is burning. Your city is burning.”

  Rasoul turned his head to look, moving nothing else. Faint orange light flickered over his deadly white skin. Some of the glow was from the rising sun, Aladdin realized with horror.

  “They did not obey,” Rasoul said slowly.

  “Obey what? Obey who? Rasoul, don’t you remember anything from your life? You swore to serve a sultan who—while he might not have been the best ruler—never launched an attack against his own people. Jafar is killing and torturing anyone who disagrees with him. And if he can’t win, he’ll destroy Agrabah so no one else can have it. Don’t you see that?”

  Rasoul remained silent, watching.

  “Please,” Aladdin whispered, glancing at the horizon out the window again. “I know I’m the last person in the world to ask you for anything. I am truly, truly sorry for what happened to you. For what I did to you. But you know me—think back on all the years you have known me, Rasoul. I may be a thief, but I am not evil. And I am not lying to you now. I saw a nine-year-old boy, undead like you. Do you want your fate to be shared by children?”

  Rasoul turned his head back slowly to look at Aladdin. But there were no pupils to focus on, nothing beyond the dead red glow.

  Aladdin began to despair.

  Then Rasoul’s scimitar clattered to the floor.

  “End this, Street Rat.”

  His voice was just as dead and hollow as it was before. There was no indication of what thought processes had gone on in his monstrous head.

  “Thank you,” Aladdin whispered in relief. “I hope you find peace.”

  But Rasoul didn’t respond or move to get out of the way.

  Duban and Aladdin slunk behind him and out the door. The ghoul continued to stare into nothing in the middle of the pitch-black hall.

  “And Jasmine, royal princess and daughter of the sultan…” the little old religious man trailed off, confused. “I’m sorry, daughter. I don’t remember all of your names. Rose of Agrabah? Twice Great-Granddaughter of Elisheba the Wise?”

  “I think it was Elisheba,” Jasmine said thoughtfully. She kept an eye on the dais behind them, in the throne room. An eye on the costly gold drapes that hung around the outside of the throne and fell from the ceiling.

  “Hey,” she suddenly said to the sorcerer. “What’s your full name?”

  Jafar blinked. “What?”

  “Your full name,” Jasmine said patie
ntly. “For as long as I can remember, everyone has always just called you by your title, grand vizier, or Jafar. What’s the rest of it?”

  “That is my only name,” Jafar snapped. “The only thing my parents gave me and the only name you should ever be concerned about. In public you shall address me as ‘My Lord.’ Now continue, old man, before I set your lungs on fire.”

  Jasmine’s eyes appeared to glaze over again as the poor religious man began to invoke the laws of Agrabah, etc., etc.…

  And then the drapes behind the throne shivered.

  Relief flooded Jasmine’s body like a cold plunge in the bath after a hot day. She tried not to let it show. Aladdin popped his head out and took a quick look around. When he saw her, he winked.

  She nodded her head as slightly as she could at the table to the left of the throne, where the lamp and the book sat.

  Aladdin gave her a smile and a thumbs-up. Then he dropped to the ground.

  “Is something wrong?” Jafar asked, frowning at her.

  “Just tearing up on my wedding day,” Jasmine said sarcastically. “Or it’s ash from the fires you’ve been setting all over the city.”

  “They started it,” Jafar shot back. “Hurry up. Get to the part where she says ‘I will.’”

  Aladdin was scuttling over to the table as silently as he could. One of the ministers looked up, eye drawn away from whatever terrible lists he was going over.

  Jasmine sucked in her breath.

  Whether he never actually saw Aladdin…or saw him and chose not to say anything, she would never be sure. He did turn to look at her for a moment and then went back to his work. As if nothing had interrupted him.

  Jasmine let out her breath.

  Aladdin slowly reached for the lamp.

  “Under the indulgence of the Royal Sultan, most High and Exalted be he, I give you to each other now—”

  Suddenly, a high-pitched shriek filled the air. Like the noise from an angry falcon but much, much louder.

  Strange beaked creatures grew from the shadows on the walls. They screamed and flapped their wings in Aladdin’s face.

  Jasmine did the only thing she could think of: she leapt forward to kiss Jafar.