I get some small satisfaction from seeing his frustration. Sulifer sits back in his chair to stroke his beard. The wave of anger recedes, falling back into the sea, until once again he is still and cool.
“No matter,” he says, a tremor still in his voice like an angry tic. “There are other ways.”
He falls silent for a moment, his fingers tapping and his gaze distant as he thinks. Then he picks up the lamp and slams it onto the desk.
“Back inside, jinni. I need to think.”
I am almost glad to return to my lamp. There I can sink into a fugue, trying to numb myself to the guilt and terror poisoning my spirit. He sits for some time by the light of a single candle, staring into the shadows and thinking hard.
Then, at last, he calls me out again. I hover before him, little more than a shadow myself, and wait.
“I wish to possess an army,” he begins, “more numerous than the stars, invincible to any and all forces either of Ambadya or of this world, able to overcome any enemy, requiring no sleep, food, or water, and obedient to my every command.”
Slowly my form solidifies, until I’m a girl in black robes, and I breathe in the magic of Sulifer’s wish. His will is like water, patient and persistent, dark and cool. It fills me up until I am leaking with it.
His eyes glitter in the candlelight as I walk past him, toward the balcony adjoining his rooms. It looks out to the palace gardens and the dark hills to the north. This night is blacker than most, with no moon to grace the sky. But the stars are visible, perhaps brighter for the deepened darkness.
The vizier follows me out, watching closely, as if suspicious I will betray him. He need not worry. I will grant his wish, every word of it.
“There is only one thing more numerous than the stars,” I say, looking up to the heavens. “And that is the darkness that holds them.”
I open my hands, palms up, and let the magic flow through me. It spreads and grows and thickens, dark and quiet as oil flowing across glass. In the gardens, in the hills, on the walls around the palace, shapes take form. Shadows with the aspect of men, a hundred, a thousand, a million, more. They grow and then stand, staring around with eyes inky black. Wherever there is darkness, there stands a shadow man, gripping a shadow spear and a shadow shield. They are barely visible at all, for they are the night itself.
A guard patrolling the northern wall stops, blinking at the gloom, uncertain if his eyes are playing tricks on him. He waves the torch he carries, but the shadows only slip behind him.
Sulifer is watching him.
“I give you an army of shadows, O Master,” I say to the vizier. Exhausted from the effort, I lean on the balcony rail. “And here is how you will call them. Once to summon, twice to dismiss.”
I hold out a hand, and on it forms a black ram’s horn hung on a strap of leather. Sulifer takes it, almost reverently. He runs his hands along its curling length, then puts the smaller end to his lips and blows. A deep, rich note sounds across the palace grounds, and the guards on the wall look around in confusion. At the call, all the shadow men turn and stare up at Sulifer, waiting.
“Give them a command,” I say.
He licks his lips, then starts when a shadow man appears at his elbow. The vizier looks the soldier up and down and cannot help but smile.
“Kill that guard,” he says, pointing at the man on the wall.
The shadow vanishes, and in less than a moment, a scream goes up below. The guard howls as a black spear cores him, then disappears, and he drops to his knees. His scream cuts off then, and he falls heavily.
Sulifer laughs.
“This is perfect!” he says. “This is—this is even better than the jinn!”
He turns to me, triumph bright in his eyes. “This is a force to conquer the world.”
“Yes, O Master,” I reply.
He turns back to the waiting shadows and blows his horn twice, and the shadow men vanish, sinking back into the darkness from which they were born. Twice more Sulifer summons and dismisses the shadow army, until he is satisfied no trickery is afoot.
“Well done, jinni,” he says at last. I can see he is more pleased with himself than with me. He spent hours thinking of that wish, checking it for any cracks or loopholes.
I’ll admit, it’s a fairly solid wish, as wishes go.
Sulifer turns to go inside, and I linger, looking around at the shadows that wait to spring to the vizier’s bidding.
When he commands me back to my lamp, I go with a bitter smile.
? ? ?
It is one hour before dawn and Aladdin’s execution.
Sulifer is fast asleep, the lamp resting beside his pillow. I drift smokily inside it, indistinct, unhappy fog, until I suddenly hear footsteps in the room. Four guards stand at the entrance to his chambers, but these steps come from the direction of the window, below which is a three-story drop.