He laughs, a small, contained sound, but coming from him it seems the height of hilarity. “You’ll help me whether you like it or not. I believe that’s the whole point of you.”
Bristling, I snatch the map and rip it in two, letting the pieces drift to the floor. “Then you’re a fool! Say your wishes, and let’s see how well they work out for you! I’ve destroyed smarter men than you with their own words.”
His face hardens, put on guard by my threat.
“But if you free Aladdin,” I say more gently, “I will not twist your wishes. I will serve you in both deed and spirit.”
He pulls the chair from the desk and sits, his fingers strumming thoughtfully on his knee as he watches me. I stand, hands spread, waiting for his reply like the condemned awaiting her sentence.
“No,” he says, and he gives me a small smile.
My hands curl into fists, and I grow as heavy as if I were made of marble, rooted to the ground. I can see no mercy, no room for bargaining in his eyes. I have known a thousand and one men like this, Habiba, and I know that he takes pleasure in my pain.
“Then make your wish,” I say in a flat tone, my eyes half lidded.
He leans forward, his gaze fervent. “I wish for all the jinn to bow to me, calling me lord and obeying my every command.”
Holding his breath, he waits, eyes glowing.
I almost want to laugh, but my spirit is still too heavy, so I simply sigh. “I told you I can give you anything in this world. The jinn are not of this world, and so they are not in my power to give.”
Sulifer’s face transforms. He is again the man who beat his son, who watched his niece defy him from her father’s throne. His fury is a swelling wave, dark and deep, rushing like a juggernaut to shore. I can see it getting larger and nearer in his eyes.
And then the wave breaks.
He bursts from his chair, face red. He raises a hand to strike me, but I dance away, shifting to smoke and rendering him powerless to touch me. So instead, he grabs an inkwell from his desk and hurls it against the wall. Black, oily liquid splatters everywhere.
“You cannot subjugate the jinn,” I say, re-forming behind him. “Do you think Nardukha would be so stupid as to let such things happen? You’re hardly the first human to try it, and you won’t be the last.”
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.