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Outtakes
from Genie
Knows Best
©Judi Fennell
OUTTAKE
#1: The Trial Scene
City of Paradise, Sahara Desert
213 AD
Kal paraded through
the corridors of the High Master’s palace
with his head held high, his anger in check,
and the all-important vial of potion tucked
securely beneath his tongue.
He was finally going
to be free. After two hundred years of
captivity at the hands—and sadistic
imagination—of his old nemesis, the High
Master’s vizier, Kal was finally going to
outsmart Faruq and lose himself in the vast
desert surrounding them.
“Move along,
traitor,” one of the eunuch guards taunted,
poking him in the back with the recently
sharpened point of his scimitar.
Kind of hard to get
mad at a eunuch. All Kal could muster for him
was pity because, personally, he’d rather be
dead than sentenced to that hell on earth.
The corridor opened
into the main hall where a serving girl was
pouring ambrosia into a set of glasses beside
the High Master’s throne. Before it, in the
middle of the room, stood a dais three times
the size of Kal’s cell and draped in blue
silk shot through with gold.
The irony wasn’t
lost on him as he glanced down at the blue sirwal
he’d been given to wear. Everyone knew the
High Master favored blue; it was the gold that
was ironic; it matched the bracelets Kal had
figured out how to remove, which was his crime
and the reason he was here.
Two other prisoners
were already seated on the dais, with cushions
for four more. Kal wondered what their
transgressions were. Surely none of them could
compete with the horror he’d committed; no
djinn removed the bracelets of Servitude, a
badge of honor among those who found The
Service admirable.
He was no longer one
of them.
Kal ran his tongue
over the vial his former lover had given him
before he’d been captured. Iman had taken
his lantern for safekeeping, so he still had
hope: as long as his lantern lay unclaimed, he
could belong to no man. But the minute someone
picked it up, he was back in The Service.
Thanks to Iman,
he’d been able to keep Faruq from finding
it. No matter what torture the vizier had
devised, Kal couldn’t reveal something he
didn’t know. By the time he’d broken down
about Iman’s aid, she’d been dead for over
a century. One perk to being mortal—about
the only one as far as Kal could see.
“Move along.” The
eunuch prodded him again.
Kal stopped and spun
around. He’d had enough of being sword
practice. And he was itching for a fight.
“Go ahead, walad.
Stab me. Let’s see if you’ve got the balls
to do it.”
A stricken look
crossed the eunuch’s face just as Kal
realized what he’d said. The guy didn’t have the balls, actually.
The big, muscular
guard behind the first one growled. “Get up
the steps now, traitor, or you won’t
either.”
Newly snipped,
probably. And not happy about it.
And definitely not
worth it.
Kal climbed the
steps, wanting to get through this trial so he
could be out of here faster than a flying
carpet.
If only he could use his powers on a carpet, but no. He’d have to lay low on
magic because Faruq would be able to track him
through the Glimmer all magic left
behind—unless he could come up with some way
to disguise it.
A door opened on the
far side of the room and three women were
brought in, two in shackles and the last one
with such a disgruntled look on her face, Kal
wanted to laugh. She was pissed and, yeah, he
could relate.
“Sit.”
Newly-Snipped knocked the back of Kal’s
knees and shoved down on his shoulders,
leaving him no choice but to do as he was
ordered. Story of his life.
The shackled women
stumbled up the steps on the far side of the
dais, their chains catching under their feet.
The other woman added Disgust to Disgruntled
and huffed over to the steps he’d just
climbed, marching up them and plopping on the
cushion next to him.
“What are you in
for?” she asked, her eyes a surprising blue
against an olive complexion.
“Quiet!”
Newly-Snipped shoved his knee into Kal’s
back as if Kal had been the one talking. Ah
well, the guy had to muscle his testosterone
around while he still had it.
Blue Eyes rolled
those striking eyes, then turned her face
forward and arranged her tiny feet beneath her
knees. No lotus position for her. Faruq
wasn’t going to be pleased about that. Faruq
was all about the pomp and circumstance—and
torture and starvation—of his position.
A cloud of blue mist
wafted into the room, dissipating when the
High Master emerged with Faruq following a
half pace behind—the closest he could get
without overstepping his bounds, but Kal knew
how much that half step killed the
power-hungry vizier.
The High Master
clapped his hands and the eunuchs stepped
behind the prisoners and slammed the tips of
their scimitars into the wooden dais. The room
grew quiet as the High Master scanned the line
of prisoners. Then he began giving those at
the far end his Evil Eye—the one that
rendered them either dead or unconscious for
transportation to their bottles and lanterns.
He knew which would be his fate; there was
only one outcome for removing the bracelets.
The manacled women
fell back in tandem, the eunuchs catching them
before they hit the floor.
The High Master
approached the next victim, er, prisoner, and
Faruq read the man’s list of transgressions
from a papyrus scroll.
He hadn’t finished
before the High Master passed judgment.
Kal jiggled his knees
with nervous energy and tongued the vial. Iman,
herbal mistress extraordinaire, had said it
worked almost immediately. He should have
enough time to swallow the evidence before he,
too, would keel over, looking for all intents
and purposes as if the Evil Eye had worked its
deadly magic on him.
The High Master moved
closer and Kal saw a slimy smile slide across
Faruq’s face when the vizier’s gaze landed
on him. Faruq could
look that way because he’d learned what Kal
had tried so desperately to hide from him over
the years—that the bracelets that bound his
kind into The Service had one weakness. One
way they could be removed.
Kal ought to tell
someone. What if the potion didn’t work as
Iman said it would? What if Faruq caught on
and managed to kill him? He couldn’t let the
secret die with him.
The man next to him
fell back, the eunuch behind him catching him
and laying him down softly.
“Diamonds,” Kal
muttered to Blue Eyes.
Of course, telling
her would be a loss if she was sentenced to
death, too. The chances were fifty-fifty for
her. For him? One hundred percent dead.
Or so they’d think.
The High Master now
stood before him. Kal worked the vial onto his
back teeth and closed his jaw, waiting for the
right moment.
“High Master, this
is Khaled,” Faruq said, not even trying to
keep the gloating out of his voice. “The one
who destroyed your most magnificent bracelets.
The one who dared to try to release himself
from his pledge of Service, and then hide like
the dog he is. The one who is unworthy of even
the slightest mercy on your part.”
Kal snorted and
rolled his eyes. He couldn’t help it. The
vizier was laying it on thick. Especially
after the bastard had earned the vizier
position by stealing his thesis.
The High Master
glanced over to study Blue Eyes when Kal
returned his gaze. Was that a look of regret
on the chubby old guy’s face?
Hmm… Maybe her odds
were eighty-twenty.
“Sire?” Faruq was
nothing if not diligent.
The High Master shook
his head and grabbed the sides of his shudra,
pulling them across his belly where eight
inches still separated them.
“He freed
himself?” the High Master asked Faruq, one
eyebrow arching into his bald head. “You
corrected this oversight, I presume.”
“I have, Sire.”
“Good.” The High
Master bent down and stared Kal in the eyes.
The High Master’s irises started to swirl.
Kal crunched the
glass vial between his teeth, uncaring that
he’d cut his tongue. This better work.
The swirling in the
High Master’s irises increased and Kal could
swear bolts of lightning flashed across his
pupils, but he remembered to close his eyes so
the magic wouldn’t have any affect.
And then the potion
hit. Kal could feel it slam through his veins,
and he had time for only one thought before he
fell back into the potion-induced coma.
Damn
it all—Newly-Snipped didn’t catch him.
###
OUTTAKE
#2: KAL in his lantern
“Nine hundred
ninety-seven. Nine hundred ninety-eight. Come
on, Kal! You can do it!”
If Kal weren’t already in enough trouble with the Djinn High Master, he’d wish laryngitis on his four-legged, court-appointed watch dog—er, fox—just so he
wouldn’t have to hear that
number.
Unfortunately,
that same High Master that had handed down
this prison sentence for attempting to leave
The Service had also banned him from
fulfilling his own wishes, so hear it he
would.
“Just three more,
Kal. Let’s go!” The
euphemistically titled “magical
assistance assistant” waved his bushy
tail like a pom-pom.
Nice of Dirham
to include himself in the let’s part, but the
fennec fox was thoroughly enjoying himself
bouncing on the mini-trampoline in the spout
end of Kal’s lantern, while
Kal’s arms shook with the effort it took to force his body upward one
more time. Or maybe it was the energy he
repressed so he wouldn’t hurt Dirham’s feelings. Gods
knew, not being able to use his magic had
built up a lot of repressed energy.
“That’s it, buddy. Two more. You can do it!”
Kal rested his
forehead on the cool polished floor of his
lantern for a second, then worked into push-up
number one thousand.
Dirham went
wild, doing back flips that would make any
cheerleader weep with envy. “One more! You’re almost there!”
That sentiment
was the guiding premise of Kal’s life at the
moment.
Grunting through
the pain, he finished off the last push-up and
got to his feet, twisted the pewter cuffs on
his wrists back into place, then wiped the
sweat off his face with a gym towel.
One thousand and
one sit-ups done, one thousand and one
push-ups. He should probably go for the
pull-ups, but the stress of sitting here day
after day, not knowing why Monty, his current
master, hadn’t summoned him
in the last six months was getting to him,
both with worry and anticipation.
One thousand and one.
That number
followed him everywhere. Sit ups, push-ups,
pull-ups, tiles in his bathroom floor, divots
in the lantern’s lid, songs on
his iPod, probably even grains of salt in his
salt shaker.
And masters. He
had to serve one thousand and one masters with
one thousand and one wishes to complete the
sentence imposed on him by the High Master.
He was on number
one thousand. So close to the end, he could
taste it.
Or smell it actually. Was that fesenjān?
Kal walked
around the exercise equipment and sniffed
through the lantern’s spout. It was fesenjān. What was his master doing not sharing it? Monty might keep the
lantern—and therefore
Kal—locked in a safe in his office when he wasn’t around, but they’d often had
dinner together in that office, with Kal doing
the cooking, of course. Well, conjuring. One
of Monty’s favorites was fesenjān.
And it was one
more reason to worry.
Dirham hopped
into the tunnel of the lantern spout, his paws
sliding on the smooth copper finish. “Now for the pull-ups.”
Kal picked him
up and set him on the sit-up bench on the
Bowflex. “Not today, Dirt.”
“Hey, I’m not dirty. I just took a bath.”
Dirham might be
a helpful little thing, but he had a major
deficit in the sense of humor department.
Everything was always so literal with him.
Take the time
Kal had said he was so hungry he could eat a
camel. He’d had to spend hours cleaning up the floor from the camel’s, er, “presents” until Dirham had shown up and led the animal out through the magic
portal in the handle.
This
no-magic-for-personal-use thing sucked.
“You’re right, Dir. And your fur looks great. Any special reason?” The fennec was in love with a vixen named Lexy—hopelessly so because Dirham thought she was way out of his league.
Given that Lexy was the head of the thinktank
headquartered in the magical outpost of Madeenat
Al-saqf Al-zojaajey, Dir might have a
case. Kal kept trying to beef up his magical
assistance assistant’s confidence.
But when Dir
toppled, slack-jawed, off the weight bench at
the question, Kal figured it was better to let
sleeping dogs, er, foxes, lie. No sense piling
more pain on Dirt’s bruised heart and fragile ego.
Kal headed to
the mini fridge, chucking the towel into the
basket beside the sofa, then grabbed a V-8. He’d have to do laundry soon, and since he couldn’t use his magic even inside his own lantern, he was going to have
to do it the mortal way.
Luckily, the
stainless stackable washer and dryer had been
magicked to contour to the curved wall, so he
didn’t have to send
his clothes out. The genie laundry service
always took a while to get his stuff back. You’d think magical beings could zap laundry to rights in an instant,
but apparently there was a whole lot of red
tape to go through for demi-genies.
Demi-genie. The
categorization bugged the kharah
out of him.
Kal swiped the
cold bottle across his forehead to cool both
his body temperature and his temper. It wasn’t his fault he was a demi-genie. Well, all right—the demotion was a
by-product of removing the gold cuffs that had
bound him into The Service, but he’d only done it because of Faruq.
Bile churning in
his gut, Kal uncapped the bottle and drank
half. Faruq. The most vile ibn
el-kalb
who’d ever flown a magic carpet.
Dirham bounced
over. “So, you need anything, Kal? Can I get you something? What about a
body pillow? I hear they’re comfortable.
Or water wings? Some taffy? How about a jar of
foot cream?”
Where did the
fox come up with this stuff?
“The combination
to the safe would be nice.” Or Faruq’s head on a silver platter.
Kal shook his
head and finished off the drink, restraining
himself from flipping the bottle into the air.
In centuries past—two millennia
actually—the bottle would have simply disappeared into the spectrasphere.
Now, it’d shatter all
over the floor.
He sighed and
set the bottle on top of the fridge.
“The combination?” One of the fox’s bat-like ears
ticked forward as he leapt onto the recliner
in front of the high-def. “Gee, Kal, that might be kind of hard.”
“I was just
kidding, Dirt—Dirham.” Kal shooed him
out of the chair and sank onto the cool
leather. He’d have to wipe it down afterwards, but the beauty of not living
with anyone was that no one would care if he
didn’t.
That was also
the curse of not living with anyone.
“So what are we
going to do today, Kal?” Dirham hopped
up and down like a rabbit. He was the size of
a rabbit actually.
“Today? Let’s see.” Kal pretended
to contemplate the vast opportunities he was
faced with. Trouble was, there weren’t any. He was stuck in this lantern until a master summoned him.
Bad enough he wasn’t able to move
forward with his life, having to hang out
until Fate passed him around to one thousand
and one masters, but to be stuck waiting while
he was waiting… Kal hated being
an alpha male in a beta role. Hated treading
water and this sentence the High Master had
imposed on him was the ultimate deep end.
“Want to paint
rainbows in the air?” Dirham asked,
swiping his tongue over his lips. Mist-paint
was like catnip to fennecs.
Kal shook his
head. “I’m not in the
mood, but don’t let me stop you.” He pointed to
the pull-down table on the wall that he stored
the supplies behind. Without altering the
outer lantern dimensions, the interior could
expand to house whatever he wanted to order
through the Genie Supply System—a race track, football field, the island of Crete, a camel—but Kal was into minimalism. Give him his fridge, workout
equipment, the recliner, and a high-def TV,
and he was good. Oh, and the remote.
Definitely needed the remote. It was the only
magic he could do these days.
Thanks to Faruq.
Kal gripped the
leather arm rests. The prick had stolen not
only his High Master’s thesis and his magic, but also his reputation. Instead of the
promotion Kal had expected all those centuries
ago, his name had been dragged through endless
jeribs
of worthless desert sand and buried so deep
that even Mudd was a better name than his.
Well, Karma
could be a bitch and she’d finally bitten
Faruq on the ass. The High Master’s vizier was
currently under lantern arrest for exactly
what he’d framed Kal
for, trying to double-cross the High Master in
an effort to gain the title sooner rather than
later, so the job was back up for grabs. As
soon as Kal was finished serving his next
master, he fully intended the position to be
his. Gods knew, he’d worked hard enough for it, but then that prick had come along and
stolen it.
Kal had given up
then—and it wasn’t something he
was proud of. But genies were immortal, so it
would have been a long time—if ever—until Faruq
retired. There would have been no point in
hanging around, and the surest way out of The
Service was to get rid of the bracelets.
He should
probably feel some pride in being the only
djinni who’d ever figured
out how to do that, but pride was a lonely
bedfellow and a poor substitute for losing his
magic.
“You know what,
Dirham? I would like something.”
The fox turned
around with seven paintbrushes sticking out of
his snout. “Wwaah is ih?”
Kal stood up,
then stripped off his gym shorts. He finally
had a shot at getting the job; he might as
well look the part. Dress for the job you
wanted, not the one you had. “My uniform. The orange one. And don’t forget the scimitar.”
Dirham dropped
the brushes. “Scimitar?” His tongue snaked around his snout and not with the same
enthusiasm as it had for mist-paint. “Have I
displeased you?”
Kal shook his
head and forced a smile to his face. Dirham
was the one being who still believed in his
innocence. Probably because the fennec didn’t have a suspicious bone in his tiny body, but Kal would take every
supporter he could get. Which, as of now,
consisted of only one. “It’s been a while
and I don’t want to lose my edge.”
“Phew!” Dirham’s tail twitched
upright, a sure sign the little guy was happy.
Some days he was so happy he looked like a
show dog determined to win Best in Breed. “Okay, I’ll be right
back.”
Kal took a quick
shower while Dirham was gone. One more master;
that’s all he had left. After two thousand years of having his hands
tied, with pewter cuffs instead of gold, an
end was in sight—
An end that
might be sooner rather than later, thanks to
the orange smoke that began to fill his
lantern. Smoke heralded his transmission to
the outside world, and that particular shade
of orange meant only one thing.
He was about to
get a new master.
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