Aladdin: The Thief of Aisha

Chapter 31

ALADDIN

It was a good outing, I thought as we rode into Zamaja. I'd shot two mountain goats, and my two friends had brought down one each. The friends I'd gone hunting with broke away as we passed their street. Most of them lived some distance from the palace.

A plume of dust hung in the air as if there had been a great disturbance. People gathered in pockets of twos and threes murmuring. Something looked different, I thought as we approached my street. I rode on expecting to see the palace, but it was not there. The white stallion turned around on the spot. Where was my palace? My servants were as dumbfounded as I was.

My horse reared and neighed. Soldiers armed with spears and swords appeared from nowhere and surrounded us. One of them grabbed the bridle of my horse. I looked around expecting to see a demonstration or riot taking place around me.

"Aladdin, you are under arrest by the orders of the Sultan!"

"Arrest!" I said. They yanked me off my horse and within seconds put me into irons. "What's going on? What did I do? Where's my palace?" My questions remained unanswered. The guards marched me into the throne room where the Sultan sat. Beside him was a tall man in dark robes. The Sultan looked frantic.

"Aladdin, where is my daughter?" bellowed the Sultan. "I treated you like my son, and you pay me back with this? Why did you lie?"

"My Sultan...I don't understand," I stammered. I tried to raise my hand to talk, but the irons held me back.

"Aladdin, own up to your crime," said a familiar voice.

Where have I heard that voice before? I stirred at the face. It was the Grand Vizier, but there was something familiar about the squint in his eye. I imagined him with a staff, ragged clothes and bent and it hit me like a bolt of lightning. Kassim!

"Take him to the dungeon!" said the vizier.

Before I could say anything, the guards marched me to the dungeons and locked me up in a cell. As everything died down, I spoke to one of the guards.

"Please, what happened?"

"In the middle of the afternoon," said the guard, "just before you arrived, your palace, with Princess Aisha in it, rose into the air and vanished!"

I would have laughed if it wasn't for the situation I found myself in. The only thing with the power to move anything as big as a palace was the genie. The vizier, aka Kassim, must have stolen my lamp. In one afternoon, my home, my liberty and, most of all, the girl of my dreams, had been taken away.