the lamp business. Any Street Rat would have done it for a single golden daric. Or less…
Thoughts for another time. He had a princess to rescue! The door leading out was locked, of course, but Aladdin had his little kit with him. He worked with his picks in the flickering lantern light for many long minutes, sweating and swearing. When the lock finally gave it was with a nearly silent, anticlimactic click.
The passageway outside was short, murky, and dim. He goggled at what looked like an infinite number of stone steps spiraling upward to the hazy ceiling. It was as though he were at the bottom of a tower buried underground. Even the design was similar to the Moon Tower, the tallest building in the palace. Jafar’s tower…
Across from the entrance to the dungeon was another door that was covered in strange carvings. The edges were highlighted with an evil orange glow from whatever was in the room behind.
“Another time,” Aladdin promised himself. He would explore what was very obviously Jafar’s secret study when things weren’t quite so dire.
He snapped his fingers and the carpet obligingly lowered to let him step onto it. They drifted upward through the dark above the steps like a milkweed puff borne aloft by a soft breeze.
At the top was a strange sliding door that was unlocked with the press of a lever. Aladdin opened it the smallest crack and peeked through. The room beyond was dimly lit and mostly empty except for a few pieces of finely wrought furniture. There were no guards.
Aladdin drew back in surprise. What sort of dungeon didn’t have guards?
He slid the door open just wide enough to let his body—and Abu, and the carpet—through. When they were out he turned around and saw that what looked like a door from the dungeon side looked like a completely normal wall panel on the other. In fact, when the door closed itself with a quiet click, it was impossible to tell where it had been.
A secret dungeon! Secret even from the sultan himself, Aladdin wagered. Jafar’s personal little evil sorcerous laboratory and prison. It seemed like all of the whispers about him were true.…
And if they were true, Aladdin realized grimly, then Morgiana was probably right, and Agrabah was in worse trouble than before. There was no way someone this secretive, plotty, murderous, and evil would turn overnight into a generous and doting benefactor. Aladdin knew people. He had to, as a thief. And people didn’t usually change that much.
The marble floor was chilly under his bare feet; suddenly Aladdin understood why rich people owned so many carpets.
The soft click of heels on stone alerted him to the presence of others nearby. Aladdin dove behind a velvet couch. The carpet laid itself on the floor. Abu climbed up a screen on the side of the room and stayed silent and still near the ceiling.
A pair of guards marched through, stiff as rods and carrying deadly looking spears across their chests. They were clad head to toe in black and red—Jafar’s colors. These were not the unruly market guards that Aladdin was used to dealing with; these were inner palace guards, with quick, intelligent eyes, nervous hands, and not an extra ounce of body fat on them. Very, very dangerous men.
As soon as they were gone Abu started to descend. The carpet curled up one corner in anticipation of rising.
“Shhh! Not yet,” Aladdin whispered.
He counted his heartbeats and his breaths.
Almost exactly ten minutes later, the guards came through again. Exact same route, exact same wary glances, exact same march.
Aladdin smiled at his own forethought.
“Okay,” he whispered as soon as they were out of sight.
The three of them tiptoed—or glided—on to the next room. What he found made Aladdin pause…and then raise an eyebrow in wonder.
The space they were in could have been a banquet hall that easily held a hundred revelers. Instead, it was furnished with tables covered in…things. Miniature palaces. Models of mazes on tilting platforms you worked tiny silver balls through. Puzzles that made brightly painted jungle scenes when they were done. Balancing games in which the blocks were intricately carved animals and fantastic beasts. And above all this hung the gorgeous silk kites the sultan flew when he deigned to leave the palace on one of his famous picnics.
So these rumors were true, too. The old sultan was nothing but a crazy, decadent old man who played with toys while Agrabah starved.
Or…he was Jasmine’s sad, lonely old father who