A Whole New World (Disney Twisted Tales) - Liz Braswell Page 0,57

really loved their jobs. If there was a strange noise or something moving in the shadows, they reacted in almost human fashion: raising their weapons, dropping into fighting positions, sending one or two of their number down an alley to check it out.

With no words.

Not a single sound was uttered the entire time he followed them. They nodded to one another, but that was all. How were they communicating? It made Aladdin shiver just to think about it.

When the waning half-moon reached the peak of its ascent, the clock began to chime the hour.

The patrol paused.

Their identical faces began to appear a little unfocused. They didn’t look away but seemed somehow no longer to be paying attention to whatever was in front of them.

With horror, Aladdin realized their faces were really becoming unfocused. Their eyes, noses, and mouths were blurring, twisting, and smudging like dirty clothes being wrung out in a stream.

Soon their features were vague thumbprints of tan and black.

Then their bodies grew puffy. They seemed to suddenly hang at the tips of their toes and sway for a moment in the breeze.

And then they popped.

Silently, like everything the patrols did, except for the tap-tapping of their feet. Threads of hazy human colors spun out for a moment from the quiet explosion, one after another, six of them in all. These wavered and dried up in the air—disappearing with a final tiny curlicue of blue smoke.

Aladdin shivered. They weren’t even a little bit human. Not even as real as the genie. They were golems. Unthinking magical creatures with limited existences that did what they were told until their clocks ran out. He forced himself to think about his task: to find new recruits for the resistance. Anything but the blurry faces that he knew would haunt his nightmares from then on.

But as he turned to go, the sounds of angry conversation drifted on the wind from several streets away. Something Aladdin would have ignored in normal times but was unusual at this hour under the new curfew.

He leapt quietly to the next roof and then dove down to a convenient balcony. From there, he swung on a clothesline and landed silently on an awning across the way. There he hid behind a pair of dangling harem pants and watched.

It was the Square of the Sailor—so named for the ships carved into the corners of the civic buildings that surrounded the square. It was once a popular meeting place for the slightly less destitute of the ghetto; there was even a teahouse in one corner with rickety chairs and threadbare rugs and watered-down tea.

And now it had Jafar and six of his elite—human—palace guards, along with a small gathering crowd.

A silver tray of tea and wine and cakes obviously not from the teahouse was hovering in the air before the sorcerer. He wore a grin that would look false to the blindest, most foolish of observers.

Aladdin was neither. He leaned in close: he hadn’t gotten a good look at Jafar since the parade. The “sultan” rarely went into public anymore. The light of insanity glowed strongly in his eyes. What was worth risking his precious self and spending time out among the common people?

“All I am asking for,” Jafar was saying with the soothing patience of a mother, “is the location of Princess Jasmine. Just tell me where she is and you will never go hungry again. You will sup on meat and delicacies and wine…not this goat piss your friend here serves you every night.”

The crowd of skinny and shabbily dressed people shuffled uneasily. Some couldn’t take their eyes off the silver tray of treats. Some seemed uneasy, glancing back and forth from the guards to Jafar’s face. Some waited to see what others would do first. A few quietly drew back into the shadows, trying to disappear from what looked like a very bad situation.

Aladdin made careful note of those faces. They would be useful to find later.

“Who cares about the sultan’s old filly?” one man called out. “You can have anyone you want. My daughter is twice as pretty as Jasmine—and she won’t hide from you, I swear.”

Perhaps he was trying to gain favor with the mad sorcerer. It was a bad idea. Anger burned in Jafar’s eyes, instant and complete.

“I don’t particularly care for your opinion of my business,” Jafar said with the careful enunciation of someone who really didn’t care—who could take as long as he wanted with a group of ants before he inevitably