THE FROZEN QUEEN
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FIRST TALE
THE MIRROR AND ITS FRAGMENTS
There is a world that exists, hidden from our own, where a primordial race of Djinn dwell. Primordial means that they existed well before people were around and often found it difficult to let go of the world they once ruled for so long. One in particular was the djinn called Ba'al Zebul, one of the darkest, most wicked one of all and one who despised the sons of Adam almost as much as his master did.
One day the devil found himself in good humour because he had just completed a mirror with dark powers. Everything beautiful that was reflected upon its surface seemed to dwindle to almost nothing at all while everything that was worthless and ugly became most conspicuous and even uglier than ever. In the mirror, the loveliest landscapes looked like a desolate plain of boiling rocks. One most beautiful, the best of people could look in this mirror and see nothing but a hideous beast with their heads in their stomachs, faces distorted beyond recognition. Ba'al Zebul was delighted.
He kept it in his fortress between worlds and when he found himself vexed by anyone he would change into a fair-form, one of beauty and trustworthiness, invite the annoying people to his house and sets them before the mirror where the visions designed to torture one with horrifying truths that all one needs to uncover is to dig. If a good, pious thought passed through anyone's mind, it showed in the mirror as a carnal grin, and the prince of the inferno laughed aloud at his most ingenious invention.
This dark mirror Ba'al put to use not just on people who annoyed the djinn, but also against great heroes and kings of men…well I guess they are people who vexed him.
One day Aladdin, the Sultan of Agrabah led an army of two hundred thousand soldiers to storm the djinn's fort in a bid to rescue his friend the blue genie of the lamp. It was a tasking campaign that lasted only a couple of months before they breached the outer walls, for the castle seemed more like a whole city made up of tall spires sticking out of the ground like stone trees. A city of towers and golden domes and magic.
Although the mission was ultimately a success, their victory came with a price. When Aladdin came face to face with Ba'al he came prepared—a small box of jade, when the Sultan chanted the incantation he learnt at home, the djinn was sucked into the stone box and he quickly went to work carving into the lid a magical seal. But Ba'al still struggled, he resisted his capture in the form of loud banging that shook his castle like an earthquake. The powerful booms broke glass and cracked stone, and that included the dark mirror which shattered into trillions of pieces.
The Sultan and his army were whisked away by the genie and they watched atop a far off cliff as the demon's fortress, the 'City of Towers' were consumed by sand, reclaimed by the desert. As for the glass shards, now they caused twice as much troubled as before now that they were but shards as small as sand, like little armies themselves spreading across the wide world. Once they got into people's eyes they would stay there and distorted their vision. People would see only the bad side of things, for every bit of glass kept the same power that the whole mirror had possessed.
A few people would even get glass splinters in their hearts, and that was a terrible thing for it turned their hearts into lumps of ice. Evil things came to pass when they were afflicted with the fragments. Wars were waged, atrocities that defied all manner of imagination, to see justice done. No one knows whether the djinn Ba'al Zebul had orchestrated this entire event or if it was just for the bad roll of the dice, for it seems he would laugh himself dead for all the problems he'd caused, Lucifer certainly does. Fine bits of glass still fly through the air, and soon you shall hear what happened.
—I—