Aladdin x Shining Force
Nar Jahannam
A hundred miles from the nearest town, a thousand miles from the nearest sea, there was a little spat of wooded land so insignificant that it never had been named, not by the saints, the sages, the mayors nor the monarchs, the bards nor the barbarians. It was a miserable plot of land, so forlorn and forgotten that nature itself appeared to have seized hold of the tiny shack amidst it.
Once its walls had been stone and wood. Now its construction was moss and rot. It was but a story in height, its door so mangled and wrangled that a man had to stoop to enter.
A man of normal height, anyway. The two who found themselves in it were neither of them of average stature. The one in the cloak of rags and sand was a hunchback, an ugly unshaved broken thing who smelled like a donkey, the one in a tunic of unremarkable woven fabric was often mistaken for a boy, though he was as old as the bones of the Earth itself: he was a mystic. A prophet, a soothsayer, or, to his naysayers, a scarcely-relatable autistic fool who befuddled the weak-minded to mistake his vaguities for intelligence.
Comments of those sort cut him to his core often. And he knew there was more truth to them than he might appreciate. Thus, that night found him summoning forth the powers of the universe, using his great staff as an antennae, and uttering the incantations that might call a blaze upon his enemies.
A spark in the hearth. No more.
The hunchback snorted. Spat mucus and tobacco juice onto the bare floor. Reclined as much as his chains allowed him and leered at the mystic as a flickering incandescent light danced overhead, swaying at the end of a worn cracked cord.
"Thou've a talent for magic as the abode's architect has a talent for construction," he leered. "Blind are thee both in thine practices. Sooner would an electrical fault cast a blaze than thy crooked mumbling."
"Thou has a sharp tongue," the mystic said.
"And a sharper blade still," the hunchback warned. "Were my chains weaker, thou would feel it on thy throat, from ear to ear."
"Thank the Almighty for the strength of the chains, then," the mystic said, grinning despite himself.
But the hunchback sneered viscously.
"Thou art a weak servant of a weaker lord," he declared. "'The Mighty Khan,' he calls himself. Ha! A Khan of what? Bare lands and bare houses? Or is it bare pockets and barren women?"
The mystic felt his smile falter.
"Be silent, shameless thief," he said. "It is only by the Khan's mercy that thou still draws breath."
But the thief had scented blood in the water and now circled like a shark.
"And so the mystic mumbles, pining for obedience. But thy mind tricks won't work on me," he said. "It is the Khan's weakness that permits me life, not his mercy. By the Almighty, I think myself to escape-damn the chains!"
Suddenly he lurched at the mystic, spewing curses and saliva alike, but the chains kept him back. Within his reach was a little outlet, a tiny cracked 120 Volt AC that powered the dancing little light overhead. He tore out the cord, then tore it in half, intending to use the current to cut through his chains.
In a moment the mystic was on his feet. He knew he had but a moment to save himself, and so he again called forth the power of the universe and aimed his staff at the thief.
There was a spark in the thief's grasp. His finger caught fire. Confused, he tried to shake it off, tried to rub the pain away with his free hand, but this only spread the fire. And then his stinking robes too became part of the blaze.
In a second, the thief was screaming. Crying. Cursing. Begging. But the mystic just looked on, impassive yet strong, as the struggling burning thief wallowed on the floor in his own stinking burning clothes, a searing blaze in the dark still dampness.
When it was over, there was but ash and empty chains on the ground. The light overhead still danced, though it was dim. Again all was still and silent, in the miserable abode in the miserable woods, a hundred or a thousand miles from anything and anyone.
"Oh, shameless thief," the mystic sighed. "Oh, humble Gazeem. Where once thou were a man-a broken man, but a man-now thou art no more than ashes, and dust, incinerated and cremated both at once."
The eulogy finished, the mystic swept the filth out of the house and said a word of prayer to thank his staff, and the Almighty, and the universe itself, for its potent blessing.
