Sun Glory For Mankind
Chapter Three
At 12:01 a.m. the night Aladdin left the palace, Lucario opened the front gate. He had killed the two guards in front of it with a double-edged sword, and eagerly led Semalil into the building.
Semalil looked remarkably different from our portrayal of him in the first chapter. For one thing, he no longer had the yellow beard, though his hair was now a peculiar shade of goldenrod. Furthermore, he was the spitting image of Aladdin, if you didn't mind green skin, anyhow.
As they were turning the corner to enter the West Wing, the head of the guards saw them. "Lucario, what is the meaning of this? Are you serving that rotten lord, Jafar's brother?"
"It's all right," Semalil said. "He's just leading me to my bedchambers." The voice resembled Aladdin's to the very pitch.
The head of the guards could not make the man out in the dark, though he knew Lucario by his breadth and motions. Thus, it was easy for him to mistake the man before him to be the future sultan of Agrabah. "But Prince, he's a traitor!"
"I shall deal with him as I see fit," Semalil said, his tone indicating dismissal. The guard had no choice but to withdraw.
Lucario led the sultan to Aladdin's room, where Jasmine was sleeping soundly. "A beautiful woman this guy had, isn't she? It's too bad she'll never be his again."
His servant walked about the room, discovering a note on Jasmine's boudoir. "Semalil, come here."
"What is it?"
"A note for the girl. Saying that Aladdin has run away from you."
"He has not run away."
"How do you know this, sir?"
"I am Aladdin."
"Oh, of course. Shall I burn the missive?"
"Dispose of it how you think best. And I'll dispose of my wife how I think best."
Lucario left Semalil to his own design.
In the morning, Jasmine was the first to wake. When she saw her bedfellow, she began shrieking. This presently brought Semalil out of dreamland, where he cuffed her mouth with his hand, and stared deep into her eyes. "I am Aladdin," he said, gently.
"You are Aladdin."
"You will calm down."
"I will calm down."
He released her gaze, and a maid came in to ask what all the fuss was about. "Oh, nothing," Semalil said. "Jasmine just had a horrible nightmare."
"Are you sure you're strong today, Prince? You appear to be ill."
"No, I'm fine. Excuse my green shade, I may be unripe."
"That's incredibly funny," Jasmine said, coquettishly. "I forgot you had such a tantalizing wit."
The maid retreated, running into the head guard. "What was all that screaming?" he demanded to know.
"Princess Jasmine has had a nightmare, and her husband looks rather sickly."
"That's strange. He seemed to favor Lucario last night."
"That is not my affair; speak to him of this oddity when he emerges, if you wish."
The chief guard waited for Aladdin to emerge, and he was also disturbed by the Prince's want of a lighter hue. "You've changed remarkably," he told Semalil.
"That's neither here nor there. I feel the same as I did when I woke up yesterday morning."
"How can that be? Surely you're disturbed by the deaths of your father-in-law and your monkey?"
"Oh yes, them. Well, I'm mildly concerned, but life moves on. Wait, my monkey, did you say?"
"Are you feeling feverish? Yes, Abu is gone. Remember the tramp Filsha was being flogged for permitting that odious rascal of a brother Jafar kept hidden away into this palace."
This caused Semalil to go into a rage. He lifted the guard's garment about the neck and almost hurled him across the room.
"What did I say?" the head guard wished to know.
Thinking quickly, Semalil came up with an excuse that was not entirely against his beliefs. "Oh, nothing. It may be that I'm just irascible today. Or perhaps I'm angry that you let that happen to an innocent ape!"
"I told you before: he jumped in the way!"
"I don't care!" Semalil yelled, tossing the guard with no thought of the consequences.
The poor man's jowl was busted when it made contact with the wall. Blood poured from his gums, and he developed a migraine. "That's what happens when people allow harm to come to animals," Semalil said, leaving the guard to wisp.
The guard died within three hours, for Semalil's force was so powerful that he went through a series of convulsions. The guard were called forward, and Lucario was appointed to take his place.
"Lucario? When did he return? And wasn't he a traitor?"
"Do you question my methods, Badlou?" Semalil queried, after learning from Lucario the temerarious one's name. "If you do, you can be flogged like Filsha."
"Filsha was flogged?" Lucario asked, greatly perturbed, for she was girl.
"Yes, and it's all your fault, for letting that stupid brother of Jafar into the palace!"
"Never let me hear you speak ill of Jafar or his family!" Semalil exclaimed, giving Badlou a menacing glare.
"What's eating him?" another of the guards whispered to a buddy.
"From now on, there are going to a few changes around here. For one thing, you will refer to the palace as the Sun. The Sun of Agrabah, got it? Why, you may wonder. Because this place is the center of the Arabic World, and it is best that it be referred to by the name of the solar body that shines forth its rays over us each and every day."
"What are we supposed to call the Sun, sir?"
"Call it the Blight, for it is oppressive and ought to be rooted out of existence."
"What we do for light if that happens?"
"Candles and tapers work just as well as solar power."
"But to have eternal night—"
"…sounds extremely beautiful, I agree. Another thing is that all you guards will require companions."
"What kind of companions?"
"Oh, the fauna sort," Semalil said, offhandedly. "Balou, in spite of your impudence, I will award you with the first companion to show the rest what I had in mind. Lucario, bring forth the red curtain."
A trolley with wheels hidden behind the curtain was presented to the man. Balou took a tentative step forward.
"I award you with the viper."
A snake emerged from behind the curtain and crawled up Balou's legs till it reached his neck, upon which it perched. The guard stared at it with fright; it was no welcome beast.
Three more guards stepped forward. The first was given a guinea pig, the second a rooster ("Great! Now I don't need any more insomnia pills!"), and the last a sparrow. Other guards were also given animals, but it would be too tedious to run through the whole compendium here.
Lucario's companion was a feisty ostrich. Nobody envied him, for they believed it would peck his eyes out in his sleep, or otherwise lay an egg on him that would be too heavy to remove.
One of the guards, who had a doe for a companion, wondered what would happen if the tiger Rajah got a hold of it. "No tiger will harm any of them, for to all animals your companions are friends. It is humans you have to worry about."
"Wait! If these companions are not going to be useful for fighting human adversaries, what good are they?"
"If you befriended a rhino and a plethora of poachers attacked, would you hide behind him and expect him to protect you?" queried the wise Semalil.
"Why, of course."
"Then I have been unwise in giving you a companion. It is for you to love, not for you to send it out and fight. The life of your companion is more important than your own; if it dies before you do, you'll regret it to the end of your days. I promise you that if that ever happens, you will be rewarded with death in life."
The guard looked pitifully at his doe, wondering what it tasted like, not out of hunger but out of spite. He had heard that venison was quite the delicacy in other parts of the world and had been waiting to try it, whenever the opportunity arose. But he would not kill his companion deliberately. And all the threats the pseudo-Aladdin made meant nothing to him, if his companion could satisfy his epicurean desires.
The Palace and minuets, among other things, went through a significant color change. Whereas before they had been somewhat golden or spring-yellow in hue, now they were darkish purple to black, which resembled anything more than the Sun. If there had been any philosophers present in the court, they might've said that eternal night was upon Agrabah. But no one would've surmised that Semalil was in their midst.
"And now that everything is in order, the game shall begin!" Jafar's brother laughed wickedly.
