Jasmine's eyes were big as she walked beside Razoul down the streets where the darkness was only broken by the light from the smoking oil-filled lanterns at each corner. Every entrance to an alley or building gaped open like the black entrance to some cave. "Agrabah certainly looks different at night." She declared. "I thought it might even be deserted but there are people on the streets, even now."
"If you went up on the rooftops tonight you'd find entire families gathered there to enjoy the cool. Many will be spreading out bedrolls and will sleep out here away from their hot and stuffy rooms." Razoul told her. He was carrying a smoking lantern on a pole.
Jasmine nodded. "They're doing what I do when it's too hot to sleep. I often sleep on the couch on my balcony on those nights." She paused. "When you're on guard on those nights, how do you cool off?"
"I don't." He replied. "If I left my post, I'd put you in danger. That I'll never do."
"That's not right that you have to suffer." She declared. "Something will have to be done about that."
He shrugged in answer. Thanks to Jafar there were not enough men left to fill all the vacancies. You did what you could with what you had left.
By then they'd come to another intersection but beyond its lighted street lantern only darkness beckoned. No other lantern's light broke the blackness. He turned the wick of his lantern down and then drew a small shield across its front as he put it on the ground. "From here we proceed without lights." He told her. "Now we walk out of the circle of the street lamp and wait a few minutes to get our night vision."
He stepped forward and felt her hand on his arm. "I can't see. Guide me."
He swallowed. Her hand on his arm was the first time she'd ever made real physical contact with him for any length of time. Her father would've been yelling about inappropriateness if he'd seen it. To Razoul it was one of the nicest feelings he'd ever experienced. He slowly led her forward and then paused. "This is far enough. In a few minutes you'll be able to see again. Then tell me what you see."
The time passed with the silence broken only by the sounds of crickets. The first thing to become visible was the stars, streaming across the night like someone had sprinkled diamonds of light everywhere. "Don't look back at the city lights." He cautioned her. "Otherwise you'll lose your night vision."
More time passed and then she said. "There's a large building in front of us." A pause. "No, it's not a building. It's a tower."
He smiled at her, knowing she could probably not see his expression but not caring. "It's the surprise. Welcome to the Astronomer's Observatory where everything that can be seen in the night sky is made visible to you. Here you can see the wonders of the universe laid out for you to marvel at." He shrugged. "At least that's what the astronomers here claim. It's still breath taking."
He led the way down a brick street which ended at a door where a bored young man asked them. "Are you expected?"
Razoul nodded. "Yes, I'm Razoul and this is my niece Mary."
The young man pulled a dog-eared book out of one of his pockets and consulted it. He looked up with a grin and held out his hand. "I don't see your names here."
Razoul grinned back and there was nothing friendly about it. "I don't pay or accept bribes, but I do break fingers. Look again."
The young man swallowed as Razoul made a fist and held it in his face. "Uh, I seem to have made a mistake. You may pass." He stepped back and bowed them through. But as Jasmine walked by he pinched her on her bottom.
She yipped in surprise and swung about angrily but Razoul was already there. One large hand was clenched about the wrist of the offending hand and bones could be heard grinding. She watched the young man go to his knees. "Apologize, now!" Razoul growled. "Or you'll find I break wrists too."
"Stop. I'm sorry." The young man complained.
Razoul shook his head as he frowned. "You're only sorry you got caught." The pressure increased.
This time the young man was sobbing. "I'm sorry. I really am." His only answer from Razoul was a deepening glare.
Finally Jasmine intervened. "I think he's learned his lesson, Razoul." He looked at her and then nodded before he let go.
She got down so she was balanced on the balls of her feet and glared at the young man. "Remember this well, apprentice astronomer. All women are to be treated with respect. The next time I won't stop him."
She got to her feet and as they entered the building he asked her. "How did you know his rank?"
She shrugged. "At one time I got fascinated with all the guilds and their insignias. When my older sister was still here and unmarried, we used to have contests to see who could correctly identify the most insignia. The Astronomy Guild has a single star for an apprentice."
He chuckled. "I'd better avoid playing that game with you."
She smiled teasingly at him. "That's good, because you'd lose."
He led the way up a winding stair and they climbed slowly upward. At the fifth level he called a break and was pleased to see she was not breathing heavily. Fortunately, she didn't have to carry as much weight around as he did. They resumed climbing and by the tenth floor came to a door. He turned to her. "Close your eyes, please."
"What's going to happen?" She asked suspiciously.
"Something that will amaze you." He waited until he was sure her eyes were closed and then opened the door. "Take three steps forward and then open your eyes."
She did so and he could hear her sharp intake of breath. The heavens were full of stars and then the stars seem to rush at her.
If she'd thought that she'd experienced the stars down below, now she found she was mistaken. The skies were packed with glowing stars, some revealed as small spheres of fire and others as dancing twin or triplet balls of light.
Behind her Razoul shut the door, turned and was stunned. This was far more than he'd ever seen when he'd come up here alone. He'd seen the wonders of the Milky Way and the planets. He'd even been shown three moons swinging around Jupiter, but they'd only been points of light. This was up close and personal like you were walking amongst the celestial bodies.
Jasmine turned her head slightly and she saw a banded planet with eight smaller bodies rotating around it. On its surface storm clouds were swirling around a great red spot. A voice whispered in her ear. "This is Jupiter the fifth planet of the Solar System in all its red-spot glory with its moons spinning around it. The red spot you see is a storm so big that it could inhale the Earth and not notice it." She swallowed. It looked so close that it was like she could reach out and touch it.
Another shift of her head and another banded planet surrounded by several rings swam into view. "This is Saturn." The voice continued. "Sixth planet from the sun and Jupiter's rival for size. The rings are constantly replenished from collisions of small moons."
"Where is Mars?" She asked. Surely the planet named for the Roman God of War would be spectacular? Mars popped into view with another shift and she saw only a sphere with dry red dust and suggestions of craters. She sighed. "Doesn't Mars have anything spectacular?" The view zoomed in and she found her viewpoint racing across the surface of Mars.
A great river canyon appeared and as they swooped over it for miles seeing only dry river bed the voice said. "This is the Vales Mariners the largest river bed and canyon in the solar system." They came up out of the canyon and the surface seemed to fly below them and then something began to rise from that surface. She gasped again as she saw it was a volcano but what a monster of a volcano. It just kept rising and rising, up and up, until it dominated everything.
"Welcome to Olympus Mons, the largest volcano in the Solar system." The voice informed her. "So tall is it that its highest peak is only a couple of miles from poking out into space."
"Is this all real?" She managed to get out.
"Oh it's real all right. And you don't realize how blessed you are to have it appear to you in such detail. The Tower recognizes you as someone special. Most of our visitors don't get the full show that you're experiencing." A gruff voice told her.
Razoul started. The dream had come to pass. A tower had recognized her.
She looked in the voice's direction and the images vanished. She saw a tall man with a red beard approaching her. His insignia identified him to her immediately.
"Greetings, Astronomer Royal." She told him, smiling at the surprised look that momentarily appeared on his face. "Thank you for letting me see this. Is this your magic?"
He looked at her more closely. "You're not anything like your father, Princess. He would've thought this vision was his toy and not the greatest marvel of the known world."
She gasped slightly and he smiled at her. "Of course I recognize you. I was your first tutor in mathematics and I never forget a face, especially one as pretty as yours."
He turned towards Razoul who had his hand on his sword. "You should know, Razoul, I mean no harm to her. Her trip here as your niece Mary will be our secret." Razoul stared at him and then nodded.
The Astronomer Royal turned back to Jasmine. "To answer your question, Princess. No. It's not my magic. I can manipulate and care for it, but she who made it was a greater wizard than I will ever be. She created it to show us the universe as it really is."
"Then everything I saw was real? What does it all mean?" Jasmine asked in excitement and wonder.
He laughed. "If you have fifty years to apprentice with me, you might begin to understand part of it, a small part at that. Here. Let me show you something spectacular." He gestured and the sky was filled with blackness except for a single point of light.
"That is a star so far away we could never hope to get there even by magic. This is a replay of an event that I observed and recorded when I was much younger."
The star swelled until it looked like a small ball of light that could be spanned by the palm of her hand. The star seemed to quiver and eruptions of fire came from its opposite ends. Black spots appeared all over its surface and then the surface shrank rapidly and the star's light went out. A moment later it exploded outward, so bright it could not be looked at.
"Oops. There I damped it down." He said. The light became bearable to look at and she saw where the star had been there was an expanding sphere of fire. "I call that the death of a star." He told her. "Remember, Princess, even the stars can die and nothing is permanent."
She found her hands were clutching Razoul's arm but he didn't notice as his eyes like hers were focused only on the dying star. "Does this happen often?" She asked fearfully.
"Thankfully, no, I've only observed one in over fifty years. Now let's experience something much more pleasant. Remember that big mountain on the red planet called Mars that you saw when you first came here?"
At her nod, he gestured and they were viewing the big volcano again. "It's taller than any volcano on earth and fortunately it's dead and has been for centuries. That means it's not going to erupt. You can see at its base there are signs of a dried up ocean shore. At one time Mars had seas that covered most of its surface. Now I want to show you the shorelines as we…."
He didn't get to finish as Razoul and Jasmine gasped. "Look." Jasmine pointed at the craters on top of the volcano. "One of the craters is smoking."
"What? It can't be." He fine-tuned the image and the smoke was revealed to be a rising pillar of ash. Another adjustment and they were staring at a boiling magma pool in a small crater half way down the outside of the larger crater. As they watched their attention was caught by a second explosion as another crater to its left began to erupt. A rock dome in third crater from which more ash was pouring was forced to rapidly expand and then it exploded, merging all three into one.
An eruption column nearly a mile wide raced upward as lava bombs were hurled high into the sky.
The Astronomer Royal shook his head in amazement. "Well, well, live and learn. I think a new eruption series is starting. My friends and I are going to have some fun. Watch for a few minutes and I'll let you two find your way out. I have to call my colleagues. This is too important for them to miss."
Razoul never knew how long they stood there staring at the raging volcano on another world that sent flaming bombs of rock to explode on the red surface and the savage eruption column that raced into the skies, but finally she suggested they should be getting back.
He tried to disengage her hand from his arm but she shook her head. "Leave it. Wait until we're outside where we can see." Her smile was full of wonder. "You wouldn't want me to fall now after seeing all this."
As they went down the stairs she said. "I never even knew this was here. How did you find out about it?"
"I'm in charge of the city guard. There's very little that goes on in the city I'm not aware of." He shook his head. "I knew they had spectacular views of the sky and they showed me ones of the constellations that made my jaw drop, but this? I never saw this before."
She frowned and tightened her grip on his arm when he tried to pull away. "I wonder why they chose to show it to us now?"
"Maybe you're the one they wanted to show it to?" He smiled in relief. "Here's the door."
His relief was short lived as she swung into his arms and kissed him on the cheek. "For whatever reason it happened, I want to thank you for the most wonderful night of my life."
"Princess, I, I…"
She put a finger to his lips. "Hush. Let's not spoil the moment. Until we get back to the street light let's pretend we're just uncle and niece." She took his hand and smiled at him. He tentatively smiled back.
It was the slowest walk they'd ever taken in their lives as neither really wanted it to end, but like all good things it did eventually.
Up in the tower the Astronomer Royal was engaged in a heated conversation with his three assistants. "I tell you it happened. The spell reacted to her presence. It totally activated and revealed everything to her. She has been chosen for our greatest secret."
"Come on, Achmed. That's impossible. You were imaging things." Brez the number one astronomer assistant told him.
"Imaging things? I'll show you." Achmed snapped. "When she was here we saw Olympus Mons erupt." He made gestures to restore the image.
"Olympus Mons? Erupt? Now I know you're imaging things." Raz the number two astronomer assistant told him. "That volcano has been dead for millions of years."
The image spread across the sky and in the center of image the volcano shot a lava fountain thousands of feet into the thin air of Mars. Rock slides plunged down the sides of the caldera walls as the eruption column race upward until it reached an altitude where it couldn't rise anymore and then became streaming away blown by the prevailing winds.
"By Alexander's spirit." Gusef the third astronomer assistant declared. "The heavens even give us signs she is the one."
Brez sighed. "I wouldn't go quite that far, my young friend. But if she saw things in this much detail, then it does mean we will be paying the young lady a visit very soon. Come, we must discuss this and make a decision. Don't you agree Achmed?"
"Oh, yes, but let's watch and capture this moment. How many can say they've seen the largest volcano in the solar system erupt?"
The four astronomers stood there silently lost in awe as the now full lava lake began to break down the east wall of the caldera which suddenly collapsed in a silent roaring avalanche as a third of the mountain peeled away. This was the final straw as it released all the restraining pressure of millions of tons of rock and the whole volcano exploded.
Lightning flashed in the rising many-mile-wide eruption column as it spread across the planet. There was so much heat, gases, and water as steam in the fiery column that it raised the local atmospheric pressure well above the dew point and far away from the volcano water began to condense and come down as torrential rains. Once again the ancient river valley of Valle Marines started flowing and the dried up sea beds began filling. Mars was in for an interesting time.