Her eyes flick toward me.
"Tell me what you want," I say. "Ask me for it."
I hold her gaze for a moment before she looks away. She"s still not ready.
That"s the root of the problem here. A genie, acting always to serve others, knows nothing of selfishness... but she must ask for something for herself to become free.
The key stands in front of her, but it"s useless if she won"t pick it up and turn it in the lock.
I wait for Gunza to become bored with my screams, but it takes a very long time.
He hovers above on his magic carpet as the echoes of Magda"s demented masters torture me. They do it right there in the gymnasium, on a weight bench, using trays of knives and needles and power tools wished up by Gunza.
As the ghouls work me over, I wonder if they are improvising or if every terrible step is drawn from Magda"s memory. The pain is indescribable, unbearable, catastrophic. Each application of blade or pliers or drill bit plunges me into uncharted depths of agony.
Did they do the same to her? Did they twist and pull and crush and cut, sometimes all at once? Did they laugh as they tuned her screams by grinding harder, digging deeper, winding tighter?
Did they cut off bits of her? Did they taunt her as they excavated organs? Did they push her to the brink of death again and again... holding her alive with wishes as they ruined her in every possible way?
And then, did they wish her back to wholeness, repairing every damage... only to start all over again?
The way they do with me?
If so, my sympathy for her increases a trillionfold. More even than that.
Because this is h.e.l.l. Sheer h.e.l.l, as the devil himself might design it.
And I wonder, between strokes of the knife and blows of the hammer, how it is that Magda has not gone irretrievably mad.
Finally, after what seems to me like a dozen years, Gunza does grow bored. Tired is more like it. His eyes start drifting shut, and instead of wishing himself wide awake, he floats off to bed.
Lying on his belly on the magic carpet, he winks and waggles his fingers at me. "Back soon, dear." His braided red mustache jumps as he chuckles. "Don"t miss me too much."
At this point, I"m in excruciating agony on the bench. This is the sixth time I"ve been horrifically mutilated and left at the brink of death.
My limbs have all been disconnected and reattached in the wrong places. The ghouls wear my organs on leather thongs around their necks. Only wishes are keeping me alive.
Gunza gives Magda a shove off the carpet, and she thuds to the floor. "I wish you would put Oliver back together, good as new, and get him rested up for our next session." After he says it, he rolls over on his back, crosses his hands behind his head, and floats out the door, yawning and snickering.
When he"s gone, Magda struggles to her feet. She weaves mystic sigils overhead, and the torture squad of monstrous masters past disappears in a shower of golden glitter.
Standing over me, she gazes down at the damage, then looks away. Turning her back, she weaves more patterns in the air with her agile, flickering fingers.
I feel a familiar tingling. Gold dust twinkles around me, and I hear a fluttering trill like the song of a tiny tropical bird.
Reality stops and shifts like a jump-cut in a movie. There is an instant of nonexistence, disconnection from senses and self-awareness... and then I am whole once more.
My body is intact. My wounds are closed, my organs and limbs back in the right places. For the seventh time today, she has put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
Except for the memories, it is as if none of it ever happened. This is how it must be for her, every time Gunza tears her apart and wishes her restored once more.
I wonder how many times a day she must do it. How many times she has done it since he took control of her.
How many times since her birth or creation.
She turns to face me again, fingers still weaving. The weight bench becomes a bed, the gymnasium a bedroom draped in white satin, aglow in moonlight.
Small figures materialize around me-winged children, robed in white. Some are toddlers, some older, some younger. Some are infants.
They push pillows behind my head and tuck blankets around me. They dab my forehead with a cool compress and wrap warm towels around my arms.
They raise a gla.s.s of water to my lips, and I drink. They feed me bread and hot broth from a silver tray. They sing softly as they work-dozens of them, all watching me solemnly, eyes glowing like little silver moons in their dark and pale faces.
"Who are they?" As I ask the question, an infant hands me a little cake.
Magda watches from the foot of the bed. "My angels," she says. "My babies."
Gazing around me in wonder, I begin to understand. "Your children? All of them?"
Magda nods. "They are my only comforts in this world."
I accept another spoonful of soup from a dark-haired little boy. "You made them."
"With my masters, as any woman would." Magda bows her head. "And unmade them, as my masters wished."
"My G.o.d." I shiver as I feel their moonlight eyes upon me-the eyes of dozens of dead children, recreated from the dust of graves and residue of tears.
Every last one of them, dead. Murdered by magic at whatever age they most displeased their mother"s masters. Their fathers.
Gone now, as if they had never been. As if they had never been forced into or out of existence. Living on only in her memory.
Resurrected only to comfort her in moments of greatest pain and despair.
Tears roll down her face, and she wipes them away. "I"m sorry," she says. "Sorry for everything."
If only I could break her free from this unending cycle of woe. If only I could cut the magic ties that bind her to her heartless monster of a master.
If only there was some way to move her to ask for what she needs. What I can provide.
Maybe there is.
I glimpse it for a split second. A look of sharper sorrow on her face. A sudden sinking. Fear and panic and rage and longing all at once, like fruit on a tree.
She touches her belly, and I know. She pulls her hand away instantly, but it"s too late.
I finally know.
I know how to save her.
"Very good!" Gunza claps from his royal box in the crowded stands of the coliseum. "Not perfect, but that comes with practice! You"ve just committed your first murder, Oleo!"
The b.l.o.o.d.y knife slips from my fingers and lands in the sand at my feet. My arms are soaked in blood up to the elbows. My white t-shirt and pants have gone crimson from sleeve to cuff.
I know what I"ve just done. I know that I had no control over it, that I was at the mercy of a compelling wish.
But it doesn"t really matter. I still remember every detail. I remember killing the innocent woman wished up from somewhere in the world outside... killing her as the crowd around me cheered and stomped and showered me with roses.
That, of course, was the whole idea.
Torturing and resurrecting me wasn"t enough for Gunza. I took the promotion that should have been his, and then I tried to tax his lordly treasures; he won"t be happy until I"ve been corrupted and ruined and debased inside as well as out.
Just as he"s corrupted and ruined his Magda.
"Now this is the life!" Gunza guzzles wine from a goblet and gropes the nearly naked slave girl in his lap. "That is entertainment!" He points his goblet at me, and the crowd howls with delight.
Gazing at the poor dead woman in the sand, I wonder if I can get through this. I wonder how much more I will have to endure to save Magda.
Looking up, I see her standing in the box with him, head bowed low. She won"t look at me. Won"t look at what she"s done at his behest.
That has to change.
"Magda!" I call to her, and her head lifts. Her eyes meet mine. "Tell me what you want! Ask me for it!"
She twitches, then lowers her head again.
"Oh ho ho!" Gunza howls with laughter. "So you think you can give her something I can"t?"
I"m treading on dangerous ground, and I know it. All he has to do is wish me silenced or dead or demented, and the game is over.
I continue to speak only to Magda. "Please! Ask for what you want!" I take a deep breath, ready to step off the precipice. Once I say the next thing, there"ll be no taking it back. "For the sake of your unborn child, ask me!"
Suddenly, a hush falls over the coliseum. Even Gunza is silent.
Magda meets my gaze, and her eyes at first are full of rage. Then, the rage melts into despair.
And I know I was right. When she touched her belly while the angels tended me, she was thinking of an angel inside. A new child, growing within her.
His child. Gunza"s child.
So now I"ve done it. Everything balances on the head of a pin, and a single wish could bring it all crashing down.
That"s all it will take. One wish from Gunza to force Magda to do away with their unborn child. Add it to the angelic host, existing only in memory, comforting her in her deepest, darkest night.
Nothing now to do but push every b.u.t.ton on the board and pray the engine catches before we crash.
"You know what he"ll do next, Magda!" I march across the sand to stand beneath her. "There"s only one way to stop him! Ask me for it!"
Tears pour from her eyes and run under her veil. Her shoulders pump as she breathes faster, heart racing in terror.
Just then, Gunza does the unexpected. Instead of the child-killing wish I thought he"d make next, or the one that wipes me instantly from the face of the planet, he says this: "I wish I was down there with Oleo, strangling the life out of him!"
Magda"s fingers weave through the air. Reality stutters, and Gunza"s wish takes hold.
He is with me now on the sand, thick fingers wrapped around my throat. I chop at his forearms, but they won"t budge.
He scowls with bloodshot eyes and flushed face and red hair bristling from his beard and under his turban. Veins pop along his temples, and cords bulge in his neck.
His grip of steel tightens. "How dare you interfere in my paradise?"
I barely force out words through the vise of his hands. "He"ll kill it, Magda! Just like... all the others! You... know it"s... true!"
"Shut up!" roars Gunza. "I wish..."
Before he can finish, I pump a knee into his groin. The wind goes out of him, and he releases his grip and falls to the ground.
I can get the words out now, but how long do I have? How many seconds until the next wish? "I can help you, Magda! I can save you and your child! All you have to do is ask me!"
"I don"t believe you!" says Magda.
Gunza starts to get up. I send him back down with a kick to the face. "Ask anyway! What do you have to lose?"
Storm clouds boil overhead as Magda weeps. "But I"m a genie! I cannot ask for anything for myself!"
"You"re wrong!" I kick Gunza in the face again, harder than before. "Now ask me! What do you want?"
Magda stops sobbing and looks at her bare belly. Her fingers touch it lightly as wings brushing a cloud. "I wish..." Her thumbs and forefingers meet, forming a diamond around her navel. "I wish you could help me. I wish you could set us free."
Finally.
A grin breaks wide across my face. I bow deeply to her, twirling my fingers with a flourish as if doffing a hat in her honor.
"Your wish, milady," I say, "is my command."
With that, I weave my fingers overhead, swirling them in multiple mystic sigils dripping with golden glitter. The ground rumbles underfoot, and the storm clouds darken. The crowd screams and stampedes in the stands.
This, then, is my secret, that which makes me altogether different than anyone could ever guess. I am more than man or policeman or tax collector. More than I have ever shown another soul until now.
My fingers work furiously, teasing reality"s threads upon the loom. Everything around me starts to turn, faster and faster with each pa.s.sing breath.
Gunza struggles to his feet but can"t stay there. The spinning of the world knocks him right back down on his a.s.s.
Unable to retaliate physically, he resorts to tried and true. "I wish that Oliver would be..."
Before he can finish, I slam my hands together with a sound like the pealing of a ma.s.sive bell. A bolt of lightning crashes down from the clouds above-and Gunza is gone.
As reality continues to accelerate in its wild gyre, Magda appears beside me. "Who are you?" she says. "Are you djinn?"
My fingers resume their weaving dance overhead. "Not djinn," I say. "Wish."