Aladdin - the Arabian Nights

Chapter 39

Aladdin did not, of course, intend to openly confront Jafar on his own. Even in his current reckless state, he knew better than to think he could get away with that. Aladdin was perfectly aware that if he went into Jafar's quarters alone and revealed that he knew the truth about him, he was never coming out again. No, Aladdin would have to be tricky.

Aladdin had a plan ready by the time he returned to his palace. It wasn't the best plan, perhaps, but he couldn't afford to wait any longer to come up with a better one. He needed to stop Jafar before he had a chance to cause any more trouble or do any real damage – and before he could do anything to Jasmine. Unfortunately, if he couldn't confront Jafar in his quarters, that left the only other option of sending Jasmine to go and bring Jafar to him. He didn't like that idea at all, he'd tried hard to think of some other way, but he knew logically that Jasmine would not be in any danger from this errand – Jafar wouldn't want to harm either of them yet if his plan was to stay here in disguise and feed Jasmine bad advice. Jasmine would be fine as long as Aladdin took care of Jafar right now, before he got tired of waiting and decided to strike. That was another reason he couldn't tell her what he suspected – if Jasmine wanted to confront Jafar, or if she let slip anything to give away that she knew, Jafar would have no reason to keep pretending.

Aladdin found Jasmine in one of the lounge rooms. Before she could ask him how the search for her Roc was coming along, Aladdin put a hand to his head as though feeling a sudden pain. "Ohh..." he moaned convincingly, and sank down onto the sofa.

Jasmine's eyes grew wide. "Aladdin? What's wrong?!"

Aladdin glanced up at her, careful to keep his eyes heavy and unfocused. "I don't know... it's my head... it's bothering me...."

"But... but you were fine this morning...." Jasmine's voice shook, and she came to sit beside him, clasped his hand tightly in hers, and gazed into Aladdin's face as though she could will him to be well again. "You've never been suddenly ill!" Aladdin realized with a sudden sense of guilt that she was right, that she'd never known him to be anything but perfectly healthy, and that he had scared her a lot more than he'd intended to.

"It's really not that bad," he reassured her, half-sitting up, his voice clear and alert again. Jasmine stopped looking scared and looked puzzled. Oops – maybe that had been too much. He couldn't make it out like he wasn't seriously ill at all. "Ow," he added, as though his attempt to sit up had been too much for him, and sank back down again.

He could tell by the renewed anxious look in Jasmine's eyes that he had convinced her he was only trying to be brave for her sake in saying his illness wasn't really so bad – and that she was now more frightened than ever. "Lie down!" she ordered, all but pushing him the rest of the way back down onto the sofa. "I'll get you – what do you need?"

"Maybe Fatimeh?" Aladdin suggested faintly. "You said she was living here...."

Jasmine nodded. "Of course... I'll get her... You stay here." She was fighting to keep her voice steady. Jasmine stood up and hurried from the room, her long triple ponytail swinging wildly behind her.

Aladdin's eyes opened, wide and alert now. His plan had worked. She had gone to get Fatimeh, alias Jafar, to come and try to heal him. He was sure Jafar would agree to come, and act like he was healing him, in order to keep up the ruse of being Fatimeh. He didn't know Aladdin suspected him, and wouldn't until he came close enough for Aladdin to pull his veil off. Then they could carry out his sentence, and Jasmine would know Aladdin could handle their enemy, that he could protect her after all. He only wished he could do this without scaring her like he had.

***********************************

Jasmine hurried across the grounds to Fatimeh's quarters as fast as she could go. What could possibly be wrong with Aladdin? He was almost never unwell... not an hour ago she had seen him and he had been as healthy as ever... and now Aladdin, always so strong and full of energy, could hardly sit up. She suddenly remembered Fatimeh's oddly dark tone when she'd said Jasmine's problems with Aladdin would be over soon. She couldn't mean that was because he was going to...?

No! He can't! I won't let him!

Jasmine marched up to the door of the quarters she'd given Fatimeh and rapped on it.

Inside, Jafar hurriedly put Fatimeh's veil back on, and Iago fluttered out of sight behind some curtains. Slightly annoyed at this unexpected disturbance, Jafar opened the door to find a frightened-looking Jasmine outside. "Fatimeh – there's something wrong with Aladdin!"

Well, he could have told her that... "I'm terribly sorry to hear that, Princess. What seems to be the trouble?"

Jasmine shook her head helplessly. "I don't know! He was fine this morning – he's almost never ill – and now he can hardly sit up...." Her voice caught at the end of her sentence. She gazed pleadingly up at Jafar, her eyes wide and scared. "You have to come heal him!"

And as soon as she said that, all thoughts of staying here long-term, of using his new position to slowly drive the royal couple of Agrabah to ruin, melted away.

Aladdin so ill he could hardly sit up... and Jasmine begging him to come deal with him... it was too perfect. He would never get another chance like this. Aladdin had slipped through his fingers too many times. Now, while Aladdin was weak and unsuspecting, was his moment to strike.

"Calm yourself, Princess," Jafar said, carefully keeping any gleeful anticipation from his voice. "I will take care of him."

Jafar followed Jasmine back through the grounds to the end of the palace where Aladdin was, taking mental stock of his dagger and the vial of potion that would be his means of escape once it was discovered that the Prince had been murdered. He would have to make his escape the moment Aladdin was dead, to avoid being caught, but that wasn't a problem. He had enough potion to take him safely outside the limits of Agrabah, and Iago would be able to fly away from here and find him again – he had no fears about that. This might just be the perfect revenge, actually – the last thing Aladdin ever saw would be Jafar dealing him the final blow, proving that no matter what Aladdin did, he could not defeat Jafar. The punishment would be perfect for the people of Agrabah, too – if they insisted on bowing to this worthless upstart instead of him, they could deal with the knowledge that their Prince was no more. As for Jasmine – he would take the girl with him when he made his escape, and deal with her at his leisure. That would be easy – she suspected nothing, and in her state she would offer him little resistance. He especially looked forward to seeing her reaction when she saw beyond a doubt that her beloved Aladdin really was dead this time, when there was no way she could fool herself into thinking he was alive and would be coming to save her. No one would be able to save either one of them, not this time.