9 - Jafar
T he moment Rohan disappeared, the caravan leader turned to Jafar like a rat to cheese, and Jafar bit back a smile. Some people were far too easy to predict.
“Very good weather today, no?” the caravan leader asked.
Jafar squinted up at the sky through the woven leaves of the date palms. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. “I hope it’s just as nice in Maghriz.”
He didn’t think he’d ever used the word hope before.
“Around this time of year? Definitely,” the caravan leader said. “The sun is kinder to us bedouins, and the sands are softer.”
“I’ve never been,” Jafar said in as dreamy and wistful a tone as he could muster. He felt like Rohan just then. “Are they still at war? I thought I heard that somewhere.”
“War?” the caravan leader asked, propping a hand against a date palm. The midafternoon sun fell through the leaves, painting him in dappled light. “No, no. They haven’t been at war in so long!” He lowered his voice. “Are you waiting for your caliph?”
“He’s returned to his camel, why?” Jafar asked.
The man stepped awfully close, and Jafar had to resist the urge to step away. He was still playing the part of a servant, and a servant could have no such grievances.
“Can’t speak so freely in front of a caliph, can we?” the man asked.
Jafar pulled a laugh. “Unfortunately, no.”
“See! You understand me!” The caravan leader chuckled. “As I said, Maghriz hasn’t been at war in many moons. That sultana knows what she’s doing, but”—the man looked around them, even though the majority of the travelers were by the watering hole a good distance away—“you are right. I’ve heard the whispers, too. Something is in the works.”
Jafar gasped. The sound was foreign on his tongue, but he knew what the caravan leader wanted, and a gasp it was. Jafar leaned closer. “Like what?”
“I heard that the Sultana’s son went off on an expedition across the sea, by ship,” he said, pausing to crunch loudly on some candied almonds, “and never returned.”
The prince of Maghriz. Interesting.
Iago flapped over and perched on a boulder. Why was Rohan so wary of him? Did he fear Iago might have overheard Rohan talking to Baba about the scholarship, and that Jafar might trust Iago? Jafar still didn’t know if he trusted Iago, but Rohan wasn’t doing himself any favors by acting so suspicious himself.
“Did you hear me?” the caravan leader asked.
Jafar shook away the errant thoughts.
“So he…he…” Jafar left the end of his sentence hanging as if he were too frightened to say the word.
“Yes,” the caravan leader whispered loudly. “He died . No one has seen that ship in months.”
“That’s horrible. Surely word would have spread,” Jafar replied. “There’s no reason to keep silent about the prince’s death.”
The caravan leader shrugged. “Could be rumor, could be an opportunity.”
Iago squawked. “Opportunity! Opportunity!”
The caravan leader turned to him in awe. “You’re a funny little bird, aren’t you?”
Jafar inched closer to Iago and glared. It took everything in Jafar’s power not to clamp his beak together to keep him quiet.
“Opportunity,” Jafar repeated. “That’s an odd way to view a missing prince, no? Was he not liked?”
And what relation did any of this have to whispers of war?
“Oh, he was loved ,” the man said. “And so it begs the question: Why remain silent about his death?”
“Because he might not be dead,” Jafar said. “The ship might not have sunk. Perhaps they are mired in a storm and their voyage is delayed. There’s still hope of his return.”
It wasn’t as if they had proof of his death. Jafar studied the caravan leader. There came a point when gossip veered into scandalous and shocking falsehood. Jafar didn’t know how much of what the caravan leader spoke was actually true, and how much was the conspiracy of a man who guided camels through the desert all day.
Still, he pocketed every word he’d collected. He never knew what might prove useful.
They spent days on that caravan, and from there, Jafar and Rohan hailed passage on a boat, losing their dinners and turning green as the sea stole their legs. Iago barely said a word, clamping his wings tight and coiling his talons around anything that kept him steady.
With nothing but the endless sea to distract them, there was more than enough time for Jafar to relive every moment that had led to the destruction of Baba’s manor while Rohan shed more tears about the debris itself. Jafar often felt he was two disparate halves of a whole constantly at war with each other: one nurtured by his mother, the other battered and bruised and tormented by his father.
One evening, when Rohan dozed off against his shoulder, Jafar carefully pulled the scraps of his scholarship out of his pocket, wishing he could show them to his father and tell him, See, I’m going there anyway. Nothing could stand in the way of what Jafar wanted. When he closed his eyes, he saw the House of Wisdom. When he closed them tighter, he saw those rubies he was going to find, bright and red and powerful.
Oh, the power he would have after a lifetime of having none, like a starved animal finally freed of its shackles.
Jafar lost track of the days—had it been five nights? Ten?—before the crew spotted land, and amidst their triumphant shouts and ululations, he saw it: Maghriz. The kingdom shone like an oasis, shimmering in the midday sun, gold sparkling like magic. Jafar felt Rohan’s gaze on him, his judgment, and Jafar masked his excitement. He couldn’t be too happy when he was supposed to be mourning his father.
Jafar couldn’t leave the boat soon enough. He hobbled on weak legs, grateful, in more ways than one, for the sand beneath his sandals. Iago wobbled along a small dune and collapsed on his face.
“I’ll suffer a lifetime of bland crackers if it means never having to ride in another boat,” he groaned when he finally righted himself.
“We’re here,” Rohan breathed. “We made it.”
“The kingdom of Maghriz,” Jafar said with the same hushed awe. “At last.”
He couldn’t quite believe he was here. Everything felt richer, better. Even the air tasted of success. A bazaar spread ahead of them, and it was alive in a way the entire village of Ghurub was not. Vibrant and at once homey. The Sultana was imposing to the world as much as she was compassionate and caring to her people—tales of Maghriz were carried far and wide, and it seemed without exaggeration.
“I can almost see the golden scarab, Jafar,” Rohan said, barely containing a grin.
It took Jafar several tries before he could meet his eyes. “It’ll be ours, brother.”
Maybe. Perhaps after Jafar secured those rubies and the knowledge of every scroll he could hold—or never, if Rohan realized Jafar’s way, grounded in the science of alchemy, was the more viable one.
Or, if Rohan didn’t realize it on his own, maybe Jafar could make him.
A medley of people dotted the streets ahead, and Jafar could hear the liveliness in their voices, see it in their gait as they bartered for produce and silks, new rugs and fresh spices. It stirred something inside of him just the same.
Rohan looked down at the creased, half-torn map. “This must be the Sakaka Bazaar.” He gave their surroundings a good sweep and turned the map upside down. “Oi. We’re at the wrong end of the capital city—look, the palace and the House of Wisdom are way up there. We can’t walk that far.”
“This is very nice for a bazaar on the outskirts,” Iago said, circling them.
“Better than the bazaar we found you in before we gifted you to our father,” Jafar pointed out.
“Don’t remind me,” Iago said, and swooped ahead with a squawk.
Jafar observed the way the people of Maghriz moved and behaved. He studied a man buying an apple, placing his own hand just so over his robes, tightening them in his fist to hold it together. He pulled his shoulders back the way a woman perusing jewelry did, her chin high as if she were royalty. He saw another man with an orange headdress wrapped around his head, a jewel set in its center, making Jafar’s dusty keffiyeh seem ratty in comparison. He needed one of those. Preferably in black.
The people of Maghriz walked with pride, with the knowledge that the land beneath their feet was something earned and special, and Jafar was smitten. He tried picking up as many little quirks as he could—the slight jut of a jaw, the tilt of a chin, the way they accentuated each word as if it were a dish to be savored.
“See? That’s how we need to…” Jafar stopped and whirled around. A family carrying fresh produce stared at him blankly. A girl around his age smiled coyly. Rohan was nowhere to be seen. Nor was that vermillion-red parrot. “Rohan? Iago?”
Jafar stepped into the bustle of the market, passing stall after stall. The crowds were thick, the bazaar labyrinthine. The smells, sounds, and sights assaulted his senses. At last, Rohan’s voice came from the other side of a booth, just out of sight behind rolls of colorful fabric.
“—but she’s my sister,” Rohan was saying. “She’s bound to go into labor any moment now, but she’s on the other side of the city. My brother and I have no coin to hire a ride.”
“And her spouse?” asked a voice.
Iago was observing Rohan’s antics from a nearby post. He noticed Jafar and fluttered to his shoulder. “Get a load of this guy.”
Was…Rohan trying to secure them a ride? Jafar didn’t know if he should be proud or worried. It was like earlier, when he’d suddenly decided to follow Jafar to the tiger’s cage.
Jafar paused and listened, estimating that his brother would stammer out two more attempts at being persuasive before he shifted to full-out begging. He rounded the stalls in time to see Rohan pull a most miserable expression.
It was almost believable. If one were closing their eyes and looking the other way.
“Fallen in a skirmish,” Jafar said, rearranging his own features with ease.
Rohan, it seemed, had been trying to persuade an old merchant packing up his wares into taking the three of them across the kingdom. His face was leathered from the sun, but his features were kind. Good catch, brother. Rohan, for all his displays of innocence, could be a hawk when he wished.
The merchant looked up at him, hesitant. “You must be the other brother. And what an adorable parrot! Isn’t she a beauty.”
“She?” Iago spat, just out of earshot. “Are you listening to this? I’ll show him adorable.”
“Soon-to-be uncle, thank you,” Jafar said to the merchant, grinning as wide as he could. He lowered his voice and spoke behind his teeth to Iago. “You’ll do no such thing.”
The merchant smiled. “The new baby will be lucky to have such a devoted uncle, I am certain.” He glanced at Rohan as if he’d forgotten he was there. Jafar felt Rohan’s annoyance at the intervention loud and clear. “ Uncles . Though I am sorry for the loss of your brother-in-law.”
Jafar looked as sorry as he could. “It wasn’t too long ago, unfortunately. Bandits can be horrible.”
“Bandits! Why didn’t you say so?” the merchant exclaimed, and Jafar knew he’d struck gold, for there was nothing merchants hated more. “Oh, those rascals. Get on! I’m taking you both right away.” He peeled back his cart’s rough covering and looked inside, then back at them. “I’ve sold most of my baubles today. It won’t be the comfiest of rides, but you are welcome to sit with them.”
There was just one last thing Jafar and Rohan needed to do to secure passage.
“Remind him that we can’t pay,” he murmured to Rohan, who worked his jaw at the instruction. Where was this pride coming from? He’d certainly had none of it when he would beg their father. “Do it.”
Rohan sighed and straightened. “Oh, sayyidi, we couldn’t even pay for you to take us all—”
“Nonsense!” the merchant said, and Jafar saw the decision finalize in the man’s dark eyes. His donkey brayed, and the man gave them a smile. “She says it’s settled. Now help me finish loading my cart. Yalla, yalla!”
It was scarcely an hour before they were on the road again, the merchant’s cart barely big enough for the two of them and a parrot. From his seat in front of the cart, the merchant hummed a tune while he guided his donkey, his silhouette marked by the sun against the dusty white canopy separating him from the brothers.
Rohan and Iago clutched what they could to ward off motion sickness, Rohan’s knuckles white against the worn wood while Iago hopped from one rolling trinket to the next. The merchant made short work of the journey that would have taken far too long on foot, and Jafar watched as the man’s silhouette lengthened with the shifting sun. When Rohan gagged for the thousandth time, Jafar pulled back the covering at the back of the cart and gazed outside. His heartbeat quickened as the donkey slogged on and their surroundings grew louder and denser. Beat by beat, the heart of Maghriz’s capital city enveloped them.
Jafar couldn’t stop the smile that curled his lips. This was the kingdom he had traversed the sands to see. This was what he’d left his father behind in a pile of ash to experience. A place worthy of Jafar’s presence. He paused at the thought. That wasn’t right. It was a place worth being in.
He already felt as though he belonged here. Back in their village, when he’d speak before Baba and his men, telling them of his ideas and countering theirs, he’d felt out of place. As if he spoke a different language. As if they embodied the sleepiness of the village of Ghurub.
Maghriz was the complete opposite.
The change was gradual. Smaller houses surrounded them at first, dainty and quaint, but as the merchant and his donkey began an ascent, the buildings rose, too. Taller, fancier, decked with tiles and glass and shiny stone. Outfits became more regal, mannerisms more royal. There were fewer merchant carts, and more shopfronts with beckoning doors. And there, at the very center of it all, was the Maghrizi palace, standing atop a hill, with wide domes of glittering gold and minarets rising to the dusty skies. It truly was a sight to behold.
And as they neared the palace and Jafar fell more and more in love with it, he remembered what the caravan leader had said about the missing prince.
An opportunity.
“What happens when the House of Wisdom leads us to the golden scarab?” Rohan asked loudly. Did he think the merchant’s being on the outside of the cart meant he couldn’t hear?
Jafar dropped the canvas flap and picked up a tiny brass vase etched with ornate lines. “Let’s not yell, but…supposedly, we’ll put the pieces together and it’ll lead us to the genie who will grant us three wishes.”
As simple as that. Jafar didn’t know if he believed it yet. Then again, what the rubies promised sounded just as impossible and outlandish, didn’t it? No, Jafar told himself. That was Baba getting into his head, stirring up uncertainty. The rubies were nothing like the genie lamp. They would be his to control, allowing him to control others.
Why put his faith in a genie when he could hold all the cards himself?
Rohan sighed as the cart rolled to a stop and they heard the merchant shuffling outside. “We’ll have to get into the House of Wisdom first.”
“A pity I don’t have a scholarship,” Jafar said, watching Rohan closely, but his brother simply fiddled with one of the trinkets.
“Pity indeed,” Iago echoed, and Jafar gave him and his red feathers a look. Clearly parrots weren’t made for subtlety.
“I—” Rohan began, and stopped. His brow furrowed, but he said nothing more. Jafar waited. The remains of his scholarship were still in his pocket, crushed even further and slightly damp from their journey across the water.
He had wanted to pull them out and show them to Rohan more than once. Sometimes, he imagined his brother’s face breaking out into a wide grin, beaming and proud. Other times, he imagined a shadow crossing over it, distress and discontentment souring his features.
Jafar didn’t know why he cared for his brother’s opinion of him so deeply.
“Anyway,” he said, moving his hand from his pocket. “We’ll be fine. There’s more than one way to get into the House of Wisdom.”
Maybe. But he was counting on being able to work with the shreds in his pocket.
“And you know this how?” Iago asked.
“He knows everything about the House of Wisdom,” Rohan replied, almost triumphantly. Oh, now he could speak?
It sounded as if Rohan and Iago were competing somehow—for Jafar’s attention? For his favor? Ridiculous.
Jafar liked it.
But it was a reminder, too: Rohan cared. Jafar realized just then that Iago had been an observer of their lives for months. If he wanted Jafar’s undivided attention, he very well might have been trying to sow discord between the two of them all along—like with the scholarship.
“You’re not planning on breaking into it, are you?” Rohan asked. “I doubt they have a caged tiger you can use as a distraction.”
Jafar shook his head as the cart trundled to a stop. He needed to make sure Rohan knew that Jafar cared, too—that everything he’d done, even the less than savory bit, was to help them both. He exited the cart and stretched out his legs, scanning the desert while inhaling deep. The smell of hot and tarnished trinkets was worse than he’d expected. “No, we’ll be marching straight up to the House of Wisdom itself. I applied, didn’t I? I’ll tell them as much.”
Iago pulled a face. Rohan paled. Jafar bit back a wicked grin and turned to the merchant with as warm a smile as he could muster. The man looked taken aback for a moment.
“Shukrun for the ride, sayyidi,” Jafar said, placing a palm over his heart. “Your kindness will not be forgotten.”
“Oh—” the merchant stammered out. He looked a little starstruck. “It was—it was my pleasure.”
Jafar inclined his head again and turned away. Part of him waited for a slap across the cheek or a slew of reprimands attacking everything from his physical appearance to his audacity to speak. His father didn’t like when Jafar spoke to people, for they had a tendency to listen.
To obey.
Jafar didn’t realize until now that he had taken Baba’s criticism to heart. No more, Jafar told himself. He answered to no one but himself now.
He began walking up the street, jaw set and memories of Baba streaking through his mind, one after the other. Rohan struggled to keep up, bickering with Iago about something Jafar tuned out. It didn’t yet feel like Baba was really gone. He was an entire realm away now, but at times, Jafar felt worse than when he had known Baba was a room over.
He couldn’t let that feeling hinder what he had already accomplished—and had yet to achieve.
Buildings rose to either side of them, some with carvings etched into stone, others with fancy moldings that jutted out at intervals. Some tapered to pointed domes, while others were flat with rooftop terraces.
Jafar had never seen anything like it. He’d never seen a city that had been built for leisure , rather than necessity.
He pointed at Rohan’s map. “Let’s head to that bazaar first. We’re going to need better clothes and a few other things. And then a place to stay for the night.”
As occasional passersby became small crowds and busier storefronts, Jafar spied a sweetshop. Perfect. Rohan would love that.
“Jafar, we really need to—” Rohan began.
“Come on,” Jafar said.
Rohan ran to catch up. “We need to talk about your plan. You can’t go up to the House of Wisdom and expect to be let in simply because you’ve applied.”
“There’s a sweetshop just up ahead,” Jafar singsonged.
“Did you hear me?” Rohan asked.
“Relax, Rohan. I’ll buy you qatayef,” Jafar said.
“Hey, I deserve a little something, too,” Iago said. Jafar ignored him and looked at Rohan with a mock pout.
Rohan sighed. “And cardamom tea, too? With your imaginary money?”
“Of course,” Jafar said, hopes rising as they ventured deeper into the capital city. Date palms swayed, fountains gurgled.
“Are you actually— With what money, Jafar?” Rohan asked in hushed panic as Jafar neared the sweetshop.
It was a stall, really, run by a girl, with a sampling of sweets inside a glass case. Behind her, a woman who might have been her sister poured orange blossom syrup over a fresh batch of basbousa, the buttery and nutty aroma spiraling around them. Cozy cushions had been arranged out in front of the shop, occupied by men sitting cross-legged and chatting in boisterous tones without a care in the world, pouring fragrant streams of tea and passing glasses around.
“A plate of qatayef, please,” Jafar said. “And a glass of cardamom tea.”
The girl behind the glass case blushed when he pulled out a handful of coins with a flourish.
“You had money this entire time?” Rohan sputtered. The men burst into laughter at something completely unrelated.
“If I had used it sooner, we wouldn’t be here right now, would we?” Jafar asked.
Rohan grumbled, and then when Jafar winked, a laugh sputtered out of him. Jafar, despite everything looming ahead, warmed inside. This was what he lived for: his brother.
And when Jafar wasn’t careful, it was easy to forget.