Habib the Djinni looked nothing like Barbara Eden...yet...

 
Simon felt better after throwing up and washing his face. Gray eyes below the receding light brown hair looked back. His 51 years showed in the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. He decided that he needed to shave but put it off for the moment.

The ring on his left pinkie caught his eye and he examined it for a moment without taking it off. He felt reluctant to remove the item. A little doubt about the reality of his owning a djinn ring remained but he was nearly convinced.

When he turned to leave the bathroom, there stood Habib, holding a glass of water.

“Drink this,” said the djinni. The little man had evidently changed his outfit; now he wore a pair of blue jeans, chukka boots and a gray hoodie sweatshirt with the hood back. It looked a lot like an outfit Simon had in his closet except sized to fit Habib. Without the turban, Habib’s hair proved to be the same dark brown as his beard and just as curly and neatly trimmed. A prominent widow’s peak left a single Superman-curl hanging on his forehead.

Simon smiled and drank the water down, it tasted delicious and seemed to be the last element of Habib’s cure. “Thank you,” he said, handing the glass back. The djinni’s new appearance tickled him for some reason.

“You might want to take a bath, too. You still smell like a hangover,” suggested Habib. “I can make breakfast, do you want eggs?”

“That would be nice, I bought rye bread for toast, yesterday, uh, day before yesterday,” said Simon. He tried to sniff his armpit.

“Very good, master,” said Habib, smiling. “Am I correct that you do not have work to go to, this morning?”

“That’s right,” said Simon, starting water running. “I worked yesterday on Sunday, so I have today off.” He closed the door and got undressed. “If you’re still talking, I can’t hear you,” he shouted. Not hearing a reply, he proceeded with his bath, and shaved with his wet-dry electric razor

He didn’t notice if Habib actually came into the bathroom but when he turned off the shower and stepped out, a clean set of clothes hung on the back of the door. He used one of the fluffy hotel towels to dry off and got dressed, smiling the whole time.

Just as he stepped into the little dining alcove, Habib placed two plates of scrambled eggs, buttered toast points and orange slices next to two steaming cups of hot coffee.

“This is nice,” said Simon. “I... will you do this every morning?” He took a seat and the djinni sat down opposite him.

“If that is your wish,” said Habib. “It is my task to serve you, master.”

Simon sipped his own coffee black and watched as the little man put four heaping teaspoons of sugar into his cup. They ate. The eggs were fluffy with bits of cheese and garlic in them. Simon got up to find the marmalade for his toast. Habib shuddered as he watched his human master spread sweetness on rye bread.

“I don’t usually butter my toast,” said Simon.

“I’ll remember that,” promised Habib. He got up to pour more coffee and repeated his performance with the sugar while Simon stole one of the last orange slices off his plate.

Habib smiled and Simon grinned while they sipped their second cups.

“These wishes...” Simon began to ask. “Oh, thank you for breakfast.” He gestured, waving the piece of orange before taking a juicy bite.

“You’re very welcome,” said Habib. His nod conveyed the impression of a cultured bow.

“These wishes,” Simon repeated. “Do I get a set number of them? Or...? Just how does this work?” He realized that he no longer had any doubts that Habib was indeed a djinni, even if the little man did not act precisely like the mystic servants portrayed in movies and on television.

“I am here to serve your needs and desires, master,” said Habib. “There are limitations on what I can do but not on the number of requests you can make of me.”

“Huh,” said Simon. “What kind of limitations?”

“I can’t grant a wish to cause bodily harm to another being directly by magic....”

“I wouldn’t wish that!” protested Simon.

“You might in some circumstances, and indeed I can do so if it is necessary to save your life.”

Simon nodded, thinking about First Law versus Second Law, sort of, but he didn’t say that aloud.

“I can make you wealthy, if you desire, but I can’t conjure more than a pound of gold in a week, or the equivalent in gems, jewelry or other metals or goods or items of value. I can advise you however on investments.”

Simon blinked. A pound of gold had to be worth something like twenty thousand dollars, even if it was in those funny pounds used for precious metals. Twenty thousand dollars a week? Simon was good with numbers, that amounted to about one million a year. He swallowed hard. Would he need to pay taxes on money he wished for?

Habib continued. “I can use magic to ensure that you enjoy a long and healthy life but no one lives forever, not even the djinn, and I can’t save you from your own folly if you insist on....” He frowned. “My last master liked to drive too fast.”

“Huh,” said Simon. “That wreck...?”

Habib nodded. “I’d rather not speak of him. He died because he ordered me not to protect him from doing what he wanted to do. I chose you to find the ring and become my new master.”

“You did?” Simon looked, and felt, pleased. He wondered if any particular virtue of his had attracted the djinni’s attention or if it had just been the luck of place and circumstance. He didn’t know how to ask that so he took another sip of excellent coffee.

They both sipped coffee.

After a bit of staring at his reflection in the window, Simon asked, “What do you get out of it? You seem like a very powerful being, why do you serve someone like me? I’m just an ordinary guy....”

Simon wasn’t sure just what Habib’s expression meant but the djinni looked solemn.

“Three thousand years ago, thereabout, my people were enslaved by a powerful human sorceror and his allies. The sorceror bound the djinn with oaths to serve him and his allies. All of those humans are long dead but we are still bound to serve those who hold the talismans they created. In my case, it is the ring.” Habib gestured toward the piece of jewelry on Simon’s hand.

Simon stared at the ring for a moment. “That sounds horrible!” he exclaimed. “You’re a slave to the ring!”

“It is so,” Habib agreed. “Do not feel too sorry for us master. We were not blameless, being wild spirits of magic with no discipline and no authority over us. Those djinn who could be trusted were allowed to return to our own world but we miscreants who had proven to be dangerous were bound by Suleyman’s magic.”

Something clicked for Simon. “Suleyman? King Solomon?”

“That is a belief so common as to become legend but no, a different man of nearly the same name living about the same time. Suleyman the Sorceror was a Phoenician wizard living in Persia, Solomon was King of Israel living in Jerusalem. They both lived a very long time but Suleyman died while Solomon was only a boy.” Habib shook his head. “A later man, an Arab sorceror and owner of one of the talismans, was also called Suleiman and that didn’t help the confusion.”

“It’s like something by Shakespeare,” said Simon, making a weak joke of it. “Uh, were you there for all that time?”

“It is so,” said Habib. “The original Suleyman, in Persia, cast us down and bound our spirits to objects of this earth. We had been like gods to the humans and did as we willed. Suleyman showed us that our ways were evil.”

Simon swallowed hard. He wanted to know more and he wanted to change the subject at the same time. Habib seemed to have stopped talking for the moment, staring at his cup of coffee.

The little man looked up, “Did you want more coffee, master?”

“No,” said Simon. “Uh, if you must know, I kind of wish you would not call me ‘master’.”

Habib smiled. “You Americans are so emotional about servitude. Since it is your wish, of course, it is my fulfillment to obey. If I call you something else, it will not change the situation, you will still be my master. But what would you like me to call you... sir?”

Simon winced. “Oh, just call me by my name, I suppose.”

“Very good, Simon,” said Habib. He stood up, still smiling. “Shall I clear away and wash the dishes?”

“I...” Simon began but he had no idea what he intended to say. Offering to help with the clean-up just seemed wrong. “Uh, can’t you do that kind of thing with magic?”

“Certainly,” said Habib. “And sometimes I will do so. But really, there is nothing free in the universe, it all has to be paid for someway. And using magic when I don’t really need to might mean that I might not have enough magic when I did need it.”

Simon watched as the little man cleared away the dishes and ran hot water in the sink. “Remember, Simon, I told you there are limits as to what I can do with my magic? There are three kinds of limits. The first, I suppose, is the limit imposed on me by the Seal of Suleyman; the contract of servitude I acquiesced to thousands of years ago. The second limit is the fact that while I am very powerful, I too am really a mortal and do not have a god’s power to do infinite magic--if even the gods have such power!”

He smiled over his shoulder at Simon. “But there is a deeper sort of limit to magic, the very structure of magic itself. Do you know how magic works, Simon?”

“No. In fact, until this morning, if you had asked me, I would have said I didn’t believe in magic.”

Habib laughed. “Modern people often don’t. There is less magic in the world today than there once was and what magic there is, is often hidden. But you see, magic is the control of energies and substances flowing between universes.”

“Huh,” said Simon. “How do you mean?”

“Well, for instance,” said Habib, rinsing the last of the dishes and putting them into the drainer. “If I magicked up a cup of coffee for you, what I would be doing is reaching into another universe and finding the cup of coffee you would be having if you were there.”

“Uhh?” said Simon. “Does that mean that some other me doesn’t get his cup of coffee.”

Habib almost grinned. “Theoretically. But that other you is only a possible you, not a real you. It’s like Heisenberg’s cat. I reach into a space where a coffee cup may or may not exist and I make the choice that it does exist.”

“The only thing I can think of is Bullwinkle reaching into the wrong hat,” said Simon.

Habib chuckled which caused Simon to grin widely.

“Some theorists maintain a magical Law of Compensation exists,” Habib continued on the same topic, “such that somewhere in this universe a cup of coffee disappears in order to balance the equation. Generally, the nearest similar cup and a quantity of coffee from nearby to fill it. It might be your own cup and some of the contents of your own coffeepot -- but that doesn’t seem to always happen and sometimes it is not even possible.”

Simon nodded and frowned. “Huh?” he said. “I mean, I don’t mean to sound stupid, I think I get that but... can you give me an example.”

“Certainly,” said Habib. “Let’s say you requested from me a four-foot-tall terracotta statue of Lindsay Lohan playing a ukelele and wearing a grass skirt. Do you think such an item actually exists in this world? Most probably not. And yet, there certainly could be a universe in which such a thing did exist and I could reach into that world and conjure it into this one. If I did so... what would disappear from our universe in compensation?”

Simon laughed out loud and Habib chuckled again. “Not Lindsay Lohan herself, surely!” Simon choked out and they laughed again.

Habib wiped his eyes. “It’s been a long time since I actually laughed at something one of my masters said. Thank you, Simon.”

“You’re welcome,” said Simon, still grinning. He stopped to think a moment. “So the answer to my original question....”

“Is yes, I will make breakfast for you every morning if that pleases you,” said Habib with a twinkle in his eye.

“Well, after that one then, how many wishes do I get? And, there’s no limit on how many but there are some limits on what you can do?”

“It is so,” said Habib with a nod.

“Uhh....” Simon stammered a moment. “Well, there’s one wish I’ve had since I was a little kid and I don’t know if you can do this or not....” He trailed off.

“Ask,” said Habib.