Got Wishes?

Simon hesitated.

Habib asked. “Is it that you worry that this is not what you really want?”

“No,” said Simon, after a moment of thought. “I know I want this but I’m--I’m feeling guilty. I mean, why me? Why am I the lucky one?”

“Because you were there to find the ring when I needed a new master?” suggested Habib.

“That’s what I mean, it’s just luck. Gaining powers like this ought to have an element of Destiny, or at least karma.”

“Kismet is the Persian word,” said Habib. He lowered his arm, no longer holding the piece of Starstuff out to Simon. “There is no answer to that question. Do you think that you would know Destiny if it were a dog that had mistaken you for a tree?”

Simon smiled. “We would say fire hydrant, these days.”

“Excuse me,” said Habib. “Fire hydrant, then. Destiny does not come with bands playing and fireworks going off, Destiny is the glance of a maiden, the smile on the face of the executioner, the wind from a another direction. Kismet is a bird that poops on your head, Simon.”

“If the Foo shits,” Simon muttered.

“Exactly,” said Habib. “Here is Destiny in my hand but you have already had Destiny in yours.”

“Huh?” said Simon.

“The ring, Simon,” said the djinni. “You have the ring -- that is Kismet, Destiny on Horseback, Fate and a Favorable Wind. It’s all you need.”

Simon smiled. “I always worry about things, I have a compulsive need to dot the i’s and cross the t’s. For instance, I can’t help worrying about the gold.”

“Gold?” said Habib.

“You said you could summon for me a pound of gold a week, and being the sort of person I am, I can’t help wondering when the weeks start being counted.”

Habib laughed and shook his head, being careful not to drop the glowing object he still held in his hand. “The weeks get counted from the time you picked up the ring, Simon,” he said. “And if you’re going to worry about the gold, let me summon it now into a safe place in the apartment.”

“A-all right,” Simon stuttered. He blinked several times. “The other thing I keep thinking about is the houri.” With the overcast and rain, it was too dark under the Folly for anyone to see him blush but he could feel the heat in his face.

Habib looked blank for a moment and Simon realized that he needed to shout. “The houri, the houri!” Neither Simon nor Habib had noticed that the storm had grown somewhat. A wind had come up and occasional sprays of fine raindrops reached them under the canopy. It was actually getting uncomfortable for Simon although true to his djinn nature, none of the water managed to touch Habib.

That worthy put his free hand to his mouth, as if to hide a smile. “Really, Simon, we can worry about her later. At the moment, she’s purely hypothetical.” He thrust the piece of Fallen Star toward Simon. “We have one wish already in progress. Just touch the stone and think of the sort of abilities you would like to have.”

Simon still hesitated. Then he took a deep breath and stretched out his hand to touch the stone.

* * *

Any building near a lake needs a lightning rod; a working lightning rod. Unfortunately, the Indian Summer Folly behind the April Morning Hotel had been neglected over the winter and a previous storm had damaged two of the three redundant connections between the lightning conductor on the roof and the grounding wires. A wind had pushed the assembly out of alignment with the steel structure supporting it, the skeleton of the building’s core utilities. Another cable had attached the lightning rod to the plumbing in the building and that now made only intermittent and less-than-ideal connection.

The third wire had been outside the building, connected to the steel posts holding up the patio covers. This wire was simply missing, perhaps removed by a thrifty, if larcenous, squirrel who may have pawned it for its copper content. At any rate, the building had no functional lightning rod.

Non-functional lightning rods are better called lightning attractors.

In the midst of the downpour Habib had summoned to conceal their presence in the Folly, just as Simon touched the piece of Fallen Star snatched from another universe, the inevitable but highly coincidental happened. Twenty thousand amperes plus of current surged through the building, the decayed lightning protection system serving to divert only a portion of it. Water-soaked wood is a good conductor but the water turns to steam when the current is high enough. When that did happen, the Folly, quite literally, exploded.

* * *

When the lightning hit, Simon leaped forward, instinctively grabbing Habib as he dove for cover, rolling under one of the concrete benches. The explosion of the Folly rained broken glass and burning wood down on everything for fifty feet around.

Habib first gasped from the multiple impacts of being hit by Simon, then landing on the floor and rolling up against the solid bench then said, “What the devil?” in Ancient Persian, or words to that effect.

Simon pushed himself away and looked down at the slender, naked, dark-haired woman he had landed on. “What the hell?” he said in Modern English.

“What happened?” the woman asked.

“Who are you?” Simon countered.

The woman said something about camel dung that Simon did not understand.

* * *

When the lightning hit, Simon leaped away from the center of the Folly, down the aisle between the concrete tables. The explosion of the Folly hurled her completely out from under the patio cover and into the rose bushes along the terracotta pathway. She may have said something about Mrs. Dumphries’ habit of using organic fertilizer. It wouldn't have been so bad but her clothes had disappeared to. Not that they would have fit.

* * *

When the lightning hit, Habib vanished himself into that pocket dimension where the Djinn resided after Suleyman the Great had denied them the ability to go back to their own world without his permission. It was some time before he could reopen the path to return to the human Earth.

* * *

When the lightning hit, Simon had his hand on the Fallen Star, trying to think about the sort of powers he wanted and all the comic books he had read and about wishes and houris and how even with magic you couldn’t really have it all....

That’s probably what caused all the trouble.