Aladdin and His Wonderfully Infernal Device

By Tee Morris

From the imagination behind the award-winning Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences series comes a steampunk novella to a legend from A Thousand and One Arabian Nights.

Aladdin is a street-wise thief that finds himself under the tutelage of a world-renown illusionist. He is escorted deep into the deserts in search of a treasure beyond his wildest dreams, and discovers instead something far more valuable—a destiny.

• Language: English
• Publisher: ImagineThat Studios
• Release date: Feb 15, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301429646

Tee Morris

Tee Morris began his writing career with his 2002 historical epic fantasy, MOREVI The Chronicles of Rafe & Askana. In 2005 Tee took MOREVI into the then-unknown podosphere, making his novel the first book podcast in its entirety. That experience led to the founding of Podiobooks.com and collaborating with Evo Terra and Chuck Tomasi on Podcasting for Dummies and its follow-up, Expert Podcasting Practices for Dummies. He won acclaim and accolades for his cross-genre fantasy-detective Billibub Baddings Mysteries, the podcast of The Case of the Singing Sword winning him the 2008 Parsec Award for Best Audio Drama. Along with those titles, Tee has written articles and short stories for BenBella Books’s Farscape Forever: Sex, Drugs, and Killer Muppets, the podcast anthology VOICES: New Media Fiction, BenBella Books’ So Say We All: Collected Thoughts and Opinions of Battlestar Galactica, and Dragon Moon Press’ Podthology: The Pod Complex. When he is not writing, Tee enjoys life in Virginia alongside Philippa Ballantine, his daughter, and five cats (3 female, 2 males). Considering the male-to-female ratio in his house, Tee understands how General Custer felt near his end.

Book preview

Aladdin and His Wonderfully Infernal Device

Aladdin and His Wonderfully Infernal Device

A STEAMPUNK FAIRY TALE

TEE MORRIS

Published by Imagine That! Studios 2013

Copyright © 2013 by Tee Morris

Interior Layout by Imagine That! Studios

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a website without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead is purely coincidental. Any actual places, products or events mentioned are used in a purely fictitious manner.

Contents

Also by Tee Morris

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Also by Tee Morris

The Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences (with Pip Ballantine)

Phoenix Rising

The Janus Affair

Dawn’s Early Light

The Diamond Conspiracy

The Ghost Rebellion

Operation Endgame

Verity Fitzroy and the Ministry Seven (with Pip Ballantine)

The Curse of the Silver Pharaoh

The Mystery of Emerald Flame

The Secret of the Monkey God

Anthologies

The Books and Braun Dossier

Magical Mechanications

Ministry Protocol: Thrilling Tales from the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences

One

Perhaps the marketplace at noon was not the best place to be—at least when you were poor. Since you had no goods to trade, no money for food, nothing more than your wits and the clothes upon your back, you tended to notice the more unpleasant smells, sounds, and sights of the bazaar. Instead of succulent smoked meats or the brilliance of silks both catching the hot Arabian breeze, you tended to notice the smell of goat shit and the pleas of blind beggars.

For Aladdin, however, while hunger roiled in his belly, his senses were trained upon one shop, one keeper, and one essential item. As if it were the Tear of Allah itself the polished wheel sat before the workbench, amidst the other parts of the desk clock. Obviously the artisan felt this morning a need to attract attention to his skills and his business, as he had elected to work in the sunshine. Aladdin had anticipated this, thus he waited in the coolness of the shadows, watching for the moment that would appear. As the sun rose and set, as stars winked to life in the night, and as people bustled about in between these natural regimens, so would Opportunity—the friend and ally of a thief—present itself.

What was important—as an exceptional thief such as Aladdin would say—was to recognize the right opening. Too many times, Opportunity would try to lure him out of hiding to play an unkind trick and threaten his capture. Capture would mean the end of his wicked ways, and—provided he survived—a life reliant on generosity. He saw many beggars in the streets, sentenced to one-handed servitude.

Perhaps his fellow vagrants would scoff, Serves them right. They were too slow, but Aladdin knew the truth. They had been too quick. Too quick to judge. Quick to think that Opportunity was beckoning, when in fact it was merely a deceptive shade. Already Aladdin had seen two such false openings, so in the darkness of his favorite hiding place he remained.

There. A customer, fascinated with the clockmaker’s work. A conversation struck.

Aladdin’s eyes returned to the palm-sized wheel; its cogs glinting in the light of a Persian sun. The merchant’s attention was preoccupied, but the timing—and that made Aladdin smile a bit—remained off. He needed to wait. Just a few more seconds…

Then came applause, followed shortly by a small crush of people. Aladdin slipped deftly between children, mothers, and men, all chattering pleasantly about the magician’s talents, and how his reputation had more than been upheld. Most impressive; even from as far as Africa, the Great and Powerful Jaha had found such devoted followers.

Aladdin emerged on the other side of the corporeal flow, and soon his palm was bathed in the sun-baked warmth of a polished brass gear.

He saw no shadow or swath of linen stir, he felt no vice grip around his arm; there was nothing but the throng of people, and the movement